Her predictions came true. Liz could only squeeze in two more days of hunting without any more wolf-incidents before, on the third morning, she woke to the sound of wind battering the tower walls.

The view from her window reached as far as the first outbuilding. Beyond and between a blizzard raged through the fort. The powerful gusts of wind moved mountains of snow through the courtyards and narrow passages between. The air even snaked its way through the window gaps, chilling the room and Liz with it.

Liz watched as the clouds of snow settled on the roofs before rising and settling somewhere else again.

'Guess hunting season is over. There is no way this hasn't reached the valley as well. Whew. I wouldn't want to be out there either way. Even in here it's way too cold'

After a quick breakfast, consisting of a small amount of berries and mostly meat, Liz started her efforts to keep the tower heated. She needed more firewood. And only had full logs in the fort below, where she was now headed.

Along the way she realized her mistake in storage, as most of the windows in the lower ruins were missing panes, leaving the wind and snow free to enter. When Liz reached the log pile, the timber and the stone floor were covered in a dense dusting of white powder. It was no place to work in.

Splitting the logs into smaller parts and dragging these into the heated workshop did the trick. In the workshop Liz started using a war-axe to split the logs into usable firewood.

Using an axe quickly became boring and strenuous to Liz, so she started experimenting with Arcane Blast on the logs. While capable of exerting a force on the wood, Liz was unable to direct the mana in a way to accommodate splitting it.

If charged for long enough, her attack would only ever splinter the wood in the area it hit.

'How the hell did I kill three wolves and dozens of deer with this when it isn't even able to split wood?'

In the end, Liz resorted to a mix of driving the axe by hand and pushing it in further with Arcane Blast. She surmised that this way, she would probably be able to level her skill while still doing something rather productive with the spent mana.

Yet, the Arcane attacks seemed to mostly speed up the dulling of the blade as Liz had to already switch to a new axe before noon came around.

By late afternoon she had produced a waist-high pile of wood, and had used all four sharpened war-axes available to her. With her tools no longer usable - damn the weak metal not able to handle a few blows of offensive magic - and the grindstone blocked by a blizzard, Liz retired to the suite to finally learn the language anew.

She used a selection of books dedicated to runes for this. Before having switched back to Deviant, Liz had tried to familiarize and memorize certain pages which she was now pouring over.

It still felt like little progress was made, as she only understood certain words and phrases but never full sentences, not even through context.

Still without a breakthrough, Liz eventually went to bed after a short meal together with the cats. They had spent most of their day on the couches, occasionally patrolling the tower before dozing again.

When she fell asleep, the blizzard was still raging outside.

The next morning, the weather had calmed down. Liz could now overlook a wholly white valley, only small dots of blue ice breaking up the white-green scenery.

The fort was covered in a similar thick layer of snow. But the sky had cleared and no more snow was moving through the chilling winter air. Yet, it still took Liz some effort to move through the less snow-covered hallways to sharpen the axe-blades in the smithy.

Afterwards she spent her time training with the cats. She even felt the increase from the last level-ups, making her more agile and enduring, although the effect was rather subdued in comparison to massive leaps from the cavern trip.

For the rest of the day she alternated between bouts with the cats and improving her dagger-throwing, as she was severely lacking in it. It progressed as expected, with most of the knives either hitting the wall next to her target or hitting the target handle-first.

Her evening was spent on learning the language. By nightfall, she finally reached the breaking-point.

-- [Eastern Plains Common] has reached level 1 --

Eastern Plains Common - lvl 1

You understand the written and spoken word of the common language of the Eastern Plains. The language of humans and gnomes

'Yes! I knew I could do it!'

While the skill was the same, Liz immediately felt the difference. While she could suddenly read the words, it still took longer than before and some words were still foreign to her. She seemed to lack the broad vocabulary she had before.

'Huh? I guess there had to be differences between lvl 1 and lvl 8'

Still, with her new self-taught understanding of the language, Liz spent until midnight immersed in the rather dry book about herb diversity in the Wildlands.

