Joe continued down the forest path, slowing once he spotted another clearing in front of him. He crawled forward, trying to keep his sound to a minimum. Once he could make out what was ahead, he bit back a curse. There were three of the hairy dog things in the clearing ahead. Joe wished he had his staff back. Fighting things with teeth and claws up close with no armor had proven to be a bad idea. He debated going back for the tenth time in as many minutes, but stubbornness firmed his resolve.

There were too many of them just to run in, flailing again. Joe was now very aware of his lack of martial training or prowess. He had to try and do this smarter, or eventually, his luck would run out, and he'd be eaten alive. At least Joe assumed that would happen based on the woodchipper teeth the ugly little monsters possessed. He slowly crawled backward until he was far enough that he felt safe sitting down to think.

Not so much as a stick or a rock littered the path, he was on. There might be something in the woods beyond the poisonous thorns, but Joe wasn't willing to bet his life on it. At least in this rift, it seemed that what you brought in with you was all you could use. He needed a way to separate them out and not fight all three at once.

Looking back on the previous fight, if they weren't in clawing/biting/climbing distance, the monsters had mainly done a straight charge to try and close the gap. Joe thought that if he could hug the thorn wall and get them to slow down via a collision, then he might be able to take them down if he was quick. If not, there was the option to try kiting them, though that usually used range weapons and more speed than Joe felt he had currently.

The plan was set, and Joe got to his feet. He searched through his pockets and only found the coins he'd already gathered. The thought of throwing loot away, even loot that didn't have a considerable worth yet, was painful. It wasn't fangs to the leg and groin painful, though, so Joe would risk the coins. As quietly as he could, Joe crept back to the clearing and waited until he heard the sounds of the monsters moving away. He got to his feet and positioned his back close to the thorn wall. He flung a copper coin at the monster in the rear with a shout.

Joe got lucky as all three monsters turned in his direction at his shout. The coin flew true, and even against these smaller enemies wouldn't have done any damage if he hadn't somehow hit it right in the eye. It yelped and clutched its face as the two behind it gave their garbled howls and charged. The result was fantastic as the two farthest away charged directly over the third one clutching its eye. Blinky, as Joe now called it in his head, was knocked out of the way and to the ground. The other two continued their mad dash towards him with rage in their eyes.

Joe lept to the side at the last second, and the beasts crashed into the thorn wall with pained yelps. Joe hadn't landed very well and didn't get to his feet as quickly as he'd hoped. He looked around in preparation to make some space and try again. That turned out not to be necessary. The monsters had impacted the wall in single file, leaving the first one impaled and twitching. They may have been immune to the poison, but three-inch thorns jammed into your head and body will still do some damage.

Joe jumped over and curb-stomped the head of the one that hadn't been impaled on the wicked thorns. A howl behind him gave some warning, and he dove again, this time into the open clearing. He rolled on his side and tried to jump to his feet, but the best he managed was to end up on one knee. The dog thing had stopped short of the wall. Without some outside force, they wouldn't willingly impale themselves.

The monster charged again, and Joe didn't have the leverage for another dive. He braced his knife in front of him with two hands as best he could. The beast impaled itself on the knife, but the momentum knocked him over, and it was flailing on top of him. Despite the knife in its chest, the dog thing dug in claws and worked towards his face. Joe pushed with adrenaline-fueled panic and managed to dislodge the monster and roll away. It didn't get up. Acrid blood that smelled of rotting leaves mixed with Ginko fruit soaked his shirt and the clearing floor.

Joe breathed through his mouth and kept his distance, unwilling to give the rift a free shot at him. That decision was proven correct when the last little beast started crawling in his direction with pain-maddened eyes glaring over blood-flecked teeth. Joe waited until it was a stride away before jumping on its head. They were small enough that a solid stomp to the head seemed an effective way to finish the fight if they were on the ground. He immediately backed off and waited for the fire.

