Now with Eikthyr defeated it was time to head off into the Black Forest for death and hopefully some upgrades. It would require a fair bit of work before I could start making the next set of gear. I was however quite eager to move on as I’ve already been in this game for quite a few days just taking my sweet time.
Before heading out I crafted up a pickaxe and cooked some food. I also restocked on arrows. I’ll need an insane amount of arrows as I would soon find out the troll population inside the Black Forest was out of control. I also made some torches in case I’d find myself inside a dungeon or three.
Not that far into the Black Forest my gear and weapons were tested. I found a little tower filled with Greydwars guarding it. The treasure inside was not worth the effort. This would however be a path I’d take to go deep into the forest so having it cleared out made it easier in the future to come back.
It was not long after that I met my first death from entering the Black Forest. Usually spotting a skeleton is amazing news it could indicate there is a dungeon nearby. I on the other hand was low on health and the weapon I had was not quite up to what I needed. I did not even put up a fair fight and was taking a dirt nap quite quickly.
At least I cleared that tower otherwise the corpse run back would be a nightmare. Since I’m still at quite an early stage of the game I just have a chest with some food to get up my health up when I need to make a corpse run.
Once I upgrade the current gear I’m wearing it will become my backup gear and weapons for when I need to make such runs in the future. At some point, I’ll make a double set of more current gear. However, it’s quite a pain to mine up the small amounts of ores you can for my next set. So I won’t be investing time to do that. Instead, I’ll be looking to upgrade it that set to tier three at the very least.
One of the things I needed out of the Black Forest would be Surtling Cores. You however need to enter into dungeons filled with skeletons and collect them from within. At least for now, I’ll want at least 10 of them. However, these cores are going to be one of those things for the rest of the game I’ll always want a decent stockpile of them. They are needed in several usual things.
After clearing out what I could in the Black Forest it became nightfall. I knew better than to try and get anywhere in the Black Forest at night. So I retreated to my shack to cook up food, make repairs, and get some rest.
I also crafted a spear. While I’m not a huge fan of them the weapons I already had were just not cutting it. It also helps to have a couple of different weapons on you. I already know there will be instances where one of my weapons will end up breaking and I’ll need a backup while exploring around. Not having any kind of weapon while in places like the Dark Forest is not a situation I would want to find myself in.
At dawn, I left my shack and headed back. It quickly became a rainy day and with no shock, I met another quick death. At least this time with a spear at hand I was able to put up more of a fight.
Thankfully I have the power of Eikthyr to activate reducing my stamina used when running around. This made getting back to the Black Forest and that corpse run not that bad. One downside now was losing some skills every time I got killed. This I was not done doing that was for certain.
This time around I managed to kill off some skeletons guarding a dungeon entrance. Since this was more of an exploration and recon mission of the area. I open up my map and marked the location. I’d later return after scoping out possible other things in the area. I hoped to find quite a few of these as I’ll need them for now and for future needs.
After exploring the Black Forest further I ended up finding some copper deposits to mark down on the map. I even stopped to mine some up. That however attracted some rather unwelcomed attention to myself. I quickly found myself running for my life trying to not die again.
Most times I was able to escape. There was one instance of running into a troll and while trying to lose that one I ran into a second one. Needless to say, I was in no position as of yet to take on a troll let alone two of them at once. To make matters even worse a shaman joined in to heal what little damage I was doing with my bow.
It might not have been the smartest thing to try and get some mining done on my way back after it turned dark. I however was being a bit greedy and I know at some point I’ll be needing far too many copper ores than I want to think about.
My shack at this point was starting to get a bit beat down. There was a bit of an attack during the morning that I was semi afk not paying much attention to. I ended up needing to do quite a few repairs on the place. Thankfully they did not manage to break down the front door. I’m rather shocked the shack was still standing.
At some point, I have grand plans to build something a lot bigger and better. I’ll then be knocking down the shack and collecting back some of my resources spent making it. For now, however, it was my base of operations and I’d just keep crafting further chests to expand my storage as needed.
Final Thoughts
I at least now have a decent idea of where many things are in my local Black Forest. I did not find as many dungeons and deposits of ores as I was hoping. It will at least be enough for the time being. Some of this stuff was also a lot deeper into the Black Forest thing I was hoping.
I have a feeling future I is not going to be so happy with some of the long corpse runs I’ll be needing to make if things don’t go according to plan. They never do in the Black Forest in the first place so I already know the sooner I can upgrade my gear and have some backup gear the better.
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Screenshots were taken and content was written by @Enjar about Valheim.
