Mysterious Stranger

My deliberately mysterious exit left the soldiers who had been watching me and possibly the lord himself confused and mystified though I couldn't be certain however I had reasons for doing it that way I didn't want them to approach me or if they did they would do so in some fear or questions in their heart it was deliberate on my part to make them question my abilities and would allow me to leave. I made good time back to the first battle site I'd found days before and at the edge of the forest I planted a number of trees and bushes creating a wall of foliage several feet thick and of the same plants as the surrounding forest camouflaging the road and blocking sight along it.

After sealing the roadway tighter than a crabs buttox I then headed back to the castle adding walls of forest every so often to the road honestly I did this to block entrance to the area and to buy me some time for the lord and his soldiers to leave and when I finally returned they had left and the city was mine sort of. I found the slaves enjoying the fruits from the trees I had grown honestly I didn't think I could manage that but maybe because seeds are technically alive manipulating their growth was easier I don't know but I rolled with it for now what else could I do about it.

So in the event your wondering most of the slaves were men there were two that were women but of the two one was a portly old maid and the other rather plain and built like a guy tall and well shaped but I could almost feel barbarian vibes coming from her, of the men well they were a mixed bag of all sorts and as young as probably 15 and old as 70 though in a place like this it would be hard to say exactly how old they were. The slaves all seemed to be waiting for me so I tried talking to them but they didn't understand much of what I'd said so I tried to imitate Olde English and eventually they seemed to understand sort of but the elderly gentleman asked me to follow him so I did and he brought me to a small library and upon looking around I found books on language it was perfect so I spent a few hours studying then gave them instructions as best I could basically telling the men to get to work on the gate and drag bodies to a corner of the city for now far from the keep.

The female slaves I asked to prepare a meal for everyone and then proceeded to grow as many seeds from the storehouse as I could which gave us a number of things for dinner from berries and apples to potatoes and beets a variety of foods but no meat and I wasn't about to eat orc that's for certain though I did break out the last of that extremely hard jerky and pass it to the ladies for a soup and then I rested until my mana regenerated. By the time my mana regenerated the ladies had created a soup full of potatoes and some other vegetables that I couldn't immediately identify however the soup was pretty good and also filling so we collected up bowls and everyone enjoyed a meal together the men had managed to rig up the doors so they were closed and pulled the ladder from outside so that the walls were again impassable.

After we had secured the main entrance and I'd grown a number of fruit trees and plenty of vegetables I figured we should stock up supplies for winter not that I knew what winter would bring but I'd much rather be prepared than starve to death not a fan of that. Several days passed as I grew better at speaking the archaic dialect of Olde English and grew tons of crops while my workers reinforced the gates and reinforced the castles doors to the point it actually took some strength to open and close the doors and then I slept about three days into this continues effort and found myself back in my tree space again so following my previous efforts I put all of my "points" into intelligence and will though I did save a little but for an even split between strength and endurance and then I noticed that my tree was starting to glow where previously it seemed like their was light just not from the tree now there was a pale glow coming from the tree itself.

Pondering my tree of life's changes I wondered if my eating of the golden and silver fruits had caused the change it was possible and the color of the trees glow seemed about right for it granted I didn't know what the effects of those fruits would be. I had saved the seeds of the silver and golden fruits in the event that someone could identify them but now I tried to grow them and while those I'd planted grew some they grew all of an inch off the ground nowhere near the size of the towering giants I'd seen previously so I assumed that the trees I'd plucked the fruits from were ancient indeed.

I asked my people about the fruits and they goggled at me like I'd grown a second head then the muscular woman who looked more barbarian than dainty house wife said "the fruits you discribe are sacred to the elves and are said that if you eat the fruits of either you can become immortal though I've never heard of anyone eating both as it's said that if you've eaten one you cannot eat the other or you will die" that was a terrifying thing to hear that I should have been dead on the other hand immortality would be a blessing and a curse so there's that I guess. I had to know what other than granting immortality the fruits did so I asked and found out that they were known as sun and moon fruit and apparently they would boost the consumers affinity with their respective magics according to the lore.

The mystery of the weird fruits solved and my not being dead was a distinct bonus so I gave up on the seedlings and let them do their own thing lest temptation worm it's way into my head and I kill myself doing something idiotic. After a week the keep was made extremely defensible and the gaps in the city wall defense were closed and I'd gained what I thought of as a level and I found out that I was functionally immortal it was time to free my servants to do as they will and not shocking was the fact that they decided to stay as if they showed up in human territory they would be enslaved again and possibly end up in another situation this time with no savior to rescue them honestly it was pretty pragmatic of them if I say so myself.

