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You continue on the road for 4 hours. Descending the mountainside, following a windy trail, you are lead back into the Svalich Woods.
"I hate it here," you say to Ireena.
"Me too," she says.
And you have good reason to: night is falling.
If your estimate from your view up high earlier is accurate, you still have another 3 to 4 hours on the road before you reach Vallaki. Your legs are starting to fail you. This has not been an easy hike. If the night were so dangerous, you wouldn't feel so bad about simply taking a rest; but you can feel the exhaustion biting at your heels, threatening to stop you in your tracks, and time is against you.
...
The sun indeed falls. And when it does, the woods are thrust into such obscuring darkness that you can barely see 20 feet ahead of you.
You see a clearing in the trees to your north. In the distance, the reflections of the moon on a a great lake is visible; even more colossal than Tser Pool, it's undoubtedly the lake you saw from up on the hill, that Vallaki is connected to. You are definitely close.
But you and Ireena are stopped in your tracks by the sound of rustling leaves ahead of you, just in the forest to your left.
(cont.)
