Morgan Mackenzie had lost track of just how long she had spent aimlessly wandering the forest. The flood of notifications, experience, and more than one level up would have been bad enough, given what she’d just done to the dungeon. Worse, however, was the mental assault from the not-spider. It had left her dazed, drifting, in a dreamlike state of unreality that didn’t seem to fade. She remembered the fire, of course; the taste of ash and cinder in the air as the greenery of the leafy maze burned, the splash of molten earth and stone beneath her toes as she ran out of the inferno like a toddler in hell’s own burning mud puddle. Though she was immune to Morgan’s fire, Lulu had eventually retreated into the storage rune on her hip as the lava flowed around its mistress’s legs. The hardest part of getting out of where the dungeon had once existed had been breathing; Morgan had been forced to resort to using Air magic to filter out the dust and fumes as they threatened to choke her to death.

Compared to the raging fire burning in her bones, the heat of the molten stone through which she trod had felt warm and soothing. Drawing on fire as deeply as she had had wed her to the flames in her marrow, to the living thing inside her, the essence of [Fire] waiting eagerly for its chance to surge forth.

Morgan didn’t know how long she spent in a fugue state. Several days at least, she knew, because when she pulled the last parcel of broiled shellipede out of her storage, it was rotten and slick. As her mind cleared, she began to hunt as she traveled. She lost track of her days and nights, walking when she was awake and leaving a trail of ever more complex earthen campsites behind her when she slept. She killed and ate [Murdersquirrels], a [Wildpine Deer], and even a [Tyrannorabbit] that made the mistake of startling her with its scream. Her reaction to being suddenly paralyzed had been immediate and visceral, unleashing her fire to rage against everything in her reach, A reach that had grown considerably after she allocated points to her Intellect in the wake of the dungeon’s destruction. There was barely a meal left of the rabbit after that.

Headaches frequently washed away her vision and sent spikes into her brain, driving her to her knees with their intensity while a frantic Lulu hopped around looking for whatever enemy assailed its mistress. But there were no external threats for the brave little scrubby to exfoliate, for the damage was in Morgan’s mind. She had no defense against it, and her brain was the one part of her body she could not repair through her [Regeneration] skill. The overwhelming confusion had faded eventually, and all she could do was endure the headaches and hope they would fade as well.

Fortunately, they did; after what felt like an eternity but couldn’t have been more than a few weeks, she was awoken by another notification that her [Psychic Resistance] had reached the second level.

“I don’t even remember getting the first level…” she said out loud, with more than a little concern for other things she might not even remember forgetting. That concern, however, couldn’t take the shine off how good she was feeling now that the constant migraine was behind her.

To celebrate her much-improved mood, Morgan treated herself to a bath. She had built her nightly campsite within a short walk of a small stream, and made her way there through the early morning fog that blanketed the forest. [Terrakinesis] made quick work of pulling up stone and molding it into a luxuriously large and perfectly ergonomic bathtub, reminiscent of her old cast-iron clawfoot. “I really need to go back and get that old tub someday,” she remarked. The scrubby was inspecting this new thing its mistress had made, wurbling about the inside of the tub. When Morgan levitated a few globules of water from the stream to fill the tub, the loofah’s wurbles went from curious to gleeful trills. It puffled about in the water exuding lavender scented suds. “Yeah, you get the idea!” she giggled, as she heated the water with a touch of her Fire.

Thanks to Lulu’s constant ministrations every day, Morgan was far from dirty, and her incipient bath wasn’t motivated by hygiene. But sometimes, you just need a good bath to relax…

Her resistances proved to be somewhat of a detriment in this one instance. She had to heat the water almost to boiling to get a comfortable soak, but she didn’t really mind, and Lulu didn’t seem to either. She lowered herself into the water with a luxurious sigh, breathing in the steam. Her [Primal Instinct] flared to warn her of something behind her, but she didn’t even budge. A lazy, almost negligent terrakinetic shove transformed a stretch of ground behind her into a graveyard of vicious earthen spikes.

