“Psst” SirStripy catches my attention from the side “How are we going to deal with that?” Ah finally, someone who understands the horribly high level of these damnable monkeys.

At least there’s only one in the vicinity, lazily scratching it’s behind…seriously is that all they ever do when alone?

“I got this” Derek suddenly stands up, clearing his throat “Uah ah ah ah ah ah ooh ehhe ah”

…

..

.

Derek…what are you doing?

“Hjuu?” Like the rest of us, the monkey cocks his head in complete confusion at the hopping and self-scratching Derek who is oh so trying his best to imitate a monkey…

“Ah ah ooh ooh” …I mean I’m not sure if the monkey understands you? But it is nodding at the repeated point at us, point forward gesture.

“Ooh ahhh” Confirmation?

“Let’s go” Seriously?

Confidence!

Standing up and sauntering out from the ferns, I waltz up to Derek and huh no stones as of yet so that’s a good sign?

“What did you just do?” I whisper into his right ear as we stroll the next few metres past the monkey

“Greeted it…I think” Seems like he doesn’t know what he did either

“If I remember correctly, you mentioned that you are well versed in animal communication” SirStripy whispers from Derek’s left, wait what? Tell me sir where and how did you learn this, and may I?!

“Well communication might be a tad overexaggeration, it’s more like a mutual understanding of intentions to explain it bluntly” Once again, please teach me this seemingly extremely useful skill!

-72

…though maybe not right now

*Twang*

“AH HJA HJA” And so hell begins

Like bees, a dozen of those freaking monkeys swarm out from the trees, angrily hopping to the ground. Dammit, should’ve been paying more attention to the surroundings for other monkeys!

“I’ll take one” take is a strong word but I’ll try my best.

“HUAHHHH WAH WAH WAH AHH”

The monkeys stop in their tracks to look at Derek who is once again doing his strange animal speak. One representative stalks up to him as he does his thing…and swipes at him.

*BANG*

…

..

.

“WIAAA-”“ARRGHGHGHGHGHH” He’s gone mad.

Before anyone can recover from the shock of Derek’s massive tome splattering both earth and monkey bits everywhere, said man charges at the remaining monkeys, tome overhead and dripping with fresh blood.

*BANG*

Shocking my system to move, I open up my inventory and everything is locked?

-5

“Just figured that out did you?” SirStripy kicks me away from a swiping monkey who is somehow aggroed onto me even though there’s a freaking monster of a man bashing it’s friends with a tome right there…

Breakdance from the floor, distract, look at this monkey! You want to mess with me, then you better get down and six-step it up.

Surprisingly it doesn’t work, well it does stop it in it’s tracks for a moment in confusion, which is enough for SirStripy to tackle it…so I guess it counts as working then.

Jumping up and on the monkey too, I hold its arms while SirStripy punches its face in. That’s some pretty brutal tag teaming must I say.

Within seconds we’re done and I immediately notice that everything has gone terrifyingly quiet.

…

..

.

Probably because all the monkeys are dead, literally littered around the place and even two halves remain in the unconscious hands of Derek…who seems to have removed his suit top at some point in the past like 12 seconds.

“uuuuUAAAAAAAHHHH” time to go!

With mutual understanding, we both grab hold of an end and pick u-nope can’t do without strength, jesus he’s heavy.

Nightbird comes out of nowhere cloak still intact, and picks up Derek with ease. Man, I feel so useless.

Oh his book! Where’d that go?

“-HHHHH”

Sorry Derek but your tome is lost somewhere in the jungle.

Sprinting back as fast as we can, a literal wave of monkeys burst from the ferns and trees in the distance. I mean we somehow dealt with 12 (I mean it took 2 of us to deal with one) but this is like 30 monkeys. How in the hell are we supposed to move anywhere in this freaking jungle?

-71 noo I’m in throwing range!

*ding* ooh sacrifice levelled up

Leaping instinctively into a roll I hear something clunk into the ground nearby.

*ding* ooh lucky roll levelled up, wait no time to care about that now.

Run run run run RUN!

…

Dead…I am so freaking dead.

…

..

.

Phew I’ve got my breath back, Aiag be praised I have a game body.

“How are you already standing?” One semi-conscious Nightbird almost whines from the ground, panting like a breathless dog, hand clasping his new head wound.

“We’re good at recovering” SirStripy stands up, also fully recovered after only a few minutes of lying dead in the sand.

“Too good” I swear I just hear Nightbird mumble something rather disconcerting. So Npc’s notice that our recovery rate is beyond normal, or is he just humanely jealous?

“Well we are demi-gods” Woah wait a second SirStripy, don’t be telling the Npc’s that!

