Quest Complete! Wood Fiend Raid

You have helped your party gain victory over the wood fiend, and even played a vital role in its destruction! Good job, you have made great progress as an adventurer.

Reward: Huge Level Progress, 1 point

New Achievement

You have been instrumental in hunting a monster many times your strength by shaping a trap and giving your party an opportunity to turn the tables! This is an incredible feat that very few can claim.

Reward: Large Level Progress

Level Up!

You have earned enough level progress and leveled up!

Reward: 1 point

Dismissing the notifications, Matt ran to the mess of fallen trees and monster parts and reconvened with the rest of the party. Matt was able to hear the grumbling and sputtering of Drost as they tried to carve themself out of the monster corpse. Karrn and Matt started to remove the wood that was blocking their way. Karrn, by cutting what he could with his sword and Matt shaping the branches free and out of the way.

Cutting through the canopy, the knight and shaper made a tunnel through the timber and arrived at the monster's corpse. Karrn moved out of the way as Matt stepped forward and started to shape the corpse's wood to help free Drost. The first thing Matt noticed was that the monster's wood was very interesting compared to normal ivor wood and the bodies of the tree stalkers.

While normal ivor wood was pretty sturdy, the monster's body was almost twice as strong and dense. And while the bodies of the tree stalkers were definitely wood that he could shape, it was impure material and was a bit harder than regular wood, but the fiends wood didn’t have that property. It felt just like pure wood, and so he was able to open up the bark and wood and help Drost out.

The dwarf had cleaved through the monster's giant body and was trapped in a small shell of wood and was covered in sticky, green sap like blood and was sputtering as they tried to get the goo off of their face.

“I hate Meteor Axe. I don’t belong in the sky and every time, I always get covered in monster guts and need to cut my way out. At least we had a shaper this time so it was quick. Blegh, this stuff is nasty.” Matt bonded with part of the monster's body and started to shape it into fiber and then fabric, which he handed to Drost after making it softer. While the monster's wood was quite sturdy, that made it a poor base for him to make fabric. Pure ivor was much better in that regard.

“Thanks kid.” Drost acknowledged as they took the rag and started to wipe away the monster blood. They moved out of the wooden cage and joined the rest of the party.

“Yeah, Matt, that was incredible! I don’t know why, but that wood fiend must have been an elite or something. We would have been goners if not for your quick thinking. Good job.” Karrn grinned widely as he shook Matt's shoulder lightly. The young shaper took off his helmet and smiled back, glad that his senior adventurer was acknowledging him.

“Aye, the fiend was definitely stronger than it should’ve been. Matt, think you could find the core? That should tell us how powerful it was.” Drost asked, making Matt feel a bit silly for not thinking about that. It was an elemental monster the same as the tree stalkers, so why wouldn’t there be a core? Matt stepped back to the corpse and placed his hand on the bark.

Moving his connection through the wood of the monster, Matt examined the body over and found where the lump of special wood was. The first thing that caught Matt's attention was how big it was compared to the cores in wood stalkers. While the core of a stalker was maybe the size of a golf ball, the fiends core was the size of a small bowling ball, maybe eight inches wide.

Bonding to it and feeling the incredibly responsive material reach back with even greater force than the smaller ones, he shaped it and the wood around the core to move it to the exterior of the corpse and into his waiting hand. It was a ball of knotted wood, pure white like ivor wood traditionally was with veins of deep green. He looked it over as he returned to the group, and was about to ask a question before looking up and seeing the party's faces.

Both Drost and Karrn were looking at the core with shocked, wide eyed expressions that made him think that the core was unusual in some way. Florven was frowning, eyebrows creased in thought and Janica looked worried. Building the courage, Matt cleared his throat and asked.

“So, is there something weird about the core?” That seemed to snap the senior adventurers out of their shock as they regained their senses and shared a look.

“By the three, this wasn’t just an elite, it was a mutant. No wonder it wandered out of the inner forest, it was unusual at the start.” Drost exclaimed as they stroked their beard.

“I’m sorry, what does it mean when a monster is a mutant?” Matt asked, trying to remind the adventurers of his uneducated status.

“Ah, right. Most don’t know about them. Well, elite monsters are just creatures that have reached the apex of strength their species can reach. Mutants on the other hand, are monsters that have been born with greater amounts of energy than usual, so they become incredibly erratic and powerful compared to others of its kind. But they usually don’t show up this far north…” Florvan answered while crossing his arms and holding his chin in thought.

“Nevermind that, look at the size of that thing! That's a huge payout if we can find a shaper in the city. Think about it! There are shapers that would give their left leg for a core this big and powerful.” Karrn exclaimed while taking the core from Matt's hand and bringing it close to his face and smiling like a gambler who just struck big.

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“It would indeed be quite the valuable item. That kind of thing would be a huge boon to find back in the forests. Why, if you could find a forest sentinel I can’t think of one that would pass up the opportunity.” Florven added while moving to Karrns side to inspect the core.

“Right? Not only did we slay a mutant wood fiend, we even got its core! This is a huge win for us.” Karrn exclaimed with a laugh as he held the core up to the sky like it was a holy object.

“Yeah. Without Matt, a shaper, we never would have been able to take care of it or find the core without a lot of work. He was invaluable.” Janica said while straightening her robe and moving over to Karrn.

“Hah! Damn right he was. Good job kid, I wish we had you for every job. Good luck charm!” The swordsman said while wrapping an arm around Matt's neck and pulling him close to shove the core close to his face as he continued to laugh.

“Yes, very helpful. One might think he would deserve a reward, something that could benefit his class maybe.” Drost added as they took the core from Karrn and held it up.