“Well that’s lunch here in a bit,” she chuckled to herself as the notification for defeating another [Murdersquirrel] faded from her view. The bath was relaxing, certainly something she needed in more ways than one. The constant demand of staying on edge and alert had begun to wear on her sanity. With her instincts finally calm for the first time since she entered the dungeon, she let herself enjoy the moment. She soaked, and she rested, and she contemplated her options for spending her skill points.

There were plenty of useless choices available, to be sure, but the ones that interested her were the new runes she could get as tattoos. [Soul Anchor] had increased to its fourth level, one time from activating all the enchantments simultaneously when she burned the dungeon, and another from her layering enchantments into her stone huts when she camped for the night. She now had three options to learn new Living Runes, and her fifty-five skill points could snag her two of them with a handful left over.

Skill Acquisition Menu

Leveling Class Abilities may provide unique skills for purchase when conditions are met.

Several unique Class Skills are now available for purchase due to learning the required skills. Experimentation and continued advancement will grant access to more skills for acquisition.

[Runic Armor(Living Rune)] - [25 Skill Points] This Living Rune links to your [Soul Anchor] rune. [Runic Armor] absorbs a portion of kinetic energy from impacts, reducing the damage you take and converting the kinetic energy into Mana. Percentage of kinetic energy absorbed and efficiency of Mana conversion increases with the level of [Runic Armor]. Living Rune level is capped at the current level of [Soul Anchor]. Improving your abilities in combat and defensive magic will increase the level of [Runic Armor].

[Runic Chain(Living Rune)] - [25 Skill Points] This Living Rune links to your [Soul Anchor] rune. [Runic Chain] allows you to inscribe one Spell per level of [Runic Chain]. Spells inscribed into the chain may be cast instantly to greater effect at the cost of increased Mana usage. Higher levels of [Runic Chain] increase the effect and reduce the enhanced Mana cost of inscribed spells. Living Rune level is capped at the current level of [Soul Anchor]. Improving your abilities in combat and destructive magic will increase the level of [Runic Chain].

[Runic Core(Living Rune)] - [35 Skill Points] This Living Rune links to your [Soul Anchor] rune. [Runic Core] stores excess Stamina and Mana provided by your metabolic activities. Skills and Spells may draw part of their cost from [Runic Core], reducing the drain on your own reserves. Amount of Stamina and Mana stored increases per level of [Runic Core]. Living Rune level is capped at the current level of [Soul Anchor]. Improving your abilities with recovery and regeneration will increase the level of [Runic Core].

Morgan let out a low whistle after reading through her options. “Talk about tough choices, Lulu,” she told the burbling puffball as it propelled itself around the gently bubbling bath by some mysterious means. She had long ago given up trying to understand how the scrubby did the things it did. Considering her options, she ducked under the bubbles to wash her hair before coming back up and continuing out loud.

“If I get the runic core...I can’t get the chain or the armor,” she realized after a moment.

As good as the [Runic Core] sounded, the armor was something she just couldn't pass up. She lay back in the tub and braced herself, then spent the points on [Runic Armor] before setting it to active with a thought. The pain of the rune inscribing itself into her skin was not as brutal as her first experience with the belt, but it was still painful. When it finally finished, an interlocking scale-like pattern had been inscribed into her skin across her entire body. It started at her scalp and etched its way down like it was being burned under her skin, the feeling growing particularly exquisite when it had crossed her breasts and reached her backside. The lines of the scales faded almost to nothing across most of her skin, the edges standing out in thicker, bolder lines across her shoulders, knees, and part of her belly.

She stepped out of the tub, drying her hair by gently pushing the water away with a touch of her Mana. "It's supposed to activate automatically by impact, Lulu. It's only a matter of time until something hits me, or...tries to, I guess. I’ll just have to let it to see how well this works.”

Done with her bath, she now felt hunger beginning to intrude upon her day. She turned to claim her meal, and stared in utter shock.

“It’s gone…”

The spikes of earth she had raised were still there, as was a cooling splash of blood, now drying in the morning air. A bit of shredded meat and bone off to one side of the arc of stone knives still dotted the ground, but other than that, no trace of the [Murdersquirrel] remained.