The next morning started different from the rest, as Liz had gotten some inspiration for better meals from the book on herbs. Former close friends of her would probably tell anybody who asked, that whenever Liz, 'inspiration' and cooking were involved, maintaining a certain minimal distance was critical. But right now, none of her critics were present, leaving Liz, a millennium old store of herbs, and meat to make in(cr)edible.

The end product of two hours of 'cooking' could be best described as 'edible if necessary'. If one had to put the construction into more elaborate words, one might describe it as a rough-cut fricassee in a thin soup of various herbs. Only tasting of garlic. This seemed to be a general theme in all the herbs available to her; every single one of them at least partially tasted like garlic. Liz had even wondered whether her taste buds were broken.

'Or I am in the realm of bad breath'

But Liz wasn't about to let any of her valuable food go to waste. Reluctantly at first, she ate all of it. Well, pinching the nose helped massively towards being able to swallow it.

Filling the rest of the day with more reading while the cats lounged on the divans, only getting up for their patrols and meals, left her with another language skill level in the evening.

-- [Eastern Plains Common] has reached level 2 --

The following week progressed similarly. Liz either reading, 'cooking', training or cleaning.

By the sixth day, Liz had made the suite and workshop squeaky clean and had moved the skeleton she had expertly avoided previously to a chest, now a coffin, to be properly buried when the ground unfroze. Her cooking had also improved. She had managed to only use the low-garlic herbs, leaving the other taste notes to emerge. It still tasted like one imagines the sand-cake of 5-year-old filled with garlic to taste like, but to Liz the simple fact of variety compared to bland meat was enough. She had also gained some more levels through practice and training. Even the elusive Mana Draw finally leveled after Liz spent hours moving mana from one crystal to another.

-- [Eastern Plains Common] has reached level 3 --

-- [Runic Intuition] has reached level 4 --

-- [Spell Channeling] has reached level 7 --

-- [Mana Draw] has reached level 2 --

-- [Bond] has reached level 3 --

But Liz still felt unsatisfied. The action of the previous weeks had become a given to her, which was now somehow missing. Just lounging inside left her bored and wanting for more. She was never one to sit still for too long. So the winter was even more of a hell for her. Not to mention the lack of entertainment from phone or computer. Not even the training with the cats could fill the hole. And only having one magic spell wasn't what she had expected when she decided to become a mage.

Still she was reluctant to simply go out fighting a Bonestinger or similar, as her crave wasn't a fight itself, just rather the distraction from her sad reality it provided. Or better yet any kind of distraction.

Either way she was currently bound to the fort grounds, or rather the parts accessible through the hallways and battlements. As much as she was hoping for action akin to the cavern lizards, there was no such thing nearby as the fort's defenses supposedly kept out any and all monsters.

And so, without anything better to satisfy her craving, Liz spent hours on end training with the cats, the focus the fights required keeping her distracted. When she wasn't in the training hall, Liz found herself sewing herself new armor from the various leather pieces left in the closet. Making leather herself still eluded her. While she had successfully skinned some deer and left the bundled hides in the storage chamber, getting her hands on some tanning compound was beyond her.

There were also no books on making leather in the library. Instead, Liz remembered from Earth that one could somehow use bark to tan a hide. But how exactly was unknown to her. Currently, an experimental tub filled with a cleaned hide and some bark from the firewood was sitting in the workspace, the success to be determined in a week or two.

After two days, her armor was in the most pristine condition it would get. It was now cut to properly support her chest and thick fabric covered the distance between bracers and shoulder piece. Liz also finally had fitting leather pants to call her own, generously provided by another set of leather armor. To fit the pants, a good part of the leather 'skirt' had to go. In the closet were also two sets of thicker leather armor but Liz had no way to properly adjust it to her size, leaving her with the thin but flexible leather. It probably wouldn't deflect a sword but fangs, claws and acid would have to first put in some effort before they would reach her skin. And since Liz didn't plan on facing anyone wielding a sword, as that would mean there were other people, her armor was enough for her.

Soon after finishing her work, another bout with the cats became the maiden fight of her new armor. It was a lot better than the old iteration. While still far from good or even what the armor was before being retrofitted to her, she was more comfortable. Before, some seams were poorly done and wouldn't bend, in the new iteration Liz had taken the time to do the seams properly, making them more flexible when moving.

