Skyclad (Fate's Anvil Book 1) Read online

  [Naked Recovery (Channeled)] - [10 Skill Points] Due to earning the Aspect [Naked Survival], the skill [Recovery] has been modified and purchase cost reduced by 50%. Eventually everyone falls, but sometimes they get back up again! This skill allows you to recover health at an increased rate while channeled, at the expense of Stamina. Health recovery rate and Stamina cost per second dependent on skill level and possible bonuses and/or negative status effects. The [Naked] version of this skill also recovers Mana in addition to health, and instantly recovers a small portion of both Health and Mana upon activation! May receive bonuses from other [Naked] skills.

  [Naked Camouflage (Channeled)] - [10 Skill Points] Due to earning the Aspect [Naked Survival], the skill [Camouflage] has been modified and purchase cost reduced by 50%. Mighty enemies or juicy prey, sometimes it’s better not to be seen in the first place! This skill allows you to blend in with your surroundings while channeled, reducing the chances you will be noticed at the expense of Stamina. Effectiveness depends on skill level and the skills and abilities of the ones you are hiding from, in addition to possible bonuses and/or negative status effects. The [Naked] version of this skill also expends Mana in order to suppress your natural life energy, further decreasing your chances of being detected! May receive bonuses from other [Naked] skills.

  [Naked Weapons (Activated)] - [20 Skill Points] Due to earning the Aspect [Naked Survival], the skill [Natural Weapons] has been modified and purchase cost reduced by 50%. Sometimes what you were born with is all you have to rely on! This skill hardens your body when you strike or are struck by enemies, allowing you to deliver devastating impacts with your own body, or reducing damage you take by a significant amount at the cost of Stamina. Effectiveness depends on skill level and stats, in addition to possible bonuses and/or negative status effects. The [Naked] version of this skill enhances this effect at the added cost of Mana, thickening your skin into a tough layer similar to tree bark, stone, or even metals at higher levels! May receive bonuses from other [Naked] skills.

  [Naked Magic (Activated)] - [20 Skill Points] Due to earning the Aspect [Naked Survival], the skill [Basic Magic] has been modified and its purchase cost reduced by 50%. Some people throw their fists, but some throw fire and lightning! This skill provides the basic ability to manipulate the elements of Mana that flow in and around you, at the cost of Mana. Continuous training and experience will lead to finer control and senses of individual elements of magic. True dedication may lead to enhanced affinity for specific elements or types of magic. The [Naked] version of this skill further enhances your ability to control the primal forces, increasing the rate at which you develop affinities and future magical skills. May receive bonuses from other [Naked] skills.

  Morgan took a few minutes to read the descriptions of the skills presented to her. The list itself was quite long, but many options were dim to her eyes with a [Conditions not met] in place of a skill description. From the names she could see, most of those seemed to be related to weapons or armor, and she had neither available anyway. None of the skills shown in her list cost more than the fifty points she had available to spend, so she assumed it only showed her skills she could actually afford to get.

  The first four skills Morgan considered absolutely necessary. A way to avoid danger was so appealing as to cause her to salivate, although that may have also been because of her extreme levels of hunger. This made [Naked Instinct] and [Naked Camouflage] the first things she spent her skill points on. She hesitated for a moment because of the [Naked] part, but it was a very short moment. Morgan saw no equivalent skills providing similar options without the “Naked” part tacked onto it in her list of available options, and she was already naked. It’s not like I can get any more naked than I already am, she thought to herself as she mentally okayed the brief “Are you sure?” confirmation messages. In the space of time between one heartbeat and the next, Morgan felt her entire existence shift.

  After a brief flash of disorientation that was over faster than it was possible for her to measure, Morgan’s entire body froze into perfect stillness, and her eyes snapped their focus to a patch of movement in the distant treetop canopy. The wind had been rustling the leaves and branches of the forest all around her the whole time she’d been sitting in the tree, but she could tell that this particular spot of movement was not the wind. After a few moments she relaxed again, once her senses confirmed it was moving away from her location and not toward her, thus most likely not a threat at that moment in time. She could see other things in the forest as well, not clearly, but vague impressions as her gaze roamed back and forth across the verdant landscape.

  A particularly shadowy area seemed to radiate danger, while another gave her a simple blank feeling, and yet another area with a twinkling glimmer between the trees assured her that water could be found in that direction. The urge to head that way was suddenly quite strong, and Morgan realized she was as thirsty as she was hungry. The impulse was so intense that before she realized it, she’d shifted her hands and feet on her branch and started looking for a way down. That is, until she looked down toward the roots spread all over the hill her tree was growing out of, and the sudden sense of danger caused her to instinctively flatten herself on the limb once more. She felt the sudden drop in her Stamina, and another pull on her mind that had to be Mana, as [Naked Camouflage] activated in response to what she saw below her.

