Violet was having a great day so far she had managed to pick off another 2 groups of the frogs totaling 6 new snacks and after careful consideration. A whole 4 seconds she concluded that the shamans just tasted bad, she was still going to eat them but would limit it to only the heart and nothing else at least that wasn't too bad compared to the rest of them. Thankfully the warriors tasted much better so she was not low on food!
[You have defeated Frogman Shaman lvl 7 x2 exp rewarded]
[You have defeated Frogman Warrior lvl 7~8 x4 exp rewarded]
[Congratulations you have leveled up]
Lvl 2->3
Agility - 11->12
Strength - 12->13
Constitution - 11->13
Intelligence - 17->18
Wisdom - 13->14
Unfortunately the frog folk seem to have picked up that she was hunting them and they now grouped up into parties of 6 and whilst she thought that she could have taken them, it would be a close thing and wasn't sure if she wanted to risk it unless forced into a fight. As such she decided to leave there section of the lake and continue exploring around it to see if she ran into anything new.
Whilst walking through the trees she didn't run into anything particularly interesting. Violet did see a wild boar but it looked to be with another one and they were both bigger than the one she fought before so she hid in the shadows until they passed her by. 'One day I will no longer need to fear anything in there woods' violet declared to herself! But that day is not today so she stealthily hid and ran away once apart from the scary looking boars.
After around an hour of walking she noticed that something seemed different in the air. Pausing she tried to figure out what was different, at first she couldn't figure out what it was until she noticed that her mana was regenerating slightly faster than normal. 'Hu why is that happening' she pondered. Then it hit her. 'The amount of mana in the air is getting stronger the further away from my cave that I go!'
'Was my cave not actually a good place to be?' She pondered that for a very long time indeed a full 8 seconds this time. Then she came to her conclusion, 'no it was a good place for me to be born if stronger monsters lived near me I could have been killed when I was newly born so it was good that the mana was lower!' She said this completely ignoring the fact that she is still only a couple of days old herself!
Regardless she continued walking until she came across something she hadn't expected to see, signs of civilisation. Or more precisely she saw what appeared to be a crude dock built on the side of the lake. After watching it for a while she discovered that nothing was currently there so she left her cover of trees and went to go and investigate. And she identified nothing new, it was a simple construct of wood that extended a couple of meters into the lake, not quite understanding what the point of this was Violet promptly decided to ignore it and headed back to the tree line. However, once she got there some nearby movement caught her eye.
Walking out of the forest a couple hundred meters to the side were 3 figures, 2 large ones and one smaller version of the same people. The large ones were standing on 2 legs with furred feet? Paws? And had some kind of animal skin wrapped around their waist. One of the large ones also has a hide wrapped around their chest area and it looked much larger than the other one, maybe it got injured and it is wrapping the wound Violet wondered? As for the smaller one it too had 2 wrappings one on its waist and one on its chest, but this one's chest didn't look to be larger and seemed just as flat as the first large one. "How curious"
Other than the wrappings all 3 has a white fluffy tail and 2 fluffy ears on top of their heads which had some strange fur? Growing out of and just hanging off them? Very weird. They also had some fur towards the paws?claws? Grabby things? on the other 2 limbs.
Violet didn't know why but she felt no urge to hunt them, she couldn't tell if they were powerful but even still something in her told her that it would not be wise to hunt these creatures.
Intrigued by this Violet settled down into some deep shadows and further wrapped them around herself and lay down to watch this strange party.
She quite quickly got bored as all they did was approach the strange wooden thing and the first large one got out a wooden stick with a thin rope? On the end and then proceeded to throw the rope into the water and just stood there waiting. The small one at least was moving about and doing stuff but the other large one seemed to just be observing the small one. Violet had at this point figured out that the 2 large ones were likely the small ones parents but past that nothing happened. She did notice that the small one kept looking in her direction which spooked Violet slightly but as the small one didn't do anything she ignored it and continued to observe.
Just as Violet was about to leave she noticed some movement in the shallow water. Perking up she wondered if something exciting was about to happen. To her surprise a large party of the frogmen jumped out of the waters and immediately rushed to attack the large one on the wooden thing. Violet was curious how they would deal with this situation but to her amazement that large one didn't even seemed surprised by the sneak attack, in fact it seemed happy?
Before anyone could react it had grabbed 2 of the warriors and smashed their faces together instantly destroying said faces and killing them both. The other large one summoned a whip of water and lashed it out to grab one of the shamans and drew back pulling it towards the first large one who swiftly spun on its heel and kicked it clean through its chest instantly killing that one as well! In less than 10 more seconds all of the frogmen were dead except one injured warrior, this was was tossed towards the child who after some hesitation charged the warrior and started exchanging blows with it before managing to kill that one too! "Ohh I get it they are gathering prey for their child to grow stronger! Very smart." Violet was quite surprised at this as considering she never knew her parents hadn't considered that someone could help you hunt till just now.
After the fight the group of 3 swiftly left the lake and headed back into the forest. Truly intrigued by these creatures now Violet decided to follow them from the shadows to try and learn more about these interesting creatures.
Violet followed them for nearly half an hour before they arrived at a collection of wooden buildings spread through a small clearing. Where others of these tall 2 legged creatures lived. Curious but not wanting to get too close Violet settled back down to continue her observations.
——-
Luna had just returned from the lake with her parents and was settled around the communal campfire whilst one of the elders cooked a wild bore on a spit, seems one of the hunters had gotten lucky today and they would get to eat well!
She thought back to the strange creature she thought she had spotted watching them from the woods, it looked so pretty but as she was with her parents she didn't want to announce it in case they decided it was a threat and killed it. Shaking her head she moved off that line of thinking her thoughts instead turned back to how they ended up this deep into this accursed forest.
It has been a harsh couple of years recently ever since the orcs had destroyed their previous home and killed many of their clan. They were barely 20 of them left now and it seemed that they had only finally manage to escape from the orcs after all this time. She still didn't know why the orcs hated them so much but it didn't matter, one day when she was strong enough she would return the favour and hunt down all the orcs herself!
Enjoying that line of thought she almost missed the first scream. She sharply looked up towards the sound and her blood ran cold at what she saw her farther, one of the strongest people in the clan was staring at her mother who had a large arrow sticking out from her chest. Before I could do anything else another arrow lanced out of the trees and struck farter in the back causing him to stagger to the ground. Then as i stared in shock a large group of orcs ran out of the trees near my parents and I let out a scream as I watched the orcs swing down and strike my parents down with their clubs. Screaming in pain, frustration and horror I wanted to get up and fight but elder Jutle grabbed my shoulder and spoke quickly but calmly. "you must run Luna, you can not fight here, you our the last of our children. Go escape and live! Run into the forest and survive we will hold them off as long as possible." Seeing me frozen in indecision she barked out." I said run girl!" Seeing the determination in her elderly eyes it was all I could do to turn my head with tears streaming down my face as I ran into the darkening forest.