There was no reason to think that things wouldn’t be worse in the forest. In fact, one thing would almost certainly be worse: there probably weren’t any safe zones in the forest, at the top of convenient stone steps. So yeah, I definitely needed to get stronger. Much stronger. Except I wasn’t even strong enough to do that. Which left what?

Not much, so I looked again at the statues.

The largest one was eroded into a featureless blob beneath the vines with the orange flowers, but the others were pretty well-preserved. Two of them looked pretty human, except with horns. And the one with an open mouth had sharp teeth. So, like demonic humans. I peered closer ...

INTUIT: A worn statue depicting an Infenti.

Oh, sure, an ‘Infenti.’ What was that, an infuriated panini? An infant gemini? I took a breath and focused. Still feeling pretty shaky, making bad jokes in my head. When I looked closer, the statue I’d initially taken for a lobster actually looked more like a humanoid crab, with one claw-arm and one human arm, and a disk-like head. Well, a sort of rippling frisbee of a head.

Or ... a clamshell of a head. Yeah, that made more sense.

According to Intuit, it was ‘a worn statue of a Crachen.’

On closer inspection, the hippo-looking statue looked more like a short-trunked elephant-person. Muscular as hell. Big ears, big nose. Tusks. An ‘Olifarn,’ according to Intuit.

Then there was a skinny ‘Traguld’ that looked like a goblin with a skin condition, a Human woman with an easel, and a sort of lizard-ostrich called a Strider.

“What’s wrong with elves and dwarves?” I asked the statues. “C’mon, give me some traditional fantasy races here. And how come there’s twice as many Infenti as the rest?”

The only answer was my stomach grumbling. So I withdrew a rahico fruit from my domain and studied it.

INTUIT: A rahico fruit. Edible for all races except Traguld.

Traguld? Okay, so the skinny goblins with the angular faces couldn’t eat banapple. But I could. So I did. I stuffed my face with the rahico, then ate two more. Then I lay on my back and looked at the sky and tried to pretend I wasn’t in pain. I tried to pretend everything would be okay, somehow.

I didn’t succeed, but after a time, I limped to the edge of the stone platform. I scanned the area and didn’t see any spiders. So what? I didn’t have anywhere to go anyway. Not until I got hungry enough to risk my life for more fruit.

“Clean the courtyard?” I told the air. “Fuck you.”

QUEST: Depart the safety of the stone steps to explore and clear the courtyard.

“What?” I snarled.

QUEST: Depart the safety of the stone steps to explore and clear the courtyard.

“Clear the courtyard? That’s what you said? Clear?”

No response.

“What the hell does that mean?” I asked, even though I knew exactly what it meant. It meant that I was supposed to kill all the monsters in the courtyard. The thornspiders and ... and anything else lurking in the darkness.

“With a fucking branch?” I demanded.

No response, of course.

I cursed for a while, then I searched the platform and the statues for ... I didn’t know what. For secret compartments. For a magic sword. Hell, a used goddam blanket would’ve been nice.

After I found nothing, I leaned against a demon-looking Infenti statue and gazed at the pond. It was serene now, reflecting the blue sky. A thornspider climbed through the distant branches, then disappeared. The water rippled and the reeds swayed.

With a thought, I summoned my sheet.

Alex Levin

Anomaly

Level 1, Wax Tier

Archmage Status

Boons:

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Domain (1/5)

Intuit (1/5)

Support (1/5)

Treasure (1/5)

Gems:

Smoke

Attributes

Strength: 6

Agility: 12

Fortitude: 5

Dexterity: 15

Alertness: 10

Speed: 8

Spirit: 9

Design: 14

Derived

Health: 15/21

Mana: 19

Craft: 14

Movement: 9

Available points: 1

Oh! Shit. That was a lot. Still, apparently I needed to think about all that shit if I wanted to survive. I couldn’t just pretend everything would go back to normal if I looked away.

So, first thing: I sure as hell didn’t feel like an archmage. I felt like a chew toy.

At least Boons seemed a little clearer now.

Domain was Inventory.

Intuit was Identify.

Treasure was Loot.

And Support? No idea. Well, on second thought, Support could’ve been the sheet itself, giving me information, or the quests. Yeah, the quests made sense. Unless those were a default function of ... the world or something? Okay, on third thought: still no idea about Support.

‘Smoke’ being listed under Gems made more sense. I mean, I’d already figured that I’d dissolved that gem in the Temple of the Smokey Smokers, so fine. I’d implanted a smoke gem. Go me. The gem didn’t seem to do anything, but at least the concept wasn’t confusing.

The attributes were pretty clear, too, except for a few things.

“Six strength?” I asked the sky. “Give me a break.”

I wasn’t a powerlifter but I was strong enough. I wasn’t huge but I wasn’t small either. I was six feet, one-eighty. I was definitely a little stronger than average. At least, I wasn’t weaker than average.

“Six out of how many?” I asked.

Then I looked at the sheet again. My highest number was a fifteen in Dexterity. That didn’t make sense either. I wasn’t clumsy, but I wasn’t exactly gifted with fiddly things like handwriting or sewing. No better than average, at least. I was definitely stronger than I was dextrous, not the reverse.

