《Indistinct Instinct》 001 Here I Am "Do the difficult things while they are easy and do the great things while they are small. A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step." -Lao Tsu **** God''s Nature, Augustus had heard a lot about the game, especially from his sisters. If you were to listen to them talk about it, it was the greatest thing since sliced bread. Though they tried not to talk about it in front of him, he could often hear them discussing it among themselves. In fact, it was hard not to overhear them because they got so animated and into the discussion that often he could see them gesticulating wildly, curiosity would naturally lead him to try and see what they were talking about so energetically. From what he had gathered, they thought the game was fantastic and enjoyable that if they could, they would spend the rest of their lives only playing it. Apparently, the game was an entirely new world with fantastic sites, dangerous adventures, and amazing experiences. So when logged into God''s Nature, he was a bit underwhelmed. The transition from the darkness of the helmet he was wearing while lying in his hospital bed to the room in which he now stood was instantaneous. He had barely had time to say the voice activation command when the curious sensation of weightlessness enveloped him before gravity immediately returned. The room was dull, excessively so, only three by three meters, flat brown floors and walls, no windows or doors, in fact, the only thing in the room apart from himself was a brown chair. Walking towards the seat, detecting that something felt off with this body, it wasn''t responding as usual to the commands, and the sense of balance seemed slightly off. Augustus noticed right away what was wrong: it wasn''t the natural state of his body! Usually, when people play God''s Nature, they use full-bodied capsules. The capsules scan their body to an exact degree, categorizing everything from their muscles, to their eyes, even the length of their fingers. This was all done for their virtual avatar''s body to be the exact same as their real one. Just the difference in the height of only an inch or a slight change in the length of a person''s arm could create problems with balance that would cripple a player in a game where movement is essential. His problem lay in the fact that because he was hospitalized, and couldn''t move, let alone get into a capsule, he was currently using a specialized helmet instead. That meant, that while his face was his own, his body wasn''t. The height was right, but the legs were a little too short and the arms a bit too long, it wasn''t anything debilitating, but it was definitely noticeable. There is also the fact that it was like a puppet''s body, smooth and without any musculature. Deciding to ignore the problem, for now, he took his seat in the chair. Almost immediately, tinkling bells could be heard.
Welcome to God''s Nature, this is the character creation section. Here you will decide your character''s name, your character''s Nature, and its starting location. All these decisions will have permanent effects on your journey throughout the game, so please choose wisely and take the time to consider every option. If you have any questions, please ask them before we begin.
The voice was disembodied, with no particular point of origin and it reverberated around the room. It was also genderless; Augustus was unable to tell whether it was male or female. Deciding that discretion was the better part of valor, he didn''t hesitate to ask all the questions he had. "Who are you?"
You may call me the overseer, I am here to observe and maintain God''s Nature.
"What does "characters nature," mean exactly?"
The characters'' Nature is as it sounds. The Nature of the character!
"What does that mean?"
When creating your avatar, you will first be asked to create a name for your nature. It can be anything, be it warrior, soldier, God, worm or even an object such as table or cloud, it could be a concept or color such as purple or life. There is really no limit to what you can name your nature. After choosing a name, you will be asked to give a description of your Nature. Please be advised that the description of your Nature is what is really important. You can have two people with the same soldier Nature but with wildly different stories that affect the gameplay.
The description of Natures affects your character progression, the options available, your fundamental Skills, even the way you level up. For this reason, the description of your Nature is the single most crucial part of creating your avatar. When creating the description of your Nature, please think carefully about what you intend to do in the game and how you want to play.
If you have Nature named soldier for example but want to use swords while playing rather than spears, you will naturally mention swords in your description rather than any other weapon. If you did so that wouldn''t mean you can only use swords, it would merely say that it would be easier to use swords and to advance sword skills. You could still use a spear if you wanted to but you wouldn''t progress as well as if you are using a sword. Please take note that all avatars can theoretically learn every skill, but a person''s nature affects how quickly you can progress individual Skills and whether you can get the most out of them.
That was undoubtedly a substantial chunk of information, but it was still imperative. The fact the Natures were so crucial to the game and that Augustus had no idea what Nature he wanted to pick, leave alone the description, worried him slightly. Deciding to ignore it, for now, asked the few remaining questions he had. "I am currently using the helmet model, so this body isn''t my own. Is there any way for me to use my own body?"
Without using the capsule to scan the body, there is no way to import it into the game. However, this pre-rendered body will develop as you use it in the game, if you overeat without exercising it will become obese, but if you exercise regularly with it, it will strengthen muscles. In God''s Nature, there are unlimited opportunities, some will allow you to change your body as you please, even the option to become another race. Because your initial avatar will be the exact same as the real body, even if you change height, width or girth, there will be no discomfort when returning to your body in real life.
"Are there any character customization options available?"
A character can only be changed while playing the game. Opportunities for genetic and cosmetic changes are all available in God''s Nature but must first be discovered.
Well, that was one less problem to worry about though there should be some initial discomfort using this pre-rendered body at first it probably wouldn''t be an issue in the long-term.
Are there any more questions?
"Yes, what initial spawning locations are available?"
The original starting position when the game launched was Selwe Castle. Since the game has started it is still in the Pioneer age, only major cities, keeps, and castles are safe enough to be chosen as initial spawn locations. Apart from Selwe Castle on the East Coast, there is also Minas Cassu, also on the East Coast. On the West Coast, there is only Sarra Keep. These are the only three initial spawn locations available at the moment, as more and more areas are discovered, and the frontier expands smaller towns will become available as well as new cities.
"Can two people have the same name for their avatars?"
Yes, two people can have the same name, but to avoid complications if you want to register someone as your contact using the game system, you must be face to face when registering.
So that meant that even if he knew his sisters'' avatar''s names, he wouldn''t be able to contact them until they met him face-to-face in the game. That was a bit of a complication, from what he had heard from his sisters the game was massive, and the chance of meeting them randomly was small. If only he knew where they were in the game and how close they were to the starting locations, he would know which one to choose. He guessed that they were pretty highly leveled and advanced in the game because they had been playing it since it a few days after its launch. That meant that they were probably pretty far from their initial spawn location. That ruled out Selwe Castle, Minas Cassu was also on the East Coast, which said it was perhaps the first major city to be discovered rather than Sarra Keep, which was on the West Coast and was probably further away. So, if he wanted that the best chance of meeting his sisters in the game, his best bet would probably be to choose Sarra Keep. His initial spawn location having been selected, even if he didn''t mention it to the disembodied voice, all that was left to do was to choose his character''s name and nature. The name could be anything, so he wasn''t worried about that. The problem was that he was facing a significant dilemma when choosing his Nature. It was simple fact that he had initially not intended to play this game until his sisters had graduated from a university if he ever decided to play it at all. Between working two jobs, one of which went on for far longer than the average position, helping his sisters with their homework and cooking for them, he had very little time to play games. Most of his leisure time was spent reading and studying for his equivalency exams. He didn''t regret any of it; in fact, he rather enjoyed the way his life was progressing. Any difficulties he had now were outweighed by the fact that he was helping his sisters and that with humans'' natural lifespan being what it is these days, a couple years of demanding work meant nothing compared to the future he was providing for his remaining family. That still left him with a problem; the accident had taken him by surprise, the opportunity to play the game even more so, meaning he had no actual plans. If he knew this was going to happen, or if he knew anything about the game in general before he played, Augustus would have asked about which Nature and description he should choose. As it stood, he would just have to wing it. Because Natures were so essential to gameplay, he had to think about what he wanted out of the game. Because he never actually played games before he didn''t really know what play style he would enjoy. So he would have to choose a nature with a broad description rather than a specified one. What if he picked a warrior character and eventually decided that he liked magic instead? "If I don''t like my avatar, can I restart and create a new one?" He asked.
You may only create a new character once three months in real life have passed since you created your last character. You may only have one avatar at any given time.
That ruled out a vast majority of options, it at least meant he shouldn''t choose a specialized one, helping him a little. That still left him bereft of an idea on what would allow him the highest degree of freedom later down the line. What he really needed was a nature that would enable evolution into whichever path he felt most comfortable with after he had a little more experience with the game. ˇ­Evolution? An idea struck him at that moment, an insane one to be sure, but his gut was telling him it might work out really well. The problem was that he often ignored his instinctual inclination in favor of a more logical course of action and only when the two coincided would he listen to the former. Still, his rational mind wasn''t pointing out any problems with the idea, and besides, maybe he was thinking a bit too hard about it; it was a game after all. Nodding to himself, he decided to follow his gut for once, but how to word it?
Are you ready to create your character or are there any more questions?
"I am ready."
Please name your Nature.
He thought for a moment, before shrugging his shoulders slightly and choosing the first one that popped into his head that he felt was appropriate. "The Beast!"
Please provide a description of your Nature.
"Technology has advanced to an unprecedented degree." He began slowly, a bit unsure, but the words eventually flowed from his mouth easily as he got more into it. "Even space, the final frontier, slowly but steadily fell before the unstoppable advance of humanity''s creations. But humanity itself has forgotten its origins, that of beasts. It is the nature of animals to evolve and adapt to face life''s tribulations, but humanity has decided to modify the environment rather than themselves. Thus they do not grow! The Nature of The Beast is one that continues to grow in every situation, to evolve as one faces insurmountable odds." A small keyboard appeared in front of him as he sat on the chair; it was see-through and hovered in front of him at an easily accessible angle.
Please write your character''s name.
Deciding to go with the theme he had set, he paused in thought, then typed: ˇ®Nrvn Qsr.''
How do you wish your name to be pronounced?
"Nero Kaesar!"
Ding!
Nrvn Qsr
The Beast
Technology has advanced to an unprecedented degree. Even space, the final frontier, slowly but steadily fell before the unstoppable advance of humanity''s creations. But humanity itself has forgotten its origins, that of beasts. It is the nature of animals to evolve and adapt to face life''s tribulations, but humanity has decided to modify the environment rather than themselves. Thus they do not grow! The Nature of The Beast is one that continues to grow in every situation, to evolve as one faces insurmountable odds.
Would you like to create this avatar?
Yes/No
Taking a moment to look at the description, making sure everything was in place he nodded to himself in satisfaction. "Yes."
Your avatar, Nrvn Qsr, has been created. Please choose a starting location: Selwe Castle, Minas Cassu or Sarra Keep.
"Sarra keep."
Welcome to the world without limits!
With those final words, Nero felt a brief sensation of dislocation and then he was gone from the room. ****** Theoretically, he knew that the body he was using was false, merely a construct of data created to form an avatar resembling a human. This meant that a lot could be done with it that would usually be impossible for a real life, physical body. Though he knew it intellectually, that didn''t mean that when he went from sitting in an enclosed brown room to standing in a plaza of a rather large town, it wasn''t discombobulating. Taking a moment to reorient himself, he looked around to ascertain in what situation he found himself. The environment was something he had expected to some degree: the typical medieval town. Wood buildings surrounded the plaza, none taller than two stories, most having only one floor. The exception being a rather large cathedral made of stone that overlooked the area. He was standing in some sort of plaza, people coming and going, merchants hawking their wares and groups of people, he guessed to be fellow players, milling about and getting ready before heading down a far lane. There were also armored figures, which he imagined to be some sort of guard, here and there keeping a lookout for trouble. A constant noise surrounded the area, the low hum that was always present in populated areas. The ground was surprisingly well paved, even the alleyways he caught glimpses of. If anyone knew anything about medieval times, they would know that more often than not, roads were horrible even in the most prominent capitals, with a few exceptions. Contrary to what he had been expecting when he heard that this game was set in a medieval fantasy, things were much better than the image he had in his mind. As a somewhat minor amateur historian himself, mainly before modern time, Nero knew that the somewhat romanticized view that most people had about medieval Europe was false. Before indoor plumbing, people couldn''t and didn''t actually bathe regularly, except for the highest of classes, and would leave their garbage and refuse on the street, making every village and city smell incredibly horrible to the modern man who wasn''t used to it. The people themselves would also be horribly unattractive to the modern eye, never having brushed teeth meant that most would be without a full set and those that were present would be yellow and ugly. Their clothing, except for the wealthy, was often little more than sacks and the occasional leather that was poorly treated. None of that was present here. There was no garbage, no bad smell, the clothing was, while simple, well maintained and somewhat stylized. The pedestrians were clearly hygienic, and the people who appeared to be players displayed no sense of culture shock that would typically arise from being in a society completely different from their own. All this created a slight touch of surrealism for the new player, his expectations being entirely different from what he was seeing. As Nero stood there, two short sparkles of light appeared in the corner of his eye. Turning to see what it was, Nero noticed two men by his side that weren''t there a minute ago. They both wore the same brown shirt, pants, and boots, the same clothes he was wearing, now that he noticed, and were looking around the plaza as he had done before. Fellow starters, Kaesar deduced. He also noticed that their appearance barely attracted a glance from the people around, much like his own. He guessed that new players started all the time and their presence was so characteristic that they didn''t attract any attention. Unlike Kaesar however, they didn''t take the time to look around. Instead, they seemed to each other, said something he couldn''t hear and started moving through the crowd, not sparing a single glance to him as they walked with purpose. He guessed that it was possible these two had played before and had created new characters, so nothing would be unique to them. That was somewhat unlikely however as a person could only have one aspect at a time and could just delete their current one after three months in real life, which was equivalent to fifteen months in the game. That was a lot of time wasted. More likely was they had been told more about the game, maybe they had watched videos of people playing it or had friends tell them what to expect. Shaking his head lightly, having gotten lost in his thoughts, Kaesar decided to get a look around, he was probably going to spend a decent amount of time in Gods'' Nature as he fully healed, so it was best to get used to it quickly. He started ambling down one of the different roads that connected to the plaza, both to take in the scenery and because he wasn''t yet used to the avatar''s body. Having no real destination in mind, he wandered aimlessly for a few minutes, taking random turns through the occasional alley or street to take note of the places around him. He absentmindedly avoided running into anyone in the bustling city, not actually giving anything his full attention as pondered what he had already noticed. Much like the plaza he had appeared in every street was well paved, almost alarmingly so, even the small back alleys between building had a smooth layer of cobblestone. Maybe it had merely been programmed that way, but a part of him couldn''t help but criticize the game in his mind. One of the few things he had heard about Gods'' Nature from his sisters was the overwhelming sense of realism the game featured. While it certainly felt like he was in a place in the real world, his body detected no differences at all, these cobblestone streets were destroying his sense of realism! Kaesar paused in thought for a moment as a thought flittered through his mind. Was he weird?Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators! Was he getting too hung up on the inconsistencies that he was missing the point? The other two new players he had seen hadn''t given the scenery a second glance except for that first wondrous sight. Instead, they had dived right into the world with no thought on how accurate it was in comparison to reality. Was he going to this all wrong? Granted, he had never planned on playing Gods'' Nature, at least not for another few years at least and he didn''t have any real experience when it came to gaming in general, so it wasn''t really his fault that he was a bit discombobulated when he first started. Deciding that he would stop overthinking things for now and only try to enjoy the time he had with the game, he started walking again. His decision lasted for all of one minute before another thought crossed his mind. Kaesar knew there would be magic in the game, one of the few things he had picked up from overhearing conversations. So, was it possible that magic was responsible for the discrepancies he had noticed between the game and real life medieval times? What was the effect that magic would have on the development of society? Was there magic to pave roads, or at least make the process easier? Was there magic or magic items that could duplicate indoor plumbing? If so, that would solve the hygiene issue that the commoners usually faced in medieval times. Could magic aid in raising crops and animals? Out of all uses for magic, apart from warfare, this was the most likely to exist. The first thing people focused on was their necessities, so having magical aid with food, water and shelter were very possible. But all this would mean that everybody would have to be able to use magic for it to be widespread. Could everybody in this game use magic? If so or if not, what would be the ramifications on a society that contained magic? Would magicians be despised? Or would they be venerated? Just as Kaesar was thinking about the potential social ramifications of a society based on magic and its possible alterations to a given culture, he noticed that he had wandered out into another wide-open area. Much like the plaza in which he had initially appeared, this one was also very busy, although for different reasons. It was wide open with no significant buildings around to block the view of the surrounding city. Only now did Kaesar noticed that the town he was in was centered around a large hill, almost a small mountain, with his current location being about halfway up the hill on a sort of platform like structure that kept the plaza flat. A broad road paved the way straight through the area, from the crest of the hill all the way down to the bottom, where the city ended with another massive wall that surrounded the city. Up on top of the hill, he could make out the stone ramparts of a fort, looking like the walls of a castle in medieval Europe. With an uninterrupted view he also briefly noticed that every building, from the bottom of the hill to its top, had slanted roofs with two platforms on them as places to stand that sometimes contained chairs or other such places to sit. The city was built in such a way that from the lowest house to the keep at the top of the hill had an uninterrupted view from the roof of the houses below them and that from the castle on the mountain, one could look out in a perfect three-hundred-and-sixty-degree angle to see everything in the city. All this was briefly noted and discarded by Kaesar as he took in the image around him. Since he had started playing, there had been no real sense that he was playing a game at all. Indeed, the buildings were different from the glass and steel ones he saw regularly, and the people''s fashion and clothes were different as well, but there had been nothing that had given him a sense that he was in a game world. There had been nothing that seemed too odd that he couldn''t merely picture it happening at a convention or fair that occasionally took place in cities in real life. The closest thing to the fantastic he had seen so far was his teleportation from his room to the starting location and that had been barely noticeable at all. But this? This image screamed ˇ®FANTASY''! "Become a Halfling, boosts to sneaking and dexterity! Thieves and Assassins welcome! Eventual possibilities to advance to dwarf races and other races. Perfect for craft classes and merchants!" A short humanoid and bearded man yelled across the square from his position behind a large booth. A line of people stood in front of it before they would eventually talk to one of the other people manning the booth. "Be reborn as a Half-Elf! Racial bonuses to dexterity and spirit as well as many elven racial advancement opportunities! High-Elves, Dark-Elves, Wood-Elves, you name them, and you will eventually be able to become one!" A beautiful and statuesque woman stood on a podium in another part of the plaza, a large number of people milling around her as they waited for their turn to sign up. Her most striking features included golden blond hair, emerald green eyes, and long delicate, pointed ears. "Please become a Beast-Man! Perfect for all classes! Want to be a part cat? Dog? Tiger? Crocodile? All possible if you join us!" Another voice was heard, though not as loud as the first two, it still managed to reach Kaeser''s ears. The voice came from a small black-haired pair. The young man and woman were both standing on a dais so they could be seen through throngs of people that surrounded them. Both had animal traits, the boy having canine ears and a bushy tail while the female had cat ears as well as a cat-like tail that moved behind her. For some inexplicable reason, she was also wearing a maid outfit. "Fight as an Orc! Fast growth, high strength! The Horde needs more soldiers!" Grunts came from a giant green muscular humanoid that didn''t need a platform to stand on to be noticeable. Clad in heavy armor and standing at over ten and a half feet tall, it was easy to make out the rough appearance. With giant teeth that jutted out from the orcs lips and scars covering its face, the humanoid looked quite intimidating. Feeling a brief sense of dissociation, Kaesar thought that he might be experiencing culture shock. He had, of course, read Tolkien''s works and seen the movies, the good ones from the early two-thousands, not the worse remakes since. He had also read more than his fair share of fantasy novels and seen quite a few movies, though none recently, so he could put names to the races he saw. But seeing them in a movie or reading about them was completely different than seeing them in front of his face. It must have been evident on his face as well because he heard a voice on his approaching him from behind. "Yo! Newbie!" Turning his head to see a man looking at him and walking his way. Kaesar pointed to himself in a silent question. "Yeah, you. This your first time playing?" Kaesar nodded silently, turning back to the surrounding area. "You know what they''re doing?" Asked the man as he walked up to stand next to our main character. "Recruiting," Kaesar answered after a moment''s pause. "Yep," He replied readily. "You noticed that there was no character creation system in the intro?" It was more of a statement than a question, so Kaesar didn''t respond. "Initially that was a major factor in Gods'' Nature to not have customization options available." Nero''s new companion continued after a moment. "Many hardcore RPG fans almost went insane when they heard. It wasn''t until about a month into the game that people discovered how the system works. You see, instead of choosing a race when you create your character, like almost everything in Gods'' Nature race and appearance is decided by the choices and opportunities you find in the game itself. There are ways to turn into individual races and gain their skills. For example, the elves have unique springs that they guard jealously that allow humans to transform into half-elves and further from there. To turn into an orc, you must kill a powerful monster and use its blood for a ritual. Beastmen and women have it easy, they just should pray to the beast Goddess and then choose a creature that is available. There are benefits to changing races, you get unique skills and particular Stats get bonuses and grow more comfortable. Further evolution is always possible as well, the beast-men have a lot of flexibility in this area because there are so many variants of beasts they can become. There are demerits too, your character starts to specialize with what your race does, and you lose a bit of flexibility there, so many people prefer to remain human because of their versatility. Also, unless it is a further evolution on the same path or unusual circumstances, there might be penalties if you trade races too frequently." Here his companion paused for a second to make sure that Kaesar was still paying attention. He was, but Nero saw no point in interrupting somebody who was answering a variety of his questions. "They are recruiting more people for their race because it will allow their race to become more powerful and if they contribute a lot to the group, they can get various rewards such as titles and possibly even an opportunity for evolution. You follow me?" "I do, but why is that girl wearing a maid outfit." It had been bugging Nero for a while. "It''s a classic! Neko Maids are big no matter what age, so they play to the beast-men''s favor to attract attention." He looked a bit put out having to explain something he saw as blatant. "Neko? That''s ˇ­ Japanese, I think? So, is it like a clich¨¦, something people come to expect with beast-men?" He had heard his sisters use the term once, but he didn''t know what it meant. "Yeah, it is the Japanese word for cat. The word for clich¨¦, in this case, is a trope, some motif repeatedly used that it becomes common in media. We have Neko Maids here as well as the big breasted Onee-sama elf over there, the bearded dwarf and the Ugly Warrior Orc. All common to games and anime!" He was starting to look a little nonplussed at Nero''s ignorance now. "Onee-sama means older sister, right?" Far from being ashamed of his ignorance Kaesar only asked more questions. "You don''t play games a lot, do you?" At Kaesar''s shake of the head, his companion sighed and seemed to deflate slightly. "Yeah, it means older sister but is often used as a term for a more matured beauty. Any other questions?" "You mentioned statistics earlier, what are those?" "Statistics? Oh, you mean Stats!" Sometimes ignorance can be even more confusing than excessive advanced knowledge. "Say Stats or Stat menu, and a blue screen should pop up." Shrugging his shoulders at the odd command Kaesar did as he was told. "Stats!"
Name Nrvn Qsr Level 1
Nature The Beast Alignment Neutral
HP 100 MP 100
Str. 10 Dex. 10
Spirit 10
Skills -
The blue screen that appeared was small and see-through, not blocking the user''s vision while still being readable. As Nero looked it over, he could guess what a good part of it meant. EXP probably represented experience or experience points, and HP suggested health points or hit points. So much he had gathered from overhearing conversations. Similarly, MP likely expressed magic points or mana points, he had heard his sisters use either term a few times. "What do S.T.R., Spirit, and D.E.X. mean?" He asked, he could guess, but it was better to be safe than sorry. Looking fairly resigned his companion answered; "Str. and Dex. stand for strength and dexterity. Strength governs how much power your avatar has, how much force you can exert when you punch and kick, how much you can lift, that kind of thing. Dexterity is basically how good your avatar can control its movements and its nimbleness. It allows people to be good at crafts, wield items, tools and such. Spirit is basically your magic. Different from other games that had intelligence and wisdom as stats that controlled how much mana you could use, Gods'' Nature only has the spirit stat. It is kind of interesting from a lore perspective, but that is neither here nor there right now. Are those the only stats you have right now?" "Those, HP, MP, and Nature are the only ones on the screen. What does it mean by alignment?" "That is probably one of the oldest systems in RPGs," He answered, looking a bit nostalgic as he did so. "The alignment system started in the old Dungeons and Dragons tabletop games. Think of alignment like a circle with a cross in the middle. The center is True Neutral. As you go up your alignment shifts from Neutral to Good and as it goes down it changes to Evil. On the left and right is Lawful and Chaotic respectively. You can have combinations of Chaotic Neutral, Lawful Evil and Neutral Good." "What is your alignment?" Kaesar asked, feeling curious. "Oh, sorry! I haven''t introduced myself yet! I''m called Ludendorff, and I am a level 146 General." He thumped a fist to his chest, looking very proud. "Is that good?" Unfortunately, his pride was wasted on this total newbie. Ludendorff deflated, looking put out. "Yes!" He almost shouted. "The highest level players are barely level 200. That makes me in the top fifteen percent of players. Hah, nevermind, you will only understand how hard it is to get to this level when you try to level up yourself." Seeing his companion looking slightly defeated Kaesar decided to change the subject. "What did you mean when you said you were a General?" "That''s my Nature, I specialize in leading people and in warfare. I get bonuses for charisma and leadership Stats when I am in control of a unit. I also get skills related to fighting on the frontline and commanding units." Nero could see that. He seemed like a nice enough guy, not imposing and easy going but he was personable, and he appeared to be the type of guy who could get along with anybody. He wasn''t awe-inspiring general, he seemed to be somebody who fought and bled with his troops as an example for them to live up to. Which led to his next question. "So what is a high-level general doing recruiting new players?" Ludendorff looked surprised for a moment before he looked Kaesar over once more. ˇ®He might be a total newbie, but this guy is sharp.'' The player re-evaluated his opinion on his new companion. "Caught on to that did you?" The question was rhetorical, so Kaesar saw no reason to answer. "What gave it away." Shrugging in response, Nero answered; "The area is close to the spawn location and factions obviously get a boost from bringing in new blood. Other than that, you approached me rather quickly when I looked even the slightest bit confused." "You''re good! What''s your name?" "Nero," he decided to go with the most straightforward name. "Normally I''m not part of the recruiting force," Ludendorff started to explain. "But I was in town to stock up for my unit. The boss likes to have high-level players help with getting customers or recruits. Makes ˇ®em feel important you see." It made sense, people liked to feel at and sparing a few people for a few days likely wouldn''t have too much of an impact. The returns that they would get would probably make up for the time spent as higher level players would probably know what to look for better than lower ones. This all depended on the fact that the group didn''t have a dedicated recruiting force, however. "So, who are you with?" "I''m part of The Bank!" There was that pride again, though this time it was tempered by the knowledge that his companion likely didn''t know what he was talking about. "A bank?" Case in point. "What does a bank need a general for, unless you are part of security?" "Not a bank, The Bank! The only bank, or at least the only bank that matters." "So it is a faction then? Or a business?" "A bit of both really," the General shrugged. "It has to make money of course, and it provides services to its customers, but it also has a dedicated force." "What kind of services?" "Like a regular bank, we hold items and money for people for a small fee. Customers also get access to purchase the creations of the boss, those are some handy things, they also get to auction off their own goods to other clients of The Bank. Apart from that, all the customers have to do is sign a contract saying that if they want to auction stuff they have to do it through The Bank. As long as they do that, then they can deposit and withdraw their items and money from any the major branches we have in the starting cities. They can also remove a certain amount of minor offices we have built-in smaller frontier towns." "Sounds handy," though not too useful for Kaesar at the moment. "It really is, you have no idea the size of this game, so the ability to move items and money to far distances is beneficial. So you interested in becoming a customer?" "Not at the moment, thank you." The simple fact was the Nero had no money or items. He also wasn''t planning on leaving the city until he met his sisters. "You sure? There is a reason The Bank is the second largest player faction at the moment, we also estimate that at least three-quarters of all players are customers. It is just too useful not to use." "I''m good, maybe some other time." "Tell you what, The Bank has a beginner program. It basically walks you through the early stages of the game, telling you about the world, how to survive and level up. It very useful for people who don''t know much about gaming." "No thank you, though I might change my mind later." The simple fact was that Kaesar didn''t know Ludendorff very well, he didn''t recognize The Bank or its reputation. For all he knew, The Bank could be a front used to exploit players with no experience. After all, his information came from a source that was obviously biased in its favor. He might become a client later after he heard from his sisters but for now, Nero wasn''t going to do something impulsive when he had no information. "Alright, but if you change your mind contact me and I should be able to get you in touch with some people." At the end of the day, Nero was a total newbie, sharp but still woefully underequipped to deal with Gods'' Nature. If he had been a high-rank player, then Ludendorff might have made more effort, but such a beginner was just not worth his time.
Player Ludendorff wants to be friends
Yes/No
Clicking yes, Nero turned to his partner and asked his companion one final question. "So how do I use these menu things?" The General''s palm meeting forehead was oddly satisfying. ****** He was now seated on a bench in a park. This area of the hill on which the city was based was relatively flat, which was likely the reason for making a recreational space out of it. Though it seemed kind of deserted, in the twenty or so minutes of sitting down, not one person had passed this way. Nero was toying with the menu, trying to get a feel for it and how it worked.
