I started playing the game because I was bored, and perhaps a little lonely. It's not like I was bullied or anything, I just found my day-to-day life to be a little... routine. I wanted to escape.

I was 14 years old when I started playing. And there was nothing special about the game I picked either. I had just been given my Dad's old laptop, and I was looking for games that it could actually play. It turns out a lot of games didn't work on it, since the laptop was originally just used for office productivity type stuff even when it was new.

The only game that worked well, and I liked, was a little Massive Multi-player Online game that went by the name "Destiny's Lost Children". It was all pixel animation and cutesy, which hid a surprisingly complex system underneath. It was created by a South Korean company, and had already been released over there for quite a few years by the time it was translated and brought over to my country.

I wasn't an obsessive player in the traditional sense. My parents were strict about how much time I spent on the computer. I’d only end up playing the game a few hours a week, and often at odd times of the day. Occasionally I’d get some money and there’d be a sale within the game so I could buy some in-game items without feeling overly guilty about it. That’s why most of what I’d gotten in the game, I’d earned through hours of game play because I was so stingy with my money.

My friendships were one-dimensional there too. I’d pair up with people and parties at random when I first started and just kept doing it. It’s not that I didn’t know anybody, I did. In fact I had a pretty huge roster of people I’d cycle through and play with in the game. But actual friends? No. I never got that close to anyone.

Honestly, what was I doing with my life? All those years of playing that game adds up to a lot of time in the end. The least I could have done was make at least one really good friend there. But no. I didn’t. What a waste!

Anyway, it was bound to happen. The company that made the game was shutting down. The game itself would end. It was a good run, having lasted over 10 years.

I remember thinking to myself, on the day the servers were going to shut down, "What on earth am I going to do with myself on the weekends now?"

When I turned off the program, for the very last, I was genuinely sad. I went to bed feeling that way, heavy hearted and a little bit empty. Like I'd just said goodbye to an old friend. How silly of me to realize after the fact, when it’s too late, that I’d really loved that game way more than I’d ever admitted.

And then I woke up in a completely different place.

Are you surprised? Because I was. One moment I'm falling asleep in my perfectly normal room, in a perfectly normal (but small) apartment, in a perfectly normal town, and the next thing I'm waking up smack dab in the middle of a forest.

I think I laid there for a solid half-hour just trying to decide if I was dreaming or hallucinating or what. Finally, I gave up on trying to rationalize what was going on and sat up.

It was a very nice forest. Admittedly I hadn't been to many in my life time, so maybe I wasn't the best judge. But it had a cozy feel to it: sunshine streaming through tree branches. Bits of stuff in the air that seemed to sparkle in the light. The rustle of plant life as a gentle breeze passed through. And that ever so pleasant sound of distant wildlife: birds and small animals going about their business.

Well, I could have stayed right there. If this was a dream, why leave?

But I was getting hungry. And thirsty. It also turns out that a forest floor is not comfortable to sleep on. So I got up and started exploring.

Food and water.

I had no idea how to survive "in the wild". I didn't like camping, and survival type stuff never interested me. I mean, why bother learning about that kind of stuff when you lived in a town? Civilization exists, I always believed in using it to the fullest!

Oh! There! I could hear the sound of water. After walking a bit, I found a small stream. I briefly wondered if drinking from some random stream was safe. Things lived and died in there, after all.

But… well… it’s not like I had anything to lose, right? This might all be a dream. A thirsty dream. I eyed the stream again. It was clear, I could see the bottom. Nothing strange was swimming in there.

Sometimes you just gotta take risks, I finally decided.

I bent down to take a drink, and froze at my reflection in the water.

What? Woah. WHAT?

I sat down with a thump and began feeling my face, panic and amazement rising in me at the same time.

Where do I even begin? First of all, I'm a perfectly normal human, alright? I'm an average sort of person in appearance, with a bit of a dumpy look because I never put in the effort to look nicer. And since I hated the outdoors, I had a pasty sun-less look to me. But what I saw in that water was not human.

I peered into the water again, unbelieving in my shock. My eyes were a bright green, mixed with yellow, and my pupils were slits (like a cat's eyes). My ears where large and furry. They felt a bit like dog ears, with large tufts of fur where they connected to my head. My face had a thin layer of—for lack of a better term—fur, that was a light brown and covered in darker dot patterns around my temples. My hair felt like very soft, fluffy human hair. It was an unnatural green color, mostly dark with some light streaks through-out.

This was weird! I looked like a character out of Destiny's Lost Children. They had five races in the game: Humans, Elves, Dwarfs, Tetradians, Nightshades, and Mewnins. I was a Mewnin. They were a humanoid cross between a dog and cat. I'd played as all the races at least once, but my first character (and the one I had logged into before the game shut down), had been a Mewnin.

My brain fumbled over the thought, even as it came to me, "Am I... is this.. Am I in the game?"

I looked down at myself. My hands were furry, spotted on the back, and clawed. I wasn't wearing my pajama's, but instead a very simple tan shirt and pair of dark slacks and sturdy boots. I had a very small pack attached to the back of my belt, which I only just then noticed. This was the standard equipment from the game, which all new people got.

I reached for my pack. I was humorously annoyed by the flawed design. While it looked cute in pixel form, having your pack on your lower back made it difficult to reach. I ended up taking my belt off completely and rearranged the pack so it was pointing forward. Well, now I looked ridiculous, but at least I could reach inside of it.

I jumped in surprise when I opened the pack: Something like a grid appeared in front of me, and in each square, was a little icon. I recognized the icons from the game. Clothes, weapons, food, items, potions.

As unbelievable as it was, it really did appear to be I was in the game world! A mixture of disbelief and amazement bubbled up from within me. I'd had vivid dreams in the past, and this was nothing like it. I pinched myself in the arm, hard, and flinched at the pain. I looked around me. Everything was too real, much too real, to be a dream.