“Huh?”

“Huh?” SirStripy seems confused that Nightbird is confused, oh yeeah he doesn’t know that he knows literally nothing…well this won’t go down well.

“He didn’t learn anything from Angel and Devil” Not that he would’ve known we were Demi-gods from them anyways…

“…Oops”

“What are you people?” He gets to kneeling, a suspicious vibe emanating from under his hood.

*Sigh*

“As SirStripy said, we’re demi-gods, like Angel and Devil, well more like the other ‘gods’ that work under them.” Those two are definitely special “But don’t think of us like them, in reality we’re just normal people with a few extra survivability traits”

“We’re not super strong either. From what I’ve seen you could definitely beat us in a fight” After SirStripy helps deflate our status, I feel Nightbird’s suspiciousness becomes more curiousness.

“…How?”

Both us players just raise our hands into the air. I mean I guess there’s no way we can tell him about the fact that this is a game, already whoopsied that on two very intelligent AI…but then again.

“Err most of us aren’t actually aware that we classify as demi-gods and we all started extremely weak, but we do know about the extra abilities since this is a game” I mean might as well see how a normal Npc deals with such knowledge.

“W-” A blue screen pops up in front of him, cutting whatever he was going to ask.

…

..

.

Npc’s get system messages? Wait a minute.

*Dingding*

How could you! For telling not only THE two managers of this world but a Named Npc, I’ve given you a unique title…because I kind of have to.

UNIQUE TITLE: Game-breaker

You have crossed every boundary, every line I’ve placed to separate the players from the Npc’s, breaking the illusion of reality in this world for those who live in it. And now that both the Masters of Filtering are wasted, your literal words reached an Npc’s AN NPC’s ears.

This title have SEVERE in-game consequences.

For gaining this title, Named Npc Nightbird has been granted ‘player’ status and record of him being told this is a game wiped because I was too fricking busy with all the other crap you’ve piled onto me to filter out that knowledge!

Due to game-breaking, Both Angel and Devil have become aware of reality and now pester me constantly about it. You know I was doing so well introducing them slowly to it but nooo you just had to tell them. You told the game about the game and you didn’t even realise it…

http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/609/262/3fd.png

Xp decreases by 1000%

Also stop using my mother for your exclamations please -Aiag

……….

………

……..

…….

……

…..

….

…

..

.

WHATTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT???!?!?

I….I d..d d dd dodo don’t even know where to begin.

I mean let’s start with the freaking obvious…-1000% xp ONE FREAKING THOUSAND XP FOR A TITLE, MINUS. A UNIQUE FREAKING TITLE AT THAT. HOLY MOTHER OF AIAG WHOOPS SORRY IT’S A HABIT. BUT I JUST LOST 10 LEVELS, 10. WHOLE. LEVELS…FOR A TITLE. WHY DID I LOSE LEVELS??? Ahhhhhhhhhh…that really sucks.

Bu bu but why did Aiag send a little message thing like I got from Droneurt? I mean that’s just one hell of an umbrella question, do I just assume Aiag knows literally everything and can be basically regarded as a person?

Leaving that mess in a dark recess of my hurting brain for now, seriously this title is certainly unique, not only in name but also how it’s written. Instead of the normal congratulations, I’m asked how could I… and the first-person tone too! I even got a picture, a freaking picture. A, didn’t know that was possible, B, I got a picture from the god of this world…don’t even know how to process this.

Furthering that mindblowing concept, is the fact that I literally got told that Angel and Devil were being slowly introduced to reality, whuwhuwuuuuat? Self aware AI making other AI self aware? That’s just insane!

But you know what’s more freaking insane? It’s the fact that Nightbird was given a player status…his code literally just got upgraded!!! …Just what? My life was coding at one point and even I have no idea how that freaking works.

Haaa haaaaa haaaaaaaaaaaa…my brain hurts so much and I’ve literally just processed the facts, not even started on the possibilities yet. And oh Aiag there are so many questions I have about this AI now, soooo many questions. I wonder if he’s like er who was it again?

“Joat…what is this?” Oh great, more brainhurt incoming from one superbly shocked Nightbird who doesn’t even notice his hood is off.

“That’s your status, or soul as some call it. All demi-gods can see their own but…do you have a menu?”

“What is that?” as if waiting, I see another blue screen pop up and actually make him jump. Well I mean I’d be pretty jumpy if I suddenly got turned into a ‘player’...a player Npc, what kind of messed up notion is that??

“So what are the different tabs?” Crash course on being a player…and yes SirStripy I see you looking at us wide-eyed and utterly confused as to what just happened.

