Manithan Vaanam

After the secrets of the forest slowly reveal themselves, the party continues its hike through the Kaalu Kaatu. As the five walk, the red fog on the forest floor rises incrementally, slowly creeping up their feet. They pause for a moment; Bhavannan rests his hand upon the floor, testing the fog itself. He immediately gets a flash of annoyance but nothing else comes of it and the group keeps moving. As the sun reaches its apex, the party comes across a dead tree with a message chiseled into its bark: "THE TREES HAVE EYES". The group looks up to the sky, searching for any eyes of sorts, yet to no avail. They leave that tree and come across another, this one with the message "THE FOG IS EVIL". At this note, the party takes heed and travels slower, with more care. The group comes across its third message: "ANJANA AMMA FORGIVE ME" is scratched into the bark of another tree. After this message, the group conspires about the writer, ultimately theorizing it being the elusive Anjan.

The party goes on and reaches the last tree with a message, but this time its words are sprawled up towards the dead branches, repeating the message "THE FOG AND THE MEGHAM". At the immense height of these scrawlings, the party speculates on how someone could write it, to no avail. Bhavannan and Haavani also try to connect the two entities mentioned, yet draw blanks besides their similar color. They move on from the foreboding trees and instantly run into the remains of a triggered trap. They also find monkey footprints and Bhavannan surmises that this must be where Anjan was kidnapped, per his visions. Shwari finds a cut rope and loose pieces of net and twine, proving that a rudimentary trap had been employed. She also finds an arrow stuck in a tree, presumably the arrow that was shot into the cut rope. She grabs at the rope with Mage Hand, using her new founded manthiram, shocking Aadhi. As the rope is collected, a strategy is formed at Bhavannan's suggestion. Shwari makes a new trap, setting it ahead of the previous one, and Aadhi screams and wails, performing wonders to lure one of the soonyam mages in.

After Aadhi releases her last sob into the air, everyone hides, patiently waiting for any sign of life. The minutes tick by, and, from the distance, rustling is heard. From the fog and trees appears a very darkly shrouded figure, face and body bandaged in black cloth. It walks into the trap, a net restraining it, and it soon lies flailing on the ground. Bhavannan removes the net and wrestles it, locking it to the ground. As the mage is trapped, they all notice that there are two slits in the bandages for its eyes. Yet, there are no eyes to see. Instead, there are two eye sockets peering through the cloth, eyes wholly removed. Shwari attempts to ask it a question and it moans and winces, and the realization that its tongue was cut out dawns upon everyone as well.

Haavani immediately takes a seat and opens her divine tome to search for clues about these mutilations. Whilst Haavani flips the pages, Shwari questions the mage, implementing a system of nods for answers. She learns that there are other mages, and that this individual serves the others. Aadhi telepathically peers into its mind, grabbing answers in a more cerebral way. She sees flashes of five shrouded figures and a massive tree with a door etched into it: a portal filled with red fog. Aadhi also sees the name Aandharam appear when she asks what exactly they are summoning. As she releases her mental grasp on the mage, she feels Bodhi roil within her. Haavani finally finishes her search, learning that devoted manithan can cut off multiple senses to reach a higher sense of worship to a specific Kadavul or entity. The interrogation ends, and after the party confers on what to do with the captive, Bhavannan takes his spear and stabs him in the throat, granting him a merciful death. He slumps to the ground, and the group leaves, deciding to return and cremate him after finding Anjan.

The sun slowly moves across the horizon, glaring a bright light upon the growing red fog. The trail opens up, clearing itself, and the party's suspicions of the kaatu grows. Eventually, they hear rustling behind them—yet, when they look, the sounds stop. As they continue, the stirring grows, yet ceases every time eyes lay upon the trees behind. At some point, the group notices that the trees have visibly moved, their branches and trunks encroaching closer. With determination, they keep moving until they hit a massive wall of crimson fog. They turn around, and all the trees have moved and created a barricade, blocking their exit. Aadhi casts manthiram to destroy some of the fog in the middle, but the space is still colored with red. Haavani flings light into the fog, and sees two mangled corpses lying on top of each other. She lets the rest know, and the others steel themselves, walking in with grit. As they enter through the cleared space of Aadhi's, they are surround by multitudes of corpses, manithan and animals alike, piled on top each other to the heights of the trees itself. Blood and ooze leak out of the bodies, staining the ground, the air dyed crimson. The group step with trepidation and terror, entering the fog itself.

As the party breathes in the sullied air, their minds go dizzy with unfurling rage, rage for each other unrestrained. Nila drops down, comatose, and Rithul unlatches himself from her body, lifts her, and sprints into the mist, disappearing. As they move through the gory waste, little quips turn into shouts as insults are carried through the air. They slow down periodically, yelling at each other, and carry on, eyes turning red from rage. Shwari barks orders at Bhavannan, to which Bhavannan responds with ire, whereupon Shwari butts the end of her drumstick into Bhavannan's ribs. Aadhi releases a snide comment towards Shwari, which Shwari responds by calling her whiny. Haavani, with a burrowing anger, claims that they must keep moving, seeing that these corpse lined up probably killed each other. Bhavannan channels the anger onto himself, scratching and clawing at his face and hair. When they finally see the end, their feet stop and the yells reach an all-time high, provoking Haavani to scream, rallying them to get to the end. The party listens to her, scrambles towards the end, and exits the scarlet air.

They cough and wheeze, scrambling to replace dirty air with fresh. Bhavannan, unable to handle the stark difference, throws up, bile splashing on the floor and then blood as well, his mouth smeared with a red tint. The party searches for Nila but sees no sign of her in the vicinity. Shwari and Aadhi apologize to each other first before Shwari goes and apologizes to Bhavannan as well. The group proceeds to take a few moments of rest, the foggy rage slowly leaving their eyes.