Pain.  I doubt many of you know it as I do, and to those who do, I can only imagine what you’ve had to go through.  The demise of a close friend, the loss of a home, the undoing of a life’s work.  All of that and more, if you’ve ever had your body obliterated.

The process of being remade is not an easy one.  The pain comes in countless flavors.  The very nature of your existence is remade.

Emotions.  Memories.  Bonds.  Experience.  They are all woven into your body.  They have physical properties, even when dormant.  Everything that you have ever done, encountered, and wanted for yourself is in there.  Forged into a vessel.  It is a unique representation of the soul, and for that reason, it’s actually very difficult to destroy utterly.

Most people of our world will withdraw into a part of themselves.  Reduce their potential by half in order to sustain themselves, condensing the influence of their soul.  It makes regenerating harder, but there are many ways to do so, and the necessary elements can be tracked down with a modest amount of effort.

But this place is different.  Every presence that has the potential to rejuvenate is so potent and abrupt that it wipes out the spirits and strains the physical essence.  Caught in a stream of erupting mana, you will take damage.  There’s not a creature in our world that can mount a defense against it.  The fronts are too dynamic and volatile.

Even if you know what’s coming several waves in advance, the waves will gradually wear down your reserves.  Every scrap that it manages to strip away becomes harder and harder to replace.  The more integrity goes into mounting a defense, the more taxing it is to lose.

Nothing lasts forever.  To this day, no one has found a way to escape the storms.  The few who enter this region are sorcerers looking to harvest the bountiful elements, but they only come once the harvest season is underway, and they take a short and practiced route.

No help is coming.  Fortunately, my circumstances are not as dire as they could be.  I only busted my leg in an avalanche.  Without steady access to the elements, and no further resources to cannibalize, it is surprising that my limbs can regenerate at all, let alone to their original condition.

It’s a double edged sword though, because the most stable elements around are tied to my fate.  Consuming fate energy is treacherous.  It’s like being turned inside out with every patch of tissue treated with it.  I am…

So conflicted.  Reduced to such a pitiful state, with a potential asset in arms reach.  The worst part of losing your body, is that you lose control.  Of your focus.  Your bearings.  I can’t even tell whether it’s my leg or my arm that hurts, let alone which way is up.  The few times I’ve managed to compose myself I’ve had to make a choice.

Harness the stones, or restore myself.  The cruel truth is that if another storm hits and I’m immobilized, I could find myself in a vicious cycle.  Agonizing as it is, I need my legs.  I need a clear head to make the most of my time.

I did consider using the stones to heal myself.  To an extent, it worked, but it also caused the stone to dim, and the potency was shaky.  What was worse, I’m not a doctor.  I waste resources, and I risk creating an imbalance.  It’s possible that I would make myself vulnerable to a type of storm, or upset my senses.

So here I am.  Contributing to my own suffering, and praying that when I lose control that I won’t run out of time.

A day and a half.  I slept in a miasma.  I was caught in an earthquake.  When I came to, there were thundercells rising into the clouds.

I hyperventilated as I groped around.  Barely aware of my own reasons until I found a small pouch bound against my hip.  I groaned out in relief.  I may yet have a way to- to…

To save myself?  Outlast the storm?  I laugh in the face of that naivety.  No, I alone would never overcome something that swallowed empires.  But what I could do was discipline myself.

I began to make short hops across the barren fields.  Sifting through the grout with my bare hands and collecting as many of these gemstones as I could.  I don’t know what they are, but I know there is a magic to them.

The beige crystals produce fiber, which I braid into cord.  The grey crystals produce metal.  With a painstaking amount of trial and error, I managed to mould metal pins.

Weaving between every storm that I could, I increased my yield.  From scarce specks to pinches of the stuff.

I was splitting my efforts, and that in itself was a risk.  I was rather harshly reminded when one afternoon I nearly lost it all.

An earthquake exposed veins of magma.  I was quick enough to get away, but too distracted to take inventory.  I watch in mortification as my pouch of stones sank into the river.  The cloth shell bursting like a balloon before the sheer heat.

I still had my mesh, and I dedicated everything to collecting that afternoon.  I stopped running.  It did nothing to serve me.  Rather than hide, I turned my eyes to the heavens, and my ears to the ground.  Through every blinding flash and deafening roar, I kept a deathgrip on everything that I had, and willed them to safety.  If I had to risk life and limb, I would make something come of it.

I didn’t have any shelter, but there were patches of land that saw less abuse than others.  I got used to betting on one or another and being mentaly prepared to get swept up in the wake of a sweep.

Fingers froze.  Limbs strained.  I was never without bruising.  But day by day, my pouch began to fill.  The first time I tasted water again, I screamed.  A horrendous blood curdling screech.  My eyes chalked with sand, shedding dry sobs for the barren horror I had partaken.

Silent fear gave way to vengeful anguish.  A chorus to the tyranny of abuse that my life had become.  A siren to the life that I had left behind.  A concession on behalf of the mistakes that brought me here, and the ones that I would have to make again and again.

I felt angry, and I felt overjoyed.  I did not lose myself to this place, and I had a way forward.  A simple and achievable feat.  I could do it in a day, and I could do it for a hundred days.

I felt repentant.  A child committed to drawing her accomplishment out of taboo.  What I had done once, others would be capable of.  This was a lost world.  Untouched by polities.  It would take many lives before revealing so much as a glimpse of the world that had been lost, but there was something here.  Something I could reckon with.

As I castaway, I would take as much of it for myself as I could.  For every struggle and trial, I would bury my mark in this land.  I promised myself once that I would become a revered scholar.  A legend in study, who would shape the world with her designs.

Now, I further that promise.  I won’t rest until the chaos of this place yields to me.  I will become the master of my own destiny, and forge a path that no one else can deter.  I raised my hand, and lowered my thumb to the skies.

As though receiving my challenge, the clouds opened up.  Pillars of light razed the ground.  But I did not waver.  Not when a column split me in half.