The dream started falling apart with the angel on top of the Christmas tree telling me I actually have to choose my class again because the System made a mistake. I’m still there yelling “that’s not fair” when I fully wake up. I don’t open my eyes at first, trying to remember what happened to get to that point in the dream but it’s too slippery and I’m suddenly too awake. Today’s the day I have to start living my decisions. Or at least the day I have to try and figure out what that means.

  A little birthday cake for breakfast can’t hurt me I decide as I check the charge on the tent (2%). Oh wow, I slept for a while. I cover the cake with some of the wax paper and put it and the rest of my presents in my bag. Stretching I realize the sinew string holding up my loose ponytail has come undone and I search the bed until I find it. Wait a minute. I set the string on the table and pull out the twine. I cut a small section off and make a mana brush to comb my hair out. I have to be careful doing that as it’s a good way to pull my hair out. Adding a hair brush to my list of wants with toilet paper and a toothbrush. Taking the bit of cut twine I tied another pony tail. I was tempted to cut my hair really short. It made sense, it would be out of my way and I wouldn’t have to worry about it. I couldn’t do it. I like my hair.

  Once again I wondered if I was being childish. Worse, I had read obsessing over not being childish was childish. And also that grownups had no idea what they were doing and were just pretending. Somehow the thought that everyone had these doubts was even more terrifying. Does no one know what they’re doing? Ugh. I wanted to throw a tantrum. I never did that really before the System, I was always well behaved. Well I thought I was well behaved anyway.

  I left the ponytail up and went outside. It’s still dark, great. Oh right, I slept a lot on my birthday. First I almost died, then I was exhausted leveling up. Today is going to suck, I’m already tired just thinking about it. Not really though, there’s no way I could go back to sleep. Trying something new I walk to my outpost entirely in the air. I even jog a little, seeing how much extra mana the steps take from the sudden impacts of my feet. It might as well be none at all. I try full out running but it makes me super dizzy because I keep looking down. No way am I trying gravity magic for the first time way up here.

  Arriving at the tree I quickly duck inside and close the door. I can’t use the tent but this place has been safe so far. I eat a little cake and watch some shows while I decide what to do next. I wish I had a notebook or a diary or something. I can imagine myself writing down-

  Everything that has happened.

  What the? A screen opens but it’s not my status or any of my skills or blessings or anything. It’s just blank. No way. This thing comes with a journal? Maybe the System isn’t so bad after all. I pause what I’m watching and mess with the journal. Oh, I know exactly what I’m going to do now.

  I start with the night of the crash and the integration. It’s hard to get through but I think going back further would be impossible to deal with. Maybe next time I talk to my godmother or Hecate I can get them to chip in and give me their thoughts or something to add to it. I find myself wanting to be sarcastic, something I wouldn’t have recognized even six months ago. Dear diary, I killed a bunch of cut bunnies today so I could make soap.

  I try to write it as I remember it, and end up summing up what happened and skipping over a lot of it. I don’t write about what I’m reading or watching or whatever, now that I have somewhere to write down my thoughts I can just write down what I learn. I’m sure I’ll miss stuff and need to reread or rewatch things in the future, even looking back now I’m seeing things I missed. The weirdest part is my vocabulary. I don’t sound like me anymore, whatever that amounts to. I also don’t sound like Morrigan, who’s all formal and archaic? Maybe that’s not the word. I have to learn to be more precise. I need to make a to do list and I’m putting english or grammar or vocabulary on there as a priority.

  I’ve noticed using the right words matter. Morrigan was tricking the System to help me and I’m pretty sure I didn’t even get all of what she was trying to tell me. Reading is helping but I need a wider variety. I wonder if I’ll start having realizations like this about math or other subjects? I kind of hope so. There’s something awesome about when things click. I want to know, just, everything. Everything. I might have time. I will have time, I’m going to become like Hecate. Maybe I can become a goddess of pop culture, I don’t know of any of those.

  I’m so distracted making lists and writing everything that happened morning sneaks up on me. Aw man, I haven’t done the stuff I was supposed to do. Honestly I can’t believe I went this long without even looking at my new stats. Well time to fix that right now.

