Chapter 3: Victomhood is Optional
The hollow tree smelled of damp earth and old rot, the air thick with the scent of mildew and something faintly metallic—her own blood... no wait, it was bug ichor. She still had the little bastard's limbs. The dagger was still next to her, its blade crusted with dried ichor. The forest outside was alive with the chirp of birds and the buzz of insects. It was still daylight when she'd passed out. She must have slept into the next day.
Denni pressed her remaining hand against the wound in her side. There was only slight tenderness now, thanks to her nanites. Her body healed quickly.
Denni was struck with a thought. Was this her body? Was Denni dead? If she took over her body, life and memories, who did that make Val, if not Denni? "What a mind fuck!" Val/Denni sighed. She'd have to explore the philosophical implications later. She was Denni now. The world would see her as Denni so that's who she had to be. "Val is dead. Long live Denni." She mumbled, shaking her head at the absurdity of it all. But she was nothing, if not a pragmatist.
She couldn’t afford to sit here, wallowing in existential dread. She needed water, fire, and something to eat. The nanites could only do so much without proper resources.
She pressed her palm against the rough bark of the hollow, testing her strength. Her missing arm was a constant, nagging absence, but the nanites had dulled the pain to a manageable throb and her skin was closing over the wound.
She crawled out of the hollow, on all threes. She chuckled at the macabre tableau of her amputated hobbling. "Lookout world. Tripod Denni, coming at ya." She mused.
The forest was alive with sound—the chirp of insects, the distant call of birds, the rustle of leaves in the breeze. She listened for anything else, anything that might signal danger. Nothing. For now, she was alone.
She sheathed her blade and searched the area for firewood. The forest floor was a mosaic of damp leaves and fallen branches, the air thick with the scent of pine and wet earth. She knew from her survival training to look up for dryer wood, not down. Often you can find dead branches under canopies, still attached to the tree and shielded from the rain.
She moved carefully, her boots sinking slightly into the soft ground as she scanned the lower branches for anything dry enough to burn and small enough to break off. A dead branch, brittle with age, snapped easily in her grip—perfect for kindling. Within minutes she had gathered a small pile of tinder, her nanites already analyzing the chemical composition of the bark, confirming it would burn clean.
She used her knife to filet the wood into slivers for a fire starter. Then she arranged the starter, kindling and fuel into a matryoshka doll pattern of teepees.
The real problem was ignition. She had no matches, no flint, and only one hand to work with. Her military training had covered fire-starting in every condition. She could probably make this work but with only one hand, it was sure to be a giant pain in the ass!
She flexed her fingers, staring at her palm as if it might suddenly reveal new and profound insights. "Come on, Denni we can do this." she muttered under her breath. Then she slapped herself in The forehead. "Idiot! You've got magic. Use it."
Her magic was weak but present. Denni was far from a noble, with their powerful mana cores and devastating spells. Not to mention, most of what Denni knew was comon knowledge. She'd had no formal training and very little practice.
She concentrated, focusing her senses inward. She felt a flicker of heat in her chest, separated from the warmth of her nanites. A tiny core of fire mana, flickered in her soul. Not powerful enough to incinerate the forest, or anything, but perhaps enough to get a spark. She focused on it, coaxing the warmth to her fingertips. A faint glow pulsed beneath her skin, tracing lines along her mana channels. She exhaled slowly, willing the magic to obey.
The first attempt was pathetic.
A weak flicker of warmth in her palm, barely enough to warm a cup of tea. The kindling remained stubbornly free of smoke ornflame.
Denni exhaled sharply, frustration prickling at the edges of her control. Then it hit her—she wasn’t just summoning fire. She needed to *become* it.
She closed her eyes, visualizing the process. The way sparks leapt from flint, the way embers glowed in a hearth, the way flames danced and consumed. Her nanites pulsed in response, their swarm shifting like liquid metal beneath her skin. The heat in her chest intensified, not just warmth now but something sharper, something hungry. She focused that hunger outward, imagining the spark not as a request but as a need.
