Alice slept poorly - she was used to sleeping in a silent bedroom, and now that she was farther away from the massive area of dead trees and messed up animals she had first arrived in, shuffling sounds and animal calls kept her on edge throughout the night, making it hard for her to stay asleep. Alice woke up the next morning feeling groggy and irritable when the sunlight started creeping through the holes in the top of her ‘tent.’

She shivered and rubbed her arms, but she was much less cold than she had been yesterday. The fire burning somewhat near the shelter at night had helped with warmth, even though it had gone out sometime during the night. The strange warmth near her heart had also helped, although Alice was noticing that it was getting more and more faint as time passed. She didn’t exactly know what the strange warmth was in the first place, so Alice decided to simply take it in stride for now. Even if it certainly helped her temperature problems, it obviously wasn’t a long term solution, so she needed to adapt fast enough that she could survive without it once it was gone. She shook her head, trying to ease her doubts and worries, before she refocused on the world around her. Specifically, her tent.

I should be able to improve my tent construction after a few more tries, she thought as she took a careful look at the shoddy grass knots and attempts to make everything stick together. Surely more Stats and Skills will get me somewhere if I just throw more tries at learning how to do this? Then, she began thinking of how annoying it had been to construct her shelter. While the weaving process had gotten easier as she gained both skills and {Skills} related to tent-construction, it had still taken her quite a while to construct the tent. Perhaps there was some way to carry it with her so that she didn’t have to reconstruct one from scratch? She wouldn’t get any Skills or Attributes from retrying the process from scratch again, but she also desperately needed to focus on other things today, and being able to carry around her tent with her still help stave off the cold.

She began looking at the edges of the tent, trying to figure out a viable way to carry away some parts of it, and eventually, she realized that taking the frame of heavier branches she had stabbed into the ground to hold up the woven grass was impractical. In order to make it into a shape that wouldn’t be too awkward to carry, she would basically have to undo all of her work anyway.

However, the sort of… blanket-like outer shell of grass could be taken with her if she was careful. Therefore, she clumsily disconnected the outer layer of grass from the wooden stakes before folding it up into a blanket, then placed it underneath the berries in her bowl.

Fear me, for I am Alice, queen of terrible craftsmanship and grassy… blanket things. She winced. Everything she had built so far on this world really did look atrocious, and the shoddy craftsmanship really showed when she was trying to stave off the cold or stop her items from falling apart.

She went back to the berry bushes and restocked her food supply, eating all of the berries she had picked yesterday as she walked before refilling the bowl with fresh food. Then, she began travelling again, following the stream and hoping to find civilization somewhere.

A few hours passed uneventfully as Alice followed the stream, but she began to get more and more nervous as she looked at the sky. It was getting darker as a heavy blanket of clouds approached, gradually obscuring the sunlight and promising rain was coming soon. Once again, it dawned on Alice how truly far away from civilization she was. At home, a bit of rain didn’t mean much to her at all – she would be inside of a building for most of the day, and if she was in school the rain was just a sound effect that sometimes left puddles of water outside of the building.

However, right now, she was dressed in pajamas, had little food security, and shelter that was, at best, flimsy. Suddenly, freezing rain had changed from ‘interesting but unimportant’ to a life threatening disaster she couldn’t escape. She glanced at her grass blanket and quickly realized that it wasn’t going to keep the rain off of her. She stopped focusing only on following the river and paid more attention to her surroundings, hoping to find a cave nearby. If she didn’t find one, she was almost certainly going to freeze to death. The strange warmth near her heart definitely wouldn’t be enough to keep her alive if she was drenched in this weather.

Perhaps an hour later, the clouds finally arrived. And it didn’t start raining, contrary to Alice’s earlier fears. Instead, white little flakes began to drift down from the sky, fluttering lazily in the wind as they began to smother the earth, choking away the last remnants of warmth in the area. Alice, both feeling the ever-dropping temperature and her lack of thick clothing more than ever before, looked at the sky and resisted the urge to start swearing. Was it actually snowing? Of all the times she could have arrived in this world, she had arrived here right at the start of winter?

