"Nice necklace, Rena."
"Yeah, I agree. It suits you."
Jen and Lethen complimented Rena on the gift that Lucius had given her. She probably should have taken it off to go to sleep, but she was so happy she could not bare to remove it. Especially since Lucius put it on her himself.
"Thank's! It was a gift from a stray cat." She giggled.
Lucius sighed loudly. "Real original, I'm pretty sure you've NEVER used that line before."
The party laughed together. They had all gotten really close with each other over the last few weeks and interacted with each other like actual friends. They laughed together, argued with each other, and shared many meals at this point. This life was everything that she had dreamed of when she read those stories of adventurers as a young kid.
When she had gotten up in the morning, Jen had once again found them a quest to do, so that's what they were doing now. Unlike entering the city, the line to exit was much faster moving. There was still a line because on exit, any adventurers working quest got priority entry on return so they did not have to get locked out of the city at night due to waiting in the main line.
It still took about twenty minutes to get through that line despite them getting going so early in the morning. In a city as large as this, people were everywhere all of the time. She started to understand why the thought of coming here made Lucius nervous. Honestly the sights, sounds, and smells of the city were overwhelming to even her normal, human senses.
It was hard to imagine what this was like to him.
He had once said he was able to turn the strong parts of those off, but now he really cannot do that anymore. It's like it is permanently on all of the time for him now. Something like that had to be uncomfortable at times...
"Hey, what's the job this time again?" Paul asked Jen.
When she came to them with another job this morning, everyone simply went along with her. It was not until they had actually exited the city that they thought to ask what it was they were even doing.
According to the quest, there was a small hunting camp a few miles east of the city. There were tons of them spread throughout the forest that worked to supply the city with food and materials from the vast Silverthorn forest.
"Shut up a second."
Lucius' ears seemed to twitch and his head swiveled left and right, slowly. Rena watched in real time as the hairs on the exposed parts of his body, the back of his neck and his lower arms, began to stand on end.
A light mist rolled in a second later. It settled gently on the forest floor and did not seem to rise past their ankles.
"Lucius." Jen whispered. "What is going on?"
"I don't know. The mist, its thicker further ahead so I can't see through it. Also, I can't smell anything; not even you guys...I don't like this." His voice was basically a growl at this point. It seemed to Rena that this deprivation of his senses brought out his inner, bestial nature. That happened sometimes when he was extremely uncomfortable too.
"Lucius, you need to calm down. We can still see the way out of the mist, and you can still hear right? Focus on that and help us find the source. This is clearly not a natural mist." Rena whispered in a soothing tone. She noticed his body posture relax a little, but his hair was still standing up on the back of his neck.
She sighed to herself, hoping that it was good enough, and the party advanced deeper into the woods in the direction of the hunter's camp.
It took them traveling for a good, few miles before Rena began to realize something. "Lucius...does this remind you of..."
"The trial, yes."
Jen chimed in, "How so?"
"Listen."
The entire party remained silent, only the sounds of their footsteps indicated there was anything there. "I don't hear anything."
"That's the problem." Rena advised. "There are no bugs, birds, small animals. Other than our footsteps, the forest is completely still. It should not be like this. The only other place is the woods back home."