ã€ŠSkinwalker / War Chiefã€‹


 The "Game"

    Bowen ¡°Brownbear¡± Shotridge scanned the mountainside looking for any smoke, movement, or unusual color through the tree canopy. He had just made it to ranger station 121 on the north facing side of a mountain in the Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park outside of Scagway Alaska. The two hikers he was tracking down had been reported missing a day ago and although it was starting to warm up in early April, this particular area was being hit with a front of freezing air from Siberia and the mountains were still covered with plenty of snow.

    Snow wasn''t what he was worried about though. The scariest thing about this part of the world at this time of year were the bears. This was prime wake up time for all the mama bears of Alaska and when they came out of hibernation they were hungry! There was a nice little tributary that ran thru here filled with fish and Bowen hoped these two knuckleheads weren''t out here fishing or they would be spotted by a bear for sure.

    At 32 years of age Bowen had been working for the parks and the Alaskan Mountain Rescue Group for ten years now. This was his home territory, he had spent most of his summers growing up in these mountains with his grandfather. Although he now lived 6 hours away in Juneau, he knew this area like the back of his hand. Other teams were scouring the area from prop planes and helicopters, but since this was the last area the hikers had been seen, Bowen was called upon to track the area on foot to search for clues. It was what he did better than anyone else.

    Bowen was a six-foot-two hulk of a man of Native American heritage. His family had come from the Tlingit (Clink-it) people of the Pacific Northwest coast and were rumored to be descendants of a powerful chief from the 1800s. Bowen was a little slack on the culture of natives. It wasn¡¯t that he was not proud to be a Native, he just preferred to just be another plain American guy like everybody else. He tried his whole life not to stick out. Bowen had long straight black hair that was tied back into a pony-tail and facial features that immediately pegged him as a native, but he dressed and acted like all of his other fellow Juneauians. He didn''t like attracting attention to himself.

    He had decided a long time ago that he was going to become a park ranger and went to the University of Alaska majoring in forestry and park admin and graduated near the top of his class. Before he had even gotten out of school he was hired by National Park Service Alaska. Bowen loved his job and was living his dream. He married his college sweetheart and had a ten year old son. Life was good.

    Seeing nothing unusual that immediately stuck out to him, Bowen decided that he would pop into the ranger station real quick and check with everyone on the radio before going up on top of the roof for a better vantage point.

    Bowen picked up his pride and joy, a Ruger Hawkeye Alaskan.357 rifle with a custom made suppressor and slung it over his shoulder. The gun had cost him a very pretty penny, but it was worth it. The synthetic stock and stainless barrel would never rust and the gun was powerful enough to take down any grizzly or even Kodiak. Hell, the gun could take out an elephant truth be told. He patted his grandfather''s old .357 pistol on his hip making sure it was secure and walked up the steps into the ranger station.

    He walked over to the desk with the ham radio and area''s maps and set his backpack down opening it to take out lunch. Rooting through the bag he smiled as he saw the tablet and little external hard drive that his son always made him take with him.

    The hard drive had over a hundred different bootlegged TV shows stored on it. A couple of nights a week his family and some friends would all get together and watch a few different shows. Tonight''s shows were 7 pm Lost, 8 pm Stranger Things, and 9 pm T.W.D. His son Billy was worried that he wouldn''t make it back home tonight and he didn''t want his dad to fall behind their strict schedule!

    Still smiling he pulled out a ham and cheese sandwich and an apple and took a big bite. He switched on the radio and pulled the map closer to him and said into the mic ¡°Hey Jimmy this is Bowen at 121 you copy?¡± The radio squawked and he heard ¡°Hiya Bow, we are in the valley at S2 right now. Nothing to report yet.¡± He grabbed a pencil and traced the quadrants up to the section mentioned and frowned. The hikers couldn''t have gone further than that in the current time frame.

    He started tapping the pencil out to a beat on the map, thinking about what pass they must have taken, when the pencil slipped out of his fingers and fell to the floor. He growled in irritation at himself and scooted out of his seat and went down to one knee to reach under the desk. As he reached for the pencil a huge blue wall of text unfolded right in front of his face. Jerking up in a startled panic Bowen slammed the back of his head against the bottom of the desk lifting the entire thing a foot off of the floor. He barely managed to glimpse:

    Greetings citizen. As a peaceful and organized immersion into the Galactic Council has been declined (extensively and painfully we might add), your world has been declared a Dungeon World. Thank you.

    Then nothing but darkness...

    2

    Bowen slowly opened his eyes, the right side of his face was against the floor and a small puddle of blood was crusting his one eye shut. Pushing himself back from under the desk with a groan he could still see the wall of text floating in front of his face, but all he could focus on was:

    Time to System initiation: 3 minutes 35 seconds

    Bowen Shook his head back and forth trying to make sense of what was happening. He clawed at the text in front of him and managed to bat it out of his line of sight. As soon as the text went away another popped into his vision! ¡°What the fuck?!¡± He noticed the top text said:

    Congratulations! You have been spawned in the Klondike Gold Rush National Park (level 110+) zone.

    He saw something about XP and perks before he batted that away as well. Bowen was starting to lose his cool. He grabbed the back of his head and felt a very tender spot wet with blood, and was sure he had a concussion. He staggered over to the sink and wet a cloth, brought it to the back of his head, and scrubbed the blood away. He opened the cabinet and grabbed a handful of aspirin and tossed them back with a mouthful of water when all of the hair on his body stood up like he took a static electricity hit and he heard a commotion outside.

    Bowen went to the door and stepped out to the porch and looked over to his right. The biggest goddamn grizzly he had ever laid his eyes on was tearing his ATV to pieces trying to open the hard box he had mounted on the back of it.

    The door he had just walked out of decided to shut right at that moment making a small clicking noise¡­

    The bear heard it and looked over. Bowen and the bear locked eyes on each other and the bear let out a roar that froze Bowen in his track for a second!

    Instinct took over and even though Bowen knew better, and he leaped down the steps and took off running in the other direction. The bear''s instincts kicked in as well and he started chasing not a second later. Bowen had no idea where he was running to, but he knew he had to put some distance between him and the bear. As he ran he reached down to his hip and pulled out his .357, one of the most powerful handguns on the planet.

    Bowen turned and years of eye-hand practice took over, and he fired the weapon perfectly. The huge bullet moving at over 1500 feet per second hit the grizzly right between the eyes! The bear stopped, sat on it haunches, looked at Bowen for one second and let out an even louder roar and charged him! Bowen turned and ran like an Olympic sprinter. Superhuman adrenaline flooded his system and he gained a step on the bear, but he almost cried out as he realized he was headed right for a sheer cliff drop off not fifty feet in front of him.

    A memory sprung into his mind, and Bowen veered off a little to his right and started moving along the cliff face. He could hear the bear gaining on him and knew that this was probably his last few seconds on Earth. Bowen could feel the ground trembling as the bear pounded right behind him. With every ounce of strength in his body, Bowen jumped out over the cliff. The bear must have thought that he looked too tasty to give up on, and jumped right with him!

    Bowen reached up with his hands and started praying as he saw the rope with the little wooden seat attached to it right above him. His hands snapped onto the swing like steel vices and his feet shot out in front of him. Bowen could swear he heard the bear say, ¡°HUH?!¡± as it flew past him! As the bear went one direction, (down) and Bowen went the other, (back to the cliff face) Bowen screamed out ¡°AH HA HA FUCK YOU GRIZZLY, NOT TODAY BITCH!¡±

    Bowen swung back to the base of the old Western Red Cedar that was hanging over the cliff, and as he landed he felt like he had pulled both of his arms out of his sockets. He briefly remembered telling Jimmy that he was a fucking psycho for putting up that tree swing and swearing that he would never ever take a ride on the thing. He would have kissed the man full on his lips right now if he was here!

    He heard a far off crash over the cliff as the bear apparently splatted, and a blue text notification popped up in front of his vision:

    Congratulations!

    You have killed the first monster on this planet! Only twenty seconds in and you have already taken someone out! Bloodthirsty much?! You have been awarded the title ¡°Primum Occiditis¡± Each first damage strike from you do + 25% damage!Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.

    For achieving this title you receive a bonus +100,000 XP.

    For achieving your first title you receive a bonus +5000 XP.

    Congratulations!

    You have killed the first monster on this continent! We always knew an American would do it! Thanks for the huge win in the office pool! You have been awarded the title ¡°Expeditious Executioner¡± All travel speed +25%

    For achieving this title you receive a bonus +25,000 XP.

    Congratulations!

    You are the first of the Indigenous people on this planet to kill a monster! This is a hidden reward available only to indigenous people killing a monster in their own native land! This reward has only been added exclusively to your planet. This is a really big deal to us if you haven''t figured that out yet... You have been awarded the title ¡°First of First Nations¡± All native Americans receive a +25% bonus to ALL defense!

    For achieving this title you receive a bonus +50,000 XP.

    For achieving this title you receive a heredity advanced class choice.

    For achieving this title a perk weapon of our choice has been added to your heredity advanced class choice: The First Nation All-Weapon!

    Congratulations!

    For being an Indigenous person who recorded the first kill on this planet you receive a very special perk:

    A stronghold city with ALL add-ons in ANY location of your choosing in America regardless if the area is occupied or not. The title for this stronghold is your family''s in perpetuity and cannot be taken or sold.

    The prestige title: Chief of all Chiefs will be added when you place your first city.

    +2,000,000 credits added to account (Usable for city purchases only).

    A Special one time portal perk is being offered to you to take you to the location of your new stronghold. You have 10 minutes to decide where you want to go before this offer expires.

    Level Up! *10

    You have been automatically boosted to the advanced class level 10 by the system!

    Can''t have our first killer and Chief of all Chiefs too low level to escape this park, can we? You have 30 free attributes to distribute. Automatic stat points will be distributed once a class is chosen. Free Attributes cannot be distributed until a class is chosen. We highly recommend you choose your class immediately.

    What the fuck was going on?! XP? Perks? Levels? Bowen knew all these terms of course. Even if he wasn''t a fan of video games his son was a fanatic as were all children these days. He had to sit many a night and pretend he was having the time of his life as he let his son beat the crap out of him at whatever game was flavor du jour.

    In his mind he knew that somehow he was playing a live version of a video game for his life without knowing what the rules were. He did know one thing, and that was that he was out in the middle of nowhere with no help, and being this far out away from civilization meant that the monsters were going to be high level. He needed to figure this shit out fast and get back to his family! At least he had some bonuses now, more speed and defense, and a bonus on his first hit. He needed to get his gear quickly and get back to Juneau.

    Bowen trotted back to the station and grabbed his pack. He looked around the room trying to quickly figure out what would be of use to him and spotted a big firefighter axe on the wall. He quickly took it and went back outside. A glowing, flashing ball of light was hovering in mid-air a few steps from the station. He made a guess that this was his portal. He walked up to the glowing orb and said, ¡°I am ready, I choose to portal to Juneau, inside of my house.¡± A bright light quickly enveloped him and the next thing he knew he was standing in his living room.

    He knew right away that no one was home. The house was too quiet. His wife must have just taken his son to school and he just missed them. This was going to be a problem. Bowen lived on the quiet far eastern side of the city and his son''s school was all the way across town miles away. Bowen ran across the room and threw open the front door. The first thing that popped into his head when he saw the scene outside was Armageddon¡­

    Bowen''s house was backed up alongside of the mountain and so he was on a hillside and had a great view of most of the city. What he was looking at made his mouth drop open in shock. A quarter of the city was in flames and he could feel buildings crashing down in the distance. A constant din of noise was in the air from the buildings crashing to the ground. Screams could be heard off in the distance not far from his house.

    He needed to get to his family fast and figured that the fastest way would not be through the city, but instead to head straight south to Egan Drive which followed the waterfront around the city. He started to jog down his street when his senses alerted him that something was wrong. He turned to look behind him and noticed an animal that looked like a mutant dog was silently running down the street about to pounce on him! The animal was about three feet away and instinct kicked in and Bowen swung the axe with all of his might at the creature.

    The beast leapt up at him mouth wide open and the axe buried itself right into the side of it''s mouth almost tearing it''s face in half! Bowen was so taken off guard from the three second encounter that he lost his footing and fell over on his back. He quickly scrambled backwards on the palms of his hands in fright and looked at the creature. It reminded him a Warg from Lord of the Rings! The thing was still barley alive and Bowen quickly picked up his axe and buried it into the side of it''s neck killing it. Without another thought he turned and started running back down the street keeping a wary eye out.

    As Bowen made his way down to the main road he almost started to cry from the disaster he was seeing before his eyes. Cars were crashed everywhere he went. Bodies were strewn about all over the place. It looked like a bombed out city you saw in the movies except it was happening in real time live in front of him. He saw a couple of men fighting what looked like a werewolf and was about to go help them when the creature tore off the arm of one of the guys and threw it his way. He quickly changed his mind thinking that he couldn''t get distracted and had to get to his wife and son.

    Bowen had one more block to go to get to the main road when he saw a huge shadow coming his way. He looked up and saw an honest to God Thunderbird flying down at him! The monster seemed to have more than one set of wings and it had blood pouring out of it''s mouth, that''s all he saw before he dove and rolled under a jacked up Ford F-350 sitting on the street next to him. He was underneath the truck for all of two seconds when it shook with a huge impact and the truck started to lift off of the ground! The Thunderbird was lifting the truck up to get at him!

    The vehicle was five feet off of the ground now and Bowen got to his knees like a track star and took off towards the other side of the street. He heard several high caliber gun shots ring out and looked up to see a group of men firing rifles from in front of the Sheraton Hotel. The Thunderbird was taking much of the gun fire to little effect and it flew the truck towards the men and flung it at them crushing several of them to heartbreaking screams.

    Bowen silently thanked his rescuers and took the opportunity to sprint up the street to Egan Drive. The two lane highway was strewn with accidents that would provide plenty of cover and Bowen started to jog up the side of the road keeping his eyes peeled for enemies. He had made it about half of a mile when he heard a huge roar from somewhere behind him and Bowen turned and looked back. A massive creature was emerging from the sea...

    He stopped running involuntarily, awed from the size of the beast. He wasn''t up to date on his knowledge of ancient legends of lore, but all he could think of seeing this creature was the word ¡°Hydra.¡± It looked like a dinosaur body with ten snake necks and dragon heads attached to them. It had smashed through the harbor and was demolishing the seven story hotel he had left behind him. Bowen had to force his head away from the spectacle and start running away. He needed to get as far as possible from that thing!

    Bowen could see flashes of light beaming down into the city and as he ran he theorized that monsters were being ported into his city to kill his fellow Juneauians. He clenched his fists in frustration and kept on running. He was three-quarters of the way to the school when he saw what looked like an army of mermen running in a formation the same way he was headed. Frustration boiled up inside of him as he realized that this was an obstacle that he couldn''t get past. There seemed to be hundreds of creatures in this merman army. He looked up into the sky and screamed ¡°Nooooo!¡± A few of the mermen heard his scream and peeled off of the group heading right for him. Bowen defiantly lifted his axe and shouted at them, ¡°You will not stop me from getting to my son! Get ready to die you bastards!¡± he started to charge straight for them!

    When Bowen was about twenty yards from the monsters and death was all but certain the holo ball appeared out of nowhere next to him. It stated in a loud voice, ¡°City of Juneau no longer considered a ¡°safe¡± portal. Returning to previous location.¡± Bowen was once again engulfed in a bright light and transported away...

    He found himself right back by where he had started, a little way down the hill from the ranger station in the mountain park. Bowen sank to his knees silently, a tear slid down his cheek. He was so close to his son''s school and now it was just gone. His family needed him and there was nothing he could do to help them escape the hell hole that the city had turned into. He couldn''t think of what to do next. He somehow had to get out of this park as soon as possible and pray to the Gods that his family was safe.

    Bowen started to make his way back up the hill when he saw motion next to the station and he instantly froze. Another bear was sniffing at the ATV remains and it let out a loud questioning growl. The bear stood up on its hind legs and Bowen almost had a heart attack.

    This bear was at least double the size of the last one that was chasing him and the way it was searching around reminded him of a mother bear looking for a cub! The bear started sniffing in the air and it zeroed in on Bowen''s hiding spot behind the tree. The bear realized that something was there and it started lumbering right at his spot!

    Bowen knew at that moment that he had no choice but to run. Running from a bear was about the dumbest thing you could do, but he had a good hundred yard start on it, and he could get very high into a tree and fire at least 18 bullets into its face before it would get anywhere near him. The area south of the station was heavily covered with new growth trees tightly packed together and with the new speed he might be able to squeeze through them and slow the bear down until he found a bigger tree near the bottom of the hill. He started running full sprint into the trees.

    The monster took off the second it saw it''s prey escaping and rumbled down the hill in a fast lope. Any chance of Bowen might have had to trip up the bear in the trees by squeezing between them was dashed as the noise coming from behind him made him understand that the bear was simply running the trees over like a wrecking ball! These trees were all sturdy Spruce and Hemlock, and about twenty feet tall. They were strong trees full of sap that wouldn''t snap all that easily, but the bear sounded like it was tearing through them. He was running for his life on a diagonal line knowing the bear couldn''t smell him through all of the thick needles that were packed close to each other making a curtain of cover for him.

    Bowen could hear the creature getting closer and he was starting to lose hope when he heard a huge SNAP, CRACK, CRAAACCK! followed by the loudest bear roar he had ever heard and then a deafening cry of pain. The forest went dead silent as every animal for miles froze mid-step or hid. Then a soft mewling whimper of pain started coming from the bear''s direction. Bowen knew something bad had happened to it. He slowly made his way back towards the bear making a wide, looping walk to get behind it.

    When he finally spotted the animal he had to stop and take a minute to figure out what happened. It looked like the beast had tried to leap thru a tree, but instead of there being one tree, there happened to be three back to back that she had hit. The front tree was knocked over from its roots. The second and third were bent and snapped and the animal had impaled itself on both! The second tree had entered the bear''s belly and was thrust all the way through it and was sticking out of its back and the third was jammed deep into its chest. Bowen couldn''t believe that it was still alive.

    The poor creature looked like it was doggy paddling about three feet above the ground as it tried to get itself off of the skewers with nothing to purchase its feet on. The pitiful sound that it was making made Bowen sick with empathy, so he quickly drew his gun and walked up to it. The bear turned to him and looked him in the eye and mewled like a cub as if to say ¡°Please end me.¡± Bowen stared back and said ¡°Sorry girl¡± and shot it through the eye into its brain ending it.

    Congratulations!

    You have killed a Crazed Dire Grizzly Bear Matron (Level 110) You didn''t really kill it now, did you? You stole the kill shot from a tree! Oh well, Carpe Diem!

    +10000 XP.

    Congratulations!

    For killing a monster over 100 levels higher than you, you have been awarded the title ¡°Monster''s Bane¡± All damage dealt to monsters of a higher level than you +15%

    Bowen was almost teary-eyed from the agony he had seen in the bear¡¯s eyes. Even though the bear was trying to kill him, no creature deserved to suffer in his book. He looked at the bear and said, ¡°I hope that it is a better place where you are now.¡± He reached over and lay his hand on the bear''s snout and jumped back at the pop-up that appeared. A bunch of teeth, and claws, and meat stacks, appeared with a bear pelt in an inventory!

    ¡°I need to figure out how to play this ¡°game¡± pronto.¡± He whispered to himself.

 The Class

    ¡°I need to figure out how to play this ¡°game¡± pronto.¡± He whispered to himself.

    It took him twenty minutes to cautiously creep back up the hill to the ranger station. He barely heard any sounds of wildlife. It was as if the entire forest knew two champions had battled, but no one knew who had won. That should buy him some time. He was cut and scratched and battered all over his body, but for some reason, he wasn''t feeling all that bad. By the time he made it back up to the top of the hill, the cuts on his hands were nearly gone.

    3

    The first thing Bowen did when he made it back to the station was to check the ATV. It was a total bust... After a whole thirty seconds of inspecting the vehicle, his perspective on the monsters had changed. The bear was disabling the human''s way to escape! The big custom cooler he had mounted on the back was barely touched, but the engine was torn to pieces. These new breed of animals were smart!

    His next act was to loot the station of anything useful and then check up on this class business. When he stepped inside the lights didn''t work, the radio was out, his cellphone and tablet weren''t turning on... He was starting to make himself panic the more he thought about it all. Taking a deep breath he started talking to himself. ¡°Focus on what''s in front of you. Get one job at a time done. Make it home alive.¡±

    There was a single glowing crystal sitting on a pedestal to the right of the door. Bowen touched the crystal and was met with a prompt:

    The Park''s Ranger Station 121 can be turned into a fort, would you like to take control of the fort?

    (Y/N)

    Bowen looked up at the ceiling and back down at the crystal and said out loud,

    ¡°Yes.¡±

    Congratulations! You are now Commander of the Park''s Ranger Station 121 fort.

    Population: 1/1

    Assigned Guards: 0/20

    Structural Integrity: 100/100

    Upgrades: None

    First fort won!

    Bonus +3000 Experience Awarded

    He looked at the sky outside the window. It was late afternoon and knew he would be spending the night there. The first thing he did was close all of the heavy metal storm guards over the windows. The heavy metal door was secured and the desk propped in front of it. Seeing his lunch from earlier made him hungry, so he wolfed it down and then he started to concentrate.

    Bowen had no idea how to work the system, so instead in his head he just kept naming things he remembered from his son''s video games until something worked. ¡°Umm... Skillset, special moves, attributes, spells, mana, profile, status... A status panel popped into view.

    Bowen Brownbear Shotridge:

    Level 1 No Class assigned Blah blah blah blah...

    100 health mana stamina...OK. 13 Str, 12 Agi, 10 Con, 16 Int, 16 Will, 12 Perception? 10 Char, 10 Luck. He saw that he had 30 points to assign, but held back on those until he had a class and knew what he needed to put his points in. He checked below the stats and saw: Unassigned perk attributes. He focused on that and saw a list of small, medium, and large perks, and a single greater one. He focused on greater and it was his class option. It seemed he was being offered a unique advanced indigenous class.

    He started scrolling through the list, there was A LOT! Native Americans sure were imaginative people! For every class he recognized there were ten he did not. There had to have been 400 classes. Most were animals. Coyotes, Thunderbirds, Lechuza, Sasquatch, Piasa Birds, Wendigos, Wolfmen... The list seemed to go on and on. He had no interest in possibly being permanently turned into an animal, so he narrowed the list to humans only.

    The human list had all the normal scout and warrior choices, but some unique ones also. Shaman, Spirit Guide, War Chief, Elemental Warrior, Witch Doctor¡­

    Then his eyes spied something that caught his attention. Something that he had just watched about on a TV show. A Skin-Walker! His family had watched this show about a famous ranch where a Skin-Walker supposedly lived and it was caught on camera. Skin-Walkers were supposed to be some kind of evil, nefarious witches who could go invisible, change into any animal, and possess people. He focused on the link and read up on the class:

    Heritage Advanced Class: Skin-Walker

    The Skin-Walker is a unique hidden class available only to Native American Indians. So little is known of this class that it is impossible for anyone to discover any details of its abilities without choosing the class. This class is so feared by its own peoples that high charisma levels are required to maintain its use. It is recommended to never reveal this class choice to anyone.

    Class abilities +2 per level in strength, agility and constitution +3 per level in intelligence and willpower. +4 per level in charisma. +1 per level in luck. Additional +3 free attributes per level.

    +100% mental resistance and attack. +50% animal affinity. +50% Elemental affinity

    Disguised class title.

    Requirements: Class is ready to be used.

    Warning: This is an ADVANCED class. Stat acquistion progression will advance from the normal level of 1 and up.

    Bonus perk weapon: First nations elemental All-Weapon. This weapon may be changed at will to any weapon ever used by an Indigenous person of the planet Earth. The weapon is soulbound and upgradable.

    ¡°Wow!¡± The class sounded scary as all hell, not even knowing exactly what it did. Obviously, mental power was important to the class, so possession and mind damaging enemies were possible. Animal affinity was huge in his book and just the thought of being able to change into an animal like a bird, or cat, or wolf! The thought sent shivers down his spine. He needed to check his other perk options first though in case they leaned in a totally different direction.

    He was going to need to hide A LOT just to make it out of the park so he searched for a camo skill. He doubted that if he was ever in an animal form he would be able to go invisible, that seemed too overpowered. He narrowed the search down and came up with quite a few, but one stood out for his needs.Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

    Leaf Tailed Gecko skin

    Gecko can adapt to any background even hiding their shadows and eyeballs at a moment''s notice making them virtually invisible.

    Bowen was going to need some kind of temporary invulnerable defense if the shit hit the fan and he couldn''t get away. He found:

    Earthlodge

    Unique heritage ability

    The spirit of the Earth itself forms an impenetrable lodge that sinks into the ground and all but disappears.

    In group usage, it very slowly leaches the life from those within to hold its form. In single form combat use, it will surround the user with a mantle of crust able to take huge amounts of damage for a very short time.

    When he focused on the large perk he was surprised to see a red blinking string of text telling him:

    You have not chosen any advisory tech to this point. The most important thing you can have in the System is knowledge of it, which you have none of. There is one large perk we HIGHLY recommend you take. This will be your last chance to acquire this perk.

    Ancestor''s Totem

    A spiritual advisor with in-depth knowledge of the system. This totem can be helpful as an advisor for you and your people if used within an indigenous city.

    Camouflage, protection, and informed advice. Three things he needed.

    Bowen chose all three of the perks and sat back and waited. Except for a momentary tingling on his skin, he felt nothing change. He was holding something in his hand and looked down to see a miniature totem. He held it up to his face and said, ¡°Hello ancestor will you please come and advise me?¡± He got no response so he put the totem down on the floor and called out to it again... nothing. He picked the thing up and shook it. Nada. He patted the bottom like a ketchup bottle. Zilch. Starting to get frustrated and angry he started shouting at the totem, ¡°Hey man what the fuck?! I used a greater perk for you, what is happening?¡±

    He heard a chuckle behind him and spun around looking down to see an old, smallish, First Nations looking man sitting cross-legged on the floor packing a sacred pipe and grinning at him. He could see through the old man as if he were a ghost.

    ¡°Sorry about that Brownbear, I had to run and pick something up real quick.¡±

    Bowen looked at him packing the bowl and said, ¡°Let me guess, some smoke maybe?¡±

    The man smiled at him and said, ¡°Why yes, it has been over 200 years since I have had good smoke and I am dying to try out this new weed!¡±

    Bowen frowned at him. ¡°Do you mean cannabis?¡± Is that what that bowl is for? Just to get high?¡±

    The man waved the pipe at him. ¡°Don''t disrespect your ancestors you little shit! This is a sacred pipe and it has been used to smoke many many things. I am just using it right now for some cannabis...¡±

    Bowen shrugged and sat down across from him. ¡°Just take it easy, OK? That stuff has come a long way since you last roamed the Earth and it is very strong now. I have a lot of questions and want to talk about my class choice before you get all glassy-eyed.¡±

    The ancestor looked at him and smiled. ¡°Sounds good to me, just let me take one puff before we start.¡±

    The man put the stem to his lips and drew in long and hard and held it for all of two seconds before blasting out a huge cloud of smoke and coughing like mad. ¡°MOTHER EARTH! You weren''t kidding Brownbear, this is some heavy ass dank man!¡±

    Bowen gave him a hard long stare before breaking out into a full on laugh. ¡°Heavy ass dank?¡± Where did you learn such a term? I thought you have been dead for 200 years?¡±

    The old man was wiping tears from his eyes and looked up and said, ¡°I... I really don''t know. I guess I have had recent Earth terminology uploaded into me or something. I seem to know quite a bit about recent events.¡±

    ¡°OK, so what is your name? What do I call you?¡± Bowen asked.

    The old man looked up as if searching for something. ¡°Hmm, I don''t seem to recall my name, I guess you should just call me Ancestor as that seems to be my designation.¡±

    Bowen frowned and said, ¡°That seems a tad bit formal. I will call you Tor in private and Ancestor in formal settings if we ever make it to that point.¡±

    The ancient nodded accepting the name and said, ¡°Now down to business Brownbear. You need to pick out a class so your attribute points are allocated, you are going to need all of them, trust me. Now tell me what you are thinking.¡±

    ¡°I have already browsed through some of the advanced class choices, and have looked long and hard at two of them,¡± Bowen said. ¡°The War Chief looks by far to be the strongest Native class choice, it is heavily focused on battle skills¡­¡±

    The old man said, ¡°I hear a ¡°but¡± coming.¡±

    Bowen nodded... ¡°BUT, I am in a real pickle here, my number one concern is getting back to Juneau to my family. Just getting out of this level 110 park is going to be hard enough and take me days! The real problem is going to be trying to get back down to Juneau. There are no roads, I had to get here by seaplane! I cringe just thinking how long it will take me now!¡±

    Tor nodded ¡°So you are going to need something that is good at traveling swiftly as well as having stealth yes? What was the other class you looked at?¡±

    Bowen hesitated for a second and said, ¡°I don''t know all that much about it, but the class that seems suited to my needs is the Skin-Walker.¡±

    The Ancestor put a hand to his chest, a look of shock on his face. ¡°Are you an evildoer in this world?¡± Bowen shook his head, but before he could say anything else the old man said, ¡°Skin-walkers are evil! They possess people and do horrible deeds with other bodies! They take over huge areas and become viciously territorial! They are among the worst killers of all of the People!¡±

    Bowen said, ¡°A top killer huh? Sounds like that is just what this new world calls for. Besides, they can shape shift into animals, right? I can travel at a much much higher speed as an animal. Hell, I will become an Eagle and just fly to Juneau!¡±

    The old man laughed. ¡°It''s a damn good thing you have me here. Flying at low levels is maybe the worst thing you could do right now! The air is the least safe spot on this planet at the moment, you wouldn''t last five minutes before a Griffon or Manticore grabbed you! Do you know that there are dragons here now!? No flying until you are a much much higher level.¡±

    Bowen sat down across from the man. ¡°But changing into an animal? I am not one-hundred percent sure what Skin-Walkers can do, but from what I have seen they are very hard to detect. I also picked up a camo perk and an earth shelter to hide in, so I can slowly, but safely travel.¡±

    Tor seemed to be considering all of this and said, ¡°I understand your need to get back to your family, but I am thinking long term if we manage to get out of this park and back to your family.¡± Bowen said, ¡°Well what''s the problem long term?¡±

    The old man sighed and said, ¡°Bowen, there is a reason that skin-walkers are so feared. They can possess others, but that isn''t the real problem. The ability to control others takes over Skin-Walkers to the point where they are not really in control of themselves. The more they use the power the more normal it feels to them until they no longer can see anything wrong with it.¡±

    Tor sighed ¡°This is why they are seen as evil, they have an ultimate power over others and it becomes second nature for them to use it without barely a thought for the morality of the action.¡±

    Bowen thought for a minute before saying, ¡°So I won''t use that power unless its an emergency, what''s the big deal?¡±

    Tor said, ¡°The big deal is that people can feel that power coming off of you in an aura. You will need to constantly waste points on charisma just to fight off the fear you will instill on everyone. These points are wasted instead of making you more powerful. More than that, the more points you dump into charisma, the more easily you will be able to influence other people, turning you into a kind of trickster. Believe me, this is a very scary power to hold over others, walking around like a demi-god, having people agree with every word you say. You could easily lose yourself to it. Have you ever heard the phrase ¡°absolute power corrupts absolutely?¡± there is a real reason that it is a commonly used phrase.¡±

    Bowen said, ¡°Unless you can figure out a better class for me to get out of this predicament, I am going to take the class. Are there any other downsides to it besides becoming a trickster?¡±

    Tor said, ¡°Well it is going to become kind of expensive, you will probably not receive many actual combat skills, meaning you will have to level up the skills themselves by yourself and then buy out of class special moves in the galactic store. You will never have to buy another weapon because they are giving you the All-Weapon, so that sets off the cost a bit I guess.¡±

    Bowen raised his eyebrows at that. ¡°Galactic store? What is that?¡±

    Tor replied, ¡°The store is provided by the system in population centers where ever owners can afford to put one. They are used for buying and selling anything you can think of, food, information, weapons, etc.¡±

    Bowen asked, ¡°Will I get one with the city for the Native peoples?¡±

    Tor nodded ¡°Your notification said one city with all perks, a store will be included for sure. Our only problem will be getting somewhere for you to be able to place a city. You will need to find somewhere that the levels are low enough so that our people aren''t slaughtered the second they step outside of its gates.¡±

    Bowen replied, ¡°That¡¯s not going to be an issue, I¡¯m taking Juneau regardless.¡±

    Tor sighed, ¡°I still think this is a big mistake, I recommend that you take the War Chief class, it will suit you much better as a future city owner. Well whatever you are going to choose, do it now. It will be painful and we will lose some time, so let''s get it over with now before something comes and tries to eat you.¡±

    Bowen said, ¡°Painful? How painful? Why is there pain in choosing a class?¡±

    Tor smirked and said, ¡°Just pick one now, we will talk later over the why of it.¡± Bowen stared at the two choices he had favored sitting in front of him. He hesitated, thinking about how this choice was going to change him...

    His mind made up he chose the class.

    It felt like he was being electrocuted as pain shot through his body. His jaws clenched tight stopping him from screaming. His bones felt like they were cracking and resetting themselves. He could see Tor hovering over him looking down with concern on his face. He fell to the ground and started convulsing, flopping around like a fish out of water.

    Then, nothing but the darkness again...

 The Skills

    Bowen rolled over on his side with a groan and drool covering his face. He looked up to see Tor sitting next to him with a big goofy grin on his face.

    ¡°Finally, you have been out for hours, the sun is starting to come up. Take a couple of minutes to get your bearings. I''m not gonna be much use to you anyway, I''m pretty baked!¡±

    Bowen tried to roll his eyes, but even that hurt, so he lay still as the pain slowly drained away.

    Five minutes later Bowen was able to sit up. He looked over at his ancestor who seemed to be meditating and said, ¡°Well, have you looked over our class yet?¡±

    Tor grimaced and said, ¡°Yes I have and it is making me very nervous. You shouldn''t be able to have these skills until a much higher level. Some of the skills are very overpowered. Someone is pulling strings for you, and trust me this isn''t going to be for free. You are going to owe somebody big time, and the only people who have the power to pull this off are on the Galactic council...¡±

    Bowen concentrated and pulled up his class skills tree. It was broken down into a blocked grid, four across. The top headings were the skill sections with choices below each in a column.