“Status, Social, Map, Inventory” no logout obviously

…he’s got an inventory? I mean I’m not surprised at this point, just very flabbergasted by this.

“Inventory is a storage space unique to you, kind of like dimensional storage but it doesn’t need casting. Map is as it sounds but it’s pretty much useless from when I’ve tried using it. Social has friends I believe and you already know about status”

“…Friends?”

I add him, because apparently I can…

*ding* I now have a new friend, who is an Npc…

This is the message system, so we can talk between just ourselves.

…this…what

Oh my Aiag…send party invite!

Nightbird is now officially part of my party!?!

“This…this isn’t fair” Yeah I guess any normal Npc who looks at this sees that players are overpowered in so many ways. “How many of you are there?”

“I’ve met about a hundred and fifty but I’m sure there are many more of us” he is one of us now, in a strange literal way.

“Us” He shivers with a lapse of fear.

“So back to your status”

“I…I don’t even…” yeah finding out there’s a numerical status to your life might come as a bit of a shock.

“Share it with me in the message and I’ll help you through it” Seems SirStripy is checking on Derek, sort of given up understanding or actually understanding what’s happening on my side of life.

Joat, I can assume Nightbird became a demi-god…but he’s got player abilities too?

“How do I share?” Ahh multi-tasking’s not a good idea right now with my frazzled brain

I’ll tell you later, brain hurts.

“Just think it when you’re in the message section. Willing it usually makes things happen”

NAME:

Nightbird

TITLES:

Orphan, Hate symbol ®, Elvish Blood, Abomination (E), Survivor, Lone Wolf (E), Iron Stomach, Naïve, Cursed by the World (Ep), Blessed by Angel, Contractee Of A Demon, Player Npc(Demi-God) (L), Cat’s Immortality ®, Traveller ®, Met a Diety, Orc-Nightmare, Skirmisher, Uncivilized, Rare being, Exquisite being

Class:

Wild Ranger (Variant)

Race:

Half-elf

Gender

Male

Level

26

Experience

132%

Alignment:

Neutral Good

Global Reputation:

-1600

Age

21

-

-

STATUS:

Remaining points (21)

Health Points:

530/530

HP regen (out of combat)

1/sec

Stamina Points:

10/10

Stamina regen (out/in combat)

1/0.1 per second

Attack:

26-26(+114-142)

Defense:

31

Perception:

54

Strength

25

Mana:

10

Luck:

-150

Stamina:

10

Dexterity

-50

Vitality:

52

Darkness(E):

33

Agility:

20

Endurance:

150

Satiety:

40/180 (Starving)

Unused Stats:

Wisdom, Intelligence, Brutality(E)(+10) Flexibility, Light(E), Tenacity®(+50), Regeneration(Ep)(+10), Fighting Spirit®, Focus(E), Reaction®, Faith ®

Permanent Effects:

-

SKILLS/PROFICIENCIES:

Active:

Acrobatics, beginner [lvl7]

Balance, intermediate [lvl1]

Bite, beginner [lvl5]

Catch, beginner [lvl4]

Climb, beginner [lvl8]

Crawling, beginner [lvl9]

Disguise, intermediate[lvl5]

Dodge, beginner [lvl5]

Eagle Eyes, intermediate [lvl1]

Forage, Intermediate [lvl2]

Grapple, beginner [lvl3]

Handle Animal, beginner [lvl3]

Headbutt, beginner [lvl3]

Hide, intermediate [lvl7]

Hold-Your-Breath, beginner [lvl5]

Jump, beginner [lvl5]

Monster Identification, beginner [lvl1]

Reading, beginner [lvl3]

Cat’s Immortality, intermediate [lvl2]

Ride, intermediate [lvl1]

Roll, beginner [lvl8]

Sacrifice, beginner [lvl2]

Sprint, intermediate [lvl7]

Sneak, intermediate [lvl7] {counter-perception}

Stomp, beginner [lvl5]

Swim, beginner [lvl5]

Taunt, beginner [lvl 6]

Throw, beginner [lv2]

Tracking, intermediate [lvl7]

Writing, beginner [lvl1]

Passive:

Fast hands, beginner [lvl4]

Hearing, intermediate [lvl4]

Low-light Vision, Master [lvlMax]

Lucky roll, beginner [lvl1]

Mana adept, beginner [lvl1]

Smell, beginner [lvl7]

Universal tolerance, beginner [lvl3]

Auras:

Aura of Darkness, beginner [lvl5] {Dark}

Aura of Light, beginner [lvl2] (disabled) {Light}

Hate, Master [lvlMax]

Crafting:

Fletching, intermediate [lvl2]

Bowying, intermediate [lvl1]