“So if fifteen isn’t ‘awesome,’ how high is the scale?” I watched a cloud drift across the sky. “And what the hell is ‘Design?’ I’ve got a fourteen in design? What’m I, an interior decorator?”

Still, at least I had that one available point. I could improve myself. I didn’t know how to assign it, though. And I wasn’t sure how much improvement mattered. Would a bigger domain help? More treasure? A tiny bit more strength or speed?

No, I was too fucked for that. I was too fucked for anything.

Unless I invested that point into Fortitude, because my Fortitude sucked. It was my lowest score. What the hell? I wasn’t frail or weak! If anything, I was in rude good health.

Still a point there might help, so I focused on that for a minute, and nothing happened. Okay, I’d clearly missed something. Like a weapons rack or an instruction manual. I didn’t know how any of this worked, and those thornspiders were too tough to kill with a glorified walking stick.

I looked at the ‘foam bead’ in my domain. I’d never touched the dead spider’s body, much less the bead. I’d simply ‘looted’ it directly into my inventory. So what happened if I withdrew it? Where would it appear?

I turned my un-injured hand upward and called forth the bead.

It appeared in the center of my palm, just where I wanted. Huh. It was a white bead that reminded me of a boba. Shiny, round, and faintly squishy. Less squishy than a boba, though.

INTUIT: A foam bead. Combine approximately 12-13 foam beads to assemble a pearl bead.

Oh. Hadn’t the other notification said something about pearl bead casting a minor heal? Yeah, for those with gems. Which I had. If that was true, then I just needed to kill a dozen more juvenile thornspiders and I’d earn a bandaid.

Yay.

So what I did next was try to rest and heal. Try to center myself in this new, terrible reality. And try to stagger quickly through the first four stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, and depression.

The following morning, my arm throbbed, my calf throbbed, and I ate the rest of the fruit. I ventured off the shrine early in the afternoon. I washed my cuts in the pond then grabbed a stick that looked strong but immediately crumbled in my hand.

Shit.

I didn’t see any thornspiders, but I still fled back to the shrine like a timid mouse.

A few hours later, after watching for multi-legged motion, I slunk from the shrine again. I grabbed a length of thick moss that Intuit called ‘waterspoon moss.’ It was a carpet of green that lay between two tree roots, and to my surprise it peeled free like sod. So I domained a second length then limped back to the shrine.

I still didn’t see any thornspiders, which proved that being a timid mouse worked.

That night I lay down on a mat of moss, beneath with a spongy blanket of moss. With dry clothes and a crude blanket, I actually slept for much of the night.

The day after that, I felt a little better. Less weak and feverish and fragile. I gathered more moss to bulk up my blanket then drank from the pond and domained a handful of rocks. I spotted thornspiders twice, in the distance, and wondered if I could make an makeshift sling.

I took an inventory. Sneakers and socks, both filthy. Underwear. Pants, with bloody holes. Empty pockets. No phone, no wallet. So much for killing monster spiders with my library card. I was wearing a T-shirt with a picture of Milbert Moose, which my niece had given me for my birthday, because she loved Milbert and didn’t understand gifts. In her defense, she was six.

Above the T-shirt, I was wearing long-sleeved shirt that I’d thrown on because it had been chilly the night I went to buy the six-pack. That was the closest I had to sling material. I could tear a sleeve off the outer shirt and ... and what? I’d barely injured a juvenile thornspider with a bat to the face. I wasn’t going to master sling-craft fast enough to hurt the adults, not using a shirt sleeve and random rocks and zero training.

When I checked my sheet, my Health had dropped a point. From infection, probably. Or from open wounds and sleeping outside and about seven tons of emotional trauma. Considering that I felt a little better, I’d kind of expected that I’d healed from rest--like in games--but maybe that wasn’t how this world worked.

I sighed and watched the ancient forest through the smoky gate, and started getting hungry. Hm. Pretty soon I’d need to run for the temple veranda steps, and then from there to the orchard. If I got lucky, I’d find another branch--or a proper weapon. Even without a weapon, I needed food.

I could last a week or two on water alone, but that would be stupid. And probably suicidal. I needed to move before I got weak from hunger.

And before my calf got worse.

So I closed my eyes. I breathed myself calm. I opened my eyes and I planned my route. I moved to the side of the shrine ... then back to the center, where I filled my domain with my moss. Whatever happened, I wanted a mattress and blanket.

Then I moved back to the side of the shrine again, and watched for thornspiders. When I didn’t see any, I stepped down the stairs, moving as slowly as a hunting cat. One step, then another. Staying low and slow. Pain pounded in my leg with every heartbeat. My arm burned. Something was still wrong with my back but I ignored everything except my goal.

And I caught a glimpse of movement to the side.

I spun but didn’t see any spiders. There was nothing in that direction but the fence in the gate. Maybe the drifting smoke had caught my eye.

Then I said, “Whoa.”

Because the movement I’d seen was happening past the gates, in the forest beyond.