Mae sighed. “I had no idea. You don’t know what changechildren are? That might explain why you were so ready to see a kitsune.”

I shrugged again, “I have never even heard the term used before. On my world, the only creatures that speak are humans. Some people try to argue that dolphins, whales, or even Octopi are sapient, but you have to flex the definition of sapient to cover them.”

Mae nods, “That makes sense. I mean, technically mimics can perfectly copy an object, and they are smart enough to make things that appeal to a particular type of adventurer, but we tend to think of things in categories. Unintelligent would be like a plant. Minimal intelligence is like some kind of insects, slimes, and elementals or constructs that follow orders blindly. Animal intelligence is like low animals such as birds, snakes, fish, and horses. Lots of instincts but not good at problem-solving. High animal intelligence are things that train well and can solve minor problems, like cats, dogs, monkeys, dolphins, young kobolds, and your average town guardsman. Above them are near people, like goblins, adult kobolds, squids, and Ogres.

Mae smiles, “Then you have everything else. There are things with better memories or special mental abilities, but almost everything from angels to dragons still thinks about as well as humans or elves. A dragon is just as likely to make a stupid call based on her stomach as a halfling, she will just have a ton of remembered knowledge to do it with.”

“Changechildren,” Mae finally seemed to get back on track, “Were elven attempts to make a better slave. Many of those races were fully successful, but many great elven sages were creating them, and some of the more fanciful attempts weren’t as… successful as monstrous humanoids or were not social enough to succeed on their own once the elves lost the war. Instead of being considered full races, they are called changechildren.”

“So your appearance is that of a species of humanoid foxes?” I asked curiously.

Mae nodded, “Yes. Among the changechildren are many humanoid animals. Do not mistake them for their animals, however, most of them are as fully intelligent as you or I. Ironically, the less intelligent ones such as Gnolls have done extremely well, competing with other races successfully, if brutally. Changechildren, however, are an odd bunch. Many of them crossbreed with humans, but their children come out as either a changechild or a human. There is a little bit of leaking from both parents, Such as a feline and human having human children with excellent dexterity and leaping ability, or changechildren offspring with the excellent stamina or mental flexibility of humans, but it can just as easily be the other way around… a human child that is easily distracted by movement and has almost no mental flexibility, or a changechild feline with a terrible sense of natural balance and no real night vision.”

Mae shrugs. “In General, offspring tend to get the best traits of both parents, but exceptions happen. That’s why many humans are biased against changechildren. It does not help that while most changechildren are fully human in outlook, they are considered a magically changed species, or abomination. The fully successful races breed completely true or can crossbreed in some cases, but every once in a while magical races like changechildren will have a… throwback.”

I nodded thoughtfully, “They are still magical crossbreeds, so you might have a changechild snake that winds up curled up in its crib with a bump in its belly the same size as a missing playmate?”

Mae nodded frantically. “Exactly. Have you heard this story?”

I shook my head, “No, I just had a friend with a pet boa constrictor. I warned him that the snake didn’t love curling up with his dog because the animals were best friends, but he didn’t listen to me.”

Mae nods, “That’s it exactly. Sometimes the animal instincts will take over, or the offspring will turn out physically much more related to its non-human ancestor. It’s kind of funny, though, that certain species of changechild are well on their way to becoming full races because they started favoring their throwbacks.

I tried to recall my old gaming history. “So elves were like, the first race here, and then they started making slaves when they got powerful enough?”

Mae shook her head. “No. Like all worlds with enough essence, this world has a string of magical connections to other worlds, referred to as planes. There was always a little bit of migration back and forth between those worlds, but the elves came from a world with a much stronger magic level. They came as conquerors, and refugees, from their own destroyed world.”

“When they got here they decided to take over. Some kind of magical calamity happened in their own world, and they were forced to flee, but magically, they were vastly more powerful here than the locals. Unlike the locals, though, the magic-light environment didn’t allow them to easily regain that magic when they used it, so the first thing they did was to start collecting magically talented locals as slaves and energy supplies.”

She added. “I mean, that sort of thing happens a lot on the planes, among the unethical. Summoners here will summon a demon and use them as an energy source, or the demons will find a way to break free and start feeding on the locals, but it’s usually kind of constrained to a small area. The elves, though, arrived in flying cities and started soaking up everything, and they were followed here by something else that was much, much worse.”

