Accessing your STATUS screen will end immersion mode. Immersion mode can be reactivated at any time from the options menu. Are you sure you want to view your stats? Y/N

Don was surprised by the prompt. He was more surprised by the spoon that sailed through it and hit him before cracking Kat over the head too. Don decided the mysteries of status would have to wait until Grey was done with him. The prompt disappeared as if it read his mind. Grey was squeaking at Kat who hurried over to add his haul to the plant pile. Don followed the two over and found a third gob crouched over the pile, rummaging through it. This new gob was small even for the tribe. Its skin hung loose and pale. Its eyes were bordered by dark skin. He wore a vine slung over his shoulder like a sash. Kat introduced him.

“This Sik” he said, poking the gob to be sure Don understood. “We put plants away”

Sik slapped absently at the offending finger without looking up from the plants. Don sat and got as comfortable as he could next to the pile. Kat coached Don through identifying the different useful plants and sorting them out. He paid special attention to the poisonous ones. A good amount of the plants were useless and were thrown onto the fire. Grey must’ve started a new one while Don wasn’t looking.

Don was able to sort out a surprising number of the plants compared to the other two. His advantage of two fingers over the gobs probably made up for his lacking knowledge. A lot of the work was untangling the plants without shredding them after all.

At one point Don grabbed a plant which immediately made his hand itch, quickly followed by burning. He dropped the plant with a gasp and before he knew it, Sik was there. He pulled a leaf from his vine and stroked Don’s palm with it before throwing the leaf onto the fire. The burning quickly settled back to a tingling itch. Sik squeaked at Don before settling back into a crouch by what remained of the pile.

“What was that?” Don asked

“Fire root” Kat answered as he used his sack to move the root into its own pile. Don made a note of the small orange hairs sticking up from the plant. He didn’t want to be caught by surprise like that again.

“I mean what did he say?”

Kat gave a mocking grin “He say you stupid”

“I’m not stupid” Don said louder than he meant to.

“You no hunt, you no speak, you not know fire root. You stupid” Kat laid this out like it was the simplest thing in the world.

Don grumbled “Let's see any of you plot interplanetary vectors” and it made him feel a bit better until he realized all his skills weren’t useful anymore. He was starting from nothing here. With that sobering realization, he went back to sorting the plants.

Next, Sik and Kat hung the plants on the wall inside the alcove where Don spent the day. He didn’t help partly because of his injury and partly because his large frame would get in the way of the two quick gobs.

He glanced over at the fire. Grey was busy cooking and guarding dinner so Don took the chance to investigate his status.

“Status” he commanded and a familiar prompt appeared before him again. He thought ‘yes’ before anything could interrupt him again and was greeted with a page of personal information. He also noticed a few colored bars appear on the edge of his vision. When he moved his head to get a clear look at them the bars and the status window moved too. He decided to read his status screen before investigating the bars.

Basic Information

Name Donovan Race Demon Sex Male Age ageless (current apparent age 20) Level 0 EXP 0/50

Vitals:

HP 97/105 STA 40/40 MANA 55/55

Active effects:

Crippled (43 hours) Hungry

Stats:

STR 10 AGI 10 DEX 12 INT 11 WIS 11 CON 21 END 8 (10)

Traits:

Demonic You have a demonic body. Every level, your demonic traits will increase. On level: +1 STR +1 WIS Demonic skill tree available Death’s roommate You have spent so much time at death's door, He’s let you in Chance to sense lethal attacks

Skills:

Punching bag: Apprentice 6 16% decrease to damage taken from unarmed attacks Training Dummy Apprentice 4 So long as you don’t resist, skills used on you will progress 14% faster Alchemy Apprentice 2 You can create weak potions, 2% increased effects for potions you administer personally. Goblin Language Apprentice 1 Can communicate on a rudimentary level with goblins

Don hardly understood anything on the screen. He focused on his name. At least he could understand that. As he was focusing another prompt popped up.

That’s your name. It means you.

The prompt faded after he read it. He couldn’t help but feel a little insulted. He tried focusing on the next entry, his race. He was greeted with a more helpful prompt.

Naturally gifted with strength of arms as well as talent in the arcane arts, Demons are hated and feared in equal measure by all the civilized races of Arcadia. Their talent for destruction is only matched by their desire to sow seeds of misery across the land. They revel in causing torment and take particular pleasure in causing their victims to be the source of their own anguish. If you meet one, avoid conversation at all costs and pray for a swift death.