Status
Skills
Options
Network
Logout
From what Kaesar learned from Ludendorff, clicking or saying status would bring home to his stat page once more. Clicking on skills would bring out a different menu, one that was blank at the moment but would eventually show all the skills that he would learn. That had prompted Kaesar to ask what skills were. The suffering sigh that escaped the General''s mouth was delicious. Skills were essentially the techniques that could be learned divided into passive and active Skills. An active ability was like learning to cast a spell, it had to be consciously activated, and its level increased with practice. Passive Skills, on the other hand, are always active, unless they are deliberately turned off, something like learning the swordsmanship skill. Rather than providing visible effects, they enhanced necessary abilities or provided benefits that went unseen. The Options button led to a new menu where the player could set their preferences on how they would like to adjust the game settings. They could change things like their senses, smell, touch and on, as well as how much pain they wanted to feel. The minimum pain setting was 5% which was the default, and it could go all the way up to 75%. Players could also adjust their image of the game, this meant that they could change how they perceived the world around themselves. There were four settings, all purely cosmetic, horrific, realistic, animated and cartoonish. By default, all players start with the of image configuration. Children, on the other hand, are locked onto the cartoonish setting till they are fourteen. They can use the animated environment at that age and then the realistic setting at sixteen. A person can only go into the horrific background once they are at least eighteen because it is exceptionally visceral and the smell in combat can be horrible. The Options menu was also where players can adjust their privacy setting and message friends. The Network option was everything that connected to the internet outside of the game. Players could go to any website, use social media and email their friends. Deciding that he understood enough, Nero clicked the network button, traveled to the site he needed and made the calls that should have been done when he first connected. Two windows opened in front of his face, both gray for a moment before they were picked up at once. ""GUS!" He winced a little at the volume. It was to be expected, however, the last time they had seen him, Nero had been laying down, paralyzed, in a hospital bed. Unable to move, let alone play a game. "Hey girls, it''s good to be able to talk to you again." And it was, he could see them every day, but Augustus was unable to speak with them, unable to ask them about their day or help them with their homework. It had been weeks since they had last sat down to dinner and just talked like they were used to. "You''re playing Gods'' Nature?" Nico asked she was always the more perspective of the two. "Yes, I just created my character." No need to tell them that he had created it a few hours ago. "Is that alright? Can you even use the capsules?" His other sister Maude asked in turn. "It''s fine, I''m using a specialized helmet that allows me to play without problems." He tried to wave off their worries. "How did the hospital have something like that laying around?" Augustus grimaced, he had been hoping that Nico wouldn''t pick up on that. "They didn''t! Turns out that the creator of Gods'' Nature is Sophia''s uncle." As he expected as soon as they heard the name his sisters grimaced, their faces darkening. "He came to see me and told me he felt thankful for what I had done and decided to let me use one of their prototypes to play." "But still, if it hadn''t been for that woman in the first place you wouldn''t have needed the helmet in the first instance." It was quite rare for him to see Maude so contrary, she usually was the gentlest of souls. "You both know it wasn''t her fault. We both did what we thought was best considering the circumstances it could be far worse. "But-" "No buts, Sophia has helped us a lot over the years, and the current situation was simply a case of wrong place and the wrong time. I do not want to hear about you two giving her a hard time at school, is that clear." ""Fine."" Though they looked none too happy about it, they reluctantly agreed. "Good!" He hated being rough with them, but he would hate it even more if his only family started fighting with his only friend. "So what are the two of you doing now?" "Just doing some small quests, nothing to worry about." Maude waved her brother''s concerns away indifferently. "Where did you start at?" "Sarra Keep, I figured that you two would be closer to here than Selwe Castle or Minas Cassu." "Good, we need to go there anyway so we will meet you there as soon as we finish here. It will be a few weeks till we are done and then a few months before we can get there, however." "Should I go to where you two are at? We can meet halfway." ""NO!"" They both shouted in unison before Nico continued. "What we mean is that the area is pretty high level and we can travel faster than you. Our best bet is to meet up at the keep. This game is so large that if you were to come in our direction, we would likely pass each other without even noticing." "Alright, I''ll wait here. What are your names?" "We figured we would keep with the whole Roman name tradition of the family, so I chose Claudia." Answered Maude. "And I''m Octavia." While it was true that his name was Augustus and his father was called Seneca before he passed away, so the family did have a bit of a convention for Latin names. Because these two had been adopted after they were a few years old, they hadn''t actually followed that tradition, but Kaesar really wished they had chosen two different Latin names. "I chose Nero Kaesar." It took a moment, but after a second they realized the coincidence and blushed. They had chosen the names of the Emperor Nero''s sister, who he had married. "Anyway, we''ll keep in contact but try and have some fun alright, treat this like a vacation or something. We''ll come visit you tomorrow." Without a goodbye, Nico cut the connection. "Bye, try and have some fun." And with that, the second sister cut her connection as well. "Your faces were completely red." He chuckled to himself a little at their embarrassed expressions. "A vacation huh?" He murmured to himself as he got up from his bench to continue to explore the city. ******* "A total coincidence, nothing more. Defiantly not fate or anything like that. No siree, hehe." Claudia lost herself in a bit of a daydream. "Snap out of it Bitch, we''re in the middle of something here, you can masturbate later you damn Bro-con!" "What did you call me you Slut! Want to fight!" "Later, right now we need to finish this fucking quest. If you mess us up, then I''m going spank you right here." "You wouldn''t dare!" "I would! Older sister privileges!" "You''re only older by less than an hour, you have no privileges!" "Do too!" "Do not!" "Do too!" "Do not!" "Do too!" "Do too!" "Hah!" Octavia exclaimed triumphantly. "You agreed! As if I would fall for that." "Damn, why do cartoons lie to me?" "Uh, Ma''am?" A hesitant voice piped up beside the two siblings. ""WHAT!"" They rounded on the poor unfortunate player. "Uh, well, um, monsters, you see, uh, the next wave is here Ma''am." The player barely managed to stutter out in the face of the two angry women. "Ugh, fine I''ll be right there." Turning with a look towards her sister with a look that said "This isn''t over" Claudia waded into the battle, her massive scythe already turning a monster into minced meat. "Whatever, hurry up, I want to hit level 220 by the end of the week." As she started to resume command of her automatons, Octavia received her response in the form of a fist with its middle finger raised in her directions. If Nero were here, he would have been shocked to find his sisters, his darling, mild-mannered sisters, fighting like demons as they tore through their enemies with visceral joy. He would also be shocked to know that they enjoyed such a slaughter with the gameplay set to horrific. As expected of a setting named after the horror genre, their faces remained red for the rest of the day, though their blushes had long since faded. ***** And they worshiped the dragon, which gave power unto the beast: and they worshiped the beast, saying, who is like unto the beast? Who is able to make war with him? -King James Bible "Authorized Version," Cambridge Edition, Book of Revelation, 13:4 002 Much Too Young (To Feel This Damn Old) "And they worshiped the dragon, which gave power unto the beast: and they worshiped the beast, saying, who is like unto the beast? Who is able to make war with him?" -King James Bible "Authorized Version," Cambridge Edition, Book of Revelation, 13:4 **** Vacation. The word has many connotations, and for the most part, they are good ones. Most people take it to mean time off work or studies, time for leisurely activities or trips to exotic destinations. It conjures images of white sandy beaches and palm trees, of cruise lines and foreign countries. When his sisters told him to treat his time in Gods'' Nature like a vacation, she probably meant for him to be playing the game, going out and killing monsters to level and doing exciting quests that would take him to marvelous locals. They probably didn''t intend for him to be sitting in the dark of a dusty shop reading books. Granted, Nero knew both his sisters were not opposed to an enjoyable book after a long day but their first stop once arriving in a magical fantasy land probably wouldn''t be the library. He wasn''t in a library now, but he was in this world''s closest equivalent. From what Nero had read so far about this world he realized that he had been right that magic would have an effect on society but he hadn''t understood the impact that is having a game system alongside it would have as well. For example, say a farmer has three kids. In the real middle ages, before modern medicine, only one of the three were likely to survive to the age of one, if they were lucky. The environment around was too unhygienic, food wasn''t as available, and they did not have access to medical facilities, so survival was not likely. It was rare for children to be named before they were a few years old because they might not survive to an appropriate age to need a name. By contrast, in Gods'' Nature, there was very little reason for an infant to die young. These problems just were not present when your life regulates itself with a health bar. Unless monsters attack or a case of criminal negligence, children were almost guaranteed to make it to the age of 10. The reason was the sheer availability of food. There were two primary sources of food for the people of this world, farm-grown products, and monster meat. Monsters endlessly respawn, meaning a general endless supply of meat. A complete violation of the law of entropy but useful none the less. High-level monsters were too tricky for the average farmer to kill, but rabbits and such were plentiful. Even then farmers did not need to hunt because they produced on average more food than their family could eat. The reason for this was the existence of skills. In the real world, no matter how good you are as a farmer, there is a set limit to how much food you can produce per piece of land. This limit presents itself due to the quality of the soil, seasons, and other such factors. All a worker could do is increase his efficiency using better techniques or technology, but there is still a limit to the land. In Gods'' Nature, however, there existed skills and skill levels. Once someone reached level 10 in the core farming skill they could automatically double the output of crops, i.e., one corn stalk produces twice as much corn. That was just level ten if somebody with only average talent worked as a farmer till the end of their lives they would still get over level 50 and produce enough food for an entire village with just their farms by themselves. Not just that but skills improve better if learned either alone or under a direct apprenticeship. This situation meant that universal education, school, didn''t exist for the most part. The closest Nero had found what was called training programs. They were not long, few months to a year, and all they did was teach people skills for their chosen vocation. This also leads to diverging paths when it came to knowledge distribution in general. Books existed, but they were luxuries as most skills could be learned just through trial and error. Not only that but the printing press didn''t exist in Gods'' Nature. Not because of technological deficiencies but because there was simply no need for them. Instead, shops, like the one Nero was in right now, purchased books and copies of books in text format, likely handwritten. Then they ˇ®rented'' them out to whoever wanted them. This was done through a simple tier 1 spell that even novices could learn. ˇ®Copy Construct'' could create what was primarily a hard light construct of an object. It couldn''t copy enchanted items nor anything too substantial, and it wasn''t also durable, but for books, it worked perfectly fine. The length of its existence was dependant on the amount of magic put into it so people could rent a text for up to two weeks at a time. Of course, as a beginner, Nero was flat broke and so could only sit in the back of the store to read. The shop owner seemed alright with it, an old man who spent his time behind a wooden counter near the entrance reading his own book in the sun. When the newbie had first arrived at the shop out of curiosity from his wanderings, he had spared a brief nod to the owner before diving right into a pile of volumes on the history and culture of this new world. That had been hours ago and now that the sun was beginning to set Nero finished the text in his hand. Minor Monstrosities: A beginners guide to the Wild had been somewhat unusual for such a dense book. While it was a bit too verbose and prone to over embellishment through the use of similes he had found a lot of valid information. It read like a mixture of a biology textbook and a survival manual. Its primary focus was describing a variety of low-level monsters, their habits, and habitats, some skills that they are known to possess and their dangers. It had been used to get a grasp on the environment of Gods'' Nature, limited though the text was limited to localized regions, the main benefit Nero had received had been in the form of two passages that gave him valuable clues as to how this world worked. The first had appeared in the preface of the book and ran like this; "ˇ­ This work is not to be taken as a complete record of all information on the beings held within. Because of the ability of creatures to level up and gain power like the sapient races of the world. It is entirely possible and has been known to occur when a seemingly lowly monster has risen its level to a significant factor to pose a major threat to the unaware adventurer. I would caution everybody to remember the tale of Raven and the Rabid Rabbitˇ­" The story in question had been a minor folk tale about a young girl who enjoyed toying with a small bunny before the rabbit grew strong enough to destroy the town. It was slightly amusing but not really relevant. The essential part of that passage had been the notion that monsters and creatures could level up at all. Nero wondered how that would work, did they get more powerful by defeating other monsters? Beating adventurers? Or were they able to accept quests and level up that way? It was an exciting concept because it introduced the idea that animals might have the desire to grow stronger. If they did then did that mean they had other hopes that remained unknown? Were they sapient in their own way? The next passage had been a footnote of the author as he explained a way to use a particular skill to get past a monster''s defense; "3. Due to monster''s ability to respawn after a certain amount of time, it is possible but rare to encounter the same creature multiple times. While this technique may work the first time and the second, it is recommended that new skills are used for the third encounter onwards, though such an occurrence is doubtful to happen." A sound piece of advice but when paired with the passage from the preface it painted a unique picture. Functionally monsters were like players and NPCs, they were fundamentally immortal, they would respawn after death in a particular location depending on a variety of factors. So if monsters could get stronger and they never died, how come there were so many low-level monsters. From what Nero overheard in a discussion between his sisters then level did not go down upon death. It would only reset to a zero completion experience bar, and skills proficiency would do the same, there would also be a chance to lose items that players were carrying around. Was it the same for monsters and NPC''s? Or was there a different system for them? Nero ran through a thought experiment for a moment. If a level one player and a level one Slime are equally as strong, or at least comparable to each other and they were to fight, then it would be theoretically possible for either side to win. If the player wins then life goes on as expected, the player might level up and decided to go face stronger monsters, and the Slime respawns with nothing having been changed. Another player meets the Slime and losses, possibly because they do not know how to use a weapon, maybe because they trip or some other unforeseen reason. A certain Slime gets lucky and kills a few players in a row without dying. The Slime is now level two and will remain at least level two forever. Now that it is level two it has a better chance at beating level one players, it does not matter if the Slime dies another fifty times, it will eventually reach level three, then four and so on. Let''s say that around level ten it has to leave the area it had inhabited because players and NPC''s are not giving it enough experience and it wants to grow stronger. It chooses a random direction, because it is a Slime and not really intelligent, and sets off. It is then killed immediately by some high-level monster or player. It does not really matter because the slime is still level 10 after it respawns, and so it keeps going and dying until it finally reaches level eleven, then twelve and so on. Eventually, the level one slime has come to the level a hundred, then two hundred, what is to stop it from going to level a thousand? If this could happen to a level one slime then what is to prevent this from happening to all monsters? It is not like players or NPC''s never die to monsters thus it was theoretically possible for monsters to level up. Even if a creature only levels up once for every time a player levels up ten times then because they were functionally immortal, they could keep going to the infinite. If that thought experiment could prove right in God''s Nature then how come there were so many low-level monsters all the time? Shouldn''t they have risen their degree by now? If they did then how come the upper bracket of creatures wasn''t full to bursting? If no animal ever permanently died and could grow stronger continuously then how come there were not millions of level one thousand beings around everywhere. Unlessˇ­ Unless growth only started once the game was launched! That made sense, players would grow, and if monsters did too then, it would add a bit of challenge to later part of the game. Besides that, from what Nero understood of Gods'' Nature, the game allowed the world to grow organically, i.e., without player input. But if it started building before players arrived then users would find themselves woefully behind the rest of the world and be unlikely to enjoy playing such a game. That was probably the best reason for the monster growth system, at least according to the knowledge that Nero had at hand. So lost in thought was he that he did not even notice when the shop owner walked over and stood in front of his seated form. He did take notice however when the same old man spoke to him. "I do not care where you go boy, but you have to leave!" The voice was gruff, the type you would expect from an old man. Looking up Nero realized that the sun had set entirely some time ago and the shop was now dark save for a light on the counter near the entrance. The store was likely closing. So with a murmured ˇ®All right'' to the owner Kaesar set about standing up to leave. As he did so, he noticed the somewhat disorganized pile of books that surrounded his spot on the floor. With a shrug, he set about picking them up, intent on putting them back in their proper place. "Leave ˇ®em! Get out!" The response was brusque and short, but not angry. "Goodnight then." It never hurt to be polite, especially since Nero was intent on returning to the shop in the morning. "''Night," With that Nero left the shop, allowing its owner to pick up his mess. As he stepped into the refreshing night air, he realized he really had nothing to do now. Nero doubted any other store would be open at this time of night in the game, save for those of a more unsavory nature. He was not the type of man to enjoy a city''s nightlife. Not that he knew anything about this city''s nightlife. Indeed, the only lights on the streets now were those of the torches that the guards carried as they did their rounds in the night. At the same time, he was not really tired. This avatar, though realistic, was merely a creation of ones and zeroes. Fatigue did not build up the same way it did with his real body. Not only that but despite a significant amount of time had passed in the game, in real life, it had probably been less than two hours, and Augustus did not have to wake up for another three for his checkup. Shrugging to himself once more, Kaesar set about doing the same thing he had done before finding the bookshop. Wander aimlessly until something caught his interest. With that, the man who would one day be a god set off to combat mankind''s most dreaded foe, boredom! **** His wandering had unconsciously taken him back to the park he had found earlier. It was an excellent location, set facing the north of the city, the buildings in front and below it on the hill that was the city were somewhat short which meant it offered a rather good view of the lower regions of the city and the night sky. The night sky that had two moons hanging over it. The first, Nero had noticed, was similar in size and color to the one in the real world. A half full ball of an off-white color that hung over the horizon. The other was significantly weirder. It was huge! Easily ten times the size of its counterpart, it hung in the center of the sky entirely full. It was white, a white so pure that the contrast between it and the velvet of the night sky was incredibly stark. It also lacked the impacts and craters of its companion. With one exception. The massive black circle in its center. Unlike the sky, which could be a dark blue, the ring was entirely black, not one iota of light reflected on it. It was like somebody had taken a giant ball of white light and shoved a black hole in its center. Idly Nero wondered how such a mass could remain in orbit, it should have crashed into the planet. That was if it was actually there and not painted on the ''roof'' of the game. It was really up in the sky then how did stay there?The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement. Magic probably. That seemed to be the key to understanding this world, understanding that with magic everything was possible. Yet magic appeared to have its own rules, at least according to what Kaesar had read. Controls that Nero remained completely unaware of. Maybe he should learn magic? Someday Nero would have to enter combat in Gods'' Nature. If not of his own choice then when his sisters arrived in a few months they would make him at least try it. Augustus had never been in a fight his whole life and thus had no idea how he wanted to fight. He didn''t even know if he what he would enjoy. Isn''t that why he had created the Beast Nature, so he could try everything and decide what he liked? The best way to learn would probably be to join one of those training programs he had read about, he had a few months to spare anyway as Claudia and Octavia finished