Fifth Chapter of the Royal climber

Unedited

Chapter 5

Magic sight

Her muscles burned as she walked down the hill. She stopped briefly and imagined two copies of herself and without any input from her one of her copies had a glow around them. It was glowing darkly red around her arms and legs, but there was also a darkish glow around her stomach. She mentally spun her copy around and saw that while her arms and legs were still glowing darkly, most of her back, all the way up to the bottom of her skull, and buttocks were glowing darkly red as well.

She let the image drop and returned her attention back to the forest. Going down the mountain she felt like she was floating. She wasn’t, but it felt so easy running downwards. She weaved her way in and around through the trees with a grace she had never had before coming into the Tower. Whatever her first skill had enchanted, she liked it. By the time she reached the road again, she had a smile on her face.

She spent the rest of the morning walking down the road. Nothing happened and she didn’t see anything inside the forest on either side of the road. That there wasn’t anything there. She just didn’t spot anything among the trees. She was very aware that the woods could be full of monsters, but she was just unable to spot them. In fact with all the mountain lions she had fought she wouldn't be surprised to find out that she was missing a whole lot of things hidden in the woods.

Right around midday the road ended. It didn’t fade or anything like that. It just ended. The dirt road stopped right in front of a bunch of trees and some large bushes that were in its path. There was a large pile of dirt to the side like someone had been building the road, but stopped for some reason. She looked back at the way she had come and wondered if she had accidentally gone the wrong way. It wouldn’t have surprised her if she had.

Just to be sure she climbed up the large pile of dirt and looked through the trees that were blocking the unfinished road. Just beyond the trees there was a valley. The valley went on all the way to the horizon. In the middle of the valley was a small lake or maybe a pond. The sunlight reflected off the water making it hard to see it’s details.

That wasn’t what caught Kat’s attention though. It was the watch tower on a huge hill that could almost be called a mountain in the distance. She didn’t know if that was what she was supposed to go to to leave this floor, but she wanted to check it out anyway. Plus she wanted a drink of water, and the only water she had seen in the past two floors was that pond.

She slid down the dirt pile reveling in her new found grace. She pushed her way through the bushes and out into the forest behind them. Stopping for a moment to let her eyes adjust to the lower lighting, she strained her senses trying to see if there were any monsters in the area. The forest was lively with the songs of birds and the chirping of squirrels and chipmunks. She didn’t spot any dangers nor did the smaller forest animal seem on edge. She continued deeper into the forest.

She did her best to walk quietly, and was grateful to feel the wind on her face as she traveled deeper into the valley. She looked around trying to find the birds that were singing here and there, but they were too good at hiding because she didn’t spot any. She was in the process of trying to spot a chipmunk when she saw it.

At first she took it for a dog, but the long thick black hair told a different story. It was a dire wolf. She had seen a few of them over the winter. They didn’t like passing through the kingdom's magic shields, but sometimes, especially during the winter when things get lean, you could spot one. They were very much the predator that hunted anything from a full grown man to horses that were left out in the pasture. They were more than enough for the average man even with muskets, but good hunting for Climbers who had reached their third ten set.

That made her wonder why she was seeing something that should be on the twentieth floor and above, on the third floor. She was no match for a beast like that. She debated on hiding or trying to sneak away.  She had just decided to sneak away when the thing’s head turned towards her.

“Dratted.” She cursed in a normal tone of voice. There was no point of hiding nor running away anymore. It had already spotted her, and it was much too fast to outrun.

Without any warning it charged right at her. She shot out a musket ball of vitality, but the ball bounced off of it. Immediately, she charged up a stronger one and threw it at the charging beast. It too bounced off of it. Feeling the flutters in her stomach she overcharged a musket ball of vitality and threw it when it was only ten feet away. The huge wolf leaped just as the musket ball landed on its chest just under its head.

