Time Since Reckless Self-Endangerment: 0 Days 2 Hours

The fire was spreading slowly- for the moment. It licked at the forest canopy like it was getting a taste for death and destruction. Smog filtered through the trees in thick clouds.

“Sofia, I want you to add ‘kill the rat-bastard in boots’ to whatever notification you’re doing up there.”

“Nicolas, you don’t even know his name. You’re not remotely at his level of power…”

Pausing for a moment Nic slung the pack off his shoulders and reached inside. The wyvern bit him. It clung on as he lifted his finger out, one wing badly broken. “I’m sorry little guy. I didn’t think-” He bit back the end of that sentence. He didn’t think for a moment.

He set the wyvern on his shoulder, breaking away a bit of healing leaf for it to chew on.

“Nicolas…”

“And you. Sofia! Why didn’t you tell me there were flying hunters before I went and made myself a target to everyone who looked up.”

“There are some things I just can’t tell you yet. Zone Anomalies and other prescient information cannot be mentioned by me until you ask about them.” The calm in her voice was infuriating.

“So what? You’d just watch me get myself killed, not saying a word, if I was about to walk into your ‘prescient information’ like a moron? Fine. Tell me everything that I need to know to not blindly stride into mortal danger.”

“I wouldn’t want to remain silent. But I cannot mention some information, including Anomalies, until and unless you ask.”

He nearly kept going. Let his anger win. But at the last moment he bit his tongue as what she said, or wasn't saying, struck home.

“Oh. But… You can phrase your answers so I know what to ask.” She was trying to help. Whatever her rules and restrictions, she really was. “I- Sofia, tell me about Zone Anomalies, or whatever it is that let that bastard fly.”

“Zone Anomalies are unique rules tied to a location in the New World. I cannot give the specifics, but this and many other forms of information can be accessed from a Tutelary Statue. Now, most of those reside in human towns and safe zones where you can’t go. However. There should be one in every Dungeon, and the humans have likely not discovered the one in this zone.”

“Right, that’s our goal then.” Shifting his bag back onto his shoulders, Nic took off. The blaze was going in earnest now and the short stop had cost him what little head-start he had. An ashen cloud lifted above the forest and rained down embers that created new outcroppings of fire wherever they found timber.

The creatures were in a panic. They charged past at full speed, ignoring each other as they fought to escape the coming destruction.

Nic had no choice now. He ran with them, vaulting over roots and fallen logs side by side with a small sleek deer that had beautiful blue feathers sprouting from the edges of its eye. Every few moments it would flicker and reappear further away, leaving Nic farther behind.

A fire loomed ahead. It had somehow outpaced him. Another flared to the east.

He took the only way open.

Again and again, fires appeared in his path. Each time the way ahead narrowed and forced the stampede of forest creatures into a smaller path. Fangs were bared and claws flashed in anger as they fought not to be trampled. For a chaotic moment Nic was almost drowned within them, confused, his small stature turning the world into a sea of stomping legs.

A blow landed on his back and he had to roll to get free of the stampede before it crushed him. He ended up sprawled on his belly staring up at the wall of the inferno.

The fire in front of him flickered.

Something was wrong. He stared intently, refusing to blink even as the bodies of fleeing animals crossed between him and the flame. A moment later it happened again.

The fire flickered in the exact same way. The motions of the flames were on a loop.

Stepping forward, Nic thrust his hand out towards the flame with eyes clenched shut. The heat intensified to an almost painful degree - but that was all. Almost. His hand sat in the middle of the flame, unburned.

The fires had always been one step ahead of them. Always pushing them into smaller and smaller bottlenecks. Something was taking advantage of the very real fire behind to herd the animals towards…

Something. And it could only be bad.

Forcing himself to step into the flames against all his better judgement, he asked. “Sofia? What is this?”

“An illusion Nicolas. Very astute, spotting it like that. These flames are a conjuration of aura with no physical substance, attuned to concepts of dream.”

As he forced himself not to panic at the feeling of harmless fire engulfing his flesh, Nic waded deeper and deeper until he could see the source ahead. A huge moth crouched at the center of the blaze. Its spindle-thin arms worked to write strange runes into the air with the golden dust from its wings. It was so focused on the task it hadn’t seen him coming.

And he’d keep it that way.

His spear flashed as he threw it through the flames. It struck one wing and tore the flimsy material even as a stone spear burst up, ripping through the creature’s front legs. Instantly the phantom fire vanished and the forest was revealed whole and intact beneath the illusion. The false dust and ash cleared from the air.

Nic launched himself forward. The beast was wounded and reeling, and he slipped the beast fang he’d taken from the massacre at the elven camp into his fist as a punching knife. One blow after another rained down until yellow blood covered his arms.

He reached down and wrenched a blue crystal shard no bigger than his finger from the beast’s head. It glittered in his palm.

“Tell me.”

Nightmare Moth. F-Rank // Dead. Feeding on the liquified remains of those they put to sleep with poison spores and slowly digest using a mild acid, these moths rely on panic for self-defense, creating terrible images that frighten and dismay to drive away the weak willed. Fragile in combat, they rely on distracting and confusing their prey.

Phantasmal Shard. F-Rank // Secondary. This shard contains purest Essence attuned to the concepts of dreamland and fear. It has been damaged by the death of its previous owner and cannot serve as a Primary Shard, and due to a low quality, the skill resulting from Synthesis may be difficult to advance.

