Some dinner had been ready, but it had not been boar meat yet. Someone was taking their time bleeding it dry before properly butchering it and William told her they were going to do that in daylight. Luna shrugged and ate a small bowl of some kind of fish stew. Someone had taken their pickled vegetables and mixed them up with some fresh fish and added some herbs to spice it up. Not her favorite, but right at that moment it only counted that she got a hot meal. She thanked William for the food, but he pointed towards a woman who was quietly working on fixing some torn pants in the firelight. She looked like the typical stout grandmother to Luna

[Evelyn]

Level 51, Human

She was sitting cross legged on the ground and explained what she was doing to two girls who were sitting on her left and right. Luna decided to not bother her right now and went to her tent to catch some sleep.

Luna groaned inwardly when instead of sleep she was greeted by her Ancestral Memory. She was back in sitting in a lecture, only this time a curious looking man was talking. His whole body looked more treelike than human, his skin a dark brown with small patches of moss and there wasn’t a single ‘normal’ hair left on his head. It had all been replaced by vines and flowers, which were braided artfully and fell down his back.

“Always remember what Mana is. Everything contains Mana, without it there would be no life. It follows an endless cycle of growth, decay and death. While there is balance Mana will simply seep back into the earth, air and surrounding plants and animals, but when the balance is disrupted it can linger and corrupt. A higher density of mana means more life, but also more potential for corruption. Who can tell me examples for this corruption?”

All around Luna hands shot up in the air and she noticed that her own hand had been raised as well. The teacher looked in her direction and pointed at her. “Yes. Mayluna.” Luna froze, first because she had never interacted with anyone in her dream and second because the name was not hers, but oddly familiar. Her fear was unfounded, as she was only a passenger watching what had happened at another time.

Luna heard herself speak in a clear voice. “There are several possible ways in which such corruption could manifest, but they are usually split in four cases. Animal corruption. Plant Corruption. Dungeon Manifestation. And the worst of all, sentient corruption.”

“Thank you Mayluna.” The teacher walked back on the stage and when he reached the back half, he tapped the ground with his foot. Nobody seemed surprised or awed when suddenly vines started moving on the ground and lifted up a piece of black stone. Luna had never seen anything like it, but she instantly recognized that he was using magic to hold a black board in place to write upon.

“I am sure that all of you have heard this at least a dozen times, but it is important to remind everyone from time to time that Mana is not a benevolent force. It simply is. It is up to us to make sure the balance is kept and Mana can return to the cycle. We search for the corruption, we destroy the corruption.”

The memory started to fade again and Luna was mulling over what she had seen and heard in her head. She surmised that “corruption” for an animal meant it turned into a monster, dungeons were already known to her but the idea of plants being corrupted was new. Sentient corruption was what her status had warned her about when she received the Skill Nature's Bounty, if she were to ever absorb too much mana it might turn her into a monster as well.

But one other thing stood out. Who was Mayluna and why was her name so similar to hers? Had she been seeing her memories all this time? For once Luna was hoping for more memories to come visit her, as she was having more questions that needed answering. But after a long day Luna just let it go and finally drifted off to sleep.

Luna woke up at first light completely refreshed. She had forgotten how great sleeping with her Skill active felt and she briefly wondered how she had ever survived without it. After getting into her full gear she slipped out of her tent and walked over to the now burned down fire she had dinner at last night. Only a few people were already up and about, but Evelyn was one of them. She was sitting near the fireplace and was roasting some boar meat.

“Good morning. I am Luna!” Luna greeted her.

Evelyn looked up to her and waved her over. “Good morning Luna. I was told you brought the boar last night, so come here and get some breakfast. I am Evelyn by the way. You are up pretty early.”

Luna sat down next to the fire and looked up at the sky. No cloud was in sight as the first rays of warm sunlight reached their camp. “I have a Skill that helps me sleep, as long as I can sleep in peace I will be fine after maybe half the time it used to be in the past.”

Evelyn nodded knowingly. “Lucky for you to get such a Skill this early in your life. I got mine with my third class, which wasn’t that long ago. Makes you feel like a totally different person in the morning.” She deftly sliced more boar meat into slices and dropped them on the hot stone, the smell of roasting meat permeating the air. She scooped up some of the done meat into a bowl and then retrieved a ceramic jar from the embers, which Luna had overlooked before. She emptied the jar into a big bowl, and Luna now saw that it was a kind of vegetable hotpot that had been slow-cooked through the night.

It was absolutely delicious and Luna thanked Evelyn for the great breakfast and asked her to tell William that she would be near the camp perimeter checking out the forest. They would have to coordinate what to do in the coming days and Luna was loath to leave the settlers alone while they had not built at least a rudimentary wall.

