Nada was having a bad day. She was supposed to be studying for her final exams, but instead, she found herself staring down at a booger. A booger the size of a beanbag chair that seemed to actually think, but a booger nonetheless. Her mood lightened when she was struck with a thought.

“If I could examine you, I’d become a world-famous biologist. Well, as long as nobody else does it first. And, I guess, as long as there’s still a world after... this.”

The specimen showed rudimentary intelligence by following Nada around the room, but she had yet to let it touch her since that screamed bad idea. So, cognition: check. Sensory input: check. Now to determine what senses it had. Nada determined that motion was not involved, since the specimen would follow her regardless of whether she was still or in motion. Smell was a possibility, but she did not have the means to remove her smell.

To test for sound, Nada retreated to the other room and grabbed two objects: a broom and a spear. She would hold each at arms length, one to her left and the other to her right, and tap them on the ground. The metal spearhead made a clank of metal on stone, while the broom made very little sound at all, since it was... a broom. Neither resulted in any change in the specimen.

Currently, she was back in the safe room, which the specimen would not enter, sitting on the ground and thinking. She had found an old sack to cover herself with, since one did not perform science while in the nude.

“This almost seems like an old video game,” she murmured to herself. “If it were there would be some kind of status... or interface.” On command, the window appeared.

Stats

*Locked*

*Locked*

Bound Entities

“That’s... not possible,” she whispered while trying to touch the screen. Her fingers bled right through it, proving that the image was only visible and had no tangible form. She tried accessing the menu by saying, “Stats?”

Nada Ibrahim

Level 0

Human Female; Age - 23

Class:

None

Strength:

7

Agility:

7

Dexterity:

7

Constitution:

8

Intelligence:

9

Perception:

7

Available Stat Points:

0

“So, this seems to indicate that I can boost my body’s natural attributes by some means... interesting. What was the other command, Bound Entities?”

Bound Entities

*None

She attempted to think her way through the problem. “Okay, but the option is available, which means there must be some way of binding an Entity. What is an Entity? A thing or a concept, which is it? Does it make more sense to bind a thing or a concept? Could I bind this spear?” She held up the spear and spoke the word like a command, “Bind.”

Nothing happened.

“Maybe there is a ritual or some process required. Maybe a tool or program.” She looked at the broom in her other hand. “Bind,” she ordered.

Bind [Broom]? Y/N

“Now, that’s interesting.” She selected no, just to test if it was something that was only offered once, or could be repeated. When she ordered the broom to bind a second time, the window reappeared. “Okay, so some objects are bindable, while others are not. That begs the question, is it me or the object? Am I only capable of binding a broom, or is only the broom capable of being bound? More testing is required.”

After ordering every object in the room, including the walls, floor, ceiling, and door to Bind, Nada found that only the broom and the sack dress she was wearing were bindable.

“As much as I hate binding a broom and potato sack, science demands answers. Bind.”

Bind [Broom]? Y/N

[Broom Handle] Bound, becomes [Simple Staff].

The broom fuzzed like it lost cohesion with reality, and then Nada was holding a simple wooden staff. The broomhead was gone, but the staff was slightly longer.

“Wow,” she breathed. Eagerly, she looked down at her potato sack dress and Bound it.

Bind [Torn Burlap Sack]? Y/N

[Torn Burlap Sack] Bound, becomes [Linen Tunic].

“That’s... amazing. Impossible, but amazing.”

Nada spent the next six and a half hours testing theories on the slime in the other room, but nothing bore fruit. Finally she tried hitting it with her staff. Striking it over the top only dented the slime’s shape temporarily. Poking it, however, ruptured the skin around the outside like a water balloon and sent a flood of green goo all over the floor along with another message.

Stage 1 Complete!

Upon waking up in the forest glen, Nada immediately called up her menus. The Stats screen had changed, giving her one free point to assign, which she put towards intelligence. “Wonder if that would actually make exams easier back home,” she pondered aloud.

When Nada checked the Bound Entities screen, she now found her [Simple Staff] and [Linen Tunic] present, along with an option to select perks for each of them.

The list of [Simple Staff] perks was long, and Nada was committed to read the entire list until she reached a group of entries.

Magic: Beginner Healing

Magic: Beginner Heat

Magic: Beginner Horticulture

The list of beginner magics was dozens if not hundreds of entries long, but one stuck out to her: Healing. That’s what she was studying to be, after all, a doctor. And what is a doctor if not a healer. Could she actually just point the staff at people and heal them? With magic? Nada went back on her promise to herself to read the entire list and chose [Magic: Beginner Healing] immediately.

Magic: Beginner Healing

Allows the use of [Minor Heal] and [Minor Restoration] through the Bound Entity.

