The fire blazed merrily while fat dripped down from the roasting meat. It gave off a mouthwatering aroma that made Yuriko’s mouth water even more. She glanced back at her campfire, at the chunk of meat she skewered on a stick. She had several MiJin worth, most of it from the creature’s tail and stumpy legs.

The tail had been surprisingly fatty, at least compared to the leg. She’d spent most of the morning and half the afternoon butchering. Her combat knife had dulled. She used her Animus to strengthen it, of course, but the hide was just that tough. Still, once it was cleaned and dried, then it would make for an excellent tent. Unfortunately, her ineptness meant that she ruined at least half of the entire thing.

That said, this was the first time she’d butchered something this big and tanning hides was something she’d never done before either. All she knew about the practice was to have it dry out but for the other steps, she didn’t have a clue. She gave it her best anyway, rather than waste the hide by leaving it behind. At the very least, she managed to scrape off much of the muscle and fat that stuck to the skin.

As for preserving her meat, she just needed to put it into a container and write down the proper runescript lines to cool it down. There was more meat than she knew what to do with and she wasn’t even sure it was actually edible. It sure smelled like it though.

By mid-afternoon, she felt she’d cooked it long enough. She cut off a sliver and tossed it into her mouth.

“Tastes like chicken,” she observed. Which was to say, practically tasteless. Strange. “Ah, I should have kept the salt.” She clicked her tongue.

The smell of blood and roasted meat attracted quite a few scavengers. Canine creatures, wolves with mouths that unhinged like a snake’s jaw, lingered just beyond the small beach she found herself in. No other aquatic monster came, which meant that this thing was probably the area’s apex predator.

Yuriko had fended the wolves off by shooting her Plasma Lancet at their feet. She didn’t try to hit them and she doubted it would be effective either. They retreated back into the bushes, but she could still see their eyes glowing green with reflected light.

“What to do?”

She could build a temporary camp here, though she was too near the river. If it rained and the water flooded, she and her camp could get washed out. She also couldn’t drag off too much of the meat. While she could drag the carcass behind her by utilising Boost, she couldn’t use the technique for long. She could carry probably three hundred Jin with her, nearly a third of a MiJin, which meant she’d leave the rest to rot. Or to feed the scavengers.

She definitely needed the hide too, and it was at least a hundred Jins in weight. Of course, she could use it as an impromptu pack for the meat.

With a surprised blink, Yuriko realized she’d finished off the entire leg. She wiped the grease off her lips with her sleeve and proceeded to pick the choice cuts of marbled meat. Most of it she took from the tail. The leg meat was too lean, so she left it behind. Then she grabbed the hide, folded as much of it over and left, carrying her spoils over her head.

No sooner was she on her way than the pack of snake-wolves descended on the carcass, tearing off huge gobets of meat and growling at each other. Yuriko snorted in derision. She doubted that the pack could finish off the river lizard.

It was dusk by the time she got to the cove. On her way, she had to fend off more scavengers: another pack of snake-wolves, a flock of green birds that swooped down at her, and a large cat. With each one, she glared at them, focusing her Animus inside her eyes, radiating aggressive Intent. It worked and they left her alone.

Once she was back in her old campsite, she spread the hide on the sand and weighed it down with a few logs. For dinner, she cut a cube off the meat, stuck a stake through it and started roasting it. For the rest, she covered it with leaves and drew a circle on the sand. Then she spent the twilight hours drawing runescript on the sand. At the end of it, she channelled her Animus into the runescript, hissing in pain when it coursed fire through her veins. But it worked.

The air above the circle started to cool, and she hoped it was enough to preserve the meat. Well, all she had to do was feed the runescript Animus when it ran out, and it should work. She hoped.

With a sigh, she gathered water from the surf and proceeded to boil it away. She’d filled her melter canteen from the river and boiled it clean too. But the heat and humidity of the jungle had her sweating buckets. She’d finished off her supply on the trek back here.

With nothing further to do, Yuriko settled into a seated meditation pose and tried to envision her Anima. It felt as if someone stabbed her eyes.

“Urk! What in Chaos?”

Envisioning her facet was fine but her Anima was problematic? She chewed on her lower lip. A repercussion to the Chaos Sea? That was probably it. Now, she didn’t know what to do.

Anima Recovery? She could try that, but she didn’t know how much distilled Chaos she had. Without those motes, the technique's efficacy was questionable. Damien?

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“Damien!” She yelled, then cocked her head to listen to that old man’s voice in her mind. Nothing?

...wounded…

Yuriko’s eyes widened. She heard him! Except…

“What?”

… rest…sun…stay…

Rest in the sun? Stay put?

“Do you know where I...where we are?”

Yuriko waited for a few minutes but just as she thought she wouldn’t hear from him again…

Keep... ‘Avgi… Anima…

Afterwards, there was only silence.

“Keep Fri’Avgi in her Anima?”

Would that allow her wounded Anima to recover? She supposed she only survived because of him, so Damien should know what he was saying.

She attempted to envision her Anima again and since she knew to expect it, she managed to fight through the pain and succeed. What she saw catapulted her back into the physical.

“Fallen…” She swallowed the curse.

Her Anima was covered…no, filled with Chaos.

