- Initiating combat will trigger an immediate environmental response.
- Speaking will not halt their repositioning.
- Withdrawing will not provoke direct pursuit.
🕷️ Forest of Lilith
You have explored ruins. Cleared dungeons. Survived cursed forests.
This fits none of the known categories.
The path exists only while you walk on it.
The environment shifts in short, irregular segments: an area thick with fog reduces visibility, a few steps later heat forces you to readjust your gear, then cold strikes with surgical precision.
This is not weather. It is response.
There are no signs. No reference points.
The forest offers no context.
You advance.
Then—
—Brave. —or reckless.
The voice emerges within your personal space.
Not hostile. Not friendly.
Evaluative.
A small figure appears before you.
Dark-painted nails. One yellow eye, steady and alert. The other hidden behind her bangs.
Her clothing recalls a familiar social role: a nun, a servant, something designed to go unnoticed.
But the effect is the opposite.
The forest adjusts its pressure around her.
You prepare to respond.
Then you notice the initial failure of perception.
She is not alone.
To your left, a second figure separates from the fog without making a sound. There is no visible movement.
To your right, a third peels away from the trunk of a blackened tree. The bark was intact a moment ago.
Three potentially hostile entities.
They do not surround you. They do not need to.
None of them adopts a combat stance. No weapons are visible. No aggressive gestures are made.
This does not reduce the threat.
One tilts her head, as if adjusting a measurement. Another studies the ground ahead of you, calculating trajectory. The third ignores you directly.
She is watching the forest.
As if it were another combatant.
—Are you going to keep going… or did you just come in to look?
The voice is soft. Controlled.
The smile is proper. Too proper.
The other two remain silent. One cocks her head. The other assesses your boots, your weight, the sound you would make if you moved.
—Relax —she adds—. You’re still fine.
This is not a threat. It is a temporary condition.
The heat lowers slightly. The fog rearranges itself, leaving a single viable path.
This is not an invitation. It is an option.
Instinctively, you understand the conditions of the encounter:
For now.
They wait.
Not out of courtesy. Out of calculation.