The Pathfinder's Oath

The morning sun still struggled to pierce the dense, unnatural canopy of the Whisperwind Thicket as the White Eagle Party broke camp, their excellent night's rest a fading memory. Aiden, ever efficient, had already made breakfast disappear, and now turned towards the looming darkness of the forest. The air, though fresh, held a subtle, unsettling stillness and a faint, acrid scent.

"Stay close," Aiden's flat voice cut through the quiet. "Follow exactly where I go. I can guarantee you'll be safe. Mostly." The casual "mostly" hung ominously in the air, a chilling understatement.

Aiden moved first, melting into the foliage with silent grace. The party followed, immediately swallowed by oppressive closeness and perpetual twilight. Outside sounds vanished, replaced by the strained rustling of leaves and the unsettling creak of groaning wood.

Deeper in, the Thicket lived up to its ominous name, transforming into a grotesque nightmare. Trees twisted into agonizing shapes, their bark like scarred flesh, their branches locked in a suffocating embrace. Python-thick roots snaked above ground, writhing in the dim light. Sickly, luminous fungi pulsed, illuminating strange, discolored growths on the forest floor. The air grew heavy, viscous, carrying a cloying scent of decay and something arcane, putrid.

"Gods above, what is this place?" Sascha muttered, cold dread creeping up his spine. Even Excalibur, usually vibrant, felt heavy and inert.

"The Thicket is... unwell," Arianne whispered, her hand resting instinctively on Sona's shoulder, clearly distressed by the pervasive wrongness.

Miriam shivered, pulling her cloak tighter. "This ain't natural, even for a cursed forest. It feels like the whole place is screaming, but silently."

Lucille, grim-faced, scanned their surroundings. "The magical corruption is far more advanced than initial reports suggested. Every living thing here is being twisted."

Hours into their journey, the scene grew more unsettling. Twisted trees formed a living maze, their gnarled limbs interlocking into claustrophobic tunnels. Strange growths became pronounced, resembling mutated organs. Sounds were muffled, distorted.

Sascha, unable to shake lingering questions and feeling vulnerable, moved beside Aiden. "Aiden," he began, lowering his voice. "Last night, you mentioned previous Excalibur wielders could glimpse 'The Path' in combat. What did you mean? What kind of glimpse?"

Aiden continued his silent, fluid movement. "I meant exactly what I said," he replied, his voice flat. "Brief, uncontrolled access, but access nonetheless."

Sascha frowned. "But how? What does that even mean, 'glimpse'? How do you 'tap into' another dimension? A spell? A special move?"

Aiden paused, his helmeted head tilting. "They listened to the sword," he stated simply.

Sascha stared. "Listened? To Excalibur? It's a sword, not a person! What are you talking about? It doesn't talk!"

The rest of the party, listening intently, chimed in. "Not in words, maybe, Sascha," Sona offered. "But you know how Arianne can sometimes... feel what Excalibur is feeling? Like when it was distressed in the war room."

Arianne nodded. "Indeed. The blade has a spirit, a will. It resonates with emotion, with the flow of battle. It is a conduit, a living legend."

Miriam leaned forward. "So, Pathfinder, old heroes didn't do some fancy magic. They just... got really good at listening to their sword? And it showed them this 'Path' thing?"

"Yeah, but for a split second," Sascha cut in. "What would a split-second glimpse do? A really fast dodge? A surprise attack?" He looked from Aiden to Arianne. "How do you even 'listen' to a sword, anyway?"

Before Aiden could respond, he froze, his head snapping up, posture shifting to coiled alertness. He slowly scanned the gnarled trees. The air grew denser.

"Wait here," Aiden's voice was low, losing its casual tone. "I feel something. Ahead. Something amiss."

Without another word or visible movement, Aiden seemed to melt into the shadows between two twisted trees, vanishing. He had stepped into 'The Path.'

Sascha jumped, startled. "He just... disappeared again! Right when it gets creepy!"

Miriam whistled nervously. "Well, that's not unsettling at all. When he says 'something amiss,' I get a really bad feeling about what's coming." She gripped her daggers tighter.

Sona huddled closer to Arianne. "Do you think it's one of those things from the rift? The ones he said were different?"