About a third was filled with the sickly green colour of Primordial Chaos. It covered her core and the greater part of her torso, with tendrils slithering down her limbs. No wonder she couldn’t unleash her Anima. No wonder she felt a burning sensation when tried using her Animus techniques!

It was a good thing she didn’t try to do more than Boost although maybe that was why it was spread all over her body instead of near her core. Cold sweat ran down her back.

That was more than enough for a case of Chaos poisoning, wasn’t it? Why was she still conscious? Fri’Avgi? Was her Anima Telum keeping her stable? What would Anima Recovery do for her then? Would it refine the Chaos? Burn it away? Or would it make things worse?

The strange thing was that other than when she used her techniques, she didn’t feel any of the symptoms of Chaos poisoning. So, maybe things weren’t as bad as they could be.

Well, did Damien mean rest by not using her Animus? How will she live through this? Well, she only got pain when she channelled to her Plasma Lancet. Since the Caster used the same pathways, undoubtedly, it would hurt to use too. Boost definitely did something but when she used Enhanced Sight, nothing untoward happened.

If she used her sword dance she’d also probably make things worse. No, no. The bigger question was how long it would take to cleanse?

Yuriko shook her head. She needed to act. She couldn’t just wait it out. It would be unbearable.

Settling herself, she started the pattern for Anima Recovery, using as little Animus as she could. At first, nothing happened. Then a soft warmth spread from her core to the rest of her. She feverishly continued, increasing the amount of Animus incrementally until the heat grew too much, then she pulled back to that boundary.

The scent of burning meat brought her out of her meditations. The skies were filled with the Chaos Stream’s hues, though they were still muted. She still couldn’t find the Moon, but perhaps it was hidden behind mountains.

Scrambling to her feet, she hurried to her campfire and found the bottom half of the meat charred black. The upper portion was still a nice brown, so she removed the stick from above the flames and carefully carved a sliver of meat to eat.

Her tummy growled as soon as the meat touched her tongue. She ate the rest of it, even the blackened portion. She just carved off the worst part and ate the meat underneath.

“I guess I should pay attention when cooking,” she chuckled ruefully. “Ah, I’m talking to myself again.” The words made her laugh and she couldn’t stop. “Oh, Ancestors!”

The next few days, she stayed at the cove. Her needs were met, there was abundant food, freshwater from distilling and the green fruits. The hot sun didn’t bother her at all, though the gritty sand flying into her eyes when the winds blew too strongly annoyed her.

Her meat stock dwindled at an alarming pace and it got more pungent as the days went by despite the amount of Animus she channelled into the runescript. Every now and then, the script distorted or she accidentally stepped on it. The cold field would waver and fizzle out then she’d have to spend about half an hour trying to find out what went wrong and repair it. Hence, by the third day, her hoard of meat had gone bad.

She buried the remains under a deep hole in the sand, some distance away from her camp. That did free her from staying by the cove though. The music of the waves crashing on the shore made her too lethargic. She already spent as much of her time using Anima Recovery.

After the meat went bad, she gathered more of the green fruits. Not all of the tall palm trees had fruits and she supposed she had a few more weeks’ supplies since she went through half a dozen a day.

“I need to find another place to call home,” Yuriko said to herself.

She did that on occasion. Well, every hour she talked to herself, just so she wouldn’t forget the sound of her own voice. The situation with the food, water, and shelter wasn’t that onerous. But the isolation, oh the isolation…

It was beginning to affect her thoughts.

Some days she just sat and stared at the waves. Others, she laughed to herself. One time she tried telling herself a joke and wept for laughing. Damien still hasn’t said anything, and she was sorely missing her bathtub.

The river lizard’s hide had become a tattered mess. Something was missing with her tanning process, not that she expected otherwise. Insects and crustaceans had picked at the underside and she didn’t notice until she saw the first hole. In her rage, she punched the sand under the hide, sending a plume of sand a dozen paces high. Well, she got crushed crabs for her efforts, utterly inedible.

She shed her forceweave jacket after the first day and her camisole. It was too hot. Her underclothing had become a sticky mess from her sweat, sand, and constant dips into the sea. She kept her panties, forceweave trousers, and her expensive forceweave breast band which preserved her modesty. Not that anyone was around to look. She kept her clothes in the backpack.

On her eighth day, which she marked on a tree, she noticed a considerable improvement in her Anima. The Chaos poisoning had receded to a cloud around her core.

That day, she cautiously unleashed her Anima, though she was ready to retract it as soon as she felt pain.

Golden flames rose from her skin and slowly expanded. She expected it to stop at three inches away from her skin, that was where it was at when she was at Rumiga.

The flames billowed out, further and further even as her eyes widened. It stopped at nine inches.

“How?”

It must be the exposure to the Chaos Sea! Her Anima had been strained past the breaking point, and Fri’Avgi kept her alive. She was unexpectedly close to Journeyman level. She shivered. Just a single inch left. Perhaps the Chaos left in her Anima would see her through.

For the first time since she washed up into this plane, Yuriko felt a little bit of hope. She was still far from reaching Knight, but she could become strong here.

She broke open a green fruit and slurped down the juice. More importantly, the fact that she could release her Anima probably meant she could use her Animus techniques again. She didn’t want to just wait. It was time to find out what was out there.