Your party has defeated [Forest Razorback Sow]! 80 XP gained! Level up! Your party has defeated [Forest Razorback Boar]! 110 XP gained! Your party has defeated [Forest Razorback Sow]! 80 XP gained! You have reached level 6 (255/381)! You have gained a skill point! (1 point / 5 levels) You have gained an attribute point! (1 point / 1 level)

She still had a point she was saving from the three she started with, and apparently, she’d get another one every five levels. For some reason, she felt it was wise to keep one in reserve, just in case. So with two points, she felt comfortable spending one. It took Margaret several minutes of searching to find the skill she wanted, especially since she kept refusing Pia’s help. I’ve got to figure this thing out on my own, she thought. The other thing slowing her down was the fact that where the Attack and Defense menus were simply separated into physical and magical skills, Utility had more options. Way more.

After scanning several pages, she finally found the tree she wanted: creatures. Once she found the right menu, the skill she hoped existed popped into view.

Animal Companionship (Rank 0) Rank 1 Unlocks: Tame Raises the affinity level with target creature. Mana Cost: 100

Affinity level? “Okay, fine. Pia, I need your help.”

‘Oh, really? Sure you don’t got this?’ the AI responded with no lack of sass.

“Don’t make me beg or I’ll ignore you for a week.” Two could play at this game.

‘Okay, yeesh. I assume this is what you’re after.’

Creature Affinity Levels: Hostile - Will attack on sight Indifferent - Will only attack if provoked Tame - Will not attack unless attacked first Domestic - Will not attack, even if intentionally provoked Companion - Will seek your company and fight alongside you Life-Bond - Will value your life above their own, will sacrifice for you Hostility, Indifference, Tame, and Domesticated apply to all sentient beings, not just you. A hostile creature will attack indiscriminately while a domesticated one will not attack anyone. Companion and Life-Bonded status are on an individual basis, creatures you raise to these affinity levels will only respond appropriately to you.

Margaret wasn’t terribly concerned if her AI approved or not, but she knew that antagonizing someone, especially if that someone lived in your brain, was not productive in the long run. Straightening, she pointed a palm at the pig family. I wonder if I actually have to point my hand at things to use a skill? she wondered as she spoke the name of the skill, “Tame.”‘And just so you know, I fully approve of this direction. Tame will help you gather livestock and mounts for your village while also giving you the option to gain an animal companion or two to add to your party.’

[Forest Razorback Sow]’s affinity increased to Tame. [Forest Razorback Piglet]’s affinity increased to Domestic. [Forest Razorback Piglet]’s affinity increased to Domestic. [Forest Razorback Piglet]’s affinity increased to Domestic. [Forest Razorback Piglet]’s affinity increased to Domestic. [Forest Razorback Piglet]’s affinity increased to Domestic.

Immediately, the sow relaxed her posture since she no longer felt the need to protect her babies. The piglets ran out from behind their mother and began investigating the adventuring party, mostly to see if they had any food to give them.

“Great,” Naps deadpanned. “Now how do we get them back?”

A very long walk and their entire supply of rations later, the group arrived back at the village, sow and six piglets in tow. Margaret had used tame once more on the trip just to get the momma pig up to domestic, but now the babies followed her like she was the treat they’d been waiting for their whole life. A message greeted Margaret as soon as they crossed the border.

Building Unlocked! Conditions Met (Own pigs within the village.) Swine Farm - 5 BP

She flung the building up as quickly as she could, not quite taking her customary time laying the thing out, just to get the clingy piglets to stop stepping on her feet. The group restocked their rations from the food storage building, dropping their available foodstuffs dangerously low, but Margaret didn’t feel too bad considering she’d just brought a living, breathing, reproducing food source back to the village.

As the crew trekked out of the village for the second time that day, this time heading west toward the coastal city, Margaret re-asked a question she had blurted before that had gone unanswered.

“So, what other kinds of... intelligent life live nearby?”

Blank stares answered her until Naps graciously ended the awkward silence. “Typical forest-dwellers, really. Nothing unusual.”

They don’t realize... Margaret thought before adding aloud, “Sorry, humans are the only sentient life on my planet, I’d never met a kobold before meeting you, Honor. I don’t know what are typical forest-dwellers.”

Truth ran a couple of steps ahead so she could turn her head and look Margaret in the eyes. “Really, Margaret? Only humans? The human kingdom must have ruled the entire planet!”

