Christopher was idlessly driving the wagon, Palmer was deep asleep, there were still months away from their destination and the people on the ride had become rather friendly with one another.
The four bandit brothers were successfuly recruited by the three adventurers to form their own group, in reality there were still secrets being kept amongs the travelling group, but non cared to dwell into it.
Their path would take them through The Goblin Klan's lands and then into Reddor, but since the Goblins never tend to their lands, they are normaly full of monsters.
It was rather strange how in days they hadn't encountered a single monster, not even a wild goblin.
"It's the first time I'm making this trip without encountering a single monster"
Palmer said as he woke up, it was rather surprising, he even wanted to jinx it a little, because the trip was too boring, after all he was an ex-adventurer.
He still had his blood phobia, but since his adventurer days, he had made great progress, for example he wouldn't lose conciousness when seeing something that resembled blood, only if he sees real crimson human blood, of course he has long found ways to fight against it, by closing his eyes or fighting blindfolded.
Fighting was one of the few enjoyments in life, of course with his weapon being a staff or mace, blood wasn't exactly a big corcern to him.
He was rather good at simply disarming and knocking people down, as for beasts, all he had to do was light a firecracker and they would run like frightened ckicken.
It was a cheap entertainment on the way to Reddor, but how boring were these days, not even a single monster, every day eating the same stew, even if it was tastier than the regular stuff, it was still the same stuff day after day.
The only good thing about the ride was that he could flirt with some girls on the way, Palmer wasn't old, around his 30s and he was unwed, even worse a virgin till his 30s.
You might ask if it was safe to cross the country with a bunch of strangers, well truth was no. But as a talent he still had a huge advantage over most people and monsters on the surface level, since he was level 200, rarely a monter can threaten him and surely not mere bandits, all he needs is throw potatoes at them and they will lay on the road like corpses from the pain alone.
Of course him giving a lift to others was only something he did out of boredom, but the moment he met Kiris (Christopher's fake name), he experienced a strange unseen fortune in his journey, it was like picking a lucky rabbit foot or something.
Since normaly he would at most lift a couple or so people whom wouldn't stay for long, at the first sight of a village they would take off, but this time there were so many people he was afraid the wagon wasn't big enough to hold them all and surprisingly most of them didn't even care where they were going.
In the days to come even the bandits whom he thought he would have a nice break down with became adventurers for some reason, he didn't understand why, but they seemed to have a good time every time they camp, even the two elopees whom looked like beggars found a common tongue with them calling the ragged man brother and the woman sister.
It was a strange bonding only available when you journey far away, to places where you have no one to call a friend, but the most mysterious person was Kiris.
He didn't seem to get along with anyone, but everyone got along with him, well if you call mocking him getting along, but he wouldn't even care about their mocking voices, he had even caught him laugh at some of their jokes about his mysterious origins.
The adventurer girls insist that he's a master assassin, whom is travelling to Reddor as conspicuously as possible to murder one of their priests.
The bandits say that he's probably a low class noble, whom escaped from his family and disguised himself as a commoner to mingle with the common masses.
The beggar suspects that he's an evil mage of the demonic cult, that tries to reach their base in Reddor after failing to assassinate the Queen and her daughter some time ago.
Palmer's impression of him was that he was probably a man running from debt collectors or something, since he didn't really give out any hosility and had no weapon on him, even a hidden dagger, as for the cultist thingly, that was probably complete bullshit, after all why would they even need to hitch on his wagon, cultists probably have their own carriage ready or mounts to ride them back.
Days passed and nothing happened, but today the three adventurer girls invited him to join their adventurer group. Palmer was lost in thought, everyone else but Kiris had already joined. The beggar looking couple were even given some clothes and weapons to protect themselves, but in general once they reached Reddor they would all join the adventurers' guild and register as a team.
Palmer was rather enticed to join them, but there was something that didn't sit very right to him, in his knowledge the monsters of Reddor were impossible to hunt unless you were a mage, but non in the group seemed to be one.
Even the most weak monsters called the Lava bats were immune to physical damage. To hunt them one needed to first cool them down and then strike them one and they were out of it, of course that's considering a level 100 warrior's strike.