Alice felt increasing tension and fear as she almost completely stopped worrying about following the river. She needed shelter now, and a town along the river wouldn’t be enough to save her if she froze to death while travelling there. She began scouring her surroundings for any sort of shelter, praying for something to appear. She took note of what direction she could travel to get back to the river when the weather passed, but otherwise she completely broke away from the gentle slope of the river and focused entirely on finding something to keep the cold away.

The snow began to pile higher and higher, and after another ten minutes of walking, her bare feet, which were already swollen and had numerous small cuts along the bottom of her feet, were beginning to sink into a thin layer of snow with every step. Not only did she need to worry about pain and getting an infection, but she now needed to worry about frostbite. Her body wasn't reacting as poorly to the cold as she had expected it to, thanks to the strange warmth behind her heart, but she could still feel the cold creeping through her body and dragging her towards eternal sleep. The remnants of her mana baptism were slowing the process down, but not stopping it.

Am I going to die like this? She wondered. She had already wondered if she was about to die many times in the past few days, but this was one of the first times death felt so… stifling. She had almost died when she was dealing with mana poisoning, had somehow lucked out of getting this world’s version of smallpox so far, and had almost gotten mauled by a strange animal. Now, she was at risk of freezing to death as well.

She trudged through the snow, plagued by lonely thoughts as she wondered if perhaps someone would stumble across her corpse one day and wonder who she had been. Minutes ticked by while she searched for shelter and the temperature dropped, the stifling feeling of inevitability warring with increasing desperation as she tried to find some way to stay alive.

Finally, as her shivering was growing more and more uncontrollable, she stumbled across a ‘cave.’ It was really more like a rocky overhang with a sort of sideways bowl-shaped indentation in the stone around it, but it at least offered enough protection from the snow that she would be safer from the cold. She set down her bowl of berries, pulled out the sheet of grass she had used to create a crude tent the day before, and wrapped it around herself as a blanket.

It was wholly holey, but at this point anything helped. Then, after spending a few minutes shivering under her grass blanket, she realized her limbs were growing numb. She began rubbing her limbs together, trying to get some warmth back into her fingers and toes after recognizing the warning signs of frostbite.

Minutes ticked by, and she grew colder and colder while the specter of death loomed ever closer. Her fingers and toes still had some feeling in them, but she felt cold and increasingly sleepy. She looked over at her basket of berries and grabbed a few half-frozen berries to nibble on. Finally, she realized that this wasn’t a sustainable method of survival – even if it was desperate, she needed to go back out into the cold to grab some tree branches, hopefully dry ones, and get some sort of fire started. Otherwise, she would definitely die here.

She stepped out of the cave, trying to work her way through the biting cold as it penetrated into her veins. The snow had stopped falling, but the carpet of snow on the ground already reached up to her ankles. She might have found it beautiful, if she were at home and waiting for Christmas to come, but right now it seemed to blot out the color in the world, dyeing the world monotone shades of white and grey.

Quickly, she grabbed some cold branches from the area around her and shook the snow off, looking at the still-green leaves on the branches and wondering if they would catch flame. They looked damp, and she doubted she could dry them out, but it hadn’t been snowing for that long yet. Apart from the exterior of the branches and leaves, perhaps something here was still able to catch fire?

For several minutes, she grabbed branches and dragged them back towards her cave, trying to ignore the sinking feeling as her feet started to get more numb. Right now she didn’t have time to keep massaging her limbs and keep blood flowing to her fingers and toes, so she was stuck praying for the best. Then, back inside of her cave, she first peeled away the outer layer of bark on some of the branches. To her surprise, an entire outer ring of bark came off of each branch easily, leaving only the dry interior of the branches while casting away the outer layer of wet wood. She had no idea what kind of tree this was, but right now her trademark curiosity had been nearly stifled by her desperate circumstances. With no interest why these branches could be peeled so easily, she began rubbing sticks together with some tinder, hoping for a fire. A stick snapped, cutting her palm. She gritted her teeth and kept going, knowing that failure wasn’t an option.