Leatherworking, beginner [lvl4]

Skinning, beginner [lvl6]

Cooking, beginner [lvl3]

Proficiencies:

Archery, intermediate [lvl5]

Dagger Mastery, beginner [lvl3]

Kick Mastery, beginner [lvl4]

Unarmed Mastery, beginner [lvl4]

COMBAT:

Ranged:

Arrow Split, beginner [lvl5]

Clout, beginner [lvl1]

Critical shot, beginner [lvl1]

Mark, intermediate [lvl2]

Piercing shot, beginner [lvl4]

Point blank shot, intermediate [lvl5]

Precise shot, beginner [lvl7]

Triple shot, intermediate [lvl1]

Melee:

Arrow Stab, intermediate [lvl4]

Bow Garotte, beginner [lvl7]

Impale, beginner [lvl4]

Stab, beginner [lvl2]

Defensive:

Block, beginner [lvl3]

Deflect, beginner [lvl2]

Parry, beginner [lvl8]

SPELLS:

Ignite, beginner [lvl2]

Freeze, beginner [lvl2]

Electrocute, beginner [lvl2]

Explode, beginner [lvl2]

Fusion, beginner [lvl1]

LANGUAGES:

Dekin, beginner [lvl3]

Horse, beginner [lvl8]

…

..

.

Let’s just add all the new skills and stats to a list for later…and now to blink multiple times at this severly awesome character sheet. Quite a few new cool skills, even spells? And let’s not even get started on the titles. Ep? Epic?? L is for what legendary??? Literally insane, insane!!!

Then we get to the stats, barring the minus over one thousand reputation…he’s got -150 luck, no wonder critical shot is still at beginner level 1. But on the other side his endurance is literally monstrous. 150 endurance, this guy can take hell of a beating! And over 500 health! Seriously, for an archer with negative dexterity might I add, he’s hell of a tank. And look how many rare ones he has! How the hell do I get those!? And regeneration please I need that!!!

But even after ogling his character sheet for an absolute age, it’s just not comfortable to me that he’s only level 26…ONLY. I don’t want to ever fight an npc, if they’re all literally as insane as this! And what’s with the over 100% but not levelling up?!?

However he was called a Named Npc so maybe he was like an elite, well technically higher?

So by that hopeful logic, normal Npc’s should still be possible to fight if I have to…but I’ll definitely not annoy any named ones. Oh Aiag never shall I do that.

Putting my mind back on track, let’s teach him what everything is and then learn it all from him. Yes that sounds like an absolutely delicious plan.

“…There’s something that says I can change my stats one time, what does that mean?”

…

..

.

He just went from insanely overpowered to an absolute monster.

…

Phew, that only took forever to do.

After explaining everything and having him show me all his new skills and stats, I have many ideas that need to be tried when I’m free. Ooh I can taste those delicious skills already!

And his titles, oh my Aiag are they…something else. The main ones were Cursed by the World, which gave him -1000 reputation and -100 luck, which is mad, added onto it is the abomination title which gave him -50 luck and further reputation decrease. On top of that is the Hate symbol title which gave him a further -500 reputation and the hate aura: which is literally just getting agro from everything within reason, utterly mad. Cat’s immortality gave him a broken skill: once every 5 days if he were to die he wouldn’t, what kind of broken skill is that!? Seeing as though it’s at intermediate level he’s definitely used this a lot. Apparently because he’s a contractee with a demon he’s got spells which he only has to say the words to cast…I really want to meet this demon. But he’s BROKEN I TELL YOU BROKEN.

Then he’s got the miscellaneous titles like iron stomach which lets him eat whatever, orc-nightmare which is a much much improved version of goblin-slayer (he’s killed a lot of orcs it seems), Skirmisher which allows him to shoot while moving with reduced penalties

And then his last title, is just further broken. Traveller, apparently he gets -25% on character reductions in any location. That’s almost twice mine, and his is in any ANY location.

I’m done, just…done with him. He is so absolutely overpowered for his level it’s so unfair.

Although if we look at it this way, he’s spent 21 years in this game and has only come this far, so Npc’s definitely level slower than us, by a drastic amount it seems.

So moving on from his broken self, well trying to, I still can’t get my head over his new stats

Perception:

54

Strength

25

Mana:

10

Luck:

-150

Tenacity®:

55

Reaction®

10

Stamina

10

Darkness(E):

33

Regeneration(Ep):

10

Endurance:

150

He heals 11 hp per second, 10 in combat, 10 per second!! I mean that’s worthy of it being epic. And that’s not it, all his pools regenerate like that! Tenacity is apparently vitality and endurance in one, so essentially his endurance is over 200! I mean sadly luck couldn’t be removed and both stamina and mana are required for him to be effective…but that’s a tiny niggling thing in relation to the monster that is Nightbird.

