267: Bough
We had only been travelling for twenty minutes out of town before the dark forest came into view. There was a cleared gap between the road and the start of the forest. What surprised me the most was just how different it appeared compared to the forest just on the opposite side of the road.
If I wasn’t looking at it right now, I wouldn’t have believed it. The dark forest was not only glowing brighter with a blue hue to its forageable items, but it felt foreboding, and even from here, dense in mana. On the eastern side, it was like a line had been drawn; it seemed brighter.
Looking down at Lily, however, it seemed like she almost had a spring in her step. Her tail even looked to be swaying back and forth, and she hadn’t growled at Gilain even once so far.
Hari was taking the protection of the caravan along this part very seriously and was unhappy with Crisplet, sending him to the back as he was still entirely focused on the puzzle, now with an additional two pieces off. I was fairly certain that if we were attacked, he wouldn’t even notice right now.
Luis was still in town. He said he’d catch up tonight and was hanging back to see the lord’s reaction once we left the town. He wasn’t yet convinced it wasn’t all an act and really wanted to make sure before sending off the final messengers.
“So what’s for dinner tonight?” Liane said, pulling up alongside.
I let out a snort of laughter, because of course that was the first thing that came to mind.
“No, I haven’t thought of anything yet, but I’ll need to finish off the soup cubes, and I really want to try some baking again. It’s been so long since I made anything,” I said.
From behind me, Jen was first. “Pancakes again!”
“Berry pie!” Liane said almost at the same time.
“I don’t have a lot of fruit yet, that’s the problem, but hopefully we’ll find some as we’re moving through the forest, though there is so much blue in the dark forest right now it’s hard to tell,” I said, looking in that direction again.
“You just need to level up the skill. Shouldn’t be too hard out here. Just start picking stuff when we stop. If you have Lily protecting you, I can’t imagine Hari will have a problem even if it’s the dark forest,” Jen commented.
Something I noticed in the clearing was several dozen stacks of smooth stones in piles. Some of them seemed to have a coloured cloth on the top, while others appeared to have grass growing up the stone, with all of them having small red flowers growing near the base. It all seemed out of place for the clearing.
“What are the rock piles?” I asked, pointing to them.
I saw Jen frown. “They are memorials for people lost to the forest.”
“And the flowers?” I asked.
“Most people think of it as a blessing from the gods. No matter where you are in the world, no matter the season, those flowers grow at graves and memorials for the dead,” Jen explained.
“There are so many stone piles,” I observed as it dawned on me.
“This is, unfortunately, a very dangerous place to work. It only takes one significant beast attack and a whole logging camp will be wiped out,” Jen said.
I immediately wondered why every group didn’t just have an escort, but like all things, I was sure it came down to money.
Nearly two hours had passed before the sound of a horse racing behind us was heard. Hari, who seemed to be on edge, called a stop to the caravan as we moved to the side of the road.
I wasn’t as concerned, however, as Lily wasn’t even looking in that direction, and Crisplet had not reacted at all.
“This will be Luis, won’t it?” I asked.
Jen nodded. “The fact I can’t tell who it is, and can’t even see the horse properly, leads me to believe it’s almost certainly him.”
While we waited, I noticed that Crisplet had finally broken down the first puzzle and was currently inspecting every piece of wood closely, completely uninterested in what was happening around him.
It was Gilain who settled the matter. “It’s just your friend. They are nice trinkets he’s got, but it doesn’t hide the mana entirely.”
It only took a couple of minutes for him to catch up, just as Hari got the caravan moving again. At this stage, both forests were close.
“Caught up faster than expected!” Luis said happily, patting his horse.
“Any trouble after we left?” Jen asked.
“Nah, surprisingly nothing. I expected him to at least send messengers off to other towns, warning the lords of our arrival, but there was nothing. He paid the full amount he owed to the orphanage this morning and spent the day making arrangements to do the dark forest announcement,” Luis explained.
There was a silence as everyone fell back into line, Crisplet now rebuilding his puzzle.
“No trouble on the road?” Luis asked.
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“Nothing at all,” Jen laughed.
We only travelled for another hour before the sun fell behind the treeline, the large trees on either side casting a long shadow over us as darkness was setting in.
I took the opportunity to move up near Hari.
“I don’t suppose when we set up tonight we could do it on the dark forest side?” I asked.
Hari looked at me with wide eyes. “That’s incredibly dangerous, Trev. We can’t do that.”
“I think it would actually be safer for us on that side, with Lily here. We’ve already not seen anything, and you mentioned after Boltron the desperate animals are driven to the edges, right?” I asked.
“And this is the edge, Trev, though I see your point with Lily. Still feels like a risk,” Hari laughed.
In the end, Hari seemed to find a middle ground, choosing to pull off in the small clearing between the dark forest and the road, but staying much closer to the road.
I knew this was against Hari’s usual preference, which was to go slightly into the trees to be more obscured from the road.
As soon as I had Sable sorted, however, I was on a mission to forage before dinner.