Of course he didn't know if the girls had some ice strike or something, but generaly adventurers didn't have lots of fighting skills. In reality most commoners died before even filling their 5th skill slot, meaning that most only had four skills till the day they died.
The reason for that is simple, most crafting skills only require 3skills, but generaly speaking 2crafting skills are more than enough, then there is the passive and the active skill, passive mostly have to do with health and stuff while for active commoners wouldn't mind having a magic arts skill, although they will at most learn the cleaning spell's chant and that if they have enough silver to pay.
Of course even among commoners there are the poor, the average and the rich, Palmer whom lived in a village could be considered among the average people if he was in City, but in the village his family was well off and would provide him with many oportunities even if he had no talent at all, but since he grew up now, he had to fend of for himself.
Palmer was surprised to find that unlike when the bandits asked Kiris for some snuck, Kiris would gladly give away food to the females of their company, making him look rather biased and despicable to all the males of the group.
Palmer in the end decided that he wouldn't be of any use in their group, thus he declined their offer to join and became the outcast of the group. A few days later he heard that Kiris joined as well, by throwing a "Whatever, just leave me alone" phrase.
Palmer was Shocked at how carefree the man was, till then he thought of himself being carefree, but Kiris was in another dimension, it wouldn't be strange if Kiris was trully a nobleman whom had escaped from his family's estate or something.
A few days later they run out of potatoes, he really hadn't prepared for so many people and there was no hunt to be found. To his surprise however the stew only became tastier without them, it was as if they were the reason the soup tasted so bad in the first place.
Palmer was thankful that Kiris still had supplies to share with them, but he also found it rather strange, since there was no room in the small bundle for so much food to be kept, meaning that he either had a spatial storage or an inventory skill, one being for mages and the other for craftsmen, of course even the idea of him having an item with spatial storage was ridiculous.
Of course even the two skills are rather expensive, meaning that he was probably from a powerful background at least.
That night Palmer felt rather strange, he thought that he was being watched, a murderous gaze was cast upon him, but he couldn't say whom it was from his companions giving it off.It was the first time he felt somewhat uncomfortable in having so many companions of the road to Reddor. The most suspisious thing being Kiris whom just sat there not daring to close his eyes even though he could see black circles underneath them.
Palmer could only imagine how many days Kiris had not slept, he hadn't given it a thought before, but it seems that Kiris wouldn't really ever sleep, at most he closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep.
Palmer could clearly see that a ring now decorated Kiris' index finger, it looked crude, but there was no doubt that it was magical.
Palmer was getting somewhat worried, the reason being that he might be a talented warrior, but his resistance to magic was subpar, he might be able to resist 50 points of magic power, meaning common mages, but he wasn't sure about defending against one of those elite mages from noble families, that specialized in their arts and filled all their skill slots with ways to increase damage, making it impossible to resist them, there were even rumors about a legendary skill called spell penetration, that ignored a certain amount of resistance, making it impossible for anyone to resist control type magic, unless of course they have some resistance or immunity skill to counter the damage.
Palmer was becoming paranoid as he understood that Kiris might trully be as dangerous as he stated, maybe he was even an assassin whom would travel with their group and then kill some bigshot in Reddor, leaving the group as scapegoats to be hunged outside the city gates.
Palmer was afraid, the darkness of the night, the faint flame at the side of the wagon, the people sleeping around the fire and Kiris whom was looking after the flame all night long made Palmer feel a strange sense of danger that was birthed from the unknown.
The others had all disclosed some of their background, were social and liked to chat, thus making him feel like he knew them even a tiny bit, but Kiris was like a creepy stalker, whom would be in the back laughing at any jokes you say, evesdroping and spying on you.
Palmer saw one of the bandit brothers rise in the middle of the night, saying something to Kiris and then leaving for the nearby bush.
Well it wasn't something out of the ordinary, he probably only wanted to pee, but the man took hours and even after the sun got out he didn't return.
The morning sun revealed him dead, his blood used in a strange ritual in the middle of the woods, Palmer could have sworn that he hadn't seen Kiris leave all night, but the brothers were of another opinion.
"You bastard, if you see that he hasn't returned after an hour you should have woken us up, we could have probably saved him"
One of the brothers said as he held Chris by the lapel of his shirt, almost ripping it off.
