Skyclad (Fate's Anvil Book 1)

by Scott Browder

  Experimentation and learning more skills will grant access to more skills for acquisition!

  [Runic Belt (Living Rune)] - [20 Skill Points] This Living Rune links to your [Soul Anchor] rune. One spatial storage enchantment may be added to [Runic Belt] per level of the Living Rune. Living Rune level is capped at the current level of [Soul Anchor]. Improving your abilities with spatial magics will increase the level of [Runic Belt].

  Morgan danced happily in place, hugging a protesting Lulu in her excitement. “Ha, ha-ha !” she half-giggled, half-sang with satisfaction, placing the scrubby back on the bed to allow it to resume its wandering scrubbly travels. “So experimenting pays off!”

  There were no other options available at present other than greyed out skills that were useless to her. Many applied to tools, weapons, or items that she would never be able to equip, and others she simply had no interest in whatsoever. She ignored the other skills and hastily spent the points to acquire the [Runic Belt] enchantment.

  “Huh…”

  She felt the skill settle with a strange, pulsing sensation from her [Soul Anchor], but no new tattoo appeared.

  “Okay… “

  Slightly confused, she brought up her skill list with a thought. Focusing on the living runes listed at the end, she finally realized the problem.

  “Oh,” she said with sudden understanding. “[Mana Vision] is listed as an active rune, and [Runic Belt] isn’t…”

  Selecting the skill with her mind and activating it was simple enough, yet still nothing happened at first. Morgan frowned, her confusion growing every second.

  And then she was yelping in pain while jumping up and down and slapping at her belly just above her most sensitive bits.

  “Damn! Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit !”

  In the crook of her hips, on either side of what was formerly her bikini line (when she had still been able to wear such things), bright blue arcs of Mana began tracing an ultra-fine filigree pattern into her skin. The burning ignored her [Pain Resistance] entirely, and she dropped to the ground once again. Her heels drummed a staccato pattern on the dirt floor, and her back arched while she sobbed through clenched teeth, eyes screwed shut.

  The tracings began at two points slightly above and to either side of her crotch, and as they spread up her abdomen from there, the runes grew outward to either side and arched over and around her hips. The entire process took only minutes, yet felt to her like hours. Morgan wailed until the two ends of the tattoo met at the base of her spine, just above the tailbone. The last few inches of the inscribing process hurt more than all that came before, and she flopped and screamed helplessly until, after what felt like an eternity, it was done.

  Morgan simply lay there in a limp heap, whimpering, exhausted, and panting to catch her breath. Lulu, the loyal scrubby, rushed over to its fallen mistress with frightened wurbles while it began inspecting her for damage. The scrubby’s panic at its mistress’ distress took a while to fade as it continued to search for whatever unseen foe had caused such violence. Once her poofy companion had finally determined there were no immediate threats, the loofah set about checking Morgan over in its typical hopping fashion.

  In this instance, however, that inspection was cut short as Lulu hopped from Morgan’s arm onto the outside of her hip—and suddenly vanished, with an alarmed, trilling wurble that was cut horrifyingly short. The naked girl felt panic begin to claw at her mind once again, scrambling to her feet with a cry.

  “Lulu! Shit, no!”

  The tattoo that now circled her hips sat like an unbuckled belt, not quite meeting in the middle of her pelvis. Five empty circles were traced along evenly spaced sections on each side; the forward-most circle on her right hip, however, was filled with a complex triple-spiral pattern that was now pulsing faintly with a gentle blue light.

  Placing her hand over the glowing part of the tattoo, she could feel it pulse with her heartbeat, and with a hurried thought, she pushed extra Mana into her hand, and from her hand into the rune.

  A very upset loofah suddenly popped into existence with a faint rush of air, and immediately resumed its outraged warbling until Morgan gathered Lulu up in both hands to administer soothing pats while hugging it close.

  “Sorry ‘bout that, Lulu!” she cooed, sitting down on the moss-covered bed that occupied one side of the hut. “I wasn’t expecting the tattoo part to hurt at all. The first one didn’t.” She gently petted the loofah as she lay down on the bed, and the soothing, rhythmic motion seemed to unlock something in her mind. Emotional walls she didn’t realize she’d put into place finally began to fall apart.

