Jason had never been into a significant forest. He had done a few three day hikes with his father into the hills, and he felt like the hikes took him deep into the wilderness to where the ancient trees lived.

Where he stood now made his three day hikes seem like walking into a nursery. The forest was ancient, filled with old trees that protected young saplings. The ground itself oozed out a spiritual sense of belonging. An earthen home for all things living.

He felt unsettled in the old forest.

“Wait,” he said to himself, “this is a game. How is the game producing these feelings?”

No matter how hard he attempted to rationalize the senses as being a tricky part of the game, he couldn't help but feel insignificant in his surroundings.

Still, he wasn’t there to feel the awe, he was there to draw a bastard sword, swing it around and smash something. One thing he was very aware of was how big he was. Jason was not a big man, he is average in every respect. But the half-orc was huge. A full head taller than even a tall man, and he was definitely much heavier.

Even so, when he walked, he felt light, his legs were powerful, with arms that would match most legs in strength and a torso that beggared belief.

He decided to run, remembering he had the skill of fast movement. That skill was accurate. He ran as fast as he could and found it hard to keep up with the rapid motion. Jason was not a fast runner, but now he wished he could be.

After a decent sprint, he noticed his breathing was not vastly increased. He couldn’t help but compare this body with his own inferior one.

He thought, “Well, since I am here, I may as well play the role.”

He asked the voice, “Did you give me a name?”

She answered, “No, you can name the character, but if you don’t want to, the selected name for you is Grarl.”

“Actually, I like that name, I will keep it.”

He drew the sword out. Jason had never held a sword other than posing for photos. They felt heavy and awkward to him.

As Grarl, it felt familiar, light, easy to move. He was not sure how to proceed so he simply swung the sword. He moved the sword as if by instinct. After several minutes of swinging and stabbing the sword, he combined that with moving his feet. And again, the movement was instinctual. He kept doing this for about one hour until he could notice that he was not precise in his movements. Sure, Grarl was far better than Jason, but there were errors in foot placement, inaccuracies in where the sword was meant to go compared to where it went.

After the sword practice, Jason’s initial excitement at being a bad ass sword fighter had waned.

Just for fun, and to remove the feeling of impending doom, he lifted his head up and roared as loud as he could. His voice produced a deep, guttural roar that would make most sensible people run away.

He liked that a lot. Size, power and lots of noise makes for one scary monster.

Then, surprisingly, he felt thirsty and hungry. He had a look around the forested area, looking to the edges of the clearing he had been practicing in. He had no idea what he hoped to find, maybe a shop.

He didn’t see a shop.

Survival Skill Check: Successful.

You see several types of edible roots, a fruit tree and a tree with edible nuts. There is a small river nearby with drinkable water.

Grarl looked around, unsure how a message would help him find the food, when he noticed a green highlight around all the types of food listed. All he needed to do was walked up to the highlighted area, dig up the roots, pick the fruit, collect the nuts.

Before he realized it, he had plenty of food, cold water and a pang that suggested he would rather eat meat.

He returned to the hut he spawned into, saw a table and chair outside, nicely positioned to exploit the warmth from the sun, prepared the meal and ate like a minor king.

When he finished the meal and marveled at the awesomeness that was having a half-orc body, he pondered how the intelligence, wisdom and charisma stats were created.

He asked, “I get the stats of the body, you can do anything physically, but how do you come to the other three stats?”

She answered, “Before assigning intelligence we seek out any online evidence of your IQ and other forms of intelligence measuring. In your case, you are average.

Wisdom is developed by which decisions you make, how kind you are, do you have a world view that in individual or collective. In your case, you measured slightly above average.

Charisma is developed by scrolling your social media account and that of others to find out what they think of you. This allowed us to determine that your charisma is slightly below average.

We then collate the data, insert the numbers, and allow the game to predict how others interact with you.”

Jason was feeling slightly exposed and annoyed. While he did not disagree with the assessment, although he thought he would be a 13 at least, it felt that there was far too much information on the internet about him.

He said, “That is slightly disturbing.”

She answered, “Many people say that, but we have secure privacy rules, nobody will get this information without your permission.”

He sat on the chair, in the sun, with the fresh, pine scented air and cool breeze and considered what he needs to do now to get back home.

The only options he had were to walk in a random direction and hope for the best. Or follow the rather clearly marked path leading down the hill and into the forest.

He thought that obvious things may not be good things. With a 9% chance of survival, he needed to consider what others had done before him and assume that they made common mistakes.

He said, “Are there other players in this game world?”

She answered nicely, “Yes. Every world has up to 1000 other players in it, and 100,000 NPCs. You are unable to tell the difference unless you clearly ask the question on whether they are a PC or NPC. The game has been designed to discourage this behavior as it reduces the realism of the game.”

“What happens if I do it?”

“Half your experience points are removed.”

“Is there any point asking where the path leads to?”

“No”

He went into the hut, gather his equipment, cramming it into the backpack, put it on, felt pleased about his new super strong body, walked out he door and looked down the path again.

The sun was indicating half the day was gone. He had everything he needed to get by, he felt good about everything.

Except the path and that 9% survival chance. He was going to walk the path, but just as he was about to walk, he thought about Maree.

“Maree is going to join the game later on. Will she spawn into the game here?”

“Highly unlikely.”