Finally, a spark caught, and she leapt up and danced with joy. The tiny little ember of fire spread to the dry innards of the branches, and soon, a cheery blaze was burning away in her cave. She stuck out her hands and feet, warming them up while occasionally nibbling on a few berries. Within another hour, she could feel all of her toes and fingers again, thankfully, which meant that she should at least be able to avoid losing her fingers or toes to the cold. Warmer and more comfortable, she soon fell asleep again.

* * *

The next day, Alice woke up to find that the snow had stopped falling. Her campfire, unnoticed, had burnt out while she was asleep. Thankfully, the smoke had been guided away from the shelter by the shape of the cave, which was something she only realized once she woke up. She hadn’t paid any attention to the smoke at all, and if the cave had been shaped a bit differently she might have never woken up. She also realized that she had gained another two levels sometime last night, either when she had started a fire or when she was asleep. Either way, it had given her another perk slot, so she started out by taking a look at what was available. Her first Perk had given her the ability to easily identify food, something she desperately needed right now, and this Perk could also be a lifesaver.

The requirements for each Perk state that I must be level 10 or higher before being able to pick the Perk. The Previous Perk I got was at level 5, and it stated I needed to be level 5 or higher in order to pick a Perk. I assume that means perks are given every five levels, although I will need to verify that later. If I’m correct, I should get another Perk at level 15, level 20, and so on.

Now, which of these do I need the most? I could also go back and grab {Primitive Warmth} from level 5, since I can see my Perks from my previous level up listed as well. It looks like I can always pick up earlier Perks if I feel like it, although I assume Perks get better and better the higher level you are. Alice took stock of the area around her, trying to figure out what she was missing the most desperately.

The temperature is very low now, and if winter is coming it'll continue to drop as time passes, making warmth a huge priority. While I can still feel my arms and legs, if I step out of the cave, it won't take long for me to begin freezing again. The strange wood nearby does make starting fires easier, so I might be able to start fires more easily than I think I’ll be able to, but I also can’t always be near my fire if I want to survive. Food and water are still necessities, after all, and I can’t collect either if I’m sitting next to my fire all the time. Primitive warmth doesn’t solve that problem, and none of these Perks do either, so they can all be considered lower priority… Disease from this world is also potentially a massive concern - I don't know how useful the {Outworlder} perk is since it just says it 'strengthens my immune system' and doesn't go into further detail. This might mean I'm practically immune to diseases now, or it might mean that my immune system got 5% stronger and I'm going to die the moment I get the symptoms of any disease from this world, since my immune system probably has no idea how to react.

In fact, disease is extra scary right now because if I get a fever in this weather, I won’t be strong enough to get food or water. As far as food goes, I have berries and nuts that can keep me going, although I'm not sure how much longer the berry bush is going to be around if winter is really about to start, but if I can find more of those nuts, I have at least one other source of food. It’s not enough, but it’s something.

In other words, her food was at least partially secure, and what she was missing was shelter, warmth and possibly disease resistance, according to her assessment. It was difficult to gauge how badly she needed to improve her disease resistance, because she had no idea how much the {Outworlder} achievement helped.

Alice glanced back over the perks that she was able to choose more carefully, before ruling most of them out. {Dark Vision} and {Sense Intentions} were actually rather interesting, and Alice was genuinely curious to know how {Dark Vision} worked. If it didn’t physically alter her eyes, how in the world was the perk allowing her to see in the dark? In the first place, vision was just the result of human eyes interpreting photons that hit them, plus some extra complications. If there were no photons in the first place, what the heck was she using to see in complete darkness? If she could, later on she would love to get a similar perk and a lot of lab equipment to see if she could figure how in the world the Perk actually worked.

However, currently Alice was motivated by necessity instead of curiosity. She had to concentrate on not dying right now.

{Sense Intentions} was also something that Alice thought would be quite useful, since the perk didn’t specify that it was restricted to animals. If she ever found civilization, being able to determine whether or not people bore hostility towards her would be invaluable. It was a perk she would definitely consider coming back to if she had a perk slot to spare in the future.

However, her curiosity and the ability to sense the intentions of her fellow humans was nowhere near as valuable as disease and infection resistance. She had no idea what penicillin looked like or where to find it, and she had no clue whether or not the other people of this world had access to the drug either. If they didn’t, the ability to fight off infections would be one of the most valuable skills she could have even after she reached civilization. And right now, she had no access to disease prevention at all.

