Name: Natasha

Race: Mandrill lvl 5

XP: 510

Size: 70

Type: Beast

Faction: Unaligned

Armor: 0

HP: 30

Strength: 5/Speed: 9/Endurance: 5/Magic: 2/Plasticity: 1/Luck 6

Senses: Vision 3, hearing 3, smell 2, taste 1, touch 2

Abilities: Balance 2, omnivorous 2, aposematism 1, innate magic 2

Skills: Bite 1, strike 2, grapple 2, throw 1, climb 1, sneak 3, hide 1, dash 1

Spells: Bluster 5 MAX, windfury 1

As soon as I realized what I was looking at, I bolted for the end of the branch and leapt off. Grabbing onto a beam on the corner of the building, I quickly scrambled up to the roof, and chanced a look back towards the woman who spotted me. She sat dumbstruck for a solid five seconds before dropping the book in her hands, and lifting the skirt of her dress enough that she could run straight for the nearest house and slammed the door. I could hear a muffled shouting that grew more distant as I hopped from one building to the next.

This is not good. I really should have made a plan for what to do if this happened. Well… I did have a plan, which basically boiled down to just running away, but I should have formed a better one once I’d actually seen the town proper. Now I’m just sort of hoping this doesn’t spiral out of control the same way it did with the frog. I came to the next break in the buildings, the dirt road here being a bit wider. No way to sneak across this one quickly, especially if that lady starts calling for help or something. Better to just make a sprint across when I can. So I nervously squatted behind the edge of the rooftop, waiting for one cart to round a corner so it would be as clear as I could realistically hope for.

I dashed as quickly as I could, and only now when I had a clear straight line across flat ground, did I realize that I’m actually a pretty fast monkey when I need to be. I have no idea if anyone saw me or not. All I could really hear were my fists padding against the ground and my blood pumping in my ears, drowning out everything else. I made it to the other side, and scrambled up the wall, grabbing onto windows and practically throwing myself up onto the roof. Hey, this one actually has shingles. I actually had to be a bit careful not to fall off this one.

I only then realized the limit to the climbing skill. I so far have been able to climb most anything with no difficulty. Right now however, I was having trouble keeping a hold on. Maybe shingle roofs require climbing 2? A bit of a narrow usage, but maybe there were other benefits that I don’t know about? Like how I can sneak faster with those upgrades, a faster climb would be very nice. What am I thinking about this for? Focus, I’m worried about dying right now, not leveling up my skills. I come over the peak of the building and slide to the opposite side, hopping down one story and onto a thatched roof. No doubt that was probably kind of loud if anyone was inside.

My stealth had gone from a spy movie to more of a Jackie Chan movie. I was still trying to sneak, but it was secondary to speed, prioritizing moving from one building to the next and pointedly staying out of sight of the roads. This block I was on was less of a block and more of a giant U shape of buildings and in the center of the U was a small… well I wouldn’t call it a park. What would you call something smaller than a park? A garden I guess? There’s a garden in the center of the U shape. I looked up towards where the church was and could see it a bit better now. Yeah, that is just a straight up catholic looking cathedral. Like the old ones. Notre Dam kind of old. It doesn’t even blend in with the rest of the town. Every other building has a sort of local culture of its own, but that is just gothic European. Stained glass and everything. If this were a video game, I would have called the developers lazy.

I was halfway hoping that it was just an odd parallel, kind of like how you have a sort of Zeus character in most fictional pantheons, but no, it’s just getting weirder as I look closer. Hop over to the next building, then the next, slowly circling around the U shape until I reach the peak of the bend, which puts me squarely in the shadow of the one long building I’d seen earlier. As I came closer, seeing the chimney puffing away much more smoke than the rest of the houses, I assumed that it must have been something like an inn, but scaling up to the first window revealed an open floor plan. It was like a place where lots of people looked to mingle about, but the entire place had a sort of… how would you even put it. More of a classy hotel atmosphere than an inn. One I couldn’t quite place, until I saw a door open and steam rushing out. Oh, it’s like a bath house.

I tried to keep out of the view of the window as much as I could, climbing up via the… I don’t exactly know what you call them. Miniature roof bits that overhang a window. Would that be called an awning? No, I think that’s something else. Whatever, not important. I’m climbing up the outside of the building, dragging myself up from hand hold to hand hold. By the time I made it onto the roof, I grabbed onto the raingutter and hoisted myself up and onto the shingled roof again. I never thought I’d actually be annoyed by a shingled roof before now, but trying to keep my footing was actually nerve wracking. Looking around again from this vantage point, I could see the direction I needed to go to get to the church. Directly in front of the bathhouse one long road led directly down to the opposite end of the town, and ended at a river. The church sat directly by the river… Wait, I could have just circled the wall to get to the church. Or could I? Can monkeys swim?