Green fire removed all evidence of the fight except for the vile blood coating Joe's shirt. Apparently, the rift couldn't or wouldn't clean him up after each fight. Joe looked around and collected three more coins and three more berries. He had a moment of joy when he found his original coin sitting in the middle of the clearing. He looked around but didn't see anything else of note, only more thorn bushes, and generic trees. The sun hadn't shifted in the least, despite Joe being in here for over an hour.

Joe's heart stuttered for a second out of nowhere. Electric fire seemed to pump out with each beat, spreading with his blood to the rest of his body. It seemed to settle in his bones for a moment before the painful sensation passed just as quickly as it appeared.

"What the fuck was that?" Joe stuttered out through gasping breaths. He looked around, but he didn't see any thorns that could have injected him nearby. A moment later, he had his answer.

Attribute raised: Vigor +1

That explained everything that had happened but left Joe with just as many questions. Why vigor and why now? There had to be a metric to this, but he didn't know it. Joe had homework to do.

He realized he'd been impatient and stupid by not getting through the rest of the information before he dove right into another life and death situation. A small part of him worried that the System itself might be modifying his behavior. There was no way to test it alone, so Joe shelved that tiny jar of nightmare fuel for another day.

"I think I'm done for the day."

The words were for himself to reaffirm his thoughts out loud. He needed to think and recuperate. Joe knew he wasn't geared up properly for this place, and suicide by rift was not on his immediate agenda. He started to walk back to the entrance. When Joe could see the first clearing, he stopped walking before swearing under his breath again. The monsters were back. The little bastards respawned. Joe didn't know its timing, but he was very glad he didn't push forward. If he became too injured to move forward alone, he'd probably be trapped from going back to the entrance if he wasn't quick about it.

At least there were only two this time. He fished out a coin and prepared himself to see if the same trick would work again. Joe wouldn't find out today as his throw missed completely and left both little dog men charging at him. The thorn trick worked, though, as the first impaled itself by the weight of the second. Joe did his now self-patented head stomp maneuver, and a quick knife thrust into the back of the impaled monster.

The loot was collected, but Joe couldn't find the coin he'd thrown. It must have sailed into the woods and was now lost forever. Joe had only lost a single coin, but the grief was real, considering he'd risked his life for that stupid thing. He shook his head and resumed his trek back to the beginning. The rift still stood there, a ring of green fire surrounding an uncaring black void. Joe took a step forwards and had a moment of panic at the thought that this might not work before his senses blacked out once again.

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The sun was up and shining its bright morning light down on the world. Diana sat on the roof of her cousin's duplex and watched the rift slowly spin. She supposed that it was now her duplex since her two cousins never left that damned hole in the world. They used to come out to the roof and enjoy the dawn some mornings. It was an odd family tradition but a harmless one that the neighbors had long since gotten used to seeing.

Of course, there were no neighbors anymore. The ones that had survived the rift had fled with whatever possessions they had to the center of town. Last night a call had gone out that the council would be fortifying the downtown area. With the chaos and death of the last day, most of those that survived headed to join up with them.

Diana couldn't leave. This was the last piece of her family here that she had left. She didn't know if her family in Columbus was even alive. A year ago, she'd disappeared in the night after the Bethel council head had taken too much of a liking to her. That wasn't the only reason she couldn't leave, though.

Her new class was Novice Hedge Mystic, and she could now sense mana. The ability was still only level one and had a minimal range, but she had learned something valuable from it. The rifts didn't just calibrate systems and eat people without a trace. They spewed mana into their world. The blank grey background that she'd now thought of as native Earth was being colored over a foot at a time as more and more mana came from the rift. If she wanted to grow her ability and make sense of what was happening, she needed to stay here.

These thoughts were interrupted as the rift gave a minute pulse, and a person appeared in front of it. The wreckage of the restaurant still blocked her view, so she didn't get a good look. Diana did crouch down on the roofline next to the gabled window that she'd used to come out in the first place.

