Jim’s PoV

Jim felt like he was floating on clouds. As he opened his eyes he could see he was laying down on a massive four poster bed. The massive pillows, the heavy blanket and the room were all a pristine white. And then he saw her. A blonde angel with dainty white feathered wings tucked behind her started making a beeline towards him. Seconds later she was on top of him. He kept having annoying thoughts like "This was not where I went to sleep". Angel lady also seemed to have a weird kink for ears. She kept licking his ear over and over. Finally the haze cleared from his mind. Sadly Jim realized that this was a dream. Unfortunately that realization caused him to start waking up, and the angel lady disappeared. Disappointed Jim opened his eyes and found he was in his dingy hotel room. Dingy might have been a bit harsh, but when compared to the vision of a few seconds ago there wasn't a more apt word. Oddly he must have still been half asleep because the licking didn't seem to stop. Sitting upright on the bed the sensation continued. Jim groaned finally figuring out the cause. Evil little demons from another world were playing tricks on him.

Shifting his right eye he once again saw into the game world. The first thing he noticed was that he was no longer sitting down with his back against a tree. He had fallen over. Looking through the corner of his eye he could now see the cause of his problem. One of the wolf cubs was licking his ear. As he locked eyes with the wolf, it yipped happily and pounced on top of his chest. In an instant the wolf's sibling joined in and he had two cute little wolves standing on top of him licking his face. Jim feebly tried to fend off the attacks. Unfortunately he had some trouble trying to stand up because in one world he was sitting, and in the other he was on his back. Puffy happy playful looking wolves pressed the advantage and continued raining their tongues down on his face.

In between a gap in their attack Jim finally was able to shout "Stop!" To his surprise it actually worked. The pair backed off and sat on their haunches looking at him while panting. Right behind them he saw a familiar helmet. As he inspected it more closely he saw that the chin strap was broken. They must have chewed through the strap and took his helmet off. Refocusing on the pair he growled "Just give me a few minutes you little bastards and I'll be over. First my foot and now my ear? What next?"

During his speech one of the cubs took a bite at the other's tail. Playful fighting followed. Safe for at least a few minutes Jim's vision shifted back to his hotel room. He quickly got some breakfast and took a shower. While getting ready he started focusing on how to achieve his first objective, he needed to find somewhere he could keep his character parked. The place needed to be safe. He quickly considered heading back to Alextria, but then tossed that out. In the back of his mind he replayed killing the wolfs parents, but this time the image was overlaid with a man on a horse. He remembered how his sword had easily cut through man and beast alike. With the wolves display of fear he looked at the events that took place in Alextria with a different light. Were the NPCs bugged? Or were they just intimidated? He almost didn't want to know the answer. If the answer was the ladder then his stay at Alextria would not be peaceful. With all the commotion he caused the last time he was there that option was out. There was no way he would be left alone for the time he needed. Between the guards and thieves there would constantly be eyes on him. Damn game mechanics.

The next option would be trying to find a place in the wilderness to fort down in. The place was a low level area, but that still left him with the problem of getting randomly attacked by creatures. While it's true the creatures would be no problem to handle, he needed to be able to focus without having to worry what was happening when he was in the real world. Being worried about constant interruptions would distract him way too much and he might make a stupid mistake because of it. His rashness had caused this in the first place. Caution would have to be his watch word now, he needed to figure out what was going on inside his head. Not add more problems.

Considering other ideas Jim thought about maybe "borrowing" a boat. With little thought this idea got shot down. Staying inside a boat alone was a good way to drown. As idea after idea got crossed out everything seemed to be pointed to push onwards. There was a little village that was not far away that was the next major plot point in the game. Also the place was isolated because of how vicious some of the monsters on the way were. That would be a good thing because word of mouth from Alextria should not reach there. So he would just be an outsider there instead of being known for his antics.

