Teleportation in Brogdar is exactly as useful as you think it'd be. One moment I was walking downstairs to my dungeon and then I was completely surrounded by light.

That all-surrounding and all-blinding light lasts about three seconds before I instantly appeared in a completely new environment: mountains.

Or, at least, rocky peaks that look like mountains. I'm standing on a clean-carved plateau, nestling itself in the side of one of the taller peaks and overlooking a valley. It must be hundreds of feet deep but I can clearly see across the valley from my cliff, all the way to the opposite end's peaks. The sun is still bright, too, which lets me see each and every curve of the mountainscape in all its glory. But the valley's size isn't what's important or breathtaking to me.

It's the fact I got placed on a giant peak overlooking this massive valley... yet there's no pathway or walkway or anything leading down from here. Moving to the ledge lets me see that it's almost an entirely vertical drop, too, so sliding down casually is out of the question.

But I need to get down into the valley. The rough and terrible terrain up here is still somewhat warm but the valley below is thriving; large trees and a few flower fields.

I think I see buildings carved or made of stone down there, resting in the bend of the valley's shape. The first sign of civilization I've yet to encounter in my new life. That alone is too important to pass up getting to.

[Codex] - Notification You have discovered a new location: Grey Valley.

Codex. Locations: Grey Valley.

Grey Valley Located in the free country of Gardril, the Grey Valley is sometimes recorded as the "Fringe of the World" as it marks the final stretch of settled land in Brogdar. The mountains surrounding the Valley are known as the Great Grey Barrier Range and the Outer Doldols; this places it on the border of the lawless Kave Great Plains to its east and the majority of Gardril known as the Doldol Heartlands to its west. [Notification] Updating Kave Great Plains Codex entry. Kave Great Plains On the edges of civilization, the Kave Great Plains were once home to Gardril's seat of power. Roughly 400 years ago, a cataclysmic event led to the abandonment of these plains. Its southern proximity to the Barripatch Islands makes it one of Grey Man's few-known holy lands, yet no one dares go there due to the invasive species that call it home. The only adventurers who come here are the desperate fleeing or willingly crossing through the Great Grey Barrier Range from Grey Valley.

Two for the price of one is always the best deal, as they say. Although it didn't grant me any additional information, this at least paints somewhat of a picture of the geography of Brogdar. This place lies to the west of my dungeon, whilst there are apparently islands somewhere north of Kave. Even further to the west of here, though, is even more land and territory.

In the future, I might need to try and fashion up a map.

For now, though, this trip at least has me excited to explore.

Inventory.

I'd been stockpiling a lot of Creeper Thorn vines back before I found out how effective the walls were so that should be ample amounts of impromptu rope. This clearing doesn't have anything that looks too sturdy, though, so I better summon one of the ribs I have left from the Omega Ranbi. Those things are tough and thick enough that they can endure being thrust into tough ground and hold my weight.

...

Alright, the sections of the vine and the rib are all linked together. I'm still not fully sure of my skill but in the worst-case scenario, I can create two spikes mid-fall and simply catch myself with my staff. My new body might be unwieldy but it being a plant does grant me the distinct advantage of being much lighter than a person or creature my size.

The real problem is that I'm totally terrified of heights and it's about fifty feet down. A fear of heights isn't that uncommon but it feels fucking horrible when you're forced into a situation with no other choice. It's not like I have any magic to slow my descent unless I choose to take the Wind Element Affinity... and doing that would cripple my potential with Earth, so that sounds bad even in the future.

I coil the vines tighter around my trunk-like body, pulling experimentally while watching the rib. It doesn't move... which means it must be pretty secure.

But I won't know until the vine itself has my weight on it.

... Fuck me. Here goes nothing.

I walk off the edge, clasping at the Creeper Thorn in one hand and my staff with the other.

The vine jerks and I nearly pass out. Thankfully for my sanity, though, that's as much as it does; after the jerk, I tumble a long way down, dragging my staff along the cliffside so that I don't fall too fast. All the leaves on my body catch the wind and rustle, fluttering so loud that I can't hear anything for a long time.

Until, at last, I stop.

I'm three feet above the bottom. The exact end of my vine's length.

Fuck me. Cutter Thorn.

I release the vine, forming my magical knife and slicing through the part holding me so I drop the rest of the way down. I might not have knees but my lightweight definitely helps slow me down while falling, lowering my staff so the fall is only about a foot before it clanks off the rocky ground. A quick tumble of a landing is all I need, righting myself on this new slope of the mountain.

