“Get back!” Angela yelled, waving her shillelagh at the wolf-shaped lizard-things that paced, snarling, in a semi-circle around her. Her back was pinned to the river, which had grown considerably in size and rate of flow over the course of her journey, but so far the giant lizards had shown no desire to go into the water. Which was great because they looked like long-legged Komodo dragons with huge heads, slobbering jaws, and long claws that clicked on the river rocks. The last thing Angela wanted was for one of the beasts to get behind her. Their mouths did not look sanitary.

The stones beneath Angela’s feet shifted, and she could feel through her shoes that they were a decent size and heft. Without breaking eye contact with the creatures, she bent down and picked up one of the stones. There was one creature in particular who seemed a bit more daring than the others, so Angela reared back and whipped the rock as hard as she could at the thing’s face, hitting it in the eyeball.

It didn’t even blink.

Son of a bitch!

Throwing advanced to Skill Level 7 (Tier-0)

Sticks and stones may break my bones but not in this case because these guys out-level you to a stupid degree.

Tier-0 Bonus: Basic mechanics, reduced chance of injury when throwing objects.

50 XP Earned

“Asshole!” Angela shouted skyward at whatever unknown entity was writing her updates. Unfortunately, the entity was also correct. These things were way out of her class, and as of yet, she had no idea if there was any sort of distinction between forest animals and forest monsters. For all she knew, killing one of these would end her chances of being a druid. Living in the forest. Tending to the animals. Like the ones that were currently trying to eat her.

Oh, joy.

Angela glanced over her shoulder at the river. Not for the first time, she considered jumping in.

As soon as her eyes moved to the river, the creature she had hit with the rock lunged forward. Angela caught sight of the motion in her peripheral vision and reacted on instinct, swinging her makeshift shillelagh and smacking it on the nose. The weapon promptly snapped in two, leaving Angela holding a foot-long chunk of wood and no other weapon to protect herself. The lizards seemed to recognize this as well and advanced upon her en masse.

“Screw it. Later guys!”

Angela turned and sprinted towards the river. Despite the water only being a few metres away, she still wasn’t fast enough to avoid a claw slicing through her shirt and rending big lines down her back. Fortunately, that was all the damage they managed to inflict before she hurled herself into the waters, only steps ahead of the pursuing pack.

NEW SURVIVAL SKILL LEARNED!

Running For Your Life – Skill Level 1 (Tier-0)

Yeesh, first your brother, and now you? What’s your family crest, a terrified peasant on a field of yellow?

50 XP Earned

The moment Angela hit the water, her breath was stolen away by the intense cold of the mountain-fed stream. At first, she was concerned that she hadn’t gotten far enough away from the lizards before jumping in, but the current wasted no time in grabbing onto her, yanking her downriver and away from the creatures.

The water flow wasn’t so quick that Angela had trouble keeping her head above the surface, and if she’d wanted to, she probably could have found a way to tread water and heal the rents in her back. She knew she was bleeding pretty badly, even if the water was numbing the pain. She was also being pulled downstream towards unknown conditions, though. There was a good chance she would take a few more knocks before she got back to the shore, so she decided to hold off and see how things progressed.

It wasn’t too long before the river narrowed and began picking up pace, and Angela realized that her window to get out on the far side was closing. While the flow was faster than she would have liked, she was confident in her own ability, orienting herself towards the opposite shore and pulling herself through the water in smooth, practiced strokes.

NEW SURVIVAL SKILL LEARNED!

Swimming – Skill Level 32 (Tier-III)

Boy, you’ve gotten yourself into a real—

Wait, what? You’re a Journeyman Tier swimmer? GODDAMNED IT, CARL! Unnnggghh… you have NO idea what a pain in the ass this is going to be.

Tier-0 Bonus: Basic ability progression (COMPLETE)

Tier-I Bonus: Increased stroke efficiency. Scales with Dexterity.

Tier-II Bonus: Can interact with people and objects in the water with increased ease. Scales with Strength.

