Neverwinter Forest A bad penny always turns up.

He had looked everywhere, and found nothing. Not a single trace of his sister. When he'd gone back to where he'd last seen his father, the man had moved on too — which meant Stone was utterly, pathetically, alone. Travelling with Aditya had been quite a process of itself, and as desperate as the boy had been to follow in his father's steps, he wasn't entirely put-off by his absence. He gathered himself after a few days of loitering in the area, and then did what he had to do: he moved on.

For weeks he wandered, picking off small creatures when he could find the drive, but more often than not seeking out the discarded carcasses of things he found; he grew thinner, but staved off the worst of his hunger. Eventually Stone's desire to reunite with any shard of his shattered family was gone — he dreamed sometimes of Brook, or of a river coursing endlessly to the edge of the world, but upon waking would rarely recall these figments. All he wanted now was the security of a pack.

When his path led him in to a forested valley he wasn't entirely cognizant of all the signs around him. Those little things that would've told any other experienced wolf that the forest was claimed. He did find a strong food scent as he trailed along the territory fringe, and without much of a look around, plunged across that invisible line to where a cache lay exposed; as he came upon it, a stoat-like creature shrieked and turned to bare tiny needle teeth at him, earning a breathy snarl from the boy.