I stared at the grid again. My stomach rumbled.

Food. Right. I poked at the most normal item I had on the grid: a fancy loaf of bread. In the game, characters got 20 loafs of plain bread to start with, with each loaf healing a small amount of health (HP) and magic points (MP). This particular character was much too high level to use that kind of bread. But you could buy, or make, a fancier version cheaply with the right skills.

There was no feeling of pressing on the item, but there was a "wumph!" Sound and the bread appeared in front of me, hovering for a moment before dropping on the ground. I picked it up and sniffed. It smelled like an oaty garlic infused bread. I squeezed it and was surprised by how soft and warm it felt. It was just like it'd been taken out of the oven.

I shrugged and bit down.

Yep. This was definitely bread. It was tastier than white or wheat bread, but it was still familiar. That was a relief. Waking up in a strange place, with a strange face, was really disconcerting. Having anything resembling "normal" felt comforting. Even if it did pop out of thin air.

I looked into the water, at my face again. Underneath all the strangeness, I realized "I" was there. It was like someone had taken the human me and melded it with the Mewnin character I'd been playing. Well, the game graphics had left a lot to the imagination when it came to character customizing. General things like color, hair, and clothing you could change. But faces were extremely generic, with only 5 templates to choose from. This place I was in seemed to have made up the difference.

It left me with mixed feelings. Honestly, going with generic face I'd chosen would have likely been better looking. It's not that I was ugly but... well... It would have been nice if I’d gotten a cuter face to go along with my species changing.

I shook my head, the odd sensation of my ears flopping against my head startling me for a moment. Worrying about being plain looking at this point was silly. I had more important things I needed to be focusing on.

Opening my pack, I selected an empty jar (used for potion making). Like the bread, it appeared before me. I grabbed it before it fell to the ground. Dipping it in the stream, which turned out to be pleasantly cool, I filled it up and drank.

Ah, water and food.

Even though everything was strange and nothing made sense, knowing I wouldn't starve to death or die of thirst put me in an a much better frame of mind. I'd never been terribly good at dealing with stress on an empty stomach to begin with... strange what seemed to cross over to this place.

I examined my inventory again. If I looked at the bottom row, it caused the list to "scroll" down naturally. This caused me some issues at first, as I'd accidentally scroll up or down when I didn't mean to. After some practice I adapted to this new way of accessing my items.

There! I found my best armor!

Selecting it, I expected to have a pile of clothes drop in front of me. Instead I felt a breezy sensation all over my body and suddenly I was wearing the armor. Wow! Now that's convenience!

But, oh... this armor... I never liked the design that much. I only wore it because it was strong and I'd gotten it as a rare drop from a difficult quest. It was a bright green with red accent colors. It was also, I just noticed, awkward to move in. After a attempting a few steps, I immediately decided this was a horrible idea and needed to get it off.

I searched around my waist for my pack was horrified to realize it wasn't there. I broke out in a nervous sweat, wondering if I would have to try and take it off manually. I didn't even know how to begin to do that! Just as this thought began to really sink in, I discovered a small pouch on my right hip. Upon opening it, I was relieved to see the grid appear before me.

So apparently my pack changed shape, size, and location depending on what I wore but didn't disappear. After some searching, I found a more practical looking set of armor and selected it. The breezy sensation washed over me again and I found myself in a much more respectable outfit.

It was similar to the starter outfit I woke up with, but with actual plates of armor on my arms, chest, and legs. It's color theme was a dark blue-green, with accents of off-white. My favorite part was the light, knee-length jacket. It had a gorgeous flower design on the back. My strongest armor was designed for brute strength and defense, but this one was all about speed and attack.

Pleased, I looked through my pack for weapons. It wasn't wise to be caught defenseless in unknown locations. If this body took after the actual game character it was based off, it meant it was terribly weak bare-handed. Since it was the first character I played, I didn't put much thought into class. I went with what looked the easiest and most balanced: the Knight Class.

In the game the Knight Class excelled at attacks with a sword and shield defense. Base specifications were pretty bland, but where it excelled was as a support character. Alone Knights were very middle-of-the-road in their attack and defense. However, in a group they got a lot of bonuses. This included things like increased attack power when party members reached half-health, or a defense boost at the beginning of battles. There were also a lot of spells you could cast to strengthen your party members, that also benefited the Knight. In general, it was the kind of character that did best in a party of people.

After some thought I decided on going with the basic sword and shield set. Of course, I had a lot better weapons, much stronger and flashier looking. But really, unless I met a powerful enemy, there was no point in using them. If I met an actual person decked out in my strongest weapons, I might give the wrong impression and come off as threatening. Play it safe.

When I selected the weapons and shield, I was surprised to see extra items come with them as well: a shield holder and a scabbard for my sword to attack to my belt. In the game they just magically attached themselves.

Interesting. That spoke of the kind of logic used in this world. There were differences between it and the game.

Hm. I started thinking about the idea of differences between the game and this world. I needed to know what those were before I found myself in a situation where ignorance got me killed. One major thing popped into my mind: could I even fight? How sturdy was this body?

I took out the sword from its sheath and looked it over more carefully. It looked sharp. Finding a small tree, I lifted the sword to hit it. Almost immediately a flood of information swept into my mind. I knew, without knowing how, the exact way I needed to swing the sword to cut that tree in half. Before I could even stop myself, my body instinctively swung.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then the entire tree slide, cleanly cut at an angle, and toppled over.

"Wow." That was amazing. As a human, I'd never learned to fight, much less use a sword, before coming here. I never saw the need for it. Having foreign information suddenly pop into my mind like that felt really strange, but was also a little exciting. What exactly was I able to do now?

I found another tree. This time I concentrated on just hitting the tree, not cutting it in half. Just like before, information came to me, and my body swung all on its own. There was a thud and crunching sound as the sword hit the tree, but it didn't run all the way through.

