Skyclad (Fate's Anvil Book 1)

by Scott Browder

  Titles, Mantles, and Aspects

  [Worldwalker (Title)] - You have travelled through the void between the many worlds! Every world is different, each with its own gifts and dangers. To help you survive strange new places, you gain a slight boost to health and an increased ability to learn new things! (+50 to Health, +50% increased gains to Skill Experience)

  [Blessed of the Guardian Tree (Title)] - Through an offering of the blood of your enemies, you have reawakened the ancient tree! You need never fear its hungry roots! Future offerings or actions that benefit the tree may enhance this Title!

  Class Traits

  [Skyclad] You are clad in the sky itself, forfeiting items, clothing, and equipment in exchange for the unrivaled power of purest Sorcery. There are no barriers between you and the magics of the world. Items will no longer equip; in exchange, intangible gains are substantially increased.

  [Sorceress] Your pathway to magic and power is Sorcery itself. Needing neither incantations nor blood nor prayer, you wield the flows of Mana directly by your own will.

  Morgan took in the new status information as her floating dream island began to rise toward the bright circle. Something about it simply felt right, even though it was only now sinking in that nudity was included in the deal. Lifelong nudity, a firm and inescapable fact. For some reason she wasn’t quite as bothered by her nakedness as she might have once been. She’d come to an agreement with her innermost primal self, after all.

  Well, she thought, it doesn’t matter out here in the Wildlands, and if I finally meet people, they’ll just have to get over it!

  Lulu has spawned a Brood!

  She had no response for yet another brood spawning message other than to chuckle, which seemed to be echoed by her other-self as the dream refuge rose to the surface. As she approached the glowing circle, Morgan felt that other presence squeeze her mind tightly with a burst of emotions she couldn’t help but mirror. Satisfaction, anticipation, affection, protectiveness, and eager hope all rolled into one brief mental hug that needed no words to be understood.

  Class Framework finalized. Soul Modification Complete.

  Activating Selected Class: [Skyclad Sorceress]!

  May your Story be Remembered!

  Morgan jolted awake on the sunbaked sands where she’d fallen. The river was still a few dozen paces away, and the grassy brush line was still at her back, in the shadow of the trees on her side of the water. But as she sat up, her eyes fell upon a loofah Armageddon, and shrill, purbling war cries matched bestial screams in her ears.

  “LULU!” she called, stiffly jerking herself up to her feet. Her body felt like she’d been immobile for days, and she had to pee with a near painful urgency. [Regeneration] seemed to work like an even more enhanced version of [Naked Recovery], and she could tell her body’s fat reserves were slightly diminished, although not to a troubling degree. What was troubling, however, was the death and destruction Morgan could see all around her.

  The broad, sandy bank of the river resembled nothing so much as a war zone, akin to the beaches of Normandy she’d seen in high school history class documentaries. There were craters blown into the sands, bloody bones scattered everywhere, and several different kinds of strange and frightening beasts lying dead and exfoliated all around her for hundreds of paces up and down the riverbank. Like a victorious army, loofahs of every color of the rainbow puffled all over the place, demonstrating magics similar to their hue.

  She could do nothing but stare for several moments, mesmerized by the ebb and flow of the oddly colorful and purbling combat. Despite her confusion, she’d already pieced together much of what had happened. I’ve been out longer than I thought. It must have been three or four days, at least…

  The skeletons of the Lesser Alpha and the Eel-Hydra were gleaming and polished, and a legion of tiny, coin-sized scrubbies scooted its way between other skeletons on the sandy shore. More scrubbies fought several creatures that looked like bigger versions of typical river and forest dwelling creatures.

  Morgan tried to take a step toward the swarming frilly madness, wanting to help out, but she found her path blocked by several skeletons. One was a rodent that must have once been the [Chittering Murdersquirrel] that had been the first of Lulu’s victims. A vaguely frog-like skeleton and several long bone formations that must have at one point been eels also sprawled around her.

  The blood and viscera soaked into the sands seemed to have seeped down to the water, drawing more and more creatures eager to feed. Lulu, in turn, had fed well. The plucky scrubby matriarch was now perched on top of what looked like a lobster or crawdad the size of a Volkswagen, with gleaming swords of chitin for the ends of its many legs and fanning out from its tail.

