Morgan Mackenzie was startled awake by the intrusion of more insistent DING! notifications slamming into her head. She was alive, although she was not quite sure how. Her everything hurt, but in a distant and numbed manner. It was as if she were sitting in the back seat of her own mind. Sensations filtered through as if she were experiencing them second-hand, like it was all happening to some other Morgan. This Morgan knew she was in a state of shock, but it was the only way for her to even function at the moment. She knew this feeling of detachment could not last, so she pulled herself together and directed her attention at the insistent messages intruding upon her mind.

You have survived a [Mana Cascade]! For achieving this feat under the Aspect [Naked Survival], the Aspect has increased in rank to become [Naked Affinity]!

She dimly remembered seeing that particular message right before she passed out, but dwelling on it caused her mind to instantly recoil from the memory. The next notifications were far more welcome, if still a mildly disturbing reminder of her continued lack of clothing.

You have stayed an entire night alone in the Wildlands and have lived to see the dawn! For accomplishing this feat under the Aspect [Naked Affinity], the experience awarded for this achievement has been doubled!

+1000 Experience gained.

You have reached Level 7! Health and Status partially restored!

For reaching this milestone while [Naked] and [Unequipped], rewarded points doubled.

10 distributable Stat Points awarded.

10 Skill Points awarded.

You have reached Level 8! Health and Status partially restored!

For reaching this milestone while [Naked] and [Unequipped], rewarded points doubled.

10 distributable Stat Points awarded.

10 Skill Points awarded.

Due to extremely high levels of ambient Mana combined with other local conditions, a [Cleansing Scrubby] has gained sentience and Awakened as a new species! As the previous owner, [Cleansing Scrubby(Slime Species Variant, Originator)] has imprinted itself upon you. Would you like to claim it as your pet and give it a name?

Reading the last message was enough to startle Morgan right out of her dazed frame of mind. Sputtering, she jumped to her feet while she twisted around looking for the scrubby loofah she had totally forgotten about when she woke up. Said scrubby was currently several feet above the level of her head, somehow clinging to the side of one of the vertical branches that led up into the tree’s canopy. And it was moving.

“What in the hell?” Morgan blurted. The pale purple lace puffball was slowly churning itself back and forth as it crept along the tree trunk eating into the soot and seared churple jelly splattered all over the place. The path left behind by the scrubby was perfectly clean tree bark. As it twisted itself back and forth like a washing machine cycle, it seemed to exude a soap-like foam and draw it back in as it got dirty with soot and churple juice. Seeing the clean path it left in its wake, Morgan looked down at herself and realized how clean she was. It cleaned me in my sleep!? Even her hair was clean and shiny, with a healthy silken sheen. Looking back up at the loofah, she thought I don’t know if I should be happy about that or totally disturbed…

As if it could sense her attention, the scrubby suddenly dropped itself down from the tree-trunk and slowly rolled over to rest just in front of her feet. She started backwards a half-step and then made up her mind. “Screw it,” she said as she picked up the plucky little creature. “I shall call you Lulu the Loofah!” As if naming the thing out loud was some sort of signal or trigger, another notification popped into Morgan’s mind, along with Lulu’s own status information.

You have claimed Lulu the [Cleansing Scrubby] as your bonded pet! The pet bond allows you to view the status information of any of your pets. Bonded pets will always find their way back to you if separated!

Pets level up on their own over time, in addition to gaining a percentage of experience you earn on your adventures together!

Status Information for: Lulu

Species: Cleansing Scrubby. Distantly related to Slimes and Oozes. Originator of its species.

Level: 1

Stat Details not viewable except by owners specialized in Pet based or Tamer type Classes

Skills

[Cleansing Scrub]

[Foaming Wash]

[Absorb Grime]

[Exfoliate]

[Moisturize]

[Rejuvenating Rinse]

“Originator, huh? So you’re the first of your kind?” Morgan said to the little scrubby. It gave no indication that it understood what she said. The laceball simply sat contentedly in her hands. Before its vivification, the scrubby had simply been a balled up wad of puffy synthetic lace with a string knotted around its center. It wriggled in protest in her hands as she squished it in different directions. The once ivory-colored lace fronds were still pale on the outside, but deepened to a violet that was closer to the color given off by Morgan’s [Mana Pulse] spell the previous night. Where the center knot of string used to be was now a spherical crystal structure vaguely resembling a sieve, with the fibers of the lace weaving in and out of the openings. The core glittered in dim shades of purple. Lulu the Loofah suddenly had enough of being handled so roughly, and with a grace Morgan was not expecting it hopped out of her hands up to her shoulder and sat there. She gave it a pat and it responded with a faint burbling purr.

