Yuriko trudged in the jungle, grumbling angrily to herself. The canopy dripped rainwater and every now and then, the wind jostled the leaves and dropped a veritable flood on her head. Her first week on the plane had fooled her. It had been warm and balmy but it was still the Season of Water after all. The next morning dawned with dark clouds hovering in the sky and soon after, raindrops the size of her fists started pouring down.

Simply put, her camp got flooded. The tall palm trees provided no cover for the rain and the sea had turned from a soothing calm blue to a stormy grey. As the waves rose higher and higher, so did the risk that it would reach her camp and sweep her away. So Yuriko grabbed what she could and left.

She lamented the green fruits that fell with the wind and were taken by the waves. She supposed there was a reason why the pile of driftwood had been so far from the waves after all. Of the water lizard hide she had attempted to turn into leather, she was only able to salvage an odd-shaped piece that was about a pace and a half on its longest side.

And she supposed the reason the coastal berm was a couple of paces high at the lowest was because of the storms. It was easy enough to scale it and get into the jungle, the trouble was that the undergrowth was so thick she had to fight through it to get deeper inside.

Since she still couldn’t summon Fri’Avgi to her hand, she had to settle with ripping the dense undergrowth for passage by hand. Thankfully, Strengthen Physique, or Body Forging as Damien calls it, had toughened her skin enough that the thorns couldn’t penetrate.

She found a clearing a few dozen paces away, created by a fallen tree trunk where the crown rested on a rock outcropping. She took shelter there, keeping a wary eye out in case it collapsed. Aside from turning out to be a water path, hence, her boots got soaked, nothing else happened. At least there wasn’t a dearth of drinking water.

Three days later and the rain still hadn’t let up. Yuriko pushed deeper inland in search of food. With the rains, the jungle came alive, and the sounds of animals, birds, and insects sang out. She spotted colourful feathers at the canopy, but the trees here were the smaller and more fragile sort. With all the stuff she carried, any branch she attempted to use for an arboreal highway would likely snap.

A bit of the sun shone in the afternoon, which encouraged her to venture out of her temporary shelter. She kept everything with her though she worried about her Caster and Lancet. The weapons weren’t really built to withstand moist conditions like this.

And just like that, the sun was out again! The cold air turned warm and humid! She could take the heat or even the cold. But the humidity made her sweat and no amount of wind took it off her skin. So here she was, a hot, sweaty mess, with even her hair a wet mass. Her mutters were loud enough that the nearby beasts had quieted down but Yuriko barely noticed.

She never had the habit of speaking her thoughts to herself before but weeks of solitude made sure that her voice was her only companion. Well, Damien, too, but he barely spoke to her lately, except to tell her not to summon Fri’Avgi out of her Anima and once her Chaos Poisoning was fixed, she’d likely move to the next Growth Phase, whatever that meant. Maybe he meant Journeyman? Yeah, Yuriko thought she remembered him saying ten inches was one of the milestones.

Well, her Animus was already enough to advance to Journeyman, at a hundred and fifteen the last time she checked. Apprentices needed only to reach a hundred lumens to advance but her Atavism Ritual had given her a reserve above that already. Afterwards, she needed to increase her Animus cap to a hundred and fifty, and for that, she didn’t know what to do.

If she were still in Sharom, they would have given her tier 3 Zoi Elixirs that would increase her Cap by one each week. She supposed she could go for a natural increase but again, she didn’t know how to do that. Well, maybe Damien knew how.

About a longstride from the clearing, she found an animal trail that was just wide enough that she didn’t need to walk sideways to avoid the branches and thorns. Most times, anyway. Her boots skidded on the slippery path but she cut a branch to serve as a walking stick so she avoided the fate of getting her face caked in mud.

“Where am I going?”

She’d been following the track for a couple of hours now. Her stomach was gurgling. She’d run out of ration bars the week before and she hadn’t had breakfast today yet.

