Back to the future reality...

‘Fantasy Magic Forest Dangerous. Enter at Own Risk.’

I wanted to put up a couple dozen of those signs as I made my way through the overgrown magical woodlands. Opting for the smart thing, I generally tried to stay close to the river, and if I had to, I could just climb on board Forge and slowly follow it downstream.

But while that might have been easy and somewhat serene, it would not have been nearly as much fun.

There was way too much large game hereabouts, especially on the carnivorous side. I mean, there was plenty of small game, too, but not nearly enough to satisfy the dietary demands of so many large predators. I could only make the assumption that magic was satisfying some of their energy demands to cut down their food requirements, or they must basically alternate between hunting and no-energy hibernation to absolutely minimize caloric usage.

Or maybe the vegetation was simply that nutritious, given how verdant it was. The health and vigor of the greenery was impressive by all standards, which, magic world and all, I should have been expecting.

I was observing everything, from the amount of insect life to the somewhat unreal numbers of flowering plants around, adding a remarkable amount of color to this place.

Results of a Fey presence, or the reason for it? I did see the smallest kinds of faeries fluttering about with the butterflies and bees, indistinguishable unless you knew what you were looking at. Sunlight seemed to glow and glitter on the pollen and dust in the air, spreading light where it normally wouldn’t be.

Of course, where there was an inordinate amount of light, so there would be darker areas, where the forest was quiet, mushrooms increased, you could sniff blood in the air, shadows grew longer and the light drew in, plants drooped, and the wind quieted down, unless it rippled the branches with eerie synchronicity.

Those were the areas I wandered into, the pockets of shadows operating between the pools of sunlight. Generally speaking, I ended up killing everything I found in those places with extreme prejudice.

Sometimes there was loot, sometimes there was not, and if so, it was usually scattered among the remains of the dead.

Being the prudent gamer conditioned by many years of Nightmare and reinforced by scavenging the heck out of the Hag Swamp, along with having a Sword who could quickly gather up everything no matter how scattered it was, helped immensely.

The things in these dark and bloody places were naturally the more dangerous and unnatural creatures of the forest. Packs of spiders led by a queen as big as a small house, big web tunnels in trees the size of redwoods. A scorpion of equal size in a dark cave, all black carapace and snippy-snippy with them pincers. Between the two, I started to expand my poison collection.

There was a hundred-foot constrictor in the river, and then a viper of equal size deeper in the forest. A wyvern the size of a real dragon in a cliff-nest. Manticores with a nest the size of a city block spread across several of these unreal-sized trees. There was a mutated leopard with spikes all over him he could shoot off, and then a bear with plated bone armor supplementing his hide, the size of a small elephant… and breathing rotting gas.

Indeed, there were quite a few creatures like that, going through abrupt mutations and size increases, and not just the normal ‘nature-defender’ Dire mutation that made them big and strong and aggressive. When a hydra’s heads aren’t matching up, all with different looks and patterns to them, that shows an aggressive outside force at work.

Or forces. Shadow-imbued spiders, demon-tainted bears, primal-tainted snakes… different forces were acting on the environment and concentrating their power on apex predators.

Well, the berserk bloodstags were an exception to the predator bit, but they were still omnivores…

The lizard-centipede was new and interesting, that many clawed legs could definitely be a problem if I let it entrap me. Then there was the whole stand of Bone Willows, but not much they could do to me if I just stood back and hacked them down with Baneshardings from a safe distance, which is exactly what I did. The Animated remains of their meals certainly weren’t enough to dissuade me, and I sent the whole clearing down to vivus.

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And that’s how my days went, traveling back and forth between little islands of positive light, to these infections of intruding powers that had sprouted here, there, and everywhere. I reflected that this was normally the kind of stuff that Rangers, Wardens, and Druids would be trying to do something about, and the Fey should normally be reacting to, but there seemed to be no sign of any organized influence out here.

It might be that I was in a zone between influences, where all these creatures had fled to avoid being killed, or were the last of their kind after being killed off elsewhere.

Or, it could be the reverse, that they had moved in here and were expanding, and had beaten back the influences that had once claimed this area.