    Animal Spirit | Elemental Affinity | Mind and Soul |Possession

    Animal Spirit had three abilities he could see. The third was greyed out and the skills below were all filled with question marks. The three he could see were:

    Spirit of the Beast | Call of the Wild | Beastmaster

    Elemental:

    Force of Nature | Sun Strike | Earthquake

    Mind and Soul:

    Psyche Strike | Crowd Control | Total Wipe

    Possession:

    Enthrall (Abduct Identity) | Mob Rule | Possess

    Off to the right side outside of the box were three more choices:

    Altered Space | Reservation Recall | Tabula Rasa

    Bowen looked down and saw that he had eight points to spend. Without even thinking about it he chose the first of each of the four base choices to open those categories for further advancement.

    Class Skill Acquired

    Spirit of the Beast (Level 1)

    Take on the form of any beast of earth gaining the shape, physical attributes, and skills of each form. +50% Health regeneration while in beast form. +25% Physical Damage while in beast form. No mana requirements while in beast forms.

    Class Skill Acquired

    Force of Nature

    Attuned to the four elements of Earth Water Wind and Fire, The Skin-Walker can call upon the forces of nature. The Elemental All-Weapon may be imbued with one element at a time for additional base damage. Specific elemental skill may be purchased via the galactic shop. +20% Base Damage to All-Weapon when imbued with an element.

    If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

    Class Skill Acquired

    Psyche Strike

    Lash out with the power of the mind to cripple, stun, and damage another mind. The effect is stackable with diminishing returns.

    Cost: 50 mana

    Class Skill Acquired

    Enthrall (Abduct Identity)

    Soothe a sentient being¡¯s mind, opening them to suggestion and instruct them to do your bidding. While Enthralled, you may abduct the subject''s identity and steal their face and form. It is recommended that you hide the subject when you steal their identity. +100% against mental check when a subject is Enthralled.

    Cost: 100 mana

    Bowen studied the three abilities outside of the chart and found an extended storage space, an ability to be able to port to Indian reservations across the continent and a skill that made sentient beings forget he existed. The only one of the three that seemed advantageous at this point was the storage. Looking closer he decided to choose that one.

    Class Skill Acquired

    Altered Space (level 1)

    The Skin-Walker now has access to and extra-dimensional storage location of ten cubic feet. Items stored must be willed in and may not include living creatures or items currently affected by aura''s that are not the Skin-Walker''s. Mana regeneration reduced by 5 mana per minute permanently.

    Bowen had three choices left, but wasn''t sure if he should save them or use them all right now, he looked at Tor and said, ¡°Tor, I''ve opened all of the base choices of my class, should I just use all of my choices or save a few? There is a crowd control spell that looks very helpful and a call of the wild spell that brings animals to my aid... That could be useful right? I''m not too sure about the rest.¡±

    His ancestor looked up at him and grinned. ¡°Broheim, ya got to go with whatever packs your pipe, man! We''re probably not gonna get out of this park alive anyway, so I say go for it.¡±

    Bowen frowned at the man and said, ¡°Thanks, I can see that your gonna be a lot of help today. Sober up man! We move out in an hour!¡±

    Bowen thought to himself, ¡°Screw it, he might be right.¡± He tried to take the next skills on the tree but was notified that they couldn''t be taken until level 20. Stumped, he looked over the skills and tried dropping another point in Force of Nature. It worked and went up to level 2. He got a notification about being able to use elemental skills with his weapon and the base damage going up another 10%. After staring at the other skills for a moment he figured he should save the two points until he got more information.

    Bowen looked over his class noting all the changes to his stats. On top of his info, he saw a blinking red box labeled: Designate Class Title. As he focused on it a drop-down list appeared with classes ranked by what the system thought he should choose. At the top of the list was War Chief. He figured that since he was going to own a city filled with Natives this definitely made the most sense. With a shrug he selected it.

    His class was now listed as War Chief (Skin-Walker). A quick glance at his skills showed: Strength 33, Agility 32, Constitution 30, Intelligence 46, Willpower 46, Perception 12, Charisma 50, Luck 20. Bowen, had thirty points to distribute so he asked Tor, ¡°Any idea where I should put these points?

    Tor said, ¡°Well, your most important attribute is Charisma, So I would say spend at least five there. You are going to need to use at least two points in Charisma every level from now on. Your perception is really low and situational awareness is important. It''s all a relative to what you want to do.¡±

    Bowen thought about what he was going to be doing the next few days, mainly sneaking and running. He put five points right away into Charisma. His Perception was way too low, so he dumped the huge amount of ten points into that. He brought Strength up to 35 and the same with Agility. His last ten all went into Constitution because he figured health was never a bad thing to have a lot of. His stats when he finished were: Str 35, Agi 35, Con 40, Int 46, Wil 46, Per 22, Chr 55, Lck 20.

    Bowen could actually feel the changes overtake his body this time and not in a bad way. He concentrated on thinking about Spirit of the Beast and a window popped up with a bunch of drop-down menus and a question of Which class would you like to select?

    Bowen thought ¡°Rabbit¡± and another separate drop-down box opened. He concentrated on this and a list of about thirty Rabbits and thirty Hares opened. He glanced at Tor and said, ¡°This is a pain, am I going to have to go through an animal questionnaire every time I want to become one?¡±

    The ancestor shook his head, ¡°Just the first time thru the list until you choose what species you want to use. I see you looking at Rabbits, Snowshoe would be the obvious choice in snow and Jackrabbit on dirt. Just think Snowshoe Hare in your mind.¡±

    Bowen thought ¡°Snowshoe¡± in his mind. He felt a slight shimmer go through his body and was instantly brought down to the perspective of about a foot above the ground. He thought ¡°Northern Coyote¡± and was changed instantly.

    In his mind''s eye, he went through a list of animals that he had seen lately and then he spoke them out in 2 second intervals. ¡°Red Fox¡± ¡°Canadian Lynx¡± ¡°Little Brown Bat¡± ¡°Tundra Shrew¡± ¡°Brown Bear¡±. The Bear was the first one that he felt a marked change. He looked at Tor and tried to say something, ¡°Arrwwrr?¡± he said.

    Tor laughed and said, ¡°You know that you don''t have to speak out loud to talk to me right? Just think what you want to say to in your head, we are linked now.¡±

    He thought ¡°Tor can you hear me?¡± Tor replied ¡°Of course dumbass, I just told you we can communicate telepathically. Now change back to human and quit fooling around, we have things to do!¡±

    Bowen tied thinking ¡°Human¡± and a box popped up with the text: To return to human form just think, ¡°Bowen¡± in your mind.

    ¡°Bowen...¡± He was back to his human form wearing clothing and all of the items he had on him. Bowen went through the list marking all of the specific forms he thought could be useful and looked at Tor. ¡°I wonder, do you think the animal forms I can choose extend to the animals that are currently put here by the system?¡±

    The Ancestor looked up at him and said, ¡°Only one way to find out!¡±

    Bowen said, ¡°We''re going to need more room!¡±

    Bowen made his way out to the front of the building. He could hear strange howls coming from far off in the distance. He ignored all of the noise and thought of the last Bear that chased him and said ¡°Crazed Dire Grizzly Bear Matron!¡± There was a delay of a few seconds as the System tried to figure out if what he was trying to do was illegal or not, but then Bowen felt a huge change in his mass as he converted to the enormous Bear.

    Brown Bears could get up to around 1300 pounds, but this beast was easily 3 times that size topping over 3000! Bowen thought ¡°Return to Bowen¡± and stood facing his ancestor with a big grin on his face. ¡°I''m thinking we might make it out of this park after all Gramps!¡±

    Tor shook his head and said, ¡°The fact that there was a delay before the System allowed that transformation makes me once again think that there is someone pulling strings here boy.¡±

    Bowen said, ¡°Oh come on old man! Now your stretching things a bit aren''t you?¡±

    Tor replied ¡°Let me tell you something Bowen, there are people galaxies away that have the means to watch your every move, live... right now. I don''t know why they are doing it, but if I were you I would give them thanks and hope they can help us out of here.¡±

    Bowen looked up to the sky and said ¡°If someone out there is watching me and lending me a helping hand, thank you! I don''t know what you want from me, but I will do my damnedest to help people and not exploit this great power that you have handed me.¡±

 4

    (Bowen¡¯s Perspective)

    I familiarize myself with my All-Weapon, In its basic form, it comes in the shape of a huge Bowie knife about 14 inches long complete with its own sheath. I think of various weapons and it changes instantly to anything I can think up. Imbuing it is as simple as thinking ¡°Fire Bow¡± and it becomes one. The bow itself doesn''t turn to flame or anything crazy, it simply glows red for fire, blue for water, etc. I strap the sheathe to my side and move on.

    I didn''t know if Tor was completely right thinking that someone was giving me an advantage out here, but he knew about this System a lot more than I did, so I was going to pay attention to what he said from now on. I was going to need to get moving soon, so I went back inside the ranger station and started to put my gear together. I stripped whatever I could from the station that I thought would be needed for the trek out without overloading myself. I found one of those old leather Bota water bags and filled it and slipped it into my pack as a backup. I also raided the shelves in the kitchenette of three bags of Jack Links beef jerky and nuts and trail mix. I tossed on my backpack with all of my normal gear, closed up the station, and headed out.

    The ranger''s station on this mountain was a good 25 miles to the little town of Scagway. On a normal day of hiking, I could do a good 15 to 20 miles if I pushed it and stayed out late. This area, however, was very wild and untamed, not to mention I was going to be sneaking and avoiding monsters. I figured that I would be spending a minimum of two nights out in the wild. I had the Earthlodge perk that I could tuck away in some out of the way corner to sleep in, so I wasn''t too worried about the night, but thinking about getting past the monsters was making me nervous.

    Scagway was southeast of my location, but heading down this mountain would take me in a northerly direction. At the base of this hill was a large clearing and then a small lake which fed into a stream that turned into a small river as the snow melted this time of the year. I was going to have to skirt around the west side of the lake and then head a bit up onto the next mountain to avoid the water.

    I knew from experience that the lake and river were going to have all kinds of wildlife around it. I was going to have to be hiking on the sides of mountains to bypass the valley with the water and this was going to cost me a lot of time, but it would definitely be safer. I pulled up a pair of binoculars and scanned the area below me and saw no movement. Realizing I was delaying the inevitable start to this I sighed, put the binoculars away, and started down the hill.

    As I took maybe my fifth step a wall of text appeared before my eyes:

    Congratulations. You survived an entire day! You humans really are an excellent bunch. Only 60% of you died yesterday. We are impressed. Have a cookie. And some experience. Remember, monster spawning will increase over the next week.

    I halt mid-step and have to stop myself from screaming at the top of my lungs. I turn and look back at Tor who is standing still with his head bowed down at the ground. I think he is silently weeping. The sight of it stirs something deep inside of me. 60% of the human race died yesterday and this asshole who is writing out these messages said ¡°Have a cookie... If I ever find out who wrote that...¡± I force it out of my mind. ¡°Focus on one thing at a time.¡± I jam the grief way back into the far end of my brain and force myself to start walking. I hedge to the left of the trees and slip into the first path I see. I crouch a bit and slowly start sneaking down the hill, hyper-alert, all of my attention focused on sound and sight.

    Skill Acquired

    Fox Walk (Level 1)

    Moving silently through the woods is second nature for you.

    I whisper ¡°Hey Tor, can you get rid of all of the common notices about skills and XP? I only want to be notified by important things OK? I don''t need to be distracted.¡± I look over and he silently nods. Having Tor silently track behind me like a shadow is weird, but I am grateful for his company.

    Tor sends to me, ¡°Let''s get in the habit of talking mind to mind. You will need this skill to become second nature.¡±

    I reply back to him ¡°Yeah, you''re right, I already forgot about that, I do need to burn it into my mind thank you.¡±

    An hour later and I''m nearing the bottom of the mountain. I can see the small lake

    about a half-mile to my south. There is a large open meadow with nothing but tall grasses and flowers to my east that I am going to have to cross and it is making me nervous. I start to scan all around me when I see movement coming from the northeast about a half mile out. It looks like a big wolf and it looks like it is headed straight for me!

    ¡°Fuck me!¡± I say to Tor. ¡°There is a wolf thing coming right for us!¡±

    ¡°I can use the rifle and take it down, but it will still make a bit of noise even though it is baffled, do you think I should risk it?¡±

    Tor says ¡°I doubt that non system generated rifle will kill it, think you can take it with the All-weapon as a bow?¡±

    I am decent with a bow but not an expert by any means... I am already pulling the rifle off of my shoulder and taking a knee. The thing is moving fast and panic is starting to set in.

    I line up my shot through the iron sights on the big gun. I have fired rifles thousands of times in my lifetime and am considered a marksman. I squeeze the trigger and see the bloom of a hit right in the chest of the wolf. The shot knocks the beast off of its feet and I let out a chestful of air that I had been holding in.

    Then the wolf stands up and starts running again! I chamber another round and shoot again. I hit the wolf in almost the exact same spot and it almost flies back a full yard before falling again. I can see some movement as the damn thing is still alive, so I chamber another and put one into the side of its head. The wolf looks to be down, but I notice a paw move again.

    I quickly slip behind a nearby tree and reload the gun and force myself into total stillness. Animals don''t have a super great vision, and being still is the best thing you can do so they don''t detect you.Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

    Tor says ¡°Use your Gecko skin dummy!¡± I mentally slap myself upside the head for already forgetting the skill and I use it, blending into the hillside. It''s too late though, I can see the movement of what looks to be four more wolves trotting in my direction. Probably my injured friend''s pack!

    With my camouflage activated I am 100% sure that the wolves can''t see me, but this doesn''t matter. Wolves have an exceptional sense of smell and even though they can''t see me, they know my general direction and can smell me. I bring my gun to bear and fire my first shot at the wolf leading the pack. I hit it in the throat and it barely goes down.

    The pack picks up speed and is now running full tilt in my direction. There is one wolf that is noticeably bigger than the other three so I take aim for him. I go for the full chest hit, but the wolf had swerved a bit and my shot hits it right near the top of its front leg at the joint. I hear a pained howl and the big wolf goes down in a tumble.

    I notice in the back of my mind that the first wolf is back up but struggling towards me, but I have other worries. The wolves are now running in an erratic bouncing motion side to side. I fire my final shot at the new leader but miss as he jukes to the left and I know I don''t have time to reload.

    The wolves are about fifty yards away and will be here in seconds. I pull my All-Weapon thinking fire sword and watch as it starts to glow when Tor yells into my mind ¡°Screw the sword boy, use that huge bear!¡± In a flash, I think of the bear and feel myself transform. I use the bear''s Charge skill and take off in a burst of speed. Two things flash through my bear mind at this point. (Bear has skills?) (This is going to fucking hurt!)

    Grizzlys can run up to about 35 mph in a charge, but this is no normal Grizzly. After 20 yards I had to have been hitting upwards of 50 miles per hour, and when I hit the first wolf it is like a tank hitting a motorcycle. Before the animal exploded I noticed that it has huge saber teeth sticking out of its mouth.

    I crashed full force into the wolf barely feeling a thing (DIE!) the bear screams, but I go down into a roll after crushing it and feel pain in the back of my neck. I get back up onto my paws and find out that the second wolf had already leaped onto my back (Filthy Son of a Bitch!) and sunk its teeth into me! My fur and fat have taken away any serious damage, but it still hurts like hell. I do what any bear would do and stand up on my back paws to a height of about 13 feet. The wolf is still hanging on, teeth sunk deep inside me. I jumped up as high as I can and arch my back backward (SUPLEX!). I surprise myself as I spring about 6 feet into the air and land right onto my back, hearing a satisfying crack as I shatter the wolf''s entire backbone.

    I rolled and got to my feet, (er paws), and saw the first wolf I had shot running at me in that skittering manner that made me think he was going to try and juke me and get in behind me. I charge at him and trigger maul (Yer fucked wolfy!). I can feel the bear in her fury taking my mind over. She is taking over my speech and making decisions without me.

    I leaped at him like a linebacker coming up behind a QB and engulf his body. My mouth was already opened roaring so I grab his entire face in my jaws and started mauling it! (YUM!) The wolf is struggling to rake his back legs down my chest and to do some damage with his claws, but I am enraged and bite down harder (Hmm, good? Tasty?). I crush his head like a melon and get the delightful taste of Sabertooth Wolf brain in my mouth...

    I drop the carcass and turned to see that the last wolf was limping away from me trying to make an escape (Get back here!). Instinct kicks in and I can''t stop myself from charging after him. I jumped about 3 feet away from him and land on his back flattening him like a pancake (Tiny weak wolf!). The wolf probably died right there and then, but that didn''t stop me from savaging him. I tear down into the back of his neck and pick him up to flail him around like a ragdoll. As I drop the corpse instinct once again takes over and I stand to my full 13 feet and roar my victory for the world to hear! (I AM THE TOUGHEST IN THIS VALLEY! I KILL YOU ALL AND EAT YOUR BRAINS!)

    I sheepishly looked around embarrassed of my bear self and trot back to where I had dropped my rifle. I was about to change back when the adrenaline starts to wear off and I noticed two things. 1. I am very, very hungry and 2. My stomach and chest are pretty torn up and I am bleeding.

    I send a thought to Tor, ¡°My physical regen is +50% in animal form, I''m going to stay like this for a few until I heal. Do you think I can loot those corpses in bear form? Nevermind, don''t bother answering I am going to go try.¡±

    I walked back to the corpses as I was starting to hurt a little from my wounds and laid a paw to the body. Sure enough, I was rewarded with some Sabertooth Wolf meat and a pelt. I looted the other corpses and headed back to Tor.

    Getting a hold of the wolf steaks is simple, even as a bear. I open my inventory and focus on steak and pow, it''s in my claws. I sit back and enjoy my meal as only a bear can... messily.

    The meat is huge, it reminds me of the giant Brontosaurus steak Fred Flintstone used to eat in his cartoons. Six steaks later I am still hungry, but my wounds have stopped bleeding and except for feeling sore I am much better. I shift back to human form and almost blackout from the pain. My chest feels like someone has been using it as a heavy punching bag. I lay on my back at stare up at the tree I am lying next to thinking that I will have to remain transformed next time until I am fully healed. ¡°Live and learn¡± I whisper to myself.

    Ready to once again move out, I trigger Gecko skin and slowly make to move across the meadow. I can see some creature at the far end of the lake, but it''s pretty far away and I feel comfortable moving on. The grass in the meadow is higher than I thought, about four feet high, so I crouch and slowly start creeping through it. The field is about 100 yards across where I am at. About 50 yards in I can see some of the grass being pushed aside.

    I pull the All-Weapon and once again think ¡°fire sword¡± I get a 19<sup>th</sup> century Tlingit short sword that reminds me of a glowing red Roman Gladius. I''m about 20 yards from making it out of the field when whatever is in the grass catches up to me.

    It''s a snake... A Tundra snake! We don''t have snakes in Alaska... I am frozen for a second, unsure of what to do. I slash my sword at it, missing of course, and a scorching swath of grass smokes and hisses. The snake swerves back and keeps its beady little eyes on me as it thinks about how it can kill me. I slowly start backing away keeping my sword between myself and the reptile. I almost fall over backward as the damn thing launches itself at me in a burst of unnatural speed. With no time to smack it with my sword, I do the only thing I can and bring my hands up to snatch it, and find myself with both hands wrapped around its body about three inches below its head. I''m falling to the ground before I realize that the snake has gotten its body wrapped around my ankles and I almost lose my grip. It is very quickly starting to coil itself up my legs and I start to lose my shit. I have seen this movie before and it never ends well for the human.

    I start squeezing its (neck?) as hard as I can and grasp that I don''t have enough body strength to hurt this thing. The coils are nearing my waist when I think of the strongest armed animal in the jungle and a second later I am in the body of a Silverback Gorilla!

    (This snake is a joke to me!) I start to apply some real pressure. The snake uncoils from me and starts writhing like crazy trying to get away. I feel a pop and look down to see a mashed pulp of what remains of the top of the snake''s body (Pussy!). I start to bring the snake up to my mouth for a big bite when my human side kicks in and I throw the snake down in disgust! ¡°What the fuck!¡± I almost took a slurp of the smashed snake! I really need to look into this and get some control over my animal forms. Who knows what disgusting crap I might be shoving into my face if I don''t get it together!

    I change back to human and loot the snake. I look over my shoulder and can see several different sets of grasses swishing and know I have to get out of here fast, and I make a change.

    I think of this little bird called the Needletail Swift that can fly over 100 mph, and then I am zooming out of the meadow (I am FREEEE!) and up the hill to the treeline when something clips me sending me into a crash landing. Before I hit the ground I think ¡°LYNX!¡± My body twists and I land on my feet as all cats can do. I turn and see a snow-white fox the size of a German shepherd running up at me. I need something bigger... ¡°Bengal Tiger!¡± I switch bodies. (Sorry puny, slow, baby, tasty fox!). I swear I can hear the fox think ¡°Oh hell no!¡± and it tries to swerve and run around me. I reach out with my huge claws and spear the thing (I''m too fast, Gotcha!), dragging it to my mouth. I quickly crush its throat and there is no stopping the Bengal as he takes a huge mouthful of meat and chews it down¡­

    (Prrrr Mmmm tasty blood Prrr)

    Even with a huge bite taken out of the fox I still loot a beautiful pelt. ¡°This will make me an awesome pillowcase,¡± I think to myself. Then I feel something in the air. Something electrical, something not quite right.

    I hear a loud roaring sound from up on the mountain, and then I feel the ground shake from a huge explosion. I change into the bear and start to run straight up the mountainside.

 5

    I come over a crest and stop in shock at what I see. A SPACESHIP! An honest to god freaking spaceship! Well, the remains of a spaceship at least. It looks like half of it is gone as it is strewn across a 100-yard field of debris. The ship looks to be torn in half and is still on fire. I switch over to Bowen and look at Tor. ¡°Can you search your database or whatever and tell me what that is?¡±

    He loses focus for a second as I can tell he is looking at an information screen of some kind. He looks back over at me and says ¡°It is some kind of a Truinnar scout ship. Before you ask, It is one of the races in the System. The humanoid race that you would call Elf, Or more specifically Dark Elf... But don''t call them that, they will take offense.¡±

    I race across the field to come up on the ship when I notice bodies laying all over the place. Big, hairy, semi-invisible, bodies. Bodies that are not all dead...

    I walk up to one that is not moving and see that it is a cat of some kind. I focus on it and get: ¡°Phasing Snow Leopard (level 100)¡± This shelf near the top of the mountain must have been their home or resting spot and a freaking spaceship crashed right into them!

    The cat is shredded with debris and shrapnel. I think ¡°What bad luck! Boo-frickin who!¡± These cats would have been eating me the first chance they got! I pulled my weapon and think ¡°Fire Spear¡± and slowly made my way to the ship.

    As I approach the ship I notice a metal gleam in a smoking hole in a snowdrift almost 40 yards away from the ship. Since it is closer to me than the ship, I walk over to it. I make it out to be what I assume is an escape pod because lying half out of it is what appears to be a dead Dark Elf! I slowly walk to the egg-shaped pod and take a peek inside. Beside a stretcher looking bed the only thing I see is a polearm type weapon of some sort. I grab it and examine it. Truinnar Micro-edged Reaper Staff.

    ¡°Ohh, that''s bad news Bubba!¡± Tor says.

    ¡°Why is that?¡± I say back.

    ¡°Because only important Truinnar get a weapon like that, that thing is worth beaucoup bucks buddy.¡±

    I look closer at it ¡°What''s so special about this?¡± It''s a three-foot piece of wood that looks like it extends with quarter crescent blades sticking out of all four sides like a bladed mace and a needle-like 10-inch point sticking out of the top. The blades have a fuzzy kind of edge look to them. I reach to touch one and Tor yells in my head ¡°DON''T touch those things!¡±

    I almost drop the weapon he surprises me so much. ¡°What''s the problem man?¡±

    Tor has wide eyes when he says, ¡°Those blades are sharpened down to the molecular level, If you even touch them they will take your finger off straight through the bone. Those little blades can slice through metal. Besides, that the Elf might get mad at you, she is still alive!¡±

    ¡°What?!¡± I walk over and drop to a knee and examine the Dark Elf. I can see her arm slightly twitch, there is some kind of life there. I look at her more closely. She is wearing some seriously expensive-looking space armor and a helmet that has a big dent on the top right side of it. Besides that, I can see no damage. Definitely some kind of a head injury. I get behind her and gingerly grab her under the armpits and drag her all the way out. I go to the pod and tug the stretcher looking thing and manage to tear it out. I lay it next to her and slowly pull her on top of it and reach into my inventory and take out the bear fur. I drape the bear pelt over her just leaving her head out. The pelt is three times bigger than her.

    ¡°What am I going to do with her?¡± I ask Tor.

    ¡°Well you could just leave her here, she looks to be in some kind of coma, she might never come out of it.¡±

    I take a deep breathe and look around. ¡°If one of these Snow Leopards is alive enough to regen, it will eat her alive, I can''t do that.¡±

    Tor looks around and says, ¡°Well... There is enough metal scrap here and you have that micro edged weapon, make a sled...¡±

    I trudge towards the ship already regretting what I am about to try when I come upon one of the severely injured Leopards. The thing is all crushed up and burnt, but it still has life in it. Its eyes are rolling around trying to focus on me. I almost can''t believe that I still feel any sympathy for these monsters. I know they will all aggressively hunt me down, but I love all animals.The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

    I place the needle on the staff near the top of its head and push down. The needle passes through the skull like its warm butter. I hear a low growl and look over twenty feet away and see another of them phasing in and out. With a sad sigh, I make my way over...

    In the end, I made my mind up to check them all for life. I can''t have the suffering on my conscience, and I can''t risk any of them regening while I am here. After putting about 20 of them out of their misery, I approach the last one I can see and spot some movement. I lift the staff ready to slice open whatever predator is chewing on this one and am stunned to find a little cub feeding from her mother!

    The Leopard cub sees me and lets out a pitiful mewl and starts stumbling towards me. I start to back up and realize how ridiculous I look. The cub is about the size of a healthy house cat, I''d guess about 12 pounds. I go to a knee and say, ¡°Here kitty kit, come here girl.¡± The cub mewls and runs over to me and jumps into my arms. I give it a little scratch on the head and it starts to purr at me. It looks deep into my eyes with the beautiful blue ones of its own and I know I''m sunk... I''m already in love with it.

    I walk the cub over to the Dark Elf''s makeshift bed and its already fallen asleep in my arms. I open a fold of fur and tuck it in next to her, I don''t know what else to do. I rummage through my pack and pull out the big leather Bota canteen and drink as much as I can. I empty it and head back to the dead mother...

    It takes me a while, but I manage to milk a canteen full of milk and I head back. I put the leather bag under the fur to keep it warm and I head over to the wreckage. Using the staff I crudely cut out a square of metal and some rails. I manage to find a section of the ship that has all kinds of super-strong wiring and get to work. After an hour of work, I finally have a half-assed sled made up. The cub and the Elf aren''t moving so I grab the harness I made and start to slowly drag the sled down the hill.

    I hardly noticed it, but now that I am dragging this thing I realize that it must weight at least two-hundred pounds. I am pulling it, not carrying it, but it feels like it weighs nothing. I was a strong guy before, but now I must look like the hulk!

    I see a few different kinds of lower-level animals that look like they are going to attack me, but I simply change into the Dire Bear and either kill them or run them off. The sun is starting to get low when I spot a cave 50 yards above me. I think I might have made it all of five miles today and I am mentally exhausted. I let out a sigh and go check on the cave.

    The cave is small, maybe twenty feet deep and seven feet tall. There has been something living here for sure, but it''s not here right now. I figure that anything small enough that can live in this cave I can handle, so I enter. This area is littered with caves, and this was probably a bear''s hibernating den so I should be alright. I drag the sled into the cave and set Tor out front to keep lookout. He tells me that I have made a few levels today and I should allocate some stats. I check and notice that I made 4 levels.

    I say to Tor ¡°I am so low level that I feel like I should be getting more experience?¡±

    He Says ¡°You are leveling an advanced class, you will need to get two times the experience every level that a normal class needs. It is well worth it though because you are roughly twice the level that your stat sheet shows.¡±

    I have 12 points to distribute and I pop them in Con and Perception. After that, I check on my patients.

    The cub is snuggled right into the nape of the Elf''s neck but wakes up when I pull back the fur. It gives me a sleepy face look and struggles to sit up. I chuckle and grab it pulling it to my chest and rubbing its back. It puts both front paws on my shoulders and it stares intently at me.¡°You are too damn beautiful!¡± I coo to it. The cub starts getting fidgety and wants down so I set it on the floor and laugh as it totters about falling over every now and then. It looks over and sees Tor and makes a fake attack at him.

    Tor''s eyes widen and he says, ¡°The cat can see me, she must have access to my plane of existence!¡±

    I shrug and say ¡°Who knows what it is, It''s not from this planet that''s for sure.¡±

    I rummage under the fur and pull out the canteen which was lying on the Elf''s thigh. It is still warm and when I take the cap off and the cub must be able to smell it because it comes running over pawing at me. I tip the spout down near its mouth and it tries to suckle it but can''t. A little raspy tongue shoots out and the cat starts lapping at the milk. After a few minutes, the cat has had its fill and starts getting the sleepy face again. I pick it up and lay it back next to the Elf where it instantly closes its eyes and starts purring.

    Focusing on the Elf, I notice an indentation at the bottom of the visor covering her face and I put my finger into it and push up. The clear face plate lifts up exposing her face.

    I move to the other side and take a better look at her. She has long black hair and dusky, grayish, dark skin. I suppose she is quite beautiful in an exotic, weird, fantasy kind of way. I debate whether or not to take her helmet off but decide not to. I''m not a doctor, and I''m not sure if she would start swelling if I did that.

    I take my canteen and put some water on my finger. I rub it on her lips and they part a tiny bit by reflex. I dribble a few drops into her mouth and wait for her to spit or choke on it. When she doesn''t, I dribble some more in and watch her. No reaction... I call over to Tor, ¡°Hey man, If she is in a coma with no life support won''t she just die on us?¡±

    Tor shakes his head ¡°The System is better than any life support. The health regen she has is probably high. Have you tried to focus on her and see her name yet? You can''t because it''s all question marks meaning she is either way too high level for us

    to see it or way too rich and has spent a lot of money to hide it. Either way, she certainly has enough regen going to keep her life sustained. Sooner or later she will be completely healed.¡±

    I pull out a bag of beef jerky and start gobbling down the strips. I move over and sit by Tor and ask him ¡°So tell me, Ancestor if that cat could see you, are others going to be able to see you in the future when we are out hunting?¡±

    Tor looked at me and said, ¡°Well, I am your linked spirit companion, I will level up as you do. I will gain abilities and become more powerful just like you. I don''t know how that cat can see me right now, but it must be connected to the spirit world somehow. When I become more powerful I will be able to block anything from seeing me and I will also be able to become corporeal and be able to let others see me if I want. I will be able to help you as a scout, even now I can sense a bird coming from a few hundred meters out.¡±

    I raised my eyebrows at that. ¡°Well that is good to know man, do you have any idea what you will become? A spy or hunter or healer?¡±

    Tor shook his head, ¡°I don¡¯t have a clue for now, but when we eventually make it to a store I will be able to find out all kinds of good stuff.¡±

    I wasn''t very tired, but I didn''t expect to make it through the night without some kind of trouble, so I told Tor ¡°I''m going to try and get a few hours of napping in, do you mind staying on the watch?¡±

    Tor shook his head, ¡°Not at all, go try to get a little rest. I will warn you before anything gets too close.¡± I went back next to the sled and propped myself against the wall protecting the two vulnerable ones.

 6

    Sometime after midnight, Tor shook me awake. ¡°Bad news, we have two humanoids incoming from the north, they are about one minute away and are headed right for us.¡±

    I scrambled to my feet and drew the All-Weapon. I turned it into an air bow because I couldn''t afford to make any noise in the middle of the night, who knows what''s prowling around out there. I stepped out of the cave and triggered Gecko''s skin and propped myself up behind a rock.

    I could see two figures stealthily making their way right for me. I started to notch an arrow when they both drew up short and looked my way appearing to be scanning for me.

    The one in front whispered, ¡°I can''t see you, but I know you are there, If you are human we mean you no harm. We just need a safe place to lay up for a couple of hours, we haven''t slept in over two days.¡± They started to slowly walk towards me with their hands out in front of them off of their weapons. I focused on the one in front. His name was Paul Weller. The one next to him was John Stevens. They were the two hikers I had been sent out to rescue...

    I cautiously backed away from the rock and lowered my Gecko skin, both men stopped and took a quick step backward, startled. I lowered my bow and raised a finger to my lips and waved them forward. They glanced at each other and trotted over to me. I walked them both in front of the cave and looked at them. They were a mess, clothes torn and dirty looking like they had been through hell, but they each had weird-looking, futuristic, rifles slung over their backs and some kind of laser pistols on their hips. Paul had a huge backpack made of some material I had never seen before. I noticed a sleek watch of some kind with a muted blue light on it strapped to John''s wrist.

    Paul, John, my name is Brownbear, I am a ranger for the park and I have been searching for you.¡±

    Oh thank God!¡± John said looking at my uniform, ¡°Do you have any idea what the hell is going on? We have been seeing aliens and fighting off monsters non-stop for the last day! Did aliens take over Earth? What is happening?¡±

    I looked him in the eyes and right off of the bat made some kind of connection, my skill must have been doing something because I could sense that he was lying about not knowing what was going on. ¡°I have as little information and am as confused as you two are.¡± I lied. ¡°Have you guys eaten?¡±

    Paul shook his head ¡°We finished what we had in our packs yesterday, I am starving.¡± That was a lie as well. I went over to my pack and started taking out some Sterno and a small pan.

    I can help with that.¡± I say.

    I pulled some meat out of my inventory and started cutting it up. Both men look over and noticed the sled with the fur covering it. ¡°What''s with the sled?¡± Paul asked. I moved over and pulled the fur aside uncovering the Elf and Cub. The cub looked up and started to sniff his nose straight up in the air.

    I found a couple of souls in need and am trying to rescue them,¡± I replied.

