Time Since Reckless Self-Endangerment: 0 Days 0 Hours

Nic woke up excited.

He had to force himself to settle into the lotus position and clear his mind as he’d been taught. Reaching within, he called to his cultivation base and found it full of energy that roared with the need to be spent. His body crackled and surged with it.

Nic’s first choice was Spiritual Clarity. He was curious what it would unlock; it had only three nodes and they were located around the cultivation base in a triangle. But as he tried to push energy towards them, there was a sudden force rejecting him. A message popped.

‘Spiritual Clarity’ cannot be raised with normal Essence.

Frowning, he chose Mental Acuity instead and felt the energy flow towards hidden nodes in his skull and around his forehead. The sensation of having his mind sharpened was like taking a broad, sluggish stream and narrowing in the banks so the flow became fast and swept away all distractions. With every moment his thoughts were a little clearer. It was strange but he had no better way to describe it.

To his surprise, the limit of the next upgrade leapt up to 1,000.

Dubious, he poured in more energy and watched in horror as it doubled again to 2,000.

With his current limit at a mere five thousand, he had no choice but to stop after the third advancement, but even that was enough to leave him with a fresh sense of clear, cold concentration that was delightful. As if he’d received the best night’s sleep of his life.

If he felt like this all the time now...

It was going to be a lot of fun increasing his Mental powers. But he was even more excited to see what had grown overnight.

Scrambling onto the edge of the Saturnalia, he stared down in wonder. The fruit seeds he’d planted had grown up overnight into trees- tiny trees, to him, but absolute monoliths to the people who lived in their shadow. The bonsai-size fruit trees were even larger to the denizens of the tiny world than the tree holding this temple up.

The fruit that fell from its branches weren’t just eaten. The thick outer rinds became enormous palaces for the rich, and there was a tiny city of delicate buildings surrounding each pitted fruit. An entire city had been born from his handful of seeds.

Where the Lady had buried the pearl a mountain of gold had risen, and every peak was occupied by a fist-sized wyvern. They curled their tails and spat fire to the skies, constantly warring over space and treasure. A river stretched out from the mountainside and numerous towns along its banks fished up chunks of fallen gold as their living.

Immediately Nic wanted to plant something new. But as he searched his pack, he couldn’t find anything well suited.

Still the value of such a discovery was obvious. He could plant valuable treasures here and come back to find them doubled or tripled. Doubtless there were limits to what it could grow, but he wouldn’t turn his nose up at a steady flow of minor treasures.

Plucking a fruit from the tree, Nic took a chunk of the holy mountainside as well. One of the wyverns tried to snap at his fingers but he simply pushed it aside like an unruly kitten. Looking over the various scaly monarchs, he chose one that spat out poisons in a frothing spray, and wrapped his hands around it carefully.

"You're adorable." He told the tiny wyvern. It spat and hissed in his hand.

Filling his bag with the treasures and tucking his new pet wyvern on top, Nic shrugged it onto his shoulders.

“You know, I know this little world is just meant to be a way of growing precious things.” The princess stood in the doorway. She seemed tired, as if she hadn’t slept at all. “ But I find it fascinating just to watch the world turn.”

“I know what you mean.” Nic said, hoping his tone would matter even if his words didn’t.

“I was hoping to hear about your world. Of course, you can’t speak to me, but-” She pulled out an expensive fountain pen and a sketchbook. “I was hoping you could draw them for me.”

Nic’s heart leapt at the sight of the pen. So far he’d been able to draw runes using mud or the juice of colorful berries because his Hunter-Gatherer glyphs were designed for crude tools. But he still had an almost obsessive knowledge of other more complex Fundamental Runes, and those required real ink and fine instruments to create.

What he could do with that pen…

Eagerly accepting he began to draw. The first drawing he produced was the sight he’d woken up to from his balcony window every morning. It was a rough sketch of the street sellers setting up their stands, full of food and petty trinkets. Of a drunk trying to clamber out of the gutter. Women emptying chamberpots.

The princess’ face fell slightly as she took it.

“Your world was not a very happy place, then?”

In retrospect Nic could see why she thought that. Without any of his homesickness or familiarity, it was a sight of grime and dirt. Especially to a highborn lady.

He began again.

“My world was very beautiful, they tell me. I was born after the Integration. They say they had carved entire mountains into the shape of our gods. That there was a type of tree that grew in the depths of the ocean, and when the time came for their blossoms to fall, the entire sea turned pink. That there were lizards that hibernated until that season and ran across the petals on the water, eating the tiny fish who came up to nibble at them.”

“They tell me all these things. But old men are known to lie, and all I’ve ever seen is what Logos built. Factories and shipyards as far as the eye can see.”

Nic held up his newest artwork.

This time he’d tried to capture a different side of the city. A view looking up from below to where the streets lifted and shot straight into the sky, ignoring gravity, bending backwards to form rollercoaster loops as they touched back down to earth. Alongside the rising ribcage of a dead leviathan, it gave the city’s low tenement houses a sense of verticality.

In the distance he’d drawn the governor’s house sitting in the eye of an enormous skull, and the wide pavilion of the Merchesa’s academy.

It was the view he’d had as a child. Staring up in hopes of greatness.

She clapped her hands together in delight. “This is wonderful!” Accepting the picture, she laughed as he clutched the pen possessively to his chest. “Yes yes, you may keep it. You are actually quite the talented artist. I wonder who you were, in your first life…”

“Nobody.” Nic said without thinking. He was glad she’d only hear a croak. One in ten thousand, in a city of millions.

