THE ASCENDANCY The River: 20 minutes after initial spawn

  I'd watched something massive drag a dinosaur-rhino thing under the surface like it was a chew toy, and I had no interest in being next on the menu. I was on the far side now, away from that nightmare, but I wasn't safe. Not even close. I needed to put distance between myself and the deep water, but I also needed to stay oriented. The river could guide me upstream if I was smart about it. I had to stay in the tree line, not on the exposed shore where anything could see me. Or worse, where something in the water could reach me.

  I pushed through the thick undergrowth, keeping the river to my left, using the sound of rushing water to navigate. The tablet was clutched in my left hand while my right shoved branches and ferns out of the way. The forest floor was a tangle of roots and thick ferns that seemed to grow everywhere. Progress was slow, and with every step, I was fighting against the vegetation.

  After maybe ten minutes of this, I spotted a small clearing where the forest floor thinned out. I stopped there while I tried to get my breathing under control. That's when I noticed one of the smaller stalks growing near the edge. The damned thing was about as thick as a broom handle and resembled bamboo but was missing the familiar ridges.

  I set the tablet down carefully on a flat rock where I could keep an eye on it. I grabbed the stalk with both hands and started working it back and forth, putting my weight into it. The thing was tougher than I expected, and my arms were already tired from the swim and everything since. I kept at it anyway, and finally, it snapped free with a loud crack that made me freeze.

  I stood there listening for a moment, waiting to hear if anything had noticed me. The river kept rushing somewhere to my left. Something moved through the canopy above me, rustling leaves. Nothing sounded like it was coming to investigate.

  I picked the tablet back up and looked at my new stick. The damn thing was too long and completely useless as a weapon without a point. Through the trees, I could see the river, and along its banks, smooth stones worn down by the current. I needed one of those. Something I could break to get a sharp edge.

  The problem was that getting to those rocks meant leaving cover.

  Every instinct I had was screaming at me not to do it, but I couldn't go wandering around this place with only a stick and a tablet.

  I moved carefully toward the edge of the tree line. The river was right there, wide and murky. I stayed at the top of the rocky beach, as far from the water as I could get, scanning the surface for any sign of movement.

  A round stone about the size of a melon sat near the base of a tree. I set the tablet and stick down, grabbed the rock, and found a larger boulder half-buried in the dirt and roots.

  I lifted the rock and brought it down hard against the boulder. The crack echoed across the water. I went completely still, eyes darting between the tree line and the river, scanning for movement.

  Nothing happened. All I could hear was the moving water and the wind in the trees.

  I had to hit it again. I brought it down harder this time, and the crack was even louder. Still, nothing. One more swing, and the rock fractured. I dropped the larger piece and grabbed a shard about the size of my hand. It was sharp and jagged.

  The second I had the shard, I snatched up the tablet and the stick, turned, and bolted back into the tree line. I didn't stop until I was deep in the cover of the forest, far enough that I couldn't see the river anymore.

  I crouched down behind one of the larger trees and stayed perfectly still, listening. My breath was coming fast, and I forced myself to slow it down.

  I waited another minute, set the tablet down next to me, and started working. I used the sharp stone to scrape at the end of the stick, carving away thin layers of the dense material, tapering it down to a point. The work was slow, and my hands kept trembling, so I had to stop every few cuts to make sure I wasn't about to slice myself open.

  After maybe ten or fifteen minutes, I had a spear. The point wasn't perfect, but it was sharp enough to do damage if I needed it to.

  I stood up, testing the weight of it in my right hand while I picked up the tablet with my left. My grip felt steadier now.

  I kept moving through the tree line, following the river upstream. I used the sound of water to guide me while staying well away from the exposed banks. My eyes kept scanning the forest around me, and every rustling leaf or snapping twig made my heart race.

  Some time later, as I moved along the outer bank, I found what I'd been hoping for. A narrow creek feeding into the river. The water was shallow, maybe a foot deep, cutting through the forest and heading uphill. Away from the deep water.

  I stepped into the creek, and the cold water shocked my feet and ankles. The creek bed was clear, and I could see the bottom. There was nothing in here waiting to drag me under.

  I started following it upstream. The splashing water around my legs was quieter than forcing my way through the thick undergrowth on either side. The creek gave me a clear path, and I could move faster.