Mae chuckled. “You know Humans. Eventually, they figured out how to do what the elves did with magic, in their own way. They also had gods, which the elves did not. They enlisted aid from outside of their plane, oni, fae, celestials, and sometimes demons; and broke up the magic holding them slaves in this huge bloody war.

The elves were masters at being well… masters, but humans are masters of war. So here we are. The elves got defeated. The humans couldn’t decide afterward who would rule and had their own little war. Many of the weapons that were created by both sides and the elves from generations before became monsters. Now a bunch of humans from another world are being dragged into this world for some reason no one can figure out by an enemy no one understands to accomplish something no one can predict. Prophecies keep screaming about there being a whole lot of death at the end of it. Two worlds worth of death.”

Mae sighed, “And the Gods seem to be sitting this one out.”

I could feel Mnemosyne gathering energy again, and so I invited her out. “Mae!” She said quietly.

“Yes?” Mae said, looking startled at Mnemosyne’s appearance, and almost stepping off the crude path. As before, we were taking the unfinished route, and I had been collecting various herbs while we traveled.

"The gods cannot interfere directly in the lives of mortals, except to set them on the proper paths or assist when asked. They rely on mortals, like you, to help guide those paths. If you had waited a day to leave, you wouldn't believe for a moment that they are 'sitting this one out'. You also forgot about the dragons."

“I didn’t forget them. They just aren’t really important. There were dragons here too, but they didn’t have much influence on anything. Some of them aided the humans in discovering their magic, but they didn’t personally fight or anything. Dragons are everywhere, but always rare. Some of them are good, some of them are evil, some helped the humans, and some helped the elves. The world my people came from had them as well, as does every world both high and low essence. I would be surprised if the world you came from, Bran, doesn’t have them as well.” Mae was flushed a little, but it was hard to tell what she was thinking. Was that embarrassment?

I nodded, “We have a lot of legends about them, but then, we have legends about elves, dwarves, oni, and even sprites.”

Mae smiled, “As I said, there is always a bit of migration. The barriers between the worlds tend to fluctuate, and there are also some kind of rules about the way magic operates, I wouldn’t be surprised if, at some time in your world’s past, there was a lot more free magic available. Some powers try to figure out the magical cosmology, but in the end, There's either not enough information or it is simply too complicated for anyone to grasp. Perhaps Librus has the information stashed somewhere?"

Mnemosyne had disappeared again, and I realized she must have some kind of sharp limit to how long she can appear. Perhaps it drew a lot of energy? I did notice, however, that the cries of birds and insects ahead had quieted down, much like they were when we were passing, and I shushed her and dived sideways into the brambles at the side of the trail. Mae instantly went translucent, stepping behind a tree on the opposite side of the rough track, and we both went silent, waiting.

I heard something off in the distance ahead of us, a whispered word, and then a slightly louder, “No.” in Rhydian. The sounds of the forest around us started to become louder again, but up ahead a hush continued as whoever it was moved.

Your [observe] use has improved to great! We can now use [observe] to explore the information projected from band users, as well as use it in combination with enhanced skills to gather more information.

Your stealth skill has also improved to journeyman mediocre, and your survival to expert great. Your camouflage has temporarily boosted your hiding to adept mediocre as long as you remain motionless.

The message almost caused me to move in surprise, but I quashed the instinct. Mostly. The voices ahead of us cut off abruptly, and I kept as still, and quiet, as I could.

After a few moments, I heard a voice ahead of us. The sound drew my attention to a patch of vegetation I had not noticed, slowly moving, and I realized I could detect the outline of a figure. Unlike Mae’s invisibility, I didn’t see a ghostly figure, and I assumed that whoever it was was probably very good at stealth or had a special ability I had trouble detecting.

That’s why you don’t talk while you are hiding. Her voice made her location obvious despite her ability. “I heard something. I got a ping from my sound detection, above the breeze. Do you think it’s an animal?”

Another voice sounded from behind her, male. He was moving quietly, but when he stepped closer out of the cover of a tree, he wasn’t as hard to see as she was. He was wearing decent leather armor and carrying a bow, with an arrow nocked, and taking big, slow steps to decrease his noise. “It could be. The trail is a couple of days old, but the achievement message said a team, and the guy that did it was a human. The trail says a big heavy human, a light human female, and a dwarf, as well as a monster that I think, might have been tracking them. Kobold or something.

I [observed] the man and the woman, and then saw another man, much larger than the first. Taking up the rear. He was wearing leather like the other two, but his leather had large bronze plates sewn into it. He also carried a wicked-looking jagged bronze sword, something like a large scimitar with a serrated edge on the inside of the curve, and a shield decorated with a painting of a skull.