Regardless, two more things stand out now, firstly there is a wooden watchtower that I can see on the edge of the river too, which I’m guessing is filled with guards. Secondly, I started looking around to where the wall ended beside the river, and lo and behold a castle. Though not like those giant lord of the rings style, symbols of mankind kind of castles. It was squat, mostly made of stone for the first story, but the second story was all wood. The only reason I recognized it as a castle was because of the sort of saw-toothed pattern you see at the top of castle towers. There was a word for those, what was it? Machicolations? Yeah that was it.

But that’s not really important right at the moment. Right now I need to figure out how to get to that church. This road in front of me looks to be just about the most busy road I’ve seen so far. There are at least a dozen people I can see, so getting from here to that church is going to be a bit more complicated. Maybe if I can get some sort of distraction. There are wagons and houses, and people, but anything I do is going to bring attention to me. Maybe if I had something like a firecracker I could light it and throw, but all of my current capabilities have to be done with my own two hands. I reach into my bindle and pull out my only kipple. I really didn’t want to waste food, but it was my only disposable tool. The only question now was where could I throw it to cause a little bit of harmless chaos.

Surveying my targets to spook, I took them in one by one. A couple passing by, I don’t want to hurt them. An older man with a cane, not really an option either. Some kids running through the street, chaotic, but might get ignored. A wagon. Hmm, if you spook a horse they’ll make quite a lot of noise. If I wait until nobody is in front, and scare the horse, maybe that will attract enough attention that I can slip across the street. I watched the horse trot by, coming just past the T intersection and there was nobody ahead of it for another sixty feet at least. I aimed the kipple for the door of the building opposite, hoping it would make a knock loud enough to spook the horse. Unfortunately my throwing skills hadn’t improved. So as the fruit flew from my palm it sailed over to the window hitting the wooden shutter covering it, splattering, and filling the air with a startlingly loud CRACK.

On the plus side, that horse was spooked, unfortunately it and the wagon attached to it went flying down the road at full speed. I felt really bad watching the man formerly piloting the cart falling backwards in his seat and into the wagon. I really hoped he was going to be okay. Still, my plan had technically worked, as it caused a decent commotion, and everyone was either watching the scene or speed walking away from it. Which left me an opportunity to attempt crossing the road. I slid down the outer wall and onto a lower roof before hopping down and scrambling across the road. I didn’t stop to check if anyone had seen me, just bolting top speed to the foot of the building.

I grabbed onto a thin pillar that made up… Not sure if you’d call it a porch or a stoop, but either way it made it easy to get up to the roof, and over the edge to get out of sight. I peeked my head over, and saw a couple people getting away swiftly, but that was more likely the horse kicking up a fuss. I suppose either way it doesn’t matter. I just need to follow this line of buildings up to the church and I’ll be decently satisfied that I learned something. Hopefully even something that will help. Making my way more silently from the roof, to the next and the next proved slightly more difficult. Where all the other buildings up to this point had been relatively close together, all it really took was a jump, these buildings on this line had gaps between them like alleyways. So the gaps were bigger, requiring I get a run up first, and you could imagine that’s not very quiet.

I bound over, landing on the next roof, immediately flopping on my belly to make sure no one had seen me from the road or from between the alleyways. I don’t know if my paranoia was in any way justified, or if in fact I’m overreacting, or underreacting either. For all I know they could have some uber adventurer here in town who can snap his fingers and cast a spell to turn monkeys into ash. Actually that’s not even that unlikely now that I think about it. I shake my head, trying to dismiss the thought.

Jumping to the next roof again I see the cathedral coming into view. It was actually bigger than it looked from a distance. I knew it was tall, but now I can see it’s literally overshadowing all the other buildings around it. I could see there was some sort of writing on the archway overhanging the door, but there’s no way that I can read their language anyways so it’s not like it matters. I hopped across the next gap and the church was just about across the street from me. I could see it now, and lo and behold, this writing I could sort of read. It wasn’t in English, but it was recognizable English letters, which was more than I was expecting.

“Pauperes commilitones Christi Templique Salomonici”

I have no idea what that means, I have no idea what language that is, but I do know one thing it means. It means I wasn’t the only person that was brought here. Some other people must have been brought over from earth to this world way before I was given they had enough time to build a whole church… Also what kind of crap is it that they apparently came here as a human, around other humans to build this, while I was made into a monkey living in the jungle. Now I feel cheated. I puffed out my cheeks a bit at the thought before looking for a way to cross the street unseen.

