Walk in the Woods 2
Mistake's adventures during the Forest biome event.
It was late morning in a forest that was just waking up from its winter slumber. Birds were chirping vigorously and everything was as cheery as nature could be; only a single lost traveler didn't share its excitement and joy.
As soon as This Was a Mistake stepped into the forest, it noticed something changing within its ethereal body. At first the Esk seemed confused, until it finally realized what was going on: it's Enchantment, the Esk's main way of sensing the world around it, was disappearing. Something in the magical forest had disabled it, and poor Mistake was practically blind without it. This was the first time it had ever had to survive without its help.
For some time Mistake just laid motionless, waiting if the ability would come back as suddenly as it had vanished. But when it didn't, eventually the caterpillar Esk started fumbling onwards without it.
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Moving around basically blind wasn't easy, but fortunately Mistake wasn't in any sort of hurry. It took its time to crawl around the unknown forest floor, stopping to examine the dainty spring flowers as well as the sturdy oak trees. At noon it came across a small creek. However, unable to see anything but lights and shadows with its beady eyes, the Esk didn't know how wide the body of water really was. So in order to not get swept up by the current, Mistake stretched its body before stepping into the cold water and clung to the ground with its back legs. After getting across it did the opposite and let its rear side catch up with front side before continuing on.
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After a day of scurrying around the forest floor, Mistake reached the meadow where the creek turned into a small waterfall. It was getting close to evening and there were some slight wisps of fog in the air, almost feeling like they were waiting to take over after the sun had cast its last rays. But Mistake didn't seem to particularly notice any of that and instead navigated straight towards the stone pillars that separated the surrounding forest from the meadow. The small Esk examined the old but moss-free stones carefully, perhaps sensing some sort of power within them. After carefully climbing on top of every one of them Mistake seemed rather confused for a brief moment: it had clearly expected to find something more than it had. But oh well, there was no point dwelling in the disappointment, so like nothing had ever happened the Esk waddled into the slowly darkening forest.
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It was getting dark and the shadows were slowly growing taller and taller. Mistake had wandered a good long while in the forest without finding anything particularly interesting, or at least that's what it thought. If only the Esk had its soul-detecting Enchantment it would've immediately noticed that it was no longer alone in the woods. The shady figure of the Forest Wandered Ikkit was quietly observing its movements, rolling his owl-like head from side to side.
"Uhuhuhuhu! Time to have some fun", the trickster spirit chuckled after Mistake had come close enough, still being completely oblivious to the presence of another creature. But even it did notice how the shadows, commanded by the Wanderer, suddenly overtook the whole landscape and swallowed everything into their black maw...
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In blink of an eye all light vanished from the forest and unnatural darkness took over the scenery. Mistake looked around in confusion and Ikkit chuckled in satisfied manner.
"Time to play a game, little puppet! See my friends around here?" the Wanderer asked and all of a sudden several pairs of eerie eyes lit up all around the woods.
"Only one pair of these eyes can truly see you and you have to find out which one is it. If you fail, we'll-- Hey. HEY!" The facade of malevolent mystery suddenly cracked when Ikkit noticed what Mistake was doing. Instead of cowering in terror or doing as instructed, the worm-like creature curled up and... Started to sleep? That was certainly something the Wanderer hadn't expected.
"You wretched little thing! Are you too stupid to fear me?!" he yelled and jumped down from his perch, picking Mistake up with his slender fingers. But the tiny Esk was already so fast asleep that it didn't react at all, not even when Ikkit dangled it in the air like a piece of trash.
"Bah! What a worthless creature! Come friends, let's find us a better toy to play with." And with that Ikkit threw Mistake away. Physically the Esk didn't seem to fly far, but thanks to the Wanderer's magic it was actually spirited straight away from the whole magical forest, eventually waking up from its own boundary without a clue on what had happened.