“Hey, you. You’re finally awake.”

Oliver blinked as his eyes tried to adjust to his new surroundings. He was sitting in a hut of some sort with a large blonde man with shoulder-length hair leaning over him.

“Oh, hey. People,” Oliver mumbled.

“Not really,” the ring interjected. “These are tutorial creations. As far as anybody knows, they only exist briefly in the stage they’re spawned in. Every human on your planet will be in the same hut.”

“Hey,” the large man continued, “what village are you from?”

“Village? What’s going on here?” Oliver tried to keep up with the conversation, but he was still a little disoriented from the Stage transition.

“Straight to business with you, huh?” the big guy asked. He then began a long-winded history of the village and the ongoing war with the orcish empire. Oliver tried to listen, but the stranger decided to begin all the way back at the founding of the village by his great-great-great-great grandfather, Ulfric. Oliver began to tune the guy out by the second generation.

“Yeah, he goes on for a while,” the ring interrupted. “Perfect time to look at your gains from the last Stage. Go ahead and put the point in strength first.”

Oliver called up his status sheet and gave it a look over.

Oliver S. Grant

Level 2

Human Male; Age - 27

Class:

None

Strength:

9

Agility:

6

Dexterity:

6

Constitution:

8

Intelligence:

8

Perception:

7

Available Stat Points:

1

He put the available point in strength, bringing the total to 10.

“So, I’ve got world-class strength now?” he whispered to the ring.

“Yup, you’d hold your own against any other human in terms of strength. Of course, anybody still in the tutorial has the same two point boosts as you. If somebody was already stronger than you and stuck both points in strength, they could be at 11 or even 12.”

Oliver gave consideration to his stats for the first time. So far, he’d blindly obeyed the ring and put both of his points into strength. Now, he wondered what the ring’s endgame was.

“Hey, ring. We’ve doubled-down on strength, you planning for me to be a mass of muscle?”

“Nah, man. We’ll balance out, but getting strength up out of the gate works best. Highest success rate.”

Another thought struck Oliver for the first time. “You act like you’ve done this a lot. How many times have you been through the tutorial?”

The ring sighed. “Counting you? Three hundred twenty-seven.”

“What happened to those... other people you’ve helped?”

“They died.”

Oliver was taken aback. “That’s... not inspiring a lot of confidence there, ring.”

“It’s not my fault! I’m as invested in your survival as you are. Here, inspect me.”

The window popped up in a moment.

[Ring of Second Chances] (Cursed)

173/500 Charges

Oliver did some quick mental math. “So, when the person you’re ‘helping’ dies...”

“When I lose one of my charges, I lose a charge. Pun intended,” the ring finished.

“And when you run out of charges?”

“Poof. I’m gone. So, yeah, I’d really prefer it if you’d do me a solid and live as long as possible.”

That earned a dark chuckle from Oliver. “Yeah, sure.”

“Okay,” the ring continued, “Let’s deal with your stuff.”

Oliver examined his things. The spear still had a stone spearhead, but the edges were knapped beautifully and evenly. The tunic was no longer burlap brown, but a light grey. His new man bag was still linen, but of a higher quality weave that was harder to see daylight through.

“Powerful Throw 1, Cut Resistance 1, and Weight Reduction 1. Now! Go! Shoo, shoo! We haven’t got all day.”

Oliver found the Perks that the ring recommended and selected them without commenting on the ring’s attitude.

[Powerful Throw 1]

When this Entity is thrown, the throw is calculated using [Strength] X 120%.

[Cut Resistance 1]

This entity is 20% more resistant to being cut.

[Weight Reduction 1]

Items carried in this entity have their weight reduced by 20%.

Oliver read the descriptions of his gear’s new Perks. “So, when I threw the spear before-”

The ring anticipated the question and cut in with the answer. “The System calculates the physics of your throw based on 100% of your strength. Now you throw it like you are 20% stronger.”

Nodding, Oliver went back to the other two Perks. “I get the weight reduction, I think. If I put a hundred pounds of gear in the bag, to me it will only weigh eighty, right?”

“Yup.”

“So, the tunic. When it says cut, does that mean just a slice, or...?”

“Anything that would separate the fibers of the material. Stab, slice, chop, poke. Swords, arrows, axes, daggers, really anything except my wit, that’ll still cut ya.”

Groaning, Oliver looked down at his two companions. Trinket wandered around the hut, determined to touch everything in it, while Barton just sat beside him, staring at the blonde man, who had just moved on to his great grandfather.

Nodding his head towards the elemental, Oliver asked, “Trinket. Are we going for the next evolution?”

“Nope, not yet. There’s a bit of a challenge coming up on the 5th Stage, so we need to get some useful perks first. If we reset to a slime and evolved again, we’d have one less perk. Better to grab something useful now, save the evolution till Stage 6.”

“What’s the challenge on the 5th Stage?” Oliver asked.

“And ruin the surprise? Never!”

