With the fight over and the remaining nymphs scattered in the winds, I took a moment to look at the notifications I had ignored since entering the valley - and there were a lot of them.

Bound Nymph of Tegi died You gain 2500 EXP. For killing an opponent without a Traveller in your party, you gain Bonus EXP . . . Tegi - Dryad of the Grove died You gain 15000 EXP. For killing an opponent 54 levels above you you gain Bonus EXP For killing an opponent without a Traveller in your party, you gain Bonus EXP Bound Nymph of Tegi - Stalker died You gain 3000 EXP. For killing an opponent 5 levels above you you gain Bonus EXP For killing an opponent without a Traveller in your party, you gain Bonus EXP You reached level 52 Skill increased You increased your skill: Darkness Rune-Mastery [61/100] Skill increased You increased your skill: Blood Rune-Mastery [48/100] Skill increased You increased your skill: Ice Rune-Mastery [57/100] Skill increased You increased your skill: Ice Magic [67/100] Skill increased You increased your skill: Blood Magic [35/100] Skill increased You increased your skill: Darkness Magic [42/100] Skill increased You increased your skill: Dual Blade-Mastery [21/100] Composite Skill expanded Skills aggregated under the Mind Magic-Skill: [Darkness Magic][Ice Magic] New maximum skill level [60] Skill increased You increased your skill: Mind Magic [5/60]

I blinked for a second, surprised by the amount of EXP gained for the dryad - enough to easily push me over to the next level, and then some - and the change to my Mind Magic skill. Once again, I wished for some sort of ‘Magic for dummies’-book, shedding light to the sometimes confusing aspects governing the magic of Mundus. Obviously, something of that sort would most likely be called ‘Clavicula Salomonis’, ‘Necronomicon’ or ‘Enchiridion’. The closest I had was the Zevarra Agha the Grandmother had given me, and while it was incredibly useful, I was unable to read much of it. But maybe that was by design; there were legends about grimoires destroying the mind of the unprepared reader, and given the number of times I had almost killed myself with reckless magic experimentation, I was inclined to take that risk seriously.

Before heading out, I remembered something that was an integral part of most online role-playing games - the looting. Adra seemed quite eager, and together we checked the remains of the dryad and the surroundings. There was one of the huts grown out of a nearby tree, something I took as the dwelling of the dryad. The corpse itself had nothing that was of value; whatever Adra had done to her had ravaged the plant-like items she had been wearing even worse than I had seen previously.

The small hut looked better; there were mostly materials inside, a few living plants that Adra took, and an assortment of dried plants, primarily herbs and a few mushrooms. I recognised Shadeleaf, the rest I had no idea about. For now, I would take them with me - maybe they had value. In addition, there was an assortment of red crystals identified as Blood Crystals, the equivalent to the resin-like stuff I got when condensing the blood of nymphs with my dagger. Probably better concentrated and crystallized from different life-forms thanks to a better grasp of Blood Magic, but it served the same purpose, allowing you to store the results of Blood Magic without a need to bring the living beings with you. Those, I would take with me and use in emergencies, they made for excellent power-supplies when my own power was not enough.

“Finished?” Sigmir asked as Adra and I emerged from the hut. She had stayed outside, looking after Rai. He was still lying in the snow, unconscious and surrounded by his own blood.

“Can you carry him? I’m not sure how long he will be out, what I did had to hurt like hell.” I asked Sigmir. She just looked at the blood splattered in the snow and nodded before carefully picking him up.

“Adra, can you lead? Roughly the way we came from, no need to run into a possible ambush.”

“Sure. I doubt that they will try anything before rejoining with the rest of their forces, if then. Losing their leader will most likely cause them to scatter, unless they have another dryad with the strength to hold them together. Which I doubt, another powerful dryad would have used her weakness against her, just as I did.” There was a slightly disturbing smile on Adra’s face as she talked, indicating that struggle for dominance amongst dryads were not rare, It sent shivers down my spine, wondering if non-dryads were targets for their struggles as well. I would have to be careful of that, very careful, even if the main cause for targeting other dryads was the absorption of power, something that would not work with pretty much anything but other dryads.

We headed out, with the remnants of mist swirling around us. By now, the mist had spread through most of the valley but greatly lost its density, allowing us to navigate easily. The village seemed fully abandoned, without taking anything of value. I had no particular desire to carefully loot the entire village - not if there might be another force of nymphs on their way back. I had no illusions that the gathered strength of a hundred nymphs would easily be enough to overwhelm us, unless we had incredible luck and the terrain on our side. And even then, it would not be a certain thing, so discretion and avoidance were the better part of valor here. We had cut off the head, but the rest of the snake could still crush us to death. But with a little time, the Jonari and the probable interfighting would end them, so the threat to Adernas was dealt with and we could claim our reward.

Sadly, given how everything played out, we should not dawdle around and take every quest in the area; there was a chance that someone would realise what we had done. Not a high chance, but it was a chance nonetheless. I highly doubted that Rai would actively tell anyone about it - he had demonstrated his ability to keep silent when Jongarn had tortured him - but when someone asked him a direct question, especially his father, it would be problematic, forcing him to choose between keeping silent for our sake and his duty to his father.

And, if I was honest, if there would be a struggle in that case, I would be disappointed in Rai. He had shown a great deal of maturity the last few days, had demonstrated that he was willing to take care of his own life, not relying on his father. But with such a sense of responsibility came also a duty to his village and its people, a duty superseding any loyalty to us. The days alone in the forest had been very good for him, allowing him to examine his life without external influence - at least until the external world had come crashing in and shown him that the world did not owe him anything.

From time to time, I used Lenore’s sight to check the magic around us, but most of it had unravelled, only the small, unconnected flickers were still in their trees. Out of curiosity, I created a small Ice Shield and walked up to one, interested in their function. Once I got within a few steps of the tree, the flicker exploded in a bright flash, while sending out a loud noise. Even with the opaque Ice Shield, I was blinded in the flash, demonstrating that it was an excellent warning and defensive system. While I was blinded, Lenore left her Hallow and lent me her eyes once more, allowing me to continue my way. Both Adra and Sigmir looked a little exasperated that I was testing strange magic traps by simply walking into them, but at the same time, both looked as if it was exactly what they expected of me. Somehow, I was not sure I liked that.

The way back up the hill was annoying for Sigmir; the additional weight of Rai caused her to repeatedly lose traction as the snow beneath her was sliding away, to the point that I used my Ice Runes to create a board to carry him on with my Ice Magic. The magic was not increasing my own weight, allowing me to let him float up the hill with us. I heard Rai groan before we got to the top, so I told him to lie still and get his strength back. Unsurprisingly, he tried to stand and walk on his own, but his legs were not up to the task and the threat that he could either use the stretcher or be carried like a baby made sure that he stayed on the stretcher as we made our way back to the tree we had used before.

It made sense to spend the rest of the night, before carefully making our way back to Adernas.