I spent a month growing food and stockpiling resources for the little population that I had and then I decided that I needed to go see if I could find other outcasts for my personal harem I mean kingdom I swear though the barbarian woman was looking entirely too enticing at this point and I really didn't want to become some dictator and demand she service me so after arming my people from any weapons that had been left which was allot I headed out. A week of traveling resulted in me finding a village that had a wooden palisade but no humans infact it was filled with orcs and unfortunately I was spotted by the sentries so no surprise night attack.

Once I'd realized the orcs were coming I pulled my bow and started firing arrows as fast as I could and I did ok I suppose I did take down 12 orcs before I had to switch to my sword 12 out of 19 is pretty good I'd like to think unfortunately that left me facing 7 alone the other and those odds were terrible so just before they reached me I used a variant of my light spell that created a directional burst of intense light. My flash spell blinded the orcs for a few precious moments and I was able to dispatch 4 leaving me facing 3 orcs significantly better than 7 atleast still I was unlikely to survive but then one of the orcs tripped over one of its comrades and landed directly in front of one of the others creating a temporary moment I could take advantage so I darted in and stabbed both a couple times granted I took a couple wounds for my efforts but I was down to a single orc left and he was absolutely furious.

I'd taken a stab to my left side luckily it wasn't deep and I also got slashed which didn't get through the armor but would leave a nasty bruise for sure I honestly was lucky to still be alive and I was still in the fight so I focused on my last foe as it aggressively tried to murder me. After several minutes I was able to break through the orcs defenses and actually get a solid hit in a good stab into its left leg in the thigh it wasn't going to kill the orc but it certainly put its mobility down. All total the battle with the orcs lasted about an hour and I took a few good hits luckily the leather armor I was wearing took most of the damage out of their attacks though I was still bleeding profusely from two stab wounds and a cut so I put on my wizard hat and came up with a little spell on the spot FYI not the best idea for life threatening injuries BTW.

I managed to get my wounds healed but used way too much mana and passed out and again found myself in my tree space and I split my "points" evenly across the board a little into everything and my tree seemed to be getting to what I'd call small tree size territory. After the battle with the orcs my armor was pretty much done with too many holes to properly qualify as armor anymore and looking through the village didn't yield much in the way of resources to repair or replace it. In the village I found a smithy stone cold but with all of the tools and a large amount of wood and coal stockpiled and some metal ingots that looked suspiciously like iron or steel as well as several that looked shinier probably steel if I had to guess and the next shop over happened to be a jewelers complete with small silver ingots so I decided to try my hand at smithing.

Smithing is a process that I wasn't extremely familiar with but I had watched plenty of tube videos and read a few books so I figured I had a solid chance to manage what I wanted so first I loaded the forge with wood and using a small fire starter spell lit it. After getting the forge lit it was mostly waiting for it to get hot enough to add coal and selecting the ingots I wanted to use all total I used 4 ingots 2 steel 1iron and 1 silver though the silver ingot was tiny in comparison to the others. Using the largest hammer I could comfortably swing I set about fusing the steel iron and silver into a single ingot which took several hours to manage as each has a different melting point but in the end I managed to create a roughly 4kg lump of material that was roughly bar shaped and then the real work began forming the weapon I wanted took forever in fact several days passed as I worked the metal.

After a week of beating on metal and cutting off excess I had partially finished and in my hands I held a katana blank folded 40 times if your curious each folding doubles the number of folds in the metal so it had something like a billion layers all total probably too much honestly but I wanted it as even material wise across the entire sword as i could get and then I started on the handle. I used an assortment of materials the inner shaping of the handle the main material was the wood from a tree that had a particularly beautiful and tough heartwood a dark golden color. I used the traditional handle wrapping method of overlapping cords and wrapped it tightly capped on the end with a pure silver kashira and a silver alloy tsuba of 70% steel and 30% silver I used the silver as a sort of anti corrosive in the weapon and just In case it worked on vampires if their were any I also had made it slightly thicker than a standard katana yes it added weight but I'd made the kashira specifically to counter balance the weight of the blade granted it was a fairly heavy weapon but it would have superior cutting and chopping power if I needed it.