“Crisplet, I need you to guard me while we look for stuff,” I said.
I didn’t want to interrupt his puzzle time, but I felt it was important, and I nearly burst out laughing when the ball went from its twelve loose pieces he had been inspecting to entirely completed in only a couple of seconds. Of course, he’d already figured it out.
“Jen, Liane, I’m heading out to do some foraging,” I said.
“No worries, I’ll let Hari know and we’ll come along too,” Jen said, taking the ball puzzle from Crisplet and storing it.
Hari clearly didn’t mind, just going straight to training with Gilain, and I was surprised when Milo joined us as well.
“I figured I’d drag him along in case there’s something in the ground,” Jen gestured with a smiled.
Personally, I was just hoping to find some dilwater berries again. I had run out of those months ago and actually missed them.
As we approached the forest, I noted that Lily still had a spring in her step.
“It feels different now to when we travelled past it to Boltron,” I commented.
Milo nodded. “It’s because your mana senses are far more in tune now than on your first trip. You’ll remember when we said the closer you get to the centre, the stronger the mana gets. Likely what you’re feeling now is the very edge of that.”
I noticed Lily vanished for a second, reappearing and dropping a dead blood owl on the ground.
“Guess we’re getting some hunting done too,” Jen laughed.
While I stored the bird, I made sure to give Lily a scratch as I looked around for the first target. I wasn’t going to be picky here, with the goal to level up my ability.
Which was incredibly easy as the base of the trees appeared to be littered with a kind of turquoise moss, while I saw on several fallen tree limbs there were mushrooms growing from the rotting wood.
Would you like to store [Common] Grove Moss for 5 mana? Yes/No
Would you like to store [Common] Duster Mushroom x8 for 5 mana? Yes/No
These were both new, and something I had probably overlooked dozens of times, focusing on just the rarer items, but it was when I put the mushrooms in storage that I spotted what I was looking for.
“Over there! I think I see berries,” I said happily, pointing in that direction.
Moving towards it, I passed several underground items I’d need to double back for, but I was committed to these berries. However, when I finally reached the bush, it was not what I expected.
The plant itself was such a dark green that it almost appeared black. On it, there were two small bunches of bright red, pea-sized berries that almost seemed to shine.
“Oh, I know these, Ruby drops, really common in poison production, not because they are dangerous, but because they can so easily mask the flavour of everything else,” Liane said.
“Due to that, however, anyone who tastes this berry assumes poison though,” Jen laughed.
I picked them all the same; I was sure I would find a use for them, or just keep them personally.
“We’d better backtrack; I think we passed some mana truffles,” I said with a laugh.
In the end, we made our way through the edge of the forest for nearly an hour, and I collected a large number of items. I managed to find four individual dilwater berries, but even these were not quite ready, and when I tried one, it was ridiculously sour.
I found two mana truffles and plenty of virfolium and mana tears, which was great to refill my supplies. The stand-out item, however, was my second dawnroot; it wasn’t as large as the first, but it was still of rare quality.
Throughout the foraging, it seemed Lily was killing anything that even remotely got close to us, with four more blood owls, two wind hawks, three leaf-bladed spiders, much to Jen’s disgust, and what shocked us all was a heavy thud, as it looked like Lily dumped a branch on the floor—a branch with several large cuts and that flopped to the ground.
“What is that?” I asked in awe as I approached.
“Adult bough snake by the looks of it; they are dangerous ambush predators. They mimic a tree bough and just wait, sometimes over a week, for prey large enough,” Milo said, inspecting it.
“Thanks, Lily,” I said. I had no idea how you’d even start to cook something that looked like a branch, but I’d give it a go.
“We’d better get back; there’s basically no light left, and walking in here at night is dangerous, and I’m not talking about the beasts either; tree roots absolutely destroy the ankles,” Milo said.
He wasn’t wrong either. I tripped not even a minute after he said it, landing hard on the ground. On the plus side, I had not checked yet, but I had almost certainly upgraded my skill level for foraging, as I could block out ‘common’ altogether now, though I left it on because it let me see better while we left the forest.
I noticed Crisplet set that root on fire, where it was quickly reduced to ash before a glare from Lily had him put it out.
I was surprised when we came out of the trees to see Hari and Gilain, both with weapons drawn, standing near the entrance to the shelter Milo had made.
Hari, seeing us, yelled, “Quickly, get away from the forest.”
We didn’t question it, breaking into a slight jog as we made our way over. What really surprised me, though, was that Gilain looked to be on edge. What could possibly have him bothered that Lily wasn’t aware of?
When we made it to the structure, Gilain was quick to explain, “We’re being watched, and I can’t sense them properly.”
Looking down at Lily, I asked, “What is it, Lily? Or who?”
I think, surprising us all, she just let out a huff and flopped to the floor.
A soft, melodic voice, almost as if it were travelling on the wind itself, hit me, “Oh, Trevor, I was wondering when you’d come past my territory.”
Looking around, I didn’t see anything, but the voice was familiar. “Huling?”