Nathan woke and crawled out of the hole in the cave. Dusting himself off while checking he had everything, he then set off towards the water room. creeping to the entrance of the cave Nathan looks in to see the lizards scattered about the cave doing the same as they were yesterday. He checks to make sure none of the lizards are looking his way then sends the Candle Light spell in towards the center of the cave. Once one of the lizards spots the spell it makes a squeaking sound which alerts the others, with them all staring at the spell Nathan leads it to another entrance making sure the lizards follow it. One of the lizards walks up and tries to take a bit of the spell but withdraws with a squeak as it gets burned.

The lizards growl at the spell but keep following it out of the room, with all the lizards focused on the fire Nathan sneaks his way over to the closest pool of water unscrews the cap on the bottle and starts filling it. Breathing heavy with nerves on end he watches the lizards closely, ‘Damn Bottle is taking forever to fill. Hurry up! Hurry up! I don’t want to sit here any longer. Come on, come on, just a little more. HA!’ Bottle full Nathan screws the cap back on and backs away from the pool careful about his step so he does not kick a stray rock on the ground. Moving as swift and as quiet as possible he makes it back to the entrance. Canceling the spell he can hear the lizards moving about in haste as he walks until the light from the room is a dull glow in the tunnel and collapses against the cave wall, with heart pounding and breath shallow.

“Well that was exhilarating,” he says panting as he holds up the bottle full of water with a smug grin. “Damn lizards did not even see me,” he says before unscrewing the cap and taking a swig of water for the first time in four days. Careful to only drink a fourth of the bottle he screws the cap back on. ‘Going to have to conserve the water I have. I am not sure how many times the lizards are going to fall for that trick.’ he thinks as he puts the bottle in the plastic sack tied to his pants. ‘Wonder when I am going to be able to take a bath again, I am starting to get a bit rank and my skin has been itching for days now from all the blood and sweat.’ he wonders with anticipation.

Getting up he casts Candle Light and moves on to keep exploring. ‘Maybe I can find another pool not guarded by lizards or fewer at least.’

Nathan spends the next couple hours looking for more rooms with water, killing any lizards he comes across. After killing the lastest lizard Nathan gets a message “Was wondering when I was going to get this.” he says while reading the message.

[Class Level Up]

Pulling up his stats Nathan looks over his class with pride.

[Name: Nathan Vellenger]

[Age: 21]

[Class: Fire Mage Lvl:2]

[Unallocated Points:2]

[Health:86]

[Stamina:13]

[Mana:120]

[Strength:11]

[Endurance:10]

[Vitality:12]

[Agility:9]

[Dexterity:13]

[Wisdom:12]

[Intelligence:14]

[Skills: Inspect, Fire Affinity, Mana Sense, Mana Channeling, Spell Creation, Concentration, Meditation, Mana Control]

[Spells: Candle Light, Fireball, Flawed Heat Transfer]

[Titles: Otherworlder]

‘I must have killed a good dozen of them damn lizards before this happened. Is it just hard to level up here? Or is it something else? Humm, hard to tell right now. Once I get out of this place I need to get more information about this world, so I can stop fumbling around in the dark wondering about what this and that is and what this and that does. Hopefully, there are people I can talk too outside this place.’ he thinks while looking at his stats.

Looking at his stats he sees the Unallocated Points ‘are these the stat points I got for leveling up?’ he thinks while trying to figure out how to allocate the stat points. After fumbling around for a bit he gets a popup.

[Allocate Stat Points]

[Yes] [No]

Clicking yes Nathan checks his stats again.

[Name: Nathan Vellenger]

[Age: 21]

[Class: Fire Mage Lvl:2]

[Health:86]

[Stamina:13]

[Mana:128]

[Strength:11]

[Endurance:10]

[Vitality:12]

[Agility:9]

[Dexterity:13]

[Wisdom:13]

[Intelligence:15]

[Skills: Inspect, Fire Affinity, Mana Sense, Mana Channeling, Spell Creation, Concentration, Meditation, Mana Control]

[Spells: Candle Light, Fireball, Flawed Heat Transfer]

[Titles: Otherworlder]

‘I figure I am going for spellcaster build at the moment, so might as well put points into the stats related to it. Though my max mana did not go up as much as I thought it would? Humm, maybe it is tied to something else somehow? Well, I don’t have a way of figuring it out right now, best get a move on.’ He thinks as he starts to move down the tunnel in search of another pool of water.

Unable to find another pool Nathan lays down for the night in another hole in the wall, this one not as well hidden nor as large as the last one. He settles in for the night nonetheless ‘I need to find something to wear, my shirt is starting to look rather worn from all the battles I have been in with the lizards. The plastic bag is not looking much better it is full of holes from all the rolling I have been doing. Maybe I can make some leather out of the lizard skin? Humm, I will have to think more on it tomorrow.’ taking another one-fourth swig of the bottle he lays down to go to sleep.