She took a nervous half-step backward, glancing over her shoulder. “Nothing, Lulu. I sensed nothing…”

The scrubby’s only response was a nervous wurble from her shoulder. Lulu was as keen to detect approaching threats as its mistress was, if not more so, and the loofah seemed chagrined and embarrassed to have missed whatever intruding thief had taken Morgan’s lunch. Smears and drops of blood led back towards the thicker brush under the trees before vanishing entirely, and she headed that way with careful steps.

She found the culprit just over a hundred paces away from the stream, smugly perched atop a great branch of one of the massive evergreen trees which dominated the forest. Fur and skin clung to the bark of the tree, and giblets of meat and smears of blood decorated the trunk and the ground below. On the limb itself sat the massive panther she had seen in the dungeon. It licked its paws to remove the last traces of blood, cleaning itself in a manner similar to its much, much smaller Terran brethren.

“Couldn’t wait until I’d had a bite, could you?” Morgan complained at the unrepentant thief. Her instincts were only mildly agitated by the presence of the massive predator; they had fought together, after all, albeit only briefly. Not that I would be willing to test things if she was hungry, the sorceress thought to herself, barely repressing a shudder. “I guess you’ve been following me and claiming the leftovers! Just wait next time and I’ll share!”

The feline refused to acknowledge her, continuing to groom its fur while it basked in the late-morning sunlight. She found the sight remarkably refreshing, something pretty that, for once, wasn’t trying to eat her for either meat or magic. The cat gave no sign of understanding her, but likewise showed no sign of latent aggression or skittishness. Struck by an urge as irresistible as it was irresponsible, Morgan activated [Acceleration]. She heaved upwards with [Terrakinesis], lifting a circle of Earth beneath her feet as quickly as she could manage with the skill. She leapt forwards and up, the rising circle of stone adding itself to her efforts, culminating in her landing lightly atop the same limb that held the [Nightstride Panther]. The giant cat’s ears pinned back in surprise, and a low rumble emanated from its chest. It bared its teeth at her, revealing a quartet of dagger-like fangs longer than Morgan’s hand. Before it could do anything else, Morgan reached out and gently bumped it square on the nose.

With a sound halfway between a yowl and a soggy chainsaw, the panther melted into the shadows of the branches only to appear in another tree several dozen paces away, hackles raised as it stared straight back at Morgan. Its fur stood out straight, making for a ridiculously puffy visage of a housecat writ extra-large as its tail lashed in agitation and it wriggled its snout in confusion.

“Snoot status: booped!” yelled the naked sorceress at the disgruntled feline, laughing as she dropped back down to the ground. “I’ll leave you a snack next time! You don’t have to sneak!”

Despite her cavalier attitude, Morgan kept her ears open, in case the big cat took offense and sought her. She didn’t think it would attack, but it never hurt to keep her guard up. The tub was still there, and she was still hungry. She still had a parcel of steak wrapped in leaves from the deer she had killed the day before, but a diet of nothing but meat was beginning to bore her. The occasional berries had been nice, but nothing like the rich, sweet modern foods she was beginning to miss now that the novelty of constant life in the Wildlands was beginning to wear thin.

“I guess I can kill two birds with one stone,” she said, spending most of her remaining skill points on the [Runic Chain] skill. She grit her teeth as the rune burned its way down her arms, tracing paper-thin lines until the pattern reached her wrists, where it morphed into thicker cobalt-colored bands. Inscribing [Plasma Glaive] as the first rune in the chain was as simple as forming the different types of Mana into the woven shape to cast the spell, only without turning it loose. Instead, the banded pattern around her right wrist lit up with a gentle blue glow after a few moments, then shifted colors to match the Fire and Lightning Mana of the spell’s form before pulling the threads of magic into the inscription along the band.

“Test out a rune, get some lunch, maybe find some berries to go with it…”

She set off again with a whole new plan for her day, still giggling about her encounter with the panther. “I booped the snoot, hah!”

Several hours later found Morgan sitting in a perfectly molded stone chair, with a layer of moss draped over it as a cushion. The chair rose up from a flat-topped pavilion that was the rooftop of her latest sculpted stone campsite. With one leg lazily crossed over the other, she looked over her handiwork.  In front of her, a polished stone table rose up from the floor, with actual plates of food sitting upon it. A piece of Mana Crystal shaped roughly like a wine-glass -- filled with water, as she had figured out no other beverage yet -- floated a few inches away from her left hand.

