~After one week of adjustment we now offer you a trial period, raise each Attribute to 5 within the month. Those with Companions must raise 3 stats to 5 and keep all others above 2 or risk their Companion turning feral under the influx of Mana.~

Her mind blanked. What was this? She might have forgotten to keep questioning the voice but now it wanted her to do stuff? It didn't give an 'or' that was the most terrifying part. What happened if she didn't raise all of her Attributes? How was she even supposed to raise Attributes? She didn't have enough points and hunting only gave her credits. Whatever those were. See? No questions, no idea what was happening! This really was reflecting poorly on her character…

Granted, she noticed her Resilience had gone up every time a stag trampled her, but that's not something she wanted to do every day. She tried to think of alternatives. She needed more information. At least this time she knew a bit more about how to get it.

“Points?”

~Points are rarely awarded bundles of mana for great feats in Skills. They can raise Attributes significantly or be used to purchase Skill Levels.~

“Credits?”

~Credits are often used as payments and can be received through discovery or hunting. They can also be used at altars to raise Attributes by 0.1 degree. However, they cannot be used to move past an Attribute Bottleneck. That must be done by a person’s initiative alone. They work the same way for raising a Companion's Attributes but can only be used at an altar.~

~Would you like to establish your personal altar?~

My what? This sounded important, like 'heavily guard and keep secured' important. She looked over the kitchen and thought about the rest of the house. Her room upstairs was her place of safety. Soft and secluded where no monsters could spy in and several doors stood between her and any break ins. But she didn't want a reminder of the changed world there. She thought some more and, hearing creaking from the stairs as Koda came down, remembered the basement. Removing herself from the table, she slowly stepped down the low-lit stair case and stared at the dreary room. Nearly every wall was covered with items in storage. However, with a little shifting, she put her shoulder to it, and she made some space. She hoped it would be enough.

“Establish my personal altar here!”

…

“Establish altar, damnit!”

A swirling mix of stars and darkness grew into existence until it filled the meager opening. She watched with wide eyes as a form took shape within it till the magical sight disappeared, leaving behind a table of some sort with a mirror set up as a backdrop. Kind of like a mini dresser.

She tried to add some credits to her highest attribute, Stillness, but was met with a blaring noise. Covering her ears didn't help much.

~Error! Error! Unable to raise Attribute until you have broken into next Tier.~

She tried again, throwing two points at Intelligence. It jumped from 3.0 to 4.0.

~Congratulations on Intelligence reaching 4. This opens up space for another Skill Tree. Would you like to select one now from shown experience or be given several random choices?~

Handy! But maybe two points were worth more than the ten credits would have been. She flicked her mind from that negative thought to one much more positive. At least this next part didn’t take long to figure out. “Daggers!”

~Congratulations. You’ve gained the Skill Tree ‘Daggers’.~

That let her settle down again. Gaining any Skills in Daggers would be a huge help. It was her second weapon and crucial as a last resort. Sadly, it did throw her back to the original problem.

Tiers? She bit her lip. This damned thing had so many different rules. What the fuck was a Tier? She walked away and into the kitchen, fed up. Enough with the points and credits. And now fucking Tiers! The voice said she needed credits? She'd earn some damned credits. To hell with monsters, it was time to just go kill some stuff.

With a whistle, Koda and Sugarbear trailed behind her as she grabbed her weapons and left.

An unproductive morning followed. She'd wandered all over her main hunting grounds without so much as a sign of prey or predator. Maybe a few rotting corpses she forgot to move, but they hadn’t even attracted anything! With a sigh, she went back to what remained of past hunts and dragged them to the western edge of her property. She didn't want them poisoning the water or attracting something worse to the land near her house, even if she was actively trying to find the things they might attract.

Once she was out there though, she picked up on more signs of life and something disturbing. What lay beyond the edges of her property had changed. The woods weren’t the bright, sunny saplings her neighbor had started in hopes of regrowing their section of the forest. Instead massive trees blotted out the sun, throwing everything into shade including the new, oddly shaped boulders dotted in moss. The moss' luminescent beads throwing the boulders into an eerily, ethereal light. It may have come time to expand her hunting grounds, but apparently not just her flora and fauna had changed. So had the land beyond her property. She wasn’t sure she’d willingly venture there.