  There were more eels trying to slither up the sands toward the feast of corpses, but the scrubby legion reacted as one organism. Poofy loofahs swarmed any threat as soon as it emerged from the water. Red puffballs glowed with intense heat. Yellow ones crackled with arcs of electricity. Green ones left trails of hissing, caustic cleaning fluids. The scents of ozone, lye soap, and charcoal warred with the pungent aromas of days-old corpses the scrubbies hadn’t yet had time to consume.

  As one giant eel fell to the sand, still wriggling weakly and not quite dead, the larger loofahs made way to allow the smaller ones to swarm in for the kill. The last thrash of the sparking jaws led to dozens of rippling, golden pulses as the smaller loofahs became not quite so small from subduing their foe and leveling up.

  Farther down the bank from Morgan, several scrubbies as big as Lulu were furiously consuming the corpse of another eel, and one by one they all swelled up into massive lacy puffballs. With an almost cartoonish sounding fwoomp , the first scrubby exploded like a piece of popcorn, sending tiny prismatic puffs outward as it lost its extra mass and returned to normal. The newly poofed brood of scrubbies immediately began to feed on the dead bodies scattered across the sands. They were soon followed by more fwoomps , and more scrubby cousins.

  The river itself was awash with foamy blood, goopy viscera, and variously tinted patches of soapy bubbles, and this seemed to be what fueled the constant onslaught of the riverbank invasion.

  For spawning ten thousand descendants, Lulu has gained the Title [Loofah Prime: The Scrubby Matriarch]!

  A silvery halo briefly appeared over the precocious puffball as Lulu hopped off her dead crustacean perch and began working her way back in Morgan’s direction. Morgan herself had been picking her way toward Lulu, around and over and sometimes through the gleaming, off-white skeletons. The combat all across the riverside sandbar seemed to lull for a moment as she scooped up her murderously adorable friend for a hug. The lavender-scented puffball frantically checked to be sure that all of Morgan was still there, zipping across arms to hands, and hopping down to check toes and feet before making its way back up to perch on her shoulder, purbling in relief.

  As she walked toward the water’s edge, Morgan felt for her magic, and found it eagerly responsive. With a touch of willpower and Mana, she pulled a globe of water up from the river. The greater ease with which the magic flowed in and around her was simply astounding. She could feel the impurities in the water as well, and expelled the blood and filth from her globular acquisition before sipping from the floating sphere.

  “This is amazing, Lulu!” she exclaimed to the scrubby that was, once again, happily perched on her shoulder. Letting go of the ball of water with a splash, she held up her hands and pulled Lightning Mana out of the air around her. She let it dance around and between her fingers like a crackling purple game of cat’s cradle. “My magic doesn’t hurt me anymore, Lulu! It’s like it’s all natural now!”

  She paused for a few seconds before chuckling and shaking her head. “Heh, all natural, au naturel, I guess it comes with the territory now.”

  The attacking creatures seemed to have vanished for some reason Morgan couldn’t detect, but with her newly attuned instincts giving faint tingly warnings, she headed away from the water. She turn
ed to the most recently deceased eel and, when her instinct skill reassured her it was indeed edible, tore a large chunk of the fishy white flesh away with her bare hands. She wasn’t starving, but she was quite hungry.

  With an improvised usage of her [Wind Barrier] spell, she held the roughly torn eel filet suspended in mid-air and cooked it with a careful application of [Candleflame] while she sat on the lobster-like carapace that had previously been Lulu’s matriarchal throne. The sound of purbles, warbles, and trilling purrs surrounded her, and she simply stared at Lulu’s progeny with incredulity as she ate.

  “I wasn’t ready to be a grandma, girl.”

  Lulu’s only response was a haughty puffling shake before going back to working through Morgan’s hair, which had become encrusted with sand and grit while she lay still for several days. She finished off her roasted eel and suddenly remembered her tattoos.

  Jumping up and nearly dislodging the protesting loofah, Morgan drew another ball of pure water from the river. With a brief struggle of will that was more about visualizing exactly what she wanted and less about the power required to do it, the sphere of liquid flattened out into a spinning, shimmering disk.

