Fel's eyes shot open.

Knife.

He rolled to the side, scrambling to stand.

His head swiveled, mana coalescing in his palm as he raised an arm outward.

And then he stopped. Slowly, he let the mana seep back into his pool, his face red, heart pounding.

He looked around.

The woman was gone. The stump was gone. The trees were gone. Everything was gone. In their place was a field. Not a mystical field, or some silent meadow, but a farmer's crop of grain nearly as far as the eye could see.

Fel's legs wobbled and collapsed from under him; his body shook. With both hands, he clapped at his chest and looked down. There was a hole in his robe, but no wound.

No arrow.

Fel clenched shut his eyes.

No arrow. I'm fine. There's no arrow.

A shuddering breath.

I was shot, but I'm fine.

He chuckled- A long, hollow sound that trailed off into the field.

Dying. It hadn't been a particularly large concern working for the collegium. Not in that it wasn't possible or that he never thought about it, but... well, no, he didn't think about it.

I did almost die... didn't I?

Fel brought his hands to his head and held it, taking deeper breaths as he wrestled his thoughts under control. A bird - a crow?- shrieked overhead. A hot, dry wind blew against his back. His heart slowed, its pulsating beat settling into a nervous thud.

But I'm here, in a field. Not dead, not dying, and not even wounded.

He looked down again.

"Just a hole in my robes..."

Hesitantly, Fel moved his hands down to his sides. He sat up straight and shifted himself into a sitting position. Then, he gave a deep, steadying breath. A long moment's pause, and he exhaled.

The action repeated.

Inhale...

Exhale...

Inhale...

Exhale...

Things were fine. Fel opened his eyes.

He stared at his palms, his body still shaking. That was also fine. Fear was a normal reaction, and shaking was a natural response to fear. Shaking was something to be expected. He gave a half-hearted grin.

"Heh... It would be stranger if- if... uh..."

Fel's mind blanked for a moment, all other thoughts booted from his brain.

His hands didn't shake with him.

Eyes zeroing in on the incongruity, he peered at his arms. A tremor, light but present traveled up their length. Then, upon reaching his wrists, the shaking stopped. His hands never moved.

He shook his hands. The hands shook.

He flexed his fingers. The fingers flexed.

When he wiggled his elbow or shrugged his shoulders, however? His hands were still. Utterly stable within the air.

"Oh."

Fel put his off-hand to the ground. A finger outstretched, he swiped three times against the coarse dirt. Then he blinked and leaned down to look at what he'd drawn.

Yeah, that's a triangle. My artistry is an inspiration to my profession.

He rolled his eyes. The triangle was an off-kilter figure -a triangle by virtue of having three connected sides if nothing else- but the lines that made it up were undeviating and seamlessly connected. There were no wobbles or curvatures to the lines he'd traced, each one as straight as the night's moons appeared round.

[Steady Hand], I guess.

It was a disconcerting feeling. He'd had similar Skills affect his movements before - ones such as [Perfect Circle] and [Compressed Lines] - but they hadn't been so... pervasive. Permanent. They'd been active Skills, one-off triggers to ignore until the next ritual.

This might take some getting used to.

Fel put his hands behind him and leaned, staring into the sky. The sun was high, though he couldn't tell if that meant just before or after mid-day, and it beat down on him. His hands pressed deeper into the dry earth, fingers clenching.

Level 2 [Ritualist]. So many levels. Gone.

He hissed, pushing air through his teeth. All his work. The entirety of his rewarded abilities. Their loss summed up in a single notification: Level 2.

It wasn't a death sentence or anything nearly so foreboding, but it was a crippling change. His knowledge of the subject remained of course, as did his experience in ritualism. The skills that were the results of his levels, however? Those were gone. The levels would require new feats to obtain, and the skills -if he gained them- were unlikely to be the same.

But then there's my new Class, [Simulacron].

Fel's brow furrowed. He'd never had a second Class before. Obtaining any Class generally required focused devotion to a series of related tasks and far more free time than he had available. Gaining an additional one for what seemed like nothing was unexpected- though not at all unpleasant.

A mage Class then, with a Skill like [Mana Counting]. At least there's one piece of good news in all this.

He refocused and laughed. It was a short, choppy laugh that broke off into pieces as he finished.

Other than not being dead, I mean.

Fel heaved himself up and out of the dirt. Slapping at his robe, he dusted himself clean and flicked his arms. Beads of sweat rolled down their length. His forehead creased; it was hot in the fields. A step forwards, out from the intermittent shade of the crops, and Fel's shoulders scrunched in on themselves. Really, really, hot.

