I felt validated. Hurrying wouldn’t have changed a thing. A vinebranchbushrootwall blocked my way and was currently winning our staring contest. Barbs similar to the ones seen earlier held it together, firmly. They weren’t blue, but neither the dull gray of similarly sized ones which secured the flap of my rustic chic pouch, as well as the dual belt hook on it, sporting a natural brown instead. Regardless, the two had moved closer together in my mind.

  Mostly because unbuckling my belt and using it assist my climbing seemed like the only viable path forward and I considered using the System-given container as some kind of improvised handhold. The interlocking vegetation on the way here offered multiple paths up and possibly out, but they failed to appeal. Backtracking through the crab forest was suicidal at the least. Dusk continued to fall, cooling and darkening my surroundings at a steady pace. As if that wasn’t enough, the ground shook, accompanied by a massive crashing noise somewhere in the distance behind me. Beyond worry, I sighed.

  The observation led me to conclude nocturnal demon trees were about. My insights deserved a reward and my chosen prize landed on a cigarette. I begged the wall to pretty please with sugar on top open up while blowing smoke rings at it. Unfortunately it proved to be an unreasonable sod and neglected a response to my desperate pleading.

  Filter less cigarettes taste like shit. My current supply of clean filters had to suffice. Another smoke tempted me, but my 5XL pack was half empty already. Running out was likely to drive me insane, for a couple of days at least. Several minutes of sawing at a barb cut it off, loosening some of the bundled flora. It allowed me to push through slightly, only to meet another obstacle, much the same as the last. Everything tinted blue resisted my attempts at gardening.

  Out of reasons to procrastinate, it was time to get to work. Putting my back into it sped up progress slightly. Some of the barbs originated from the roots themselves, which further complicated matters. Close examination revealed a blue branching pattern inside, like the venation of a leaf. Sweat already beaded down my forehead and identifying the unreasonably hard culprits once again helped speed things up.

  From there on it was easy going, only six or so hours of excruciatingly hard labor. An attempt to stop for a midnight snack and let the soreness fade from my arms ended up backfiring. Left alone for too long, nature’s wall began shifting, sliding and closing up. Staring further amplified the issue, leading to an hour’s setback at the very least. A particularly dedicated fellow could probably have gotten through faster, especially if they weren’t a smoker and frequently distracted by the constant crashing in the distance.

  Glorious escape from certain death urged me onwards. Coughing fits followed every other breath, my arms burned, my inner clothes were soaked and my throat felt like sandpaper but I finally made it. My cantrip landed on the backburner. A steady trickle of water droplets tip tapped down a nearby rocky outcropping, holding my attention like a dripping faucet fascinated cats. Water at last. While recovering, it became apparent how cold it was here. The tears on my jacket didn’t help either. Looking around elicited another sigh.

  This was a fucking rock glacier and a wet one too. The bottom of a valley snaked below, a long drop down. I turned a circle and oriented myself with the magic mind-weathervane.

  The gigantic rootball was to my east and impossible to see past. To the north there were mountains. Off to the west there were even more mountains beyond a V-shaped zigzagging valley, surging rapids filled its trough. The south showed yet more mountains, overlapping and rolling. Those seemed to have a path through at least. It was truly a varied landscape. Too tired and thirsty for this shit.

  In keeping with the cat simile, I lapped up dripping water like it would save my life. It likely did. Exploring towards the southern rocky path revealed a multitude of caves. One seemed as good as another and venturing as deep as the cavern allowed afforded me some sense of shelter. At some point my underground dark vision kicked in and let me see up to the usual ten meters, leaving everything beyond as shifting shadows. Completely exhausted and rather cold, I cast mending on my jacket and frowned.

  It had been black on the outside and orange on the inside. As a Dutchie it was a matter of national pride to have some orange somewhere, usually just once a year though. It mended fine, but the color was all off. Being unable to quite put my finger on it had tired ingenuity label the thing blorange. The saving grace was that the pockets, zippers and such weren’t messed up any more before. I curled up under my remade blanket and forgot to leave my interface open before falling asleep.

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  My 8 mana nap ended when a hunger pang signaled the beginnings of an ulcer. Breakfast consisted of more junk food and a cigarette, along with a trip outside. Nearing the exit turned off my convenient no doubt System-related disregard for light sources.