  Her reflection in the improvised mirror was utterly striking. She stood naked on the sand with a proud, confident stance she hadn’t even realized she’d grown into. The diminutive, withdrawn posture of the waitress she used to be was gone. The image she now saw was a strong, fit example of unapologetic femininity and strength. Shoulders back, hair wild, and standing tall on bare feet. “Totally not giving a damn, Lulu,” she said. “Hah! I couldn’t equip a damn to give it!”

  With a wry chuckle, she pulled the mirror closer to inspect her enchanted tattoos. In the center of her chest, just below where her collarbones came close together, was a simple divided circle tattoo. The two halves of the shiny, indigo disk had a thin gap of separation between them, but at the center of the circle they seemed to twist together like a lock.

  Two hair-thin lines of deep purple inked their way upward, one from each side of the circle. They pulled close together to trace their way through the narrow indentation between her collarbones, then turned outward to curl up the sides of her neck and behind her ears. The lines reemerged from her hair on either side to connect the [Soul Anchor] to the [Mana Sight] Living Rune.

  The tattoo for [Mana Sight] struck Morgan as hauntingly beautiful and reminded her of Celtic woad designs and other tribal imagery. The thin, connecting lines split at her temples and wove an intricate, narrow belt across her eyes in a matte indigo color. The tattoo even covered her eyelids, and she made awkward faces at herself by closing one eye and trying to inspect its lid with the other eyeball.

  Her moment of self-reflection and study was brought to a halt sooner than she would have liked. Thunder rumbled ominously to the south, despite the bright, sunny day. She’d been wondering what could have scared off the local critters that had been fighting over the buffet of dead creatures all around, and now it made its appearance.

  The legions of loofah scrubbies began purbling with nervousness and making their way back into the brush and trees away from the water, but Morgan stood her ground. Her instincts were less fearful and more watchful, as the marshy stretch of the river in the southern distance was covered in low thunderclouds centered over a single large shadow. As the localized storm front crept up the river toward their location, Morgan activated her [Mana Sight] tattoo and, with her vision now piercing the clouds to see the currents of Mana within, the source was revealed in all its fearsome, magical detail.

  The center of the small storm was almost directly above a most distinctive creature that Morgan had no trouble at all naming. “Good Lord, Lulu! It’s an ACTUAL hydra! Seven heads and all!”

  The loofah simply puffled with a complete lack of awe at the statement, which Morgan could actually understand, given the loofah’s recent record-setting bout of reproduction. The hydra appeared to be quite a bit smaller than the electric eel-hydra had been, but it more than made up for that with powerful front limbs that pulled it through the marshy waters and mud of the lower section of the river.

  In addition to sheer strength, the magic was obvious. Morgan could make out giant eddies of Water, Air, and Lightning Mana swirling in the clouds above the approaching monster. And another type of Mana was visible to her rune-enhanced vision, a type she’d not yet experimented with herself. This new Mana seemed to form concentrated knots in the upper layers of the storm, and then zip downward, propelled by the winds and the Air and Water Mana to incredible speeds, to then hit the mud with thumping, wet sounds of impact.

  Holding up her hand, Morgan copied the knot of strange new Mana she could see in the hydra’s hovering storm clouds. Within moments, a sphere of ice drew in all the moisture around her hand as it swelled into existence. It froze to her hand, but that proved a benefit, as the entire process rewarded her with a spell, a resistance, and an affinity within a handful of heartbeats.

  You have learned the spell [Hailstone]! One or two may not do much, but a storm of hundreds can be deadly! Form a ball of ice with Frost Mana. Multiple [Hailstone] spells may be cast simultaneously, at a proportional cost.

  You have gained the skill [Frost Resistance]!

  You have gained the skill [Frost Affinity]!

  Morgan cackled suddenly but didn’t flee the approaching beast. “Lulu…” she said between gasps of laughter. “It’s a Hail-Hydra…”

  She laughed so hard it hurt, and still she did not flee. The scrubby on her shoulder seemed perfectly calm, and instead of fear, her instincts were telling her the hydra would be quite tasty indeed. The urge to test out her new class limits and this newly responsive and intuitive use of magic was overwhelming—and, she admitted to herself, I and my inner self both have some issues that would be good to get worked out.