Don reread the passage to be sure he wasn’t imagining things. The priests either had a sick sense of humor in giving Don such an appropriate race or they were counting on the citizens of Arcadia to kill him on sight for all eternity. Fortunately, it seemed the blind animosity of the ‘civilized races’ didn’t extend to all the races. He didn’t know how lucky he was to be kidnapped by the gobs until now.

He continued scanning down the information. Sex was pretty self-explanatory but he caught on his age, or more to the point, his lack thereof.

You are ageless. You will never die from old age and can adjust your apparent age once per year from the options menu.

Well, that was interesting. He wouldn’t be able to disguise himself as an old geezer because of his race but that might come in handy later, much later. He had no intention of changing his age right now. He checked his level next.

Level: 0

That wasn’t helpful. What about exp

Experience until next level 0/50

Don sighed and resigned himself to waiting for Kat before he could figure out what levels and experience are for. He moved on to his vitals.

HP is a measure of your overall health. It will decrease with injury. If completely depleted, you will die. STA is your stamina. It is used to power certain skills and actions. Having a low stamina will make tasks more difficult. MANA is a gauge of your ability to draw on arcane forces. Performing spells will decrease your mana. As your mana depletes it will become more difficult to focus.

Making a mental note to keep an eye on his HP and another to ask Kat more about spells he examined the next entry.

Crippled Your right leg will not bear weight for 43 hours (crudely bandaged) or 129 hours (untreated) Hungry Your endurance is reduced 20% until you eat. This condition will worsen over time.

So that was why he couldn’t stand. It looked like Grey really did help him out. He would be mobile again in a third the time it would take him to heal on his own. He finally got to the real prize, his stats.

STR

STR is a measure of your physical strength. Among other things, it affects

- Physical defense

- Melee damage

- Carrying capacity

AGI

AGI is a measure of your overall speed. Among other things, it affects

- Attack speed

- Dodge

- Stealth

DEX

DEX is a measure of your dexterity. Among other things, it affects

- Block

- Weapon accuracy

- Crafting Skill

WIS

WIS is a measure of your accumulated knowledge. Among other things, it affects

- Mana recovery

- Spell control

- Perception

INT

INT is a measure of your mental capacity. Among other things, it affects

- Maximum Mana

- Spell strength

- Memory

CON

CON is a measure of your overall health. Among other things, it affects

- Maximum HP

- Stamina regen

- disease and poison resistance

END

END is a measure of your physical fitness. Among other things, it affects

- Maximum stamina

- Reduced strain from low pools

- Reduced sleep and food requirements

Don was happy to see such a high value for his constitution. It looked like each point was worth another 5HP. He would have to ask Kat why some stats were so much higher than others. He moved on to his traits.

Demonic: As a male demon you will gain an additional point in STR and WIS every level. You also have access to demonic skills. Warning, you start with a reputation of -1000 with every civilized settlement due to your demonic nature. Death's Roommate: You have died 25 times during your first day in Arcadia without initiating combat once. Death is fed up with your frequent visits and grants you a chance to foresee lethal attacks.

Don assumed more points was a good thing but he was getting irritated at all the references to levels without any explanation. He cringed at being reminded how many times he had died yesterday but he welcomed the odd second trait. Anything that could keep him from dying again was welcome. He didnot want to go back to that crypt. He finally came to the last section, his skills.

Punching bag: take over 1000 unarmed attacks in one day without fighting back. You have been toughened by the fists of your enemies. Unarmed attacks will have less of an effect on you. Training Dummy: 50 players have learned combat skills by attacking you while you didn’t defend yourself. It is now easier for others to learn skills by practicing them on you. Alchemy: You have been taught the rudiments of alchemy. With the proper tools and ingredients, you can cure a wide range of ailments, or cause them. Goblin Language: Why you would bother to learn this language is beyond even the greatest scholars. That is why they never have. Learn to speak with these little monsters and all their secrets can be yours. Secrets like, which bug is most tasty, or which mud puddle is best.

Don cringed again at the reminders of his torture. He looked furtively at the brawling gobs. It was probably a good idea to keep his training dummy skill to himself. He didn’t want every gob in the tribe lining up to hit him, or more likely mobbing him all at once. The alchemy skill was more interesting. It looked like his time helping Grey paid off. He would have to try hard to learn more and he would probably have plenty of chances judging by the timer on his crippled status. Don got a little angry reading the Goblin language prompt. He figured it referred to the gobs because he hadn’t been learning any other languages. It seemed like whoever was writing these prompts had a pretty low opinion of his new tribe. He resolved to learn the language to the point of fluency just out of spite. He already learned alchemy without knowing the language. He was sure he could learn more if he could talk with them.