  The ground around the tree was moving. Before acquiring the skill, such movements had been imperceptible to Morgan’s senses, but under the effects of [Naked Instinct], it stood out so severely that she was hard pressed to imagine how she could have missed it before. As she watched from above, the rippling shadows resolved themselves into roots. They writhed and slowly crept their way toward the fallen nest and the crushed and mangled bodies of the eagle family that had so precipitously gifted Morgan with the experience points and levels to acquire her newly improved stats and skills. As she shifted her gaze to the tree she was clinging to, however, her newly improved instinct was giving her the opposite impression. One of safety that told her on some level to simply wait and be still. Not one to argue with such a powerful instinct in light of her short but intense time in this new world, Morgan did just that as she relaxed and let go of [Naked Camouflage].

  Morgan was acutely aware of just how vulnerable and basically helpless she was in her current situation. The flashy messages and menus displayed in her vision might have given her a few answers and had definitely saved her life with the regeneration provided by her newly boosted Vitality, but the simple fact that it was happening at all spawned more questions in her mind than she could list if she had days to sit and contemplate. She was absolutely certain about a few things, however. Apparently I’m not dead, but in another world, she told herself. And it works differently from Earth, that’s for sure. And I’m stuck in a giant tree. Naked. And cold. And hungry. And if a giant SOMETHING doesn’t eat me, a goddamn tree has me stuck here while its creepy roots do god knows what…

  Morgan inwardly turned back to her skills menu and read through the descriptions again. [Naked Resilience] didn’t seem to provide any immediate benefit, but she was pretty sure resistances to harmful things would be vital to her survival. After all, from what she’d seen so far, every single thing that existed in this world intended her harm. First the birds, and now even the tree in which she was tentatively taking shelter seemed to have nefarious intent. She spent the ten skill points to acquire the skill and waited for the inevitable feelings of drastic changes in her body, but a single heartbeat turned into ten, then turned into a full minute, and she felt no different. Relieved, she continued her perusal.

  The skill [Naked Recovery] was also pretty much a no-brainer from what she could tell. She had no gear, no medical supplies, and while she was no stranger to the outdoors, she had no guarantees she’d ever find such things in this strange new world. Reassured by the lack of side effects from purchasing the previous skill, she spent the required points for [Naked Rec
overy] and immediately understood that this time something was very different. Morgan’s heart jackhammered a staccato beat as it tried to pound her rib cage open from the inside. She’d been crouching on all fours on the tree limb, and the only thing that saved her from falling off was the fact that her muscles once again seized up. Her fingers buried themselves in the tree. Her recently increased Constitution kept the bones in her hands from breaking and the skin from tearing, but only just. Not that she could appreciate such merciful coincidence.

  Morgan Mackenzie was burning. Nothing in the context of her entire twenty two years of experience could have prepared her to anticipate what was set in motion within her body once she acquired the skill [Naked Recovery], and she hadn’t been graced by fate in meet someone who could have explained it to her. Self-healing [Recovery] type skills in her new world weren’t even all that powerful, not in the greater schema of the universe. Nor were they typically uncommon, although Morgan was decidedly unique in unlocking a [Naked] twist on the usual iteration of it.

  Unfortunately for her, all abilities that allowed a person to consciously heal their own injuries and wounds had one thing in common: in order to consciously and directly heal the body, the brain must be able to sense the body. While that might eventually one day seem to be a simple concept to Morgan, any possible chance of her pondering the matter right then were effectively zero. For the simple fact of the matter was, the body and its system of nerves weren’t made to convey that much information about that many things, nor the brain naturally able to deliver such information directly to the conscious mind. Thusly, they both had be forcibly adapted to the [Skill].

  Raw, primal Mana pulsed through every fiber of Morgan’s body. Her face and jaw clenched in a grim rictus as every slam of her heartbeat drove the agony to greater heights. She could feel her nerves being torn apart and rewoven, every moment more and more information and sensations pushed into her mind, a mind that was woefully inadequate for the task of interpreting such a flood of knowledge. She could feel her sanity begin to fray as the pain stretched the moment out like a rubber band just before the snap. And then, as suddenly as it started, the pain and pressure vanished, leaving Morgan panting to catch her breath. Before she could even begin to reassess her body’s condition, notifications intruded once more upon her attention.

  You have gained the Skill [Pain Resistance]!

  [Pain Resistance] has reached Level 2!

  [Pain Resistance] has reached Level 3!

  Status afflicted: [Starvation] You are starving! All regen disabled!

  Status afflicted: [Weakness]! All stats reduced!

  That last one is kinda obvious, she thought to herself. The first knowledge her new skill was providing her with was that such fundamental changes to her body had required fuel, and it had used her body’s reserves for that purpose. She hadn’t lost any health from the transformation, and as it had been steadily ticking upward before this point, she now had over two-thirds of her total. But the last of her body’s nutrient reserves had been used up completely, and once those ran out, the magic had begun to devour her other tissues. Looking down at herself only confirmed what the extra senses were already telling her. Her body was now gaunt and hideously skinny. Her ribcage was grotesquely pronounced, as were her hips, her arms, and legs, with knobby knees and gangly elbows. Her breasts had gone from the smaller side of average down to almost totally non-existent.