I realized I'd wedged the sword in the tree, and after some tugging I got it loose. Interesting again. So I could control what kind of information came to me, by making sure I had a specific goal in mind at the beginning.

Standing in front of the tree again, I thought about the fact that I wanted to hit the tree, not break it, but not immediately. This time my stance changed, sword raised, and no other motion happened. I waited a bit and then thought, "Hit it now!" And my body did as commanded.

Alright. So I could control the timing too. That was a good thing to know.

Hm. The information that had come to me earlier was still there. It was a very odd feeling. It was like looking at someone else's memory, not my own. If I fought enough, would that information begin to feel like "me"?

Well, I hoped I didn't find out the answer to that any time soon. I'd rather not be fighting enough for that to happen. I mean, in the game everything was pixels. Even blood was pixelated. If I killed something here, it would be like it was… well… real.

I put my sword away and felt my stomach rumble.

That bread hadn't been enough. I accessed my pack again and looked at the other food items. I wanted something a bit heartier this time. I picked roasted leg meat.

When it popped into existence, I grabbed it.

Arg! HOT! It was hot! I spent a few minutes tossing it from one hand to the next until it cooled down enough to handle properly. What a weirdly specific detail to include, I thought with half annoyance and amusement. It also tasted great! But I'd always like roasted chicken anyway, and this tasted like something akin to chicken.

I didn't know what to do with the bones so I tossed them aside without much thought.

The moment I did I became intensely aware of being watched. I'd had that kind of feeling as a human, but as a Mewnin it was much, much stronger. I became very still and listened intensely: Yes, there was something there. Something small, based on its breathing and the ever so slight rustling of the foliage underneath it.

That was cool. I'd never heard or sensed anything so clearly before.

I had no idea what was watching me though, but I definitely wanted to find out. I picked a direction opposite to whatever was watching me and walked. After I was far enough away, I turned around and snuck back, and hid.

Another interesting tidbit: my body instinctively knew how to be very quiet. That had been a bonus for Mewnin race: cat-like stealth and dog-like senses, regardless of class. A lot of the people who played as Ninjas and Rangers were Mewnin because the racial bonuses went well with those classes and gave them a slight advantage. (But I didn’t know that when I first started, and ended up pairing my Mewnin character with an odd class.)

I waited. And waited. And was just starting to doubt, if I'd imagined the whole thing, when my peeping tom finally showed up.

I starred at it in bafflement. What was that?

It was small, that much I understood. It could, perhaps, be compared to a cat. But it's ears and tail were the wrong shape: the ears were floppy and the tail was much too long and thin. The fur was blue on top and darkened to eventual black at its pawed feet. Large dark blue eyes stared out of its vaguely cat-shaped face.

It very carefully walked towards my discarded meal. I had left quite a bit of meat on it, as I was getting uncomfortably full at I got closer to the bone. It was clearly nervous, as if afraid something would come after it.

As I say it more closely, my heart squeeze. Admittedly I didn't know what it was suppose to look like, but from I suspected not this: emaciated with matted dirty fur.

I don't know why, but I thought I needed to help this thing. Maybe it was because, if fed and taken care of, it might actually be kind of cute looking. I was always a sucker for cute animals. I was never able to own any since my apartment wouldn't allow it, but I loved playing with them when I got the opportunity.

Suddenly it put on a burst of speed, and chomping down with its teeth, grabbed the bone and ran. Ever so quietly, I followed. I knew, instinctively, that it was unaware of my presence.

After a little bit, it slowed and then stopped. The location seemed somewhat random, other than being far enough away that I (had I been unaware of it) wouldn't have heard it. It feverishly began to eat the meat, and then gnaw on the bone once it was done with that.

How do I get this creature to trust me? Whatever it was, it didn't seem like it was made to survive out here. It wouldn't last at the rate it was going. I wanted to help it, but it was awful skittish. If I suddenly appeared it would most definitely run.

Just as carefully as I had come, I snuck away. After some pondering, I decided food was my best bet. I opened my pack and looked at the content. After a while I found what I was looking for: Cubbed Pot Roast. There were chunks of meat in there, as well as vegetables.

My idea was really simple: create a small trail of food to myself, and get this creature to see I wasn't going to hurt it. I wasn’t sure it’d work but I didn’t think it’d hurt to try either.

With quiet carefulness, I took pieces of meat and laid out a trail for it to follow. The plate with the rest of food I set directly in front of me. I laid down on my side and waited.

After some time, I heard it approaching. When it reached the clearing where I lay, it became very still. It was clearly thinking. It wanted that plate of food. I could almost feel the yearning. But it was also terrified.

Slowly, I opened my eyes to stare in its direction. I kept my eyes half open, giving me a lazy look, and then looked at the food. And then back at the spot where it was hiding.

"Come on, I'm not going to hurt you." I thought intensely at it. "Just come and eat. Nothing bad will happen. Come on...!"

After a while it cautiously left it's hiding place. It was staring at me, and I got the distinct impression it heard my thought. I don't know why. But, no, it couldn't possibly...

Ah, wait. I have no idea what the rules are in this place. Or what this creature is... maybe it can read my mind? Who knows?

With this in mind I continued to "think" reassuring thoughts at it. It continued to be cautious as it approached, but approach it did. Finally, it was at the plate of food. It sat down in front the plate, staring at it longingly.

No matter what I thought, it didn't do anything. Finally, somewhat exasperated, I finally spoke: "Just eat it!"

It jumped at my voice, and I feared it would run. Instead, it began to do as I'd commanded. It gobbled the food down, as if it were eating air. I couldn't help but be impressed.

After it had licked the very last juice from the bottom of the plate, it looked at me fully in the face. I had been very still the entire time, as I was still worried sudden movement would make it run.

"More....?" It squeaked out. If I hadn't been lying down, I'd have fallen over in surprise.

"So you speak, huh?"

It ignored this inquiry and repeated: "...more?"

