The mangrove swamp was wet and hot, the air full of tiny bugs. The mangroves were large and dense, shrouding the areas within in darkness. Passage through the swamp was either by shallow boat, or along Bridge Road—an extended chain of low, flat bridges, spanning the distance between sporadic patches of solid ground. Most of the construction in the delta was either mudbrick or yellow desert stone, but Bridge Road was built from the region’s signature green stone. It reminded Jason of the impossible bridge that carried the Mistrun River over the massive gorge on its way down to the delta. He wondered if it had the same, mysterious constructor.

They were crossing Bridge Road in their wagon, which Vincent drew to a stop at a seemingly random point in the middle of the swamp. He turned back to address the adventurer candidates in the back.

“Undeveloped areas like this can be some of the most dangerous in the delta,” Vincent explained. “There’s a lot of territory for monsters to go unnoticed until they hit the berserk stage. You won’t need to deal with that today, though. We have two sets of monsters in this area: one single monster and one pack.”

Vincent dropped down off the wagon and the group clambered out the back. After half a week, even the more spoiled members of the group had stopped complaining about the basic transport. Vincent gathered the group together on the side of the bridge.

“When you get a monster notice,” Vincent said, “whether from a notice board or the Adventure Society directly, it has three pieces of information, so long as that information is known. The name of the monster, or a description. The number of monsters, and the approximate location.”

He panned a stern eye across the group.

“What I am about to tell is you is the most important thing you will learn during this assessment. It is the single greatest contributing factor to adventurer death, bar none. It’s a simple thing, but if you disregard it, there’s a very good chance you will die. If you routinely disregard it, your death is inevitable.”

Vincent held the notice in his hand.

“This information is not reliable. It usually comes from local residents, with limited understanding of monsters and who run the moment they see them. They may well recognise monsters common to their area, but monsters are misidentified on a regular basis. Descriptions are wrong. Numbers are vastly inflated or grossly underestimated. People even get the place they saw them wrong.”

He waved the notice in their faces.