I ran into a few more people as I jogged and covered half the distance to Telskyura before night started to fall and I chose to make camp. I ripped off some branches from a nearby tree and dried them out with my technique before sparking up a fire and taking out a pot and my dried veggie powders and jerky. I set the pot next to the fire to get heat but not sit on top of the fire where it was too hot. Using the water ring I brought I filled the pot with water and tossed in potato, carrot, onion, garlic and spinach powder along with a handful of jerky.-
I stirred the soup nice and slowly as the pot remained hot only on one side and thus needed it constantly. A pleasant aroma wafted up from the pot as the jerky broke down in the soup and the flavors and scents of the veggies mixed in. Once I felt the soup had fully cooked I moved the pot away from the fire to cool. I could have eaten it boiling hot if I wanted to with my endurance stat as high as it is but saw no point. -
"Hey there handsome! Made enough for two I hope?~" a playful female voice spoke from the trees to my front.
Out of the shadows a tall amazoness with dark silky smooth long hair braided behind her stepped into the light. She surprisingly wore fairly conservative clothes for an amazoness as she had on a pair of leather short pants with open sides and a leather jacket that was open at the front with a cotton shirt underneath that had a tapered collar showing some of her cleavage but not much.-
Slung over her shoulder was smooth wooden bow and at her waist sat a quiver of feathered arrows. Despite her words it took me only a glance to know she wasn't actually interested in my looks. Mostly because her eyes were glued to the cooling pot of soup the whole time.
"No luck on your hunt I take it?" I asked as I patted the ground letting her know she was free to join me.
"Preys been scarce in the last couple of weeks. If I'm lucky I'll find a deer once in three days of hunting." she said as she sat at the side of the fire.
"Won't improve immediately if i'm right but I'm pretty sure I am hunting the source of the problem. Nasty beast that contaminates the land and water where it passes while killing all forms of life there." I said seriously.
She frowned at this "I heard the rumors of course but didn't think them true. What sort of beast is it you hunt?" she asked seriously.
"The Knuckelavee, an ancient calamity sealed away in the age of spirits until it somehow was released now. It's danger while great would not prove so disastrous if not for the fact it radiates a powerful toxin from it's body. Numbers mean nothing against it, only raw power will do." I said honestly.
"Is there any way I might be of assistance? I'm no adventurer but my aim is steady and I can track." she asked seriously.
I shook my head "No. The beast is a level seven according to the reports. No amount of skill will allow a normal person to cross that abyss of power. At most you'd be an annoyance for the small moment before it kills you. Enough about that though, the food is cool now." I said pulling out a couple of bowls and spoons.
I divvied up the soup and we ate in silence until the pot was clean and I used my technique to sanitize the thing before putting it away. After that I got up and walked over to the nearest tree before resting my hand on it. My technique forced the branches to stretch into the surrounding trees extending my reach until I had enough trees to cause them to flatten and stretch together into a single hollow tree "house".
"Handy magic for camping. What happens to the trees after you are done with them though?" the woman asked curiously as she ran her hand over the bark exterior of the construct.
"Not a thing. As far as the trees know this was always the way they grew and so long as I haven't damaged their internal structures too much with the change they will live and continue to grow just as normal, only with this shape." I explained with a shrug.
"That's good. If this killed the trees it would be a massive waste just for a temporary dwelling." she said with a nod.
I didn't argue and just moved the door I made open and walked in. The interior was completely plain but split into two entirely separate chambers since I definitely wasn't sleeping in the same room with someone I just met in the woods. Once I was in one of the chambers I sealed the entrance to be extra safe before turning in for the night. The next morning the woman was gone and the campfire was cold which was fine by me. I left the tree "house" in place because it might still serve as a good place for her and any other hunters on this land to camp out.-
Continuing my journey I arrived at the noxious swamp at the edge of Telskyura on the map and frowned. The swamp didn't exist anymore, a deep small lake stood in it's place with black waters that I felt the toxins in even just by approaching it.
'This must be where the thing was sealed originally. But how did it get free and why did the swamp turn into a lake?' I thought getting a gut feeling that something was VERY wrong but couldn't figure out what exactly.
Circling around the muck shoreline of the new lake I soon found the path the beast took once it left here. It wasn't hard either as the wide area of dead plants with greenery at it's edges was like someone ran a sharpie over the globe making an obvious path to follow. Picking up speed I crossed the border into Telskyura following the path and soon came across my first village. A haunting sight as on the ground lay the rotting corpses of the ones that lived here originally while the buildings themselves remained without harm. Nothing lived here as even the maggots and flies one would expect were absent from the gruesome scene.