He was not as quiet as the other two, but the spacing on the bronze plates was designed to keep them from clanging together.

I glanced back at the spot of motion from before and I could still see the outline. She had held still, but once I knew what to look for spotting her was possible.

Bubbles MacCleavage (Killers4hire) (Player)

Level 7 Half-elf Assassin

Armor: light leather (common) no helmet

Active weapons: heavy bronze dagger (common), light bronze dagger (uncommon, off-hand), throwing daggers x6

forest spider venom x1 applied to light bronze dagger (uncommon, off-hand)

Adult Interaction, Murderer

The bow user appeared to be a bit more of a roleplayer.

Glengary Ridgway (Killers4hire) (Player)

Level 6 Human sniper

Armor: light leather (common) no helmet

Active weapons: longbow (common), bronze-headed war arrows x17

forest spider venom x1 applied to war arrow.

Adult Interaction, Murderer

Seriously? Did he name himself after a serial killer? What a doucheplunger. These guys appeared to be looking for us, and I raised an eyebrow at Mae, looking back in the direction we came. She nodded and stepped into the road, to be met by absolutely no response from the three. With a grin and a wave to me, she flitted off in the direction of our team.

I [observed] the skull shield guy. He must have gone to the same character design school as Rik, as his build and chin were almost identical, albeit with long blonde hair under a bronze cap. He also had one milky eye with a scar running down his cheek, but I was betting it was an affectation and didn’t have any real effect on his vision.

Killzone420 (Killers4hire)(Player)

Level 8 Human Brute

Armor: medium bronze half-mail (common) bronze cap (common) well-crafted bronze shield (uncommon)

Active weapons: poorly-crafted bronze pirate cleaver (crafted by Metrognome) enchanted, +1 fire damage

forest spider venom x1 applied to poorly-crafted bronze pirate cleaver (crafted by Metrognome) enchanted, +1 fire damage

Murderer

Great. They were a fairly well-balanced team, had decent protection from sneak attacks, and were using poisoned weapons. Their hostility was fairly obvious, but Mae was moving off to warn our team.

Of the three, Killzone was by far the most intimidating, but I needed to keep an eye on Bubbles. I didn’t have to guess what gender her player was, but with her stealth, she was even more dangerous than the bow user. I was willing to bet that as an assassin, she had some kind of sneak attack, and I felt it was my job to try and counter her if they turned out to be as unfriendly as they looked.

I allowed them to pass, thankfully without being spotted, and once they were farther down the path I slid out of the bushes and followed them. Stealth was good, but both the archer and the assassin seemed to have some ability to detect stealth, and I was willing to bet that only the fact that I was following behind the brute was keeping them from noticing.

“Wait, I found something.” The longbow user said. I silently cursed as he looked carefully at the trail. I hadn’t been trying to cover my tracks, I hadn’t even realized that in the treads and crushed grass he could have found them. “I see another pair of kobold tracks. They are going the other way, but they seem to be all over the place. It might be a group of them, although if it is, they are pretty big.”

Killzone shrugged, “Out here they would kind of have to be. Tutorial kobolds would get eaten by anything. If it’s a pack, though, you’d probably notice if there was a fight here. I am betting they are pretty low level, so if they show up free experience.”

Ahead of the archer, the girl’s stealth dropped and she stood up. Oi gevault! I could see why she named herself ‘Bubbles’. If there was a chest size slider, she had broken it, as with her slender build, the double D’s had gone way past cute into creepy territory, and with her broad hips and incredibly narrow waist, she looked kind of cartoony, almost like Jesse Rabbit.

Perhaps looking like a bad surgery victim porn star was part of her hunting strategy as an assassin? Her face was almost preternaturally sweet, and I imagine that to a bunch of guys who had never talked to a real live girl ‘assassin’ might be the farthest thing from their mind. According to Rik’s time compression information, though, it looked like EVERYONE would be playing this game soon, so it was entirely possible that the player was female, and had chosen her appearance and name to be as much of a weapon as her blade.

I wonder if you could have multiple characters? Maybe this was her ‘money character’ designed to funnel cash to a less Frankenstein alternate character? The new level of information that [observe] offered was staggering, and I planned to share it, especially about the poison. These guys were all in the same guild, and the name suggested that they were planning on becoming either mercenaries or bounty hunters, out to make an early name for themselves at low levels. It seemed unlikely that anyone could have afforded to hire them, yet.

