I woke up at dawn, much to my dismay. I don’t know what woke me, there wasn’t an alarm, a crowing rooster, or knock at my door. The sun was up, so was I.

This never happened when I was alive. It was a nightmare to get up. Beds were cozy and the temptation of sleep was so great that I could hardly escape it. Sleep made it so I could be anyone or nothing, I am a huge fan of sleep. Waking up at the butt crack of dawn had me cranky to say the least. I pulled my dress on, struggling a bit as it caught on my horns, grabbed my bag, and clomped down stairs.

I felt it was far too early for breakfast, so I didn’t bother to talk to the NPC in the inn though it did greet me as it greeted everyone who came down the stairs. Our party had not made plans of when to meet up this morning or what we would be doing, but I knew what I wanted to do. I needed these plants looked at by the shopkeeper. I hoped that the shop was open at all hours like it would be in a game if ran by an NPC and, thankfully, I was right.

The shop was a small building and at this hour of the day there was no one there. I stepped inside and first looked at the items on the shelves for sale. Most of it was survival gear like bedrolls, backpacks, lanterns, fire starting kits. There were no weapons, no ammunition, no potions. These were important items, letting me know that roughing it on the floors was probably going to be a thing, but they seemed like things that we couldn’t craft, as if the game was going to be dependent on the players crafting.

Perfect. If I could corner a market in potions early, no one else will bother to make potions as it will be time consuming. I would then be able to have the income to get escorted down levels for more materials and for levels. A plan was coming together nicely.

It took about a half an hour to get my flowers identified. The NPC did not charge for anything found on the first floor, it turns out, but everything else would have a cost that varied by the value of the item. I needed to get this skill as soon as I could. Of the ten kinds of flowers I had picked, only one had any crafting properties. The flower that looked like a blue drooping tulip was a Weeping Blue Bell and it could be used in potions. The NPC did buy my other flowers for two copper pieces in total and I kept all my Weeping Blue Bells.

As I was looking over the different kinds of bags on a set of shelves, a group of people entered the shop. They hadn’t seemed to notice me as they were in mid conversation.

“The whole place is just overrun with them. I say we light the forest on fire and be rid of it all. That has to be the best way to get through so many plant monsters.” One of them said.

“Blights. They are called Blights. Have you tried to burn down a green forest before, dummy? It won’t light. We just need to get past them and back to those caves we found. The way down has to be in there.” Another responded, pushing the first speaker.

“They did seem afraid of fire. We can just wave torches around and chase them off.” A third said, then the chatter when quiet when I was finally noticed.

I don’t know why I thought not looking at them would somehow make me invisible, but it didn’t. When the air got uncomfortable, I looked up at the group of very human looking people.

Shit.

I offered a smile and tried to inch my way to the door. Their party of five made the shop kind of cramped near the door. I lightly bumped into one who had been favoring his arm, an injury from the Blight I supposed.

“Good morning, gentlemen.” I said softly, my voice adopting a very high pitch that it does when I am nervous. This always makes me seem younger than I am and only points out my anxious nature. “May I get by?”

“Nah. You hurt Rick.” The one who had spoke about burning the forest down said. He had fiery red hair, which seemed appropriate, and towered over me. “I think you own him an apology.”

“Yeah, three bags full.” Said a man with black hair that was slicked back in a most unflattering way. The whole group laughed at my expense as I felt my cheeks burn in a blush.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know. I can heal it.” I offered, unable to look any of them in the face. I was scared, not scared that they would hurt me but scared I offended them. I really had not meant to bump into someone with a hurt arm.

“Tsk, you better. Look at poor Rick! In so much pain.” The redhead said again.

I looked over at Rick. He didn’t look like he was in much pain, but he did give me a weak, apologetic smile. Of the group, he had the most animalistic trait with a pair of golden cat eyes. It put me a little at ease.

“Sure, yeah, no problem. Just, right outside near somewhere I can sit after.” I edged to the door again.

The redhead reached over my head and held the door closed as I went to tug on it. He towered over me, not as much as Clint did, but enough to be plenty imposing.

“Please. I don’t want to bother anyone else while I heal.” My eyes met the eyes of the redhead. He gazed down at me in thought for a moment and then released the door.

“I just didn’t want you to get away, Bo Peep.”

I opened the door and quickly stepped outside. I wanted to run for the inn, but I did promise to heal Rick’s injury. The group filed out of the shop and stood around me, almost closing a circle. Rick stepped forward and unwrapped his arm. It was a nasty gash, but no worse than what Clint had suffered. Trembling fingers of mine touched my pendant.

“.” Power filled my words, left my lips, and traveled to the injury in front of me. It was incredible to see flesh knit itself together. I had seen it in many movies before, but seeing it actually happen in front of you is entirely different. It gave me chills and also exhausted me. I slumped to the marble street, hands in my lap.

Rick gasped in amazement, the rest of his group did too. Everyone crowded him to feel where the cuts were and see if what they saw was real. They talked over each other about how cool it was and unbelievable.

“You aren’t so bad for an animal, Bo Peep.” The redhead said and tossed me a small coin bag. Weakly, I looked inside to see five copper coins. “You saved us a day of rest. I’ll remember that.”

The group chattered excitedly as they filed back into the shop and I sat forgotten. The sun was still not all the way up off the sea and there were still very few people moving about. I just remained there stunned. This encounter could have gone so very wrong, but it didn’t. I nearly doubled my coins from one spell and got a coin purse as well.

I was able to stand and head back to the inn before that rowdy group left the shop. Level two in my skill was much more preferred. I wonder how long it would be before I could cast it without pause.

I pushed open the door to the inn and found Clint sitting at a table with Jun talking excitedly next to him. He was nodding, but looked like he really didn’t understand what was going on.