    John and Paul looked wearily at each other and John said, ¡°One of those Dark Elves, we have met one as well, they are scouting out the area.¡±

    I looked up surprised at him, ¡°You have met one as well? What happened?¡±

    Paul looked down at the Elf and said, ¡°This morning we came across a spaceship in a clearing. A man was fighting off a pack of Yeti. He had finished them off but was dying as we made it to him. He kept repeating that we should tell the Duchess where his body was so that he could be buried at home. He died and we locked him up in his ship and took his guns. It is the only reason we have survived. I think the dragon forced him to land and hide.¡±

    Part of his story was the truth, but not all of it. My sixth sense was ringing with a warning. I could feel it in my bones when they lied to me.

    In my mind, Tor said, ¡°Be very cautious with these two, something is not right here.¡±

    I sent back ¡°Yeah, I can feel it too.¡± ¡°Dragon?¡± I asked.

    Yeah, you haven''t seen it? It''s huge, been flying all over the place all day, just north of this mountain.¡±

    I looked back at the Elf on the sled. ¡°Nope, haven''t been North of here. Huh, makes sense, I found this one in a crashed ship that was torn apart and scorched, just like she had been in a fight with a dragon.¡±

    John and Paul got a little excited at that. ¡°Did she happen to have a big bag like this one?¡± He asked, holding the bag in front of him. I shook my head, ¡°Nope, in fact, she had nothing on her, she wasn''t with her ship, I found her in a busted up escape pod of some type.¡±

    Paul looked at John and said, ¡°I bet it is still on that ship.¡±

    I craned my head up at the two of them, ¡°What is that thing?¡±

    John hesitated a second and said, ¡°Near as we can tell, it is some kind of alien tech, this bag can hold about a hundred times what it looks like. There is some sort of extra space in. Like a video game inventory bag.¡±

    I stared at the bag wondering what was in it and knew that they wanted another like it. One from my Elf''s ship. All I said was ¡°Huh, neat.¡±

    So what happened to you two anyway,¡± I asked.

    The cub was pawing at my leg smelling the meat cooking, so I gave her a small cut piece which she settled down on the floor and took between her paws and started gnawing at.

    It''s stupid really.¡± John began. ¡°Paul lost his phone in a fall, and mine simply ran out of juice.¡± He shook his head, ¡°We never were lost actually, we just decided to go a little further than we had planned. We are both experienced hikers and knew that losing contact would cause a fuss and people would be sent out to search for us. It''s really very embarrassing.¡±

    I almost growled at the man, I was stuck here away from my family for these two idiots and they were never even in trouble.

    Paul said, ¡°I got offered this Bushmaster class and John got Tracker and between the laser guns and our new skills, we have managed to avoid most of the monsters.¡±

    Huh, well, with three of us now we have a much better chance at getting out of the park. You guys have about seven hours before daybreak, I suggest you take it. I have already slept a few hours, I''ll keep watch. We will need you as fresh as possible to get out of here.¡±

    I passed the meat over to John as Paul started pulling sleeping bags out of his pack. John looked up sheepishly and said, ¡°Hey man, I''m sorry you''re stuck out here because you had to come to rescue us. I feel terrible, it''s all our fault, but I will do everything in my power to help you get out of this park.¡±

    He held out his hand. I slowly took it and shook it and stared into his eyes and triggered my Enthrall skill. My mind seemed to split in two, half of it went inside his and half stayed with me. I could skim his thoughts in visions and what was at the top of his mind was scary. It was a vision echoing over and over of him and Paul repeatedly stabbing a wounded Elf on the ground with handmade wooded spears...

    It''s fine John, it''s what I get paid to do and I''m good at it, we will get out of this. Now I want you to go get some sleep and not wake up until the sun has come up.¡±

    He said, ¡°Yeah boss, sure thing.¡± He went over and started unrolling his sleeping bag. Paul gave him a weird look and looked back at me. He finished his last bite of meat and dumped a little water in the pan and swirled it and dumped it to the side.

    He walked over to me and said, ¡°He must be wiped, he is acting strange. I want to apologize as well.¡±

    He held out his hand also and I took it stared in his eyes and Enthralled him. ¡°I want you to tell me completely and precisely what happened with that Elf you two ran across.¡±

    Paul ran his tongue nervously over his lips and looked back to John who was already turning on his side and falling asleep.

    He whispered, ¡°It wasn''t my idea man, I swear. We did come across that Elf when he fought off a pack of Yeti, and he was severely hurt, but John saw his rifle and wanted it. He..¡±

    I could feel him fighting the compulsion, so I layered it on him again. ¡°Go on...¡±

    We sneaked up from the side of the ship where the Dark Elf couldn''t see us and John jumped in the air and drove a spear through the guy pinning him to the ground. He was already about 95 percent dead. We forced him to tell us what was going on. He explained how there is this ¡°System¡± that has taken over the planet and turned it into a monster spawning machine, something to do with relieving mana pressure from other planets whatever that means. He was scouting this area for his boss and taking samples of precious minerals from this area. He had a tool that just reaches down into the ground and pulls stuff up. That bag is loaded with gold and diamonds and platinum and God knows what else. It is worth a fortune!¡± There are tons of metals inside of it man. TONS! The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

    We dragged him inside the ship and made him explain it. We can''t fly the spaceship because we don''t have the skill set, but we can buy it from these shops that are set up here now. We killed the Elf...he was basically dead when we found him. We looted the ship and then stealthed it and locked it up. It felt so wrong to me what we did, but he looked like a monster, and they are taking over our planet so... We planned on coming back for the ship later.¡±

    My eyes narrowed. ¡°Here is what is going to happen, Paul, you and John are going to help me and my wards escape this park. Even if it means sacrificing yourselves for us. You will tell John tomorrow that everything is fine, that you talked to me and I am cool. You will have no thoughts of betraying me and if John has any other ideas you will take him out, do you understand?¡±

    Paul started nodding his head up and down. ¡°I got it, I never wanted to kill anyone, you have to believe me. I got your back.¡±

    I clapped him on the shoulder, ¡°Good man, now I want you to go get some sleep, and nothing will wake you up for the next seven hours.¡± He nodded and made his way to his bag.

    I sent to Tor, ¡°How long will this Enthrall hold over these guys?

    He replied, I''m not sure, but I will alert you a minute before they wake up and you can hit them with it again as soon as they get up. They will be groggy and that will be a powerful Enthrall.¡±

    I cooked myself a little meat and gave the cub another piece. He chewed it with gusto and purred loudly and climbed into my lap. I laid down on my back and put the cub on my chest and stared into her eyes. ¡°I have never seen anything as beautiful as you in my life.¡±

    It was true, the cat had an ethereal kind of beauty to her. She was covered in stripes that were so faint that they were hard to see. The only reason you could make them out was that they were the slightest Robin egg colored blue, barely visible, they slowly flickered in and out of existence. Something to do with her Phasing skill, I was sure.

    I stoked the cub behind her ears and whispered to her, ¡°I am sorry you lost your mother, little baby, I promise I will not let anything hurt you, I will fight to my last dying breathe for you.¡± The cub looked at me and nodded and then mewled and licked my chin. A notification of blue text shot up before my eyes:

    Congratulations!

    The cub purred even louder and rubbed its face all over my chin marking me as hers. I chuckled and scratched its ears.

    Well now little one, it looks like you are my newest family member. Your big brother will be thrilled to meet you. You will need a name tho yes? Hmm, let me think... My Grand Mother used to be quite the wild woman and ran over these very mountains for most of her life. My Grandpa had an old Native word he used for her nickname. It was Yepa, it meant Snow woman. How do you like that? I always thought it was a beautiful name. YEPA! I love it, what do you think?¡±

    The cat purred deeply and started to lick my face with a raspy tongue. ¡°I''ll take that for a yes, Yepa it is then. You must be getting tired no? Let''s get you back under the warm fur with... Err, we better name her too, I feel rude calling her Elf all the time. How about Onida, It means searched for.¡±

    The cub jumped off of me and scrambled out in front of the cave and peed and then trotted back to me. I got up and grabbed her and put her back in the bed with the Elf. She wrapped her paws around the Elf''s neck and closed her eyes.

    I was getting stiff sitting on the rock for hours with my Gecko on and I started to stand up to get my sleeping bag to sit on when Tor sent me a tell. ¡°Oh boy, we have big trouble incoming. Five humanoids of a very high level. I would guess that they are here for the Elf and you are hanging out with two Truinnar murderers!¡±

    I slowly stood not wanting to get myself in any trouble and watched five huge humans walked up to me. They stood anywhere from 6''8'''' to 7''4''''. They were not Dark Elves, they reminded me of Native American Indians, although their features were off. Eyes too slanted and cheekbones too sharp. They stopped in front of me silently and looked me right in the eyes.

    Hello, I¡¯m Bowen Brownbear, are you here to kill me then?¡± I said.

    The one in the back seemed to smirk, but the rest didn''t move a muscle. The one in front, and the biggest one, looked down at me and said, ¡°Quite the opposite Brownbear, we are here to train you.¡±

    I tried to hide my shock and said, ¡°Train me? Who are you guys... Why would you want to help me, I am just a park ranger.¡±

    The one in front held out his hand. I went to take it in a handshake and he grabbed me by the inside of my forearm and shook that instead. ¡°You may call me Kodiak and we are your progenitor''s!¡±

    Progenitors? What does that mean, you''re our Elders or something?¡±

    Kodiak shook his head. ¡°Not exactly Brownbear, you are the same race as we, although a bit different because of the gravity of your planet. We are not your Forefathers, more like cousins.¡±

    I looked up at the sky. ¡°So all of the ancient stories are true then, you are of The Sky People?¡±

    The man nodded, ¡°That is what you call us? Apt I suppose, we did come from the skies I guess.¡±

    I stared up at him with an open mouth not believing this. ¡°Son of a freakin bitch, Ancient Aliens was right the entire time! Hahahahaha, I can''t believe it!¡±

    Kodiak looked at me like I was crazy. ¡°What is Ancient Aliens?¡±

    I stared back at him, ¡°It''s a TV... Umm, it is an entertainment program we have here that talks about Aliens from outer space. The Natives always talk about ¡°The Sky People¡± who seeded them on this planet and gave them knowledge. Most people think that they are crazy.¡±

    Kodiak shook his head back and forth. ¡°They are not crazy... Now let us talk about why we are here and what you will be doing the next few weeks.¡±

    I took a step back from him. ¡°The next few weeks? Umm no, thank you Kodiak. I have a Wife and Son that I need to get back to as soon as possible. I''m sorry, but I can''t help you.¡±

    Kodiak stared at me ¡°You have no choice I am afraid, You have been granted the All-Weapon. It is a powerful legacy weapon of our people and the owner must be trained in its use.

    Tell me the names of your Wife and Son and where they are. I will dispatch Otter at once to make sure they are safe. He will be with them in mere minutes. Not even you can provide protection such as this.¡±

    I looked back at a man and he nodded at me. ¡°Why can''t you just take me now to them?¡±

    Kodiak started to look a little impatient and said ¡°Because you are going to be busy and we can afford no distraction. You hold a named legacy heritage artifact! Now tell me the names and location at once.¡±

    I asked, ¡°Do you have a map?¡±

    A blue map jumped into view in front of my eyes. I moved it until Juneau came into view and zoomed down until I spotted our street. I zoomed further in and touched on top of my house. A way point dinged on it and I looked at it. ¡°That is my house, My wife''s name is Sammy... Er Samantha and our son is named Billy.¡± I heard a noise and waved the map away to see Otter turn and take off.

    Kodiak stepped forward and grabbed my shoulder. ¡°If they are still alive Otter will get to them, now let us go inside and sit, we have much to discuss.¡±

    We sat in a circle and the men were introduced, Eagle, Condor, and Bison. They all looked nervously back at the sled.

    Kodiak immediately focused in on the sled. ¡°Who is that back there under the fur?¡± Kodiak asked.

    I ran down the story on how I found Onida and Yepa. As soon as I mentioned the bond with the cub Bison stood up and ran back and lifted the fur. He placed a hand on both of their heads and I could softly hear him swear. He came back shaking his head and said to Kodiak ¡°Too late, already started.¡±

    Kodiak looks at me and shook his head. ¡°So be it, it is nothing we can change and although it complicates matters, it is already done.¡±

    I looked at them confused. ¡°What is already started?¡±

    Kodiak shook his head ¡°The bonding of course. You have bonded with that cat as a companion.¡±

    I nodded ¡°Oh that, yes it happened earlier tonight, is that such a bad thing?¡±

    Kodiak shook his head, ¡°No, in fact, that is a good thing, a great thing even. Those Phasing Cats are extremely rare and quite powerful, but you put the cat in with the Truinnar.¡±

    I searched all of their faces. ¡°Truinnar?¡± ¡°And?¡±

    Kodiak chuckled, ¡°And, The cat is now bonding with the woman also as we speak. It rarely happens, but the cat is dual bonding. You are a kind of Mother and Father to it now.¡±

    I said, ¡°I''m still confused, so the cat is bonding to the woman also, what''s wrong with that?¡±

    Kodiak gave me a frown ¡°Are you dense? You will now have a shared bond with the Truinnar. I hope your first wife is a strong woman!¡±

    I stood up and looked down at them ¡°WHAT? Wait a second! A shared bond, what does that entail? My wife will kill me if I come home with another woman, especially one that looks like that?¡±

    All four of them started chuckling knowing exactly what I meant. Kodiak waved me down ¡°Looking like what? Exotic and sexy?¡±

    YES!¡± I sputtered out. ¡°Exactly that, exotic and sexy, How do I get out of this bond?¡±

    Bison spoke, ¡°I am an animal expert and I can tell you how if you wish to end this, but you will have to do it now. It will become much much more painful for you if you wait much longer.¡±

    I looked at him, ¡°OK, I will do it now, what must I do?¡±

    Bison said, ¡°I must warn you, It will you hurt badly, and take you out for a day or two, but you must kill that cat cub right now if you want the bond to be broken. Be warned though, you might kill the Truinnar as well in her current state.¡±

    I sat down with a thud, ¡°Kill Yepa?¡± I looked over at the cat wound around the Elf''s neck and shook my head, ¡°Not a chance, I swore a vow to protect her, that''s not happening.¡±

    Bison nodded, ¡°Good, I would think much less of you had you decided to do that.¡±

    I stared at the sled and the bodies in it. ¡°Sammy is not going to be happy.¡±

    Kodiak pointed to the two men sleeping in the bags, ¡°What is the problem with these two, I see you have them Enthralled.¡±

    I nodded and told him the entire story of how I was searching for them and how they killed the Elf. They were all shaking their heads by the end of the story. Eagle stood and went over and started taking their weapons and putting them in an invisible inventory.

    Kodiak shook his head and looked at me. ¡°This is bad Brownbear, very bad. I will explain as much as I can, there are things I cannot tell you, but there is only one way this is going to end. You must kill them both.¡±

    What do you mean I must kill them!¡±

    Kodiak said, ¡°Number one, we are not supposed to be here. At least not secretly as we are doing right now. We are breaking truces that have been in place for ages and breaking them would allow excuses to be used to war upon our peoples. Thus it must be you. And before you say anything else know that this is not something that may be debated.¡±

    I thought about that and said, ¡°And number two?¡±

    Kodiak sighed. ¡°These people, the Dark Elf scouts, are all royalty of the Truinnar, sent as political prisoners if you would... They are here on behalf of a powerful Duchess who would make a very ugly enemy to you and your people. There are skills that can tear the truth out of you, and if it was discovered that you knew what happened here and let those two go, it would be a disaster for all of us.¡±

    I shook my head ¡°But how would they know? How would they even tie me to this?¡± Kodiak just pointed at Onida.

    I thought it thru. ¡°You think Onida was here looking for the other Dark Elf?¡±

    Kodiak nodded ¡°Surely. This is no coincidence. Two of them in the same area at the same time? Impossible. The fact that you are shortly going to be bonded to the Truinnar will help keep you alive, but if it was found that you aided these two murderers? Not only would you, your family, and everyone you know be hunted down and killed, but maybe your entire city. You don''t know these two men, there is no reason to sympathize with murderers. They have no honor, cutting down a wounded being. We shall wait until they wake and do it.¡±

    I looked at the two men, a pit growing in my stomach. I was going to be forced to do this and there was nothing I could do to stop it. The lack of concern these men had over forcing me to murder was concerning to say the least.

    Kodiak handed me a book called Thrashers. ¡°Now, I want you to read thru this in the meantime, It will explain much of what is happening.¡±

    A few hours later and John and Paul were waking up. I was there as their eyes opened and layered another Enthrall on both of them. I put them in a relaxed state and had both of them on their knees as I questioned them. Tor recorded the entire thing.

    John smiled the whole time as he described to me how he killed the Truinnar. It seemed he had gotten a taste for murder and liked it. It helped me a little bit with what I was going to do. Paul on the other hand really didn''t want any part of what happened, but he was scared of what John was becoming and he caved in and joined in the killing. He was a coward.

    The time had come. I felt like I was going to vomit and my hands were shaking. As both men were on their knees in a state of unawareness I took the Truinnar staff and slid it into the back of their brains executing them. I felt sick to my stomach but kept a stoic face on for the camera. This video might save my family''s lives someday. I got their loot including the bag and Eagle and Bison dragged the bodies away.

    Kodiak gave me a grim look and simply said, ¡°It is done, let us go train.¡±

 7

    I found out later that each of the warriors was expert in a field of the elements. They were training me in the use of the weapon, but not how I had thought they would. The All-Weapon was attuned to each of the elements I found out. By extension, I was able to manipulate elemental skills.

    For instance, I could call out a fireball through the bow form in a fire aspect or an arrow made of wind that could cut through shielding in an air aspect, but I had to learn to call out the skills themselves.

    I couldn''t throw a fireball with my hands, not unless I was to go and buy the out of Class skill from the store, but I could shoot a fireball with the All-Weapon. It didn''t cost me mana to do so, but the All-Weapon had its own individual mana pool, so I couldn''t just shoot a non-stop barrage of fireballs all day.

    I also found out that each form of the weapon had its own set of skills within its own element. I could cause a small earth shock wave if I smashed the club into the ground. A water staff could form a small globe of water that I could place on someone''s head and drown them. A dagger of flame could be used to torture someone by cauterizing their wounds as I sliced them etc, etc.

    I was going to learn one skill of each element on dagger, bow, club, spear, staff, and sword. 24 skills. The rest I would be able to figure out in time.

    The war party was going to take me on a killing tour of the park with three members at a time until I reached level 20 and then they would escort me home.

    Otter still hadn''t reported back, but Kodiak told me that he could level entire cities by himself if need be, so I remained hopeful. As we headed out for the first time, Bison stayed back with Yepa and Onida. I was given a one-piece form-fitting armor that would protect me from cold and some damage and told to prepare for battle. My training was about to begin...

    The training didn''t go the way I thought it would. I figured that my teachers would mostly damage a monster and let me finish it off, power leveling me in effect. The exact opposite happened.

    One warrior would stand next to me yelling commands and calling out various weapon forms and occasionally lock a monster down, while another stood guard to look out for anything coming in behind us. The third warrior kept groups of monsters locked down and I would have to fight them one after another after another learning combos with different forms.

    My weapon rotations depending on the type of monster went something like this: Earth Staff (Grasping Earth), Fire Bow (Fireball), Air Bow (Breeze Bolt), melee ranged: Air Sword (Avoid Armor), Water Club (Overflow), Earth Dagger (Blight Blade), etc, etc.

    It was mentally tiring, trying to keep up, and it took me forever to kill the damn things. The only good thing was that my inventory was filling up and I was racking up XP. When the weapon ran low on juice and we had a monster still alive, they would shout out various animal forms at me and heal me if I got below 50% health. The fights were long and painful and seemed never-ending.

    The warriors must have had a ship somewhere nearby, because a case of Mother''s Milk and a feeding bottle showed up in the cave for the cub. I was never allowed to see the spaceship though. I could have slept in a nice warm ship at night but was kept in the cave instead. The warriors preferred to be outdoors.

    After two weeks of brutal training, we started to head out of the park. Kodiak pointed out 3 dungeons in the park and marked them on a map. He told me that we would need to set up an outpost near here and clean out the dungeons constantly or we would have a monster horde develop there.

    I never did figure out what level the warriors were, but they had to have been well over 110 because they never tried to be quiet. Quite the opposite, they were loud, trying to draw monsters in for me to fight. I never saw a one of them take a single point of damage, they were way too quick.

    I fought ice worms, and cats and yeti and ogres. The list of horrors was never ending and more were seeming to be ported into the park all the time. I was the only one who pulled the sled, the warriors didn''t want to be anywhere near the Truinnar in case she woke up. When we weren''t fighting a monster, the warriors gave me nonstop lessons about the system, what kind of tech I should buy and use, and most importantly what was expected of me and why.

    The Sky People, (I never did find out the real name of their race, they just called themselves The People.) came from a star cluster known as the Pleiades. In galactic terms, they were very near to us and thus why they were the race to seed this planet.

    They were once a huge force in our part of the galaxy, but their politics leaned on the side of non-violence and their power was slowly ground down. They now held onto ten star systems, (which surprisingly small for major powers in this galaxy) with an iron fist, but system politics were always a tricky thing with races constantly chipping away at each other. A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

    The People didn''t want to risk war and lose anything that they had left, but they needed a force quietly tied to them in case of emergencies. That''s where Earth came into the picture. The Sky People had hoped to fill this planet with Indigenous cousins that they could call upon in time of need, but the way it played out here was a major failure for them.

    As natives were driven to near extinction, The Sky People could only watch. In rare cases such as the Mayas, (who had become too bloodthirsty and were upsetting the balance of a newly populated planet), the council had them removed and replaced from Earth to receive ¡°retraining.¡± Planets were needed for the system, and no one race could be allowed to threaten it''s progress.

    The Galactic Council had a strict hands-off policy except for itself in rare cases.

    The Sky People were forced to sit and watch as their progeny slowly died off.

    There were still somewhere around 370 million Indigenous people worldwide, but estimates were that roughly 90% of the races on dungeon planets would die off in the first year. Indigenous people usually fared worse if they were not the dominating race on the planet.

    Indigenous on Earth would die because of a lack of infrastructure. There were roughly 13 million Native American Indians in the U.S.A. Less than 1 million were expected to survive. I was to try and get as many of those people to my city as I could. The first 50 thousand were to be brought to me slowly by quests and portals. I needed to find a safe place to keep them hidden away from the rest of the world. Space would not be a problem I was told. ¡°What better area than Juneau.¡± I thought.

    Juneau was the second largest city by area in the U.S. With 2700 square miles, only smaller than the city of Sitka, which was on one of the islands just outside of Juneau in the Alexander Archipelago. Space wouldn''t be a problem.

    Better yet, Juneau had no roads leading into it. You had to gain entry by ship or seaplane. Perfect for hiding people away from the galactic politics that were about to descend upon Earth.

    Alaska already had a high native population, so the native Juneauians had no problems with us. If there were any of us left that is.

    The sea provided plenty of fish, and most monsters were edible. That only left produce, which Kodiak assured me would not be a problem. The only thing expected of our people was to level up, even the children. Martial art and weaponry were now to be taught at our schools. Our children would come into this new world prepared.

    As we finally made our way out to the front the park I looked at my levels and was shocked to see I was level 22. I guess I did get power leveled.

    We came around a bend to the little frontier town of Scagway and my heart nearly broke. It was total destruction. Nothing was left. The entire town was about a mile long with a maybe a hundred buildings and I could tell from the way things were flattened that something huge had come out of the sea. Not a single structure was left standing and the only movement I could see were the birds picking through the ruins.

    Must have been a Kraken or Hydra.¡± Said Kodiak.

    I received a notification late in the night before that I was now joint bonded with Yepa and Onida and I looked down at the sled thinking about how much it was going to slow me down. The woman was stirring a little bit now and Eagle, who was a healer of sorts, told me that she would fully recover from her head injury.

    I had already ironed out that I was going to treat her like a sister and Sammy would accept her on those terms. We would just have to find a willing boyfriend for her to seal the deal.

    I started to freak out thinking that the total destruction might have happened to my hometown as it did in Scagway. ¡°It''s about a hundred miles by foot!¡± I told Kodiak, ¡°With God knows what monsters are on the way it will take us two weeks to get there!¡±

    He shook his head. ¡°We will make it in two days...¡± That being said, Kodiak went into his inventory and pulled out a high tech looking snowmobile and a sled. The rails on it were faintly glowing blue.

    Hover tech¡± Was all he said when I asked.

    He pulled out two glowing disks and attached one to each end of Onida''s sled and hooked it to the end of the snowmobile.

    He looked at me and simply said ¡°Yours¡± and then pulled out a keyfob and pressed the button. A mechanical Appaloosa horse formed next to him. It was stunningly beautiful and my eyes nearly came out of my head when I saw it.

    It was brown with white spots from the neck down. It was wearing armor that had gun attachments on the front flanks. I was drooling looking at it and the others all laughed at me.

    What...what is that, and how do I get one?¡± I stammered out.

    Kodiak chuckled and said, ¡°It takes much training and a neural link to ride this, but maybe one day...¡±

    The snowmobile was amazing. If it wasn''t for the fact that we were riding over rough hilly land, we might have made it back in a day. The horses ran as normal horses did, but their feet never actually touched the ground. They stayed just a few inches above it at all times. They made no noise which was unnerving. I stared at them enviously. I had been a huge fan of horses my entire life and the Appaloosa was my favorite breed.

    We were attacked constantly, from land and sea, but the warriors were so strong that I barely got a hit in with my bow before everything was dead. It still slowed us down quite a bit.

    When we got to water, we simply floated over it as if it were no different than land. Whenever I looked back at the sled, as I constantly found myself doing, I could see Yepa standing in her bed next to Onida. Fur ruffling furiously and her nose going a mile a second. I chuckled every time I looked at her, she reminded me of a dog on a car trip with it''s nose out a side window.

    We pushed it that night and made it almost 50 miles. Kodiak wasn''t lying to me, we would be in Juneau the next day.

    When we pulled over for the night Bison reached into his inventory and pulled out what looked like a small circus tent. The other circled it placing all kinds of tech around. Shields, generators, sensors, and turrets.

    When I asked about the tent, Kodiak told me, ¡°Tomorrow is a big day for you, I need you to get a full nights sleep.¡±

    The inside of the tent was like futuristic glamping. It had sectioned off rooms with beds and even a kitchen and a bathroom.

    Nothing will be able to see us, let alone harm us,¡± Kodiak said to me. ¡°You have done well and deserve a night without worry.¡±

    I took my first shower in what felt like years. It was glorious. I asked Bison if I could buy the tent from him and he just laughed at me.

    You will have no need for a tent after tomorrow.¡± He told me. The men cooked up a feast for us and after eating I sank into a bed and passed out at once.

 8

    The next day we were up at the crack of dawn and I was feeling like a new man. I was well-rested and had invested all of my points into my stats. I felt stronger, smarter, and oddly enough taller. I was bursting to go.

    The ride for the remainder of our journey was more of the same. When we had to pause to fight I could feel anger surging out of me at the delay and I threw myself into battle. The warriors noticed and seemed to approve. Bison even mentioned that I might make a decent Chief after all. Sometime before noon we pulled up outside of Juneau International Airport. It was a disaster area with monsters running all around it.

    Juneau Airport sat on the water with Mendenhall lake about 3 miles to the north of it. A neighborhood had sat in between the two of them and it looked to be all but destroyed now.

    Kodiak looked over the situation and pointed at the airport. ¡°That is a dungeon now. It is only 5.5 miles to your home city and this must be cleared to allow you time so that you train some people up here in the future. This will become a very valuable leveling area for your citizens in the future. I know you are anxious to get home, but we will help you clear this quickly. We must clean up this village first and then go and clean out the dungeon.¡±

    I said, ¡°If I claim this whole area as part of my city, won''t the dungeon go away? Bison told me my city would be a safe zone.¡±

    Kodiak shook his head, ¡°You do not want to do that, having your another dungeon near your town is a great boon. You will have a place for your people to train and level up. You need to start thinking of everything in the long term. I know that this city has a huge amount of land attached to it, but you are only going to want to claim a few miles to either side of it and leave the rest for your people to level in close to home.¡±

    I thought about that for a second and nodded. He was right. I had to start thinking about a whole tribe from now on, not just my own family. Everything was going to change after today.

    We started clearing out the neighborhood. I stayed close to the snowmobile and sled using my bow as a ranged damage dealer. After we cleared a few blocks the tent was set up again with extra shielding and the sled was placed inside.

    Bison guaranteed that there was enough shielding in place to hold off a nuclear explosion and that Yepa and the Elf would be safe. The Leopard was starting to look a little fierce herself now anyway. She was the size of a small Leopard herself with paws bigger than my own hands. She was growing daily with me gaining levels.

    As we went to clear out the rest of the town a pattern was becoming clear. Ice Worms, Ice Wolves, Ice Bears. The lake was filled with Ice Octopi that would have to be cleared at a later date. It took us an hour until nothing could be sensed or tracked. The Elemental Warriors were beasts and not holding back easily crushing everything. We headed to the dungeon.

    To say that the airport had underwent a change would be an understatement. It was hollowed out and turning into a series of cave-like structures with large rooms that held small villages. It was occupied by Ice Trolls.

    These were not your fantasy game looking trolls, not by a long shot. They were towering beasts of 8 feet with slobbering, huge mouths filled with sharp teeth. They were covered with sharp spikes sticking out of their backs and they seemed to prefer fighting with hammers and shields. It was terrifying. For all that they were though, they were simply out leveled by the war party. Kodiak and his crew blazed thru them as if fighting children. Even the boss who was a level 55 Ice Troll Chief fell with a whimper.

    I gained a level and all but sprinted out of the dungeon. The war party sensed my urgency and they even hustled a bit. It had to have been around Four o''clock by the time we were loaded up and

    It was only five miles to the city proper and I was quickly losing hope as we pulled closer to town. Every home or building we passed had either been destroyed or suffered major damage. As we pulled into town the first building that seemed to be halfway decent was the Juneau-Douglas High School. It looked fortified. When we pulled up to the front of it the door opened, and Otter stepped out.

    He looked at Kodiak and said, ¡°We have trouble, the Truinnar are here.¡±

    Kodiak shook his head and said, ¡°Tell me.¡±

    Otter looked at me and then back at Kodiak. ¡°The Truinnar arrived a few hours ago... They bought the town, but they haven¡¯t even got or set the city core yet.¡±

    I looked back and forth at them. ¡°They bought my fucking city...? How is that possible...? Who the fuck are these people?¡±

    Kodiak said, ¡°Slow down and take a breath, you have a Heritage stronghold city granted to you by the system. You can easily take this area regardless of who holds it, but this will complicate matters a bit.¡±

    Complicates it how?¡± I asked. Kodiak put an arm on my shoulder and said, ¡°We had hoped to stick around for a few days and help you figure out some of the ins and outs of your new city, but that can''t happen now. The Truinnar cannot see us here.¡±

    I took a step back from him and said, ¡°You guys are ditching me? Now...? I can''t handle this crap by myself yet! How do I deal with these people?¡±

    Kodiak gave me a reassuring look ¡°Number one you have the Dark Elf¡­ Heh I like that name you have for them! You have Onida that you have bonded with. They will not risk killing you for fear of driving her mad and taking her life. Number two you have a Heritage city granted by the system, keep repeating that over and over. It is a very powerful thing. Any Truinnar worth their salt will realize that.¡±

    I looked at Otter and asked the question I had been dreading...

    My family? Is Samantha Alive?¡±

    He nodded ¡°She is at the Governor''s Mansion with the rest of the survivors. Your friend Jackson is watching over her. The Mansion has been turned into a System verified fort, but I would get there fast before the Truinnar decides to destroy it. The locals are not happy at all that the city has been bought and they are planning on a fight. There are about 1000 of them in there, but it won''t make a difference. The Envoy is here with a wrecking crew.¡±

    I asked him with a hopeless dread falling over me, ¡°Only 1000? What happened to the city?¡±

    He said with grim face, ¡°The same thing that happens to most cities on the first day. Monsters spawned all over downtown and killed almost everybody. The noise they made brought in huge monsters from the seas and they crushed all of the big buildings and infrastructure. Not many survived.¡±

    I looked at Kodiak. ¡°Fuck man, I have to go save them¡­ Now... Is this goodbye forever?¡±

    Kodiak shook his head, ¡°We will be close keeping an eye on you. We will be able to see everything that happens in the Village. You will need to rely heavily on the Village''s A.I. and your Ancestor. We may not be able to be here in person, but we will be able to contact you in your office.¡± He grabbed my forearm and we shook. ¡°Save our people, remember that leveling them is the most important thing. We have set up time tested schedules for you to succeed in this, now go.¡±

    I said goodbye to each of the war party members and each one presented me with a gift of jewelry with a touch of ceremony. I was too distracted to look at anything and just shoved them on and thanked them. I had a feeling there would normally be some kind of ceremony for this, but I was running out of time.

    I looked at the sled and Kodiak waved a hand at me, ¡°It''s yours..., be sure to check in the stables too.¡± I hopped on the snowmobile and took off never looking back.

    I was zipping down Calhoun Avenue as fast as I dared with the sled attached. I barely had time to glance at the city, but it didn''t look great. Most of the family homes had been destroyed and all of the businesses and big buildings were gone. This was a war disaster area.

    I rounded a corner saw a crowd of Dark Elves, err Truinnar, standing in front of the old Governor''s Mansion speaking up to someone on a wall. The Mansion had been converted into a small castle with walls and a gate. There were about ten of the Truinnar standing behind a woman and I couldn''t see any of their levels, this was going to be bad.

    I pulled about twenty feet from them and jumped off of the snowmobile. ¡°Excuse me people, who is in charge here?¡±

    The Woman turned to me and studied me for a second, looking at my level and title. She was obviously powerful, I could feel it pulsing off of her. ¡°First of First is it? And a War Chief to boot? My, but aren''t you impressive for a Human. I am in charge here. I am the Duchess''s Envoy for this area.¡± I looked at her titles.

    Lady Priya Kangana (??? level ???, Lady of the Seven Marshes, Mistress of the Kitchen, Savant of the Realm)

    Lady Kangana a pleasure to meet you.¡± I laid it on thick, I was going to need to be as diplomatic as possible here.

    She gave me the once over and gave off the impression that I was a turd that needed to be flushed. ¡°What can I help you with Chief, I don''t have much daylight left and we need to take this building for the city core placement.¡±

    I pointed to the sled. ¡°I have someone here you might be interested in and a video to quickly show you if you will allow it.¡± She walked over slowly and glanced down at Onida''s face. She spun to me. A look of pure rage took over her face. She started walking slowly towards me. ¡°You dared to...¡± Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators!

