Stepping out of the portal was quicker than I expected. Stepping in and out was actually done in one single motion. Whenever I saw it on a show it seemed like it was a couple distinct steps but nope, it was all one fluid motion. This was a bit disorientating, because one second I was in a meadow looking at a large blue portal, and then suddenly I was in a very old forest with gigantic trees.

Once again I had to give props to the corporation, because this forest looked incredibly real. Reaching over I felt the bark on one of the trees, and it felt just like bark back in the real world. This was fantastic and wonderful. If the trees were this real, then what about everything else? I knew I couldn’t wait to find out.

If there was one word I could think of to describe this forest, it was wild. The trees grew every which way and were as big as the trees I saw in the redwood forest when I took my family on a vacation there. Moss grew on everything, from the trees, to fallen branches and logs, to boulders, and other various rocks. With the trickle of sunlight, this gave everything in the forest a soft green glow.

I could hear the sound of running water but couldn’t see it anywhere in my periphery. The undergrowth and trees were too thick to see very far, and for the first time, I noticed it didn’t look like a path was anywhere to be seen.

Where had the game dropped me? The starting location was supposed to be randomized, but I figured that meant a randomized town or something. Where am I supposed to go, and how am I supposed to get out of this forest? After pondering for a few minutes, I decided the game was trying to be hands-off and let the player figure out what they were supposed to do and where they were supposed to go. This was now my life after all, and I would just have to figure it out on my own like I’d done in the real world.

Picking a direction, I started walking. Even though I had no idea where I was going, I figured walking somewhere was better than standing in the middle of nowhere. It was slow going. The undergrowth was thick and uneven. I would often have to climb over or duck under tree limbs. The branches would catch on my shirt or pants, and then I would have to pull or push them off.

After walking aimlessly for around ten minutes, I got an idea to try to head towards the sound of running water. Once I found it, I’d be able to follow the stream or river, hopefully, to some sort of civilization. I wasn’t sure if this would work the way I intended, but it was the best idea I could think of. The biggest problem with this plan was that it was surprisingly difficult to pin down the exact direction it was coming from.

After another fifteen minutes of trekking through the forest without finding the source, I cursed under my breath. Why hadn’t I placed a skill point in survival instead of persuasion? There wasn’t a god damn person, or creature for that matter, around to persuade right now.

Turning to the tree on right I asked sarcastically, “I don’t suppose I could persuade you to direct me to the nearest settlement with people in it?”

Silence was the only response it gave.

“Great, that's so incredibly helpful,” I said sarcastically.

Sighing audibly, I turned and jumped back. I wasn’t alone. A large gray wolf was standing about ten paces ahead and staring at me. It had its head cocked to the side as if it were asking, “who is this stupid human and doesn’t he know trees can’t talk?”

“Whoa, you startled me buddy. How did you sneak up on me so silently?” I asked.

The wolf didn’t say anything but continued to stare.

“I don’t suppose you know the way out of this forest or to a settlement with people?” I asked after a momentary silence.

The wolf crept a little closer but didn’t respond. It had Grey Forest Wolf written above its head and next to this was Level: ??? with a red skull and crossbones. If I remembered correctly from the brief look at the manual, this meant it was at least five levels above my own.

Shit, if this thing attacks, I am screwed. There is no way I can fight off a wolf in this terrain that has that much of a level advantage over me. Slowly I began backing away but kept my eyes on the creature. I thought I remembered being told not to show any fear to animals, but I wasn’t sure if this was the right thing to do with wolves or the wrong thing.

For a couple of minutes, we followed this pattern. I slowly backed away, and the wolf edged towards me until I backed into a tree. Briefly turning my head to look at the tree, I noticed that it had no low branches I could climb. Turning back towards the wolf, I noticed it lunging at me.

I rolled, or more precisely, flopped to the side just as it snapped its jaws into the tree where my neck had been a second before. Without thinking, I clawed my way up and ran. Fight or flight kicked in and I most definitely chose flight.

The wolf had its teeth stuck on the tree briefly which bought me a few seconds head start, but I knew it wasn’t going to be enough. Running was slow as I trampled through the forest barely avoiding obstacles and tripping over the undergrowth. The wolf on the other hand almost glided, its body slithering between branches and jumping over boulders.