whatever they were doing before making their way here. Deciding to look around and see if he could find the location of a program, even if they weren''t open at this time of night, Nero got up from the bench he had been sitting on. As he did so, he noticed movement in the grass to his right. Turning slightly to get a better look at what had disturbed the grass, his eyes fell on a small serpent. A garter snake if he was not mistaken, it was little and well hidden in the lawn of the park. For a moment its head had turned towards him as he had stood up and their eyes met. They stared at each other, both a bit surprised for a moment at the other''s existence. Then the moment ended with a bird''s cry. Seemingly from nowhere a rather large bird had descended on the snake and grasped it in its talons. The snake tried to struggle for a few seconds but trapped as it was under the bird it couldn''t do much before the bird pecked its neck with its beak, killing it. The bird gave it a few more bites to make sure it was dead before taking off once more, the little snake''s body firmly grasped in its talons. Nero blinked at the unusual scene for a moment, giving an uncaring shrug he turned to leave once more. What did he care that a bird had succeeded in its meal for the night? ***** All things considered, it wasn''t too hard to find the Training Hall, Nero had just asked one of the patrolling guards, themselves easy to find due to their lit torches they carried along on their patrol. The building Kaesar stood in front of now was a little underwhelming. Shaped like a rectangle, two stories tall and made out of wood, the only reason it stood out was the rather large yard fenced in behind it. It was surprisingly lively for this time of night. Where its neighbors were dark and quiet, lights still flickered in the back of the building, and the occasional shout and groan of pain sometimes drifted on the night air. Though he had knocked on the front door, nobody had answered in a few minutes. Deciding it was probably better to ask for forgiveness than permission, Kaesar tried the door handle and, discovering it was unlocked, let himself into the building. The inside was to be expected, looking like a cross between a modern lounge and the classic medieval tavern. A few chairs dotted the room, but the primary focus was a rather large desk in front of the door. That same bureau was currently unoccupied. Looking around for anybody in the vicinity, or perhaps a bell to ring, Kaesar found nothing and nobody in particular. The sounds of people was a bit muffled now that he was inside, but they were still present, which meant that somebody was currently awake. Rather than wasting the trip, Nero decided that it would be better to directly get the information he needed now rather than come back later. Bypassing the front desk, Nero walked down the hall behind it, looking around for anybody he could talk to. He decided to ignore the branches of the hallway as he passed, heading instead to the voices that grew louder as he neared. It did not take him long to reach the end, another door lay slightly ajar, leading to the backyard of the facility. Stepping through it, Nero got his first look at what had caused the only real noise of the night. It was a squarish yard, around a hundred feet or so in depth and twice that in length. The floor was covered in sand, but it only served to pad some sort of harder surface under it, possibly stone or a form of concrete. It was surrounded by ten-foot walls made of brick. Off to one side were a variety of dummies, some nothing more than massive logs and others shaped to vaguely form human shapes and covered in armor. The sounds Kaesar had heard were from the group of around twenty or so people that seemed to be engaged in mock combat. There appeared to be two main groups squared off against each other, at times joining the other side with wooden weapons of choice. Kaesar saw a few wooden rods or spears and even a wooden club, but for the most part, the performance was a short wooden sword. Off to one side stood three men of middle age watching the exchange, occasionally talking to each other in voices lost over the din of mock battle. Nero decided these three were probably who he needed to talk to. Carefully walking around the confusing melee, he made his way to the group. It did not take long for the men to notice him and apart from shooting him some confused looks, didn''t react in any way. It didn''t take long to arrive at their sides, though he had to duck under a wooden shield that barely missed his head to get there. "And who the hell are you?" The middle one asked. He was slightly older and more massive than his two compatriots, though Nero noted he couldn''t be more than three hundred at most, still in the prime of life. He had wild black hair and an impressively bushy beard. He gave off the air of a no-nonsense kind of man. "Nero," he answered. "I was looking for the training hall. I had some questions, and I couldn''t find anybody up front, so I just followed the voices back here." The man on the left, a gaunt fellow with straw hair leaning on a cane, let out a groan and said something under his breath that sounded vaguely like ''hazy bastard.'' The leader only brought a hand to his head and massaged his temples, as if to stave off a headache. "Alright follow me then," He turned to his third compatriot. "Watch them would you, Dode. Put them on the course once they finish. This shouldn''t take too long." The man who he addressed nodded his head slightly, his face set in a perpetual grimace. He turned to the group of combatants who had stopped fighting to watch the new arrival in curiosity. "Did we say stop!? Get back to it you worms! The next person who throws away their shield is on latrine duty for the week!" The crowd started as one before the melee began once more in earnest. "Follow me." The leader ordered and set off into the building, Nero and the instructor with the cane following along behind. They did not talk to each other, either due to awkwardness or only not seeing the need to and so followed in silence. The bearded man took them inside the building before making a right into one of the hallways Nero had passed on his way to the courtyard. They went up a flight of stairs and then took a left before stopping in front of a door. The leader opened it and entered without ceremony, though he didn''t go far, only stopping at the entrance. "WAKE UP YOU MAGGOT!" He shouted, the walls practically reverberating with his deep voice. "GET OUT OF BED BEFORE I THROW YOU OUT!" "Uh...?" "UP!" "Fine, fine, I''m up, I''m up. What''chu gotta be yelling for? Its''a middle of the night." A heavily accented voice answered from inside the room. "Exactly, you are supposed to be at work! Why aren''t you at your desk you old fart?" "Come''on, ain''t nobody comin'' in this late. Might as ''ell get some shut-eye." "Well somebody did, so get dressed and do your damn job before I kick you out on the street you worthless dog." "Fine, I''m up. What''s somebody doin'' here at this time?" "You would know if you didn''t leave your desk, wouldn''t you? Don''t let me catch you doing it again!" And with that, the leader left the room, and Nero caught a glimpse of the interior for a moment. It was a simple affair with a bed, dresser, and window. Its only occupant was a somewhat frail old man who was getting out of bed and walking to the furniture. "Talk to him would you, see if you can get through that bony skull of his." The bearded man said to his companion who nodded in return and entered the room and closed the door behind him. "Follow me," he once more ordered Kaesar. They only went a few more doors down the hall before stopping and entering an office of sorts. It was dominated by a work desk covered in papers behind which was a simple leather chair. Two more chairs were placed in front of it for guests. "Have a seat." Kaesar did as told while his host took the seat behind the desk and got straight to the point. "Nero was it? I am Ken, and this is my training hall. What do you want to know?" "What do you teach?" "How to fight. How to survive." The response was automatic as if said countless times. It was probably a slogan of some sort. "I was more curious about what the content of this training hall in particular is. Do you only teach physical combat? What weapons are available? Do we learn magic or how to wield a bow? What about other forms of combat like cavalry and such?" Ken looked at the before him for a moment, blinking in surprise before answering. "Not one of those muscleheads that just want to hit stuff harder, are you?" He chuckled to himself slightly while leaning back in his chair. "For the most part, here at Ground Sheer, we are a general course on three months rotation. In the spring and fall we hold physical classes, in winter we teach necessary magic and theory and how to counter it and in the summer we teach survival skills. We just started our physical class for the fall last week, so if you want to join, you won''t be too far behind. "As I said, Ground Sheer is a general hall. We provide the basics and then if you want to know more you go to a specialized one. We cover a bit of bow work in the survival skills session in the summer, but that is mainly for hunting. If you want to learn cavalry and knight skills, then I would recommend Chevalier Santos on the other side of the city. Do not get me wrong, we are probably the best when it comes to the basics, at least in Sara. But if you want to be the best at something then you have to give up being good at everything?" That sounded good to Nero. He was self-aware enough to know that he would probably not be too good in combat as he was now. He also had a few months to kill before his sisters showed up and learning how to fight was probably going to be useful in a game where one of the leading attractions is fighting monsters. "How do the classes work though?" "Classes start at six in the evening and go to midnight six days a week with a break on Sunday. This lets people attend after they are done work for the day and allows them to rest for tomorrow. Right now we are still at the beginning of this season, so we are focusing on getting a feel for where people are with their chosen weapon." "And people can use any weapon?" "So long as it isn''t projectile based. We do not actually teach skills in the spring or fall, we teach people how to fight. So you will see a lot of people trying out different weapons until they find what they are comfortable with. Or no weapon at all. I am partial to unarmed fighting myself." "And how much does this cost?" Nero finally asked, deciding he was interested. "Ah, the dull side." Ken frowned in thought and tapped a finger on his desk. "We have two main ways to pay. The first is an upfront sum at the beginning of the season. This is the cheaper option in the long run but also the most unused. It is still somewhat expensive, and people who have that kind of money laying around generally prefer going to specialized halls or hiring private tutors. Our second option is more common. You provide us your mercenary and adventure guild cards, and we take a portion of your earnings till you pay off the debt. This is more expensive in the long run because you have to pay the interest as well as the risk that somebody tries to wiggle out of it. It is pretty rare, but it does happen, and then we have to send bounty hunters, and those guys can get pretty expensive." Now it was Kaesar''s turn to frown in thought. Both options were unviable to him at the moment. He did not have any money nor did he have cards from guilds. Besides, he wasn''t even confident that he would enjoy combat and didn''t want to have to deal with bounty hunters down the line. It made no sense to lock himself into a commitment that he might find he did not enjoy in the future. That was the entire point of the Beast, it gave him the option to try everything until he saw something he liked. Seeing Nero''s hesitation, Ken spoke up once more. "If that doesn''t work for you we have students who do work for us to pay for their courses. You basically do chores and the like and get room and board for it. Some people attend classes between their job to learn. I didn''t mention this earlier because we are full at the moment, but if you want to come back in the spring, we might have an opening." "Workers? Like that man who was supposed to be manning the desk?" Nero asked, an idea starting to form in his mind. "That is a different case," Ken grimaced slightly. "Though he is a lazy bastard, Furu is probably the oldest man here. He''s been working in Ground Sheer for longer than most of us have been alive. Though he doesn''t know it, one of the conditions for taking over was that I had to promise not to fire him. So until he dies on us, then we''re stuck with his old boney ass. Besides, when he is not lazing around, he does good work, so I''m not about to give you his job." "I wasn''t thinking about taking his job." Slightly untrue but not entirely false either. "How about this; I work here every other day and help the old timer out, and you let me attend the course. I do not need room and board." It was technically correct, as a player, he did not need to sleep in the game, though he could if he wanted to. All he would need to do is take care of food, and he would be set. The trainer thought about the proposition for a moment. One more student out of twenty wouldn''t make too much of a difference. And Furu was actually getting on in years, he was one of the oldest humans in Sara. Besides, it wouldn''t actually cost him anything. "Alright, we''ll try it your way for a while. If I find you lazing about when you are supposed to be working, then I''m going to kick ya to the curb, but otherwise, there shouldn''t be too much of a problem. Come back here at six tomorrow, and we''ll show you the ropes." "Alright," Nero said, getting up from his chair and reaching out to shake the man''s hand. "It has been a pleasure meeting you. Have a good evening." A little put off by the sudden show of manners, the trainer nevertheless shook his hand with a small ''You as well.'' ***** Once more Nero found himself on his bench in the little park, this time watching the sunrise. After his meeting at Ground Sheer, the training hall, he had spent the night wandering the city. Apart from some more unsavory establishments, everything had been closed for the evening, so he was left mostly to fend for himself. He had talked to a few guards as they made their rounds and had gotten a feel for the city. From what he understood of the place, while you were within the walls, that is on Sara hill and the city that covered it, security was relatively tight. At least you weren''t in danger of being robbed or murdered in an alleyway. Once you left the walls, you were at more risk due to fewer guards and a broader area that made up the neighboorhood that had grown outside the palisade. It wasn''t lawless per say, more like only unkempt, with no unified design that was the central Sara Keep. After a while of merely wandering and the occasional discussion with players found on the street, Nero returned to the park as the first hints of the sun started to peek over the horizon to his right. As he was watching the colors of morning start to appear on the horizon, he saw a small shimmer of light out of the corner of his eye. Typically it would not have been visible but it emerged in the still somewhat deep shadow of the bench he was sitting on. What emerged was a small snake. It looked to be a gardener or something similar. It seemed dazed as it looked around in apparent confusion. So stunned was it that it barely reacted when Nero reached down to pick it up. It looked just like the small serpent from the evening before. In fact, it probably was. Nero knew that NPCs, both monsters, and humanoids, respawned like players. They apparently did it differently, but it was the same principle. Looking around, it took Nero a minute to find the bird from last night. Eventually, he spotted it asleep on one of the higher branches of the most massive tree in the park. Looking back towards the small snake in his hands, Nero noticed it had followed his eyes and was watching the bird vigilantly. Last night probably hadn''t been the first time it had been killed by the falcon. Immortality was perhaps more of a curse than a blessing for the small creature as it was helplessly devoured every time it was reborn. Setting the snake beside him on the bench so it could leave if it wanted to, Nero''s mind turned to what he would do if he were in the snake''s place. To fight the bird, he would need a bow or gun, a stone to throw at least. Something that could knock it out of the air. Otherwise, he would have to try and sneak up on it while it was on the ground, easier said than done. All that wouldn''t be possible with a snake''s body, laking as it did the hands to use tools. As he was thinking this, the small serpent had decided it liked the idea of hands as well, it had slithered its way up the bench and further up his arm before entering his sleeve altogether. Its little head peeked out of his shoulder to keep an eye on the bird, its tongue flickering in and out of its mouth as it tasted the air. It was adorable. Nero knew garter snakes were harmless and this one was barely three times the length of his most extended finger. So its small head swaying back and forth was extremely cute to him. "Don''t like it do you, little guy?" The snake certainly couldn''t understand him though it did turn to face him at the sound of his voice. Nero didn''t know what it was, perhaps it was only a stray thought? Maybe it was the idea of trying to live as a snake with no limbs? Maybe it was because the game was called Gods'' Nature and that gotten him thinking about religion. It could have been a combination of some unknown factors. For some reason, his thoughts turned to a poem he had read years ago. Before he had dropped out of high school to take care of his sisters, he had intended to become certified in history and culture. To that effect, he had read up a lot on various religions. It was partially the reason he had chosen his character of NRVN QSR, and it had inspired the Beast Nature. One book he had read had been a bit outdated, over a century old. It had been about various uses of mythological figures in modern entertainment and how it had evolved throughout the centuries. At one point the author had been on the subject of Norse creatures in media. He had included a modern reinterpretation of a Norse poetic that had stuck with Augustus, though he did not know from which media source it originated. "Though I may devour the five continents And swallow the three seas A body with neither wings, Nor hands, Nor feet, Is helpless against the sky. I am the world serpent My name is Jormungandr." The small snake just blinked in response, its tongue flicking out once more. Nero chuckled to himself for a moment. That poem had seemed appropriate about being helpless against the sky, but this little garter snake was no world serpent.
You are weak with hunger. Maximum health falls by 20%
Looking at the message for a moment, Nero decided he had to make some money if he wanted to eat. And looking at the little snake beside him, he had just the idea of how they were both going to get a meal. ***** I fight a battle every day Against discouragement and fear; Some foe stands always in my way, The path ahead is never clear! ''The Fighter'' Samuel Ellsworth Kiser 003 Blue Collar Man I fight a battle every day Against discouragement and fear; Some foe stands always in my way, The path ahead is never clear! ''The Fighter'' Samuel Ellsworth Kiser ******* The idea had been simple, at least in theory. The problem with swords and sorcery fantasy is that it is almost always centered in the age before technology, that is household appliances, took off. It is easy to forget in the modern world, but throughout history, humanity has lived a very meager life. No refrigerator or microwave, no running water or indoor plumbing and no pest control. This causes problems that are very hard for the modern mankind to think about on more than an intellectual level. When hygiene was not really important for the layman, focused as they were on survival. This meant that refuse was left in places that it really should not be. This attracted vermin. Vermin like mice and rats were a significant problem before modern pest control methods existed. They carried diseases and spoiled food, even today particular places in the world are still dealing with thousands upon thousands of critters that would eat their grain and produce. Nero''s idea went like this. ''I need to eat. To eat I need to make money. To do that I need to sell something or render a service. I have nothing to sell. What kind of service can I perform that will pay? What are problems I can fix? What were the issues in medieval Europe? Starvation, wars, day to day life and plague. Starvation is not a problem, and I cannot fight. So I can help in day to day life, chores mainly, or help with a plague. There does not seem to be a plague, and I cannot heal.'' This had been his train of thought until he had picked up the little snake. His next idea went something like this. ''I cannot stop a plague or heal, but why not prevent one while helping in day to day life?'' With the little snake in hand, or on the shoulder as the case may have been, he went off to find one of the mankind''s greatest foes, the rat. Kaesar focused on places with food first of all, as they would be most susceptible to vermin. He would go up to the counter of a restaurant and ask to speak to the owner. Sometimes whoever was there would say no or answer that the owner was not available. If that were the case, then Nero would move on. It took a few tries to find somebody who would talk to him, but on the fourth attempt, he managed to speak to the boss of a small restaurant. Once Nero was talking to the owner, or boss, of the establishment their conversation went something like this. "Before we begin, I would like to ask if you are having any problems with rats or mice at your restaurant." "No sir, our food is perfectly fine." That was the first hurdle, making sure they understood he wasn''t trying to ruin their reputation. "I''m sure the food is excellent. I''m sure you take care of your restaurant. But they do pop up every once in a while, don''t they? I''m just asking if you would hire somebody to deal with them if they showed up?" "That''s what you meant when you said you were talking about business. I''m afraid you are too late, we hired a mage to get rid of the small nest here last week." That was the second problem that tended to crop up. Nero had not experienced the magic and had thus treated this situation as if it were identical to the middle ages. Here you could hire somebody with magic that could deal with a problem with magic. Still, that did not mean Nero was out of options. When he received a reply similar to this in later interviews he would ask; "How much did that cost?" The replies he got were about the same, between 2 to 5 gold coins. Kaesar did not know for sure, but he imagined that gold was a significant amount of money. It made sense in a way, mages were somewhat rare, at least more so than warriors, and they would get paid more because of their scarcity. It probably a slightly specialized field of magic as well, a standard fireball was more likely set fire to a restaurant than it was to kill vermin. That being said, Nero still saw an opportunity. Business was not his specialty, but he knew the basics. Like the fact that if you could do the same job for less money, you could steal clients from the competition. So he told the owners of the restaurants that if they wanted it done more cheaply, they could call him. Eventually, he had some luck. The fifth owner he talked to, the twelfth restaurant of the morning in all, hadn''t yet hired anybody to exterminate the rats that had begun to spring up in their storage room. Nero jumped on the opportunity, saying that he could get rid of them all for much cheaper than a regular mage. It had taken some convincing, but the money that could be saved led to the owner agreeing to allow Kaesar a chance.
Pest control
You have been given a chance to help a local restaurant owner. Kill all rats in the storeroom by noon to receive your reward.
