Emily shakes herself out of her stupor, the unfortable feeling in her gut growing ever stronger, and ruheion to check the cavern for threats. Her s es up empty, so she slowly walks in further to take in the room fully.

  The space is huge, the ceiling rising tens of metres above, filled with writhing shadows. The beautiful, glistening blue ke in the tre of the room spans at least fifty metres at its widest point, and has a dozen or so metres of ween the banks and the walls on every side. There are several breaks in the floor as the river runs into and out of the ke in multiple streams from nearby tunnels. But, unlike in the surrounding tunnels, most of the cavern walls are free of shadows, lit up by scattered magic crystals strewn on the floor.

  Gazing at the magic crystals draws Emily’s attention to the bodies inating the otherwise enting view. Lining the ke are the decapitated corpses lers, carefully arranged so their headless stumps bleed into the ke. Their heads are all impaled on stagmites he walls, where rge smears of blood are wiped.

  Emily frowns in disgust at the gruesome dispy, pushing down and shutting out the traumatic memories of Herber that it brings to the surface.

  Was the wendigo doing this? They’re too fresh to be the st expedition group.

  Why would the wendigo do this though?

  Uo remove her attention from the revolting sight without answers, Emily pulls up the record of the wendigo from her system notifications.

  ˉˉˉˉˉ

  [Wendigo]

  [Rank:] E

  [Description:] A twisted creature born from a human mage falling to ibalism on cursed nd. They prowl the cursed nds they inhabit, gathering s to further the spread of corruption.

  _____

  s? Was this some disgusting form of ritual sacrifice or something? Was it pnning to do this to us after killing us? It did seem to enjoy t people as it murdered them. Maybe this is just its sick game.

  Shivering at the thought, Emily finally tears her focus away from the bodies dirtying the water with their putrid blood, looking towards her groupmates. She finds them all crouched at the water’s edge, kneeling in the fog and scooping water from the ke with their hands to drink. Emily grimaces at the idea of drinking the filthy water, no matter how inviting it looks.

  Wait, why do I think the water’s inviting?

  Emily’s scowl deepens further as she feels an it the back of her mind, telling her something is wrong with that thought, but she ’t work out what.

  Weird. I definitely don’t want to drink it at least.

  “Hey, Oscar!” she calls, tearing his attention away from the water. “What’s the pn?”

  “We’ll stay here to gather all these magic crystals and any eyes that are still fresh. Then, we’ll stay here for a bit to rest and head ba a few days.”

  His answer sets off warning bells in Emily’s mind, irrespective of the glint of greed in his eyes at the mention of the magic crystals.

  Why does he want to stay here for a few days suddenly? We were meant to be turning baorrow.

  “Why stay here for a few days?” she questions apprehensively.

  “We’re all tired from the trip in. This seems like a good pce to fortify for a few days of proper rest,” he responds with a smile.

  Emily exaggeratedly points to a nearby corpse dangling over the water’s edge.

  “What about that makes this pce feel like a good pce to rest to you?”

  Oscar follows her arm and frowns, seeming to finally noti issue with his pn.

  “Ah, you’re right. We’ll have to dump all those bodies and heads ier to make it a little more pleasant.”

  Something’s wrong. Is something trolling them? Something in this cavern? Maybe there’s something ier? They do seem oddly drawn to it, and none of them should be happy drinking from it.

  “Got it. I’m gonna go have a look around. I don’t feel anything nearby, but be careful and make sure Ivor and Enzo check every so often. You guys should start ing this pce up if you want to stay here,” she ences Oscar, hoping to give the group something more productive to do than drinking the dubious water.

  He nods, agreeing with her and turning to start ushering the group into a.

  Good, this should at least keep them distracted for a bit until I work out what’s going on here.

  Emily turns to walk along the ke’s edge with purpose: her groupmates’ straions only making the unfortable feeling in her gut grow stronger.

  She looks at the crystals on the floor as she passes, most partially cealed by the swirling fog. A few of them are cracked, making them too unstable to be of much value, and none seem naturally formed in pce.

  Was the wendigo colleg crystals from nearby tunnels? It would expin the deposits we found that looked like they were ripped apart with cws. Is that also part of its ritual?

  Emily starts drawing a mental map of the crystals as she goes, trying to work out if there is a pattern being drawn with them. She soon runs into one of the eg streams of the river, flowing into the ke, and steps in to swim across to the other side.

  After pulling herself up onto the bank, she tinues forward while casting se. She passes more dead groglers and magic crystals: the more of them she finds, the less she believes their position is pnned, sinone of them seem to join into a coherent pattern. She crosses another eg stream and arrives at a se of the caverhe walls are devoid of magical light and there are fewer corpses around. Only a few magic crystals have been dropped he water on this bank, as if the wendigo was avoiding it iionally. The living shadows spread from a depression in the wall, reag halfway to the ke where they’re pushed back by the water’s glow.

  Emily approaches the shadows, holding up her hand and casting light to part them. As the darkness recedes, an uling sight is revealed. Spread across the wall of the cave is more blood, but instead of the random cwed handprints dragged across the stohe blood forms words.

  “Hey!” she shouts back troup. “You guys should see this.”

  She moves closer to the wall, approag the scrawled writing, studying the words and trying to decipher them. Searg through the dizzying mess of interseg lines and blurred letters, Emily locates the words she thinks started the cave writing.

  Close to the middle, she finds a few blood-free sentences, etched into the rocks with clearly defined lines, even spag, and coherence.

  This was written by ah mage. It looks more moulded into the stohan cut.

  This expedition was doomed from the start.

  We were so fident when we reached The Waters without casualties. We should have turned back when we saw those damn groglers.

