| TASK COMPLETION ✓ |
| Survivor’s Wisdom+ |
Again it has provided a
reward
more hastily than some of the others. But unfortunately I don’t know if it’s because my suspicion is correct or not. About it’s not-magic working off of my sense of
desire
.
Giving a ’plus’ to an existing ’perk’ could just be...
more immediate
than granting something from scratch. I’ll have to do another
experiment
next time.
Glancing at the map shows no particular difference in the information this ability was already providing, but the
resource grid
was a different matter entirely. Where the interface was blue glows with the lilac square before and
that was pretty much it
...
"You’ve got to be kidding me."
New information filled it. The grid was now filled with icons and symbols. I see listings for the metals, the electronics, the weapons, food, medical supplies...
everything
. Including the blanket. Including the
rabbit
carcass!
> This is counting what is in the shipping container now, isn’t it? All of it that glows is... warm. Or can be used to help with warmth. It doesn’t find it important to survive in the apocalypse at all, clearly. I feel almost as judged about it as when you saw me taking it, Vrika. Vrika, we’re going to need a lot more than what we have. <
I stored everything and simply began walking.
Not even bothering to shift
or keep my backpack and phone on hand, don clothes or anything. Without a strong purpose yet, but knowing I would need... to
return
to the city.
Suddenly, Kyrie’s offer of
help
didn’t seem like a threat to my independence. It seemed like the difference between
life and death
. One foot in front of the other, bare skin barely registering the cool air - or the occasional water droplet falling from overhead branches.
Part of me registered the changing
between rocky surfaces and soft forest floor
beneath my feet. As flashes of old memory, mine not Helene’s, surfaced. Royal hunts in my homeland in the
wintertime
.
Warding off the bone-deep cold that
crept through even fox fur
. The incidents where servants had died when caught out by early
blizzards
. How quickly civilization became
irrelevant
when the temperature dropped low enough.
Winters that
killed
the unprepared. Dens carved deep into hillsides where families
huddled together for months
. Beast, shifter, human - all turned to just
keeping as still as possible
to
endure
until it was over and
spring
came.
I kept walking with so many
dim thoughts circling
and my pace never changed. Slow but forward, toward the city and whatever
choices
waited there after I gathered money. After I used it to collect what I needed to hopefully survive.
Warmth. Everything came back to
warmth
. I’ll still be pregnant when it starts...
I’ll give birth in the cold months
of it later if it really is an endless winter. And I’ll need shelter, food, and water during that.
Kyrie’s white tower rose like a beacon of
potential
in my mind. Like it was the thing I was
moving mechanically toward
.
Probably
climate controlled
, but who knows if it can handle constant icy conditions.
Resources
, but who knows if they can store enough for their pack -
let alone others
. Protection, at least until I become
inconvenient
.
"Aren’t I already?"