Chapter 13: Village Below the Mist I
Chapter: 2
The Village Below the Mist-
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The wind carried the scent of ash and wildflowers as John led the group down the hill.
Behind him followed ten men, each one marked by exhaustion and silence. They had no armor, no weapons, only their freedom and the memory of the tunnels that had nearly become their graves. Some walked with a limp. Others kept a hand on the shoulder of the man beside them. But none turned back.
The village below sat nestled in a shallow valley. It was half covered in morning mist. Smoke from cooking fires rose into the sky, thin and harmless. Wooden homes lined a single dirt road that cut through the center like a scar. To the left stood a weathered temple, and to the right, a crumbling wall of stone barely tall enough to call a fence.
John paused at the ridge.
He could see people moving between the buildings. Children carried buckets of water. A village merchant cart rolled slowly past a pair of workers stacking hay. A wild dog barked somewhere in the fog. It looked peaceful.
Too peaceful.
The System whispered in his thoughts.
[Host body stress level: mild.
Mana core integration: stable