  “Why does almost everything cool in this world hurt so much?” she whimpered. Then, she felt a burst of anger. “Everything! If it’s not something trying to eat me, I end up burning alive, or—”

  The anger was as short-lived as it was intense, her own words bringing back memories of her first night in the Tree. She’d walled the entire experience off inside her mind as an instinctive self-defense, leaving her more able to deal with the chaos and threats that came her way. But since leaving Moghren’s home and the ancient ruins of the city, her experiences had been much slower paced and far less dangerous. Traumas such as her burning on that first, fateful night could never be truly forgotten, however, and after a few calmer days—and now, the relative safety in her reinforced stone hut—the shock of the tattoos and the familiar burning sensation brought all that pain back in exquisite detail.

  With the memory came the emotions long denied. And, as the rains played a dreary, susurrating tune outside the windows, Morgan finally cried.

  Chapter 18: Terrakinesis

  Morgan was having a rather dreary day, all things considered. She’d indulged in a much-needed breakdown and a good cry as she finally processed everything that had occurred to her since arriving in this new world, culminating in the rainfall carrying her to sleep in an unplanned nap. She felt much better upon waking, but the rains hadn’t abated by the time she awoke.

  “Looks like two nights in the same spot this time, Lulu,” she said as the ever-curious scrubby wurbled its way across her hip, to once again disappear into the newly-enchanted storage rune.

  “Oh, come out of there!”

  The scrubby had spent the minutes since Morgan woke up inspecting this new change to its mistress, its reaction having shifted from shock to a childish wonder. She picked up the purbling loofah after letting it out of the spatial pocket and placed it back on her shoulder. The loofah’s curiosity was infectious though, and she decided to experiment with the new rune on her own.

  “So how much do you think I can carry in there, Lulu?”

  A brief test with the discarded pottery shards soon demonstrated the capacity of her new spatial pocket. After a few dozen finger-width pieces vanished into the warped space, the enchantment remained dim when she brought the next one close.

  “So, a couple of pounds of stuff, maybe? But is it mass, or volume…?”

  She carefully removed the shards from within the rune, floating them up between her hands. They seemed to sort of slip into existence as they left the Living Enchantment, with only a gentle feeling of Mana pulsing through the tattooed design. She poured her Mana into the stone, squeezing them down into one lumpy mass with [Earth Sculpt]. With the same amount of matter now occupying a smaller volume, she put the clump of earth back into storage and was able to add a few more pieces of the broken jars.

  Morgan frowned, tapping the rune. “Hrm. Seems to be a little of Column A, little of Column B…”

  Another attempt, this time spinning the lumpy stone into a larger but hollow shape, proved to also reject any effort to make it vanish into the magical space.

  She nodded to herself. “Volume’s going to be the more limiting factor, looks like…”

  Incrementally shrinking the sphere and redistributing its weight, it was finally small enough to vanish into the rune. The spatial warping that allowed things to disappear into and return from the storage rune se
emed to have a size limit roughly that of a volleyball—at least as far as she could tell, with no way to take precise measurements.

  Her next experiment was to see how much mass she could carry outside the storage rune. Levitating more than twenty or so separate pieces of earthen shards seemed to be her upper limit, a limit which surprised Morgan, as she scooped up a cluster of them with a surge of Mana and mental effort.

  Compared to her other spells and skills, the one she had the most actual practice with was [Earth Sculpt]. Since leaving First Raven’s Roost, the string of campsites and stone hutches she’d abandoned in her wake had finally allowed her to master the ability, not to mention her habit of using it to stave off boredom by playing with stone like it was silly putty.

  There had always been a maximum limit to how densely she could compress the stone, a plateau past which pouring more Mana and effort into it simply yielded no greater result. But, partly due to her modern education on Earth, and her experience learning about various types of stone for usage in architecture, Morgan knew she hadn’t come close to producing a material nearly as strong as marbled granite or quartz.