Kat finished storing the last of the plants and came to join Don.

“Hey Kat, this status spell is really something else”

“Kat tell you, is good spell” He beamed at the simple praise.

“I’m confused about some of the information. Can I ask you some questions?” Don asked hesitantly. He shouldn’t have been worried. Kat nodded his head so hard his ears flapped back and forth. “Great, first of all, what are levels?”

Kat opened his wide mouth to answer but was interrupted by a loud scuffling and squeaking. Dinner had begun. Kat left the question unanswered and hurried over to the fire to get a piece of meat. Don sighed and crawled after him.

He got to the fire and waited for a bit but Grey clearly wasn’t going to give him special treatment again. Don shouldered his way into the scrum of gobs dancing around the fire. He reached out and pulled a small but juicy leg from over the fire. He sat back to eat but a gob knocked it out of his hand and scuttled off before Don realized it was there. His rabbit haunch lost to the crowd he pulled another piece from the fire. He kept a tighter grip on this one but as soon as he began to eat another gob was at his elbow trying to steal his food. Don yanked the morsel away from that gob only for another one on his other side to snatch his dinner again.

“Hey” Don shouted but too late. The rabbit was already gone again. Don reached up for the third time and took one of the last pieces of rabbit. Wasting no time he stuffed the meat into his mouth so no one else could steal it. He looked around savagely at the little gobs but being on his hands and knees this was less intimidating than he intended. Cheeks bulging, he crawled out of the small scale battle and relaxed against a wall to chew in peace. Kat re-appeared next to him like nothing had happened.

“Level is how strong you are. If you low level, don’t fight high level.” Kat explained

“Okay, what about exp?”

“EXP comes from rabbits. You kill rabbit, you get EXP. get enough EXP and level goes up.” Don was following so far. He still wasn’t totally clear on levels but he knew he wanted a higher level than 0.

“Do you know why some of my stats are higher than others?” Don asked

Kat made a noncommittal grunt “Maybe training. When I sneak lots, I get AGI”

Don looked back at the stat descriptions. It looked like AGI helped sneaking so doing the actions associated with a stat might increase that stat.

“What about END, how do you train that?”

“Get hit lots” Kat answered simply. Well, that was one mystery solved. The mob was training his END all day yesterday.

“Do you know any more spells? The Mana description says something about them.”

“No spells, Kat sneaker not caster”

“What’s a caster”

“Gob who uses spells” Kat picked absently at his teeth looking for any extra bits of meat.

“Are any of the other gobs casters?” Don asked. Kat pointed at Grey. Don should have known. At least he would have time to ask her about spells. He facepalmed. How was he supposed to ask Grey about spells when they could barely speak to each other?

“Kat, can you teach me gob-squeak?”

Kat gave Don a sidelong look. “Why you want gob-squeak when I speak humie?”

Don gestured to the tussling tribe. “They can’t speak humie” Don caught himself using Kat’s word and paused for a second before shrugging and going with it “I want to talk with them too. Why do they always fight anyways?”

“That other status, tribe status” Kat answered “Strongest gob is best, gobs fight to prove who strongest”

“Why don’t you fight then?” Don asked

“I am best finder, they see and leave me alone, same with Sik” Kat pointed across the cave. Sik was sitting in a corner. He wasn’t being attacked by the other gobs but they weren’t paying him any other kind of attention either.

“What’s special about Sik?”

“Sik ‘prentice to Grey, he make good potions. Other gobs not best, so they fight to prove they strong.”

Don pondered this for a while before asking “If they’re trying to prove they’re strong, why don’t any of them attack me?” Don didn’t expect Kat to laugh but he did, long and hard before wiping a tear from his eye.

“You too weak. You newest gob so lowest. Only get status for fighting stronger gobs” Don didn’t think he was that much weaker than the puny monsters but he was glad. It meant so long as he didn’t challenge any of the other gobs he wouldn’t be a target.

“Okay, so I’m weak. Will you teach me anyway?”

Kat shrugged as if to say ‘what else am I going to do around here?’ and started teaching Don more goblin words.