Before looking at my available boons, I put some distance between me and the bug and pulled up my interface.

  Somehow I intuitively knew that I could change anything about the interface with a thought. Yet another instance of magic messing with my head, but I wasn’t going to complain about the convenience. I certainly wasn’t going to complain about finally being able to disable the obnoxious dinging.

  With a mental command, I finally turned off the hated chime. I didn’t know what I was going to replace it with, but anything would be better than that shade-cursed ding.

  Looking back at my interface, I hid away some of the unchanging information in such a way that it would alert me to any changes. After that, I moved around some of the remaining items.

  Focusing, I was able to set the new alert for new boons to be a tiny purple mark flashing at the edge of my vision. It was easily noticeable, but not anywhere near as obnoxious as the chime.

  I could feel that there were other changes I could make using Interface Customization, but those could wait. I had a new boon to pick out using my now reorganized interface.

  There still weren't any new boons. Considering that there was allegedly a total of ten boons for the System initiate class, I was very curious what the mysterious tenth boon would be.

  Turning back to the matter at hand, I needed to choose between mapping and identification. My concerns from before remained the same. I probably didn’t have enough information stored in my codex yet for identification to be useful. The map likely wouldn’t tell me much, but at least I could probably check my progress with it.

  Selecting the Codex Map, I resumed walking.

  Thinking about the map, I realized that I didn’t know how far I still had to go before reaching the Three Sisters. It wasn't possible to see very far ahead through the dense foliage of the jungle. With a sigh, I looked for a good tree to help me up past the canopy so I could check.

  As I climbed, I noticed a large family of little black monkeys leaping about in the nearby trees. They kept their distance while I passed, so I paid them little heed.

  The upper reaches of the knotwood provided a bit more of a challenge than normal. At some point during my climb, the clouds had decided that it would be a great time to send a deluge my way.

  If I was still climbing one handed, I would have turned back then and there. My blistered hand had healed enough that I could use it to climb, so I didn’t let a little rain stop me.

  I probably should have turned back the moment I noticed the rain. The wind grew in intensity the higher I climbed and I moved slowly from one rain slick branch to another as I laboriously ascended. As the branches waved more and more violently in the wind, I slowed. It was getting very difficult to keep moving.

  Looking through the occasional gap between the wind tossed leaves, I realized that my climb had been pointless. The pouring rain greatly limited visibility, rendering my elevated position useless.

  As another strong gust of wind pounded into me, I clung tightly to the twisting branches. I dismissed any thoughts of reaching the top of the canopy. Just getting back down safely was going to be hard enough.

  I cast one last look up at the dark gray sky through the ever shifting leaves. As lightning danced across the sky, I thought I almost saw a large silhouette amid the clouds. A second bolt didn’t reveal any monstrous beings, leading me to believe that I had only imagined it.

  Agonizingly slowly, I worked my way back downwards. I grumbled to myself about the half-mark I had wasted climbing when I could have been walking instead.

  It took me far longer to climb down from the upper reaches of the canopy than it did to climb up.

  Once I reached branches thick enough not to sway in the wind, I paused to recover my strength. Soaking wet, I regretted my recent decisions.

  Lightning flashed directly overhead, illuminating the foliage around me. As the light reflected off dozens of eyes all around me, I realized that the group of monkeys from before had me surrounded.

  Fortunately, most of the little black monkeys were only about half the length of my arm. Unfortunately, a scarlet furred monkey half my size glared at me malevolently from a few branches away.

  I was really regretting my recent decisions.