Baoba slid down the slope from where they had been watching, followed not long after by the rest of his less courageous team.
It was a decently big cottage house, with a stone base, wooden second floor and sloped roof. It had an impressive amount of windows, definitely a great home.
He approched it, touched the stone, then clicked his tongue.
'Not an illusion, then..' He was already pretty sure before, but needed a second opinion.
"Are you sure no one is in there ?" This was a great example of a situation that required caution.
"I can tell you for sure no one is touching the ground, walls, furniture or ceiling. Potential residents may be just floating around in the living room, but I can't imagine that being very comfortable." Pando confirmed, somewhat annoyed after her captain asked this for the fifth time.
Baoba didn't seem to register the sarcasm and checked through the window. At his immense surprise, no one was here.
After a bit of thinking, he decided to try and open the door.
It was locked.
'Cute.'
He quickly got out of the way without saying a word right before Venus came crashing through the front door, obliterating it to pieces.
The first floor only had one, big room with the stairs on the opposite side from the now empty doorframe. The whole room was something no one would be shocked to see in a big elven city. A big table at its center, a sofa against the left wall, a carpet and a pretty neat kitchen made it look like the people living here were not mere peasants.
One thing was clear, though : they were people.
That was a big problem.
There was only one obvious slight anomaly : beneath the stairs, there was a small depression roughly the size of a fancy painting. It was empty, except for a coat of arms engraved on the wall.
On it, Baoba could discern a huge fireball above a some trees. It seemed to have shed a few embers, and they were burning proudly without damaging anything. The fireball was the most detailed, and the overall composition kept bringing his eyes to it.
Below the image, there were letters that read "Nihil Supra".
Since the rest of the room was ordinary, the whole squad gathered around it.
"Well, isn't this mysterious ?" Venus seemed delighted to have something other than chess to think about.
Urtica, too, was very interested. "That fireball is impressive... Does it represent the sun, or just power in general ?" He paused a bit.
"Whatever it is, it's getting into this forest."
Pando was focused on the inscription. "Nihil Supra. It might be a name, but it also sounds like some forgotten language.. People usually put slogans on their coat of arms, so I'm leaning towards the latter."
Baoba had finished inspecting. Turning away, he said : "It means 'nothing above'. "
For the second time of the day, everyone turned to look at him, baffled.
Capcsium even stopped her ominous approach to the stove. "You're making this up. Be for real, there's no way you speak fluently a language I've never even heard of !"
He rolled his eyes and explained: "Remember like an hour ago when you insisted I never talked to you guys ? I wasn't just sleeping all this time."
' To my great regret.' he added silently.
"Anyway, this emblem is fascinating and all, but haven't you noticed anything else ?"
Intrigued, they started to look around the room once again, without much success.
Venus gave up the quickest. "What do you mean ? There isn't much to see here."
Meanwhile, Baoba was opening cupboards, searching for other clues. He answered : "Exactly. The whole structure suggests that people live here, expect nobody is here, and there isn't even supplies in the closet. This house has a sofa, but no candles or cutlery.
"That is the weirdest part about all this. Someone went to great lengths to build this home and furnish it tastefully, and yet it's now abandoned."
Seeing this new angle, the group let out a collective "Oooooh" and went to the second floor. This one was was composed of 6 different rooms left and right of a central corridor.
There were 4 bedrooms, and two small, empty rooms at the back. The fact that these were bedrooms was obvious because of the beds in each of them. They were furnished slightly differently, but every closet was empty.
The beds had mattresses, but no pillows or blanket.
"This is indeed very strange. It's like..." Pando was very absorbed in her exploration, though there was no doubt she also didn't forget her scouting duty. "It's like the residents have moved out."
Urtica let a mattress fall after looking under it. He nodded. "That's the worst part. I can't imagine a family living in this forest, far from anything but monsters, having a reason to move."
"Oh, it's far from the worst of it." Baoba walked to the window at the end of the corridor and rand his finger across the windowsill. "There's no dust. It was cleaned not too long ago."
He grimaced a bit. "Not only did this family live in this environment only to move out, but they did so recently."
Pando and Urtica seemed to realize something, and Capcsium had stayed downstairs to play with fire. So, Venus was left alone to ask : "Why is it that horrible ? I mean, it's weird, but why does it matter when they moved out ?"
Baoba turned to her. "Think about it. What significant event happened in this forest recently ?"
She frowned. "Nothing. I'm can be sure of that because everyone checked thoroughly before-" She stopped abruptly as the idea hit her like a truck.