“Yeah, we should get him something. What did you have… In mind…” karrn trailed off as he looked back and forth between Drost and Janica’s expectant looks, before turning his head back and forth between the core and Matt, who was still under his arm and looking very confused.

“No… No! You can’t be serious, it’s worth so much! We could get him twenty cores after selling it!” He protested, but the rest of the group looked unswayed. He sputtered a bit as he tried to find support, but after finding none he just groaned, let go of Matt and walked away.

“What, no, I couldn't accept something like that. If it’s really as valuable as Karrn says then-”

“Uhh uh, none of that out of you. We wouldn’t even have it if not for you, and if it can help you then that’s good enough reason for me. You deserve it.” Matt was about to pretest more when he heard Karrn’s groaning again as the swordsman returned. Matt turned to look as he watched Karrn stomp over with his hands on his hips. He walked over, slowly stopped groaning and stared at a nervous Matt, and then the core, and then at his party, before slumping forward and sighing.

Karrn walked forward and swiped the core from Drost before holding it out in front of Matt. He tried to protest but Karrn dropped it so Matt had to quickly scramble and managed to catch it.

“Alright kid, you’ve earned it. But don’t go shaping it into stuff or whatever it is you’re doing with ‘em. We need to show it to the guild first as proof of the mutant, but after that it’s all yours. Don’t go disappointing me.” Karrn told Matt with a stern expression for a moment before smiling while shaking his head. Matt just nodded as he held the core gently to his chest.

Matt didn’t know how to feel. He understood that he had been very helpful to the quest, but this still felt like a bit much. He didn’t know how much it was actually worth but Karrn seemed to feel like it was a lot. And yet the other adventurers had deemed him worthy of receiving such a gift. And Janica had been the first person to vouch for him. Maybe he had judged her a bit harshly.

“Anyways, I am exhausted. Let's take a moment to rest and then start heading back to the campsite and then town. Hey Matt, you got enough connection left to make some more of those chairs?” Karrn asked, to which Matt nodded and started to turn the lumbar all around the clearing back into Chairs.

“Yeah, It doesn’t take that much to do what I have so far, and I regenerate pretty fast.” Matt said as he handed a chair to Karrn. The swordsman sat down with a sigh. “Man, you prodigies are something else. I remember back when I was a tier one it took me hours to regenerate back to full.”

“Oh yes, that reminds me, you are only a first bond. You should be very proud Matt, you have done a lot of impressive work at such an early stage. Honestly, I am a bit scared of what you are going to get up to at higher tiers of power, and yet also excited.” Florven praised as he also received a chair.

“Yeah, you totally kicked butt out there! I was focusing on the fiend for most of the fight, but I saw you moving around the forest and taking out stalkers, good work.” Janica said, gesturing wildly with her wand as she began to recount the fight from her perspective. Handing her and Drost a seat, who gave Matt a confident nod, Matt went to make himself a chair but had a second thought.

The wood fiends core was going to be a huge help, but he couldn’t do anything with it yet. However, there was a lot of very good quality wood that he had access to. LEaving the party to their post battle celebrations, Matt walked back into the canopy tunnel and looked at the body of the wood fiend. Bonding with the wood, Matt could feel how the material was inherently stronger than regular pure ivor. He was excited at just the thought of having access to new, better magical wood but he didn't know where to start.

Taking a chunk of the wood, Matt looked it over in his hand before having a thought. He could already fuse material together, so what if he… Matt grabbed a piece of regular ivor wood and holding the two pieces together, he first fused the wood together so it was connected and then began to mix them together, fusing the two materials into something of a wood alloy, half wood fiend and half ivor.

He could still feel the individual types of wood making the material, and separate them if he wanted. The alloy wasn’t as strong as just the wood fiend material, but it had properties of both which had its own advantages.

With his new knowledge in hand, Matt started taking pieces of the fiends wood and fusing them into his armor plates. As he was adding the fiend wood, he was also pulling away the ivor wood and eventually he was left with plates made purely of the magical wood. As he was changing out the wood in his gauntlets, he made another new discovery.

His gauntlets had veins of green energy within the surface from the cores he had fused into them, and as he was trading the wood around the veins remained with the gauntlets, not the ivor wood they were made of. Guess in this world the ship of Theseus was the one thay was being repaired and not the original wood, which was an interesting fact.

After a while, Matt had changed out all of his plates and armor into the sturdy fiend wood, and after shaping its durability and hardness even further, his armor was improved even further. Since the fiend wood wasn’t that good as fabric on its own, Matt tried out the mixed material and found that it worked best if he just made the outer layer of the jackets cloth parts into the alloy fabric.

He even changed out the wood in his bat, but instead of a full replacement he turned it into the alloy. For a baseball bat it wasn’t the best if it was too rigid since the shock of hitting things with it would be transferred into his body and not dispersed by the bat. Sure, that made the weapon more prone to damage but he could always just fix anything that happened to it.

Matt was reluctant to leave all of the material behind, so he made a simple frame pack and strapped as much wood as he could carry onto it. And since he could change the weight of the lumbar a considerable amount, he could carry a lot.

Walking back out to the party, he saw that everyone was stretching and getting ready to leave. “Dang kid, you took a while. What were you doing with the monster?” Karrn asked as he stretched his shoulders out.

“Oh, well the wood fiends body is incredibly sturdy, as I am sure you remember, so I replaced the plates on my armor with it.” Karrn whistled in appreciation at that, nodding.

“Good on you, I know that trying to get through the trunk was a nightmare. Well, is everyone ready?” He asked the group, and after a round of agreement, the swordsman nodded and looked into the distance. “Alright, I don’t know about you but I am tired of this forest for now. Let’s get out of here.”