Oliver was silent for a moment. “You are a colossal pain in the-.”

“Noted. Now, for the elemental,” the ring continued, “let’s grab Stone’s Body.”

When he found the Perk, Oliver’s eyebrows shot up. “That... seems a bit overpowered.”

[Stone’s Body]

Calculations involving [Strength] also add [Constitution] X 20%.

Calculations involving [Constitution] also add [Strength] X 20%.

*These effects do not stack with each other.

The ring chuckled, sounding a bit like a villain about to reveal their master plan to the captured hero. “Oh, we have not yet begun to exploit the System.”

“Creepy. Okay, just Barton to go, and we’re finished with upgrades.”

“Hmm,” the ring hummed then paused. “Honestly, I was expecting it to die to the goblins. Obviously you aren’t going to use the dog like I would, so... I dunno, what do you want it to become?”

Oliver thought for a minute. “Well, he is a hunting dog, he’d make a decent scout?”

“Nah, no need for a scout when I know most everything in the tutorial. Just to be clear, you don’t want to send the dog in as a damage sponge?”

Oliver glared down at the ring on his finger. “No, I do not want to use Barton as a meat shield.”

“Sigh. Fine, then let’s make him a buffer. Go for... [Cry of Strength]”

Oliver found and selected the Perk.

[Cry of Strength]

Entity makes a loud cry, increasing [Strength] of allies by 20%.

“Solid.” Suddenly, Oliver was aware that the hut had gone very quiet. He looked up to find the blonde man standing quietly, as if he was waiting for Oliver to answer a question.

“Uh, little help here?” Oliver asked the ring.

“Huh? Oh, he rambled on then told you that the village was under attack by the Orcish Empire. He asked if you would help them defend the village.”

“And should I?”

“Yeah, that’s the point of this Stage. There are two hidden objectives in this one, usually you can only get one, but I’ll help you get them both. For now, just tell him you’d be glad to help.”

Oliver looked the odd man in the eyes and stammered out, “Uh, yes, sir, I’d be happy to help?”

“Ha! I knew you'd join up. Great news,” the man answered with a blinding smile, ignoring Oliver’s odd behavior. He pointed over at an armor rack near the door and continued. “All right, get that armor on and give that axe a few swings.”

“You don’t have to,” the ring said. “Just ignore him at this point and go outside.”

Oliver walked to the door of the hut, the smiling man rooted to the spot but turning to follow Oliver with his eyes. “This is creepy,” he whispered to the ring.

“Yeah, these system-generated buggers are very simple. That’s why you shouldn’t feel bad about killing things.”

Outside the hut, Oliver found a clearing that only had the one hut that he’d just come out of. A dozen other viking-esque people milled around, seemingly at random. The clearing was ringed with sharpened timbers tied together in groups of three to create a crude barrier that looked like a giant had tossed down a bunch of homemade jacks.

“Okay,” the ring began, “the first objective is to keep all of the humans alive by the end of the raid. It’s fairly easy to keep at least one alive, which will clear the Stage, but keeping them all alive takes some doing. The second objective is to find blondie’s lost axe and bring it back to him. There will be a handful of people who manage to do the first, but the second is almost unheard of.”

Oliver nodded to some of the other people as they walked around and got the same doll-like smile in return from all of them.

“Go ahead and leave the village, head out to your two o’clock.”

“What about protecting the villagers?” Oliver asked.

“They’ll be fine for a bit, even once the fighting starts, you’ve got time. Oh, tell the dog and elemental to stay put, they’ll slow you down.”

Oliver crouched down and looked his two companions in the eyes. Well, looked Barton in the eyes. He looked Trinket in the rock-face.

“You guys stay here, I’ll be back as soon as I can. Okay?”

Barton barked and sat down on the ground. Trinket looked back and forth between Oliver and Barton before plopping down on the ground next to the dog.

Oliver smiled. “Okay, you two. Stay safe.” With that he turned and ran out of the village in the direction that the ring had given him.

The area around the village was a fairly barren plain with a small river leading into a sparse forest. With the ring’s guidance, Oliver followed the river into the forest. Behind him he heard a horn from the village behind him.

“There are the orcs,” the ring explained. “Don’t worry, we’ve got time. The axe is just ahead of you.”

The river led to a small pond in the forest. In the center of the pond, a dead log stuck up from the water just enough to hold the axe that was embedded in the wood. The axehead was a rough chunk of metal with several nasty notches taken out of it, while the handle was an overly large hunk of bone.

Oliver took one step into the water, then paused when he saw ripples from the other side of the pond. The ripples began to move, obviously heading around the log towards Oliver. Oliver quickly back stepped out of the water, giving the disturbance in the water a wide berth.

When the ripples reached halfway between the axe and the shore, the water exploded out from the pond to reveal a huge alligator that snapped at Oliver and landed half-out of the water before retreating back into the pond.

“Oh, yeah,” said the ring. “Almost forgot, there’s a mini boss.”