Luna made a quick stop to pick up her bow and a quiver. She left the camp behind and checked on the smaller fires that marked the perimeter. Only one of them still had two men sitting around it, but the time to keep watch had passed. Luna wished them a good morning, but did not stop to chat. She approached the forest and turned to follow it down towards the river, intently staring into the forest to see if anything moved in the early morning hours.

Luna walked the perimeter twice without spotting anything bigger than some colorful birds in the branches and she was about to return to the camp when William finally turned up. The sun was now fully up in the sky and the camp had woken up.

William waved towards Luna tiredly and she went over to him. “Good morning Luna. What can I do for you?”

“I want to know where you will start the wall and where you will chop the trees. The teams need to be organized, each group needs a guard to keep watch in their area. Otherwise you might lose people and that could ruin this whole thing.” Luna told him while slicing an apple she had picked up on her walk.

William rubbed his face with his hands and sighed. “We thought you would be keeping watch.”

Luna looked at him in disbelief. “Me? Keeping watch for all of you? I am a Pathfinder, not a town guard. Even if I wanted to play guard for you I could not cover the area and keep watch over everyone. I will stick around for a few days and watch out for things, but if nothing happens I will be going on more day long trips to see the land.”

William had been walking with her the whole time and they reached the embers of one of the outlying fires from last night. He stopped there and sat down. “Just so you know, you did not make friends with some of the other people on our council. Some do not even believe you saw Monsters.”

“I don’t care if they like me or not, I am not here to be their friend. Just make sure the work starts today and organize teams. I will be around here somewhere.” Luna told him, turned around and walked back to the forest.

Luna was not surprised the group of random humans was not working smoothly together. By presenting the Monster threat she had applied pressure and now they were indignant to have their hands forced by some girl a third of their age.

Luna walked through the first few meters of forest and looked around. The forest here was curious, much greener in color with more different types of bushes and vines growing everywhere, the underbrush was much thicker in general. Since it was still in the middle of spring, at least going by her calendar, the plants were much too far along in her growth. No more light green sprouts or young leaves anywhere.

Luna kept walking while checking different plants and trees, to find other differences and she soon found plants that were unfamiliar to her. Mostly smaller brush and ferns, but she even found a tree a tree type she had not seen before. Luna chastised herself for being so blind while scouting before. She had been too focused on finding animals and had overlooked the obvious signs around here.

This place was warmer than her homeland. And with the high mana density, life was flourishing everywhere. A lot more plants growing on the ground, trees growing higher and this meant that the settlers would need to start setting up fields as soon as possible, if their crops would grow as quickly and well, they might be bringing in their first harvest sooner than expected.

For Luna the only reason to sleep in the human camp was to borrow the security. She did not really mind sleeping there, but she really needed a place to stow her gear and be certain that when she came back it would be untouched. She was the outlier in this community. She came here alone and could only rely on herself.

Luna pushed away that train of thought and concentrated back on the forest, she had been slowly walking and was by now a few hundred meters into the forest, all vision of the human camp lost between trees and underbrush. No point going any further, she had realized a few things about this place that should have been obvious from the start, but she was too busy looking for threats that she simply did not see what was directly in front of her.

On the way back Luna cut down some vines with her machete, remembering the request for plant fibre that could be used to create makeshift ropes to tie things together. With a few vines slung over her left arm she walked back, finding the first teams of settlers with axes and saws already close to the forest.

She was waved over by William, who was standing with other council members close to one of the work teams. “Luna, I was looking for you. Did you see any animals in this area lately?”

Luna shook her head. “None bigger than birds or squirrels. I would expect most animals to stay away once we start making loud noises, but that would only count for animals like deer or boars. I am sure that predators would come to see what the noise is about or even get close to our camp to find out who or what we are.”

She handed over the vines to William. “Yesterday you requested that I check for possible plants to be used to tie down things or connect scaffolding or some type, this is the best I found so far, but they grow everywhere once you go a bit further in.”

The other men had stepped closer to inspect the plant and one said. “They will start to rot at some point, but I think if we braid them or turn them into makeshift ropes they will work fine to connect the trunks for the wall.”

That was good news. The plan for the stockade was to simply dig a small ditch, stick trunks into it, put the earth against them on both sides and tie them together for added stability. Then use a few support beams from the inside to prevent it from falling over. Without tying them together it would be just single trunks that were not supported in any way, which would make for a really crappy wall.

“I suggest you gather the vines after chopping down a tree. The vines will be on the ground, easy to collect and nobody has to walk into the forest to get them.” Luna said while observing the work teams.

While they had been talking the teams had organized into areas that were not overlapping, enabling each to work on their own tree without endangering other people around them. “Who is organizing the teams?” She asked.

