Having worked so hard to equip his looted leather armor, John felt rather silly taking it off again so soon. It was no simple task, either. As difficult as it had been to get onto his fat body, the bite wounds he suffered made it that much more difficult to get off. When he had finally managed it, the pieces piled sloppily beside the fire, he sat against the cool stone wall of his shelter and breathed a heavy sigh. Back in his simple shirt and shorts, John surveyed his injuries.

His right forearm suffered a grouping of puncture marks, which, despite their stinging pain, only bled a moderate amount. His left thigh, however, was a different story. Having gone for the one obvious vulnerability in John’s armor, where there had already been a hole, the wolf had managed to tear a sizable gash in the flesh. It leaked like a sieve. John used his axe to start a rip at the bottom of his shirt, which he pulled into strips of cloth that he hastily wrapped around each wound.

The pain flared as he pulled his leg bandage extra tight, and it instantly soaked red. The pressure did seem to slow the bleeding, at least.

Though text still flashed at the corner of John’s vision, he ignored it and summoned the “main menu” of his interface, then opened his inventory screen to check the contents of his looted satchel. Along with a waterskin, two “grilled meat skewers” and fourteen copper coins, John found a “minor healing potion.” That dead guy John found had come woefully underprepared for this area. Nevertheless, jackpot.

The healing potion was contained in a vial much the same as the empty one John saw beside its original owner’s corpse, though rather than empty, this one was three-quarters full with bright red liquid. He pulled the cork with a sucking thunk and set it aside. John had done this virtually hundreds or even thousands of times throughout his gaming tenure, so physically drinking a health potion shouldn't be that big of a deal. Besides, it wasn’t like he had other options. He couldn’t exactly pop over to urgent care.

As John was about to tip the potion into his mouth, however, something stopped him. An intuition told him something was wrong here. It was something about the potion, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. Deciding to wait until he had more information, John restoppered the potion and set it down.

He backed out of the interface, now focusing on the text flashing urgently at the bottom left corner of his vision. The three words to grew and moved to the center of his vision.

New Alert Messages

They promptly rose and became the heading for a series of messages.

Alert: You are bleeding.

Alert: You have contracted Uldwyld Frost Fever.

Alert: You have filled your Soul Reservoir.

Alert: Foundational Soul Refinement is now available.

Alert messages? Interesting. The first two were negative status alerts, both of which he must have suffered in his fight with the wolf. The bleeding one was obvious, but “Uldwyld Frost Fever” didn’t ring any bells. He had never seen that one in Nordic Runes. The last two alerts were completely unfamiliar. For now, John decided they could wait. Priority one was taking care of his injuries. Once he was healed he could fuck around with Soul Reservoirs and what have you.

John’s interface, he realized, failed to include a health bar. That was surprising, considering how standard that meter was in the RPG genre. There was something in its place, though. He had increasingly noticed an awareness of his level of health he never had before, as though he now had an intuitive sense of his overall condition. He could gauge his health the same way he could tell how loud a sound was - he just could. Currently, he felt himself hovering at about fifty percent of his total health, dropping slowly but steadily downward from the bleeding.

If he didn’t do something, and soon, he might be in real trouble. With no other options, John unstoppered the potion and brought it to his mouth.

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He couldn’t shake the feeling something was wrong. The image of that empty vial beside the corpse kept flashing into John’s mind. What was wrong with that scene? What was it about the empty vial beside that dead adventurer that lodged in John’s mind like a splinter?

Admonishing himself with a frustrated curse, he slapped his forehead. He finally got it.

Still, he had to know for sure. Feeling like a mouse nibbling at easy cheese, he tipped a small portion of the liquid into his mouth. It tasted like a not-entirely unpleasant combination of citrus and cold medicine. It burned a warm trail through his chest as it went down, spreading pleasantly through his body. For a while, nothing happened. John sensed his health draining slowly away at precisely the same rate as before, as if he had drunk plain water.

When the potion did take effect, however, John discovered to his rising anxiety that it pushed his health in the wrong direction. Even though he expected this, he couldn’t help but panic. The drain of his health accelerated to thrice its previous rate, continuing swiftly down to a third of his overall level. Then, mercifully, the rate of draining diminished to what it was before.

His suspicions confirmed, John pieced together the tragic tale of that hapless, axe-wielding Ruins explorer, who he decided to name Gary.

Overestimating himself, Gary resolved to comb through the Uldwyld Ruins, probably in search of treasure, and somehow bumbled his way through the forest to reach this outer area of smaller structures. With only the meagerest equipment, and likely commensurately meager skills, Gary nevertheless did fine until he ran across a wolf. As John’s own wolf had done to him, the oversized canid took a nice chunk out of Gary’s leg, but he managed to escape by closing himself into one of these structures, where he attempted to repair the bite wound with a minor healing potion.

This was where things really went wrong for old Gary. He failed to realize he had contracted a disease from the wolf called Uldwyld Frost Fever, an affliction that seemed to have two very unfortunate symptoms. Firstly, it nullified healing effects, which would have been bad enough on its own, but secondly, it tripled bleeding damage. Praising his good luck in escaping the jaws of danger, Gary proceeded to drink the potion of healing that promptly ended his life.

Poor Gary.

This certainly changed things for John. Two things were now very, very clear. One, he could no longer afford to stay isolated. He had to find a settlement of some kind where there were people to help him recover from his disease and injuries. Two, he could not accomplish that at his current level of power. He was too weak to face even one of the white wolves - who he now realized were sneaky dealers of death by status effects - much less the dozens he would probably encounter on his journey to the nearest village. If John was going to have any chance, he had to get stronger.

Ripping another strip from his shirt and adding it to the blood-soaked bandage around his thigh, John returned to his alert messages and focused on the third one. More information appeared.

You have filled your Soul Reservoir. You can now refine collected spirit resin in a Foundational Soul Refinement.

He backed out and checked the fourth alert message.

Foundational Soul Refinement now available. Consult a Refinement Manual for further reference.

Refinement manual? Didn’t John have one of those? He reached over painfully and picked up the leather tome that was once a plastic binder given to him by his mother, and he set it on his lap. The cursive script burned into the cover said, Way of the Balanced Mind.

When it had still been that plastic binder, before its journey through the portal, it had said Cognitive Therapy for Depression, and it had contained an entire treatment method for clinical Depression. Now, when John opened its leather incarnation, he was met by a blank page. He turned to find another blank page. Flipping through, he found that the entire thing was empty.

“Okay,” John muttered to himself, turning back to the first page. “I’ve got my refinement manual, so… Now what?”

Words began to script themselves onto the page in elaborate cursive.

Disciple, prepare yourself to follow the Way of the Balanced Mind. Your journey towards enlightenment begins with a Fountational Soul Refinement.

An arrow indicated John should turn to the next page.

Foundational Soul Refinement

This process will prepare your soul to evoke a Class. It will elevate you to a rank of one star, emptying your Soul Reservoir. Only through sincerity and vulnerability can you move forward, disciple. Rely not on deception, but place your trust in the truth.

Answer the following question:

What do you fear?

John let out the breath he had been holding, watching it mist and disappear.

“That depends,” he said to the page. “How much time do you have?”