I sighed. Well, I had been bribing it with food so...

I picked several small items of food: an apple, a slab of simple cooked meat with garlic sauce, and a carrot. These were all food items I had great quantities of, since in the game I’d combine them to make better meals. It ate all of them, seeming to find the apple particularly delightful. It apparently had a sweet tooth.

"What's your name?" I asked it.

It had been nibbling on the apple and stopped, thinking. "No name. Give name?"

A creature that could talk, without a name, and it wanted me to name it? This seemed an awful lot like some kind of pre-scripted event... a hidden quest. In which case: What, exactly, was I committing myself to?

Then I silently laughed at myself. Did it really matter at this point, after I'd already gone to all this trouble already?

"Are you a girl or a boy?"

It shook its head, confused. "Dunno?"

So much for narrowing down a name based on gender then. Naming things wasn’t my strong suit but it occurred to me I should be careful what I called it. I didn’t know the rules of this world and what naming a random critter in the wild would do. In the game you could only give names to creatures that were pets. And they could only be pets after you “hatched”, traded, or captured them. I hadn’t done any of those things. If this was the game, I shouldn’t be able to name it then. Which meant this wasn’t the game and, back to where I’d started, I needed to be careful.

Since I didn’t know what naming did, if it did anything at all even, I decided to go with a name that couldn’t possibly come back to bite me later:

"How about... Dignity?"

It gave me a thoughtful look and then nodded. Then the creature did something peculiar: It sat up on its hind legs, and stretched itself out, as if trying to touch the sky with its nose, it's tail as stiff as a board.

"My name," It announced grandly. "Is Dignity!"

And then there was something that sounded like a muffled explosion and a foggy cloud where Dignity had been. I blinked several times from the smoke or cloud and leaned back, ready to run if I needed.

And there, instead of a strange catlike creature, stood a human like creature! It looked like a very tiny 6-year-old humanoid, much too thin even for its height, with long pointy ears, a thin scraggly tail, and long dirty blue hair.

"What on earth..." I mumbled, perplexed.

He pointed at himself, and chest puffed out, announcing again. "I'm Dignity!"

I sat up, without thinking.

Dignity promptly took several steps away from me, alarmed.

"I'm not going to hurt you." I said, mildly annoyed. "I'd have done it already if that had been my intention."

He nodded slowly, and then smiled. It was a brilliant smile. He was adorable, scrawny though he was.

Oh right. Dignity was definitely a "he". I could tell because he was totally and completely naked.

"Well, I'm going to have to get you something to wear." I announced promptly,. I had no intention of walking around with a small naked child-thing.

"Wear?" He approached me, curious.

"Yes. Clothing. Hm.." I looked through my pack: I had a sewing kit and some bolts of fabric. If I could use my sword without knowing how, I suspected I could sew with that kit too. Both objects appeared before me.

Dignity was, contrarily, not the least bit scared by this action. Instead he came over and poked the fabric. Then, apparently liking how it felt, put both hands on it and moved his hands over the fabric.

I pointed at the fabric. "I'm going to make something with this and you're going to wear it."

He stopped what he was doing to stare at me and then the fabric. "Wear it..."

I opened my sewing kit, which thankfully included scissors, and then grabbed the fabric. My sewing level in the game wasn't terribly high, but for making simple clothes it was good enough. Pants and a shirt was all I needed. By body started working away at the cloth, confirming my theory. As long as I had some skill with an object in the game, I could perform the task without knowledge from when I was a human.

Weird. Useful, but weird.

While I worked, I asked, "So, Dignity. Tell me about yourself."

This was apparently too broad a question for he just looked at me confused.

I tried again: "What exactly ARE you Dignity?"

He spent some time thinking on this question. He looked adorable as he thought.

Finally: "Kobold... maybe?"

I tried to remember if there'd been Kobolds in the game but gave up. I had some general idea of what they were... or what I thought they were... Weren't they kind of like Goblins? Dignity didn't look anything like a Goblin.

"You aren't sure?"

He shrugged. "I know but I don't know."

Well, that wasn't helpful. Moving on.

"Why are you by yourself? Do you have a family?"

"Died." His little shoulders slumped.

I was quiet for a moment before saying: "I'm sorry. Is it alright for me to ask what happened?"

His whole body shivered but he managed to reply: "Monsters came, very angry."

"Why were they angry?"

"Don't know."

I nodded, saddened and a bit worried. Most humans didn't know why bad things happened to them. I guess the same applied even here. Life was just fundamentally difficult in that way, I supposed. However, more pressing was this comment about monsters.

A Kobold was definitely a kind of monster, wasn't it? By a regular human's definition, I was probably a monster too. But Dignity seemed to differentiate himself from the beings who'd killed his family. I wanted to ask what the difference was, but I suspected Dignity wouldn't understand the question. He seemed a bit simple.

I decided it was better to go a different direction with my questions.

"Why did you turn into.." I hesitated. He wasn't exactly human. He was abnormally small for a human, and even ignoring the tail and ears, his hands and feet had a strange ash colored look to them. Not like they were dirty, but as if the skin itself got darker. I rephrased what I was asking: "Why did you change forms?"

He cocked his head at this. "You gave me a name." He stated this as if it were a very obvious thing.

"That's... Uh... normal for Kobolds then? To change forms when they have a name?"

"You don't know?!" He asked in astonishment.

Was this common knowledge? Or was it just common knowledge to Kobolds? Heck, how was he so certain about this but not about whether he was actually a Kobold to begin with? He could act all shocked about my ignorance, but the holes in his knowledge were far more surprising!

"I don't know. I've never met a Kobold before."

Dignity nodded, thoughtful. "A name is power."

"For everyone?"

He shrugged. "Maybe."

Another maybe.

"Didn't your parents name you though?"

"Not the same. And..." He looked at the ground. "...don't remember anyway."

