Weeks went by since I started off on my quest. It wasn't even hours since I left the town that I got a call from Affie. I told her what happened and about my quest. She seemed confused and had forgotten about the compass entirely... She muted the call for awhile then just told me to have fun. It was weird. Eventually I stumbled across a large forest unlike all the other little thickets along my path this is seemingly endless. Looking at the map I can tell this is known as the shadow woods... It will take awhile for me to pass this forest but on the other side the mountain I'm looking for. Affie, Anna, and Crys call me daily. Every night that is. While Ela takes a different approach... While she also found a quest to do she wondered off in a different direction with the duchess and her knights on a journey that I was not informed of. As for her communication where she seems to have gotten quite close with the duchess and it seems that they've been sharing a tent in their journey... So she sends me a lot of videos and images of her or the duchess naked... One of them was even a video of a stream where her and a whole platoon of beautiful women were bathing. I'd assume it wasn't all the guards that came along with the duchess but it was a lot of naked women... Sure I still get calls and texts but it's mostly these weird messages of Ela teasingly saying I should have come with her... I'm sure she's just upset I had left without her... So I typically just reply with a comment about how pretty she looks then say I miss her too.
Dismissing my horse back to my inventory I begin to walk my way through the forest on foot. As the name implies the forest is extremely dark and the trees are quite tall. At a certain point the forest seems to be night time all the time... In my travels I am regularly attacked by a strange beast from the shadows sometimes it's just regular snakes but from time to time it'll be a zombie looking figure or a batlike humanoid. As I travel the latter two become more and more frequent and most important is the strangeness of the forest. While I don't get tired it is a bit mentally straining to have the constant shifting shadows in the trees above... Some of the NPCs that gave me warnings told me the trees in this forest are all alive... But the main one I heard is about the bats... Supposedly these bats are lesser vampires and the true vampires all live up in the trees as bats... While the vampires don't all drink blood they can. Many of the tree dwelling vampire supposedly ear fruit. This was the more plausible explanation to the shadows in the trees then the trees being alive. After all as this is a game the moment you debate if something is a monster and can see it you will see it's health bar pop up. While without the growth quest the system doesn't automatically tell you about a monster unless you get a inspection skill it will always display their health visibly when ever you are nearby and can possibly engage in combat. So the ghost stories about living trees that munch of people is nonesensical as they'd display a health bar. Now the vampires is not unlikely. It's known in the lore of the game by most players that vampires are real and theirs more then one clan of them. For instance the blood clan that feeds off of humans that is typically seen as evil. The crimson clan that feeds off of demons that is seen as good by most humans despite them not being on our side they aren't on a holy journey or any of that nonesense they just believe demons are the superior food... It'd be like if a pig saw a human as a ally just because they only ate chicken because they found pig disgusting. Then there's the green clan... Hippie vampires long story short they survive on sap... Don't even eat fruit as it's tree sperm to them.... Then the blue vampires who only eat fruit and vegetables... They are literally blue... Then the mutt vampires... It's what they call themselves... They are basically wild beasts that ignore humans all together and hunt beasts in the woods... They can talk and think like regular people just how they like to live... So yeah... These are all the kinds of vampires we know of... The chance of blue vampires being here isn't that low and they tend to hide from humans... Well all but the blood vampires will hide from humans as the blood clan hunts and enslaves humans they don't hide... The blood clan is the most powerful of the vampire clans though... While the crimson clan is strongest individually they have a vastly inferior number compared to all the other clans... The mutt clan is basically unknown. While the other clans are extremely numerous but weaker.
As I was treading my way forward I spot a structure in the distance it's built in a narrow ravine with trees covering off the sky above it. A black castle. Looking at the white rocks surrounding the castle and covering the bottom of the deep ravine I nearly puke... Just gross... So much poop... Looking at a spare set of shoes I have in my inventory I swapped them out for my current pair of books from my growth equipment set of random cloth clothing that I made back at the bandit hideout... It's trash but it does give me extra storage for exp that I can take out later making all my kills not worthless... Looking into the ravine I gotta assume this would be a house for none blue vampires... Probably blood due to the poop mountain as crimson wouldn't have that many bats... While the other groups aren't exactly known to make homes... They just live outside. Blue usually live in trees the same as green. While mutts just roam like beasts... Thinking about it I do need undead related stuff and ghosts and zombies are known to serve vampire as they are "the most noble" of the undead... Honestly from what I've heard the necromancers and skeletons deserve that title more... Or the mummies... Vampires are vile sex crazed and gluttonous beasts regardless of their clan. Ghost are just kinda mercenary undead as they tend to only care for achieving a regret. While zombies returned out of hatred or through a necromancers hands whilst the skeletons typically become undead out of some kind of responsibility. Duty bound to protect and serve kind of dudes. Especially if their job isn't done yet... Which is why skeletons definitely get my vote for the most noble of the undead... I mean they are also definitely the dumbest... I mean the zombies at least still have a brain... A rotting disgusting one but a brain none the less. Any none magical skeleton is usually the weakest as well. A skeletal knight has no muscles and all it's spiritual and mental power goes to keeping it's body in one piece and moving so they tend to have no consciousness what so ever... The magical skeletons can span between weak and super strong though. Unless the warrior/knight skeleton was immensely strong or also had magical abilities it's unlikely they became anything but the lowest of skeletons after they died. The zombies are just rotting beasts no impulse but eat left in there. That's enough about the undead...
Having swapped my boots out I walk over to a nearby rock outside the valley and gently tap my blade upon the stone. While vampires are smarter then most the undead they are also extremely lazy and their ears are extremely sensitive so only a small number of the weakest vampires would be forced to go deal with an annoying noice at the threat of death if they didn't go.