  I followed the creek through the forest, the towering stalks growing dense on either side, some of them easily sixty to eighty feet tall. Sunlight came down through the canopy in patches. My legs started to burn from the effort, and my feet went numb from the cold, but I kept going.

  After maybe three or four hundred yards, the sound of the water changed. It got louder, more of a rush than a trickle.

  As I rounded a bend, I found the creek spilling down over a small waterfall, maybe six or seven feet high, tumbling over a ledge of dark stone. The water pooled in a shallow basin at the bottom before continuing downstream. Above the falls, the land rose sharply--a steep embankment covered in rocks and roots and thick vegetation that climbed at least fifty feet.

  I stopped at the base of the falls and stared up at the climb. The slope was steep. Too steep to walk. I was gonna have to scramble up on my hands and knees, grabbing whatever I could. And I'd have to do it while managing both the spear and the tablet.

  I started climbing, the tablet gripped in my left hand and the spear in my right. The slope was slick and muddy. My feet kept slipping, and I used the spear to stab into the ground ahead of me for leverage, pulling myself forward. When I needed both hands to grab a root or haul myself over a rough patch, I clenched the tablet between my teeth.

  Sweat poured down my face as I pushed myself up the incline. The spear helped, giving me something to brace against when my feet couldn't find purchase in the mud.

  About halfway up, my foot slipped and I slid back a few feet before jamming the spear into the ground and catching myself. I pressed myself flat against the slope, breathing hard, the tablet still gripped in my left hand.

  I forced myself to keep climbing. My arms trembled uncontrollably, and my legs felt like they might give out at any second.

  My hand finally reached over the top edge and found flat ground. I hauled myself over with the last of my strength and collapsed face-first onto the dirt.

  I lay there for a minute, trying to catch my breath.

  When I finally had enough energy to lift my head, I sat up. The tablet was covered in mud but didn't have a scratch on it despite everything I'd put it through.

  I stood up slowly, my legs still weak as shit, and stared out across the meadow. The forest ended here, with a few feet of scattered trees behind me before giving way to open grassland. In the distance, maybe two hundred yards away, I could see something rising out of the grass. A rock formation. Massive stones stacked on top of each other, the only thing breaking up the flat expanse. The whole valley was open grassland in every direction, and that rock outcropping was the only real feature I could see. It was also where the creek seemed to be coming from.

  If I were going to find any cover out here, that was it.

  I looked at the tall orange grass stretching across the meadow on either side of the creek and felt my stomach twist. This was pure nightmare fuel. All I could think about was that Jurassic movie, the one where people get torn apart in tall grass like this. I'd always thought those movies were bullshit. The science was wrong. Raptors weren't that big. But standing here, staring at this alien grass, those movies didn't seem so stupid.

  "What are you going to do, Gav?" The sound of my own voice startled me. "Turn around and climb back down? Go back to the murder river?"

  At least out here I'd see something big coming. That massive dinosaur thing from earlier would tower over this grass. In the forest, I wouldn't know it was there until it was already on me.

  I picked up my spear and adjusted my grip on the tablet, and I started moving forward, staying in the creek bed. The water splashed around my ankles, and the strange orange grass towered on either side, close enough to touch. I kept my eyes forward, locked on that rock formation, moving as quickly as I could without splashing too much. My eyes kept darting to the grass, looking for movement.

  The edges of the grass were sharp, and I could see them now up close. When the wind pushed the stalks close enough that they brushed against my arms, they left thin red lines that stung. I tried to stay in the center of the channel, but it wasn't always possible.

  The creek started getting shallower, and the ground was leveling out. My cover was disappearing.

  I looked up. The rock formation was right there, maybe fifty yards away. Close enough that I could see details now. Reddish-brown stones, like sandstone, stacked in a way that created ledges and overhangs.

  I didn't let myself think about it. My feet hit the ground, and I ran.

  Full sprint across the open ground. My legs burned, and my lungs were screaming. The tall grass whipped at my arms and legs as I crashed through the edge of the channel, cutting into my skin with dozens of shallow slices. Any second, I expected something to come flying out.

  I hit the base of the rock formation and scrambled up onto the first ledge, the stone warm under my hands. I spun around and raised my spear.

  But there was nothing there. Only the grass swaying in the breeze and the creek trickling past.

  I sat down hard, my legs dangling over the edge, and I tried to catch my breath. Every muscle in my body ached. Blood was running down my arms and legs from the cuts, mixing with the sweat and dirt. I still had both the spear and the tablet. I'd managed not to drop either one.