Margaret chuckled. “Oh, trust me. There are plenty of different human kingdoms that are always fighting. Honestly, there’s no telling what the humans on Earth could do if they all united together.”

“How many humans are there on Earth?” Honor asked.

“Mmm, about seven and a half billion? My country had about three hundred million.”

The three kobolds stared uneasily at each other. Truth snapped out of it first and answered Margaret’s initial question. “Within a day’s travel from our village, you would find kobolds, elves, some humans, goblins, gnomes, a handful of satyrs, plenty of pixies and fairies, and those awful cervids. I can’t imagine if any one race had numbers like that, in the billions...”

“I know... most of those, at least by the myths from my planet. Reality might be a bit different than what I’ve been told. What was that last one? Cer-vid?”

Naps snorted. “Those stinking deer-folk. They hate us kobolds that came down out of the mountains. Not all of us want to spend our lives underground, mind you, but that don’t sit well with the ‘protectors of the forest’. Hasn’t been any outright fighting in years, but they do what they can to make life difficult for us.”

The group chatted as they made their way down the rough trail that connected the village to the road proper. A couple of hours into their walk, they emerged from the forest into an area more open, but still dotted with large trees and gentle hills. The trail they’d been following led right to a hard-packed dirt road that looked well-traveled. The trail was obvious to those on it, but Margaret could see how passers-by would walk or ride past without any idea it was there.

Margaret exercised. Well, she exercised as part of her old life back on Earth. She worked out Monday through Friday, running each day; took yoga classes Monday, Wednesday, and Friday; and did intense bodyweight exercises in between. For somebody who worked in a business casual office environment, she felt like she was in pretty good shape.

Hiking for hours as a primary method of travel from one point to another was changing her idea of what ‘in shape’ meant. The flats she had worn to her last day of work on Earth weren’t exactly helping out in the hiking department, either.

She thought about using the attribute point she’d just gotten to boost her constitution but pulled her stats back up before committing.

Margaret Stevens Human (No class) Level 6 (255/381 Experience) Strength 8 (+) Dexterity 11 (+) Constitution 10 (+) Intelligence 16 (+) 1 Attribute Point available!

With a sigh, she assigned the point to Strength, remembering Pia’s advice to get all of her stats to ten before she started focusing on a specialty. Her body tingled and her muscles tightened for half a second, causing her to stumble for one step. Recovering, she continued on, noting that she was still sore and exhausted but that each step wasn’t taking quite as much out of her.

What stats are normal for people on Earth? There’s got to be a number that puts me above what even the world’s top athletes and thinkers can do, would that make me like a superhero? She wondered as she walked. She began to think that being drafted to come to this planet might not have been the terrible thing she first thought.

“Pia?” she whispered.

‘Yes, ma’am?’ came the mental response.

“What are like, regular human stats. Or maybe max stats for somebody without the system?”

‘Ten is an average human adult for most things. Fifteen is peak human ability. If you raise your strength to sixteen, you’d break every weightlifting world record back on Earth. Before you ask, your intelligence stat got a boost when I was installed. Normal human brains can’t handle the strain of an Interface Assistant.’

Margaret couldn’t hide the smile that tugged at the corner of her lips. “So I’m smarter than Einstein right now?”

‘Eh, smarter is a really tough idea to compare. You could do mental math faster than him, like... four hundred twenty-seven times ninety-three.’

“Thirty-nine thousand, seven hundred and eleven,” Margaret spat out after only a couple of seconds then added, “Whoa.”

‘Yeah, like that. But the Intelligence stat doesn’t affect creativity or knowledge. You’ll learn and process faster, but you still have to study.’

Margaret just nodded, content for the first time on her new planet.

The group made it to the city with a few hours to spare before sunset. There was a wall around the city, but it seemed geared more towards keeping out wild animals than invading armies. For one thing, a tall human could look straight over it without rising up on their toes, and for another, the stacked stone wasn’t held together with any kind of mortar that Margaret could see.

A lone guard lounged by the entrance to the city, which was just an opening in the wall that the road passed through. He was not human, but not a kobold either. Since those were the only species that Margaret had personal experience with, she was at a loss. He did look vaguely human, built like a bouncer at a dive bar. What made him definitely not human was the green-grey skin, pointed ears, and oversized lower canine teeth that stuck up out of his lips like upside-down vampire fangs.

Before they reached the guard’s earshot, she bent over and asked Truth what kind of being he was.