Her mind began wandering in an odd direction. How did it know the lines of her deed and why did it stop where men had decided her property stopped? She didn’t like this. All these new and peculiar things were getting too big for her too ignore. This massive change in terrain was a bit too much for her denial to handle. She stood there in shock; mind blanked by the enormity of it all. Her long legs seemingly rooted to the ground in very much the same way as the now glowering forest’s trees. Only she wasn’t quite so looming.

She fell to the earth. Birds singing soft songs behind her and woods standing silently before her. What kind of monsters would she find in there? She shook her head. Whatever this was, whatever had happened, it didn’t change the fact that she was now running on a timer. She had no time to explore, not that those woods were at all enticing. She needed to hunt. She stood up calmly and focused on her property line. This was her terrain. This was where she needed to be.

She began to navigate what grew along the edges of her property, carefully listening for anything ahead.

There'd been a lot of almosts, but it was all prey that fled quickly when she drew within range. She was ok with that. After all her recent battles, she felt too guilty hunting down something that didn't want to kill her. And she appreciated how fluffy the squirrels had become. Besides, they weren't worth the effort; they gave lousy credits.

However, once she reached the Northeastern corner something strange happened. The small spring that fed into her creek had fist sized bubbles of water rising up and down in its center. Despite her many life or death battles, she'd yet to develop the correct instinct to run when strange things happened. Which left her just staring at the phenomenon. After a few seconds the bubbles grew into a head and then the upper torso of a woman who just watched her, waiting for... something. When the moment stretched long enough for Cassidy to comprehend this was part of her new reality, she ventured out a hesitant, "Hello?" Her dogs remained at her side, oddly unalarmed.

The creature-woman bobbed, nearly disappearing back into the water before opening its mouth to the sound of water droplets and rushing waves. Another thing that would seemingly get her nowhere.

She glared at the woman before responding, "You’re welcome to stay here or whatever it is you're doing. Just don't startle me when I'm hunting." With that she prepared to move on when a gurgled, “Wait.” Sounded behind her. She turned to see the woman had more fully formed and floated with an outstretched hand. So, Cassidy waited.

When it became apparent Cassidy would make no move back to the spring, the thing gestured towards itself. “I’m Neridia.”

Cassidy just stared, face unchanged. A… person? Neridia seemed to gurgle in frustration before trying again. “I am a water nymph. I have taken this spring for home on your property. You are due some recompense.”

Now that got Cassidy’s attention. She fully turned and walked up to the edge of the spring.

“And what might this recompense be?”

Neridia waited, baffled at this woman’s lack of understanding before deciding a generous offering was better than risking a weaker one and being evicted. “An offshoot of my magic. Water laced with mana. Here. Give me your flask.” Neridia’s hand stretched out once more.

Cassidy stood considering, before finally releasing her flask into the creature’s hand. The nymph poured it out before swiping it through her body and handing it back. Cassidy stared. The flask was full again but this time it glowed slightly. She looked up to ask but Neridia had sloshed formless, back into the spring. She stared at the spring. It stilled. No more Neridia. She couldn't deal with this. Her friends were gone. Her neighbors were gone. Her home was now surrounded by terrifying monsters and woods and now there were magic people! Cassidy shook her head. She had bigger problems to worry about now. That could all wait a month, given she survived.

Putting the questions aside as always, Cassidy turned. Hunt. That’s what she needed to do. It was time to start hunting again.

A few boars got in her way but she left their bodies behind her, hoping this time the blood would draw in more predators.

She needed things to shoot, safely in her property but away from her house. She needed those credits if she was ever going to get their Attributes high enough to pass Initiation. Other thoughts began to intrude though. The whiskey flask she'd been using from Danielle's room was awfully small. She should see if there was a second or something bigger, she could take with her. Plus, should really think about armor again. She never found a feasible answer last time she tried but those boar tusks got pretty damn close in this last hunt. Her flimsy shirt wouldn't stop evisceration.

There was too much to do. Hunting meant survival but she needed too much to survive the hunting.