Morgan Mackenzie, flush with pride at her latest accomplishment, was eating honey. In addition to being delicious, the honey also carried medicinal properties, which ended up being a happy discovery after she had fought a swarm of [Sting-Flinger Bees] to claim her prize. Welts adorned her left flank and backside, and while her healing abilities meant the wounds wouldn’t be life-threatening, the toxins had proven persistent -- and quite itchy. The itching was the worst, and unfortunately, the system was quiet on the subject of resistances, so it seemed Morgan would have to simply grin and bear it.

The honey had shone with a golden light when she passed it in the forest, her [Primal Instinct] lighting it in stark contrast to the greens and browns that most often colored the woodlands, giving it the appearance of so many glittering jewels. With honey came bees, Morgan knew, so her time-granted confidence was tempered with a certain amount of caution as she approached: she had encountered the bees before, and knew that even a single fist-sized bee, with its burst-fire ranged attack and powerful sting, could prove troublesome.

It wasn’t just one, however. The first scout became five, and five quickly became dozens. The sweet honey was such a welcome break from her too-savory diet of meats and nuts that Morgan dispatched the scouts with an almost-negligent blast of flame before reaching out with both arms to snap off a section of honeycomb for later.

She had just managed to prise off a piece bigger than her head when she began to hear an unearthly roar rise from the forest around her as seemingly thousands of angered insects boiled out from the trees. Her shields had failed under the furious assault almost before she managed to store the honeycomb in one of her runes -- each individual impact barely caused her shield to flicker, but thousands in the space of moments overwhelmed her. With a panicked yelp, she had loosed her fire, but this time she kept it within inches of her skin. For several reasons, she had no desire to annihilate the hive: for one thing, the bees were simply obeying their instincts and trying to drive out an intruder. For another (and more saliently, Morgan admitted), she wanted to be able to return in the future and claim more honey, now that she knew where to find it. The [Skyclad Sorceress] had shimmied down the trunk and ran out along one of the larger branches, trying to get away from the bees before she took enough impacts to actually become a problem.

And then, the hive queen arrived, accompanied by an escort of drones. Rather than attack, the drones formed a living barrier around the monarch. The queen, for her part, launched volley after volley of explosive projectiles at Morgan, which she was barely able to dodge in time to avoid serious damage. The branch she had been running along fared significantly worse, and any creatures in earshot were given a vociferous, entirely involuntary education in Earth profanity as Morgan fell to the ground below.

Using [Terrakinesis], she had pulled an earthen dome over herself, then burrowed into the ground to give herself some breathing room. The bees’ stingers had quickly given rise to itchy, painful welts just in the short span of time she had spent escaping. Morgan had reached back and rubbed her wounds, and with her hands still sticky from the honey, it was then that she discovered its medicinal properties. As the soothing numb settled into her flesh, she sighed in relief.

“Bet this’ll be worth quite a bit to people...if I ever find people,” she amended, her mood taking a brief turn. She resumed burrowing her way through the earth, looking to put more distance between herself and the hive -- no doubt, the bees were still furiously angry and searching for their attacker. While it wouldn’t take much to burn the entire hive to the ground, there was no urgent need to do so. She knew where the hive was in relation to her demesne; destroying it would force her farther afield. Her diet had, up to this point, been devoid of anything sweet other than the odd patch of berries or fruit tree she harvested as she moved, and the honey was a welcome addition to her nascent pantry.

She didn’t quite understand why she was feeling a growing urge to stockpile food and fortify her surroundings -- to settle down, in other words. She did know that the storms she could see over the northern mountaintops made her very anxious, to the point of nausea; danger signals abounded when she cast her eyes northward, to the snow-capped peaks. It wasn’t anything she could put into words, but her best guesses at this point were either terrible monsters or terrible weather, neither of which she much felt like dealing with out in the open.

Her increasing caloric needs began to drive the point home when it came to stockpiling food, at least. Morgan had to eat frequently if she used her magic, and she was at the point where she used magic nearly without thinking. Her vast resources did nothing to dull the pangs of hunger that plagued her whenever she had to replenish herself, and she now spent almost as much time eating as she did experimenting with new spells. She found that she even cast spells while sleeping, which had been a shock -- waking up with her stone bed wrapped around her and contoured to her flesh had been one of the stranger experiences she’d had during her time on Anfealt.