He nodded slowly. It was a good shard, and an easy kill. He still regretted losing the mantis-kin who’d fallen from the branches- two shards would leave him with the first requirement to evolution nearly complete.

Animals rushed past him. Now that one segment of the illusionary fire had fallen there was no longer a perfect encirclement leading them towards their doom. There were still other fake fires, other moths working their magic, but Nic hadn’t come here to save anyone.

Saving a few was already his good deed for the day.

He shoved the shard down into his pack. It was time to move.

---

By the time he made it back to the river and found his way towards the poison grove another two hours had passed. The day was swelteringly hot and a muggy rain poured down, called by the smoke and rising ash of the forest fire.

For a human the mixture of heat and moisture would have been vile. To his new, newty form, it was heaven. Warm muggy water rolled off his back and he felt wonderfully at home in his skin.

He cautiously approached the grove with his new draconic companion on his shoulder and waited for any sign of poisoning or harm. The wyvern leaned its scaly neck forward and snapped at raindrops happily, unaffected by the toxic pollen. Apparently being a venomous little bastard gave him plenty of protection from other poisons.

Sliding down into the hidden grave barrow, Nic set the wyvern down with a bed of leaves and a few medicinal berries for food. “This is home for now, little guy.”

Settling down, Nic rested with his pack as a pillow and his body curled up small. He could justify it by saying he was just refreshing the bonus for resting in a poisoned environment. But truthfully, almost dying had shaken him. The fire and the fear of the stampeding animals were like poison in his mind.

He needed the quiet of sleep to help bleed it out.

---

From the moment Nic woke, he knew he’d already lost too much time. The sun was high in the sky and the rain was over when he crept outside the cave.

He needed to get to work.

He went to the riverside and cut down bamboo stalks using the kitchen knife, hacking into them with good, heavy strokes until he’d harvested a handful of poles. Taking them back to the cave he began to hollow them out using the beast tooth as a drill, slowly producing a set of three tubes open at one end. Going out to gather as much dry wood as he could in the aftermath of the splattering rain, he settled back down a third time and began to work at getting a fire going, setting his trove of little sticks alight with the heating stone from the kitchens.

In no time the walls of the cave danced with firelight, and he began by squeezing the honey from his stolen beehive into the frying pan. It was golden and deliciously sweet and he licked up every drop remaining on his fingers before setting in to guzzle down the lot. His tiny wyvern nudged up alongside him on his shoulder as he dug his face into the pan, licking at the feast.

The abundance of Essence within flooded his body and made him feel incredible as he set the pan over the fire and tossed in the squeezed-down remains of the beehive. In no time, the wax was melting away from the various bits of dead bee and other remains caught inside, giving him a pure grey base to work with.

Now he filled his bamboo tubes up with the yellow flowers that produced the poison spores, and sealed the tops over with wax. Taking out the pen, his gift from Lady Nylea, he drew a simple Hunter-Gatherer glyph on one side that would bottle and increase the toxicity.

On the other, he put a rune he’d practiced more than any other.

It was named Lakash, or ‘Unbinding’. It was a simple rune that would unleash any and all Essence placed into the object in an explosive burst, destroying its base in the process. Although it was less efficient than true explosive runes in converting Essence into firepower it had several advantages. The first was simple stability, but the second was that it could latch on to other runes and draw power from them. For this reason it was commonly added to magical items to allow them to self-destruct in dire situations.

Better yet, a powerful cultivator could fill hundreds of sheets of paper with Essence and have dozens of scribes working to add the runes after. This used none of the scribes’ pitiful Essence reserves and none of the cultivator's precious time, making it a common arrangement.

For these reasons it was considered a Fundamental Rune and the base of many formations.

Back in d23 he had practiced the brushstrokes hundreds of times. Every time he tried it for real in an exam, however, the resistance of his sluggish Essence caused the ink to burn up or dissolve into dark and foul-smelling smoke. He had never made it past the initial examination for scribes.

Now, with plentiful Essence to work with-

It was so easy he wanted to laugh or to scream in rage. Every brushstroke flowed smoothly, his will traveling easily through the ink to impress Essence into the canvas.

All he’d ever needed was enough Essence to guide his hand. Not much. Just enough.

He worked in angry silence.

When it was done he had three homemade weapons lying in front of him. The whole thing had cost no more than 200 Essence, easily made up for by the gains over the hour and a half he’d spent working on them.

Primitive Spore-Lob (F)

Symbol of Poison Cultivation

(100% Charged)

Fine Symbol of Unbinding

(100% Charged)

Growing more poisonous over time, these crude but effective explosives contain samples of a flower that fills the air with toxic spores producing paralysis and pain. A simple rune governs their detonation.

“Sofia. Tell me everything about Baby Boots.”

“Who?”

“The hunter in the red boots. That’s his name now.”

“Very well Nicolas, but you know my objections...”

Dean August-Modern (Baby Boots). E-Class // Sapient (Native). Born to a wealthy family of oil investors, Baby Boots was the heir apparent until certain ‘hobbies’ came to light. After being exiled from his expensive school, he found himself purposeless, awash in petty pleasures until the Integration revealed his true potential. In combat he relies on magical items such as his Dragonsilk Robe and Seven-League Boots, as well as an innate love for killing.

“Yeah. No surprise there. You could say I know the type.”

Behind him there was a squeaking, agitated cry. Two days ago, Nic had first entered the cave and discovered a fiery red feather in the hands of a dead adventurer. Now the wyvern hopped up and down trying to reach the prize.

Because the pearlescent shield that protected the feather was finally collapsing and breaking apart.