It would probably have taken half an hour to walk to the forest, Jess thought, walking in a straight line that was, but Ben had thrown away at least an hour trying to grind the rabbits found along the way. Kim was the one to suggest throwing rocks at them, but he himself disdained from taking any part in catching them, claiming the experience was better needed amongst the newcomers of this world.

Jess had tried her best to hit the first couple of rabbits they ran into, but the procedure's wasteful recursive nature had her soon think otherwise; It took about five minutes to find and sneak up on one close enough to throw a stone, but the stones never hit; they always bounced a couple of feet away from each, rabbit. Damn, how little did it take to make them panic? The rabbits weren’t as unattentive as was hoped for. Luckily, only two things made them run for their lives: things that move and things that don't.

Ben, though, hadn’t been discouraged at all.

Losing every stone worth throwing to the high greens, he vigorously continued anyways, every time a rabbit ran away. His stone throwing ability, if that was a thing, was obviously too low a level to get anything done. Eventually Jess finally had Kim convince Ben that there would be better ways of leveling up stone throwing. Ben had stopped, but every time a rabbit got within whoknowswhat radius, the fanatic was far beyond contactable, eyeing the prey like a predator... a horrendously retarded predator.

***

Jerry and his companions had finally reached the opening of the forest. He started to get a feel for this game. It was pretty weird at first; the temporary lack of visible skills, or any skill interface at that, had him a bit confused. The skill thing was probably going to be resolved as soon as they went back to the white shrine from before, or maybe earlier; Jerry didn’t intend on missing out on any free moves attainable.

They had probably headed the wrong way earlier, rabbits as hard to catch as those just seen were obviously not beginner level; Jerry didn’t mind heading for a bit harder area though, the challenge made him feel hardcore. In his mind, he could see the face of his approving grandpa nodding his head.

The forest floor was covered with pine needles of varying properties, decay-wise at least. Flowers of white and blue grouped together in the few patches of directly sunlit needles. Smaller leaf covered saplings were to be found a little here and there, but most never made it big; the dominating proportions of the pines ensured them sun a monopoly for the foreseeable future. Jerry was quite sure of that.

He had played plenty of plant sims when he was younger; After taking couple of hints from his grandpa, always mindful not to have another family member turn noob; he had gotten pretty good at it. Jerry liked walking around in these woods. These trees were kicking it, they were the undisputed pros of this place, just like Jerry when he swam in his own waters. Being around these trees made him ever so eager to kick ass.

***

KimZor walked along with his ‘captors’ in the pine forest. The idea of posing as an NPC had worked pretty well at first. No one seemed to have noticed that he was an ordinary gamer, exposed; not that that it had ever been very likely anyways, he was way out of their league. Especially that idiot who thought he could get away, posing as one of his favourite gamers in the action arena genre.

Calling him ‘Ben’ was pretty fun though, KimZor had decided, calling him so was like making a fool out of him, without ‘Ben’ even knew the better. Knowing a bit of chinese since high school, KimZor made sure to pronounce ‘Ben’ in the fourth intonation, bestowing the name with the subtle, but suiting meaning of ‘idiot’.

KimZor hadn’t planned on sticking for long with these two dimwits, but having put on a curtain of NPCiness, he didn’t want on blow his cover. Besides, who knew what good could come out of this? The Ben guy had already run around like an idiot, chasing rabbits after just a little ‘NPC guidance’. Minions, no matter how stupid, could always be of some kind of use, KimZor was certain.

The Ben idiot was busy watching the pines around them for some reason. Silly. As they moved onwards the ground started to get covered with fern, high to the knees. The Ben idiot, (maybe just call him Ben-Ben?) started to stomp down on the fern to clear a path through it. He soon stopped the stomping though; the poor tard had finally realized that the fern didn’t obstruct walking. Good, at least his minions had minimum levels of adaptability.

***

The terrain got slightly tricky after entering the fern clothed area. It wasn’t as much the fern itself, but the roots hidden below it posed a problem. Jess had hit a root with her toe, and it had hurt. She was now walking more carefully, trying to raise her feet slightly at each step, but it was hard, not walking as one usually would on asphalt or open grass.

After some more walking, Ben stumbled on a root and fell, cursing. “Stupid game, why would anyone ever implement mechanics like this, this is just mean.”