I gave him my character sheet earlier just so he could understand how absolutely monstrous he is and he is currently staring between the two in shock.

“What happened?” Oh is that a Derek? He looks slightly better and not so much on Death’s door anymore.

“Monkeys, you dealt with them extremely violently” twas a sight to see indeed.

“Ah. Forgive me for my actions, I…dislike solicitors of violence” Being such an avid one yourself, of course.

“You do not need forginess, you did save us back there” SirStripy gives him a helping hand up.

“If I had just spoken better”

“Don’t beat yourself up about it, those monkeys aren’t the most friendly monsters that I’ve met” I agree with SirStripy on that one.

“Talking about those monsters, how about we give them a taste of our own?”

…

“My good sir Nightbird, I never noticed you were such a monster of a half-elf if you excuse the insult as a compliment” Derek says what everyone is thinking.

Fighting 12 monkeys seemed difficult before, but now that we have a tank that takes under 100 damage every attack, and is full health after less than a minute. Plus apparently his spells cast super quick with an extra half elemental damage or more if he uses fusion, which apparently allows him to cast two at once on his arrows.

Yes he enchants his arrows, which I absolutely love and fear.

So with a damage count over 300, he can kill a monkey in one shot. And he can do that every 10 seconds.

Now his damage didn’t really increase with becoming a player, but getting rid of the penalty that was dexterity improved his archery skills by some amount…he even levelled critical shot for the first time.

Honestly, these past few hours of hunting monkeys to feed ourselves and slowly thin out the never-ending horde of monkeys, has passed with almost no worries. There were a few times when his arrows completely missed and we got a bunch of raging monkeys jumping us, but we’ve figured out a system to take on the usual 12.

Nightbird takes half: with his combat skills, magic and insane regen he’s quite literally a walking death machine.

Derek takes 4 since he apparently flies into a rage when he gets attacked and slaughters those monkeys with his book…which weighs an absolute ton as I found out when trying to pick it up earlier. And apparenty it’s bound to him so he can’t lose it. Nifty.

See I thought it was just him going berserk every time…but after it happens, every time he gets hurt and the fact that he doesn’t go berserk until he gets hit, I suspect something is going on…

Anyways, SirStripy and I both take one each…because honestly neither of us are any good.

Well I say that, but he’s already killed his with some surprisingly decent spearwork and dodging, which is actually very strange since he’s barely level 11. However according to him his strength and agility are both above 60. Wouldn’t have believed they’d be so high if I didn’t know that some titles can give massive bonuses and penalties.

10 titles gave him 100 stat points…how he got 10 titles that all focused on strength and agility I fear to find out…

Moving on to me; I am…doing the mambo with a monkey. Because charming distraction while dancing apparently works. And of course when doing enchufla con Dracula

-403

The monkey dies without even a last breath. Dangerous.

I tried this out a few times already…and apparently if you do a sneak attack, which is double damage, on a critical area, which is a further quadruple damage, while using charming distraction apparently adds another double damage since it counts as an assassination.

So I do 8 times my damage, which is a lot less broken than Nightbird mind you but that’s still pretty good.

And of course I learnt the Assassinate combat skill

COMBAT SKILL: Assassinate, Beginner [lvl1] (34%)

Assassinate is an attack on an unepecting opponent in a vulnerable spot, but may be used in combat

Deals x2 damage to unexpecting opponent

Deals x4 damage to opponent if hit vulnerable spot

Dealx x8 damage to unexpected opponent if hit vulnerable spot

Cost: 100 stamina, Duration: instantaneous, Cooldown: 1 minute

So I can use it twice before I’m burnt out…not bad considering it’s effectiveness.

It was originally sneak attack but it immediately got upgraded to assassinate due to the nature of my attacks. This means I may actually be missing out on lower-grade skills that I can train up on and gain xp before having them upgrade? So many questions and no answers.

Well at least I can be somewhat useful in this party.

“Hey Joat, it’s nighttime” SirStripy points out, oh he wants to log off?

I guess we’re not going further in where the number of attacking monkeys triples straight off the bat. One of the few things we have learnt while delving through the jungle.

To be honest we haven’t learnt much except that there is no end to these monkeys and that the number of monkeys increase the deeper you go in. well that is what we assume anyways.

Bringing the multiple bodies back to camp, we all sit round a tiny campfire and have some delicious grilled monkey.

Today may have been hell of a day, but tomorrow won’t be any less, that’s almost certain with my luck in life thus far.