Groaning was the first thing I heard when I returned to the living. It took a second to realise it was coming from me. That thought was quickly followed by various body parts clamouring in agony, and I bit my lip to deal with the overwhelming pain. I attempted to sit up, and suddenly everything else went silent as pure, undiluted pain radiated from my chest.

~Feels like I broke a rib. You'd think, large as these things are, that would be the last area to receive damage. There's plenty of padding there.~ I looked down at my breasts reproachfully.

As I lay on my back, I tried to figure out what to do. I was in the middle of a forest, from the looks of it. Janus clearly hadn't intended to send me here, his pointing stopping the portal's pull was evidence of that. That meant I needed to find the helmet, as he apparently sent it to help.

Second priority was finding food and water, since I had no idea how long I'd be without human contact, and then an overall priority of getting fixed up and generally making sure my rib didn't end up poking too many important things.

With that decided, I moved my head, attempting to look around for the helmet. When I finally spotted the thing, it was about a hundred metres away, a distance that in my current condition was about as easy as scaling a mountain. I glared at it, vaguely hoping some magic would bring it to me, before I began the long process of getting into a moving position.

After five minutes of gingerly moving, I finally managed a crawling position that didn't provoke my damage ribs. My ankle was giving me all kinds of hell, but in terms of importance I was just going to have to fight through the pain.

After I managed to make it across the various knobbed roots and rotting branches, I collapsed inelegantly next to the helmet, grimacing as the rib made a firm reminder of its condition. I reached over and grabbed the helmet, sticking it on my head and lying flat on my back. As I looked through the display goggles, a message box appeared in my vision.

New user detected.

Welcome to the DUI (Divine User Interface). Symbiotic connection available - will enable camouflage mode.

Begin symbiosis? (Respond vocally)

~DUI~ I giggled, before saying, "No." No way I was about to begin a symbiotic connection with a damn helmet.

The message box disappeared, to be replaced by another one.

Unknown dimensional location. New energy type detected.

Initial analysis indicates non-harmful. No indicated interference with use of known energies.

Begin full analysis?

That was sobering. If the helmet didn't know where I was, there might be a good chance Janus had no idea either. All I could hope for at this point was that the helmet had some sort of tracking device.

I told the helmet to begin analysis, knowledge never hurt, and waited for the next message box. This one informed me there was a message stored, which I promptly played.

“Sorry about this,” came Janus’ voice. “I can't pull you back, natural formed rifts take – oof! – anyway, I'll come get you, don't use the helmet’s distress beacon! Anyone on Iburn will be able to detect it!”

The voice cut off, leaving me somewhat disappointed. I'd hoped for something more. I didn't know what exactly, but I felt let down all the same.

~On the other hand, I'm no longer in a city that could possibly disappear from existence.~ I decided to focus on the positives I could think of. I was still alive, and Janus would come get me.

~If he survives.~

* * *

Several hours later, I was beginning to doubt that he actually had. There hadn't been a peep in the surroundings, other than a few distant animal calls, and the helmet hadn't shown any new messages. As I had done all the mental games I could manage and was about to go crazy from lying around on an uncomfortable tree root, I decided to at least find some water. I was trying to determine a feasible way to do that, when I realised that the helmet might be able to give me a clue.

~Beats aimlessly wandering around the forest with my injuries.~ As it was, I considered it a miracle I hadn't encountered any predators already, given I'd been lying around like a sacrificial sheep for the majority of the night.

“Helmet, how do I locate water?” I said tentatively. I didn't really expect it to work, but it staved off the pain from moving for a few brief moments more.

Are you addressing the System?

“Yes,” I responded. I waited for a new message, but nothing came up. After a minute, I repeated my question, but there was still no response. Just as I decided the thing couldn't help and was considering the best way to get upright, a new message jumped up, startling me.

System has located multiple thermal bodies approximately 1.7km from your position. In conjunction with atmospheric reading, estimated to be source of water.

Caution advised: Thermal scan indicates unknown life forms.

With this message, a orange 3-D arrow appeared near the top of my vision, pointing off to my left.

~2 kilometres, huh? I suppose I can manage that.~

As I made my slow progress towards the helmet's target, I heard a distant roar coming from somewhere ahead, but other than the fact that it was in my current direction, I didn't particularly distinguish it from the other forest noises.

When I finally arrived, the sun now up over the horizon, I found the helmet had located a large pond, with a stream running gurgling in from one side and rushing out the other. There were no visible animals, so I scrambled towards the edge as quickly as I could and began scooping a few mouthfuls of water.

After I managed to silence the growling stomach for the minute, I looked around the water's edge more closely. The helmet had detected lots of animals here initially, and if that roar had scared them off I wanted to make sure its owner wasn't here to eat me.

After looking around a couple of times, I realised I could see the rear end of a deer emerging from some bushes. When it hadn't so much as twitched for a couple of minutes, I decided to go over and investigate.

I made my way around the water's edge and found the reason for the deer's stillness; it was very dead, prey to something that had taken a big bite out of it. I moved away a little and checked the surroundings again. Hopefully whatever had eaten this had had enough and decided to move on.

My stomach gurgled. While I wasn't squeamish about blood, a half savaged raw steak wasn't exactly fine dining, but my body seemed to have no such reservations. I tried to look around to see if there were any vegetables around, my city girl eyes failed to spot anything I immediately recognised.

~Plus, I'll need to keep my strength up with these wounds, I can't exactly turn down free food.~

Suddenly recalling the helmet’s thermal search, I checked and was told that there were no nearby creatures. Since it seemed the carcass had been abandoned, I picked up a sharpish stick and proceeded to poke and pull at the body.

Some time later, I looked doubtfully at the chunk of meat I'd managed to pull from the deer. I'd noticed while mauling at the animal, but seeing a raw steak dripping purple blood was a strange sight, and one that drove home how serious my situation was. I wasn't even sure if the deer was safe to eat.

I was deciding whether to attempt to make a fire like I'd seen on TV or just risk the meat raw, when the helmet popped up with a new message.

World energy analysis complete. Ambient energy now viewable.

Warning: approaching pattern of energy manipulation.

I thought over the words quickly. According to the helmet, something capable of using or twisting the energies in this world was coming at me. I decided forewarned was forearmed, and enabled the energy view.

My vision immediately shifted to a myriad of different colours. Thankfully the air itself wasn't intensely bright, although I couldn't say the same for some of the trees. I had to squint to look at some sections of the forest. After I managed to change the helmet's settings so I wasn't blinded, I told the helmet to show me the object of the warning.

A bold highlight showed up around a blob of colour up in the trees. It bounced from branch to branch quickly, and as it came closer I realised the blob was shaped like a big cat. I turned off the energy view, looking in the same direction, but all I saw were shaking branches. I cursed invisibility powers and tuned back into the energy vision. Given the speed of the animal and my own injuries, there was no way I could escape, which left me with the helmet as my only hope. I racked my brain to figure out how to use it, when I remembered the first message it had shown me when I put it on.

“System, symbiosis will give camouflage mode, correct?” I asked quickly. It confirmed, and I grinned. Two could play at the invisibility game. I gave the command to begin symbiosis, which prompted a message asking if I was sure. “Of course, just hurry up!” I snarled, having noticed the cat-blob had now stopped and was looking at me from a few trees away.

The helmet started a low hum, then my brain caught fire and I fell into blackness.