As I walked in the direction of the smoke I saw earlier I found myself scanning the trees around me for enemies instinctively and Mae noticed.

"Good for you. It is so good to see you learning and growing," Mae said still flying beside me, "My little Teddy is all grown up and looking for threats."

"I've found that not wanting to get stabbed or shot again is a really good motivator for growth," I said still scanning the trees for enemies, "Turns out, even with blood loss not being a factor, it doesn't feel great."

"You may not enjoy this next bit then," Mae said as she grabbed my sleeve and gave it a little tug, "Straight ahead."

I stopped in my tracks and looked ahead. Sure enough, there were at least two enemies that I could see. They appeared to be forming a blockade along a path that was bisecting the forest trail we were currently on. They hadn't seen us yet as they were facing forward on their path which put us just barely behind them and to their right.

"This would be a good time to be sneaky," said Mae quietly, "Sneak attacks do more damage."

I nodded and circled around behind them like a cat stalking prey. This time there would be no twig giving away my position. This time there would be no mistakes. This time...

"Ow," I yelled as the arrow hit my left shoulder. I dropped the dagger I had in my left hand that was ready to strike the unsuspecting goblin. "Dang it all," I said as I drove the short sword into the other goblin with my right hand before he realized what was happening. He crumpled to the ground freeing my sword to swing at the one on the left who had been saved momentarily by the scout who saw me at the last second, but I had yet to see. I knew his general direction, but I wanted to take care of the close threat first.

In the confusion, I was able to get the other goblin down fairly quickly even though the sneak attack wasn't fully successful. I followed the trajectory of the arrow still stuck in my body and saw the goblin archer as he was pulling back another arrow. I was able to run around a tree which took the arrow like a champ and came around the side of the goblin before he could pull back again. Since he hadn't pulled out a bladed weapon or shield, he went down pretty quick.

Level up. You are now level 7.

New Special Ability Unlocked!

Mae flew out from behind a tree but didn't heal me this time. The arrow stuck out of me like a monolith of my failure. She acknowledged it, but didn't seem worried, "I don't see any other threats. This would be a good time to try out your new healing spell. Also, don't forget to spend your attribute points."

My health had only dropped 4 points so I concentrated on my new spell and held it until my health was full again. Seeing my body cartoonishly push out the arrow and reseal itself was equal parts satisfying and disgusting. Now that I didn't have an arrow in me I went straight to checking what the special ability message was all about. I focused on special abilities and the menu system popped into view.

Friend to Animals

Animals will automatically recognize you as a friendly entity. Even regularly aggressive animals will not attack you. Any friendly animal will understand your basic commands but can choose whether to obey or ignore you.

"That's interesting," I said slightly confused at the special ability I received, "How do special abilities work?"

"You'll get a new special ability every 7 levels. It may seem random to you, but every special ability is going to help you complete your journey in some way. You don't have to do anything to trigger special abilities they just become a part of you," Mae explained.

I looted the bodies and received junk and a few common items similar to my previous experience looting these lower-level enemies.

It was then that I realized that we were on a fairly well-maintained road. It was wide enough for a cart and had the wheel grooves to prove it. "Mae, I bet this road leads to a village or town. It looks like the path is well used by carts carrying supplies or something similar." I said excitedly.

"I bet this is the road between Bettyford and Roseglen!" Mae said mirroring my excitement.

"I thought you said you had all the same location knowledge that I had," I said with an eyebrow raised, "How do you know village names?"

"The forest spoke to me, Teddy. Specifically, the signpost part of the forest," she said pointing at the sign she had read.

Sure enough, it blended in with the trees just enough to make it difficult for me to spot. "I have got to raise my precision attribute. That will help with my perception, won't it?" I said with hope that the higher the attribute, the higher my chances of not getting shot again. "I'm really starting to sympathize with pincushions."

"Yes, the precision attribute pretty much helps with anything eye-related. Raising it will help you spot enemies, traps, and fairly obvious signposts," Mae said with a wry smile, "It will also help your archery so you can be the shooter and not the shootee a little more often."

I remembered I hadn't spent my attribute points yet as I was so excited about the special ability. I threw all 5 points into precision hoping to be drastically better at using a bow.

We started walking up the dirt road towards Roseglen since it was in the direction we had seen the smoke rising up from and figured that meant people would be there. "I hope we can find a trader and a bed to sleep in where the wake-up call doesn't include being stabbed," I said as we walked along the road pausing briefly to check for enemies at appropriate intervals.

I thought about what I had just said and wondered about something. "I don't have any money. What am I supposed to do if I find a trader and I have no money?" I asked, once again confused at why my brain could dream up all this, but not include a currency.

"Relax, Teddy. You were right when you said trader. Everything in this world runs on trade so really everything you pick up is currency even the junk items are wanted by someone," said Mae as she landed on my shoulder and continued explaining, "Once we get there we should be able to complete some odd jobs around town to earn some XP and items to either utilize or trade for what you want. Of course, that all depends on who has tasks available and the difficulty of the task."

"Side quests!" I said a little too loudly out of excitement, "Now I'm even more excited to find a town." For whatever reason, I have always enjoyed doing all the little side quests in RPGs. I really do enjoy helping people with mundane tasks. Go find me this or go to this location and kill x number of rats. NPCs were always so happy when you helped them out and I needed to get stronger anyway.

After about an hour of walking, the path through the forest became a path through some farmland. As soon as I saw what I expected was Roseglen my heart sank. "This is definitely where all the smoke was coming from," I said to Mae still sitting on my shoulder, "What happened here?"

"It looks like it was attacked by something big, " Mae said with her eyes wide at the destruction before us, "We should look for survivors and see if they know what did this."

"Agreed," I said scanning for survivors, "We should help if we can."

I ran towards the first house not seeing any immediate threats. "Anybody in there?" I shouted through the splintered door.

A woman came into view through a gap in the door but didn't open it. "Is it gone?" Her voice quivered as she asked softly then rose to a more firm delivery, "Is the dragon gone?"