He really wished that he could discount how people would act in the game. As he was going through his options he realized he was thinking the NPCs would respond like real people. Unfortunately Jim could not count on the non-player characters acting like they did in the original game. The so called "hero" in the game broke into and stole from every single house in the world. Jim didn't think that the NPCs of this world would be so kind as to ignore him like that. He would have to predict that NPCs would act like real people. Maybe he was being too paranoid, but better safe than sorry. The game world was moving even if he was not. With his plan clear, Jim sat down and closed his eyes.

Jim was still laying down when he logged back in. The wolves stopped playing and looked over at him. There was a pause and they both started rushing at him. Better prepared this time he quickly stood up. Now out of their evil reaches Jim looked triumphantly down at the pups who had their paws on his shins. They were looking up at him with tails wagging. More relaxed now that he had escaped the ambush he looked around. The first interesting thing he saw was that the raptor corpse was no longer the way he left it. A pile of bones was left in its place. Looking at the broken skull of the creature it reminded him of when he had crushed its skull while driving in his car. Now that he was standing up he had a much better perspective on the creature. It was a lot smaller than he remembered. It was more the size of a very large dog, and not an eye level raptor like the ones in the movies. Still the thing had been picked clean.

Looking back down at the pups he started to cast Sense Lv1 on them when he remembered that he had learned a new spell! With anticipation he opened the appropriate menu with excitement. Fire, he wanted fire! Finally selecting the right menu he looked at the abomination of a spell that he had learned. Sitting there in his spell list was now Sense Lv2.

Jim sighed and muttered darkly "I think this damn game hates me."

The higher rank the spell was the lower your chance to learn it as your next spell. In a normal game most players would learn three tier one spells before learning a level two spell. It was possible to learn a level two spell but the chances were really low. To earn a level two spell as your first spell was around a four percent chance. Normally this would be amazing, but his first tier one spell was sense. This situation was so messed up. Normally this was a cause to rejoice. Getting a level two offensive spell earned a character a permanent spot as a damage caster. Or a level two heal this early would make that character a perfect healer. Jim sighed as he read the description of the spell.

Sense Lv2 - Allows the user to see all stats, as well as positive and negative effects. In addition the spell also will glean some information about how the target feels towards you.

The first sentence just basically summed up what Sense Lv1 did. The new stuff was in the second sentence and he couldn't help but roll his eyes. Great, he was now going to see how all the monsters of the world wanted to kill him. Fantastic ability. His mind lept to visions of him reading how monsters wanted to eat him because people tasted good. Or maybe he would fight evil witches and he would get to know that they just wanted to add his skull to their collection. He would even have the privilege of knowing that thieves wanted to kill him for his stuff! Game breaker right there. Taking a deep breath he calmed himself. He didn't need no super cool fire powers. He had a super cool sword and his stats were stupid high. His attempt at cheering himself up failed. Looking down at the two wolflings he casted the spell on them. Their stats hadn't changed much. They were still level one, and somehow hungry. The little blurb after that stat readout was different though.

"Views you as the new leader of the pack. Completely loyal to you."

The statement was mirrored on both cubs.

Jim sighed as he looked between the small sentence and the digitally cute monsters. He couldn't bring himself to hurt or even abandon the pups. Digital or not they were too cute. Damn his weakness. But still the pair was hungry. Jim scanned through his item list to try to find something they could eat. He had different healing potions on him. Maybe those would work? Dragging them out of his inventory he sat down and fed them the red potion. The task was rather difficult considering he didn't have a bowl on him. Jim gently grabbed the muzzle and slowly poured out the liquid into the pups mouth. As he finished he quickly casted Sense Lv2 again to still find that the healing potion had not done the task. Scanning his list of items he found his stash of elixirs. Grabbing one of them he repeated the process.

As he finished the wolf was licking its muzzle. Seemed to like that one a lot more than the previous one. Bringing up the stats once again, he saw that the wolf was no longer hungry. Getting the next one in his inventory ready he could only think "Most expensive dog food ever."