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Iovetra's begun methodically mapping out the immediate surroundings of her home. On paper, even, which she absolutely had to expand her castle to persuade it to make. Finding actual landmarks in this cursed quagmire is a trial and a half, but the magic around doesn't seem to affect the actual topography of the land itself. Well, very much. So, if she very, very, very methodically maps out the heights of the land, she can actually manage to make a map. Ever so slowly.
To the west of her castle is a near impassable chasm, and it's very murdery about it. Sharp rocks, thorns, handholds that seemed sturdy suddenly losing all purchase, the works. She fell in, once, and died immediately, and then spent the rest of that night trying to retrieve the herb cuts she'd been carrying at the time. This also got her killed, several times, even with rope and literal fucking teleportation to help. Eventually she just gave up, wrote everything in that damnable pit as lost forever, and then set fire to it all from above to disguise evidence that someone had been by, and also out of sheer frustration.
North has similarly impassable mountains, though they're not quite as aggressively hostile about it as the probably-actually-made-by-magic chasm. Just, well. That's a long way up to climb, and it's easy to slip.
South are the spiders, who are very territorial. She can kill them in small numbers, but they do not have small numbers. They have large numbers, and some degree of teamwork. Even after she makes herself a crossbow with various gathered materials, she's regularly forced to flee when too many show up. Trying to explore near their nest does not go particularly well.
East is what she ends up mapping the most; it is mostly swamp, and filled with horrible giant monsters, but none of them actually work together, which is the important part. Also, while muddy and gross, the environment itself only mildly hates her, instead of wanting her to actually die. If she's careful and methodical, she can pick things off one by one, and carefully find the high points in the bog, and mark them on her map.
One of these high points contains an old, long abandoned village, barely visible among the foliage. Hm. Interesting. She carefully notes it on her map, and then gets to exploring it properly.