Grrgle!

“Haaah. Is this what life is now? Hunt, Eat, Sleep?”

Whoosh! Splash!

Another breeze, another dousing. Yuriko shook her head and her hair flung droplets off.

“Hungry.”

Then get something to eat!

“Yeah, I’m working on it,” Yuriko grumbled. “Oh, you’re back.”

…I expected more enthusiasm, honestly.

“Well, I don’t know where I am. I’m starving and I want to return home.”

Hmph, children these days. What, can’t even stand a bit of privation?

“I’m hungry.”

Right. Well, why don’t you grab that jackfruit over there and eat it?

“Huh?”

“Look to your right and up.”

Yuriko stopped in her tracks and looked in the direction he indicated. At first, she didn’t quite see it, but then…

“That green spiky thing?”

It was about the size of both her fists held together and was four paces up on a tree. There were clumps of the thing but she could also spot hundreds of fingernail-sized ants on the branch.

She pushed past the bushes and jumped, not even attempting to scale the tree. She caught one and pulled it off, landing easily on her feet despite the uneven ground. The spikes weren’t that sharp, honestly, though she wondered if it was like the round green fruits she found on the beach.

Coconuts.

“Huh.”

Oh, was that what those were called? Either way, she dug her fingers into the skin and carefully peeled it off. The inside was full of yellow stuff and she could see large seeds in between the fibres. Her mouth watered and she gobbled it up, letting the sweet juice run down her throat. In short order, she finished the entire thing.

“Urp. Excuse me,” she blushed. Her hands were sticky with the sweet juice. She looked around for where she could clean them and settled for wiping on some leaves.

Well, where are we? Damien snickered.

“How would I know?”

Oh, right. Hmmm, I know I brought us to the nearest plane.

“Which would be?”

No idea.

Useless!

Hey!

“Tsk. Fine. Thank you for bringing me to safety, but I really don’t like someone else controlling my body!”

You’d have died, otherwise.

“Still!”

Fine, fine. Only during emergencies.

“No, not unless I say so!”

And what if you die if I don’t intervene?

“Only if there’s no other choice!”

Wouldn’t you call that an emergency?

Yuriko quivered with annoyance at her Ancestor’s amused tone.

“Still!”

Hahaha, fine. Well, my time’s running out. Don’t use Fri’Avgi yet.

“Yeah, I know. I’ll stick with my Plasma Caster.”

You’ll find it won’t be as effective the way you use it now.

“Don’t you have a technique for ranged weapons?”

Well, yes. But I’m not going to teach it to you.

“Why not?” Yuriko whined.

Because.

“Damien? Hey!”

But there was no reply. Yuriko kicked a pebble out of annoyance and grumbled as she continued on the path. It was good that he was coherent now though. She couldn’t admit it to him but hearing someone else’s voice felt wonderful. It felt as though the clouds covering her head had receded.

So what now? The fundamental problem didn’t go away. She was lost in the jungle of a strange plane and she didn’t have shelter. After food and water, that was the most important thing. Well, she should look for shelter near a stream. Maybe if she returned to that river she could find a tributary.

Graaaw!

Yuriko cocked her head, listening for where the roar came from. To the front, and right…was it close? Her Enhanced Sight wouldn’t help, the trees and undergrowth were too close together.

Graww!

No, that was at least a few hundred paces away. Better to avoid. It was probably a beast claiming its territory anyway.

Yuriko trudged on, keeping her eyes and ears sharp. Soon enough, she heard the gurgling of flowing water. The trail led straight to it, actually, which made quite a bit of sense. Whatever had made the path needed to drink, too. The brook was just a couple of paces wide and she could see the rounded stones on its bed.

“I wonder if this will still be here when it stops raining.”

But the banks were steep enough that it was probably a permanent watercourse. She followed it downstream, walking along the banks and detouring when the undergrowth got too thick. Eventually, she found the river where that river lizard lived.