"As if I care, I'm not his nunny, I don't care even if you all died, as long as I reach my destination"
Kiris said to him as he shoved him off, his strength didn't seem too great, but it could be compared to a common warrior non the less.
"You fucking..."
The man took out his sword, it was strange that Palmer hadn't noticed it before. The sword was a rather expensive one, even though it looked plain on the outside, it had hints of gulok ore, meaning that it wasn't something that your average adventurer could afford, even more so for bandits or villagers, so unless they robbed some noble or found it by chance from a corpse it was impossible for common bandits to have one.
Palmer was curious if the others had similar swords as well, the gulok ore could faintly be seen in the steel of the blade, it looked like a faint drawing on the well sharpened steel sword that looked like it was new.
Many nobles used it to engrave their emblems on the sword since it was possible and it gave the same stats to the sword anyways.
the next however move of the man made Palmer trully surprised as the sword wasn't pointed towards Kiris but towards him.
"Driver, we are turning around, by the name of the house of Som we command you all to apprehend this traitor to the states for the murder of one of the sons of our house"
The three brothers looked rather arrogant with their statement, but Palmer looked at them as if they were idiots.
"Why do you all look at us like that?"
One of the brothers asked, it was a look of pity as if they were looking at idiots.
"Do you really believe that because you want to go back out of fear, every one of us will sit and follow you back?"
The one whom spoke was Lorrence, whom had told them that he was eloping with his loved one, he was entirely against going back the way they came.
"Ease us your noble highness, why not just killing him, do we really have to turn back?"
Manny one of the three adventurers proposed.
"You fucks, haven't you understood it yet, there are cultists in the area, like fuck this useless weakling could have killed Robert, do you all want to die so much?"
One of the brothers shouted at them in a panicked tone, as it seemed the men didn't even care if Kiris was or wasn't the murderer they simply wanted to run for their lives.
"I knew all nobles were only good to eat and shit"
Palmer said as he took out his own sword, he was getting tired of having a sword pointed at his face.
"Cool down!"
Palmer said as he blew the sword away from the young man's arm with such ease that it seemed like a fight of an adult and a child.
"Kiris, what did Robert say to you before leaving?"
Palmer asked him, he was somewhat surprised that Kiris said nothing about it.
"He said that he was going to be absent for awhile, I asked him if it was a big shit and he nearly shit himself or so I think"
Kiris said but the brothers didn't take it so well.
"You insolent bastard, how dare you slander a noble hair of the house of Som"
Another one of the brothers said.
"You shut up! and you, did anything strange happen that night or out of the ordinary?"
Palmer had enough of the brothers' shit, but he wanted to know if there was something more to it.
"Well this was the night of the most shitters if you ask me, as almost every one of the people went to shit in the middle of the night, other than that nothing"
Kiris said, this was the only strange thing.
Unlike however the brothers whom thought that there were cultists in the vicinity Palmer had an even more terrifying idea, what if the cultist was someone amongst them, even more terrifying was the thought that Kiris might have added something to their food so that all of them would go take a dump.
It would make sense as to why Kiris would offer his own food to them without a care, but whom was his partner in crime, whom was the one whom did the act.
"Give us the order with which they left"
Palmer said, he of course already knew the order and had already crossed two of the suspects.
"First left the the lady adventurer over there and next the ragged fellow, but they had left and returned before the victim, next of course was the victim, then the other adventurer lady, the ragged lady, the ragged fellow left once more returning with his lady, next left the other adventurer lady and finaly the dumbass whos sword just went flying"
Kiris said, Palmer was surprised, not only didn't he hide anyone but he even stated that Lorrence had unknowinly left wihout Palmer's notice.
"Bastard do you implying that I killed our own brother!"
He shouted as he rushed for his sword that was stuck in the fround not too far away.
"How should I know, maybe he was next in line for succession or something"
Kiris said making the atmosphere even heavier than before and the man even angrier.
"Enough bullshit, We shall pay you in gold when we return and as for the adventurers we want to hire you to protect us on the way"
Another of the brothers said as he looked at Palmer and the three adventurers, it was true that with them they had the overwhelming majority 7-3, but would the other agree.
