The monkeys screamed, and shrieked, and died - I had no armor. I didn't need it, they were too busy running in terror they didn't even think to fight back. And after my kill I could afford something just as good.

Spell: Skin Shield.

Expend mana to increase the durability of your outer layer, reinforcing it to withstand penetrating damage.

I was fast, ferocious - unchained. I was blood and savage strength, pain and rage, as I danced across branches I sacrificed my body, I dove - reaching, to slam the claws and bones of my crafted mauls into their heads, their backs, the legs of monkeys - it didn't matter as they tried to escape.

I broke my arm. I tumbled and crashed through branches. I slammed against the ground.

I got back up and ran after them again, the whole jungle echoed with our movement, they couldn't get away. If night hadn't been falling I'd of killed everyone of them. Especially with my new spell - a reward for killing the Dungeon Boss.

Spell: Ensnare. Instant. Sight.

Empower plants with your mana to twist and move with a burst of growth to bind living creatures, tripping and slowing them.

I slowed them, killed and harvested them, I used the mauls half like rakes to pull their bashed bodies to me. I swung through the trees and where I went, death followed.

And magic was fun - so much fun. And easy. I was surprised at ensnare, what I had thought of as a pretty shitty reward, it turned out amazing in a jungle. The monkeys couldn't escape as their playground turned against them. The trees became the things of nightmares as branches closed like fingers and vines became snakes. They tried to swing away and was wrapped right up in ribbon for me.

It was half the secret, I realized. Of being a predator - also the weakness. Why I survived.

Arrogance.

The unflinching belief - that you are the best, unconquerable.

A lie - I wear the proof of it around me, it rests on my shoulders. I don't believe for a second that I'm immune to death, to risk. The Queen taught me that pride comes before a fall - but it's the other half of the secret I do like -

A monkey screamed as it managed to keep just inches away from a swing, dodging my maul as I chased a group of them, it jumped - not on a branch, or to glide away, but on top of another monkey! Tripping it up! What an asshole.

I dove and crushed them both.

You don't have to convince yourself that you're a predator to get all the rewards of being one.

I regained my feet and chase continued, as monkeys scattered, they realized I was herding them. It was like wading through a river during the salmon run with a laundry basket beneath each arm -

You can have all the benefits of a predator without having to act like one. You just have to convince your opponent that they are prey.

I lunged and smashed, missing, I tumbled, tripping and fell two branches down - smashing my face, pausing to shake the stars out my eyes and wipe blood off my face. It didn't matter, they didn't see the trips and misses, all they saw was what I wore -

Cowl of the Apex - Unfinished Set

Description: A hood and half cape worn over the shoulders and back, crafted from the pelt of an Apex Predator of the Basic Jungle Dungeon Biome and infused with the spirit of the beast.

Stat Modifiers:

+1 Agility

+1 Strength

Traits:

Pride of the Tiger - This was not made to protect, to hide, or to defend - but only to instill fear. It was crafted as a message to those who see it, 'Look at me. I'm coming.' No viewer will doubt the killer of this beast.

Unfinished - This piece remains an unfinished part of a set.

Durability: 100/100

Quality: Good

It didn't matter that I wasn't a tiger, or didn't believe myself a predator. They believed they were prey. And prey doesn't attack. Prey runs away.

I pulled back in my chase - the point made. Most pleased about the weapons. They felt perfect. The natural curve of the leg bones I thought would make them unwieldy at first, but I just kept adding more material - more teeth until the balance was perfect. The grips all tight tendon that looped out around my wrists, and I had the bones stick out in sharp barbs that cut into my hand - but the grip didn't slip at all.

Twin Bone Mauls - A simple weapon made of bone, socketed with eight claws each, two on each side - designed to crush, pierce, and maul.

Piercing Damage: 5 - 15

Crushing Damage: 3- 11

I was disappointed by the damage, compared to the pain stick they were weak - but it didn't matter, a solid hit killed - I knew I could pull the long teeth off my cowl and use those to have a more vicious spike, but...

It looked so cool!

And I felt there was more to the numbers, maybe a strength bonus or maybe it just depended on how hard I swung it. I didn't get that with the pain stick so if the hit was good it was actually a lot faster.