Standing up, he bowed and gave a little three-fingered wave.

“Ah. Of course. You are an adventuring kind of Newt. You must be on your way.” She seemed sad, but she smiled. “Tell me, if you happen to find any way to break curses on your travels…” Her hand trailed up to where her skin was grey and cracked. “Will you return? My people would show you with gratitude, of course. You would be a hero among all lizards. ”

He lifted his hand to salute. “Say no more.” He croaked, and this time, she definitely understood what he meant.

---

The mantis-folk guards watched in confusion as he threaded an enormous leaf from the tree with greenwood sticks, assembling a frame.

For obvious reasons a species with wings had never needed this particular invention, but Nic didn’t have the patience to spend a quarter of the day climbing back down the tree. So he was daubing mud on the upper ‘canopy’ of his new invention to form Hunter-Gatherer glyphs related to wind, and calling on his new pen to add Fundamental runes for strengthen the whole construction.

He was building a glider.

Windward Canopy (G)

Symbol of the Wandering Gale

(100% Charged)

Symbol of Strength

(100% Charged)

Formed from the leaf of a mother tree, this glider bears the blessings of the winds and the words of a far-flung world to guide it safely home.

They started to laugh as he slipped on his construction and they finally saw what it was meant to be- to a flying race it must have seemed ridiculous to think somebody could build themselves wings. With a last wave to the surly honor guard watching him like a hawk, he slipped his backpack onto a special hook and stepped up onto the railing.

The laughter paused, and one of them actually stepped forward to stop him.

Nic jumped. The wind lifted to a roar, and just to give them time to really squeeze their last chuckle out, he dropped straight down for nearly a hundred feet before turning into the wind and letting it fill the glider’s sail with a billowing thump.

As the sail filled his arc towards the ground twisted up, and suddenly he was soaring. He bent the wings to one side so he could throw a glance over his shoulder and see the shocked faces of the mantis guards-

And out there with them, grinning ear to ear and holding a hand to her face, their princess.

“The moment I’m less small and cute…” He whispered into the wind, forgetting about the passenger in his brain for a moment.

Sofia helpfully reminded him by chiming in. “Please don’t make me educate you on the breeding habits of the mantis-folk…”

“Oh, I think she can educate me just fine.”

“You would really not enjoy the experience. Or survive it.”

“What does that-”

Something hit him with a force that sheered straight through the glider’s right half, turning the peaceful moment into a wild, panicked tumble through the screaming wind. He got just enough of a glimpse of his attacker to see a human flying through the air before the world began to spin, the blue sky and the green sea of leaves below trading places at whirlwind speeds.

For a moment he ripped at his broken wings trying to get them to catch the wind and lift him again. But that was no good. In his final seconds before impact he curled in on instinct and wrapped his entire body in adhesive aura.

He hit the canopy hard.

Branches tore his skin and left deep gouges. Leaves stuck to his body. Instead of a single, instantly lethal impact, dozens of small ones ripped at him as the branches broke his fall one by one, until he was left tangled at the core of countless broken tree limbs; his adhesive aura had increased his friction and kept him from going right through the canopy and down to the ground below.

Even then, for a bigger creature with more mass the fall would’ve splattered him without a doubt.

With a horrified little croak he released the aura and dropped down. The impact was blindingly painful. One of his legs had sustained some kind of minor fracture and the right arm he’d worked so hard to regrow was hanging limp.

“Nicolas. Get to cover. Now.”

Without hesitation he abandoned the glider to fling himself behind a tree and slither down into the space where erosion had opened a gap underneath the roots. His flexible body squished to fit down smaller than should be possible, ribcage actually moving to allow him to flatten his entire body. Digging frantically he opened enough space to drag his backpack in with him.

With a thump a pair of boots hit the ground. They were expensive, cherry-red boots. Above them towered a man with his hair shaved back to a tight brown ridge across the top of his head, dressed in saffron-yellow robes emblazoned with blue dragons. He had an unsettling smile on his face, but it quickly faded as he realized his prey was nowhere in sight.

He bent down to the remains of the glider and sniffed like a bloodhound.

Any moment Nic was expecting for the man to turn towards him. Twice, the hunter looked all around the clearing and Nic felt the primal urge to flinch, to run, as the gaze swept past him.

Then the man simply scoffed and soared straight into the sky.

“Nic. Stay down.” Sofia whispered into his mind.

Nic didn’t need telling twice. A smart hunter would still be watching from just out sight, waiting for him to come out. A good hunter might wait for hours.

So he waited back. And waited. And waited.

And just as the stress was beginning to itch his mind raw, a small predatory bird emerged from the forest. It walked on two legs and had a crest of bright green feathers above a crocodile-like snout, and it edged curiously towards the glider, eyes glinting greedily.

It stepped out under the break Nic had carved in the canopy.

A bolt of energy streaked down and punched straight through the bird’s skull. Nic flinched as that bolt expanded outwards where it struck the ground, becoming a wave of force and a rising ball of white-hot flames that seared him even in his hiding place, setting the forest alight with its fury. For a moment he could only see the blazing afterimage of the impact.

He gasped, croaking as too-hot air struck his lungs. If he’d left his hiding place that would’ve been the end of him. Even the edge of the blast could’ve been lethal.

But he swore.

He promised.

Someday he’d be strong enough to kill that hunter. Something about the man’s callous overkill enraged him as he wriggled out of his hiding hole and began to move, needing to stay ahead of the blaze that was now taking light in the upper branches. Soon the forest would be full of smoke and fire.

But was the hunter an invader?

Or a native?