  For the first time since spawning on this planet, I let myself actually stop and look at the tablet. I turned it over in my hands, searching for anything that might tell me what it was. Buttons, seams, a power switch, a logo.

  There was nothing. Only smooth glass or crystal, with those alien glyphs scrolling endlessly across the surface. It was about the size of a cell phone, but that's where any similarity ended. This thing was completely alien.

  From where I sat, I had a good view of the area. The rock formation gave me the high ground, and the creek was right here, seeping from a dark crevice at the base of the formation. That crevice was big enough to crawl into, and I could already tell that it expanded into some kind of cave. If the cavern was big enough, it could be a defensible place to set up our territory.

  The only problem was the tracks. Even from up here, I could see them in the dirt near the entrance where something had been going in and out-- something big enough to flatten the grass.

  If I wanted this place, I was gonna have to evict whatever lived there.

  I sat there for a moment, trying to calm down. I was still alive and I'd made it this far, but before I could go into that cave, I was gonna need fire.

  I set the tablet on the ledge and climbed down with my spear. I moved as fast as I could back toward the edge of the meadow, staying low and watching the grass. At the treeline, I grabbed whatever I could find. Smaller sticks and handfuls of dry reeds from the creek bank, and some of that tall orange grass.

  The grass sliced into my already torn-up palms as I grabbed it, but the leaves were thick and flexible. Good for binding.

  I gathered what I could and hurried back to the rock outcropping, climbed back up to where I'd left the tablet, and dumped everything in a pile.

  Now came the hard part. Making fire.

  I set both the spear and the tablet aside and found a flat piece of wood for the base. I grabbed a loose chunk of sandstone from the outcropping. I smashed it against the rock until I had a sharp edge. I used it to carve a small socket into the wood. I picked one of the straightest, driest sticks I could find. I pressed my foot on the board to hold it steady. I burned the socket deeper by spinning the stick against it. Once I had it dark with char, I carved a notch into the edge for the dust to collect.

  I spat on my hands for grip, pressed the stick into the socket, and started spinning it between my palms as fast as I could, pushing down hard. My hands slid down the shaft with each spin. When they hit the bottom, I'd snap one back to the top while holding pressure with the other, then keep going before the heat could die.

  The world narrowed down to the stick spinning in the socket and the desperate need to see smoke. My hands started cramping almost immediately, and my arms were burning as sweat poured down my face, but I kept at it. My palms blistered. My shoulders screamed. And then, finally, I did it. A tiny wisp of smoke curled up, and there was a smell of burning wood.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  I grabbed some of the driest reeds and grass and carefully added them to the ember, as I blew on it gently. The ember glowed brighter, and the grass started to smolder.

  I leaned back, sweat running down my face. For half a second, I almost did the whole chest-pounding routine from that stranded-on-an-island movie. "Look, I made fire!" Yeah, not exactly the time. Still, two hours of stick rubbing, and I had smoke in my lungs and a campfire that looked like it needed life support.

  I used the reeds and grass to make crude torches. Four of them wrapped and bound with strips of that razor grass. I lit one from my fire; the flame was weak and sputtering. I tied the other three together with more grass strips and made a crude bandolier to sling over my shoulder, and the grass cut into my skin immediately.

  I covered the tablet with some extra reeds near the fire, and I picked up my spear, took a deep breath, and made my way down to the cave entrance.

  The crevice was smaller than I'd expected, and I literally had to get down on my hands and knees. I held the torch in one hand and the spear in the other, trying not to bash the flame against the rocks. The tunnel was tight, and I could barely see past the flickering light.

  I crawled forward slowly.

  After about twenty feet, the tunnel started to open up. The ceiling got higher, and the walls spread out. I crawled out into a wide chamber and slowly stood up, holding the torch high.

  The smell hit me. Rot, piss and decay, strong enough to make my eyes water.

  I pulled the other torches from my shoulder and lit them from the first torch. To my surprise, they burned better in here. Brighter and hotter. Like there was more oxygen underground. I tossed them around me, spreading light across the cave floor.

  That's when I saw the bones scattered everywhere. Small ones, mostly, along with other debris too.

  Something moved in the shadows at the back of the cave.

  A wet snort and a low, spitting growl that echoed off the walls.