  Her caloric reserves were almost fully replenished by the magically broiled eel she’d consumed. Her Health and resource pools were all full, and she felt physically better, more alive, than she had since appearing in this world.

  Morgan stretched her arms above her head and twisted from side to side as if merely preparing for an exercise session, then cracked her neck, and then her knuckles. The [Skyclad Sorceress] wanted to play, and one unfortunately tasty-looking Hydra had picked the wrong time to appear.

  Chapter 13: Sympathetic Reflex

  Morgan Mackenzie was fighting for her life, and enjoying every glorious moment of it. The magic she wielded was vibrant in a way she didn’t—or couldn’t—notice before. In her blood, in her bones, and in her mind, it hummed . It was utterly intoxicating, a feeling of near invincibility. Her magic seemed to plead to be used, the Mana that sang in her blood responding to her will like a custom-built sports car designed for her and her alone.

  Now that the hydra was closer, she could tell it wasn’t, in fact, tasty at all. The vast majority of its body gave off a sort of ick-flavored feeling under her gaze, like smelling sewage with her eyes. It was covered in slimy, iridescent scales of an utterly disgusting shade of green. Protrusions of thick, bony shell guarded the spot where the scaly necks sprouted like a clump of twisted roots.

  The heads looked like an abominable cross between a snapping turtle and a crocodile: narrow, ridged beaks filled with vicious, uneven, ugly teeth that gnashed together as the heads hissed and spat in response to her repeated casts of [Lightning Bolt]. The only part of the creature that did, in fact, seem tasty were small pockets of bluish, glowing tendrils that wriggled about under the gill-like flaps behind the jaws of each head, and that was only because Morgan’s [Primal Instinct] told her they were. Morgan herself had no interest in eating anything even remotely resembling tentacles. Not unless I’m starving, at least…

  All her magic and skills felt smoother and more cooperative with her will, no longer jittery and difficult to grasp. Before her Class Selection, the spells had been almost wild, with Fire and Lightning literally burning their way out of her flesh when she released them. Now, the
Mana seemed to flow nearly unhindered, harmlessly leaving her body with merely the thought to direct it.

  Lulu remained glommed tightly onto her shoulder as Morgan activated [Acceleration] and darted between two striking heads to fire a [Spell Surge]-empowered [Lightning Bolt] into the creature’s chest. The magical beast’s raw power with Water made her Fire spells sputteringly ineffective under the localized storm, but she could still temporarily stun it with a good shock of lightning.

  The serpentine necks twitched and jerked as Morgan danced back out of range, hopping around and over the exfoliated skeletons scattered across the sands with a grace aided by her [Primal Instinct] and [Athleticism]. Her basic spells had done no lasting damage at all, as far as the young Sorceress could discern. Even intoxicated by the buzzing power thrumming in her Soul, she could understand she wouldn’t be able to keep this pace up indefinitely.

  I need something more , she thought as she formed a [Wind Barrier] out of the Air above her to deflect an incoming wave of jagged hail and lightning. The frozen chunks of water bounced off the shield, but the impact of the hydra’s lightning spell sent her sprawling, with her skin tingling from the static.

  She sprang to her feet with a burst of [Acceleration], and kept it up long enough to put some distance between her and her foe, burning Stamina with [Regeneration] to recoup the spent Mana. Turning just outside the edge of the magical storm’s range, Morgan drew up Fire and Lightning Mana simultaneously.

  It was similar to how she had twisted the Fire Mana before losing control of it back in her temporary Earth shelter, but this time she blended two Elements together for the spell. It took effort, but thanks to her new Class and the improved abilities to manipulate Mana, she managed to keep it from exploding in her face. Vivid, purple flames swirled between her hands, crackling furiously with the charged Lightning Mana inside the spinning Fire.

  The more Fire and Lightning she squeezed into the spinning ball, the more of her Mana it cost to keep it contained. The two elements didn’t seem to like being forced together so roughly, but Morgan didn’t have time to experiment slowly. As the hydra closed once again to within thirty paces, she activated [Spell Surge] and thrust her hands out toward the monster, while she shoved the roiling mass forward with her mind.