As Victoria walked through the Dire-fort, searching for the Seamstress place, she realized that she had made a mistake. With all that happened, no one would say anything about it, they wouldn't even blame her, but she herself certainly would.

Looking down at her body, she realized that she looked awful. Well, not awful by other people's standards, but she was not in a state she wanted to be in when she had to introduce herself to her new workplace, even if only temporary.

Her shoes, well, they were still the most appropriate part of her outfit. The soft brown glow may be a bit strange, but you wouldn't even notice it if you didn't look closely. And despite being made from stone, they were almost black and had a curious finish somewhere between matte and luster.

Her dark blue shorts were definitely inappropriate, but she couldn't do anything about that. At least, they showed off her long legs.

Then, there was the oversized T-shirt, white with a print on the front. This part was a problem. If it had been any other T-shirt, all would have been good. But it just had to be her dedicated relaxation T-shirt. An old thing that already had several holes and the print had flaked off at several places.

Since she couldn't magically create clothes, at least not yet, more or different really weren't choices she had. With the only option left being less, she bunched up the shirt until close under her chest, pulled it to the side, and made a knot to hold it there. Hiding the T-shirt in plain sight while showing off her tight stomach and her double-D's.

Overall, her style had turned a bit promiscuous, which wasn't really to Victoria's preference, but she had never been ashamed to show off the results of her hard work, and her body definitely belonged in that category. Well, her chest aside, that one she could only thank her mother for.

Which reminded her, maybe she would never meet her parents again. But they knew that she could take care of herself. Rather, she was more worried about them. As long as she stayed alive, she may just meet them again someday. There wasn't much she could do about it, at the very least, not now.

Finally, she used her fingers to comb her straight black hair until it fell in a single smooth wave down to the small of her back. Looking at her hair made her a little bit sad. Just like with everything else, she had put a lot of work into it, but looking at the current state of things, it may get difficult to maintain this length.

Earned Skill:

Styling: Clothes

Earned Skill:

Styling: Hair

Or, maybe not. Wait! Daniel had said something about a threshold for earning skills. Did that mean that her casually styling herself was already at such a high level? Somehow she didn't think that styling yourself casually once would get you the skills normally, not even with a high multiplier. Victoria couldn't help but be pleased with herself.

Just as Victoria finishes, she finally sees the sign with the needle and yarn.

She takes a quick breath and then opens the door. A small bell rings while she enters the room, closing the door behind her. The room is quite small, with an empty fireplace to her left and an almost empty shelf to her right, there is not much space left for the small counter, the door behind it leading to the most important part of the shop.

Through that door, a wrinkly, old woman with a head full of silver hair enters the room hands behind her back. Instantly overwhelming the room with her presence as she gives Victoria a once over with strict eyes.

"Well, well. You are definitely right here. You seem to be in desperate need of some clothes lassie."

"Ahem. My name is Victoria, Garry, the guard, told me I should introduce myself." Calling people by their name was a bit of a psychological trick, that would make her look like she cared about them, improving the image others had of her. Though in this case, she somehow had the feeling that it wouldn't work so well on this old woman.

"I see. Can you sew?"

"Yes. And my cla..."

"Machine or needle?", the old woman interrupts her.

"Both.",

"My name is Margaret. Or call me Grandma Meg. Come in the back, I want to see how good you are."

"You... Don't care about my class?"

"Pah!", the old woman scoffs: "Classes and Skills are all you youngsters care about nowadays! I have been sewing clothes by hand my entire life and got that damn sewing Skill the first time I touched a needle in this place and it didn't change anything! I say, in front of true ability, none of those stupid Skills and talents are worth anything!"

"May I ask what your class is, Grandma Meg?", Victoria asks, feeling a bit daring.

"Mmmh. Something called Empath, whatever the hell that's supposed to be. And before you ask, this thing says my talent is overwhelming presence. No idea what it means with that."

"As I thought..."

"What?", Margaret asks.