The first real spark was tiny, a pinprick of light between her fingers. It flickered, uncertain, then caught on a dry twig. Denni exhaled in triumph as thin smoke curled upward. She fed the fledgling flame with careful breaths, coaxing it into a small but steady fire. The heat was weak-stepping forward cautiously, each footfall deliberate to avoid disturbing the forest’s hidden watchers. The fire was her first real foothold in this world—its warmth a mockery against the gaping absence where her arm should be. She flexed her remaining hand, feeling the phantom itch of fingers that weren’t there. *One step at a time.*
Denni added the last of the dry tinder to the fire, watching the flames dance hungrily over the kindling. One problem solved—she had shelter, and warmth. Now came food.
She reached for one of the chitinous legs she'd salvaged from the dead beetle-thing, examining it critically. It looked like any other insect limb—hard, segmented, vaguely greasy.
With a shrug, she skewered the leg on her dagger and held it over the fire, turning it slowly as the flames licked upward.
With a shrug, she skewered the leg on her dagger and held it over the fire, turning it slowly as the flames licked upward. The chitin blackened and cracked, releasing a smell that was strangely savory, like roasted nuts and burnt pork rinds. After a few minutes, she pulled it back, blew on it, and took a single, cautious bite.
The texture was awful—chewy and fibrous, with a weird crunch from the exoskeleton. The taste, though, wasn't terrible. A bit gamey, a bit earthy. She forced herself to swallow. “Tastes like chicken that fell into a motor oil puddle and tried to fight its way out,” she muttered to the empty forest.
She set the rest of the leg aside. One bite was her limit; she wasn’t going to risk a full-blown case of fantasy-world food poisoning on an empty stomach. She’d give it an hour. If her gut didn’t stage a revolt, she’d eat the rest.
The wait was agony. Her stomach growled, a hollow ache that reminded her how thin this new body was. To distract herself, she grabbed the waterskin. It was light, barely a sip left. Finding more water was priority one.
She followed the subtle decline of the land, her boots quiet on the thick carpet of moss and leaves. The forest felt different in the daylight—less threatening, more watchful. She kept her dagger handy, the phantom itch in her missing arm a constant reminder of her vulnerability.
The sound led her to it: a faint, musical trickling. She pushed through a curtain of thick ferns and found a narrow stream cutting a clean path through dark stone. The water was clear and cold, rushing over smooth pebbles.
She knelt, unscrewing the waterskin’s cap. A practical problem surfaced. “Great. No pot, no way to boil it.” She remembered the stories from training, the warnings about giardia and worse in even the clearest wilderness streams.
Then a data stream flickered at the edge of her perception—a diagnostic report from the nanite swarm. Pathogen neutralization protocols: Active. Microbial and parasitic filtration at cellular level is nominal. She blinked. “So you little bastards are like an internal water purifier. Handy.”
She submerged the skin, letting it bubble and fill. As she did, she let her awareness sink into the nanites, directing them to analyze the water’s composition. A cascade of information scrolled past her mind’s eye—mineral content, pH balance, traces of dissolved organic matter.
Then the report highlighted an anomaly. A significant concentration of particulate metals, suspended in the sediment just downstream. Her Cybernetics Genius perk lit up, cross-referencing the elemental signatures. Copper. Iron. Trace amounts of silver, all in a relatively pure, alluvial sand.
“Well, hello there,” she whispered, a slow grin spreading across her face. The cooked bug was forgotten. Her hunger became a secondary concern. She waded into the icy stream, the cold biting her calves, and scooped up a handful of dark, heavy sand from a bend in the creek bed.
She let it trickle through her fingers, the nanites in her palm buzzing with analytical fervor. This wasn’t just dirt. This was raw material. With this, she wouldn’t just have a dagger. She could make a proper weapon. Something to balance the missing weight on her left side.
She looked at her empty shoulder, then at the sand in her hand. The plan formed instantly, engineered by the cold, systematic knowledge now rooted in her brain. She needed a crucible, a mold, a hotter fire. The bug leg could wait. Her future couldn’t.