The expedition was doomed to fail as soon as we walked through that gate.
The forest was different. I knew as soon as we'd landed. The paths had changed and even the trees and other plants were different.
There was also the fact that I'd seen some of the trees move the further we walked through the dark forest, confirming what I had original thought the last time. The forest was alive and it wasn't as open to outsiders as it had been before.
"That's the tree you marked ten minutes ago! We're going in circles!" One of the party members I had been saddled with as well as Lord Douche yelled, kicking the Lord's marked tree out of frustration.
The others were starting to get agitated as we'd been walking around the forest for almost an hour with no end to it in sight. To make matters more unsettling, I had not sensed a single monster in the forest since we'd landed.