The path weaved through the meadow, meandering up a hill in that way you would only see in fantasy media. It twisted lazily, doubling back on itself up and down in a completely nonsensical fashion from a design perspective. It's not like there was foliage besides grass in the way.

As I crested the top of the hill, I looked out over an expansive meadow. My eyes strained as I tried to see anything in the distance from my new vantage point. But it almost seemed like the grasslands went on forever. I sighed and stepped forward, only to have the entire world shift on me mid-stride.

Instead of endless grasslands with trees lining the road, I was now in the midst of a dense forest. The path now crested downwards towards a small town, half swallowed by the encroaching woods. It seemed to have been overlooked in the progress towards urbanization. Signs of people living here were still visible: a dog sitting on a porch, the flickering of light in a window. Not quite a ghost town, but certainly a contender to becoming one.

That wasn't the most jarring change, however. What had before looked like hand-drawn storyboards had snapped into focus, now holding a deliberate style. The line art was thicker and darker, while the background had gained a lot of extra detail. A film grain crept into focus, and colours of objects seemed to smear together at the edges in that way that happens to a VHS tape that has been played one too many times. Oh gods, I know what this is.

I almost immediately turned to begin walking back in the other direction, but to my dismay, the path I had followed here was gone, swallowed up by the forest on all sides. The message was clear. There was no turning back.

Fuck, of all things, why did it have to be horror-themed?

Reluctantly, I began my trek down towards the village, when suddenly an idea came to me. I hadn't had a character role given to me yet. At that moment, I was at an impasse. I could become the new blood who enters a village in the middle of nowhere, just as some kind of monster begins tearing the town apart. There was a chance I would end up as one of the last survivors of the town and walk away with some kind of message about how 'people were the monsters all along' or some shit.

But why leave things up to chance?

Not when this Zone ran on the rules of stories. No, I could do something else entirely. I could become the monster. That would also convince whatever 'the audience' is of my power, too. The monster can't be killed off too early in a narrative, otherwise it would be a crappy story.

I needed a plan for this, though, I couldn't just wing it. If this Zone worked anything like I thought it did, then I couldn't just smoothly massacre the entire town with no recourse. A monster hunter character who knew about how the character I'd established worked would have to be introduced as a counterbalance. The plot couldn't progress too easily.

I sat by the side of the road as my thoughts whirled. What sort of monster would be the best for long-term survival?

Obviously, it would be one where the goal for the main cast wasn't to kill the monster. Maybe you can't even kill it, because it keeps coming back even when destroyed, or because it's some kind of force of Nature itself that was bound to the land. The story would then end with the monster either being driven off or a bargain being reached.

The best way for me to start a story like this was to force the town to commit a sin of some kind against whatever monster I would come up with. I'd need to gather information before I tried that, though. If this was supposed to be a horror story, I needed to know what the established plot was, where the hooks were, and what superstitions the town might have.

Holding my hand out, I began growing little, lightweight, insect-like drones, connecting them to myself with a relay, then dropping them off my body. I wasn't using the Biomass that my clothes used to take up, so I had plenty to spare, even with disconnected constructs taking up more Biomass than connected ones. My cloak was nice and thick after all, as it absolutely had to be. It was absolutely necessary for me to have committed over twenty-five percent of my Biomass to it.

To make sure they would fit within weight limits, I built their internal structure out of dandelion fluff. Each drone got a small piece of Wondersprout, which could activate to use [New Growth] or cast basic Nature magic on the fly.

I then began the process of splitting my mind. I had half a dozen drones, so I needed that many thought processes at a minimum. But I hadn't done anything like this before, so it was obviously going to be tricky.

Thirty minutes later, I concluded correctly that this was indeed fucking tricky. It was like trying to balance a half dozen eggs on your body, fine and easy to do if you aren't moving at all, but the moment one of the thought trains took over a drone and started walking away, it would crash and return to me. I ended up having to start it in a simulation, then abruptly end the sim environment and drop all the thought trains into the real drones.

"Bye now! Remember to return when the street lights come back on!" I called out to the drones as they were walking away. All of them simultaneously replied over the mental connection we shared that there were no streetlights in the town, but I ignored them, already walking out into the forest. I had a task to do by myself, setting up the most important part of a horror story like this, isolating the town and preventing escape.

Luckily, the environment was almost perfect for what I intended to do.

I was going to use the Nature Mana present within the forest and use hundreds of ritual circles carved into the environment to detect anyone trying to leave. Then punish them for their insolence.

Finding the piece of vegetation with the highest Mana density in the region, which turned out to be a massive ancient tree, I drew a pentagonal circle at the centre of the trunk. This would be the draw point for the ritual array. It was also the point at which I had to decide how my monster design was going to work.

I was partial to some kind of fae-like being, it would work well with a town like this, and I could make the way they crossed me almost nonsensical to the point that the townspeople would be the ones to come up with logic for how I worked. The fact that I had [Covenant of the Unbound] would make any deals I make binding, and I could think of some interesting tricks I could pull off with it.

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As much as I hated it, my size also added to the idea that I was some kind of spirit child… Let's try not to use that fact unless I have to.

