Penelope slept safely through the night. She had a dream about a day in her old life which left a gross taste in her mouth (or maybe that was the olives she ate the night before and will have to eat again).

On inspection of the house that appeared out of nowhere, it was exactly as she had drawn on her paper. Including the size, to her personal irritation. However this came to be, what she drew became real. Opening the door found the inside bare of any necessities. It was just four walls and a floor, essentially.

“I don’t know what I was expecting,” she sighed that night with a slight chuckle. But it had a door (that locked) and was shelter from the elements, so for the time she had not questioned it much. In the morning, she looked at everything more critically.

Tapping the walls and floors revealed everything was solid enough. The wood was pretty flimsy in all honesty, like something you would use to make a shack. And, honestly, looking at it now, that seemed generous as a description. However, it worked for what she needed; a place to sleep with enough room for a child of ten years.

And it came after she drew it; this meant that it was linked to her Artistry Skill, somehow. Penelope took out her paper and charcoal, having decided on drawing something else to test out her abilities.

A simple circle. It could be anything really. However nothing came out.

Taking a moment, she added a few more details, making the idea and concept less vague and defining this object`s existence with every stroke of charcoal. A little depth here, a few lines to indicate a shadow there – just a rough and quick sketch of a bowl. In her mind’s eye, she was thinking of a simple wooden bowl. And just like last night, once she put the finishing touch, the item appeared nearby in a flash of golden light right before her eyes.

“Wow!” Penelope breathed, amazed. Reaching out she touched the bowl, watching it wobble slightly on the ground in front of her. Seeing it actually be there, she grasped it firmly, lifting it up and feeling the weight.

It was a bowl, just as she had imagined, more or less. Pretty flimsy material, though, similar to the shack she made herself the other night. It was definitely wood, but its thinness reminded her of thick cardboard bowls from take out restaurants. But knowing this worked, her mind was alight with possibilities.

And so Penelope tested herself in earnest. This went on all day, with her alternating taking breaks to drink from the pond or eating a few (very bitter) olives to keep her energy up. The sky was once again becoming orange by the time she figured out all that was needed, with thorough notes on top of this.

This was what she understood of her powers:

1.      The amount of time spent drawing something did change the quality of her creation.

2.      The materials she used also changed the quality of her creation.

3.      Creating something costs mana (MP).

4.      There was no limit to how many items she made so long as she had mana to make it.

5.      The quicker the drawing, the less amount of time it stuck around.

That last one was an important point; she found this out after the shack disappeared halfway through the afternoon, just before dusk began to set in. Not even a full day; even less for the bowl she made. It disappeared after a few hours.

There was one more point as well that Penelope added to her notes so she would not forget.

6.      There needed to be intent for her power to activate.

Penelope figured out if she drew aimlessly, nothing would come of it, which made things very manageable. She could only imagine what would happen if she started drawing portraits of people as a commission and a doppelganger appeared! The amount of intent also mattered, too. When Penelope was desperate enough to want something and drew it, it would appear.

Of course, for a short, weak moment, she thought about counterfeiting some gold or whatever the currency was in this world. And, indeed, she did try – at least making something from her own world. A 100 yen coin would be innocent enough, right?

Penelope remembered every possible detail of the coin, having scrimped and saved harder than a super miser over the years to afford the meagre luxuries that she could from the 100 yen store. So whenever she had one in hand, she used to memorize the feel of them, their weight, their thickness and designs…

“Man, looking back at it now, I was kind of sad, huh?” Penelope commented aloud, a hand to her cheek. Without the fetters of her family and the constant anxiety of awful things happening to her, it seemed surprisingly easy to look back and judge herself. Hindsight truly is 20/20.

“Well, this looks real, but….”

Penelope couldn’t help, but to laugh at the faux metal coin she held.

Seemed there was yet another important rule concerning her power:

7.      If she doesn’t know the components of something, the item will appear as something inferior.

How frustrating and fascinating. Penelope could easily bend the metal, which meant it was not a proper 100 yen coin, as she had no idea what kind of metal was used for them. It was a yellow colour and shone brightly in the sun, despite its fake nature. Well, she was for the most part, an honest person, so it was probably better for her in the long run if she didn’t make counterfeits of the local currency. Who knew what sort of consequences she may face. She imagined there was not really any technology here to tell them apart, but if her magical creations had a time limit, then best not to get herself into unnecessary trouble.

However, due to the nostalgia of having it, she pocketed the coin to keep as a momento of the day she spent learning about her abilities.

