Dan woke up with bright pinpricks stabbing into his eyes and an even colder pinprick of a waterfall of freezing water flowing onto him. He began to flap about and whack at everything that was ruining his sleep but his hands didn’t connect with anything. Finally he managed to roll off the bed to the howling laughter of Revon and sweet dry floor. Sitting up Dan finally shook the last vestiges of tiredness from his eyes and glared at the swordsman.“Not cool man. Seriously, what is wrong with you?”

Revon said nothing to defend himself and instead pulled the sopping wet man to his feet and pulled him out of the room. “Enough time for sleeping, we need to get you a real bath. Check out your debuffs. No clue how you’ve managed this long without one but we need to make sure you aren’t driving away anyone with a quest with that stench.”

Pulling up his status page, sure enough there was a Stinky debuff sitting there. With a sigh he let himself get dragged to the owner of the Inn and made pay for the bath since he had nothing on him.. He was told to wait for them to fill it so Revon pulled him to the table his team was at. “Hey Dan!” Alicia seemed particularly happy to see him, though the evil smile didn’t do much to put his mind at ease. “Listen, I need a favor!”

And here comes the source of the evil smile. Dan slumped into his chair, still soaked and grumpy as he glared at Revon and looked back over at Alicia who was trying to give him puppy dog eyes. “Alright, I’ll do whatever it is as long as you promise to dunk Revon in a river later today.” Her grin only grew as he said that.

“Sooo… my powers let me transform into an animal that I killed. And I haven’t seen any Rabbit quite like your Raille. So I need you to let me kill him.” Dan choked down the biscuit he had just begun to eat. He had already agreed to let her do this but it would take so much health and mana to summon it just for him to die again. And then if he wanted to level it more he would need even more.

Fortunately he was saved by the Inn owner roughly tapping him on the shoulder and pointing him up the stairs. “Your bath is ready. No more than fifteen minutes allowed in there. Your time starts now.” Upon hearing that the powerful Bunnymancer tripped over his seat to get up and get up the stairs. Surely it wouldn’t take that long to take a bath?

Just as he was putting his shirt back on the Inn owner bustled in and quite literally threw him out. “Your time is up. I need to empty this quickly before more people want breakfast. I have work to do.” Well that at least explained why he was in such a hurry. Dan felt incredibly refreshed after his bath. He didn’t realize how crusty he felt from sleeping in his armor and he had a pleasant mood after getting a slight buff to charisma for being well groomed. He certainly couldn’t complain about that.

His team was waiting for him at the door and Greg threw him a biscuit as they were walking out to complete his meager breakfast. Alicia and Revon were discussing something ahead of them and Dan realized he knew almost nothing about his teammates as he followed them. May as well start learning, right? “Hey Greg, how are you this morning?” Getting a strange look for his question Dan let out a sigh. “Look man, I just want to get to know you guys. So uh, what do you do outside the game? You don’t have to tell me your job or anything, just what do you do for fun?”

“Fun? Oh well I follow some e-sports! I love to see the absolute best players of a game show how the game is really meant to be played! I have no clue if there’s any kind of pro league for this game planned but I really would love to be looked up to like the pros! People like Massive Stonks in LoW are really fun people and they stream a lot so you really get to know them! Oh! You kind of remind me of Stonks! You’re a tank like him and you swear a lot like him!”

Dan stopped in his tracks as a realization hit him square in the face. Greg got the rest of the crew to come back as Dan stood rooted in place. “Wait… so you’re saying… I swear a lot? Like even right now?” Everyone nodded confused. Alicia walked forward a bit to say something.

“I was actually planning to bring it up tonight. It’s kind of uncomfortable how vulgar you can be sometimes. Can you maybe, like tone it down a few notches.” Dan buried his head in his hands laughing for a minute. His team was just standing there completely nonplussed and looking more annoyed by the second..

“I just figured something out. I don’t think I’ve swore a single time around you guys. But- but, I do have under ten charisma.” Greg and Alicia’s faces both lit up in realization as Revon stood there looking even more angry that he was being left out of some big reveal.

“What about it? You can be an abyssal jerk sometimes, but you’re a good tank so we let it go. What? Why is everyone staring at me like that?” Revon still seemed to not get the point Dan was making. Greg finally spoke up, looking excited and mortified at the thought,

“Revon, he never swore. The game is messing with us. Seriously watch his mouth as he talks. I thought it was just a glitch but the game is actively messing with everything he is saying. This means that he must be making so many people angry without even realizing it! Oh, the innkeeper gave us all the time we needed for our Baths but he only gave Dan fifteen minutes! Oh wow! That’s so devious! Dan buddy! Don’t worry we completely understand! But we do need you to make getting above ten charisma a goal for this week! Oh wow though! I’m so glad none of the rest of us had an attribute under ten!”

