Great, my lifeblood is the blood this necklace wants. I guess it is both a good and a bad thing. Good, I found a blood source, but bad it is me. Maybe it just had to be from something alive, which I guessed meant I could slow kill something to see if that worked. I pulled up the Necklace interface to see how much more I needed of everything.

> Core requirements

4% Mana

1% Stone

100% Life blood

“Nice,” I yelled as I pumped my fist in the air.

Blink startled awake from my yell hissed, and curled back up next to the fire giving me the stank eye.

“Sorry girl, didn’t mean to wake you from your late morning nap. I know you had a hard day. You only got your early morning and mid morning naps so far.” I said while chuckling.

I was happy; lifeblood didn’t take much, which meant my bottleneck was how long it took to do my mana stones. This meant for a while, I would have to plan on 4 hours a day doing the stones so that I could get this knocked out. As I would need to get 24 more of them. That would take me about a month to get this done.

My days were about to get very productive and very packed. I had things I needed to do to figure out life in general, but also things I needed to do to eat. Then I had things I needed to do because of the monsters around me. If I slacked off anywhere, I was going to end up dropping a ball, and right now, they were all important.

Since I had a wound, I figured that I needed to see if I could find the stuff for Ritualistic healing. So I triggered the skill and felt myself go to one of the trees on my landing and got some moss from its side. Then, over to a small flower, I picked two of them, and then I went and got two rocks and ground it all up. Then I took the stuff and laid it on my arm. It was kind of odd seeing the paste on my arm, and by the time I was done with the grinding, the wound had already healed, but I got a +5 hp message, and then a Max HP reached message. Then I was in control of my body again.

Next, I started to work on some of my spells. I was never much of a dancer; in fact, the best I could ever do was the lawnmower or sprinkler… So when I stood by my stone wall and cast my Stone to dirt, I felt so odd I kicked into a chant that I’d never done before with some yelling, and then I got into some jumping and shaking I’m going to say that I didn’t think what I did was much in the way of dancing, but it was what the spell made me do I spent two minutes stamping my feet, jumping in the air and spinning Then I reached out and touched the stone wall Then I saw the power of magic in a way that I’d not understood up to that point A perfect cube of rock turned into rich black topsoil I touched it a second time, and the pressed tension that held it in place gave way, and part of it slid out Kind of like when you tip over a pot; some of it comes out but not all of it It only took me a few seconds to pull all the dirt out and see the sharp lines that the spell put into the rock The sides were smooth the corners looked crisp It was amazing, magical even I was sure that if the mouse were here, he would want this in his kingdom because it was so magical!

Next up was Call to rain, so I looked up, and yeah, no clouds, so that one was a no-go. Back over to the garden, I went to see what growth would do. I kicked into the large casting because, hey, 10 minutes was acceptable to dance while no one was around. After jumping and spinning, yelling and chanting for ten minutes, I saw the potato plant I cast on grow 4 feet and blossom. I also noticed that my green stamina bar was empty, and I was falling to the ground, sucking wind.

It took me a few minutes before I could stand again, but I felt happy. I was able to make plants grow, which meant that I could better feed myself. I wasn’t sure if I liked that my Ritualistic spell took stamina to cast. I guessed I understood why as I was dancing all over the place, More Fitness training was needed so that I could dance longer. It would be a long spring; I just knew it.

While getting into a routine was great, I still had other problems that I had to deal with. The biggest of the issues was that I felt that I had a horde of goblins not too far from where I lived. The big gray guys I thought were migrating through. They moved like they were just living and not putting down roots. The goblins were trapping game which meant they weren’t moving through the area.

After I dealt with the goblins or while dealing with them, I needed to find people. I was assuming now that the fires I saw came from the goblins, but I was still wanting to see if I could find them. If there were too many of them for me to push through, then I might end up setting out cross country to try to find people.

I knew the goblins’ general direction was from the fires that I saw and the dead bodies. I also knew that if they knew I was here, they would likely come for me in ways that I couldn’t deal with. Namely, overwhelming numbers. That meant that I needed to both find them and reduce their numbers, or I needed to stay hidden and protected. Also, since I was low on stats right now, I needed a way to farm experience or whatever I needed to raise my skills.

With that in mind, my plan for the afternoon was to start using my trap skill. I figured it was best to trap where I could be seen that way; if someone was looking for me, they wouldn’t make it back. However, I knew that wouldn’t be a quick task, nor would it be perfect since it might not get them all or even any.

I started with my plans on the river banks. Between the path down and the waterfall were several turns that made the line of sight much shorter. It was in these places that I let the skill guide me. I didn’t have a very high skill, so I knew that starting my traps wouldn’t be great; however, from what I’d seen, my skill would get higher as things progressed. I also hoped that I’d get to the point in traps that I could add my magic to them, but I wasn’t sure how that would work.

I knew that I was so low leveled now and that everything out there out-leveled me, but I was ready to work, and so I knew that it wouldn’t take long before I was raking in the levels. I was looking forward to the dream where Sam would tell me the requirements to gain stat levels because I knew that was something that I’d be able to do.

After four hours of work, I’d turned one section of the riverbank into a trap. It wasn’t what I was thinking of as a trap, but my skill thought would work in the area, which sadly didn’t do what I wanted it to do. I had adjusted the placement of several of the rocks and made it so that walking in this area was more challenging. I also made it so that someone was more likely to slip and break an ankle. Again, it wasn’t what I was hoping for, but it seemed like it was the best the skill would offer me.

Now what was fun and frustrating at the same time was watching Blink run through the trapped area without any problems. In true pet nature, she seemed to trigger every slip and ruin the work that I’d put in. There was no reason for her to do it other than she was there, and it looked fun. Which for an animal was all the reason needed. Then again, perhaps she was helping me train by resetting all my work. That night was thankfully uneventful, and after a nice dinner of fish and potatoes, I settled down to see what answers I’d get from Sam.

By your actions today

You have increased your level in

Traps (level 2)