1

“You know, your sword isn’t going to do you any good for hunting,” Emma told Jordan as they climbed the hill.

He laughed. “I’m aware of that. I’ve equipped it in case anything attacks us in here.” They were quiet for the rest of the way up the slope. When they reached the top, the sun was rising on the horizon, showering the landscape with orange hues. “It’s still early,” Jordan commented. Unlike the eerie silence he’d experienced the previous evening, Jordan saw that the forest was brimming with life. He saw leathery birds flying between the trees, jackrabbits hopping through the grass, and squirrels darting up tree trunks. The sounds of insects buzzing and birds cawing engulfed them. “Wow. We won’t have any trouble finding food,” he said, pointing at the trees. “How ‘bout we scale up those two trees and hunt from the cover of the leaves. We need to get used to our climbing abilities anyway.”

Emma agreed. With their claws extended, they ascended fifty feet in no time. They grinned at each other from adjacent trees. “The others should’ve listened to Miguel about choosing the Grimalkin race,” he said.

“Eh, their loss, our gain,” she replied mischievously.

They retracted their claws, then readied their bows. The claws on their feet remained extended, sinking into the rough bark of the trees. Once they were under the leaves, the hunting was easy. There were dozens of the leathery birds occupying the trees. The birds perched their surprisingly large bodies on the thicker branches. Emma was the first to take aim, drawing the arrow back on her bow and watching the bird through an opening in the leaves. As she aimed, the bird’s details appeared.

PTERO CROW (Level 1)

HP: 20

MP: 0

STRENGTH: 9

CONSTITUTION: 2

DEXTERITY: 19

INTELLIGENCE: 1

WISDOM: 7

XP: 18

DESCRIPTION: Pterodactyl’s great-grandchildren.

She released the arrow and watched as it impaled the bird, which fell silently to the ground below. Alerted, the other birds on that branch immediately took off. Jordan and Emma scrambled down their trees. When they reached the ground, she picked up the dead bird. “Let me try something.” She searched through her internal menu, and a moment later the bird vanished from her hands. The arrow that had killed the animal dropped into her palms.

“Wow,” Jordan exclaimed. “What did you do?”

“I put it away in my inventory. There’s a section called Food and Herbs that can hold ten entries.”

They sprinted to another location in the forest and climbed more trees. Over the next hour, Emma and Jordan bagged another six birds each, bringing Emma’s total to seven birds and raising her to level 6. The leveling up bumped her base points up by 10. Her strength and dexterity stats received an extra 10 points each.

Meanwhile, Jordan nailed six birds, adding to his 116 experience points. The 108 points he received from the birds raised his XP to 224. As they hung from the trees, Emma proposed they hunt the rabbits and squirrels next. “Sure, but hang on a minute,” Jordan said.

He leaped fifteen feet to Emma’s tree, latching onto the bark just below her. He peered up at her with a sly grin. “I can see up your chain mail,” he joked.

Emma snorted.

Jordan climbed up to the thick limb she was perched on, sliding up beside her. She looked back at him, bewildered. He retracted his claws, put his arms around her, and leaned in to smell her neck. “Oh,” she cooed. He kissed her. It sent tingles down both of their spines. His blue palm brushed through her long blonde hair and she wrapped her arm around his waist. He tilted back and looked into her green eyes. “You know, this might be the forest talking, but I’m a cat in heat and I’ve never done it in a tree,” he quipped.

She shook her head. “And you’re not doing it now, but hold on to that thought. I’ll take a rain check.” Emma scanned the forest. “Right now, we’re in charge of the food and there are a lot of hungry troops down there.”

Jordan nodded begrudgingly. They scampered down the tree and started after the rabbits and squirrels. Emma tried the throwing knives and was surprised by how aerodynamic they were. She spotted a squirrel climbing a tree and threw one. The knife, which was weighted more heavily toward the double-edged point, glided through the air and stabbed the squirrel. As the animal quickly died, its details flashed for an instant.

SQUIRREL (Level 1)

HP: 11

MP: 0

STRENGTH: 2

CONSTITUTION: 1

DEXTERITY: 12

INTELLIGENCE: 1

WISDOM: 5

XP: 10

DESCRIPTION: Common earth squirrel, fast and squirrelly.

Jordan was impressed and switched to the knives too. Within twenty minutes, they collected seven more squirrels. Emma had four and Jordan caught three. They saw a rabbit munching grass by a large Douglas tree. Jordan put his knives away and aimed with the bow. As the arrow sailed through the air and skewered the animal’s head, its description popped up briefly.

