Name: Amber

  Species: Feliform

  Hearth Mage - Level 3 (XP 60)

  Health 10/10 - Stamina 4/10 - Mana 10/12

  Skills:

  Plant Identification: 1

  Material Crafting (Foraged): 2

  Abilities:

  Rest - Create a comfortable resting place for yourself. Sleeping here recovers stats at twice the usual rate.

  Home Hearth - The fireplace at the centre of your Home, grants bonuses to your Abilities and those of your family within its radius

  Ability Points: 2

  I could easily bring up my steadily growing stats page whenever I wanted now, it was becoming second nature to check on it as I planned and thought about what I wanted to do next, where to plan ahead and invest effort in improving skills to unlock more abilities and gain more levels. I could sit on my lovely soft, clean bed, watching the rain crash down all around me, sheltered from almost all of it, apart from the occasionally stronger gust of wind, cutting holes in my torn dress just big enough to loop and knot threads of plant fibres through until it covered me properly again. I could scoop fresh, clean water from the little pool collecting just outside my shelter, to drink or to scrub myself clean with. I could lean out into the slowly lessening rainfall and scrub my one single item of clothing almost clean and hang it up from the wooden beams of my shelter, on the opposite side to my water storage, and wrap my otherwise bare body up in the bedcovers to stay warm. I could look across at the campfire I had left out in the rain, the magically created fireplace I had been assured was the one and only time I could use that ability, constantly inundated with water, and see the small, smouldering embers near the base still glowing and flickering in spite of the downpour, kept alight by whatever magic had created it from nothing in the first place. I was going to manage quite well enough, I thought. All the bare minimum I needed was in place, and I had somewhere to wait out the rain and plan the next stage. What did I need next?

  As I waited for the rain to slow, I developed enough practice to have not only my stats open up, but also the list of options of new Abilities available, and then filter the list by only what I had the points to cover. It still felt weird having that see-through text floating as though not really there, yet still clear enough for me to read easily, but it was what it was.

  Basic Filtration (1)

  Small Water Storage (1)

  Wood Crafting (1)

  Waterproofing (1)

  Channel Redirection (2)

  Quarrying (2)

  Enhanced Durability (2)

  Simple Furnishings (2)

  Basic Shelter (2)

  I read up and down the list a few times, carefully considering my next move. Waterproofing and Shelter seemed to be pretty much covered, as useful as those would be when I needed to expand my space. More Furniture would just mean more space needing covering with some kind of roof next time it rained. Filtering or Redirecting the stream water seemed less important when I had the rain instead, I wasn’t sure how clean it was, but that wasn’t going to be a top priority for a while. On that thought, though, the rain wouldn’t last for ever, and the basic water tank I had made had been full for a while. Maybe something to store water in would be useful, keep a few spare bottles for drinking and washing and other uses.

  That seemed like as good a choice as anything. I tried to focus my will on having that ability, not sure what I was doing, hoping whatever system was at work here would realise what I wanted. Sure enough, another notification popped up for me.

  Craftable Option Unlocked:

  Small Water Storage

  Requires Soil or Wood and Bark

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  Soil, that was something I could do, it was even listed as one of the resources of my Home area, which was not that surprising, given the stuff was everywhere. Slipping out of the loosely draped bedcovers, feeling the cool evening air against my now bare fur, I crouched down, scooped up some slimy wet mud, grimacing against the feel of it sliping and smearing over my hands, and tried to focus in the same way I’d increasingly practised making my bed appear. Almost instantly, a small clay pot was sitting between my mud-soaked hands instead. Excited, I clawed at the ground until I had enough mud for another, and another, now less caring about the dirt splattered all over me almost up to the elbows. Pausing a moment, I checked my stats and realised that, yes, each one was slowly chipping away at my Stamina score, which was still comparatively low even after some time sitting here resting and watching the rainfall. Not wanting to see what happened if that dropped all the way to nothing, I left it at just the three, and set them out to catch the flow gushing down from the roof, hoping they would fill before the rain slowed to a complete stop.

