Everyone who made a living in the godforsaken Dark Mountains had heard of Vidia Abyss City.
It lay north of the former territory of the Splitclaw Clan, right at the foot of the mountains encircling the Dark Mountains. The "Blackfog Mountains" behind the city could be crossed to reach the border of Nordtov; farther north lay the Thorn Duchy, while hundreds of kilometers to the east was the White Mountain frontier of the ancient kingdom of Kallum.
Yet no one had ever managed to cross that mountain range.
It wasn't just because its peaks reached into the clouds and the temperature stayed below minus thirty degrees all year round. Nor was it only because the snow-covered paths were treacherous and home to all manner of dangerous, bizarre creatures unknown to the civilized world.
The reason the mountains were impassable was simple: their name said it all.
The Blackfog Mountains were most famous for their "black fog"!
It was a peculiar natural phenomenon. Perhaps the mountains' unique terrain caused miasma to gather everywhere. Combined with the Dark Mountains' distinctive psionic tides, this gave the miasma dangerously corrosive properties. Even the toughest Los beasts or Thunder Lizards in the Dark Mountains would be driven off. If they ventured in, they would die from the miasma within a day.
Nothing could survive in such a hostile environment. Still, the goatfolk were a people who had inherited the bloodline of the King of a Thousand Curses. Though few in number, they were intensely curious about the world.
Over the past thousand years, plenty of reckless souls had ventured into the black fog to explore, and they had managed to discover a few things.
Contrary to what outsiders imagined, the black fog wasn't a barren wasteland.
In fact, the areas covered by the black fog