Waking up from his rough uneven sleeping bed Nathan goes about making a plan for the day. “The plans for today are to wander around looking for more water and when I kill the next lizard skin it for its hide and make some clothes and a rough sack.” Casting Candle Light he moves down the tunnel thinking of how he is going to make clothes of the lizard skin. ‘Skinning a giant lizard for its hide then making clothes out of it is not something I had thought I would ever have to seriously think about. I know a little about how people made clothes in past before tools were readily available among some other facts.’ as he thinks about it he keeps an eye out for more pool of water as he goes from tunnel to tunnel.

Hearing a rumbling coming his way Nathan goes to the side of the cave and move the Candle Light spell in the direction the lizard is coming from while he preps a Fireball. As the lizard some running into the light Nathan fires off the first Fireball and immediately starts on another, the action of making a spell getting much easier as the days go on but still without a level up in any relevant skills. The first Fireball hits the lizard in the nose sending it reeling to the side in pain, it comes to a screeching halt, coughing while it tries to breathe through the smoke from the Fireball.

Nathan does not give it a chance to recover and shoots his next Fireball into its open mouth causing it to reel in pain and cough heavy from the smoke and pain. The lizard starts wheezing not able to breathe with its nose scorched close by the first Fireball and the next having fried its throat. Gasping for air the lizard starts to thrash around on the ground, Nathan backs away not wanting to get hit by an errant tail or claw. Nathan waits with his next Fireball ready as he watches the lizard suffocate to death. Once the lizard has passed out Nathan approaches spell ready just in case,

A minute later with no movement Nathan pulls out his pocket knife to start draining the blood the best he can. ‘Well, that is one way to kill them’ he laughs as he cuts into the lizard. While he waits for the blood to drain Nathan gets to work on a spell he has been formulating for the past couple days. ‘I think I have it all figured out I just need one last finishing touch to get it up and running, then I will be able to change the intensity of the Candle Light spell.’

Half an hour later he succeeds in executing the spell and get a popup.

[Candle Light Leveled Up]

[Candle Flame Lvl:6 Every young fire mages stepping stone onto the greater path of pyromancy.

The spell creates a large safe modular following flame. Spell Cost:32 Hold Cost:8 per minute]

Testing out the results Nathan dims the Candle Light spell. ‘Nice now when I have to hide I can just dim the spell rather than turn it off. I wonder how low I get the output too?’ he thinks while lowering the intensity as far as he can and getting to about half the luminosity of the base spell. ‘Now here is the tricky part’ he thinks while he ramps up the intensity of the spell bringing the luminosity to about one half of the base spell. ‘So about fifty percent in either direction. Not bad if I say so myself’ he thinks while smiling at the results.

Getting back to the lizard Nathan peels and buts away the skin of the lizard the best he can with his poor skills. Once done the lizard is a mess with the flesh exposed to the cave air with bits of skin hanging on here and there “It’s not pretty looking but it will have to do for my first foray into skinning, now for the gruesome work.” he says as he starts to cut away at the meat pulling out chunks and laying them on the skin to save for food later. Getting to the leg tendons he cuts them at either end and pulls them out whole then goes about unraveling them to use as string later. The cuts into the body looking for small bones he can snap off and grind down to use as a needle, he gets multiple from the lizard in case he breaks them while grinding them down or using them.

Nathans hands and arms are red from the lizard's blood as it drips onto the floor. Calling over his Candle Light Nathan uses a neat trick he learned, sticking his hand into the flame he burns off all the blood from his hands and arms while not burning himself. ‘ so glad I learned this little trick. Maybe once I have better control over it I can use it as an impromptu shower of sorts. The incident of burning the edge of my shirt was not fun.’ He thinks to himself with chagrin.

Nathan spends the next two hours getting everything in order first by grinding down the bones for the needles failing the first couple times before getting it right, then getting the tendons unraveled and tied onto the needle while he drys the skins next to his impromptu fire pit made with a Fireball spell. Keeping the skins from curling up is a full time good and he has to go replace the rocks holding them down from time to time. ‘Not the best work but it will do’ he thinks as he starts to sew the different skins together.

Nathan holds up the sewn together skins with a grimace “Yeah not the best work. Does not even really look like anything but it will have to do as a sack for now at least” he says with a sigh looking to the side at the bits of broken bone needles and failed tries at sewing together a sack. “That is all I am willing to do, for now at least I have a half decent sack to use,” he says while putting everything into the lizard skin sack and tying it shut to his belt with some leftover tendon.

Getting up Nathan grabs a few pieces of meat and wraps them in some skin before throwing it in the sack. Picking up a piece of meat he starts to heat it up for lunch as he walks down the tunnel happy with how the day is going so far.