Elemental Cats

Toz and the cats followed the poison cloud deeper into the Rainforest region of Treblor Forest. The cloud sped up and slowed down a few times, but it didn't stray from its path and continued straight ahead.

Along the way, the group felt the humidity in the air rising, which shouldn't be considered weird since they were heading deeper into the forest and further away from the edge of the Rainforest. But despite it being warm in the air, it was humid enough to start forming a slight mist that clung to the ground.

Tiny droplets of water began gathering on the group member's fur and clothes.

But despite the ominous feeling that came with the increasing amounts of fog in the forest, the group continued following the poison cloud.

That the cloud of poison was headed for this area of limited visibility due to the fog in the air was proof enough that something suspicious was going on.

The information Toz had gotten from the guild had been superficial and didn't contain a lot of details about each region, but he felt like something of the scale they were encountering now should have been mentioned.

Though if it hadn't been mentioned, it could mean something new had appeared in the forest. Or maybe something old had reappeared.

In any case, it was an opportunity for Toz to live up to his work as an Explorer and explore the area of fog.

The group continued deeper into the mist. Nil, Lucy, and Mindle had taken to riding on Toz's shoulders and head since the mist had started reaching past Toz's shins. Scrael, who was significantly larger than the other three cats, was still tall enough to see over the mist with ease.

It would also be slightly more difficult for her to climb up and ride on Toz as the other three had done.

Despite barely having dissipated at all when it floated through the forest, the poison cloud was slowly assimilated by the fog, and the further the cloud got, the less dense it got.

But even without the cloud to guide their way, the group would only have to follow the direction set by the compass. They also noticed that the poison cloud they had inadvertently created wasn't the only thing drawn into the mist by some mysterious power. Similar clouds and bits of fog came flying over from different directions now and then.

Toz had no idea what the different clouds of different colors were, but some of them sent a chill down his spine as they passed by in the distance.

But no matter how dangerous they looked or what effects they might have before they could reach the depths of the fog, all the clouds dissipated and were assimilated to the light grey, almost white mist that had even started obscuring Toz's vision further away than a few trees ahead.

Since the green cloud of poison that had led Toz and the cats to the fog, and partly through it, had dissipated into the mist, they could only rely on themselves and the compass to keep the right direction.

Toz was slightly worried that they would get lost since it was becoming nearly impossible to see the sun's position through the mist and the foliage of the tree tops.

One way to solve that would have been to climb the trees, but ever since they entered the area with the fog, the trees had started looking feeble and shorter than the trees outside the fog. It would be fine if they were wet and slippery due to the humidity since the cats had claws sharp enough to dig into the trees, and Toz could use magic to climb.

But if the trees weren't tall enough to leave the range of the mist or reached high enough for Toz to see past the other trees, it wouldn't matter, even if he could climb them.

But the attraction of the fog's mystery was too alluring for the group to retreat in fear of getting lost. Instead, they made sure to keep constant track of the compass and left traces on the ground and trees they passed through.

Every few minutes, they would look back and compare the compass's direction with how straight their traces were. If their tracks curved while the compass remained unchanged, or the compass had changed direction while the tracks remained straight, they would know if they were lost or not.

Though they wouldn't be able to tell if their traces had been curved and then made to look straight or fit with the direction shown by the compass.

Eventually, the fog was becoming so thick and dense that Toz could barely see the tip of his own nose, and he had to hold the compass right in front of his eye to look at it. Not that it did much since they couldn't see their tracks and compare. The group walked deeper into the fog with barely more than their gut feeling to guide them.

The worry of getting lost was more than a worry since Toz was pretty sure that they already had no idea where they were.

But unless the fog contained some kind of magic that disoriented their senses or muddled their minds, they shouldn't be too far off from their initial direction. Toz considered climbing up a tree to look around, but if they were unlucky, they might lose their direction completely when they climb back down. Even if they made markings on the tree, it wouldn't help them since as soon as they were in the fog, any direction they had managed to point out from climbing the tree would be useless.

Toz hadn't forgotten that the forest was known to change in real time either. Trying to backtrack and find their traces they had left might lead the group even further from their goal and away from the edge of the fog.

But after walking for an indistinguishable amount of time, Scrael felt like she could hear something through the otherwise muted fog.