"Ah. I think these talents are artificial abilities based on and named after our natural talents. Mine for example is called Learning, and well, I learn quickly."

"Interesting. But how exactly does that matter?"

"Well, my friend is the Hero of this city, but his talent is... different from what it should be, and he isn't making use of his natural talent either. So I was wondering if there was a connection."

"Good for you. Now sit down over there, I want to see your stitches. If you are slow or get blood on the cloth, consider yourself fired."

Victoria quickly sat down on the chair Margaret was pointing at and took the trousers that were lying on the table in front of her to take a look at them. She quickly noticed that one leg was only half-finished.

Looking closer at the seam, to determine how she had to continue, she noticed how intricate and precise that old woman's work was, something she might be able to copy but not at a speed that would allow her to make anything in a reasonable amount of time. Seeing that, Victoria thought that maybe, Grandma Meg had meant it literally when she said she got the sewing skill just by touching a needle.

As she picked up the needle, she noticed something else: "Bone? You are using bone needles?"

"It's the best we have. Sure, a blacksmith could make metal ones, but which one would do that if they could instead make weapons and armor? Those definitely sell better. Now, get your hands moving!"

Not thinking about it any further, Victora gave the seam another once over and began continuing with the same stitching pattern that had been used for the rest of the seam.

Earned Skill:

Needlework: Sewing

The first few stitches took her a while to get them precisely, but she got a little quicker with every stitch she did, quickly finishing the last centimeter of the seam, leveling her sewing skill to level three in the process.

While she was working Grandma Meg was looming over her, looking over her shoulder. When she finished, the old lady took her work out of her hands, inspecting it.

Stolen novel; please report.

"Well, well. Better than I expected. Doubt I'm going to find someone better than you. Go to the barracks and get your supplies, you are moving in with me here. We've got a lot of work to do, no use wasting time running back and forth every day."

"Okay, I'll be back in a bit.", Victoria answered, already standing back up.

There was really no use arguing here. From the size of the house, she could tell that there was a good chance she would get her own room, instead of sleeping with everyone else in the barracks, and she quite liked this grandma's no-nonsense attitude.

Also, she doubted that everyone in the fort would eat the same food. And if someone got better food than everyone else, it would definitely be the settlers.

Sure, she could probably get the same stuff by putting in hard work, something she always did, but Victoria didn't have a problem with getting a headstart either.

----------------------------------------

When Victora left the shop, she realized that it had taken her longer than she had thought. The sun was about to sink beneath the horizon and it was getting cooler. Thinking about it, she was lucky that the weather had been good. She didn't want to think about it, even with Daniel, tracking through the forest while it rained would have been a horror. Or if it had been winter.

Suppressing a shudder at the fresh air, she quickly made her way over to the barrack. Entering through the large front door, she came into a small reception area where a middle-aged, balding man was sitting behind a table, brooding over a stack of paper with a feather in his hand.

"Excuse me?", Victoria made her presence known.

"Hmm? Who are ya, miss? You're new, right?"

"My name is Victoria Bright, I arrived... Maybe two hours ago? Grandma Meg, the seamstress, told me I could get supplies here."

"Boris Smith, I'm the quartermaster here. Pleasure to meet ya. Just take one of the bags behind me, you need a room, right?"

"Grandma Meg said I should stay with her. Right, could you do me a little favor, Mister Smith? The Hero is a friend of mine, if he comes here, could you tell him where I am?"

"Can do Miss. Friends with the Hero and even found a home already, eh? You're a lucky gal, pray and hope that extends to all of us once the wave hits."

Walking around the table, Victoria notices several burlap sacks and picks one at random.

"I will do my best to help, however little it may be. Good day sir.", she says her goodbyes and quickly makes her way back to the seamstress shop.

Once Victoria came back to the shop, food was already almost ready and only had to stew for a few minutes longer

While they ate, Grandma Meg told Victoria about all the strange new herbs that could be found since the first wave, which ones are poisonous and which ones aren't, ending the meal on a good note.