I can see there are a number of people on the road, and the ones way ahead aren’t even being distracted by the horse any more. The only thing I could realistically say that I could do here would be to just wait for an opening. It didn’t take too long for a cart to roll by and I slid down the roof, landing lightly on all fours. I slid under the cart, walking along with it for a few feet before darting out to the side of the church and climbing the large outcroppings. One of the great things about this old gothic look, not only is it pretty, but it gives lots of hand holds. Climbing the outside of the church was a breeze. I made it up to the second story where there were several small statues. I didn’t want to grab onto those, both cause I might break them, and cause it felt wrong to climb a statue.

As soon as I made it over them, I pulled myself up onto a little balcony where I could see a door. Now here is a question, do I think I can actually sneak into the church unseen? My track record hasn't been exactly stellar so far, but at the same time, I’ve already come this far, may as well go for broke? Besides if they catch me in here, won’t they all be priests? Usually in games that means they’d just be healers. What’s a group of healers going to do to me? Even if they call out for help, I’ll have plenty of time to book it out of here. I managed to convince myself, and reached up, pushing the door open as quietly as I could, which is to say, not near as much as I’d like. Clearly they have not invented the medieval WD-40.

I peeked inside, pushing my bright red nose in first and barely squeezing my head through the door. It was like walking into a new world all over again. It was quiet, everything was either lit by candles or the little bits of waning sun peeking through the stained glass. Pillars lined the rows of dozens of pews, high vaulted ceilings, and all the way at the end, surrounded by a half circle of stained glass windows, was a giant cross carved out solid marble depicting Jesus hung by nails and wearing a crown of thorns. Whoever it was that was brought over to this new world was clearly very catholic.

I stepped out onto the upper floor, overlooking the pews below, keeping my head down and trying to keep as quiet as possible. I circled around the outside of the pillars, getting a better view of the lower floor, and once I got an angle to be able to see the front door, there were the confessionals on the same wall. Though I didn’t see any priests. Maybe it’s not Sunday, so they would be… what do priests do the rest of the week? I’m sure there are plenty of things to do working for a church, but I never actually stopped to think about it. Either way, they have to be here somewhere. I kept walking down the aisle when I spotted another heavy wooden door off to the right side of the stage. Probably where the offices and things are. Or was that more of a modern thing? Regardless, more church stuff.

I came to the end of the second floor platform, climbing up onto the railing and trying to sidle on down the pillar as quietly as I could. landed with the softest pad I could manage and walked up onto the stage. It was weird, I had never been up here before as a human, now the first time stepping up to a podium was as a monkey in an entirely different world from where either I or Jesus were from. I came up to the podium, and just as I expected, in the little nook inside the podium was a bible. I opened it up and… Yep, I couldn't read it. The entire thing was in another language. Given that it’s Catholics, probably Latin. Maybe I should have paid more attention back in school so I could get at least some of this.

I flipped from page to page, and I never really noticed the lack of manual dexterity before, but turning pages requires you to be really precise in your movements, it’s a bit frustrating actually. Still, I flip from page to page, from back to front, and sadly, this wasn’t a study bible. No notes, no appendix, nothing. Not that I could read it anyways, but I might have been able to learn what the native writing looks like at least. I put the bible back, scratching my chin. I wanted to check the offices, but sneaking in a wide open space is hard. Sneaking in a narrow corridor is impossible. I’m a monkey, not a ninja.

I hesitated a moment before hearing a door open. I peeked around the podium to see who had entered and was met with the sight of a trio of people. Two were middle aged, one man, his hair forming a gray horseshoe around the back of his head. The other a middle aged woman, her hair having a prominent skunk stripe down the middle of it. The third was the girl who’d spotted me earlier, both of the older ones holding to either side of her. She looked shaken up, rambling to the other two, which to be fair, having seen a monkey the size of a large dog, I would be too. Though I do not want them to see me, for both of our sakes.

I backed away to hide behind the cross, trying to hold in my breath and make as little noise as I possibly could. Luckily the three of them were fairly quick, making their way over to the door I’d contemplated going through. They stepped inside, and I didn’t even get a chance to peek in. I huffed slightly in irritation, but took that as a cue to leave. Clearly I’ve made some sort of impact, and I should be on my way back to the other monkeys, and get a good night’s rest. Frankly, sleep sounds really good right now. Especially sleep when I’m not injured. So that’s the plan for now. I’ll come back if I can think of anything else I can learn from the town.

