My backpack was nearly pletely packed with everything I thought I should bring. It didn’t amount to all that much. Some provisions, a few tools, and some extras, but not as much survival gear as I would have wao have before setting out for a long trek through an unfamiliar forest.

  Before anything though, I had some points to assign. Insight and Jumping were both at rank D and had enough experience points--or whatever was used to fill their meters--to rank up. I had a suspi that skills were not supposed to grow as quickly as mine did. A side effect of using non-bat skills in a fight? Makeshift ons Proficy certainly wasn’t growing quickly.

  Oh well. I leaned against the headboard of the bed I had picked for myself, a silver spoonful of honey in my mouth. The sweetness helped calm the grumbles in my tummy. Those weren’t helpihink much.

  I had two general skill points, earned from the Dungeon, and three css skill points. The css skill points were unon, but came fairly steadily. The general skills points, if they all required blowing up a dungeon, were not nearly as easy to get.

  That meant using one on Insight was a big risk. But it might lead to a big reward too. My other optiht then were a on’s skill and Archeology or any future skill I might ht not obtain.

  It was worth it, I thought. Insight was handy already. Having it be better seemed like a good idea.

  Getting Jumping to Rank the other hand, was a choice so brain-dead easy that I didn’t even really o think about it.

  JumpingRank C - 00%The Ability to jump. Your reflexes and timing for jumps has increased. You ow jump higher and farther. You may now expend Stamina to increase the power of your jumps.

  “Oh, shiny,” I said. So Rank locked a sedary ability yet again. Was this a pattern? Two was too few to know. But three results...

  InsightRank C - 00%The Ability to know something. The knowledge you gain is further increased. You may now expend Mana to discover hidden knowledge.

  “Oh, now that is beautiful!” I said before rolling off the bed. I rooted around in my backpack while lig at the spoon still in my mouth like a very hard lollipop. Soon, I had a row of objects on the crumpled mattress awaiting iion.

  There was the colr from the Dungeon boss, my hat, the s I had found in the room over, the magid I’d been flinging around, and the tea set from Maddy.

  “Insight!” I said as I poi the colr and pushed some mana... somewhere. It somehow felt right to pull it towards my head, which was a little strange, but the information I got spoke for itself.

  A ented Cheshire Cat’s Colr of Rare quality, new. Allows the user to summon a spirit cat once a day.

  “A what?” I asked aloud before shaking my head. No, that was for ter. A g my mana status showed that it was down a good ten points. A fair bit, but not too much. I had noticed my magical ing costing less and less over time, so maybe that would decrease with experience.

  was my hat.

  Shelled kettle hat of Unon quality, new.

  “Well, I like it regardless of its quality. It’s fashionable.” I picked up the hat and plopped it onto my head. Only four points of mana this time. A corretioween magical items and pin ones?

  Bronze ring of Cleared Soul of Unon quality, old. Protects the wearer’s soul from minor to mild soul maniputions.

  I put the ring on in a hurry. “Thank you, mister Ghost,” I said as I felt the ring shift to fit just right on my left middle finger. It in, just a rough bronze ring, but a bit of a rub and some ing magid it shone quite prettily.

  Vibrating Magid of Cure Hysteria of on quality, old.

  I tilted my head to the side as I examihe foot long magic stick. It was made of old, smooth wood with a gnarl at one end and some runes lyphs carved into it. Maybe the owner suffered from hysteria? Was it a on siess around here? Well, I wasn’t going to throw the wand away. I’d try to sell it if I found aerested. In the backpack it went.

  Ented Tea Cup, Unon quality, new. Keeps tea warm as long as a small amount of mana is fed into the cup.

  Ented Tea Kettle, Unon quality, new. Will boil water rapidly if mana is fed through the handle.

  Tea! I liked tea, and the set looked fairly robust for what they were. I would still both in cloth when I packed them away. This meant that I could boil water anywhere! Very handy. Maybe I could check my herbology book ter for some local pnts that made good tea.

  Smug satisfa radiating through me, I packed all my stuff away and hiked my backpato my shoulders.

  I had two more stops for the day, then I would be off for real. The ste room that I couldn’t figure out how to enter, and the sed tower to the ‘North’ of the city. I was hoping for a nice view of the surroundings

  I stuck my head out of the inn before exiting because I was a clever girl and remembered my lessons--especially when I nearly lost my head to learhen I hiked over to the ste building.

  It was as I remembered it. The door was tough, not even shifting when I kicked it. I sidered ramming the wall in with a long log or something, but that was just silly. Then I noticed that a few of the roof's tiles had gone missing.

  No time like the present to test a new skill!