Isn’t the beginning of these games supposed to be easy? Like hey, slay these ten boars or fetch ten chickens from farmer Bob and deliver them to farmer Dorothy? Nope, apparently not in this game!

I could feel breath on the back on my legs when I spotted a tree ahead of me and slightly to the right with low enough branches that I might just be able to climb it. I would have to jump to reach the first branch, but if I timed it just right, I should be able to make it.

Angling myself so my approach made me perpendicular to the branch, I leapt as high as I could when I was only a couple feet away. Reaching up, I snagged the branch with my hands and began to pull myself up.

Pulling myself up was not as easy as I imagined it would be. My arms strained trying to lift the weight of my body, and I only got about a third of the way up when I felt a bite tear into my right ankle. Looking down, I saw that the wolf latched on to the bottom of my leg.

It was all I could do to keep myself from falling with the added weight weighing me down. Falling was not an option because if I fell, it was all over. Right about now, I wished I put more points into strength, but that was not something I could change at the moment. The pain in my ankle was intense, and I could see that blood was freely running out of my leg and down its snout.

Using my other leg, I tried to kick the wolf in the head. It didn’t really work. The wolf growled every time it was kicked, but I just couldn’t generate enough force to cause it to let go. Shaking, my bitten leg only caused the wolf to bite down harder causing spasms of pain to shoot up my leg.

If only I had a hand free, I thought, I could cast a fireball on this prick. Thinking for another moment about it, I thought it was the dumbest idea I had yet. But, necessity being the mother of invention and all, it was the only idea I had, so I was going to try it.

Releasing the branch with my left hand, I summoned a fireball and shot it at the wolf. The fireball flew through the air, went right past the wolf’s head, and sizzled out on the ground five feet away. God damn it! I heaved and swung myself causing the wolf to tighten its grip. Another spasm of pain rocketed through my body as I reached out and grabbed the branch again.

“One more time,” I said to myself breathing heavily. “I’ve only got one more of these in me, and if this fails, I’m screwed.”

Breathing out one last time, I let go of the branch again and summoned another fireball. This time, I waited for my body to stop swinging before shooting the fireball at the wolf’s head. For a split second, I held my breath while it sailed through the air.

The fist-sized inferno struck the wolf on the top of its nose and caused an audible yelp from the animal. This reaction caused its jaws to loosen, and it slipped off and fell to the ground.

Sighing from the relief of having the pressure and weight gone from my leg, I almost fell down, forgetting I was only holding on with one hand. I recovered, swung my body, grabbed the branch with my left hand, and using the last of my strength, barely managed to pull myself up.

I planned on climbing higher but just didn’t have the strength. Besides, the wolf couldn’t get me here, though it wasn’t for a lack of trying. After a couple of tries, it ended up sitting on the ground and stared up at me. Maneuvering myself, I rested my back against the trunk of the tree and smiled down at the wolf.

“Thought you had me there didn’t you?” I said to it exhausted.

In the upper right corner of my vision, I noticed my health meter dropped by eight, no nine points. It was still going down! Why? I looked again and noticed the little blood drop icon next to it. That damned bleeding status effect from the tutorial. Finally looking at my leg I noticed that it was still bleeding pretty badly, and a decent chunk of flesh had been ripped out.

“I hope you liked that because that's the only bit of me I plan on letting you eat,” I said to the wolf, which had adopted a blank stare.

At this point I opened up my menu, accessed my mailbox, and wrote a very angry message to the corporation asking them why the hell they had dropped me in the middle of a forest with high level creatures around me. The message I received back made my already pale face even paler.

All messages to and from this recipient have been blocked.

What the hell? I tried sending a message to the hello world support group instead, thinking it could just pass along my message to the regular support and help me out. Instead I got back the exact same message. This was not a good, and something must have gone wrong. Right now though, I had to focus on my immediate problems, which were the wolf and my bleeding.

Knowing I had to stop the bleeding or I would fall out of the tree and end up getting eaten, I opened my inventory to take a look at what I had to work with. It wasn’t a lot. Some raw boar meat, thirty gold, a linen shirt, pants, and boots. Hang on, raw boar meat. How could I have been so stupid? I could have probably fed that to the wolf to keep it from attacking, but in the moment, had totally forgotten about it.

