[00:02:56:16]
It’s time to get a move on. Past time, probably.
As I walk, I take a look at my stat points.
Stats:
Unassigned Points: 4
STR 8
END 9
PER 12
INT 18
VIT 12
WIL 4
AGI 12 WIS 16
Vitality pretty clearly affects my health, when it increased by two I got four extra HP. I’m tempted to dump my points in there, anything to keep me alive longer.
-a body on fire, eating itself alive just to prolong my desperate struggling-
I shudder, pushing down my memories again. Can’t deal with it yet.
An increase in Vitality would help, but my main problem is how weak I am. I’m clearly a mage type, with my high mental stats, and it might be more beneficial to me at this point to improve my strengths rather than try and pad up my weaknesses. I have 41 MP and 44 Time, close but not the same. My mental stats are also close, but not the same. I need mana to move sand, and Time to store it.
I’ll start with my highest stat. ‘Assign 1 Point to INT.’
You have asked to assign [1] of your unassigned stat points to [INT]. Confirm selection? [Y/N]?
‘Yes.’
I expected to feel an influx of power - or maybe getting smarter? I’m not sure what I expected, but definitely not nothing. I check my status.
Name: Kira Uhrmacher
Level: 2
Race: Human
Affinity: Time
HP: 24/24
Mana: 01/41
Time: 38/46
Stats:
Unassigned Points: 3
STR 8
END 9
PER 12
INT 19
VIT 12
WIL 4
AGI 12 WIS 16
Alright, so my Time capacity increased by 2, the same ratio as vitality. If it’s double my intelligence, then shouldn’t it be at 38? Instead, it has 8 extra points… which is half my wisdom. And double my wisdom is 32, so there’s an extra 9 points on my mana - half my intelligence rounded down.
I add one point to intelligence to validate my theory. I confirm the prompt that comes up and check my status again.
Name: Kira Uhrmacher
Level: 2
Race: Human
Affinity: Time
HP: 24/24
Mana: 01/42
Time: 38/48
Stats:
Unassigned Points: 2
STR 8
END 9
PER 12
INT 20
VIT 12
WIL 4
AGI 12 WIS 16
I sigh. Of course it’s rounding down my numbers. It would be too much to ask for otherwise. I add my other two points to WIS and again feel nothing, but the numbers do go up.
Name: Kira Uhrmacher
Level: 2
Race: Human
Affinity: Time
HP: 24/24
Mana: 01/46
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
Time: 38/49
Stats:
STR 8
END 9
PER 12
INT 20
VIT 12
WIL 4
AGI 12 WIS 18
Based on how long it took me to regenerate my HP bar, even under the effects of Meditation, it’s ridiculously slow. Mana, on the other hand, I’ve already gained a point of since I started walking, so it seems much faster. I can only hope that the regens increase as the capacity of my bars also increases.
I stop and look around, making sure to check the branches above me as well. Seeing nothing, I brace against a nearby tree. I still have one more ability to trigger, and I’m not looking forward to the pain.
‘Moment of Clarity.’
Ice flies up my spine and hits my brain. I try to gasp in shock, but air never reaches my lungs. Or rather, I’m still in the process of opening my mouth to draw in air. A chill spreads throughout my body, centered on my core and my head. I can feel everything, like I took a plunge into arctic water and I’m perpetually in the moment of submerging.
I try to raise my hand. Slowly, I feel my muscles engaging from my shoulder down my arm, obeying my commands at the pace of a snail, but precisely.
I attempt to look up at the tree I’m under, and have to wait for my head to crane back. The tree looks frozen too, all of its leaves stopped mid-sway.
I reach inwards and find the stream of Time flowing from my core. I pinch it off with my mental fingers, and the world crashes back into motion around me.
I accidentally smack myself in the head with the hand I was raising and fall back against the tree behind me, gasping for air like I ran a marathon.
That was… insane. Like my thoughts were accelerated far beyond anything my body could react to. The description called it ‘A moment to think’, which is a mild way to put it. I glance at my Time.
MP: 01/46
Time: 30/49
Ah, of course there’s a catch. I feel like I barely used it, and yet I went above the base cost of 5. I want to experiment more with it, but without the MP to regenerate my Time bar I don’t want to burn through such a precious resource.
I look around me again. The decreasing timer is an ever-increasing worry. Historically, I’ve always performed best when I’m close to a deadline, but the risk of not making it was always just a late penalty on an assignment.
I’m not willing to cut it so close when the price for failure is my head. I made a promise to myself that… that I would do better this time.
New me.
I push off from the tree and begin walking again. If I want to keep that promise, then I need to find some shit to kill.
A few minutes later, I hear trickling water at the edges of my hearing. I stop moving, trying to pinpoint where it’s coming from. I lick my dry lips. Water is good, fantastic actually. Plus, don’t animals gather around water?
I stumble in its direction, and find a small river flowing. I’m tempted to drink from it right then, but who knows what the System put in the water. I’d say it’s a toss up between fine to drink, actual poison, or some kind of blue raspberry crack flavoring ‘guaranteed’ to taste good but also get you addicted for the sake of ‘motivating’ people. Am I being paranoid? Maybe.