“Hmm? Oh, he’s an orc. I forget that there’s so much your planet doesn’t have.”

Margaret hesitated. “Aren’t orcs... dangerous? I remember them from a Lord of the Rings movie, they were definitely the bad guys.”

Truth shot her a slightly disbelieving look. “What? No. I mean, sure, there are bad orcs, but there’s bad everything. Being an orc’s got nothing to do with it. They do show up in jobs where size and strength matter a bit more often, so expect to see a lot of them as guards or soldiers.”

The orc in question barely raised his eyes from what Margaret was a little embarrassed to realize was the book he’d been reading to acknowledge their group.

“Welcome to Brightwater. Purpose of your visit?”

Honor stepped ahead of the rest to answer for the group. “We come from our village to trade and seek settlers that may wish to relocate to our growing community.”

The guard snorted. “Normally, I’d laugh you right back out of town, but things have been rough with these conflicts sprouting up. Lot’s of refugees and displaced people finding their way down here.”

For a moment, Margaret was struck by the fact that her kobold friends were speaking their native language of whistles and trills and the orc was responding in English, or the Trade Language, as they called it. She was so used to Pia automatically translating everything for her that she almost forgot that they were speaking two different languages.

Then the content of their conversation caught up with her. “Conflicts?” Margaret asked.

“Aye,” the orc nodded. “Fights popping up everywhere between the old guard and this new upstart religion. Me, I was perfectly happy with the old pantheon, not that I was that devout about it, mind you. These new guys are just causing trouble if you ask me.”

“Where can we find these refugees?”

The guard looked Margaret straight in the eye until she felt like she was shrinking in front of him.

“Now, these people are more than this town can handle right now, and they’ve about used up the generosity of the good people of Brightwater, but they’re still people, you get me? Excuse me for saying, but you don’t exactly have the look of a young lord out to found a new city. If you expect these people to pay for the privilege of moving to your place, they’ve not got the money to spare.”

Truth tugged on Margaret’s hand until her friend tore her gaze from the suddenly frightening guard and looked at her. “Margaret, I do believe that the good guard’s uniform could use a cleaning,” she said with a low voice.

Shocked, the guard began examining his uniform when he was hit smack in the chest with one of Margaret’s Cleanse skills. His uniform wasn’t filthy by any stretch, but standing guard near a dirt road all day wasn’t the environment to keep your clothing spotless. He watched wide-eyed as the dirt and mud from his clothes, boots, skin, and even the odd pile of nastiness left by a farm animal pulling a cart of produce just lifted off and vanished into thin air.

The guard’s eyes immediately took on a calculating glint as he stepped back to pick his book up from the wall behind him. He held the book in front of him and narrowed his eyes at Margaret.

“Do it again,” he ordered.

She complied, raising her hand and letting loose a blast of cleaning energy that attacked the book, restoring color to the cover that had picked up bits of grime from over the years, and even removing a stain from where a liquid had been spilled on it some time past.

Narrowed eyes opened wide and the guard gave a quick bow from the west. “Perhaps I should be a little more devout to the old pantheon, it seems. The refugees typically gather around the fountain in the central square. There’s a fine inn nearby, The Sunny Squire. Please mind who you show that to, it could cause a panic in the town. The cultists haven’t had any luck here yet, mind you. The town’s loyal.”

The group made their way to the square in question, passing several side streets and other inns along the way. The refugees must have had another place to stay the night since the square was fairly cleared out by the time Margaret and the kobolds got there. The found the inn without trouble and managed to book rooms for the night.

“Two rooms, please,” Margaret told the innkeeper, a lovely looking lady that was perhaps in her mid-thirties. “Adjoining if you have it,” she added.

“Dinner and breakfast?” the innkeeper asked as she handed Honor two keys after taking the coins he had offered her.

Margaret looked to Honor, since he was bankrolling the stay and she had no idea if they had the money for it. He gave her a comfortable nod, giving Margaret the idea that it was not a problem.

“Yes, please,” she answered the innkeeper.

Honor and Naps took one room, while Margaret shared the other with Truth. The innkeeper herself brought them up a steaming bowl of stew and a good chunk of fresh bread with a spoon of butter for each of them, which they all scarfed down hungrily in Margaret’s room without a word. Afterword, the boys went to their room and Margaret crawled into the bed she and Truth were sharing. Truth lay down facing Margaret so that her tail would hang off the bed and not disturb her roommate while Margaret lay on her back, and the two were almost immediately asleep.