I pinged my other consciousnesses, then sent a request for what the average villager looked like.

Moments later, I received several memory snapshots containing images. Looking through them, I felt a wave of revulsion pass over me and had to fight back a shiver.

Humans, why were they humans? Did the Zone take inspiration from my memories? Oh, I'm going to enjoy ending their pitiful lives.

An odd feeling passed through me, and for a moment, I felt like I should analyze why I thought that way, but I shook it off. I was busy.

For the first two symbols, I specified activation conditions. These were the simplest ones. I merely had to encode the targets I wanted, which were twofold. One was the receiving glyph, which should pick up signals sent from the ritual array I'll create. Then there was the glyph to check what was picked up. This one, I just instilled everything I felt about disgusting flesh-ridden human bodies into.

Next was a glyph that confirmed that upon detecting a human, the rest of the ritual would activate. I also used that one to specify only humans leaving this domain, so as to not stop any stragglers from wandering in.

For the last two glyphs, I decided to go with the Winter theme that I wanted to develop. The first glyph would block their path. Nearby foliage would grow in such a way that they would no longer be able to pass. Then, finally, the area would be filled with my idea of Winter, a bone-chilling wind would blow, and frost would begin to grow on their bodies. It's not just a regular Winter, though. It's a vengeful Winter. The more they tried to push through the barrier, the harder it would fight back.

All of that, when working in conjunction with [Symbolic Intent], should power up the ritual. I've specified a target, a purpose, and a domain that I defined as mine. I could feel the Skill doing something in the background as I worked, and it seemed satisfied with the job I had done.

Next, I just needed to add hundreds of trigger circles around the village. I let out a sigh. This was going to take a while.

***

Finally, an hour or so later, I walked back up to the first ritual circle. If I were made of flesh, I would probably be exhausted at this point. Some of those circles had to be placed in really unusual spots that required a lot of tree climbing. I didn't want any of them to be spotted.

Or maybe Stats would have made it trivial, like it was for me? I'm not sure. Life Energy could potentially be used to repair muscles, alleviate fatigue, and reduce the need for sleep if used properly. If it works the way I think it does, you should be able to apply it to your brain to remove waste products if applied properly.

Whatever the case, I was done, and I hadn't found a single interesting plant in the area. Even while constantly checking feedback from [Friend of the Forest]. It was like this entire area was designed to be the most boring patch of forest I'd ever come across. Except for the one ancient… I think it's an oak tree, or an oak analogue basically.

Snapping off a small branch from the old tree, I began munching on it as I thought about how I wanted to do the next step.

I wanted to influence the ritual somehow with words of power to give it some spice. A bit of a kick that helps sell the fact that a monster made this. Which meant a long phrase in Rootspeech. I've never even tried using Authority through Rootspeech yet, so this was gonna be interesting. The average plant won't resist commands, right? It requires a mind to acknowledge manipulations.

"Grow fast and strong," I commanded a sapling that was surviving off a small amount of light trickling in from the canopy above.

The sapling began to rapidly pull environmental Mana in, converting it into Nature Mana and using it to fuel its growth. That process lasted approximately thirty seconds before the sapling seemed to burn itself out and run out of nutrients, withering before my eyes.

That went better than expected.

Clearing my throat, I looked at the tree on which I had grown the ritual circle. If this were my domain, I would probably need to own the land in some form. Compound words would probably be the most efficient here. "Great-Old-One, Gather-Mana-For-The-Forest, Lay-Yourself-Before-Me-The-One-Who-Walks-Amongst-The-Trees-And-Become-Mine."

A whirl of Mana rippled inwards from the environment as the tree pulled in a massive amount of Mana from the ground through its roots and air through its leaves. That Mana was used to form a connection between me and the tree. I knew it was mine forever. I also never wanted to do something that taxing again because holy shit, I think I dumped nearly my entire Mana pool into the command.

I had one more command to give, but I needed to regenerate before I could even think about attempting it. I allowed myself to collapse against the tree. Letting out a sigh, I sent out a request to my other selves to limit their Mana consumption. I had felt occasional pulls from my reserves, so I knew they were up to something. After receiving several maybes, I replied with my Core's low Mana warning.

I wondered what my duplicates were up to. I hope they were using their time efficiently. With the rate they were burning my Mana, they better be.

While leaning against the tree, I felt something activate inside myself that hadn't in way too long.

"Hey Ellie, are you still alive?" Hazel's voice came through over the remote connection.

"HAZEL! You've finally come back!" I replied immediately. I would have jumped up from where I was sitting if I hadn't been so drained. "I missed you. What took you so long?"

"I uh, got a little invested in a project I was working on. It's done now, though, I don't really know how long it took."

"Oh, you were only gone a couple of days, don't worry. That isn't important, though. Tell me everything. What were you working on?" I asked, settling in to hear what had been going on with her. It almost felt like the tree was forming itself to my comfort, but that was probably just my imagination.

This was perfect. I bet nothing could possibly go wrong from here. Yeah, you heard me, fate! I'm testing you!

"What?" Hazel asked.

"Oh, haha, you heard that?"

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