Sarah had always thought about visiting the jungle, but her thoughts were more on visiting Hawaii or some nice beach in Asia. Not…this…
The forest changed as they moved deeper into it.
It had already been dense — thick with brambles, roots, and low branches that snagged at sleeves and clung to boots. But now it felt like something else entirely. It was older, more alive.
The trees towered overhead — thick-trunked giants draped in curtains of moss and vine. The air grew heavier, more humid. Insects buzzed and whined in droning clusters, crawling across leaves the size of shields. Every few steps brought a new scent: rot, sap, strange flowers blooming in impossible colors.
Sarah adjusted her grip on her sword, feeling the familiar weight and balance of it in her hand. She remembered the countless hours spent practicing swings and parries in her backyard, her brother's teasing jabs about her being 'battle-ready.' Yet, each practice swing also carried the memory of that first skirmish, when doubt and fear had nearly overtaken her, and how the stupidly sharpened wood had felt like an anchor in chaos. With a slight nod to her past, she ducked under a vine the width of her arm.
Mira, behind her, swatted at something near her neck and whispered, "Swear to god, if a spider drops on me, I'm quitting this campaign."
"You better believe you'd respawn with that spider on you," Jace said with a laugh that hinted at the usual sarcasm in his voice, not missing a beat.
Mira froze. Slowly turned toward him. "You take that back."
Jace just grinned, his favorite phrase ready on his lips. "Gotta roll with the quest, dude. You'll respawn by the Stele, and it'll still be there."
Mira's face went pale. "Why would you say that?"
"Quiet," Vera's voice drifted through the woodline, calm but firm. "Movement up ahead."
The joking stopped instantly.
Sarah raised a fist, signaling a halt. They crouched low between the roots of a tree as thick as a small tree from earth, each person slipping into practiced silence.
Ahead, through the hanging leaves, Sarah searched for what Vera had seen. She didn't have whatever made Vera good at spotting, but then… she spotted them.
Kobolds.
Two of them, nestled into the trees like scaled statues. Camouflaged armor. Curved bows. Eyes sharp and alert.
Vera was already moving. Her team fanned out silently, taking angles. One of her people loosed an arrow — quick and clean — and the first kobold dropped. The second spun, bow half-raised, but a javelin speared through its chest before it could fire.
The jungle swallowed the sound.
Sarah exhaled slowly. The way the scouts had been dug in wasn't random; it was deliberate. They were protecting something. The air felt thick with danger.
Sarah and Vera did not need to talk, and they pushed deeper.
Another fifteen minutes of cautious movement, and the trees began to thin just slightly ahead. A strange glow danced on the edge of Sarah's vision — not light exactly, but something that shimmered just wrong.
She stepped to the edge of a wide, moss-covered root and looked past it.
Her breath caught, and she immediately ducked, hiding even more.
A clearing opened up in front of them — no more than sixty feet across, shaped like a natural bowl in the land. The jungle canopy broke here, letting shafts of sunlight filter through like spears of gold. At the center stood something massive and strange:
A tree-sized mushroom — ten times the size of anything they'd seen so far. Its cap was wide and domed, like a leather parasol. The stalk beneath it was as thick as a tower, with bark that peeled in strange whorls and pulsed faintly with a greenish light.
And nestled at its base was a small shrine.
Made of old stone and weathered. Covered in faint carvings that looked worn by time and moss.
Set in the center of the shrine — half-wrapped in roots and vines — was a single icon. Small and faintly glowing. It was shaped like a simple mushroom but intricately carved — too far to make out any details, but it was clearly crafted rather than grown. It was a little too large to carry comfortably in one hand, and it practically buzzed with importance.
Jace let out a low whistle behind her. "Okay… that's gotta be something."
Theo slapped him on the shoulder, "Quiet, you idiot."
"It's the Relic," Sarah said softly, voice flat. As the word left her lips, her heart gave a sudden, powerful thud in her chest, sending a chill racing down her spine. The weight of its significance pressed against her, almost tangible in the heavy jungle air.
Mira blinked. "Wait, seriously? We were just supposed to find their main force — not this."
"Well," Sarah muttered, crouching lower, "guess we found it."
Vera emerged beside her, equally quiet. "We only found this by searching for their scouts. We got lucky. They've hidden it well."
"It's beautiful," Mira whispered. "Creepy. But beautiful."
Vera pointed across the clearing. "They've set up sentries. Defensive positions. Construction crews, too, and those are kobold variants we haven't seen before."