She could see it was a man somewhere in his twenties. He looked like shit with a shredded shirt and jeans coated with blood and god knows what else. He stumbled and went down to a knee for a minute before standing and heading her way.

"Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit!"

Diana made herself as still and small as she could along the roofline. Fortunately, the man never looked up and just walked down her street. At the end of the block, her turned and pulled something from his shoe. It must have been a key because he entered the empty house on the end through the front door. Diana still didn't move for another ten minutes, enough to be reasonably sure that he wasn't watching out the window. She crept inside and locked the window. Today she'd need to make some hard decisions.

_____________________________________________________________________________

Joe stumbled and fell to one knee once he was through the portal. The vertigo passed quickly as before, but he'd had a rough couple of hours and stayed on one knee for a moment. Relief at being back on Earth coursed through him, but the pain that the adrenaline was holding at bay started to make itself known.

Passing out in front of the rift in a new town seemed like a bad idea. Joe gathered himself and walked towards his newly acquired lodging. He eyed the ground floor windows as he passed but didn't see any motion that would indicate someone living there. The neighborhood seemed truly deserted, which suited Joe just fine. He stopped at the door, and it took a moment for his brain to catch up to the situation. Belatedly he remembered the key and fished it out of his shoe.

The door closed quietly, and Joe locked it before sitting down with it to his back. He hadn't been as close to death as in the calibration, but it hadn't been that far off either. Joe had expected something similar even though nothing he'd read through had promised that. It was a stupid assumption that he swore he wouldn't make again. Nothing he had seen in the last two days had pointed towards any benevolence on the Systems part. Modern life had made Americans soft to the realities of an uncaring universe.

Getting to his unsteady feet, Joe climbed the stairs and found his bag in the closet. He broke out a can of water and some of the beanie weenies he'd gotten for Jacob. He'd saved a small roll of grocery bags that let him tie his trash up in them for later disposal. He was too beat to do anything other than rest at the moment. The temperature was fine, so he grabbed a small camping pillow from his bag and went to another room.

Joe knew that he reeked, and he was too tired to go off in search of bathing water. He hadn't seen any ponds or open water except for the stream as he entered the town. That was too far in his current state, and even though he knew he'd regret it later, he just stripped off the shirt and jeans and lay on the floor. Joe's brain wanted to switch off, but some work needed to be done.

Attributes

The System grants sentient creatures the ability to harness raw essence to enhance themselves via quantifiable Attributes.

That wasn't anything new, but Joe focused on the thought of Attribute growth. He'd experienced it firsthand, and the System information seemed more forthcoming if he had some basis for his query. A minute later, a message popped up that answered at least a few of his questions.

Attribute Growth

Free essence can enable the growth of Attributes three times for each class level. The likelihood of growth is modified by the use of each Attribute and its overall level.

That was it for Attributes coupled with what Joe had already read. If he understood it correctly, vigor raised because he'd been using it a lot, and it was at a low level. While his physical Attributes were much more helpful right now, he'd find it easiest to raise connection and glamour if he could figure out how they worked. That was future Joe's problem as he felt his eyes getting heavier.

Joe needed to get water and geared up for a proper rift run, but he was too tired to do it at the moment. He felt like he'd just slept, but exhaustion overtook him again. He didn't know if it was all the adrenaline hitting him or some side effect of the growth his body had just gone through. He supposed it didn't really matter at the moment. Everything else could be sorted out once he woke up.

_____________________________________________________________________________

The swarm grew hungry down in the dark. The rivals were gone. The crunchy bugs had been eaten, and the larger bandits left after consuming the first few. The swarm knew only hunger and the food search to sate that hunger.

A surface alpha had wandered into their territory. The swarm's group memory told them to hide until the alpha was gone, but they were stronger now. A scout was sent out and approached the alpha, and the alpha yelled a high-pitched cry as it backed up.

Weakness. Fear. The swarm came out of the forever dark, hungry and relentless. This would last far longer than their other meals, but nothing ever lasted long enough. All the realm of the blue circle would be theirs to consume.