Paul frowned as he sprinkled dust over what once was the last of his hunting camps. Each one had been meticulously dismantled - firepit ashes and bones buried, footprints covered, makeshift tools packed away - but he was unsure if his efforts to hide the signs of his habitation would be effective. He had used some of the camps for weeks, and soot darkened the ceilings in some of the smaller chambers. Paul hoped that the Trolls didn’t look up.

What worried Paul even more was the Troll’s sense of smell, namely the fact that he didn’t know how keen it was. Between butchering and cooking animals, he was sure that there were scents that he had become nose blind to which could lead the Trolls to him, even if his former camps looked like they were untouched. For that matter, his home cavern housed his varied - and sometimes eye-wateringly pungent - experiments with tanning and soap making. For all he knew, the Trolls could just follow their nose straight to his cavern.

Before he could get too pensive, Seymore chirped at him from his perch in his pack, causing Paul to reflexively dig into one of his side pouches for a bit of jerky and tear off a piece for the little lizard. Paul popped the rest of it in his own mouth, chewing absently.

“You have me well trained, you know that?” Paul rubbed Seymore’s head while the lizard enthusiastically devoured the morsel of cave-bison. “But enough moping about what the Trolls may do, let’s get back home.”

Tightening his pack on his shoulders, Paul took off at a dead run, letting his [Sprint] skill propel him forward at speeds that would give even track-and-field athletes pause. He mentally willed a summoned light into existence, but kept it at a faint glow, giving out just enough light that between its glow and the [Nightvision] skill that he could navigate the tunnels without stumbling into something he shouldn’t.

The whisper-light patter of his soft-soled moccasins was barely audible, the result of weeks of using [Silent Movement] whenever he could. Moving quickly and silently in the tunnels was second nature to him now. The skills that Paul had honed while learning to hunt - or more than often than not, run from - the creatures that inhabited the labyrinth took on even greater importance in his mind now that his next conflict with the trolls loomed near.

He just hoped he had time to practice his new spell before they found him. Paul clenched his teeth and pumped his legs faster.

His first trap was set nearly two kilometers from his home cavern. Paul lept the hidden crevasse with ease, then ducked low under a length of sinew that he had camouflaged with spider web. Twenty steps later, he dodged sideways, careful not to disturb a javelin that was the lynchpin in a precariously balanced deadfall.

Dozens of strides later, Paul shifted his weight and sprung sideways, running low along the wall for two steps before planting his feet back on the ground, bypassing a section of smooth stone well-greased with rendered fat. He continued to run this obstacle course of sorts back to his home cavern. Avoiding his own traps was a concern for Paul as soon as he began setting them, the thought of him being hoist on his own petard motivating him to practice moving through them again and again. During this practice, he had gained the [Free Running] skill, which made some of the necessary maneuvers both easier and, Paul had to admit, more fun.

Several hundred steps, leaps, side-steps, and ducks later, he burst into his home cavern, the comforting soft light from the shelf fungus welcoming him home like a warm fire on a cold day.

Paul anxiously swept his eyes over the chamber, visions of his home camp broken and destroyed welling up and making heart thud heavily against his ribs, before exhaling softly. Neat rows of drying racks still held tanned skin, his ugly but functional kiln still stood, and he could see his cache was undisturbed.

After reaching his living area by the cold, burbling spring, Paul unlimbered his pack and set Seymore gingerly in the mushroom grove where he could run with the other lizards. Early on in his relationship with the lizard, Paul had felt a stab of fear every time that Seymore wasn’t at his side. What if Seymore was hurt, or lost, or what if he didn’t come back? But Seymore did, every time. Now, it didn’t cross Paul’s mind. Him and the little six-legged lizard were connected somehow, linked in a way that he couldn’t easily explain. He didn’t think too hard about it - he was just glad for the company, and what Seymore lacked in conversational skills, he made up for by being a good listener.