How long ago was it that his parents died, I wondered. I mean, to forget your own name... it must have been some time ago.

I held up the pants I'd just finished. They were very simple, and barely qualified as pants. They were just below the knee in length. "Alright, let's get you half-way decent..."

He didn't know how to put them on, which didn't really surprise me. After some struggle with balance and proper leg placement, I got him dressed. I had even added a hole for his thin, wispy tail. I'd made a cord out of some of the left-over fabric from the pants, and tied it around his waist neatly.

"There we go!" I said, pleased with myself. Because I kept the design simple, I'd been able to stitch quickly. I needed to do the shirt next, so I started cutting out a design.

Dignity rubbed his hands on the pants, once again enraptured by the texture of the fabric.

"On the topic of names," I continued where we'd left off. "My name is Angela."

He looked up at me. "...Angela?"

"Yep. It means Angel, or Messenger of God."

His mouth turns to an "O" shape at this. "You work for God?"

I laughed. "No. The meaning of the name isn't meant to be taken literally. My parents thought the name sounded nice is all."

He gave me a puzzled look. "What about my name?"

"I named you after an actual word. It's a great word too!" I had finished the basic sewing and was now hemming the shirt. "It kind of means, like, respect. That people respect you because of how you carry yourself. A person who you look at and you think: Wow, now they've got things figured out! Like that. I named you hoping you'd be like that in the future."

His chest puffed out, and I affectionately realized he was taking a great deal of pride in the name I had given him. I knew in other cultures, humans put a lot of weight into the meaning of a name. Where I lived it was just about it sounding nice. I felt like I'd missed out on something I'd never even thought about before.

"How long have you been by yourself?"

Dignity forehead crinkled in thought. "Dunno... long time. Real long time. Lonely."

His sad frown made my heart squeeze. Poor little guy! Family dead and living alone. That's just depressing. It won't stand!

I stopped what I was doing and gently stroked his hair. "I can't replace the family you lost, but I can at least be your friend. Let's stick together so neither of us has to be lonely, alright?"

He blushed while giving a small, pleased, smile. "Yeah!"

"Anyway," I continued. "Staying in this forest isn't an option. I need civilization!"

"Civ-cilation??" He failed miserable at repeating the word.

"That's right! Civilization! Knowledge! A place where people can tell me things, because right now I'm totally ignorant."

"...ignorant?"

"Yep, I need to know what's going on. And I don't know anything. The only thing worse than being ignorant of your circumstances is being dead because of them. I'm not gonna be much of a friend if my ignorance gets me, or you, or both of us killed."

Dignity's eye became wide at this. "Really bad, ignorance?"

"Exactly." I lifted up the shirt. I'd finished it. "Let's get this on you, shall we?"

Getting the shirt on was a little easier than the pants. I had him raise his hands to the air and simply slipped it on.

"There!" A simple shirt and pants. I couldn’t believe I’d made it myself. As a human, I didn’t even know how to sew on a button. Making an entire outfit was amazing.

I wished I could give him shoes too, but I knew I couldn't make anything sturdy enough with just a sewing kit. You needed leather for decent shoes. And in the game leather was considered part of armor making, and to make armor you needed a forge. I had actually maxed out my Armor Making skill set with this character, so there was a good chance I could make some fantastic shoes if I’d set my mind to it.

But, you know, I’d need a forge. Which I obviously didn’t have here. And I had no experience with working with leather as a human to draw from either. Which meant he was going shoe-less.

"You're adorable!" I announced after giving him a good look over.

He giggled shyly at my praise.

"Now that you're properly clothed, let's get to the business of getting out of this forest." I lifted him up and set him on my shoulder. "You're a bit on the tiny side, so how about you stay up here?" I didn't want to have him slow me down and I wasn’t sure how sturdy his feet were (they looked pretty frail from my view).

His little hands grabbed a tuft of ear hair for balance. "Wow! So high!" He exclaimed at the view.

I chuckled at his reaction and started walking.

We made our way back to the stream. I needed to make sure I had access to water. Taking out a flask from my pack, I filled it. Hm, how do I put this back? I’d left the other one sitting next to the stream. With nothing to lose, I gently lowered the flask onto the grid, in an empty square. It vanished from my hand and re-appeared in the grid, properly stored. I was pleased at how easy that was, and promptly filled all my empty flasks with water and stored them away.

If I was going to walk around in a forest without a map for an indefinite period of time, I didn't want to die of dehydration. At least the food shouldn't be a problem. I wasn't going to use what I had in my pack unless it was an emergency. I'd hunt instead. I was pretty confident I could with my Mewnin skills and basic bow skills.

I don't know why, but I had optimistically thought I would get out of that forest that day or maybe the next day. Three days at the max. But reality was far more brutal than I'd anticipated: A week passed and I was still stuck wandering around.

It was fortunate that I could hunt and cook with the game skills I'd acquired. My cooking skill was quite high, as I'd hated paying for health potions in the game. The thing with the cooking skill was that, even though it required an upfront investment in both game currency and time, it paid off in the long term because you could hunt for the ingredients and make a meal equivalent to any magical healing item, for free. And the higher your cooking skills, the more additional benefits you got. By the time I'd maxed out my character, I could cook most recipes in the game and also give any meal I made "buffs" (added magical benefits) as well.

All that translated to in this world was being able to make a really good meal out of anything I caught or harvested. I could skin it, dice it, and slice it like a pro. Not that I enjoyed skinning animals. Of course, that was only if I could catch an animal. Small game (like rabbits) was still surprising difficult to catch when all you had was a bow. My first few meals were mostly wild vegetables and berries. I took out meat from my inventory to give Dignity, because he clearly needed it. But for myself, I ate only what I could catch.