She felt it connect even as she dove to the side hoping to avoid the leaping wolf. While in the air she yanked her hand back, pulling on the wolf's vitality. They collided in mid air, but she had moved far enough out of the way so it’s huge jaws didn’t find her throat. It latched on her shoulder instead. Its mouth clamped down and she felt the bones in her shoulder crumble just as a huge wave of vitality came rushing up the ribbon of vitality that connected them both.

The wolf landed first and was thrown spinning in the air to land on it’s back. It hadn’t let go of her shoulder as it was thrown forward and it’s teeth left two large and deep gashes in her shoulder. Kat landed hard on her back, but she didn’t feel any pain as the torrent of vitality she was stealing from the wolf healed everything almost instantly. She flipped over backwards by the force of the wolf's charge, and was not ready for it when it attacked again.

She felt its jaws find her thigh and clamp down. She felt the big bone in her thigh break as the wolf picked up and swung her back and forth like she was nothing but a raggedy old dolly. The pain Kat felt was surprisingly muted. The vitality flowing into her from the wolf was doing all sorts of things to help her. While the broken bone didn’t hurt all the much she found herself helpless as she was swung to and fro violently.

Between one moment and the next the vitality she was receiving from the wolf ended and it let her go. She dropped to the ground and was unable to move as her healing ability flowed through her body fixing all sorts of things that were wrong with her body. It was a long few minutes before she felt the drain on her vitality slow to a trickle that was always flowing out.

While she was laying still thinking about getting up the inside of her nose started to get hot. It only lasted for a couple of seconds, but when it was done she was bombarded hundreds of separate smells. She could smell the shat that the wolf released when it died.

She could also smell a few more smells that she couldn’t identify that were coming off of the wolf. One was a sweet but sharp smell that was nearly overpowering in sweetness. Turning her head she took a sniff and followed the smell with her eyes back to its mouth. Rolling over she stood up and walked over to the wolf’s mouth trying to figure out what was causing that sweet but sharp smell. It didn’t smell healthy.

In fact as she thought about it she realized that something was off with the wolf. All the Dire Wolf pelts she had seen had nice and shiny fur. The wolf in front of her had matted hair that was greasy along with a very bad but powerful odor coming from it. Looking back at the thing's face, she saw some greenish gunk under its eye. This wolf, she realized, was sick.

She took a step back, but didn’t look away. She had no idea what the sickness was, but after it bit her a bunch of times she was worried about getting sick herself. She didn’t feel sick and her vitality was trickling away normally.

“Still”, she thought to herself, “maybe the sickness hasn’t started yet.”

She was still worrying over getting sick when a shift in the wind brought with it the smell of another Dire Wolf. She looked up in panic until she realized it wasn’t another Dire Wolf, it was the same wolf. Her eyes tracked the most likely area where the smell was coming from and spotted a marked up tree. She got another scent of the dead wolf's smell and found yet another tree with claw marks. She slowly nodded to herself. The wolf had marked its territory.

“Does that mean that this is the only wolf around?” She asked herself. Turning her head she took several deep breaths, but only scented older smells that smelled like the dead wolf.

“Chance it, or continuing on?” She asked herself. “Maybe I went the wrong way and the exit is behind me.”

Looking up she spotted the watchtower in the distance. “Blazes.” She cursed and started walking towards it. She stopped a few times to take a big sniff, but while she got a bunch of new smells she didn’t scent another dire wolf. She could still smell old scents of the dire wolf she had kill when she reached the pond. She came upon a bunch of smooth tan river rocks as she walked towards the pond. She had to walk over them for about a hundred feet until she reached the pond itself.

The water was crystal clear and she could see the bottom very easily. She could see the rocks that made up the shore continue into the pod under the water .The shore was shallow for about twenty feet before it dipped downwards, and she couldn’t follow it anymore due to the sun's reflection. She couldn’t see any fish swimming around in the water. She wasn’t sure if it was because there were bigger fish eating them or if there were never any because this was just a floor and not the real world.

She bent down and took a drink all the while keeping any on the water half expecting something to attack her from the depths. As she drank the water her thirst came back with a vengeance and she drank far more than she should. She felt her vitality drain uptic for a few seconds before dropping down to a much lower drain than what she had come to consider normal.