Sarah followed her gesture. She saw them now — kobolds stationed in small groups. Some were sharpening spears. Others carried planks and rough lumber. One group looked to be building a low platform. They weren't playing around.
"If we were two days later…" Vera trailed off.
"We wouldn't have a chance; they're fortifying this. They would have settled into this and not moved." Sarah finished.
Sarah squinted at the relic, then at the sentries. Then down at the pouch Harold had handed her before they left — still tight at her side. She hadn't looked inside, but she knew what was inside. She smirked slightly.
"What if we just take the damn thing?"
They hadn't come here to take anything.
The mission was supposed to be simple: locate the kobold main force, scout their numbers and equipment, and lure them back to the army.
But that plan hadn't accounted for finding this.
Sarah crouched with the others on a ridge just above the clearing, watching kobolds move in precise patterns around the mushroom shrine. Vera was beside her, jaw tight, sketching out a rough layout of the sentries and patrols in the dirt.
"They're guarding it like it's already theirs," Vera muttered. "And those aren't your run-of-the-mill kobolds."
Sarah nodded, eyes narrowed. "We're not getting another chance like this."
Mira, adjusting her bowstring, squinted down into the clearing. "Sooo… new plan?"
Sarah glanced behind them. "Yeah. We hit them. Grab it. Fall back as fast as we can."
Theo gave a quiet laugh. "That's not really a plan. That's a punch and sprint."
"It's a very us plan, though," Jace added, smiling already. "And we're very good at running."
Vera's hand stilled. "You sure you want to escalate this?"
"We found their crown jewel by accident, the thing we are here to get," Sarah said. "We can't leave it here. They'll bury it in fortifications in a day or two. We'll never dig it out."
A long silence. Then Vera nodded. "Alright. We've got one shot."
"We'll do it like this…"
Vera's team slipped out first — archers ghosting through the brush, positioning in the flanks. Sarah stayed low, waiting for the signal.
A heartbeat passed. Then another.
Then an arrow flew — fast and silent — and a kobold picket crumpled beside the half-built wooden platform. A javelin followed, pinning a second to the roots of a tree before it could shout.
From the corner of her eye, she saw Vera move up and begin to throw another javelin. It shot from her hands like a rocket, crashing into another kobold.
"Go!" Sarah barked — and their team surged from the undergrowth.
Jace and Theo were the first into the fray, blades flashing. Kobolds shouted, horns blaring — the clearing exploded into motion.
Vera's archers loosed a volley, dropping three more. Sarah weaved through the chaos, her eyes fixed on the shrine.
Two kobolds lunged — one carrying a short spear, the other a long-handled blade. Sarah ducked beneath the first, stabbed upward through its ribs, left it, and kicked the second aside, and sprinted on.
She drew another sword from her side while ducking an arrow from the archer tracking her.
More horns now. Louder and deeper from deeper in the jungle.
She saw the tower-shield kobolds too late.
Three of them — armored, their spears braced and already tracking Sarah as she moved towards them. They moved to block her path, shields set like a wall.
Sarah didn't even think.
She angled hard to the side, leapt onto a low stone running along it until she jumped again, then kicked off one kobold's shoulder and, channeling every forgotten gymnastics class she had taken, vaulted over their line. Her boots skimming the edge of their shields, a breathless yell tearing from her throat.
She landed in a roll beside the shrine. She lost her sword in the jump and had to skid to a stop, but she seized the relic.
It was heavier than she expected. Warm and humming with something deep — like it didn't want to be taken, but it didn't resist either. She yanked it free from the roots and spun back.
She had a notification blinking in her eye that she hurriedly dismissed and kept running.
The kobolds were already turning — roaring, slamming their spears against their shields.
But Sarah was faster.
She ducked between two of them,pulled an extra short sword and slashed across a leg that the scales stopped, and sprinted full-speed back toward the treeline. Behind her, the kobold horn blasts changed tone — longer, deeper.
"daaaammmmit—gotta run," Sarah hissed, tearing the ground between her and the rest of the team. "Sure, brother dearest, I'll go on this perfectly reasonable scouting trip. What the hell is happening right now?!"
The jungle was eerily quiet for a moment. It was as if the world held its breath, waiting, building a tension that wrapped around them like a living thing. The silence was sharp, a stark contrast to the chaos Sarah tried to run through. Then, without warning, the jungle came alive with warhorns.
Deep, guttural notes echoed through the trees, not chaos, but coordination. Sarah didn't need to speak Kobold to know what they meant.
