The biggest change over the past few months was my new level. Level 67 put me solidly back into second place on the ranking, behind only Allain at level 71. The basic damned didn’t give out much experience on their own but when each horde contained anywhere from three hundred to five hundred, it added up. My decision to sequester myself in the Giant’s Grove alone had eliminated any shared experience, except for Van and Marci.

My personal statistics had ballooned to ridiculous heights as the levels racked up. My strength was now that of ten men before the framework. I could sprint effortlessly for miles and miles without getting tired. I could jump off a tree branch from the canopy of the forest and land on my feet without injuring myself. My wisdom had long ago allowed for a third beast companion, I just wasn’t in the mental state to add another in these last few months.

With Marci traveling south, I decided to head north and scout out the rest of the area around the grove. Van and his pack would remain at the site of the battle for a few more hours.

I hopped down from the branch I had been resting on and gathered my pack from the ground. I checked my map interface and picked out the resources along the way that I could harvest. I would need to move back to the southern side of the forest for some of the ingredients to resupply my bombs.

Closing my map, I opened the quest interface to see what my progress was on the current quests.

Active Quest - Kill 1000 beasts in the defense of the Eternal Forest - 710/1000

Active Quest - Defeat 4 Regional Beast Lords - 3/4

Active Quest - Defeat 1 Country Beast Lord - 0/1

Active Quest - Finish exploring the depths of the Eternal Forest - 81%

Quests were something that I rarely paid attention to before the fall of Etes. Everything in my life had felt so rushed and out of my control that so much of the framework system had been put off. Finding two more regional beast lords had helped vent some of the anger and helplessness I was feeling. The hordes of the damned counted as beasts, I had completed that quest four times over by now. Even earning a new upgraded title of Lord Of Destruction IV for killing ten thousand beasts.

The Eleuthera, the Country Beast Lord, that I had encountered early on in the forest was still alive and roaming the deeper parts of the inner forest. It had been sighted a few times near the camps but never attacked. I had no desire to change that by preemptively attacking it, no one had been strong enough to Identify it but I had strong doubts it was still level 50. No one knew about the Country Beast Lord for Aaith or Norx, they had yet to be found.

I had yet to encounter the humanoid species near the center of the forest. Despite exploring it for a few weeks, the images from my dream of a civilization up in the trees failed to appear. Reports from the survivors of Commander Lucien's forces spoke of feelings of being watched as they traversed that part of the forest, but no contact had been made. I planned to return and spend another few days exploring the rest of the area to at least finish the quest.

I started walking towards the northern border of the forest, a slow walk for me now felt like a fast jog from the pre-framework world. My pack was the same, despite it starting to fall apart. I would need to commission a new one from the leatherworkers back in camp soon. My new spear was holstered over my shoulder, a reward from the framework for upgrading the Lord Of Destruction title.

Eternal Spear - Unique - Upgradeable - Base Damage 50+(1.5xSTR(70)) - Deals 10% more damage for each bonded companion, 10% bonus damage when used in the Eternal Forest, 10% chance to ignore armor.

The spear base damage was based off of my strength and dealt bonus damage for each bonded companion. As well as bonus damage when fighting in the Eternal Forest. The chance to ignore armor was certainly interesting but most of the hordes didn’t wear any real armor. I was able to kill most of the damned with one solid hit from the spear, the elites taking four of five.

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As great as my new spear was, I had returned to my roots recently and expanded my trapmaking skills. Huge swathes of the forest under my protection were rigged with tripwires, spear pits and buried bombs to destroy any incursion attempt. The forest apes took to the trap making with extreme interest. Digging and burying spear pits was one of their favorite traps, the low intelligence of the damned making them very effective. We marked them with sticks placed near the beginning of the pit to avoid friendly fire.

I checked the status of all the traps as I walked the border of the forest. With my increased agility, it was easy to avoid triggering any of them. Van and the forest apes usually stayed a few hundred feet from the border of the forest to avoid activating any of the traps. Marci of course wasn’t a concern, she just had to be careful where she landed.

The Giant's Grove was home to the largest trees in the forest. Each trunk was dozens of feet across and they rose hundreds and hundreds of feet into the air. The massive trees took all of the resources available for growth, leaving little to no foliage on the ground. It was eerie to walk around the massive trunks with bare ground between them. The canopy above was so thick it blocked out nearly all light from reaching the ground, leaving the Grove in a permanent near-darkness.

It wasn’t a big problem to my eyes thanks to my newest class Druid Of The Eternal Forest. It was the only selection available when I reached level 60, after living alone in the northern forest for four months. It gave me bonuses to movement speed, stats and near perfect night vision while inside the Eternal Forest. It also provided a sixth sense of sorts where I could tell if there was trouble in the forest. It had also boosted my Beast Companion skill, further improving both Van and Marci’s combat skills.

Rounding the northern side of the Grove where it crossed over into Norx territory, there were signs of recent fighting. The Eternal Forest had a mystical quality that allowed it to recover from the fighting. Craters from bombs, bodies and blood, even discarded weapons would disappear after a few days and the scene would return to how it had looked before. It was both convenient and creepy to walk through a field that was covered in decomposing bodies the day before, but was now cleared.

I strained my ears and eyes for movement, both enhanced by my stats and bond with Marci. I hadn’t fought a horde in this area recently enough for there to be signs of fighting. Three bodies were down near one of the large tree trunks a few hundred feet away. I unholstered my spear and readied for combat as I approached the scene. Circling around the nearest trunk to prevent any surprises.

Blood was pooling under the closest body, indicating a recent wound. The smell of copper was overwhelming and the hair on the back of my neck stood up as my danger sense fired up in full force. I flipped the body over and saw one big claw mark had ripped through the chest. This wasn’t one of the damned, this man had been alive before being wounded. I hadn’t encountered a living person this far north yet. The other two bodies were ripped open in a similar manner.

The beasts in the area near the Giant's Grove were much stronger than those farther south. They ranged in level from the 30’s to a few above 50. Those that were aggressive enough to attack unprompted were even stronger and lived short, chaotic lives. I triggered Identify and found the three were all level seventeen and human. No clues as to what they were doing out here, it was too far for them to have survived from the encampment. Was there a town still surviving north of the Grove in Norx? I would send Marci out to scout that direction when she returned from the camp.

It took another hour to carefully scour the area near the bodies for any more clues. Various beast footprints led to and from the area but there was no more blood and no more bodies. The three corpses had no supplies and were ill dressed for a long trek. I mused over the mystery while I finished scouting the northern side of the Grove. All of my traps were still intact and there were no signs of any of the damned.

On the way back down to rejoin Van and his pack, I stopped back by the clearing and found the bodies were gone. It was too fast for the forest to reclaim them. I stood in the clearing for a few minutes just observing the area. There was no movement or signs of life and my confusion over the situation was only growing. I spent the rest of the walk down looking for any clues to the events but came up empty handed.

The party at the battle site had died down and the apes were settling down for the night. Most of them preferred to sleep up in the trees, each tree even this far south was large enough to house an entire ape colony with its large amount of branches. I sent Van images of the bodies I had found and asked him to alert the night watch. The Forest Apes preferred to set their own watches and take responsibility for the camp. I climbed up next to Van and settled in with my back against the thick trunk, closing my eyes and trying to clear my mind.