In the middle ages, a random cut might become life-threatening if it got infected and was allowed to spread. Her feet had already been cut up as she was wandering through the forest and she was very nervous about the chances of infection. Thus far, she had been lucky, but there was no guarantee that would continue.

Then, after some more thinking, she realized that she wasn’t strictly obligated to choose right now. The description of the {Microbe Resistance} perk made it seem highly likely that it would affect disease and infection retroactively, meaning that she could wait to see whether she got an infection or the plague first. If she did, she could grab the Perk and save her life. If she went… say, a few weeks with no problems, she could grab another Perk, or she get something else if she desperately needed one of the other options in the near future.

It didn’t seem like she had to pick right now, and since she was able to make fires already, she could deal with her warmth problem, even if her solution was kind of clumsy.

After that, she looked back at the branches of incredibly green leaves that lay outside of her cave, still bending a bit under the weight of the snow, and tried to figure out why the leaves weren’t brown and red. Did that mean it was actually the end of winter and beginning of spring? Were the plants here just weird? Alice had no clue. She sighed, realizing another problem.

“Does this world even have the same seasons as Earth? I mean, realistically speaking, most planets that are similar to Earth should have something like seasons, because of the way planetary orbits and tilt usually end up working out in practice. That would make sense, but…” Alice pulled up her status screen. Despite how absurd it seemed, there were still floating numbers in front of her face “In this world, who knows? Half the time this world seems to follow similar rules to Earth - gravity still works, I still need to breathe and eat, and the sun and moon look similar to the sun and moon at home. The other half the time, the old rules are just chucked out the window, and I get floating Status Screens and mana baptisms. I just don’t know.” Alice sighed again, before taking a look at her crappy grass blanket and shallow, bowl-shaped cave she was using as shelter.

She decided that, at least for now, she should prepare as if winter was coming. Being prepared never hurt, and if it turned out it was about to be spring instead, Alice would feel pleasantly surprised and eat through her stockpile of resources. There was no harm in preparing for the worst and hoping for the best, after all.

Once she had made a decision, she put it into action immediately. Alice crawled out of her little cave and scanned the surrounding area, hoping to find more of the strange sticks she had previously used as firewood. With every step forward, her feet sank into the snow up to her ankle, and she wished she had worn thicker pajamas when she was going to sleep back on Earth. Or that she had worn shoes to bed, even if she couldn’t think of a reason she would ever do that.

Alice moved around the area, picking up fallen tree branches, and then gathered a few more pieces of fallen wood before heading back to the cave.

Then, Alice began carefully peeling off the wet outer bark of the dead branches, exposing the dry innards of each branch of wood. She made three more trips to gather branches, before the cold began to go from horrible to unbearable. Then, deciding that she had enough wood to at least get some warmth back into her body, she used up one of her three trip’s worth of wood to get another fire started, saving the branches from the second and third trip.

Thank the caveman ancestors, thought Alice as she warmed herself up again. With a cheerful blaze growing, Alice felt much less miserable. She opened up her status screen, curious to see if there were any other changes she had missed.

She closed the status screen, wondering how much she had changed in the short period of time she had been here. Already, she was desperately trying to level up in order to survive. Despite the fact that she was both nervous about the levelling system and baffled by its implications, it seemed like she also needed to rely on it. Otherwise, the myriad of problems an interdimensional traveler would inevitably face would probably kill her within a week.

After all, she was just a fairly normal girl from the modern world. She had no familiarity with camping, much less surviving in the wilderness with no supplies. Her body was wholly unsuited to survive in this world, disease and infection would kill her without access to modern antibiotics and medicine, and while some of the biology of this planet was suspiciously similar to Earth’s, the rest was totally alien to her. Without any help, she estimated her odds of surviving this planet to be close to zero. For now, the System was able to provide that help. If levelling up was the way to survive so that she could investigate the System and the magic of this world, she would need to level up.

Such were the thoughts of a young girl alone in the frozen wilderness.