She sat up and scanned her surroundings as she contemplated just how powerful her second and maybe her first skill was. She should have died to the dire wolf. It was so much more powerful than she was. It treated her like an old piece of rope that it liked to chew, and there was nothing she could have done against it. Without her second skill she would have died when it bit her the first time let alone the second time or when it was flinging her about.

That made her wonder why such a powerful beast was even on a floor this low. Was it because of how powerful her skill was? Was the Tower increasing the difficulty of the floors because of it? It made her worry, just how bad were the future floors going to be?

In the back of her head she heard her father speak. “Let future problems be, and deal with the problems you face now.” She had no idea how many times he told her that whenever she got overwhelmed. Another of his sage advice was, “Deal with the floor you are on, not the one you are not.”

Taking a deep breath she let the questions about the future be as her father told her time and time again. She stood up and started to walk over the loose rocks with an ease that made her smile. She deliberately stepped on a loose rock and blanched on it for a few seconds just because she could. The worries seemed to fade away as she reveled in her in the part of her body attribute that was enchanted by her first skill.

On the other side of the pond she scented her first predator that was not the dire wolf. It took her a few seconds to find the place where the animal had marked it’s territory because it had peed between two trees on the forest floor. The smell didn’t have the same, run this is a very powerful animal, smell that accompanied the dire wolf’s smell. But there were similarities with the smells. If she had to guess she would have said that she was smelling a normal wolf.

She kept on walking, but was on guard as she made her way towards the watchtower. About two hundred yards later, she smelled a fresher smell of the predator in front of her. She froze and sniffed the air trying to get a better feel for it. At first she thought it was just a very fresh scent marker, but then she realized that whatever was giving off that smell was moving slowly to her right.

She looked in the direction where she was smelling the wolf, but didn’t see anything. Not wanting an enemy behind her nor one downwind of her, she started to follow the scent. Roughly ten minutes later she spotted the much smaller wolf in the distance. It was laying down on a rock washing itself with its tongue in the sun. Kat walked towards the beast as quietly as she could, her eyes fixed on it.

She got about half the distance to it when it’s head jerked up and it spotted her. It was still too far for her to toss a musket ball of vitality at it, but that didn’t matter when it ran away from her. She lowered her hand confused. Every animal that she had encountered so far in the Tower had immediately charged at her. Having an animal run away was a first for her.

She thought about leaving it be, but its running away irritated her. She knew she should be smart and go on to the watchtower and hopefully the exit, but a little voice in the back of her head asked if she was afraid of it. It sounded like her father mocking her during the times when he came home alone from the pub. She took a deep breath and followed the wolf.

The path took her east of the watchtower. She followed the wolf for over an hour before she thought she was getting close. She passed by a large oak looking tree when she smelled more wolves. She paused next to a tree to sniff the air and counted one sharp and smelly smell and four more less sharp smells. They were roughly the same age as each other. That could only mean one thing, a pack.

Cursing her stupidity on hunting the wolf she started to back away when she heard a growl behind her. She turned her head slowly and found a grey wolf looking back at her. It wasn’t the same wolf that she had been chasing, it was another wolf, and he had snuck up on her. It barked at her and her blood froze as answering barks answered all around her. The sneaky wolf had led her into a trap.

Dropping to her knees in front of the tree, she fired off a musket ball of vitality at the wolf racing at her. She accidentally overcharged the ball because she was still on edge after the dire wolf attacked. The ball landed and the wolf’s head exploded. She didn’t get any vitality from it, but then again she didn’t really need it as she was already mostly full from the dire wolf battle

She heard an angry snarl from her right and turned just in time to get hit by another wolf. She shot a musket ball point blank that the wolf hit her and  forced her to the ground. The ball struck him and blew his stomach wide open. She tossed his corpse aside and looked up to see yet another wolf charging at her. She sent a musket ball of vitality at it and raised her arm to protect her face and neck. It found her arm and bit down, but died before it could do all the much damage. Her healing ability healed her arm before the dead wolf's body hit the ground.