“It seems as the young traveler Ben is having trouble walking like a grown man, fear not, you’ll soon learn what’s required to make it in this world of true challenges,” Kim sort of soothed Ben. He had a pretty weird pronunciation when calling Ben’s name, now when Jess thought about it. Poor Kim, even if an NPC, Jess felt sorry for his vocal handicap. It was a pretty good NPC though; It was almost believable to be real at times, but the lurking weirdness about it gave it away.

“Does it hurt,” Jess asked.

“Yeah, the pain threshold is probably set all the way up to 4.8%. Sadists!” Ben grinned.

Jess started to walk with her feet a bit higher. She noticed that Kim went a lot smoother than she and Ben did. So smooth, it was pretty much as smooth as when he was walking towards the forest, not inside of it. Guess there’ll be a lot of learning if I want to make it in this game with grace, she thought, impressed with what was observed.

To their side, there was a pine, blown down by wind. As it had blown down, many of its branches had broken off from it. “Let’s arm up,” Jess proposed, picking up one of the sticks lying on the ground. The stick reached a couple of feet above her head. It got thicker by the end, where it had been closer to the main trunk.

“This won’t do,” she mumbled, putting one foot on the lower part of the stick, attempting to break it. “Help me out a moment, will you,” she asked out, not caring who identified with the calling. Ben helped her out breaking the stick, it wasn’t easy, and required them creating a few tricks, but they eventually got by. “Could I take this part?” Ben asked pointing at the staff like leftover stick.

Jess didn’t object with him getting the longer part from the branch they broke. Her meter-long gradually thicker stick was cooler and more badass. He had a stick, she had a bloody club!

Kim too picked up a stick, his lied a distance away from the fallen pine. He made some weird comment on how they did a good job “adapting to the flow of weaponry,” and 'initiated' a “commencement of their grinding expedition.”

***

Jerry tried out his new weapon against a sapling. It felt nothing like in the game he was used to dominate in; he had to do the entire swing manually; There was no preset combat move, no nerve stimulus urging the most efficient move, no nothing. Not even visuals displaying weaknesses. That would probably, and hopefully, be fixed after this grinding session though; fighting like this would have been weird.

Glancing at Jerry with a frown, Kim hit his own stick against the trunk of a small pine. Splinters flew a few feet, and minute cloud of dust made its way through the inside of what used to be a Kim’s weapon.

After a short silence, seemingly of surprise, Kim burst out:“Behold, what’s possible with proper training. Strength doesn’t come easy, for it is the bread made from well cared for seed.” The waiting time between the weapon breaking and the comment made was a bit too long.

Jerry wasn’t entirely sure yet, it was hard to be, but it seemed as if Jerry was quite the funny NPC; pulling jokes at the same time as he pretended to be dead serious. This was some next level sarcasm!

Kim continued walking as if nothing had happened, gracefully as seemingly only he could.

Suddenly he stopped for a second. He was grimacing. Jerry noted though that by some reason, Kim’s strides got shorter and higher; his knees almost hit 90 degrees before descending for a shift of foot to balance on.

Jerry pondered about the new walking technique Kim displayed. He was no doubt in need to get a walking related skill in this game; those roots were vicious, horribly vicious, as was the ridiculous pain threshold. Jerry observed Kim closely whilst continuing. He tried to mirror the moves, and indirectly learn the NPC's skill, but as for now, nothing had happened.

After a while of copying the NPC, Jerry lost focus and noticed some well due bowel movements. What the??! The cake, potato pancakes and bacon needed a leave, urgently.

“Would you mind waiting for a while? he asked. “I have some IRL business to get down with really fast... it was my birthday yesterday”. He left out the bacon n’ cake details. “I’ll be back in 20 minutes, please”

No one objected, so Jerry quickly uttered his personal log out phrase.

Nothing happened.

He had heard about people messing up their personalized logout phrases, but he didn’t know of anyone who had experienced it. He wondered how he had messed up his.

He uttered it again and experienced the same result. Worried, but not yet panicking, he said the standard log out phrase, the one capsules were required by law to have.

A while passed, and nothing happened.

Sheer shock was in Jerry’s eyes. He couldn’t log out. He was stuck, imprisoned, exiled. He was held captive in a way unheard of, and he badly needed to have... a shit.