JACKRABBIT SLIM (Level 1)

HP: 16

MP: 0

STRENGTH: 6

CONSTITUTION: 1

DEXTERITY: 17

INTELLIGENCE: 1

WISDOM: 9

XP: 15

DESCRIPTION: You have killed a bunny, you monster.

He turned to Emma. “Whoever designed this game has got a weird sense of humor.” He snatched the rabbit, which was very plump despite its descriptor name. They had killed twenty-two animals but only had ten food inventory slots each, so Jordan carried the rabbit and one squirrel as they headed back toward the cave. “I think they’re gonna be happy with breakfast,” he remarked.

“Yup, that was a decent haul,” Emma replied. She gazed at the sky, which was turning light blue. “It’s too bad we can’t just stay here and relax. It’s so peaceful.” Jordan agreed, but they knew they had limited time. When they got close to camp, they stopped and looked at the team below. Everyone was awake and fully dressed. Miguel and Harper were sitting by the pool, away from the group, speaking quietly to each other.

They heard a laugh and saw Brett yucking it up with Zack and Janna. “I think he’s going to be okay,” Emma said, referring to Brett. Jordan said nothing. They remained there for a moment, watching the team bond.

“Don’t forget our rain check,” he said.

She grabbed his free hand. “Not a chance.” They sauntered down the rest of the slope to the hungry team.

2

The members skinned and cooked the animals the traditional way, skewering them over the fire. It took a good hour to cook all twenty-two animals and another half-hour to eat them. The squirrels were tough and stringy, but the birds and rabbit were delicious. The orcs devoured almost double what everyone else consumed, but that was expected.

While they ate, Ethan, Jordan, and Damon expressed frustration about notifications popping up in the middle of the goblin battle. Harper had a closer look at her main settings and discovered the notifications could be set to a person’s activity level over a time span. She suggested they set it at ten percent activity level over a ten-second time span. All non-urgent notifications would delay until then had reached the 10/10 threshold. Everyone adjusted their settings accordingly except for Harper herself. She wanted to see what Miguel had busted a gut over during the silicate battle.

They discussed attribute point designation next. Jordan had 40. Damon had 8. Emma and Ethan had 28. Miguel said he had an idea and asked the members to make sure their telepathy was turned on. He gave them a few seconds to make the adjustments.

“Let’s start with you, Jordan,” he said. “Pull up your stats.” Miguel concentrated on Jordan, and after a moment, the mage was able to see his stats. He asked the rest of the team to focus on Jordan, and soon everyone could see his stats.

Jordan

RACE: Grimalkin

CLASS: Hunter (Level 11)

STATUS: Normal

HP: 81

HPR: 1.08/s

MP: 40

MPR: 1/s

STRENGTH: 76

CONSTITUTION: 54

DEXTERITY: 65

INTELLIGENCE: 51

WISDOM: 50

ENDURANCE: 32

XP: 269

ATTRIBUTE POINTS: 40

“As a hunter class, you get extra points in strength and dexterity, right?”

Jordan nodded.

“Therefore, I think we should bump up your lower stats: intelligence, wisdom, and constitution.” He grinned at Harper. “I’m not as big a proponent on maxing as Harper is.”

She scoffed playfully. “No, no, no. Take it away, #39,” she teased, referencing his avatar name: MasterMiguel#39.

He laughed. No one else got the joke. “The other benefit is those stats bump up your HP and MP totals, so drop 12 into constitution and 14 into intelligence and wisdom each. Just use your thoughts to direct the numbers. Emma, you’re next.”

“I have my stats up,” she said. They focused on Emma’s stats; her numbers were lower at level 8 but the same logic applied to her. She distributed 8 into constitution and 10 into intelligence and wisdom each, which brought her to:

Emma

RACE: Grimalkin

CLASS: Hunter (Level 8)

STATUS: Normal

HP: 84

HPR: 1.12/s

MP: 44

MPR: 1.08/s

STRENGTH: 64

CONSTITUTION: 56

DEXTERITY: 53

INTELLIGENCE: 55

WISDOM: 54

ENDURANCE: 26

XP: 176

ATTRIBUTE POINTS: 0

Miguel took a different approach with the orcs. They were intended to be used as tanks, so he sided with Harper’s preference, maxing them on constitution and leaving their stats at:

Ethan

RACE: Valhallan Orc

CLASS: Warrior (Level 8)

STATUS: Normal

HP: 186

HPR: 2.48/s

MP: 19

MPR: .52/s

STRENGTH: 78

CONSTITUTION: 124

DEXTERITY: 29

INTELLIGENCE: 24

WISDOM: 26

ENDURANCE: 22

XP: 192

ATTRIBUTE POINTS: 0

Damon

RACE: Valhallan Orc

CLASS: Warrior (Level 3)

