Selen accepted a delivery run to several villages to the northeast of Grandbridge, in safer territory than where she'd been attacked.

It was her first time beyond the walls while sober. So, it was her first time to look back at her hometown and notice the outward spikes where several corpses hung.

Selen stared up, open-beaked. No accident; the dark wooden spears were obviously an execution ground, and a warning to travelers. And this was on the east bank of the river, where the walls were lower and the occupants easier to see.

"The Duke's mercy," she muttered, and hurried away from that place. The city didn't have much by way of jails.

She traveled east and north. She couldn't just soar all the way between towns with her limited flight; it was mostly a hike.

She took the time to clear her mind and try to enjoy being out in the open, seeing nature in another world. Her beak didn't let her have much of a sense of smell, unfortunately, but she could feel the too-bright sun on her feathers and stop every so often to rest and look at slightly unfamiliar trees and brilliant wildflowers. "I wonder if I'm seeing into ultraviolet!" A species of orange blooms had wavy designs in something like deep purple. She spent a while walking, squinting at things, and thinking about scientific uses for what she considered a minor superpower.

It didn't compare to the flying, though. She kept bouncing up into the air, rising from flat ground to reach a random boulder or find a tricky perch up in a tree. Several times she was proud of herself getting up onto a branch, only to fall off and need Slowfall to make it look like she meant to do that.

She left behind the forested, swampy riverland for a more hilly region. There, she had to camp for the night. She was a world-hopper but not an experienced camper. She set up an Aves-style hammock dangling from a high branch, then tried making a campfire with her magic. Which failed completely. Her lessons with Tradewind had so far taught her the basic party tricks of wind and lightning but she had yet to master even the basic energy-gathering of other elements. Each person's affinity was a little different, though Aves usually took well to wind.

She tried taking her knife out of her belt-mounted messenger bag. The simple utility blade just showed up as [Iron Knife, good quality], and she'd been told by somebody more knowledgeable that it did 4 to 7 damage. The numbers threatened to drive her mad with figuring out exactly how much damage a loaf of bread could take, and the implications for injury and medicine. How much of her limited medical training applied around here?

She shook her head. Use that Focus skill! That took no special effort beyond chiding herself for getting distracted. She set the blade's tip gently into the ground and gathered a basic spark spell to zap it. Her touch made her feathers ruffle from poorly contained energy flow, but didn't make obvious heat in the metal. Instead she tried again with just some bits of shaved bark, and made sparks to try igniting those. Still no luck. "Some wizard I am," she muttered. "Shouldn't expect more from first level, I guess."

Selen yawned, her beak clacking. There was plenty of time to improve, no matter what the numbers said, and any practice helped. She tried cycling her magic into different elemental tuning, getting a feel for the options. By luck she found a loose grip on something that created inky fog between her fingers. Darkness? She focused on that, lost it but pressed on, and managed to conjure it again. She released it carefully and let it float there like an anti-lightbulb. Just a handful, but neat!

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Supposedly, no element had a moral alignment. And nobody spoke loudly to criticize necromancy, one of the fields outside of the elemental casting system. After all, the Duke of Grandbridge had been one of the people involved in creating those golems of bone and flowers that patrolled the streets.

She flew around a bit for practice, then settled into her hammock with a thin blanket. The weather had grown warm and she had a feather coat.

She dreamed of Earth, of eating delicious burritos and wondering why her teeth felt funny. And didn't she have a thesis to work on? Application of hydrocarbon dyes to feathers, maybe.

Selen woke up when something jostled her. A warm weight had settled on her legs like a cat. Its eyes glinted. She squawked, staring at a mass of hair and muscle that was clawing at her backpack, hanging on the next branch up. Selen kicked and unbalanced the hammock. The creature hissed and slashed at her, burning a line of pain along her leg. Selen fumbled to sit up. Her attacker clung to the tree-trunk, which freed her to grab the knife she'd kept on her belt. She jabbed wildly and only nicked tree bark.

The mass of brown fur and ivory claws leaped to grab the dangling pack and tried to pry it open. "No you don't!" she said, and tried gathering some of that magic energy she'd been practicing. The critter didn't notice; good. Selen tuned it rapidly and lunged. Her talons poked it and a jolt of sparks rippled along its hide, making it convulse. The spell fed back on her and she flailed in the swinging hammock, overcorrected, and toppled. She barely got her wings spread in time to land on her feet.

Selen looked up through the shadows. She had to get up there. She stepped back, made a running start, and kicked the ground away. In the dark her wings were pale flashes to either side, whooshing. She rose toward her target and screeched. The creature hissed again and its reflective eyes glared back. Selen's left wing struck a branch and threw her off-balance, striking the trunk. Another red flash in her vision warned her of harm. She fought through it and lunged like her old primate self to grab the wood with her arms and... fail to do a chin-up. Her backpack fell and whacked her on the head. Selen crashed and landed slowly but dazed. The beast was up close again. Monkey? Cat? Didn't matter. She shouted and slashed awkwardly down at it with her knife. "Hey! No robbing the mysterious summoned hero! Shoo!"

Finally the critter got the message and scampered off into the woods. Selen stood there breathing hard, checking her stats. Middling Fatigue, Mana and Health down a few points, a different measurement than the normal-to-her sense of being winded and bruised. The backpack wasn't damaged, at least, and nothing looked missing. She had packed it with an inordinate amount of mail and other supplies for its size, due to the lightness enchantment on it. She congratulated herself for keeping her knife in the belt bag instead.

She huffed. A dim glow in the east told her she might as well get an early start. She worked on how to fly up there to her hammock without hurting herself. In the shadows and leafy branches it took her three tries to realize she should back off and approach the tree from a low branch on another trunk. She wobbled and managed to land in the right spot at last. Balancing up in the dark, one hand holding the trunk, looking off into the early dawn. Her wings stood out brightly.

"Am I supposed to be a hero?" she said. She hadn't been told outright, nor shown any prominent Dark Lord who needed defeating. She'd been given a place in this world with little explanation. It was a gift.

Well, she had skills other than those that this System chose to mark. She knew chemistry, though it wasn't clear if atoms and molecules even existed here. She had magic and definitely wanted to explore it more, but she could also apply what she knew from Earth to try improving this world. See what worked and what she could accomplish in one lifetime.

[Skill gain: Flight (Agility)], appeared in her vision. She laughed, thinking about her unintentional practice just now. Whatever else she ended up doing, flying should definitely be part of it too.