Angry snarls came from behind the tree. She peeked around it to see three wolves coming at her. Not hesitating for a second, she threw two balls at the lead two before all three hit her. The first one got it with an overcharged ball and died when it’s chest exploded. The second ball almost missed the wolf as it tried to dodge the invisible ball. It struck the side of it’s snout and the left half of its face exploded in gore. It dropped to the ground either dead or unconscious.

The last wolf planted its feet into the ground and tried to stop. She recognized the wolf as the one she had been chasing. She sent a ball at it, but it dodged at the last second and ran away. Cursing Kat chased after it. It led her on a merry run always heading east. Kat finally gave up when the sun started to go down.

She stopped next to an overturned tree. Leaning against it, she tried to catch her breath. She had burned a lot of vitality trying to keep up with the running wolf, but in the end the wolf had much more stamina that she did. She sat down to rest as she took stock. She was down to half her normal vitality and night was setting in.

The odd lighting from the last floor returned as the last of the sun's rays fled behind the horizon. It was a good thing as she didn’t want to be in the forest blind because of the darkness. She could see perfectly fine, now. She wondered if the Tower was helping her now because of the dire wolf’s attack. She doubted it, but why else would it change the floor so that she could see in the dark?

The one good thing about her new sense of smell was she could track her own smell back the way she came. Her scent now that she paid attention to it, was off putting. It was very strong, and had a spoiled meat smell to it. She looked down at her body and promised it another bath, if she had the time and if it was safe. She thought about backtracking to the pond and ….

Something jumped on her back and knocked her forwards.  At the same time something very sharp tore at her scalp near her left ear. As she fell to the ground she smelled the foul smell of the wolf that she had been chasing for the last few hours.

She landed hard on the ground and an exposed root hit her in the chest knocking the breath out of her. She ignored the sensation and reached behind her and found the things leg. She rolled over onto her back, and at the same time pulled on the leg as hard as she could. She felt a wet snap and the wolf howled in agony. Kat kept rolling, leaving the wolf behind. She rolled right up to her knees and threw a musket ball of vitality at the wolf who was still lying on the ground in front of her. The wolf got to its feet and limped forward a single step before the last of it’s vitality ran out into Kat, healing her. It dropped dead in front of her.

Kat took a deep breath and closed her eyes glad to be alive. She felt like ants were crawling on her scape as it healed. It only lasted a few seconds, but it was disturbing. Then it was over and she opened her eyes again and stuck a stick from her fake belt into her mouth and sucked on some sweet tasting vitality. When she felt like her old self she stood up and looked down at the wolf.

“Good hunt.” She told her defeated foe. “You turned the tables on me twice. Very well done.” Then she turned away and started following her scent that she had left behind back to the watchtower.

She had taken roughly twenty steps before she realized that she hadn’t felt any burn that indicated her first skill activating. Switching her stick from one side of her mouth to the other she imagined her two copies. They were both dark with no lights lighting them up. She frowned and let the image go before she started walking again.

“Why didn’t I get an enchantment?” She asked herself. “I know I killed them. Is it that the Tower disproves of my killing them? No, Father always said to kill every predator that you come across so you don’t get surprised later on. It’s better to take no chances than to be stabbed in the back. So why… Wait, was it because I killed a much stronger monster. Is there a cap on how much my skill can steal from the defeated enemies? The Tower said the skill was based off of vitality. Do I need more vitality to get more enchantments?”

She was not sure if she was right, but lack of vitality felt right. But it also left her questioning if the cap was limited to one part of the body attribute like her sense of smell. Could she keep increasing other parts of her body attribute like her agility that gave her so much grace in her movements. Or was it a total cap like she only had enough room for enhancements with the vaility she had now. She didn’t know and it was bugging her. She could only think of one way to test the theory, and that was to kill something other than a wolf. Smiling, she sped her walking speed up, eager to hunt something else down and kill it.