Tier-III Bonus: Unlocks the Freediver ability.

*Since this Skill predates your arrival in Arenia, it has been set at a level commensurate with the practical ability you already possess.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I get to sit in a 7-hour meeting because you practically have flippers.

9,450 XP Earned (cumulative)

New Trait Acquired: FREEDIVER

As a result of extensive experience in and under water, your body now holds oxygen at a maximal level for your species.

Requirements: Journeyman Tier in the Swimming skill. Must belong to a non-aquatic species. 5-minutes of uninterrupted access to air required to fully recover after a dive (scales with duration of previous dive).

Benefit (human): You can now hold your breath for up to 30 minutes.

“Haha! Suck it, you bastard!” Angela shouted above the din of the water. “Lifeguarding for drinking money is the best!”

RENOWN LEVEL UP!

Level 4 Achieved

RENOWN LEVEL UP!

Level 5 Achieved

RENOWN LEVEL UP!

Level 6 Achieved

RENOWN LEVEL UP!

Level 7 Achieved

RENOWN LEVEL UP!

Level 8 Achieved

XP: 10,825

XP to next Renown: 2,775

“And five new levels of renown! Doot doo— glub!” Angela’s celebration was cut off as she hit a submerged rock and was pulled underwater. After a moment’s disorientation, she was able to get back to the surface, but the rate of flow in the river had accelerated considerably while she was recovering. Now she was torn between swimming for shore, or letting the water carry her for a while to see if it slowed down. The last thing she wanted to do was tire herself out, but if the water turned into rapids, she would be in real trouble.

The river vanished out from beneath Angela as she shot into midair, a half dozen metres above the water and plummeting fast.

“SHIIIIIIT!!!” she screamed, her cry cut off as she plunged into the aerated water at the base of the waterfall. After a few powerful kicks, she was able to make her way back to the surface, only to once again be tossed out into nothing.

“GODDAMN IT!” she shouted as her body plummeted from even higher, only remembering at the last second her great-grandpa’s lesson to exhale before impact to prevent getting the wind knocked out of her. Gasping for air while underwater wasn’t precisely a good survival strategy.

Once again, Angela swam back to the surface. She allowed herself to hope that the worst of it was over, but no sooner had she stabilized herself than she saw a disturbing lack of river ahead of her.

“Nononono…” Angela said as she frantically looked around for any possible way to stop herself from going over. Which there wasn’t, because this world sucked.

Angela sluiced off the lip of the final waterfall. This time she wasn’t caught by surprise—which wasn’t necessarily a good thing. If she had been surprised, maybe she wouldn’t have noticed that this time the waterfall poured into a large lake. A lake so far below her that it should have been enjoyed via drone footage, not first-hand experience.

Screams filled the air as Angela plummeted downwards. She looked down to see what waited at the base of the falls, just in time to discover that her trajectory would take her very close to a large outcropping of rock. If she grabbed it there was a chance she could stop herself from falling all the way to the bottom. Although “grabbed it” was a bit of a subjective term, given that she was headed straight for the rock, and the thing she was going to grab it with was her face.

The outcome was, to say the least, extraordinarily painful. Which made the alert that pinged off Angela’s forehead feel a bit mocking.

Luck +1

You have no idea how much I was hoping you’d just glance off that thing and go cartwheeling into the ether.

Everything hurt.

“Unnnggghhh…” Angela moaned. She was lying on the polished black stone of the outcropping, the roar of water drowning her out from all sides.

She was not in good shape. Like, REALLY not good shape. It wasn’t just the pain, which was ample, or the blood, which was plentiful. No, if she had to narrow it down to one thing that summed up her current condition, it would be the fact that her left foot was currently both underneath her and touching her right elbow. At least she thought it was her left foot. She couldn’t feel the other one at all—hopefully, it was still attached. She also couldn’t reach the mistletoe in her belt pouch, so this heal was going to suck.