She continued licking the honey off of one hand as she burrowed through the earth, refusing to waste any more on soothing her rump and side. It helped, but not entirely, and she didn’t want to spend any more. By this point, she was walking upright, parting the earth ahead of her and sealing it behind her as she went. After a few hundred paces (and half her Mana reserves), she began angling her tunnel upwards, sure she was far enough from danger. As she neared the topsoil, however, her [Spell Resonance] alerted her to something’s presence near where she intended to ascend to the surface. She took a couple steps to the side, took a breath, and emerged.

A very startled, very familiar panther leapt into the air as Morgan sprang from the ground a few feet away from where it had been feasting on its recent kill -- one of the numerous deer that populated the Wildlands. It chuffed, yowling its annoyance after realizing she wasn’t a threat, and Morgan darted forward to tap it on the nose once more. It had become a running challenge between the two of them, and Morgan so rarely had the opportunity to get the drop on the titanic cat. Her hand, which still bore a coating of honey, left a sticky residue on the beast’s snout, and it nearly went cross-eyed trying to lick it away. Breaking into peals of laughter at the comedic sight, Morgan fled back into the wilderness.

The panther had become a welcome sight during Morgan’s frequent foraging expeditions. It seemed to have staked its own territory somewhere north of hers, and while she was almost certain she could find its lair given enough time, she would rather not risk intruding on its territory and escalating their encounters beyond their current level. At the moment, it seemed to see her as a cross between a friendly rival and a meal ticket, and it was tolerant enough of her antics. The bare-skinned spellcaster thought that was sufficient for the moment.

The mountains’ shadows had grown long, casting an eerie penumbra over the land by the time she finally re-entered her own territory. The path she took followed a winding mountain ledge that ran alongside a gorge cut by a glacial stream that flowed down the mountain. She ducked underneath a tree root that made for a convenient and obvious marker; as she passed, she felt a surge of mana rise up before the magical ward recognized its mistress and subsided. Anyone or anything that had approached without being Morgan would have received a highly energetic response. As much as she might like to, Morgan had no idea how to make her wards more discriminating; she hadn’t as yet needed to, given how everything she encountered (that wasn’t the panther) was either trying to eat her or avoid being eaten themselves.

I wish I had people to help me, she mourned.

As impressive as they might have been, the defensive wards were but the least of her magical workings in the valley. The massive spire of gleaming stone that stood in the middle of the valley lake stood as proof positive of her advancements in magical understanding. Sculpted crystal was striated alongside stone worked smoother than the most advanced tooling could manage, and it plunged into the earth to an even greater extent than the two hundred paces which raked the sky. As Morgan walked deeper into her domain, her mana reserves began to rapidly replenish, the spire acting as a conduit, tapping the deep, slow-flowing river of mana she’d felt the day she settled on this valley. Here, she was free to use her mana, not entirely without cost, but close. Throughout the Wildlands, the ambient mana was appropriately wild -- raw, primal, and difficult for her to affect. Here, she could use it as if it were her own, her spire reaching down and claiming it on her behalf.

It was not her current destination, however. She skirted the edge of the lake, and made her way over a hardened stone bridge that spanned one of the streams that led out of the valley. A short walk through a copse of trees brought her to the place which inspired her to settle here: a spring-fed pond, uphill and on one side of the valley relative to the central lake. It was a hot spring, too, heated both by geothermal activity and the mana pooling beneath it which had given her the idea for her spire. Her [Spell Resonance] had let her sense the edges of it from miles away, and closer examination had revealed its source: ley lines buried deep underground. Far deeper than she would normally be able to tap, but her spire allowed her to reach down and grasp it.

Next to the small pond stood Morgan’s house. Far more intricately detailed than any of the temporary stone hutches she left in her wake, the modest two-story stone edifice seemed to grow right out of the ground as though it were a natural formation. The stone itself was a lighter grey than the surrounding boulders; she had found this material a day’s walk to the north. Finding it calming and easy to look at, she had spent a period of several days dragging several tons of it back to the pond. Definitely worth it, she thought as she let her eyes roam over it once again.

Triling wurbles and excited purring could be heard as she approached the door, and when she opened it, she was nearly bowled over by a very energetic, basketball-sized loofah. Morgan laughed and rubbed Lulu, trying to push her off.

“Hey! I missed you too!” she exclaimed. “But I’m home now, and I found honey!”