Minor Heal

Repairs soft tissue damage. (Channeled Spell)

Minor Restoration

Restores stamina to the body. (30 second cooldown)

Nada immediately grabbed an old, chipped knife from the weapons storage and sliced her forearm. She went a bit deeper than she intended in her haste and hissed through her teeth. With her other arm she angled the [Simple Staff] over and activated [Minor Heal] with a thought.

A green glow suffused the staff before flowing out like stretched candy until it made contact with Nada’s arm. The skin began knitting itself back together, without a scab or scar, right before her eyes. Within ten seconds, the cut was gone. Still, the green glow flowed. Nada kept channeling the spell as she felt all the tiny aches and pains in her muscles bleed away. In another ten seconds, Nada felt as good as she could ever remember feeling.

She looked down at the staff with reverence. With this, she could save so many lives. Medicine would never be the same.

Hurriedly, she scanned through the options for the [Linen Tunic], but was largely disappointed. There were no options for any magics, it seemed that the available perks depended on the type of Entity. The only options she found were for protection, so Nada chose one that offered a 20% increase in resistance to heat and cold. Immediately, the cool dungeon was a little more comfortable. If there was one thing a girl from Cairo appreciated, it was the ability to stay cool.

The fight with the goblins was short and simple. Nada simply targeted herself with [Minor Heal] during the entire fight and swung the staff around like a child attacking a pinata. The goblins only took one or two good thwacks, and Nada healed herself of any scratches they gave her.

Stage 2 Complete!

Nada was disappointed to find that there was no option for an upgrade to her [Magic: Beginner Healing]. She assumed that since beginner was in the title, that meant that there must be an intermediate or something similar to upgrade to. She debated between choosing a more offensive magic to add to the staff or doubling down on healing, but there was really no debate. Ultimately, she settled on [Increased Channel Speed I], which gave an extra 20% oomph to any spell she channeled, which meant she could heal even faster.

For the [Linen Tunic], she chose [Feather Fall I] which claimed to slow the speed at which she fell by 20%. She tested it by jumping as high as she could, and giggled at the slightly exaggerated fall. She wondered how far she would be able to jump now. In the name of science, Nada put her one stat point into strength. She giggled like a child when she found that she could actually jump a bit higher than she could before.

The Viking village for the third stage was interesting, but Nada noped out of any conversation once she realized that the people were speaking from some kind of script that sounded vaguely familiar. Once again, she tried Binding every object in the camp, only to be disappointed again.

The fight against the orcs was almost comically simple. She just stood in the center of the village and healed any Viking that took damage. Not a single one of them died. Soon enough, she ate a small dinner away from the fake people and fell asleep.

Stage 3 Complete!

Nada was frustrated that she was not being allowed to access her Interface in this blasted stage. She had her eye on several perks for her Entities. Instead, she was sitting across from this miserable child. This tween girl that leaned back in her seat, arms crossed over her chest, with a perpetual scowl on her face. Nada hated her immediately.

“Are you some poorly scripted AI too?” Nada accused.

The girl sneered back, “Why, you think you’re smart enough to give a Turing test? Please.”

“How does this all work, anyway?” Nada demanded. “You’re supposed to be from some interdimensional cabal, but you know about Alan Turing? Did you spy on us, or is all of this some high-functioning delusion that I’m suffering from?”

“Oh, you’d know about delusions,” the girl snapped back.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“One: You know exactly what that means. Two: That’s not why you’re here, so we’re not discussing it. I only have one question for you, Nada Ibrahim. Why did you choose healing when you hate people so much?”

Nada was momentarily taken aback before she responded in a low tone, “I see. So you are in my head.”

The tween shook her head, midnight hair twisting back and forth. “Nada, Nada, Nada. I don’t need to see inside your head to see how you treat other people. So, why does somebody with such, now admitted, disdain for the rest of humanity, choose to be a doctor? Those two don’t go hand in hand.”

Nada narrowed her eyes. “Don’t pretend you understand.”

For once, the girl made eye contact. “Understand? No. I’m fairly all-knowing, not so much all-understanding. You’ll have to break it down for me.”

“Why should I?”

The girl’s scowl split into a wicked grin. “Because, then you fail the tutorial. You get dumped out with all the other losers that couldn’t hack it. In here? You get levels like candy, one for every Stage you complete. Out there? Levels come from combat, you’ve got to fight like your life depends on it for each one. So, if you want to unlock [Magic: Intermediate Healing], you’ve got to play ball. Impress me enough, and I might even tell you what the prerequisites are. Now do I have your attention?”

Nada sat up straight and wiped the look of contempt from her face. “Completely. Do you want to start with my mother or my father?”