    I held up my hands. ¡°Whoa, whoa take it easy, I didn''t do this, a Dragon did, it took her and her ship down, I saved her.¡±

    The Envoy looked back at Onida and then me, ¡°You have somehow bonded with her while she was unconcious, why would you do such a perverted thing?¡±

    I pointed at the Leopard who was standing up growling at the Lady. ¡°It is a shared bond, through the animal. I didn''t even know it was possible, It happened on the second day, you cannot blame me.¡±

    Her eyes narrowed as she looked back and forth between me and Onida. I could tell she was debating with herself if she could kill me and still have Onida survive.

    Your other scout wasn''t so lucky, he is dead. I found who killed him and¡­ I executed them. I recorded it if you will allow me to send it to you.¡±

    She simply nodded. I queued up the video the way the Eagle had showed me and I sent a carefully edited version of the file over to her and watched as she stood there looking at the video. Her hands were in tight fists flexing.

    She said, ¡°What happened to the scout''s ship?¡± I shrugged ¡°I wasn¡¯t there, never saw it, they said that a Dragon took it down. They also said that it has been flying non-stop over that area since. Something must have riled it up. I wasn¡¯t going to check, I barely made it out of there alive.¡±

    She nodded ¡°Well, it seems that some of you monkeys have a shred of honor.¡±

    I frowned and said, ¡°I saved one of your people and took revenge for another, If you aren¡¯t going to kill me now it is time for some bad news I am afraid¡±

    She sneered at me. ¡°What kind of news could you possibly have that would mean anything to me?¡±

    I stood as straight as I could and said, ¡°I am afraid that this is my city, and you are all going to have to leave.¡±

    The Envoy actually snorted and looked back at the big man behind her. All of her guards started chuckling looking at me. She said, ¡°I don''t know if you understand yet how the system works, or if you ever will, but we have already bought this city.¡± She held out a crystal. ¡°This is a city core, bought and paid for. I was just about to place it. I am sorry to tell you War Chief, but you are a little too late.¡±

    I was feeling a little pissed off at this group of assholes laughing at me and scoffed at her. ¡°I''m not sure if you understand how the system works, but have you seen my title ¡°First of First Nations?¡± I got the first kill on this planet! Because of that, I was granted a System Verified Heritage Stronghold City!¡± I crossed my arms over my chest. ¡°Do you understand what that means?¡±

    She took a step back and her eyes got big. ¡°But this city is paid... You wouldn''t dare¡­ How fucking stupid are you? You could take an entire city like Los Angeles or New York! We would trade you all of Alaska for a city like that!¡±

    I shook my head no, I needed the secrecy that Juneau provided.

    You will be losing millions! Billions even! Why would you want this tiny dump of a city?¡±

    I shook my head at her. ¡°Why? Because it is my home, I have lived here most of my life and love it, it is quiet and peaceful and away from the big cities and all of their noise and prejudices. Why? Because I love it, NOW IT''S MINE! NOW I CLAIM IT!¡±

    Would you like to take control of the city of Juneau, Alaska?

    I looked her right in the eyes and saw the hatred pouring out of her.

    ¡°YES!¡± I shouted.

    Congratulations! You are now the owner of the City of Juneau.

    A shroud of light engulfed my body. It pulsed three times and shot off in all directions.

    Lady Kangana and her crew stood there with their mouths hanging open.

    I sent Tor a message ¡°Is there something like a screenshot in this system? I want to see this bitch with her mouth hanging open for the rest of my life.¡±

    Tor chuckled ¡°I have been recording the entire time for prosperity!¡±

    The big beast of an Elf behind the Envoy started to draw a sword. I looked at the Truinnar and said, ¡°This city can never be taken now, or sold for that matter. If you kill us all it will be in vain, and I don''t have to tell you what it means that I have been granted a Heritage city for the Indigenous of this world... You harm me, or mine, and you will be pissing off someone way high up in the power structure, possibly even a Council member... You may now nod if you understand me.¡±

    Steam was just about pouring off of the Lady as she set her hand on the Officer''s arm stopping him from drawing a weapon. ¡°You have no idea what plans you just interfered with. You might be safe for the time being, but your people will be marked, trust me.¡±

    I gave her a hard, cold look. ¡°I would be very careful before you make any threats, you have no idea what is going to happen here. If you need to save face, tell your Duchess that she can feel free to tell anyone she comes across that this is her city, I don''t care. We just want to be left alone. Now, I think that it is time you all leave my city before I banish you. I have a lot of work to do.¡±

    With that being said I turned my back on them, dismissing them, and walked back to the sled. I was too angry at this point to be scared. I patted Yepa on the head and mounted the bike. I drove over to the gate and yelled, ¡°Hello the fort!, Blackbear here, Open up!¡±

    The first face I saw was Jax''s. Jax is one of my best friends and one of the very few people that I trust to have my back. His name is Michael Jackson, but no one would dare to call him that to his face. Jax is what he goes by.

    I expected hugs and kisses, but what I got was a grim look. ¡°Huh, so you survived and own the city eh? Congratulations... you got a ghost town, we''re all dead.¡±

    I gave him a pained look. ¡°Everyone? Ethan, Missy, David?¡±

    He just shook his head. ¡°All gone man, besides me and that big goofball Smitty, they are all dead.¡±

    I grabbed him by the shoulder, a tear in my eye. ¡°Samantha and Billy? Where are they? Why aren''t they here to see me?¡±

    Jax could barely look me in the eye. ¡°About that, I''m sorry man, I tried, and we lost a hundred people trying to stop it, but Billy is gone. All of our children are gone...¡±

    What do you mean gone? All of the children were killed? HOW?¡±

    Jax shook his head ¡°Not killed brother... taken.¡±

    I stood back. ¡°So Billy is alive but taken, please man tell me everything.¡±

    Jax pointed out at the sea. ¡°A fucking army of Mermen came ashore the very first day of the change. They said that they were some kind of relief force that was sent to rescue all of the children along the coastal towns. They take all of the children to underwater cities where they say they will educate them on the System and survival and will release them back when the earth has stabilized and they are ready.¡±

    I shook my head trying to come to grips with what he was saying. I saw that fucking army of Mermen ¡°So he''s alive and being protected, okay I can live with that, did they say where?¡±

    Jax shook his head ¡°Just down to their cities, that''s all they said. When people fought back they just blasted them with magic killing anyone in their way.¡±

    Where is Samantha at? Is she all right?¡± I pleaded.

    Jax looked back at the castle. ¡°She is here Bear, but she has been in bad shape ever since they took him. She is almost comatose, won''t talk to anyone, I have to force her to eat. She wants to die... She thinks you and Billy are dead.¡±

    I heard a moan behind me and almost fell over in shock when Onida sat up pulling her helmet off and rubbing her head. She looked down at Yepa and smiled automatically petting the cat who purred louder than I ever heard her before. She looked up at me and said groggily, ¡°Where am I?¡± She looked at Yepa and then me and shouted, ¡°WHAT THE HELLS HAVE YOU DONE TO ME?!¡±

    Jax sneaked a surprised peek at Onida not even noticing her before. He looked up at me and said, ¡°Whoa, who is the hottie? Did you forget you were married?¡±

    I snorted at him ¡°No, I haven''t forgotten. It''s a long story. This is Onida, Onida, meet Jax.¡±

    The woman looked at me like I was crazy. ¡°Onida? That is not my name, my name is... Well, I guess my name now is Chieftess Onida isn''t it husband?¡± She said slyly with a smirk on her face.

    I looked down at her ¡°Husband? We are bonded not married, I already have a wife.¡±

    She slowly started getting to her feet. ¡°Hells, I now have a wife too? And a Snow Leopard child? What the fuck happened after I crashed? Do you humans usually take people hostage and force them into marital bondage?¡±

    I rolled my eyes, ¡°It''s Yepa''s fault, not mine, blame her!¡± She glanced at the cat and then looked me up and down ¡°Hmm, not bad at all, I can do all that.¡± She said, waving at my body.

    Jax chuckled ¡°As sad as I am right now I am finding great pleasure in all of this. ¡°Now tell me how you came to own the city and became a War Chief!¡±

    Onida broke in on the conversation ¡°You own the city? How did you do that? Where is the core? How much protection do we have in place? Do we have any defenses at all? Where are the sentries?¡± She rambled it all together making it sound bad.

    I stared into her eyes and said, ¡°I just took control 10 minutes ago, I haven''t set anything up yet.¡±

    She looked me right in the eyes and shook herself, ¡°Whoa, what is with that compulsion? Never mind, we need to set up defenses right away, You don''t want your people to start dying en masse your first day, horrible for your rep and fame. This is crucial, trust me. Stop dicking around, let''s go!¡±

    I waved my hands at her. ¡°Bossy much? I don''t care who dies or what happens, I am going to see Sammy first!¡± I turned to Jax ¡°Take me to her.¡±

    Jax rushed me through the crowd who were spitting questions left and right at me. Ignoring them, we took a stairwell up to the second floor. I noticed Yepa trailing after us tail swishing at all of the people.

    He led me to a room and stood outside of it. ¡°I''ll give you some alone time Bear, but don''t expect much.¡±

    I opened the door and Onida stepped in front of me. Jax tried to stop her and she said, ¡°This is my wife too now dumbass and I am a hell of a lot higher level than you. Move your arm or I will break it.¡±

    I looked at her and said, ¡°You''re serious with all of this marriage business?¡±

    She snorted, ¡°You might not realize it yet handsome, but try and leave me and see what happens. You have bonded with two sentient beings and that is not a breakable bond unless you want to spend the rest of your days in a mental hospital.¡±

    I said, ¡°Seriously? But your all...¡± I waved my hands at her.

    She gave me a shocked look. ¡°All what? Sinewy and black like a Dark Elf? Are you serious? You''re a Native?¡± She took in the look in my eyes. ¡°Really? What the fuck human? I am super... hot where I come from! Never mind, If it bothers you that much I will get some cosmetics from the shop, no biggie. Won''t be the first time I disguised myself.¡±

    I said, ¡°No, no, not your looks, I was gonna say all pushy and aggressive.¡±

    She shook her head at me. ¡°So you don''t like the way I look or my attitude, great!¡± She stomped into the room.

    I looked over at Jax and shook my head. He shrugged his shoulders at me. I whispered, ¡°She''s all yours if you want to try and date her.¡±

    He cracked a smile and said, ¡°Umm, I finally managed to land Plain Jane, kinda saved her life and she finally caved in.¡±

    I dropped my jaw. ¡°Really?...¡± Jane was a pure, natural, native beauty and Jax had been after her for years.

    I walked into the room and Samantha was lying in a bed asleep. Onida was sitting next to her with her hand on her head looking at something in her mind''s eye.

    Sammy looked horrible. She was normally a perky, fun person that everybody wanted to be around, but now she looked burnt out and hollow. She had lost weight and her eyes had huge black rings around them.

    I sat on the bed and took her hand. ¡°Sammy? Wake up, baby.¡± Yepa jumped in the bed and laid alongside Samantha purring loudly. Her eyes opened and she looked down at the cat.

    She looked up at me and a tear fell from her eye. ¡°Bowen? They took him, they took our son.¡±

    I kissed her on the forehead and said, ¡°Don''t worry honey, I am gonna get him back, I promise you.¡±

    She looked up and said, ¡°They took our boy, they took him and then killed Ethan. They took our boy...¡±

    I shot a worried look at Jax by the door, he said, ¡°That''s more than she has spoken in days.¡±

    Onida looked at me and said ¡°Right, we can fix this. When you set up the city we will buy a med center and hook her into a machine, it will have her out of this malaise in a couple of days tops.¡±

    I looked over at her. ¡°Honestly?¡± I croaked out my voice breaking.

    She nodded at me ¡°I swear it, I wouldn''t lie about something like this.¡± She moved over and started taking Sammy in her arms. She whispered, ¡°Hello love, I''m your new wife Onida, I am gonna fix you all up and make everything better.¡±

    She scooped up Sam in her arms like she weighed nothing and looked at me staring at her in amazement. ¡°What? I am stronger than you, you do know I can see all of your stats right? We are bonded handsome, no secrets from me, Skin...err...¡°War Chief¡±!

    I sent Tor a question ¡°Where are you I need you now.¡±

    Tor appeared next to me, ¡°I am right here Brownbear, I have never left your side.¡±

    Jax shot me a look. ¡°OK W...T...F... Dude, first a Snow Leopard pet and then a second wife, now you have a ghost with you as well? What happened to you?¡±

    I said, ¡°His name is Tor, he is a System generated Spirit companion. I''m sure you can buy something like him at the store when it is up and running.¡±

    Tor snorted, waving his hands over his body. ¡°Doubt it Broseph, this package will set you back a few million credits.¡±

    I stared at him ¡°You''re not serious, are you?

    He nodded ¡°Wait til you set me up at the Village and I get hooked up with the A.I., I am gonna go to a whole other level. I was made to service hundreds of people with advice, not just your straight-laced ass.¡±

    Jax looked over at me ¡°Straight-laced,? You?¡±

    I nodded, ¡°Snoop Dog over here likes to get high!¡±

    Jax nodded ¡°Oh. Okay, this is all normal now.¡±

    I headed for the door, ¡°Let''s go, we have a village city center to place.¡±

 9

    The Governor''s Mansion was already sitting on a hill and from the wall around it, we already had a pretty good view. I called Tor over and said, ¡°Look at your map and tell me where a good spot would be.¡±

    Tor glanced off into space and whistled. ¡°Damn, The Sky People didn''t go cheap on you that''s for sure.¡± He nodded. ¡°Okay, this thing is gonna be big, so I recommend that we set it back as far as possible from the water and use this Mount Juneau as a backdrop for defense. I will trigger the placement program and you will see a grid appear, ready?¡±

    I nodded at him. A grid popped up.

    Would you like to place your city center?

    (Y/N)

    ¡°Yes!¡± I called out. A gridded map was placed in front of me with a large shadow of what space the building would take up.

    I said, ¡°Holy crap, this thing is as big as a pro football field!¡±

    Tor called out, ¡°Bigger, much bigger!¡±

    I finagled the thing around and managed to jam it directly back behind the Mansion. We were going to lose an entire park and lots of houses and part of a mountain, but it fit like a glove back there. I focused on the place button and the Earth started moving.

    Congratulations!

    You have placed your first city center

    You have gained the title: Chief of all Chiefs

    For earning this title you receive a bonus of 25,000XP

    For earning this title you receive a bonus of 25,000 credits

    You have earned access to the social skill set of the class: War Chief

    I guess the Village didn''t quite fit like a glove-like I thought it did. The thing was bigger both in length and width than I thought. I looked back and stared as it started coming into being. People rushed out of the keep and stormed up onto the walls to watch the building rise. You could see the mountain moving back on itself losing material to allow the building to sit where it wanted to.

    It rose to about ten stories high. It was kind of shaped like an ice cream cone. a twisted, round, tent-like teepee building with a material on the outside that reminded me of the roof that was on the Denver airport. It looked to be a fabric that was treated with Teflon. The color was a deep brown leather with lighter brown and greens running through it, almost a patina, and there appeared to be skylights ringing around the top level. The building was stunning.

    I looked over at Jax and Onida. Both were staring at me, jaws about to hit the floor.

    Jax just said, ¡°How?¡± and Onida said, ¡°I want the whole story tonight, I know you cannot have any idea what that thing costs, but I do. We are going to have enemies for sure.¡±

    I said, ¡°Later, let''s all head over that way, I want to get Sammy in a hospital ASAP.¡±

    We loaded Samantha onto Onida''s old stretcher and Yepa hopped up next to her and snuggled in. Onida took a seat behind me. Jax went to fetch a bicycle and told us he would meet us there. The building was only a few blocks away from the Mansion / Fort.

    The view coming up to The Village was amazing. There was a huge sloped concourse like you would see at an airport half-covered with a glass arching roof. The entire building was ringed by a series of one-story glass houses with downward slanting roofs. They looked like greenhouses, and they went all the way around the outside except for occasional breaks where opened entrances were.

    There was a smaller building outside about a half-block away that looked like a one-story mini replica of the Village. I pointed at it and Onida said, ¡°That''s probably the general public building for our System store.¡±

    I winced with a tinge of jealousy when she said ¡°ours¡±, but like it or not I was going to have to get used to it. As we came upon the entrance Tor spoke up. ¡°See that pedestal over there to the right of the main entrance, put my totem on it.¡±

    I stopped the sled and we piled off of it and walked to the pedestal. I grabbed the totem from my inventory and placed it on the center of the base.

    All around him in a candy cane stripe were animals and flowers shooting up to the top in a blaze of color. The very top formed what I knew to be a star cluster. It was the Pleiades or the Seven sisters.

    From behind us, I heard Tor exclaim, ¡°Yes! Good job Blackbear, now I have shop access, I was dying to try this Girl Scout Cookie strain I keep reading so much about!¡±

    I turned around and looked at him to see him hastily packing his pipe. ¡°Hey!¡± I yelled, ¡°Who is paying for your habit?¡±

    He looked at me as if I were stupid and said, ¡°We are of course! Your credits are my credits, no way you can stop me.¡±

    I looked at Onida and asked, ¡°Is that true?¡±

    I glared over at Tor. ¡°Fine, but don''t get too high right now, I am going to need you to help me get this place set up.¡± Tor took a lungful and nodded and then blew ghost smoke at me.

    If I thought the outside was special, the inside blew me away...

    I stopped at the threshold and just stared inside. It seemed impossible what I was looking at. I was so stunned that I hadn''t heard Jax making his way to join us or notice that Onida had left and was pulling away on the hover snowmobile.

    The building was huge, but the interior was even bigger. At the very center stood a tree that rose all the way to the top of the roof. Its branches bent and followed the contour of the building back down like a weeping willow except that it looked like some kind of Japanese Maple with leaves of all colors.

    The interior was set up as a huge park that reminded me of Central Park in New York. There were trees and lakes... It looked to be a mile or even two miles long.

    I looked to my immediate right along the ring and could see shops lining the inner wall. They went on as far as I could see. Restaurants, crafting areas, stables, fighting pits, a forge, a med center... I looked at Onida and pointed. She spotted it and we headed that way.

    As we all went to step inside an android stepped up to us. He had a bow across his back and armor on. I looked at Onida and she said, ¡°Standard Internal Sentry.¡±

    The android spoke and said, ¡°Welcome War Chief Blackbear. As you might not be aware of yet, only native Indigenous are allowed in the village, and everyone but the War Chief and his family must wear a Village Brace.¡±

    He walked to Jax and held out his hand. He had an ornate copper bracelet with Turquoise and Topaz inlaid on it. It was a work of art.

    ¡°What''s the deal with this?¡± Jax asked.

    The android replied ¡°It allows entry to The Village through the force field. It contains an I.D. chip and a locator beacon. It allows you access to your private quarters. It monitors health and brain waves. It monitors drug and alcohol...¡±

    ¡°OK, OK, I get it.¡± He snagged the bracelet off of the droid and placed it on his wrist. It shrunk down to size and fit itself perfectly to him.

    He looked at me and I shrugged, ¡°I just got here like you man, don''t ask me.¡±

    With a mental sigh, I noticed the android didn''t look twice at Onida. I guess she was considered family by the System.

    Onida asked the droid, ¡°Are we speaking to the Village A.I.?¡±The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

    The droid nodded ¡°Yes, I currently am awaiting a designation.¡±

    Onida looked at me and said ¡°You want a male or female A.I.?

    I shrugged again ¡°Female? I guess?¡±

    Onida said to the droid ¡°What is the name of that huge tree?¡±

    The droid replied, ¡°It is a Kelona tree.¡±

    Onida said, ¡°Okay, switch your voice to moderately sexy female, and your new designation is Kelli. Like the tree.¡±

    A voice purred back that sounded like a sexy Scarlet Johansen ¡°New designation Kelli accepted, thank you.¡±

    My city was accepting commands from Onida...

    Onida said, ¡°No problem Kelli, is that med station to our right functioning?

    Kelli replied ¡°All med stations are currently online and 100% functional. I would be remiss if I didn''t inform you that the family''s private quarters have a fully functioning med center of their own for convenience. Would you like me to guide you there?¡±

    Onida said, ¡°Why not, lead the way.¡±

    As we started walking in the direction of the tree with Onida following on the snowmobile. Yepa stayed tight against Sammy, not leaving her side.

    The android turned to me and said, ¡°War Chief, we have potential citizens and some non-native people approaching the Village. Shall I assign bracelets to the citizens and explain the rules to the non Natives?

    I looked back at Onida and she vigorously nodded her head up and down. I answered, ¡°Oh yes please Kelli, take that headache away from me. Also please explain that I did not make the rules about who has access to The Village and inform the non-natives that the shop will be opened outside and also that I plan on cleaning up the city and raising a building or two. Umm, also inform them that I am setting the city boundaries right now and that no more monsters will spawn within city limits, thank you.¡±

    The droid replied, ¡°As you wish War Chief.¡±

    I called back, ¡°Please call me Blackbear Kelli, I think I''m going to get tired real fast being called War Chief.

    The droid said back ¡°As you wish Chief of all Chiefs!¡± I swear I heard the droid giggle.

    We came right up to the tree and I looked up. I hadn''t noticed it from afar, but the tree had a slight bulge to it about three stories up. A panel slid open and a large elevator appeared. Onida grabbed Sammy from the sled and Yepa hopped off and trotted over and we all stepped in. The elevator opened again one second after we entered it.

    I looked over at Jax and he whispered ¡°Fast!¡±

    I said to him, ¡°Why are you whispering?¡±

    He looked back and whispered, ¡°I don''t know.¡±

    We were looking at a lobby I supposed. There was a space for a receptionist, but obviously, no one was there yet.

    Kelli said over an intercom ¡°To the left ? of the space is for guest quarters and meetings. To the right, the remaining ? is the family''s living area. Would you like to grant access to Micheal Jackson?¡±

    I looked over with a grin on my face and saw Jax with a huge frown on his.

    He said, ¡°Chief or no Chief if you start to sing ¡°Smooth Criminal¡± I will punch you in the face.¡±

    I held up my hands to ward him off and said, ¡°Yes Kelli, please grant Micheal Jackson permanent access, and from now on please only call him Jax, he gets grumpy about his given name!¡±

    I smiled at Jax and he grumbled, ¡°You would too if you were named after a guy with that reputation.¡±

    We opened the doors to the suite and I had to stop and try to take it all in. The apartment was mind-blowing. It followed along with the curve of the tree and it had ceiling to floor windows all the way around giving full views to the grounds below. I felt like I was entering a spaceship from the curved glass.

    The room was plush with all muted browns and creams, but a curving planter was set all along the base of the window with vibrant plants and flowers growing in it. Yepa trotted over and started gnawing at a plant until it reared back and smacked her on the nose. She backed up and growled and sneezed.

    Kelli said over the intercom ¡°Yepa you would be allergic to that plant... If you move to the next room 40 meters to your right there is a large planter of Alfalfa for you to gnaw on.¡± Yepa nodded and trotted off.

    I looked at Jax and just shrugged. ¡°This is all going to take some getting used to.

    Onida had already walked away with Sammy and we followed. We passed through the kitchen where I smelled a familiar scent of coffee.

    I said, ¡°Kelli is that...¡±

    She answered before I could finish ¡°Yes Blackbear that is a pot of Kona coffee. Sugar is in the cabinet next to the refrigerator and cream is inside.¡±

    I hustled over and snagged a cup that was hanging with a set next to the coffee machine and poured myself a cup. I sighed and looked up and said, ¡°This might make it all worth it.¡±

    Jax was right on my tail and grabbed a cuppa as well. We moved to the next section and peeked inside, it was a bedroom. The master suite had a California king size and a huge bathroom. The next set over had the medical suite.

    Samantha was lying on a big bed with a set of blood pressure looking devices strapped to her arms and a halo circlet on her head. Onida was sitting on one side of her and Yepa trotted in and pressed against her on the other side facing me.

    I sat down next to the cat and started petting her. ¡°Good girl Yepa, please watch over Sammy for me.¡± The cat nodded at me and started loudly purring.

    Onida was looking at a monitor and I asked, ¡°What''s it look like Doctor?¡±

    She looked over and frowned ¡°Druid actually, but her chem panel is all over the place, and her brain waves are way out of the norm. I am giving her a complete mana flush to her system. The Nanos will have her back up in a couple of days.¡±

    Jax said, ¡°Did you say Nanos? As in nanobots?¡±

    Onida looked up and said, Yes, nanobots are what make the system go round. Everyone calls them mana, but they are really nanobots.¡± I got a system notice:

    The System Quest Update

    The journey to understanding the origins of the System and Mana has many beginnings, but all roads lead to the understanding of mana. You have taken your first step in understanding the System.

    Requirement: Learn Mana Manipulation

    Reward: 500XP

    ¡°You should see your two faces. I bet you both just got The System Quest updates, am I right?¡± I nodded. She said, ¡°Don''t even bother with that one boys. Maybe 80 years from now if your both bored. No one in the galaxy has come close to solving it and no one ever will. It will just drive you nuts and take 300 years to get close to it.¡±

    I said, ¡°Okay, but what is this Mana Manipulation requirement?¡±

    She said ¡°It''s a basic skill that you get from the shop, speaking of which, let''s get you over there and grab you your first thing. A human genome treatment.¡±

    I said ¡°What the heck is that?

    She stood up. ¡°Come on, I''ll tell you on the way.¡±

    I looked down at Yepa ¡°You gonna keep an eye on her until I get back girl? Yepa looked at me and just set her head back down. In the back of my mind, I heard a tiny ¡°I guard.¡±

    I bent over and scratched her head. ¡°I heard that.¡± Yepa looked up and chuffed at me.

    As I headed out of the suite Kelli came over the intercom, ¡°Blackbear, excuse me, but you should set the city limits before you leave, you want to stop all of the monsters spawning in the city yes?¡±

    I slapped myself in the head. ¡°Yes, Kelli thank you. That would be smart wouldn''t it.¡±

    Kelli replied, ¡°It would be Chief. If you go further down the hall to your right you will find your office.¡±

    All three of us started heading that way when I noticed some movement in the park. I walked over and waved Jax and Onida to me. We could see some people walking about, heads in the sky and mouths wide open.

    I chuckled, ¡°We are going to see a lot of those faces in the next few months.

    Onida looked at me and said, ¡°I know what this place is ya know. It is kind of a legend and not many people have seen them.¡±

    I said, ¡°Oh yeah, tell me what this place is.¡±

    She looked at me funny and said, ¡°You really don''t know? This is a Village from the legendary race called ¡°The People.¡± No one is allowed on their home planet anymore, but these buildings have been imaged from way back when.¡±

    I looked over at Onida, ¡°Let''s keep that between us and not mention it again all right?¡±

    She looked slightly stunned when she realized that I knew what it was and shook her head. ¡°Fine, but you and I need to have a deep conversation tonight.¡±

    I said to the ceiling, ¡°Kelli, just curious, can anyone see in these windows? Feels kind of open and dangerous.¡±

    She replied. ¡°No Blackbear, no one even knows that there are windows there, they are hidden and blended into the tree, and they are heavily shielded. There are a total of five floors in this tree, The first floor is office space, second and fourth security, and fifth is for V.I.P.''s and social engagements or private formal ceremonies.¡±

    ¡°By the way, the elevator can deposit you on pads located all over The Village. When you step inside just tell it where you want to go. There is a manual in your office explaining all of the functions of The Village in detail.¡±

    We made our way into the office, there was more luxury and toys than I had ever seen or wanted to. It was all a bit too much, I preferred to be outside most of the time and this place was a trap to keep you in. At least Samantha would love it.

    There was a small round table that seated four and Onida led us to it and pointed. ¡°That''s the city control system and that is the latest model. Whoever set this up spent a LOT of credits. Lay your palm on it¡±

    We sat down and I placed my hands on the tabletop and a holographic image of the county sprang into view. I said to Onida, ¡°It was recommended to me that I don''t take too much territory and to save the lower leveled areas by the city to level up our population.¡±

    She eyed me and said, ¡°Oh yeah? Who exactly recommended that to you?

    I sighed and said, ¡°Kelli, do we have NDA''s we can force our citizens to take or system binding oaths or something?¡±

    Kelli replied, ¡°Yes, we have both Chief, what would you like them to say?¡±

    I asked, ¡°How binding can we make oaths taken in the Village be?¡±

    She said, ¡°The system is a cruel mistress, and we can make sure that everybody knows how binding it is by including a death clause.¡±

    I smiled. ¡°That''s good, let''s make an oath that everyone has to take before they can come into the city that binds them upon penalty of death if they reveal any aspect of the city or The Village to outsiders.¡±

    Kelli replied, ¡°I can do that. I suggest we have a Village-wide gathering of all current citizens tonight to explain this to them?¡±

    I said, ¡°Sounds good, make it for 7 pm at the main entrance.

    I turned back to Onida. ¡°I will explain every single stitch of truth to you tonight if you take the oath.¡±

    Onida looked away and thought for a minute. ¡°I guess this is my home for the next century or so, so why not!¡±

    I nodded at her and got back to the map.

    Onida said, ¡°What is that area across the bridge?¡±

    I said ¡°West Juneau, it''s all residential.¡±

    She said ¡°Oh good, that is fantastic. We can take both sides of the river and no monsters can spawn in there. We can set up some kind of defensive measures underwater on our borders to prevent any large creatures or armies from attacking us from underwater.¡±

    We decided to make our city border three miles in each direction on both sides of the river, giving us a nice big square block of area.

    Onida was scrolling through the menus when she started swearing in Truinnar. ¡°Good Gods Blackbear! We have a tier 1 Shield above the Village. Do you know how much that shit costs? We have a city-wide image diffuser that no satellite or ship could spy though. We have enough defense to hold off an attack from space, and I am not exaggerating. We could take out a battleship with our plasma cannons, or even a dragon! The amount of gear we have here... I have only seen setups like this in capital cities... THEY GAVE US A DUNGEON!¡±

    I said, ¡°Oh ya, its at the old airport. I cleared it out this morning.¡±

    She raised an eyebrow at me. ¡°Another thing to talk about, but no dummy, I mean we have a dungeon right here. A city dungeon below the Village! This is amazing. Our people will be able to train every day.¡±

    I looked up ¡°A dungeon right here in the village? Is that safe?¡±

    She waved me off. ¡°Perfectly safe, it''s a city dungeon. We will have a Dungeon Master for it, no monsters will ever come out of it. It''s like opening a door and walking into your very own XP store!¡±

    We needed to clean up the city a bit and prepare it for when we got around to remaking the entire thing, but first I wanted to make some shelter for the survivors. I asked Kelli, ¡°How much will it cost us to put up a couple of residential complexes for the survivors in the city right now?¡±

    She sent back ¡°Two complexes for 250 beings a piece will cost very little Chief, A couple hundred thousand credits.¡±

    My eyes widened and I said, ¡°that¡¯s very little?¡±

    I focused on the town¡¯s map and made the system clean up all destroyed and unsafe buildings and got an updated map of a city that was almost blank. I thought for a minute about what I wanted the city to look like. I was tempted to make a fantasy version of an Eleven village made out of a tree houses when I remembered something from my childhood I had read about that I always thought was cool.

    This man back in the ''60s had built an igloo hotel by the Denali National Park. I asked Kelli if she could look up information about it and she said yes and got the info.

    I spotted locations to the Southeast and Northwest of the Village and had her place one of each in the spots I picked. The structure rose about three stories above ground, but because of the Igloo shape, they looked much smaller than they were.

    I swiveled the view around and got a look at them from all angles. I was very pleased, they looked cool, and being white, they almost blended into the background of the mountain making them camouflaged from the view from the sea.

    I made sure they had all of the amenities and I said, ¡°Kelli send out a general notice about the new housing for non-native city residents.¡±

    I looked at Onida, ¡°All right, we can come back and fool around with this later, now let''s hit this store I have been hearing about and you can tell me all about this treatment...¡±

 10

    ¡°So you will be the best version of yourself, have the best possible combination of D.N.A. You will live for a few hundred years. You will become taller and umm...larger.¡±

    I glanced over my shoulder at her and said, ¡°I really wish I could tell if your blushing...¡±

    Jax said, ¡°Speaking of that, I have to go meet Jane real quick, care if I grab her and meet you guys back at the shop?¡± I waved him off, ¡°Go for it man. Get back here quick so we can hit you both with this Genome treatment.¡± He took off running.

    ¡°So you''re telling me all Galatics get this?¡±

    She nodded ¡°Oh yes, your human white blood cells will be replacing and attacking so hard that you will never suffer a cold or disease ever again.¡±

    I said, ¡°Hmm, I will have to make it mandatory that all citizens get this as soon as possible.¡± We stepped out of the elevator where we got on and I picked up the bag I had stowed at the bottom of the sled.

    Onida took one look at it and stopped. She said, ¡°Bowen, where did you get that bag?¡±

    I said, ¡°Oh, I guess you haven''t heard the story. Check this out.¡± I sent the video to her and stopped while she watched it.

    She sagged down a bit and got a horrified look on her face and that was quickly replaced by anger. ¡°Fucking humans! No honor at all!¡± She looked over at me, ¡°I''m sorry, I meant scum like those two.¡±

    I put a hand on her shoulder and said, ¡°It''s okay, most humans are scum, just ask my people what humans did to them.¡±

    Onida''s face softened ¡°Yes, that was in bad taste of me, I am already slipping from being around you. You have so many hormones and pheromones floating about and so much emotion emanating from you that I am transforming emotionally. I am having trouble keeping a lid on things, as you say, it''s confusing. This bond doesn''t help either!¡±

    I said, ¡°Did you know him well?¡±

    She said, ¡°Yes... we were what you call cousins in a very big, very screwed up family. He was a true friend to me¡­ That is a discussion for another night.¡±

    I said, ¡°So the bag? What''s the deal?¡±

    She said, ¡°The Truinnar who are mineral scouts need to constantly take samples to analyze to determine if an area is worth to invest in. They are alone in the field more than not. They all keep their samples, no matter what they are. Being alone and scouting means that you run across many things that you should not see... I have heard stories of dead dragons and hoards of treasure... I will say this much, I will not look inside it because that was his personal sample bag and I am sure it has many things in there he should not have had. I will never know whats there so that I can never report on him. His family could be damaged from its contents. Better to sell it all and be done with it. It is surely worth millions.¡±

    ¡°Millions?!¡± I asked.

