Luck be Damned

6

^^ the Bulette Golem ^^

— Alice —

The southern edge of the forest actually had the exit from the river that the Elven City was settled in, Blue River. The river was so deep and wide that it allowed ships to enter it at the coast, -some 400 miles further south,- and sail all the way up the river, though most of the ships didn't make it past the first hundred miles of the forest, being dragged below or attacked by the dragons and other monsters that called the forest home.

This 'go no further' point, was eventually settled and made into a city, which they seemed to think was amusing to call 'Ships' Grave'. I approved of their morbid humor.

Learning that the entire forest was only about 300 miles across was interesting, but it also raised the question of why we were so capable of maintaining ourselves and our wealth, if we were just a small piece of the surrounding nations, and why we were considered a separate nation.

"Hmm? Ah, I suppose you've never lived anywhere else, so you wouldn't know... high-class, Rare Monsters populate our forest, and with them comes high-class, rare magical herbs and ores; not to mention our central location makes us a very good place to direct international trade... most countries have taxes and tariffs on on incoming trade from other countries, but we do not, and they don't have any tariffs on our trade, so we're a proper middleman, even with how dangerous our forest is." Ganda hummed, patting the horse who had been pulling our little cart along ever since we left the Elven City.

The horse flicked an ear at her, chewing on the white grass I'd grown along the tunnels happily. (It apparently tasted very good, being packed with magic; I'd accidentally chosen a magical herb version of grass that didn't need sunlight, and converted decaying matter into nutrients and then mana, curiously enough. The process reminded me quite clearly of my own abilities. It's name was 'Graveyard Grass', which was amusing.)

"So, you're saying dragons don't appear very often, outside the forest? And Bulette's and ents and such?" I frowned.

"Yes, though they have many other types of monsters, to fill the gap. And there are other Forests, of course, some even more dangerous than ours, but those don't have any people in them, obviously." She nodded.

"Obviously..." I agreed, and looked back at the Bulette that we had been dragging behind us, as a measure of the tunnel's dimensions. "It's weird, though... shouldn't that armor be worth way more than 12 gold? He didn't seem to be trying to cheat me..."

"Well, given how common they are there, it was likely a bargain, actually, but yes, selling it anywhere else would net you close to fifty gold, if you sold it right." She grinned.

"What about a ship? If I make it into a ship, how much would it be worth then?" I asked slowly, an idea forming.

She leaned back, looking at me curiously. "Well... it would easily be worth four times that, as a ship... armored ships sell for about 200-250 gold, and the coastal nations would buy them for the top end of that spectrum, about 250-275, if you sell it in a time where they need more ships. Currently, there are no official wars going on, so you could get 250 for it, as a full ship."

I nodded, and touched the empty shell, slowly sending the Spirit of the Bulette to control its own corpse, which was mildly morbid, I was sure. I felt it attempt to settle in, but it had no way of moving, with no muscles and no tendons or ligaments, so I pulled it back out. "Alright... how about..." I sent in one of my four dragon scales, and used some roots from nearby to build a tree, inside the corpse.

It wasn't a very big tree, but it's roots spread around, wrapping each bone and joint and connecting to the armor, hopefully allowing it the ability to move properly. The actual trunk of the tree was based in the skull, where the brain used to be, and spread its roots down into the hollow spine to create a pseudo nervous system, leaving the large Chest cavity empty.