Wiggle Room

As the group abandoned the mysterious metal wall they neared the exit of the canyon. Although they were only twenty meters away, they couldn't see beyond the canyon.

Somehow, the miasma refused to enter the canyon. Emile wasn't sure if it had to do with the flow of the wind, if there was something here preventing the miasma from entering, or something else entirely.

But beyond the exit of the canyon the miasma raged on, flooding their environment with palpable scarlet mist. A wall of this dense substance sat in front of their exit, completely blocking their eyes from peering into the abyss.

Willow was the first to enter as the strongest one here. Not only did she have the most built in resistance, but they couldn't afford to send Emile first in the off-chance he's unable to handle the miasma and gets infected himself.

Willow pushed her arm in first and let it meander for a while, adjusting to the added pressure and the all so familiar sting from the mist particles pushing against her skin.

Realizing the miasma wasn't too extreme yet, she stepped through and was swallowed by the red wall. As she entered the miasma, her figure vanished entirely; neither a shadow nor an outline of her remained or could be seen from the other side.

"You okay?" Emile asked, confirming she was still there in addition to confirming the safety of the other side.

"I'm okay—" Willow's voice broke through the gaseous wall, slightly muffled, "it's not as thick on this side."

Receiving her confirmation, the three boys approached the miasma and mutually placed their arms into the miasma, following Willow's example.

Emile felt fine and stepped through first.

Roy felt the added pressure and the crawling of particles rolling over his skin, but his skin never broke and he too passed through.

Finally, only Blood remained. His pale skin flushed slightly red and tension was visible between his brows.

"You good?" Emile called from the other side.

"I—" Blood choked and clenched his teeth, "I don't know if I can make it."

"What do you feel?" Willow asked.

"It's like needles—" Blood replied, "thousands of needles slamming into my arm over and over."

Emile pushed through the red wall and stood next to Blood. He placed his hand on his shoulder and expelled the impurities from Blood's system before they had a chance to do irreversible damage.

"You can stay here—" Emile sighed, "this is a great place to set up a camp since the miasma can't get in here. Go back to the metal wall, maybe you can find something we couldn't."

Blood nodded instead of replying. He turned his back to Emile and began walking away. Instead of reentering the miasma, Emile watched Blood for a few moments.

He pushed his hands into his pockets and kicked a lone stone on the ground, propelling it across the canyon until it shattered against the wall. He was clearly upset.

"Hey wait!" Emile yelled remembering something, "Take some blood, you might need it."

Even without Blood's response Emile summoned his scimitar and ran its edge along his forearm. The blood quickly pooled along the laceration, but before it could run down his arm and drip onto the ground it slightly hovered off of Emile's skin and flew through the air towards Blood.

"Thanks," Blood said without turning around.

Emile waited for the strange vacuum on his arm to subside before turning around and stepping into the miasma.

As Willow mentioned previously, the other side was nowhere as dense as the wall itself. The reddish mist still flooded their surroundings and coated their bodies, but it was transparent enough to see quite a distance away.

Immediately upon exiting the canyon, the rotting trees returned in addition to piles of squashed and molded fruit that covered the surface of the forest.

Against his better judgment, Emile kneeled over and rummaged through the piles of mold and spores. Each time he burst his fingers through the white, puffy exterior a cloud of spores erupted into the air.

Holding his breath, Emile searched desperately for a seed of some sort.

'Fruit seeds count as saplings, right?'

'They grow trees'

'I think'

Unfortunately, even after rummaging through tons of piles of mold, Emile failed in finding a single seed. He stood up and violently shook his hands, flinging the clumps of mold and rotting debris off his hands before wiping them clean on his pants.

After that, Emile, Willow, and Roy started running again. Although King Alexander told them to clear a path to the center, they had two months to do so and Roy's tracker was still attached to the behemoth spider Blood fought prior.

Believing knowledge is power, Emile thought it was important to find the deadly creature first. It posed too many variables for Emile to simply ignore it.

First, it was able to breach Emile's Gift and implant parasites into Blood. Luckily they were able to stall the growth of the parasites and remove them before they fully matured, Emile didn't want to know what happened when they burst from their host.

Second, it remained the only living creature they've come across in the Dead Tree's forest all this time. Not only was that extremely suspicious for obvious reasons, but it posed the question 'why doesn't the miasma affect it?'

And if it does affect it, did that mean the behemoth spider was directly tied to the Dead Tree? A type of soldier or scout?

In either circumstance Emile found hunting down the abomination useful, but he was only going to allot the next two weeks towards doing so.

After all, King Alexander's orders came first. Emile just had a little bit of wiggle room he wanted to take advantage of while he could.