  Name Marie

  Species Human LVL 0

  Class Master Autological Mage LVL 20

  Stats

  Strength 40

  Dexterity 38

  Intelligence 111

  Wisdom 102

  Vitality 67

  Health 134

  Mana 222

  Skills

  Natural Linguist

  Class Quick Learner

  Greater Mana Manipulation

  Free Form Identify

  Mana Sense

  Water Magic

  Basic Hexagon Shield

  Pyrrhic Shock

  Mana Walking

  Flame Magic

  Basic Air magic

  Basic Earth magic

  Voltaice Railblaster

  Psychokinesis

  Basic Space Magic (Gravity)

  Blessings

  Permanent Disciple of Hecate

  Touch of the Fae Queen

  Temporary Boon of the Newly Integrated

  Titles World's Weakest

  Child Prodigy

  Over Achiever

  That’s a lot of mana. Or at least compared to what I used to have. The crazy part is how fast these were going to improve when I leveled up. Six or seven levels are all it would take to double what I have, and what I have is already much bigger just due to the class upgrade bonus. Which means everything else is going to get stronger. I should have asked Morrigna about animals, it doesn’t seem like they have classes, just species level ups. Which means I need to sit down and make a real, actual plan. OK review time.

  I have a range skill now. It doesn’t even hurt me to use. Ok so I need to figure some stuff out. I pull up my journal and make a note:

  Range skill

  How far can I shoot it?

  Minimum and maximum amount of mana?

  Should I start trying to make branching skills?

  How much damage?

  The only easy question here was how much mana can the skill use. I should be able to test that pretty easy. How far can it shoot might be hard. It’s not like I have a measuring tape or something. The only way I measured other stuff was with my forearm which was about 8 inches. I got bored in class sometimes, ok? But that was probably wrong now too. I had definitely grown and what was left of my original clothes didn’t fit very well anymore. Ugh, I’ll deal with it later. Damage might be even harder, unless I could start seeing how much health what I attack has. I need to level up Identify. Starting a to do list and adding that to it. Might as well add investigate range skill to that. OK, next!

  I should look into a way to upgrade Pyrrhic Shock so it doesn’t hurt me anymore. Might as well also add those other questions to it. I almost leave off distance but since the water wolf was on the other side of the door then I know I don’t actually have to be touching the thing I’m fighting. Ugh, that sounds clunky. I pull out a thesaurus in the archive. Skill does not require direct contact. I think I’ll leave branching skills off that, for one it doesn’t say I can, for two I really don’t want to set myself on fire.

  I need to investigate my new skills Psychokinesis and Basic Space Magic (Gravity). Maybe I can use Psychokinesis to activate Pyrrhic Shock or Basic Hexagon Shield. That was another skill I needed to upgrade, the water wolf had bitten right through it. Ooh that gave me another idea. OK adding more things to the list. Why do I feel like I’m forgetting something important? I look through my notebook. Oh I’m a bad goddaughter. The list and spell Morrigan gave me. Definitely better add that to the list. Let’s see what we have.

  To Do

  Level up Identify

  Investigate range skill

  Upgrade or change Pyrrhic Shock

  Learn how to use gravity magic

  Test Psychokinesis with other skills

  Upgrade Basic Hexagon Shield

  Magic for Morrigan

  Should I move Morrigan’s stuff to the top? Looking at her list of items I don’t think so. I haven’t even seen a bear and what is King Oyster? Actually looking at it I might need to go ahead and take care of some of this.

  Eye of Cat

  Butterfly Wings

  3 Caps of King Oyster

  Heart of a Wolf

  Feather of a Crow

  Bear fat

  7 Hawthorne berries

  Heart of a wolf? Dammit. They’ve been sitting out since yesterday, why didn’t I get a heart while they were fresh? Would what’s there now even work for the spell? Did it matter? Rather than sit and argue with myself I decided to walk back and check on the wolves. Oh no, they’re pretty ripe. If only this had happened in the winter, then it would be fine. Probably. Maybe. I’m going to have to find some other wolves. These are split open and nasty and without coming down from the trees I can smell them. Wait, what about the water world though?

  I make my way to the trap and am surprised the smell is no worse than yesterday. Just dirty wet dog smells. I pull the body out with mana and it’s dry. The algae or moss or whatever it is feels like dead leaves and flakes away at my touch. I take both it and me to the ground and lay it out. Making my mana knife I cut under the rib cage. I make mana gloves and reach in to pull out the heart. It’s not my first time. The first time I cut more wildly and got the intestines. I swore I would never make that mistake again.