"Speaking of which... Where the hell am I?"

He squinted, and his hand moved for the glasses on his head. It patted the air. He groaned a deep, long groan that transformed into a frustrated yell.

"Damn it! How do they keep disappearing?"

A flock of birds burst from the grain field, filling the air with their indignant cries. Fel ignored their display and pushed aside stalks of green and orange as he shuffled past. Carefully, he scoured the surrounding earth. The glasses were, fortunately, quickly recovered once again. A puff of dust blew around the back of his head, and he turned to find them sitting a mere foot away from where he'd bolted into consciousness.

Glaring at the apparel in all its single-lensed glory, Fel wedged it onto his nose. With a pivot, he stalked his way through the crop. He was now moving towards a building in the middle of the field.

"...and a large field it is." Fel glanced over the rows. "A high-level farmer then, or maybe several decent ones?" He rolled his shoulders. "Hope they don't mind strangers."

The crops were tall, Fel noticed, reaching to just over his brow as he walked or tickling his chin when he straightened. They had long, rigid stalks that rose like green and orange spears, broad corn-like leaves running up their sides, and a densely packed yellow grain at their peaks.

They swayed following his passing.

"How did I end up here?"

Fel picked at the hole in his robe as he walked.

"One second I'm laying in the dirt, some knife-wielding assassin lady trying to kill me. The next, I'm waking up someplace entirely new..."

He frowned, his next step kicking up a cloud of dust to match the one that appeared beside him.

"Again."

A tingle ran down his spine, and he shook himself.

Fel pushed the glasses onto the top of his head and rubbed at his nose; he had another headache coming on. His current situation drew some disturbing parallels to when he'd first woken up in the forest.

He sighed.

"I would kill for some coffee, though."

A bead of sweat dripped down Fel's face, and he pushed his hair back in annoyance. He looked up for a second time and... reconsidered. Coffee would be welcome, but perhaps not at that exact moment.

A snack then? But no, he wasn't particularly hungry.

Fel pushed aside some more grain, attempting to work his way forwards. It was a very large field. As he moved, something rustled above his head. He swatted at it, and his hand slapped against feathers. A crow squawked in outrage and burst from the field, flying up into the sky.

Fel grinned. Pests. He turned forwards again, stepping back into a cleared row of earth. A grunt- and Fel cracked his back, bending backward to face the sky. He pinched his eyes shut.

Oh yeah, that is so much better.

He reopened his eyes.

A dark form screamed as it dive-bombed him from above.

Fel lunged back, pulling both arms up in front of his face.

"Fireball!"

The bird exploded.

Fel cringed away from the chunks of flesh and blood that shot away from the impact. Tripping on a step back, he tumbled to the ground.

He blinked up at the empty sky.

"Déjà vu."

Another blink, followed by a short sigh.

"I need to stop doing this."

Fel rolled his way back onto his feet and peered at the ground. The immediate area was brown, flat, mostly empty, relatively dry, and now streaked with an intermittent coating of flesh and burnt feathers.

Odd.

Fel scratched at his head, then pulled the hand away, grimacing. He looked around and shrugged. Both hands were rubbed down the sides of his robe, smearing flecks of blood down its length.

Then he slapped himself.

"Idiot. I am a complete and absolute idiot."

The fireball had cost him 4% of his mana. If he couldn't recover that naturally, and he'd spent it on a bird... The action had been ill-conceived and the situation poorly reacted to. A running theme, it seemed, with Fel's fireballs.

96% of my mana left. Not the end of the world. It's just...

A pause.

Oddly specific that I know that.

Fel called up another fireball in his outstretched hand but didn't release it.

4% mana as well- so that's what it does.

He pumped more mana into the orb and started walking again. The orb flexed and rippled, moving from 4% of his mana pool to 6%, 11%, 23%. He toned the amount of mana down after the last one, it was difficult to keep constant control of so much at once.

[Mana Counting], I could see this being useful.

Fel gave a short heat-induced yawn and peered at the farmhouse, checking how far he had left to go. Still some distance. He glanced back down and twisted the mana around in his hand, making shapes to distract himself. A cube, a pyramid, a hemisphere, each one flitting quickly into existence within his palm.

Somewhat boring.

He stepped things up: A tiny fox, a bird, a miniature man, and then- a wyvern. The last one wavered in form as his mind caught up with what he'd made. Fel sucked the figure back into a sphere and started making shapes again. He took a long, slow breath. A sphere, a cone, an octahedron, a hexagonal prism...