Backtracking, she looked for suitably sturdy trees that she could build a shelter on. It didn’t have to be by the stream...better that it wasn’t, actually. Predator and prey animals would frequent it and she would just put herself in danger.

She climbed one of the sturdier-looking trees, all the way to the crown. Above the canopy, the sun glared down and the heat was immense. Felt nice.

Steam, or mist, she wasn’t sure which, rose from the trees which obscured the distant view, but she saw a strange shadowed…thing...somewhere to the northwest. It wasn’t a mountain, she was sure. She didn’t think mountains rose all the way beyond the clouds above. At least, nothing that narrow. It looked like a spire, actually, but she couldn’t make it out even when she activated Enhanced Sight. Too far away.

Anyway, that wasn’t why she climbed that far.

She looked across the canopy looking for a tall tree. There was one just a couple of hundred paces away from where she was. A giant of a tree that rose ten paces above the rest.

The nearby terrain was probably flat. The south sloped downwards while the west sloped up. There were mountains to the north, spanning northeast to west. It led towards the spire. The foothills were just as heavily forested as here though, but some of the mountains had snowcaps. She could see the ocean in the southeast.

Satisfied, she shimmied down the tree. Except she wasn’t alone anymore.

Right at the base of the tree, a bear. Or it would be one if a bear had bony spikes and plating around its shoulders, head, and back. It was on its hind legs sniffing in her direction. When it caught sight of her, it bared its mouth, revealing long yellowed fangs.

“Graaw!”

Yuriko froze. Her first instinct had been to whip out her Plasma Caster and shoot its head off, but maybe it was just marking territory and found her.

“Graaaw!”

The bear roared and its eyes glowed with the telltale light of Animus. Yuriko’s eyes widened and she leapt out of the tree just before a ball of orange light splashed on the bark. The trunk sizzled and popped then burst into lurid orange flames.

Yuriko landed in the underbrush and rolled out of the way as a paw the size of her head smashed down right where her head would have been.

“Graaaw!”

“Stupid beast!” she yelled as she drew her Plasma Lancet and shot twice. She’d long refilled the cartridges, allowing her some leeway. Using the plasma projectors with her own Animus still hurts.

In a display of surprising dexterity, the bear swiped at the bolts and dispersed them. It then charged at her, lunging with another swipe. Yuriko danced out of the way, the sword dances circulated in her Anima even as she drew her only bladed weapon, her combat knife that looked exceedingly puny against the beast. The bear’s shoulders, on all fours, were taller than her by a significant margin.

Golden Animus coated her weapon and the second dance prompted her to duck and dive into the beast’s reach. She had to stab into its eye. No other way to reach its vitals. She bumped her shoulder against the bear’s arm as it attempted to swat at her, then waited for it to attempt a bite.

The shoulder check unbalanced the bear, and it did attempt to bite. She slapped its muzzle away and stabbed it, but it wrenched its head at the last moment. Her knife caught it on the cheek, drawing a line of blood all the way to its jaws.

Its roar of rage and pain almost deafened Yuriko and she punched its chest by reflex. The bear staggered back. Yuriko grimaced then bared her teeth.

Golden flames covered her body as her Anima slipped out of her control. The bear slowly backed away, growling its aggression but there was a wary light behind its eyes.

Yuriko just stood there, knife held low. A couple of moments later, it turned tail and ran.

Yuriko waited for a couple of minutes, but when it didn’t come back, she reined in her Anima and cleaned her combat knife. She shook her head ruefully.

At least her soon to be neighbour knew how to retreat. She lost her bearings so she scaled up another tree and looked for the big one she found. Then she headed over. It should make for a suitable shelter. She’d have to build it on the branches, of course. With the bear and who knew what other beasties were around, it was safer for her to sleep overhead rather than be on the jungle floor.

How long and what would it take for her to leave this Chaos ridden place?

She was afraid it would take all too long.