Nothing is ever as easy as it should be. It’s like a universal law. I grumped as I listened to the COOKING trainer’s apologetic explanation. She had introduced herself as April, no last name, and was, as far as I could tell, human in every way, which didn’t seem possible since all humans should be going through the same BEGINNER TUTORIAL he and the kid were, not teaching it.

“We will, I assure you, incorporate the meat you have from your COMBAT training into your lesson, never fear, but in order to trigger the COOKING SKILL acquisition, we need to do more than skewer some rat on a stick and hang it over a fire.” She had a nice sparkle in her cobalt eyes to go with the asymmetrically tilted corner of her generous mouth and the sarcastic tone. She had a habit of tucking stray locks of hair behind her ears as if to draw attention to the striking color job. Her hair was raven black with shocking blood-red highlights that would have looked perfectly at home on a goth, but even with the rest being more the girl next door, she managed to pull it off.

The effect was spoiled, somewhat, on me, though, since, being a touch above average in height for a female only emphasized my own lack in that particular department. At 5’ 3”, I’d long ago learned how to be the shortest guy in the class and not to let the tall guys intimidate me, but for some reason it still bothered me when it was a woman. I guess I was sexist, or at least my emotions were. Same difference, probably.

“Now, as I was explaining, the COOKING SKILL has three prerequisite ABILITIES: HUNTING, CLEANING, and GATHERING. A section of the forest has been pre-stocked with small game—that corner of her mouth quirked up again—not so aggressive as the rats, I assure you! There is some variety, so I hope that each of you can bring back something different. If you’ll follow me,” she led the way towards the table sat up nearby, “I have samples of several herbs and vegetables that are able to be found in the area.”

Laid out on the table were some easily identifiable vegetables including onions, garlic, a variety of peppers, and so on, as well as several varieties of not-so-identifiable (at least to me) herbs. There was some basil, thyme, and rosemary, and three I had never heard of.

“This pretty wildflower is called ‘Lady’s Heart’, you’ll notice the heart shaped leaves and the red blossoms. Both leaf and blossom are edible; the leaf is reminiscent of spinach and can be cooked or not, while the flower is surprisingly spicy, and should be used sparingly until you know if you like it. The flowers have a secondary property that makes them quite desirable in both food and potions; used as a base for an extract, it is the main ingredient in your healing potions—you’ll be relieved to hear that the extraction process takes the heat away—and when incorporated into a meal, it can double the rate your LIFE pool regenerates for a short time.

“Next to it, this rather unsightly tangle is called ‘Troll’s Mane’. It is usually found in a rainforest or swamp, rather than this type of region, but, hey! Magic!” Again, the sarcastic quick. I could tell that I was going to enjoy this part of the TUTORIAL. “The ABILITY you need is GATHERING, not HERBALISM, which is a prerequisite for the ALCHEMY SKILL, so you only need to be able to identify them when you see them, not necessarily be an expert on where they’re usually found. Troll’s Mane is the primary ingredient in STAMINA potions and when incorporated into a meal, it can double the regeneration of that pool for a while. It has a very bland, neutral flavor which tends to take on that of the dish. Cooks primarily incorporate it for its invigorating benefits or simply to add bulk and make a meal more filling.

“And last, we have the ‘Star King’, or as some call it, ‘Mage’s Friend’. As you might guess, it’s the prime ingredient in MANA potions and when eaten will double your MANA pool regeneration for a short time. Only the blue, star-shaped flower is edible; however, it is very hardy and blooms almost year-round. Horticulturists believe that the large concentration of MANA it captures from the atmosphere protects it from all but the harshest conditions. Like the Lady’s Heart, it can be found in almost every environment. Be careful of the leaves, though, as beneficial as the flowers are, the leaves are quite poisonous, and some people have strong reactions from just the touch of the leaf against their skin.”

We, the kid and I, tried our best to familiarize ourselves with each of the examples she had laid out for us. I was a little skeptical that I’d be able to tell some of them from just normal forest vegetation, but April assured us that SCHEMA would help us by highlighting gatherable herbs and vegetables after we had identified the first one or two of the more recognizable varieties.