Mmmm. That Sidhe-whatever Elven kingdom, for example. Given the passive nature of most elves, as long as monsters didn’t step over the lines, they’d just let them be, until they grew into an impossible problem and forced the elves to react.

Of course, I could be all wrong. Warlike, aggressive, and expansionist elves were certainly a possibility. It all depended on the society and if they could keep their numbers up. I knew jack-all about this world and its powers, other than a hamadryad queen somewhere sent out an erlking to claim a valley some Hags had held onto for some time… after someone else had killed them. Brave and intrepid, them Fey.

Said something about the wuss nature of Fey. Good on Stats and magic, but not on intrinsics. They were brutal, cunning, devious, and casually cruel… but they were much better lovers and Casters than fighters, on the meta side of things. Even their resistance to aught but cold-forged iron was done better by demons.

Of course, at lower levels, higher Stats made up for their lacking in combat. However, as things rose further and further, Fey combat ability fell further and further behind. An Erlking couldn’t possibly keep up without his Favored Enemy bonus, and if you knew enough to get rid of it, he was meat on the plate… and less than awesome against anything other than Humans, or whatever his personal civilized race hatred was.

Heh, with my Girdle, I was stronger than he was, even after he Buffed himself…

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I was making some minor Toys for myself as I considered the bones I’d found.

The elves here seemed to be the shorter versions, a bit over five feet tall. It would make next to no difference on their combat prowess. I’d come across the shredded gear and scattered bones of several of them, and the rather well-preserved remains of several in the spider lair.

The difference here was in how bad racial conflicts were in this magical world. Plenty of room to go from decent to basically war footing. Even uncaring neutrality could be a thing.

My face having this Curse on it certainly wasn’t going to earn any goodwill. I sighed as I realized I’d have to wear a half-mask or something until it was gone. It had receded from my neck and shoulder as my Null increased, and covered about half of the left side of my face, more than enough to look utterly horrible. It didn’t bother the Fey, who lived with extremes of beauty routinely, but it would freak normal people out, who would happily leap to the conclusion it was infectious and run me off in their idiocy.

Not hard to do, and I could hold it in place via my Vajra. But wearing an accoutrement that wasn’t magical in some way wasn’t my style, of course. By preference, even my underwear would be magical, no reason for it not to be!

I could use my Mask Tat for now, I supposed.

I’d had plenty of downtime available to work on my Tats. Their main component was the Inks, and the Hags had given me a bunch of stuff to work with. It was painful, but pain was an old friend by now, and if every Chakra point I opened to put these things on hurt worse each time… welp, I got to know the limits of my pain tolerance rather intimately.

I had two sets on my face: the Whiskers of the Wild, and the Mask of Clarity. It wasn’t hard to arrange them to share space, as one was lower face and mouth, and the other upper face, especially the eyes. I hadn’t seen much cause to use them, as they were both obvious and crutches I didn’t want to rely on just yet, preferring to build up my Trembling Domain to the level it had been before. Manifesting them would force the Curse away from the afflicted areas and likely cover my face completely.

Of course, I’d look like a painted barbarian with softly glowing magical Tats on my face, black orbs and sapphire pupils. And, oh, not like a teenage girl. Hah! They’d think I was elf-blooded or something...

I had Essence and ki to spare, so that was no problem.

My arrival at civilization was being delayed by repeated fighting against savage creatures threatening the forest. If I was Powered, I could ask the forest what was going on and start heading for the source of the problem.

Mmmm. Barring that, I’d have to find someone more informed.

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“I need some information.”

The brownie nearly jumped out of his skin. He was a lean little fellow, yet his face was still on the plump side. He was clad in clothes woven from leaves and hemp, carrying only a bone knife as he crept silently through the forest. Being only a little over knee-high to me, he was naturally astonished that something so big could creep up on him.

“Waggh!” He fell over, scrambled backwards… and I reached down, lifted him back onto his feet, brushed him off, and set his cap back on his head politely.

“Sama Rantha, wee goodman of the brown. A pleasure to meet you.”