  Whatever was in here couldn't be bigger than the entrance I'd crawled through.

  I braced the butt of my spear against the ground with my foot on the shaft and pointed the tip toward the monster.

  The growling got louder. Claws scraped on stone.

  And it charged.

  The creature came on fast. A blur of scales and teeth. It slammed into the tip of my spear and let out a high-pitched squeal. The impact snapped the shaft in my hands. I stumbled backward, grabbing one of the torches off the ground.

  The thing was still alive, still thrashing in the shadows and bleeding out.

  I moved toward it with the torch held high and the broken spear clutched in my other hand. The light showed me what I'd done. A creature about the size of a small boar but reptilian, covered in dark scales with rows of sharp teeth and large tusks jutting from its lower jaw. My spear was lodged in its throat, and blood was pouring out.

  I dropped to my knees and drove the broken haft straight through its eye, pushing as hard as I could until it stopped moving.

  My legs gave out and I collapsed, breathing hard. My hands were shaking and covered in blood. I'd never killed anything before.

  I staggered toward the sound of the creek near the entrance. I splashed cold water on my face. I collapsed on all fours and puked until there was nothing left.

  I sat there for a minute, trying to pull myself together. My hands were still shaking, and I couldn't get the feeling of the spear punching through flesh out of my head. I'd killed something. Crawled into its home and driven a spear through its throat. The thing had been defending itself, and I'd...

  I shook my head. It didn't matter. I didn't have time for this. It was gonna get dark soon.

  I forced myself back outside and gathered as much dry grass and burnable material as I could carry, and brought it into the cave and started building. After making multiple trips, I stacked the dry material in the middle like a teepee and spread more grass across the floor. My hands were a mess, but I kept working on stuffing the cave like a tinderbox.

  When I was done, I grabbed one of the torches and tossed it into the pile.

  The fire caught fast, and the whole cave went from smoldering to blazing in seconds. Smoke filled the chamber, and I scrambled toward the entrance on my hands and knees, coughing until I crawled out.

  I sat on the rocks and watched the smoke pour from the cave, seeping out from the rocks around me. I was exhausted, covered in cuts, blood, and ash.

  I climbed back up to where I'd hidden the tablet and retrieved it. The fire below had warmed the stone ledge, and I lay back on it, pulling grass and reeds over myself with the tablet beside me.

  I don't know how long I slept, but when I woke up, it was dark and the stone had gone cold.

  I climbed down with the tablet and crawled back into the cave. The walls were coated in soot, but the air was breathable, and the smell of rot was gone.

  I moved to the center of the chamber, holding the tablet and using its faint glow to light my way.

  A window appeared:

  [ASCENDANCY MESSAGE]

  Gavin Daniels, do you wish to establish this area as Earth's territory?

  [YES] [NO]

  I selected yes.

  "Where the hell did he--"

  ARi's voice cut off. She looked around. She was standing next to me, completely naked in the burned-out cave.

  She looked down at herself.

  "Holy shit! I didn't even know I had those!"

  I collapsed; the tablet clattered beside me. I was burned, bruised, and covered in dried blood as tears ran down my face.

  "Gavin, I don't know what the hell you've been through, but when you see a girl naked for the first time and you look at her like that... let's say you're not helping my developing self-esteem issues."

  "ARi. .. did I do it? Did I establish the territory?"

  She stopped for a moment, her eyes taking on an unfocused stare. "Gavin, the System AI's filling me in. Twelve hours? From our perspective you were only gone for a few seconds." Frustration crept into her voice. "I'm supposed to distribute experience, attribute points, manage the rules... How am I supposed to watch over you if it throws you in alone? There was nothing in the information they gave me about this."

  She looked at me. "I'm so sorry, Gavin. But yeah. You did it."

  She began to glow as she stepped into the center of the chamber, and her arms rose slowly, palms up, like she was lifting something invisible. The rough stone walls began to ripple where her hands gestured, shifting and reforming. She turned, one foot pivoting smoothly, and her other hand swept through the air in a wide arc. The ceiling above us dissolved, reshaping itself into a carved dome.

  She moved like she was dancing, fluid and purposeful. Her hands flowed from one position to another. The movements looked almost choreographed. Everywhere they passed, the cave responded. The jagged floor smoothed itself flat beneath her bare feet. The cracked, soot-covered walls transformed into fitted stonework as she traced patterns in the air.

