The morning soon arrived for the party, welcoming them once more with the gentle sound of rain failing endlesssly just beyond the cave mouth.

With little to discuss they made a quick breakfast, this time Susan took charge and actually made something more elaborate that clocked meat. Violet still not quite a great chef even after all the lessons given to her by the dogkin.

Once their bellies were satiated they readied themselves for a day full of battles once more. Violet retook her natural form, not wanting to have to deal with wet clothing. Not that she understood why it was annoying, but based on Luna and Susan's grumbling over it she wasn't in a rush to find out.

Leaving the cave they advanced towards the dense trees in the east once more. Caution clear in their movements as they expected the monsters to be quite agitated after their assult on the tree the previous day. Only this time they would not shy away from engaging them as and when they attacked, they knew that they could hold off multiple of them at once now. And with their strength increased they felt confident of if not killing a small group of them, than at least being able to escape from them without too much hassle.

The days slowly passed by, with the group only encountering a single monster by mid day. They were quite surprised when no more of its brethren came to assult them after its death. But even after some time waiting no more monsters came to investigate its death, they had to accept that evidently some things had changed.

Moving on they continued traveling at a cautious speed, not rushing but not moving slowly either. After all they had yet to encounter anything that was above the level 80 mark past the tree.

Eventually they did run into one more of the Bark Horrors, this one at level 77. Yet even after the short but explosive fight no more came to investigate.

"I think it was the tree that was telling them to investigate anytime one of them died, not something that they would naturally do by themselves. Why else would that behaviour have stopped now? Nothing else of note has happened that o can think off." Luna eventually guessed. And the party had to agree, with no other idea themselves on what was happening.

But this was also a good thing, as it meant that they would not have to worry about being swarmed by overwhelming numbers. As such they sped up their movement, eager to get through this section of the forest.

They did stop by the corrupted pond to see what happened their after they left the previous day though. And to their surprise, nothing had changed.

The once mighty tree lay half submerged in the fetid waters, its corrupted sap no longer flowing endlessly. The entire are was still wrought with corruption, but they figured that would be something only time would change. Or at least they hoped that time would eventually clean up this mess, for they surely did not want to do anything about it past what they had already achieved.

Not finding anything else of note with the pond the group once more moved on.

They got into a couple more fights as the day progressed gaining our companions one more level each bringing them both up to level 77, Violet having finally caught up to Luna in levels, much the Violet delight and Luna's mild frustration. Still Luna was more than happy for her companion and only half heartedly complained about the unfairness of dragons, getting a chuckle from Susan who shared her feelings on how unreasonable dragons can be.

As evening approached they had still yet to leave the thicket so went about searching for a suitable location to set up a camp, eventually finding a spot in a location where several trees had been felled. Based on the state of the trees it was quite a while ago too, still it provided plenty of shelter given the trees impressive sizes.

Still the group did maintain a watch, after all they were in monster teritory and it would be stupid not to be cautious.

Thankfully the night passed by with no untoward attacks by the local monster population, much to the parties relief. Sadly their breakfast was interrupted when one of the Horrors snuck up on them as they were just finished cooking.

That Horror did not survive long after it destroyed two dragons and a grumpy leopardkin's brekfast, they were forced to relocate away from the gore splattered campsite to try cooking food again. The two hangry dragons did not go easy on the poor abomination.

The day slowly passed by a couple of smaller streams blocking their path, but it wasn't much trouble to pass them by. For whilst this section of the forest was indeed quite dense, it was still wide enough for the two dragons to partake in some short batches of gliding. The trees around them were hundred of meters tall and between 5-10 meters wide on average.

It was after mid day that the group spotted the first beast they had seen in some time, its appearance quite surprised the group. Having not expected to encounter a regular beast in this area, yet it also seems to quite surprise the beast in question too. It was a amphibian of some kind, with webbed toes in its stumpy legs, its slick dark green skin glistening in the low light. They spotted it as they were landing after crossing one of the streams.

The party paused, not knowing if they should attack or not, the beast took the option away from them as it promptly dove into the water and fled away in apparent terror. The group watched this with surprised ambivalence, not truly minding the fact that it didn't attack them.

After that they only encountered a singular more Horror during the day, and after swiftly killing the monster they carried on. As the afternoon began to turn into evening the group finally exited the monster infested thicket. Once more back into the sprawling forestscape of towering trees and wide open areas in between the giant trunks.

The group then began the search for a shelter once more, eager to find a place to camp for the night before they progressed further on their journey.

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