Beyond the village

While Eldi was fighting in the dungeon, and the nobles and rebels were conspiring against each other, or among themselves, she let her roots growth from her feet. She sank them into the earth, into the forest, spreading them to other roots, contacting with her kin, watching the movements she had to watch.

The roots could also feed her, a different experience than eating through her mouth, purer, cleaner. She preferred to do it like that if she was alone or with her kin, but she didn't deny the pleasure of tasting the food just like the beings who weren't plants, or sharing the table with those she appreciated.

She found what she was looking for here and there, the movements of one and the other. And although she herself wanted to move, to act, to go beyond her role as an observer, she couldn't do it. She had made a deal, a promise, although it had been made long before she knew she was going to be more involved than she had ever imagined.

Her age was thousands of years, although it had been much less time since she had gained consciousness, and even less since she had evolved into what she was now, a dryad, a pure daughter of nature, of forests, of plants.

And as she had been doing the last hundred years, she continued to observe, feeling empathy towards each one of those who she had to watch. But her heart was beating a little faster when it was he who was in danger, wishing to deploy her power, or ask for the help of her brothers and sisters, although she was aware that she couldn't do it. As much as it hurt, she had to do her job until the end.

"If they were unique, they were probably real. If you felt them as real, they probably were," the Oracle confirmed what he had said days ago, not giving him any new information.

Eldi hadn't obtained much information, apart from the fact that it was strange for the soldiers to be in the vicinity of a dungeon, or that the woman in black could belong to some group of assassins or spies. What was clear to him was that he should stay away from them while he had no more information.

He had also managed to find out that the appearance of the last visitor was information that had been disclosed, so there could be suspicions that he was the one who had returned. After all, he had interacted with them clearly. Therefore, it wasn't ruled out that those soldiers or that woman in black were looking for him. It only remained to know if they were friends or foes.

Eldi sighed. He couldn't take any chances, and that meant it wasn't a good idea to go through the red gate, because they could also be there, which meant he had to change his plans.

And while he was thinking about it, he was crafting some weapons level 25, but only his main ones among those that required wood, because he didn't have enough for all. He decided to use normal metal for the secondary weapons and magic for the main ones, resulting in what in the game were extra category weapons.

There weren't many blacksmiths capable of crafting those weapons, which not only had better statistics than normal, but magical properties that allowed them to block magic attacks, and the skill to be imbued by a spell. He only needed to find a wizard who could do it, since his own spells weren't only not the most suitable for it, but they wouldn't give him more advantage than a small saving of mana. On the other hand, being able to perform a spell that isn't normally available to you can be extremely useful.

He also used some mushrooms for potions 20 and 25, leaving for another time those for which he had no recipe. Simply mixing them to see what could happen wouldn't be a good idea, because the coction times or the proportions are unique for each combination, and a very deep knowledge of alchemy is needed to create new formulas. He only had the recipes of the game, and he didn't know much of the fundamentals of the science of that world, which mixed what he knew with magic.

He couldn't craft any higher level armor than he already had, since he lacked the proper leather, although he could get some new jewelry. And that gave him an idea: there were some caves that were famous in the game for containing deposits of various precious metals, such as gold, silver or platinum, because sometimes they could contain mana. And the caves were only a few days walking from the village.

He didn't know if it would be a good idea, but since he had decided not to go to the Ruby forest, and had no other objective, it seemed a good option, which would also allow him to explore that area. As someone, whose name he didn't remember, had said: "a bad plan is better than no plan."

There were nearby human settlements, so he had to be careful, but it also could give him the opportunity of a first approach, since they would surely not be of a very high level and, therefore, not very dangerous. So he planned to take a look from a distance, and look for an opportunity to interact with the people of that world in the safest way possible.

The Oracle had only confirmed that the place wouldn't be of much higher level than in the game, so he had no more information than his memories and the parts he could read on his map.

It was a low level forest, up to 20 at the most, so it wouldn't be easy to get high level material. There were places with the levels he needed beyond that, several days away, to which he would have to go sooner or later, probably.

He finally reached the small temple that had never ceased to be visible on the map, and that was no more than three menhirs surrounding a circular platform with an engraved triangle. But it sure had some kind power, since it had remained imperturbable all this time.

From there, he had to go to the Northeast, looking for a cave that he only remembered vaguely from the game, in which he hadn't needed to orient himself, since the tools of the game itself had helped him. Now, the map no longer discovered the whole area that he approached, but only the places that he physically visited, so he would have to look for it in a much more manual way.