He had gathered the necessary resources in his workshop. His mind was set on making a truce with the elves.

“This time I won’t make that mistake.”

He laid down the triangular leaves from PurpleM vine, some blue rope and other mundane plants and vines right on the workstation. He began working on a new design, the one elves would appreciate. He didn’t know much about their tastes but he had the clues the system was feeding him.

He worked for hours on the blue suit, the colour of course was not ideal, but it never was about the colour; it was about the materials used. He had a purpose for the suit and Superior Design helped him to achieve his goals.

[You have crafted emissary suit of superior quality. Crafting +100exp.]

[Emissary Suit: +5 fashion, +20 Rep with elves.]

“Yes. It was a success.” He cheered.

The design was an odd one; a suit made of cut and stitched back leaves. But it was the Rep bonus that mattered.

“Hmm, something is missing.”

The leaves were thick and rigid enough to make it work.

[You have crafted emissary top hat of superior quality. Crafting +100exp.]

[Emissary Top Hat: +1 fashion, 5% Diplomacy bonus.]

“5%? I guess every little helps.”

Now, he had to complete the look.

[You have crafted emissary cane of superior quality. Crafting +100exp.]

[Emissary Cane: +1 fashion.]

“Aww, this one didn’t give me an extra bonus. But it is just a cane…”

“If only I had a monocle, I would look quite posh.” But that would be overkill. “And I feel quite fashionable already. Does this affect my charm?”

Fashion aside, he was still missing one item.

“I need a weapon, just in case.”

He pulled out his trusty [Apex Fang] and began making a weapon out of it. It worked well like a spear so he decided to stick with that. His hands moved in expert motion, familiar with the design, but this time instead of normal wood for the shaft he used something special; a lucky find really. He had found a broken branch from an undefeatable IronOak. It wasn’t uniform or straight, but it was super sturdy.

[You have crafted Slayer Spear of legendary quality. Crafting +1000exp.]

“Legendary, why?” He was surprised. “Oh, the hint is in the title. Thank you Worm” he recalled a traumatic memory. “For dying.”

It came with a bonus as well.

[Temporary perk Life Steal obtained.]

“Magnificent. I am a vampire now, ha-ha!” he laughed it off.

Anyway, with the outfit done and protection in his hand he gathered the spider warriors and left the farm. Two of lamia guards were accompanying him on this mission. He had full intent on flexing about his new allies.

“The road!” He was surprised. “I forgot I told them to make it. How far does it go?”

A lamia responded kindly, “All the way to elven forest and then sss-some more.”

“I see. I guess they weren’t too happy about this.”

“No, they weren’t. SSS. They would often sss-shoot arrows at the workers. The work has sss-stoped.”

“I only needed this road so we can trade quicker. I will have to explain this.”

So the long journey began, but the road made it so much quicker. A mount to ride would make it even quicker. He eyed tall lamia wishfully.

‘Asking her, would be inappropriate.’ He hesitated and didn’t ask.

But the spiders were a different story, however.

“Do you mind carrying me?” He asked a large spider warrior.

“No. Problem.” It spoke simply.

He climbed on its back, it was kinda slippy and hard to stay on, but he managed somehow.

“I might need a saddle for my rides. Would you mind?”

“To. Cary. You. Is. Honour.”

“I will craft one then we stop to rest.”

He used rope and cloth to fashion a simple seat and strapped it to the spider.

[Spider Saddle: +10% bonus speed]

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It was astounding, the system gave the spider speed for carrying someone, if anything the burden should slow it down, but he wasn’t one to complain about a good bonus.

The trip became even quicker. And finally, they reached the forest.

“It is-sss quiet. Like the jungle.”

“Yeah, it's odd. Where did all the animals go?” He knew his spiders weren’t the ones to blame.

The road finished and they were going through thick bushes and other plants.

“We were-sss attacked here before.”

Lamia was looking cautiously up towards the top of the trees. He expected the attack to come and he was ready to defuse the situation. But it never came.

“Maybe they realised that it is me, and I came to talk.” He guessed.

“Maybe, sss, they're afraid of our large force.”

She was right, he took all of his warrior spiders with him.

“Anyway, no attack is a good thing. We even might reach their settlement without trouble.”

“Yes-sss.”

Even the cautious lamia was positive.

“What is that? What am I seeing?” He was confused. “I thought I just saw a face.” He muttered.

“Elves-sss?”

“We. Sense. Nobody.”

“But I definitely saw somebody.” He pointed a finger at the bush. “Here it is!”

It wasn’t an elf at all. It had brown skin in the texture of bark, it’s face was rigid like a mask and resembled an animal. And instead of hair, moss was growing on its head, and other places.

“Hello?”

It didn’t speak, its eyes glowed in hostility and then it jumped out of the bush. At first only one, but then followed by many others.

“They’re camouflaged!” He was taken aback by the number of strange creatures.

It was so easy to confuse them with plants and trees if they stayed still.

“Attack-sss!” The lamia shouted.

“No. Wait! Maybe they are not hostile.” They didn’t carry any weapons.

That was a mistake. The creatures jumped on his spiders with no hesitation and began pummeling their chitinous bodies with bare fists or in some cases claws.

“Attack! SSS!” Lamia urged.

“No! We retreat. Retreat!” He commanded using all of his authority.

They backed off slowly disengaging the attackers.

“Have you seen them before?” He asked.

“No. We. Did. Not.”

“No-sss. What are they?”

“Smell. Like. Plant.”

“Some sort of tree puppets. Wooden golems?” He guessed as clueless as anyone.

As they backed off the puppets didn’t pursue, so he was able to disengage succesfully.

