>>6300855By the time you all get across the fourth bridge and into the center of the valley, which is bustling with activity from all sorts of creatures and spirits, you all are on your guard again and ready for anything to happen. There's a pair of Red Bladebeaks flapping as they guard their clutch near a trio of fallen trees making a small roof for them, a rare Lusgondan which walks on its many humanoid hands and picks juicy fruits from off the bushes, and-
>83-a trail of very fine dew emerging from the group's right and coming across the path you would be taking for this patrol. It's faint to your spiritual senses but you can make out the ghostly energies of a Trailing Fog from the tracks, leading towards one of the inner two bridges within the deeper valley. You'd end up passing over that bridge soon enough and hopefully there was enough of the traces left to give you an idea of where else it might have gone.
On a hunch, you stick to the usual path and keep the trail in as much of your sight as you can and notice that it suddenly veers off a slow curve and heads straight for the bridge. Likely the path in made as it gave chase to the patrol that encountered it.
You don't like that. From the way it looks, the spectre has urgent business with someone in that patrol like a grudge, or perhaps it's also changed and understands that it should communicate in some way. Regardless of which it is, you follow the trail over the bridge and find that the traces of dew stop just after the bridge but widen in a large area.
At first you don't know what to make of that, but you extend your spiritual senses further outwards and look up. There's a very very small hint of it going upwards and it makes sense to you now. The Trailing Fog levitated up into the air, likely catching a wind current and drifting away....south.
It just can't always be so easy. Thankfully after so much movement, the Fog would have tired itself out and needed to 'rest' in whatever place it would up at for at least two days. Even the dead need sleep. Go figure.
>Forage around the center of the valley>End the patrol and just head along the path.>??? 