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Paul stripped to his waist and washed the dried sweat from his body, shivering as the icy water made goosebumps stand out on his skin. He quickly dried himself and pulled on a crude leather shirt he had crafted from Cave Muskox. He had left the fur on the skin but had used razor-sharp obsidian to shave the fur down to the Muskox’s downy-soft undercoat. He designed it to be worn fur-side in, and while it wasn’t practical for his excursions into the tunnels, while in his home cavern it was by far the most comfortable - and warmest - piece of clothing he had made.

Paul itched to practice the limits of the new spell he had inadvertently created, but he had soon come to realize while living in the caves that with civilization comes chores. Hides needed to worked, meat had to be salted, tools had to be sharpened, and clothing had to be repaired. Paul contented himself with forming and re-forming balls of light while working. He didn’t mind the chores. They kept him occupied. He was all-to aware of how easy it would be to fall into despair again, and the constant work helped take his mind off the reality - and more disturbingly, the unreality - of his situation.

Occasionally Paul’s mind would wander back to his life before his death. His memories were indistinct and hazy, punctuated with flashes of perfect clarity - the taste of a hamburger, juices escaping his lips and running down his chin; the sound of children laughing; the faces of his comrades, sometimes smiling, sometimes worried; his father’s handshake - but when he tried to grasp those memories they were like smoke between his fingers. When he tried to remember his life - who he was, what he did, how he died - he was relatively certain that he had not been a full-time soldier - his efforts were met with scalpel-sharp bursts of panic and fear that his [Fear Management] was useless against, his carefully prepared mental defenses washed away like so much sand. He had learned not to think about his past very quickly. Now, after months underground, his curiosity of who he was and why he was here was just a feather-light urge that he carefully quarantined so that it didn’t spill out into his active thoughts, though it never went away.

Paul finished his work and washed his hands in the stream, scrubbing the foul odors from his tanning operation from his skin.

Finally, I can see what I can do with this new spell.

He strode to a nearby stalagmite and pushed his intent outside of his body, forming a glowing ball of light as he had hundreds of times before. He then deftly encapsulated the light in a weave of intent, allowing him to sustain the light with a fraction of his willpower. The process was second nature by now but Paul wanted to take each step slowly.

Taking a breath, he pushed more intent into the light. Within seconds, it outshone the fungus, casting its own shadows around the cavern. Paul could actually feel resistance now, and it became harder and harder for Paul to push his intent into the ball. The weave held, however, so any intent that he pushed in was contained inside. Still, Paul forced more of his will inside the construct. He could feel sweat begin to form and his jaw clenched with the effort.

The mental strain was familiar yet wholly different than what he was used to. Before, all of his efforts in regard to his magic had to do with control. This wasn’t a challenge of control, instead, it was a matter of brute force.

The light was so bright now that Paul had to close his eyes, and he took in rasping breaths, tired in a way that he hadn’t been after his run. He knew that this was much more intent than he had pumped into the orb when he had accidentally discovered the spell, but he wanted to find out what the limits were to his weave, and what would happen if those limits were surpassed.

Belatedly, he took several steps backward, keeping his orb in place.

Paul could feel the weave bulging now, like an over-filled truck tire, sidewalls straining. With a final hiss of effort between clenched teeth, Paul managed to push one last bit of intent in.

It was either just the right amount or just a little too much, depending on the perspective. Either way, Paul found that he still was standing much too close.

Unlike the small tear in the weave that allowed it to whirl around the tunnel propelled by a jet of intent, Paul could feel his carefully woven construct burst.

He threw his arm over his eyes not a moment too soon.

The orb exploded. Sun-bright light flashed for a fraction of a second, and there was a crack of sound so painful that Paul screamed as his eardrums burst. The concussion felt like falling face-first from a high-dive onto concrete, and he was tangentially aware of his feet leaving the ground for a brief moment before he landed violently on his back.

Ow.

*New Variant Spell Gained* The notice pushed its way through his disorientation. *[Concussive Orb of Light]*

Paul wheezed on the ground, fighting to catch his breath after having the wind knocked out of him.

So not worth it.