He decided to leave a note for her anyway. First problem was no paper or ink or pen. Then he pulled out his dagger and began to etch in a message, except he couldn’t do it. Regardless of how hard he tried, he could write any words

Skill Reminder

You are illiterate

Shit.

He decided to scratch in the house and the path and made an arrow pointing to the path. It would have to do.

He went back outside, walked to the path and kept going.

The path was well defined in that there was no grass on it. The trees on each side allowed easy passage, the track made for good walking under the protection of the canopy.

It wound its way around trees, across small streams, up and down the slopes of the terrain. For the most part, it led downhill, into a valley until it reached a small river.

It then followed the river downstream.

Grarl stopped for a while, removed some food, took a drink directly from the river, then sat on a rock for a while. The sun was going down, he wasn’t sure if he should pitch a tent or keep walking given his dark vision made night travel far less dangerous to do.

It didn’t matter too much, he was predicting he would reach a town of some function soon. Although he had no reason for believing that other than when he hiked with his father, there was always a hut to sleep in each night.

Skill Check: Spot: Successful.

You see two orcs hiding in the bush ahead.

Grarl stopped in his tracks. Without thinking too much, he drew his sword.

He called out, “I know you are there.”

Both orcs removed themselves from hiding, smiling at him, although it was not a warm kind of smile.

The big one said, “I see your head has healed since we last met.”

The other one laughed.

Grarl stayed silent.

The big orc kept talking, “Why don’t you give up, humans and orcs will always fight, why do you get in the middle when nobody likes your kind?”

Grarl decided it was best to say nothing, while keeping his sword in its pose.

Skill Check: Listen: Successful.

Footsteps approaching from behind.

He decided the footsteps were from another orc doing a sneak attack. Rather than check, he swung around with intent to hit whatever was there at chest height.

Attack Roll: 13 +6 = 21. Hit Orc.

Damage: 3 +4 = 7 damage.

He swung true, and the orc who was attempting to sneak attack suddenly had a sword splitting him almost in half at the chest. Grarl pulled the sword out quickly to ready himself for other two.

They were rushing him, he didn’t have time to dodge them as they swung, but he was ready enough to take evasive action.

Orc Attack Roll: 1 +1 = 2. Natural 1 = dropped weapon

Damage: 0.

Orc Attack Roll: 7 +1 = 8. Missed Grarl

Damage: 0

The big orc seemed over eager, he was making a sweeping attack but forgot to place his feet correctly, slipped on a rock and fell over. The other one was getting close but lacked accuracy. With the big orc on the ground, Grarl was able to shift aside for the downward swing.

With the smaller orc moving past, Grarl took a swing.

Attack Roll: 7 +6 = 13. Hit Orc.

Damage: 5 +4 = 9 damage.

His hand was unsteady and a slight slip in his foot movement made a certain hit an almost hit. But he did hit. With this immense strength the sword struck the orc in the back, tore through the studded leather and deep into its flesh.

It collapsed on the ground, dead.

Without much pause, Grarl returned his attention to the big orc. He was standing again, sword ready but moving backwards. He said, “I will leave you alone this time, Grarl.” With that said, the orc turned to run into the bush to disappear into the forest.

Grarl stood silent, fight ready, for several minutes.

He dared not move, but he felt the adrenalin coursing through his body so much that his hands began to shake, and his knees felt like buckling.

He had just killed two orc with two hits. He looked down at the hacked bodies on the ground. He could smell the blood, the detail of the damage he had inflicted was real.

It was extremely real.

He said to himself, “This is just a game, treat it like a game.”

The friendly female voice said, “Well done, you have survived your first fight. Remember to check for loot.”

Jason said, “Look, if you are going to be talking to me, at least give me a name.”

“You can call me Anna.”

“Thanks, can you please fuck off Anna?”

She didn’t answer.

She did have a point though about checking for loot. He knew orcs wouldn’t have much, but given he is first level, everything counts.

He found the money punches quickly and scoped out a total of 18gp and found a jade gem. He carefully looked at it, but he had no idea how much it would be worth.

He didn’t really care at that point, although it pleased him, gems were always good news.

CHARACTER UPDATE

21gp (gold pieces) total

1 x Jade Gem (unvalued)

300xp (experience points): 700xp until next level.

Having checked the dead orcs, he decided it was best to move on quickly. Even with his size and strength, being alone in a forest full of orcs made a single half-orc a target worth attacking.

Although he had no idea what the orc was talking about when he said he was in the middle of humans and orcs, nor about their last encounter.

“Anna, what happen the last time I met that orc?”

She said, “That orc is named Grimshaw, he is your half-brother. He attempted to kill you in your last encounter. It ended with a large scar on top of your head. You were saved because the orc guards stopped the assault because it is illegal to attack half-orcs in Orc Town.”

“And what did he mean by being in the middle of humans and orcs?”

“He is referring to an organization you are part of that is a collection of half-orcs who have made it their mission to occupy the middle ground between humans and orcs in order to maintain the peace.”

“Oh.” Jason was unsure what to make of that.

Rather than ponder on it, he decided it was best to move. The sun was going down, his dark vision was working wonderfully, he was still fresh and able to walk.

He returned to the track and began walking. He was hoping to make a town soon. He had no idea if it would be human or orc, or which one would be the best one for him.

He decided that it probably didn’t matter, half-orcs were hated by everyone anyway.