Her walk back to the pond was a restful one. She didn’t scent anything but her and the wolf she had chased down. There was nothing overhead, nor were there any animals that she could see in the floor’s odd night light running around. There was a slight breeze that was coming in from the east and it felt good on her back. It wasn’t exactly hot out, but she was warmer than she liked. The only thing that she didn’t like was that she was coming in upwind so she couldn’t smell anything in front of her. She wasn’t too worried because she could see pretty far with odd washed out lighting that was on this floor.

It was still dark out when she reached the rock where the wolf had been taking a tongue bath. She looked up and in the distance saw the watchtower. She turned around and saw the pond behind her looking peaceful. She made her way towards the pond deserbertly wanting a bath so remove her awful scent.

The odd lighting of the floor at night didn’t penetrate the surface of the water for some reason. Still she knew the shore was shallow, but still she worried that there might be an aquatic predator or predators in the pond that could sneak up on her as she was bathing. Wishing that the lighting was different she slowly made her way to the shoreline. She was about half way there and still wishing that the lighting was different when she felt a burning sensation and her vision went dark.

At first she thought she had been attacked and whatever attacked her had blinded her. She froze and looked around, but she couldn’t see anything. Wishing she could see, she felt the same burning sensation in her eyes and her sight returned. Confused, she looked around, but there was nothing around her. Then it dawned on her. Those little green people on the second floor. They were nocturnal. The only time they attacked during the day was when she got too close to them. Her skill must have stolen their ability to see at night. No wonder she didn’t see any improvements with her vision during the day.

She chuckled at her ignorance, but quieted down as she looked at the pond in front of her. She still couldn’t see beyond the surface of the water, but she could see a single ripple in the water near the shoreline. Something had peeked it’s head up and judging by the size of the ripple it was bigger than her head. The worrying part was that she hadn’t heard a thing nor had she smelled anything.

Disappointed that she wouldn’t get a bath just yet, she turned sideways and made her way back towards the watchtower. She kept looking back at the pond until it was out of sight. She was worried because she knew there were monsters who live in aquatic environments that could leave the water to hunt on land. None of them were known to be on the first ten set. They were like the dire wolf, something to be avoided if it was possible. If it wasn’t one of the aquatic creatures that could leave the pond then it didn’t matter. She was safe as long as she didn’t go into the water.

It took her another ten minutes to reach the foot of the hill and an hour to get to the watchtower. She stopped just outside the watchtower and peered at it’s guardian from behind a tree roughly a hundred feet from it. It was a fat looking knight in metal armor. Well, it just might be armor with no knight inside of it. She wasn’t sure. It wasn’t moving. It was just standing at the top of the steps of the watchtower. Behind it was a wooden door.

She stayed where she was watching the surrounding area looking to see if that was the only protector or if there were more. She waited for a while but nothing appeared. She decided it was safe to approach it. She dropped to her belly and crawled towards the metal monster. She tried to keep a tree or a bush in front of her as she crawled closer and she was mostly successful. Either way the metal monster didn’t react. She got within thirty feet of the thing and hid behind a bush.

Looking at the metal thing she wondered what to do. So far her vitality only worked on living things. She had no idea if it would work on a metal object if there was no knight inside the armor. She knew she had to overcharge her skill, but she didn’t have a backup plan in case it was just a magical suit of armor. The best thing she could come up with was bash it with her staff or run away and hope she was faster than it. She decided if things went bad she would do both.

She overcharged her musket ball of vitality and stood up. The metal monster reacted instantly, charging at her. She threw the ball with all of her strength and gripped her staff with both hands as the musket ball flew through the air. It hit the armor with a hollow thunk and tore through the armor. A current of vitality poured into her as she yanked her hand back. It wasn’t as much as the direwolf had been, but it was still more than the huge mountain lion.

