Adventuring Through The Woods

Extracting me from beneath a wolf-coyote thing the size of a horse was a bit of a process. Ash and Matt shoved a tree branch underneath the beast, and used leverage to pry the beast up. The other girls grabbed my wrists, and pulled me out from underneath it before the other two let the beast drop again.

I looked down and saw the blood between my legs.

"Guess that monster popped my cherry…" I said, with a pained laugh.

I felt a little bit faint, so I lay back down on my back. I closed my legs, and that took away some of the throbbing discomfort inside my abused pussy. The initial thrust had been utter agony, but it wasn't too bad now. At least, if I didn't try to move around too much. Chloe scurried up to me, and placed a hand on my shoulder.

"That's too much blood for just breaking your hymen, if you even had one to begin with. The monster probably tore something inside you," Loli-Peter commented. "That's gonna need some actual medical attention if Chloe's healing magic doesn't work…"

Peter would know, I supposed. The guy-turned-loli was a pre-med, studying to be a doctor. That was like… being an almost-doctor. By medieval fantasy world standards, the guy was probably better educated than actual doctors in this world.

"S-sorry, I'm trying," Chloe whimpered, at the edge of tears.

There was another flash of purple, and a screech as something I couldn't see nearby died. Lysander lowered her hand, keeping her eye on the forest.

"Flying squid…" she commented. "What a strange creature."

"How are you casting spells so easily?" I asked. "I got fire magic, but I couldn't do fuck all under pressure…"

"Practice forming the spell shape until your [Mana Manipulation] skill ranks up a few times, it should get easier then. I've been practicing continuously since we all woke up so I'm already rank three. Also, having what I presume to be above average mental stats helps my rate of learning as well. Specifically, Intelligence seems to improve cognizing the spell shapes, and willpower helps with mana control and actually executing the shaping. The Magic stat itself seems related to maximum energy output."

"What kinda Int score does a genius have anyway?" I asked, letting a hint of bitterness slip out of my voice.

"Please don't call me that," Lysander sighed.

"Right, sorry. I guess I'm just taking my frustration out on you," I replied.

That was truly a bit of a low blow on my part. Most people would be happy to be called a genius, but not Lysander. I was his, or rather her, only friend growing up, the only person she knew who didn't treat her like some sort of freak of nature. She hated feeling different, and tried very hard to fit in. Being called a genius just made her feel like a freak.

"16 Perception, 41 Int, 19 Willpower, and 14 Magic," she said, only the fact that her voice was slightly softer than normal betrayed her embarrassment.

41 Int? What the fuck! She's a monster! For Lysander's sake, I tried not to react too strongly. "Indeed… that's a good deal higher than my current stats."

"I'm 17 Perception, 13 Int… 7 Willpower…" Chloe whimpered. "I guess my Magic is okay… it started at 24. Maybe it gets a boost because I'm an elf?"

"Your Perception is good too. It's not just noticing things. It's also related to your speed of thought and reaction time. Once you get better mana control, it'll help you get quicker at casting spells." Lysander explained.

"Take your time… you'll get your magic working eventually and I'm not exactly going anywhere anytime soon," I said.

The was another flash of purple, and another screech as some other monster died, probably another flying squid from the sound of it.

"I will run out of mana eventually…" Lysander commented firmly. "The monsters seem to be able to home in on us somehow. It might be best to find somewhere safer to camp otherwise we'll only draw more monsters to us until we're overwhelmed."

"Where?" Matt the blonde bombshell asked. "I can only see forest around us…"

As they discussed the options, I tuned them out. I closed my eyes and opened my Status menu.

Name: Tyler Erikson

Age: 21, Sex: Female

Species: Human

Class: Mage 2

HP: 19 / 25,

STA: 21 /30,

MP: 34 / 34

Str: 6

Dex: 11

End: 9

Per: 13

Int: 18

Will: 12

Mag: 13

You have (1) Attribute points.

Perks: Greater Blessing of Vyreth

Skills:

Mana Manipulation 1

Fire Magic (I) 1

You have (1) Skill Points.

Spells:

Firebolt I

Ooh a free attribute point. Levelling up seemed to give me a point in my Magic attribute too. I stuck the free attribute point into Intelligence, bringing it to 19, hoping it would help me visualize the spell shape better.

I had another Skill point too. I ignored the throbbing between my legs, and pain around my throat, and looked through my skills list for anything that seemed immediately useful. Chloe would surely be a good healer some day, but with her low Willpower it might take her a while. Plus, what if I got hurt and Chloe wasn't around? A reliable source of self-healing would be great.

Strangely, I didn't see any trace of Chloe's "Life Magic" skill. Was there some sort of prerequisite I didn't meet? The only difference I could think of was that she had pointy elf ears. Elves and nature… that was a thing wasn't it? Did she get special magic because of her species? What was my special magic?