Blacktail Deer Plateau the ghosts were howlin' in the late afternoon

The ash felt bizaare underneath his feet as they progressed. Soft and yet gritty, unquestionably leaving a rather unclean feeling clinging to the bottoms of his feet. He stepped gingerly over blackened logs that were once young trees, as though somehow within they would have still contained the immense heat of a fire once alive. Yet in the wake of such a disaster all he could smell were the lingering tinges of wolves that had already trekked through, muddied with the woodsmoke and charcoal.

Dante hadn't come back to them yet, but Mordecai was willing to believe that he was out there somewhere. Perhaps further out and higher up. With Osprey, tucked away somewhere safe and sound. Fire was enough to even drive those with a high will to flee and panic, to fear the lands. Even the same went for what remained; Mordecai hoped that for whatever reason, they would be among the few that would ever trek through the state of the forest this way.

But more than ever, he hoped that they would not come across the worst of what they could find.