Rather than risk eating the pieces raw, she blasted them with Thunderbolt. The bite size pieces were definitely a little charred, but she didn’t need to worry about them being undercooked by the time she began eating. A bitter meal was better than one that left her doubled over with salmonella. She considered cooking the egg as well, but decided it was better to save the thing for the morning. There was no guarantee it was good, but if it hadn’t gone bad in her backpack so far, she felt safe leaving it for a later time when she didn’t have something else to eat.

After finishing her poor excuse for a meal, she began to focus on the second most pressing of her issues. She hadn’t found any water all day. Not a single puddle. Her lips were already dry and cracking, tongue fat in her mouth. She wasn’t so dehydrated as to be truly dangerous yet, but she didn’t trust that to last much longer. With that in mind she told to Bob to open the purchase menu and began looking at options for dealing with her thirst.

The first option she had was to get enough water to keep her hydrated for a day for two evolution points and she quickly selected that for the time being. That was an immediate solution, but she began hunting for something more long term. Her next find, water purification canteens and similar containers, cost anything from ten to forty points depending on size and speed of purification. The problem with this was that it would require her to actually have water to purify. Even worse, options cheap enough for her consideration would require having plentiful enough water that she could refill it four or five times a day. All of that was just for the basic form of purification too. It would remove particulates and kill germs, but to remove toxins or more insidious impurities she had to spend extra. Both impractical for her current circumstances and outside her price range.

Commanding Bob to filter out anything that required her to actually put water into the canteen, she was given a much smaller list. Smaller and more expensive. The cheapest option, for thirty-two points, would provide her a canteen that would condense water from the atmosphere at a fast enough rate to keep one person hydrated. A god send given her current situation, but one that was far outside her immediate price range.

Still, something to work toward in the future. For the time being she would have to work to earn two evolution points minimum every day. If she could get closer to five or six a day, she could hopefully get on of the condensation canteens and permanently fix the issue. Then she could reinvest those two points currently dedicated to water taxes toward new spells or other necessities. She would love to get some spices or something, but any food beyond bare minimum quickly exploded in price. She didn’t foresee using Evolution Points for something so frivolous for a long time. Not unless she had a sudden windfall like after her first meditation session. Then she might spoil herself with one spice.

#

A little exploration of the clearing revealed a slightly larger fern toward the center, just big enough for her to hide under its leaves. The plant had wide, dense fronds that completely hid her from the sky above. While the majority of the leaf was a pure emerald color, each had deep blue-grey highlights throughout exposing its alien nature. Still, hiding in the deep shadows beneath them quickly left her feeling far safer than anywhere since the cave. With her backpack and its familiar smells to add additional comfort, she quickly found herself drifting to sleep in her hidden refuge. She left a whispered command to Bob to wake her up in seven hours and allowed her eyes to close.

#

It wasn’t Bob that woke her up. Instead, she was woken by the feel of fire running through her veins. Once again, she was being injected with venom from some attacking creature, some unknown nightmare that had sunk sharp fangs into her arm. Almost the exact same point she had been bitten at the lava flow. Reaching up with her other arm, she grabbed one of the straps on her backpack and swung it at the attacking creature, smashing the heavy bag into the things head. It had been too focused on the bite to even attempt to get out of the way.

Quickly charging the spell, she shot a Thunderbolt into the stunned attacker. The flash of light revealed exactly what she had feared, one of the small Certilia. Quickly scrabbling away after the lightning failed to kill it, the vicious little critter hooted urgently as it left the cover of the fern’s fronds. If there was something to be grateful about with this situation, it appeared that the little one only had enough poison to leave her with the deep ache in her joints. It felt almost like she had been used as a punching bag and bruises were hiding just beneath her skin throughout her body. While painful, at least it did not have the same debilitating nausea and mental effects.

Hearing the approaching hoots of the rest of the pack, Asher quickly drank the last of the water she had purchased during her evening meal. The water had come in what appeared to be a large plastic bottle, materializing from white blue particles of light. Now those same particles escaped from the empty container as it returned to nothingness. She didn’t have time to enjoy the lightshow though, so she put it from her mind as she threw her bag over her shoulder and began running again. The small Certilia’s glowing red eyes followed her as she made her way to the ash cloud and disappeared within. On her way out, she dropped a present for the pack.

#

A couple minutes after her own escape into the cloud, she heard a crack. The sound was something like a hundred dry twigs had been snapped all at once and was followed by a shriek of pain as the Thundertrap she had dropped at the edge of the clearing went off. It wouldn’t do much, but every second she bought would help. The Certilia scout had made a mistake by attacking her before the rest of the pack could catch up. As it was, she would have plenty of time to attempt to lose them once again. That said, it was obvious this wasn’t a permanent solution. She didn’t know if it was that they saw her as prey, as a threat, or if it was simply the personal vendetta of Scarface, but it appeared she wouldn’t be able to expect them to simply give up.