  I pull out a heart. Something about the whole thing made me believe I was about to pull out lettuce. Or maybe a melon. The heart was dry but not as frail as the outside. I took out some wax paper and twine and tied it up, cutting the extra twine off. It seemed like so much before but I only had enough to do this maybe 8 or 9 times. I need to be careful with this. I place the heart into my bag and zip it back up. Actually I know where a hawthorne bush is too, that was that bush I found after the tutorial. There were actually a bunch of them around. Opening the archive I check and find out the oysters are actually mushrooms. My intelligence stats come in handy here as I remember seeing them before and meaning to look up mushrooms you can eat. Not close though, it would take me all day to get there. I can start heading that direction later. That’s all I have for now. I didn’t keep the giant butterfly wings, oh wait she left me a feather! So really I just need a bear, a cat and a butterfly. Just have to remember to pick up the other things along the way. Thinking about what Morrigan told me about sympathetic magic I go ahead and take some other parts, eyes, ears, tongue. The meat is weird and green so I decide to leave it, I hope this doesn’t become an issue with other animals. I tie up my ingredients in a separate brown paper parcel and put it away.

  Well that gives me a goal at least. I get to see people when I get all this stuff. Alright, now I need to figure some basic stuff out. I put on my back pack and exit my hideout to find a fairly warm morning. The inside of the tree usually stays pretty cool until later in the day. I want to try out this gravity magic but first I wanna know what I can do with Psychokinesis. Might as well start with the thing that I know isn’t going to work. I push out a blob of mana and then walk down the limb that leads to my hideaway. Oh yeah, I turn on Mana Walking. I have to start doing that when I get up. Enough stalling, here goes.

  I try to push Pyrrhic Shock through the blob I left behind with my Psychokenesis. It kind of works? My body locks up as I take a little damage but I can see sparks coming out the mana I left behind. I really didn’t think that would even work, but it still hurts me? It’s dumb and I hate it. That does give me a crazy idea though. I push Voltaic Railblaster through the blob. Whoa, that’s a lot of mana. 150 mana is pulled out of me and forms my blaster at my leftover mana. I can use my Psychokinesis to aim but it feels weird. I point into the air and fire it, losing another 40 points of mana. What? It never costs mana just to make it on my hand. I try it and my remaining mana doesn’t budge. Actually no, it’s filling back up pretty quick.

  Oh yeah, that should have been an item on my list. I turn off my Mana Walking and start counting. One Mississippi, two Mississippi… I didn’t start at exactly the right time but it takes about 30 seconds to refill my mana. I shoot off several more shots in the sky, watching them go too far to see without ever disappearing. I completely empty my mana and start counting again. It makes me kind of dizzy but 37 seconds later I’m back at full. This is way better than the stuff I’ve been reading. It takes some characters hours to get their mana back. Then again how would this be in 20 levels or 100? I think it's still better than most. I get some from my class and some from Morrigan’s blessing. Plus didn’t Hecate tell me once you could improve it on your own? It didn’t even go down from walking on mana. OK, Mana Walking on, fire 40 mana into the air and start counting. 2 mana per second. What if I walk around while I do it? Same. Jogging? I’m not ready to run yet. Still the same, I guess my weight is all that matters. I have no idea how much that is. I weighed like 50 pounds before the System, or that’s what the digital scales in mom and dad’s bathroom said. I really have to figure out how to measure things.

  To my surprise my floating blaster is still there. I can see the mana starting to come apart at the edges but it’s lasting way longer than stuff I used to make. A shield would only last maybe a minute without being connected to me or without a little more mana. Granted it uses so little mana to begin with I don’t usually mind. Hmmmm. I walk off the limb, still in mid-air and leave a little mana before walking back. I push Basic Hexagon Shield through the new mana blob and lose 10 mana immediately as it forms. I think that might actually be a problem. It should be more than that. I’ll come back to that in a minute. I line the shield up with the blaster and walk back to the branch. Fire!

  The shield disintegrates. Just like when the wolf bit it. That wasn’t the worst part though. The shield didn’t even break my lighting ball. It kept going until it hit a tree and ZAP that was still so cool to watch. This is a problem. I’m sure I'll find more but this has to be fixed before I can take on stuff at my level. I pull up a basic shield in front of me. Like purple see through glass, the three hexagons just float where I put them. I can attach it to me or move it with my mind pretty easily. That’s probably not how to make it better though. I could put more mana in it but I also remember what Hecate told me. The end goal is more smaller hexagons in a dome around you. I don’t think even with my new mana pool or regeneration I can’t do that. But I can add some more hexagons.

