[ti]private[/ti]forest of voices

The trainer had brought a bird with him. He chuckles a bit, amused at having sent the little pokemon running and hiding behind its trainer, in a puff of stray tailfeathers. Makes him grateful for his own starter, as klutzy as Sprigatito is.

The stranger smiles, unshaken by the ambush by comparison.

It pleases him. “Good.” Kazuki says, unwinding his arms. At the question, he huffs out of his nose, “Why else would I ask you?” Having never played multiplayer games—games of cooperation in general—Kazuki did not find approaching strangers for quests a common tactic. This player does seem to be the polite kind, however. He’s unlikely to be a headache.

Kazuki pivots, about to lead the way, only to pause thoughtfully, “And I may have broken something. Maybe.”

With that ominous footnote, he walks into the fog, tempering his long strides to stay within visible range of the other trainer, his silhouette a lighthouse of dangling long hair and intricate tattoos.

“The quest basically tells you to talk to a bunch of NPCs,” he explains, the soles of his shoes snapping twigs as he goes. “And they’ll eventually give you enough hints to navigate through the forest and find a gate.”

The fog grows thicker with every second, and by the time they reach the aforementioned gate, their feet are almost entirely obscured by tendrils of white.

“This is the gate.” It’s surprisingly small. The dialogues had made it out to be something akin to a monument, but it’s just a couple of feet taller than Kazuki and made out of wood and stone, a wall that separates the next area from the rest of the timberlands. Hundreds of sharp branches from the trees inside act as barbed wire on top of the gate, preventing it from being scaled.

But the doors have already been thrown open. There’s a statue sitting by it, moss-covered and eroded of all its unique traits, practically just a smooth hill-shaped boulder.

“Already blew it open. The issue’s inside.” Kazuki continues on, kicking away an oval plate of stone. He passes by the doors which sit crooked, their old wood cracked, charred, and creaking in the dull breeze.

The area inside doesn’t look all that different from the Misty Timberland—just condensed. The trees sit closer together and are numerous, closing off paths with their barbed branches. Their old trunks house large hollows that stare vacantly at the trainers as they enter.

There are no signs of pokemon.

Kazuki, unperturbed, continues to lead them until they reach a small wooden sign haphazardly shanked into the earth, a note on shredded cloth pinned to its face. Beyond it lies a sea of thick fog.

“This thing. Poem, riddle—whatever it is,” Kazuki drones, as if about to yawn just staring at it. “Figure it out. The answer’s not on the net; I’ve tried. Maybe it’s generated or something.” He scoffs, stepping aside and watching expectantly.

The sign reads as follows:

And when they had _______
They ____ their fears and ______
Now they seem to _____ to my ____
They ____ from the light
_______

The missing words were not crossed out, nor do they sit like a fillable test. The words that do exist are recognizably handwritten and sit beside gaps of unnatural smoothness. The missing words are not missing, but simply aren’t there.