Palmer was trying to weight the pros and cons, in truth if he hadn't signed a contract with the dwarves before leaving he would have jumped on the chance.
Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
The adventuerer girls didn't seem to be very willing as well, as their eyes were glued on him, waiting for his answer.
"My young nobles I would like to accept your proposition.." He said making them looked proud and arrogant for a minute "..but I have a contract with the dwarves, but I could help with the guard duty until we reach Reddor"
Palmer said, making their faces twist, as if they were real bandits for a moment.
"Whatever I'm leaving, you can go fuck yourselves over whom protects whom"
Kiris suddenly said as he lifted his magical bundle and was ready to leave.
"Stop right there!"
The one whom spoke was strangely Lorrence whom was holding a sword Kiris' neck as he suddenly appeared in front of him like a ghost.
"Leave the food behind and you can go"
The others were shocked at seeing Lorrence act like a bandit, even palmer hadn't thought that the weak looking Lorrence was so fierce.
"You know something I think that you didn't understand something"
Kiris said and before they knew it Lorrence's sword had disappeared, leaving only dust in its place.
"I'm fed up with you guys, you are so noisy and stupid, I told you before I'm dangerous, If I wanted to kill you I could have killed you all a million of times, while you slept, while we traveled, while you ate, why the fuck would I want to kill that son of a bitch!"
Kiris shouted at them making them shocked, but Lorrence didn't stop, like a martial artist he threw a kick at him, targeting the stick on which the bundle was hunging, throwing it towards his lady.
It was however pointless as a minute before it even hit the ground it teleported back into Kiris' hand.
"I give up!"
Lorrence shouted somewhat afraid for some unknown to them reason as he practicaly flew from his spot.
"What on earth is going on?"
Palmer asked himself.
"Everyone sit down, we have to talk seriously now, no one is leaving without my permission"
Palmer said, but to his surprise the others looked at him as if they saw an idiot.
You have to understand that other than driving the wagon, Palmer looked more like a farmer than a charismatic leader, it was like saying "whom died and made you a leader". To begin with he wasn't even a member of their adventurer group, he wasn't a nobility like the others and last of all they could tell that he wasn't more competent than Lorrence in sword fighting, he fucking fainted if he saw blood, it was proved to be so when one day one of the bandits scratched his finger on the wooden waggon and the driver fainted, the only thing that saved then was that Kiris was awake siting next to him, he had practicaly saved his life as he was about to fall off the waggon unconcious.
By all means he looked pathetic and had zero credibility, all he had was a waggon, which they could easily steal any time they liked, simply by shoving a little blood in front of his face.
It looked rather funny that the weakest one of them played it the boss all of a sudden, in their eyes other than a sword skill to disarm his oponents he had nothing, which was mostly true.
The three brothers as nobles had their eldest brother Solon, whom was a talented warrior, the adventurers too had an ace down their sleeves and lorrence was probably a talent too as for Kiris(Christopher) there's not really a need to bother stating the evident.
In truth Palmer out of his league at the moment, since there were at least four individuals whom were his equals in the group.
"Everyone sit down and lets talk seriously, as it seems to me the possibility of a cultist being amongst us is big, as stated Kiris is not the cultist, although there is still a chance for him being an accomplice"
Palmer said as he sat next to his waggon, not caring one bit if the others would sit or not.
"I think that we should sit and talk as well"
The one whom sat next was Lorrence and his lady.
"You sit down first or we will all fight you to the death"
Solon, the strongest of the now three brothers said to Kiris, not letting him off easily and seeing the situation it was highly probable that they would act as a group to force him to give them his food.
Kiris(Christopher) unwillingly sat as far as he could from them, he didn't trastt them at all, with the first chance he would teleport away, his style of sitting down was like a child hugging its legs.
"Lets begin, first of all we need provisions and regretably only Kiris has some left, so we would like you to stay until we can hunt something, the moment we hunt something you can leave"
Palmer said as if he was the leader of the group or something, it wasn't as if the others disagreed, but it left a bad taste in their mouths.
"Second, I think that either the adventurers or the elopers are lying, one of the two groups are most likely a cultist or maybe both groups"
Palmer said, making the three brothers glare at Lorrence, since they couldn't see how a weak woman could down their brother.