Enough, what's done is done, and stopping the bleeding has to be the priority. Glancing at my health bar I noticed it had fallen another couple of points, and on top of this, there was another icon next to the bleeding status effect icon that looked like a silhouette with back pain. Whatever, I’ll deal with that later.

Leaning forward I pulled off my shirt and summoned the dagger and began to cut the fabric into strips that resembled bandages. They didn’t end up being a perfect match, but they were pretty close. Bandages were basically just cloth meant to put pressure on a wound and soak up blood to staunch bleeding, and these would do for that.

Wrapping the strips around the wounded part of my leg just tightly enough that it felt snug, but not so tightly that it felt like I was cutting off all circulation, I tied the ends into a knot. After a moment, the bleeding icon vanished. My lower leg still hurt and the HP didn’t recover, but at least I had stopped the bleeding.

Having finished that, I leaned back and rested my back against the trunk of the tree. The bark was rough, and it scratched. Once again, I marveled at how realistic they made this world. Looking down at the wolf, who was still staring at me, I thought maybe it was a little too realistic.

Opening up my equipment inventory I toggled the option to display armor. Instantly I was wearing robes and a hood. I had to admit, while this probably wasn’t the use they intended this feature for when they designed the game, it was coming in handy right now. It was basically like having a spare set of clothes.

Next, I opened up the icon showing a silhouette with back problems that popped up next to the bleeding effect. Knowing it was probably bad news, I figured it was better to deal with it now that I had resolved my first problem.

Status: Overexertion

“You have pushed your body past its physical limits and overexerted it. While strengthening your physical body is good, if you overdo it, it will cause damage.”

Duration: 6 days, 23 hours, & 56 minutes

Effect: your effective strength and dexterity will be halved for the duration of this status effect, and you will find physical activity harder to do.

If you would like to see more about how you received this status effect, please open and review your log.

Well, that's just fantastic. My strength and dexterity were halved, and they weren’t even that good to begin with. There was no information on how to “cure” this condition, just a ridiculously long duration listed. And what was this about my log? As soon as I thought it, the log popped up.

Welcome to your log. It shows all events that happen involving your character. You can scroll up or down by looking at the top or bottom of the page and thinking that you wish to scroll. By default, your log starts with the last event that happened to your character, and you will have to scroll up to reach older events. You can also look up events by opening your log and thinking of a specific date and time. For more information about a specific event, think about that log entry and it will go into further detail.

4.16.78 15:33 - Grey Forest Wolf spots Ryland, succeeds a stealth check and draws within 10 feet of Ryland

4.16.78 15:33 - Ryland spots Grey Forest Wolf. Perception gain of 5% towards skill level 1. 5/100.

4.16.78 15:33 - Grey Forest Wolf attacks Ryland. Ryland succeeds in his evasion attempt.

4.16.78 15:34 - Ryland succeeds acrobatics check against tree root. Acrobatics gained 5% towards skill level 1. 5/100.

4.16.78 15:34 - Ryland succeeds acrobatics check against boulder. Acrobatics gained 5% towards skill level 1. 10/100.

4.16.78 15:34 - Ryland succeeds acrobatics check attempting to jump and grab tree branch. Acrobatics gained 5% towards skill level 1. 15/100.

4.16.78 15:34 - Ryland attempts to climb tree, while making climb check, he is interrupted by Grey Forest Wolf attack of Bite for 6 points worth of damage to Ryland’s HP. HP 22/28. Status Effect: Bleed inflicted against Ryland. Grey Forest Wolf succeeds strength check against Ryland and holds onto his leg.

4.16.78 15:35 - Ryland succeeds strength check against tree branch. Status Effect: Bleed deals 1 damage to Ryland. HP 21/28.

4.16.78 15:35 - Ryland fails strength check against Grey Forest Wolf. Status Effect: Bleed deals 1 damage to Ryland. HP 20/28.