STATUS: Normal

HP: 126

HPR: 1.68/s

MP: 11

MPR: .32/s

STRENGTH: 58

CONSTITUTION: 84

DEXTERITY: 19

INTELLIGENCE: 14

WISDOM: 16

ENDURANCE: 12

XP: 58

ATTRIBUTE POINTS: 0

Once they were done with the attribute points, they realized how much the other members needed to level up, especially Janna and Brett. The two mages stressed how important it was to get their intelligence and wisdom stats raised so that, as healers, they’d have a larger mana pool to draw from. Damon, Zack, Brett, Emma, and Janna turned their telepathy functions off again. The team finished up the meal and placed three leftover squirrels in Janna’s food inventory. They took one last look at the pool before Damon stamped out the fire and stared up at the opening.

“Thirteen days left,” he said, then led the charge up into a new day.

3

When they arrived at the top of the cavern, Damon judged from the sun’s position that it was noon. They headed north and away from the rock face. As they traveled through the woods, the trees became more densely populated and the air got cooler. They slogged through the thick stretches of timbers and were glad their clothes had dried overnight. Rays of sunlight stabbed through openings in the tree line, providing the team with occasional warmth. Emma and Jordan remarked how different the forest was from the early morning. The wildlife was gone now, hiding in their dwellings. Still, they saw the odd ptero crow or squirrel and the less experienced members hunted them. Over the next hour, Angie bagged three squirrels and two ptero birds, which raised her to level 3.

At the same time, Harper tried out an experiment. She cast Firefly from her left palm and Fire Scorch from her right, combining the two spells between her hands, and received a prompt.

Brilliant, Harper! You have discovered: Fire Bullet, a concentrated slug of mana fire! Ranked advanced and available to all classes who possess Firefly and Fire Scorch, so tell all your friends. Fire Bullet has a cooldown rate of 15 seconds and a range of 30 meters. It has a base cost of 5 MP and can be charged at a rate of 3 mana per second for an additional 5 HP damage per second. Fire Bullet is an infinite spell, capped only by your mana limits. Harper, find some punks and make their day with Fire Bullet!

It took twenty seconds for her to read the text. In that time, the spell kept charging and depleted her mana totals. She glanced up at the spell. It had expanded to the size of a flaming baseball. She spotted a pair of squirrels skittering up a tree and flung it at them. The fireball annihilated both animals, blowing a considerable hole through the tree. Inside the hole, flames licked at the raw wood.

“Holy hotcakes,” Janna gasped. The team members gazed at her in shocked wonder.

Harper smiled at Miguel. “I just created a new spell,” she said proudly.

“You’re damn right you did,” he muttered. The squirrel raised her to level 2, and she had a chance to see what Miguel was laughing at on the first night.

Congratulations, Harper! You have gained 20 experience points, raising your XP to 29, and reaching level 2 of Mage class. You have graduated in rank from level one Pussy-Willow to level two Annoying Insect. Keep on buzzing, Harper! All of your base stats have been increased by 2. Your wisdom and intelligence have increased by an additional 2 points each. You have 4 attribute stat points to spend now or within 24 hours. What would you like to do?

She rolled her eyes at Miguel. “You lost it over ‘pussy-willow’?”

He laughed. “Oh, wait, there’s more.” Before she could reply, the second notification interrupted her.

I’m sorry, Harper. I’m not sure I understand your response. You have 4 attribute stat points to spend now or within 24 hours. What would you like to do?

Harper snickered. “Yeah, okay, I get it.”

Miguel shook his head. “Wait for it… wait for it…” he exaggerated. The third prompt appeared.

I’m sorry, Harper. I don’t know what that means. I will hold your 4 attribute stat points until you make a selection.

She started laughing, but not in the manner that Miguel did the night before.

They advanced through the woods while Harper enabled the delay on her notifications. The two mages tried more spell combos. They created an advanced-ranked Fire Glow combo from the Firefly and Glow spells. That combo created an orb of light the caster could direct. Over the next hour, Harper hunted more, using non-charged Fire Bullet spells to take down five more squirrels. That bumped her to level 4.

They approached the deepest part of the woods now. The trees stood only ten feet apart, and the brush became thicker. The dense umbrella of leaves blocked out the remaining sunlight. Emma cast Fire Glow, and it drove away the gloom. A familiar pest, large mosquitoes, started hounding the team. They rose from the thick bushes, badgering and distracting everyone. As they warded off the bugs, the members missed a gigantic piece of ribbed skin that had been discarded in the shrubs to their right. They also failed to detect the dead bodies that were decomposing under the brush.