  I close my eyes and imagine my current shield, then I add another hexagon to the top, then three more making a blocky circle. I start pouring mana into it, the skill only takes a couple of mana and a little more when it gets hit, so I expect maybe three times the amount of mana just to make it. It takes 42. I see my problem immediately, this shield is huge compared to me, literally like three quarters of my height. That’s cool for covering me I guess but it’s also covering a lot of emptiness. I start trying to make it smaller. At first nothing happens and then I realize I need to make each hexagon smaller at the same time. This is hard! Hard but I can do it, it’s working though it takes me several minutes to get it down to half my size. A couple more and now it’s about a quarter, then a fifth, then…

  This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

  *DING*

  Skill Upgrade

  Basic Hexagon Shield becomes Hexagon Buckler

  Hexagon Buckler

  Hexagons are Bestagons. Mana round shield, variable investment cost 4 Mana per second. Upgradeable

  Whoa, didn’t even have to be in combat for that one. Which means it can probably be much better. Or I was close to upgrading it before this. Either way, great job me! Gold Star! Now time to test it. I push the skill through what’s left of my mana where the last shield was destroyed. 60 mana straight out. That’s a lot more than the little shield. This shield also seems more solid, I can still kind of see through it but it’s more just lights and shadows than clear picture. My floating blaster finally needs some more mana and I put 47 into fixing it before letting my mana refill. Ready, aim, FIRE! ZAP. The lightning ball explodes on the shield and I feel it sucking mana out of me, somewhere around 40 points before it stops. The lightning keeps sparking for a second but then stops. That was the coolest thing I’ve done. OK time to add target practice to my to do list.

  After updating my to do list I write in my journal for a bit. This gives me time to think about what to do next. A lot of these things don’t have to be done immediately. I want to move Morrigan’s stuff up the list, and I need to get stronger. Might as well add that too. Really there’s only a few more things I need to do before I start gathering berries and heading towards where I last saw mushrooms. The first should be pretty easy so I close my journal and make a blaster with my hand. Instead of Voltaic Handblaster though I want to try something else. I make a mana ball and just fill it with more mana. Next, I make some mana string and attach it to the center of the ball. The idea is that when I shoot it and it gets to the end of the string I have mana to use psychokinesis with. I try to make the mana string as long as possible before firing. I hold my hand up and shoot it. When the string gets stretched all the way out it just breaks and the ball keeps going. It does have mana leaking out of it though, which kind of works. That gives me another idea. This time I make something like a ball of yarn with a bunch trailing. There’s still a gooey mana center though. I fire it and it works more or less like I expected but honestly it’s not far enough away. Uh, I mean the range is inadequate. I should keep trying to make my experiments more accurate.

  A couple of hours and many different ideas later I figure it out. My mana constructs are now more stable than they used to be. But they don’t have to stay that way. Remembering the offered skills from my class upgrade there were some for explosive mana. Meaning I could make mana that wasn’t stable at all. My first attempt was a painful success, and I broke three fingers. I started experimenting much further away from myself after that. I’d heal but it was going to take all day without some kind of potion or sleep. Basically I just needed to put too much mana in too thin of a shell. My blaster didn’t damage my lightning or mana balls when firing so I didn’t have to worry about that, I just had to figure out how long a shell could last with the amount of mana I put into it. Which lead to

  Basic Mana Firecracker

  Snap, crackle, pop pop pop. Make a mana shell that explodes after a little while. Time before explosion and size based on mana investment

  I wasn’t trying to make a new skill but I also wasn’t complaining. I spent a little time making and firing shells from my hand blaster, no new skill there. I would probably have to try it in combat to get that. Not that I would because the damage from these was pitiful. My shield didn’t even drain more mana when it hit them. That’s fine, that wasn’t my goal anyway. The weirdest thing was that the “explosion” was silent. There was no combustion, just excess mana making a concussive force. Did I mention I loved the thesaurus I found? No fire, no boom, silent fireworks achieved. The best part though was that it flew in a straight line just like my actual skill. That meant I could set up multiple mana blobs, make shields and then shoot them for target practice. The bad thing was this was hard to do while walking on mana. I could do it but only one or two at a time and then I would need to rest. Not because of how much mana I was using, which was a decent amount, but because it was mentally exhausting to do too many things at once. I doubt I could have managed any of it pre-System.

  Which brings me to the last thing I absolutely have to do before setting out. Besides having cake for lunch. Shut up I had some jerky too. And if there were enough mushrooms I’d add that to my diet. I didn’t even realize those mushrooms were edible at the time. Yum yum fried mushroom in rabbit fat. I salivated just thinking about it. Who doesn’t love mushrooms? They’re the best. Anyway, after some lunch and cartoons in my tent (since it was partially charged) it was time for the last thing I needed to do before traveling and getting stronger.