Regardless, it was usually a quick kill. Even if I didn't like I held a bazooka.

And the feeling of smashing with a heavy weapon. Hearing them pop and crumble and splat and squish?

I returned home, satisfied.

Sleep came like a circling hawk, finally diving to snatch away my breeding thoughts. But it was not the hungry hunter I'd hoped it to be. While it spun above out of reach - I began to worry, this time not about myself but my family.

What made me think I had been sucked here alone? What of my mother? Had she been forced to hack and slay to survival? Had she survived? I thought how awful it was to consider her soft hands turned to butchery instead of baking.

But my mind wasn't just a whirlpool, it was also a raft - and I found myself adrift again in the inventory of my thoughts, putting restless energy to purpose, trying to overwrite worry with industry. I tried reading some of my text books at first, thinking flipping through dry textbooks would be enough to put be out.

Instead it just gave me more ideas. More thoughts to join my head. More things to think about.

I walked around the corners, looking at my horde of scrapyard treasures. A garden, graveyard maze, running my hands over each material and testing them between my fingers.

I had a surplus of monkeys. I don't know what you can make with a monkey, I didn't feel inspired by them. They were too - familiar. Too many similarities. When I thought what they wanted to be, it wasn't gloves, or armor, it was - happy. Fun. Silly.

So I built a rocking chair, bending wood branches and twisted vines into a comfortable seat, and I felt my body absorbed into it as I laid back and and adjusted to my fit. The easy motion finally lulling me into the deep, and I saw warm candlelight softly lighting the knotted wood that completely enclosed me.

I finally rocked myself to sleep.

Inventory Upgrade.

Meditation - You have found the refuge of your mind

I didn't awake so much as stop resting in the morning. My body was relaxed and my mind was calm, but it wasn't the same as dreams. It wasn't the heavy sleep I truly wanted.

When sleep came it landed on my shoulder instead of carrying me away in it's clutches. So when I stretched up off my bench, I didn't yawn or blink, I just stood up from the patient moment and began a new day.

Picking up where I left off.

Except I had lost the trail, the monkeys seemed to have finally found a new home.

So I emerged to silence.

My silence. And for once it felt good - comforting even. No intruding laughter, no outside noises. The silence was a bubble around me, and I wouldn't complain if I wasn't hunting. I have a lot more coins now, but still, no lightening.

Now the bubble followed me. Everything fast enough took off when things got quiet. And the things that didn't...

Like the snakes.

And my testing monkey was launched between at a pair of hypnotic eyes.

It was green lightening, the snake struck - just outside my palm, how close I'd been - I could feel the brush of air.

But not it's mouth was full - I attacked it, hacking at it's endless neck in a blow with my maul to shatter it's back for an easy, almost disappointing -

It was like beating a rope -

My swing extended, hitting the snake, it took my blow, bending around it. The pointy claws of my maul puncturing, the teeth caught but it didn't go deep -

Red drops appeared as proof, but no river of blood. My extended swing followed, another strike that only managed to help wrap its massive girth around me.

There was nothing behind it - no weight to bash it into. It was like trying to play tetherball and hitting the rope, I aimed lower, where the snake wrapped the branch, but I wasn't close enough to reach it. As it uncoiled toward me - around me, it was longer then a car, then longer then a bus. It was a green ribbon that kept unfurling, unrolling - wrapping me tighter -

And it's weight was pouring over me now - covering me in a crushing burden that creaked branches, I let myself slip out done with this fight, I raised my arms up to to fall down below and take broken legs over the closing noose.

It closed. A knot that didn't need a bite to catch, even with it's mouth full, I was trapped -

Now I dangled - floating above the floor with kicking legs, he spun me in circles, wrapping me and disorienting me in an unwanted hug. I covered him in blows, trying to tear through a portion, cut him in half - that part moved away.

I pushed ensnare, hoping the tree could help me and it moved to the call but the snake had already ensnared itself, it wasn't responsive enough to push him off. It just gave him more support.

I tried the axe, the machete like a starving chef, and I watched the scaled armor bend up and tear, scales fall glinting away, still he gripped tighter, my circulation insufficient.

Then the monkey made it past the closing jaws to become just a bull-frogged throat - I was next, to finally put our past behind us and share a home, to become meals instead of fighting over them.