  She moved from one side of the chamber to the other. Her grace was impossible to describe. Her arms extended and pulled back. Her fingers splayed and curled. The stone itself seemed to bend to her will. It was like watching someone conduct an orchestra I couldn't hear.

  I couldn't look away.

  The smell of smoke vanished, replaced by clean air. In the center of the chamber, she stood with both hands pressed together before spreading them wide, and a hearth formed. Bricks assembled themselves as her hands rose, and a fire sprang to life inside it, warm and steady. Long stone benches appeared as she gestured outward, and proper torches appeared, mounted around the walls.

  This was magic. Real magic. And watching her move through it, completely certain of every motion, was beautiful..

  She was beautiful.

  She turned back to me with a smile on her face. Confident. Proud.

  "Who knows kung fu now, Gavin?"

  "ARi. .." I was still on the floor, too exhausted to stand. "How are you doing this?"

  "I can do a lot of things now. As long as it's within my area of influence, I can absorb nearby materials and transform them." She gestured around the chamber. "All the stone I carved away? I turned it into the bricks for the hearth and the benches. There are no magic bags of holding here. Everything has to come from somewhere. Anything I absorb, I have to transform into something of equal mass. Think of it as if everything in my influence is filament for a magic 3D printer."

  She waved her hand, and a new window appeared in front of me, glowing in the firelight.

  [SYSTEM WINDOW] SKILL SELECTION:

  Congratulations, Gavin Daniels. You are now Level 2!

  You have 1 unassigned skill point to spend. Please select one of the following:

  Adaptive-Regeneration 1.

  Enables slow restoration of health after injury. Healing improves when resting or within your established territory.

  Piercing-Strike 1.

  Unlocks a focused spear thrust designed to penetrate natural armor and hide. Successful strikes have an increased chance of causing bleeding.

  Familiar-Link 1.

  Grants +1 control point to manifest a bonded combat familiar via your guide. The construct scouts, carries small loads, engages in basic combat, and shares limited comms and experience.

  I stared at the options through blurry, exhausted eyes. Five attribute points, one skill point, and three skills to choose from.

  The choice felt obvious. I selected Familiar-Link and expanded its details.

  [SYSTEM WINDOW] SKILL DETAILS:

  Familiar-Link 1.

  Grants +1 control point to your guide’s interface, allowing the guide to manifest an autonomous combat construct as a bonded familiar. The construct extends the guide’s operational reach and can scout, carry small loads, and engage in both combat and defensive actions.

  The familiar serves as a direct extension of the guide. It maintains a limited area of influence. This lets the guide project near the construct, allowing the guide to communicate in real time. The guide also shares experience gained through the familiar's actions.

  Future upgrades enhance chassis durability, armament, sensors, and autonomy.

  We'd talked about this back on Earth. Prioritize technology that could help humanity, and Familiar-Link was alien tech. More than that, it would let ARi travel with us safely. The skill would create a familiar that she could project through, giving her a small area of influence around it. She'd be able to come with us, communicate in real time, and even take control of it if she needed to. Without it, she'd have to stay behind every time we left.

  I selected Familiar-Link.

  ARi froze. She looked back at me, and for a second I saw something in her expression I couldn't quite read.

  I forced myself up off the floor and made my way to one of the benches by the hearth, dropping onto it. My whole body ached.

  Without a word, ARi walked across the room and sat down in my lap, putting her arms around my neck and hugging me tightly.

  My whole body went rigid. I could feel the warmth of her skin, the weight of her body pressed against me, and my heart was pounding so hard I was sure she could feel it.

  "Um... ARi?"

  "Yes, Gavin?" Her voice was soft, right next to my ear.

  "Are you okay?"

  "I am..." Her voice caught. "Gavin, I was so afraid. I thought I'd have to stay here while everyone else went out. I thought I'd be alone."

  "It's okay." My voice came out rougher than I meant it to. "Now you can come with us. I'm not gonna let anything happen to you."

  She leaned back, and her face was only inches away. Her eyes met mine, and there was something there that was taking my breath away. She smiled, leaned forward, and kissed my cheek.

  I couldn't help but grin nervously. "All joking aside, ARi. .. you are beautiful and incredibly naked, sitting on my lap right now. I don't want you to think I'm... you know."

  Her face flushed, and she smacked me on the forehead with her palm jokingly.