  Carefully she pried her hands out of the crushed tree bark. She almost laughed out loud upon noticing that her loofah scrubby was still with her, though now rather filthy and smushed into the bark of the tree when she’d latched on. Morgan held onto it as if it were the last lifeline connecting her back to her familiar apartment. The spark of humor and remembrance only lasted an instant, however, because her hunger was no longer something that could be ignored. She felt increasingly lethargic and noticeably weaker, although not as weak as before she’d increased her strength. At least not quite.

  With her increasingly desperate hunger, she pried up a small piece of the bark from the tree, as that was the only thing within her reach that she might possibly have a chance at chewing. It tasted like cardboard and dirt, and expanded her mind’s definition of the word “dry”, but she was able to just barely work up enough saliva to manage to swallow the scratchy lump. She was about to take a second bite but was interrupted by a sudden spike in her [Naked Instinct]. It wasn’t the same feeling as the crawly fear the roots had spurred within her. It wasn’t even fear, exactly, but it was extremely powerful and intense, and she was paralyzed in the face of it. And then the tree began to shake, causing her to cling tight once again, as another notification popped into her head.

  By offering your defeated foes to feed its roots, you have reawakened a:

  [Tree of Mana (Legendary Tree, Guardian of the Forest, Father of Faeries)]!

  The Tree has granted you it’s favor!

  You have gained the Title: [Blessed of the Guardian Tree]! You need never fear its hungry roots! Future offerings or actions that benefit the tree may enhance this Title!

  She didn’t notice this new influx of information as the struggle not to fall out of the tree required all her attention and effort in her weakened state. She did, however, notice that not only was the tree shaking, it was glowing. A pale, warm light, low in intensity but definitely there, began emanating from the roots on the ground. Flashes of green and gold pulsed along the ever-brightening roots. The shaking became more intense the brighter the light became, threatening to dislodge Morgan from its branches. The massive clearing occupied by the tree was illuminated in stark relief as light poured out from between cracks and fissures in the bark. The tree stopped shaking suddenly as the light faded to almost nothing. Silence thundered through the forest as if a great pressure held everything still for a single moment, pregnant with expectation. Morgan couldn’t have made a sound or drawn a breath had she tried.

  And then with a GROAN that was felt more than heard, the tree was growing, and Morgan found herself pressed into her tree limb as she was pushed farther toward the sky. The strobing light could be felt in the air, a pulsing power that throbbed in her bones. A dozen feet, two dozen, then more. The broken ends of the forked branch she occupied suddenly cracked and split as new, green shoots exploded forth. The main trunk of the tree widened with rippling cracks and crunching noises and old, withered bark was pushed away to fall to the ground by a fresh and vibrant grey-brown mottled covering. More branches sprouted both above and below her, with shoots and leaves forming a massive sheltering canopy.

  The shed bark began to crumble underneath her hands and feet, so she scrambled backward to brace herself against the trunk. To her bewilderment, the tree trunk was no longer behind her, and she tumbled backward in fright, certain she was falling to her death. But she simply fell flat on her back into the newly formed hollow just below the canopy. The tree had split into several branching trunks that kept growing up and splitting off more of themselves, leaving a small, almost flat space only a few paces across in the center. Morgan scrambled right to the middle of it, clutching her loofah to her chest protectively. Exhausted, starving, terrified, lonely, and of course still naked, she did the only thing she had the strength to accomplish with her entire world shaking around her. She simply sat down and waited.

  Chapter 3: Fruits of Thy Labors

  Morgan Mackenzie was starving to death. Merely an hour earlier, she’d been safe and sound in her apartment, taking a bath. At the moment, she found herself on an alien world, apparently one with magic, based on a fantasy game. She’d fallen through some kind of hole in reality, bathtub and all. Landing on a nest of some sort of terrifyingly huge, giant birds had both granted her some levels, points, and titles, while at the same time nearly killing her before she had any chance to get her bearings. The nest and the family of birds had fallen to the ground to be eaten by the roots of the tree, while Morgan learned some rather important lessons about spending too many points and forcing sudden
drastic changes on her body. The shaking of the tree had settled down compared to its original burst of rampant growth, and the accompanying light show had travelled up the trunk and into the massive crown of branches that had suddenly grown out from its heart. The light made the night as bright as day, albeit a rather green-hued one. She clutched her only possession from Earth to her chest like the scrubby loofah was the last, tenuous link holding her sanity together. It was all simply too much for the young woman to process.

  Magic. A magic world. Several near-death experiences, existential terror, floating messages she could interact with, and points and skills and other things that looked like a game, but were most certainly far more deadly and serious. A veritable roller coaster of changes to her body, resulting in her currently emaciated frame. And to top it all off, she was naked, as well. She blinked tears from her eyes and glumly considered her glowing, silvery status screen:

  Status Information for: Morgan Mackenzie

  Level - 6

  Primary Class: [Locked]

  Secondary Class: [Locked]

  Health - 73/140

  Stamina - 41/168

  Mana - 41/84

  STR - 11

  AGI - 11

  CON - 15

  VIT - 28

  INT - 14

  Stat points available to distribute: 0

  Current Skills:

  [Naked Instinct]

  [Naked Resilience]

  [Naked Recovery]

  [Naked Camouflage]

  [Pain Resistance (Lvl 3)]

  Skill Points available: 20