  Gravity magic was hard. Imagine that there are all these lines. Like millions and billions and just a stupid amount of lines. And they made little bitty, too little to see squares and they were everywhere. But the squares weren’t exactly even, closer to the ground they got smaller and in the sky they got bigger. But you can’t actually see any of that and you can only kind of feel it with your mana. So you figure all that out and then you have to take your mana and squeeze the lines together where you want gravity to go.

  On the plus side I was standing sideways on a tree. If I moved even a little I would start sliding then fall out of my gravity lines and hit the ground. Which was only a few feet away. I had learned that lesson super fast, do not practice in the air. The point was that I was starting to get the hang of it. Unfortunately it had taken me all day so at best I’d be traveling the next morning. I was already exhausted but I didn’t want a repeat of waking up at like two or three in the morning. Why doesn’t the System tell me what time it is? (And it doesn’t, I checked) . Toilet paper, comb, toothbrush and a watch. I didn’t put those on my list because it would just make me sad every time I saw it.

  Giving up on walking up the tree I started Mana Walking around again this time just trying to make myself heavier. This was actually easier than expected. Because I was good at mana manipulation and what I needed to do was close to me I could kind of automate the gravity magic. I created what was kind of a funnel below my feet except it pulled from every direction around me on a flat plane (thank you geometry homework). The end result was that I would lose a single mana every four or five steps. That wasn’t going to work.

  The feeling of being heavier was weird. It was like that first day traipsing around and everything hurt and I just wanted to go in the tent and sleep. Except I had plenty of energy. It was kind of like being sick, where just walking around took a little extra effort. This was a good starting point, making basic things a little more difficult again. I knew what I had to do. Somehow I had to pull in more ambient mana and actively refill my mana while I was walking on mana and making myself heavier. I’m tired just thinking about it.

  Standing perfectly still, altering my weight I started trying to pull in mana. And immediately lost my gravity funnel. OK try this again, same thing. I have to rethink what I’m doing. Simplify. Maybe the funnel should be pulling in mana that I use to make myself heavy. Or. OR maybe the funnel can pull in space mana automatically making me heavier and taking less of mine. I’m not sure that even made sense. OK forget the Mana Walking for a minute. I’ve been working on this stupid thing all day, I have to get this. Mana funnel and ugh this is frustrating.

  Time to take a little break. Maybe the archive will have something to help me? Multitasking is largely a myth? Wait so basically you can do multiple things at once but your brain is just switching back and forth between them. There are some low level tasks that can become muscle memory but for anything requiring real concentration this is basically impossible. I bet there’s a skill for it but goddess help me I don’t want to know how long that would take to get.

  Now there’s an idea. Since I’m taking a break I do some research on sympathetic and ritual magic. Mostly light reading but I had seen a little about it when I looked up Hecate. I need to remember to do some Fae research too but not right now. Walking back up to my hideout I step inside. Leaving the door open I reach inside my back pack and get the blue chalk. From my reading the point of ritualistic magic was to make “workings” as easy as possible. The more you add to the ritual directly related to the task at hand the better. On the other hand, adding stuff not related could make it fail. I’m not even a novice at this point, so the simpler the better. I draw a magic circle which has an inside and an outside circle. I look at some runes and other alphabets but I’m going to need more research before I start doing this for real. Keep it simple, what do I have that I can connect to Hecate? Well I am her disciple, so maybe me? I check the archive one more time for stuff related to her. Wolves and crows, I’m starting to wonder if I’m lucky or my patronesses are actively helping me. Time to do something gross. I get an eye from the wolf and hold it my right hand, making a little mana knife on my index finger I cut my left palm. OW. I transfer the eye to my left hand and get ready. Mana Walking on. Mana funnel working. Here goes, “Hecate, with the blood of your disciple, and an offering of this eye, help my magic see the way!” I cringe a little at how goofy it sounds as I squeeze the eye into pulp (ew) but start trying to pull in mana at the same time and

  *DING*

  It worked, no way! What’s this?

  Basic Burden of Atlas

  Ugh, get off of me. Increase the weight of a target. Weight increase based on mana investment. Upgradeable.

  Oooh I did it! I made a branching skill! It only took me uh. Hmmm When did it get dark outside? I’m tired but determined to test this first. I turn on the new skill and start walking around. No mana loss, I direct a little more mana towards it and it starts to feel like trying to walk through snow and my mana ticks down a little. I loosen up until it’s back to no mana loss. I release a little blob of about 5 mana. I’m not recovering mana. Just a little less and I’m recovering a mana per second. That means I can recover all my mana in about 4 minutes like this. These skills are self sustaining unless I mess with them so leaving them on I should see if I can get mana back quicker on purpose. Err, improve manual mana recovery. I add more mana to Burden of Atlas until my mana starts ticking down. The System will take care of that now so all I have to do is try to draw in mana. It gets easier every time, gathering mana from outside my body and making it mine. I guess since this is just part of how the System works it may not make a skill. I should check in five levels. Writing that in my notebook.

