Waking up Alex looked around noticing the dim glow of magic from the area, it looked like a small enclosure, a soft glow came from the lake in the middle of the clearing and a collection of saplings were scattered around the lake. A womanly figure in leafy robes moved towards him. Her face made of wood and vines she looked commanding, she reminded Alex of his aunt who would always keep the children in line. Her voice was oddly pleasant to listen to and seemed to echo inside his brain. “Hello, I am glad to see you awaken my child. We have little time, however, please join the others. We must push back the invaders before they harm Garalath.”

Quest Gained - Defend the Grove

Primary Objective: Repel the invaders

Secondary Objective: Protect Garalath

Rewards: ???

Alex was confused as to where he should be going. However, another spriggan started moving out of the enclosure. “Guess I’ll follow it.” Alex quickly learned that a spriggan’s body had a mostly human gait though his steps were lighter, quieter and his character was a bit shorter than his IRL self. He had questioned the lack of appearance options when creating his character, and still questioned the lack of a character name request, but looking at his avatar while walking Alex considered his looks to be acceptable for a tree person. The majority of his body was a dark almost black purple, his sister would probably call it something like eggplant, his body had veins of pale blue, and Alex noticed the spriggan next to him had silver veins with a paler purple almost amethyst in color. “Bet that one has the moon-blessed wood trait.” Alex thought, continuing to examine himself he noticed his limbs were skinny but made of twisted wood, so likely quite reliable. His most disconcerting feature was obvious holes in his chest and limbs, though he supposed it wasn’t too surprising. Alex noticed a glow coming from his chest which was of the same soft blue as his veins. As Alex was looking over himself, he and the unknown spriggan had made it to their destination. A group of spriggans were gathered together on a large branch. Alex’s unknown spriggan approached the larger spriggan which Alex thought must be a Treant seeing as it had a much larger size and carried a large wooden mace on its back.

"Dryad Valera ready sir. Where does mother need me?” the moon-blessed spriggan said. Alex realized the other spriggan did look a bit more magic oriented between the mana control trait and the taller stature he had no doubt the woman would be able to do great things for the Grove. The Treant turned towards Alex at that point. “What’s your name seeker?” Alex panicked for a moment and realized that his panic was unneeded. If the game hadn’t asked for his name until now, this must be when he chose it. Thinking for a moment, Alex decided to go with a character name he had never got to use. “Seeker Zorac ready sir.”

Avatar Name Acknowledged: Zorac

Title Acquired: Seeker

Excellent I needed one of your people today Seeker. Treants and Dryads are ordinary soldiers of the mother. Easy to make and they start ready to work. Seekers, however, take a bit more effort. What have you got for me Seeker?” Alex, Zorac technically thought to himself for a moment before speaking. “I have some thorn skill, but I’m not sure how to use it yet, aside from that I can identify plants and am capable with a piercing weapon, sir.” The treant looked surprised for a moment before approaching Zorac. “Guess mother messed up the innate memories creating you Seeker; no problem just means a bit of work on my end.” The Treant placed a massive hand on Zorac’s head, and Zorac instantly felt an immense pressure on his mind.

School Unlocked: Moon-Blessed Plant

Conditions Met: Twilight Thorns Unlocked

Skill Learned: Camouflage

Alex could instantly tell there was something strange about his hands, looking down he noticed that his arms now had a vine-like covering which he knew would produce small thorns which would cover any location on his arms or hands. “Thank you, sir.” “No problem Seeker, now I need you to scout out the area. Mother senses dangerous people entering the Grove, let’s find out who they are and what they want. Without them knowing we are here please.”

Quest Gained - Intelligence Gathering

Primary Objective: Locate Invaders

Secondary Objective: Discover their purpose.

Rewards: Improved relations with War Treant ???

“Huh, so names are valuable in this world it seems.” Zorac began to look around his senses telling him the Grove here was well entrenched and needed no help from him. Progressing through the Grove Zorac realized that his avatar was very well suited to scouting. Spriggans naturally move over roots and under branches without thinking, and his small frame let him pass through areas the War Treant would have needed to go around. He, however, a poor scout, mostly due to inexperience in stealth maneuvers and a lack of knowledge in how to properly identify things of importance. After a few hours of trying to figure out where the invaders might be, they stumbled along below him. “Jared are you sure there are valuable resources in this forest. All I’ve seen are deer and the occasional panther or carnivorous plant.” a short, stout man with a maul said, Zorac would bet the man had gained a dwarven race, based on the poor equipment they were most likely players. “Yes, Thorgun I remember seeing an option for nightshade panther in this forest. I didn’t feel like playing an animal, but the description of the forest said there was valuable wood and herbs here.” Zorac was surprised; it seems the character creation screen kept things hidden from players about the location. From the looks of the man named Jared, this was just two players who thought they could get some rare resources quickly. Jared looked like a typical human wizard, even had a small spellbook on his belt.

Stolen novel; please report.

Quest Updated: Intelligence Gathering

“Looks like I can head back now.”

Quest Gained - Ambition

Primary Objective: Defeat the Invaders

Failure: Return to War Treant before the invaders are dead.

Reward: 1 AP

“Well, shit now what do I do. That reward is too good just to ignore, knowing DE aspect points will be a rare reward. I guess I can take a look around; maybe there is an area nearby that I can use to ambush them.” Zorac looked around the path which the players were walking down. He found a few useful areas but too far away to get the players. Luckily a small stream had some herbs which Zorac had identified.

