It's a bit awkward.

John suddenly suspected what she was thinking about, but hung to a last hope he might be wrong.

"Who?" he asked. "By the way, the new look is amazing."

"I was shopping for clothes this morning and I came upon my old friend Gertrude who was shopping with her daughter." she answered. Yeah, about what he feared. "Anna has grown into a lovely young woman since the last pictures I had seen. We went to lunch together and then they invited me to join them to the spa and beauty salon. We had a lot of fun all afternoon."

John began to imagine his mother spending most of the afternoon in a towel, a bathrobe or less, talking with his girlfriend and her mother... What had been said? What should he expect? He looked at the kitchen table and spotted the Chinese take-out boxes, still giving steam away. She must have just got home. Did she stay dressed by lack of time? Because she met his girlfriend? Or was this change permanent? Despite her recent efforts to vent her frustration in other ways than him he was still enjoying a lot seeing her naked.

"Oh, you like her? What did you talk about?" he pried.

"You know, girl stuff. Nothing that would interest you. She's really cute, kind, funny and smart, just like you described her. We spent half of the day pampering her for your date tomorrow. Gertrude was really glad that someone finally got her out of her shell. Apparently she had been gloomy and drawn out these last years." she explained while getting the boxes out of the bags and spreading them on the table.

Seriously? Like anything she would talk about with his girlfriend could be uninteresting to him. He sat with her and began unpacking the food.

"So... How was her mother feeling about... well you know... our date tomorrow?" he asked, trying to get some advantage from this random encounter that his mom had.

"Oh, I guess you would be curious about that. I guess it helped that she knew me. She was impressed that you were able to wait for Anna to have her doctor's appointment for birth control and kept your urges in check. Honestly she never saw her daughter so happy in her life and she is old enough to think about it clearly. Don't worry about it, it wouldn't have happened if she was against it. " she reassured him. John felt relieved and was able to enjoy his dinner without having a knot in his stomach.

Despite all his efforts he wasn't able to get anything from his mom about what Anna had done to her during their pampering today. Knowing it while he didn't seemed to amuse his mom greatly. John stopped prying once he understood that female solidarity would overcome family link in this instance.

After eating and throwing away the empty boxes John announced that he would retire to his room to play video games. His mom went to sit in the living room recliner with a book.

Once inside of his room and the door locked, John engaged his warning system. The microphone and Webcam would allow him to know if someone knocked on his door and he would be able to answer through the computer speakers.

He needed to look more closely at making other crafting stations, he hadn't used his Enchanting skills yet nor the Alchemy. He also had to think of a good way to explore the Maze more easily and to break the mystery of the puzzle box.

He knew that he would find Sylvia at the new glade and took his bike as soon as he arrived in his kingdom. From outside his castle looked more impressive with a second floor.

During the ride he began to think, with all that happened this week he barely had any free time to farm monsters. He had tried to combine farming for xp and resources. The Undead fiasco had been an issue, but in the end even that finally profited him...

He crossed the small growing forest to find Sylvia, but he couldn't see her.
A large oak like tree had grown just near the Life Fountain, some of its roots dipping in the surrounding pool where the carps were swimming. It looked a lot like the spirit tree from the glade where he found her.

He spotted smaller trees that were of the same kind scattered around. They were the first one she had planted, the ones she had enhanced with amber... The thing was that they hadn't had this large bulbous midsection earlier.... John looked more closely and noticed that roots and vines were spreading from the large tree toward the other ones, creating some sort of network. The link it created to the source of life energy that was the fountain was probably linked to their rapid growth.

Crack

John turned to see the biggest tree opening and Sylvia coming out of it. She looked different, her legs, arms, and torso were covered in thick dark bark. She had some sort of branches forming antlers resting on her head.

"John! Sorry for not coming out sooner. I was finishing to get ready. Do you like it?" she asked.

"It looks nice, but what is it? And what is going on with those trees, they look sick." he asked her, curious about everything going on here.

"It's my armor! For when I will go on adventures with you. I don't really like those clothes you humans wear, but I could use some protection if we are going to fight." she explained, turning on herself to show it from all angles.

"It looks really functional, but why is there a piece missing?" he wondered.

"I couldn't have anything here in case you wanted to have some fun with me. It's hard to remove it without being inside of the tree. Oh and the other trees are not sick, it's just that they are still a bit small for what is growing inside.

"Oh sure... Wait! What? What is growing inside of them?" he asked surprised by what she just said.

"Well, you made me mother of the glade. And there's so much energy with this fountain... The glade needs daughters to tend to it. It is alright with you? " she asked, now realizing that what she had done might have required his permission.

"You mean that... All seven? We will have seven baby dryads in this forest soon? How will we care for them? I know nothing about children . I'm too young for that... No, no this can't be happening." he began to panic. Sylvia looked puzzled.

"John, what is a baby?" she asked him. John stopped panicking for a second. Could she not know that? What had he done?

"You know a small child. Before they can do things for themselves. How long does it take for a dryad to be adult?" he enquired.

"Ohhh you mean like animals? No it doesn't work like that for dryads. We are natural spirits living in the emerald plane, when we are chosen to incarnate a tree will grow us a body. The first time we get out of the tree we all look like I did when you first saw me. " she explained to him like he was a kid. John instantly realized that he was going to face a totally different issue now.

"That's reassuring. In any case now that I think about it it would be easy to care for dryad children if there were some. No diapers, you only drink water and need sunshine. So, how long does it take to make a dryad body?" he asked. The thought was as alluring as it was frightening, eight dryads would probably push even his Gamer's body to its limits.

"It takes months... Well normally it does, here? I have no idea. I never saw something like it, everything grows so fast. Weeks, days? With the short day and energy of this place there is no way to guess. But they won't get out on their own, once ready they have to be called. " she continued to explain. That was that, at least the place wouldn't suddenly be invaded by an army of dryads, in a place where he was the only male humanoid.

"Well, right... We can worry about it later then. Come with me, we will do some shopping, maybe a few crafts and then we will go out." he told her.

"Won't we go back to the Maze?" she asked.

"No, not yet. I need some time to think about it. The way we did it, it would take months to find the Altar. And even doing that, it would move every day. It would be random each time. We need a better way. We will go create a barrier somewhere else and farm a little for xp. " he told her. She smiled, she seemed to like the idea.

"As long as we are together, my king!" she replied, hugging and kissing him before getting on his bike.

That's it. Optimize his castle, his gear and do some farming. Exploring those tunnels at random was too inefficient and he gained no xp doing it.