    She nodded ¡°Oh definitely. Many millions. We have been to many planets. Those bags are considered spoils of war for metallurgists. They all carry them, it''s no secret. They need somewhere to put their findings after all. That is a few decades of collecting, I am sure.¡±

    I said, ¡°That¡¯s a lot of speculating. Hey, what about his ship?

    She looked over at him, thinking ¡°Hmm, yes about the ship.¡±

    I said, ¡°Yeah, they said that they stealthed it and locked it up.¡±

    She said, ¡°We must get to that ship as soon as we have time, It could prove to be invaluable once the planet starts to settle. It could cause some minor problems taking it, but it will be worth it¡±

    As we got to the shop kiosk Onida stopped us. ¡°Here''s the plan, you are going to need a lot of basic knowledge on the System, skills, a bunch of tech, etc. We will let Tor search and gather all of the required pertinent material. I do not want you to be alone with a salesman the first time that you have been here. By design, they will try to fleece and cheat you out of every credit. Let me do the talking when it comes to haggling. They know me and know better than trying to cheat me.¡±

    She looked behind me and said, ¡°Tor, what do you consider the most important need for our Chief?¡±

    Without hesitation, the spirit said, ¡°His eyes. You are aware of his class skills yes? His eyes will become his most important tools as he grows into power. If his ability to possess ever becomes known, that will be the first target his enemies will go after. We need to protect them.¡±

    Onida nodded ¡°Good point. He will need a very good neural link as well then, I am thinking tier 3. We will have enough money to buy anything we need, so don''t go cheap on anything. I want him to have some serious armor as well, but nothing that will scare off people. We will have to pay big for it, but I want to have his armor customized to look like regular clothing.¡±

    My head went back and forth as I watched the two of them discussing me as if I wasn''t there in front of them. ¡°Hold on a sec, new eyes? A neural link? Am I going to have to go into some kind of surgery? I don''t like this.¡±

    Ignoring me Onida went on. ¡°Don''t overload him with skills, make sure we get some out of class healing and defensive skills, maybe some speed and stealth tech. With his All-Weapon we will be able to take advantage of passives, He won''t be using a ton of mana.¡±

    ¡°Speaking of mana, don''t forget to get him something on mana manipulation. Let''s look into his Chief¡¯s skills as well, he will need all the knowledge we can get him on leadership and speaking to people as well as leading large groups in battle. Diplomacy also, a perfect skill for him.¡±

    ¡°Brownbear, while your eyes and neural link, are being taken care of, I want you to look through the skill list and think hard of anything that might become of use to you in the future.¡±

    I nodded. ¡°I''m dying to see if all of this hype can be worth it, let''s go already.¡±

    The hype, as it turned out, was worth it¡­

    We walked into a high tech version of an adult candy store. My personal shopper was waiting for me as I phased into the store, and I almost started laughing. She was an over-sexualized version of what the System thought a Native Indian would look like. Almost insultingly so. She was dressed how a North American Indian might look like in the 1700s if she was a porn star. Skintight buckskin leathers and Playboy model features.

    She smiled seductively at me as I entered and then saw who was tailing behind me.

    She looked over at Onida, clearly not expecting her and said, ¡°Lady... er, Miss Onida, We were not expecting you here today.¡±

    I looked at her and said, ¡°This outfit is just insulting. Playing to racial stereotypes much?¡±

    She sputtered and said, ¡°But this is the current...¡± She looked at Onida who just shook her head grinning. The clerk stopped and said, ¡°I see.¡± She nodded and tossed her hair, one hand reached up in the air and spun around and her body shimmered and changed into a sleek, high tech bodysuit that almost made matters worse. ¡°Is this better Chief?¡± She said with a knowing grin.

    ¡°Enough of this play,¡± Onida said. ¡°Down to business. He needs Genome Therapy right away, then a tier III neural link and finally some new eyes with all the bells and whistles. The spirit here will be selecting skills and knowledge-based information packages. I will want to see armor with passive enchantments and then have it converted to look like normal clothing benefiting a Chief of the Native Peoples. By the way, what do we call you?¡±Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

    The woman looked at all of us and bowed her head quickly and said, ¡°My name is Mali thank you for asking Miss Onida. Before we get started do you have items to sell?¡±

    I handed her the bag, ¡°You can start with this.¡±

    She looked down and then took it. After she had glanced inside of it she looked up at us with a tiny bit of shock on her face and said, ¡°I will need to refer this to someone else, one moment please.¡± She disappeared and a few seconds later a grim looking alien who resembled a Dwarf blinked into the room holding the bag.

    He looks at us and bowed. ¡°Chief...Lady¡± Can you please tell me where you got this bag?¡±

    Onida looked him up and down dismissively. ¡°Do you know who I am?¡±

    He nodded. ¡°I do my Lady.¡±

    She said, ¡°Then all I need to say is that this bag was my Cousin''s and I''m expecting that you know what that means.¡±

    The man''s head drooped. ¡°I am afraid that I do¡­ I haven¡¯t heard from him in a while and I am very sorry to hear you say this. He was a very good trading partner as well as a good friend. I am sorry for your loss. This, of course, will be held in all confidentiality.¡±

    She nodded and said, ¡°Thank you.¡±

    He held the bag out and looked at her. ¡°I am sure that you have not looked inside the contents of this bag, may I send the inventory to your spirit for verification?¡±

    She nodded and we heard Tor whistle and say, ¡°Wow, even Painite and Taaffeite, where was this guy at? There is some raw carbon too, tons of raw materials¡­ this is worth...¡±

    Onida held up a hand and stopped him, ¡°Let''s not worry the Chief with details right now Tor, it will only distract him.¡±

    Our first Assistant came back and said, ¡°Chief if you might transfer your inventory now and we will take a look through that as well?¡±

    I nodded at Tor and the woman went still for a moment looking at the contents. She looked up and said, ¡°This is all standard, for the most part, however, you have a large stack of very rare Phasing Leopard skins. I would be remiss if I did not tell you that they are used as a base to make very good stealth armors. I would suggest you have a set your personal clothing made of these with self-repair features. I would then have the rest transferred over to your people to be used in the future for achieving breakthroughs for crafting classes.¡±

    Onida looked over. ¡°Yes thank you, that would be fine.¡±

    The woman said, ¡°Chief if you have a seat we will begin with your Genome flush and treatment and then get onto your link and eyes.¡±

    I nodded, ¡°Sounds good, but I want my eyes to look the same color with maybe a little bit of dazzle to them.¡±

    The woman took note and said, ¡°Very well, let''s begin. You won''t feel much pain, but there will be some discomfort...¡±

    I started thinking about my own leveling that was going to have to happen soon and I liked the time I had spent with the elemental warriors. I was going to need my own personal war party.¡±

    I looked up and interrupted Onida from whatever she was doing. ¡°Do you plan on staying with me as I hunt and level up?

    She frowned and said, ¡°Of course idiot, I have much more experience than you, I cannot allow you to kill yourself. I am tied to you and Yepa now you know.¡±

    I smiled and said, ¡°Good. I was thinking that I want a personal war party. I have Jax and my friend Smitty who I can trust, and maybe this girl we call Plain Jane who Jax is with.¡±

    I looked at Tor. ¡°Hey, Tor, can you use the System and find out what classes those three are and make a package up for each of them with armor and weapons and skills?¡± Tor never looked up from his browsing and just nodded.

    I started looking through mundane skills and was shocked at the breath and width of the skills I found. I grabbed a bunch of stuff that I thought might be handy down the line like seaplane aviation, boat handling, cruise ship, and ocean liner handling... Oh ya and also some basic stuff on spaceships, just in case.

    ¡°Onida, can you flash me the make and model of your cousin¡¯s space craft please?¡±

    I was perusing weapons when I found high tech and expensive long bows and threw a couple into my pile. My eyes were being done now, and even though they were being replaced, I could still see the shop''s goods.

    I grabbed one of the glamping packages the warriors had had and that made me think of the Appaloosa''s. I looked to see if they could be bought, and of course, they could and... ¡°Wow, Tor, you remember those horses? Do you have any idea how much those things cost? No matter how badly I want one of those I can''t justify this cost!¡±

    Tor laughed out loud at me. ¡°I looked over at him ¡°What?¡±

    He shook his head and said, ¡°You must be getting daft, have you forgotten about what was told to you about checking the stables?¡±

    My eyes got big. ¡°No. You''re kidding? You don''t think....?¡±

    Tor said, ¡°I don''t see what else that could mean. Better grab a skill for that.¡±

    I looked over at Onida, ¡°We need to get to the stables pronto, I think I''m gonna have a heart attack if what I think is over there.¡±

    I started looking for any skills related to the horses and grabbed them. I looked up at Mali. ¡°This little pile is what I have for now, can you... Umm, how do I get this stuff? Does it come in book form or?¡±

    Mali smiled. ¡°It will be uploaded and transferred via your neural link, are you ready for this first batch?¡±

    Onida looked over, ¡°Take it slow with him Mali, nice and slow. Don''t overload him for the first time.¡± She nodded.

    I could almost physically feel the information being poured into my head like a glass filling with liquid. For me, it was not pleasant. My eyes started shifting through different spectrum''s and I yelled out, ¡°What''s going on with my eyes!¡±

    Mali said, ¡°That is the software calibrating, just hold on a second, it will be over in soon.¡±

    I said, ¡°What can I do with these eyes now?¡±

    Tor snorted, ¡°Almost anything, you now have enhanced vision with telescopic abilities and heat-seeking abilities. You can see different spectrums, like infrared, and ultraviolet. You will pick up on stealthed and invisible monsters quite easily, nothing will be sneaking up on you. You have night vision too, but the best thing is the mana shields over your eyes. This will make them all but impervious. Unless you sit still and let someone beam plasma into them of course. Your face would melt first though, so I don''t know if that means anything.¡±

    I looked over at him. ¡°Thanks for that mental picture.¡±

    I glanced at Mali, ¡°Hey, make sure that my wife Samantha has access to my account if she needs anything in here.¡±

    She nodded and nonchalantly said, ¡°There is one more thing I noticed, you have a personal data device in your inventory that seems to have quite a lot of packaged Earth-based entertainment programs on it. They are retrievable through the system.¡±

    I thought about that for a second. ¡°Ah, you mean the TV shows on that little hard drive?¡±

    She nodded. Onida looked over interested. ¡°WAIT!, Stop talking for a minute. Brownbear, you have original Earth entertainment on you? What are these TV shows you mentioned?¡±

    I explained it to her and she got a big smile on her face. ¡°Very tricky Mali, I think I will personally review these shows and get back to you.¡± She winked at me like I knew what was going on.

    Onida said, ¡°Has any Earth based entertainment gotten out yet?¡±

    Mali shook her head and looked disappointed. ¡°You should move fast and you might be the first my Lady.¡±

    instead of yourself. I will be reviewing them and deciding on a release order.¡±

    She added, ¡°I want a transfer and viewing device sent to me also.¡±

    I sat back as all of the skills Tor had picked for me were slowly downloading into my head and I found information for all of the skills I was picking up. I was going to need to sit back for a few hours tonight and review all of this to understand it.

    Mali perked up and said, ¡°Chief Brownbear, a request has come in from a Micheal Jackson and a Plain Jane to join your instance of the shop, will you allow it?¡±

    I nodded at her. ¡°About time, yes, show them in please.¡±

    Jax and Jane walked in a second later. We called Jane ¡°Plain Jane¡± sarcastically because she was anything but plain. If Kate Beckinsale had a long lost sister, Jane was it.

    She looked at me and said, ¡°I hear you are going by strictly Blackbear now eh? And you¡¯re also a War Chief?¡±

    I laughed. ¡°That''s what the system gave me, what class did you take?¡±

    ¡°Do you know what becoming a Valkyrie entailed? No one warned me! I had to die to become it! I died... It hurt! A LOT!¡±

    I said, ¡°Oh wow, sorry to hear that. Can you fly?¡±

    She shook her head, ¡°I think I might have to become advanced or master to get that, I am not sure.¡±

    I looked over at Mali. ¡°Get her all the info on the Valkyrie class please.¡±

    Mali looked at me. ¡°That will require a neural implant as well as the Genome treatment you already ordered, do you authorize that?¡±

    I sat up ¡°Umm, can I afford it?¡± Mali coughed into her and turned her head. ¡°Oh, excuse me... Yes Chief, I think you might be able to swing that for these two and a few more.¡±

    I smiled, ¡°Nice, then let''s do that and give them the packages that Tor had made up for them as well.¡±

    Jax was looking a bit sheepish and I knew something was up. ¡°Spill it, Jax what is going on?¡±

    His face reddened as he said, ¡°Well, I didn''t want to have to talk about this in front of everybody, but it''s my class.¡±

    I said, ¡°Oh hell, I just realized that we hadn''t spoken about it yet. What did they offer you?¡±

    He said, ¡°Brownbear, you know I love you like a brother right? If you laugh when I tell you this, it is over. They offered me a one rare class, I had to take it. I mean rare is great right?¡±

    I said ¡°Wow! That is great, what is the problem then?¡±

    He scowled. ¡°Because it is a singing class! I got the impression that it was because of my name!¡±

    I froze myself to my seat and looked him in the eyes. I knew my friend had a real, true hangup because of his name. Anytime someone wanted to start trouble with him for his whole life they started by calling him a child molester, or a chimp fucker, etc. etc.¡±

    It was so ridiculous that it bothered him so much that it was funny. I was not going to laugh at him though. I said, ¡°Okay, that''s cool, so you are some kind of bard then?¡±

    He said, ¡°More like a Dirge, I use skills, and I don''t sing as much as I chant. I can fight for sure, but my real skills lie in providing cover for groups of people.¡±

    I got up and grabbed him in a manly kind of bro hug. ¡°Look, Jax I know I have said this a million times, but you have got to lose this silly anger over the name thing. It makes no sense. Everyone who knows you loves you to death man, no matter your name.¡±

    I pushed him into my chair. ¡°Now hurry up and get a computer jammed into your head, we need to make a trip to the stables...¡±

    I went over to Mali and said, ¡°One last thing, there are supposedly a group of mermen on this planet that ¡°rescue¡± children from new dungeon worlds, have you heard of them?¡±

    She nodded ¡°Oh yes, they are well known and do great work. The Order of Mercy. They are an order of Knights that are atoning for past atrocities perpetrated on a planet in the past.¡±

    I said, ¡°I need any information on them you have, they have my son.¡±

    She shook her head and said, ¡°Oh my, I see. I can tell you this Chief, you are not going to be able to get your son back until he is done training with them I am afraid.¡±

    I said, ¡°Why not?¡±

    She replied, ¡°Because by now your son has gills and is breathing water. That''s what they do. They will return your child to you if you force them to, but he will suffocate on the surface I am afraid...¡±

 11

    ¡°This is total bullshit, Jax! What am I going to tell Sammy?¡±

    I had read through everything on this order of water breathing knights, and it all seemed legit. They did rescue the children, not kill them. They did train them up to become self-sufficient on dungeon planets. They did treat them well, to the point of many children joining their ranks rather than leave.

    That didn''t help me with my wife though. She would be up and motivated in a couple of days and I had nothing hopeful to tell her. From what I was able to glean, to be able to stay in these ¡°Mermen cities¡± everybody had to have gills. And while it was safe to be reverted back to human lungs in mature bodies, It was 99% fatal in children under 15. From everything I could find out, I was going to lose my son for at least 5 years. He would be a different person when we got him back. Mercy or not, It was driving me crazy thinking about it.

    Onida had gone up to my office to use the communications suite there and try to get a hold of some people who knew some people who knew some people that might be able to get us in touch with the Order of Mercy. It was coming up on 7 o''clock and I had to talk to the Natives and Juneauians about keeping our city a secret and taking the oath.

    As we approached the main entrance to The Village I spotted a towering figure standing there with a huge shit-eating grin on his face. He had to have been seven-feet tall.

    I looked at Jax. ¡°Is that...?¡±

    He grinned. ¡°Yup, that''s Smitty alright.¡±

    ¡°I wanted to keep it a secret and see that look you have on your face right now haha.¡±

    I said, ¡°What is he?¡±

    Jax laughed, ¡°Really? You can''t figure it out? Shame on you!¡±

    I gave him a confused look. We walked over to the big man and he held out his huge hand.

    ¡°Brother Blackbear, it is truly good to see that you made it my friend.¡±

    I shook his hand. ¡°Yeah you too Smitty, now do you want to explain to me what happened to you, and what you are now?¡±

    He laughed ¡°What do I love more than anything else in the world? What is seven to eight feet tall and hairy?¡±

    I put my hand to my head, not believing it. ¡°Oh my God, you''re a Sasquatch!¡±

    He bent over laughing. ¡°Yup an honest to God Sasquatch, do you know that they are a real space-faring race, no shit.¡±

    Benjamin ¡°Smitty¡± Smith was an old friend of mine and had spent more time in the woods with me than anyone else in my life. He didn''t have a great love for the wilderness like me... he was a rabid Bigfoot hunter.

    The man was obsessed. He had seen something as a boy that he swore was a Bigfoot and it was all over. A lifetime obsession followed, and every free moment he had was spent searching for another.

    He had sworn that he had spotted them a few times after but said that they could get out of sight and then just fade off into nothingness.

    I said, ¡°I saw the class offered, but thought that if there was a chance of being turned into one permanently, I couldn''t risk it.¡±

    He said, ¡°Well you can see what it did to me, but I don''t go full Squatch until my juices start flowing and I get aggressive.¡±

    I just stared at the giant my friend had become and said, ¡°Apropos¡±

    I looked around and saw hundreds of people standing around the plaza. Chairs had been set up in a huge semicircle by our totem. I yelled up, ¡°Kelli can you please send a notification out in town that the meeting will start in ten minutes?¡±

    A droid walked over and said in Kelli¡¯s voice, ¡°Yes Chief, it is done. We have 95% of all people here and the rest are headed this way.¡± I said, ¡°Good. Smitty, stick around, I want to tell you what my plans are after this meeting.¡±

    I walked over to the totem and shouted, ¡°PEOPLE! Start taking your seats, please. We are not waiting for the stragglers.¡± I stood upon the pedestal of the totem and said, ¡°Before we get started let me introduce myself. I am Blackbear. That is the name I want you to all call me from now on. I do not want to be called Chief, or War Chief, or Sir, or Lord, or whatever other honorifics you can think of. I just want to be called Blackbear. I am not royalty, I am one of you.¡±

    I took a second and waited for the crowd to calm. ¡°A lot of you here know me, I grew up here and have been here for most of my life. This building is here because it was a gift from a distant race of people in the stars. It is for the Indigenous people of this planet. I''m in charge of it because I managed to win it for getting the first kill on Earth, which was just me running away from a bear and it falling over a cliff.¡±

    That drew a lot of laughs from the crowd. I looked around ¡°Is Mayor Beth still with us?¡± I saw a bunch of people shaking their heads. ¡°Damn. We are going to need to hold an election or something then. We are going to need someone to take care of the city outside of The Village. I want some ideas on what we should do with the city.¡±

    ¡°I want two things from you all. Number one, You MUST level yourself up to survive in this world. Whatever your class is, it must be leveled up as if it were your job. I was told this MUST happen, and happen quickly.¡±

    If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

    ¡°I am sure most of you are aware by now that the Truinnar came here and bought this city before me yes?¡± Everybody started nodding.¡±

    I said, ¡°I don''t need to tell you that it pissed them off that I stole it back and now we have enemies. Well, they as much as said that we are a marked city now.¡±

    ¡°We have an A.I. assistant here and we determined that the best course of action is going to be to have guard stations set up at the borders into town and only people that take a binding oath be allowed in.¡±

    I looked at the crowd and saw everybody nodding in agreement. ¡°We want people that make it here be able to come and even stay in our city. We will need trade and relations, but what we don''t want is the entire world to know what a true safe haven this will become.¡±

    ¡°I don''t want the politics of the galaxy coming in here and telling us what to do.¡± Some people started to clap. I had the crowd on my side.

    ¡°I''m not against the alien races, I know for a fact they have good people. I would just prefer that this city stay controlled by humans.¡±

    ¡°That being said, I want everybody to stand, and place their hands on their hearts, and take a very simple binding oath to our city.¡±

    Every person got to their feet and placed their hands on their chests. I started reading from the script in front of me. ¡°I... War Chief Brownbear...Say your name please... Take this system binding oath...To never reveal any details... About the city of Juneau or The Village... Even under compulsion or a skill...On the penalty of death....¡±

    There was a hesitation at my last words and then the majority of the people repeated the words. You could see a kind of glow settle over the crowd.

    I said into the air. ¡°Kelli, did everybody take the oath?

    The android said, ¡°22 people did not finish the last sentence Chief Brownbear.

    I looked into the crowd and spotted a local bar owner who knew everybody in town. He was a good guy and not scared of a crowd. I said, ¡°Johnny get up here.¡± I waved him up to me.

    ¡°I want you to take over the meeting. For all of you people not living in the Village here, I want you to discuss with Johnny any ideas you have. We will need about 40 guys to start as guards for the borders. It will be a system credit paying job.¡±

    I waved about the crowd. ¡°Anyone who didn''t finish the oath, I want you to come to meet me over next to the shop so I can talk to you. Don''t try to sneak away, the sentries here already know who you are, and I''m not gonna kill you or anything. I just need to talk to you all.¡± I hopped down from the pedestal and made my way over to the shop.

    All 22 of the people sheepishly walked over to me and I looked at them.

    ¡°Look,¡± I said, ¡°I get that the penalty of death thing is a bit scary, but we cannot risk having the world find out about us yet. You can still tell people that your from Juneau and it''s a good little city, you just won''t be able to tell anyone any specific details about what is happening here. Hell, how many of you even plan on leaving anyways, it''s scary as all hell out there, trust me.¡±

    A guy in front I didn''t know said, ¡°What happens if I refuse to take it, I plan on going back home to Anchorage.¡±

    I said, ¡°Nothing will happen to you, not by my hand at least, but I will be forced to banish you from the city limits after a minor mind wipe from the shop. Today¡­ right now after this meeting...¡±

    I took some more questions and reassured them. None of them except for two even planned on leaving. They were just scared. I eventually had to banish the two men. I took them in the shop, enthralled them, and wiped any memories from the last couple days. I got them some gear. I wished them well and spoke the words, and they left the city forever.

    I found Jax and Smitty talking with Jane and Onida. I jogged over to them and said, ¡°Guys, come to the stables with me, if what I think is there your gonna want to see it.¡±

    I found a sentry and said, ¡°Kelli can you lead me to the stables where something was left for me?

    It said, ¡°Sure Chief, follow me.¡±

    We entered The Village and I had to slow down and look around again, It was so huge inside an enclosed space that you were forced to pay attention to it. It had to be the largest open spaced building in the world I thought. I looked up and noticed that the walls had tiered levels going up more than halfway up the building. It reminded me of the Luxor hotel I stayed at when I went to Las Vegas.

    We headed to the left and started a long walk to the other side of the building. I asked the sentry ¡°How long is the space inside here anyway?¡±

    It said, ¡°Approximately 2 miles Brownbear.¡± I let out a long whistle. ¡°Whew, it''s huge! How many people is it designed to hold?¡±

    It replied, ¡°A normal full capacity Village can hold 2.5 million people, we will be lucky to receive over 100,000.¡±

    I stopped in my tracks and just looked at it. ¡°2.5 million? How is that possible? Where does everyone live?¡±

    It said, ¡°The living quarters, shops, dungeons, and even this main concourse are all instanced.¡±

    I looked at Onida, ¡°What does instanced mean?¡±

    She laughed and pointed at a restaurant and said, ¡°See that bar over there? It might have the capacity to serve 200 people. When it reaches that number and fills up, the next person to walk thru the doors will enter a new bar with no one in it. This will go on and on until you have a couple of hundred versions of that same establishment going at one time.¡±

    I shook my head. ¡°Who thinks up this stuff?¡±

    Smitty said, ¡°We had the same thing in all of our video games, instanced dungeons. It makes you wonder where game developers got the idea from.¡±

    Onida said, ¡°I doubt it came from the galaxy, there are strict hands-off rules for planets not introduced to the system. Under penalty of death.¡±

    I looked at them all. ¡°I want you four to be in my personal war party. I trust you all and will need close friends to keep me grounded. I am going to need to level like crazy and will need a level of commitment from you. It''s not going to be non-stop, because I will have duties helping to run this place, but when it''s time to level I want to go do it on time and regularly. Like it''s a 9 to 5 job. It might seem to be a bit much, but it will be worth it. You will be privy to stuff no one else will be and I can promise you we will be the highest leveled people in this place.¡±

    I looked at Jax and Smitty and Jane. ¡°Are you down for that, will you have my back?¡±

    Smitty clapped my shoulder. ¡°As long as I have time to learn some blacksmithing I''m game.¡±

    Jax looked at Jane and she said, ¡°I am a Valkyrie, what else am I going to do but fight?¡±

    Jax said, ¡°You know I''ll always have your back.¡±

    I said ¡°Good, now full disclosure let me tell you what happened to me in the mountains...¡±

    After I finished my tale Onida said, ¡°Now I get it, this Village is a drop in the bucket for an entire multi-system race to afford. They probably have millions of these spread out over their kingdom. Now, what they are going to expect from us is a whole other question.¡±

    I said, ¡°I don''t know, but it was implied that we would have a good while to get our people trained up. It sounded to me like they are going to want a reactionary force to scare off anyone playing games with them.¡±

    Jane said, ¡°It sounds like we are going to have only100,000 people living here, that is a little deterrent.¡±

    As we made the final walk to the stables I pointed across a field to the far right back corner of the building. There was an amphitheater that looked just like the one in Red Rock Colorado. ¡°Cool a place for music,¡± I said.

    Jax laughed, ¡°More like a place for the Chief to address his tribe.¡± I put on a fake scared face. ¡°Oh no, I am going to have to make sure to have my war party on stage with me!¡±

    Jax looked back at me in fake fear. ¡°Oh noes!¡± Everybody laughed at him.

    We finally made it to the stables and I said to the sentry, ¡°Isn''t there anything closer to my apartment, it''s going to be a pain walking all the way here all the time.¡±

    It said, ¡°You can just ask your elevator to deposit you here.¡± I gave it a look of annoyance. ¡°So why didn''t you just take us that way, Kelli?¡±

    It said, ¡°I figured that you would want to take a tour of The Village. You still have the entire other side to inspect, including the dungeon entrance.¡± Everyone started at that.

    Smitty said, ¡°There is a dungeon here?¡±

    I said, ¡°It''s under control man, you need to enter it before you can even see any monsters.¡±

    We entered the stables and five Appaloosa were standing there looking magnificent. I shook my head. ¡°I can''t believe Kodiak didn''t tell me, he knew how much I loved the way these things looked.¡± I ran my hands over the side of one, it felt like a real horse. I said, ¡°Let''s take them for a spin around the Village at a slow pace, we will have to take you all to the shop and buy the requisite skills to take full advantage of these.¡±

    Jane gave Jax an aggressive, hard, smack on his ass and said, ¡°Mount up cowboy!¡±

    Jax grinned at me and said, ¡°This Valkyrie class is a Godsend, I love it!¡±

    I wanted to check out the dungeon so we mounted up. The horses seemed to adjust themselves to the perfect size for each of us. I felt my skill kick in and whipped my mount out through the door.

    I heard Jax laughing as he tried the same and almost fell off of his. He yelled at me, ¡°Freakin show off!¡±

    Riding the mech horse was more akin to riding a sport motorcycle. There was a bit of up and down like a real horse, but they took corners as a motorcycle did. I was testing it out and could cut a corner that hid my entire body from the opposite side. Something to remember.

    I wanted to fire the guns mounted on the thing, and I felt the skill kick in but stopped myself from damaging anything in The Village. It only took a minute or two to get to the dungeon and we came upon a series of glass doors like you would find at any movie theater. There was even a lobby inside.

    Jax said, ¡°This is a dungeon? It looks like an entrance to a law firm!¡±

    Onida said, ¡°It is a city dungeon, you have to talk to a Dungeon Master and they portal you into whatever level you want to go to, perfectly safe.¡±

    We rode at a trot and checked out most of the park, the indoor forest was fascinating. Birds and small animals scampering about, a true refuge in this new dangerous world. I enjoyed it while I could because I knew I wouldn''t be spending much time here.

    When we got back to the tree everyone decided that they were going to head to the shop right away for the riding skills and I headed for the tree to check up on Sammy. I told everyone I would see them in the morning and waved goodbye.

 12

    When I reached the tree I hopped off of the horse and yelled to Kelli, ¡°What do I do with this thing now?¡±

    Her voice came to me telepathically. ¡°Tell it to go back to the stable.¡±

    I said, ¡°Great, another voice in my head.¡± I patted the horse on the side. ¡°Okay boy, thanks for the ride, head back to the stables.¡± The horse whinnied and trotted... Err glided away from me in the direction of the stables.¡±

    I made my way to Sammy''s room. She was still asleep and Yepa was snoring, stretched along the side of her. I kissed my wife on the head and scratched Yepa behind the ears and headed to my office to try to work a little bit on the city.

    I pulled up the holo and with Kelli''s help started to add a few minor things. At the North and South sides of our borders on both sides of the river, I put up two small bunkers on each side of the road with a laser firing turret in each one. I looked at the city and decided that it was such a mess that I was just going to have to redo it.

    I needed to find my new Mayor, and I knew that it was going to be the old bar owner, whether he wanted it or not. I asked Kelli to find me the location of Johnny and I got on the elevator and ported to the stable. I was on my horse and at the first igloo hotel in minutes. I found Johnny helping some people carry their meager belongings to their new apartments.

    When he saw me he came right over. ¡°Heya Chief, I think every single resident of the city is holed up in one of these two hotels, everyone is scared and grouping together.¡±

    I nodded. ¡°Good, that is kind of why I am here. I am going to be working on making changes to the city tonight and I don''t want anybody to be in an old house when it suddenly disappears.¡± I looked around and saw that there was an android standing behind a reception area in the lobby. I said to it, ¡°Kelli, are you there? And what are you doing here if that''s you?¡±

    The android turned to me. ¡°Yes I am here Chief, this is a building manager unit. They came with the igloo. I am using it to assign rooms and handle any problems that may arise.¡±

    I said, ¡°Okay, can you tell me if we have any residents in any of the old buildings out in the city right now?¡±

    The droid responded ¡°Only two Chief. We have two teenagers named Jake and Melissa in a house over on West 10<sup>th</sup> street three blocks from here.¡±

    I shook my head knowing full well what was happening there. ¡°Kelli, run a droid over there and roust them out of that house, in the meantime I want you to clear every building and house left standing in the city, we are going to redesign this tonight so I can cross one more thing off of my list. Also, I want you to design bracelets for the people of the city who took the oath. All the same features except for the Village access and the liqueur restriction.¡± If we ever had a spy they wouldn''t be wearing a bracelet.

    I looked over at John ¡°So how did the discussion go with our citizens?¡±

    He said, ¡°Everybody is terrified. A lot of people and most of the women want no part of combat. We have more than enough people who will volunteer to be guards, but their armor and weapons need upgrading in a major way.¡±

    I said ¡°That''s not a problem. Select 48 men. I will have full kits arranged at the store for them. Laser rifles and armor. We have four posts at the moment. I think three men per post on a rotated 6-hour shift 24 hours a day. A six-hour shift should be perfect to keep people alert. What else?¡±

    He looked at me a little guiltily. ¡°Well, you are about to knock over my restaurant, that was being used as a major hub before you got back here.¡±

    I smiled ¡°Johnny my friend, I have already thought about this, I am going to build a big inn with a pub in it just for you. We will need a place for our visitors to stay, and our new Mayor to be able to keep an eye on them.¡±

    He looked up at me startled. ¡°I haven''t been...¡±

    I cut him off. ¡°I am electing you, sorry, but desperate times and all of that. Maybe in a year or so when shit calms down, we can start holding elections, but right now people need stability. I''m afraid I can''t take no for an answer.¡±

    He slowly nodded thinking about it. ¡°I guess I can download a bunch of info about Mayoring and leadership stuff from the store. Maybe talk to Kelli about how I can split or change my class...¡±

    I patted his shoulder ¡°That''s the spirit. Now, what else?

    He said, ¡°Well the people that don''t want to hunt will need something to do, so we figured maybe crafting buildings? We are going to need a meat processing place for the hunters, and a blacksmith¡¯s forge, and a tanning building. That is all going to stink and be loud, so we were thinking maybe on the banks on the other side of the river?¡±

    I said ¡°That''s a good idea. I was also debating on putting up two bridges on each end of our border filled with guns so if any shit hits the fan our guards are just a bridge run away for support.¡±Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

    I am also going to be putting up a long greenhouse for a farm, we are going to need farmers asap.¡±

    He said, ¡°I hate to mention this, but people were already chirping about being put into an apartment complex with everyone else.¡±

    I ''m sure they are, but we need everyone to pull together and having us near each other will be a good thing in the long run. Just tell them, for now, it''s too expensive. I plan on building single-family homes and using them as rewards for people that take their leveling seriously. These people don''t know this right now, but this might be the safest city in the entire world at the moment. I want you to ram that down peoples throats if they dare to complain about anything. Now I need to get back to Sammy and work on the city a bit.¡±

    John raised his hand. ¡°One more thing Bear, did you know that there was a cruise ship down at the A.J. Dock when this shit happened?¡±

    I shook my head. ¡°Nope, I wasn''t even here.¡±

    He said, ¡°Well there was, and still is. It detached from the dock and is beached just on the other side of our new borderline. There are monsters constantly coming out of it. Big mutant rats and slugs and all kinds of nasty stuff. I think it might be a dungeon now!¡±

    I sighed. ¡°Great, another thing to worry about. If that is true we will need to double up the guards down there. Just because something can''t spawn inside of our city doesn''t mean it can''t simply run in here from the outside. I am going to have to talk to Kelli about some kind of fencing options. Okay, Johnny, I''ll grab Jax and Smitty and look into it tomorrow. If you need me for an emergency just use Kelli through the android here. Ask if she can handle it first before you wake me up!¡± I waved goodbye and hustled out of there before he gave me more things to do.

    Five minutes later I was back in my office. I looked down at a map of the city as seen from the air. The Village sits almost in the exact middle of the farthest northern corner of the city where Cope Park used to be.

