White Flower, Black Feather

Senses

Everything is dark… I can’t see… why I can’t see…?

‘Oh… silly… open your eyes-?!’

SQUEAL!!!

SLAM!!!

/////

She woke up from her second dream of the night, with a jolt and bared fangs looking around, too scared to make a single noise

‘Why…?! Cold…!’ barely aware enough, to notice the change of the foliage around her ‘…?!’ every leaf was returning to a normal position, then she noticed that the sky was starting to illuminate ‘Sunrise… cold…’

The tree wasn't protecting her anymore, Miriam understood that, but she couldn’t move until more time passed, the cloudy sky didn’t helped her with her low temperature, only the tip of her tail was moving due to her nerves

‘Nearly full…’ once she could move without too much pain, she moved to the ground while checking her magic ‘Ia, Imbue’ and gave some of it to the tree ‘Thanks you… Ia Stop…’

Miriam waited for a moment, studying the smells in the air before nodding and using Regrow and Restore to heal her body

‘Ia Stop… better…’ her arms finally stopped hurting, and a pain in her “Chest” below the crystal on her body also stopped ‘Didn’t noticed that one… I feel tired… Status…’

‘Nothing…?’ the screen didn’t showed anything, that could explain why she was feeling like she did ‘EP Shop, Senses…’ so ignoring the hunger that started to eat some of her magic, she decided to upgrade something ‘One hundred… can’t stall this, Buy an upgrade for Hearing…’

Heat soon covered her body, focusing inside her head, and a new item appeared on the list-

‘Ah?!’ but being suddenly aware of how loud her heart was beating, surprised her, making her move ‘Ah!’

Making her more aware of the sound she made, as her body moved on top of the ground, rocks, moss and roots. To the point were she grabbed her tail to stop it from moving

‘Why I’m so loud?!’ she started to breath deeply in order to calm herself, but the uneven sound of her breathing bothered her too…

It took some her minutes, before she adapted enough to the sound that came from her body, and her brain started to ignore it, before she read the screen, and then about the new Item

‘I want that…’ the price was beyond her current capabilities, and that made her curse internally before continuing ‘What next…? Buy an upgrade for… Smell?’

Buying that, didn’t gave her anything new on the screens in front of her, nor it made the things she was already feeling, reveal new information. Sight, on the other hand… after her vision turned blurry for a moment…

‘Eh…? Why they are exclusive…? Hey… snakes detect heat not with their eyes, but due to organs on the front of their heads…’ she tapped her “Nose” with a claw ‘Some snakes do that…’ she looked at the Item again ‘Too expensive, I can’t move at night, and heat detection, In my eyes, at day sounds… blinding…’ she didn’t noticed anything too different with her sight…

Miriam bought an upgrade for Taste next, but besides changing how the smells felt, it did nothing

‘That leaves us with… Buy Touch upgrade…’ the feeling of heat came and went away, leaving her unsure of what had changed with that ‘…? Did any…? Eh…?’ until she realized that she could feel the vibrations of the river ‘What…? I don’t have my head on the ground…’ stunning her

She waited for a few seconds, but she was sure of what was causing those vibrations. Placing her head on the ground confirmed it-

‘Ugh! That… was probably a mistake…’ and gave her an overload of information ‘Ugh…’ that she wasn't sure of how to interpret, but that was all that happened

‘Do I need to buy more from here…?’ no Deed was completed, no Title was acquired ‘Three more times? Or it’s two, now?’

-Upgrade required…-

‘Hello… wait…’ she looked at the trees in the direction to the river ‘Is there a Synergy between my senses…?’ to her, something like that, would explain why she could hear the river now

-Yes…-

‘And I didn’t knew it… because…?’ she waited for an answer, but the message just went away, and she tried to figure that one out ‘Because… it happened before I was born…?’

-Yes, Upgrade required…-

The message closed again, leaving her wondering about it…

‘Need food…’ but she decided to leave that for later, and started to move towards the water… ‘I’m… making a lot of noise…’ but still was a bit bothered by that ‘Upgrading the Sneaking… Status, Traits…?’ she couldn’t open it ‘Is Berserker still updating…?’