  A big yawn catches me off guard, no way I’m heading out today. I put all my stuff away and step into my treehouse. Check my tent zipper and it’s fully charged. If this isn’t the way to end a day I don’t know what is. I don’t even eat dinner, just fall face first into bed. I’m practically asleep before I hit the pillows.

  …..

  The woods are lovely, dark and deep. Those words echo in my head as I wander beneath the trees in the scant moonlight. My feet make a slight rustle on pine needles and dried leaves as I playfully spin around a flow through the dense bush. I spot a cave ahead and take off like a shot for it. “I’ve been looking for you!” I say excitedly. Finally I can have my cave hideaway.

  “We’ve been looking for you too,” replies a voice behind me.

  “Oh, have you now,” says I. I turn to find a wolf. No, a dog. Something in between? It’s snout is small and something tickles in the back of my brain but it can’t get out. “And whooooo are you?” I draw out.

  “Just a Coyote,” it says. “Come to play with the goddaughter of Morrigan.”

  “Disciple of Hecate,” came a deep voice from the cave.

  “Foundling of the gods,” says an old kindly voice from the dark.

  “Are you three people or do you have three voices?” I ask, wisely.

  Something scurries from the cave and I turn to see a spider easily twice my size. It’s big and hairy and fast but I’m not scared at all. Luckily spiders don’t scare me. I turn again to see an old woman shuffle out from the darkness. Covered in a shawl and leaning on a cane she comes closer.

  “I’ll make you a bet,” says the Coyote.

  “I’ll show you a trick,” says the old woman.

  “I’ll spin you a story,” says the spider.

  “But who are you?” I ask in wonder.

  “Mahee,” says the Coyote.

  “Thokk,” says the woman.

  “Anansi Kokuroku,” says the spider.

  “Are you friends?” I wonder.

  “We can be your best friends,” Mahee replies.

  “We can make you strong,” says Throkk.

  “You can become a myth,” says Anasi Kokuroku.

  “What do you want?” I ask.

  “I bet you can’t kill the snake,” Mahee says.

  “What a trick to take its egg,” says Thokk.

  “Will it end your story?” says Anansi Kokuruoku.

  “What snake?” I say dumbly. Suddenly I realize where I am, the very edge of where I’ve traveled, but I don’t remember the cave. Actually I would have been on the other side of the cave when I was here. Why am I here though?

  CAW!

  “The rooster crows, it’s time to leave,” says Mahee.

  Wait a minute, that’s not Roost…

  …..

  I sit up in bed with a cold sweat. What was that dream about? I try to hold onto it but it’s slippery. A coyote and a spider and an old woman want me to kill a snake? Was that a message from Hecate or Morrigan maybe? I was really tired and I had a long day but I don’t know where spiders and snakes come into that. Why don’t my stats seem to help me remember dreams. Something deep in my chest tightened as I tried to hold on to the whole dream but mostly I just remembered where I was. That cave and place seemed so real. It was actually near the mushrooms so it wouldn’t be that hard to just go check it out.

  Trying to shrug the uneasy feeling off I get up and check the tent (7%). Enough to eat some breakfast unless I get caught up reading or watching stuff. Not worth randomly getting dumped out in the middle of something. I pack my stuff, tie my hair and step out in the tree house. Sitting down I pull out some jerky, my stomach isn’t ready for sugar right now. What to watch? Actually maybe I should do some homework since I kind of skipped last night. Time to learn about the Fae!

  If anything I come away more confused. Morrigan seems to come from Irish traditions, but of course she’s much older than that so I try to take that with a grain of salt. That’s not even what confuses me. The Fae seems to be a world wide phenomenon. The weirdest part is how diverse they are. It’s not like someone said oh these cultures all have pixies, little people with wings. No, it like, here’s a water horse that drowns people, a fox with too many tails, a forest man with backwards feet, elves, dwarves, gnomes, and a bunch of other weird things and they’re all fairies. Except that’s a bad term so they’re all Fae.

