“So Village Elder do you have a route planned for us?” I ask up to him as I push the cart forward, already sweating lightly from the effort.

“We will go across the forest, through a mountain pass and then we’ll go around the marsh into a well used road into the town” Sounds simple enough, and I’m guessing we could cross the marsh if we’re in a hurry…which sounds like an awful idea in hindsight.

“Hmm so it seems like we’re going to have a few relaxed days till we reach the mountains” Kale gives a sigh of relief as he pushes the cart too.

*Hagh*

“We shouldn’t bugger around in the easiest part” Sugar half-heartedly breathes as he sits languidly on top of the cart, lazy little bugger…who is in fairness trying to figure out magic but still.

He and his Mage Squad all occupy one cart, sitting and focusing full on learning mana and anything magical if they can. Mine and Kale’s Squad are all pushing the 5 carts that were somehow restored by 3 of the elderly members of the village while Ravenna’s are walking alongside doing whatever she’s tasked them to do.

There are 3 dying people on each cart leaving 1 cart free for us to pack it full of Sugar’s Mage squad and whoever needs a good rest.

Suprisingly everything looks like it’ll work out so far.

“And one two three, one two three” Reddwarf walks forward, plants his foot and then slaps his opponent in the face, takes another step forward backslaps her and then one last step with a slap before it’s her turn to slap him as she walks backwards.

…

..

.

Oook…I guess slap could be a skill? But someone must’ve really pissed off someone to have learnt that’s a skill…

“Hut hut hut hut” And Lancel’s leading 2 others in a literal crawl on the right at quite a quick pace for crawling. Surprisingly the two tiger beastman (orange and white, somehow very normal colours) are keeping pace, tails waggling in the air.

“Push…and Push” Bottom is with Ravenna, Blacky and the gold-canary beastman that I swear I’ve seen hang out with him and they’re doing some strange one person push the other and swap routine.

*bfff*

I saw that coming from a mile away.

“Milady you alright?” her entire squad stop what they’re doing momentarily to check up on her.

She stands up with the help of Blacky, giving all of them a dissapointed look due to them stopping in their tasks.

They all return back to work with a visible improvement in effort, while Blacky gives a deep apology before pushing her with force, mostly since she tells him to do so.

...Damn…

I mean she’s had 2 in game days to get to know most of them and they’re already pretty converted…she is quite terrifying.

Stop giving me such an impressed look, it wasn’t that hard

For someone who’s busy pushing someone she’s got some seriously sneaky typing skills.

I do wonder what she did to them though…for personal protection.

…

“SWAP AROUND” I call out and I stop pushing the cart, allowing a beardless dwarf take my place

Wow pushing a cart for an hour is really quite tiring, but now I’m free!

“Joat your squad has to say on the carts for another 2 hours” Ravenna supresses her smile as best as she can but I still notice it.

Yaay, what a fun time I’m having right now…

…

“Alright my squad get your beautiful bodies off the carts and commune on the rest cart” I command my squad and jump onto the now empty cart, lying down happily.

Within a minute I’m joined by everyone and we all lie there for a few minutes recovering; 2 hours pushing carts is no easy task.

A few minutes of rest and now let’s discuss what stats we should try get.

“Well stats are things that define us so I’d say we try start with phyiscal things, such as flexibility?” Zzoid begins helpfully.

“Well what if we had speed as a stat?” PJ follows through.

“Rage” Thrash barks out supported by a casual nod from BC.

“I think we should be looking for something like faith” Honey muses loudly.

“To offset darkness?”

“Darkness?” Mostly everyone looks confused…wait a second, mostly everyone?

Thrash, Krudel and CHARMINE? Look rather shifty...

I’m really worried as to what they’ve all done to gain that stat.

“Basically if you do something evil you’ll gain the darkness stat”

“Evil actions, oh so can we have an alignment?” Baila looks at me with a raised eyebrow.

“Yes and apparently I’m slightly evil”

“Only slightly?” Oh Zzoid.

“So if we do a really good action we can get light or something opposite of darkness to make us good alignment” Continuing on from Zzoid’s cheeky comment.

