The excitement I felt soon faded into a grim monotony as the weeks passed. Either the forest had been cleared ages ago, or the maps I had seen were very much not to scale. I was getting hungry now, my rations almost were gone, and I had taken to scampering after rabbits and small rats.

The fields beneath my feet were now growing more and more uneven. I didn't think it was due to any natural elevation, but rather because of the scattered pieces of metal occasionally breaking the surface through the scattered grass. It was impossible for me to tell what kind of metal it was, being so heavily covered in rust and grime (even molds in some cases) and each bit was buried deep enough that I soon gave up on trying to scavenge the debris. What the metal did do, however, was give the little rodents plenty of holes and fissures beneath my feet to scamper off into the second that I blinked. Four rabbits had already run off, to God knows (or actually probably doesn't know, given where I was) were, and I wasn't until the fifth hare that I finally had some success. Boom! Hit. And a rabbit went down, burning and charred like I had just hit it with a... very small... cruise missile. And then there was meat. It was my expectation that rabbit, for all the trouble it was, would be much tastier than vulture or rat, and I was rather ecstatic by the thought of my long awaited dinner. Error. Hunting skill: not learned Restricted: 'Ranger' affiliated skill. No bells dinged, no other status updates flew across my vision, but never the less I really couldn't have been more satisfied than I was at that moment. And, despite the early hour, I went ahead and got a fire going. I pulled out my blanket, I found a stick to cook it out evenly, and I sat back for my leisurely meal. Looking forward to my first dinner as a, once again, a free woman, that wasn't dried jerky on a stick. You know, I really, really should have known better than to hope. As it turns out, I really, really wish that I had been a ranger. Hellfire, it seems that, while effective, not only smells but also tastes very, very much like sulfur. I choked down my meal with a grimace - leaving the rest for the morning, but not even bothering to wrap it up for the road. If I had to live for more than a day off of that travesty, I decided that I would rather starve. Literally. It was that disappointment what put me into the foul mood that night, the mood that had me searching for my blood-encrusted purse and pulling out the only jewels I possessed. Oh, and I went ahead and grabbed the stolen... scepter... too, while I was at it. It took but a moment to bleed on the goods, letting my blood drip three, tiny drops on the dried and rotting organ. And, with that, I sat back and worked on my Wickedness - perfecting the long, toothlike spike that I grew in place of my forearm. By the time that the ten minutes had passed, and the junk had grown out into a long, familiar body, I had a single, foot-long claw of the palest ivory attached firmly to my right elbow. Skill increased! Witchcraft +1 Skill increased! Wicked +1

And so I waited, watching the hardening skin. It wasn't until Mr. Arrol took his first, halting breath that I plunged my claw deep inside of his stomach. So that he could watch and feel. Yes, indeed I had decided, it was time for me to grind some skill points. Skill increased! Interrogation +1 He screamed. I waited. And, even still, he screamed and screamed and screamed . Like a beast, possessing little in the way of a higher intelligence. I was a bit worried, for a moment, that while I had resurrected the body I had failed to retrieve the soul. I doubted, afraid that my affections were wasted on a soulless, barely animated husk. It was so that I hovered over his naked form, with my claw buried deep, struggling not to move as he experienced his rebirth. And it was, in fact, some minutes of that awkward, pitiable dance before the first signs of actual consciousness bled into his manic eyes. Until he, finally, began to look around - seeing, and understanding where it is that he was. His reaction, however, galled me to the extreme. "Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you," he breathed, as though completely unperturbed by the claw that was even now clogging up his intestines and his recent bout of terror. "You don't know, you couldn't possibly understand the horrors. I owe you so much, so much for pulling me out that damnable place." I opened... and I closed my mouth. It was... well, it wasn't the reaction that I had expected. And a cold chill slid down my spine as he grabbed my arm, grabbed me like he was clinging to his mother. I had to fight, then, with all I had to keep him from pulling my claw right up there into his heart. "What do you want, girl? Gold? Jewels? Land? All that I have is yours, and I'd be grateful to you for it. Just name it. Thank you so, so much, you just... you just have no idea..." I quickly placed my free hand across his mouth, to stop him from rambling further. Bending over and looking closely into his eyes, I spoke, "I want you to tell me how to survive in this world. You have... thirty seconds. Now, tell me as much as you can about where I can go and what I can do." I paused for a few moments, holding my palm across his lips, before pushing his head to the side and allowing a response. I needed him to think, to understand what I had said, and I made sure he had no choice but to do it. But... even still... "You now have twenty-five seconds. Go." He looked up at me then, his brain obviously whirling. Spinning against the tide of thoughts, and grinding together a more coherent whole. "I... Mim? Mim, is that you? God, the things that I did to you. But... but that was so long ago now, wasn't it? A lifetime upon a lifetime ago it was, and now you have set me free." Hope died and then once more cascaded across his features, a kaleidoscope of joy into pain into joy. But, even still, he seemed to have no idea that I was some few inches away from spearing his heart. And so he sputtered on, the wheels of his mind turning more and more surely as he spoke, one sentence after another, "You're... you're level two now I see. If you keep to human form you should be safe enough going north. Just don't stop by any of the smaller villages. The locals only care about the locals, and if you aren't one of them, you're trash. Don't associate with level ones either, not ever - they wouldn't hesitate to eat your heart if given half the chance. No, no... go all the way up to the world tree. Speak with the Druids there. They are always looking... looking for more soldiers to hunt in those dark woods. Tell them..." I had transformed my claw inside of him, returning the solid spike into fingers and thumb and arm. And I reached up, without his even noticing, and wrapped those fingers around his heart. "Time's up," I said. And I squeezed tight my fist. Skill increased! Interrogation +1 Skill increased! Anatomy +1

I took back the parts that I had used to resurrect him, after digging around for a while inside. It was... disappointing, to say the least. A disappointing end to a disappointing night. I considered that I wouldn't be resurrecting him again for some time, if at all. The bastard could stew in the nether realms, so far as I cared right at that point. What I would need, however, where the corpses of nine more rabbits. I had experiments left to conduct, after all, and a hunger for an endless supply of unspoiled meet. I did discover that I could now identify the purpose and use of various parts, as I was absently rooting around through the chest cavity. It turned out to be very interesting indeed, and I at least had a new game to while away the hours. Human heart Used for necromantic rituals and as offering to Demons. Skill increase! Anatomy +1 Skill increase! Scavenging +1 Human eye Used in potions of sight and blindness Skill increase! Scavenging +1 Pineal Gland Used of potions of spirit sight. Skill increase! Anatomy +1 Skill increase! Scavenging +1...