"Oh, give me a break, I might have lied a little about my identity, but I'm not a cultist, I used to be an assassin and if you ask me the most dangerous one among us is him"
Lorrence said as he pointed at Kiris, making the others shocked, they couldn't understand why Lorrence said so, but neither did they know that he had an ability called danger sense, he could detect danger both for himself and one other person, it was like seeing the close future.
This however was his Ace, he wouldn't reveal it just because some idiots suspected him of being a cultist, he even saved his loved one, since there was a high chance that they would have had two corpses if he hadn't found her in time in the middle of the night.
Lorrence eyes were one two groups, the brothers and the adventurers, he didn't even consider Kiris being the murderer, after all he had millions of better chances to kill them.
"I'm sure that it was simply his bad luck, he probably stumbled across some cultist in the middle of the night"
Mindy said, she didn't seem to be too afraid of the others and had a friendly smile.
"She's right, that's why we have to stay united and return to Nivava"
The one whom spoke was Alec, the one whom had his sword fly and the one whom was one of the suspects.
"I agree with them, since there is a chance that this was only bad luck, but for best, we should from now on travel in pairs, non should leave alone in the night"
Palmer said, after all the possibility of this being a chance misfortune was rather high as well.
At least Lorrence didn't seem to be the killer, but could you even trust an assassin's words, after all they are known for their acting skills.
"I'm not staying a moment with your group of lunatics, all I will ask is some food and me and my wife will leave by ourselves"
Lorrence said, he had completely lost any respect for the others, he found it rather easy since he had non to begin with.
"Stop the foolish act, do you think that cultists of the Demon god as easy to handle?"
Solon said, making them all gulp, picturing them as demons in human form.
"Dear, I think that we would be safer together"
The one whom spoke was Lorrence's wife Airie, he looked frightened, some thing that they hadn't noticed before was that both Lorrence and Airie were Elves, more precicely high elves.
Of course how could they have known that he was a spy sent to the Queen to act as a double spy and now that the plan failed he did his best to escape. His slave wife was used as collateral for their deal to work, there was no eloping involved other than the fact that they were wanted people in Nivava.
The end result was that they decided to continue their travel as a group, of course the happy chit chat from before and the jolly atmosphere was replaced with a heavy atmosphere and the ghost of distrust.
Palmer was on his guard from everyone, the adventurers too had gathered up, the brothers had also closed their circle and the so called assassin and his wife were vigilant.
The only one whom hadn't changed was Kiris, since he was silent and gloomy even before all this had happened, it was funny how he was the only one whom felt good in their precarious situation.
You might find it strange and it was that he could focus better under stress, the more stress he was given the more he would try and the results were most of the time supperior to what he would have been able to do normaly.
He himself knew it well since he wasn't the type to cut corners.
=========================================================
Back to Eolia
This is the story of Giota, whom was probably the prettiest of the four girls, but also the most bimbo, when it came to thinking and although she wasn't blonde, her head however worked the same way.
Surprisingly she was the second most high leveled person from the four of them, with a level of 93.
Giota was an Alchemist, which is a mentality based profession and her cheat power was rather strange, she had the ability to turn stone or dirt into iron metal or something similar to it in strength.
Of course you can understand that with that sort of power and her limited imagination,in the aspect of combat, if you asked her about some new clothe design, some fingernail design or some hairstyle, she would no doubt be a genious in the matter, but how would you want her to find a way to fight with a simingly useless skill.
The main reason for her leveling speed was alchemy, she gained experience by producing some potions, for those whom have played games like Skyrrim and oblivion, you will understand where I come from.
Buying all the cheap materials, making failed potions and selling or in her situation reusing them to create more failed potion, until there can be only one, the ultimate failed potion a complete waste of materials.
This method was introduced to her by her elven girlfriend Lunana, whom was also an alchemist.
The first days Giota was preocupied with alchemy and torturing her tutor and girlfriend. Next she well socialized with her "friends" whom after learning about her new fetish, distanced themselves from her, until Viki was kicked out of the Glam Club and begun to associate with her once more, she even approached Dina for some reason, with whom they didn't really have any close ties, they hardly knew her.