“Well how evil was your action because I’m guessing it’s going to have to be equally as good?” PJ is just curious to know what I did.

“I bit some of myself and ate it” Phew Miss Nameless’ (Still going to call her that in game) ears were covered by a Krudel but I didn’t say it that loud (so only my squad could hear).

…

..

.

Hey stop giving me such a disturbed look. “Honey did it too”

Honey just shrugs when everyone looks at him. “A skill’s a skill”

Most nod appreciatively at the reasoning but still look quite horrified/disgusted towards us.

“Taking all of Zzoid’s scales gave me darkness so it doesn’t have to be that bad” Oh so that’s how Charmine got it, but that doesn’t sound too evil “Apparently it counted as living harvesting” Ok nevermind that sounds pretty evil.

“Don’t you even think about it” Too late Zzoid, everyone’s thought about it.

“Ok so that’s one stat sorted if you want to be evil, but we should find out how to become good first so we can offset the two” I stop PinkyS before she jumps on Zzoid for a stat.

“Can we do something now big brother?” Zzand looks rather energetic for someone who’s pushed a cart for 2 hours straight.

“Alright, grab whoever’s closest to you”

Miss Nameless and Thrash…this brings back rather traumatising memories.

“We’ll try do light, Honey and co. try flexibility. Zzoid and lot you do Rage and the rest of you figure out this speed stat.” Everyone nods and we all get off the cart, trying not to stand on a barely visible Sugar.

Right so I’m not sure I should’ve given myself the job of being good, because I’m with two people who probably don’t have a clear idea about the difference between good and bad…

“Any ideas?”

“I could feed myself to everyone”

…

..

.

I’m going to say that’s a horrible even if technically that could count as a really good action.

“Well all we have to do is be good so why don’t we do good things for everyone”

That also sounds like a terrible idea because that means I need to be nice to everyone…but I guess it’s a ton less drastic than Thrash’s idea.

“Ok so how about we make sure to keep everyone fed and happy. We’ll start with cooking and feeding everyone” I’m getting hungry so might as well do that.

Jumping back on the cart, we grab the small, rectangular box with a grill on top, which is a barbeque I believe.

Putting the stands up and moving as much flammable stuff away, we begin placing splintes of wood in the box and light them.

Blowing and feeding the fire till it’s decent, we put the grill back on top and place some bug meat on the grill…which Thrash takes away and puts…wait a second that’s Kraken meat!?

“How’d you get this?”

Thrash shrugged his shoulders. “Found it” Well he’s sincere. AH! He must’ve picked it up after one of our deaths…probably when Zzoida and co. died in Hallowed’s end?

“Well if you don’t mind we’ll use as much as you’ve got for everyone” Thrash nods.

Grilling some Kraken, Aiag that felt like a lifetime ago now…but it was barely a week, if that…

Thrash also produces some forest berries and starts crushing them, rubbing the juices on the meats.

Wow he’s really been collecting food…just how much has he picked up?

I quickly find a mortar and pestle (damn these villagers have so much useful equipment) and give Miss Nameless the task in crushing the berries for paste while I cook and Thrash watches out for embers setting the cart alight.

“So Thrash, how many times have you died?”

“Died?”

Wow well that explains why he has so much food…probably picked it up from everyone else who died here and there.

“Miss Nameless you’ve died at least once right?” Oh wait, stupid question, she’s probably been protected by Krudel the whole way.

“Died?” She shakes her head in denial.

Wow, I feel like I kind of suck at this game, since I died 6 times or so in the first night alone…

Ah whatever, I won’t die on this trip, I promise (well hope) this will be true.

The cooking goes surprisingly well with the cart unburnt, kraken meat roasted with a light cover of mashed berry and no strange conversations have happened between the 3 of us yet, phew.

“Mmm, well let’s get to eat-”

“Stop Joat please” Miss Nameless gives me a pausing gesture “We should feed others first, since the cook shouldn’t eat their own food before others. That’s what Krudel said anyways”

Huu, fine, I guess she’s right. Alright let’s feed some others.

Thrash takes some sticks from his inventory placing a few randomly back…hmmm I swear I saw a bite mark on one of them.