The metal monster took four steps further in her direction and then it fell apart. Kat blinked in surprise as the armor collapsed into its different pieces showing her that there was no one inside the armor at all. That begged the question, where did she get the vitality from. Not sure if the thing was dead or she waited for a bit to see if something else happened.

Something else did happen. She felt a burn somewhere unimaginable deep inside her. Between seconds everything changed. The air she breathed felt richer, the flat grey colors became more distinct, and she started smelling many more scents than she had been before the burning sensation. In fact a very fresh scent was coming from behind her and it was full of warnings. She spun around and found a woman made of wood leaning out from a tree. The woman looked at her for a few seconds then melted into the tree she had been standing next to. The dangerous smelling scent faded away.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a glowing butterfly. At least she thought it was a butterfly until the thing got closer and she was a tiny naked man with butterfly wings. The tiny man turned suddenly and flew away very fast. It was almost like he had seen a monster. Kat spun around, but aside from the watchtower and the fallen bits of armor there was nothing there. She turned back around hoping to see the little flying man, which she realized had to have been a fairy, but he was long gone.

“I got Magi's sight.” She said in wonder. That meant that she had activated her magic attribute. She smiled and pictured her uncle's face when she told him, but her smile faded as she remembered that he was not amongst the living. She had forgotten in that brief moment of time that she was an orphan.

Shaking her head, she tried to shake off her sadness. She straightened her spin and walked towards the knight looking for something she could use. The knight's sword was rusty and pitted. It looked like it would break the first time it hit something. The armor wasn’t in any better shape. She left both behind and headed for the wooden door hoping to spot the floor's exit.

The door was very old and rotted. There was a huge gap because of the rot at the bottom of the door, and a smaller gap due to the same at the top. The metal that held the thing together was more rusted than the suit of armor she had defeated. She gently tapped on the door and it fell backwards into the watchtower. Her vision showed her a large round room that was empty except for a small chest. Looking at the chest she realized she had gone the wrong way. The Tower only gave out chests if the climber explored the floor instead of going for the exit.

“Blazes!” She cursed. She turned around and looked out over the valley and past the pond, but didn’t see anything but trees. Still cursing she spun around and picked up the small chest.

Not caring if it was trapped, she opened the small chest and found a single small earring. It was a simple yellow metal stud earring with a flat front and a twist on back. She could feel something like a vibration coming from the earring making her wonder if it had some kind of enchantment on it. While many things found in the Tower had some kind of enchantment on them, it was rare for them to be found this low in the Tower. Also Kat didn’t have her ears pierced. She had been far too young to have them done before she entered the Tower. Now that she was a climber it wouldn’t be seen as inappropriate.

The only thing she knew about an earring was that it went in her earlobe. Not knowing what else to do she tested out the metal post thing and found that it didn’t bend. With a mental shrug she placed the post to her right earlobe and pushed. She heard a sharp pop and a flash of pain followed it but  quickly faded as her healing ability started working. And just like that the earring was in.

After twisting the back of the earring in until it wouldn’t go anymore she felt a flash of warmth as the enchantment on the earring started working. Not even a second later she felt her Vitality stomach stretch out a bit. It grew about slightly less than half of what she got from her award from the Tower for completing a floor.  Still, she was happy with it. Increasing her vitality cap was never a bad thing.

After the earring was in she looked around the room she was in. She noted a few things beside what she initially saw when she entered the room. First the floor was filthy, but undisturbed. Her footprints were the only footprints inside the room. She also noted that if there had ever been a staircase that went up it was long gone now. The ceiling was maybe three or four stories above her and her colorless vision showed her that it was made out of river rocks and filler that glowed white in her sight. It reminded her of the richer churches she had seen that were made out of rocks instead of wood. They had arched ceilings just like this watchtower did.

“This would make a nice place to rest.” She thought to herself as she looked around. The door was done. There was no point in trying to put it back up. The metal pieces that were connecting the rotting wood had broken when it fell. The door had literally fallen apart when she had tried to open it.