Viki wanted to create a Club inside the dungeon pillar, well it sounded interesting so they agreed. Giota had learned how to make things come to life, a strange wonder of alchemy, Golem making.
Of course her golem could only be made out of Dirt and for starters if you might think that her ability was useful because of that, well nope. Although she could revert the change back to dirt, the iron statue of the golem would not move, it didn't make the golem any stronger, but what she could do was give it a plate armor, which however made it clunky and impactical for it to fight, although it did protect the golem's core.
Like Slimes and elementals, golems operated because of a core hidden inside their bodies, if it's destroyed then the golem is instakilled, no matter how strong or how much Hp it had, thus by surrounding its core with metal while leaving a few wholes due to necesity, she could make her golem harder to destroy, of course the downsides were also evident, regular dirt golems had an incredible regeneration rate when standing on regular dirt, hers however had 1/4 of that and due to the armor, it couldn't use its body to attack.
Let me explain it in a way you can understand, Dirt and Clay golems are like a pile of mud that forms a humanoid body, they are not like statues or anything.
They can however reform themselves and are programmed to have specific attacks, meaning that you can program your golem to grow a hand out of its crotch and uppercut someone, or to turn it's leg into a lizard tail, or use its hand as a propeller to keep its enemy at bay.
This sort of golem has however a rather terrible flaw, called loss of balance due to gravity or motion, thus it has to regulate the density of dirt, its feet, chest and stomach areas having the most weight.
Now imagine what will happen if you add more weight that cannot be regulated, simple the golem cannot get up if it falls down, of course there was a wise solution to it, which was Lunana's idea.
Make it into a centaur, four legs and perfect balance, only problem being the strange way it walks and its extremely slow speed, meaning that they wouldn't be able to keep up with the others, since their speed was determined by their physique.
Of course this golem was so effective against the plantan monsters that Giota could hunt them all day and then return and make potions out of them.
At some point they hunted so many that they were forced to sell some.
Plantan life forms had three usufull materials, their blood, their seeds and lastly their corpses.
The blood was used for alchemy, the seeds had multiple usages and the corpse was used as either feed for animals or could be prossessed for use in alchemy.
Of course the trades were managed by their elven counterparts, since they were a little more experienced, whom am I kidding, it was the same even if they themselves did the trade, elves are simply lousy traders and only see value in magical artifacts, everything else has no value to them, they could easily sell tons of gold for an enchanted sock that wouldn't sell for even one silver coin due to its appearance.
Of course if you wanted to buy something magical from them, you must be dreaming, even royalty has to drive a hard bargain simply for an enchanted artifact or a jug of elven wine(since it is magical).
Of course that's of no importance to them since High elves have no sense of economy, although they know how it works, there are even specialized ambassadors that go to other countries trained in trading goods, so that the High elven society lacks nothing, of course they dispose of their useless gold there.
I call gold useless to them, but that's because they have alchemic formulas to create gold, meaning they have an overabundance of gold.
As for it's use, it's invaluable in magic, gold and gemstones are two of the best magic conducting materials which are used to create enchanted items and artifacts.
For example you can use an enchantment spell on a stone sword, a wooden sword, an iron sword, a golden sword and a sword with a diamond embeded in it's handle.
Stone's enchantment will last for mere seconds before disipating.
Wood's enchantment will last for only a little more, but depending on the wood it might generate some unwanted side effect.
Iron's enchantment will last for minutes or maybe even a day, the greatest enchanter's enchantment only lasted for a few years.
Gold's enchantment lasts for centuries or even millenia, making them the best medium for creating enchantments, gold is also used to resist magic attacks, since it absorbs a part of the magic used in the attack.
Diamonds cannot be enchanted, but they can seal spells and release them back as attacks, making them invaluable for enchanters, since you can store multiple spells in a single jewel.
Of course the elves don't dig for gemstones, they create them, the Eala crystals or as others like to call the phylosopher's stone is their most famous alchemy product, only problem is the capacity of the stone.
For example a lesser eala crystal is worthless it only has a power value of 1-999, meaning that it can't cast any spells at all, it's only usage is to make jewelry or sell it off to other races.
The common eala crystal accomodates a power level of 1000-9999 and can acomodate from 1-9 spells, these crystals sheldomply leave the elven country, but can be found in other lands since they are rather common to begin with.