Anyways, we skewer the meat and give it to the one’s pushing our cart, since they’ve probably had the hardest time with hunger since they’re the closest.

“Could you feed it to me please” Sugar asks as he pushes the cart, already looking rather drained from the effort.

Stopping the urge to roll my eyes, I bend down and dangle the meat in front of him, letting him take a bite at his leisure.

“Mmm, quite good, could you put a little more berry on there since that’s delicious?”

“Princess some berry please” I call her over from the other side of the cart and she hands me the berry paste, and I use the peslte to lather it onto the meat.

Satisfying Sugar, I check on our next pieces of Kraken meat (can only do 4 at a time since it’s quite a small barbeque).

Helping Miss Nameless onto the floor, I hand her and Thrash the next batch of Kraken meat and bowl of berry paste, sending them to the next cart along while I cook.

I would let them cook, but I’m worried that they may not be the best cooks, because reasons...

Luckily roasting them takes barely 10 minutes so within the first hour we’ve fed everyone on the carts.

In the second hour, I have Miss Nameless do the cooking mostly because I don’t think I’ll gain good points sitting and cooking…I think I have to actively help.

“Make sure you turn them every minute or so, and don’t be afraid to break a little piece off in the corner to see if the meat is cooked”

“How will I know if it’s cooked?”

“It’ll be fully white like this” I show her a just cooked piece which is surprisingly fully cooked (I think I undercooked a few accidentally).

Leaving her to it, I begin feeding Kale’s squad since they’re back on the carts with Sugar’s.

“Hut hut hut hut” And they’re at it again? Nope they’re doing sliding? Well if it’ll get me xp they can do whatever they wa-

“AGHGHGGHHGGHHARRARARGHAHRGHHAHHHRERGRHHH”

…

..

.

What in the name of Aiag was that?

That was Zzoid…oh my.

“ZZOID CALM DOWN”

Whipping round towards the cacaphony of frantic shouting I see mouth-frothing Zzoid being held down by BC, Baila, Honey, Zzard and Zzand while Krudel and PJ give eachother a high five.

Jumping off the cart I head over to the commotion, waving for the onlookers to continue on.

Getting to Zzoid, I give him a hearty old slap, quietening him down quite a bit.

…

..

.

“I’M CALM”

“You’re still shouting” Baila helpfully points out.

“AH sorry, guess I still had a bit of rage still within me”

“Well you were definitely raging, what happened?” I turn towards PJ and Krudel half thinking of a possibility.

“Krudel kissed me”

…

..

.

Wow I was spot on.

“Question is, Zzoid do you have the rage stat?”

“Yes and I’ve gained Berserk as my martial skill” He looks rather angry even though he got a skill, seriously you should be happy Zzoid (forget about the kiss though).

“Berserk?” Many ooh’s flitter about.

“It increases my physical skills but I lose all distinguishment between friend and foe” Zzoid reads from the blank window in front of him while BC nods.

Hmm so BC has berserk too?

I’ll have to talk to DillyDally about Frenzy and how it’s different.

“Well done everyone” I give a round of high fives before getting them to figure out how to ‘safely’ give it to everyone else.

Back to handing out food.

*grumble*

I haven’t fed everyone else yet so I’m not allowed to ea-*grumble*…

“That was quite a spectacle put on there” Kale gives me an impressed nod as his eyes wander towards the food.

“Just all in a days shenanigans for xp”

‘Hey I’m complimenting them for making this trip a little less dull” He has got a bit of a point.

Flitting about with food my second hour of freedom flashes past and I’m back on the carts, getting a final piece of food from Miss Nameless.

“Mmm this is delicious”

She looks happy with herself, belly grumbling in repentance though

…

..

.

“Did you give me the last piece?”

“…Yes” She looks down guiltily.

Giving her the lightest karate chop on her head, I give her mine…although it does have a massive bite on one side.

“Never let the chef starve” I sternly tell her as she tries to refuse.

Looking at me with a reddening face she takes a small, ladylike nibble, blushing like a tomato.

Is it such a big deal eating my foo-oh.

I forget she’s supposedly seriously sheltered so has she never shared food with anyone else?