Speaking of Dignity, I had to make him more clothes by the end of the week. He'd completely out grown what I'd made. His age remained the same, but he tripled in size. He was now the size of a normal little boy. If not for his ears and tail, he'd have passed as an extremely adorable human child. I have no idea why he grew so fast, and I fervently hoped he stopped soon. Not only was I wasting a lot of good cloth on him, having a giant 6-year-old following me around would likely startle the locals (if I could find them).

The other thing that I found interesting, was that he got smarter. I'm not sure if him being alone for so long had stunted his mind or what, but constant interaction with me seemed to increase is communication skills by leaps and bounds. Things he'd been uncertain about at the beginning, like whether he was a Kobold or not, he was absolutely certain about now. He just seemed to know more in general.

I actually asked him about this near the end of the first week and ended up having an insightful conversation about Kobolds in general:

"Dignity, is it me, or are you getting smarter?" I said, waiting for the rabbit I'd (finally) caught to cook over the fire.

He tilted his head at this question and raised an eyebrow. "Of course."

"Uh... is that... normal?" Sometimes I asked him questions and got treated like I was stupid for not knowing. This was one of those times.

"For a Kobold."

"Really. Why's it normal for a Kobold?"

"Well, Kobolds adapt to the expectations of the people they’re associated with."

I didn't know where to start to dissect that answer.

"Are you saying.. You're trying to live up to my expectations?" I pointed to myself, surprised.

"You did give me a name, after all."

"And that's important...?" I'd tried asking about the name thing when I first met him, and been met with confusion. I hadn't brought it up since then. Now he looked at me with a face filled with adorable exasperation.

"Yes, naming is important. I said this before."

"You did but you didn't explain why."

He looked away, sighing in disappointment at my ignorance. This little punk!

"When a Kobold accepts a name from someone it means they've entered a pact with them. I accepted your name, and we made a deal, so now I'm living up to my end of the deal."

I looked at him blankly. What? We'd made a deal? What's this about a pact? Huh?

Looking a little hurt at my reaction, he asked. "Don't you remember?"

"Obviously I remember naming you. I didn't know that was us making a pact though. What's this 'deal' you're talking about too?"

"You said you'd be my friend and we wouldn't be lonely. You said that ignorance was bad, worse than death. If I'm your friend, I can't be ignorant. Especially if ignorance is worse than death."

"So... " I replied, struggling to really accept what I was hearing. "You got smarter... to be a better friend?"

"Yes, of course. Aren't you doing the same, trying to be a better friend by finding civilization?"

That was an interesting way to interpret what I'd said. It's not technically what I'd meant, but arguing about the finer details didn't seem exactly productive.

Instead I asked: "But how do you MAKE yourself smarter? I've never heard of just willing yourself into smartness."

We both looked at each other, baffled.

"I don't understand. How else do you get smart except by deciding to do so?"

"Uh... Where I come from you have to work for it: read and go to school and memorize a lot of stuff."

"What's a read and school?"

I opened my mouth and closed it. I'd never had to explain what reading meant to someone before. I legitimately didn't know how, so I decided to demonstrate instead. I crouched down, cleared away some leaves, and used my finger to write a basic sentence.

"This," I pointed at the ground. "Is called a sentence. By reading it, I can understand a message someone else left behind."

He looked at the ground, curious. "What's the message?"

"It just says, "My name is Angela"."

He frowned. "I'm not sure why that's useful."

"Well, let's say I needed to tell someone a message when I wasn't around. I could write it out and the person would come by and read it. I could talk to them without being there."

"Isn't that lonely?"

I hesitated. "I can be. But it can also be really useful if you're trying to contact someone who is far away or who you keep missing accidentally. It can be a way to keep a friendship going, even if you're on the other side of the world."

He squatted down and stared at the writing intensely. He then looked up at me. "Teach me too."

I scratched me head, nervous. I'd never taught someone how to read before. I barely remembered how I was taught. "I don't know if I'll make a good teacher, but I can try."

He nodded. "Good. What is school?"

Oh, right! I'd forgotten for a moment why were on this conversation. "School is a place that teaches you to read, write, learn math, and a lot of other stuff. You can't have a civilization without it." After I said it, I wondered if it were true. Wasn't the illiteracy rates really high in ancient civilizations? Oh well. Whatever it was in the past, knowing how to read was a must now... or at least in the human world I'd come from.

"And without school you can't get smarter?"

For simplicities sake, I nodded. There was no use in me saying that being smart and being educated weren't exactly the same thing.

"You went to school?"

"I did."

"And it made you smarter?"

I didn't want to lie outright, so I compromised: "I learned a lot about the world, so yes."

"I wish I could go to school..." He said it wistfully.

"Well, it's not like you need it. You get smarter through sheer force of will." I wish I could to do that, jeesh!

"I don't know how to write. Or "math"." He pointed out, sulking slightly.

"Well, I can teach you to write. And if you want to know math, I can teach that to you too." Or at least I hoped I could. I had no idea how to teach someone. People usually got paid to do that for a reason. But basic stuff I forced myself into believing I could do. Especially with someone who made themselves smart with will power alone.

This world sure was strange.

And that's how I learned that Kobold's were highly adaptable creatures and took their agreements very very seriously.

We wandered around for a few more days after this. Even though I was frustrated by the lack of progress, teaching Dignity helped pass the time. I fumbled around in how I taught, he still seemed to get the gist of it because of his “willed intelligence”.

And then we found ourselves back at the stream. The exact spot where we'd started. I was so angry that we'd made a big circle, I almost lost my temper and started screaming at the air. Almost two weeks and I was right back where I started!!

After cooling down and thinking, I decided I hadn't been taking this "lost in the forest" thing seriously enough. I never had a great sense of direction to begin with, so maybe I needed to take extra precautions. First, I started making crude slashes in trees we passed. Knowing where I'd been was as important as where I was going. Second, I decided to walk in the direction of the sun rise (which I was pretty sure was east). I needed to pick one direction and follow it, even if I didn't know which direction would get me to people. Anything was better than being aimless at this point.