She didn't stop to think. Didn't look back. Just sprinted from the clearing back to her team, the relic tucked tight under one arm like a stolen trophy.
"Fall back! Move!" Vera's voice rang out from behind her.
Theo and Jace were already at her side — blades drawn, breath ragged. Mira raced beside them, her bow clutched tight in one hand.
"They're gaining!" Jace shouted. "I hear them behind us!"
"They're everywhere!" Mira added, snapping off as she raced to keep up. "Keep moving!"
The forest blurred around them. Thorns tore at their sleeves. Vines snagged their legs. Roots threatened to trip every step.
Sarah didn't care. She shoved through it all, lungs burning. The relic pulsed against her ribs like a second heartbeat.
Behind them, shrill barking cries rose through the trees — kobold voices howling in fury. Metal clashed. Arrows thudded into trunks. One zipped past her ear and embedded in a tree ahead with a thunk.
"Too damn close," Theo muttered, adjusting his shield as they ducked behind cover. Sarah panted, her heart still racing from the chaos. "Really. Excellent day." Her voice carried a sarcastic edge, a thin veil over the nerves crackling beneath.
Jace flashed her a crooked smile. "You stole a god-shroom. I think you voided the warranty on 'uneventful.'"
More crashing in the brush behind them.
A scream — not from their team. A kobold? Or someone else?
"They've got cavalry!" Mira yelled. "I saw one behind us — raptor thing!"
"Fast?" Sarah asked, already knowing the answer.
"It's a freaking raptor, Sarah! What do you think?"
The pounding of clawed feet on soft earth followed — closing in.
"We can't outrun them on foot!" Theo snapped. "Turn and fight!"
Sarah skidded to a halt, breath tearing from her lungs. "Fine! Brace!"
The team spun, planting heels. Vera's archers spread out again, bows rising in almost perfect sync.
Sarah turned and watched Theo as he stared at one of Vera's archers with something like worship in his eyes. While he was distracted, his grip slipped on the hilt of his sword, letting the tip drag against a rock, which gave out a faint but telltale metallic scrape. Sarah turned and backhanded him upside his helmeted head, "Are you kidding me right now? Now! Of all times!" The sound echoed slightly through the forest, drawing a few eyes their way and giving away their position momentarily.
Then the first rider burst through the undergrowth — a lanky kobold atop a reptilian mount with long talons and darting yellow eyes. The kobold's spear was raised, aimed straight for Mira.
Then Vera moved.
She hurled a javelin with perfect timing — it speared straight through the rider's chest, knocking him off the saddle. The raptor shrieked and reared back, blood splattering the trees.
It paused, confused — then sniffed the air.
Another wounded kobold nearby had collapsed, clutching his leg. The raptor turned and lunged at the easier target.
"Oh gods," Jace said, watching as the beast started eating the fallen kobold. "That's horrifying."
"But helpful," Sarah said. "Move! Before the next one catches up!"
Theo tried to whisper to Jace as they ran, "Did you see her when we stopped there? I call dibs!"
Before Sarah could slap him again, Mira was already on top of it and pushed him into a bush; he had to fight through it to run and keep up.
"Come on!"
Their route twisted through thicker jungle, easing back into more normal forest. Vera led now, cutting a path with a short blade, guiding them along any opening she could. They were trying to keep ahead of the cavalry, but they were losing ground. The forest slowed them a lot, but they were still faster.
More horns. More howls. And now, the thudding rhythm of multiple raptor mounts echoes through the trees.
"Two more riders behind us!" Mira shouted.
"Three to the left!" Vera called.
Sarah ducked under a low branch, then crashed through a curtain of vines. "We're not gonna make it at this pace—"
"Just keep going!" Theo said. "We're only a mile out!"
"How do you know?" Jace barked.
"Because I marked landmarks when we left, you chaotic mess!"
Sarah laughed — wild and breathless. "You would."
They burst into a wider section of trail — a break in the trees where the canopy thinned. Vera skidded to a halt and pointed. "Up there. Cliff shelf — if we get across that, we can see the field. The other scouts have already noticed us!"
"Go!" Sarah said. "I've got the rear!"
"No way in hell," Jace growled, falling in beside her. "We're all going together."
He stopped and grabbed Mira as she tried to follow Vera's team as they scaled the small cliff.
Behind them, a kobold bark turned into a screech.
The chase wasn't over. But the field — the trench line, the legion — they were close