But that’s like part of growing up, your friends taking bites of your food or drinking from your bottle…but then again I have no idea what raising she’s had…

Facepalming on the inside, I grab Thrash’s food and take a bite, making it seem like it’s nothing even though oh my god I can taste wolf, hmm maybe not the best idea…

“Girl” Oh no not you too!

Dammit it’s not that strange, Thrash stop making this seem like a big deal, for Miss Nameless’ sake!

Also please stop blushing it’s quite disturbing.

ANYWAYS, finishing the 2 pieces between us (I not so sneakily swap the skewers and give Thrash’s to Miss Nameless (I mean Krudel’s probably going to kill me for this so might as well teach her about the normalness of this), we get back to pushing.

…

“Right, let’s have our midday break!”

Everyone collapses on the ashen ground quite tired. After 8 hours of walking/pushing it’s been quite the trek.

“Ravenna how long till there’s a switch of people?”

“Anoobis’ group have logged on right now so they’ll be here within 2 hours if that” She answers from a distance looking tired like some of us (ignoring the muscle monsters that Thrash and BC and quite a few others are).

Ravenna stands up after a few minutes break and smoothly grabs the Gold canary-beastman, hoisting him to standing.

“Wait what?” He looks rather shocked as she grabs his hand and moves it to her upper waist, ohlala, and she holds his left hand.

“I am going to teach you how to dance and of course anyone who wants a go” She gives a sly smile to the crowd.

“BAILA” I jump up offering a hand. Oh I’m excited to have some fun!!

…

“And one two three, five six seven”

…

..

.

Ravenna, I understand why your minions absolutely desire you…

Spinning Baila round to face away from me, I get an eyeful of one Ravenna shaking her hips while teaching one of her minons; the Gold canary-beastman, how to salsa.

I think many people here would love to be in his position right now and I do see some rather hating looks wandering around.

At least this time these looks aren’t to me.

“Now everyone, switch partners and try not to dance like you want to…Joat” Ravenna gives me a rather unimpressed look, but I know she’s impressed deep down.

Letting go of Baila, my hand gets grabbed almost immediately…by PinkyS? Phew that could’ve been worse.

“So everyone with me, five six seven eight mambo.”

Forward back, side, side, open, open and pose. Rpeat once more and oh god she’s a leader.

“Pinky let go”

“I am”

I do side to side to back to side and she steps back.

“Then why didn’t you follow?” I give her a cheeky smile as she grumbles mildly underneath her breath.

“Now we’re going to do an enchufla, so open up like this, bring your partner across, salsa back, let her turn, cross step across, salsa back and hold” She goes through the movements quickly but I don’t think anyone missed what she did”

Opening up to allow PinkyS to walk through, I salsa back, stepping behind her as she mamobs forward, turn, crossing behind her, salsa back and together mamboing.

Oh the memories are coming back to me!

It’s been a long time since I’ve salsa’d but seems like I’ve still got some moves in me.

“Alright switch”

Switching again…Thrash?

“What are you doing?” I ask him as he leads me in a mambo

“No other women” He grows with a wolfy smile.

“Then what’s that?” I point to a giant, imposing BC who’s got a clear space around her, all by herself, until a profusely sweating Sugar walks up with a terrified chuckle as he offers her a hand

…

..

.

Sugar she’s at least 3 feet taller than you…but good effort.

“Big green ogress dance with Joat”

Wait a second Ravenna, I have to lead that?.

Thrash doesn’t look too happy, but he simply shrugs. “I’ll be back, Girl” Oh you.

“Hello BoneCracker” I offer a hand and am very surprised when it isn’t crushed by her meaty hand.

I’m not that short but when she’s almost 2 feet taller than me it’s pretty difficult.

Alright mambo I can do, send her across, enchufla and this spin isn’t going ot work unless I let go, trail my hand around her neck and slide it down her arm.

Huh that actually didn’t work too awfully.

Going through the process a few times, I find myself extremely surprised by the fact she’s actually really good at being led, to the point of I can mix and match steps and she’ll follow.