Looking around, she didn’t see anything to block the door beside the rusted out armor from the metal monster she had fought. It was completely useless as a barrier. It would be a good alarm though. She went back out and made several trips to bring the rusted out armor to the door and placed it down so that if anything tried to get in, it would have to go through the armor. Well, if it had a talent for jumping it could clear the armor with no problems. But she hoped that even if a monster jumped she would still hear it and wake up.

Still, she wanted to sleep. She was exhausted both physically and emotionally. She had been fine until she realized that she had gone in the wrong direction. Even finding the earring didn’t help her mind cope all that much. She needed to rest.

She sat down with her back against the stone wall and as far away from the door as she could She also positioned herself so that it would be hard to see her from the outside. Taking a deep breath she tried to relax as she let the air out. Closing her eyes, she tried to sleep. To her surprise, she did.

She woke up fully awake expecting to be attacked. To her surprise there was nothing anywhere around her. Still, she didn’t move and held some muskets of vitality ready in her hands just in case. Aside from the birds singing in the distance and the sunlight that was coming through the wide open door, everything seemed peaceful. She got up and grabbed her staff before stepping into the middle of the room to peek out the doorway. The armor lay undisturbed, and there was nothing waiting for her on the other side of the doorway. At least from what she could see or scent.

The wind was blowing into her face as she made her way to the doorway. She scented the sharp smell of vegetation and some odd but faint spicy smell. It left a tingle in her nose that made her think of her newly acquired magic attribute. It also smells stale, like it had been a while since whatever gave it off had come and gone a while ago. She hadn’t smelled it when she woke up, so she didn’t think it entered the watchtower.

A scent waffled up from her own body and she winced at how bad she smelled. Looking off into the valley she saw the pond and thought about the night before. Her night time ability to see in the dark didn’t work as well as her normal sight. Looking up she judged it to still be early in the morning. “

Time enough for a bath if I stay alert and don’t go deep into the water.” She told herself. Then she started walking. Kat found going down the huge hill was a lot of fun. She didn’t run, not really. It was more like she was falling down the hill, but in a controlled way. She followed a dry creek bed, jumping from earth embankments, to rocks, to the ground of the dry bed and back again. A few times she jumped and fell six or seven feet to land without mishap or injury. She did it without slowing down or going out of control.

The dry creek bed led right to the pond, but Kat didn’t go to the waters edge. She didn’t like the direction of where the wind was blowing. Instead she circled around the pond until the wind was blowing on her back sending her scents and smells to the one area she couldn’t see, behind her. She stopped about ten feet or so from the shore line and watched the water. Like before the water was completely still and looked like glass even though the wind was blowing harder than it had the day before.

She didn’t see any ripples in the water, nor did she see or smell anything to indicate that there was anything larger than a bird near her. Only after reassuring herself by watching for a few minutes did she make her way towards the waters edge. She picked an area that had a large rock next to it. Here she took off her clothes and smelled them before laying them on the large rock.

Oddly enough, her scent was on everything she took off, but it quickly faded after a few seconds. Even her shoes smelled clean after those few seconds passed. The only thing that was dirty was inside her shoes, and that was only because there was a bunch of dirt in them.They became clean and very white as soon as she dumped the dirt out. Self repairing and self cleaning clothes, Kat discovered, were amazing.

Checking the pond once more, she didn’t find anything that seemed out of the ordinary. Taking her shirt with her, she carefully walked over the rocks and into the water. She only walked until her ankles were under the water before she stopped. Then she splashed water onto her head. She washed herself as quickly as possible, and used her shirt as a bath rag to wash her body.

She had just finished washing her legs when she looked up to see a V like shape coming right at her from the center of the pond. Cursing, she ran out of the pond, and grabbing her clothes from the large rock, she ran for the forest’s edge. It was only after she ran about a hundred did she stop and turn around. To her surprise, the pond was still once more. She looked around the pond for any signs of a predator, but there was nothing. No signs of anything coming out of the pond that she could see from where she was. The pond wasn’t a perfect circle, in fact in its shape was that of a kidney bean, so there were parts that she couldn’t see from where she was hiding.