I zipped over to the pillar and pulled myself up onto the second floor, slipping between the second floor pews to get to the balcony once again, and quickly tugged it open. Though as I did, I could hear the commotion behind me. The other door had opened again, and what walked out were the three I’d seen enter, plus one friar Tuck looking monk, and two men fully decked out in armor. Not chainmail either, no, full on silvery polished knight armor. Maybe I was wrong about the healer thing. Either way I didn’t stick around to find out. I slipped through the door and made my way around the outside wall, hoping I could get to the river and follow it over to the wall. Making it to one of the other nearby roofs was going to be a bit harder, given the distance it was just far enough that I was fairly sure I couldn’t jump it.

I slowly descended, hating the feeling of walking openly across the street, but luckily the road on the sides of the church seemed rarely traveled, so I should be fine, so long as I am quick. I scampered to the foot of the next building. This one had thatched walls as well as roof, so climbing was a cinch. I was up on the roof faster than I could think of a word to say faster than. I ran along the roof, only glancing back as the pair of knights jogged along the sides of the street. They were headed up the road, back towards the bathhouse, which means I am in the clear for now. So long as I can get to that wall and back to my woods, I am golden. I have had enough adventure for today.

Crawling across the roof, I trailed over to the edge towards the river, which, as I overlooked it from the roof, the river was larger than I thought it was. It must be over a hundred feet across. It’s weird how easy it is to mistake things like that. Though it makes me wonder if my sense of scale might be off too, given I used to be five foot eight, and now I’m something like two foot tall. Still, now that I’m here all I’ll need to do is follow the line of buildings back to the wall. Easy as breakfast. I tumbled to the edge of one roof, hopping over to the next one. Looking down towards the docks, there were a lot of small boats and nets, which tells me that there is a lot of fishing in this town. My immediate thought was to steal a net, and I might be a monkey, but I am no thief. Not playing into that stereotype today.

I come to the next gap, a narrow road splitting the blocks apart again. This time however, I met the most impassable obstacle I’d ever encountered in this world. Lollygagging. Somebody was sitting on their porch, quietly enjoying the waning hours of the day. The fiend. With him sitting there, looking straight at the road, and not a lot of traffic and no carts, there was no chance I could slip by him. I was going to be forced to head back into the city a good distance in order to escape his elderly hawk-like gaze.

So that’s what I did, grinding my teeth just a bit, I moved back inland, following the road back up towards the place I had seen the blacksmith earlier. The road was only lightly populated, but there was still no actual cover that I could hide behind. No wagons or anything. The road wasn’t that far across though, so maybe I can just be quick about it and jump across before anyone notices.

I took a few deep breaths in, trailing down the roof to the very edge, hedging my bets on the fact that people very rarely actually look up. One short run up and a leap, though as I started to jump, I felt something. My foot caught on something right on the edge of the building that I hadn’t seen. Instead of jumping maybe ten feet or so, I tumbled straight down, grabbing for anything I could on the way down. My hand caught onto what I’d tripped over, a sign hanging off the front of the house. The thin rope snapped, and the heavy plank thudded into the beam it was previously attached to, as did I in short order after.

I slid down the beam to the ground. Luckily I’d taken no damage, but I still felt that sting of being swiftly slapped in the face. My eyes opened again, and I shook my head, the reddish orange sky came back into view along with a number of very still silhouettes. The faces of several aghast humans came into view and my first thought oddly wasn’t to panic. I was thinking, maybe if I stay calm and move slowly they will only panic after I’m already gone. I rubbed my face, very calmly walking across the road. It was kind of working for about three seconds before the first woman screamed, making my hairs stand on end. Then all at once three men all grabbed knives from their belts and started charging. Great.

I bolted, quickly running for the other side of the street. My highest stat was speed and it showed. As soon as I was at the foot of the building, I gripped onto a windowsill and threw myself upwards, climbing the shutters and kicking off to grab onto the roof. I could hear the men below shouting just behind me, and in my imagination I could feel them swinging their knives at my little tail, which made me climb all the faster. My fingers dug into thatch and hoisted myself up, looking back at the men below, who were trying to climb after, but clearly lack the climb skill.

I chuckled internally as I started running across the rooftop, and trying to get back to the wall again. Stealth was out the window, so now was the time for speed. I ran over to the edge of one roof, hopping to the next, but the shouting started to become more of a commotion behind me. Clearly they were shouting to each other, probably about me and where I was, but I still couldn’t understand a word of it. Still, it did mean I could tell where they were, which helped in one way. It meant that I could avoid them better.

THOK

I looked down at the sound, seeing the arrow land just beside me in the thatch and sticking. I raised my head to see where it came from and my heart immediately started to pound all the faster. It would be one thing to see a peasant with a bow, or even a guard, but I looked down at the road below, there holding the longbow, long hair flowing in the wind, reaching for a second arrow from the quiver… was Aragorn-ish.