Rick's Arcanist's Eye passed through the long, dark tunnel slowly, but without incident. It appeared that there was no trap set within, no enemies waiting to spring into action, and no evil vines eager to jut out from the walls of the throat-like tunnel that he had no choice but to pass through. Truly, the vines surrounding the entrance to the passage through the thick wall of vines almost seemed like the maw of some waiting, ancient monstrosity that was more than keen to swallow him up.

Yet, there was always the possibility that whatever lay inside was simply either smart enough to know that the Arcanist's Eye wasn't a living being, or it was designed to only activate when a living being stepped across the horizon and into the darkness ahead. There was no way to know, though for all of the paranoia that the unnatural natural barricade had brought forth in the greenhorn Mage, it seemed entirely inconspicuous- there wasn't any Magickal energy infused into the vine-wall that swallowed up and twisted through the trees before him. It was, to put it bluntly, a wall made of vines using Magick but not inherently Magickal in nature on its own.

After all, if there was something in there that prevented living beings from passing through, how would the people that Rick and his superior had caught sight of beforehand gone through, not just once, but twice. In and out.

Without resistance of interruption, Rick's Arcanist's Eye went through the tunnel and came out the other side. On the other side was more dirt path that lead the way through the trees, but more importantly than that.. there were footprints. Many footprints- at least enough to prove that the path was, in fact, well used. Aside from that, there was what appeared to be several pillars of smoke further through the forest, but they weren't thick or dark enough to be the result of fire. Chimneys, perhaps? Was there a village ahead? Or was it a campsite, maybe? There was only one way to find out, one way forward, and that was through the tunnel and up the path before the young man who was so cautiously standing.
Ironically, didn't he have his back turned to the very place where the Red-Eyed Beast had been not so long ago taunting him from? Perhaps he was already trapped in its grasp, unable to see what was sitting right in front of him, and he was doomed to wander the ever-eroding worlds contained within his own mind?

Or maybe he was thinking about it too hard?
Or, perhaps, the Red-Eyed Beast was planning something far more sinister, and was letting him keep his sanity for just a little while longer in order to demolish what little of it remained in the future.
There was only one way to find the truth.

Rick Brackwall had to push onwards, whether he liked it or not, lest he stay in this mysterious world, trapped between a ravine and a tunnel, until he starved to death or went mad.