"... Before we departed."
A heavy silence fell as the implications revealed themselves.
The captain sighed. "That's exactly right. In the recent weeks, absolutely nothing went down, other than this expedition starting. In other words...
"This place's residents knew we were going, and moved because of that."
He sit on the windowsill and rubbed his eyes slowly.
'So, quick recap : not only do some people live in this cursed forest, while every information source told us that wasn't the case, but they know of our whereabouts and are hiding from us.'
He sighed once again, making the others worried there was something else.
'Plus we can't forget about this mysterious coat of arms, and there's the question of where the hell they went.'
... His bed back at home never seemed so enticing.
'What would be the penalty if we actually gave up ? I think that would count as desertion, so, like..exile ? Even if I go back, I won't be welcomed.'
And that was his first ever home, so he really wanted to keep it.
'Ah, but would the new human government actually treat me as a hero and let me stay ?'
He didn't really consider that option, it was mainly a joke. If he ever let the humans win, something told him they would start exploiting the mother Tree until It died, so that was out of the question.
He unfortunately actually had to handle this situation.
He sat there, silent.
His team looked at him, awaiting orders. But he stayed silent.
Five long minutes passed, without a sound resonating in this damn empty house, except maybe the worrying ones of a stove on the first floor.
The unnatural walls felt oppressive, the particles in the air, illuminated by the dim light from the dirty window, were the only things that dared to move.
Finally, the captain spoke.
"We can't do anything."
The sentence hung in the air, stunning everyone as if by magic.
He continued : "As per the agreement, requesting for backup counts as a forfeit, instantly surrendering our country to the humans. And we want to avoid that, which is why we also can't flee or stop advancing. We no longer have any way to gather any significant intel, and it's not like we can interrogate the animals around here. The residents were probably very careful to not leave any hints, so we can't track them either. We are as prepared as we can be, and no amount of training in this forest will yield any kind of mesurable result.
"We have to advance just the same as before, we can't do anything."
The reasoning was sound. The conclusion was immutable and left a dangerous omen in their minds. They felt like they were being played by an invisible entity, like puppets unable to look up at the one who pulls the strings.
Urtica, Venus and Pando lowered their heads in frustration. They had expected to have a more difficult role, to be assigned a different mission with higher stakes, but this forced inaction was worse in every way.
Baoba suddenly stood upright and raised his hands. "So let's just do that."
Those words broke through the doomed atmosphere. "We knew we were getting into trouble. We knew the Lord was the most terrifying, and that we had significant chances to die, yet here we are."
He waved his hand in a gesture that emcompassed the entire structure. "None of this changes anything. Our enemy, our strategy, our determination, they're all the same as before. We're still going to advance, still going to struggle, still going to prevail."
He looked at each one of his soldiers. Raising an eyebrow, he added : "Am I wrong ?"
They paused for a bit. Out of all things, a motivational speech from Baoba was a surprise. Even more so, the fact that it was true.
Venus smiled so bright the room got its color back. "Damn right we are ! Look at you, being all positive like that !"
"It's true, we just have to keep going." Urtica nodded. "I'll go stop Capcsium before she stars a fire and catch her up." He left the floor, somewhat hurriedly. He seemed to have been worried about this wooden house for quite long time.
Venus ran after him, declaring : "I feel like breaking shit, meet me outside !"
The two that were left behind looked at Venus's shilouette rapidly moving towards her target, whatever it was she had noticed before heading in. A short silence loomed over them before the captain decided he felt awkward.
'I guess I'll look for potential clues, then..'
Still deep in thought, Baoba entered the room he had just left. They still had about fifteen minutes before any monster became an actual threat, but Venus's noise might cut that time, so he planned to be efficient.
However, Pando stopped him by the shoulder as he opened the door.
"Captain, I know the decisions are not up to me, but... I need to be sure you realise this actually does change a lot."
Baoba looked back at her stern expression, surprised.
'Wow, I thought I was pretty convincing.'
He chuckled. 'Guess that's what it's like to have competent soldiers.'
He batted her hand away. "Of course I know. But I'm the only one who needs to worry about that. You lot just need to have faith in me and do what I say. We're being watched. I won't expose my plan just to comfort you."
She walked back a couple steps and said : "Just needed to be sure." before turning to another room with a faint, imperceptible smile on her face.
Baoba's gaze lingered on her figure for a bit longer. He was a bit paranoid, after all, so, no matter how hard he tried...
He couldn't bring himself to rule out the possibility of a traitor in their group.