Chapter 10

I looked towards the apes body, which would be worth a few gold in parts, as I walked towards Freyja and hugged her. "I know you might not understand me, but I'm sorry… I shouldn't have let you go off alone to die," Freyja nuzzled her nose into me as she looked up and howled.

"Howl!!!"

"While I agree with you that it was hard watching them both die, I was happy to see their improvements. Did you see the way Freyja used her speed to keep from being hit by the ape, while Bagheera used his stealth to sneak up and launch a critical hit?" Phoebe quickly chimed in with her observation from the fight.

"They did really good at analyzing their weakness while taking advantage of their strengths to beat a difficult foe. While they did get a "retry" each, it's still impressive," I added, as I walked towards the apes body and put it in my inventory.

We continued our trip towards the center of the forest, while Freyja and Bagheera watched the surroundings for any animals. This time whenever Freyja spotted an enemy, she would wait for Bagheera to come to help take care of it. We had come across many different beasts including, Skeletons, Zombies, Tree Ents, and a few Draugr. The Skeletons held different weapons, which were usually of poor quality. The Zombies were relentless, and until their heads were either crushed or cut off, they would continue to attack without end. The Tree Ents were the hardest to fight, as they would use their vines to attack from different spots in the soil. They looked very similar to some of the smaller trees in the forest making them excellent in sneak attacks. I had already lost one of my life's due to one of their sneak attacks piercing my chest.

While I had died only once, and I still had two more lives to use before I really died, dying once taught me extremely quickly that I did not want to use those lives. Finally, the Draugr were very similar to skeletons and zombies. They were relentless undead that carried weapons of high quality, had various armor pieces, and used a form of magic. While they were difficult to kill… they lost to the Tree Ents due to Bagheera and Freyja struggling to pierce the wooden shell of the Tree Ent, versus the joints between the armor on a Draugr.

Phoebe had found many of the different herbs she was looking for including, Turkey Tail Mushroom, Thyme, Cordyceps Mushroom, Roses, a Ginkgo tree, and some Blood Root. "I have most of the ingredients I need to make the potions… all I'm missing is the Fire Lily, a Mana Drop Flower, and the White Willow bark if we can find it,"

"We're getting close to the Blessed White Willow, there will likely be a few Mana Drop Flowers nearby… once we have both of these it'll be a good idea to head back. The Fire Lily won't be in this area but, once we sell a few potions we should be able to buy it from a different store," I guess it would be wishful thinking to get all the plants we need in one location.

The mist had slowly turned to fog in the area as we neared the White Willow. We made it to a clearing where just in front of us was a large pond with the White Willow Tree growing in the middle. The mist released from the tree was high in mana and healing properties, causing many of the plants in the area and animals to protect it. It was similar to a person hiring a bodyguard… they protect you in order to receive payment; much like the tree releases healing energy and mana into the air which greatly benefit the life around it causing them to want to protect it.

Unfortunately for us, this meant there were a lot of creatures protecting this area. The reason for the high number of undead in the area, can be contributed to the trees healing properties bringing them back to life. This time what we saw was a new creature… the creature I was looking for.

At the front of the tree was a Simulacrum, a creature that could take the form of another animal made completely of ice. It, like many other ice creatures, was highly susceptible to fire damage but could release high power attacks. Around the pond were a few undead who didn't dare get closer to the tree in fear of angering the Simulacrum. And just on the edge of the pond were the Mana Drop Flowers.

Freyja and Bagheera had been greatly increasing through combat. They had both died multiple times but, through each interaction they had grown stronger. Bagheera had learned to control nature slightly. One of its skills could control a vine to fly from the ground. While it wasn't as strong as the ones released by the Tree Ents, it was an improvement in its fighting ability. Freyja hadn't seemed to learn a new ability yet but, its claws left a clear blue outline in the air after a strike. In addition, after each kill Freyja would howl for some unknown reason.

Phoebe and I sent them to kill all the stragglers around the pond, which were quickly taken care of.

As they finished dealing with the undead around the pond, they came to our side as we looked towards the Simulacrum which was staring back at us. "We need to catch it alive if we can, its worth a lot of money if we sell it." I quickly told Phoebe my idea as we prepared for the upcoming battle.