Miriam shook her head and kept moving towards the river, trying to not get overwhelmed by her upgraded senses… now she noticed how her eyes had changed: her field of vision was slightly bigger…

‘Ugh… now that I noticed it, I can’t stop seeing it… this will take a while to get used to…’

Moving to the water, was something that took her a while to accomplish. Both the cloudy sky, and the new information her brain was receiving, were slowing her, but even so… as she got close to the river

‘…?’ she still saw something ‘That… can’t part of a tree… not a part of these trees at least…’

To her eyes, and in any other place, it looked like an oddly shaped tree with a pair of spots that barely reflected light rear the branches. But even if she couldn’t distinguish what it was, Miriam saw that something was there, even if the river was too loud, for her to discern any specific vibration coming from it

Moving in a curve to avoid whatever was that thing, she reached the water, still looking at the unknown while drinking water

‘It’s big…’ she still tried to figure out what the thing was. Next to the tree it seemed to be two meters tall, but ignoring the reflecting spots, it hid seamlessly against the bark ‘Do… do I need to fight…?’ on one hand, she was both tired and still adjusting to her latest purchases… ‘Can Absorb give me the camouflage…?’ on the other hand, she would find its ability useful… ‘As long I don’t hit the tree… oh, right… my aura… Ia Imbue Arms…’

And on the gripping tail, she was hungry…

Miriam made one of her earth swords from the ground, eliciting no reaction and got closer to the immobile thing on the tree

‘Let’s do this!’ she released her aura-

HISS!!!

SKREE!!!

While hissing, making the insect separated from the tree, lunging towards Miriam with its two blade like forelegs, folded beforehand under the brown chitin. She managed to deviate the sharp appendages with one swing, making them hit the ground

‘Shit!’ but she couldn’t continue her attack, she had to pull back from the giant mantis, due to the enormous range that its weapons gave it ‘The stamina!’ and she remembered that she had started to upgrade something else at night

With every swing of her weapon against the chitin, the Combat Gauge told her that she was stronger and faster, than the creature, but the impacts she was deflecting, weren’t light at all, making her tire even faster. A good amount of magic was being used with every hit, and she had a hard time with those hits, because the mantis kept using every attack to try and grab her

SKREE!!!

Before another lunge, the insect opened its wings, showing the pattern on them-

Crack!

SKREE!!!

And Miriam used that moment to force a spike, to hit its exposed side

‘Earth Grip!’ while moving backwards to avoid the blades, she used her weapon to pin them, by turning its shape loose, and making it clamp against the ground ‘Earth Blade!’ as she made another, the insect struggled to get free, but seeing that it wasn't able-

SKREE-!!!

Crack!

The mantis tried to bite Miriam, only to get beheaded by her, making the body twitch uncontrollably against the restrain, while bleeding over it

‘Come on!’ she moved back with her new sword, not realizing that the head fell on the river, annoyed with the headless creature because it kept moving. Until it managed to break the restrain ‘Earth Spear!’ making Miriam hit it again, from below, to keep it away from her, while struggling to remain calm, keeping Berserker from activating

The body spasms lasted for a few minutes, twitching, slashing and grabbing the air. Finally stopping due to the blood loss

‘Ugh…’ yellow blood that now covered several meters of ground and parts of Miriam’s body

Ding

Miriam needed a few seconds to start praying… unsure of how to eat part of it, but deciding to not think too much about that, as she moved to the broken chitin on the body

‘Maybe I can use those blades…?’ instead she focused on that idea, to ignore the new feelings she was getting while eating ‘Ah… m-maybe a stone grip…? I-instead of dirt…? Eew…’ sadly, her upgraded senses worked against her on this…

After eating her fill, she separate one of the weapons of the creature, and carried it with her to the river, where she cleaned her body, trying to not think about the blood or her tiredness, and grabbed a few stones before moving away with the scythe

‘Status…’

‘All right…’ she felt a bit disappointed with herself, after seeing just two notifications ‘If… if I had waited for my Trait, I might have been able to train with my sword for a bit…’ after thinking that, she shook her head ‘No. I did this because I need to eat. I will not be purposely cruel and prolong the suffering… of…’

She started to remember some of the ways she had killed before, and started to tremble, trying to stop thinking

‘I’m… not doing this… because I like it… I’m not a monster… I need to survive…’

Miriam kept repeating that kind of things on her mind, for an hour before she realized that she never pulled back her aura. Once she did that, she looked back at the materials she had next to her

She had broken the scythe below the joint, the sharpened chitin maintained a decent edge even after the fight, but the piece extending from the joint, kept bending towards the blade no matter how much she tried to keep it straight

