The Exploration phase is optional in each round. The first step of the Exploration phase is EXPLORING. This allows you to place new forest cards in your PATH before you move onto them. Not only does this give you information about what’s coming up, it also allows the possibility to place new forest cards with the daytime side face up. A forest card’s daytime side is less dangerous than its nighttime side.

To explore, choose one, two, or three ready and/or from your dice pool. Then, roll them one at a time, in whatever order you wish. For each result (and before rolling the next die, if any remain), do the following.

• Miss . Draw a forest card from the bottom of the deck, turn its nighttime side face-up, and add it to the end (top) of the path. Exhaust the die.

• Basic Hit . Draw a forest card from the bottom of the deck, leave its daytime side face-up, and add it to the end (top) of the path. Exhaust the die.

• Crit result . Follow the instructions for a result. Then, gain 1 gold.

If you’re called on to draw and place a forest card but the deck has been depleted, you’re nearly to the final battle! See “When the Forest Runs Out”.

After exploring, you get to visit the merchant (see “Visiting the Merchant”) before moving on to the Travel phase.