    The Governor''s Mansion sits three blocks directly in front of it. I already had it in my mind that I was going to leave it there as a last fall back point for the city folk. It belongs to them. They donated all of their credits to make it bigger on the inside so they could hide there and I want to leave it as a rallying point for them. We will use it as a guard''s barracks. I want to make it better though. I think of the classic castle look with battlements on each corner and a gate and a keep and I switch it up, making it bigger and better. Easy Peasy.

    I envision the city as ? of an umbrella with the waterline at the very outside of it. I build four roads in a pattern going out from the Village. One on each far end leading out to our borders, and two that go out diagonally to either side of the new castle. I put four roads in a u-shaped semi-circle starting at the water and getting smaller as they come up to the castle.

    For the inn I use a replica of the Village, but much smaller. I sink it into the ground to make it only look three stories high. I place it out looking over the water directly Southeast of the castle lining it straight up with the mansion to keep everything nice and symmetrical.

    I have the System build two new bridges that connect to the border bunkers and have turrets mounted on either side and in the middle of them. This is getting fun!

    I make four new two-bedroom houses and place them on each side a block away from the inn. They are designed as copies of the village as well, but these four are green, yellow, orange, and brown. These will be used as an incentive for leveling.

    On the other side of the river on the bank starting from the bridge, I build a big blacksmith building, and three crafting houses for textiles, leather, and alchemy. I then place a few 100 yard long 50 yard wide greenhouses that should be more than big enough for our small town. I put a meat processing building at the other end of it.

    After a long talk with Kelli, we decide that we need protection from the river just in case, and the cheapest option is a force field fence. All you can see of it are poles sticking up about every fifty feet, but she assures me that it is working and that she will be notified if anything attacks it. We run it the length of our riverside property.

    I throw up four more houses in the same style on that side of the river as well. All of our private houses from now on will be exact copies of The Village in different colors. I don''t want anyone getting jealous.

    The city looks a bit like a gridded military outpost, so I start putting trees all over the streets. I put in Japanese, and Sugar, and Red maples, and I sprinkle in pink Oklahoma Redbuds and Pink Dogwoods and the place is instantly bursting with colors. Next to some of the trees, for defense inside of the city, I sink some pop-up turrets into the ground, just in case. I line the roads coming into town with Silver Spruce and tall, skinny Black Spruces and I think I am just about done for now. There will be much more needed I am sure, but for now, it will do. I will have Kelli find us a City Planner class of some kind to handle the future stuff.

    I want nothing more than to sink into bed, but before I do I need to take care of my stats and skills. At level 23 I have 9 points to distribute. Because of the Cha bonus, I got from acquiring my War Chief social skills it now sits at 115 so I skip that entirely. I throw 5 into Con, 2 in Str, and 3 in Dex. I''m sitting at 55 Str, 55 Dex, 60 Con, 86 Int, 86 Wil, 32 Per, 115 Cha, and 30 Lck.

    I''m not 100 percent sure if I am doing the stats right and make a mental note to ask Onida. Just as I am thinking that I hear someone walking through the apartments and get up to see who it is. I walk to the kitchen and see someone I don''t recognize pouring a drink. I say ¡°Umm, excuse me can I help you?¡±

    A woman turns to face me and it takes me a second to realize that it''s Onida even though it doesn''t look like her...

    I say, ¡°Onida? What happened?¡±

    She gives me an all-knowing grin. ¡°I had some cosmetics done at the shop, what, you don''t like it?¡±

    I do like it... She has changed her skin color, and she is now has a deep, deep brown tan like a Hawaiian girl who spends all her days at the beach. Her hair is straighter now and has deep, subtle streaks of purple through it that match her deep purple eyes.

    She is wearing black leather pants with boots to match and a silvery top of that standard skin-tight body armor everyone wears. She looks stunning, and I realize I am staring.

    It''s okay, stare all you want, I am pleased you like it and it is no big deal to me what I look like. My hair used to be green before we met, you know.¡± She starts walking towards me ¡°You''re starting to feel it now too aren''t you?¡± She asks me.

    Feel what?¡± I say, even though I know what she means. The bond is drawing me to her, making it hard not to want her. I try to avoid looking her in the eyes.

    She laughs at me. ¡°I know what a bond does to people Blackbear, you cannot lie to me about it.¡±

    I say, ¡°Maybe your right, but I need to wait until Samantha understands what has happened before we can become closer.¡±

    She nods, ¡°Of course, I understand. Let''s go see how our wife is doing.¡±

    As we walk back to Sammy''s room I ask her, ¡°Can you take a look at my skills, please? I have 9 points to spend after hitting level 20 and I don''t want to mess it up picking the wrong stuff.¡±

    She takes a second looking at it and says ¡°Strange, all of your second tree skills are area effects. I would say put one point into each of those so at least you can get used to how they work. I would also take each of those off tree perk skills because most people put those off until it''s too late. That leaves you with two points.¡±

    I think you should dump another point in Psyche Strike and start using that every fight from now on, That is a very powerful skill, It automatically interrupts. Save one point until you figure out what you use the most or whatever one you feel is weak.¡±

    I do exactly what she says and we walk into the room. Yepa gets up and stretches. I tell her, ¡°Go take a run in the park and eat Yepa, I have her for the rest of the night.¡±

    The cat chuffs at me and pads off. I slip off my shoes and pull off my bodysuit. The Genome treatment has made me three inches taller and solid as a rock. I catch Onida peeking at me in the mirror and smile. Trotting into the bathroom I have a quick scalding hot shower and then I slip in the bed next to Sammy and rest my head on her shoulder putting my hand across her stomach. I am instantly dead tired.

    The last thing I notice is a half-naked Onida slipping in bed on the other side of Sammy. The bond makes it feel perfectly natural.

 13

    I managed to get a full night''s sleep and was woken by Kelli. ¡°Chief Brownbear, we have some visitors approaching the Village. You may want to greet them.¡±

    I jumped out of bed and notice that Onida is already gone. What was that woman up to? I throw on some of my new clothes. A deep brown pair of leather pants and a flannel shirt with some boots that look suspiciously like my old North Face Tsumoru''s even though I know that they are armor. I take the elevator down and jog over towards the entrance.

    I can see a large... no, a huge crowd of people walking up the ramp to the Village. ¡°Some visitors Kelli? How many are out there?¡±

    I can hear the playfulness in her voice. It''s hard to believe that she is an A.I. ¡°Just shy of five thousand Chief.¡±

    Kelli has set up a large series of cordons on the left side of the building entrance making it look like a huge airport queue. People are filing into them to be met by sentries with boxes full of village bracelets. I walk out and the crowd goes silent looking at me.

    I shout out ¡°Welcome to the Village of the People!¡±

    The crowd cheers and I can see lots of relief on faces as people smile and wave at me. A big elderly man carrying a gorgeous shining soapstone carving of a bear approaches me. ¡°War Chief Brownbear, I am Jimmy Chu or Chief Chu as everyone calls me. I was put in charge of this lot. I am looking forward to working with you.¡±

    He hands me the statue. It is the size of a breadbox. ¡°This is for you, carved it myself.¡± He holds out the statue and his hand at the same time.

    I look around and see Jax walking over. I take the bear and turn to Jax ¡°Can you hold this for a moment please?¡± I turn back to the Chief and shake his hand. ¡°Thank you for the gift Chief, nice to meet you, this is my right-hand man Jax.¡± He nods at Jax.

    I say ¡°Chu huh? That means beaver doesn''t it?¡±

    He laughs ¡°Yup, I''m surprised you know that.¡±

    I chuckle back at him ¡°Well, I majored in animals and forestry in college. Tell me, how did all of this come about, how are you here so quickly, and how were you put in charge? I see many different tribes here.¡±

    He nods, ¡°It was all the System. We all got notifications three days ago. It explained all of the options and rules of the Village. We were given room assignments and schedules. There were forms we had to fill out detailing what we wanted to pursue. We were made aware today of the oath and the importance of leveling. Almost everyone I talked to said they were coming. This group is from Anchorage and the surrounding area. I think the group from Fairbanks and North of it are coming later today, and I wasn''t even asked to lead this group, I was assigned it. At 8 am on the dot this morning a portal opened up and I stepped through it and here I am.¡±

    I said ¡°Whoa, this is amazing, the System is taking care of something that I had no idea of how I was going to do. You were in Anchorage then?¡±

    He nodded, ¡°Yep, I lived right outside of town, ran the Alaska Native Heritage Center there and I can tell you I am happy to be able to get away from that town. The whole city has been taken over by these Truinnar people. They are getting everyone to work for them, mostly by some form of serfdom. It is gonna get ugly there real fast.¡±

    I said, ¡°Huh, I ran into some of their people here. They did not seem very human friendly... So Chief, what are your plans, what do you want to do?¡±

    He snorted ¡°What I wanted to do was retire and open a soapstone carving shop. What I was assigned to do is sit on the Chief''s board and train in a new class to run a city dungeon!¡±

    I said, ¡°Oh, you''re going to be the new Dungeon Master? That''s great! What is this Chief''s board, I haven''t had time to read thru any of The Village information yet.¡±

    He said, ¡°Every group that comes in will be assigned a Chief who will be responsible for telling their band of any plans or changes to The Village. Kind of a micro-managing team for you. We were told in no uncertain terms that you are Chief of Chiefs and there can be no changing of that rule.¡±

    I said, ¡°I see, so what can you tell me of your group then?¡±

    He shrugged ¡°I can tell you that they all know the rules and all have jobs and schedules already. We have a lot of hunters and fishing industry people and some crafters. One weird thing is that almost all of these people are either couples or have small families already. There are very few singles here, maybe 5% tops. We also have a bunch of expecting mothers. It seems apparent to me that the System wants the People to populate themselves.¡±

    I sighed and said, ¡°Thanks for the info Chief. I need to go, I wasn''t expecting people this soon and I need to go and read up on what is going to happen and what is expected of me.¡±

    The Chief looked at me and then slowly looked back at the crowd. Jax gave me a nudge and said, ¡°Maybe we can take a few and go meet some people, shake some hands?¡±

    I stopped and looked at him, he winked at me. I said, ¡°Yeah, I guess I should do that huh? I''m going to need to get used to this.¡±

    I spent a couple of hours shaking hands and welcoming people to their new home. The hardest part was getting hugs from the children that had made it this far. They were oblivious to what was happening with my own child, but the relief was practically pouring off of the parents.

    I finally pulled back from the crowd and got to the elevator. I said, Kelli, can we have an android sentry take on facial features?

    She replied ¡°Yes Blackbear, why do you ask this?¡±

    I said, ¡°We are going to need a receptionist for the entrance to my home pronto. I want a softer look for my personal greeter. Can you have one made and station her there until we find someone with a skill for it, please?

    She said, ¡°At once Chief. Do you have any preference what she should look like?¡±

    I looked at Jax and winked. ¡°Yes Kelli. Look up Priyanka Chopra, she seems friendly enough.¡±

    Jax coughed and tried not to laugh. I said, ¡°Thank you, and even after we get a skilled receptionist leave her there to serve as a vanguard for the doors.¡±

    She said, ¡°As you wish Blackbear.¡±

    When we got to our floor Jax placed the Bear carving on the reception desk and the doors opened. Onida stepped out to greet us. I heard Jax quietly gasp and then grunt as he took in her new look.

    She said, ¡°Samantha was up for about an hour. She even made some tea on her own. I was explaining everything to her when we noticed people entering The Village. She saw some children running in the park and she froze and went right back to bed. I expect her to be up and about in two days.¡±

    I sighed. ¡°Well that is good I guess. Did you know that the System is assigning all of these people jobs and schedules to follow? We have a dungeon master... Oh speaking of, I was told last night that a beached cruise ship south of our border is a dungeon, or turning into one. We are going to need to check that out today. I also made some infrastructure changes to the city last night.¡±

    Onida said, ¡°Yes, I noticed that. You spent nearly three million credits!¡±

    My jaw dropped. ¡°Three million!? The system didn''t notify me of how much it cost?¡±

    Onida laughed and said, ¡°No, and it won''t. The system wants you to spend every penny you have. You are supposed to look up the price of things before you order them. You are lucky we are flush on credits right now. It took a chunk of your personal credits.¡±

    I said, ¡°How much was that bag worth anyway?¡±

    Onida said, ¡°If you want my advice, I wouldn''t even look at it. You will only be tempted to spend it on things you don''t need. Remember that you need to start thinking long term from now on. I also saw that you created an inn with a pub and restaurant? You will need to set up what percentage you are going to pay the people that run it. Same with the meat processing plant and crafting buildings. You can''t just build businesses and expect them to run themselves you know. You need to get some office managers in here as quickly as you can.¡±

    I sat back thinking about what she said and yelled ¡°Kelli...!¡±

    I said, ¡°Guys, I am going to need at least two hours of undisturbed time in my office to start reading all of the info on this Village. Can you please get together with Chief Chu and find us at least a couple of people who can get the ball rolling on the businesses, please? At noon I want to get our party together and check out that cruise ship, so get a hold of Smitty and Jane.¡± They nodded and set off and I went back to my office for a good old fashion cramming session.

    Not five minutes later I heard the doors opening. I said, ¡°Jeez guys already? I asked for a few hours, it''s been five minutes!¡± I looked up and saw Samantha standing there.

    I jumped up and rushed over to her. I took her in my arms and hugged her. ¡°Oh baby, how do you feel? I am so sorry I wasn''t here for you, Onida is working her contacts to get some information on...¡±

    She gently pushed me back. ¡°Onida has filled me in on what she is doing. She also explained how your bond happened.¡± She wouldn''t look me in the eyes.

    I said, ¡°I haven''t touched her Sammy, we can treat her like she is a sister.¡±

    She shook her head. ¡°I am not worried about that Bowen. She told me we might not see our son for another five years or so. Kind of like he is away at boarding school. At least he is alive. I received two notices today. I got my class right after Onida told me about Billy.¡±

    I said, ¡°Oh yeah, that''s good, what is it?¡± She said, ¡°It¡¯s a rare, unique class called The Broken Heart of The Village...¡±

    I said, ¡°What!? What kind of class is that?¡±

    A tear slipped from her eye. ¡°It seems that I am an Ambassador of some kind for The Village that manipulates sympathy from my charisma. It is heavy with a bunch of skills relating to children. I am meant to be felt sorry for...¡±

    I looked up at the ceiling wanting to scream. The system was a cold bitch with no feelings. It would use anyone as it deemed necessary. I put my hands on her shoulders and kissed her on her forehead. ¡°It will be alright Sammy, we will get through this. What was your other notice?¡±

    She said, ¡°I was just staring at the monitor next to my bed trying to figure out what it all meant. I kept seeing the words abnormal amounts of estrogen and progesterone. It was bothering me because I had seen the same words before somewhere. In this daze, I couldn''t put it all together. I thought that I might have some kind of disease, so I asked Kelli.¡±

    My hands started slowly shaking. ¡°Even if you are sick Sammy it doesn''t matter anymore. We are going to take you down to the store right now and get you the Genome treatment.¡±This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

    She shook her head. ¡°I am not sick Bowen, I am pregnant...¡±

    I didn''t know what to do... I was thrilled that we were going to have another child, but with Samantha in this state of mind so soon after losing Billy, it was beyond bittersweet.

    I said, ¡°Honey, I can''t begin to imagine how this is affecting you right now. I am very happy that we are pregnant, but I am concerned about you first and foremost. If you think it might be a bad time for this to happen I understand? Is this the right thing for me to say? I am sorry Sam, I have never seen you like this before.¡±

    She said, ¡°I don''t know how to feel right now Bowen, I am having trouble feeling anything. I am going to go take a nap, I am still so tired.¡±

    I dropped my arms to my sides as I watched her turn her back and shuffle away from me without another word.

    My hands hurt and I looked down to see tightly clenched fists. I needed some monsters to kill... Instead I went back to my administrative work.

    I had to struggle to understand what I was reading as I couldn''t concentrate. I picked up on the advantages of assigning people from different tribes important jobs of responsibility, and how to motivate the tribe about the importance of leveling. I had been given 5 skills from the War Chief social side of its skills tree and I took a look at them.

    Class Skill Acquired

    Inspiration

    The War Chief can motivate his people with his very words to achieve the unachievable.

    1-hour buff. Enables unique condition: Inspired Motivation. +25 to Willpower, Strength, and Intelligence. It can be activated on any member of the People who can hear the War Chief''s words.

    Cost 250 mana.

    Class Skill Acquired

    Neighborly Advice

    The War Chief can demand immediate settlement of any dispute by his right as leader of the People.

    Enables unique condition: Calm Mind. +100 Charisma to all involved in dispute.

    Cost 250 mana.

    Class Skill Acquired

    War Cry

    A War Chief must be able to inflame passion in his people before the battle.

    1 hour buff. Enables unique condition: Controlled Frenzy +25% to attack speed and base damage. It can be enabled on any member of the People who can hear the War Chief''s words.

    Cost 250 mana.

    Class Skill Acquired

    War Warble

    An unresistable fear is landed on opponents of the People

    Enables unique condition: Mass Panic. Variable time duration effects against willpower checks of individual opponents.

    Conditional Skill Activation Component: Must be cast during a war chant or Haka performed by the People.

    Cost 250 mana.

    Class Skill Acquired

    Earth''s Embrace

    The People are one with their Earth, and they temporarily use their shared bond to distribute all defensive skills and damage taken over a 10 minute period. +25% to defense and a 5-second immunity effect upon cast.

    Cost 1000 mana. Usable once per 24 hours.

    Three battle skills and two utilities, not bad. I had a bad feeling that I would be needing the battle buffs in the near future.

    My brain was unfocused. I was doing myself no favors in this condition barely taking in the information I needed to have a real grip on. I stepped out of the office and went to get some coffee. Samantha was waiting for me on the couch in the living area. She had showered and done her hair and was wearing her traditional clothing that had been gifted to her over the years.

    She had on dark brown leather pants with the soft native American fur high boots that I had gotten her for Christmas. She had a soft yellow shirt on with a light fur coat and a fur lined hood. I had bought that as well, it had a hand-stitched, embossed Brown Bear on the back of it that cost a quarter of the price of the coat itself. She looked beautiful as always if not a little over dressed.

    ¡°Are we going somewhere?¡± I asked.

    She said, ¡°I want to get the Genome treatment you and Onida told me about, She told me it would balance my hormones, and I need to be seen by the People.¡±

    I nodded feeling good about the idea, anything to get her out of her current condition. I grabbed my coat and said, ¡°I am in no state to study anything, let''s go right now.¡± We headed out to the Lobby. Yepa was hot on our tails.

    Sammy took one look at the Priyanka sitting at the receptionist''s desk and turned to me raising an eyebrow.

    I shrugged my shoulders and said, ¡°What? We needed a receptionist?¡± She raised her other eyebrow. I looked over at the android disguised as a supermodel and said, ¡°Jax ordered that look.¡±

    She turned without a word and went to the elevator.

    We went straight down because I wanted Sammy to get a look at The Village from the ground. She just stopped with no expression and looked around. I had to admit, it was still awe-inspiring to me. I looked at her and noticed that she wasn''t looking at this wonder of the world, she was looking at a small group of 5 children that were playing not 20 yards away from us. As one the children seemed to become aware they were being watched and they all looked over at us. They started to run. Samantha seemed to be drawing them in. They were all babbling as one as children do:

    ¡°Is that the Heart and the War Chief?¡±

    ¡°She has to be the Heart, look how pretty she is.¡±

    ¡°I am going to get my papa to get me some boots like that.¡±

    ¡°What kind of cat is that?¡±

    ¡°How did the Chief get her to marry him?¡±

    The children got to us and all crowded around Samantha hugging her legs and firing off non-stop questions at her. Sam touched their hair and looked at them and started to tear up.

    I frantically looked around for help and spotted some women rushing over to us.

    The first woman arrived and peeled her daughter off of Sam. ¡°Oh my God, I am so sorry Heart, I don''t know what came over her, she is normally shy!¡± She looked down at the kids and clapped her hands. ¡°Children, show some respect, I am sure the Heart has more important things to do than be bothered by a bunch of noisy brats!¡±

    The Mother''s all snagged children and pried them away and apologized to Sam. It was like I wasn''t even there. None of them would even look at me, I was befuddled.

    Samantha saw this and said, ¡°It seems as thought everyone has been given word of my broken heart. Don''t worry Blackbear, I am sure it will be the exact opposite when all of the men get near us. It has to be my skill.¡±

    One of the women looked at Sam and said, ¡°There was a village wide notification that the Heart of The Village was awakened.¡±

    She simply nodded at the women and took my hand and pulled me away. I heard a little girl say, ¡°She is so sad, but Mama look at those boots, I want them!¡±

    We got into the shop and Sammy sat down to receive her treatment and have a neural link installed. I heard a saleswoman say, ¡°I love your outfit, what a great sense of style, I have a bunch of native inspired clothing we just got in stock, can you please take a look and tell me if they are any good?¡±

    I sighed. This was now going to become a time sink and probably an expensive one as well. I sat and decided to look through the tech, I had a bunch of hard connections left and I wanted to find something for communications. I wanted to be able to get a hold of Kelli in the Village at any time. I asked Mali to send the boss out that I had met before while she took care of Sammy.

    The man showed up with a smile on his face. ¡°Chief, looking at communications gear I see, I''m glad you asked for me, that is one of my specialties.¡±

    I bet it was... I was glad though a few minutes later as the dwarf had advised me to get some anti-jamming gear that I wouldn''t have thought of. I asked him to order 5 more sets of it all for Sam and my party.

    Before he left he said, ¡°War Chief, I was looking through your initial order and I noticed a bare spot in your defense, one that I''m sure you hadn''t known of.¡±

    I said, ¡°Oh really, what would that be?¡± I hated how the System allowed for others to be up in my business.

    He started explaining all the ways that the System could screw me if one had enough money to buy the information. When he finished I had spent another large chunk of change to hide myself from prying eyes..

    I asked him about physically hiding my body from people that has tracking, etc. and he just smiled. ¡°Oh, you don''t have to be worried about that, Your necklace has that well covered.¡±

    I said, ¡°What what do you mean my necklace?¡± I had forgotten that the four elemental warriors had gifted me four pieces of jewelry and had the man explain them to me.

    The necklace made me almost impervious from being physically spied on. It was some of the best tech that could be bought. Of course, that didn''t mean my party members were likewise protected. I sighed thinking I would eventually have to buy them something similar. My earring had a shield against mental attacks. I had two rings that were so form-fitted to me that I forgot that I was wearing them. One was a mana shield against spell attacks up to 500 damage and the other was a flexible physical shield that protected me against penetrating weapons.

    The dwarf also enticed me to buy a very stylish black leather archery bow arm guard that could eventually be filled up with 500 spare mana. I didn''t ask for any prices, I was sure that no matter what Onida was gonna be mad at me, MEH!

    Samantha had finished up her business and waved me over and we ported out of the store. I asked her, if she felt up to a quick walk, I wanted to take a look at the city from ground level and check out the inn I built.

    She nodded, but got distracted looking at three young girls who were sneaking looks at her and started trailing us. I heard her mutter about getting used to her skill and I pulled her away before she realized what I was doing.

    I quickly said, ¡°So how was their clothing for real?¡±

    She said, ¡°It was better than anything I have seen made here. They just didn''t know how to make outfits match the way we like our style here. I showed them how and they gave me a big discount on a few sets of clothes. I was told that I am going to be the new trendsetting style icon here.¡± She snorted in disbelief. My Sammy was more of a pair of jeans and flannels kind of woman.

    We walked down the hill past the mansion and Sam looked at the new changes I started in the city and said, ¡°Beautiful, very natural as I would expect from you, but it is very empty. More of a park than a city.¡±

    I said, ¡°I will eventually fill it up, I don''t want the city folks hiding in their houses right now. I want them all living with each other and bonding.¡±

    We walked the few blocks to the new inn. I was impressed, The mini Village replica architecture looked as good as I had envisioned it. As we approached the front doors opened and Chief Chu walked out talking to Mayor John.

    He looked at me in surprise and said, ¡°Just the man I needed, I was coming to find you.¡±

    I said, ¡°What''s up?¡±

    He replied, ¡°Had a few men take some injuries, nothing life-threatening, but it got me thinking. If something serious happened to us out here and we needed to reattach some limbs, we have no medical tech, and we can''t enter The Village.¡±

    Also, we are going to need a brewery and distillery if we want anything to sell here. We can buy from the store right now, but that makes no financial sense.¡±

    I said, ¡°Yes, I can do that. Have you given any thought about where to put them?¡±

    He nodded. ¡°We lost almost all of our harbors, but there is still some infrastructure up North by the old yacht club that would be a good spot for the med center. And right down by the base of the bridge is that big space where your old fish and game building used to be. We can put a brewery right there and maybe a dock in the future if we ship some out.¡±

    I made a mental note and nodded. ¡°Okay, anything else? How are the guards doing anyways?¡±

    He grimaced. ¡°They are being attacked almost non-stop but sporadically. Thank God we haven''t seen anything over level 25 yet. I had an extra man placed on each post. They are leveling up quite nicely I might add. They asked for guard buildings too, but I nixed that right away. We don''t need guards sitting inside of buildings, we need them guarding.¡±

    I said, ¡°Great, we got a big influx of people today and I am going to check on them and then get my crew and go look at the cruise ship. Don''t be shy to get a hold of Kelli if anything exciting happens. Tell her to notify Chief Chu if you need reinforcements.¡± I shook his hand and we turned and headed away with Chief Chu falling in beside us.

    I introduced him to Sammy and he nodded at her and gave her a gruff ¡°Heart!¡± and turned to me. ¡°Did you know that The Village has imposed a limit on alcohol consumption?¡±

    I shook my head, ¡°First I''ve heard of it.¡±

    He nodded, ¡°It''s the only thing I have heard people complain about. We can only have three alcoholic drinks per 48 hours. You can keep drinking to your heart''s content, but the System removes all of the alcohol from your drink after your third one. We must have had quite a few drinkers from the grumbling I am hearing.¡±

    I said, ¡°Well the system will take care of withdrawal, so we don''t need to worry about that!¡±

    He nodded. ¡°Yeah, it''s the psychological damage we have to watch out for.¡±

    We went another block and the three girls we saw earlier popped back into our view. Chief Chu said, ¡°Oh those three¡­ I had forgot about them already, something to do with their skill.¡±

    I said, ¡°What''s the deal with them? They seem to be following us around.¡±

    He spit on the ground. ¡°Sad story... triplets from a big family. The entire family except them got killed on the first night. Scared them so badly that they all got stealth classes and also some mind wiping skill so people leave them alone. They barely speak. They told me earlier that the System told them to find the Heart of the Village.¡± He looked over at Sammy.

    I said, ¡°Okay, this should be interesting.¡± I waved to them and we started walking forward. ¡°Girls, come on over, I''m sure you know I am the Chief and this is The Heart, tell us what''s going on.¡± The girls looked over their shoulders and all around them and then slunk over to us.

    I said, ¡°Hello, I''m Chief Blackbear, this is my wife, The Heart, Samantha, and who may you be?¡± It was like looking at three clones.

    The first girl quietly said, ¡°Hello I''m Carri, Assassin.¡± The second said, ¡°I''m Cristi, class is Operative¡± The third, ¡°I''m Calli, Spook¡±

    I looked at the three of them. They were all under 5 feet tall and under a hundred pounds each. They looked maybe 15 years old. They were like mini Christina Ricci''s from her Adams Family movie, all dark, and goth, and moody. ¡°A little young for classes aren''t you?¡± Calli said, ¡°We are 16 years old, the System changed us...¡±

    I was a little taken aback and looked at Chu.

    He nodded. ¡°Same story they gave me.¡±

    I said, ¡°All right ladies how can we help you?¡±

    They looked at each other and then at Chief Chu and back at me saying nothing. Calli said, ¡°The system said to only talk to you and The Heart.¡±

    Chief Chu looked up at me and said, ¡°It''s fine by me, none of my business, but if it''s that much of a secret I would advise you to take it indoors.¡±

    I nodded and said, ¡°You piqued my curiosity girls, let''s head back to the village.¡±

    As we started walking I heard Sammy say ¡°Christi, Calli, and Carri huh? I bet your Mom was a big Grey''s fan eh? Did you have a sister named Meredith by any chance?¡± Whatever that was supposed to mean... Sammy tried to small talk to the three of them, but they barely spoke a word.

    We made our way back to our apartment and sat them on a couch.

    I said, ¡°Out with it then, why did the system send you to us?¡±

    Calli said, ¡°We were made to be spies, we are here to become ¡°The Beat of the Heart¡± that''s what the system called it. The system said she would have need of us in her future work and we were to protect her with our very lives if necessary.¡±

    Sammy and I looked at each other in complete surprise. These girls were still in a severe state of PTSD, not fit or old enough to be spies, they were still just children. I once again mentally cursed the System.

    I said, ¡°Maybe we can talk about jobs for you near future. Where are you staying, and who with? They looked at each other with tears forming in their eyes and almost started to cry. Calli peeped out, ¡°We have no one...¡±

    I told them to hang on for a minute and started off to my office to talk to Kelli about finding a family for them. We couldn''t have three invisible 16 year old girls running about The Village, that was a sure recipe for disaster.

    I was just passing the kitchen on my way there when I heard sobbing and looked back. Sammy was on her knees in front of the three girls wrapping them all in a hug. All four of them were crying their eyes out. It stopped me in my tracks.

    I went over to the fridge and opened it. I spotted a six pack of my favorite Anchorage Brewing Company beer and I grabbed a bottle and chugged half of it down. Sammy was kissing each girl on the forehead. Yepa got in on the action, forcing her head into the group hug.

    Sammy stood up and looked at me. ¡°Bowen, come here please.¡± I walked over. She said, ¡°I would like to formally introduce you to your three new daughters. Calli, Carri, and Christi Shotridge...¡±

    I debated for all of 3 seconds fighting it, but the look on Sammy''s face told me that it would be a mistake.

    I walked over and put my arms around all four of them at once. ¡°My new daughters, I am so blessed to have such a beautiful family.¡± I stepped back and looked at them. ¡°Samantha, I am going to need you to take these three to the shop at once and get them new clothes and body armor. Sorry girls, but you look like three thieves about to rob someone.¡±

    ¡°The Chief of all Chiefs cannot have emo punks for daughters. Make them a tiny bit more respectable please. Have the Genome therapy done on them and get a neural link for each with the communication gear installed. And Sammy, will you please have some different color streaks put in each of their hair so I can tell the difference between them?¡±

    I thought about what was happening in my personal life. I now was attached to Sammy, Onida, Yepa, Calli, Carri, Christi, and even Kelli the A.I. All women.

    I needed some testosterone up in this house. I shouted at the ceiling ¡°Kelli, get Jax up here!¡±

 14

    I grabbed another beer and headed to my office. ¡°Kelli, I need to add a brewery and med center to the city, can I afford that?¡±

    She said, ¡°Oh certainly Chief. We now have 5000 people using the store, we will never hurt for credits again unless you start building more Villages.¡±

    That stopped me short. ¡°Are you implying that I could build another Village somewhere? Me? By myself with no help from our... Friends?¡±

    She said, Of course, Chief, we are currently living in a Village, we do have all of the plans to make another.¡±

    I just grunted at the thought of that. Maybe in another ten years or so, who knows. I opened the city holo scrolled around for some building plans and put in a brewery, a distillery, and a med center. I glanced at the north and south harbors and built new smaller versions of emergency med centers there.

    I looked up vehicles and found some very basic hover boats that were dirt cheap and bought four of them and had two placed in each of the new docking areas, just in case. Our old river which used to be so busy looked strange to me being so empty.

    It kind of frightened me that an army could approach us under the water and I found simple sensors were dirt cheap. I placed a dozen up the riverbed covering the entire area. Jax showed up just in time before I spent more money and I forced myself out of my office.

    Kelli piped in ¡°Chief, there is a man named Willy already trying to use one of our new boats... his class is listed as Harbor Master, should I grant him access?¡±

    I looked at Jax and he just shrugged, ¡°Not just yet Kelli, I want to talk to him first. Let''s head over there Jax.¡±

    We made our way to the elevator and ported to the stables. Onida was there waiting. She just smiled and said, ¡°Kelli told me you would be here soon.¡±

    I said, ¡°Where have you been all morning?¡±

    She said, ¡°In a training facility getting ready to fight. It''s been a little while for me, I have been playing scout for some time now.¡±

    We mounted up and headed straight out to the northern border. We found a huge native man with a flat ass and his jeans falling off of him tinkering with one of my new boats. He heard us coming upon him and turned.

    ¡°Chief, this thing floats, it has no drag, I have to get out on it and figure out the turning radius.¡±

    I said, ¡°Before you take my boat out for a spin, how about you tell me who you are and what you plan on doing.¡±

    He gave me a look of frustration and then caught himself. ¡°Oh boy, sorry Chief, I forgot you don''t know who I am, I''m used to it the other way around. My name is William, everyone calls me Walrus. I used to be the guy that ran the Port Of Alaska in Anchorage, got me a Harbor Master class and everything. Did you know that you have one of those Lindblad National Geographic Fleet ships sitting down south inside of your city limits? It''s not one of those older ones either, It is brand spanking new, barely used. Don¡¯t know how it¡¯s untouched¡­ It can only carry two hundred people, but it is built like a tank, and chock full of all the goodies. Not that anything works anymore without System gear on it. It will make a good flagship for now for our fleet...¡±Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

    I held up my hands ¡°Whoa, whoa, slow down there Harbor Master. I didn''t see the ship yet because I haven''t been down that way yet, we are headed that way now. Did you say fleet? What do you mean?¡±

    He said, ¡°We are 100% going to need a fleet Chief. If you didn''t notice yet a dozen massive islands are sitting right next to our city. Good thing we have so many people because those islands are going to need to be cleared all of the time or we will get flooded with monsters from them. Those monsters that spawn there are not going to go out to sea, they are going to come right here to try and eat us.¡±

    I looked at Onida and Jax and they both nodded. ¡°Damn, another expense and more problems.¡±

    He nodded and said, ¡°Good thing you have me, I know all of the surviving Captains. We have some military water dogs too. I was built to take on this challenge. We are just going to need more boats and a couple of big ones. These little hovercrafts are good for getting around our waterfront, but not much else. I don''t imagine you would want to take them out anywhere else, monsters will just leap up on these low decks and eat ya. We are going to need some real armored ships.¡±

    I said, ¡°Have you seen the beached cruise ship yet?¡±

    He nodded. ¡°Yep, I spent the morning walking our shores and looking at maps. Haven¡¯t spent much time in Juneau, but it¡¯s small enough that I already have a grip on it. Talked to the guards down there, I think that thing is already a dungeon, won''t do us any good except for leveling hunters.¡±

    I sighed thinking that a dungeon right at my front door might be a dangerous thing. I would need to get a rotation started daily on it.

