Bad luck -
Sometimes the air turned biting cold, and other times it seared like flame.
The forest seemed to breathe with moods of its own—temperamental, untamed. The breeze that slithered through Elderwyn Forest carried a strange disquiet, unsettling even to those accustomed to hardship. But to the uninitiated, like Sam, it was almost otherworldly.
Not just Sam—others, too, were beginning to falter.
The heat grew merciless beneath the patchy canopy, and the pace of the slave line slowed. Throats were parched, lips cracked. Each prisoner was allowed a small leather cope—a simple flask, barely enough for a few sips. That flask was their only possession aside from the rags they wore.
Now, most of those flasks hung empty.