‘A stone guard… and a stone hilt around the extra bit…?’ she grabbed one of the stones… ‘Need to figure how to shape the stones…’ she had no idea of what kind of rock she had, no idea of their properties, strengths, classifications… ‘Heat and pressure…’ that was all that she could remember

Keeping the stone on her hand for testing, she organized the rest on the ground next to the blade, in a rough shape resembling her final objective. She had to go back to the river to pick a couple more, before she felt comfortable with the length of the weapon

‘With this it should be a one handed sword…’ she grabbed her testing stone and placed it some distance away from rest ‘So… I want it under pressure, gathering heat… changing to a… I’ll try to turn this one into a knife… probably rearranging itself…? Morphing…?’ unsure about how to do it, she moved further away before starting ‘Ia, Imbue Eyes… Ia, Pressure, Condense, Heat, Change, Rearrange, Morph’ Miriam could feel a headache starting to grow, as she was staring at the rock ‘Stone Shape!’ then when it started to twist-

CRACK!!!

‘Eek!!!’ it shattered, loudly sending its fragments around ‘Why?!’ none of the fragments hit her or a tree, but seeing the pieces flying away from her ‘Aim the next one to the river…’ made her think about her surroundings…

Grabbing another stone from the river, she placed it near the water, and did her spell again

CRACK!!!

‘Ah!’ with the same result… ‘Was that… steam…? Ia Stop…’ but this time, by paying less attention to the shape she wanted to give to the stone, she saw what made it explode ‘Oh… there must be water inside them… and I’m heating them under pressure…’

Miriam covered her face with her hands, letting her whole body coil around her, in shame…

‘Do I need to dry them…? Do I add release steam…? Release gases…?’ she looked up to the clouds ‘Not going to find a dry stone with this weather… or… it’s because I’m not touching the stone…? Then… what I just did, is more of an attack, instead of a crafting attempt…? I… no, this took some time and quite a bit of magic, Porkus likes to walk on the riverbank I better go…’

She turned towards the blade, and used her current spells to make what she wanted, from compacted earth. After that she did something similar to the box she had before on her back, and used it to carry the makeshift weapon on her back

‘…?’ when she was done with that, she noticed some vibrations coming towards her from the west, they were louder than the ones coming from the river, making her move to the remains, grab a bite and dash away further to east along the river

The Ruler still made her stop after a few minutes of escaping, this time she could hear the high pitching sound coming from the south. To her it lasted for too long, both before and after the roar of the creature

‘Ow… prick…’ making her distaste towards him grow… ‘At least it doesn’t hurts too much…’ the sound still pained her, Miriam only thought like that, because she didn’t needed to heal herself after it happened

/////

The rest of that day, and the next one, were uneventful

Miriam managed to test her weapon by midday, as she moved along the river. Thankfully for her, the Trait had evolved before the fight, taking her tiredness away, and the sword held its shape…

And after debating it for an hour, she started to evolve her Sneaking Boost

Once she finally started to move again, she found another river joining the one below the cliff. But Miriam noticed that the cliff was getting smaller, and decided to move south, going against the current of this new river

‘They know that I was around the south of that waterfall… if I move too far to the east, or the west, they might lose me and focus on birds… I don’t like the idea of being close to Porkus… but I can’t let Singer get hurt…’

She still crossed that new river…

And after noticing that the river returned to the west, and the second roar, Miriam spent a miserable night on the branches of a tree while it rained

The next day as she struggled to get her body to move, after giving some magic to the tree. The Ruler roared early, and she found another kind of lizard that had a familiar flap of skin around its neck

It also was struggling to move due to the cold, but the bulging plates of scales along its body, blunted Miriam’s sword, and she was forced to kill it with other methods. She had been trying to improve with the sword, and thought that fighting against something with armor could work as training

After she started to upgrade her Pursuit Boost, she did her best attempt to resharpen the chitin, using her own claws and magic, managing to get something resembling an edge…

But the next bigger, and more active lizard, bit the blade in two, destroying it. Miriam ended using a Venom Dart using her custom venom to kill it, and got an idea after the fight

‘Good thing I didn’t kept trying to get a stone hilt… can I use “Volatile” with a spell…? Ugh… using my strongest venom… that sound like a nightmare…’

Miriam kept moving on that side of the river, maintaining distance from it again, as she moved to the west and south, she saw that the forest became more hilly, with elevation changes more noticeable than those on the northern side of the forest