“Status Open!” she called out, summoning her status screen once more.

After everything she went through today, she found that there were other screens besides the main one which displayed her main stats. There was another one for an ability tree, linked to her skills. These were subsets of what she had in Artistry and Imagination, among the others she possessed.

For instance: In her ability trees Penelope saw branches that spread out to subset abilities which were named Copy and Create, both at level 1, to Artistry and Imagination respectively.

The description under ‘Copy’ was [An ability to replicate whatever the user sees into a paper drawing.] Trying it out, it was like seeing a photocopy of exactly whatever she saw. She tried it out on the olive tree and got a 1:1 picture on one of her parchments. Because there was no intent behind it, though, she did not receive a second olive tree. However, when she put intent on replicating the bowl she drew before, she got a second one!

‘Create’ was an ability she accidentally began using since last night. In the proper description it said [An ability to create any subject the user can visualize.] In other words, it was this strange ability that allowed her to create a spot to sleep as well as the other miscellaneous items she created since discovering it.

“This is really handy!” she said to herself, very pleased that at least she could be comfortable for the time being using these abilities and skills. Cooking and Cleaning had no branching abilities, but she assumed that these were probably normal things to have. She really didn’t understand the whole system yet, but she was sure she’ll get it with time.

She did try making food using Create as one of her obvious attempts to test out her ability. Seemed as if that was also limited, currently; Penelope tried to create a Beef Wellington, but since she never had one before, it came out tasting more like a meat pie in texture than whatever it was supposed to be. However when she tried making a simple rice ball that turned out really good! It tasted exactly how she remembered them. Penelope was glad she could have access to that kind of thing from her old home, still. It was plain, but it was much better than eating those nasty olives!

She didn’t really consider the ramifications of eating something that could disappear hours later, so she didn’t think too hard about it.

As it was, she had a small plate of them beside her as she sat by the olive tree, carefully drawing herself a new place to sleep for the night. It did not need to last long as she intended to finally make way to town now that she had an idea of how her abilities worked, but she did want it to be a bit more comfortable. The young girl included an interior design as well, next to the main drawing of the tent she was making this time. A warm blanket, a soft mat, and a little pillow for her head. Tonight she was going to get another restful night of sleep!

It was on her finishing touches that she noticed movement further down the road. As she drew by the light of a simple lantern she drew into existence, another person travelling at night could easily draw anyone’s attention, even an artist like herself who tended to be super engrossed in her work (must be the years of conditioning to watch out for others at play, she thought glumly). Penelope never thought about what would happen if others knew about her ability and figured she could drag out the sketch until she was sure nobody would witness her doing anything strange. She even rearranged herself to sit on the opposite side so it would be more difficult to spot her, turning off her lamp and relying on the moonlight once more to continue drawing.

That was the plan anyways.

However, fate had a funny way of messing with the best laid ideas.

Penelope was interrupted in her work when she heard a body collapse on the other side of the olive tree, right on the road. She froze, clamping her hands over her mouth so she wouldn’t make a sound, concerned that something scary had happened.

She waited a few moments, her heartbeat pounding loudly in her ears.

There was no other moment or noise.

Do I look?

Time seemed to creep by slowly as she struggled to make her decision, worried about being attacked. What if this was a rouse? A ploy to get unwary bystanders to come out and then they got kidnapped? She’d heard more than one story of a good Samaritan coming to a fallen old lady’s rescue or even going to investigate a crying baby on the road to only get kidnapped for nefarious reasons! And that was as an adult. Penelope could only imagine the danger an unknown world with unknown rules possessed for a defenseless little girl.

Penelope remained like that a little while longer, waiting for the other shoe to drop, but nothing came.

Eventually, against her better judgement, she peeked around the tree to have a look and was surprised to see a young boy sprawled face first on the dirt road. His clothes were dirty and bloodied and he seemed quite injured. Just what happened? Had he been chased and battered? If so, where were his pursuers? Penelope had waited quite a bit, but nobody else seemed to come.

Or maybe they’re just waiting for me to come out?!

Penelope looked around furtively – aside from her olive tree, the area was basically open plains, so there was nowhere really for someone else to hide in waiting to kidnap her. Seeing that boy there and thinking about the risk associated with going to help, she decided she would go and check on the boy.

“But not without something to attack with!”

Thankfully, baseball bats were easy enough to sketch up in a jiffy. It may not be the most hardy of bats, but it would serve its purpose as a defense tool in case something went wrong. Armed with her bat, she left the safety of her olive tree to check on the boy.