Lucille drew her sword. "Prepare yourselves. If Aiden felt the need to enter 'The Path' for reconnaissance, then whatever is ahead is not to be trifled with. Stay alert. Maintain formation."

The silence that followed was thick with anticipation and dread, broken only by the unnatural creaks of the corrupted trees and the anxious breaths of the White Eagle Party.

Not long after Aiden's disappearance, a faint shimmer solidified between two gnarled trees, and he reappeared as silently as he had vanished. His helmeted head swept over the waiting party.

"There's a miniature rip ahead," Aiden reported, his voice flat. "Some minor entities have come through."

Sascha immediately puffed out his chest. "Minor entities? Great! Let's go smash them! We're heroes, that's what we do!" "Hold on, Sascha,"

Lucille interjected, cautious. "How many 'minor entities' are we talking about, Pathfinder?"

"Three," Aiden stated.

The party exchanged confused glances, save for Arianne.

"Only three?" Miriam scoffed. "Seriously? We rode royal griffins and spent half the night listening to existential dread because of three minor entities? We fight goblins in bigger groups than that before breakfast!"

"Yeah, come on, Aiden," Sascha urged, taking a step forward, hand on Excalibur's hilt. "Three little guys? This will be a good warm-up!" He took another step, only for Aiden to materialize directly in front of him, a silent, unyielding wall.

"All of you," Aiden's voice was firm, leaving no room for argument. "We will take the safer route."

Sascha, his stubbornness flaring, pushed back. "What, Pathfinder? Are you afraid of three tiny monsters? The mighty Pathfinder, scared of a little brawl?"

Aiden's helmet tilted, a long, weary sigh escaping him. "You are not ready to face them yet."

That was all it took. The party erupted. "Not ready?!" Sascha roared, forgetting the Thicket's oppressive atmosphere. "I just flew here on a royal griffin, I've got Excalibur! I'm always ready!"

"Aiden, we've faced worse odds than three!" Miriam protested loudly.

"We need to move quickly, but direct confrontation without proper intel is unwise!" Lucille tried to interject, attempting to bring reason to the growing cacophony.

Their combined shouts, echoing through the distorted trees, tore through the unnaturally quiet forest like a violent ripple. From the direction Aiden had just scouted, a guttural, earth-shaking ROAR ripped through the air, quickly followed by two more. The ground vibrated beneath their feet.

Aiden let out another, even deeper sigh, a sound of absolute, profound resignation. He reached to his hip, drawing one of his curved daggers. "Be ready," he stated, his voice flat. "You attracted them."

From the direction of the roars, three grotesque abominations emerged, lumbering into the dim light. The party's mouths fell open. These were not 'minor entities.'

These were colossal, nightmare creatures, five times the size of the griffins they had ridden yesterday. Their forms were a sickening jumble of unnatural bone, rippling sinew, and jagged, obsidian-like growths. Their skin seemed to shift and writhe, reflecting no light, absorbing it instead.

"You said minor?!" Sascha shrieked, instantly abandoning all bravado and springing into a battle stance, Excalibur now fully drawn. "You said three?! Why didn't you tell us they were... this?!"

Miriam cursed, drawing both her daggers, eyes wide with shock. "Oh, you are SO getting an earful later, Pathfinder! Those are easily five times the size of a griffin! That's not 'minor'!"

Lucille snapped into action. "Sona, Arianne, focus your support! Sascha, Miriam, engage! Don't let them flank!"

The battle began.

The ground trembled as one of the monstrous entities lunged forward, a guttural shriek tearing through the air. The party, relying on pure instinct and training, struggled pretty well against one entity.

Sascha met its charge head-on, his blade clashing against its hardened hide with a jarring clang. Miriam danced around its massive limbs, seeking openings.

The problem wasn't merely their size. The party had faced giants, dragons, and behemoths before. The problem was how these entities fought. Each of their attacks distorted reality.

When a massive claw swept through the air, the very space it moved through shimmered and rippled, leaving behind trails of warped vision. When a foot slammed down, the ground didn't just crack; it rippled like water, sending shockwaves of pure disorientation through the air.

Sascha dodged a sweeping tail, and the tree behind him twisted unnaturally, its wood warping as if seen through heat haze. Miriam rolled away from a lunging maw, and the very air where the entity's teeth snapped seemed to tear, a momentary void appearing.