I had stopped when their team did, and Bubbles looked around cautiously. “I don’t sense any noises other than the normal stuff.” she said, and Gary replied, “Yeah, but these tracks are only minutes old. If there are kobolds around here, they are probably hiding.”

“So do we kill them or keep going? We are on the track they took to get to their dungeon, and it’s over a day to get back to the fort. I want to catch them before we need to take our downtime, and I really want to find that dungeon. If we can take control of it now, we can go ahead and run it for loot, and then sell the location at the same time he does. Yeah, it’s not as profitable as if we had exclusive info, but we can undercut him for a while and then plug all the newbies that come hunting for it.”

Bubbles nodded, “Alright. If we catch the kobolds we take ‘em out, but for right now we stay on target.” She crouched down and seemed to disappear again, although I could still track her movements.

Your security skill has improved to apprentice fair

Huh. I had been under the impression that ‘security’ implied lockpicking and such, and that was one area where I had pretty much no experience except how to start a Monte Carlo with a screwdriver, which everyone knows. Lockpicking meant a sledgehammer or a power drill, and those heist movies where the safe guy talked about how they were going to deal with ‘the most secure safe design in the world’ usually were a good spot for going and getting more popcorn.

But it looked like security was the more classical definition, how to keep an area secure and notice things that were out of place. In that particular skill, I had more than a bit of training. I had, after all, been the security team trainer and knew the tactics for locking down areas, distributing my team, and keeping cover. I guess spotting people trying to sneak around qualified. Kevin Costner, eat your heart out.

While I was following the piratical team, I managed to level up my stealth twice more. Having to keep as silent as possible was certainly teaching me a lot about remaining hidden, and even though they never really turned and faced me, actually training against living people, who could probably kill me, seemed to have a multiplicative effect on my skill gain. The best part was, that I KNEW what I was altering to improve my abilities, rather than some kind of random skill gain. I even noticed that my ability to camouflage was improving right along with my skills, and different color patches were appearing as I hid. Thank goodness for all the forest that the improvised trail was still covered with, however.

I didn’t have the chance to collect any more goodies as I followed them for the next 45 minutes, but I did notice that [observe] gave a heck of a lot more information, including the draconic word for a few of the herbs which offered incredible insights.

Dandelion [dandelion]

flowers: jams, jellies, salads, cooking, and pickling. High nutritional value, helps prevent scurvy and gout.

leaves: somewhat bitter, but the more tender leaves are excellent cooked

Roots: dried and used for a healing tea.

Medicine: as a diuretic and swelling reducer, the leaves help clear urinary tract infections, they can be refined or used as-is, and can be used as an ingredient in low-end taint reduction formulae, especially involving the liver. They contain potassium salts, which have a large number of alchemical uses.

Its leaves are astringent and can help increase blood regeneration. It also is a wound-healing agent and can be added to almost any healing potion or unguent.

Magic: it is often used as a reagent for magical healing, and while it is not magically receptive, it is a magical healing enhancer.

Once I started messing around with alchemy, I already came up with dozens of possible potions I could create, from the local plant life alone. I didn’t have any recipes, and I probably should look into that, but recipes were insanely expensive and I am pretty sure that guilds protected anything other than the most basic.

Ahead of Bubbles, I caught a flash of bronze, and all three of the Killers4hire stopped. Bubbles may have been a loudmouth while they thought they were unobserved, but she didn’t say a word as I watched her trying to maneuver through the forest. Ironically, Gary slipped into the forest without disturbing a thing, but the super stealthy assassin seemed to have problems noticing dry leaves or the occasional knee-high plant that wobbled slightly as she passed. City girl.

Up ahead, Cassie stood with her new shield propped in front of her, with Rik, sword drawn, standing slightly behind and to her right. The new shield was, to put it bluntly, quite ugly, but it looked like it was made of heavy wood and banded with iron, and was probably much more effective than the normal wood banded bronze everyone seemed to be using.

“Holy shit, Gary?” I heard Rik yell. “Dude, don’t you ever play anything other than a hunter? You know your silent step only affects locals. I can see your name tag right through the trees.”

Gary stepped back out of the trees, but he still had his bow out. Meanwhile, I was circling behind the assassin. Unlike her, I was very careful about disturbing the foliage, and hopefully, the dialogue would cover any minor noises I might make.