They continued towards the forest once again and Dan began to think more about all his interactions. Surely he must have overpaid for everything. Even his shields! It wasn’t the shields themselves that the bored merchant was happy about, he must have been scamming Dan out the wazoo for it! Luckily he never paid for any armor… his armor! Oh they needed to stop and pick it up!

“Hey guys, before we head out, uh, in the opposite way from the gates I have some armor I needed to pick up that I just remembered about. Can I go and pick it up and I’ll meet you guys out in the woods?” When his team gave assenting nods Dan hurried the other way and struggled to go against the flow of the crowd of adventurer’s heading out the gates to hunt for the day. After a good ten minutes of struggling finally the roads cleared up and he managed to make his way into the Armorer’s shop. Dinton was nowhere to be seen but instead his apprentice was there, hanging up pelts behind the counter. When the bell dinged as Dan walked in he beamed and rushed forward to shake Dan’s hands.

He only just now realized he never really looked at the man nor heard him talk. This man was built like a mountain when he wasn’t sitting behind the counter. His arms were covered in muscles and his browned skin was covered in sweat from whatever it was that armorers did. Still he did not speak, instead he walked behind the counter and pulled out a notebook and quill. Writing inside it for a minute he ripped out the page and held it out to Dan.

‘Hello, Dan! I wish I could say this to you myself but unfortunately I am unable to speak. I did really want to thank you for all those pelts you gave to me last night! When I returned later on I spent the whole night experimenting and managed to climb all the way to level ten and specialize! I can’t thank you enough! But what I can do is give you the armor I made as a gift and to show my good will towards you despite your language being crude at times towards my mentor!’

While Dan had been reading the note Gildan had brought a mannequin to the front of the counter. On the mannequin was a set of beautiful orange striped armor. It looked almost like a set of plate armor yet when Dan touched it, it was elastic enough to be pushed in and back out when he stopped pressing it. He was speechless as he beheld such a masterpiece of armor. He had no idea simple leather could be so wonderful.

Looking up at Gildan he made to say something but words failed him and he could only do as Gildan was motioning him to do and put on the set of armor. Setting his shields on the counter Dan spent a few minutes fitting the new armor on top of his underclothes and looked at himself in the reflection of a highly polished silver set of platemail. He truly looked like the tank he was meant to be. Turning back to thank Gildan again, Dan saw he was busy putting pelts up to dry again and figured it was a sign that his visit was at an end. Promising to repay him again Dan hurried through town to get back to the gates.

When he was inside the forest and out of sight of everyone else Dan realized he still had to summon his Raille and realized this was the perfect opportunity to do so. While he wasn’t fully on board with letting his teammate kill his familiar he figured it was for the good of all of them in the long run. With a twinge of pain he felt his health and mana pour out of him and into his Rabbit. That twinge soon expanded further and it wasn’t long until he was on the ground panting and close to death. After a few minutes Dan looked up and saw his Raille standing protectively over him.

Your Familiar has reached level 6.

“Well you’ve had a busy night, huh buddy?” His Raille twitched when he heard Dan speak and moved away from him to go snack on the nearby Rabbits.Dan realized he needed a name for his companion but had no clue where to even begin. Signing Dan left it as a problem for another time. Standing up and stretching Dan looked over himself and when his health hit the three quarter mark he set off with his Raille to go find his team.

After nearly an hour of wandering blindly he ran into his team recovering from a bout with some foxes. Revon waved him over and Alicia jumped up excitedly. “You’re finally here! And that armor looks amazing! Is it made out of Foxes? Nevermind that! Move! You promised to let me kill your Rabbit and I already dunked Revon!”

Looking over Dan could see a suspiciously wet Revon looking miserable from bites along his arms and torso. Oof, he must have been tanking for the team while he was picking up his armor. Dan was about to sigh in frustration but realized it was still before afternoon and he had been sighing far too much. He looked up and nodded realizing he could just resummon Raille, no biggie, right? And it would help the team out.

As Dan moved to the side Alicia squealed and turned into a fox to begin eating away at the massive bunny. He looked annoyed as he glanced at Dan but did nothing as his health slowly drained away. There must have been some mechanic to stop summons from turning against teammates, interesting. As Revon let out a sigh of his own, Dan had enough of sigh’s and summoned a glitterflit to heal up Revon. Finally after watching Alicia try to kill the Rabbit for a whole two minutes it gave up the ghost and died. Looking over Alicia gave him her smile again, which was far more evil looking on a fox than a girl.