But now, with the armor such a 'masterpiece' of hers, Liz became reluctant to use it, else it might get damaged in training.

"No, this is only to be used when actually needed. You lot don't get to destroy this armor! No, you don't!"

Leaving the cats to lounge again, Liz got accustomed to the weight of the armor when moving before putting it back in the closet shortly after.

But then she again had to face the dilemma of boring evenings. The few hours of daylight left plenty of those. The longer she spent on her own, the more she realized how depressing her reality had become. Her otherwise optimistic approach to reality had evaporated in the face of the gloomy atmosphere.

Her only option was distraction. Without electronics, and the cats reluctant to fight for more than a few hours on end, Liz now turned to getting herself a bow, a task that hopefully filled time enough to pad the evenings.

The swords were still too heavy for her, not to mention flails or battle-axes, leaving her with the trusted dagger as a physical weapon. Now she wanted to add something long-ranged to it. While the cats could traverse a long distance quickly through their teleport ability, she was still limited in speed by her short legs, so she was happy to stay as far from her quarry as possible.

The only problem was that bows tended to be made out of wood and wood had the pesky tendency to rot over time. Previously this had been a issue because there was no material to make a bow from. But now, with about half a dozen of logs still in the hallway, Liz had the resource necessary. Garuna's information also proved true, as in a corner of the workshop a quiver and a heap of arrows were stashed. Some arrows were carved with runes, someone seemingly having experimented with adding incredible complex runes to the simple objects. The only piece missing was bowstring. There was none in the workshop and the rope present probably wouldn't do much good. Distrusting of any materials she would find or make herself, Liz made the ultimate sacrifice for her survival and desecrated her pajama pants by removing the drawstring from it. It was made of threaded nylon, making it incredibly sturdy in comparison to anything she would find in her vicinity.

As the arrows were rather heavy, Liz decided to carve a fitting large bow from a log. Thankfully the book lying next to the arrows, a text about arrow material selection, contained a few drawings of longbows on which Liz could orientate herself. Unfortunately it was also the only book about archery in the library.

Over the course of three weeks, Liz carved the wood with her daggers until her fingers were raw. To combat this she even added leather grips on most of her dozen or so daggers, provided by another destroyed piece of armor. There were dozens of rejects, all quickly ending their short lifespan in the fireplace.

It didn't help that Liz perfectionist strain made many promising attempts end up as firewood. She focused on the most mundane details, but leaving out important design aspects, like the right thickness profile. It also didn't help that the material was near impossible to work.

The cats could only watch her as she threw piece after piece in the flames each evening. But they often quickly got bored with the show and found a quieter corner. Only Nick would often times still provide her company until deep in the night.

Eventually she was fed up with the task and decided to simply use one of the better samples, a piece one could possibly identify as a bow. It was originally never intended as a real attempt, which was the reason why it had even survived Liz's harsh selection. Instead, it was one of the few made out of broken off branch as every piece of fresh wood ended up impossible to work with and misshapen.

It was a bit smaller than Liz intended but at long last she had something, so she wasn't complaining, for once. The eventual size even made it possible to only use half of the drawstring. Stringing the bow was another adventure. The cats had fled the workshop while Liz did so as Liz's cursing of the bruising and stubborn bow and string became too colorful for the sensitive feline ears.

[Crude Bow - Primitive]

Now the only thing left was to test it, hope it didn't crack and bruise her even more, and train with it. Fortunately the test went rather well, if one excluded Liz's error in judgement when choosing an exploding arrow from the quiver.

While her shot missed her target log, the explosion managed to reach it. And the whole rack of rusted weapons in the training hall next to it.

'Oops'

At least the string stayed attached to the wood and successfully accelerated the arrow towards the vicinity of the target. Liz attributed her miss to the fact that she had no experience in handling archery equipment and to some degree the primitive condition of the weapon.