“Now, in order to gain the HUNTING ABILITY, you could get by with only one, but for the CLEANING ABILITY you need to bring back three animals of the same type. For the GATHERING ABILITY, you need a combination of two vegetables and at least one herb, or two herbs and one vegetable. I would suggest, since there are two of you, that you don’t go the easy route and bring back all the same kinds. Especially considering that you probably don’t know which herbs will pair with which types of meat, yet. There’s plenty of variety, and even some that we have not covered. Other than the leaves of the Star King, there should not be anything dangerous to handle, so if you feel like you’re being drawn to something you haven’t seen here, go ahead and collect it and we’ll identify it together.

“Here you go, Tom,” she said, plucking a SPELL book out of the air, “Go ahead and renew your MANA BOLT SPELL. I would suggest that you not use it in conjunction with your staff, though, in its base form, it will prove very handy at bringing down, or at least partially disabling, small flying creatures, but if you boost it through your staff like I hear you did with the training dummy, there won’t be much left to eat!”

We all shared a good-natured laugh, which I didn’t feel was as much at my expense as simple friendly banter. I relearned the SPELL, slotted my staff, and equipped my sling shot. The kid notched an arrow to his bow string, and we set off along a narrow game trail that April indicated.

“Try not to stray far from the trail. There aren’t any dangerous creatures in this section of the woods, but it would make me look bad in front of all the other COOKING trainers if any of my students got lost and starved!”

Still chuckling at that, we entered the forest.

At first, the best we managed was to hear the rustling as unseen game vacated the area. It was getting to be more than a little frustrating when the kid made the suggestion that turned things around. “Why don’t we try something that works in games,” he said, “crouch down like this,” he demonstrated a move I recognized from my army days, bending his knees and lowering his profile as he moved along. “If we’re lucky, this will trigger STEALTH, and we’ll be at least a little harder to spot.”

“Makes sense,” I agreed, falling into the once-familiar, but difficult to hold position. It can become second-nature—especially when your life depends on it—but it never gets what anyone would consider easy.

The very nature of the gait forces you to slow down, which increases your chances of evading notice once you get the hang of it. At first it seems pretty ungainly, between the muscle strain and the unfamiliar way of moving, it forces you to concentrate so much on how you’re moving that you can lose sight of where, and it tends to narrow your perception making spotting any game that you maybe didn’t scare off more difficult, thus seeming to defeat its purpose.

Still, whether due to muscle memory or SCHEMA, it became easier relatively quickly, and before I knew it, I heard the DING that could only mean I’d gained the STEALTH ABILITY. The kid took a little longer, but soon enough we were both moving through the forest much more quietly and I began to catch glimpses of furry somethings flitting here and there in the lush undergrowth.

Looking at the vegetation for signs of life had a secondary benefit in that it wasn’t long before I noticed the distinctive long, narrow stalks holding up some onion sets and stopped to gather some. Even though April had encouraged us not to get the same things, it seemed a waste for the kid not to start digging up his own. I mean, who eats a meal without onions, given the chance?

It was during one such stop for the kid to uproot a few onions when I spotted the first animal too stupid to run away. Or fly, in this case. I was crouched down next to the kid and happened to catch movement out of the corner of one eye. I carefully turned my head so that it wouldn’t also catch a sudden move and saw a fat, chicken-like animal perched halfway-up a tree about three or four yards away. I was pretty sure that I’d never seen this kind of bird before, but that wasn’t saying much. Other than time spent in the field while in the military, I was a dedicated city boy, and I’d never been hunting for sport.

Careful not to make any sudden moves, I slowly raised one hand and pointed at the bird. Aiming a finger is a lot harder than aiming a rifle or a pistol, there are no sights. My first instinct was to use my more familiar sling shot, but I was afraid that would make too large a movement and scare it off. I also remembered that MANA BOLT was guaranteed to hit, so aiming might not be as vital with the spell. Instead, I tried to direct the bolt with what I thought was probably nothing more than wishful thinking. Shoot the head, shoot the head.

And, much to my surprise, I did.

I pulled a small bit of MANA out of my pool—an amount my gut told me would be sufficient—and thought the command to shoot. This time, the MANA didn’t stop to pool in my hand, it moved smoothly along my finger and shot forward, neatly blasting the bird’s entire head away before it even knew it was under fire.

I had to almost physically restrain myself from cocking my finger and blowing imaginary smoke. The urge was strong enough that I remembered SCHEMA telling me how it had reduced my age because of my immaturity.

The kid jumped a bit when the bird crashed through a few branches and hit the ground with a thud. The MANA BOLT itself hadn’t made any noise at all. Of course, while it would be totally impractical, my…less mature instincts made me wonder if I could modify the SPELL enough for at least a tiny pew! pew! sound effect. I shook my head, but grinned.

