Waking up at an unknown time later to the sound of an explosion, I jumped to my feet. Locating my scythe, I slowly made my way to the cave entrance. I kept my back to the wall to make myself as small a target as possible. Once I could clearly see out the mouth of the cave, I spotted the corpse of another horned rabbit that had half of its face missing and a large portion of its fur burned away. The smell of burning hair filled my nostrils and I nearly began to gag as this was a new sight and smell to me. Taking a few deep breaths, I calmed myself down and inched closer to the body on the ground. Once I was nearly 10 paces away some more motes of light sprung from the body and leapt into my chest where once again, I felt that energizing sensation. With that as confirmation that the rabbit was dead I laxed my guard and stepped out of the cave in earnest with the thought of collecting the body for today's meal. I didn’t, however, wonder why the rabbit had been running towards a cave until I heard the sound.

A low growl reached my ears from the trees not far from me and a cold sweat crept down my back. Worry gripped my heart as a small pack of wild dogs came out from the underbrush. Each sported burns near their snouts and front paws. It would seem that my trap was more effective than I thought it would be. Though I still wasn’t safe by any means with a group of 3 wild dogs baring their fangs in my direction. Slowly they came towards the entrance of my cave. Grouping up at the entrance. Taking the chance, I hit them with a quick blast of wind tunnel. Shooting them backwards a good 20 paces. Before they could get back to their feet, I cast soften earth at the entrance on the ground. Followed by the entangle spell on the vine curtain blocking the way into my cave. I had no time to make any more preparations as the wild dogs were back on their feet and rushing in my direction.

Rushing in my direction the dog’s movement slowed down by a noticeable degree once they made it into the softened ground. Making it easier for my vines to grab them as they got closer. I did for them to tire out. Remembering the pain, I felt from the horned rabbit not too long ago. I started out by firing off some stone bullets in the dog's direction followed by an earth spike spell. The first of the bullets struck one of the dogs that had been severely burned. Finishing it off without much effort. The earth spike struck the next dog in its chest. Penetrating it way out of its back. Sending out a volcano of blood in its wake. This seemed to enrage the last dog. It quickly tore its way through the vines holding it down and charged me with pure furry in its eyes. Opening its maw, it lunged through the air in my direction. Ready to snap its teeth into my neck.

Quickly I threw myself to the ground and cast one last spell as the dog landed, turning around to lunge at me once again. Entomb activated. Stones quickly lifted from the ground seemingly formed from nothing. Each flying to the dog and binding itself to it until it was completely encapsulated by rock. With a quick flash of light, the seams closed leaving the dog in a prison of stone where not even air could enter. Not wanting the creature to suffer I walked up to it and cast one more earth spike starting from its head horizontally. Impaling the dog from the skull, following through the entirety of its spine. Killing it instantly and without pain.

I sat on the ground exhausted from the stress of the situation and more motes of light started to fly in my direction. Absorbed into my chest helping me recover a little. As I sat there, I thought to myself, “I need a way to better protect myself. Coming up with a defense on the fly for multiple different creatures at random times of the day just doesn’t seem wise.”

With that thought I mind I created another new spell. Dimensional Home! With this spell I can create the landscape, Weather, terrain, traps, and anything else I would need to defend myself. It allows me to create a sub dimension that can be accessed through a set location in the existing dimension. I’ll need to cast it a lot for it to become useful to me. Each cast will only create a 5-foot cube of space in which I can control. Thinking more about it. I’ll need to learn more magic and learn more about the people and creatures of this world if it will have any chance to actually protect me. Nor will it let me create objects so there’s that. Realizing that my goal of simple survival was much further off than I thought, I started casting my new spell. Edgar to have some sort of comfort and safety at my disposal.

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I cast the spell a few times starting at the entrance of the cave to create a 10-foot cube of space. Which totally exhausted my magical power in addition to how long it took to actually cast the spell. After my magic was drained, I made my way to the dogs and rabbit getting to work removing their pelts and cleaning them up for later use. With a bit of my magic back after eating and resting for a bit I cast Boom Shroom at the cave entrance once again and went back to sleep.

Waking up in pure darkness I thought for a moment that my experience as one of my creatures and my death was a dream. That is until I noticed that I was holding a wooden stick that I’d modified to become a catalyst for a wind scythe and spell staff. Resolving myself with a shrug I started casting Dimensional home once more until I was out of magic again. This lasted for more than a week. I had enough meat to last a few a while which I’d dried and stored. I’d also collected enough wood to be able to keep myself warm for just as long. I made a meal after meal of dried dog and rabbit jerky while shaping my new home. Telling myself I needed to start growing or at the minimum finding some fruits and vegetables to eat. I ended up with an island that was floating in pure darkness, and it was hard to see anything. So, I decided to make the place more homely and special to me. Making it my ideal place to live in total comfort. I started with the grass. Green grass was though normal to most of my wildlife. Did not appeal to me. So, I made it white then I pitched the sky in a crimson-violet, giving off a feeling of sun set. After that I created a black sun with a golden ring around it that still somehow illuminated the land around me. Now I had space, but I had no home. I remembered that one of my civilizations had created a unique style of building. What was it called again? Oh, that's right. A pagoda. It was a square or octagonal building that rose up to the sky in levels. I remember it being quite amazing. Even more so as the people thought that the higher it was the closer to God, or me it was. Thinking that was enchanting, though I granted that culture limited access to divination and a limited ability to see their stats. Which grew the higher the building was and the more time they spent inside it. In memory of those people, I decided that I would make a pagoda as my home and style my structures after theirs in my new home. Though it won’t grant anything special as it did for them. I don’t have the time, power, resources, or reason to do that at the moment. I didn’t even have the resources to build the building right now. Granted that wouldn't take much work, needing to just head outside and collect a single acorn or tree seed. Which is exactly what I did.

Poking my head outside I saw that my trap hadn’t been disturbed. So, I quickly found a seed from the large oak trees that surrounded my cave and dashed back inside my new realm. Planting the tree gave me control over what properties the tree would have. I decided that the tree's wood would be normal though its bark would be black, and its leaves would be golden. With that decided I quickly grew the tree and collected as many acorns as I could and planted a lot more of them. Positioning them so they would make a forest covering nearly the entire island. Causing them all to grow to maturity I soon realized that I didn’t leave room for me to build anything. So instead of clearing out a space for me to build, I hunkered down and created another island connected to the first with a bridge made of wood planks harvested from the trees I recently grew.