It was only then, standing naked by a tree holding her clothes that she realized that she had forgotten her staff at the water's edge. She could see it from where she was, a blackish brown stick resting against a large lightly tan rock where her clothes had been. Cursing, she quickly got dressed. Once her shoes were on, she jogged back to get her staff half expecting something to jump out and get her from the pond.

She made it to the rock and without stopping grabbed it, and ran to the forest that was between her and the road. She ran like the dogs of war were chasing her, and she didn’t stop until she was well away from the pond. Even then she only stopped to catch her breath and look behind her. She froze at what she saw. She didn’t see the monster, only its tail. Even then she only saw a quick flash of the thick dark green tail that looked heavily armored by some kind of plated exoskeleton.

“That was stupid.” She muttered to herself as the last of the ripples in the water faded and the pond's surface became like glass again. She knew it had been stupid, but she couldn’t resist taking a bath. Only her second one in a little more than three months. She mentally berated herself for doing it, even though she knew there had to be a monster in there.

“Still, I’m alive and clean.” She told herself and felt a small smile grow on her face. “I even have my staff.” Turning around, and feeling excited after she stole her staff from under the monster in the pond's nose, she started walking to where she knew the road had to be.

Not long after that, she came across the battleground where she had fought the direwolf. There were no signs of its body, but she could see a lot of smaller scavenger tracks in the dirt. She also found her slightly faded tracks she had made when she entered the forest from the road. Her scent on the other hand was long gone. It hadn't even lasted a full day.

She easily found her way back onto the road by following her previous trail. Once back on the road, she restarted her journey hoping that the exit to the floor was somewhere in front of her, now. It took the entire day, until she came upon the battleground where she had gone a little crazy and challenged the mountain lions. She smelled the dead animals first, then she found what was left of her first kill in the ditch on the side of the road. It was mostly just bones, but there were still bits of meat and fur still attached to the body.

She didn’t know when she passed the area where she had entered the floor, but when the sun had gone down she knew she must have traveled much further than she had before the battles with the mountain lions. It was based on a gut feeling, but she imagined it to be true. The wind was blowing at her back, so she had no idea if there were any monsters ahead of her. All she knew was that she wasn’t picking up any enemies behind her. Her night sight given by the little green people didn’t show anything in the woods surrounding her as she walked, so it was only that which was in front of her that had her worried.

There were no moon nor any stars in the night sky, so Kat had no idea how long she had been walking when she spotted a mountain lion with reflective eyes in front of her in the woods. At first she just thought it was one lion off to her right, but then she caught a flash of light to her left before spotting a second one. She crept off the road towards the one to her right hoping to catch the one to her left as it crossed the road to get her.

Her plan worked. No sooner than she stepped down the ditch on the side of the road, the mountain lion appeared on the road as it slowly stalked her. She smiled at it, and prepared her second skill. She snapped her left hand out sending a musket ball of vitality towards the cat even as the one with reflective eyes in front of her started to charge towards her. She was able to throw a ball at the one in front of her as the one on the road dropped dead.

The one in the woods jumped in the air at her, but it went limp soon afterwards and Kat was able to dodge it easily. It landed with a thump behind her. She froze where she was and looked around, but she didn’t spot any more mountain lions or any other predators for that matter. Still she remained cautious, as she traveled in the ditch instead of going back on the road. As she walked she felt her muscles burn just like the last time she had kill the mountain lions.

She was attacked two more times, but by a single mountain lion each time. Both times they had to cross the road to get at her. Neither one made it even close to her before she killed them. She was not sure what she expected, but not long after she was attacked the second time she found the exit of the floor hovering in the middle of the road with no guardian. She froze for a second then slowly turned around looking for what she was sure had to be an ambush, but she didn’t smell anything, nor did she see anything. Just to make sure she slowly circled the exit, but she didn’t smell or see anything. Shrugging her shoulders at her good fortune, she stepped into the dark portal that led to the next floor