Once the plates had been cleaned, it was already dark outside and the old lady showed Victoria her room. It wasn't anything large, at all. The bed was narrow and short, both her head and feet were touching the ends of the bed and if she ever were to roll over in her sleep she would fall to the ground. But she had a room for herself and didn't have to sleep in a hammock, compared to what she had seen in the barracks, a gigantic improvement.

Else, there were only three other pieces of furniture and all in extra small. A table and chair, and a shelf. A wardrobe would have been great, but just opening the doors would have been an impossibility in this small room.

It wasn't much but she would work her way up. And while it seemed like all the infrastructure humanity had made use of had disappeared, the knowledge was still there, somewhere in someone's head. If she got to one of the other cities, one that was around for a bit longer already, the situation should improve by a lot.

Victoria thanked the old woman for taking her in and wished her a good night. Then, she opened her supplies packet, finding just the bare necessities inside. A shirt, a pair of trousers, two pairs of underpants, leather sandals, a piece of flint, a small steel knife, and a small bowl with a cord and a block of fat.

If she had to guess, the fat, bowl, and cord were probably meant to make herself a very rudimentary fat lamp, while the knife could do double duty for the flint and steel. Which she put all on the table.

She put the clothes, made from crude linen, into the shelf, lamenting the lack of a bra. There were few things that couldn't be achieved with all the hard work in the world but only through the help of tools, and those included a big chest and the shoulder pain that resulted from those. The only thing that could help was a bra, and while she still had the one she was wearing, it wouldn't hold forever. Also, there was a good reason that bras were made from especially soft cloth. Using one made from coarse linen, the only cloth they seemed to have in this area, would only chafe her skin and get painful quickly.

She closed the door, leaving the window-shutters open so that she had at least a little bit of light for what she was about to do, and sat down on the bed.

"Ahem!"

Startled, Victoria's head shoots around to the chair.

"Who... How? What did you do?", Victoria asks the child-god that had totally slipped her mind until now.

"Ah well, just a bit of telepathy. First I made you ignore me, and then I forced you not to think of me.", the boy explained.

"Very well. What do you want, Andrew?"

"My name is Homy!"

"Whatever, Andrew.", Victoria categorically refused to call someone by such a stupid name.

"Hey! Whatever, last time we got interrupted, but it's time we finish that talk."

"Yeah, no. Not today.", Victoria had the feeling that that talk would take quite a while. And she wanted to grill Andrew for answers in the process, and for that, she wanted to be awake.

"I'm going to try myself at using Aura, Psy, and Magic now, and then I'm going to sleep. If you want to talk we can do that tomorrow morning. Don't worry, I wake up early. We have more than enough time then.", normally, she was always respectful and polite to other people, but somehow, with this person, it didn't feel necessary.

"Ugh, fine, it's not a bad idea to do your power-breaking now. It usually is a bit violent and uses up all your energies after all.

Let's start with Aura. That little puppet wasn't entirely wrong with his explanation, but there is a better way to break your Aura free then lifting rocks. Good old push-ups. Now get down!"

Victoria was a bit annoyed at his commanding attitude, but if he wanted to help her, she would gladly accept.

She took off her High-heels, which was harder than she expected since they were quite the tight fit, and put them on the lowest board of the shelf.

Then, she started doing push-ups. Just like earlier in the day, she quickly noticed that her stamina and strength had taken a big hit from whatever had happened. Her arms grew tired a lot quicker than they had just the last morning, or what had been her last morning.

Her normal morning workout hadn't been anything too extreme, she didn't want to be all muscly after all, but five sets of ten never were a problem. And if she pushed it, two hundred were just barely possible. But now, things were already starting to get very difficult after just over eighty. At ninety, her arms were shaking and she could barely get them straight, and at ninety-five, she couldn't even get her body off the floor anymore. But she knew that she was supposed to break her limit, this was the point where she was supposed to continue despite being unable to.

So she pushed, and pushed, and something broke. With a snap, her arms straightened out, catapulting her body into the air at a speed that made her stand up and stumble backward two steps before she caught herself on the wall.

