The village does have some kind of undercurrent of fear or stress, but the villagers are putting on a happy front.  It seems to be mostly humans, but a few people have horns or hooves or tails.

One person looks very inhuman with bright red skin, a hunched posture, and a gaunt, almost skeletal, body.  They take a long look in Weiss's direction, as if trying to see through her invisibility, but then give up and look away.

He can probably see the MAGIC. Fuck.

Can she apply an illusion to an illusion? Yo dawg, I heard you like illusions, so I put illusions in your illusion so you can illusion while you illusion-

...She's been stretching the mental and magical muscle in unusual ways, today. It's twisty, but surprisingly thrilling and compelling. She'd gotten lazy.

So. Can she? There's only one way to find out, and it's to try.

She will hang out somewhere out of the way, maybe out by the fields, and noodle at it until she can at least hide things from her own arcane sight.

Does Red Guy, then, seem to react again when she brazenly (invisibly, invisi-magically, inaudibly, etc) walks right up to him?

He doesn't seem to react... he picks up his spear he had left planted in the ground.

Without a word or gesture, he uses a Dispel on Weiss, targeting her invisibility.  Then he suddenly seems to notice her!

"Demon!  Call the guards!"

(The babau had already alerted a few of the other demons with his telepathy, so a dretch is already ready to charge in!  He is holding back from using his stinking cloud, he is playing a crusader without magical powers and is committed the bit, even carrying a cold iron sword instead of relying on his claws!)

'Demon' is really quite a fair thing to call an unfamiliar giant fox.

Nope this was stupid, time to run now!

She is really quite fast when she decides to book it. And also reapplying her invisibility, and sending two decoys to go straight and left as she jukes right.

How the fuck is it still seeing her. She needs to find out. So she can hide from it. But - staying around after being detected and called out is just an absolute idiot move.

He will try to put up a chase, but he really isn't fast enough and he doesn't have the innate ability to see the invisible, just keen senses, and it seems his quarry has masked scent and sound.

"Careful everyone, this is a job for us noble crusaders!"

He can see invisibility, but he can't see through illusions in general, and the decoys are quite convincing.  He'll follow one for a bit and then take the opportunity to "accidentally" stab one of the villagers and blame it on an illusion.

"No, ignore the foxes, go after the demon!"  One of the villagers yells.

It must be a decoy illusion, which the illusion swapping crusaders (and other non-demon, non-cultists outsiders) with demons and demons with crusaders missed.  The correct solution would have been to suppress his see invisibility and then figure out which fox he stopped being able to see... Oh well, whatever.

"Egads, some illusion has beset me!"  He stumbles around and stabs the yelling villager.  That'll teach him.

"The horror, I seem to have been fatally misled."  He is careful to avoid vital organs, even with an excuse that the villagers will force themselves to accept he can't go breaking the toys excessively without permission. Although he really, really wants to. 

...What is going on... She doesn't even know and can barely begin to guess. More horrible, deranged experiments, committed for the sake of madness or amusement rather than any reasonable purpose? Alternate-cryptids walking the earth and amusing themselves?

Maybe she should go back and try to... Help? Or something. But usually it's best to leave things alone. She's not safe herself, she's probably being hunted still.

Onward, onward.

The forest around the village is the most vibrant and living area she has seen in this wasteland yet!  It basically looks like a normal forest.  Well, some of the wildlife looks a bit off...  She could try to get a closer look at some of it to see what is going on?

This place might be a good spot to camp...? No, the Woods Between are safer, and she's still absorbing energy fast enough to use them.

She'll slow down to observe, at least. Maybe try to figure out how to take bearings or star readings (they're different constellations...) in case it's the only bit of civilization anywhere on the continent or something. There aren't any Spirit World shortcuts around here, it's a seemingly endless hostile plain.

Some of the wildlife has strange brands or markings!  It otherwise seems normal?

If she is paying enough attention to the energy, she might note it significantly less tainted in this forest than anywhere else she has been since her kidnapping.  And there is an unusual concentration of energy she could follow along a footpath towards.

Is she really equipped to investigate this? No, not really.

She does note down the brands and markings, as best she can, binding them all into inactive illusions on a random rock, which then goes into her tail.

Unusual less-fucked-up energy is worth investigating. Maybe it's someone sane.

Following the energy and the footpath leads to a cave which has clear signs of habitation by a person.

Outside the cave, to the south, she can smell a bear along with some strange rot and decay, but the cave has normal smells like cooked food and various drying herbs.

...

...She shouldn't drag uninvolved people into her troubles. It was selfish to even investigate the village.

The undead, though, that is something she is well used to sensing, and going out of her way to remove. At least, she thinks she smells undead.

The bear (which is also the source of the rot) isn't particularly trying to hide itself or its trail.  Weiss should be able to track it down quite easily.

Okay but it is obviously undead, right? Not, say, horribly sick but living?

At least part of the bear is still living!  Part of it's body is rotting away, to the point maggot and insects are living in it and Weiss can see exposed bone.

Actually, focusing her senses further... the bear isn't just a bear and the maggots aren't just maggots.  The bear is some sort of spirit, embodied or maybe bound in physical form.  And the maggots are also spirits, tied to it in some sick symbiosis.

The bear notices her studying it, and looks back at her.  Its eyes hold deep pain.

.........Another thing that can see through all her stealth. Is her flight just hopeless?

Regardless. It's clear enough that what she's about to do can be interpreted as a mercy kill.

It reminds her of the sick shit that the parasitic or body-stealing sorts of cryptids put people through. Some things just need to burn.

Actinic blue fires rush out, blooming hot and high. They're meant to only burn the rot, the evil, the foul, and the bindings that hold it here. As painless as possible. Will it work on this strange sort of spirit? They're magical fire, they should. If not, she has little else to try.

"O illumine, the soft clouds that lace the sky... Take this one in your arms and give them sleep."

The bear silently and solemnly allows the flame to wash over him.  It takes a moment, but indeed, the maggots and the binding holding them to the bear-spirit burn away.  The bear is fatally wounded without the binding, but it's eyes seem to thank Weiss as it passes away and its spirit is free from its tainted body.

Something shifts subtly in the forest, some balance is disturbed...

For the good and light, one hopes. Though she is beginning to suspect that the Light Gods have no reach here. Or very limited reach.

Tamamo is usually too chatty.

Sigh.

A bit of time in Not Horrible Wasteland can't hurt anything too much, can it? Just an hour or two of laying here, among trees.

It is indeed peaceful for the first half hour or so...

But before an hour has passed, someone comes from the direction of the cave.

It is a strange looking dwarf woman.  She bears a magical amulet that matches the brand Weiss has seen on some of the animals in the forest.  She walks over to the corpse of the bear.

"Oh Orso…"

She casts a spell and proceeds to look around the area.