“I had to get a voice changer because boys were always kicking me from games once they could tell I was a girl. Like that would make me a bad player! Girls can do anything boys can. I could kick their asses in one on one any day. There was this one map, it was a packing plant I think because of all these boxes everywhere, and no one could ever find where I went to snipe from.” She said in almost one breath.

Clint looked uncomfortable, but relaxed once he noticed me approaching the table. Jun followed his gaze and waved excitedly.

“Did you know that Clint is from 1921? That’s so ancient. He doesn’t seem that outdated, you know.” She said as I sat down across from her.

“How do you know he isn’t?” I winked at Clint to try to signal that I was only teasing. Poor Jun took my question seriously.

“He doesn’t mind working with us girls. He is getting this whole game pretty well.” Jun offered.

“He is a quick learner, sharp and on his toes. Well, hooves. People have always had the same intelligence, Jun, people from 1921 aren’t dumb they just haven’t been exposed to the technology we had been.” I ran a hand through my hair, trying to wrangle it behind my horns. “But you are right that he is progressive and the kind of gentleman that would have thrived in the 21st century.”

“When did you die?” Jun asked cautiously. “I died in 2017.”

“2021. You missed a hell of a lot. So much happened in four years.” I shook my head, giving up on taming my hair today. It isn’t like it would help my appearance.

“Doesn’t really matter, though, does it? All that is just on the other side. All that matters is those floors and our party is gonna wipe them clean.” She said with enthusiasm that was infectious. Clint made a great choice. Jun was just what we needed.

“Speaking of which, I have a plan. It will start out slow, but will help us wipe out floors below much faster. When I played games, I was a completionist. I liked to do all the quests, kill all the things, collect everything. This always made me a higher level for the next areas I played in than was intended because most would just run through doing the bare minimum to get the main storyline done. We need to play like that. I suggest we stay near the black tower and kill the Blight we come in contact with, running back here to recharge, heal, and whatever. Once you both can kill Blight with one hit, we’ll move deeper and collect everything that can be used for crafting as we look for harder monsters to kill. Just like I said before, we’ll stay on floor one until we can’t get any more experience. This will put us at a great advantage for the next floor.” I looked up from my hands that I had been watching as I nervously laid out my plan. I had, basically, told them all this just yesterday but I felt like I needed their input and confirmation that this was a good plan. “It looks like we might have to camp on some floors. I don’t know if we’ll be able to get back here without traveling through floors, so rushing to the second floor might do us more harm than good.”

“Camping?” Jun scrunched up her nose. “That’s a hard pass. I don’t do the outdoors.”

“I stayed out on the lawn one night, my ma worried me ta death and had the help set two fires near my tent so I wouldn’t catch cold and die.” Clint laughed and shook his head. “It was so bright I couldn’t sleep.”

“I used to camp often with my dad. Don’t worry about it until the time comes. We still have a lot of work to do until then. You both ready to test out how effective Jun’s wind is against the Blight?” I stood up and pushed my chair in.

“Might as well get this over with.” Jun said. “I don’t have high hopes, so you two better save me when it does nothing.”

The sun had made it above the horizon and had turned the starry sky into that gorgeous blue color the Nothing had selected. I really liked it, personally. It was calming and kind of hopeful. I like that, a hopeful sky for a hopeful day.

I noticed the streets were getting busier as people were walking from the docks down towards us and several other people were exiting the inn. I wondered if there was going to be a large number of people entering the first floor. I didn’t want competition. I grabbed Jun and Clint’s hands, tugging them faster to the tower.

“Quick, we got to go quick before people kill all the mobs and we are left with nothing to level up on.” I hissed as I rushed my party on.

We reached the tower at the same time as the group from the shop I ran into earlier. The redhead, hands in his pockets, sauntered over to our group. Shit, I didn’t have time for this.

“If it ain’t Bo Peep. Quite an odd flock you keep, little sheep. These fools don’t look like they can handle what is out there. You should ditch them and come with us, we could keep you nice and safe, we’d even tie a bell around your neck so you can’t get lost.” He grinned as his group, save for Rick, laughed along and jeered at me.

Clint started to move forward, but I stepped in front of him. I didn’t want him to fight this battle for me. Unfortunately, I was terrible at fighting my own battles and couldn’t really come up with anything to respond with. I don’t know if she sensed my hesitation or just wanted to strike, Jun threw an insult.

“Does it make you feel big to talk down to women like that? You know it won’t make your dick bigger, right?”

Jun’s time with the boys in shooter games likely made her tongue sharp and accurate to the insecurities of assholes like this one. She put a hand on her hip and continued as she saw that the redhead was off balance.

“Why don’t you losers go circle jerk it somewhere else and use your tears for lube. No one here wants you. Shoo, be gone.” She flicked her hands at them as if they were little insects to scare off.

I was terrified that this would anger the group. We were well outnumbered and out matched. I was next to useless, after all. Luck, fate, or the Nothing smiled upon us, though, and the crew was more unsure of how to respond to a teenage girl calling them out in such a harsh manner.

“Yeah, well, you animals can go fuck yourselves,” was all the reply the redhead could muster as he motioned for his group to enter the tower.

June looked mighty pleased with herself as she turned to me. “You got to hit ‘em where it hurts, right between the legs.”

“Your aim true and your words are deadly. Thank you.” I said, sheepishly. “I had a run in with them earlier today. I thought things ended well, I healed one of them and they paid me.”

“Tch, I know their type. They are users. All you did was show them that you had value and they want to use you.” Jun patted me on the shoulder. “Besides, no one talks to my party like that. Now, onward! To our conquest.”

All I could do was laugh and follow the golden scaled teenager into the black marble of the tower.