A few days have gone by Raven has kept himself busy moving wood to the tree cleaning up the ground level around the tree removing stones from the soil and cleaning moss and hand sized beetles from the trees base that seem to be eating the bark. When Raven feels he should start working on his stats while he has the time asking Anna if its OK if he has a few days to himself to head out and see about making himself some gear and leveling some as he feels he is by far to weak at the moment, Anna nods and tells him “that would be fine just be careful and if you find anything interesting bring it back to the tree I’m sure if you don’t want it we can make use of it. Since we cant leave the tree for extended time having some one like you look farther than we can could be beneficial.” Raven thanks her collects his gear and heads out to the forest, he remembers seeing some deer looking creatures in the forest and he's craving some meat at the very least, plus having some leather to work with couldn’t hurt maybe some new clothes are in order.

Wandering out to the woods and finding the area he remembered its a small clearing in the woods where a natural water spring sits in the middle bubbling up fresh clean and cold water to the surface the area around it is lush green and seems to be brimming with life from butterflies small fish in the spring and brightly colored bids in the trees all in this one area. Raven approaches the spring looking for tracks from the deer in hopes he can see something that looks fresh to give chase but as he comes closer to the spring he notices something within the deep spring. In the center of the spring under the water seemingly lifelessly floating there he sees a naked woman with flowing green hair with a slight green tint to her body. Raven panics dropping his pack and jumping into the spring to save the woman from drowning as he swims up to her to pull he out of the water he feels resistance like she's stuck in place, looking down Raven sees the woman almost appears to be made of wood her legs stretching down into the ground of the spring like roots as Raven turns back to the womans face he sees her eyes open and looking directly at him with piecing and glowing green eyes. In shock Raven swims back and jumps out of the water placing his hand on the longsword equipped around his waist the wooden woman slowly rises from the water her legs seemingly extending pushing her body up.

The wooden but strangely attractive woman breaches the waters surface stopping a few feet above the water looks at Raven and smiles “what does this young one want with Olive of the forest? Why do you disturb my growth?” Ravens jaw drops as he stares at her, he may be a lizard now but in his past he was a red blooded male human and the figure this woman has would be the desire of any man. Catching himself after a few seconds of slack jaw staring he coughs into his hand to recover and replies “I’m sorry I did not mean to disturb you I had thought you were drowning and dove in to try and save you. I didn’t mean any disrespect or to disturb you I am very sorry.” Olive smiles looking Raven up and down “a Kobold thought to save another race from drowning? Now I’m intrigued what is your name young one?” Raven sputters “R-r-Raven Raven Hex, I am new to these lands and just trying to make a life for myself.” Olive nods and hums a sound that tickles Ravens insides in a strange and relaxing way “new to these lands you say how interesting. You don’t act like a Kobold and in fact the energies coming off you almost seem human but wrong in some way. Your not from Fertixia are you…?” Raven steps back the clear sign of shock in his face as Olive nods “I thought so, you smell of summoning magics it’s weak but it’s there, the energy is bleeding off of you and into my forest I could taste it many days ago. I was wondering what might be the cause I guess now I know, its you.” Raven replies hurriedly “ if you know I’m not from here do you know what happened to me? how did I get here? what is this place? why do I see a system in my vision when I focus on it and hear voices that are not my own in my head!?” Olive smiles “ I’m sorry child but that is not my place to tell you, what I will tell you is that the gods of this world can be cruel but also loving in their own way, if they brought you here they have a reason for it and I’m sure you will learn their reason in your own time. I am of the forest and as such the world out there is of no concern of mine. I may be old but not foolish the gods do not like people meddling in their affairs so that is all I will tell you of that I’m sorry.” Raven sighs slumping his shoulders in defeat and nodding to Olives words. “Tell you what young one I have need of some one like you, the energies bleeding off you could help me with a task I have to complete, you were once human so I think it might still work even with you being reptile in nature now. I have to warn you though it may be a bit of a hard task for you, very exhausting and may take a while to complete.” Olive giggles. Raven looks at her with a cocked eye brow “in what way can I help you? I have nothing and no skills really to speak of.” Olive laughs and says “ oh don’t worry you have plenty of skill I’m sure come here and place your hands on mine.” Before Raven even knows what he's doing he finds himself walking into the water and placing his hands on hers, as he does roots grow from her hands and over Ravens joining them the roots going up his arms and neck then growing like a grown around his head a peaceful and pleasant feeling washing over him his eyes feel heavy and Raven closes them.