That had been a very interesting experience, and even more, a feat of explosive strength which should be impossible for a human ordinarily.

But once the adrenaline had subsided, she felt utterly exhausted. Not more than before she used her Aura, but the feeling went deeper, somehow. And her arms felt like noodles, she didn't think she would be able to lift them anymore.

"Good Job. Now let's get to magic. I can only really add two things. Sit down and try to shut out as many senses as you can. Makes it a bit easier. Also, don't try making anything fancy. Just a lump of mana and a clear picture of a small pebble is enough for now.", the child explained. Lost in thought, he looked out of the window before he continued: "Oh, right. There is something your friend failed to mention. The mana-construct outside your body has to stay connected with the mana inside your body. Then you imagine the specifics of your spell and finally activate it by cutting the connection. The order is important, or your spell will fail. "

She slowly dragged herself over to the table and sat down on the chair. Then, she closed her eyes, feeling into her own body. This one actually went a lot quicker than the Aura. After all, finding something that basically equated to an entirely new sense, is fairly obvious if you know what to look for, Victoria reasoned.

The next part, however, was a lot harder than it had been with Aura. Where it was easy to notice a new sense, walking with a completely new set of limbs was pretty hard. Just getting her mana to move at all, was something completely alien to her, and to make it worse, even if she did move it, the moment she lost control it returned directly into its natural flow.

It took her a quarter of an hour to finally get from the magical equivalent of flailing her arms around, to making a fist. One thing she noticed in the process, is that instead of taking out a static chunk of mana attached to a thread, it was a lot easier to have a small stream of mana break away from its natural flow, gather it in a small reservoir, and then make a second tether through which it flows right back into her system.

Feeling that, it felt a lot more natural to imagine a river of water instead of a stone. And so she did.

As soon as she tried to cut the tethers and activate the spell, two things happened at once. The mana that had previously slowly been flowing through her body, stirred up into a frenzy and within moments flowed into the spell.

At the same time, she felt as if someone had thrown a water balloon at her. She opened her eyes, wet from head to toe and shivering at the cold.

"Water? I said stone for a good reason, you know. Well, don't worry, it will disappear in a minute or so."

"It just felt more natural that way.", Victoria explained, suppressing a shiver.

"So you have water affinity, probably. Good to know."

"What does that mean? Does it prevent me from using certain spells?"

"No, but it makes certain things easier for you. For one, of course, water-spells are easier for you and spells with certain properties. Earth mages for example excel at making magical objects, like your shoes. They continue existing no matter what happens to the caster, feeding off a small reservoir of mana they have left behind.

Actually, if you want to keep them, you should be able to recharge them with a bit of practice.

Fire-mages are good at spells that feed on the mana in the air around us, making them good at large scale destruction at little cost.

And Water mages are the best at continuous spells, similar to an Earth-mage's magic objects, but less static and you are the reservoir yourself."

When the explanation finished, Victoria noticed that she was neither wet nor cold anymore... Well, not as cold. It was already getting a bit late. Instead, she was starting to feel sick, almost like a fever. Even if her mind was still surprisingly clear, combined with the exhaustion, she just wanted to go to sleep.

"Very well. Now Psy. What should I do?"

The god takes out a stone and places it on the windowsill before turning back to her.

"Simple. Move the stone with your mind. In the best scenario, away from you. You don't want to telekinetically shoot a rock in your face."

Victoria took a deep breath and concentrated. Concentrated on moving the rock away from her, with just the power of her thoughts. Nothing happened. She concentrated more. Still nothing. MORE. NOTHING!

Victoria felt like an idiot.

She took another, deep breath, and concentrated again, not just willing the rock away, but commanding it.

She heard a crack. The stone had disappeared.

Then came the headache.

Without wasting another second, she laid down on her bed feeling like absolute shit. Within seconds, she fell asleep.

The shadow of a small boy was the only one left in the room. He quickly closed the window, put the blanket over the girl, and then blinked out of existence.