You will face all kinds of threats and enemies. Some will be bigger than you, while others will be much bigger than you. – Pamphlet for DIO

The next morning, we left the campfire and continued northbound. It was a bright day, even in the woods, and my mood felt lifted and better than normal. Jonar was still dealing with his grief, but the bright day seemed to have given him some hope. He scouted ahead and I continued to walk on the game path.

After about an hour, I heard a songbird whistle. It was Jonar’s warning that a monster was nearby. I stopped and waited for him to come back. I withdrew my sword and shield.

“There is a massive animal around us, bigger than a bear. I think it might be a sloth, a humongous one. They are mean when you attack them though when they are not fighting, they move extremely slow and eat the vegetation around them, stripping the forest of all leaves and bushes. They are harmful to the local balance of nature. Its claws are massive and deadly. Normally I would skirt around the animal as it would be too big just for me.”

“Lets go see it, I can get a feel for if it is stronger than us or not. Remember 1 through 25. More than a 10, we run. If less than 10 we attack. I will yell ‘charge’. Remember run towards it as fast as you can and attack it with all your might. Charge is only good for 1 attack, the first.”

We snuck up to the sloth. It was massive, nearly 6 meters long, and it looked like it weighed at least 4 tons. It was as large as an elephant. The earth shook as it moved. It had a wicked set of three fingered claws that looked like it could cut a hole in anything it wanted too. It was also entirely hairless except for its face, which looked like the modern-day sloth. I knew it was a vegetarian, however, and would only fight if pushed into it. I saw the Against All Odds bonus box appear in my upper right peripheral vision. I looked at it. It was a 10. I analyzed it.

Primordial Sloth

Megatherium

Total XP: 1250

Status: Hostile

“10 exactly. I will yell charge in 3…2…1.. Charge!” I ran as quickly as I could… the speed burst was immense. I knew I was running 35% faster than my highest speed possible, and it was intense. The sloth barely had time to reach when I swiped my sword with all the might I could handle.

You attacked the Primordial Sloth. You do .75 damage.

I landed my damage just as Jonar landed his. He looked shocked. Our sword attacks had cut deeply into the flanks of the sloth and it let out an angry yell. It slowly turned towards us as we got two more attacks in, though they were significantly less damage than the first attack. It reared up on its feet, and it formed a tripod, with its tail acting as the third leg. It looked stable, as if it could stand on its hind legs for quite a while.

“Split up!” I yelled. “I will keep it distracted!”

Its giant claws on its right hand swung for me and I dodged it. It was relatively easy to dodge as it was slow in its attack, but you had to move fast and far, as its attack took up a large area. It caused me to focus on dodging while Jonar kept attacking it.

This time, it attacked me with its left hand. I moved to the right to get out of the way, and it surprised me by quickly (for the giant beast, at least) going from its tripod stand to land on its four feet. It almost landed on top of me, but I barely got out of the way. Still, the shock to the earth caused me to stumble and lose my footing.

It used that time to wipe at me. I rolled but did not quite get out of the way. It barely clipped me.

You take 1.1 damage from a Primordial Sloth. You are Bleeding! You will lose .5 health every 30 seconds for 1 minute.

I cursed in pain, and thought about using zeal, but since I only had 2 points of zeal I decided not to. I still had 4.9 health, but the three gashes on my right side was painful, to say the least. I guessed that it would take me a minute of combat to heal .1 damage, which was enough to stop the blood flow. I fought through the pain, and tried to keep it distracted from Jonar, who was hacking away at the sloth. It started to turn to him when I got up and got a slash in.

You deal .25 damage to the sloth!

I got its attention back, and it swiped at me a couple of times and I dodged them rather easily. I looked at the side where Jonar was attacking. The wounds there were nasty, blood seeping from its left flank. It looked painful, and the sloth had developed a limp. Otherwise, it looked healthy and angry beyond belief. We had to do more damage, or this fight would take forever, and I didn’t think I had the stamina to keep dodging and rolling. I was already breathing heavy from the exertion. The exertion felt surprisingly good, though my ride side was wracked with pain. I rolled my eyes at the thought that exertion felt good. Unfair healthy guy advantage for the win. I was down 4.01 health after taking a full damage from the bleeding but gaining the .11 health from combat healing.

“Attack its tail!” I yelled.

“I can’t! The damn thing is trying to attack me with it!”

“OK, then go to the other flank!”

“Good idea!” Jonar ran to its other side and started attacking that side. I hoped that with damage to both flanks, it would cause the sloth to start limping from its various wounds so that we could escape easily if needed to. It was slow moving as it already was. But I did not think we would need to flee. I would heal the next damage I took, though.

Sometimes I wished I had chosen another class. This class would grow with power the more people who were in my party (or army), but it didn’t help much, nor was it flashy. I would have killed to have a fireball during that fight or lightning bolts or whatever.