This excited Lulu even more, and she wurbled with glee as she found the honey, cleaning it off of Morgan’s hands. As the loofah circled Morgan, however, it grew agitated when it saw the welts and rashes covering her flank. But, what the honey hadn’t managed to fix, Lulu did in short order, with a brisk exfoliation and its own brand of magic. So attended, Lulu subsided to let Morgan inside. The sorceress had long since learned to take Lulu in stride, no longer wasting energy trying to figure out just how it did what it did. She continued into her house, [Candleflame Runes] igniting in stone embrasures as she passed from room to room. Towards the rear of the house stood a stone double door, and a brief push of her will and a gesture had the doors opening far quieter than their construction would indicate, as if they hung on perfectly-oiled hinges.

A short set of stairs brought her to an underground hallway, and at its end lay a broad rotunda with runes set in floor and ceiling alike, glowing softly as Morgan approached. This area was the focus of her efforts, encompassing more space than the house above it. It was a project in constant evolution, supported by magically-reinforced stone and made larger through application of her spatial enchantments. Three arches to her left opened into more rooms, and the suggestions of doorways ringed the edges of the space, as if inviting her to complete them.

The three finished rooms were inset with multiple [Glacis Runes], and cold mists eddied around her feet as she stepped through the curtain of Air magic that kept the warmth of the main space out of the chamber. The shelves in this chamber held leaf-wrapped portions of meat harvested from the creatures she’d faced; and what Morgan lacked in butchery skills, she more than made up for in sheer volume. What would have once appeared as a macabre display to a city girl and waitress now looked like security and preparation to the wilderness-tested sorceress. She pulled more such portions from her storage runes, setting them among her current stockpile as she did every time she returned.

Enough for several months, she decided, unless I have to fight for my life! Nothing burned through her mana reserves quite like running combat, and while most of the monsters she’d been fighting were simple to deal with, she never let herself drop her guard outside her domain. She’d learned the dear lesson that in the Wildlands, there was always something bigger and meaner to fight -- and it would find you if you weren’t careful.

The next room she entered wasn’t as cold, kept at just above freezing. The stone shelves in this chamber were packed with piles of roots, tubers, and other things she had no name for; she called them what they appeared to be from Earth. Potatoes with purple skin and a fluffy texture when baked; giant carrots with skin and flesh the color of radishes; piles of nuts that bore stronger resemblances to their analogues from Earth; and one of her personal favorites, bulbs that resembled onions, but which were larger than watermelons, with a distinctly rich, savory aroma. Everything here was as outsized as everything else in the Wildlands.

Morgan’s attempts to preserve the greens and flowers she found had failed miserably, the plants wilting and growing slimy no matter what she did to adjust the enchantments. She thought, perhaps, that some kind of stasis or time-acceleration enchantment might be possible, as her own [Acceleration] skill was definitely temporal in nature; unfortunately, she’d had no success yet. Maybe when I find people, she thought ruefully as she emptied the rest of her storage runes. After that, only the honeycomb remained. Lulu, who had kept by her heels this entire time, seemed very excited by the sweet stuff, and Morgan hastily fashioned a lidded crock of stone to keep the curious loofah out. Transferring the chunk, however, left Morgan’s hands covered in the golden substance as well as scattering some on the floor, so Lulu was not as displeased as she might have been.

After a brief pass through the third chamber to empty the rest of her storage runes, and a quick swim in her pond to relax and clean herself on her own, Morgan finally made her way back down to the lake. The spire, a spike of grey and brown stone inset with glittering crystal veins that formed spiraling geometric patterns, reached into the sky over a hundred times taller than the sorceress stood. She hadn’t gained any spells or skills over the course of its construction, though it was laced throughout with thousands of reinforcing enchantments and a dense lattice of [Mana Link] runes. Despite her lack of advancement, Morgan couldn’t be displeased with it, given what it let her accomplish.

Within her domain, Morgan’s personal mana expenditure for her spellcraft approached zero, and dwindled more the closer she got to the spire. A stone path led from the lakeshore to a small island, its appearance cast so as to put Morgan in mind of a wooden bridge. Another such bridge led from that first island to a second; from that, however, no bridge issued forth towards the center. Instead, she froze the water under her feet, and made her way across a bridge of ice. Her [Frost Resistance] meant the ice was comfortably cool against her bare soles, rather than bringing the sensation of biting cold.