“Got one!” I softly bragged. “I guess I’m going high, so you can go low, since we need three of the same kind.”

The kid slotted his onions and re-nocked his arrow with a look of determination and nodded, his eyes already casting around near the ground, while I moved to where it had fallen and quickly slotted the unfamiliar bird. I didn’t recognize the kind, but it was fat, so that was good.

It took us another twenty minutes, some hastily plucked bell peppers, and an herb that I was unfamiliar with, but seemed to be begging to be picked before the kid managed to bag a rabbit. It was a pretty big one, for a cottontail. Even a city boy in Texas was likely to recognize those, since you often saw them in gardens if you lived in the suburbs. Another ten minutes or so later, we broke through the underbrush to a clearing that contained a small pond. Looking about, I could see several places all around it where the underbrush had been trampled down into game trails as the animals came to drink.

“Let’s move over there,” I said, indicating a couple of closely placed trees a little to my right. “There’s no game trails close by, and we can wait behind those trees for them to come drink.”

“Better than wandering around the woods all day,” the kid agreed, and we suited action to words and quietly moved into position.

In a very short while, it became clear that we’d hit the motherlode. No sooner had we both settled into comfortable spots where we could watch from behind our respective trees than there was some rustling to our left, and a small gray head cautiously nosed out of a tunnel that the local rabbits had worn through the long grass. It’s whiskers moved as it scented the air, but luckily—especially since neither one of us had even considered the idea until just then—we were downwind of it, and our smell didn’t give us away.

We knew we were good to go when its little ears popped up and it took a couple of hopping steps forward, still cautious, but it seemed to me, more out of habit than real fear. I don’t know, maybe rabbits are just always afraid. I guess if I were that small and living in the wild, I might be as well.

I thought about the comparison with my lack of intimidating height, but my equal lack of fear, so, maybe not!

The kid already had his bow raised most of the way and an arrow notched, so it just took some minor adjustments, a deep breath let slowly out, and he had another rabbit in the bank. Then, we had a little dilemma: we could hear some rustling coming from the other side of the pond, and we didn’t know if we should risk scaring something off with the dead rabbit laying out there for all the world to see, or risk scaring whatever it was off by not being able to collect it and get back into place before another creature popped out and saw him.

In the end, it was one of my birds that decided us. It lit into a tree about halfway around the pond, also to our left, and I laid a restraining hand lightly on his arm. I nodded towards the bird, and he nodded his understanding, and so we decided to wait and see if the rustling we heard might be another rabbit, and that maybe it wouldn’t notice it’s dead cousin, since it sounded like it would be on the opposite bank.

Eventually, the rustling sound seemed to move away, or at least it grew fainter, so I decided I might as well try for the bird before it too decided to leave. Catching the kids eye, I pointed to myself and then to the bird. He gave a last, longing look at the fading sound from the other side of the pond, and then nodded the go ahead.

This time, I had more cover and I decided to go with the sling-shot. I didn’t want to be a one-trick pony with the MANA BOLT, especially since the sling-shot would take down larger prey than the BOLT would, at least at this level. I raised my left arm slowly into position and swiveled it to the side and slid a lead ball into the pouch. Squeezing that between my thumb and curled forefinger, I eased my right hand back and raised my left hand slowly until I had a good bead on the bird and enough tension on the band. Letting out the breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding, I let fly.

My aim was slightly off, I’d tried for a head-shot, but ended up hitting it center mass. I probably should have gone for that in the first place, but I’d wanted to see if I could match my skill with the magic. The bird gave an offended squawk! Before falling to the ground.

We listened carefully, but couldn’t hear any animals moving nearby, so we both decided to take the chance to retrieve our kills. The bird was still twitching when I got to it, but a quick twist of its neck as I slotted it into my INVENTORY took care of that. We moved back into position, ready to rinse and repeat.

Looking back, I blame greed on what happened. Three more rabbits and another bird later, we should have left right then and concentrated on finding herbs and veggies on the way back to the CRAFTING stations. The pond was proving to be just too tempting, both for us and for the animals. A doe and her fawn came, on top of the chickens and rabbits, but we both decided that finding another one to make the minimum three might be more than we could count on, so we just enjoyed watching the cute critters having a drink when some more rustling came to our left.