The Fruit!

I cast ensnare again - and this time not aiming for the branch, I aimed for the monkey - for the fruit I'd known they'd be eating, the black seeds it must of swallowed in its greedy hurry for a bite - I cast and cast again, pushing the spell, but it didn't give. I couldn't see the damn seeds! No vines burst out - no drop in my power, in my mana -

It slapped against the barrier of my mind, I slapped against my eyes, instead closing them I tried to see the seeds as though they were inside me.

I tried to reach the seeds. Like I could just pluck them out of the snake, like I could pluck them out of my inventory. The mana was rebounding in confusion, my thoughts were bouncing around in my head, and the pressure -

Outside me - Inside me, forcing it together and still I struggled to grasp those seeds, to open myself to them, to convince them to open themselves to me - I pushed again, pushed because the pressure, pushed against my self -

-1 HP's started crushing though my awareness, even as it was fading. I met the snakes eyes and -

Pop!

Both our heads exploded. Mine like a sneeze caused by pepper and dynamite, the snakes like a chia pet.

I felt the plants hunger for light and growth and life, I felt the need of soil and warmth and nourishment, and I felt myself promise. That if it grew the sun was there, just above, and it was warm and welcoming and there was plenty of water - it could even have some of my energy, to GROW!

Tangled roots flicked out instead of a tongue and its body bulged and widened as I heard the clink clink clinks. Suddenly the snake was like one of those long balloon animals starting to inflated and I snatched it away, sucking it into me as I finally dropped to the ground..

Blood screamed through my collapsed vessels on tingling needles that filled my entire body as I smashed below into the ground next to a twisted beast of roots and branches. They landed next to me, pushing at me and growing over me, questing roots wrapped now hundreds of snakes, just as dangerous -

I was draped in darkness and felt them crush around me, and I poured out with my understanding of living material and willed the wood to grow with me instead of through me, to take me with it on its journey for light instead of crushing me and suddenly it was - all wrapped together as I followed the roots of my growth - I pushed aside rocks, or when they wouldn't budge - I split them.

I sucked from the water and chewed through the earth, for every inch I grew up I went deeper - deeper into myself, I swayed in the wind, enjoyed a thirsty slurp of sap - and I was so happy to be a tree.

I finally stopped growing, and I relaxed, exhausted but basking in the sunlight. I'm not sure how long I stayed - or what actually happened. I just felt good.

My brain started fizzing and tingling, my body felt strange. Something was beating beneath my bark, was it bugs? Was I infested? It was alive!

It was my heart. I'm a person, not a shrubbery.

I started wiggling but I was stuck, I had to push out of the tree like a growth to emerge - and I was...impressed.

Affinity Detected - Organic

Compatibility - Living Material

Ensnare Spell Evolution to Rapid Growth.

Spell: Rapid Growth.

Inspire and steer growth, fueling it with your mana.

I looked at the gnarled ball of wood that had bulbed around me and the crazy straw trunk that had twisted up like the fabled bean stalk. Up through the canopy, where it disappeared.

It had taken all of me, all of my mind for its narrow journey, and a large chunk of my mana. Except it was full -

I looked through the change in the spell, felt how it connected to other parts of me - like it had extended its roots. But I didn't capture that same feeling.

I shook it off. I still felt strange, my mind wooden. I needed to leave. To walk, not to clear my mind but too...fill it? I headed back to my hut, every so often glancing back - at the tree.

Considering it.

It's easy to look up at the sky and appreciate lightening. To look at a tree struck and splintered, to see what it can do, the proof.

It's impressive. Chilling even.

Look - look what lightening did to that tree!

So much power and destruction can be unleashed, coming from anywhere then vanishing - gone, without a trace. Less than a second.

As you look at the broken tree. Still there. In a forest.

Alive.

Sometimes power isn't obvious.

Sometimes you have to be shown, to know.

Sometimes even then, you have to go deeper. Feel it.

And it can be as small as a seed. A bug. A boy.

Sometimes it's nothing. An empty space waiting to be filled.

Sometimes it's Laughter. Sometimes it's Pain.

It's hard to imagine it, unless you see it for yourself...

Growing.

5....4....3...2...1...Dungeon Scenario Complete.

Congratulations!