Finding not a single tree leaf on the ground, the only new thing she had found in the forest, were the occasional crevices, that didn’t lead to anywhere, but had some kind of animal smell on them

The second roar of the day, made her go back to the river for food once it was over

‘Stop calling me Unnatural…! I already have to deal with being called Anomaly!’ Miriam could understand the first Unnatural Trait, because she was a snake, but seeing the second one unnerved her more, and almost made her forget about upgrading her Pain Resistance

She had the idea of not climbing a tree that night, but heavy vibrations coming from further south, changed her mind

The tall, heavy creature was hidden by the darkness, and the other trees. The cold didn’t helped Miriam to understand what it was, she could barely see four long trunk-like appendages roaming along the branches of every tree, before starting to uproot bushes to, judging by the sound, eat them

Still, even with the idea of the creature being herbivorous, that night Miriam dreamed of those four trunks finding her, and ripping her apart. Eventually she felt asleep again and woke up to another cold day

‘Not… cloudy…’ that was the first thing she noticed ‘Status…’

‘No… levels…?’ it was on that day that she realized, how long it was taking her get a new one

Miriam got down to the ground and started to give some magic to the tree, trying to get her mind working fast again

‘Thanks you… Ia Stop…’ she shook her head and moved to the river ‘My levels… are getting… difficult to… get…’ she stopped under a bright spot and tried to relax ‘Magic levels… are even slower… …? Magic, level…?’

A terrible thought was born in her mind…

‘Ia, Imbue Fangs… so I can protect those that don’t know me… and to do the same for those that know of me… grant me the strength and speed I need…’ she was focused on her magic reserves, she wanted to be wrong ‘Empower Self Level 1’

Hiss…

She wasn't…

Her spell activated without problems, and covered her with a barely noticeable red glow, making her feel stronger, and less bothered by the cold. She didn’t felt as strong, as she had felt when she used it for the first time, but more importantly for Miriam at the time, was the amount of magic she was using

‘Are you kidding me…?’ it was more that the amount she could regenerate per minute… ‘Ia Stop…’ but she wasn't risking a Magic Drain by using that spell anymore… ‘Ugh!’

Ding

‘Status…’

‘This feels a bit… mocking…’ she expected the Helper or the Trickster to react, but she got no answer ‘Spells…’ to avoid thinking about her loneliness she looked at that list ‘I… don’t think that any other of my spells, benefit from this…’

She also avoided thinking about the question marks on her spells, while looking at the list. She did notice, that none of her spells showed any new information on them, not even Empower

‘I don’t want to mess with the levels of healing spells, they should always be working at… max power…? Max efficacy…? I’m not going to cut myself in order to test that…’ she shook her head trying to get rid of that thought ‘Maybe Heat Thief would…’

Miriam shivered and looked at the trees around her…

‘Yeah… no. Bad idea…’ she started to move towards the water again ‘Useless spell, is useless… eh…?’ the smell of a creature distracted her, and she followed it to the west, the trail of the creature that had gotten close at night, was moving to the east

This mammal smell, came from the direction she wanted to go, and she followed it for a while, until she realized the way it had moved

‘This one knows I’m following it…’ she wasn't getting any vibration from the surroundings, but on one spot the trail had gone back on top of itself three times while rounding nearby trees, and she could smell that the creature had climbed to a tree ‘Water and fishing… not in the mood for this…’

After getting to the river she stopped before drinking, further to the west there was a big rock that blocked her vision from that direction. On the other side of the river, slightly uphill was a deep crevice on the ground, and at that angle it looked like it had a cave in it… that got her curious

‘Looks… and “Feels” not too deep…’

Now that she had practice with her senses, if Miriam focused (Or placed her head on the ground), she could “Feel” the echo of the vibrations against most structures. The trees were different, as they felt like “Voids” to her, but she could feel the vibrations around them, so it wasn't like they were invisible to those senses

This didn’t bothered her: she already knew that this forest was weird

‘But why…?’ she couldn't notice any particular smell on that direction, and to Miriam that crevice “Sounded” like a good place to hide… ‘Why is empty…?’ but it was making her feel… worried…

She drank some water, before crossing the river, where her attention got pulled to the west

‘Oh! Pretty!’ she saw a lake further that way, glimmering with the light of the sunrise behind her ‘Ah… maybe I can use this crevice and the lake to hide for a while…?’