Rats: 0/17 Grade: E
This was the first sign that something had gone wrong. A quest had been generated, Nero wasn''t so much a noob to not know what a quest was. It was basically a task given in exchange for rewards. Nero saw no problem with this, he treated it like it was a job. Kill the rats to get paid. That is what lead to this situation. -2 -3 -1 -2 Those numbers were slivers of his HP draining away as five rats bit at his shins and feet, causing him to feel a little stinging in the area. Two more were warding off the small snake as it tried to bite them. It had already eaten one at the beginning of the confrontation, and one more was wrapped up in its coils, slowly being strangled to death. The thing that Nero had forgotten was that for all Gods'' Nature resemble reality, it was a game. A game is not reality, it a world meant to challenge and entertain. Good games do not mirror reality, what they do is shape their own reality in a way that engages the players. Nero planned to sit on a barrel or something, release the little snake and allow it to hunt down the rats. The most significant problem he foresaw was that the snake might not be able to eat all the vermin within the time limit. If that were the case, he would just get it to track down the rats so he could hit them with a broom or something. Within a few minutes of walking in the storeroom one rat had already been eaten, so things had been off to a great start. But then more and more rats had appeared, it was when three showed up at once that Kaesar realized what was wrong. He did not know how but the game had made rats join together to try and kill him. In real life, this would not be a problem unless there were hundreds of rats. With less than ten he would have been safe. What were they going to do, nibble on his ankles till he fell down then knaw on his earlobes? It was only when he noticed his health fly away that he started to realize the gravity of the situation. A game is where a human can kill a dragon or a god. A rat can indeed kill a man. They just need to bring his HP down to zero and even if no mortal wounds had been inflicted he would still die. Kaesar wasn''t ashamed to say he started to panic when his health hit fifty percent. He had never been in a fight before and the closest he had come to a situation like this, one where adrenalin was pumping through his veins, was the reason he was currently paralyzed in a hospital bed. Where before he had been merely lifting his feet to try and keep them out of reach, his fear made him more proactive. He tried stepping on one of them, though it merely moved out of the way. After a few tries of this tactic not working, he decided to pick one up. He got lucky, one of them was bitting his ankle and did not have time to get away when his hand came down. With the struggling beast in his hand, he threw it as hard as he could across the room where it impacted against a wall. The throw did significant damage to its health, a small red forty popping up when it landed but did not kill it as it got up a moment later and came back to bite Nero once more. Though panicked, Nero noticed its return and grabbed at it again. It couldn''t escape this time either, though it was because it was limping from the previous damage. This time Nero kept it in his hand as he tried to reach down and grab another. It flailed ineffectually in his grasp, unable to escape nor bend in such a way to bite his fingers as he tried to choke it. Little red ones and two popped up as he did so. He finally managed to grab another one right as the rat in his hand gave one last squeak and died. Kaesar started to squeeze the new rat as he tossed the dead one away and reached for another. It took a few seconds, but he managed to corner it between two crates and grab it by the tail. In the form of contortion that would make a gymnast proud, the rat bent its body by its tail and lent up to bite his fingers. -5 "Shit." The pinch made him drop the rat, but he recovered quickly and managed to grab it once more before it could escape. With one rat dead and two in hand that only left two of the vermin trying to eat him from his feet. Though this was indeed a game, this was a virtual reality game. There was no need for Nero to merely stand there and let them eat him, nor was there an agility stat that determined his chance at not getting hit. Instead, all he had to do was to keep moving, and the rats would have to try and keep up with his long strides. Dodging the movements of two rats was significantly easier than trying to do the same with five. This moment of spite allowed Nero a chance to look over at his companion. The little snake had done well for itself. Not counting the one rat eaten at the beginning, two more were dead around it. The last rat seemed to be on its last legs as well. As Nero watched, the serpent sprung forward and settled its jaws around the mammal''s neck, an eight popping up above its head. The rat tried to struggle for a moment before going still. With danger haven passed, the rest of the clean up went surprisingly well. No more groups showed up, and the snake got a buffet. It took another hour to get the rest of the rats, both because Nero took a moment to rest to heal and because the snake needed time to digest. Kaesar was no expert on serpents and so wasn''t sure if this was the standard speed of digestion or if the game was different. Once the task was finished, Nero left the storeroom to meet the owner again. "All done." "Thanks, you got that done rather quickly. Did you use magic?" "Not really, it was mostly thanks to this little guy." He nodded his head towards the small snake which was resting on his shoulder once more, a noticeable bulge in its stomach. "Seems useful. So how much do I owe you?" "My services are cheaper than mages, so just give me ten." Because Kaesar was new to Gods'' Nature, he did not know the currency or how much it was worth. He expected the coins under gold to be silver but wasn''t sure and did not want to seem ignorant, lest he is taken advantage of. "Good deal. Here you are, ten silver." As he expected. The restaurant owner pulled out a small money pouch and counted off ten silver coins, which Nero pocketed. "Thank you, if you don''t mind I will have a meal here before I leave?" "Sure, always ready for customers." The owner said as he led the way into his building. "Take a seat, I''ll get someone for you right away." As Nero sat down, the little snake slithered from his arm to the table. "You know, it is thanks to you I got this meal. How about it, want to stick together?" The snake made no answer, Kaesar wasn''t even sure it could understand him. "All right, if you are going to come with me, your going to need a name. Hm, I''d name you Jormungandr, but you are no world serpent, are you? A bit too small to circle the world. Then I''ll name you Jorry for short because you are short." The newly named Jorry gave no answer besides curling upon itself and closing its eyes. That was fine, Nero hadn''t been expecting an answer anyway. He decided to be productive while he waited for his food.If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. Opening the menu, he scrolled through it for a moment. He had leveled up from the quest, twice in fact. He now had ten points to spend on any of his free attributes. He did not do so immediately; instead, he entered the network portion of the menu to access the internet. Nero knew that he was ignorant of a lot of things when it came to games in general and so he did what he always did when confronted by the unknown, turn to books for an answer. ***** Though he had finished his ''job'' around mid-morning, he only arrived at Ground Sheer around six in the evening, right on time to start his first day of work. Originally Nero had intended to return to the bookstore he had found yesterday, but he had not expected to delve so deeply into the game industry that he had a hard time extracting himself. Because of his meticulous personality, when Augustus wanted to learn something he tended to go very deep on the subject. In this case, he had started with the initial creation of games in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. This was the time period where the video games were in their infancy and thus when their culture underwent the most significant shifts. It probably would not be a lie that in the first century since the creation of the first video game, pong, had more significant cultural changes than all the hundreds of years following put together. That wasn''t even counting all the games and media that came before it that influenced the gaming world. Tabletop RPGs alone had changed games to such a great extent that their aftereffects remained to this day. Nero had only been in Gods'' Nature for a little over a day, and he could see influences from things like Dungeons and Dragons, not to mention Tolkien''s works. Kaesar had really fallen down a bottomless hole if he wanted to understand gamer culture, it was the project of years. Truthfully this spurred Nero on, not only because of his hard-headedness but also because he found the subject interesting enough to pursue it. Maybe he could finally keep up a conversation with his sisters when they started talking about things like DPS, RNG and other acronyms he did not know the meaning of. That was still a long way off though. As he had discovered, there was a term that represented him rather well. Noob, derived from the word Newbie, it meant somebody new to something that did not know what they were doing. Nero also learned that is was often used as an insult, intended to demean somebody''s knowledge and intelligence as well as skill in a game. If Nero wanted to shed his ''Noobness,'' then learning was vital, as well as understanding various skills that other gamers took for granted. He had already completed the first step, acknowledging his ''noobness,'' the next was to learn about games and then get better at them. Both he could accomplish in this training hall. So it was with some small amount of excitement at the prospect of improving himself that he entered the building. "Well if it ain''t the job thief, go away your face annoys me." Which disappeared immediately upon seeing a small old man sitting at the front desk. It was to be expected, nobody liked the idea of being replaced or other people muscling on their territory. Though Nero had no intention of taking the old man''s job, merely using it as an opportunity to get training at the facility, Furu would not necessarily perceive it that way. Still, Nero did not take it to heart. He had expected this reaction to a degree, though not to this extent. "I don''t want your job, I just thought you might need some help." He put on an air of innocence like he was falsely accused. "I don'' need no help. I''ve been working here since before you was born, I can do my job jus'' fine. Watch your mouth, boy. Before I whip ya one." The old man looked indignant at the thought that he was too early to work. "I''m sure you do an excellent job." Nero decided to change tactics a bit. "I just thought that having an assistant would give you some time to relax. Having somebody to split the load would make things easier wouldn''t it?" Furu''s eyes lit up a bit at the idea that he could slack off more and not get in trouble for it. The old man then tried to hide it, putting on a reticent face before answering. "Still, this job''s tough. I don'' think you can handle it. Y''are a bit too green for my likin''." Seeing that the idea had been planted, Nero pressed the advantage. "I can learn, once I have the basics down you could let me get some experience and just tell me if I do anything wrong." In this fashion, Kaesar had provided a ready excuse. In the name of ''hands-on experience,'' Furu could leave him alone to whatever task and not be held responsible. Pretending to think about it a moment, the old man answered. "Fine, but ya better not slack off," that was his job "and go see Ken before coming back. He told me ta send you to ''im." Furu gestured with a nod of his head to the back of the building. Kaesar was ready to admit that he was a total noob when it came to games. But one thing he did know was people. It had been years since he had ''played'' but he wasn''t so rusty as to forget how to convince others that what he wanted was in their best interest as well. He had used the same tactic the night before with Ken as well as this morning with the restaurant owner. Framing your desire in such a way that the other party seems to benefit more and make them think it was their idea in the first place was psychological manipulation 101. Nero had been a bit more forceful than he liked when it came to negotiations while talking to the restaurant owner and the training instructor because he had been a bit pressed as well as out of practice. Furu was another story. He had gotten a bit of an idea of the other''s personality from last nights argument, he had placed himself in a bit of an inferior position, ''helping'' rather than ''doing.'' He also framed it so that Furu would have an excuse to slack off, something that Nero thought might be a regular occurrence at Ground Sheer. Having accomplished his goal, he nodded his head to the old man and followed the hallway to the back. He first checked the training ground but only found one of the other two instructors there with the trainees who seemed to be doing pre-workout stretching. The instructor was the one with the grimace, called Dode if Nero recalled correctly. Dode noticed Kaesar out of the corner of his eye and waved him over while keeping an eye on the other trainees. "Ken''s in his office, you know where that is?" Nero nodded in acknowledgment. "Go see him then." The instructor did not say anything more, ignoring Kaesar''s existence as he turned to leave. It only too a little while to reach the same office he had been in last night. Knocking on the door, he heard a rough ''enter'' before opening it. Like before the trainer was behind his desk though now he was bent over some papers. The last instructor, the one with the cane whose name Nero did not know, was in the room as well, leaning against the wall to the side of the desk. "Have a seat." Ken nodded his head to one of the chairs without looking up. "This is the kid I was telling you about. Rob meet Nero, Nero meet Rob. He''s in charge of this place when I''m not around. The other man you saw is Dode, his our best trainer. When you are learning, you do everything he says got it?" "Got it." "Good. Tonight I want you to learn the basics of what you''ll be doing with Furu. He can be a bit crotchety and lazy but he''s smart, and it will depend on his word whether you stay or not. Today is Friday, so you start work tonight. You''ll work Mondays, Wednesday, and Fridays and learn on Tuesday, Thursdays, and Saturdays. Sunday the hall is closed so do whatever you want. Basic rules are simple. Follow instructions when told what to do, show up on time and don''t leave early. You are fired if you get thrown in jail, and I want no fighting between trainees outside of spars in class. You got a gripe with someone, you settle it after the course is ended otherwise both sides get tossed out. I don''t need to deal with petty politics in my hall. That''s the gist of it, I don''t think I forgot anything. Rob?" The instructor finally looked up from his papers to turn to his fellow. "No, I think you got it all. Any questions?" "What exactly will I be doing?" He hadn''t gotten a definite answer yet, and his closest guess was merely watching the door. "For the most part, you are to watch the door and deal with the people that walk in. Answer questions and turn away anybody trying to cause trouble. Do not let family and friends of the trainees in the back until the work for the night is done. The only time I want people disrupting training is if there is a death involved. Apart from that, some minor paperwork on the finance of the hall and monthly tax are the only things Furu does. Any more questions?" Nero shook his head, it didn''t sound too complicated, only dull. That was fine, it would give him plenty of time to read up. "Alright, go see Furu, and he will get you started." Knowing a dismissal when he heard one, Nero turned to leave. ***** The night was progressing like Nero had expected. Furu had left him alone within minutes with some vague instructions on how to handle people that came by. They amounted to telling them to return during the day, and that was it. So here he was, reclining on a wooden chair reading. Jorry was curled up on the desk in front of him. Nero had set him down and allowed him to explore the room a bit, but it had only taken a few minutes for the snake to return and to him and go back to sleep. Kaesar was a bit nonplussed about how lazy this serpent was. Appart from waking up to check around every ten minutes or so, it just lay there, its tongue flicking in and out of its mouth every few seconds as it tasted the air. Maybe Jorry was lethargic from the large meal this morning, it had eaten five of those mice after all, and Kaesar wasn''t even sure a snake in the real world was able to eat that much. It had to be three times Jorry''s body weight. Still, the evening was peaceful allowing Nero''s reading to go uninterrupted. The only sounds were the occasional shout or groan that made its way from the training room in the back. Nero was currently reading a somewhat decent book online from the early twenty-second century. Because of its age, he had gotten it for free, and it had been written by a sociologist of some slight renown of the time. The book, while not being really contemporary, went into some depth about how Japanese culture and media influenced early gaming culture. It was interesting, and it also branched out into other forms of media like light novels and anime and their tropes that changed certain notable games. The only problem was that because it was a bit out of date, some of the slang required some research to understand. Apart from that small bug, it was providing help in comprehending some things that had flown over his head before. He now realized what Ludendorff meant when he was talking about such things as ''Neko-maids'' and ''Onee-sama elf,'' and other such tropes were due to their extensive prevalence during the time period of gaming development. He was reading a rather exciting chapter on the prevalence of what the book was called ''Bikini Armor'' in Japanese RPG''s and how it spread to the west as a form of ''fan service,'' an appeal to the lust of males as the target audience of the time. It was at this point that he heard a faint clinking of bells. Nero looked up, thinking that maybe somebody had pressed a doorbell or something, but there was nobody in front of the door. The ringing went on for a few more seconds before Nero tried checking the menu of the game. Sure enough, there was a small icon of a bell ringing next to the network option. Clicking it brought up a small window, through which he saw a woman looking at him. So this was what answering a call received through the game was like. The woman though was what really drew his attention, it was a face he was familiar with, though one he hadn''t seen in over a week. "Sophia." He said the name softly. "Gus." She said his nickname in much the same way, though there were different undertones. She refused to meet his eyes, keeping hers firmly locked on his chin. "My uncle told me what he did. Being able to talk to you again is nice." "You never visited." He did not mean it as an accusation, merely a statement. Sophia took it the other way. "Sorry." She sounded meek, too much so for his liking. "I just... I did not want to see you laying there in that bed. I came by before you woke up but, well, it hurts to see you injured like that. Then I ran into your sisters and things... were said." Nero sighed, his sisters and his best friend had a bit of a hot and cold war going on. At one point they could be the best friends, talking about things that flew right over his head. The next they would be at each others'' throats, with snide comments being exchanged. "I talked to them, they know it wasn''t your fault. Maude and Nico were just emotional over the incident." Sophia went to say something, but he preempted her. "It was not your fault." "But if I had been paying more attention you would not have gotten hurt in the first place." Her eyes were starting to water, though no tears escaped. "True." There was no point in lying. "But if I had stubbed my toe a minute before or if we had taken a different path or if we left later, I might not have gotten injured either. We cannot change the past, so deal with it and move on." "You know, you should learn to be more considerate of a pure maiden''s feelings." She lightly joked, a small hiccup in her voice. "Pure maiden?" He snorted. "Tell that to all those kids you sent home in tears. Besides, all I see is my friend being stupid for things she cannot control. What have I always told you?" "''Nobody can control me, my actions are my own.''" She repeated his oft said phrase while rolling her eyes. "You do know that I am your boss right? I always tell you what to do." "Only because I let you." Repeating the familiar argument brought a smile to his lips. "Besides you are not my boss anymore, at least for a few years. Doctor''s orders." "How are you doing on that end, the insurance isn''t giving you any problems is it." Sophia frowned. "No, it will pay for my hospital bills and match the pay I was receiving until I am fit to return to work." "How long did they say till then?" "The doctor said around thirteen months until the nanites complete fixing my nerves. I''ll be stuck in bed till then. After that, I''ll be able to get up, but I''ll need physical therapy for anywhere between six to ten months. I''ll be able to make it to the girls'' graduation at least." "That long? Was the damage that bad?" "Yes and no. The biggest problem is that each nerve needs to be reconnected and the nanites are programmed to do stuff like that slowly and carefully. Thankfully I had the more advanced enhancements, and you got me to the hospital quickly, or things could have been much worse." Seeing his friend start to get emotional, Nero decided to change the subject. "You never told me you played Gods'' Nature?" The look in her eye told him she knew what he was doing but went along with it anyway. "How do you know I''m playing, I could be talking to you on my computer?" "There is no time lag. If you were outside, then there would be a delay from when you I say something and you answer. My sisters complained about it all the time when I called them for dinner." She blinked a little, not having realized the implications of different perceptions of time. "I never realized. Then again, I''ve never received a call while playing before. You know my uncle was the one who created it, so I was one of the first players. He kind of spoils me, I''m his only family after all. I just never talked about it because you did not seem interested." "You must be pretty high level then?" "Not really. I''m only level 127, I don''t fight that much. I like learning new things more. By the way, I go by Medea in the game. What about you?" "After the witch from Greek myth? That was one of your favorite plays if I remember correctly. I chose Nero Kaesar." "Because your father was named Seneca?" At his grimace, she hurried to apologize. "Sorry, I wasn''t thinking." "It''s fine. I just haven''t thought about my dad for a while, so it was surprising. But no, I chose it because I decided to name my Nature The Beast." "Ah, the beast of revelation then. Preterism was the one that took Nero as the beast right? And historicism took the... pope, I want to say, as the beast?" "The Protestant church working with the pope but that''s the gist of it." "Did you use the Latin spelling or the greek?" "I used the greek because that was the original language. NRVN QSR, Neron Kaisar, also lines the numbers to add to six hundred and sixty-six like is recorded in revelations 13:18." "Then why do you call yourself with the latin Nero instead of the greek Neron?" "That is just the way most people know the name these days so it would be easier other people." He shrugged his shoulders helplessly before a thought came that made him smirk. "You''ll never guess what the girls call themselves though." "What?" "They decided they wanted in on the whole roman thing in the family. So Maude called herself Claudia and Nico chose Octavia." It took a moment for Medea to recognize the significance of it but when she did, she put a hand to her mouth to smother the snort of laughter that threatened to escape. "Ha! I think Freud would have had a field day with you three." She giggled. "They hung up in seconds after I told them my name. You should have seen their faces, red like a tomato. Those two get embarrassed way too easily." He couldn''t resist laughing a little himself. "Where are you anyway? Which city did you choose?" "I''m still in Sarah Keep, I''m waiting for the girls to finish their quest to meet up and register each other as friends. It''s going to be a few more months, so I decided to join a training hall while I waited." He figured she would know what they were, having been part of the game for the last two years. "That''s good. I''ll be passing through there in a few weeks for a quest so we can meet. Which hall did you join?" "Ground Sheer." "That''s a good basic one, their reputation is pretty solid. So you''re learning to use a weapon?" She asked. "We''ll see, I don''t know what I want to play as yet go I''m giving everything a fair shot. How do you enjoy fighting." "I''m using a magic user build. My Nature is Sage, so I get buffs from learning and understanding magic." It was thanks to his recent studies into gaming culture that Nero knew ''buffs'' meant advantages and that ''build'' represented the way a person might allocate stat points to their character. It was still odd to hear his friend talk in gaming lingo though. "You can teach me how to use magic when you get here then. The training hall''s course on magic does not start until winter in a few months." "I''ll contact you once I''m in town. I have to go, I just ran into a rather unfortunate troll." "Alright, I''ll talk to you later then, bye." "Bye." The small window shut in on itself leaving Nero alone with his book and snake once more. ****** I must forever be on guard Against the doubts that skulk along; I get ahead by fighting hard, But fighting keeps my spirit strong. ''The Fighter'' Samuel Ellsworth Kiser 004 Premonition I must forever be on guard Against the doubts that skulk along; I get ahead by fighting hard, But fighting keeps my spirit strong. ''The Fighter'' Samuel Ellsworth Kiser *****
Ding
Primary evaluation complete.