    ¡°That Nat Geo ship is down at your old Franklin Dock, not much dock left there, but the ship is still tied up. I was gonna head down to it and try to see if I could manually start it up. Got a Mechanic and a Ship Captain coming with me.¡±

    I said, ¡°Good to see you just taking over.¡±

    He shook his head, ¡°Nope, not taking over, I was assigned this job like everyone else.¡±

    I said, ¡°Kelli please give the Harbor Master full access to anything he needs related to our waterways and talk to him about what kind of ships we will need. Let''s get some pricing estimates please.¡±

    In my head, she said, ¡°Already on it Chief.¡± I looked over at Willy, but he was already starting up the boat with a grin on his face. This guy really liked boats!

    I said ¡°We will take the horses to this ship and meet you there. Kelli can you tell Smitty and Jane to meet us down at this ship please.¡±

    Ten minutes later we were at the ship. It looked like some kind of exploration vessel. I could hear some laser rifles firing sporadically about a mile south at the border, but it wasn''t so steady that I thought that I might need to go help so I studied the ship. It still had that new equipment look to it, bright and shiny. It looked like a scientific ship, but it had five levels with room windows, so it was a cruise ship built for the adventure-minded. The front of the ship sloped down and looked like an Eagle''s beak that could cut through ice jams making it different from most other ship designs. I saw Willy and a couple of men pulling up and we hopped off our horses and went aboard to check and see if it was cleared for the men to work.

    The ship was dark inside without lights even during the day and it was eerily silent. My night vision started to kick on. Onida had some tracking skill as a druid but said that even though she didn''t see any life forms on the ship that something could still be hiding from her. We went through the different levels and looked in every room checking for monsters but found nothing but a few bloodstains.

    Willy and his men came aboard and we followed them down to the engine rooms. The guy with the Mechanic class was named Bobby, and the second we entered the room he held up his hand for us to stop and whispered, ¡°Something isn''t right here. I don''t recognize some of those machines along the back wall.¡±

    As soon as he said that the room filled with the noise of metal screeching and vague shapes started moving. Mech forms started to take shape and as the monsters began to unfold before our eyes and I focused on one.

    Mechanical Grease Monkey (Level 25)

    I whipped out my All-Weapon and thought ¡°Earth¡± and cast a Grasping Earth spell automatically. Hands shaped out of rock reached up from the decking and grabbed onto four forms. I swapped to a fire bow and started launching arrows. The rest of the group sprang into action. Jax activated some kind of humming chant that made me fire faster and Onida cast a spell that had thorny vines wrapping all over the mechs.

    The Mechanic started throwing heavy pipe wrenches non-stop at the metal monkeys and the Captain and Harbor Master produced laser rifles and started pumping beams into them. Jax had pulled out the bow I had bought him and was firing mana bolts as well.

    The monkeys never even managed to make it to us before they were blasted into metal heaps. Everybody was drawing deep breathes from surprised nerves when the silence fell after the short battle. Willy started laughing. ¡°Grease Monkeys eh? It seems the System has a sense of humor in it somewhere!¡± We all laughed nervously peering around for more monsters.

    The Mechanic moved about the engines bobbing his head up and down. ¡°Everything in here is almost brand new, I can get this up and running with no problem once we bypass the electronics. We might need a portable mana genny though.¡±

    I said ¡°Good, do what you gotta do, we are going to go check on that cruise ship.¡± We left the ship and headed down to the border.

 15

    As we came into the view of the border guard post we noticed Jane and Smitty alongside 8 guards all firing ranged weapons into what looked like a strung-out Congo dance line of monsters making their way to the guard post. They were mindlessly marching to their deaths.

    I hopped off and walked up to a guard and said, ¡°Hi, I''m War Chief Blackbear, can you report what has been going on down here?¡±

    The man wiped some sweat off of his head and said, ¡°Heya Chief, I''m Forest Warden Williams. We had a few beasts wander out of the woods earlier and took them down. The noise must have attracted monsters from the cruise ship and we have had a slow but steady flow of creatures making their way here ever since. We must have killed hundreds. I had to call for a healer and more men down here to help. We are all over level 20 now, but we are getting tired and the leveling is slowing down. Most of the monsters seem to be around level 25 or so. A new crew is making their way down to here as we speak. That ship needs to be thinned out, it seems to be producing monsters at a quicker rate as we take them out.¡±

    I nodded and looked over at the ship. Even from a half-mile away, it looked enormous. It looked like it had about 10 levels to it. I could see the name ¡°Royal Princess¡± on the side. It had to have been over 1000 feet long and over two hundred feet tall. This was one of those beastly cruise liners that could carry thousands of people on it. It was very slightly tilted to its left leaning towards us, the boarding ramp was still attached, but mangled.

    I activated my telescopic sight for the first time and had to hold my arms out to my sides for balance as I adjusted to the new view. I could see creatures coming out of the ship and milling all about. There were dozens of all shapes and sizes. Even though I had seen cruise ships in port for most of my life I had never imagined what a pain in the ass it would be to have to try and clear all of that space of monsters.

    I looked over at my war party. ¡°We''re gonna need more people, a LOT more people. I bet that ship is filled with monsters.¡±

    I contacted Kelli ¡°Have Chief Chu meet me at the entrance of the Village please, and ask him if he can round up about 100 of his highest level fighters and healers please.¡± She sent back ¡°On it Chief.¡±

    I left my party with the guards to keep clearing out the flow of attacking beasts and made my way to the Village. As I glided up on my horse I noticed a new large crowd of people making their way through orientation.

    I found Chu by the entrance talking to another man. ¡°Chief Chu, is this the Fairbanks people?¡±

    He nodded at the new guy. ¡°Yup, This is Chief Jumping Fox, I was telling him what was going on with the cruise ship and he has about 30 men over level 25.¡±

    I shook his hand. ¡°Nice to meet you Chief, we sure could use your men. We have about 10 decks of a huge ship to clear room by room and God knows what below decks.¡±

    The man had a grim look on his face. ¡°Losing anybody on the first day here would be bad for morale, but I will round up our warriors. It might take me 20 minutes or so, but we will be there.¡± He hustled off calling out some names.

    Chu turned to me. ¡°I have put the call out and we had eager volunteers... maybe too eager. Many are running down there. Before you let them start you should give a pep talk about how important everyone coming home will be for the moral of the Village. Fox is right. Losing people on the first day would be bad news.¡±

    I said, ¡°I agree 100%. I will talk to the war party and form a raid and give them my War Chief buffs. Make sure we have plenty of healers.¡±

    A half of an hour later I was back at the guard post standing before a crowd of over a hundred people. I formed a group raid and made some people officers in it so they could invite their people and arrange each group with a healer and a warrior melee class. I held up my hands and shouted for silence.

    ¡°Listen up people of The Village. Our number one priority here is to bring everybody back home alive. I FORBID anyone permission to die! I want parties of ten people each to tackle the halls and rooms. We are in no hurry here. If this takes us days to clear out so be it. I want you all to go heavy on defensive spells with lots of regens and healing.¡±

    ¡°There looks to be about ten levels on the cruiser with two main hallways going through the ship on each level. That''s 20 people per level at a time per deck. Be methodical checking the rooms, you don''t want something popping out of a closet killing you. My group will be scouting the ship checking the bigger rooms like the entertainment halls and mezzanines.¡±

    ¡°You all have had a map of the ship uploaded to you. Use them. I am going to bestow two War Chief blessings on you, but do not get cocky with this added strength. They will fade away in an hour.¡± I cast my buffs and the crowd of warriors cheered looking at the effects.

    I led my first real war party to battle.

    Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

    The approach to the ship was a bit sloppy. There were a few dozen monsters on the boarding ramp and ground beneath it and it seemed like everybody wanted to take a shot at them. The combined firepower was overkill and produced a bloody mess. In the end, it ended up that the ship had 14 various levels above deck and 5 below. We entered into a huge lobby area where the monsters were pouring up from ramped hallways that led below the main decks. What we found upon the main floors was something that we never could have guessed...

    The deck we entered was deck four, it had entrance ways on both sides of the ship with a large medical center behind those and a set of lifts in the center of it all with stairways on the sides. This ship was built with huge numbers of people in mind so space was not a problem.

    Our 100 plus war party easily fits into the main lobby. The stairways could hold four men across easily. As we crept up the stairs we could see that deck 5 opened up into the main plaza. It was very opulent and all open air for three levels above of balconies and walkways. It was also very barricaded¡­?

    There were fried monster bodies all over the place. I was the first person to peek out into the main lobby, and because of that, I was the first person to be shot! It hit me a grazing blow to the shoulder with a laser beam. I fell back with a grunt. My armor and shielding took the brunt of the shot. It barely singed me, but it still hurt like hell.

    Everybody ducked low startled from the noise, no one had been expecting a laser shot to be fired. ¡°What the fuck was that!¡± Jax said. ¡°These monsters have weapons?¡±

    I said, ¡°I didn''t have a chance to see what shot me.¡± I peeked up and saw a huge pillar about 20 feet away. ¡°I''m gonna make a break for that pillar, you guys lay down a shitload of cover fire for me up at the balconies.¡± I held up my hand and started counting it down from five and then took off.

    My group started firing and I crouched low and took off scooting to the back of the pillar in seconds. The war party members in the other stairwells heard the fire and started opening up on their own. Return fire came in bunches from the balconies and soon it was like a Star Wars laser battle scene in the room. I managed to get a glimpse of our foes and almost couldn''t believe my eyes.

    There was a small army of ¡°men¡± in uniforms firing weapons at us, and I use the word men in the loosest of terms. These were octopus people. They had two arms and legs and were wearing armor, but that was where the similarity ended. They had four tentacles a piece sticking out from their backs and fat, ugly, bulbous heads. Their eyes were at least five times as big as ours. I managed to focus on one and it said:

    Larian Octoped (Level 30)

    I pulled my bow and watched as she peeked around the corner real quick and then snaked her hand around the corner. Lightning shot from her fingertips and I heard some gurgling noise and the gunfire died down for a second. I scooted out on a knee and fired a flame ball up on the balcony. A second later I saw a grenade of some type fly in the same direction and saw a flash-bang go off.

    I saw some heals being dished out. We took some injuries. But no one had died. The men spread out and cautiously made their ways up into the balcony areas and I started to hear gunfire from behind me.

    I turned and made my way to an entrance that revealed a large dining area. About 20 of my men were exchanging fire with a group of Octoped at the other end of the room.

    I turned and silently hand motioned to a group of ten men and they entered the space and began fighting. The other side of this deck had spas and beauty salons on it and were empty of any beings or monsters.

    I made my way back to my group and said to Onida, ¡°Any idea who these people er, beings are?¡±

    She shook her head. ¡°No, but there are millions of races in the galaxy. It looks like they are planning to make this ship a base of operations. If I had to bet, I would say that was a very small group just keeping the monsters from below from infiltrating the rest of the decks.¡±

    Deck 6 had massive dining areas and a casino and also a theater. We were met with resistance the entire way and had to fight from room to room. Our men were taking injuries on like crazy, but we had way too many healers for anyone to die.

    Onida told me that our people were way overhealing and wasting tons of mana and that we would have to work on that in the future.

    For all of their gun power, the Octoped seemed to have no healers and did not like to engage hand to hand. They were extremely squishy, a headshot with a blunt weapon or sword would take them down every time. Even for the brutal beat down we were giving them, the Octopeds would not back down and seemed to have no will to talk to us.

    Onida told me that most galaxy races would consider humans to be beneath them and unworthy of negotiations. I thought, Well fuck them then. They came to our planet and treat us like a nuisance? No mercy...¡± I shouted to my men. ¡°NO MERCY!¡±

    Deck 7 was more of the same, another entertainment level and more of the same fighting. I had no idea how many Octoped we had killed already, but it seemed like a hundred already. I had gained a level and I did not doubt that my warriors in their basic first tier were leveling like mad. By the time we had cleared deck seven, it was nearing 4 o''clock.

    I got a message off to Kelli instructing her to send word to Chu for another hundred warriors. I wanted to lock down the monster spawn of the lower decks before we went down there and provide reinforcements for my men here. I told her to ask him to find some kind of supply officer class and provide shelters and food for 200 warriors. This was going to take a few days.

    Deck 8 was the first of the stateroom levels for the passengers and it was where I lost my first men...

    The deck had about 250 rooms on it and about half of them were booby-trapped. The fighting was difficult, with Octoped popping out of rooms and firing on us. We were not able to advance quickly because of traps. We learned the hard way when a couple of men charged ahead and were blown to pieces by a hidden pile of explosives.

    The Octopeds had pets here as well. Crab-like creatures the size of dogs that were extremely quick and very aggressive. They would pop out a room in a pack and swarm you with needle legs and strong claws. They would die easy enough, but would put you through some serious pain by firing multiple needles at a time in you. I had some scouts check the floors above and it was all more of the same. Decks 9-15 were all passenger spaces with the rooms becoming more frequent the higher up you went.

    I was told that Chief Fox had arrived and brought some specialists with him, so I went down to meet him. Fox had a crew of 20 with him. Cooks and supply people. We made deck 5 with the huge dining room and open plaza our base of operation.

    made a camp in the dining hall for sleeping. I wasn''t going to allow men to sleep in the rooms for fear of stealth attacks, I wanted to keep our main force together. We had a few classes with trap detection with us now and we went very slowly through the 9<sup>th</sup> deck. I told the men that we would stop and hold from deck 9 down to 4 for the night and have the reinforcement guard do some work on the first level below decks.

    It was starting to get late and I put Chief Fox in charge and found my group. I hadn''t seen my own group for hours, and I found them on deck 7 bloody and resting. I told them of the plans and that we would get back at the clearing of the ship the next morning. I had a house full of fragile women and I wanted to spend some time with them. Onida came with me and we headed back to the Village.

 16

    The Village was looking lively as we pulled up. People were coming in and out of the shop. Villagers were mixing with the citizens of the city and a bunch of kids were running around.

    I noticed that heads turned and were glued to us as we passed them and it made me uneasy being the center of attention. I had spent most of my life blending in and didn''t know how to handle it. Onida hip-checked me and said, ¡°Just keep a smile on your face and give out some nods to people, You know fake it til you make it as you humans say.¡±

    I plastered a smile on my face as ordered and nodded at the next person that looked my way.

    We rolled into the living area and I saw one of the girls on the couch with her eyes unfocused as she was reading something on a screen that we couldn''t see. I noticed a purple streak in her hair.

    Onida poked me. ¡°See the purple? That''s Carri, the assassin. She likes me.¡±

    The girl looked up noticing us and sprang to her feet looking guilty. ¡°Umm Chief, hi, I was just...¡±

    I walked up to her and put a hand on her shoulder. ¡°Carri, did you not hear me today when I called you my daughter?¡± She nodded. ¡°Inside this house, you will address me as Father, do you understand?¡±

    She looked down at the floor. ¡°Yes...Father¡±

    I put a finger under her chin pulling it up and forced her eyes to mine. ¡°What were you looking at, I hope it was something age-appropriate, you look guilty.¡±

    She tried to look everywhere but at me and settled her eyes on Onida. ¡°Umm, Do you know how many books the Truinnar have written on the art of spying?¡±

    Onida laughed, ¡°Of course girl, we have been doing it for a hundred thousand years.¡±

    I snorted, ¡°Where are Samantha and your sisters?¡±

    She said, ¡°My sisters are hooked up to the machine in the med room and Sam... Mother is in bed already.¡±

    I nodded. ¡°You okay? Need anything?

    She said, ¡°I''ll be okay, I''m the tough one.¡±

    I said, ¡°Good, I''m going to eat and talk to Onida in my office if you need anything.¡± I went to the kitchen and opened the fridge. There were a huge pre-made salad and some hoagies in there. I grabbed both and waved at Onida and headed to the office.

    As we sat down Onida said, ¡°First things first. She reached into her inventory and pulled out my little external hard drive. This simple device is going to make us very very rich!¡±

    I looked at it ¡°How did you get that?¡±

    She said, ¡°You gave it to me in the store remember?¡±

    I said, ¡°I did?¡±

    She replied, ¡°Sure you did... Anyway, the entertainment shows you have are mostly shit, but there will be a huge amount of interest in them as a cultural reference and there are many, many planets out there to buy them. No one has started to introduce these to the galaxy yet, you will be first and reap the benefits.¡±

    ¡°The truly violent shows will do well, this Game of Thrones and Walking Dead stuff will sell like mad and your superheroes movies will do well also. I have already engaged a broker to start making deals in many systems and we are going to make a pretty penny. I don''t know how this drive survived the initial system purge. It''s like someone found it while you were asleep and paid the System to repair it. Like someone wanted you to be able to make money off of it.¡±

    I sat back staring at her. ¡°Really? I would think there are billions of these types of shows out in this galaxy?¡±

    She shook her head, ¡°Not like these, every culture has different tastes and every system produces very different forms of entertainment. This music you have on here will make us some money as well. We are going to be able to buy a very nice spaceship for the People, I''m talking a battleship.¡±

    I sat up, ¡°That much? I can''t believe it!¡±

    She nodded. ¡°Brownbear, do you have any idea how many populated planets are out there with God''s know how many people living on them? If even a sliver of a fraction of beings buys these, the number of credits will be staggering.¡±

    I asked, ¡°How many of the shows have you looked at?

    She said, ¡°I skimmed through the first episode of most of them just getting a feel for the type of show that they were. This Sherlock guy fascinates me, he has a supernatural sense of detecting details without using a skill! It''s magnificent!¡±

    I said, ¡°It''s fake, it''s a show... er nevermind.¡±

    ¡°Moving on, I wanted to talk to you about the docks, and this fleet idea the Harbor Master was talking about. Let''s see what ships Kelli has come up with and get that started, I want us to check out some of the islands nearest to us, I am very nervous that he is right and we might be fighting off monster hordes very soon.¡±

    Douglas Island was directly across from Juneau and it was ten miles long. That could hold a hell of a lot of monsters, and Douglas was the smallest of the islands by far. Admiralty Island was next and it was over 50 miles long. We were the closest population of humans to them, and I did not doubt that if left unchecked the island monsters would become a huge threat to us.

    Onida said, ¡°We will have to start getting some forts built in some of those small towns and invest in a portal system. These islands will provide us with a large area to train up our people. No one on this planet will ever know what we are doing out here building up an army.¡±

    I said, ¡°You sound like you are having fun, how are you doing with all of this?¡±Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

    She said, ¡°You don''t know my entire story, but I was a slave even though I come from a royal family. I was handed over with no choice or say in what I was doing.¡±

    I cut her off. ¡°How royal of a family?¡±

    She said, ¡°Cousins, and I¡¯m way down the line. We are used as fodder to make the families behave. Being bonded to you gave me a certain freedom that I wouldn''t achieve on my own for many years. The Duchess can''t kill me for fear of giving an excuse for war, and my extended relatives have probably just written me off, I am sure. I can do what I want to when I want to now, It is... Empowering. Being close with all of you humans is so liberating... Your emotions are on constant display. It is so very different than where I come from, I am starting to like it.¡± She had an evil grin on her face as she said the last part.

    I said, ¡°I am glad you are enjoying yourself, Now¡­ I want to put your scouting expertise to good use. Start studying the maps of the islands in say... A 50 miles radius of us and figure out the best places to scatter forts. That will be a good start. We can lay down some sensors and Kelli can keep an eye on the situation. Now let''s take a look at our waterways.¡±

    The first thing we did was fix up the Aurora Harbor up by the North border and then we rebuilt the Juneau Harbor where the Nat Geo boat was. Onida picked out two 30 foot armored U.S. Navy Mark VI patrol boats that she said would be perfect for sticking close to the islands. We were about to open the maps up when the inside of my head rang out ¡°HELP, NEED HELP BROWNBEAR!¡±

    It was Yepa.

    The call in my mind was so frantic and loud that I fell off of my chair. I yelled to Kelli, ¡°WHERE IS YEPA?¡±

    Kelli said, ¡°She left 30 seconds after you entered the residence Chief, she passed the north border 4 minutes ago, so I can only assume she is at her normal hunting ground at the village of Lemon Creek on the way to the airport.¡±

    I started running to the front door, Onida beat me to it. We ported to the stables and were pushing 100 mph seconds later. Juneau to Lemon Creek was a 4-mile distance. We made it in 60 seconds...

    Lemon Creek was a little subdivision village all of 1.5 miles long with a couple of hundred houses. As we flew up the main street I could feel the presence of Yepa off to my left, she was furious and hurt. I put on more speed and had to backtrack when I felt her behind me. I turned down a street and found myself at a small Alaska Electric Light and Power station.

    I could hear the furious sounds of Cats fighting as I flew around the building. What I saw was confusing. Yepa was covered in blood fighting off a dozen Wolverines. A huge pile of already dead animals were scattered about. She was standing over what looked like a dead pack of Canadian Lynx.

    I was confused, why would she fight so hard just to protect her kill? It didn''t matter what was going on, the bond had me furious. I was quickly going into an all out rampage! I leaped off of my horse and midair I switched. ¡°STELLER SEA EAGLE!¡±

    I hit the pack of Wolverines at 60 mph scattering them (Slow and small ground rats!). I snatched up two in my talons and pushed myself up in the air in seconds. I flung the stupid beasts a hundred feet away and laughed as they splatted. I let out a huge cry and dive-bombed the fuckers again that had hurt my Leopard.

    I smashed through them again and switched, the primal need to ground and pound something taking over my body. ¡°SILVERBACK!¡±

    I turned into a 400-pound death machine with evil intentions and started grabbing them and bashing them into the ground into pieces and smashing and grinding and pummeling. (You DARE hurt my friend!)

    I picked one up by the throat and started biting its face off. I turned to grab another but only saw one Wolverine running away(GET BACK HERE COWARD!). ¡°DIRE BEAR!¡±

    I charged down the coward and did a swan dive onto his back. I picked him up by the neck and shook him until he snapped all over and shook him even more! Then I started to devour him.

    Behind me, I heard a cry of ¡°BOWEN STOP!¡± I turned and saw a woman shouting at me. (I wonder if she would taste good?) I charged her...

    I was just about to grab this yummy looking woman and eat her (She smells soo tasty) when vines sprang up and tangled my paws. They had big thorns in them that tickled my big fat belly. I giggled. I casually started tearing off the vines when Yepa walked up to me and bitch slapped me in the face. ¡°Bad Bear!, BAD!¡±

    I sat back on my haunches and looked at her in confusion. What did I do? The woman looked at me and started laughing and that broke the spell. I started coming back to myself.

    I switched back and looked at Onida. ¡°I''m so...¡±

    She stopped me. ¡°I know dummy, we are bonded remember? You had a big frenzy buff icon flashing over your head when you went into animal form. You just got lost in it for a minute, It happens. Don''t worry, your fat-assed bear couldn''t catch me in its wildest dreams. I have Spirit of the Wolf!¡±

    I looked over at Yepa who was standing over 3 BIG Canadian Lynx who were cleaning themselves.

    Onida said, ¡°I healed them when you were gorging yourself.¡±

    I looked at Yepa. ¡°So Yepa, what''s the deal here? Why were you fighting to the death over these guys?¡±

    In my mind, she said, ¡°Friends. We take home. New pack is good. We home for natives...¡±

    Onida said, ¡°Fucking amazing aren''t they?¡±

    I said. ¡°What? What''s the big deal?¡±

    She gently slapped me on the back of the head. ¡°Brownbear, these are native Lynx, not some System generated monsters. These beautiful beasts have survived and have been beating the System monsters all on their own...In the wild... It''s fucking impossible...This must be the toughest fucking family of Lynx in the entire country!¡±

    I walked over and looked down at them. I had seen a hundred Lynx in my lifetime, I had to admit these were special. They were bigger than any Lynx I could ever remember seeing and they were so silvery they were almost white. It appeared that this was a family of a Mother and her two Daughters. Daddy must not have made it. They all looked up at me with a shine in their eyes. I could feel the thanks with some hope pouring from them. I sighed. More children...

    I said to Yepa, ¡°These are wild animals Yepa. We can''t have them in the Village, they will hurt a child or something.¡±

    Yepa said, ¡°I tell them. You Chief. We take home. New pack good. Get treatment like Sammy like Carri. Get better. We bond them. It good. They level.¡±

    Onida was laughing behind me. She said, ¡°Yepa is smarter than you and knows more about the System than you too haha!

    I said, ¡°You could hear that?¡±

    The look she gave me made me feel like a 10 year old who couldn''t add 2 + 2. I replied to myself for her in an imitation of her voice. ¡°Of course I can hear her you idiot, I am bonded to her too!¡± She grinned at me.

    We took a slow pace back to The Village, pack of cats trailing us. The guards at the border were barely bothered by the four animals behind us. The new world was weird.

    I was explaining to Onida what was going through my head in animal form. All she kept repeating back at me with a grin on her face was, ¡°You wanted to eat me?¡±

    I looked over at her. ¡°Okay enough already, you said it three times now. So tell me, really? We can get these Lynx a treatment, bond them to someone and they can go out with us and level? The System can do that?¡±

    She said, ¡°Brownbear, You need to start understanding that the System can do ANYTHING for enough credits. I mean anything. It could empty your oceans right now and make your moon into a sea planet. It could port your entire earth to another Solar system. I know of a legendary Star Ship Captain who flies an entire planet around instead of a ship! No lie, look it up in the shop, or just ask the salesperson in there. Swapping an animal so it can bond? Child''s play. Hells, I bet a Master Beast Master class could do it, let alone the System.

    We got back to the stables and Yepa said, ¡°Kelli make pack den here... good.¡±

    I yelled up, ¡°Kelli, can you please make us a Lynx den, whatever that is, here in the back of the stables?¡±

    ¡°Yes, Chief. One Lynx den coming up!¡±

    A structure appeared in the back. A big pile of tree logs that seemed to randomly fall all over each other. ¡°Hmm, strange.¡± I said, ¡°Okay Yepa, anything else tonight you spoiled princess?¡± ¡°We take treatment now, need bond first thing morning...early, need quick.¡±

    I sighed and looked at Onida. She said, ¡°Annnd off to the store we go!¡±

    We got the cats a genome treatment. Mali didn''t blink an eye as if this kind of thing was normal. For all I knew it might be, I barely knew shit about the System.

    I inquired about the bonding process.

    Mali said, ¡°Usually you need to have the skill or perk, but for a little extra credit we can do a reversal and just put one charge of bonding on each of the cats and they can do the bond themselves.¡±

    I raised an eyebrow. ¡°How much ¡°little¡± extra credit?¡± Mali just smiled at me. Onida threw an elbow into my gut.

    All of the excitement for the night was over and we took the Lynx back to their new home.

    I said, ¡°Kelli, make this my war groups private stable, please. Put a force shield on it and activate it if anyone else tries to go in.¡±

    ¡°Yes Chief¡±

    I looked down at my companion. ¡°Well Yepa, I am going to get a shower and some sleep, You have fun here with your new pack.¡±

    I could hear the Leopard snort as she said, ¡°Yepa no Lynx, Yepa sleep in soft bed.¡±

    I climbed out of the shower, the steaming hot water had made me sleepy and my eyes were drooping. When I went into the dark bedroom I saw Onida was already in bed playing small spoon to Samantha who was wrapped around her from behind. I sighed and got into bed looking at my wife''s back and fell asleep.

 17

    I woke up as fresh as could be after only 5 hours. Everybody else was still snoring, so I sneaked away and made a pot of coffee. As it was brewing I went over to the windows and looked out upon The Village interior. I was a little shocked to see a bunch of people entering. When my coffee was ready I poured a cup and made my way downstairs. As I walked I studied the new faces. There was no mistaking our latest additions. These were all Indigenous of Pacific islands and their cousins. The huge Maori men of New Zealand were impossible to miss.

    I made my way to the main entrance and found the man who seemed in charge. A large Maori man with a huge smile on his face greeted me.

    ¡°Chief of all Chiefs, I am Chief Kai Kane, it is a pleasure to meet you.¡±

    I shook his hand and said, ¡°Chief Kai, this is surprising, I wasn''t expecting Natives from far away isles.¡±

    He had a look of relief on his face and said, ¡°Thank the Gods we had a place to fall back on. Most of the islands were hit very hard, not many of us left. There are about 3,000 of my people from New Zealand here, but you have Natives from all over the place. Tongans, Samoans, Tahitians, Polynesians, you name it we have some of them.¡±

    I said, ¡°No one from Australia?¡±

    He shook his head, ¡°I have a dozen Aboriginal that came with me from my homeland. They were trapped in my country when this all happened and were forced to come with us, but from what they tell me their people will not be leaving Australia. We were told, however, to get a move on it because Natives from Hawaii were coming in right on our tail. I would expect a large number of them. If the rumors are true Hawaii has been all but taken over!¡±

    I said, ¡°Okay, I am going to go look into that. Hey, by the way, I have a war buff for the tribe that I can use during battle. It must be cast during a tribal war chant. Isn''t it the Maori People that specialize in Hakas? Think you can have someone come up with something simple that we can translate into English and teach all of the People?¡±

    He smiled. ¡°It would be my pleasure. We can have a waiata made up in no time at all.¡±

    I clapped him on the shoulder. ¡°Good man, settle your people in. Make yourselves at home. I am sure we will be seeing each other around The Village.¡±

    I took a walk out to where the intake of people was. There was a distinct difference to the look of the people I was seeing. The first thing that came to my mind was, ¡°These folks are going to need to become acclimated to the temperature real quick and we are going to need a lot of new warm clothing!¡±

    I was people watching when I started to see bright Aloha shirts coming into the view. I walked down to them and a Hawaiian couple smiled at me. ¡°You are sipping a Kona coffee aren''t you? I can make that smell out from here.¡±

    I nodded. ¡°Best coffee on the planet, wouldn''t drink anything else!¡±

    He held out his hand. ¡°Kala Alexander, nice to meet you. We lived right by Mauna Loa on the Big Island.¡±

    I smiled, ¡°Well I am happy to say that the shop here sells it, so we will never run out, but this entire city is surrounded by greenhouses if you would like to take a shot at farming it?¡±

    Kala looked at his wife. ¡°Hmm something to think about.¡±

    ¡°Is there some kind of Chief that came in with you? I kind of run this place and want to meet him.¡±

    Kala shook his head. ¡°Ack! You are the big Chief! Sorry I didn¡¯t recognize you. We didn''t really have a Chief, per se, we did bring the Governor of Hawaii with us, I guess he is in charge of us. Kala pointed out the direction of the Governor and I shook his hand, said goodbye and headed that way.

    I found Governor Daniel and had a brief chat. He told me he was assigned to sit at the Chief''s table and after a very brief conversation I headed into the town. I had seen a bunch of groups of hunters going down that way and wanted to see what was going on.

    The city was a hive of activity. Groups of hunters from The Village were meeting up with men from the city by the inn and were forming groups. An android was standing outside and talking to one group at a time. I walked up to it and said, ¡°Kelli, what is going on?¡±This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

    It said, ¡°I am coordinating areas for different groups of hunters to go to so we don''t have overlap with groups already out there Chief.¡±

    I said, ¡°Huh, that''s a good idea, we should build a big hunter''s hall or something so that we have an official meeting place for this rather than outside of the Inn.¡±

    The android said, ¡°I forecast most of our hunters will be heading south onto the islands in the future. A building down by the cruise ship area would be optimal.¡±

    I nodded, ¡°Yes, makes sense. I will have a new building put up by tomorrow. Good work Kelli!¡±

    The sun was rapidly rising in the morning sky, so I headed back to The Village to get ready to meet my group. As I made my way to the central tree I noticed a large group of people sitting in an open space among the trees. There had to be a couple hundred of them and in the center sitting cross-legged was a familiar looking spirit.

    I went over near the group and as I got close I could smell the familiar scent of a certain herb my companion liked to smoke. Before I could say anything Tor turned to me and said ¡°Good morning Chief, would you like to join our smoke in?¡±

    I said, ¡°Tor what is going on here? Are all of these warriors high right now?¡±

    st</sup> century and bud is perfectly legal now!¡±

    I looked at the crowd and they were all meditating not even noticing I was there. ¡°Well, yes, I know it''s legal, but what are they doing?¡±

    Tor gave me a goofy smile. ¡°These are all people who need to learn mana manipulation. Opening their third eyes makes this a lot easier. I''m not just introducing bad habits here Chief. I am working, imparting valuable skills here. Don''t you have anything better to do? I am a little busy right now.¡±

    I made my way up to my office and sat down at the city management area and pulled up the map. I looked down by where the Nat Geo ship was docked and saw the space where our old Juneau public library used to sit. I made a big longhouse in the same style as the inn and named it Hunters Hall.

    I called out to Kelli, ¡°Heya Kelli, I built a hunters hall down by the docks to the south. Can you make a general public announcement and have a couple droids installed there and work out a system please?¡±

    Kelli responded, ¡°On it Chief. I am going to need you, Sam, and Onida to start coming up with some quests. We can put them on big boards by the entrance to the hall.¡±

    I said, ¡°We can make quests!?¡±

    She replied, ¡°Oh yeah, The ruling family can make all kinds of quests. Bounties, dungeon clears, ingredient hunts, scouting trips, etc. It is one of the many things that our tax pays out to. I also wanted to tell you that our city dungeon is now opened for business!¡±

    I said, ¡°All right Kelli, sheesh just add another thing to my honey dew list. Anything else of note that you want to tell me before I head out?¡±

    She said, ¡°There is one thing Chief, there is a group of five people that are non-local out by the airport. They met up with one of our hunting parties a few minutes ago. They have a bunch of animal furs that they want to trade. When they were told about the oath to enter the city they did not seem very enthused. I propose we build a couple little trading posts by our border entrances. If someone wants to trade with us but will not take the oath, we will have facilities to accommodate this.¡±

    I said, ¡°Sounds good to me Kelli, make it happen. See if we have some people with trading skills to work the buildings.¡±

    Kelli said, ¡°On it Chief.¡±

    Onida entered the office looking ready to go. She was in armor and wore a few weapons.