Raven wakes up with a yelp, feeling drained and weak his legs shaking as he stands up at the bank of the spring, looking to the spring he finds a small oak tree growing where Olive once floated a small patch of ground under the tree filling the spring mostly in leaving a ring of water around the tree. Raven calls out “Olive where are you, what was that? what happened?” but no one responds. Concerned quickly walks around the tree finding no trace of her he sighs with defeat, with nothing left to do here he decides to carry on with his adventuring and supply gathering. Raven walks down a small game trail he found leading away from the spring hoping this will lead him to the deer creatures he found earlier keeping an eye on his surroundings when he hears something up ahead a bleat from an animal. Activating stealth and slowly moving forward Raven draws his longsword wishing he had a bow he advances. Coming to a thinly treed area he finds three Deer laying on the ground between some trees ears up and pointed In his direction the animals are on alert Raven decides its best not to move any more till they calm down and hopefully go to sleep. As Raven watches the animals they get up a few times road around there chosen spot and eating grass Raven feels his eyes getting heavy, fighting back a yawn he tries to shake himself away which helps for a bit but every few minutes he feels the sleepiness return. Slowly as he watches the animals his head lowers to the ground and he falls asleep and quickly dreaming.

Raven is standing in a white, void thick fog in the area. Raising his hand fog quickly covers most of it. Calling out Raven shouts “hello anyone there?” A womans voice giggles behind him as Raven turns around he finds Olive but no longer a tree or wooden woman she appears to be a human woman still naked and still the most attractive woman he has ever seen in his life. She raises a hand and the fog starts to fade away but not fully leaving her figure fully visible she reaches out to Raven and without meaning to Ravens hand reaches to hers as it does Ravens hand changes from green and scaly to white slightly tanned just like his old hand, reaching up to his face he finds his face is human again everything about him is human again. Olive smiles and snaps her fingers, as she does Ravens clothing disappears leaving him standing in front of her fully undressed. Without being able to resist Olive and Raven embrace one another locking lips and falling to the ground.

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Some time later Raven opens his eyes to find himself back in the forest where he was hunting the deer when he sees the usual message “congratulations you have earned psychological resistance one. you have an affinity to this skill doubling its effects”, looking around he finds only one deer still there and appears to be sleeping peacefully abandoned by its cohorts. Raven shakes off the odd dream drawing his longsword quietly and stealthily approaches the deer. The deer doesn’t make a move seemingly deep asleep Raven drives his longsword down into the body of the deer with a shout, the deers eyes fly open but before it gets the chance to get up Ravens sword drives into its back pushing the deer to the ground, letting out a pained screech the deer scrambles on the ground fighting Raven trying to get him off its back and to get up but just doesn’t have the strength anymore. Raven twists the blade a few times releasing massive amounts of blood the deer finally gives a high pitched moan and dies. “Congratulations you have received 50 EXP for killing level one pack deer” Raven waits hoping for a level notification but doesn’t get one sighing he gets to work breaking down the deer with his dagger.

A hour later Raven stands up with some meat harvested and a small amount of hide he was able to salvage from his hack job he decides its best for him to go back to the tree for now to drop off these supplies. Only able to carry half of what's here he gets to work traveling to the tree with hopes can he can come back and grab the rest before it gets dark. As he comes into the clearing with the Willow tree carrying his supplies a few of the pixies seem to give him disgusted looks. Raven dumps the meat and what little hide he was able to harvest into his hollow then leaves to head right back to collect the rest of the meat. Raven manages to make the second trip to the meat and back to the tree with no trouble but as he comes to the tree he finds Dom and Anna waiting for him.