4.16.78 15:35 - Ryland succeeds climb check against tree branch. Climb gained 5% towards skill level 1. 5/100. Ryland shoots Fireball at Grey Forest Wolf and misses. 5 MP expended. MP 33/38. Ryland succeeds in strength check against tree branch. Ryland gained the status effect: overexertion by continuing to push his body past its limits. This status effect will go into effect once Ryland has ceased strenuous physical activity for a period of 1 minute. Continuing to exert yourself physically will increase the duration of this status effect. Current status effect duration: 3 days.

Wow, it was like reading a creepy text version of the past few minutes of my life. It skipped all the finer details but gave basically a play-by-play of what happened. Still, I could see where this would be useful. Actually, this would have been extremely useful to have in every relationship I’ve ever had.

The gains towards the skills were interesting. If this was right, just in the regular course of doing things, I could gain experience towards various skills. Though, on second thought, I hoped running from a wolf didn’t become a regular thing.

It looked like the status effect started with a duration of three days and happened the first time I tried to shoot the wolf with a fireball. So I must have increased the duration by continuing to exert myself. Opening the log back up I confirmed this. In fact, I increased the duration twice: once during the second time I shot at the wolf and once when I climbed the tree branch. On the plus side, I increased acrobatics and climb both by five percent. Totally worth it!

Looking down at my furry attacker, I scowled. The wolf looked so god damned pleased with itself. Well, screw you, buddy! I shot a couple fireballs at it in my frustration. The first one missed but the second one hit the wolf’s chest causing it to growl up at me. It’s health bar decreased slightly, but not enough to make a real difference.

Maybe I could drive it off with these though, that had to be worth a shot. I fired two more in rapid succession, and both of them hit my four-legged friend. Once again, its health bar decreased, but only barely, and instead of driving it off, the creature looked even more determined to wait me out.

I was about to fire another when suddenly, the wolf yelped below which almost caused me to fall out of the tree. Steadying myself, I looked down to see that the wolf had a stick, no an arrow, sticking out of one side of its neck. Someone shot the wolf. I might not die immediately into this game after all!

The wolf regained its composure just in time for a second arrow to strike it. This one caused the wolf to collapse to the ground; though, I could still see it breathing short shallow breaths. I’d have felt bad for the creature if it hadn’t just tried to rip me apart and eat me.

Seemingly from out of nowhere, a tall blonde woman streaked over to the wolf, and in one swift motion, plunged a knife into the soft underbelly of its neck and into its head. The wolf ceased moving, and a moment later, it had vanished. I guess that while they wanted the game to be realistic they didn’t want it to be morbid. Nobody wanted to see a bunch of carcasses all over the place.

“Um… thank you, I wasn’t sure how I was going to get away from it,” I said to the woman who was still bent over where the wolf had been.

Looking up at me, I took in a clear view of her for the first time. She was tall, thin, and blonde with bright green eyes and long pointed ears. The elf was wearing some sort of light armor that was green and brown and made out of a combination of animal skins, metal, and leaves. She could have faded into the forest at a moment’s notice. A bow and quiver were strung across her back completing the look of a seasoned wood’s woman.

“I didn’t do it for you Interloper,” she began in an almost silvery voice, “This wolf, like you, wandered into our domain. However, unlike you, it was a danger to the weaker of our people. Still, it is always regretful when we have to put down one of Irune’s children.”

“Ah I see. Well nonetheless, thanks,” I responded starting to feel a little nervous under her glare.

“I do not need your thanks. What I need is to know is how a weak human like yourself came to be so deeply in the domain of Ithielthiel without detection before this,” she said pointedly.

“I’m not really sure how I ended up here or where exactly here is for that matter,” I responded trying to ignore the aggression in her voice. “As soon as I finished the tutorial, I stepped through a portal and ended up in this forest.”

“I don’t know what you mean by tutorial, but you say you stepped through a portal which exited into Ithielthiel?” she asked with concern growing in her voice.

Ah, she must be one of the NPCs. They really weren’t kidding when they said that the NPCs in this game were realistic. She actually seemed like a real person. Of course, trying to explain where I came from to her was going to be almost impossible.

“If Itel is where this is, then yes,” I replied, still trying to figure out how to explain something like the concept of computers and video games to a person who lived with only the equivalent of medieval technology.