  It wasn’t much longer before the clouds parted and the last wisps blew away, leaving the dim, evening sky clear, the sun peering through again for just a moment, as it sat on the horizon, casting long shadows over the wet landscape. Water still dripped and splashed occasionally from the thick, sturdy leaves of my crude shelter, and the ground was still too mushy and squelchy soft for me to want to walk around on without any shoes. Mentally I moved new clothes further up the list of things I wanted to get for myself, though there hadn’t been much of even a hint of them among the available abilities and skills I was seeing show up. How much longer would that take? Looking at the still damp, still stained dress hanging up to gently drip and flutter in the breeze, the worn and shredded hem right at eye level from where I was sitting, I wondered if I should push in the making new clothes direction next, and leave all my other concerns aside. Where would be most likely to start unlocking those even most basic skills, before I could magically conjure up some fully formed fabric? Maybe there was a plant here that could be woven into cloth, if I tried hard enough.

  For now, though, I would need to rest. Evening was coming on, and I needed to take advantage of the greatly enhanced recovery speed my Abilities promised me from sleeping in my own bed. I would likely have another full, busy day ahead tomorrow. As much as I was sure it was probably quite early, though it was hard to tell only by the sunset and not having any kind of clock, I was ready to fall asleep right there. Partly it was the exhaustion from all the hard work I had been doing right through the day, partly it was just the restful relaxation of knowing I had succeeded at my goals and secured a much better prospect for my future here.

  It did not take long before I was fast asleep, but that promised accelerated recovery time came through as well, by the time I was laying in bed restless and full of energy, wanting to get up and go do something, the sun was still not yet peeking over the eastern horizon, down toward the valley where I was told the town lay.

  After a bit, I gave up and sat up on the side of the bed, feeling the grass still slightly damp, the mud a bit soft and springing under my bare toes, and looked around. The shelter, such as it was, had survived the night, though it was leaning a little to one side, and a few of the leaves were dripping water onto the inside. Likely it would need some work done before the next rainfall. The hearth fire was burning fully again, the cone of sticks and branches crackling loudly as the flames licked up the sides and the thin line of smoke drifted on the wind. Whatever magic powered that thing, it was stubborn.

  Suppressing a grimace at the feeling of the slimy mud under my feet, I got up and walked around for a moment. Luckily this wilderness spot was empty and distant from everyone, but even so, I quickly dressed again, my clothes, such as they were, now dry but still partly stained and definitely worn out. I quickly checked on my stats page again, and noted the slow, slight increase in XP. Surely that was from making those clay pots last night? I earnt points using my skills, and used those points to unlock more skills? In which case, my best course of action was to keep busy, accelerating those numbers upward, and perhaps also pick out another Ability I could use regularly to keep earning more. A quick look over the options available suggested a dilemma to me, should I try my luck with this Wood Crafting Ability that was open to me right now, or wait in anticipation that I might gain a second point to spend on something more powerful at any moment this morning? Something tool related, if I remembered right, could be useful, but there was not a lot of wood around here.

  Maybe not around here, but there was a forest a short trek away up the hill, I hadn’t visited yet, but there was no reason to suspect collecting wood from there would be any kind of an issue, and I would likely have plenty of uses for the stuff in time to come. Maybe I could start building myself a little wooden cabin. In the absence of anything that would even start helping me get new clothes, my mind was made up. I picked out the Wood Crafting option and unlocked it, watching the text boxes pop up in front of me.

  Craftable Options Unlocked:

  Basic Axe

  Requires Stone, Sticks, Plant Fibres

  Stone Carving Knife

  Requires Stone and Plan Fibre or Cloth

  Wood Mallet

  Requires Wood

  Splitting Wedge

  Requires Stone or Iron

  Earn 10 Experience Points

  Experience Points Gained:

  Level 3 > Level 4

  1 Ability Point Gained

  Skill Levels Increased

  Characteristics Increased

  Upgrade to Home Hearth Available. Complete Task to unlock.

  Definitely a good choice, I thought. I looked over at the Hearth, which was burning a short distance away from where I had been pacing as I thought. It still looked the same, but after a moment, a message box appeared.

  Upgradable - Level 4

  Requires Wood x5