  There were promises of sunrise over the horizon. Stumbling around in the dark across wet slippery stone felt like a terrible idea, causing me to default to my old habit of stargazing instead to kill some time. Despite having done that a lot, I couldn’t really pick out constellations. There were certainly a lot more stars than in the before times, probably due to a lack of artificial lighting all over the place. Humanity really did do a number on nature wherever we went.

  This one wasn’t on us though. The moon adorned the night sky and on its surface was what looked like an oversized Aztec pyramid. It had a stairway, hence not very Egyptian. It pointed the apex straight at me and I took it personally. It threw me for a bit of a loop, although not because of its orientation. What’s so special about a moon pyramid, after all? Rather, the lightshow caught my eye.

  I’d been fairly certain fireworks were a thing of the past, although this rated a grade or two above. Lasers and falling stars were going to and fro. As it continued, the stars streaked towards the moon but intercepting beams originated from it, winking them out. I think so at least. Whoever coordinated this needed a stern talking to because everything happened too chaotically and quickly to follow. A falling star connected with, and blew a goodly chunk off the top of the pyramid.

  Reduced to base human instinct while drowning in my own cosmic insignificance, I cheered.

  “Yeah! Fuck you, moon-pyramid.” We didn’t get along. It was the pointing that did it. Rude.

  The show didn’t last long after, even though it escalated. Singular trailing teardrops multiplied into dozens. A beam flashed and drew connecting lines between each, burning an afterimage into my sight even from here. Then, nothing. Until the entire thing cracked like an egg and shards began to drift apart. Despite lacking true expertise, faint recollections marked the moon as being quite important. Oh well, what can you do? Not like there had been any cataclysmic events in the past due to giant pieces of dirt falling from the sky or anything.

  Fortunately the System seemed to be on the up-and-up and decided to ‘reconstitute’ the whole thing. I thought it did a pretty bad job with Earth, but was forced to retract the statement. We’d apparently gotten the gentle touch. The moon? Not so much. It just slammed all the drifting pieces together into a jagged roughly ball shaped mess and called it a day.

  Even when fighting back, planetoids ranked a little low on the tier list from the looks of it. Well, we had something in common now. Maybe we could be friends someday. I could forgive the pointing, in time. My mind fled back to the original System greeting, about how we were supposed to be able to stop this madness at some point. As if.

  I hadn’t been into this rune-scribing stuff on account of fleeing threats to my life, but after gathering a cup of water my list of distractions ran dry. Contemplating nihilism didn’t appeal so practice it was. It ended up being kind of fun in a turn the old brain off sort of way.

  My pen traced crisscross shapes on metal while fueled by my thoughts of ‘burn baby burn’. It left a thin lingering red line where it passed on the blue-grey sheet, which threatened to fade out unless the whole pattern was completed in time. Doing so pulsed the entire excuse of a drawing. The pictogram suggested doing this for an hour should etch the rune into the metal, ‘hardening’ it.

  It was hard to say for sure, because it was fucking impossible to pull off. Deviating too far from the pattern, so at all, caused instant failure. Probably since I couldn’t draw worth a damn, doodling during lectures apparently didn’t count. My lack of skill led to an eventual fuck up which ruined the process. It didn’t stop me from trying again though.

  The sunrise took its time so it got the old college try, about three hours. Frustration won out in the end and I switched to trying out a few sprints to find out if my stats did anything. The effects were starting to get pretty noticeable but still weren’t approaching superhuman levels, although that might change soon. Technically this meant a massive improvement compared to before, but the thing was... it wouldn’t fucking matter. Not after the display in the void above. Ah, good ol’ nihilism, wondered where you were.

  Rising dawn, growing ever-present anxiety and the headache which haunted nearly every waking hour of my post-apocalyptic life eventually caused me to head out. A last glance at my stats showed totals of 10, 23, 15, 20, 10 and 32 down the line, with 7 mana in the tank. It was progress, of a sort. In the same vein, for the first time since the world ended, neither hunger nor thirst bothered me. Not because I couldn’t go for a bite and there were plenty of hopefully clean sources here, but nausea accompanied every thought of scarfing down food or even water.

  I’d focused hard on distractions to avoid thinking about this stuff because there was little to be done about it. My left arm hurt like hell, swollen as it was. So really it was my subcutaneous infection making the progress, but I wasn’t above claiming credit for another’s work.

  Mending was not a real healing spell after all.