“Ithielthiel,” she started correcting me. “That seems unlikely as magical portals are blocked throughout the domain.”

Her bright green eyes stared seemingly straight through my eyes into the very depths of my being. She probably could have just killed the wolf with that stare instead of wasting her arrows.

“Look, I don’t know what to say to convince you, but what I told you is the truth,” I stated trying to adopt a reasonable tone. “Is this domain you keep talking about the forest, because I’ll gladly leave it if you can just direct me towards the exit.”

“Ithielthiel is the realm of my people, the woodland elves of the forest of Irune,” she explained. “The forest of Irune is much larger than the domain of my people. If you were to look at the forest on a map, Ithielthiel would take up most of the northern half.”

All this was said as if she were explaining it to a child, which in a weird sort of way I kind of was. I could see on her face that she was trying to make a decision and was struggling with it.

Finally, after a couple awkward minutes of staring at each other, she said, “Since I cannot verify your story myself, I will take you to my commander who will decide what to do with you.”

“Sure, take me to your leader,” I said with a joking but nervous laugh.

“I’m inviting you to my party. Please do not attempt to escape from me, or I will have to kill you, and that will be much less regretful than killing the wolf,” she said with a look that said she wasn’t kidding.

“Well I don’t know how to get out of here anyway, so you don’t have any worries there,” I responded as a notification popped up.

Elaria has invited you to join her party, do you wish to accept?

Yes or No?

Accepting the invite, a new icon appeared below the Book of You icon. This icon showed three staggered silhouettes and thinking about it caused a display to open up showing my new party.

Party Leader: Elaria Level 16 Elven Ranger

Party Member: Ryland Level 2 Human Sorcerer

“Level two,” Elaria stated, in what was clearly meant to be a mocking tone, “we have babies stronger than you. I think I might be starting to believe you. Only an idiot would wander around Irune alone at level two.”

“It's not like sixteen is some amazingly high level,” I snapped back, having finally started to get annoyed with the constant condescension in her voice. “Give me a little bit of time, and I will catch up to you.”

Elaria laughed and continued to mock me, “The little human does have a spine, and here I was thinking I discovered the first variant without a backbone. Come, we have much ground to cover before nightfall. Oh, and if I were you, I’d stay close to me.”

Before I could think of a response, she began moving swiftly and silently away. Hesitating for a moment, I decided my best option was to follow her. It was highly unlikely I was going to get out of this forest on my own.

Elaria set a brisk pace and seemed to move through the foliage and undergrowth as if it wasn’t even there. It was all I could do to keep up with her, and I wasn’t doing a very good job at it. My overexertion status effect seemed to be exacting punishment with every step I took. As if moving at half speed wasn’t bad enough, I was constantly tripping over anything and everything on the forest floor.

After about the fifth time, she had to double back and finding me face down on the ground Elaria asked if I was deliberately trying to slow us down. I told her that I wasn’t and explained about the overexertion status effect. In no uncertain terms, she let me know she had no problem killing me if I was lying about this.

Deciding that there wasn’t much to be done about it, Elaria huffed and set off again, albeit at a slower conciliatory pace. I followed again, but it went much the same way for the next three hours with Elaria occasionally telling me to stop before dispatching some creature that would have impeded our progress. Much to my surprise and delight, I gained experience from this, and after she did this for the third time, I received a notification.

Congratulations you have reached Level 3!

HP: 28 → 35

MP: 38 → 48

You have 2 unallocated stat points.

You have 2 unallocated skill points.

At least something good was coming out of this. I’ve done nothing and gained a level. Pretty sure my work here is done for the day. I laughed silently at my own joke as Elaria scowled back at the smile on my face.

Time to allocate some stat and skill points! I started with my stat points, and after briefly thinking about it, I dumped both of them into strength. It was my worst category and would hopefully help me on this godforsaken trek through the woods. This brought my active strength to a whopping five points, but anything was an improvement at this point.

Next, I decided to place one point into survival, because I was tired of getting my ass kicked by this forest and figured it might help a little bit. The other skill point went into perception because I wasn’t anxious to have a wild beast sneak up on me again. Having finished I closed out of my menu and smiled.

“Why are you just standing there?” Elaria asked looking annoyed.

