It took Jake a moment to process what Clawdia was saying.

Danger.

Beasts.

Three scorpidogs appeared at the edge of the woods, growling and circling. Their segmented tails flexing and unflexing in anticipation, curling into tight spirals and then lengthening to their full length of four and a half feet.

Why did it have to be scorpidogs?

He checked and saw that they were level 5. He’d always thought it had been bad game design to have such a deadly creature present at the low levels. This only fed his theory that FTO was somehow based on this world — the real world fucked with people by doing stuff like this all the time.

Ayla rolled away from him, somersaulting towards the burlap sack she’d laid a couple feet away. A bit dramatic for covering that distance, but he’d seen much weirder in the past day. She reached in and she flashed briefly with that strange lighting effect. “Command us!” she yelled.

Clawdia reached into her own bag and also flashed with a similar effect. “I’ll command myself, thank you very much.”

Emily also reached into her bag and flashed a strange color. “You’re gonna wish you’d fucked him. Scorpidogs are no joke.”

Jake agreed — even one scorpidogs could take down a lower-leveled party easily. This group was low-level, had no magical equipment, and were facing three scorpidogs.

“But we have the Connection Multiplier,” said Ayla. “I’m as strong as a level 10 with no multiplier.”

That was comforting. But strength alone wouldn’t be enough.

Scorpidog poison was infamously difficult to cure, and even though Ayla had used a Priest Job Sphere, he doubted she’d earned AP to learn Cleanse.

They would have to do this perfectly.

“Don’t get stung,” he said.

“That’s up to you,” said Ayla. “Command us.”

He pulled up the stats briefly, focusing only on the important parts.

Ayla

Level: 2

EXP to next level: 5

Connection Multiplier: 3.48

Current Job: Mage

Top Jobs: Mage, Priest

Special Equipment: None

Base stat changes:

-- Physical 0.9x

-- Elemental: 1.1x

-- Special: 1.1x

-- Dodge: 0.9x

Job stat changes:

-- Defense - physical - 0.8x

-- Defense - elemental - 1.5x

-- Power - physical - 0.8x

-- Power - elemental - 2x

-- Chi generation - 1.5x

-- Max CP - 1.5x

-- Max HP - 0.5x

Job skills

-- Fireball

-- Whack

-- Ice Bolt

-- Blizzard

Emily

Level: 3

EXP to next level: 73

Connection Multiplier: 2.53

Current Job: Rogue

Special Equipment: None

Base stat changes:

-- Accuracy: 1.1x

-- Chi regen while running: 1.1x

-- Power - Elemental: 0.5x

Job stat changes

-- Dex - accuracy - melee - 2x

-- Dex - dodge - 2x

-- Dex - counter - 1.5x

-- Movement - stealth - 3x

Job skills

-- attack

-- stealth

-- surprise attack

-- shadow flash

Clawdia

Level: 5

Current Job: Barbarian

Stronger base stats: Movement efficiency, Stealth, Dexterity - Counter, Power - Physical, Power - Physical - Slash

Weaker base stats: Power - Elemental, Power - Special, Defense - Special

A strategy began to form, a planning instinct formed by years of practice in FTO.

Ayla would be a great source of damage, and could slow the enemies, but he’d have to protect her carefully; her health was cut in half because she was playing as a mage, her defense was lowered for the same reason, and it was difficult to cast spells while being attacked.

Emily could also provide some damage-dealing, but she’d have to be up close to do anything, and being up close put her within range of the stingers. The move that he really had to watch out for, that did the long-lasting poison, was well telegraphed, but the scorpidogs had a quick movement-impairing move as well. To keep her safe, he’d have to have Emily pop out of stealth, do some quick damage with Surprise Attack, and then drop back into the shadows.

The wild card was Clawdia, and there was no time to ask what her skills were. In the seconds he’d taken to look up their stats and come up with a plan, the scorpidogs were already on the move.

He took control of Ayla, cast Blizzard on the center Scorpidog. Sheets of ice rained down on the closely packed trio of animals, slowing their movements and damaging them. Blizzard would channel for the next few seconds, so he jumped to Emily and gave her instructions: drop into stealth, then Surprise Attack the dog that I firebolt, then Shadow Flash and run the second it looks like they’re going to start attacking you.

** Got it.

He jumped back to his own body, yelled at Clawdia: “Wait until Blizzard is done to attack.”

“No shit. I’ll also refrain from slicing my own wrists.”

Could she go one minute without being an asshole? But the fact that he didn’t know how to use her strategically bothered him even more. “What are your skills?”

“What are yours?”

He couldn’t let himself get pulled into this bullshit. Blizzard was almost done, and it wasn’t like Clawdia would listen to him if he told her what skill to use anyways. He’d have to guess what she had based on what he knew of the Barbarian class, although it looked like she had some cat-specific variations on those moves.