Initial Nature settings adjusted.
Natal birth attained.
The Beast is born.
May your journeys and growth be worthwhile.
This popup message was the greeting Nero received upon his appearance once more in Gods'' Nature. He had logged off after his shift last night because it had been time for his second daily check-up. Though he had spent a day and a half in the game world, only about seven hours had passed in real life. The concept of time usage had been on his mind when he logged back into the lobby of the game. Augustus had done some mental math to try and wrap his head around the time dilation effect. If you took into account the fact that Augustus lay paralyzed on a hospital bed and feeding by IV drip, it is no wonder that he because he had no other obligations, he could spend so long in the game. Though he did not have the standard game capsule, his helmet was still equipped with the function that allowed the game to be played during sleep. This would only help with physical fatigue, but mental fatigue could be stopped by sleeping inside the game world. A standard day had twenty-four hours, but with the time dilation of five in-game, that meant that twenty-four hours became a hundred and twenty hours. In one day, Augustus had two check-ups with the nurses, each lasted between twenty and thirty minutes. All together this could mean between three and five hours of game time lost. Let''s say that in one day cycle, Augustus became mentally tired three times. If he slept for around eight hours, then the total sleep time would be twenty-four hours, an entire day. This meant that out of the initial period of a hundred and twenty hours available in a day, subtracting the three to five for check-ups and the twenty-four for sleep, Nero could play the game between ninety-one and ninety-three hours. This was an estimate at best because Nero did not know if he would need more sleep or if other things would interrupt gameplay like a visit from his doctor or his siblings. Augustus had spent some time in the lobby thinking on this subject, he had also done some small investigation online about whether this difference in time perspectives would have effects on a person''s psychology. Unfortunately, the technology was still too new, only a few years old. So no long-term research had been done with regards to it. Nero was willing to bet money that there were teams out there dedicated to figuring out the specifics. Because of the time spent looking up the subject, the initial time outside the game had turned from twenty minutes to two hours. Once Augustus had finally entered the game, it was already late morning. And he was greeted with this notification. He blinked a bit, unsure what was going on. Shrugging his shoulders a bit he closed the popup and opened up his status page to see if there had been a change. There had been.
Name Nrvn Qsr Level 3 (10 Points Unallocated)
Nature The Beast (Natal) {?} Alignment Neutral
HP 100 MP 100
STR. 10 DEX. 10
Spirit 10 Knowledge 6 {?}
Skills-
The Nest (1) {?}
Assimilation (1) {?}
The screen showed some differences. Thankfully each change was accompanied by a small question mark icon that would hopefully explain things. Deciding to start from the top, Nero clicked on the mark next to The Beast.
Natures (Natal)
As you progress through the game, your Nature develops with you and you with it. Natures have no levels, but it can change on a qualitative level. The first form (Natal) is given to all players after enough time is spent on the game and enough actions are taken to determine the path of growth. Natures provide benefits depending on their form of skills, quests or stats. Higher Nature attunement provided more significant gains.
That was interesting. From what Nero understood, it basically meant that the higher the ''Nature,'' the stronger, or more beneficial, the gains were. This said likely was the reasons for the changes on the screen, he had spent enough time in the game for it to finalize his Nature. It did not mention how to improve Nature, but Nero could look that up later. He moved on to knowledge.
Knowledge
This stat is generated by the careful gathering of information. It represents the total accumulated knowledge of the player. The knowledge stat provides benefits by bringing up facts known to the player in crucial situations. The player is unable to allocate points to this stat.
This was likely generated because of the hours he had spent in the library. What it meant by ''bringing up facts known to the player in crucial situations'' Kaesar would have to discover later. Next were the skills.
The Nest (1)
"To grow strong does not mean to grow solitary."
Allows for the recruitment of NPCs into The Nest. NPCs in the Nest receive stat boosts while fighting with other nestmates. Upon death, NPCs will revive around the player. NPCs disappear upon logging off and reappear upon login. Synergistic skills can only be used with other nestmates.
Current Number of Nestmates Allowed: 1
Current Number of Nestmates: 1
Nestmates: ''Jorry'' (Gardner Snake)
Stat boost to Nestmates: 0.01%
Assimilation (1)
"I see the best in you and imitate it."
The power of The Nest is your power. By assimilating various traits, physiologies, and skills of your nestmates, you gain their characteristics. As you learn experience with their features, they become your own. Through this, you grow. Only one trait may be assimilated at a time. Just small changes are possible at this level.
So these were skills. It was Nero''s understanding that these could be anything from passive abilities, like doing more damage with a weapon, to active ones, like launching a ball of fire. One of the things he had heard in passing from his sisters was the sheer variety of skill in Gods'' Nature compared to other games. He could finally see why these two skills alone were probably not uniques in gaming history, but they were undoubtedly eclectic. Speaking of Jorry, Nero noticed the little snake was still wrapped around his arm when he had logged in. To tell the truth, when he had logged out he hadn''t given much thought to his tiny companion. It was good to know that it would be with him for a while. Nero still had a few questions and so decided to call the person most likely able to answer them in his concise list of contacts. While he waited for the call to be answered, Nero took another look at his skills. The Nest was self-explanatory, more of a storage or organization tool than anything else. It likely was to be used in conjunction with other abilities like Assimilation down the line. Its exact limits would be revealed as he played. Speaking of Assimilation, that was the one that Nero wanted to play around with. What were its limits? Could he transform into a snake entirely or was there limits? Did it mean copying stats, like dexterity or was it limited to physical things like scales? How did he activate it in the first place? The last question was probably the best place to start. Did he just say the name of the skill he wanted to activate? "Assimilation."
Please select the NPC whose trait you want to assimilate:
-Jorry
Not much choice but at least he got the skill to activate. "Jorry."
What trait would you like to assimilate?
Best to start with something a bit abstract to see the effects. "Jorry''s flexibility."
Trait description is unspecific. Please provide a narrower description or chose another trait.
Kaesar hadn''t really expected it work that quickly, so he wasn''t put off. "Jorry''s muscle control."
Unable to assimilate trait at this level. Please choose another feature.
So it did not mean it was impossible, merely that the skill was too low level to be used for that trait. Nero was interrupted in his tests by a voice. "Hello? Gus?" His call had gone through. Though based on the time it had taken, and the fact that there was no image displayed it likely meant she was outside the game at the moment. "Hey, Sophia. I''m not disturbing you at anything am I?" He asked. It took about fifteen seconds for her to answer from his perspective. "Not really, I''m just waiting for the water to boil before making dinner. You need something?" "I just had some questions about the game, I can call you back later if you want?" Kaesar finally understood why his sisters complained about talking to somebody outside of the game, the time difference was annoying. "No, it''s fine. What did you want to know?" Because the player wouldn''t be able to understand the other person if they were talking too slow, the game recorded the dialogue and played it back to the player once finished. "I was wondering if you knew anything about this Natal thing? I just got an update saying that I have attained ''Natal birth'' or something like that?" It took over a minute before the return message was transmitted to Nero. "Natures are a brainchild of my uncle, and he doesn''t tell me anything in specific, so I only know a bit more than average. Based on what others have discovered so far about the game, Natures are like character abilities that are with you from the start. Everybody begins with their Natures at the natal level after a few days. At the begging things can vary wildly based on natures. Some people get stat increases, usually in percentages form, depending on their Natures. One of the more common Natures, Warrior, gets a fifty percent buff for strength and ten percent to dexterity from the beginning. Of course, this is only if they used the standard Warrior description. If they used a unique one, then it would vary. Every single Nature gets at least one skill once they reach the Natal state. These skills are where things get interesting. Some people get incredibly unique skills. One of the more famous ones allows for the player to form a face on the back of their head. These skills are essential because, if they are unique enough, it is almost impossible for others to learn them. Who is going to teach others how to grow a second face? This is a sort of reward for people who create their own Natures instead of using default ones." "What about the other levels of Natures? What comes after Natal? Do people get skills then too? How do people increase their Natures?" "From what players have discovered so far, there are two ways to increase Natures. Upon reaching level 100 Natures automatically evolve to their second form, if it hasn''t been reached yet. It was found recently that the same thing happens at level 200. Whether this continues in the later levels is unknown. The second method is the harder of the two, players have started to call it ''attunement.'' Some roleplayers found out that if they perform actions that are ''attuned'' to the description of their natures then can improve ahead of time. Each increase in Nature provides at least one skill, though it depends on the actions of the person before they reach the next Nature level. Somebody who fights a lot will probably get a skill related to combat. So far only four levels of Nature have been discovered. Natal will turn into Applied, then comes Realization. Just two months ago somebody finally publicly announced they had passed Realization and reached a new level. It is called Mortal if I remember correctly. Other people might have achieved that level before, but that was the first time somebody was open about it. What about you, what did you get?" "I got two skills. They seem interesting, but I will play with them a bit before I get back to you. I also got a new kind of stat. What do you know about Knowledge?" "A lot more than you since I used to teach you." They both chuckled at the joke. " The Knowledge stat is generated once a player learns enough about the world that it can provide beneficially. The easiest way to get it is by reading a lot of books or getting some good advice from a trainer. Combat professions usually get the stat once they have fought enough enemies till they are familiar with it.Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation. It is actually pretty rare for none magic players to get that stat right from the start, you must have read quite a few books in a short period of time. What it does is it provides little popup screens that give information on what the player is doing. If somebody has read about plants, it will tell you which are edible or not. It is not right to trust it completely, it can only serve as a source of knowledge that you already know. So if you learn something false, it will provide that as accurate information. It is actually my highest stat. My Nature, Sage, gets a buff from it, unlike most other magic users who receive one from spirit. Unfortunately, you cannot add stat points to it, the only way to increase it is by good old fashioned learning. You know me, always looking to learn more." "Thank you for that. I guess the more things change, the more they stay the same. Do you mind if I call you again if I have any more questions?" "Go right ahead. This feels nostalgic, I can''t remember the last time I got to teach you anything. I better go now anyway, the water is boiling, and your sisters will be here any minute." "You''re having dinner with my sisters? Why?" The three hardly got along when he wasn''t around. "They called me earlier to apologize, so I decided to invite them over to bury the hatchet. You cool with that? I know you worry about those two without you, but they have been doing really well on their own since the accident." "It is no problem. In fact, this is good news. I really wish you girls wouldn''t fight. I''ll have to trouble you to look after them for the next few years. Just keep them out of trouble in school, and I would really appreciate it." "No problem. That is them right now, I''ll talk to you later. Bye." "Bye." She hung up the phone. Nero stood there for a moment before shaking off the odd idea of Nico, Sophia, and Maude all getting along. He would have to see it with his own eyes before he believed it. Nero decided to test out an idea he had when Sophia had made a comment about the guy with two faces. "Assimilation; Jorry''s mouth."
Change is too significant for this skill level. Please be more specific.
That was too broad huh? One of the defining characteristics of snakes was their mouths. Everything from their forked tongue to their poisonous fangs to their ability to swallow large creatures whole. Since that wasn''t going to work, then it was probably better to take one small trait at a time to form a more substantial change later. "Jorry''s taste buds."
Assimilation is possible. Assimilate {Gardner snake''s Taste Buds}?
Nothing ventured nothing gained. "Yes."
Assimilating. Assimilating. Assimilation complete.
Nero had no chance to rejoice before he was assaulted by the most potent taste he had ever felt before. It wasn''t so far a bad taste, though it definitely wasn''t nice, as it was pervasive. It was like every part of his mouth had been doused in a thick liquid, only the drink was pungent and bland at the same time. It took a moment for Nero to realize that what he was tasting was only the inside of his mouth. If he opened his mouth right now, he would probably throw up if he was assaulted by the day to day tastes of the rest of the world. This would definitely take some getting used to. **** Perhaps Nero had been a bit hasty with the use of Assimilation. In his defense though, there had been no other characteristics of snakes that he could think of. Many snakes were poisonous or had fangs, but a Gardner snake was not. He had tried to assimilate the muscle control or flexibility of the serpent. That would have been a godsend, snakes were almost pure muscle after all. Unfortunately, it had not worked. He was left floundering for a moment before he thought of one the most distinctive traits of the snake family, something that anybody would think of when they heard ''serpent.'' The famous ''forked tongue.'' Despite having two nostrils, snakes did not really have a significant sense of smell. Over time they had evolved so that their taste buds on their tongue were merged with their sense of smell to form one of the most potent chemosensory devices in the animal kingdom. By flickering their tongue in and out, the ''taste'' and ''smell'' the particles in the air. Nero had been leery about actual physical changes, one of the reasons he had not tried to assimilate Jorry''s eyes, also because most snake''s sights were not really well developed. In spite of that, he had decided to change his entire mouth at once in the hopes that it would provide a certain degree of control over the resulting sense. When that proved unavailable, he was left with no choice but to take things one step at a time. He could have started with the tongue itself, but without the sense of taste it would be useless, and if he added the sense of taste later he would be exposed to the rest of the world from the get-go, making him even harder to adapt. Nero could have also chosen another sense theoretically. But as mentioned before, the sight was not well developed with snakes, baring a few. The smell was part of taste so that one was out. Naturally, for an animal which spends its life on its belly, its sense of touch was well developed as well. The problem would be that there is no way to control contact and any feeling would be heightened. Sankes had no actual ears, instead possessing small holes in their heads that were used to pick up vibrations in the air. Hearing was one of their more acute senses, but that had mostly to do with the quadrate bone in their lower jaw. And Kaesar had no desire to go adding bones to his body right from the get-go. Kaesar could also have tried to assimilate the ''sixth sense.'' Serpents possed a form of heat sensitivity, allowing them to feel when other living beings were near. But a new sense, with no real, experience, would be disorienting in the extream. Thus based on the various senses, taste was the best choice at the moment. In particular was the fact that Nero could just close his mouth to lower the new sensations. Of course, Nero could have chosen something nonsensory to assimilate. Snake''s scales, for example, would be a good form of defense, better than the thin skin humans possess. Unfortunately, they would probably cover the whole body, making the change too substantial for the skill at this level. All these thoughts were valid reasons why Nero would choose to change his taste buds first. It was a shame that they only passed his mind as he was bitterly trying to keep his lunch in. Nero could only imagine the misery he would feel if he threw up with his new sense of taste. He did not want to experience that. All the reasoning in the world did not prepare him for real life. It was situations like this why Augustus disliked following his gut instinct. Later logic would prove that it was the right thing to do, but it would still leave him unprepared for what came after. It took him over ten minutes to recover, valiantly able to keep from hurling. When he rose to from his knees finally, it was to find Jorry, having fallen from his perch on Nero''s shoulder, staring at the player. Its small head tilted to the side slightly and its tongue flickering in and out. Kaesar could almost hear the ''what is wrong with this guy'' in his head. "Ya ya, laugh it u-" Nero tried to say and immediately regretted it. While nowhere near as high as the first time, he was assaulted by a confusing concoction of various tastes. It was a mixture of sweat from his episode, dirt from the street, old wood from the nearby houses and a few other tastes he could not identify. "This is going to be tough." He was able to talk at least, though the tastes did not disappear. "Assimilation."