“I don’t think we are sss-safe here.”

“Or welcome. But I came here to talk with elves. I don’t think golems can speak, so this is a conundrum.”

“We can defeat them and make-sss way to the elves.”

“That would make things even worse. We retreat for now, and I will rethink our approach.” There was just too many unknowns.

“Should we capture sss-some?”

“That’s…” he was about to say no. “That’s actually a good idea. I would like to study these golems. But can we pull it off?”

“No. Problem.” A spider pulled a rope web from its backpack. “How. Many?”

“A few. And don’t damage them. Or get killed.”

“A sss-small strike force would be best. SSS. I will sss-supervise.”

“I will leave it to you.”

He let one lamia go and kept the other. And in no time they were back with a dozen or so golems.

“We need to leave-sss. They decided to pursue us-sss.”

“Let’s just hope we are faster.”

They ran back towards the jungle. The captured creatures weren’t happy to be taken as prisoners. They clawed and kicked, always struggling against their bindings.

“I don’t think those are golems.” He looked at one closer. “They show too much emotion, so maybe some sort of an animal.”

“Elven Magic-sss.”

“I figured that much.”

The creatures stilled once they approached the end of the forest.

[You have entered The Dreaded Place]

He received a familiar message and at that point the creatures were completely motionless, even the lights in their eyes dimmed.

“Did they run out of mana? Or die?”

“Or just pretending-sss.”

There was a way to know for sure. It wasn’t nice so he was as gentle as he could: he jabbed [Slayer Spear] into the puppet's arm. As expected it felt hard and wooden and the creature made no sound or movement.

“I don’t know. If it was alive it would have reacted. But if it’s a golem…”

[You have gained +1 HP]

“Hmm maybe it’s alive, so not a golem. Unless the perk works on constructs too. Let's just be cautious”

Then they reached home he put the catatonic captives into a wooden cage and left some spiders to guard it.

He sat down in his throne room and went through the information. The ‘puppets’ did show some emotion so they weren’t fully golems and he had felt intelligence in their eyes. However, their body was just not normal, when he stabbed his spear it was all wood with some slowly seeping sap.

“A tree ent, perhaps.” He gathered his knowledge. “Some plant monster maybe. There is no way to be sure.”

It was frustrating, however, there was a simple way to deal with it; that was if push came to shove.

“Axes. We can just cut them down, but I rather not.”

However, he had to prepare for the worst and hope he will never use it.

A spider ran into the throne room giving him an urged bow and then reporting. “The. Plant. Move. Again.”

“Oh. So they were pretending then…”

He went to look. Three creatures out of twelve had that life back in them, but they weren’t hostile at all, actually, they seemed lost, confused even.

“Are you okay?” He tried to communicate again.

The three looked at him, their eyes shone brightly.

“Can you speak?”

They didn’t reply, but one of them shook their head in a no.

“Can you understand me?”

It nodded. It was only one of them who seemed to be more responsive than others.

“Would you attack me if I let you out?”

It was giving another no, so he opened a cage, completely unafraid of the creature. His hunch just told him that it wasn’t hostile anymore.

It walked out looking around in curiosity. It pointed to the large tree.

“IronOak. You like it?”

It went and hugged the tree.

“I#ll take it for yes.”

Then it pointed towards where the farms were. He was interested in the reason why this ‘puppet’ was behaving so oddly. “We can go and see.”

The creature was very happy to see his fruit farms, at that point it was beaming with energy, jumping and dancing, touching the vines with affection.

“You are a weird one. Why did you attack me?”

It tilted it’s head showing confusion.

“You don’t remember.”

It gesticulated a no.

“I guess, I believe you. You can stay here if you behave.”

The creature nodded happily. Of course, it will be supervised by spiders and lamia at all times. Actually, he couldn’t ask for a better outcome to research these moving wood creatures.

He spent good time observing, and indeed it seemed completely harmless; a stark contrast from their behaviour in the forest. The. His captive didn’t know many things and couldn’t answer most of the questions, so communication was possible but quite hard. Actually, it was like a newborn baby – ignorant about what it was and the larger world but very curious to find it out. And it was mostly interested in the local plants, his spiders the creature just ignored.

Since this one was not hostile, he decided to let out the other two and see how they behave. They were very much similar, but still incapable of even gesticulation, simply content in hugging TomGrape vines.

“You do like to hug trees, don’t you? The elves must have rubbed on you too much!” Not that he minded.

Later, something interesting happened. From the commotion, he understood that the three wanted the rest of their friends out.

“But they are asleep or something.” He tried to reason.

Bu the three kept pulling at the wooden cage asking him to open it.

“There is no harm, I guess.”

The three grabbed their friends one by one and began carrying the stiff bodies.

“Oh, you are burying them. Makes sense, sorry about that.”

No, they weren’t. They pilled the bodies by the vine webs.

“They are kind of in a way. And my spiders might use it for fertiliser you know.”

The first body they left there stirred ever so slightly.

“Oh!”

It’s eyes glowed brightly.

“Oh! It’s alive! It’s alive!” He cheered. “Resurrected! Or something like that.”

The rest stirred to life soon after.

“I understand now. You were charging your batteries, hence all the tree-hugging.”

The intelligent one nodded.

“But why aren’t you hostile?”

The creatures still had no answer to that.

“This is interesting. Did the filthy elves do something to you? Those elves, I knew it. They can’t be trusted.”

His anti-elven bias was back in full swing.

“No… No… I can’t blame them.” He sighed. “I guess I need to come back to the forest and face this.”

“Not without preparation. SSS.” Friendly lamia advised sagely.

“Ahh!” He screamed. “You scared me! Don’t slither on me like that.”