“Absolutely lethal levels of cute!” She giggled at her new sidekick. It felt good for her to have something she could still laugh about in her present circumstances. As Morgan’s thoughts returned to the present, she sighed and mentally pulled up her own status information. There was a lot that she had not been able to spare any attention to while she was simply trying to survive the previous night.

Status Information for: Morgan Mackenzie

Level - 8

Primary Class: [Locked]

Secondary Class: [Locked]

Health - 153/170

Stamina - 202/224

Mana - 112/112

STR - 11

AGI - 11

CON - 15

VIT - 28

INT - 14

Stat points available to distribute: 20

Current Skills:

[Naked Instinct]

[Naked Recovery(Lvl 7)]

[Naked Camouflage]

[Naked Resilience]

-[Pain Resistance(Lvl 9)]

-[Heat Resistance(Lvl 7)]

-[Mana Resistance(Lvl 10/Mastered)]

[Naked Magic]

-[Mana Pulse(Lvl 10/Mastered)]

-[Spell Channeling(Lvl 4)]

-[Mana Affinity(Lvl 6)]

Skill Points available: 20

Titles, Mantles, and Aspects

[Worldwalker(Title)] - You have travelled through the void between the many worlds! Every world is different, each with its own gifts and dangers. To help you survive strange new places you gain a slight boost to health and an increased ability to learn new things! (+50 to Health, +50% increased gains to Skill Experience)

[Blessed of the Guardian Tree(Title)] - Through an offering of the blood of your enemies you have reawakened the ancient tree! You need never fear its hungry roots! Future offerings or actions that benefit the tree may enhance this Title!

[Naked Affinity(Aspect)] - Experience gained and points rewarded are doubled while you are [Naked] and [Unequipped]. Base recovery rate of all resource pools are increased. [Naked] variants of skills and abilities enhanced. Rate of skill and ability improvement greatly enhanced. While items or clothing are equipped, this Aspect’s effects are disabled and [Naked] skills and abilities are locked.

“So…” Morgan read through the new information two more times to make sure she understood what it meant. “I don’t know how much better these naked skills are compared to other ones.”

She stood there a moment to consider the new information. She simply had not been able to take the time to think about it during the gauntlet that was the previous night. “So, I’ve got some magic, but only so long as I don’t have clothes on.” she quipped to her purring shoulder passenger. “At least I think. I don’t have anything like clothes for me to even try to test it with right now. At least this place is warm...”

Morgan knew that she was focusing on everything she could to delay the inevitable. She knew something was wrong with her body, but she was afraid to look with the [Naked Recovery] skill. The memory of burning was simply too vivid. She could tell without delving too deeply that she was in no immediate danger from it, but trying to look closer sent her mind reeling back into the flames. Her health and stamina had ticked back up to full just in the time since she’d been awake. Her mana had already been full when she awoke. Understandable, as far as Morgan could understand anything about this world. She had not been able to sense her mana for very long before she ate the fruit, but to her mind the magic felt different than it did before. More volatile, as if it were already straining to be used, or released.

“Well,” she said to the scrubby on her shoulder. “Naked or not, I need to get out of this tree and find water.”

Morgan took a few minutes to very carefully spend her latest points on her stats. She had no intention of repeating the rollercoaster of sudden changes to her body from the previous day.

Ignoring vitality as it was the highest attribute by far, she split the twenty points evenly between the other stats. In between each spent point, she took the time to look at available skills in the hopes that something would be useful for getting safely down to the ground.