  Stamina was a resource my css seemed to like. I got a bunch every other level up. I didn’t know if that meant something or not, but it seemed important. I would o find out if a magic css gave heaps of mana and stuff every level to pare.

  Lig my lips, I set my backpack down, then tehe muscles of my thighs and squatted to jump as high as I could. I paused before ung myself into the air as I felt a sort of... question from my own body, a sense of it asking me ‘how much’ that was at oerly bizarre and somehow pletely natural. It was like sitting on my hand for a few mihen trying to pick my nose.

  Or something.

  I noticed my stamina dropping to nearly half a bare moment before I took off.

  Then I screamed as my leap took me over the lip of the roof and almost sent me flying over the other side of the building. I was lucky, and a foot caught on the very tip of the roof. Then I was unlucky because that arrested my momentum too quickly and I ended up smming into the roof. I slid down along with a few loose tiles until I crashed unceremoniously on the ground on the opposite side of the building. I barely got my feet under me befoing spt.

  “That,” I said to the open sky. “Was a bad idea.”

  I groaned as I got to my feet and huffed when I saw that I had just shaved half a dozen points off of my health. No injuries, but maybe I’d get a nice bruise for my silliness.

  “Nevermind this pce. It’s a stupid storeroom anyway,” I muttered as I gred at the building.

  My attempt, because I arently uo give up on something once I started, had me using a whole lot less stamina, just enough to nd on the very edge of the roof. After that it was all carefully shifting across the top until I gave up and tore some tiles out to peek within.

  Even with the sun at my back there wasn’t much light to see with. Still, I could make out big boxes, shelves covered in dusty kniacks and some barrels. Nothing really inspiring.

  “Dang it, Broccoli,” I said. “Do you really o sneak into the room just to see what’s in it? You have pces to be!”

  Despite my own protests against myself, I was soon tearing a hole through the roof and jumping down. It was a good thing I was so skinny or else it would’ve been tricky to squeeze in.

  The ste room was a dusty mess that had my ing skill itg to get to work, but I wao save the mana and didn’t want dust all over while I snooped. And I found... nothiy crates, barrels that sounded hollow, rotten remains of sacks that had been chewed through by geions of mice.

  The door, at least, could be unlocked from the i was the only thing that prevented my pout from being absolutely devastating as I stomped out of the silly ste shad picked up my backpack with a huff.

  Spade in hand, I stomped away, not even closing the door behio save the poor idiot like me the trouble of climbing in. It wasn’t fair. The heroine was supposed to find some hidden treasure while looting the st remaining pce, it was just good storytelling.

  But then, this world didn’t work on storytelling rules. Or maybe it did and I wasn’t the heroine.

  Well, if that was the case I’d find the hero aheir best friend.

  I reached the st destination I wao explore in good time and slowed down to be sure I wasn’t going to be surprised by a wandering ghost. The final tower seemed smaller than its twin, a little thinner on the sides.

  Not that that was a bad thing. Aowers were to be enjoyed regardless of size.

  The rge wooden door at its base creaked open with some prying, revealing a small corridor that led into the walls and a stairwell at the end. A few barrels were sitting around, but some snooping revealed that they only held rotten sticks that might have been torches.

  The sed floor had a row of jail cells, iron bars pletely rusted through. There were glyphs on the walls and floor, but I didn’t want to go poking at the symbols inside a cell in case they were meant to hold a prisoner. Actally log myself up in a tower and waiting for some prio save me was not my style.

  I climbed up another floor to a small room with a few chairs and a table. Maybe a lounge area for the guards on duty? A breakroom? A dder in the er led to a trapdoor in the ceiling. I was a little wary of the rungs of the dder but they held my weight with only a lot of creaking.

  The trapdoor required some banging and moving before it finally opened with a squelch, decades of rotting leaves p down onto my head and fatil I had it pletely opened. ing, of course, was the greatest skill and fixed the facefull of rotten leaves with a tiny burst of magic.

  I cmbered out and stood up. The wind was stronger above everything and without the prote of the town’s walls. Still, it meant I had a beautiful view of the surroundings.

  There were forests all around, but I could see the winding line of a river to the south. The forest tio the south for a long, long way, a sea of unduting green as far as I could see. The north was a whole lot more iing. The horizon to my right was dark with a rge spot where all the trees seemed almost bck. It looked very far away though. To the left was a distant series of pteaus over a ke, or maybe a s. I made a o avoid that because it was mosquito season.

  Directly in the dire I had dubbed north was a mountain that rose to a ft top as if some giant had smashed it with a hammer. There was a city there. Big enough that I could see it from what must have been half a hundred kilometers away. There were even tiny shapes floating in the sky around it. Airships.

  I grinned.

  I had a destination now!