I ended up endlessly following the other clues, while searching for the first cryptid. I restarted and read the dialogue again for a clue I might have overlooked. I think it's just not entirely clear where the "clearing" or "path" is, while all the others have such obvious and tightly spaced paths.
Overall I like it, it reminded me of old games, like you'd mentioned in another comment, haha. The writing was pretty good and the ending was cool cause I totally expected it, lol.
For controls though, I may have opted into arrow keys as well, for turning, since Q and E get pretty awkward. But I can totally forgive that on a crunch with lack of time for testing.