Skill Acquisition Menu:

[Naked Athleticism(Passive)] - [5 Skill Points] Due to earning the Aspect [Naked Affinity], the skill [Athleticism] has been modified and purchase cost reduced by 50%. Movement is often the key to survival! This skill improves your basic ability to do physical things, decreasing the Stamina cost of physical skills. The [Naked] version of this skill shares synergy with [Naked Resilience], further increasing your endurance performing physical tasks and improving your body’s efficiency at storing and using its internal reserves.

[The Naked Eye(Channeled)] - [10 Skill Points] Due to earning the Aspect [Naked Affinity], the skill [Eagle Eye] has been modified and purchase cost reduced by 50%. You can’t hit what you can’t see! While active, this skill enhances your visual acuity, allowing you to see with much greater clarity things both far away and very close. The [Naked] version of this skill shares synergy with the skill [Naked Instinct], passively improving your ability to see in all conditions except total darkness at all times.

[Naked Elementalism(Passive)] - [10 Skill Points] Due to earning the Aspect [Naked Affinity], the skill [Basic Elementalism] has been modified and purchase cost reduced by 50%. Magic is more than simple primal force! This skill allows you to sense and manipulate magic at a deeper level, separating mana into its fundamental elements and gaining affinities for different magics over time. The [Naked] version of this skill allows you to draw out the elements without the need for assistance from [Items] or [Equipment] to focus your will. Shares synergy with [Naked Magic] to enhance your ability to develop affinities with individual elements.

[Natural Traps(Passive)] - [15 Skill Points] Sometimes the environment can be altered to do the work for you! This skill provides increased dexterity and enhances your ability to assemble basic types of traps such as deadfalls, pits, and snares.

Morgan read through several of the skills at the top of the list. Further down skills were greyed out with [Locked - Conditions not met.] in place of a description. None that she could see seemed to have anything to do with climbing. She had even held a faint hope for something that could help her fly, and was a bit disappointed. The skill that seemed most likely to help with her climbing down from the tree was [Naked Athleticism]. The last one made her snort. “I don’t need a skill to build a deadfall or dig a hole, what a waste!” Lulu the Loofah trilled a burbling response from her shoulder that Morgan chose to take as agreement. “But [Naked Athleticism] looks useful for climbing out of this tree.”

Stepping back to the middle of the treetop hollow, Morgan braced herself for any unpleasant side effects and spent the five points on the [Naked Athleticism]. She’d been prepared for horrible pain or a full body seizure, but all that happened was a short spasm of shivering that was over almost as quickly as it began. The changes were barely noticeable. Her muscles were slightly more toned, if anything. She had felt more noticeable changes when she had spent points on her Agility, and that had been the least intrusive of her changes so far.

“Well that was anticlimactic...” she mused out loud, “but I’m not complaining.” Morgan hopped up and down a few times, provoking disgruntled burbling from Lulu sitting on her shoulder. “I don’t feel any different. It probably affects endurance and other shit like that, and my only stamina based ability is the healing one…”

Having the little scrubby to talk to was definitely working as a coping mechanism. Being so vulnerable and alone in this new place, and naked on top of that, would definitely have made short work of her sanity. Of course I could be hallucinating all of this. Might have hit my head on the tub and this is some sort of coma dream, she thought to herself. But if magic is real here, it can’t be all bad.

“Well that one wasn’t so horrible.” she said as she plucked Lulu off her shoulder and held it up in front of her face. “My other two choices are a skill for magic and a skill for eyesight, Lulu. I’ve never needed glasses or contacts, and it seems this world has magic. I want it. So magic it is.” She stuck the scrubby against one of the tree branches and it clung to it like a sticky magnet on a fridge door. The continuous burbling purr emanating from the thing wasn’t even interrupted by the action. “I don’t know what will happen, so just wait there little buddy.”

Stepping back to the center of the tree-top hollow, she spent the points to acquire [Naked Elementalism]. She had been mentally preparing herself for some sort of agony, but it was more like a mental click. She didn’t feel any different at all. “It must be something that I’ll figure out as I cast more spells then,” Morgan said out loud. “I’m just happy not to be seizing up again, or worse.” She shuddered involuntarily as memories of burning from the inside threatened to smash their way out of the little mental box she had been keeping them in. She knew she would have to deal with it sooner or later, but for now her focus was on getting out of the tree and finding water.