I dodged a few more times, allowing Jonar to get more hits on the right flank. The sloth was running out of energy, but the pain kept spurring it on. It turned around as quickly as it could, finally trying to attack the source of its pain. Jonar backed up and started to dodge the attacks. I tried to get its attention back by whacking away at its backside. It tried to go on its legs to better slash at Jonar, but its legs collapsed under the weight of its body due to all the damage.

The rest was a slaughter, and I cringed to think of the pain we were causing. There was not an easy way to kill it in one blow, so we had to keep hacking at it. Finally, after 15 minutes of hacking I got the message:

This blow will kill a Primordial Sloth. Do you want to continue?

With a single though I delivered the killing blow, putting the poor animal out of its misery.

Congratulations, you have killed a Primordial Sloth! You receive 63 XP!

63 XP was tons compared to what I have had previously! I could buy 4 tactics, or level up 2 tactics! I could raise all my Beliefs up to 1, giving me an extra zeal while still buying a new tactic!

I looked at Jonar, who was catching his breath and looking at me in awe.

You have received 1 social graces for convincing Jonar of your status! (1/5)

You have received 1 zeal for convincing Jonar of your status of ‘saint’ in his beliefs. (3/5)

I could see the belief on his face.

“I. Have. So. Many. Questions…” he said, awe in his voice. “How did you make me run so fast- my reaction time and rate of hitting the sloth was so fast. What is your world like? What powers can you get?”

I held up my hand. “Whoa, whoa! One question at a time! And while we talk, lets skin this bad boy!”

We skinned the sloth, getting a massive amount of what would be leather. I answered his questions one at a time and he just kept shaking his head in amazement.

“Is it true, do you have Ambrosia?” I stopped skinning, looking at him. How did he know about that?

“In the scriptures, it says you could give a man one ration of Ambrosia to make him impossible to kill, and he will live up to a century. He is considered a half-saint!” He looked at me in excitement.

Dammit, why did I have to waste a half-ration on just feeding myself? I yelled at myself internally. Of course, Ambrosia could make someone into something like a god! I had wasted a half-ration on it for simply being food which meant a waste of a whole ration!

I decided to tell him more of my life. I didn’t know how Yeshuans felt about homosexuality, and I didn’t want to recruit someone by my side for a century if they didn’t like the fact that I was gay. I told him about having a husband and he had not batted an eye.

“Are you fine with that, with me being gay?” I asked. He looked at me confused.

“What’s gay?”

“It is a term for men who fall in love and have sex with other men. Or for women who fall in love with women.”

“Why would I have a problem with that? I don’t understand?”

“Why would you- well, some religions have a problem with that, especially faiths that worship Jesus- Yeshua.”

“Yeshuans do not mind it. We were considered ‘soulless’, so it didn’t matter. And none of the other ethnicities have problems with it either. I have never met someone who had issues with it. Why, do you have issues with it?”

“No, of course not, I was just worried that you would.”

“Well, that’s stupid.” He shrugged. I had to give it to the developers, they certainly were LGBT+ friendly.

“Are you gay?” I asked.

“Me? I mean, I have fooled around with a couple of guys, but never fell in love with one. I have fallen for women many times. I guess you could not say I was gay.”

“Good! I mean, um, thanks for sharing that!” I blushed a bit. I didn’t know what I would do if Jonar was gay. It would make travelling with him extremely uncomfortable. I wanted to stay faithful to Jason, and with Jonar being gay… well, it would have been difficult.

I then thought about the Ambrosia. I liked Jonar, he was kind and good and friendly. He was also skilled in skills I did not have, and we worked well together. I had to test him out, to see if his goals could match my own.

“Jonar, I have a few questions for you. I have said I wanted to get Sodom back from the Yeshuans. Do you have a problem with that?”

“No, I think everyone should have a homeland.”

“And if I were to have to kill Yeshuans over it, would you be comfortable with that?”

He thought about this. “People have souls, yes. That means we should treat them with kindness, and fairness. But if they are dangerous or mean or cruel, they should be stopped. I suppose if a Yeshuan would stand against the Gar’shan having their own territory, I would fight by your side.”

“And when I take the fight to the Taurons to free the Gar’shan and to help the Yeshuans keep their territory, would you help with that.”

He did not need to think about that. “Yes, slavery should never be allowed.”

“Then will you work with me on this?”

“Yes. I have no home, and no family. You have saved my life and made me believe with certainty that my friends’ souls are living somewhere else. I owe you much, and I believe in freedom and hate slavery. I believe in souls like you do. Of course I will work with you.”

Slowly I took out the Ambrosia and gave him a ration. “Here, eat this.”

He looked at it in awe. “Is this Ambrosia?”

I nodded. He experimentally took a bite. He moaned with pleasure.

“This taste is so good. It takes like pig’s womb, soaked in honey, vinegar, broth and spices!”

“Eww,” I responded. I did know that that was a Roman delicacy, but it was still nasty. “Eat the rest.”

He ate each bite slowly like he was having the best dinner of his life. Remembering eating the Ambrosia myself, I knew he probably was. When he ate his last bite, I looked at him expectantly. When he started to glow, I knew I would have an interesting and powerful ally.