Her [Primal Instinct] skill had led her to a herd of [Wildpine Deer], and several thickly sliced steaks from one now graced her table. The boosted form of [Plasma Glaive] empowered by her new rune had worked far better than she had planned, the beam of destruction killing three outright and wounding several others. “I guess the panther eats good tonight,” she said to Lulu as the scrubby wurbled its way around, cleaning up the plates.

Also on her table was a giant nut, a volleyball-sized cross between an acorn and a hazelnut. The shell had required her to crush it between two stones with [Terrakinesis], but roasting the inner part over a fire had led to a pleasant taste similar to almonds. Definitely hope to find more of those in the future.

Some things were similar to plants she knew from Earth, only bigger. A plate of greens with yellow dandelion flowers as big as her hand also resided on the table in a broad shallow bowl. Some of the familiar berries that grew all over the forest added their own red and blue colors, as did chopped pieces of something Morgan had never seen before. It looked a little like a pumpkin, but it was purple with green striations through the meat of the fruit. It was every bit as tasty as her instincts promised, and the copious juices added a nice tangy flavor to her impromptu salad. Finally, her instincts had also led her to something akin to a green onion or a parsnip, though she couldn’t decide which it resembled more. The bulb was bigger than her fist, and the savory flavor had gone perfectly with the flame-cooked venison.

Stone cutlery and utensils of varying quality lay upon the table as well, evidence of her attempts at making flatware. Actually trying to eat with it had provided varying results, and several punctures around her mouth were still healing, although the bleeding had quickly stopped. She couldn’t use her hands for working the forks and knives, but she could levitate them with [Terrakinesis]. I’ll just have to practice, she thought to herself.

“And I’ll definitely have to figure out something like tea or coffee to drink,” she continued out loud.

She sat and watched the sun set over the distant mountains, pondering her life since arriving on her new world. “I have two of those enhancement points Moghren told me about, Lulu.” The scrubby continued purbling its way around the table, seemingly content with the day. “But I think I need to save them, like she said.” She stopped to sip from her levitated glass. “For something more interesting than a fireball or my glaive spell, I mean. If they can boost a mastered spell as much as the old witch seemed to be saying, I think I should keep them for more fancy magics than just throwing fire and ice.”

As the last of the day’s light died over the snow-capped peaks on the far horizon, she stood and stretched with a weary sigh. She took a moment to check the layered circles of enchantments she had placed around her camp; two dozen [Pyreflame Runes] primed and ready to fire if the thin strands of Mana linking them together was broken. More [Mana Link] threads stood out to her senses, reaching back into the little stone house, and as she walked down the sculpted steps to the ground floor, she could see them faintly twist around the Mana Crystal in the center of the room. What had once been the jaw of a giant shellipede was now a violet-pink crystal spar. It was hexagonal in cross-section, as wide across as her forearm, and stood three feet from base to hooked, needle-sharp tip. Mana flowed out from it, along the threads of the Link, into her wards. She levitated her makeshift wine-glass over to it, and a brief push with [Gem Sculpt] saw the glass merging back into the crystal, adding another half inch to its height.

She topped off the crystal’s stores of Mana and made her way to the bed to lay down, followed by a wurbling loofah. Lulu seemed sleepy as well, and circled a spot on the moss-covered stone slab before trilling once and going still except for gentle purrs. Opposite the bed, a fireplace with several chunks of smoldering wood had nearly burned out, and she nudged the pieces together with short bursts of air and let the remaining embers do the work instead of adding Fire. Temperatures bothered her less and less as her resistances increased, and she had no worries about getting too cold.

“I need to stop wandering around,” she told the dozing scrubby. “I think I should start looking for a place to call my own.”

Her [Primal Instinct] skill surged with satisfaction in the back of her mind with that statement, and she nodded in agreement as she made herself comfortable on the bed.

“Time to claim my own territory,” she murmured, just before sleep claimed her.