Confident in my new strategy, I set out.

I'd adapted pretty well to living in the wild by the third week in the forest. At first my main concern was a food and water source, but I quickly realized keeping dry and warm was a much bigger priority. It seemed to rain every few days. The first two weeks had been light showers during the day. But the third week, a torrential storm passed over at night. Lightening, thunder, high winds, and sheets of cold water feel from the sky.

I sat under a tree, shivering and wet, for hours just waiting for it to pass. I tried protecting Dignity with my body, but even he was wet after the second hour. I didn't get very far the following day. I couldn't start a fire with the entire forest soaked through, so I had no way to get dry. And it turns out wet fur takes a lot longer to dry than skin.

The storm had brought a change in the weather. Where things had been pleasantly warm with a cool breeze, now it was just cold. And the breeze had turned into a steady wind. The very real fear of freezing to death left a heavy feeling in the pit of my stomach.

Dignity was less worried about the weather than I was. Apparently, Kobold's did exceptionally well in any environment as long as they had a water and food source. In fact, he was doing significantly better than I was, having gone from near starvation to healthily plump.

What the heck. Life isn’t fair.

I opened up my inventory and searched around, hoping I could find something for the cold. I was knee deep into the accessories when I stumbled upon a quest gear item. It was a bracelet that warded off cold. I took it out and felt a breezy sensation on my arm. The moment it was “equipped” I felt the chill from the rain leave my body. I was still soaked through but at least now I wouldn’t freeze to death.

More walking, more rain, more cold. I really wish the game had an umbrella.

Dignity’s size stabilized. His mind, however, kept expanding.

“How big is this forest?” I asked angrily, kicking the forest floor.

“It’s not really that big, but I’ve been thinking about it and I’m pretty sure this place is cursed.”

I stared at Dignity in shock. He’d said it so matter-of-factly I could have cried. Bring these things up sooner, why don’t you?

“Cursed?”

“Yes. I actually tried to leave this place numerous times before you arrived. Every time I’d end up back where I started. I didn’t really understand why back then, but now the only explanation that makes sense is it’s cursed.”

“Doesn’t that mean we’ve been walking for weeks now with no hope of escaping?”

He nodded.

Groaning, I lowered myself to the wet forest floor, swallowed by a sense of hopelessness. “Why didn’t you say so earlier then!”

“Sorry.” He did looked apologetic. “There are a lot of things I don’t know until I know them.”

Willed smartness definitely had it’s downsides.

I ran my fuzzy fingers through my hair. “A curse, huh? There’s gotta be a way to break it though, right? Curses usually have a loop hole…”

Dignity patted my shoulder sympathetically. “Maybe. I don’t really know. I can think about it?”

I stared up into the trees, trying to pull myself together. I didn’t know how curses worked in this world. My assumption was based off stories I’d heard growing up. Every fair tale involving a curse always had a way to break it, some kind of loophole. I knew that not apply here, but if I worked off the assumption that it didn’t, I felt like I’d just curl up and stop moving.

Wind blew through the trees, rustles the leaves. It had a nice soothing sound. I felt myself calm down.

My eyes narrowed. I was walking in circles because of this curse, but what kind of curse was it exactly? Was it the kind that messed with your sense of direction or the kind where the forest itself moved around to confuse you? Depending on which it was depended on how you dealt with it.

I stood up, wiping myself clean of the random bits of forest floor attached to me. I didn’t know which it was, but I didn’t need to know. I could experiment and find out. It’s not like I was in danger of dying right this instant, or even a few days from now.

“I’m going to climb that tree.” I announced suddenly, startling Dignity. I walked over to a tree with a large trunk. I needed to get really high up, so a big tree was required. I looked down at Dignity and asked, “Do you want to come with me or stay here?”

He hesitated for a moment. “I think, with you? But I’m not good at climbing.”

“Ah, that’s ok.” He’d gotten bigger so I’d stopped carrying him. Even so, he wasn’t that heavy to this Mewnin body even now. I picked him up and slung him on my back, positioning his arms and legs around my neck and waist. “Just hold on tight and I’ll carrying you up with me.”

I felt his grip squeeze tighter.

The first big branch would have been too high up for me to grab when I was a human, but I knew I could reach it now. I crouched down slightly and focused on it and jumping, and sure enough my body performed the jump with little input from me.

I’d only expected to jump up and hold on, but to my surprise I jumped up and over and landed feet first on the branch. I was so surprised I almost lost my balance. Grabbing a nearby branch I steadied myself. Wow. I’d suspected I could do it, but now I wonder exactly how far I could jump if I put my mind to it.

From there we weaved through the branches, stopping once to catch our breath and to give Dignity a chance to rest his arms and legs. Even so, it took almost no time at all to get to the top.

I’d picked a good tree. It was taller than a lot of trees nearby and even near the top it could take my weight without bending to much.

“Wow!” Dignity’s awed voice came from behind me.

He was right. The area was hilly, and by some miracle I’d picked a tree on the top of one of the highest hills in the area. For miles in every direction all you could see was forest. I gazed out into the distance and noticed mountains to my left, their peeks covered in snow. I hoped that was a year-round thing, otherwise it meant winter was uncomfortably close. There was also something cutting into the trees straight ahead of me. I spent a good minute trying to figure out what it was when it came to me: a river!

I couldn’t see the river itself, just the open space it was creating. I followed it’s path and then yelled excitedly:

“Look! That river leads right out of the forest! And way out there, I think that’s a city!” It was hard to say for sure, it was pretty far out. But the lumpy rectangular mass didn’t look natural either.

“Civilization!!” Dignity bounced on my back excitedly, causing the whole tree to sway violently. The sudden movement frightened him and he almost strangled me trying to hold tighter. “Sorry!” Came a timid apology after the swaying stopped.