  Even crazier is I figured out what the weird writing in Morrigan’s spell was. Well ok not exactly what it means but it’s germanic runes. Why is an Irish goddess of Fae trying to get me to summon German Fae? Or are all Fae just under the same kingdoms? That can’t be, she said she’s a queen of fairy and there are other courts. I looked into that as well and she seems to be in the unseelie court. I actually added some fiction about that to my list for later, it looks kind of interesting. But the unseelie court sounds scary. Morrigan actually sounds kind of scary, not that I would tell her that. She’s a goddess of fate and death and war. I’m trying to take that as things that have to exist and have to have a god attached to it, not as her being bad. I add some fiction to my list that seems to show her as a hero.

  Morrigan is kind of the opposite of Hecate. The few places I ran across Hecate in fiction she’s kind of made out to be a villain. In mythology though she’s totally nice and helpful to witches as well as other people. She helps overthrow the Titans and help heroes. Morrigan is kind of a hero to the Tuatha De Danaan but her showing up usually means someone is going to die. Well now that I think about it wolves died because she showed up. I guess she picked me to win that battle! I think I’m getting what Morrigan wanted though. An overview of important names and connections. There are a lot of myths though, like a lot a lot. I wonder how many of them are still here though?

  Breakfast eaten and homework done for now I set out. Mana Walking on Basic Burden of Atlas on, not high enough to drain mana though. I don’t know what my limitations with this will be so I might as well start off light. As I walk I shoot off a firecracker every now and then and erect a shield for target practice. No wasting time for me!

  I stop after an hour. I’m not too tired or anything but I’m on alert. The once mostly empty forest is looking a lot less empty. Birds, that used to stay mostly at the top of trees and flew above it, are flying under the lowest branches now. I see several insects, centipedes, a lady bug, and a couple of different sized ants. I keep walking in the air, about halfway up the tree cover. I don’t stop as everything so far is below level 20. A worm the size of one of those inflatable flapping things at car lots pops out of the ground and slams into one of the ants. At level 17 it’s one of the highest level animals I’ve seen today. How in the world does a worm get that high level? I have got to ask someone about how animals level up. You know, when I see someone again.

  The lucky thing is that I pass several hawthorne bushes in just a few hours so getting some berries should be easy right? Kind of. Almost none of them are ripe and when I stop for lunch the archive tells me they won’t be until later in the month or next month. I still grab a red one here and there when I see them but so far I only have 3 out of 12 bushes. I’m definitely feeling the burn as my muscles ache when I get up from lunch. I’m tempted to go the rest of the way without the extra weight but momma didn’t raise no quitter. She didn’t ether, if Benji or me said we would do something we had to do it. Period. I said I’d paint our fence. It was big fence too, 6 feet tall and 30 feet long. Daddy tried to talk me out of it, Benji said he’d help, but no I was going to paint it. Why? Because momma read me Tom Sawyer and in an unproud moment I misunderstood the trick and thought painting fences was fun.

  It took me the better part of three weeks and I had blisters on my hands. I had a little step ladder I carried around and I think I spilt more paint the first week than I got on the fence. Mom wouldn’t let me quit though. She said this was a great way to learn about consequences and a little bit of work never hurt anyone. Tell my hands that! Regardless I kept my skills running. I think she would have been proud. It would be better if I thought of this as my new normal anyway. Onwards!

  Thirty minutes later and I finally see something worth stopping for. At first I think I just got super lucky. There’s a massive brown furry animal curled up on the ground and I can feel the mana from it even up here. I need a bear for its fat, also because you can apparently make good burgers if I can make a construct that grounds meat. I inspect it to have my hopes both dashed and raised.

  Level 20 Groundgroundhog

  No, the system didn’t stutter. Pretty sure that means this thing uses earth magic. I’m really hoping this isn’t a rock paper scissors situation, because no way am I passing up experience after the visit from my godmother. Gross, I hated that I just thought that. That’s a living creature down there and I’m going to murder it to get stronger. I hope it tastes good. Oh my goddess, what is wrong with me? Stop it Marie.

  I shoot a couple of firecrackers around it to set up a perimeter. It’s still sleeping or at least laying still, might as well make this easy street. A couple of minutes later and I have three blasters up and my mana is quickly coming back. Morrigan said that water wolf could survive several blasts so let’s hit it with a bunch off the bat. I turn off Burden of Atlas, I’m barely used to it so no way am I going to try and fight with it on. I’m not stupid.

  OK I figure this is going to cost me 60 mana per remote canon and 40 from the one attached to me. That leaves me with 2 mana so I don’t fall out of the sky. I’m far enough away I’m not worried about this thing charging me like that vole. If it does I should have plenty of time to get away and recharge. OK get ready.