Miriam tried to mentally map the route she had taken, but she wasn't sure if she was directly south of the waterfall, or had gone too far on a direction…

‘Her map lacked a lake…’ she wanted to pout at the memory of her encounter with the woman ‘But she wasn't there to teach me about geography… and I don’t remember seeing one from the top of the cliff… how far did I move…?’ eventually she focused on the nearby hole ‘Potential shelter first, lake later’

Moving there, she was happy to notice that, since rained the day before, she didn’t needed to worry about the river flooding it, the water marks on the ground didn’t reached the crevice, or the hole that was on one of its sides…

‘This is not a natural cave…’ but the hole wasn't too deep, the walls and roof were of stone, stone that had multiple digging marks on it. That, and the way the floor of the cave was covered in gravel, that to Miriam, it seemed to come from the same stone that made the walls, convinced her ‘I can’t feel any smell… what made this…?’

She placed her hand on one of the walls, not needing much time before drawing conclusions

‘My claws fit most these marks… there is no way that a human dug this by hand… a humanoid…?’ looking at more of the scratches, she noticed a difference between them ‘Two of them…? These ones look like a bigger hand did them…’

By then she got to the back of the hole, seeing a ring of stones surrounding a pile of charcoal

‘On the back…?’ she looked around, not seeing anything else, before looking closer at the campfire ‘Won’t the smoke be bad for them…?’

Picking some of the charcoal pieces, she saw the floor under it. There was some black dust, but no ash, or a scorch mark, the circle of rocks and the wall next to it was the same, it looked just like scratched stone

‘They never started a fire…?’ giving Miriam a bad feeling ‘Why would you dig a hole, set a campfire in it, and not use it…?’ she placed the charcoal back to its place and got out, not detecting any smell

On the ground in front of the hole, she dug for a moment until she started to find the same gravel under the ground

‘Rain covered this naturally… sedimentation… right…?’ she looked at both sides of the crevice and could see that happening in her mind ‘How old is this…?’ the lack of a single smell was the thing bothering her the most ‘Why… not a single creature as gotten close to it…?’

The memory of the man using the gray powder, came to her mind. Making her move away from that spot while looking around before moving to the lake

‘I couldn’t smell him… why would assassins dig a hole with their own hands…?’ she was getting angry… ‘What I’m going to do when I see them…?’ and dreading the idea of encountering them, when to her right she saw pink-

Thump!

‘Eek!’

A long tongue shoot towards her, barely giving her time to dodge. She did managed to slash the tongue with her claws as it moved back after hitting the ground, making the frog that tried to attack her croak in pain

Without thinking Miriam dashed at it, intercepting the frog as it tried to jump away and coiling around it

‘Not what I expected to eat today!’ she was using all her strength to crush the creature ‘I think I remember one of you being able to…! What…? What…?!’

She was coiling around a frog-shaped stone…

Miriam looked around, and not seeing any creature, she stopped her attack to stare at it

‘Uh…?’ it was in the same posture it had during the attack, she looked at her claws, but she had pushed against the ground while getting close to the frog. She had no evidence of her damaging the creature ‘Some kind of… defense mechanism… or an illusion…?’ she looked at the crevice ‘A trap for creatures…?’

No explanation came to her mind, so she stared back at the rock

‘Ia, Imbue Arms… I better destroy this just in case…’ she moved up ‘Magic Slash!’ and broke the head of the frog ‘Rock…’ the inner part of the frog was the same material ‘Not a defense mechanism then… Status…? Nothing… ugh…’

She tapped her left fang on the broken part and let some of her venom go out. Seeing the liquid being absorbed by the stone, but since nothing changed, she started to move back to the lake while looking at her Traits

‘Do I evolve another Trait…?’ she counted the ones that could evolve ‘Disease, Tracking… Seduction can be skipped… Oh… why I haven't upgraded Poison Resistance…? Fear Resistance is a maybe…’ she closed the screens and looked around ‘Or do I save the points…?’

‘Oh, don’t start…’ she looked towards the other side of the lake, and saw the tall cliffs surrounding it ‘Me seducing people…? I’m a snake, I’ll be lucky if other people find me attractive’

‘Ugh… I need to survive first… wait… I’m a girl now. I’m already beautiful- ow!’ the high pitching sound that came previous to a roar started, stopping Miriam from moving ‘Ow! I just have the wrong kind of attention… right now…’