With a wide grin on my face, I pushed off the branch I had taken a short break on, flying through the air to reach the next. There was a lot of forest to explore, far more than I had thought possible. It would take us days, maybe even weeks, to explore it all, and that was with the fairly insane speed Lia and I could use to traverse it. It was something I had done on Mundus, though with quite a bit of help from Lenore, and now I was doing it on Terra, too.

My attributes were high enough to perform some frankly inhumane feats of athleticism, especially if I augmented them with some Blood Magic. My favourite amongst those feats, by far, was to leap from tree to tree, like some sort of squirrel, avoiding the thick underbrush near the ground level thanks to the height I was travelling at. It didn’t work everywhere, the trees had to be strong and close enough for it, but it worked well enough that I had decided to go exploring on my own, at least for some time. Given that I always could slip into the shadows and get myself out of sticky situations, I wasn’t really worried about enemies, though I remained vigilant. There was no need to blunder into Gravehounds or something similar and get myself bitten in the behind for my troubles.

Thanks to my way of avoiding the ground level of the forest, I could rapidly traverse it, though I obviously missed out on quite a bit by doing so. Looking for tracks when walking on the ground was easy, looking for tracks while leaping from tree to tree some five to ten metres above the ground was decidedly difficult, if not impossible. To make matters worse, it didn’t look like the forest had gained the predator-prey equilibrium it eventually would, there were far too many prey animals and too few predators, at least from what I could tell. There seemed to be near-infinite numbers of squirrels sharing the treetops with me and the number of various birds was similarly off the charts and near the edge of the forest, where it met the fields, I had come across a large number of burrows, mostly rabbits. Those rabbits had been what Lia and Silva usually turned into our dinner, a resource we only had to share with some weasels, foxes, dogs and several formerly domesticated cats. The last ones were the primary predators in the forest, the dogs stuck to the fields and the others didn’t have the numbers.

It made me wonder how long it would take for the current cats and dogs to turn back into a more primal form, something less adapted to human cohabitation and more to the wilderness. Or, alternatively, how long would it take for those not easily adaptable to die off if they hadn’t already? It was a fascinating question. especially as the system made adaption a whole different game than it had been before the change. Instead of having to adapt over successive generations, with the traits best suited to reproduce passing down, the system allowed for a far more individual change.

It was especially obvious with those small purse dogs, the chihuahuas and what-not. Their only purpose had been to look cute, or at least what some considered cute, and not take up a lot of space, leaving them completely unsuited to survive without a somewhat caring owner. And yet, it seemed that those very purse dogs were somehow able to wield magic the easiest, as my experiences with the Army of Dog had shown, giving them the skill to survive and thrive. I was fairly certain that similar adaptions of individual beasts would in some way be passed down to their eventual offspring, essentially causing new branches to emerge. Maybe in a few decades, there would be various flavours of small, magical canine, to mix and match against their larger, physically adjusted counterparts.

It would be fascinating to observe and my greatest regret was that I couldn’t observe everything at once. Maybe I’d have to do a little begging with the Lady Hecate, there might be some way to gain access to the stores of knowledge and observations She likely had. Or, if I was a good Mother to Luna, I might eventually gain access to the library She had to have.

Though, to be fair, the primary danger for critters in the forest didn’t come from some predating animal, it was far more interesting. It came from an impossibly large variety of carnivorous plants, none of which had existed before the change happened. There were numerous vines, shrubs and grasses around that all seemed to have developed a taste for flesh and blood, though a few also targeted insects. However the vast majority was after meat, not just protein, and the ways the plants were waging war on their supposed predators were immensely varied and fascinating.

The most numerous were the vines and I almost got tangled up in a few before I easily recognised the signs and learned to avoid them. They were somewhat similar to ivy, wrapping around trees but the biggest difference was that these vines didn’t cling, they merely used the trees to climb, laying in wait for some unsuspecting critter to fly or run by. Once that happened, the vines whipped out with surprising speed and force, wrapping the critter up in a ball and crushing it. The behaviour was somewhat similar to constricting snakes, though the plants didn’t swallow their prey, they simply wrapped themself around it and digested it within that ball. I wasn’t sure if they had some specialised fluids to help, some sort of acid or something that they exuded after catching something, but it was something Alex was investigating. While making sure to stay as far away from them as possible, while I was far too large to be a viable target for them, Alex was completely in their range.

In addition to the vines, some shrubs might have spawned from some horror movie. My first encounter with them was when I noticed some tasty-looking berries, just sitting there between the leaves and decided to investigate. It was only thanks to my nose warning me that there was a distinct scent of poison and death in the air that I looked more closely and noticed the wicked thorns on the plant and when I used a bit of Ice to poke the plant in an attempt to harvest the berries, the result was explosive. The plant shot numerous of its thorns into the direction of the offending appendage, with enough force to break my conjured Ice. When I carefully picked up the thorns, they all had a distinct coating of fluid, one that was poisonous enough to rapidly paralyse a few critters, killing them shortly after. I had no idea what sort of defensive mechanism that was supposed to be, but when I investigated the plant a little more, I noticed multiple small bones nestled between its roots, making me wonder if it was defensive or if the berries were bait. Either way, I took notes and decided to investigate the poison at some point, maybe in another joint project with Alex. They would certainly love the stuff.

Lastly, there were the grasses, growing between the trees and maybe the most, or least, dangerous plant in the forest. They were completely harmless to everything standing about a metre in height, or able to keep their head above that level, but the grass was deadly for the rest. Similarly to the poison-thorn brush, the grass was poisonous, but instead of killing violently and nearly instantly, it was sweet-smelling, inviting a critter to nom on a bit of grass before the soporific effect kicked in. Once the critter was asleep, it would never wake again, its flesh, blood and bones turned into nutrients for the grass. The whole carpet of grass might be a single organism, I had yet to investigate. There might be some way to domesticate the grass, as amusing that idea sounded, but I wasn’t sure we’d remain in the area long enough for it to be viable. Either way, my focus was on other things, leaving the plants for Alex to study, with a bit of help from Lia.

Curiously, while the sheer number of critters in the forest should have stripped it bare of everything even remotely edible, that wasn’t the case. I guessed that the carnivorous plants caused something of an equilibrium of their own, killing enough critters to keep the rest from certain parts of the forest, but I wasn’t sure.

What I knew was that there were quite a few berries of various unknown types and even some larger fruits, something that might have been apples in a previous life, or maybe pears or something along those lines. It was fascinating to look at fruits I had never seen before and wonder what had brought them into existence, though given the sheer lethality of the other plants I was somewhat hesitant when it came to tasting them. There was no way that I’d get myself killed because I thought some fruit looked like an apple, so it should taste like one, too, and not try to kill me. In that regard, caution was the buzzword of every day we remained in the forest, caution, vigilance and paranoia, the holy trinity of staying alive.