Viviastrea, the Third Outpost
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We had returned to the point where I had spawned. It was a place surrounded by a literal wall of trees. On the inside, there all the trees came in sets of at least three very tightly joint gigantic trees. each of the sets came with a small door and a few windows. ``Welcome to Viviastrea, the third and newest outpost. I had to cut our hunting short as the remaining settlers are going to come in. To be honest, I had just registered this place as a town when you spawned. As the mayor, I give you the right to select any house in the outpost, except for the large one dead center, which is my office.''

As I did not want to have a noisy neighbourhood, I went near the outskirts of Viviastrea, yet not the perimeter, As having a new player there would be a hole in the defenses. The town formed concentric circles, the center building, five around it, then 8, then 16, for a total of 30 houses, outside of the rings of houses was a wall of trees, some larger looking trees had passages at their base, which seemed ready to close at a moment's notice, given the presence of magic.

I chose one of the eight houses of the second circle, and touched what seemed to be a door knob. A prompt saying the building was not owned popped up, and when I selected to acquire it, a message showed saying the mayor would have to accept and decide the price. He can only be a maximum of five houses away, so I waited five seconds and yelled as loud as I could to tease him. ``Vectan, Hurry Up!''. Before I could finish, I was notified that the price was nil and that I now owned the house. I reached for the handle, but before I could open the door, he appeared behind and answered ``why are you in such a hurry to let me visit?'' ``Just a comment about the size of the village, really. You should worry more about the settlers as I would rather buy some furniture from them before you come to visit.'' Vectan left, smirking ominously, and I went in to find a table, five chairs, what is most likely an oven (inside a tree, with a chimney) and a set of spiral stairs lining the wall, completely invalidating my last statement. He got me, I made a fool of myself...

I went up the stairs to find three jack sized beds and a double bed. Am I supposed to build a family here? Keeping my comments to myself, I continued upwards to reach a second door, which I opened. Behind was the true facet of the village. All of the houses were interwoven with bridges, Eight of the sixteen on the outside ring expanded further upwards, over the canopy while everything else was completely covered by it. The wall also seemed to extend above the foliage, blocking any entrance from above, presumably a defence against asmeren. Above Vectan's house was a giant green crystal from which vines expanded and formed handrails for the bridges. These vines glowed in the same green light as the central gem, providing what the sun could not due to the dense foliage. The five inner houses each had a counter attached to them, presumably shops.

Glancing down, I could see the forest floor, the lush green grass hiding the glow of the crystal. The treetop village was nearly 50 meters high, Yet, for some reason, my acrophobia was not making me uncomfortable, as if something was reassuring me the village would not fall apart.

Hearing some noise, I turned my head towards the main entrance (Vectan's house opens toward this entrance, and there is a clear path between them). Vectan was standing in front of his house, facing the 23 people who had stepped through the entrance. He was seemingly going to give a speech. Time to go, I guess. After heading back to my house and going down to the forest floor, I joined the group.

``And here is our newest member, Just in time for her introduction!'' The crowd cheered at Vectan's words. ``This is SunRa, the seventy fifth addition to our community and a scout. Lidia, I leave her to you.'' What does he mean, leave me to her? A Velforan lady answered with an affirmative, then approached me. ``Come with me. Say: which would you prefer? A knife, a bow, or both?'' I followed her and answered ``A bow would be preferable.'' she stopped at one of the inner houses, claimed it, and invited me in.

Lidia had long, golden hair which returned the soft green glow from the crystal. Her skin was of an almond colour, giving her a healthy look. While I was inspecting her she took a measuring tape from her bag. ``short bow or long bow?'' she interrogated as she measured my height. ``Short please, long bows are harder to string and to put down. If I'm being pounced on by a wolf, I want to be able to react.'' With a small smile, she continued on to measure the length of my arm. ``That's good, are you going to be a permanent player or a login player?'' This question took me aback. Noticing it she added ``Permanent players need their tools to be more robust, while login players need stronger weapons, which they can swap for better gear later.'' Understanding, I replied that I wanted to be a permanent player. ``We're done, you're free to go for now, I should have your bow made by tomorrow evening.''

I went back home and slept on one of the smaller beds, as even they were gigantic relative to my body.

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