“That would be Gordon, young guy, he used to be a lumberjack somewhere in Demholt. He heard about our expedition in a tavern somewhere and just showed up at the Middingfurt docks some day.” William replied.

Luna was impressed, the teams had been organized efficiently and on such short notice. Maybe some settlers had more promise than others.

Luna gestured for William and the others to follow her and she moved away from the forest so that the team there could start bringing down trees. Luckily the expedition came with an abundant stock of axes and saws, as cutting down trees for building material had been expected from the start.

“Alright.” Luna started speaking again. “Let me give you all a quick overview of the area.” Now she held the attention of all council members. All of them had some hopes to find good locations, either to mine, build pastures or set up fields.

Luna proceeded to explain her travel through the forest and the area around the village, along the river and up to the hill. She also explained her conclusions that the seasons here had started to shift earlier, which caused a small commotion and requests for a better explanation.

“Look at the forest and the plants around here. You can still see that nearly all leaves are newer, the shade a bit lighter than you might expect, but there are no light green leaves or new shoots to be found anywhere. Spring started earlier here.” She explained.

At this point a small man with a neatly trimmed beard spoke up. “Yes, I had discussions with other people. I am originally from the northern coast of Demholt and up that far north the winter is much longer than south of the mountains. You might not know about it, but a scholar postulated that there were many different climate regions, with huge differences in how long winter is and how long you can grow crops.”

Luna took in that new piece of information. It made sense, the books she had read talked about differences in winter, but she had never received a proper education in the matter.

“I think that is excellent news. If we can expect shorter winters, that means it will be much easier to grow enough food for everyone.” William added to the discussion.

Luna held up a hand to stall the growing discussion about crops, fields and the ever popular topic of building priorities. “Let me finish my explanation on the area please. The woods have a lot more undergrowth, it is pretty hard for me to travel through. That means for the time being you are limited to the easily accessible areas.”

Luna pointed north-west. “Up near the cliffs the forest retreats back toward the hills and you have some grassland with bushes and an occasional tree here and there.”

She made a sweeping motion for the area north and north-east. “All this area has deep forest up to the hills. Directly east, following the river, the hills reach up to the river itself and so does the forest. Unless you clear a path along the river, you won’t be going in that direction either.”

That elicited some grumbles and the ever unhappy Christoph spoke. “Great. So we are basically trapped here. How are we supposed to grow this village if we are limited to what we can see around us?”

Luna rolled her eyes at William. “If you had let me finish you would know. This river comes from a big lake. I saw it from the top of the hill, so I would say the best way to get further inland would be using boats on the river. But you would have to find someone who knows more about that. I have no idea if that is doable, maybe the current is too strong.” She shrugged her shoulders. “The other side of the river, up to the point where I could see it, seemed to be a lot better for travel. Mostly rocky, but flat ground.”

Luna explained that the other side of the chain of hills was another valley with a smaller river and the south side of their not yet named river held only more forest as far as her sight reached. Further out Luna could no longer clearly see the terrain. The land might just end there for all she knew, but she was not about to take a wild guess.

“Any further questions?” Luna asked.

William looked at her and then requested for her to wait a bit for them to discuss the new information. They turned back to her and it was once again Christoph who led the charge. “We want the Class Tablet. We saw Parrot and his ship leave early this morning, but we do not have it yet. Did he give it to you?”

Luna had hoped for that request to happen a lot later, but it made sense that the people wanted to keep track of their progress. She should have come up with a good explanation beforehand, but now she had to think on the spot.

“That is certainly possible.” Luna told him. “Parrot left me some things, but I didn’t go through them yet. If he left it with me he didn’t tell me beforehand. You know how he is, a little scatterbrained when it comes to things not related to the sea.”

That answer did not make them happy, but it bought Luna at least a day or so, but reminded her of something else that related directly to this. “Do you know when the remaining ships are leaving and are you still going to dismantle two ships to use for building materials?”

Luna decided to just go ahead and identify everyone, she should have done that the first time they met, but the warning that people might get offended had still been lodged in her head. She could make her own rules. here, the human kingdoms were far away and there was nobody here who scared her.

[Johan]

Level 35, Human

[Alfred]

Level 42, Human

[Novak]

Level 38, Human

It was again the man from Demholt, Johan, who spoke. “I have been organizing to take the ships apart. But that is going to slow down a lot, only the few people with classes related to the sea are still on that task. Luckily we have one shipwright with us, so they should still manage. The other ships are stocking up on freshwater and will set sails again tomorrow. With no tide to speak off around here they can set their own time.”

One day, that was a timeframe Luna could work with. She would have to repack her backpack to carry a few extra supplies and drop the Class Tablet in there, the risk of someone going through her things and finding it was not acceptable. The news of the increased experience could not reach any of the kingdoms.