For three more days, the training with the cats was paused and Liz spent from dawn till dusk training with the bow. One thing it definitely accomplished was exhausting Liz up to the last bit she felt comfortable with. But even her archery showed progress. While the primitive construction of the bow was certainly hindering, Liz now managed to tame the equipment to the point that she felt confident to hit small prey if standing still and possibly something the size of deer if moving around a dozen meters from her.

She paused her training with the bow on her hundredth day in the realm. Liz wasn't sure whether this occasion was to be celebrated. Not that she had anything to celebrate with. Instead, she spent the day cooking an extra elaborate meal. Her cooking started to close in on acceptable levels at this point.

With the bow made, Liz was once again left without an activity to distract. Even social interaction would be nice. The lack of other people nearby really put her in a bad mood. Fortunately a new distraction presented itself in one of her bouts with the cats when her mind was alerted to a new notification in the middle of the fight.

-- You have learned the active class skill [Call of the Hunt] --

Call of the Hunt - lvl 1

Proclaim the Hunt. Cast an aura boosting you and your bonds. Healing, speed and agility are increased.

'The hell?'

Quickly ending the mock-fight, Liz tried to cast the skill. It came as instinctual to her as all other class skills. From one moment to the next, Liz felt more energized and hyped up. Additionally, under her watch the claw marks on her arms vanished without a healing potion necessary.

'YES! A healing skill!'

Running laps around the room, a bit faster than normal, Liz tested the new skill. While it provided what it advertised, it also quickly sapped her mana, leaving her with around five minutes of boost before her mana ran dry.

'Shit, I need that mana for attacks'

Still the skill was incredibly helpful. The cats were had an equal boost, visible by their mock-fighting, now at an even insaner speed.

'So far Tamer didn't disappoint, but the mana consumption might pose a problem. I need to experiment with the skill in a fight to say for sure.'

And experiment she did. For four days. The energizing effect was just too perfect to battle the downtrodden atmosphere of the winter days. Training with the bow was completely forgotten in the face of the amazing new skill. Several things happened or were discovered by her during the experimentation. For one, she leveled even further.

-- [Mana Draw] has reached level 3 --

-- [Mana Draw] has reached level 4 --

-- [Bond] has reached level 4 --

-- [Call of the Hunt] has reached level 2 --

⋮

-- [Call of the Hunt] has reached level 5 --

The quick level speed of Mana Draw had to do with fact number two. Liz had started to experiment with drawing mana from crystals to constantly supplement her own reserves. It worked with some quirks. While drawing from mana sources without direct contact was possible, it always felt sluggish to move the mana into herself; it was much easier to draw from crystals held in her hands. Surprisingly her skill also assisted her in this.

The third finding was that the passive mana draw from the bonds had reduced quite considerably. It was now close to half its original strength. Liz had discovered this while paying close attention to her general mana balance, investigating how to predict the remaining time on the aura. Yet it was weird that the bond with Nick used even less mana than the others, despite the cats all at the same level of 25. While the cats had leveled through the training, she sadly had gained no class levels so far.

But the mana crystals also quickly depleted through her endeavors. Hence, why she stopped after the fourth day, she had no more crystals to spare. Only a few select crystals identified as stabilized, while the rest cracked and vanished when depleted.

And so Liz finally went back to the books, trying to understand how mana crystals worked and how to get more of them.

Unfortunately the selection of books on the topic was either very limited or she was looking in the wrong place, as only three books were about the crystals.

The limited information she could gather was fortunately focused on her current region in a book about the region-specific occurrence patterns of the crystals.

From it, she learned, that mana crystals would grow on a special stone variety, commonly found a few hundred meters under the surface around the valley, if the mana concentration was high enough. Liz presumed that this stone was the one she had seen in the Nuurtor Caverns dungeon, as it had been filled to the brim with mana crystals. Additionally, the crystals wouldn't grow in sunlight, so the caves were necessary. Neither could one move the stone nor modify it, else no crystals would grow. Crystals would also destabilize over time after being harvested. The smaller, the longer they held. One could prolong their lifespan with magic but only to a certain point.