He blinked a few times, looking up at me, reflexively straightening his finely stitched leaf coat despite himself. Politeness goes a long way with Fey.

“Mikle McMikal of the Clan Malleweon,” he finally got out, staring up at me and my facial Tats. “How may I be of service, m’lady?” he asked carefully. I had to admit he was incredibly cute, especially with how deep his voice was relative to his stature.

I sat down cross-legged so smoothly he probably thought my bones liquified. “I need the wisdom of a native of the forest, Master McMikal. Could you be of aid to me? I can pay in similar gossip.”

His eyes lit up at the idea of a trade, and he puffed out his thin chest. “I hear all that goes on in the forest, m’lady! What wisdom do you seek?”

“The source of the infection.” Tremble poked out behind me, and cast a holo of the forest between us, showing my path over the last few weeks, starting at the Hag Valley and following the river away, veering off here and there to venture into places where big bad things had to be killed. Tremble was well-trained, and as my fingers flitted from place to place, the view zoomed in to reveal a much closer level of detail and what lived there.

“There are terrible creatures in the forest hereabouts, mutated with foul energies not born of the Land. I’ve been killing them as I wander across them...”

“You killed the Mother of Shadows?” he squeaked, as my finger passed the spider lair.

I gestured behind myself. He blinked as Forge drifted out between the trees behind me, spinning to display the great mandibles hanging down one side of a cabinet, still shadowy despite glistening like they did.

“And two hundred and fourteen members of her brood. I cannot swear to have killed them all, but all that were within the fell shadows of her nest are now dead.”

He seemed to be very excited by this news. “Many of the brave sons of Malleweon have died at the stings of her children! We had heard that she had been attacked, but to think she is dead…” He had an awed look on his little face as he stared at the fangs.

“Where do these creatures hail from, that they come to the forest in such numbers? That is the place that must be shut down, else another Queen, perhaps of Bile or Rot or Poison or Ice or Ruin may come, and replace the one that has fallen.” He twitched at my words, and then looked at the map once more.

His bright green eyes were working as he darted over my lived-line. “You have traveled the forest, but you do not know it well?” he asked respectfully.

“That is correct. It is my first time through this land. The Land has been leading me to things to kill, hence my erratic path.” Which truly was going all over the place as I followed the darkness between the light.

“They come from that way.” He pointed, and an arrow corresponding to the direction popped up on the map. He was delighted at the interactivity. “Aye, stealing in under cover o’ night and darkness, killing all in their way and then finding a hole from which to venture from and return, slaughtering as they will. The Queen be fighting a long war against the things to the north and east, but they crawl out of the heart of the forest without pause, and push back her armies. These creatures be the ones that have evaded her forces, and she can spare not the power to be rid of them.”

Well, wasn’t that interesting news. I seemed to have found a Conflict Zone.

Conflict Zones had monsters. Monsters had Karma. I needed Karma to grow, and seriously, I was definitely a mental basket case by now. I needed to fight. Eight or more years of Nightmare heaped on top of the Sama Rantha original coding had turned me into a killing machine. I loved having downtime… because it let me build myself into an even greater killing machine!

I had to have stuff to fight. That’s why I was getting so easily distracted here. Oh, big bad monster worth getting rid of? Let me just wander over there… Hey, there’s another one! Sweet, I’ll just sidle in that direction. Oh, oh, oh! Big meanie trying to pick on me? Let Sama show you how to pick on something bigger than you…

Yes, I was pretty sure I was hopeless and going to be looking for fights for the rest of my life. I didn’t feel even a little bit sad thinking about it.

“My lady,” the brownie whispered, leaning forwards, “there’s something a bit bigger closer by.”

“Oh?” Bigger than some of the over-sized crap I’d been hacking through?

“Aye, it’s coming down from the hill country here.” He reached out and pointed, and Tremble made a light follow his finger, delighting the brownie as he drew it down the map. “The elves are gathering to face the army, but it moves quickly…”

An army? My eyebrows rose, my eyes narrowed. Okay, stop the blood from racing, we aren’t fighting yet.

I glanced at him. “Could I prevail upon you to guide me to the right area?”