  My mana drains as four shells fire at the hapless groundhog. The ground swells and surrounds it right before they hit. What? How did it know? I hear a loud angry whistling as the shells explode into electricity and dirt goes flying. Not completely useless then, it sounds hurt. The sound changes and becomes erratic. That’s when I notice the rocks flying at me.

  Oh shit. I don’t have enough mana for a shield.

  I try to duck around the tree and one of the rocks clips my shoulder. Mana Walking doesn’t work if I’m not upright and I fall immediately. Quick thinking has me turn it off and try to grab a tree limb with my mana. It kind of works and I wing into another limb stomach first. It knocks the breath right out of me but I manage to grab on an pull myself up struggling to catch my breath. Never use all my mana, never ever use all my mana. It’s slowly building back up but the groundhog is doing something unexpected. It’s running up the tree while throwing rocks. It looks horrifying. It’s covered in burns, one side of its face just destroyed. No ear or eye and skull clear as day. I have maybe five seconds before it makes it to me.

  I finally have enough mana after a few seconds to make a shield and hold it in front of me. So it has to go through it. It goes around the tree and out of my sight. OK, think Marie. Come on. It appears above me a few seconds later on a different branch and jumps towards me. Hecate take the wheel. I make a quick decision and cast Burden of Atlas on it mid jump with all my remaining mana. What did I just say? I start to scold myself but to my surprise it works. I swear it has the same surprised look I had when it used that earth shield before it plummets to the ground and maybe I don’t need a meat grinder after all.

  *DING*

  Level 20 Groundgroundhog defeated

  Experience rewarded.

  My heart is trying to beat out of my chest. That was so close. I actually beat something without shocking myself though, so that’s nice. That rock took an entire third of my health though. I have got to stop getting hit. And how did the stupid thing know I was attacking anyway? Wait, early warning skill. I better add that to the list before I forget again. I spent all day yesterday messing with mana and skills and somehow forgot to put that on the list? Why brain? I memorized times tables up to 100 in an hour. I could recite it easily but remembering I need a way to know when danger was coming just slipped my mind. Stupid. No stop, I won didn’t I. I didn’t even get a level up or anything for it but I won. I sat on the limb and rested. My health ticked back super slow. 3 HP every 10 minutes. I hadn’t really calculated it before since I could just go sleep but I recover health so slow. I shouldn’t fight anymore until it’s healed if I can help it. I absolutely have to stop getting hit though.

  The rest of my walk isn’t as much fun. I keep my word and turn Burden of Atlas back on myself. I don’t butcher the groundhog, I’m worried something will try to get me if I do and I want to finish my journey today. I can’t calm down. That was way too close. I'm getting full of myself. I feel like I’m failing every day. I made a list and I just broke the rules on it. In fact I basically threw the rules out the window as soon as Morrigan showed up. I have to take responsibility and keep my agency. This is my story, not theirs, even if they do help me. Maybe I could have trapped the groundhog in shields and blasted away. I have to start thinking about defense, my offense is clearly fine.

  Stop spiraling. I kind of hate that I even know what that means. I try to keep out of my head and focus on walking the rest of the way to the nearest outpost near the mushrooms I’m after. I don’t even intend to get them today, just get to the area. I start jogging as fast as I dare trying to keep myself completely focused. I can’t be distracted out here. Just because I’ve been able to surprise a few enemies doesn’t mean the same can’t happen to me. Especially considering I still don’t have a skill to warn me about danger. That has to be a priority soon. My jog becomes something of a loping run. As long as my steps are even and I keep my breathing steady I’m stable. Before that fight I might have enjoyed this but it’s almost like I’m punishing myself at this point. Not much further now.

  *DING*

  Strength +1

  Dexterity +1

  I almost forgot I was trying to do that. I breathe in and it’s like a weight lifted off my chest. You know what? I’m still alive. I made some mistakes but I’m owning them and I know I can do better. Besides I beat that stupid groundhog didn’t I? And I’m finally here, the cave in my dreams is just over the hill and I’ve got like half the stuff I need for Morrigan. You can’t keep me down System! I’m Marie, hear me roar! Of course I don’t actually roar, that would be silly. But the roar in my head is super powerful.

  I see movement on the ground and for a second I swear I see some kind of dog or something run around the hill. I follow in the air but lose sight of whatever it was. And there it is, an actual cave. How in the world did I miss that? My hideout is maybe a 10 minute walk from here. No way am I going in but I walk around so I can see as far into the cave as possible. What an odd looking rock laying in there, it’s like a little stage with points raised on either side.. That’s not a rock. What is that? Identify.

  Level 32 Poor Unblessed Ouroboros

  That’s a head.

  That’s a HEAD?!

  Shit.