I patted his arm, chuckling. “It’s fine.” And then turned back to the river. “I don’t know what kind of curse is on this forest, but it might just be one that confuses your sense of direction when you’re actively trying to escape. In which case, we need to stop trying to escape. So let’s try for the river instead. Maybe the forest won’t see that as escaping and stop messing with us.”

After some directional calculations based on the sun’s path, I climbed down. The river wasn’t really that far away, or at least it didn’t look like it. Even if I veered slightly to the left or right, I should still be able to find it.

Unfortunately it was a lot farther away by foot than over tree top, and in the end it took two whole days to get over there. I periodically climbed a tree to make sure of where I was going. By the second half of the second day I didn’t even need to do that, as I could hear it from a distance.

It was a very big river and quite noisy. If I’d needed to cross it, I doubted I’d have been able to without getting swept away. It looked calm enough from the banks, but a big branch that’d broken off during one of the storms could be seen floating past us at an alarming speed. I suspected the undertow was a lot stronger than that.

We slept just inside the forest by the river that night. I’d never been that close to moving water, seeing as a I lived in a land-locked area. I was surprised by how relaxing the noisy river ended up being, and found myself passing out quicker than usual because of it.

“Remember that we aren’t trying to escape, alright? If this curse confuses us when we try to leave, then we’ll get around it by simply not trying to leave. So. We aren’t escaping. We’re simply… following an interesting river. Got it?”

Dignity nodded seriously. I hoped this worked.

We started walking. Near noon we stopped and I took out a fishing pool from my inventory. Of course the game allowed you to fish and while fishing wasn’t a skill you could level up, you were able to get better fishing rods and bait. I’d invested quite heavily in the fishing skill, since it let me get quantities of ingredients cheaply to cook with, and ended up being really good at it.

Of course I didn’t know anything about actual fishing though. Which is why I fished during high noon, one of the worst times to do it. But, whether it was the game knowledge or just good luck, I managed to catch a few fish to eat anyway.

I’d been surviving off of small game for weeks, so getting fish was a great change of pace! We both devoured our fishy lunch before continuing on.

It went on like this for 3 days. On the 4th day something peculiar happened.

I hadn’t done anything unusual. I’d just taken a step forward when I suddenly felt a strong sense of vertigo. I stumbled onto my hands and knees, feeling intensely nauseous. Dignity ran over with a shout of concern and found himself in the same position, presumably feeling the same way.

Carefully I scooted back, and felt better almost instantly. As I’d suspected. We’d walked right to the edge of the forest without realizing it. My theory had been correct: the forest’s curse depended on a person trying to leave. We hadn’t tried to leave, which is why we got as far as we did. But the forest apparently had one more card to play: it’d make you so miserable at the edge you didn’t try to leave. With simple creatures this probably worked spectacularly. But with a more intelligent being such as myself, it just made me more stubborn.

I’d already grabbed Dignity’s by a foot and dragged him towards me. Like me, he felt instantly better.

“Well, buddy, it looks like we’re going to have to make a run for it.”

“Run for it?”

“Yep. We’re not leaving, of course, just following the river.” I wasn’t letting the forest get a chance to confuse me, this close to an actual escape route. “But to follow the river we gotta get through that spell it put up. I guess I could try to think it through and come up with something clever but in this case I don’t think we need to.”

“Why not?”

“Well, I’m thinking this spell or wall it’s put up isn’t that deep. It’s probably just deep enough to make people not want to go farther. In which case, all we need to do is be faster than whatever spell in on the edge and push through. It’s probably only a few feet deep at most, maybe less. ”

He didn’t look entirely convinced.

“Look, how about I carry you? That way if things go horribly wrong, you won’t have to do any moving, just me.”

“Alright, I guess.” I could tell he didn’t like the idea, even still, but was trusting me to do the right thing.

I picked him up and he wrapped his arms around my neck. I then backed away a few steps and looked forward, picking a place at random to land. I wasn’t going to run, I was going to jump. My experience climbing the trees taught me I had some amazing jumping capabilities, and I hadn’t even scratched the surface of them.

Jump as far as you can, I thought to myself. Just like with the sword, my mind flooded with information and my body automatically crouched down, tensing all my muscles in my legs. There was a pensive pause before I shot forward.

I suddenly understood what the phrase “like a bullet” meant in a way I’d never gotten before.

We hit the spell-barrier and I felt my stomach flip and Dignity’s body go limp in my arms. But my guess had been correct: it wasn’t that deep. And at the speed we were going, it was like it was barely there at all.

I landed with a loud “thump”, pebbles and dirt scattering around my feet. I’d created two small craters for each foot where I’d landed. Hehe, cool.

“That’s amazing! Look how far you jumped!” Dignity was still being held by me and had watched the entire thing while facing behind me.

I turned around and my jaw dropped. The place I started from was far far away. I couldn’t give you the exact amount of feet I’d jumped, but it must have been 3x times what was normal for even the most fit human athletes.

“Wow.” I couldn’t think of anything else to say. I gently put him on the ground and looked around me. From inside the forest, the edge had somehow been “blurry”, but from the outside it was really stark. The trees just ended.

There was something else too, that I hadn’t really noticed inside. There’d been a heaviness to the air inside that forest, and it’d made me feel… I don’t know, lethargic? It’s like my senses were being suppressed, but I didn’t notice. Not because of the curse, but because I was use to being human.

I only had my human sense of “normal” as a reference. And from a human perspective, my 5 senses had been significantly heightened, even under a curse. Now that I was out though, the world exploded with sight, sound, and smells like I’d never experienced before. Frankly, I was almost grateful for that forest. If I’d woken up with this much noise and smell I’d probably have panicked and done something stupid.

Everything was so much sharper. It was probably like what a person with poor eyesight feels like when they put on glasses for the first time, only this time it was my entire body experiencing it. I sniffed the air and then inhaled deeply. Man, human beings really had no idea what they were missing!

I looked down at Dignity and grinned, “Let’s get out of here!”