She needed a plan to eliminate these things. Some kind of trap or other method that didn’t require her to directly confront the entire pack. In a fair fight she could barely fight Scarface alone, and she wasn’t even confident of managing that. She could do better than last time of course. Keep her distance, watch out for the tells that he was about to spring at her, and not just assume her victory from the start. The question was, would that be enough? The thing had been practically preternaturally good at predicting her spells and was fast enough to easily close the distance.

Of course, that’s what Thunderstep was supposedly for, but the ability was just so exhausting as it was. No way she could rely on it more than twice, maybe three times if she made short jumps. She just didn’t have enough mana for more than that. But hadn’t Bob said it himself? All magic was inefficient and that inefficiency could be estimated by the amount of “light” they gave off. Her later Thundersteps hadn’t been as bright as the first, but none of them had been anything but eye-catchingly bright. That implied the spell was wasting an incredibly amount of mana. That efficiency could probably be increased by practicing, the closer she got to instinctual use the better. The ability was her best bet for dealing with these foes, a way to keep herself safe and escape if she needed to.

She’d need to practice her spells too, none of them were efficient as far as she could tell. They’d always be flashy, they were lightning spells, but she could feel the difference between the element’s light and the wasted mana. The mana felt heavy when she saw it. Heavy and slightly alive. It also showed up long before the element manifested. In fact, maybe the wasted mana was what gave away her spells to the Certilia. Maybe she could actually hit the thing if she increased her efficiency.

#

As the first ray of light began to make its way over the horizon, Asher fled further into the ash cloud. Thirty minutes later, the Certilia swarm would enter the clearing where she had spent the night. Their chirps and whistles would quickly send the Zalcoa into hiding, and even the insects took refuge high on the cacti. Fortunately for them, the creatures were well fed from the previous evening. Unfortunately for Asher, this left them entirely focused on chasing their selected target and unable to be distracted by the fresh meat around them.

#

Asher’s flight through the dungeon that morning was chaotic. Where before she tried to go downhill and ignored the signs of a clearing if they weren’t downhill from her, this time she made sure to explore each eye in the ash cloud. This was to make sure she had clear line of sight while practicing her spells, and she wouldn’t accidentally appear over a lava flow or twist an ankle on uneven ground. Every chance she could she would use Thunderstep, taking extra time to better feel the flow of the energy as it passed through her body. She endeavored to memorize each pathway, each twist and cycle of energy. Initially this resulted in even less efficiency as she did not even attempt to control it and allowed the energy to do as it wished.

During each uncontrolled cast, small flows of energy would escape and rise from her skin as sparks or small crackling pops. Only once was the energy harmful to her, eliciting a shock like the worst burst of static electricity she had ever felt. The pain was worth it though, to deepen her understanding. After perhaps ten casts, spread throughout three hours to allow her mana to regenerate, she felt like she had a better understanding of the spell. When she had first gained it, there had been an instinctual understanding of the flow of mana, but that could only do so much. Her best analogy was drawing something by tracing and drawing it by herself. The trace might technically end with the same product, but the pencil strokes would be inefficient as they didn’t fully understand the best way to go about putting it on paper. The instinctual knowledge made it significantly easier to pick up the flow and memorize it, but before she spent the time to actively observe the spells, she couldn’t have visualized the flow. Not without actually activating the spell.

When she finally decided it was time to attempt a controlled version of the spell again, she quickly noticed the difference that knowledge gave. She could prepare for trouble areas in the energy flow, areas where there had been the most offshoots of escaping energy. Rather than try to wrestle it under control as it flowed through the turn, she could begin guiding it before the turn really started. This meant most of the energy was already eager to follow the proper pattern by the time the complexity appeared. This time, when she used the spell, she felt just a little bit less tired afterward. She put off just a little less light.

She had screwed up a few times. Trying to guide the energy too early or too forcefully and creating disturbances in the flow. Imagining complexities were there weren’t any or forgetting ones. Her practice so far had not been miraculous, she still had a long way to go before she had any tangible benefits, but it was a start.

Grinning widely at the first step in her long, long road toward mastery, Asher called out giddily, “What do you think Bob? Am I awesome or am I awesome?”

“You are awesome mistress,” came the reply she had instructed him to respond with when she asked such questions. The tone left the response rather underwhelming, but she enjoyed it all the same. She could do this. She could grow in power and beat Scarface and his little troupe. She just needed time.