Currently Assimilating: ''Jorry''s taste buds.''
Progress: 2%
No other assimilation possible until the previous one is complete.
Deactivate?
Nero scratched his head a little, he thought that the assimilation was complete? Maybe it was only getting used to, and using. his new senses that would complete the prosses? Either way, it was something he would deal with later. For now, his priority was getting used to the taste buds. That and getting away from here, he had attracted many odd looks from his fit. Looking up into the sky, it looked like it was still before noon, Nero had time before he had to go to the training hall. Deciding to go back to the bookstore from before and get some more knowledge about the world of Gods'' Nature, he picked up Jorry and headed off. **** "You ever been in a fight, boy?" "No, sir." "Not even once? A bar fight? A childhood scuffle?" "No, sir." "Do you do any kind of exercise?" "No sir." Not entirely accurate, one of the jobs he had before getting injured had been in construction and that had involved a lot of heavy lifting and hard labor. This wasn''t his real body. However, Nero was using a helmet to play the game rather than the standard capsule. This meant that his avatar was not his actual body, only his head and height being the same but his muscles were not. "All right, I guess. Something to be said about a blank slate." The instructor was apparently trying to comfort himself, unused to the situation at hand. In a medieval world, one without the niceties of modern life it was rare for people not to be involved in some sort of fight. Right now Nero was at Ground Sheer, the training hall, talking to the instructor with the cane. Rob if he remembered correctly. Ken had been busy with paperwork, and the other instructor, whose name Kaesar had forgotten was drilling the other students. Rob had brought Nero to a corner of the yard to teach him some basics. "You have any weapon in specific you want to learn?" "No sir." "We got to start somewhere. Try and hit me." "What?" Nero asked, nonplussed. "I said I want you to try and punch me. Don''t worry, I''ll be fine." Nero shrugged, he wasn''t so naive to think somebody with a cane helpless. Besides, Rob was an instructor in a training hall, he was bound to have plenty of experience in fights. Nero Took the few steps separating them and tried to throw a straight punch at the instructor''s face. Unsurprisingly, it was caught. "You really weren''t lying, you''ve never fought a day in your life have you?" Rob released his hand, and Nero stepped back once more. "No sir." "At least you are polite." He rubbed his chin in thought for a moment before continuing. "First things first. When punching you do not want to extend your arm completely, this locks the joint and makes getting injured easier. You also want to hit with your whole body, not just your arms and shoulders. Your thighs and legs are integral in controlling the amount of force you generate. Never lean too far forward when punching, this unbalances you, and a counter attack can land you on your ass. Always think about the next move. It is not enough to be able to hit hard once, you must be ready to follow up on the attack or dodge. You got all that?" "Yes, sir." "You probably don''t. It is one thing to hear a bunch of theories and another thing completely to have real experience. But that is why you are here, to learn. Follow me." Rob took Nero along the wall of the yard to the other side where some posts were set up. "You see these logs?" They were wider than Nero''s torso and a head taller than he was. "I want you to keep punching that log at the end until I tell you to stop. Fair warning, it is going to hurt like a bitch soon but if you want to learn you are going to have to deal with it." Shrugging slightly, Nero put Jorry on top of the adjacent post before standing in front of his own. Rob did not even blink at the oddness of carrying a snake, he had seen too much in his life to be surprised by something like this. Instead, he instructed Nero. "Get closer," Nero did so, "and keep your feet further apart, if they are too close together, you are unbalanced." Kaesar threw his first punch. Bonk. "Hit harder." Bonk. "Harder." Bonk. "Harder." To be fair to Nero, very few people would be able to hit their hardest when they knew their target was firm and dense. Imagine trying to punch steel with your full force, that was a great way to break your bones in your hand. But under Rob''s nagging, Nero eventually got fed up and did just that. Thunk. "Good, now you just need to throw the punch correctly, keep your arm from going straight." Thunk. "Better, but your joint is still locked." Despite the encouragement, Nero wasn''t feeling too happy. Rob had been right, though Nero wasn''t prone to swearing he had to admit, it hurt like a bitch. His knuckles were already scrapped from a few hits, and each subsequent one made it worse. "Try and hit with your whole body. Tilt your back and center." Thunk. "Not that much, you are overextending." Thunk. "Again." Thunk. "Again." And so it went. Rob kept correcting the mistakes he saw, and Nero kept hitting the log. The early parts were the hardest. Kaesar''s knuckles started bleeding, but the instructor paid no attention to that and told him to continue. It did not take long for his shoulder and arms to start to feel sore and start to lose strength. Rob just yelled for him to pick up the pace. Nero''s new sense of taste actually proved to be of slight help. He had tried to keep his mouth closed as much as possible, only talking when necessary. But the pungent odors of the training field helped with distracting him from the pain of this body. Sweat and dirt were the most obvious, as two dozen people were physically active nearby. Underlying that was a coppery taste that even Nero could identify as blood. Cleary injuries were not foreign to this place. As time progressed, things got more comfortable, however. Likely due to feeling only ten percent of the sensation in real life, Nero was able to fall into a trance-like state. He punched the log, corrected his mistakes as instructed, and repeated. His knuckles were covered in his own blood by the time Rob called it quits. "Alright, you can stop for now." No sooner had he finished talking that Nero collapsed on the ground like a starfish. His arms and hands refusing to move. "Come on, get up and follow me." It took quite a bit of effort, mainly using his lower body as much as possible, so he did not have to move his arms, but Nero managed to follow the instructor. Rob led him to a bench on the side of the hall, a water barrel next to. "Sit down." It was with great relief that Kaesar did so. Rob took a tin cup and filled it with water from the barrel. "Wash the blood off your hands and put some of this on." He handed Nero a small container that held some sort of cream. Doing as he was told, though his hands shook from the effort, Nero managed to get his hands clean. Taking the cream, he spread some on his red fingers and knuckles. As soon as the ointment touched the exposed area, a cooling sensation flowed from over his hands. Kaesar was barely able to hold a moan of contentment. After his hands were covered in the stuff, Nero turned his attention back to the instructor. Rob was watching the other students square off against each other. Most had formed a circle, and two others were in the center with the instructor. One of them had a wooden sword and the other a wooden spear. They both had shields. As Kaesar watched, the one with a spear jabbed at his opponent who caught it on his round shield and charged towards his foe. Despite the swordsman getting closer and trying to hit him, the spearman used his own protection to block the attack while stepping to the side and allowing the swordsman to run passed. He then used his weapon as a polearm and smacked the back of his foe, sending him to the floor. "Cleep, what have I told you about rushing in? If you raise your shield so high, it blocks your view. And Tony why did you aim for his torso, Cleep stopped it easily. Aim at his legs next time, there is no need to play nice in a fight." The instructor, who Nero finally remembered was called Dode, yelled at the students. Seeing the bout was done, Rob turned back towards his current pupil. "Good, you are all healed." Sure enough, once Nero looked down at his hands once more he realized that the wounds had closed and slight callouses had formed. There had to be something magic in that ointment to allow it to heal so fast. "We''ll get started on weapon training. Usually, students have a preference, but since you don''t, we''ll try a bit of everything until we find you something you like." Rob walked to a nearby barrel and drew out two wooden swords, one of which he threw to Nero. "Same thing as before, try and hit me." Having learned from last time, Nero did not hold back and hit at the instructor as hard as he could with an overhead chop. As expected, using one hand while the other was on the cane, he was blocked by the other''s sword. What he did not expect was the reverberation from the hit shaking the sword so much that he dropped it with an ''Ouch.'' "Lesson one with weapons, grip. If you don''t hold them tightly, they vibrate too much. If you hold them too tightly, they can get knocked out of your had easily." The trainer picked up the weapon and threw it back to the student, who barely caught it because he was shaking his hand to get rid of the shock. "Again." Nero struck once more, though this time his grip was tighter. He managed to keep hold of it when it was blocked, but when the instructor retaliated and hit the sword, he dropped it once more. "Too tight. Pick it up. Again." Nero did so, trying to find a middle ground. The next time he was blocked he kept hold and managed to continue to do so after the next hit as well. "Good. Try and use your whole body like when you were punching." Nero tried and when he was blocked this time the instructor hit him in the arm before he could defend himself. "You overextended," was the answer he got when Nero looked at the instructor quizzically while rubbing his now bruised arm. "Again." The rest of the night followed that pattern. Nero would try to hit the instructor with the weapon of choice and either be blocked and sometimes hit back when he made a mistake. The two cycled through various weapons. They stared with swords, one handed or two. Then spears and staffs, following that was a mace than a warhammer which Nero had trouble lifting, let alone swinging around. Sometimes shields were used and sometimes they weren''t. Even some rather odd weapons were tried, like a whip or a sickle on a chain. Nero discovered that Rod did not need his cane if he did not need to move. Which was fine since Nero never forced him to even take a step. By the end of the night, Rob was fresh as a daisy while Nero was laid out on the ground, panting for breath. He was going to be black and blue in the morning. "That is enough for tonight. You did alright. I''m sure if you keep at it you''ll become an outstanding fighter." Nero would have taken some comfort in that if it weren''t for the fact that Rob was speaking in a conciliatory tone like he was talking to a child. Kaesar did not even have the strength to roll his eyes. **** I hear the croakings of Despair, The dark predictions of the weak; I find myself pursued by Care, No matter what the end I seek; My victories are small and few, It matters not how hard I strive; Each day the fight begins anew, But fighting keeps my hopes alive. ''The Fighter'' Samuel Ellsworth Kiser 005 Billy The Kid I hear the croakings of Despair, The dark predictions of the weak; I find myself pursued by Care, No matter what the end I seek; My victories are small and few, It matters not how hard I strive; Each day the fight begins anew, But fighting keeps my hopes alive. ''The Fighter'' Samuel Ellsworth Kiser **** "The guard got back to me; the Derailed Mine has an infestation of ratmen. Supposably they are merely a group of recently evolved rats and shouldn''t be a problem. He thought this would be an excellent way to get the initiates'' feet wet." Ken was looking over a few messages at his desk in the office in Ground Sheer. Dode was leaning against the wall behind him, staring out the window. Rob was sitting in front of the desk, smoking a pipe, the smoke lazily drifting towards the ceiling. Furu was also in the room, though he was asleep on the couch, snoring away. None of the other occupants paid him any mind, used to him as they were. "It''s a bit early for the expedition, isn''t it?" Rob asked. "Normally we would wait for another month. Ratmen aren''t pushovers either. They can swarm the ill-prepared. I think it would be better to pass this off to one of the advanced halls. I hear that the Knight school, you know that one on the east side, what''s its name? Anyway, I understand they have a decent crop this year. Some big wig outlander wanted to get certified and dragged a good chunk of his forces there with him." "You mean Steel Mil? I heard about that too, but they won''t take the job. Those people have high levels, over a hundred and these ratmen are level fifteen at most." Ken answered. "Fifteen? I know you said they just evolved but that is even less than I thought. How can we be sure?" "Get this, one of the miners came across one of the beasts, and it noticed him. When it tried to chase him, it tripped over its tail and fell face first. The miner was able to kill it in a few swings to the head." All three chuckled. "If it was that clumsy it couldn''t have been more than a day since it evolved. Rats evolve at level twelve to ratmen right? When did this happen?" The smoking man questioned. "Only two days ago, so even if that one was an outlier, the others can''t be too much stronger. If we keep miners from that area, they will only be able to grow on other monsters. We have maybe a month before they reach level twenty. By then others would have been dispatched to clean up the mine and scatter the ratmen. The tunnel cannot go unused for more than three weeks before production slows down, so we do not have time to train the kids up to our regular standard before then." "The average level is seven at the moment. We have two at level nine, but the others are around there. Everybody has gotten the endurance stat, so they have that. Beginner equipment will work with ratmen, so we do not have to worry about that, but we haven''t covered how to work in teams yet." Dode chimed in on the conversation. "Here is what we''ll do. We will set the expedition for this Sunday. This way it gives us six days to train them in team tactics as well as how to fight in caves. A bit of a rush but it is better than letting the beasts get to higher levels while we train. Worse comes to worst, and they are all wiped out, we clear the mine and use it as an excuse to drill them harder." That decided, Ken drew out a blank piece of paper to answer the guard who had messaged him. "What about snake boy?" Ken looked up at Dode. "Snake boy?" "You know, that helper kid who always carries a snake," Dode answered. "Oh, you mean Nero? I don''t know. I''ve only seen him a few times since he started. What about him?" "Should he come too?" "Rob, you think we should take him? He has only been training for two weeks, how is he doing?" Ken asked the other instructor. Rob took a moment to think about it, drawing another puff of smoke from his pipe. "He can throw a decent enough punch now. When he first started, he hadn''t fought a day in his life. He can hold a weapon without dropping it and make some necessary moves in a static environment, but that is about it. He lacks experience, and I wouldn''t count on him not panicking in his first fight. He is dedicated though. He never complains and can keep going for hours without a break. Despite only attending seven sessions he has already gotten the endurance stat. The biggest problem is he is just terrible with weapons. If he trains for a few years, he might be able to wield one semi-competently, but that is if he practices daily with only one choice. There is something about them that he just can''t grasp, no matter how many drills we run through." "Bah, who needs ''em? Back in my day, the only weapon I needed were me own two fists." The old man on the couch grumbled lightly before rolling over once more and trying to go back to his nap. "You said he could throw a punch? Try only teaching him how to fight barehanded then. If he is decent at that, then he could become a pugilist or martial artist something." Ken told the smoking instructor. "That''s not a bad idea. The boy has decent reflexes, but none of us are too good without weapons." "If you can''t teach him anything in specific then just cover the basics and then spar with him, if he becomes a fighter then he is going to have to learn how to fight people that use weapons while he doesn''t." The head instructor shrugged uncaringly. "He will come with us on the expedition. Even if he can''t fight it can still be a good experience, and he can carry some stuff." "All right, I will try that. I will teach the kid Basic Skinning as well. He can help with gathering the ratmen fur. I heard in the tavern that there was a bit of wool deficiency this year. Supposedly there are too many outlanders for the stock. We can make a bit of money selling the pelts this winter." "Good idea. Now that is taken care of; we have to deal with the budget for this month." All three men sighed in exasperation as they went about compiling costs and revenue forms. ****
Endurance
This stat represents the sturdiness of your body. The ability to withstand what the world throws at you is essential for any being that desires to grow. High endurance means less pain and less damage as you slowly temper yourself in the fires of the world. You cannot allocate points to this stat.
This stat had shown up in Nero''s menu after his fifth day of harsh training at Ground Sheer. Like the Knowledge stat, it seemed like there was a requirement before a person could generate it. With Knowledge, it had been once he had accumulated enough know-how about how the game world. With Endurance it was once he had pushed his body to the limits repeatedly.