Using her own blood to draw the rune on herself—kind of her signature move at this point—Angela gathered the energy from around her, “Ffuuuuu…” pulling it into her through the rune, “…uuuUUUUU…” and brought it together into one burst of healing energy, “…UUUUCK ME! THAT HURT!”

Then she threw up for a solid quarter of an hour.

When Angela finally managed to compose herself, her first order of business was to do an inventory and make sure all body parts were accounted for. They were, and surprisingly, so was her belt pouch, the contents remaining safely stowed away. How she managed to not land on it was a mystery for another day.

With that taken care of, Angela pushed herself to her feet and surveyed her surroundings.

It wasn’t great.

“Balls,” she muttered. She hadn’t processed how high above the lake the rock was. Instead of an easy climb down to the shore, Angela was stuck nearly 10 metres above the lake on a slick rock that jutted a half-dozen paces out of the falls.

“Yeah, thanks, you celestial dickhead,” Angela muttered at the sky. “I’m suuper lucky. Would have been better off chancing the waterfall.”

She glanced over the side of the ledge, staring down at the forest of razor-sharp obsidian that littered the base of the falls, water pounding into her prospective landing site with enough force to render her body into a fine purée before it ever reached the lake.

“Err, maybe not. Guess that explains the Luck bump.”

Well, riding out the waterfall was off the list, so Angela turned her attention to the soaking wet, moss-covered wall.

“I am a Climbing Level 4…” she said to herself. Then she consulted her Tome to confirm. “Which puts me in Tier-0, or ‘Raw Beginner.’ Yeah, that’s a nope.”

Still, she had to get down somehow.

Angela looked over the edge of the waterfall again. Sure, it was murder town at the base of the falls, but if she was able to clear the rocks…

Oh well. It wasn’t like she had any better ideas.

Time to test out that new Luck point.

Angela backed up as far as she could on the rock ledge.

“Okay, girl. You can do this.”

Before she could talk herself out of it, Angela sprinted to the end of the rock and leaped off into nothing.

The world paused as Angela soared through the air like a drunken frog, momentum taking her out off the ledge, past the rocks, and into the air above the wide forest lake.

NEW GENERAL SKILL LEARNED!

Cliff Jumping – Skill Level 8 (Tier-0)

You did it! You got past the rocks! But maybe you should have inspected your landing zone more closely?

*Since this Skill predates your arrival in Arenia, it has been set at a level commensurate with the practical ability you already possess.

400 XP Earned

There was barely enough time to process the notification before Angela plunged feet-first into the lake.

It was a clean entry. Angela’s toes were pointed, and she plugged her nose with her fingers to ensure a quick recovery, and she held her belt pouch tightly shut to ensure she didn’t lose any of her vital mistletoe leaves. The water slowed her down rapidly and effectively, and she didn’t lose a sense of up and down. In fact, everything was perfect… right up until something rose up beneath her, lifted her to the surface, and hurled her laterally across the lake with so much force that she literally skipped across the surface like a stone on a pond.

It wasn’t as fun as it sounds.

When Angela finally ran out of momentum, she tumbled back beneath the water for a moment before kicking her way to the surface and spinning around, desperately trying to find out what the hell had just tossed her across a freaking lake.

Nothing. No sign whatsoever. Which was terrifying.

Spinning onto her stomach, Angela oriented herself towards shore and swam faster than she’d swum in her entire life. Faster than was reasonable, come to think of it. Why was she moving so quickly?

Then it dawned on her. Growing up in California only a half-hour drive from the beach meant that Angela had done her fair share of body surfing. She knew what it felt like to slide down the edge of a wave, and this was the exact same feeling.

“Shit,” she swore as she rolled onto her back to try and see what was behind her, only to continue her momentum unabated. She flailed around in an attempt to free herself from the wave, only to get tossed backwards into the water.

Shaking her hair out of her eyes, Angela got her vision clear just in time to witness a Prius-sized head rising out of the water to stare at her, dripping water and algae.

“Oh, crap.”