    I said, ¡°Kelli can you contact my party and tell them we are headed down to the cruise ship?¡± I looked over at Onida. ¡°Been a busy morning. I built a hunters hall, a couple of trading posts, the city dungeon is opened, and we have our first visitors incoming from the airport area.¡±

    She thought for a second and said, ¡°We should go meet them. They might have some information that could be useful.¡±

    It was still very early morning and we had a little time to spare so I agreed. ¡°Let''s get out there fast then, I want to completely clear that dungeon today. See about the possibility of making that a full time rotating dungeon. We have a long list of things we need to do.¡±

    We portaled to the stables and were out riding in minutes. As we came to the Twin Lakes area a couple of miles from town we ran into the party being guided by a couple of our hunters. There were five of them. Three men, a woman, and a teenage girl. They looked haggard and beat up.

    We pulled up to them and I said, ¡°Hello, I am Chief Blackbeard, can you tell me where you came from and what your intentions are?¡±

    A weary man stepped forward. His clothes were torn up and he was carrying a handmade spear. ¡°Hi, my name is Josh. This is my wife Sunny and our daughter Star. We had been on an adventure vacation out of Juneau. We were with a large group camping out by the Mendenhall Glacier. We are all that is left...¡±

    I said, ¡°I am sorry to hear that, we have lost over 90% of our population in Juneau. It is a safe zone now with no monsters spawning inside of it''s limits, but if you intend on staying you must take an oath of confidentiality or you will be turned away.¡±

    Josh said, ¡°I''ll be truthful with you Chief. We are very weary of taking an oath to anyone, but we are on our last legs. We will take your oath.¡±

    I smiled at the man. ¡°I am glad to hear that Josh. The city is only two miles away, we will escort you in.¡±

    The entire group looked like they had hope for the first time in a long while. I gave my horse over to the mother and daughter and walked besides them. ¡°Let''s get you folks to safety. Welcome to my city.¡±

    On the way back to the town Josh told me that the group had started out as fifty people with a pair of guides. Monsters started coming out of the lake and had killed ten people before anyone even knew what was going on. Their two guides had the entire group turtle up and try to figure out what was happening. They originally had a lot of guns and ammo in the tough company of adventures, but eventually they started to run out. By the time that they had started the five mile trek back to the airport almost everyone had been killed off. The two guides had felt guilty for not being able to get everyone out alive and had sacrificed themselves in the end holding off a pack of cats so Josh and his family could run away. A group of hunters from the Village had found them and escorted them back to where Blackbear had found them.

    Blackbear took their oath, led them to the inn, and deposited them with Kelli until they figured out what to do with them. The family was so shell-shocked that they barely noticed what the city had become. Onida and Blackbear mounted up and headed down to the cruise ship dungeon.

    It was time to go to war...

 18

    Kelli, can you please contact Chief Kai? Ask him to bring the warriors for the Haka down to the cruise ship. Tell my war party and wife and daughters to come down as well.¡±

    Blackbear and Onida started slowly heading down the road to the ship / dungeon. Warriors on foot were jogging past them and glancing up at the Chief as they passed. Some would occasionally raise a weapon and whoop as the went past. Onida saw this and said to Blackbear, ¡°We should hold back about fifty yards from the form up location until all of the warriors pass us and then make an entrance.¡±

    Blackbear eyed the men running past and noticed the light in their eyes as they passed him, their new Chief. He was giving them inspiration it seemed. ¡°Good idea. It seems like we are firing them up just from being here.¡±

    They went down the road about a half mile and stopped pulling off to the side. Blackbear pulled out his all-weapon as a bow and held it. Any warrior who yelped at him as they passed Blackbear would raise the bow and whoop back. The grins he was getting in response made him smile. The line was starting to thin out and he saw his wife and daughters coming.

    Sam had a large Lynx padding next to her. Kelli had a smaller one right behind her. Hidden behind them was Carri with hers. Blackbear looked over at Onida and raised an eyebrow. She shrugged. ¡°I didn¡¯t see that coming.¡± He dismounted and waited for Sam to reach him.

    I see you have a couple of new pets with you?

    Sam smiled. ¡°When we came down to The Village they were sitting at the elevator doors waiting for us. Yepa told us what to do. Not pets, companions.

    Kelli had kneeled down and was hugging hers. ¡°Not companions, sisters.¡±

    OK ladies thank you for coming. I am going to have the war haka chanted for the first time and I am going to try my Chief¡¯s buff War Cry. I wanted you ladies to be by my side the first time I try it.¡±

    Jax and Jane joined them and Smitty towered over them from behind. He was smiling from ear to ear. Yepa phased into existence and rubbed her face against his leg. ¡°Happy, pack all here and safe.¡±

    OK, we¡¯re all here. Let¡¯s do this.¡± Blackbear led them slowly past the warriors, not saying anything but smiling and nodding at the men as he passed them. He could feel the energy coming off of the crowd. Not nervous, rather confident and eager. As he reached the front he counted about four-hundred men. Chiefs Chu and Kai were waiting for them.

    Blackbear approached Chief Chu and was invited into a raid party. He joined it and saw that it was already formed in eleven parties of twenty warriors each. He nodded and turned to Chief Kai. ¡°Is the Haka prepared?

    Kai nodded. ¡°It¡¯s a very basic one at this point and we may work on it some more, but it will do.¡±

    Blackbear turned to the warriors. ¡°Our object today is to defeat the dungeon and remove the mermen after that. No one dies and no mercy will be given, those are our rules of engagement today!¡± The warriors all raised their weapons and started cheering.

    Blackbear held up his hand and waited for silence.

    I¡¯m going to be casting the Chief¡¯s War Cry buff for the first time today. It needs to be cast during a Haka, is everyone aware of this?¡±

    Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

    Chief Kai said next to him, ¡°They all know and will all be joining in today.¡±

    Blackbear nodded. ¡°Then let it begin.¡±

    A group of seven men and three women stepped forward. They were dressed in black leathers with white stitching all over it. They had their faces painted in white with black shadow paint making them look like skeletal demons. They had red around their eyes.

    They took position facing the crowd and started crouching and stalking about, staring at the warriors and growling. Some made feints with weapons as if they were going to attack. A huge man started beating his chest and thrusting his arms out and shouting as if challenging someone. A woman let out a shriek and shook her head thrusting her tongue out. Someone started to beat on a hand drum and was joined by three others doing the same. The atmosphere started to change. The warriors were starting to sway.

    Blackbear could swear it was getting dimmer around his war band. The air felt like it was starting to stir. The warriors and the members performing the Haka were staring at each other with looks of malevolence like they were about to fight. They were pumping up one another. The huge warrior stepped forward and raised his hand to the sky. He called out:

    PREPARE YOURSELVES!¡±

    All four hundred of the warriors screamed back at him.

    PREPARE YOURSELVES!¡±

    The ten warriors stepped next to him and they all started calling the Haka and the warriors shouted back every line that they called out.

    Prepare yourselves

    The time has come

    The People show

    Behind the sun!

    The ground felt like it was shaking from the volume.

    Our Chief will lead

    You need to fear

    Here comes the wrath

    From Chief Blackbear!

    Blackbear could feel a heat coming off of all the bodies.

    We CRUSH! We POUND!

    We SLASH! We TEAR!

    Leave broken bodies

    Have no fear!

    The air was tingling with electricity from the magic.

    Prepare yourselves!

    The time has come!

    When moon has shown

    You will be done!

    All four-hundred warriors went into a frenzy as if possessed. Blackbear cast the buff and a dark aura shot out of him in a three-hundred and sixty degree circle passing thru everyone. The men went wilder if that was even possible. Blackbear looked back at his party. They were all going crazy as well, arms raised and screaming at the sky. Only Sam stood still and as he made eye contact with her she raised her left eyebrow and slowly shook her head at him as if to ask ¡°What the hell have you become?¡±

    He grinned and shrugged his shoulders at her. He said, ¡°I know right? I¡¯m just playing my part here.¡± An icon was flashing in his interface. He focused on it.

    War Cry: Duration 1 hour +25% base damage +25% attack speed. Bonus Haka Inspiration: +25% Defense.

    He turned to Chu. ¡°We are going to take the remaining warriors below and try to find the boss monster and kill it. If I have my way we won¡¯t destroy the ship. I would like to have this as another dungeon for the warriors to level at. With this place, the city dungeon, and the airport we will be spoiled with a variety of different dungeon styles. After these we can start with an outpost by the park I came from and start on the dungeons there.¡±

    Blackbear walked back to his personal party. ¡°OK guys here¡¯s the deal. We are going to be the lead team into the bowels of the ship. I would like Sam and the girls to stay here with a dozen warriors to clean up whatever trickles outside. I¡¯ll leave Yepa here with you. Just use your bows and stay ranged. Being in this raid will give you a nice chunk of xp.¡±

    He walked over and kissed Sam on the cheek. ¡°I know I sprung this on you with no clue, but I just thought of it this morning. You need some experience and between the girls, the warriors, and the companions nothing should get close to you.¡±

    She looked up and nodded. She quietly said, ¡°OK, but don¡¯t do anything heroic today Bowen!¡±

    He squeezed her shoulders. ¡°I won¡¯t, I promise. I have Onida, Jane, and Smitty looking after me don¡¯t forget.¡±

    Jax piped up, ¡°Hey, what am I chopped liver?¡±

    Brownbear smiled. ¡°I¡¯m not mentioning you right now because you are already in trouble with Samantha for the ridiculously pretty receptionist you picked out for our house!¡±

    Jax stared at him and looked at Sam mouth opening and closing like a goldfish.

    Blackbear spoke before Jax could say anything else. ¡°Let¡¯s do this people. We have a lot to accomplish at the moment. I want to knock out this dungeon today and start some expeditions to the outer islands. Let¡¯s go!¡±

    He nodded at Chief Chu and he turned to the warriors. ¡°MOVE OUT!¡±

 19

    The warriors started jogging at the cruise ship. Kai and his men were already inside and some fresh monsters were already starting to flow out again. Blackbear noticed new cracks along the bottom of the hull where monsters could easily exit from. They had several holes to leave the ship now. Arrows and ranged magic flashed at the mutants.

    They entered the ship with warriors equipped with shields leading the way. The tanks shouted out constant taunts going into full defensive mode while groups of bowmen and shaman followed close behind unleashing ranged damage. The war band entered the massive welcoming lobby, but instead of heading up as usual they took a utility ramp in the far left corner downward.

    The massive ship had several utility decks below that were rarely seen by the public and they were different than the rest of the ships other levels. The lowest deck had the engines and fuel tanks. The rest were used for storage, laundry, and cleaning, food prep, and the employee housing. The crews living quarters was the first level down. Although the employee living level had been cleared, the ship had had a crew of over a thousand, and every room needed to be rechecked. The war band spread out into teams and quickly started to go through the rooms finding only a few monsters.

    After an hour of clearing they were ready to hit a deck below that hadn¡¯t been cleared yet. This was the storage and laundry deck and it looked like a massive warehouse filled with thousands of stacks of luggage on each far end.

    Onida put a hand on Blackbear¡¯s arm. ¡°My tracking shows hundreds of creatures in front of us.¡±

    He nodded at her. ¡°OK have the Chief spread the men out in groups to the right and left all the way to the edged of each side and we will walk this deck out in a fire line.¡± She nodded and left to give the orders.

    Blackbear turned to Jax. ¡°It¡¯s time to start your chanting Jax. Weapons ready for the rest of you. It¡¯s about to get ugly down here.¡± Blackbear pulled the all-weapon out in bow form and slowly started stalking forward. Jax started to murmur out a chant. Smitty quietly growled as his form grew a foot taller. Yepa snarled and went invisible.

    A quick started cry from Blackbear¡¯s left showed a warrior being dragged down from four mutant hyena that leaped out from behind a stack of suitcases and then all hell broke loose!

    A four foot tall mongoose like creature jumped at Blackbear from a top of a stack of suitcases and was about to land on his head when Yepa materialized mid-air and intercepted it. They landed and twisted on the floor going for each others necks when Jane dashed forward transformed into a Valkyrie.

    She stood a bit over six foot tall and was dressed in a form fitted one-piece black body armor with dimly shining blue light that streaked on and off. Her skin had changed to a light gray color with veins visible on her face. Her eyes were shining a vivid blue. She was armed with two very sharp looking short swords.

    She pointed her left sword at the creature and a barely visible gray bolt of power shot at the monster. It froze the beast for a second and that was all she needed as she drove her right sword into the body, lifting it into the air and slamming it in the floor twisting the blade until it stopped moving.

    Jax grinned and looked at Blackbear. ¡°Oh man, is it wrong that that turned me on so much? Heads up! Incoming!¡± Jax lifted his Beam rifle and started firing at a giant black goose that was flying in at them. Blackbear raised his bow and shot a fire bolt that tore through the animals mid section.

    Monsters of all sizes and variations were now engaging the war band all over the deck. Blackbear¡¯s party formed a ragged vee and started unleashing ranged attacks into the throng. Onida had formed a line of twisting thorned ivy about ten feet in front of them. Smitty was using a crossbow that fired silent blobs of blue energy. Jane shot waves of gray bolts into the mobs. Blackbear switched up and started using ice bolts that slowed the monsters to a crawl.

    His personal war band was a wrecking crew, tearing through the pack of monstrosities, but for every single one that they took out, another would pop out from behind the stacks and join the fight. They slowly move forward step by step, never letting up on their concentrated firing, pushing the pack back step by step. Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

    Most of the animals they fought were native Earth creatures all be it larger varieties and weird mixes of species. A wolf creature with the head of a frog was having its throat torn out by Yepa while a giant squirrel with a kangaroo body was being slashed open by Jane and her whirling twin swords. A Komodo dragon with a lion¡¯s head was lifted and tossed twenty feet away by Smitty smashing it into a pack of four foot tall rabbits with saber teeth.

    They were starting to enter a new part of the deck. It was a huge open area filled with giant laundry machines. The fronts of the machines were all open and Blackbear saw a giant chipmunk with blades instead of front arms pop out of one.

    This is a monster factory!¡± He called out. ¡°Let¡¯s move to that closest one to our right.¡±

    The fight was turning into an all out melee. Blackbear turned his weapon into a staff and started swatting creatures away like a golfer. Smitty had equipped a massive sledge hammer and was crushing monsters three at a time. Onida started casting thorned ivy all around them, pinning mobs to the ground. Jane was a whirling dervish of blades spinning through packs of beasts. Jax stood in the center of them chanting out a regen song that healed minor cuts.

    As they neared the first machine Blackbear called out, ¡°Smitty try using that hammer on the washer!¡± Smitty took a running start and lifted the hammer over his head smashing down with all of his strength on the top of it. A sound like a huge gong went off as Smitty crushed through half of the machine with one swing and then for a few seconds the room went much quieter. All of the monsters seemed to stop and turn towards them.

    Oh shit.¡± Jax quietly muttered to the party. ¡°Um Bear? You got anything up your sleeve real quick like? I think we are about to get swarmed!¡±

    The room full of monsters turned as one and started to move for his party. Blackbear quickly scanned his mind for the right animal and shouted out ¡°WHITE RHINO!¡±

    Blackbear immediately changed forms into an apex form of the White Rhino weighing over seven thousand pounds! (IT¡¯S CLOBBERING TIME!) ¡°Wait, how does my Rhino know that phrase? Oh nevermind.¡± Rhinos can reach a speed of thirty-five m.p.h., what most people don¡¯t know is that they can reach that top speed in seconds on a charge. (Crush, Smash, Squash, Mash!) Blackbear tore into the crowd! His hoofs liquefied anything he stepped on. His horn tossed the larger monsters like rag dolls! (HAR HAR! Liddle baby monsters try to run BUT I AM TOO FAST!)

    Blackbear reached the other side of the room in seconds leaving a trail of dead mangled bodies behind him. He crashed into a couple of industrial sized dryers on the far side of the room pulverizing them. (Oops, I think I broked that! HAHA!)

    The destruction of the machined forced the crowd of monsters to turn back and look at him. They seemed reluctant to attack him though. (Scaredy cats!) He charged back into the crowd, pulverizing everything in his way. Smitty took this lull in the fight and started bashing in machines while the rest of his crew fired ranged damage into the distracted creatures.

    The rest of the warriors closed in and started adding in their fire power. Back and forth the Rhino crushed and within five minutes the horde was defeated. Blackbear¡¯s Rhino Stomped his hoof down in victory and let out a howl that sounded like a cross between a broken bugle and a lion¡¯s roar. (I master of ALL!) Blackbear switched back to his human form and dropped to a knee exhausted. The Rhino form had quickly sapped him of energy, something to remember.

    He looked up and could see Smitty pointing at something at the other end of the room. Blackbear glanced over and saw a huge machine with tubes running out of it up into the ceiling. ¡°What is that thing?¡± He called out.

    Onida jogged over to him. ¡°Are you alright? Did you take much damage?¡±

    Blackbear looked up and shook his head. ¡°Not much, just some scrapes and bruises. I was moving too fast for them to really get a good shot at me. What is that huge machine?¡±

    Onida chuckled, ¡°Smitty said it¡¯s the main ice machine for this ship. The tubes carry ice all over the place. What I call it though is the boss of this place. If we can disable it without totally destroying it, it will heal over time and make this place into a proper dungeon!¡±

    Blackbear nodded and got up to cautiously move to the machine. The lid popped open and three Grease Monkeys popped out. Smitty raised his hammer, but Blackbear held out a hand stopping him. ¡°Let¡¯s see what happens here.¡±

    The Grease Monkeys loped over to the closest dryer and started to repair it, ignoring all of the warriors. Blackbear laughed. ¡°OK you guys, take those three out. It seems that the horde was the boss¡¯s only defense. Lets bust that up first and then we will clear out the last two decks below. Chief, leave one group here in case anymore repair monsters show.¡±

    The two decks below held an assortment of monsters, but the war band slowly and safely made its way through systematically destroying everything in its path. In the end Chief Kai came to Blackbear. ¡°We lost 15 warriors in the battle.¡±

    Blackbear looked over in slight shock. ¡°I didn¡¯t know that we had lost a single man! How did this happen?¡±

    The Chief lowered his head. ¡°I didn¡¯t want to distract you. It was a battle against hundreds of monsters, It was bound to happen. We can¡¯t save them all. I¡¯m no General Bear...¡±

    Blackbear lowered his head. ¡°I¡¯m just a park ranger man. I shouldn¡¯t be responsible for all of these warriors. What the hell were The People thinking giving me this position?¡±

    Kai nodded in sympathy. ¡°I feel the same... Lets head up to Chu and see if we can stop any more from dying.¡±

    Blackbear wiped the moisture from his eyes and stood up straight. ¡°You¡¯re right, let¡¯s go and save some of our brothers.¡±

 20

    As they made the climb up the series of decks Blackbear could feel his dread slowly starting to rise as he imagined what he might find when he caught up to the war band.

    Jax could sense his friends mood and caught up to him and whispered, ¡°Bear, are you OK bud? You seem a little distracted.¡±

    Blackbear rolled his shoulders to try and release some tension. ¡°Did you know 15 of our men died with us today Jax? No, make that 15 of MY men. They came here because of ME, not us. I asked them to come help clear the dungeon and now their wives no longer have a husband. Now their children no longer have a dad.¡±

    Jax grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around. ¡°You can¡¯t think that way brother. It wasn¡¯t you that changed this world into this shitty apocalypse. Those wives and children however, they have a safe zone for some peace of mind. That IS because of you. You didn¡¯t force anyone to come today. Hell, we had to turn down thousands of volunteers.¡±

    ¡°I know that Jax, but...¡±

    Jax started to scowl actually getting a little angry now. ¡°No buts man! We are building an army in case you have forgotten! Do you think people don¡¯t die when they go to war? Every single man here knew what was happening when they accepted the invitation to come. All we can do is help to prepare them and keep as many alive as possible. Now enough of this looking back over your shoulder and look ahead to see what we can do to help!¡±

    Blackbear tried to straighten his shoulders a bit thinking that he didn¡¯t want the warriors to see him so distraught. ¡°Of course you¡¯re right Jax. I realize everything that you have said is right. I just can¡¯t help thinking that I am not the right man to actually lead all of this. I am going to have to find us a group of real soldiers and put them in charge of the war bands. I will come along for the ride with the War Chief buffs and play the role of leader.¡±

    Jax shook his head in disagreement. ¡°No man is the right person to lead us through this shit storm because it has never happened before Bear. We will have to play it by ear and just make the best of it. Just know we are here for you bro.¡±

    Jax pulled a strange looking object from his inventory and showed it to Blackbear. ¡°We took in a ton of loot down in the hull. Most of it we gave to the Chief to hand out to the men as he saw fit. This thing is different. Onida says it¡¯s so rare that she has never seen anything like it. Came off of the boss.¡±

    Blackbear took the artifact into his hand. It was the size of an apple and shaped like a roundish pyramid. A twisted platinum chain was attached to it. It had a circle inset in the middle of it that was swirling with a dark silver mist. When he focused on it he saw:

    Call of the Void

    Summon a horde of beasts to do your bidding.

    Duration and quantity directly tied to the amount

    of total willpower attributed to your party or raid.

    Usable once every 168 Earth hours.

    Jax nodded. ¡°I get the feeling I will end up with a lot of little trinkets. I have a lot of downtime being ranged damage compared to you guys. Oh, one other thing. Jane want me to marry her. I thought that with you being War Chief and all you might possibly conduct the ceremony?¡±

    Jax had an embarrassed look on his face as he replied. ¡°Well, it seems that Jane has been receptive to my advances for quite a while now. I just hadn¡¯t been umm¡­ aggressive enough for her. She has been waiting for me to have the guts to actually date her for over a year. In her own words, ¡°You haven¡¯t had enough balls to take me on until the apocalypse happened!¡±Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

    Blackbear laughed. ¡°Did you ask her why she never told you this over the last year?¡±

    th</sup> level they could hear fighting taking place at the other end from where they were located. Lots of warriors were all over the place and one filled them in on the current situation.

    th</sup>. That deck is half open with a olympic size swimming pool that has been turned into an Octo habitat and there are a LOT of them there. This floor is almost wrapped up. There is a giant gym at the other end that they barricaded.¡±

    Bear thanked the man and turned to his crew. ¡°Let¡¯s help clear this deck and take the rest of the men up on the other side. We may be able to flank or pinch them, who knows. I¡¯d rather not have fighting behind my back though.¡± He turned and started jogging towards the fight.

    The warrior didn¡¯t even glance back and said, ¡°I¡¯m a little busy right now if you can¡¯t tell. Come back in thirty and I might have a better idea of how long this will take to clear.¡±

    Blackbear looked back at Jax who raised his eyebrows and nodded as if to let Bear know that he liked this guy. ¡°I¡¯d like to know what¡¯s going on right now if you don¡¯t mind...¡±

    The man turned and got a look at Blackbear. He had a momentary look of shock as he noticed who he was speaking to, but shrugged it off quickly and grimaced at Blackbear. ¡°Oh, sorry about that Chief. I didn¡¯t know that you had gotten up here.¡±

    Bear raised an eyebrow. ¡°Delta Force? Wow I¡¯m impressed. Anymore of you guys here?¡±

    barely lost anyone. I think about 25,000 of us are coming here.¡± He smiled. The Chippewa family is quite large and healthy!¡±

    Blackbear shook his hand noticing the man¡¯s hand engulfed his. The guy had at least three inches and 40 pounds on him. ¡°Well Sarge I cannot tell you how happy I am to meet you. When we clear this up I want to have a serious one on one with you. I am going to need to grab every soldier I can to get this war band organized. Now can you tell me what is going on at the moment?¡±

    ¡°Well, we could mount a full frontal attack. We would lose men that way, however, and I do not want to be in charge of that happening!¡±

    ten super stun of the sonic/light variety. ¡°Think you might be able to come up with a plan with forty grenades?¡±

    Bernard had an evil grin on his face as he said, ¡°We might be able to soften them up a bit with those...¡±

    skirmish just like this. They marked out the areas where the grenades where to be thrown. Five stun grenades would be lobbed first followed by five frags and then five blast. Rinse and repeat and then the charge was on. Bear¡¯s party and Bernard¡¯s would be in the front.

    He cast the buff and was able to see it settle over the warriors all crowded around him. He nodded to Bernard who silently tapped the shoulder of the man in front of him who stood with five men and they all lobbed grenades into their targeted areas and the chaos of war started.

    next round was offensive blast grenades and they somehow seemed even louder.

    Blackbear took a peak after the last round and held a fist up calling out, ¡°HOLD!¡±

    The Octos never had a chance to recover and were quickly put down...

 21

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

 22

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

 23

    Zog packed three little red wagons with different plants and convinced Smitty to pull them on a harness. ¡°These plants are semi sentient and will shepherd and encourage growth like crazy in your greenhouses. I also have some plants you won¡¯t find on this planet and they will be real money makers for you. I¡¯m only giving these to you for the promise of a boat I can use Bear. Trust me when I say you are getting the better end of this deal.¡±

    Blackbear nodded. ¡°You don¡¯t have to gift us anything Zog. I would lend you a boat no matter what. Not that I¡¯m going to turn down a money maker. You¡¯re also going to be given housing. The city looks a bit...different than you would remember it.¡±

    Jax laughed ¡°Just a tiny bit different.¡±

    Zog stepped out looking left and right giving a full sweep of the visible perimeter. ¡°Looks clear Bear. We better hustle on out of here before we get caught up in a wave of nasties.¡±

    Blackbear glanced over at him. ¡°Wave of nasties?¡±

    Zog nodded. ¡°Ya man we get wave after wave of different types of monsters that come here just about every day. Lately we have been getting these Walrus type of creature that has fangs the size of your arm on them. They have hardened fins on the bottom of their bodies that they use to skate across snow and ice. They weigh a couple of tons apiece I¡¯d recon, but they are fast and slick as an otter.¡±

    He chuckled, ¡°Not that it helps em any here. I have a particular nasty strain of barbed, poison, ivy that¡¯s as strong as steel cable!¡±

    Blackbear looked out into the distance. ¡°I see. How often does this occur Zog? The whole reason we are out here is to look into these hordes.¡±

    Zog pointed to the southwest. The couple I mentioned earlier came from that direction. It¡¯s mostly flat down that way. They said that they could see pretty far so they knew when to make a break for it from their cave. They said the waves always came from that a ways. It happens pretty regularly, I¡¯d say every two or three days. If you don¡¯t mind I¡¯d rather not go with you all on your inspection. I¡¯m pretty helpless without my jungle to protect me. Be a lot quicker if you took your boat down around the island that ways anyway.¡±

    Bear nodded. ¡°Yeah we will take you back to The Village and head further south on the boat tomorrow. I have so much on my plate that it won¡¯t hurt me to spend some time actually in the city.¡±

    As they made their way back to the boat Zog stopped outside of the circle and held up a hand. He whistled and once again the protective jungle sprang out of the ground. He whistled a second time and it grew ever larger with twenty foot trees popping up spaced out every thirty feet. Zog laughed as if he had heard an inside joke. ¡°I¡¯d like to see them get through that. Explosive pod shooting trees. A recent development breakthrough I made!¡±

    He turned back to the team. ¡°OK I¡¯m all set. I¡¯ll hang with Bigfoot and the plants if you don¡¯t mind. If we get attacked I¡¯ll ask you to stay away from me in about a ten foot circle cause I¡¯ll be poppin a mini grove for protection.¡±

    The group started to head back to the boat and as soon as they were a fair distance from the house a weird warbling howl could be heard. Bear looked about to see where the sound was coming from, but it sounded like it was coming from everywhere. He noticed that Zog was looking down at the ground avoiding his gaze and muttering to himself.

    Um Zog, is there something you should be telling us?¡±

    Zog dramatically threw his hands in the air and clenched his fists. ¡°Oh for fucks sake! These dog brains never stop. They try to raid my house every week and I have to keep killing them even if it kills me to do it.¡±

    Blackbear raised an eyebrow. ¡°Explain and be quick!¡±

    Zog pulled a bow from a bag and started fulling around with a plant. ¡°I¡¯ll handle this, you guys just stay back and try not to make an enemy here. This is like a wolfman race if they were just dumb dogs. They have the intellect of a ten year old and just can¡¯t take no for an answer.¡±

    Blackbear slowly stated to turn about seeing a pack of creatures slowly surrounding them. ¡°What¡¯s the issue?¡±

    Zog frowned and shrugged. ¡°I don¡¯t really know! One of the plants I grow drives these dumbasses crazy, but we can¡¯t figure out what it is. I let one of them into my house one time and he went beserk destroying half of my plants. The chief keeps insisting that I let them in so they can figure it out, but every time one even gets close to my door they go crazy.¡±This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

    Another weird howl pierces the air and a deep gravelly voice hows out one word. ¡°ZOGGGGGGG!¡±

    The group spins to the north as one to see a huge beast of an animal sprinting towards them. Everyone grips their weapons tighter and crouch to defend each other.

    ZOGGGGG!¡±

    Zog stepped out from the group and readied his bow attaching a small bud of some type to the end of an arrow. He puts it to the bow and pulls back. ¡°Rex if you don¡¯t stop I¡¯m gonna have to shoot you!¡±

    Jax whispers, ¡°Rex? What kind of name is that?¡±

    Zog smiles, ¡°I dunno his name, just that he is a very good boy. Hah! I don¡¯t know if they have names, but I recognize a couple of them so I call them Rex, Lassie, and Spot¡±

    A huge¡­ Dogman runs to them. He looks to be about seven foot tall from a distance. He switches back and forth from walking on two legs and back to all four. He looked like a human dog hybrid, but not quite. He has black fur and a weird half human half dog body. He has abs and a defined chest but also a tail. And paws. And a long dog dangler hanging free and proud. It¡¯s a weird mix that the human mind has trouble looking at.

    The dogman stopped about twenty yards from them and gets on all four paws. His tail starts wagging back and forth furiously. ¡°Zog cannot leave without giving us the treat. I have not tried to get in again. I am a good boy.¡±

    Zog sighed and lowered his bow. ¡°Rex I know you are a good boy! But I have told you over and over I can¡¯t let you into the house. I was cleaning that explosive diarrhea for weeks!¡±

    The Dogman slowly started walking to them ignoring everyone but Zog. ¡°We no need in house. I smell plant here now!¡±

    Zog raises an eyebrow, ¡°Oh really? He turned to Blackbear. ¡°If you will indulge me for two minutes Bear this will take care of a problem that has been bugging me for a while. He walks over to the three wagons. ¡°Rex come here, but not too close.¡±

    The Dogman walked closer to the group. Instantly his tongue plopped out of his mouth practically hitting the ground. Drool started flowing. He stretched out his entire body close to the ground and his ass and backside started waving back and fourth.

    Jane started laughing and covered her mouth. ¡°I¡¯m sorry, but my old lab used to do the same thing when I got her favorite tennis ball out.¡±

    Zog pointed to the first wagon. ¡°Rex try to pay attention...Is it in that one?¡±

    Rex raises his nose to the air and takes a big sniff. ¡°Nopes, It¡¯s in the next! Pleasssssssseee get it, please please!

    Zog pulls the second wagon out a bit further rubbing his head in confusion. ¡°This one? This is just all mundane plants for my own use, nothing weird in here at all!¡±

    Rex practically has convulsions as he rolls around in a circle smashing the side of his face into the ground and rubbing it all over. ¡°Yes Yes YES! It there!¡± He jumps to all four feet and starts running about in tight circles making yippy noises.

    Smitty drops to a knee and starts laughing out loud. ¡°I can¡¯t take it anymore I¡¯m sorry! He is doing ZOOMIES!¡±

    Jane looked at Smitty with a smirk. ¡°I would find this more funny until I just remembered that my old lab would also try to hump my leg when he got super excited! This guys about six foot eight and it wouldn¡¯t end well for me.¡±

    Zog looked over to her. ¡°Your not far off. These beasts have little to no control. Look at the bugger running around in a circle like a pit bull with his peanut butter chewy!¡±

    Rex started to whine ¡°Fur man please help. I cannot stop myself! Please pin me!¡±

    Smitty snorts and walks over. ¡°I got this. I had to play the domination game many a time with my old German Shepard. Smitty went to a knee near Rex and when he got close Smitty snatched him by the neck and wrestled him down pinning him to the ground. ¡°Gotcha!¡±

    Rex tried to struggle and snapped a few times, but eventually he calmed down. ¡°Thanks.¡±

    Zog slowly brought the cart over and pulled a potted plant out and held it down near Rex. ¡°This one?¡±

    Rex let out a gasp, ¡°No. Green pot!¡±

    Zog looked down and snorted. ¡°The green pot? You have GOT to be shitting me!¡±

    Smitty looked over. ¡°It¡¯s a million dollar plant right? It¡¯s always the one that¡¯s gonna cost you the most.¡±

    Zog shook his head. ¡°Actually it¡¯s the exact opposite Bigfoot. This is maybe the cheapest plant I have. For the love of God it¡¯s just plain old Chamomile. It¡¯s a personal thing I brought because I love this specific strain for my tea!¡±

    Jane started snorting clapping a hand to her thigh. Between gasps she said, ¡°Chamomile! Of course! I use it for the same reason. It¡¯s extremely calming for me. Give Rex a mouthful Zog.¡±

    Zog pulled off half of the stems and dropped it by Rex¡¯s snout. A big tongue shot out and curled around the plant. Smitty must have felt something because he let up off of the Dogman and stood.

    Rex rose to four feet and started shaking his head. ¡°Wow...I did not expect this. My head is clear for the first time ever. Thank you Human Zog. Can you raise more of this plant for my people? We will pledge ourselves to you as pack leader if you can!¡±

    Zog side eyed Blackbear. ¡°I did NOT see that coming HAH! Rex this is a very common and easy plant to grow here. I can give as much to your pack as you need with no problem. I do not wish to be a leader however. I have too many commitments myself as is.¡±

    Zog took the plant out of the pot and bent over to scoop a little hole into the dirt. He placed the plant in the ground and closed his eyes and layed his bare hand to the Earth. A green wave shot out away from him about twenty feet long. Shoots of the plant started to rise from the ground. Zog took back his original plant and put it into the pot.

    Rex that will be a decent sized plot until I can return and make a more permanent plot near your home base...err den or whatever you call home.¡±

    The huge dogman bowed. ¡°We are in your debt human and will guard your home until you return. The pack will venerate you forever!¡± He trotted off to a small gathering that started forming and howled his strange howl. In harmony and unison they howled back at him.

    Jane gasped and swiped at her face as if wiping a tear she whispered ¡°Let me sing you the song of my people.¡±

    Jax leaned over her. ¡°What was that?¡±

    She looked at him with a frown. ¡°You wouldn¡¯t understand...Savage¡­