Morgan took a few minutes to look out from her rather high vantage point. The foliage of the canopy had been burned away directly above her, but already new shoots and leaves were beginning to fill in the gap. The early morning sun provided a view that was breathtaking even with her somewhat dire situation. In the far distance to the east she could just barely make out a gap in the trees that shimmered in the glaring sunlight. Hoping that would be water, she picked that direction.

"Now just to get myself out of this tree." A trilling protest emanated from Lulu, and Morgan held out her hand to let the scrubby make its way back to her shoulder. "Don't you purble at me! That means you too!" Instead of puffling its way up her arm like she expected, it let go of the tree limb and tumbled down past her feet, then slowly started working its way down the outside of the main trunk. Morgan simply stared as it made its way down towards the ground, leaving a trail of clean and moisturized tree bark in its wake.

“You cheeky little puffball!” she shouted after it. The scrubby was faster than she thought it would be just going by how it looked. Morgan stared down the trunk of the tree as the scrubby repeatedly dropped several feet at a time before catching itself. She intended a much slower and more careful descent. The tree trunk was far too large for her to try to hug it with her arms. The main trunk seemed to be as big around as a small house near its base. The outer bark had plenty of cracks and craggy formations that looked like they’d provide hand and foot-holds for grip, but she knew it would not be pleasant without gloves or shoes. On the other hand, she had absolutely no intention of waiting around til thirst drove her to try to eat another churple. “Once in a lifetime was enough…” she muttered.

Turning around, she tentatively began lowering herself one hand-hold at a time, much more slowly than the precocious Lulu had traversed the distance. The going was much easier than she expected, and the benefits of her increased Agility and Strength attributes were readily apparent. The annoying part of it was how the bark dug into her hands and feet, and that was more bearable than the scraping against her breasts and belly and thighs as she hugged herself close to the trunk. Her idea of exercise had always been yoga or pilates in comfy sweats and a top, not running around the woods naked like some sort of heathen. “At least it’s not cold here,” she stated as the morning sun warmed her legs and backside. I’m so glad I never had too much trouble with heights, she thought to herself. Without proper tools she could only guess, but she figured it was at least four hundred feet from where she had spent the night and the ground below. The outer bark she was climbing down felt strong and had a rubbery kind of give to it. While the surface was dry and rough, less than an inch would crumble away under her fingers and toes before she found solid purchase.

As Morgan neared the halfway point the climb became quite a bit easier. The gaps in the bark became larger, and the twists in the tree’s growth provided large bulges and outcroppings she could stand on without having her feet assaulted by pokey twigs and broken pieces of wood. She already had dozens of splinters she was going to have to dig out somehow. Her hair was almost a lost cause, as it had draped across or been pulled through what Morgan thought had to be every single patch of sap or crumbling bark shards she had passed near.

Less than a hundred feet from the ground she stopped on a bulging outcropping that was large enough she could have laid down on it. She felt slightly tired from the exertion, but when she looked back up towards the canopy she realized just how far she had made it. “I guess naked athleticism and spending points on stats is already paying off.” she mused. Morgan was not even winded at this point. “But I need to find water, and then I need a bath. Speaking of baths…”

Looking around for her pet scrubby, she spotted Lulu and jumped back up in alarm. The puffball was making its way back up one of the larger roots, seemingly creeping for its life as it fled from wiggling root tendrils that were inching their way along after it. Without thinking Morgan held out her hand and sent a [Mana Pulse] at the roots chasing her only friend. Or tried to, at least. The actual result was a baseball sized sphere of purple lightning that shot from her hand with a sizzling sound and impacted a dozen feet behind the scrubby an instant later with a WHUMP as nearly a third of her mana left her in an instant.