The remainder of the way down the mountain to the valley's woods is all perfectly handleable with my current body. I shake the Cutter Thorn dismissively out of existence, looking at my staff's crystals.

Recall.

[Notification] Recalling will send you back to the Dungeon. Are you sure you'd like to use it now?

[Yes] | [No]

It looks like recalling works still... which means I shouldn't need to climb my way back-up. It'll be a good idea to keep checking while I make my way into the valley, though.

No.

The menu closes, leaving me to myself and the wilderness.

Honestly, it's still a little befuddling to see terrain like this after spending so long in a sea of just... grass. There might be grassy and flowery fields here but the sight of trees makes me feel smaller than ever. I don't think the trees here are northern pines or anything like that, but they're still pretty tall. They're easily about seven feet wide and much taller.

This place makes me think of old woods, honestly. A place that hasn't really been touched or might have something unnatural with its ecosystem.

A place that feels oddly perfect for a bushman like me. And that only helps the Quest alert sound all the sweeter, if you ask me.

[Quests]:// A Nugget of Truth Your world is always expanding, isn't it? You control your territory and now look outward to explore and find more! But the best way to do that is to rely on more than your own means. It's time to meet the locals who can talk.

Meet a humanoid-level intelligent species.

Bonus: Learn a Language ability.

This quest is... unusually easy, isn't it? Actually, isn't that almost impossible to do in that order? I don't really understand what it means by humanoid-level but if it means humans, wouldn't they have languages I'd learn from them? Plus, does this mean that Ropert and I communicating isn't through an ability?

... I didn't go senile and imagine Ropert talking to me, did I?

Maybe this will be the first time I don't complete a Bonus objective. I don't mind the idea but it does feel a little cheap for them to make me almost have to avoid an intelligent species if I want to complete the bonus.

Whatever. Fuck it. If it happens, it happens. Getting every bonus is a nice idea but I need to discover everything I can about this valley. If that means missing out on a quest reward so I can meet and learn more about Brogdar, then it's worth the lost opportunity.

Step one: slide my way down the rest of the mountainside to that pleasant-looking stretch of grass and trees down there.

I turn and posture my staff behind me, taking one step to make sure I know just how slippery it is. It doesn't immediately break out from under me, letting me plant my staff lightly and start stepping down faster. Thankfully, this body might suck at stairs but sliding is a lot easier to do when you're armed with a slightly pointy stick.

...

Calling me excitable is steadily growing easier with all this new terrain. Scaling down rocky outcrops might not be fun to some people but to me it's an adventure all on its own.

The trees aren't the only thing different here, either; comparing the grass of Kave which is easily some of the tallest I've ever seen, the grass of Grey Valley is about up to my waist. Not only that, but the color of it is a greyish blue. I cut some of it off and tried moving the mana around me and confirmed a hunch.

The grass itself is a catalyst for mana. Either that or it stores it, similar to my crystals. I can't exactly overtake it as I did with the Favor crystal but I can definitely feel it "shifting" whenever I try to push mana through it. A place like Grey Valley might actually be more at-home for me than I thought if I can discover a means to extract or utilize this stuff.

For now, though, I'm going to make sure I can bring some of this grass back. My staff will have to do as a shovel since I never built a handtrowel, but that's more than enough. It takes a few moments of cutting at the tough soil but once I break away a decent-sized amount of it, I lift the grass and ground up together.

Inventory.

It all vanishes, sent off back to my dungeon. Next up is studying these massive trees. Firstly, they're not a catalyst or anything of the sort. They interact with mana no differently than normal, so they're not worth sending back.

But a small cutting lets me see the wood inside... and I'm pretty sure wood was never meant to be this pale or washed out. The inside of the tree is almost as grey as stone, whereas the bark is a dark, rich brown. It's not dead, either; this is just the natural coloration of the tree's insides.

Grey Valley may earn its name in a lot more ways than I originally thought.

I don't know just how useful this wood is, though. A few more cuts lets me see that all the trees are like this... but when I had been higher up, there wasn't any sign of trees being cut down. If there's civilization here, they haven't been using it as a resource. It seems that it's more likely that the trees here are probably a select good at best, while also entirely possible that all of them are sacred or too imperfect for wood-usage. I'm really hoping it's not the sacred part.

Anyways, downward and onward. There's more valley to explore.