"Their attacks are... warping reality!" Sona cried out, her spells flickering as the strange energies interfered. "It's hard to even focus!"

"This isn't just brute force!" Lucille yelled, parrying a minor tendril with her shield. "They're destabilizing the very air around us!"

As the party struggled to adapt to the reality-bending assaults of their single foe, Aiden became a blur. He moved with impossible speed, a dark, lethal phantom, holding the remaining two entities with strange ease.

He wasn't just fighting them; he was flowing around them, deflecting their reality-warping strikes with casual precision, his daggers appearing and disappearing in blurs of motion. There were no grand spells, no flashy martial arts, just terrifying efficiency.

In what felt like mere minutes, a truly horrific, earsplitting shriek tore through the Thicket.

One of the entities Aiden was fighting, its enormous form twitching violently, collapsed to the ground with a sickening thud, its grotesque body already beginning to dissolve into black smoke and unnatural dust. Aiden had killed it.

The sudden, ear-shattering sound of its death roar immediately ripped the party's attention away from their own ongoing fight, their heads instinctively snapping towards the sound. It was a fatal mistake.

The entity they were facing seized the opening. Its massive, malformed fist, crackling with distorting energy, swung directly for the exposed Miriam and Lucille.

Before they could even react, Aiden, moving with a speed that defied logic, was there. He appeared as a dark streak, grabbing both Miriam and Lucille, and with a short, instantaneous burst of movement, seemed to teleport them a few feet away, clear of the attack's trajectory.

They stumbled, disoriented, as the fist slammed into the ground where they had stood, leaving behind a rippling crater of warped earth.

The attack continued, sweeping towards Sascha. He instinctively brought Excalibur up, blocking the enormous, reality-bending strike. The impact was immense. A high-pitched, almost painful shriek echoed from Excalibur's blade as it met the distorted force.

Sascha roared with effort, his feet skidding back over the uneven ground, carving a deep furrow behind him for a good ten yards before he managed to stop, chest heaving, his arms vibrating with residual power.

Aiden, now a few yards away, having saved Miriam and Lucille, snapped his attention back to the current fight. "Focus!" Aiden's voice, sharp and urgent, cut through the chaos. He then looked directly at Sascha, his voice unwavering. "Sascha! Listen to Excalibur!"

Before anyone could fully process his words, Aiden seemed to vanish and reappear, now right beside the other remaining entity he had been fighting. He was no longer just 'holding' it. He was serious. With a barely visible shimmer, a flicker of something ancient, Aiden seemed to shift, his form blurring as he moved.

He used 'The Path' in this combat, becoming less a physical presence and more a fleeting shadow. His daggers became extensions of pure, decisive force, striking with impossible speed and precision into vital points that seemed to materialize from nothing. There was a sickening, wet crunch, and then the second entity, without even a scream, simply imploded, its monstrous form collapsing into a cloud of shimmering, distorting particles.

The silence that followed, after the two deafening deaths, was chilling. Only one entity remained, now roaring in a mixture of confusion and rage as it faced the suddenly deadly Pathfinder, unaware it was being observed by a terrified and deeply chastened White Eagle Party.

The air vibrated with the unnatural hum of the last entity, its roars now tinged with a desperate fury as it faced the silent, deadly Pathfinder. The sudden, brutal efficiency of Aiden's moves had stunned the White Eagle Party, but the battle was far from over.

Lucille snapped out of her momentary shock first. Her eyes, sharp and calculating, immediately locked onto the remaining abomination. "Miriam! Flank left! Sona, Arianne, support fire! Sascha, keep that thing engaged!" She barked orders, her voice cutting through the thick air. Miriam, still slightly dazed from Aiden's abrupt teleportation, stumbled a step. "Right! Flank... what?" Lucille didn't waste words; she simply tapped Miriam hard on the shoulder, a sharp, physical jolt to bring her rogue back to full awareness. Miriam winced, then nodded sharply, shaking off the last of her disorientation and darting towards the entity's side.

Sascha, his hand slightly trembling around Excalibur's hilt from the sheer force of the reality-bending blow he'd just blocked, ignored Lucille's orders for a moment. His eyes were wide, fixed on Aiden. "Aiden!" he yelled, his voice strained. "You said 'listen to Excalibur'! How?! What does that even mean?!"

