Harper

Achy muscles and a dim glow of light filtered through Harper’s amber blankets. It had been so long since she had slept with her head under the blanket. A nostalgia-fueled smile puffed away from her lips as the fog of sleep lifted from her mind. After a moment, the memory of the last day came back to her. Senses sharpened the earthy aroma of the leaves she slept in left her focus as a familiar snuffling sound drew her attention. Moving as little as possible, Harper turned enough to see through the gaps in the leaves.

Sure enough, a bloated striped pig like the one she saw before was outside her shelter.

It was pawing through her leather bag. Her food, water, tools, the tablet with all of the survival information!

The beast’s jaws opened, exposing tusks and its head dropped out of her vision.

CRUNCH

Harper winced. The distinct crackle of a hard plastic shell breaking apart, a survival treasure lost. Frantically she tried to decide if confronting it was worth the risk.

What were the rules on wild hogs? Get big and loud was for bears, she was sure but was it also for hogs?

Her thoughts cut off as the snuffling cut off into coughing and gaging. Gathering courage, Harper crawled out of her leafy nest. The Shield Boar stepped backward and shook its head side to side as a blue glow emitted from its mouth into the early morning forest floor. Now making no sound but for the staggering steps of its feet. Its eyes bulged and the muscles on its barrel of a chest heaved. Listing to the side, the boar fell over and twitched its final death throws.

[New skill awarded: Trapping 1]

Digging into her pack, she was relieved to find the water filter straw was the broken plastic. With a spring of freshwater, it was expendable in a way the knowledge she brought with her was not. Turning on her tablet, she found that it started.

Hugging it tightly, she promised to never leave it so vulnerable again.

Calming down, her assessment of her situation just kept improving. Water, shelter, and now a bounty of food. To take advantage of it, she would have to rearrange her strategy and get a smoker up before defenses. At first, she wondered if the being that transported humans wanted them to succeed, now she was sure of it.

Harper hadn’t intended to build a trap, and the system that governed skill gain apparently didn’t need intent.

Setting to work, she assembled a hatchet. Woodcraft was not something she had much experience in, so the final result was a hatchet head on a stick with nails above and below it to hold it in place. Not professional but serviceable. Either way, things were looking up. Her rushed work last night without the right tools would be a thing of the past.

Hours and attention-consuming work went by in a blur. Building a tripod, weaving a drying rack, digging a pit and starting a fire.

The boar had hung up dripping crimson blood long enough according to directions from her tablet. She reread the butchering directions again. Stalling she knew, but cutting flesh was something she had trouble with. This is survival. The boar isn’t a person. Her shaking hands pressed the blade of her knife against the hide. It resisted parting, pressing harder the tip of the knife disappeared and still it resisted. With a whimper, Harper leaned into it.

It’s a pig, it’s a pig. She thought the reassuring mantra to herself. Anything to banish the shadows of the past.

Stepping away and struggling to take controlled breaths, memories flowed into Harper’s mind. Cold tiles contrasted the hot blood warming the hand holding a kitchen knife. She stood over the haunting glassy eyes.

No! It hasn’t been this hard to control intrusive thoughts. White knuckled as she choked the life out of her knife Harper pushed on. After a while, a numbness overtook her. The visceral reaction faded away, leaving pain in its wake.

Butchering, cooking and preserving more than a hundred pounds of meat took time. Again and again, the temptation of pausing and taking a break came back to her mind. She pushed those thoughts aside. Having conquered her weakness once was enough for today. Experience told her that if she paused her work, overcoming that hurdle would become a burden again.

Near the end of the work, it began to take on a bit of a positive feeling. Work accomplished, meaningful work. It didn’t hurt that the gamer in her enjoyed every minute of grinding skill levels. She pulled up the last notification again.

[New skill awarded: Building 3. Building 3 overrides Building 2.]

[New skill awarded: Cooking 2. Cooking 2 overrides Cooking 1]

What else could she build? Harper remembered her quest and those disturbingly drawn-out killings… Yeah, defenses it is.