Instead, I follow it upriver, trying to find the source while also keeping my eyes peeled for any movement. About ten minutes of walking later, I see a break in the trees. I accelerate my step, then realize it would be stupid to burst into a clearing and slow down again. I stop at the edge of the trees and peer out.
Ahead of me lies a small lake, which feeds the river that is happily flowing past my feet. The lake seems still. I scan the shore for any hapless animals coming for a drink and I see one across from me.
I squint, trying to make it out. It’s red and blue, unlike any- oh fuck.
That's a person.
I watch, frozen as she stands up from where she was squatting next to the water and stares at it. The red was her hair, tied back into a ponytail, and her clothes are bright blue and seem like some sort of flowing robe. I take one glance at her then look down at me.
I’m still wearing what I was on the bridge, except it hasn’t fared well over the past hours. Dirty sneakers, black leggings with rips all along my thigh, a thin black t-shirt that says “Pipetting is my Superpower”, dried blood everywhere, and holding a dead fox’s claw wrapped in a dirty, bloody, pink cardigan sleeve.
Why do I even care about this? It doesn’t matter. So what, you’re a little dirty and bloody. This is a desperate survival situation.
Fuck, how do I introduce myself in a desperate survival situation?
“Hey, I’m Kira.” No, that’s too normal.
“Oh god, finally! Another person!” No, I don’t want her to think I’m a weirdo.
“Is it just me or is the System an alien AI that’s our only source of information so when it tells us that it’s here to help us we basically just have to trust its words and we don’t even know if any of the stuff it’s saying about the world beyond Earth is true and what if this is the actual alien invasion and we’ve all just been kidnapped and put into intergalactic survivor?”
Yeah, not that one either.
How about, “Hey, do you know what’s going on?” That’s good. It has a greeting, and a reference to the current fucked situation. Yeah, I’ll go with that one.
I glance back towards the lake - wait, fuck she’s gone. Shit, was I really thinking that long? I take a step out of the tree cover - ah, there she is. She was walking around the lake while I was trying to make up my mind.
I begin making my way towards her. She’s heading away from me, so I have to jog a little to catch up.
As I get closer, I can make out a few more details. She has a bow strung across her back and a quiver of arrows around her waist. What the fuck? When the system hit was she at an archery range or something?
I slow down as I get within hearing range. I raise my arm above my head in a wave and call out, “Hey! Do you know what’s going on?”
She spins around drops into a crouch, throwing her arm out from her side towards me. I frown at her and drop my hand uncertainly. What is sh-
A blast of water hits me from the side. I go down in tumble of limbs and take a panicked breath in-
water rushing in, I can’t breathe, clawing for air, I CAN'T BREATHE-
I splutter out the water in my lungs and break into a coughing fit. I’m on my hands and knees on the shore, simultaneously hacking up my lungs and frantically gasping for air.
I manage to raise one hand and cry out, “Wait!” I peer up through my wet hair at the unknown woman. She’s standing up now, and much closer than before, staring at me with her eyes narrowed and holding aloft a ball of water swirling in midair above her palm. There are streams feeding into her water sphere from the lake.
Fuck. Never fight a waterbender near water. Wait, why are we fighting?
I drop my claw, fat good that it does against liquid, and raise my other hand in the air. “Just, wait! I don’t want to fight you!”
She stops, mid-raising her hand to point towards me. Her eyes flick from me towards the tree line, then back to me. She shifts sideways so her back is towards the lake.
“What are you trying to do then?” she asks, her voice curt and annoyed.
I stare at her in shock. “What… what am I trying to do? Nothing, I was just- I just saw you and I came over here, I didn’t want to start a fight, I-”
“Why did you come over here?” she cuts me off, sounding even more annoyed this time.
“Because… because I saw another human? Um, you are human, right? Like an Earth human, not a space human either?” I wilt under her stare.
“What else would I be if I wasn’t a human? What have you seen that wasn’t human?”
“I… nothing? I’ve only seen a squirrel and, um, a fox so far…” my voice trails off as she goes from being concerned to, with every word, looking at me like I’m more and more of an idiot.
“The arena’s been open for five and a half hours. You’ve seen a fox and a squirrel? What have you been doing all this time?” she asks, almost incredulously. “Wait, what level are you?”
“...two.”
“Holy hell. How are you still alive?”
I really, really don’t want to tell her that I was passed out for what was probably collectively around three and a half hours, and then either trapped in a box or walking for most of the remaining time.
“I just haven’t seen anything. Have you been in the forest? It’s practically empty.” I squirm uncomfortably as she searches me with her gaze, then looks up at the treeline behind me. She shifts slightly on her feet and seems to be remembering something.
“What,” my voice falters as she looks back at me, “what level are you?”
She stares at me. “Four.”
I try to keep eye contact with her, but that was never a strong suit of mine. She still has her water ball hovering above her palm too, even though she knows I’m not some crazed animal. Actually, it’s gotten a decent bit bigger over the course of the conversation.
“Say,” she begins. “What affinity did you say you have?”