'Ok, so if I want to get more crystals I need to look in some cave. But I can't do that until the snow has thawed. But I kinda need them to effectively use and level all my skills. And without my skills leveling I am probably not growing strong enough to face whatever lives either in the cave or in between it and me'

Frustrated, Liz took a bath, an activity typical for the last moon. Only the soap had to be rationed considerably to support this habit.

'Unless there are some growing in the cellar tunnels. I mean I saw none but I also didn't look for them neither did I see all the tunnels. But the same can be said about the bats. Ughh.' Liz shuddered at the mere thought of the buggers.

'But then I heard none of them throughout my exploration. Maybe they moved out before the winter. But I may seriously have to go down there if the mana crystal situation becomes more dire'

The situation became more dire. After just two more days of training, Liz was left with exactly 5 crystals and a few more shards. Against all her inner alarm bells ringing, Liz reluctantly prepared for another trip into the cellars. Her crave for doing magic just barely outperformed the deep-rooted fear of flying rats. She also convinced herself that the cellars were probably free of bats, letting her fear calm down a bit.

Her gear consisted of her new armor, her dozen of improved daggers, vials of her 'venison broth', the remaining mana crystals and a few potions, just in case.

As soon as she had started preparing, the cats had shed their disinterested mantle and were now scurrying around her restlessly. Whether they deciphered her intention or simply felt her agitation, Liz didn't know.

As best equipped and armed as she had ever been, Liz set out to... search a cellar.

To be honest, it was a cellar in a monster-infested valley, untouched by humans for centuries. So there was always a possibility for disaster as shown by her past actions.

But she was better prepared than before, not only with the equipment but also with the cats and her skills.

Name: Elisabeth Larson

Class: Arcane Mage - lvl 20

Title: Deviant

Status:

Health: 252/252

Stamina: 250/253

Mana: 528/528

Vitality: 21

Endurance: 23

Strength: 22

Dexterity: 26

Perception: 30

Wisdom: 33

Intelligence: 31

Unassigned stat points: 1

Traits: Persevering, Arcane Enhanced

General skills:

Arcane Magic Immunity - lvl 3

Cold Tolerance - lvl 3

Compulsion Resistance - lvl 3

Eastern Plains Common - lvl 3

English - lvl 7

Health Drain Resistance - lvl 1

Identify - lvl 3

Lightning Resilience - lvl 1

Mathematics - lvl 1

Meditation - lvl 4

Pain Suppression - lvl 18

Stamina Drain Resistance - lvl 1

Class skills:

Arcane

Arcane Blast - lvl 10

Runic Intuition - lvl 4

Spell Channeling - lvl 7

Mana Draw - lvl 5

Tamer

Bond - lvl 5

Call of the Hunt - lvl 5

For once, she felt a slight confidence, that whatever she might face in the cellar, she should have a chance to at least flee, and not have to totally rely on luck. Except in case of bloodsucking vampire bats.

But at first there was nothing in the tunnels she hadn't already seen. Just the same intersections and stone walls and rubble-littered floor. Nowhere were there any bats. Or crystals.

Marking every tunnel she had inspected, Liz slowly made her way through the labyrinth. The longer it went on, the longer the time between finding new tunnels.

Either Liz was truly incompetent in navigating the nondescript tunnels, or the corridors changed after her passage. The probability for the second option was there but far too low to be true.

Eventually Liz reached a whole new section of the labyrinth. She knew this because the tunnels were all unmarked again. While elsewhere the erosion had closed passageways, here it had opened a new one as she found a gap in the wall, the stones, formerly making up the wall, lying in a heap on the floor. Beyond a wide ramp lead further down in a slow spiral.

'Huh? Another entirely new section? How extensive is this cellar?'

She decided to explore wherever the ramp led, as the cellar had proved to be pretty crystal-free. Maybe a second and deeper layer could yield better result. The Nuurtor Cavern hadn't been this close to the surface either.

The cats acted pretty bored as well, having hoped for some action and only having gotten damp tunnels until now.

But that would change pretty quickly, as at the bottom of the ramp a new notification entered Liz's mind.

-- Welcome to Argentuvalur's Tomb --

-- You have entered a dungeon. Experience gain is increased. --