Dirt, splintered shards of wooden root, singed leaves and one rather angrily trilling scrubby didn’t quite make it as high as Morgan’s current perch. Lulu hit the side of the tree less than a dozen yards below her, and began working her way back towards Morgan with bubbly sounds that certainly sounded like they had taken a scolding tone. As the scrubby made its way up her leg and back to her shoulder with a whuffing burble, Morgan gave it an apologetic pat and dismissed the silver message that had popped up:

You have learned the Spell [Lightning Bolt]! Condense mana energy into a charged plasma and fire it at your enemies! Practice and experience will help you focus and control the bolt for increased power and efficiency!

Morgan stood there for a few moments trying to remember exactly how she had formed the new spell. She had acted on instinct, and the magic had simply worked. Her arm still tingled and her fingertips were numb, although that was slowly fading. Her mana was replenishing at what seemed to be several points per minute. She had no idea if that was normal, but she got the impression that it was not and that her aspected skills and bonuses had a lot to do with it. “I’m sorry I almost hit you Lulu, but you gotta admit, that was cool wasn’t it?” Morgan was petting the very irritated loofah and pointing at the crater with her other hand. “I have a spell that hits like a truck!” she giggled. As her mana inched closer to full, she held her hand up and sent two more bolts out into the air. Shunting that much mana through her hand that quickly left her feeling like she’d been sitting on it for hours, and she shook her arm about as the pins and needles feeling almost approached pain. The bolts of purple lightning had zipped out without arching back towards the ground, and fizzled out just over a hundred yards away. “So gravity doesn’t affect it, but I’m no long range sniper-girl.” she said, petting Lulu again. “Now lets see if the tree’s blessing really does keep those roots away from me.”

With her lacey friend securely perched on her shoulder, Morgan resumed her descent. She covered the remaining distance to the ground well before the sun reached its noonday zenith. At the bottom, she stood on one of the larger main roots before slowly stepping down to the loamy dirt. “No creepy root tentacles after me, that’s good.” Off to her right she saw her bathtub sitting upon a pile of white bones. The roots had completely cleaned the giant birds of all their flesh, leaving gleaming pale white skeletons partially crushed under the old clawfoot tub. As Morgan padded her way carefully over, the roots withdrew ahead of her. “We can’t exactly carry it with us, I guess,” she said to Lulu. “But I hate just leaving it here. The porcelain finish isn’t even cracked!” Stepping around a gleaming wing-bone she reached out and gave the tub a push. She had barely been able to nudge the thing when it was still in her apartment. Her increased STR attribute proved its effectiveness as she was now able to move it, if only just barely. With some very unlady-like grunts and a lot of effort, she managed to lift the end of the tub closest to her and sort of crab walk it backwards away from the bones. She walked it back up towards the trunk of the tree and then switched ends to push it to a vertical position and lean it back into a crook in one of the big roots. As it thudded over she fell back. That actually made me tired, she thought as she panted for breath. It had consumed some of her Stamina as well. Barely a tenth, but she still felt it.

Lulu had moved from her shoulder to the top of her head as she worked, and while Morgan sat on the larger of the exposed roots for a short break the scrubby began happily making purbling sounds while it worked its way through her hair. It only took a few minutes and all the debris and sticky sap was consumed, leaving her hair shiny and lustrous. The purr like vibrations across her scalp hadn’t felt bad either. After the scrubby worked its way down her arm to her hand it somehow scrubbed the splinters out of her palm.

“Oh you are just NIFTY!!!” she exclaimed excitedly. She propped one foot on her knee and waggled her toes as she held the scrubby to it. Lulu happily glomped onto her foot for a few minutes and took care of the ones stuck in the creases between her toes. “It’s like having a bath and a nurse all in one poofy ball of cute!” Morgan said as she gave the loofah a quick hug before plopping it back onto her shoulder. The trilling burble it gave off seemed to express its willingness to be her lacey bath ball. “One day we’ll come back for this tub. It was the whole reason I kept that apartment instead of finding one closer to school.” she told the scrubby. “But first we need to figure this place out, and get stronger. Maybe I’ll figure out a way to fly with magic someday!”

With her mood vastly improved now that she was on the ground, Morgan set out towards the east. She made her way into the Wildlands with a spring in her step and a friend on her shoulder, and stubbornly refused to look at what her [Naked Recovery] skill kept trying to show her about the churple-flavored mana that had been crystallized inside her bones.