Crismil Florenca

Commonly known as moon petals these flowers can only be found in areas of high-quality water and rare sunlight.

Finding a dark location near the herbs, Zorac waited for his prey to pass by. Shortly after that Zorac heard the wizard call out. “Thorgun I found something. Looks like some useful stuff. Wish this Reagent Identification skill told me what the item was for, but I do know this is an uncommon herb.” Zorac was quite happy to hear that information and waited a few more seconds for Thorgun to come into the clearing. “Then let’s get the damned flowers and get out of here. I want to bring a scout next time we do anything in this forest. My danger sense is screaming at me; I feel like I’m being watched.” Damn Zorac thought, he was quite happy the dwarf had not figured out how to use the skill well enough to pinpoint Zorac yet.

Zorac proceeded to focus on his thorns skill and created some small thorns on both hands, basically making claws for himself. Hoping they would serve well enough and not break on contact Zorac jumped down to the dwarf seeing as the mage was busy with gathering the flowers. Zorac’s thorns dug into the dwarf’s neck, and Zorac could tell they were doing some severe damage from the way Thorgun jerked in surprise. The dwarf whipped around which broke Zorac’s claw thorns though they stayed in the back of the dwarf’s neck. “Jared we go company!” The dwarf said as he swung his hammer towards Zorac. The slow weapon gave Zorac just enough time to duck under and stab the dwarf’s leg with another set of thorns this time grown over Zorac’s knuckles so he could push them into the dwarf barely pushing them through the thin leather armor he was wearing.

"Gah, Jared hurry up this thing hurts.” Zorac decided he would enjoy some roleplay this game at that moment. “The mother seeks your blood vile invader.” Zorac hoped the other players could understand him though he assumed they could since he could understand them. “Shit this creature is intelligent. Thorgun let’s go we need to warn the village.” Zorac decided to try launching his thorns at that point, and they surprisingly did as he wanted. Four thorns flew towards Jared and embedded themselves into his arm causing him to drop his book. Doing so cost Zorac though as he flew into a tree thanks to Thorgun’s hammer. Zorac realized at that point; hp was a relative concept here. He didn’t have a hp bar just a sense of his body. Another of those hits and he would likely be out cold. “Thieves are not tolerated within the Grove Mother’s Domain,” Zorac said as he pulled himself up. Creating more thorns and launching them towards the two players. He got lucky with one as it hit Jared in the eye causing the wizard to fall to the ground screaming in pain, well mostly cursing but definitely in pain. Zorac took the advantage and stabbed the largest thorn he could grow into Jared’s neck.

World First Alert: Do you wish to reveal your name to the world? Yes / No

World First Achievement: + 1 AP and unlocks the title Slayer

World First - Player vs Player

Soul Fiend ??? was defeated by Soul Fiend ???

To the victor go the spoils.

Thorgun stopped when the alert went out. “You asshole, what's the big idea.” “Sorry dude but quests need to be completed.” “Fair, don’t suppose I can surrender and call it good?”

Ambition Updated

“Looks like that is an option. Lucky you.” “What the hell are you anyway?” “Twilight Spriggan its a rare race from the Twilight Grove faction.” “Lucky, my choices were limited to common, uncommon and one epic but I didn’t want to be a bone devil, so I went with the dwarf race and got some good skills. Sadly most of them require a shield or metal armor.” “That sucks, pretty sure you would have destroyed me if you had good equipment when you came here. Though I honestly would have just ignored the quest in that case. Let's go; we should reach the outpost soon.”

Looking over to Jared Zorac realized that the game didn’t have a universal loot system. The corpse was still there as were all of Jared’s belongings. “Did he have anything useful on him?” “Not really though I think he said the book had some Ice magic spells in it. He hadn’t taken Ice magic as a school, so he was trying to learn it from the book.” Zorac picked up the book and tossed the coin bag over to Thorgun. Then grabbed the pouch of herbs of which it seems Jared had harvested quite a few to take back.

Moving along the path the two players chatted about their experience in character creation. It seems dwarf was an uncommon race due to their people typically living underground. Thorgun had no idea why a village nowhere near a mountain had dwarf as an option, but he had happily taken the opportunity. It seems Thorgun had gotten Danger Sense and Heavy Armor Proficiency as his Account skills due to that he decided to play as a tank and his build centered on using lightning and shields to stun his foes. Sadly he needed a metal weapon to channel most of his magic, and his current one was wood and stone. Eventually, the two made it to the outpost Zorac had left. “Sir, I have scouted the Grove and found the invaders one died in combat and the other has surrendered.” The War Treant appeared at the ground level shortly after that and approached Thorgun. “How did you make it into the Grove? The outer forest has plenty of predators that should have eaten you with little effort from how poorly geared you are.” Thorgun replied with a look of concern. “My partner and I had found a path that led to the Grove thanks to the woodcutters at the border. One group had gone further in after seeing a glowing tree, and we followed their path.” “Woodcutters must have had some soldiers or something with them to clear the predators, or had something that warned them away. Good work Seeker escort this dwarf back to the border and try to find those woodcutters while you're at it.”

Quest Complete: Intelligence Gathering

Quest Complete: Ambition

Quest Updated: Defend The Grove

Quest Gained: Locate the Woodcutters

Primary Objective: Find the Woodcutters

Reward: Friendly relations with War Treant ???

Zorac turned to Thorgun, “Let’s go find those woodcutters.”