Seeing smoke on the horizon could either be a very good or a pretty bad thing; it completely depended on the amount of smoke one could see. If there was a little smoke, rising in a somewhat distinct column, it usually meant one was seeing a singular, likely controlled, fire, often lit by another sapient presence. That went doubly if the column wasn’t singular but if there were multiple columns rising in somewhat close proximity without intermingling into a cloud, as that meant multiple fires, all of them controlled and lit with deliberation, meaning one was looking in the direction of a community, a small town or village or something like that.

However, if one saw a thick cloud of smoke rising, it was usually a pretty bad thing. That meant the fire one was seeing wasn’t controlled. It was anything but, it was likely burning out of control, a wildfire or, in the best case, a group of people using fire to clear a stretch of forest. If it was the, unlikely, case that a group of people was clearing forest away by burning it, they hopefully had the ability to control the fires they had set, most commonly by manually clearing away the fire’s fuel in a stretch around the area they wanted to clear, leaving nothing for the fire to burn there, meaning it couldn’t cross said stretch.

Or it was a wildfire. Back before the change, the most likely culprit would have been a human, but now, I wasn’t so sure any longer. Sure, human stupidity would only come to an end when the last human did, but given the limited supply of humans, especially this far north, other reasons were just as likely. For example, while we had only suffered a bit of rain the day before, it could easily have been a thunderstorm further north, meaning there might have been some lightning striking the area, possibly setting something on fire.

Whatever the case may be, now, we all could see the thick pillar of smoke rising in the distance, making us worry that this might be something we would have to deal with. And wondering if we would want to deal with it anyway, even if we weren’t forced to, simply because it could be useful to us, either in EXP or in possible discoveries. After all, the system seemed to reward anything that was challenging or risky, with special rewards if an encounter was both. Dealing with a wildfire stretching across a fair swath of land, we couldn’t tell how far yet due to the distance, would certainly be challenging and getting too close to an area on fire could only be considered risky, unless one was fireproof. Not something one of us was blessed with, so the system should provide some rewards if we could explore and possibly deal with this particular mess.

It was quite impressive to realise we had seen the smoke from the fire at a distance of easily a hundred kilometres, something we only realised when we had to travel for three days to get there. On the way, we were met with an extraordinary number of animals fleeing from said smoke, or rather, the fire causing the smoke to rise.

If the cause weren’t so serious, I would have been quite amused at seeing deer and wolves not running from one another but running in the same direction together, the wolves a lot more interested in getting away from the fire than they were in taking down a deer. Though that was only true as long as the wolves didn’t have a good opportunity, there was one case in which a pair of wolves apparently just couldn’t help themself and take down a deer that was limping along, likely injured in a fall or something.

Another curiosity was that Silva, once again, demonstrated her ability to communicate with other canids and translate for us, giving us something of an idea of what we were moving towards. Sadly, it wasn’t a good idea, the wolves only knew that the fires had started suddenly in a sandy, almost swampy, area and spread from there, moving erratically as they did. Maybe the details had been lost in translation, or maybe the wolves had never had the details I would have loved to have; I wasn’t sure, and, sadly, it didn’t really matter why they couldn’t convey them. As we interpreted the things learned from the dogs, the fires had started suddenly and spread rapidly, until some sort of equilibrium was reached and they slowed down for a time before spreading again. We weren’t sure what that might mean regarding the fire’s cause or if there was some sort of magical mechanism involved, but it was interesting, even if we couldn’t tell just yet what it meant. If it meant anything at all, I honestly could say that I wasn’t sure how fires usually spread. I would assume it mostly depended on the wind, alongside the amount and quality of fuel on the ground and probably the ground itself.

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Another quite impressive thing was just how many beasts fled from the fire. Intellectually, I knew that essentially every animal would do their best to get away from a large-scale fire, but to see everything from foxes and rabbits to a few moose and even a bear running away, all of them obviously more terrified of the fire than of each other, was quite impressive. And just as intimidating. Sure, we were stronger than the individual animals, at least when it came to our levels, but to realise that one of these massive grizzly bears was afraid enough of the fire to start, and keep, running without turning some of the other critters around it into a happy meal was somewhat chilling.

And then there was the smell. It wasn’t a persistent thing; it seemed that the wind was shifting occasionally, but the stench of burned forest, alongside a few other scents I couldn’t identify, was uncomfortable to say the least. Especially when I realised that one of the scents had an undertone only I could detect, indicating strongly that this particular scent wasn’t simply natural but that something magical was afoot here, adding further fuel to our worries.

As one would expect, Sasha was the one most affected by the entire situation. It was quite obvious that she wanted to travel in any direction but the one we were going in, making her act incredibly timid while clinging to Silva like a limpet, unwilling to get more than a step or two away from her, even when we were making camp.

That was a somewhat strange experience in and of itself. We all knew that we were moving towards trouble; the fleeing animals and the massive column of smoke were prime evidence of that, and yet, we had to stop every day, make camp and relax for a few hours. Luckily, we weren’t completely limited to night-time for our travels, as the days were incredibly cloudy, keeping the Sun from being a nuisance. What made the entire situation even weirder was that it occasionally rained, making me wonder just how the wildfire we were moving towards could continue burning so readily despite the rain. Sure, it wasn’t the heavy rain that made one wonder if one would soon start to float, simply because there was enough water falling form the sky to make swimming in the air a plausible mode of transportation but it was more than the occasional drizzle And yet, the smoke continued to rise unabated, the column’s size might even have increased, it was difficult to tell without anything to compare it to.

Finally, some time around the witching hour of the third day, we were close enough that the rising smoke was covering the horizon. If nothing else, that drove home just how dangerous a situation we were heading into was, though the fact that the wind was noticeably warmer when it came from the north added to it.

Moving across one of the gentle hills we had been travelling over for some time, we finally got to see the mess we were headed towards and what I could see made me freeze for a moment. It was easily as bad as the Charland had been, maybe worse, though this area was a lot less contained. It looked as if the ground itself was on fire, however that worked, and, unless my eyes were deceiving me, I could also see a few areas that looked as if the ground had melted into lava, which was surreal in its own right.

But the worst was that I could see some strange figures moving in the burning hellscape we were looking at. Vaguely humanoid, making me think of the Scorched I had seen right after the change, though we were still a little too far to let me make out details. Whatever they were, I was willing to bet quite a bit that they had something to do with the fire.

Which made this situation truly interesting and, despite my trepidation, I was starting to get excited.