The Disdained Luna Who Rose Alone-Chapter 147 Found, But Not Quite

Evelyn’s POV

Eryx had only told Chuck that the plant was useful for research, without telling him who I was or why I really needed it.

"Our lab is studying plants right now," I said casually. "It would be great to find this one, but if we don’t, that’s okay too."

I kept my voice light, like this wasn’t that important, even though it really was.

Chuck’s eyes lit up with interest, and he played with the cigarette in his fingers.

After walking for more than two hours, we’d only gone about half the way. I’d brought most of my security team into the forest, leaving some back at the town just in case. Jackson hadn’t come into the forest, he stayed in town to provide tech support. Our phones didn’t work out here because it was easy to lose signal in the forest, but we had satellite phones for emergencies. These were mainly for me. The others could use mind-link to talk to each other. Thanks to modern technology, I could at least try to keep up with how my werewolf teammates communicated.

When we circled back to the same location for the second time, I stopped and observed Chuck’s increasingly frustrated pacing. It was clear we were lost.

He lit his cigarette and took a long drag, then let out a sigh. "All this rain lately has made the forest fog way thicker than normal. We got turned around." He looked at his old watch. "I’ll go ahead and look for the right path. You all stay here and drink some water and eat some energy bars."

Eryx and I looked at each other, both feeling uneasy about that idea.

"Mr. Blackburn, this forest looks pretty dangerous. There are probably wild animals around," I said carefully. "I’ll send some of my people with you to be safe. And take these—"

I took a small bottle of glowing tracking powder and a GPS device from Jackson and gave them to Chuck.

"This powder lights up under UV light and this GPS thing will show us where you are. Even if you get lost, we can find each other."

Chuck took them without arguing, his eyes getting excited. "Well, I’ll be damned! Your lab must be doing some amazing stuff. Makes this old hunter wonder what you city people are really up to."

What Chuck didn’t see was one of my guards quietly putting reflective tape on trees as we walked, making a trail we could follow with flashlights in this foggy forest.

As soon as Chuck left with four of my security team, I instructed the remaining guards to deploy our thermal imaging drones. The forest fog was too dense for visual surveillance, but these commercial units came equipped with heat signature detection that could track body heat through the mist.

"Got them," the drone operator announced, passing the tablet to Eryx who handed it to me.

On the screen, I could see Chuck leading my four guards toward the southwest, walking at a steady pace.

"It looks like Mr. Blackburn might be messing with us," I said.

The tracking powder I’d given him should have shown up as bright spots on the heat camera if he’d used it, but there was only one heat trail showing—the one from my security team. Either he was really lost or he was leading us the wrong way on purpose.

I hadn’t brought so many people just for protection. This trip had another reason: looking for rare medicinal plants. If the Stellaris Moonbane Root could grow here like Chuck said, this clean forest environment might have other valuable plants that had disappeared from places where people lived.

The forest’s untouched ecosystem seemed perfect for these rare plants. Before coming to Thunder Creek, I’d looked up all the medicinal plants I could find and had Jackson put a plant identification app on our tablets. The plant guides and apps we brought could help us figure out what herbs we found.

"Use the plant apps and search around here," I told several teams. "Be careful of the fog, and if you find any swampy areas, watch out for poisonous gases."

I didn’t just sit there either. I went a short distance away with Eryx and a few guards. He kept checking Chuck’s movements on the tablet, still going southwest with no sign of stopping.

All my guards had satellite phones and walkie-talkies to call us if they found the right path, but no messages came as time went by. I didn’t find any rare plants, but I did find several that were good for stopping bleeding and put them in my backpack.

When Chuck came back with my security team, I was already waiting where we’d agreed to meet.

"I found the path. Let’s go," he said, then looked around. "Where are the others?"

I didn’t see any point in lying. "I saw a lot of medicinal plants along the way earlier. I sent some people to collect samples. They’ll go back to town later."

"Okay," Chuck said after thinking for a moment. "We should move fast while we still have daylight."

I nodded and checked my watch. We’d left at 7:00 AM, and three hours had already gone by. Chuck said we still needed at least two more hours of hiking to get there, so we’d arrive around noon. The trip back would take almost five hours.

In fall, it gets dark early, around 5:00 PM. Being stuck in this forest after dark would mean not just hidden dangers but really cold temperatures too.

Everyone quickly got their stuff together and followed Chuck at a fast pace. Thankfully, this time we didn’t end up going in circles.

After two tiring hours, we finally got to the spot where Chuck said he’d seen the Stellaris Moonbane Root. But what we found was disappointing.

The orange tape Chuck had tied around the tree to mark it was still there, but the ground around it had been torn up by wild animals. All the plants had been partly eaten.

"Well, I’ll be damned! They’re all gone!" Chuck said, sounding really disappointed.

He walked around the tree twice, making sure it was the one he’d marked, then turned to me and shook his head. "I found plants that looked just like the ones in your picture right under this tree. Pretty little things with weird colors—I thought they might be what you wanted, so I marked the spot."

He pulled at the wet orange tape. "With this."

I got down on my knees to look closely at the chewed plant stems, getting more excited even though they were damaged. The bottom parts looked promising.

Standing up, I smiled at Chuck. "It’s not a complete loss. The animals only ate the leaves and flowers. If this really is Stellaris Moonbane Root, what we actually need is the rhizome—the root system."

I told Eryx and the team to start digging. We’d find out soon enough if we’d found the real thing by looking at the root structure.

Chuck stood watching, his gray hair pulled back under his old cap, his weathered face in shadow as he watched our work with those sharp eyes.