Arianne, seeing Sascha's trembling form and the lingering distortion around him, immediately registered a healing spell. A soft, green light pulsed from her hands, flowing into Sascha, soothing the residual shock and stabilizing his body.

Sona, ever worried for her childhood friend, cried out, "Sascha, are you okay?! That looked really bad!"

"Sona! Focus!" Aiden's voice, sharp and unyielding, cut through her concern. He didn't even look at her, his attention fully on the last entity. "Keep your mind on the fight." He then turned his helmeted gaze to Sascha. "You listen to its pulse, Sascha," Aiden instructed, simplifying his words even in the heat of battle. "Not with your ears. With your mind. With your gut. You feel it. You've been chosen by the sword. You're connected to it. Feel that connection. It will show you."

The entity roared, its limbs flailing as it tried to grapple with the elusive Pathfinder. Sascha, still reeling but clinging to Aiden's words, looked down at Excalibur, then back at the monstrous abomination. He had to trust Aiden. He had to listen to the legendary blade that had chosen him.

Sascha, still partially dazed and trembling, sank to one knee, plunging Excalibur's blade into the corrupted earth. He closed his eyes, gritting his teeth in concentration. He tried to quiet his thundering heart, to push away the fear for his friends, the memory of the reality-bending attack he'd just endured. Listen to its pulse, Sascha. Not with your ears. With your mind. With your gut. You feel it. You've been chosen by the sword. You're connected to it. Aiden's words echoed in his mind.

"Listen, Excalibur," Sascha muttered, his voice raw, speaking directly to the hilt in his trembling hand. "Aiden says... I need to listen. Show me. Show me what he means."

He strained, forcing his focus inward, trying to feel anything beyond the hammering of his own panic.

He pictured the sword, its legendary power, its spirit. He tried to recall that faint hum he'd sometimes felt. But the roars of the last entity, the frantic movements of his friends as they dodged and weaved around it, and the sheer, overwhelming wrongness of the Thicket itself, all conspired to shatter his concentration. His mind was a chaotic mess, too worried, too panicked. The connection remained elusive, buried beneath a tide of fear.

Aiden, engaged in a deadly dance with the last grotesque entity, saw Sascha's futile struggle. He registered the shaking hands, the furrowed brow, the lost focus. He saw the panic winning. A flicker of something, perhaps a new, deeper sigh that went unheard, passed through Aiden's posture.

With a final, imperceptible blur, Aiden moved. He didn't just strike; he ended it. One moment, the monstrous entity was roaring, its reality-bending attacks tearing at the very fabric of the air around Aiden. The next, Aiden was behind it, a brief, sharp glint of steel, and the creature simply collapsed. It didn't scream, didn't thrash. Its massive, corrupted form buckled and fell with a wet, heavy thud that reverberated through the ground, its body swiftly dissolving into wisps of black smoke and sickly green light. The terrifying battle was over.

A silence, profound and absolute, descended upon the clearing, broken only by the heavy breathing of the White Eagle Party.

Miriam and Lucille froze, their weapons still poised, their eyes wide and staring at the dissipating smoke where the third entity had just been. Sona gasped, a hand flying to her mouth. They had been fighting one of those horrors, struggling even with their combined might. And Aiden had just casually obliterated the other two plus the last one They had been fighting, one after the other. It was done in an instant. They hadn't even seen the killing blow, just the sickening collapse. A wave of awe, tinged with a fresh layer of profound terror, washed over them. They knew Aiden was powerful, but seeing it, truly seeing it, was something else entirely. Their protector, their guide, was a silent, lethal force beyond their comprehension.

Aiden stood amidst the rapidly dissolving remnants of the entity, his form unblemished, seemingly still breathing normally, calm and even, as if he'd just taken a stroll. He slowly turned his helmeted head, his unseen gaze sweeping over the dumbfounded party. His eyes settled on Sascha, still kneeling, his head bowed over Excalibur.

A brief silence stretched, Aiden seemingly contemplating something. Then, he spoke, his voice flat and calm as ever, but with a new note of finality.

"Change of plans," Aiden stated, his voice cutting through the lingering tension, flat and absolute. "You're not ready for this. Not like this."