Going out to gather materials, Harper picked up every branch on the ground already before moving to use her hatchet. Even though most of the limbs were too twisted to be quality building material, they could always be firewood if needed. Poking around under the boughs of a flowering tree, Harper discovered fluff balls underneath. Picking one up and pulling it apart was a fantastic glimpse into this alien world. In total, it reminded her of a dandelion. Seed on the inside of small stalks that pointed out in every direction. At the end of the stalks was a puff of fiber that gave the seed a buoyant feature as she dropped them back to the woodland floor.

Brushing her hands, she got back to work. Using her hatchet was so much faster and easier for gathering material. In fact, she could think about more than just fighting the trees for the branches they grew. Harper opened her status and perused what she could understand. Reviewing the information wasn’t reading, it was simply knowing instantly. Trying to find answers to this, she gravitated to her highest stat. Willpower.

One of the features of willpower was the ability to generate a mind expansion to handle a function like her status page. Another was the function of self-discipline and motivation. Harper could only imagine that this was where she overdeveloped this attribute. The final part she could pull out of the status fixture was that willpower governed much of a person’s magical ability. Of which hers was still locked away.

That will just not do.

Reading how the magic assignment worked, Harper paused to review her skills. Hiking had advanced to 3, building was at 3 and cooking reached 3 during the butchering and ongoing smoking. Trapping was too far behind and she didn’t feel like it would give her the magic she wanted anyway. The peaceful life of cooking or building was far more her taste. Being permanent, she tried to match more than just this tutorial-transition phase. Whatever brought her here wanted her to succeed, so she had wiggle room to plan her future, right?

She settled on building magic. Something about being a magical cook just felt too domestic for her. So she built. Cutting spikes into the end of the branches, they became spear-like but far too heavy to be serviceable that way. Dragging them into position, her mind’s eye visualizing the final product. A tug of willpower drew from her. The visualization became something she could see with her eyes and feel with her senses. The same way you knew where your arm or foot was without looking, she knew her visualization.

[New building ability discovered: Planning

Generate a planning intelectus based on building skill level

Skill level 1: Static plan

... ]

Harper felt the light weight of the ability against her willpower. It was an almost comforting distraction. As she worked, the wall began to take form. It didn’t take long to realize that her dreams of a palisade were far-fetched. Instead, the modified plan had a foundation of branches and small trees dropped like pillars into pits dug in the ground. Placed every three to four feet, the geometric pattern conjured ideas of a wilderness ritual. By the time she had the 10th pillar settled in place, building skill had advanced to 4. For a safe margin, she waited until she was weaving long thin branches in and out of the poles to make a fence. A few feet up the wall and the notification ticked over.

[New skill awarded: Building 5. Building 5 overrides Building 4]

Safety point gained Harper selected magic assignment.

[Magic assigned. Process start…

Building 5 selected as base

Magic assigned: Fortification magic

Adjacent magics are Meta-material and Automation]

An overwhelming feeling of danger and not being ready took over Harper. Still holding up her status fixture, her panicked mind understood that was her magic. Nestled in her heart, her magic became the embodiment of the worry that she always held at bay. Gasping for breath, she bent all the focus she could into spending this new power.

[Primitive wall - Valid target

Assemble (0/257)

Empower (0/500)]

Frenetic blue lighting shot from her chest, dodging around the knees curled close against her. They arced around her front to strike the wall she sat against. Looking around at the cracking of timber, Harper saw the cuttings she had laid out fly of their own accord and lock into the structure. Rather than braiding in and out of the polls, the plant fibers splayed and tied into each other. The effect looked as though it had grown together from the beginning.

Amazed tears ran down her face. Nothing about the display of magic completing hours of work in mere moments could hold a candle to the blazing star of wonder at what she felt. Empty of power, her fear was gone in its place, quiet confidence of being ready and able. Smiling and laughing, she broke the new silence her magic had cast on the birds and nearby insects. More healing of the scars on her mind than she had accomplished in years. Yes! This place, this opportunity, was an unmitigated blessing.

Slapping her neck after another bug bite. “Well, Earth had bugs too, right.” Harper laughed to herself.