“Raven, we need to talk… when I said Pixies don’t eat meat I meant it. We do not harvest from the forest and we find it repulsive when it is done. I know you are a carnivore and we should respect your needs but we ask that you take your meat out of our area, cook and eat it out there in the forest where it will not bother us please. We were willing to look past your leather clothing as we would not ask some one to walk around naked in our lands but this we can not look past I’m sorry.” Raven smacks his forehead with his hand “I’m so sorry I didn’t even think of that OK I can do that, that's not a problem. Sorry but I cant survive off plants forever I need meat but I will respect your wishes and ill figure out somewhere to store the food out in the forest.” Collecting his supplies he begins lugging it out to the forest. Deciding to keep the food cash some where close by he begins working on making a larder box between two trees. After a few hours he has the meat put into the box and the lid secured as best as he can manage he begins to make a smoker to cure the meat and a small camp fire to cook what he's going to eat today. The smoker quickly comes up and some how knows its built well enough for the task, setting the meat in and setting a small smoky fire he gets to work smoking the meat and setting to cooking a small amount of the meat to cook. As the food starts to cook he can feel his stomach turning in hunger, the hunger feeling like he has not eaten in a few days. After cooking Raven gets right to eating but as he eats he finds his hunger never seems to go down, in fact the more meat he eats the more he seems to want after an hour of cooking eating and smoking meat Raven finds he has devoured half the meat and finished smoking the rest. Raven stops and thinks about how much he just ate, figuring it was around 100 pounds of meat his eyes go wide dread welling into his being something is wrong with him, there is no way he ate that much and isn’t sick to his stomach even as a Kobold.

Raven goes back to the Pixie tree seeking out Anna to ask her some questions he finds her waiting for him at his hollow which now has a nice looking sturdy solid wood door and inside he can see a lumpy cloth bed on the ground along with a wicker basket on a wooden table by his bed. “Anna thank goodness your here can you use your magic to see if there is something wrong with me, I have been starving no matter how much food I eat I still feel hungry.” Anna seems to have a worried look to her face as Raven talks, she looks him up and down flies up to him eye level and asks “you went and visited with her didn’t you… you shouldn’t have done that. There are beings in this forest that will use you for their own purposes than discard you like an empty husk.” Raven feels a deep sinking feeling, looking Anna in the eyes “what do you mean what did she do to me, she asked for my help and before I knew what I was doing we were holding hands and roots were growing out of here and around me. What did she do?” Anna sighs “that was a Dryad of the forest she seduced and placed one of its seeds within you. It will drink your mana till it is full and ready to grow once it does it will burst from your stomach dropping to the ground and then it will seek a place high in mana to place its roots and grow its tree. Dryads are rare not really evil but they need mana to produce offspring so they infect anything that comes in their domain high in magic they tend to use seduction on humanoids to get them to step into their reach.” Raven slowly curses “fffffffuuuuuuuuuuuuck, what happens to me now? I just have a chest popper rip out of me one day and I die?” Anna gives him a curious look “chest popper? No no nothing like that it will drain mana from you till it is either full or you turn into a empty dried out husk. Once its full it will rip a hole in your stomach and drop out, it can be fatal if the draining didn’t kill you but its survivable as well just have to stop the bleeding and close the wound. Problem is usually if you do survive the draining it’ll leave you so weak that you cant move and that's how most die.” Raven pales “that doesn’t sound harmless but why the hunger is that the need to eat for two like a pregnant woman?” “no that's due to the mana drain, as you expels mana you will need to replace it and the way your body does that is by extracting it from the food you eat, it also draws from the air but that amount so small it takes a long time to recover. Don’t worry as long as you are here in this place you should be fine the ambient mana should be more than enough, and with me around I should be able to heal the wound if the baby Dryad comes out. Sadly that means no more leaving the tree for the next little while till the Dryad comes out. We will figure something out for you to still be able to help us out around the area.” Raven thanks Anna and she flies off to inform the others of the situation, Raven enters his hollow deciding to check out what was in the basket and to look over his new table and bed inside the basket is a new set of clothing made from the same cloth fabric the pixies wear happy Raven changes into the new clothing riding himself of the vile blood stained leathers finally placing them in his bag. Sighing he decides its time for another days rest for some reason he's overly tired laying in his new lumpy cloth bed he quickly falls asleep.