This was in the general direction of the rabbit run that had proved so generous for the kid, but sounded louder, like it was something bigger, or maybe more somethings. We shared a look and I mouthed, “maybe another deer?” and I’m sure the avaricious gleam in the kid’s eye reflected that in my own.

The kid just had time to turn around and face back to his left when a little pink piglet burst into the clearing, barely stopping itself before taking an unexpected swim. The suddenness of its arrival, so at odds with the caution displayed by all the other creatures, made the doe jerk her head quickly up and the little faun actually jumped into the air and landed with its front feet splashing in the pond. That, in turn, scared the piglet, and it let out a panicked squeal and made a valiant attempt at a graceful about face which turned into a clumsy tumble that set it to squealing even louder.

That’s what brought the mama.

She came crashing through the underbrush, all pretense of stealth abandoned with her motherly instincts telling her that her baby was in danger, and she arrived in all her—I swear she had to weigh half a ton, if she weighed a pound, I’d never seen a pig that big. I didn’t even know if they could come that big, before SCHEMA. So, here she came, all thousand raging pounds of angry mama, huffing and adding her lower-pitched, but much more menacing squeals to that of her piglet.

That, of course, set the deer to flight, which got the mama even more worked up. Still, everything would have been OK if the kid hadn’t said, “Whoa!”

Immediately she swung her massive, neckless head our way and her two beady eyes locked on us like laser sights. She didn’t take even a second to consider, she was already primed and ready to fire, and she came charging right at us.

I could have taken the time that it took for her to plow down the kid to jump to the lowest branches of my tree, but I’ve never been that kind of guy. I never backed down from a bully, even if he wasn’t bullying me, there’s something about big bad that just pisses me off and makes me ready to fight back.

Okay, reading back through all this, it sounds like pretty much everything pisses me off and makes me ready to fight, and come to think of it, what it sounds like might just be what is.

Without even thinking about it, I shoved the kid away to the side and into the brush, while I borrowed the force from that to shove myself in the opposite direction, towards the pond. The beast barely missed hitting both of us square on, as it was one shoulder knocked into my side, and I felt my whole left arm go numb.

Quick as thought, she turned in an impossibly tight circle for something that huge, and I’m convinced that only the fact that she had two targets on opposite sides of her gave her enough hesitation that the kid had time to scramble his sword from the sheath at his hip, and I had time to think “EQUIP STAFF!”

Adrenaline took care of the rest; the kid managed a pretty good swing, considering the angle and lack of any real leverage, and scored a glancing blow right on her snout, while I PULLED at my MANA like my life depended on it, which it arguably did, and FORCED it into my staff where it whooshed out in one great blast that hit her dead in the side.

If I expected her to be a smoking ruin like the target dummy, I was destined to be disappointed. She had a big splash of smoking black on her side and glancing off over her back, but she was still on her feet with bloody murder in the red eyes she turned on me. But then God, or luck, or whatever you want to call it—fate—stepped in and the rest of her litter stumbled squealing into the clearing where she’d come in. That caught her attention, and with one last murderous glance my way, she gave in to her motherly instincts and took off toward that side of the pond, squealing at her brood to circle the wagons, and they all started running her way.

Never one to look a gift pig in the mouth, I leapt up, I swear my feet never touched the ground. I reached out as I passed and grabbed the kid by the shoulder of his homespun and threw him in front of me, further into the forest. He scrambled up just as quick and it was asses and elbows, we didn’t stop running until we couldn’t hear the pigs even in our imagination, and then fell to the base of a large tree heaving great whooshing breaths.

When we finally caught our breath, we shared that “I can’t believe I’m alive!” look, and I don’t know why, the adrenaline crash, or sheer relief, but that struck me as just the funniest thing that had ever happened. I let out a loud guffaw, but then clapped both hands over my mouth and looked frantically around, hoping to God that nothing big heard me. That set the kid off, and we just sat there, hands nearly smothering ourselves as we were lost in gales of laughter, snot running over our fingers, and tears running from our eyes, from laughing and not daring to let so much as a peep out.

I don’t know how long that went on; I don’t know how long it would have gone on, except that oxygen depravation finally made us faint enough that we came to our senses enough to finally stop. The kid wiped the snot off his face and just looked at me. I knew it was coming and I tried to stop him, but he got it out before I could:

“Oops!”

It’s God’s own mercy that we didn’t die laughing, right there in the forest.