“Oh, hey Rik,” Gary called out, while Killzone stomped closer. “I was surprised you turned down our guild invite. What class did you pick? A berzerker? You usually Play a tanker. I am surprised.” he suddenly scoffed, “Seriously? You partied up with an N…” he went suddenly silent, and then stated, “With a local? Man, that’s pretty sad. Tell you what. After we take your shit I’ll send you another invite. Once you respawn you can be a winner instead of…” he motioned with his bow. “Whatever this is.”

Okay, doucheblender number 2. I wasn’t really wanting to kill anyone, but since they’d be sent back to respawn, I didn’t even have a hint of regret. Apparently, the system was quite strict about not calling locals NPCs as well.

I finally spotted Shiana in a tree. Security skill for the win! She was blended almost perfectly among the branches, and I could see that her bow was pointed directly at Bubbles, who had not noticed her yet. I didn’t actually have a weapon right now, but my claws were nice and sharp, and I still had my tail. Yeah, I was going to take her down feral-style, or at least keep her busy after Shiana took her shot to allow the elf to take her down.

Rik grinned, “You really think you can do that? You guys might be slightly higher level, but your gear sucks. I can see why you want to steal mine. Little hint, though, you have no idea what you are biting off. You don’t know my class, but I am willing to bet that your little girlfriend is circling around behind me right now, you always did love that ranger rogue combo, especially since you found a meathead to play a tank.”

He chuckled a little. I was pretty impressed at his self-possession, especially in the face of higher-level enemies. He must have had a lot of experience in PVP, because he lowered his sword slightly, tapped Cassie’s shoulder, and then spun around so his back was to her.

Cassie slapped her shield twice with her hammer, and screamed “Come get some!” Since I had my [observe] up, I watched waves of blueish mana erupt from around her, tracing along the ground, and overlapping everything in a huge radius, including me and Bubbles. Standing up, Bubbles went racing towards the pair while I raced right along behind her. She was not very fast, and I guessed whatever she was doing was geared for sneaky instead of speed, her crashing footsteps covering the sound of my approach.

Shiana, above me, finally saw that I was racing behind Bubbles, and immediately switched her aim to Gary. Three arrows, her new ones, sprang from her bow as one, and I saw two of them hitting him right in the chest before he went down.

“Let me tell you your mistakes!” Rik yelled. “First, you came in red, which means we don’t have to wait for your attacks.” and I watched as the brute, Killzone, charged right into a tree and started whacking and shield bashing the heavy Pine tree.

“Second, you challenged the best tank in our old guild and never thought I might be ready for you!” he yelled as I hopped to one side of Bubbles, bracing myself on one foot and my hand while I swept my tail, right under her knee, and breathing [push] through my frost mana. I was bigger now than I was before, but had no idea that I would hit hard enough to fold back both of her knees, even with her leather armor, and frost appeared from her feet to her hips. She started screaming horribly as she flew and plowed into the ground right at Rik’s feet, and he raised his sword.

“Third, I am a pet class, bitch!” he said bringing his sword down on her back with both hands. A horrible crunchy thump and the girl vanished, leaving behind a pile of some sort of junk. I didn’t have time to check it out, because two threats remained. To be fair, her screaming sounded real, and I was glad he put her out of her misery quickly. I hoped she was okay.

I doubted very much that I’d be able to repeat my performance with the brute, he was really big, so I turned towards where I had seen the archer. He was lying among the weeds, trying to get his bow around, when Shiana shot another arrow, this one at the brute, who batted it aside with his shield as he turned away from the pine tree and started rumbling towards Cassie.

I leaped on Gary’s chest, batting his bow out of the way, and peered right into his face. “Sorry man, but you came after us. You should have paid attention to the kobold. Tell your girlfriend I am sorry, but letting her turn her pain up to max was stupid.”

I grabbed his leather top with my left hand and lifted my right hand behind my head to deliver the killing blow. As expected, the poor bastard lifted both arms to try and stop my attack, groaning in pain as it disturbed the two arrows in his chest. I wasn’t proud of myself, This encounter was almost anticlimactic as I [pushed] as much frost mana as I could into my left hand, right over his heart.

The sound of more junk dumping to the ground was behind me as I started running towards the big guy. My team needed help. The giant seemed to be focused on Cassie, using his shield to push her backward and down, but to be honest, he seemed to be in an awkward position, since she was so much shorter than he was.

He glanced around quickly and took a step back, yelling ‘yield!’.