  “I think the problem with the stone is, regular dirt isn’t all one thing,” she mused out loud. “There’re all kinds of things mixed into most dirt and rocks. Silicates, clay, minerals, and organics. I should have paid more attention in Geology class, dammit!” she exclaimed as she let the clump of squeezed dirt fall to the floor.

  The rains pattering on the roof were showing no signs of letting up any time soon, so Morgan settled in for an evening of experimentation. Alleviating her boredom by playing with her magics killed two birds with one stone.

  Or several birds with one stone, she realized with a thought. Why only practice one type?

  Within an hour, she was already making progress. A sphere of purple flame hovered a few feet away to her left, and a globe of water to her right. Balancing two opposing types of Mana while holding them steady was difficult at first, and would definitely have been beyond her abilities before acquiring her Class. The extra levels in their respective affinities alleviated the strain once the notifications popped into her head, however, and prompted Morgan to really push herself.

  The flame sputtered and dimmed, and the water rippled, threatening to lose cohesion. Slowly, ever so slowly, the lump of earth she’d fused together from the discarded shards began to rise directly in front of her. She could feel the strain on her Mana, even though Earth was her strongest Affinity. The addition of a third manipulation began to strain her; she would normally use gestures of hand or arm to help direct the flow of Mana, and both hands were currently otherwise occupied.

  A bead of sweat fell victim to gravity, travelling down her forehead and into her eye. Her concentration disrupted, the flame died, and the water splashed to the ground, followed quickly by the misshapen stone. Panting to recover from the effort, she stood stooped over with her hands on her knees, while Lulu set about inspecting this new mess in its domain of cleanliness.

  Deciding a break was in order, she tore another chunk of squirrel off the spit and returned to the mossy bed, drawing her feet up to sit cross-legged while she recovered. “I’m glad you seem to be entertained,” she remarked wryly, as the diminutive little puffball wurbled its way around, cleaning up the splashed water and mud.

  “I didn’t realize just how much I was giving up along with the clothes, Lulu,” she mumbled around a particularly chewy piece of gristle. “I made the choice—and I can’t really complain, magic is badass!—even when it hurts like hell.”

  Hunger sated and Mana restored by the short break, Morgan settled herself into a more serious meditative pose and resumed her experimenting. She caught another fist-sized globe of water from the falling rain, pulling it in through the window and stabilizing it above her right hand. Another push with her will, and an orb of flame appeared over her left, a flickering [Candleflame] she pushed more Mana into until it was a roiling, violet sphere the same size as the ball of water.

  Once again the lump of molded stone began to rise, shaking at first as her Mana seemed to slip around it without gaining purchase. Then an inch became two, then four, and soon the distorted rock was over a foot above the ground. Morgan felt her Mana draining, sweat dripping off her face to track uncomfortably ticklish rivulets between her breasts and down her belly. Holding two Elements stable while trying to manipulate a third wasn’t simply difficult ; it was like trying to lift an impossible weight with the barest tips of her fingers, extended awkwardly, while she had no leverage.

  The draw on her Mana made her feel hot and flushed, uncomfortable despite her [Heat Affinity]. She still refused to give up, mentally leaning into the effort, a spike of pain driving itself between her eyes. Two feet off the ground. Then three.

  And then the lump of stone shot straight upward with such force that it buried itself in the ceiling of the campsite hutch, as Morgan felt her Mana surge on its own. A wave of force rippled out from her body, bending the ambient light with a faint pulse before it slammed into the floor, the walls, and the stone bed upon which she sat. The orb of flame and globe of water dispersed into sparks and spray as she lost control of her Mana entirely.

  You have mastered the skill [Earth Affinity]!

  By mastering this affinity, you have gained the bonus skill [Terrakinesis]! With this, your command over the Earth itself will grow, permitting extraordinary feats of spellwork. Continue experimenting with Affinities to unlock additional kinesis abilities.