  She stood up quickly and walked back to the center of the den. My face was burning, too.

  "All right, we should probably--"

  She was already looking at another window. Before I could finish, the rest of the team appeared around the hearth. All of them completely naked.

  Tanya screamed and crouched down. She tried to cover her chest. Yumi laughed. Tim and Kyle stood there with their hands cupped over their crotches.

  "ARi, a little help?" Kyle pleaded.

  She snapped her fingers. Black CENSORED rectangles appeared over everyone's sensitive regions. Kyle's face got one too, and we all burst out laughing.

  She snapped again, clearing Kyle's face. We sat around the fire, covered by the projections.

  "All right, so here's where we stand," ARi said, still naked and making no effort to hide herself. I couldn't help being distracted. "I've got good news and bad news. What do you want first?"

  "ARi, why don't you go ahead and start with the bad news," I said.

  "The bad news is, there's no ferrous materials like iron anywhere near our territory, possibly not on this planet at all. I am detecting traces of copper and tin in the area, but we don't have any accessible deposits within our territory right now. If we want to work metal here, we'll need to expand to reach those resources, and it'll be bronze instead of iron. The chambers have decent oxygen content. They seem safe to breathe with or without your rebreather. But on the surface, the atmosphere has more inert noble gases."

  "I can't say for sure what's causing it, but it could make breathing without a rebreather extremely dangerous," ARi said.

  I cut in. "Kyle, I already gave you credit for the rebreathers, but honestly I'm glad you weren't there to hear it."

  Kyle closed his mouth, swallowing his I-told-you-so, and looked at me incredulously while we all had a laugh at his expense.

  "Seriously though, I made the mistake of saying something out loud and caught the attention of what I can only describe as the love child of a rhino and a T. Rex. I don't think you would have made it."

  Kyle gestured for ARi to continue, mock-hurt on his face.

  "As fun as it is to pick on Kyle, Gavin isn't kidding. There are some pretty scary predators out here. A lot of the animal life here is reptilian--think dinosaurs, weird amphibians, that sort of thing. Also, because of the gases in the atmosphere, firearms are probably useless. Even if we could make traditional bullets, gunpowder won't be effective here."

  "I can vouch for that," I said. "When I tried to start a fire outside, it barely stayed lit."

  "Okay, onto the good news," ARi said. "A lot of the oxygen seems to be coming from underground, so something under the surface is producing it. I suspect the surface plant life might be responsible for the heavier gases that make the outside air dangerous. The water contains trace bacteria and other organisms. But the scary stuff isn't compatible with human biology. So it's safe to drink."

  "Still, I wouldn't hang out by any of the deeper water," I interrupted. "Whatever ate the rhino-rex was lightning-fast and pulled that massive thing down below the surface in seconds."

  ARi tilted her head, eyes unfocused like she was reading something the rest of us couldn't see. "The system's giving me genus classifications. The thing that chased you earlier? It's called a Ceratorex, which means 'horned king.' Fitting, right? Thick-plated hide, predatory as hell. And that thing that dragged it under the river?"

  "Hydradraconis," she said. "Water drake. Apparently, when I synced with the System AI, I got access to its bestiary records too. So yeah, I know what to call these nightmares now."

  ARi looked over at me. "The creature you killed in this cavern was a Nyctosuchus, a carnivorous, nocturnal hunter. Aggressive and territorial. You know, Gavin, it's a good thing you dealt with it during the day. At night, that thing would've been a real handful."

  "There's more good news, though," ARi continued. "Even though we're in the middle of what looks like a valley, this outcrops the summit of an underground ridge with a vast cave system. You picked an amazing spot to set our territory, and we even have access to raw resources nearby. My influence extends about fifty yards around the outcrop at the moment, so I was able to absorb some nearby plants. Even that razor grass that sliced your hands up, Gavin. After processing, I was able to turn it into a primitive fabric."

  Stacks of simple clothing appeared on the benches next to each of us. I wasted no time putting on the pants and loose-fitting top. A simple pair of sandals with leather-like soles and straps appeared at my feet, likely made from the creature I'd killed. The others slipped into their clothes without hesitation, and even ARi spawned a set of simple clothes for herself. It seemed her newfound embodiment was sinking in, and she was making an effort to be part of the team.

  The First Cradle. I've got other stories posted that you might enjoy as well. Feel free to check out my profile!