“Oh sorry, I was allocating my new stat and skill points,” I responded.

Elaria opened her mouth as if to speak, then shut it, and then opened it again and asked, “You know you shouldn’t allocate those until you need to, right?”

Surprised, I responded with, “No I hadn’t heard that. Why shouldn’t I allocate them yet?”

“Because,” her teeth were gritted as she said it, “once you allocate skill and stat points, you can’t change them, and sometimes you’ll find yourself in situations where you’ll need particular skills or stats. Basically, you shouldn’t use them until you need to. You really are an idiot, even for a human.”

“Oh,” I responded feeling rather stupid.

“Come, we need to find a safe place to camp for the night. The forest gets even more dangerous once the sun goes down,” Elaria said ending the conversation.

Taking the lead again, Elaria started scouting for whatever she considered to be a safe place to spend the night. For the first time, I started noticing little details that hadn’t been there before. Was this the point I’d put in survival? Maybe, though I couldn’t be certain.

It took almost another thirty minutes, and it was well into twilight before Elaria finally stopped near a cliff wall that had a ten-yard gap between it and the nearest trees.

“This is the place, stay here while I go get some firewood,” Elaria stated fading back into the trees. “If you try to run, I’ll see it on my map!”

What? Really, she could see me on her map? Curious, I opened up my own map. Immediately I could see all of the locations where we walked that day. It even showed the area where I ran from the wolf. The interesting thing though was that nearby, there was a blue dot that said Elaria (Party Leader). It was moving swiftly towards the blank area of the map that I hadn’t explored and soon disappeared once it reached the unexplored section. So party members could see where other party members were on a map, albeit, only in areas that had been previously explored. Interesting, this could be useful.

Closing the map, I sat down on the ground and shut my eyes getting what little rest I could manage before Elaria returned. Even though I had a younger, fitter body, this day had been exhausting. I must have nodded off or just simply wasn’t paying attention, because I didn’t even notice Elaria’s return.

“Rule number one of life in the wild, stay alert,” she lectured as she started to arrange the firewood.

Once she completed setting up the firewood she began to dig around in her pack.

Realizing what she was doing, I cut in with, “Here let me.”

Bending down I placed a hand on one of the logs and used ignite to start the fire. Flames immediately sprung up, and soon we had a nice little fire going.

“So, you have a use after all,” Elaria said flashing a grin at me for the first time.

“You found out my secret, please don’t tell anyone,” I quipped with a mock bow.

Soon all of the light from the sun was gone and the only light source was the fire. Both of us sat down on opposite sides of the fire and leaned against the wall. I closed my eyes as silence nestled itself comfortably around. Maybe I should have tried to get to know this elf a little better, but all I really wanted to do was rest. The first day in this world had been an exhausting one, and I didn’t feel like I had the patience or finesse to deal with her at the moment.

The sudden sounds of yelling and clicking woke me up. Opening my eyes, I looked around and saw with surprise that the fire had gone out. I must have been out for quite a while. The weirdest part was the coldness and stiffness that had set in. I guess that’s the same here too, I mused.

“Ryland wake up!!” Elaria screamed somewhere to my right. “All humans can’t be this damned useless!”

With the moonlight as the only source of light, it was hard to make out the elf. All I could see was what looked like her silhouette fighting off a large black creature that had a lot of legs. Well, that doesn’t look good.

“I’m awake, what is that thing?” I asked pushing myself to my feet.

“It’s a nightstalker, and there are more of them. I need you to ugh…,” Elaria grunted out in between striking at the creature. “Fire, I need fire.”

I wasn’t sure I understood everything she said, but I think I got the jist of it. Reaching down, I ignited what was left of the campfire. It wasn’t much and certainly wouldn’t last long, but if she needed fire, I would give her fire. Who’s useless now?

The fire came to life, and for the first time, I could see in detail what was going on. A cut-and-scratched Elaria was fighting off a gigantic spider. One of its legs had been cut off, but the other seven looked to be perfectly fine. On top of this, it’s large pincers looked to be sharper than the small blades the elf was holding. Even worse than this, I could see other eyes scattered around reflecting the meager firelight back at us.

“Idiot, don’t just stare at them. We need more fire!” Elaria yelled between thrusts and blocks with her daggers.