If she weren’t almost 8 feet, terrifyingly muscular and extremely deadly she’d actually be a pretty good dance partner, oddly enough.

Right moving on, and phew it’s a woman and a fish-beastlady.

“Well seems like we meet again my fishy lady”

“Indeed, been a while since we’ve worked together” The indigo fish sister gives me a smile with her puffy lips.

“May I be so forward as to ask your name?”

“Nerisi” That is surprisingly normal.

Ok enough small talk, let’s get to salsa!

Dancing with her is a rather odd sensation to my fingers; her skin is scaly but it’s oddly smooth and soft, not at all like scales.

Doing a hammer lock with her, we do multiple switch steps before turning her out and sending her to another man.

Fish sister number 2, the red one this time. I’ve got a feeling this’ll be a train.

“I am Neriser” Ok so there’s definitely a connection with the names but they don’t sound too strange?

Once again my hands are rather confused by the smoothness of the scales, but not rubbery like a lizards scales would be…

Onto fish sister number 3, the pink one.

“Nerispi”

“Ok everyone, are you ready for a full run through?” Ravenna interrupts our hellos.

And five six seven eight mambo, mambo, side, back, open up and let her walk through, enchufla, mambo and open up, enchufla round for eight, show off a little and back into mambo, open up and hammer lock to switch, sombrero into titanic step spin out and into mambo.

Oops I kind of got carried away a little.

“Switch partners”

And start again, let’s try keep to the choreography with fish sister number 4…erm I haven't asked her name.

Hammer lock her, mambo into a double hand spin to locked at my side and taps forward.

“So I’m Joat and you?” I spin her out brushing my hair with her hand and hers with mine smoothly back into mambo.

“Nerisp” She blushes slightly as I open out and spin her into a tip back.

“Change partners”

Waving goodbye I look around but for a second before I’m grabbed by someone else…RAVENNA?

No I don’t want the eyes of hatred all over me, dammit.

“Free dancing everyone” She gives me a sly smile, oh you just wanted to be spun around.

Alright then.

Mambo open up into teddy hold spin and shoulder hold walk back into step and body roll, that was very sexy, spin her locking her into my right then my left then spin her out travelling hand across her side to parallel arm hold and spin myself inside, locking her arms under mine and shuffle both spin to facing double sombrero, titanic with cici’s spin dip make walk spin back lock into arm and reverse cartwheel into cross step behind her hi lo hi lo spin out into hold thigh dip.

*ding*

…

..

.

Phew that was hell of a lot more difficult than I remember.

*Clap clap*

Oh thank you, thank you.

Getting out of the dip, I release hold of Ravenna and quickly look at my notifications expectantly

Congratulations! You have learnt the Proficiency: Dance Mastery

PROFICIENCY: Dance Mastery, beginner [lv1] (0%) (Active)

Dancing is the ability to move your body in accordance to music in an artistic manner,

When used: may improve relationship towards Npc’s

Cost: None, Duration: sustained, Cooldown: None

For learning a new proficiency, xp is increased by 5%

Congratulations! You have learnt a Style of the Dance Mastery Proficiency

STYLE: Salsa, beginner [lv1] (0%) (Active)

Salsa is one of the better known latin style dances focusing on a clear role of leader and lead.

Cost: None, Duration: sustained, Cooldown: None

For learning a new style, xp is increased by 1%

…A style?

Wait so if I learn multiple types of dancing, each gives me xp?

That’s so amazing!

“We can have styles” Someone comments out loud as they too look at their new skill.

“That would mean there are different forms of using weapons meaning each will be worth learning and in the less useful case to learn how to dance multiple different styles will benefit us greatly in terms of xp”

“And it would also mean that there may be different styles to many different things so we should be aware to keep an eye on people who use their skills differently to us” Ah I know that voice.

Walking proudly into our salsa circle is one Anoobis, rubbing his hands delightfully, probably at the thought of all the xp we will now be gaining with such new knowledge.

“And that is the cue for us to leave” Ravenna gives everyone a bow before logging off, followed almost instantly after by her squad. Alright Ravenna, do a dance and run...

“Right, shall we get to walking again, Anoobis shall you begin hauling the carts with us?”