  Morgan flopped onto her back in a most unladylike manner, caught in a sudden bout of extreme dizziness from the instantaneous drain of her entire Mana pool. She jerked about like a puppet with tangled strings as the spinning sensation in her head turned to nausea, and her recently consumed haunch of murdersquirrel chose that moment to make its reappearance into the outside world.

  She just barely managed to roll herself off the bed in time to catch herself on all fours as she violently retched up the contents of her stomach. Her wobbly arms betrayed her then, and she failed miserably at avoiding the spreading pile of acrid bile and chunks as she collapsed from sudden vertigo.

  Even Lulu was offended by the mess, hopping back from its mistress while making worried, wurbling trills. She finally managed to bring her trembling limbs under at least partial control, levering herself back up to her knees with one arm over the stone stool that had been her seat earlier in the day.

  “Graa-urgh!” she choked out like a drunk on a three-day bender, still swaying side to side even with her knees on the ground. Her [Regeneration] skill kicked in once her head began to clear, restoring her Mana at the expense of precious calories. The improved form of the old [Naked Recovery] skill was much more efficient, however, and within a handful of minutes she was back to nearly a third of her total magical reserves without suffering further debilitating strain on her fat reserves.

  As her Mana returned, so did her cognitive abilities, and the acrid smell of puke and bile stung her sinuses as she heaved to catch her breath while wiping snot and vomit off her face. She staggered to her feet and turned to her makeshift door, determined to at least rinse off in the rain before dealing with the pile of nasty that was now smeared across the floor.

  The door she’d fashioned was a makeshift affair without hinges, merely a slab of stone set in the opening to the campsite hutch. It had another stone bar set across it with notches on either side, preventing anything from just pushing it open. Reaching out with her Mana, she expected the stone bar to feel as heavy as every other time she’d levitated it out of the way.

  Instead the bar, the door, and several inches of the surrounding masonry cleanly came away from the wall, the edges separating as smooth as liquid glass. She could feel the weight and the mass, but it was no longer a grunt-inducing effort of will to keep it floating.

  “Whoa,” she choked in surprise. “Must be [Terrakinesis]…”

  Talking through the horrible taste was an ordeal, and she made her way outside int
o the rain on swaying legs to lean against the outside of the hut. With the dizzy feeling subsiding, and her Mana returning, she let go of [Regeneration] and simply stood there, letting the downpour wash away the ick.

  After a few minutes, time which Morgan spent rinsing her mouth out with rainwater, she felt much better—good enough to deal with the mess, at least. She promptly did so, directing a blob of rippling water into the hut and using it to draw up the worst of her refunded lunch. With a surge of Frost Mana, she solidified the water around the floating wad of nastiness and heaved it away from her campsite as hard as she could with her magic.

  With most of the splatter now rinsed away, Lulu resumed her normal routine of wurbling around to tidy things up. Morgan simply stood with her hands on her hips for a long moment, watching and thinking.

  “I haven’t been that sick since my high-school graduation,” she grumbled to herself from the doorway while she inspected the damage to her humble abode.

  The floor, the walls, the ceiling—every surface in the hut was spiderwebbed with cracks. But they weren’t jagged and sharp like she would have expected. Instead, the fractures had the appearance of softened and extruded candle wax. The wall by the bed where she’d been sitting was now bulging outward like a blister, and the stool a few feet from the bed was bent in the opposite direction like a sad mushroom cap. The squirrel that had been waiting over the coals now lay in the coals, its stone skewer now bent and twisted. As if I could eat any more of that after tasting it on the way back up.

  “Well, [Terrakinesis] really did a number on this shit, Lulu,” she said flatly, taking in the damage.

  She had no intention of risking the building collapsing on her during the night, and drops of water were leaking through imperfections now lacing through the structure. Curiosity about the new skill also had a part to play along with the safety concerns as she reached out with her Mana and her senses.

  The stone and earth now felt far more real to her senses; she could tell that difference right away. Her effective range was increased, and as her magic permeated the stone and ground below, there was a sense of a more detailed perception. At first, [Mana Sight] didn’t show her anything she hadn’t already seen, but her expanded senses allowed her to interpret far more information about the Mana flowing through the stone in swirls and eddies.