He jumped back to Ayla’s body just as Blizzard was finishing and tossed a fire bolt to signal which scorpidog Emily was to attack. They couldn’t just Blizzard the dogs to death for two reasons. First, because the damage per chi used was horrendous when applied to only three unit. Second, because even with the movement effects, the scorpidogs would reach Ayla before she was able to finish them off.

However, the initial Blizzard gave Emily enough time to get into position. The fireball hit and then a second later that scorpidog got a knife in the tail as Emily popped from stealth and used Backstab.

Blizzard had taken 8% from all the scorpidogs, then the fireball did 25% damage and the backstab did 34%.

The targeted one was at 33% health. One more fireball, which was already charging, would do 25% damage, and the next regular-strength stab from Emily would do 8%.

This would work.

Emily’s stab hit first, followed by the fireball.

Their first scorpidog died.

A bright light enveloped Ayla, and Jake heard a ding.

That meant she’d hit level three, and all her stats would be a little bit higher.

However, he’d used up his stealth and surprise attack with Emily, and the two scorpidogs that were still alive had 92% health and no more movement effects.

He could fix the second part of that.

He jumped into Emily’s body and triggered Shadow Flash, then ran her away from the remaining two dogs.

** What are you doing?

Slowing them down.

** I could have gotten in another hit before I had to run.

Really? She was going to complain about him protecting her? She might be right, of course, since the wolves were at half speed from the Shadow Flash, and were heading towards Ayla, but this way she would be able to drop back into the shadows and get another Surprise Attack.

There was, however, one big problem: Ayla wouldn’t be able to kill even one of the remaining scorpidogs before they reached her, and she wouldn’t be able to outrun them if they sprinted.

Jake went back to his own body, watching, waiting to jump in and micromanage if need be.

Clawdia had apparently decided to make her move: she dashed towards the dogs and tackled one of them, pinning it to the ground and slashing at its face.

Ayla let loose an Ice Bolt. It would only do 80% of the damage of a fireball, but the slowing effect would be very helpful. Good choice. And one that would allow Emily to eventually catch up to the scorpidog while in stealth and backstab it.

He jumped into Ayla’s body.

Good choice with the Ice Bolts.

** Thank you, Master.

He could almost feel her nuzzling him, even though their connection at the moment was purely mental.

After this battle was over, he could get a proper nuzzle from her in real life.

The plan was set: as long as Clawdia could handle that other scorpidog on her own, then Emily and Ayla together should be able to finish this one. And it looked like Clawdia would win; she had the scorpidog pinned, with one foot on its tail, while she raked its stomach. Her tackle-and-pin move — some neko variant on a barbarian skill? — really was overpowered in a one-on-one fight.

The scorpidog coming for Ayla was getting close, but Emily should be getting close as well. When she did her Surprise Attack, it would —

Emily broke from stealth and started sprinting toward the scorpidog.

No! That was a move that the AI would never do!

Why would she do that?! She could’ve reached the scorpidog just in the nick of time to save Ayla, but now she’d lost the 3x bonus — and safety — that came from attacking from stealth.

It was too late. Emily was too close to the scorpidog to drop back into the shadows. She ran toward it, slashed at its body.

It turned.

It struck with a paralytic agent.

No.

No.

It charged up, pulling its tail far back.

Emily tried to move, but couldn’t.

He foolishly jumped to her body, as if he could make anything happen that she couldn’t do herself.

When the tail struck he felt the full force of it, felt the impact of the tail in her stomach, felt the cells turn necrotic.

He didn’t have the emotional strength to give any commands.

He’d failed.

But Ayla kept casting, and once the paralytic agent wore off, Emily struck at the scorpidog with a fury.

It died.

He jumped to his own body, saw that Clawdia was just finishing up with her own scorpidog.

They had won.

But Emily had been poisoned.

“Does anyone know Cleanse?” he asked, panicked. It was unlikely, as the skill cost several thousand AP to learn in FTO, but he had to check for any solution.

“It’s okay,” said Ayla. “We have a Priest job sphere, so we can heal her until she recovers from the poison.”

“You don’t have scorpidogs on your edge of the Empire, do you?” asked Emily. “Look at the status effect.”

She looked and gasped. “It goes on forever?”

“Until we can reach a healer. Not even dispel will work on it… we need the Cleanse spell, or a fresh-made antidote. Where’s the nearest city?” The poison ticked and Emily cringed as 7% of her health disappeared. “It’s going to be like that every thirty seconds until we can find an antidote. Where’s the nearest city large enough to have an apothecary?”

Clawdia cursed. “If we go to a city, they’ll recognize us.”

“If we go to a city, they might recognize us. If we don’t, I’ll definitely die.”

“We risk it,” said Jake. “Let’s move.”