[The Frostfen Hollow - 3rd Circle Gate]
"Are you feeling ok?"
Soren asked Ryan as they stepped through the portal into the frozen marsh beyond. The temperature dropped instantly, their breath fogging the air as their boots sank slightly into the bush.
"Yes, don't worry about me," Ryan replied while brandishing his sword. "But this place is really vast."
"Indeed," Soren whispered as he looked at their surroundings.
The marsh stretched out in every direction, a flat expanse of brittle ice and muddy water, broken only by the skeletal remains of dead trees. Their branches clawed at the pale gray sky like frozen veins, offering no shelter and casting no shadows in the dim, directionless light. Thick patches of fog drifted between them, rolling through in slow waves that swallowed the landscape whole before releasing it again.