The air grew thicker with mana as she approached the spire, clinging to her skin and bringing a cloying scent. Once, it had made her light-headed and dizzy to come so close, but she was long accustomed to the sensation. She could no longer remember what it was like to wear clothes, but she imagined that the sensation of mana pressed against her body was similar; oddly comforting in its own way, as if the mana was giving her a hug. A very energetic, very tingly hug. Static built up through her hair and along her skin, wreathing her in crackling power by the time she reached the steps carved into the spire’s side.

The steps jutted out between where lines of crystal carved complex fractal patterns around the structure, neatly avoiding them while still being traversable. The thickness of the mana in the air dissipated as she ascended, covering a circle nearly fifty paces across at the widest point. A dozen or so paces from the top of the spire, an archway opened into its interior, directly above where she began her climb. Inside, the magic was constrained and confined, no longer playing like eager lightning through the air. Morgan made her way deeper into the interior, through a narrow hallway of stone leading to a hollow sphere.

This is where the mana in the air had gone; in this space, the mana was clearly visible and tangible. The sensation of mana against her skin and through her body was something Morgan had no words to describe. It was almost alive, and she swam through it to reach the center of the space. It hung in the air in lazy green streams, eddying this way and that. She breathed it, felt it through every centimeter of her being. The spire reached over three hundred paces beneath her feet, down to brush against the nexus of power she felt from the very first day she swam in the spring-fed pond by her house. For all the enchantments and latticework layered into her spire, she didn’t have to pull; quite the opposite. The wild magic beneath her was eager for an outlet, and her spellwork served to regulate it, to keep the magic smooth and in control. The confluence of power deep underground pulsed in great beats, like the heart of some tremendous organism, and those pulses would crush even one such as her, were she exposed to them without her spire to act as a filter.

Morgan floated towards the center of the room, drawing the magic into her lungs, and relaxed, casting herself adrift in the great sea.

This was how she had been planning her excursions. She couldn’t actually see, nor explain what she felt to anyone who wasn’t plugged in like she was. If she were ever asked, the closest she might be able to come would be sonar, radar, or something between the two. Magic lay over the valley and through the Wildlands like a net, and those that lived, grew, walked, crawled, or flew disturbed that net, and allowed her to feel the different flavors of magic and energy flowing around her. The highest mountaintops felt dead to her, and her [Primal Instinct] screamed at her when she focused too long thereon.

This had become a daily routine for her, usually in the evenings before she turned in. She would make note of which direction held the densest signs of life and movement that didn’t register as a threat, or what her instincts told her would be beneficial, and that would be where she foraged the following day.

But for the past three weeks or so, ever since she constructed the spire, she could sense that something was coming. It was too distant for her to feel anything but a presence, but she knew it must be big, to feel it from that range. Each day it drew closer, but not on a straight-line path: whatever it was, it followed the same ley lines she herself was tapped into.

Whatever it was, the strangest thing about it was that its magical presence, its signature upon Anfealt, felt oddly familiar. She couldn’t explain why or how, but the waves of Earth magic that preceded it felt like her own, only much stronger, as if her own magic were being amplified and reflected back at her from a far distant point.

Inside the spire, at its apex, suspended in her own bastion of power, Morgan ordinarily felt invincible. This approaching presence, however, dwarfed her utterly, and she imagined it could snuff her out with ease. This was an odd realization, because still, even now, her [Primal Instinct] looked at it and felt like....

Home.

So she floated, there in the magic, and relaxed to let her senses expand, diffusing her presence across her valley. What she felt at that moment first baffled her, and then took her to confusion to hope to wild excitement, because in addition to the approaching presence, she felt and heard something new. The sound was so strange, so unexpected that it took her a few moments to place it, but once she did, it was unmistakable.

The presence was still there; indeed, it had grown yet closer. And something was in its way, standing on the ley line that it was following. Many somethings, many small somethings that left tiny pattering footfalls that she felt through her connection to the valley, as though people were running in the distance. She also felt the creaking, groaning sensation of what had to be wagon wheels rolling across a cobblestone roadbed.

But what sent her heart racing, what had her clawing her way back to her body, what sent her soaring out the window with [Acceleration] so fast she nearly made it back to the shore before plowing into the water and beach, was a sound only someone from Earth could know.

After all, the daughter of a retired Marine, who had spent many of her formative years living on a military base, knew very, very well what the rhythmic slamming thumps of heavy machine gun fire sounded like.