Away from here

If I had to guess, Mana came back at about one point every fifteen minutes. That meant I'd go from zero to full in a little over eight hours. That seemed pretty plausible.

Health came back slower. I'd been logged out for about two hours, which was probably four hours in-game, and I'd healed two Health. One Health every two hours. That seemed ridiculously fast for real life, but pretty damn slow for a game.

I really needed to find some healing potions…

I stumbled through the darkness for a while before eventually finding an old road paved with uneven stones. I followed it in roughly the same direction I'd been heading for about half an hour before spotting a small stone building ahead.

A system message appeared.

I dismissed the alert and crept forward.

It said abandoned, but was it actually abandoned? Or had it been abandoned at some point and was now a thieves' den, goblin warren, or something else that would happily eat me?

I didn't want to take the chance.

The tollhouse's wooden gate hung crookedly from a single hinge. The door to the building stood open, though the wood had swollen enough from humidity and the hinges had rusted enough that it wasn't going anywhere.

A ledger lay open on a desk inside. It didn't look particularly weathered, but I had no idea what the calendar was like here, so I had no way of knowing how old the last entry was.

A plate covered in mold sat on a table, now buried beneath a layer of dust. That probably meant a couple of months.

There were no bodies. No broken furniture. No obvious signs of a struggle. It was simply abandoned.

And apparently in a hurry.

An old wooden chest sat against one wall. The padlock hanging from it made it pretty clear there was no way I was getting it open without blasting it with a Spark Lance and potentially destroying whatever was inside.

After a brief search, I found a rusted set of keys hanging beside the door. Fortunately, one of them opened the chest.

Inside were six copper coins, two silver coins, some rotted food, a map of the area, and a small bottle.

I dismissed the pop-up.

Looked like Arcane Intuition was going to come in handy.

And now I had a healing potion.

I pocketed the coins, potion, and map, finished searching the tollhouse, and continued down the road.

After another hour or so, I noticed a small flicker of light in the distance.

Again, I slowed and crept closer.

A small stone structure, maybe three feet high and two feet wide at the base, was the source of the light.

As I approached, another pop-up appeared.

It looked like a pile of smooth stones stacked carefully together, almost like a cairn. Seven small alcoves had been built into it, each holding an oil lamp. Six were dark.

Only the topmost lamp still burned. The flame didn't flicker in the breeze.

As I got within arm's reach, it seemed to burn a little brighter.

I considered my options. I could easily ignore it. I could try to put it out, but that seemed… if not disrespectful, then at least somehow wrong. I could take it with me, but it didn't shed much light, and if I doused it in the morning, I had no idea how I'd light it again.

I touched it, just in case that was necessary to activate Arcane Intuition.

The flame turned blue.

Another system message appeared.

Hopefully that wasn't a bad omen.

I pulled my hand away, and the flame returned to its normal color. I definitely wasn't taking it now.

It wasn’t magical, but something was aware of it. Or aware of me.

I backed away, straining my eyes and ears for anything lurking in the darkness.

Nothing.

If anything, it was a little extra XP, and it hadn't taken long. I considered it a win.

I encountered two other locations before the first hints of sunlight began to lighten the sky: an old hunter's lodge and a sunken watchtower.

Each netted me another 60 XP, which brought me to level 4.

I dropped two Attribute Points into Reasoning and one into Will, bringing both to ten. A lot of the prerequisites seemed to have attribute and skill requirements at multiples of five.

For Talents, three new options appeared alongside the five remaining from level three.

Unbreakable Will

Prerequisites: Will 10, Unyielding

Your determination has become something more than stubbornness. It is a force of its own.

Mental Clarity

Prerequisites: Reasoning 10

Your thoughts remain clear even when the world around you becomes chaos.

Resonant Mind

Prerequisites: Reasoning 10, Will 10, Arcane Resonance.

Your mind and magic move together with an uncommon harmony.

I really wished they'd put the mechanical effects in the descriptions. It was getting old picking things nearly blind.

At least I knew what Quick Learner and Rapid Comprehension did. I could see the 10% XP bonus each one gave me when I gained XP. And Arcane Intuition apparently let me identify magic items.

The rest? I had no clue.

I picked Resonant Mind because it had the highest prerequisites and was related to magic. But I had absolutely no idea what it did.

At the Hunter's Lodge, I found a hunting knife, a bow, a quiver with five arrows, flint and steel, and some basic leatherworking tools. It wasn't much, but it was something.

At the Sunken Watchtower, I found a cloak, seven more arrows, a scabbard for my sword, four more copper coins, three more silver coins, and another Minor Healing Potion.

Tacked to the wall was a map that showed more than just the local area.

I knew from character creation that I was in the Caelorian Empire and that the Kingdom of Valedorn was north of it. I just hadn't realized how close I was to the Kingdom of Valedorn.

Greyhaven was only a day or two south of the border and far to the west of the capital.

The road I was on, called the King's Road, wouldn't take me directly to Valedorn. Instead, it would take me west through the mountains and into the Dwarven Holds before turning east again and eventually entering Valedorn proper.

I grabbed the map as well.

With no real plan beyond don't die, I continued following the road.

The scream that split the morning air was enough to make me stop.