Right, I’d better help out or were both gonna be sent for respawn here. Concentrating, I summoned a fireball and shot it at a cluster of glowing eyes. It struck with a flash and caused the spider to shriek. A red health bar appeared above its head and went down a tiny bit.

Shit come on. I need this to do more damage, I thought, summoning another fireball and shooting it at the same spider. This time when the ball of flame struck it, it spread out over a large area on the spider's body and began burning the creature. A small icon that looked like a flame appeared next to the creatures health bar which was continuing to decrease slowly.

The light from the flaming spider showed three more spiders, but they retreated from the flames and edged back towards the tree line. Stealing a glance over to where Elaria was still battling, I saw with trepidation that she was losing this fight. The two daggers she held simply couldn’t compete with the long legs of the creature in front of her.

Moving quickly, I summoned another fireball and shot it towards the pair. In retrospect, this was a bit reckless because it very narrowly missed Elaria. Sometimes, though, it’s better to be lucky than good, and in this case, I was lucky. It struck the spider right in the face. This caused a cry and gave her a small opening. She took it and plunged her daggers straight into the side of its face. Letting them go, she jumped back and drew her bow and an arrow so quickly that I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it. Breathing out slowly, she fired an arrow straight through one of its eyes. This finally caused the spider to collapse.

She quickly turned and shot an arrow into the burning spider while yelling, “Quit staring and hit the rest with more fire!”

I quickly shut my mouth, which was half open, and turned back towards the rest of the spiders. They timidly started to encroach into the clearing again. Summoning up one fireball right after the other, I shot them at the spiders until they scuttled back into the forest out of my line of fire.

“They’re gone, nightstalkers do not like light and fear fire above all else,” Elaria said matter-of-factly.

“I’m going to have nightmares about those things for weeks,” I responded feeling exhausted.

My MP was down to thirteen points, and I only had a few more fireballs left in me. If the spiders stayed just a little bit longer they would have probably been able to overrun us easily. It was extremely lucky that they left when they did. Suddenly, several notifications popped up.

Congratulations Elaria has defeated level 19 Nightstalker! As a party member, you have earned 352 XP.

Congratulations Elaria has defeated level 19 Nightstalker! As a party member, you have earned 352 XP.

Congratulations you have reached Level 4!

HP: 35 → 42

MP: 48 → 58

You have 2 unallocated stat points.

You have 2 unallocated skill points.

Congratulations you have reached Level 5!

HP: 42 → 49

MP: 58 → 68

You have 4 unallocated stat points.

You have 4 unallocated skill points.

You have gained the passive ability: Birthed by Flame I.

Birthed by Flame I

“Like a mother’s touch, the first thing a Phoenix feels when it is born is the kiss of flame and ash.”

10% resistance to fire

10% resistance to heat

10% bonus damage to fire-type spells

Wow, two levels! Maybe I could stomach those nightmares after all.

“Here, half of this should be yours,” Elaria said handing over a small vial filled with a rancid green liquid.

Nightstalker Venom

“This venom can cause paralysis in a victim. It can also be used as an ingredient in alchemy”

“Uh, thanks,” I said putting the vial into inventory. “Will they be back?”

“Eventually, if we don’t get a nice fire going,” she answered. “Unfortunately, we let ours go out. That’s not a mistake I intend to make again.”

Helping her, the two of us quickly built up the fire with leftover wood. It quickly took, and we had a roaring fire moments later.

Sitting back down I finally noticed that leveling up refilled both my health bar and my mana bar but hadn’t, unfortunately, cured me of my overexertion status.

“Here’s what is going to happen. We are going to wait for daybreak and then we quickly make for the city Ithielthiel,” Elaria said in a tone that garnered no arguments. “We will keep this fire going the entire time until we leave. I do not normally sleep overnight out in the wilds of Irune, but I saw little option with your condition.”

“Works for me,” I said.

She hesitated for a moment, and then added, “You did well. If not for your fire, we would have both been sent for respawn.”

Taken aback, I paused and then said, “Um, thanks.”

“Now get some rest, we leave at daybreak,” Elaria said settling into a position where she could easily keep an eye on the tree line.