Lastly there are the Grand eala Crystals, their power level starts from 10K and might reach 100K, accomodating up to a hundred spells, these crystals are rare family relics that are threated as treasures by the high elves and only if someone went crazy he would sell even the lowest 10K crystal.
Anything with more than 101K power in level are considered Legendary creations and are treasures to be proud of held in private collections never to see the light of day for fear of theft.
Now to the matter at hand, since even a small High elven kid can create an eala crystal, you can understand why high elves loaf economy and the lofty scemes and goals of becoming rich and powerful(no sympathy at all).
Of course the lesser eala crystals aren't completely useless, there is one usage to them that the high elves would find beneath them to even consider, spell formations and magic dusts(specialty in Runia), but that's irrelevant to our story.
Giota's story starts with her discovery that she was gay, she enjoyed the company of women more than that of men, of course if she hadn't become a high elf and passed through the husband hunting thingy she would probably have still thought of herself as strait, well that's sexual orientation for you.
It was highly peculiar to know that she's not the black sheep of the high elven society, as rich and carefree as high elves are they have ton of people whom have nothing better to do than hornicate all day long.
Of course there are exceptions, geniouses whom experiment all day long whom are in love with their work, warriors whom find purpose only in combat and battle.
Of course unlike humans high elves are immortals, they never die, it is generaly stated that a high elf only needs 10years to grow up into an adult, unlike the forest elves that take 160-180years, well we say adult but in truth it was more like a teenager, High elves experienced a 10years growth sprout and then would stagger at that form forever, unlike forest elves that at some point in their lives would have their hair grow white and their elders even had wrinkles.
Giota laughed at lot in those days they went hunting and in general their days in Eolia were carefree and exciting, it was like suddenly being said that you are the long lost son of a millionaire or something.
Other than the highness(nobility) thingy, there was nothing to care about, food was free, equipment(non magic) were free, ingredients(alchemy) were free of charge(only the common ones).
Giota had no worries even when Viki decided to turn her back to them and chase after Elen, she and Dina were much similar in that aspect, only Dina was a little more social and cared about the people she called friends(at least a little).
But as always Friends quarrel and distance for a while this is how Giota and Dina after fighting over whether to disband the club or not had a large quarrel.
Giota wanted to disband it, since Viki wasn't there to manage it anymore, but Dina wanted to leave it alone and simply wait a little bit more for Viki to return.
Of course Giota knew Viki best, Viki wouldn't return any day soon, she was as obstinate as Elen, not seeing what's behind her and only going forth, as egoistical as it could get, after all that's what they had in common.
Giota's path took her to the depths of the jungle, alone since Lunana was resting at home, a large tent at the residental district inside the outpost.
Some might ask why they don't build buildings inside the outpost and only set up tents, since they do have estates outside the outpost, well truth is because of the way they do battle and their enemy, the plantan life forms are adept in ambushes and melee, making an open field their greatest nemesis.
Giota was now alone traveling through the dark jungle on Bunphead's(golem) back, she had done this hunting trip a lot of times before, but this was the first time she did so alone.
It might sound frightening, but to people of her level it was more like a walk in the park since her golem could change its body into a small house for her to stay if things went dangerous.
Giota was travelling alone when sudenly she saw a gorgeous woman, whom signaled her to come closer, causing a strange haze in her mind, but it only lasted for a second as her resistance activated, she was an alchemist, mentality was her main trait and with the high elven trait called Fey blood, she had a bonus x2 resitance to mental control spells and skills.
But that didn't mean that she didn't follow the pretty naked woman's ass, she had already heard about dryads.
They were a C rank monster that captured its prey with illusions and their charm skill.
The pale greenish woman was probably a dryad, but Giota didn't care, because she wanted to taste what would follow.
Dryads were monsters that would drain the nutrients out of the living creature as an exchange with what the high elven texts called ultimate pleasure, it's also widely known that Dryads are the only monster that no high elf would hunt, first of all because their charms have zero effectivity against the high elves, second because they are rare to begin with and third because they capture them as pets.
What however she didn't know is that by following the dryad she had sealed her first death, due to her arrogance and overconfidence, on the bright side however she felt what ultimate pleasure tasted like.