“Wait,” Katrina said, as I raised my paw to store her away, “let’s form a party first. If nothing else, it will give Onyx a faster way of writing, using the system’s party chat.”

I paused, my paw held up. There was a chat? Writing in sand or dirt with my claws was so tedious, I almost didn’t bother to use commas. Why hadn’t we formed a party already?

Would you like to join Katrina’s party? Y/N

Before clicking yes, I tapped on the word “party” in hopes of getting more information. The system obligingly gave me a new blue screen with the following information:

A party allows for text based instant communication between members, it also allows the basic information, including level, jobs, health, and mana, of each member to be seen by other members. Experience is not automatically shared, rather, the exp that an individual would normally get against a particular target is multiplied by the kill participation percent. Healing, tanking and other support activities count towards kill participation percent but other than that, the participation percent each party member receives is equal to percent of target’s health each party member deals as damage.

That seemed fair enough, I decided, though inwardly I was already thinking of how I could hog as much of the kill participation as possible. I clicked yes to accept.

“What the hell is an Insect Necromancer? What have you been doing that you’d get that job?” Jason muttered as soon as he pulled up a party display.

The party screen looked like this:

Name Levels / Jobs

Hp/Mana

Status Effects Katrina 34 - Hunter / Pathfinder / Innkeeper 18% / 0% Wolf Paw’s Curse (-75% health regen and mana locked at 0) Jason 18 - Fisherman / Pyromancer 100% / 83% Onyx 5 - Insect Necromancer 100% / 97% Traveller’s Blessing (unknown)

“What’s a traveller’s blessing?” Katrina asked. I shrugged, I had no idea, the system hadn’t even informed me that I had it. I tapped on it, but the system simply replied.

You do not have not have access to this information. Seek an oracle or seer to learn more.

Katrina probably got the same message because I saw her frown briefly after tapping the air.

“You didn’t mention the health regen penalty, mom.” Jason said angrily, interrupting my musings on the unknown blessing.

I thought about opening the chat function, to test it out, and a large keyboard-like screen appeared in front of me. “Is my job weird?” I typed. I didn't know what the word “hell” meant, but I could tell from context that Jason thought it was an unusual job.

Katrina ignored Jason’s comment, and instead explained, “The system always chooses a person’s first job based on what they learned while growing up. For our species, the system stays locked until we are 10 years old. My parents were hunters in the deeper parts of the Underrealm. They taught me everything they knew. They were also nomads, following the herds, so they brought me on every hunt. I nearly died so many times, I was convinced they used me as bait on purpose. That’s why my first class was hunter and why I ran away to join the army as soon as I could.” Katrina laughed ruefully before continuing, “How did you convince the system to give you that odd class?”

I tapped out, “I was playing with a dead bug wishing it would keep moving so I could play with it more. The system asked me if I wanted to bring it back to life, I said yes.”

It was lucky that the system had made the keyboard large enough that I could tap it with a paw and not press multiple letters. I had vague memories of my first human owning a laptop, a source of warmth that I’d enjoyed walking on, but I always ended up pressing a lot of keys all at once when I did. The system had put the keyboard screen on the floor near my paws so it was easy to use.

Katrina shook her head in amusement, watching me seemingly half dancing on an invisible screen, or perhaps in reply to my perfectly reasonable explanation.

“Wait, that doesn’t make sense. I didn’t want to be a fisherman, I tried everything I could to end up a hunter instead, but the system never asked me what I wanted.” Jason complained.

“A fisherman is a fine job,” Katrina scolded Jason gently, “I picked Innkeeper as my third job when I retired, you need at least one non-combat job to make a living.”

“You should have worked as a hunter and trained me properly, or gotten a real third job and stayed in the army.” Jason countered angrily. “I guess I should be glad I took after dad and became a fisherman, at least that’s better than an innkeeper.”

Katrina looked like she might say something, but Jason continued, not letting her interrupt. “Not that fisherman is much better. Dad was just a fisherman and didn't even bother to get to level 10. You could have prevented his death if you’d gone hunting with him, helped him gain a few levels...” There was a wild look on Jason’s face as his voice rose in volume and anger. He must have felt the need to lash out rather than confront his own feelings of grief and guilt for not having been there to defend the village. But at the time, I just thought he looked petulant, like a spoiled child.

Katrina looked away, hurt, but then she turned back to face Jason, angry and stern. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I should have picked my 3rd class differently. Maybe I could have talked your dad into leveling up. Maybe I could have stayed in the army after I got pregnant, gotten promoted, ended up as the commander here, and not lured the millia away. Maybe I could have been stronger and been enough to fight off that shaman on my own.”

“But all those maybes aren’t going to change a damn thing now, so you need to deal with the crisis at hand and focus. Because if you don’t get your head clear right now, you’ll just get yourself and Onyx killed. And that will just be another regret I’ll have to carry, assuming I don’t die too. So, as much as all of this sucks, losing our village, family and friends, you need to put everything aside. You can grieve, feel angry, guilty, or blame me for everything, after this is all done. Focus on what you need to do right now, nothing else.”

Jason sighed then nodded, taking a deep shuddering breath, “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said… you’re right. I can do this. I’ll keep my head clear. I’ll work with Onyx. I won’t let everyone down. Let’s get this done.”

Katrina nodded, clapped Jason on the shoulder and told him, “I believe in you.”

Then I stored her away, bored of all the talking and human emotions on display. A lot of emotions were still foreign to me, as I was only about two days old as a thinking person. Guilt, love, and the need for another person’s approval were not something I’d ever experienced. I noticed that Katrina’s status in the party box changed to greyed out, and thought that was more interesting than anything the two humans had been saying.

Jason was surprised and then a bit angry when he saw me unexpectedly store away his mother before he could say something more. But then he realized there was probably nothing more to say. Instead, he asked me, “Do you have any idea what happens to her if you die while she is stored in your weird ability?”

I shook my head. I had the suspicion that she would simply pop back out, but had no way to be sure. I could tell you the answer now, of course, but the old me didn’t know how to dig into the system’s inner workings yet.

“Alright, well make sure you don’t die then,” Jason said, with a worried look. Was he attempting to be nice, I wondered, or was he just worried about his mom?

I snorted. The conversation between Jason and Katrina had done nothing to improve my opinion of him or endear him to me. From my point of view, he was just a kitten that had bitten at his mother out of misdirected fear and anger. Then she’d given him a brief lecture about focus and he expected everything to be forgiven? Katrina could claim to believe in him, but I certainly didn’t. For all his higher level, with whatever advantages that must give him, I doubted his mental fortitude and common sense. If he saw a kobold hurting one of his friends, he’d do something stupid.

Which is why, a couple of hours later, after a long trek following a clear trail through the mushroom forest, when we finally reached the kobold village, I deliberately sidelined him. We had stopped at the edge of the mushroom forest, out of sight of two kobold sentries standing by a crude wooden gate in the middle of a flimsy looking wall of wooden spikes. I tap danced the following on my keyboard. “Wait here, I’ll go in on my own and scout. Guard your mom.”

Then, before he had a chance to object, I popped Katrina back out of storage and left them behind, activating my stealth skill. I headed into the kobold village alone because I didn’t trust Jason to be smart, but also because if my scouting revealed an opportunity to strike, I planned to hog as much of the exp as possible. I left Katrina with Jason because I knew it would tie him in place. If things went wrong I could always run away, I reasoned. After all, there was no way any kobold could possibly catch me.