Fel wavered again, sucking the mana back into his pool. It wasn't a result of something he'd made this time -he had no emotional attachment to shapes- but instead, because Fel realized what he'd checked. He was 96% full. His mana had replenished itself.

Freezing in place, Fel threw his thoughts back to when he'd woken.

What had changed? Was he regenerating his mana now? 

He focused on his [Mana Counting] Skill. 

...

Nothing; his mana percentage didn't even flicker.

He started walking again as he thought, a focused frown embedding itself onto his features.

A one-time occurrence? No, that was nonsense- something had to have caused it. Sleeping then? Lack of consciousness? He'd gotten incapacitated and...

Fel shuddered, staring down at his feet as they kicked dust into the air.

No, that wasn't it. He shook his head. He'd slept while powered the ritual and regained nothing- unconsciousness was not the solution.

His fingers flexed at his sides.

Exposure to direct sunlight, emotional stimuli, a timed delay on his regeneration, a forced mana injection- he discarded them all. Except perhaps the last one. That was possible, assuming his encounter with the woman had actually happened. The rest were random, speculative thoughts that passed him by.

He just didn't know.

Looking up to check his progress, Fel's eyes widened, his hands shooting forward as he nearly tripped in surprise. He'd just been in the fields, passing through some exceptionally tall stalks of grain, and then- he was here? Fel slowly pulled his hands back down to his sides. In front of him, not forty feet away, stood the farmhouse.

"I thought it'd be a longer walk."

He paused, blinking owlishly.

"Aaaaannnd I'm talking to myself. Gods, I hope these people like strangers."

Shaking his head, Fel knocked on the door.

He waited, then knocked again.

He was preparing to knock a third time when a man -appearing slightly older than Fel himself- opened it. The man raised an eyebrow, taking in the hunched and brightly robed figure on his doorstep. He held one hand behind the door, keeping it in place.

Fel started to raise an arm in greeting, hesitated, then put it back down. He transitioned jerkily into a half-bow, his hands fidgeting against the bottom of his robe. "Ah- er, Hello..?"

The man was broad-shouldered, dressed in dark brown overalls, and appeared exhausted, as if he'd just been interrupted from his first sleep in days. He was a farmer, without a doubt. The man looked at Fel with tired eyes. "What do you need?"

Fel gave a weak grin. "I'm a bit lost- would you be able to tell me where I am, exactly?" His fingers tapped softly against his sides, bouncing unevenly.

Then Fel reddened, his finger's tapping becoming more pronounced as he realized what he'd said. It was one of those quaint traveler's platitudes. The kind that you might say if you were aiming to quell unease, then bum a free meal off the local Populus. Or, if one were so inclined, the kind that a bandit might give before forcing their way through the doorway and ransacking everything inside. Not his smoothest introduction.

The farmer sighed and looked over Fel's shoulder. He drooped with the motion, bumping against the entryway as he leaned.

"He's okay!" A young woman's voice sounded out, directly behind Fel.

Fel shouted in surprise and jumped forwards, slamming into the man at the door. The woman who had spoken gave a small 'eep!' of alarm as the two men tumbled to the ground, the farmer grunting as he landed.

"Sorry, sorry!" The woman flushed red. She crouched but made no move to help either of the two up, maintaining a notable gap between them. "I didn't mean to surprise you! Are you okay, Charles?"

The farmer on the floor waved her off, shaking his arm loose as he worked his way into standing. "I'm good." He eyed her warily for a moment before continuing. 'Why don't you go wash off? You're uh- dripping on the doorway."

She was, in fact, dripping. Though, considering the meatier and more viscous consistency of the liquids that fell, the adjective may have lacked appropriate weight. Fel's face greened as a chunk of chitin skittered onto the floor of the house, splashing ichor as it slid.

The woman let out another squeak and fled, almost sprinting outside and around to the back of the house.

The farmer -Charles- looked down following the woman's retreat and gave Fel a faint smile, offering the still slightly stunned man a hand up. "Well, if she says you're fine, then you're fine. Why not come in and tell me what it was that you needed?"

Fel grabbed the man's hand and pulled himself to his feet. He turned, bewildered, to the now-empty doorframe. "Who was- who just?" His arms waved as he attempted to express his confusion.

Charles' mouth drew upwards in a wan smile. "The farm owner," he replied, a small glint appearing in his sleepy eyes. "I'm sure she'll be back to greet you properly in a bit. That's just some poor timing, to be right behind you after she finished clearing the fields."

The man snorted and led Fel deeper into the house.