  “Was this the st expedition? Or does this go back further than them?” Emily mutters.

  Did they start writing this to leave a record for the group to get here?

  “Woah!”

  “Holy shit!”

  Emily’s distracted from her thoughts by the disbelief flowing from her groupmates as they arrive behind her. She turns to esturing to the writing on the wall and asking him a question.

  “This was written by someone on a prior expedition. Any idea who?”

  “If it was the st one. Probably Rocco Poiia. He was the leader, a third circle earth mage,” he answers without looking away from the uling writing.

  Third circle earth mage?

  Emily raises a brow, turning back to look at the wall.

  Could he not kill the wendigo? Or was the wendigo him?

  She tinues reading the ly cut sentences.

  We lost Maria and Dom on the first night. We should have turned back.

  We lost Adrian, Sandra, and Cedri the third. We should have turned back.

  We lost Jenna on the sixth day. We should have turned back.

  ion of the wendigo. Were these losses just frlers? Strange, why couldn’t a third circle mage handle a few groglers?

  “Hey Oscar, was Rocco a bat mage?” she asks.

  “Not at all. Rocco was a brilliant alchemist, but he wasn’t a fighter. He mostly specialised in defend mobility. He would have been reliant on his teammates to kill things.”

  “I see,” Emily mutters.

  That would expin not beating the wendigo if it was already here, but nlers. Am I overestimating third circle mages? Or were their minds being influenced as well? We didn’t seem affected in bat, but maybe that’s because I seem affected less?

  Moving on, she reads the st of the well-defined words.

  We were swarmed on the eighth day. I lost Mark. Why didn’t I turn back?

  We barricaded ourselves in here on the ninth day. We’re surrounded. Most of us are wounded. We ’t turn back.

  I’m hungry. We’ve been here for two weeks. We ran out of supplies yesterday. At least we have the ke’s water.

  They were swarmed too. That only happeo us after the wendigo was gone. I think it’s safe to assume this was written by the wendigo. Or, rather, the man who became it.

  “Do ynise any of these names?” Emily asks Oscar, pointing them out.

  “Yes, I do. Mark is probably Mark Poiia, Rocco’s partner. Maria may be Maria Ashfallen, she was a oner healer the Poiias sponsored. I don’t remember the other members of the expedition though.”

  “Thanks.”

  Emily moves on, log some sentences carved into the wall with jagged lihe lines are cut far shallower into the rock, and smears of blood are evident in each, as if roughly scratched into the stoh bloody nails.

  I haveen in four days. Ron died. Without a healer, there was nothing we could do. I’m hungry. We dumped his body ier so we don’t have to see it.

  Hungry. Six more ier. We aren’t speaking.

  Looks like they also follow the process of dumping their dead ier. Wait… Would we usually do that?

  “Hey, Oscar. What’s the usual practice with corpses of teammates on an expedition?”

  He flinches slightly at her question, as a few of their groupmates looking at her with frowns, but answers anyway.

  “There isn’t really an agreed upon option, but it’s on practice to either burn them or drop them into the river down here.”

  Her rexes slightly at his answer.

  Okay, so that may just be a aybe how this curse started if the water really is the problem.

  She casts a gnce back at the ke, the brightly glowing pool with darkness looming above seeming far more ominous than it did when she first took in its beauty.

  I’ll have a look ter.

  With a shake of her head, she turns back to decipher more blood-etched words.

  Twone. Four left. So hungry. They won’t stop looking at me.

  Hungry. Three left. So hungry.

  We spoke again. Two left.

  Nine ier, four alive. There were thirtee when they sealed themselves in. Is thirteen signifit to the curse, or was Rocco redug roup to thirteen simply a random choi his part?

  Emily’s eyes linger on the repeated refereo his hunger as she tries to uand the meaning behind the words as they slowly lose coherence.

  They stopped talking for a while since he seemed to be getting paranoid, then spoke agaihere were two of them left. Hmm… No. The refereo huops for that line. Did they eat the third? The system description did say a wendigo forms from a ibal.

  Her eyes slowly trace the remaining words on the wall. The fa?ade of sanity falls away as every other word is purely written in blood, all attempts to leave a perma recone.

  I’m alone.

  I’m alone.

  Alone.

  Alone

  Hungry

  So hungry

  Hungry

  The words desd into madness, ‘Hungry’ beied again and again until the words lose form and turn to smeared cw marks. Emily feels a twinge of sadness at the story told by the bloody wall: of a man slowly losing everything, even his humanity, as he succumbs to suffering and madness.

  Is this what’ll happen to us if we stay here?

  “What’s the pn from now on, Oscar?” she asks to be sure.

  “I already told you. Didn’t I?” he says giving her a strange look. “We’ll collect everything ihe for a week or so before heading back.”

  Emily scoffs, turning towards the ke.

  Yeah, right. I’ll be damned if I let us stay here and slowly ibalise each other. He wants to stay even longer now, and he doesn’t eveo realise.

  She angrily approaches the edge of the water, dropping her robes to the floor and sitting down to pull off her boots. Ivor walks over as she stands back up.

  “What are you doing?” he signs while gng questioningly at her bare feet.

  “I think there’s something ier, so I’m going to have a look.”

  Ivor frowns, but nods and pats her on the shoulder before wishing her luck.

  “Be careful down there.”

  “Sure thing, big guy,” Emily replies with a smile, her academiterest overp her anger, before turning to gaze out into the ke.

  She pauses before leaping in, notig the irony in her as.

  I was pining about them drinking the water, and here I am about to jump in. Ah well, Roay have missed his ce to turn back. But I always have that option.

  She rests her hand on the pouch holding The Clock, before diving in.