“So about that glitterflit…” Dan nodded and summoned one which was killed within a few seconds showing its relative frailty compared to his own mega bunny. Dan began to summon his Raile yet again and this time tried to stay conscious the whole time, even after losing all his health. He barely managed it, and fell over on his Raille as he waited for his health and mana to begin to regenerate. When he was fully healed up his team and him set off yet again. It was time to hunt wolves.

Alicia began to fill the team in on wolves as they walked further in, while Dan was trying to ignore the Fox carcass in his backpack. While it was more efficient to use Rabbits for his summons he was still technically a necromancer and could raise a Fox which was more powerful than the standard rabbit. And Abyss it, he couldn’t only use bunnies! Surely no one would want to read a story about some Bunny summoning hooligan, right? And he agreed with Greg that being known as a skilled player or even a pro sounded cool! Though he could do without all the streams and stuff.

Dan realized he had not heard a single thing Alicia said and looked up to get a disapproving glare from her, “As I was saying, now that everyone is back from lala land, wolves are apparently a cut above the other animals here. They’re intelligent, though not human levels of intelligence, and will work with the entire pack to take you guys down. I would love another team member to help us but we will make do for now. In any case we’ll go with the same formation we did with the foxes but be prepared for anything, I don’t want us to get caught off guard. Any questions? No? Good, let’s go.”

Right as she finished talking she turned around to a hairy mass of gray fur tackling her to the ground. Greg was the first to react and managed to get off a close range shot from his slingshot, while it didn’t do much damage the ball glowed white and the point of the wolf’s muzzle that it struck froze over. The rest of us were soon in action. Dan jumped over the duo wrestling on the ground to intercept another three wolves with his expanding shields.

He was forced back several steps from the impact, though one of the wolves was down from driving his head too hard into a spike. Dan took a second to look behind himself and saw Raille and a light green copy of the big bunny digging into the wolf, meanwhile Revon ran around the side of the shield to take down one of the furry menaces! Dan let go of the shield wall and dumped his bag upside-down. The fox corpse flopped to the ground and Dan started casting the spell to bring it back. It took a ton of extra mana and health but luckily it wasn’t as much as summoning his Raille.

The fox twitched to life and with a quick order ran to the opposite side of the shield wall to attack the second wolf trying to get at the party. Finally with a ripping sound the three behind us managed to take down they gray wolf and joined the fight in front of them. Dan meanwhile summoned a Glitterflit and sent it to heal the fox. As soon as its horn impacted the undead creature the golden healing light impacted the creature and surrounded it before it dropped dead, er, dropped even more dead.

Slapping himself in the forehead Dan realized that of course any kind of healing doesn’t affect zombies, that is old school gaming 101. With a grunt Dan grabbed one of the shields composing his wall and slammed it into the wolf mauling Revon, finishing the creature off, while the others were left to kill off the last one.

Looking over to congratulate the group Dan saw Revon go oddly still before slumping to the ground. Rushing over he had his glitterflit heal him until he was full but nothing happened. Alicia walked over and sighed, surely there was an end to this constant sighing in sight, right? “Abyss it, his wife must have pulled off his headset again. Okay, we’re going to have to carry him out and be sure to avoid any of the major wild territories until he comes back. Dan you grab his legs, I’ll get his arms, and Greg you keep a lookout.”

With an affirmative nod Greg began to scout out around us as the two adventurers picked up the unconscious man and began to awkwardly walk him out of the woods. It took several hours of huffing and puffing and a few fox attacks, since they saw a tasty snack in Revon, but we finally made it to the front gates where the Raille was released to the wild until tomorrow and we walked Revon past some curious bystanders and the gate guards. It took but a quick explanation of how our friend was knocked unconscious by wolves for us to be let through. Alicia paid for a room for him and turned to the rest of us. “Well that was a disaster. We need to be more vigilant next time since I don’t relish dying again, though I think that’s enough for the day. Go off and do whatever, I’m just going to log off until tomorrow.”

With that said she went upstairs to her own room and her icon turned gray to show she was offline. Greg logged off to watch some streamer or some such and Dan was left alone wondering what he was to do. Well it was an MMO, right? Surely there’s some crafting he could do once he turned in those wolf pelts. Or he could go grind some low level bunnies for a while. In any case he still had half the day till nightfall and more than enough time to do what he wanted. Oh! First let us go off to see his god!