Name Nrvn Qsr Level 4 (15 Points Unallocated)
Nature The Beast (Natal) Alignment Neutral
HP 158 MP 100
STR. 15 DEX. 12
Spirit 10 Knowledge 17
END. 4
He had made some progress over the last two weeks. Both his Strength and Dexterity had improved through training. Every point increased in Strength had given him ten more HP and, once Endurance had appeared, he had gotten two HP for each point. Knowledge had seen the most significant improvement, however. He only spent every other day at the bookstore; the others days he spent learning about games and game culture in general. The statistical gain was slowing down. It was taking him a full morning to get one point where before it would generate at least two. His skills had progressed as well. The Nest was still at level one, but assimilation had reached level two once ''Jorry''s taste buds'' had reached 25 percent completion. Right now it was sitting at 32 percent. The skill hadn''t changed at all, but progress was progress. Nero had also gotten more of a handle on having an enhanced sense of taste. What had him most satisfied wasn''t the stats or skills though. Those were just numbers on a screen. It was hard to fundamentally grasp how one number could represent an increase in abilities. Nero wasn''t suddenly strong enough to lift a horse or fast enough to run faster than the speed of sound. No, what made him feel a small burst of pride was the callouses on his knuckles and hands. It was a small thing, often overlooked on a day to day life. But it was a mark of progress none the less. Where before Kaesar would punch the wooden posts and his fists would start to bleed almost right away, now he could go for hours and not break his skin. Granted, this was only possible because of the salve Rob used to heal his hands, but it was still a mark of Nero''s hard work. Jorry, on the other hand, had not worked hard this entire time. Nero had gone out two more times to kill some rats for some money, the reason he had level up, and that had been the only exception the little serpent had over the last two weeks. It spent most of its time laying in the sun and napping. Although, Nero couldn''t really criticise the little critter at the moment. They were both spread out on a blanket under a tree in that small park where the had first met. It was around noon, and the pair were having a short nap after recently clearing out a restaurant that had needed an exterminator. Kaesar had gone in search of jobs recently for two reasons, the first was that he wanted to put his new physical abilities to the test. Although difficult to his such small rodents, Nero had been able to keep calm and had dispatched his foes with little hassle, even though they had been more numerous than the first two times. The second reason was that he needed money. Ten silver coins were enough to feed Jorry and him for a few weeks if they were frugal. Unfortunately, other expenses cropped up. Like clothes. The downside of realism in a game is that after playing for a while, the avatar starts to stink. While Nero could always find a bathhouse or something to clean himself up, his clothes needed to be changed and washed regularly as well, lest they start decomposing on him. So he needed to purchase some clothes. This led to the necessary purchase of a bag to hold them. Here magic had once more reared its head. He had bought a bag that was bigger on the inside than on the outside. Nothing too large but it was still about three times the size that it appeared. It was incredibly convenient for the man who did not have a place to put his stuff. He had also purchased some miscellaneous stuff to make his life a little better. Like the blanket and pillow, he now rested on. During his time playing, he had found out his mental endurance was not infinite. Nero was able to go for about three to four days straight without rest Gods'' Nature, depending on what he did, before mental fatigue hit enough to start affecting his judgment. So, rather than sleep for a full eight hours or so, every few days Kaesar would finish reading early and spend a few hours merely napping in the sun with his little buddy sleeping on his chest. Nero found that Sarra Keep was situated along the equator of the planet. That, combined with the local topography meant it got much more temperate weather than if it was elsewhere. It had only rained once in the two-week period that he had played. His nap was peaceful, very few people came to this little park off the beaten path. It wasn''t entirely without worries, however. Opening one eye a smidge peaked at the observer. It was hidden a bit by the foliage of a neighboring tree, but he could just make out the brown plumage of the falcon as it stood vigil over the duo''s slumbering forms. Standing vigil was a bit of a misnomer, however, more like it was eyeing Jorry like a prime cut of meat. The small snake was able to sense something was wrong but wasn''t able to locate the target and so slept lightly, keeping aware of any disturbance in the air. Barring that small annoyance, however, things were relatively peaceful. Which was why Nero was unsurprised when the moment was ruined by the ringing of an incoming call. Sitting up slightly, so his back was leaning against the tree, dislodging Jorry in the process, much to his consternation. It was from Nico, though Nero should probably call her Octavia. Remembering the joke from last time, he smiled slightly as he answered the ringing. "Hey, Gus. What''s got you smiling?" She asked as the face panel opened up. "Nothing at all sister-wife dear." Octavia immediately turned red at the mention of the coincidental naming of their characters. "Anyway, you need something?" "You''re such a bully." She said quietly as she recovered from the light ribbing. "Can''t a kind sister call her older brother just to talk? That you would assume I am only using you offends me. To make it up to me, you need to help me with my homework." "And that was definitely the reason you called in the first place, was it? A kind sister would certainly not interrupt her injured older brother''s vacation because she was feeling lazy. There is no way the girls who I raised would be so manipulative, would they?" "Alright, fine. I need your help. I have a ten-page paper due next week, and I have hit a wall. I''m sure my kind and wise older brother would have no problem answering some questions." She relented.The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there. "Why do you need my help?" He frowned. "I thought you guys were getting along with Sophia, didn''t you go to eat dinner at her house just recently?" "She told you about that?" Octavia raised an eyebrow but changed the subject back. "We''re getting along fine, but it''s different. It''s easier to talk to you about it. Besides, you probably know more on the subject than she does anyway. Can you just answer some questions? Pretty please?" "Fine, what are you writing about?" "It is for my ancient religion course. I decided to write about how Christianity changed the perception of women over time. I just need some ideas from sources in critical Christian texts. I am already quoting the bible, but I need some books that interpret it and its teachings. So can you just give me some ideas? One or two will do." "That is an interesting idea. Do you want texts about women or ones that portray Christianity''s view of women?'' "Preferably that show their views about women in passing, rather than talking directly about them." "You could try the Divine Comedy, it has some interesting ideas. Women in it are portrayed in a few different ways so you can get a more three-dimensional view. You have examples of ''lustful'' women or ''chaste'' women. It should be no surprise that the main thing people thought about women back then was related to sex." "That''s good, any other ideas?" "I''m not sure if it could work, but you could read Milton''s Paradise Lost. The only problem is it was written near the enlightenment when religion started its decline so it might not be too relevant as a comprehensive view of Christianity." "That''s fine. I am just trying to get different perspectives." "Fair warning though. Milton is not a fan of the fairer sex. In the second chapter, he writes about the personification of Sin. He depicts her as a woman and blames her for her own rape. He has some more interesting views on Eve near the end, but even they are not too flattering." "Alright. Thank you really helped me out." "No problem, what are older brothers for? That all you needed?" he asked. "Yep." She said, popping the ''P.'' "I can finish with this. It can put me on the right trail at least." "When are you girls going to make it here?" "We finished our quest a few days ago. We should be there in six to eight weeks, depending on what interruptions we meet on the road. You are still in Sarra Keep right? You haven''t been too far out of the city have you?" She looked a little worried for his safety, so he was quick to assure her. "I haven''t left the city at all. I found this great bookstore and have been spending my time there for the most part." Technically correct, but it left a lot out. "I am not going anywhere until we meet up, so don''t worry." "Sorry, I don''t mean to hover, but I just want you to relax and have fun. Gods'' Nature is not like other games, it can be quite brutal when you start fighting." Octavia did not mention anything about how that was how she and Claudia liked it. "It''s not too bad, I haven''t really fought anything so I wouldn''t know." Not unless you count stepping on rats a fight, which Nero conveniently did not. "I even got myself a cute pet to keep me company, so I am doing fine." As if understanding that he was the subject of discussion, Jorry looked at his companion. The way the snake tilted its head and looked at Kaesar made him slightly uncomfortable. It was probably his imagination, but Nero could swear that Jorry was saying; ''You are obviously MY pet, fool.'' "A pet? I''ll have to meet it when we get there. I have to go, the bus is going to be here soon. Have fun okay?" "You too. Love you." "Love you too, bye." As she hung up the connection, Nero turned to his little companion. "You don''t want to be a pet? Then you are going to have to get stronger." If Jorry could have understood what Nero was saying, it would be hard to know if the lazy little snake would have stayed with him. **** Kaesar was under no impression that he was a good fighter. One does not become proficient in combat after only fighting rats and attending just seven training sessions does not a good warrior make. It did not help that Nero acknowledged he was absolute pants with a weapon. In many ways it was understandable, there was just no time in the modern world for a person to use a classic ''cold'' weapon unless they were dedicated to learning it as a hobby. That did not mean that other people could not learn, it just took a long time, and somebody needed a particular aptitude to become really proficient with their weapon of choice. Take players of Gods'' Nature, for example, most never would have picked up a sword in their life, but after playing the game for over a year, they would have had quite a decent mastery of it. Practice makes perfect after all. But not everybody is created equal, some people are better at somethings than others. That is only how the world works, to think differently is not just to be ignorant, it is also patently false. Thus Nero was able to readily admit that he had no talent with weapons. After two weeks of training sessions, he could barely hold a sword, the most basic and favorite weapon, properly. And Nero was okay with that. This was the reason he had chosen the Beast Nature in the first place, to try out a variety of things until he found what he liked. Kaesar would keep with Ground Sheer for the rest of the fall, then Nero would apply for the magic training hall. If he found he did not enjoy something, he had no problem shifting specializations. He was on vacation, after all, he had plenty of time to find what he enjoyed and then to pursue it. But for the moment, though he definitely wasn''t the most talented of fighters, he did have his own advantages. Sophia had once told him that he could have been an assassin in his past life or a politician. She wasn''t commenting on his morality, his ability to kill or even his stealth techniques. He had none of the last two. What she had been talking about was his capability of getting what he wanted to be done using methods other than brute force. His approach to life and his goals were subtle rather than overt. He knew how people worked and he was patient, crafty and a bit manipulative. Instead of forcing his will on people, he schemed and tricked. A few well-placed words can do wonders, especially if they were said in passing as if they just slipped out of one''s mouth without notice. It had helped him raising his sisters, and it would help him in Gods'' Nature. Jorry was a lazy little snake, that was certain. Appart from the occasional rat hunt it only laid down and slept. Perhaps that was partially Nero''s fault, Jorry was no longer a wild Gardner snake after all. He had been, for all intent and purpose, domesticated. But if there was one thing that Augustus disliked in this world it was the acceptance of mediocrity. He believed that constant improvement was the only way to live. That was why Augustus kept up his studies even after he dropped out of high school. He read books in his spare time, he listened to audiobooks and podcasts at work, and he exercised regularly. It wasn''t that he had any particular goal, though he did intend to go to university once his sisters had become self-reliant. Augustus just wanted to be better than him of yesterday. He personally believed that once somebody stopped improving themselves, all they had left was to wait for death. He had instilled it into his sisters, turning them into the two best students at his school. Now, it was time to instill that into Jorry. Which was going to be hard, because they could not really talk to each other. So Nero came up with a scheme to motivate the small serpent. Unfortunately, for what he had planned, he needed money. More money than he had. So it was back to hunting rats for the moment. Which was also good, it gave him some time to prepare Jorry. Here he was once more. Near the outside walls of the city where he had found most of his clients so far. It wasn''t as luxurious as the center but still being within the walls meant that they had to be concerned about hygiene to keep their customers. He had done enough jobs that his name was starting to get around as an exterminator who worked cheaper than skilled magicians while having a perfect completion rate. He was still relatively new to the area, but he was no longer a complete unknown. As he was walking the area, trying to find an establishment he hadn''t applied to last time, he was stopped by shout on the street. "Hey, you! Snake guy!" Nero turned around to see a slightly rotund man waiving at him. It took a moment to recognize his face. It was the boss of the restaurant he had first worked at. Deciding to see what he wanted, Nero made his way over. "I thought it was you, I hear you cleaned out Job''s place a few days ago. You free at the moment?" "Sure, what do you need?" Nero answered. "Come inside, and we''ll talk." So Nero followed the man into his establishment, past the counter, and into his back room. "Thanks for the work last time, I checked, and there wasn''t a single rat left." The owner said once they had reached a more private location. "No problem, so what do you need?" Nero had things to do after all. "I don''t know if you have noticed, but there have been more and more rats showing up recently. Before every once in a while we would get a nest, but after clearing them out, it would take them a month or so to come back. Now they are popping up every week it seems. I went back into storage to pick up some salt, and I found that they had returned. You think you could help me out? They''ve only been here for about a day, and they have already spoiled a lot of food." "I kinda have another job to get to." He didn''t, but the owner did not need to know that. "I can come by tomorrow afternoon if you want?" "I would prefer you take care of them as soon as possible, Tell you what, I''ll give you twelve silvers this time. How about it?" Nero put on an awkward face, looking like he was tempted, but then he sighed. "I better not, I couldn''t be sure to get all of them by the time I need to get to my next appointment." Kaesar looked adequately regretful after saying that. "If you get all of them today, I''ll give you fifteen silvers and a free meal." The owner sensed weakness and went in for the kill. Nero hesitated for a few moments, he looked like he was struggling, but then he let out a defeated sigh and nodded his head. "Fine, I guess I can try and hurry it up before rushing to my next job."
Pest Control 2
The rats have returned with a vengeance. These creatures are ravenous and desperate, and so is the owner. Kill all the Desperate Rats within two hours to receive your reward.
Desperate Rats: 0/12 Grade: E+
This quest was apparently more difficult than the others he had attempted so far. All other times the grade had been an E. Nero did not know how much more difficult an E+ grade was, though it likely had to do with why the rats were called Desperate Rats. The most challenging part of these quests so far had been the beginnings. Nero did not know why, but as soon as he stepped into the room, he would be swarmed with rats trying to kill him. It could be because he was doing a quest or because the rats just wanted to kill and eat him. Either way, most of them would attack from the outset. So it was a prepared Nero that opened the door to the storage room, Jorry wrapped around his legs, ready to strike at any of the vermin that came close. Indeed, as soon as he stepped over the threshold the first Desperate Rat attacked. Unfortunately, it assaulted from above Nero''s head, falling from the rafters onto his shoulder and taking a bit out of his ear. -8 "Ouch, you little bastard. Diving for cheese?" Thankfully, though Nero had not attained any measure of real skill in the last two weeks, training was not without its benefits. He was able to stay calm even in this situation. He grabbed the Desperate Rat in his fist and started to squeeze. It began to struggle and wriggle in his hands with much more ferocity than any of the previous vermin he had fought. But for all its struggle, it was still a rat. So long as he held it in such a way that it couldn''t turn its head to bite his fingers and kept squeezing, there was nothing it could do. With that pest clearly contained and slowly dying, Nero was free to take a look around the room. A good thing he did too, as it took but a moment for him to be set upon by four more of the vermin. Jorry sprung at one, bitting its head and trying to swallow it whole. While doing that the snake started to thrash, trying to tire out the Desperate Rat in its mouth while hitting another that had come up to attack the small serpent. With his companion distracting two of the pests, Nero now only had to deal with three of them and the one in his hand. He managed to land a kick on one of them, sending it skidding back along the floor. That allowed him a moment to retreat a few steps and bend down to try and grab a second of the little annoyances. He wasn''t able to get a hold on one of them but did manage to hit it with the back of his hand, sending it back a few inches and dealing some damage. A squeak coming from his hand alerted him to the fact that the one he was holding had died. He let it go and punched at the last of the three on the ground near him who had just taken a bit out of his ankle. -5 -4 The other two Desperate Rats managed to get back by this point and bit him. He grabbed them and managed to get a hold of one by the tail. It wasn''t a good grip, so he merely twirled the rodent a few times before letting it fly against the room''s wall with a satisfying ''thud.'' Nero spared a moment to look towards Jorry to see how he was doing. The serpent had finished swallowing the first rat and was strangling the second. A third had shown up, and the two were in somewhat of a standoff. Every time the Desperate Rat would approach, Jorry would bite at it, but the snake could not move too much less it loses its hold on its current prey. Confident that his companion could handle himself, Nero returned to his own fight. It was a good thing he did because as he turned around to the two vermin at his feet, he noticed movement in the rafters. In a moment of instinct, as the Desperate Rat fell towards his face, Nero threw a punch that landed squarely on the small creature''s body and sent it flying. Two weeks ago there would have been no way Nero would have had the muscle control to do something like that unless he was fortunate. The rats he had thrown did not come back, Nero did not know if they were dead, so it still left him with only two to worry about and after he managed to grab one of them by the neck the fight was effectively over. Jorry had also killed the one in its coils and had managed to wind around the other and was slowly choking the life out of it. Taking the moment of the lull until the snake was finished, Nero took the time to go in search of the two rats that he had sent flying. He found the one he had punched out of the air, and it was dead. Nero found the one he had tossed, and it was, surprisingly still alive. Its two back legs were broked so it was pitifully trying to drag its body away. Kaesar grabbed it by the neck and put it out of its misery. Once he returned to the entrance, he noticed the Jorry was done with his last kill. That was the eighth Desperate Rat down. It was a little more than Nero had hoped for, but beggars can''t be choosers. Now it was time to put Jorry through his paces and train it up to standards. Looking up at the rafters, Nero was unsurprised to see them made out of thick boards. That would not do, so he started looking around. It did not take him long to find a wooden broom. Climbing up a few boxes, Nero Placed it in between the beams, so it was held over the open area of the room. Grabbing Jorry gently, Nero hefted the serpent up towards the broom, tail first. With a hand around the serpent''s neck, above the bulge of the rat in its stomach, he wrapped the tail around the shaft of the broom. "All right, I''m going to leave you hanging here and go and lure a rat over. Once it comes under you pounce, got it?" Jorry just blinked, and its tongue flicked in and out. That was as good as he was going to get so Nero let go. Thankfully the snake was small enough for the broom to hold it and the serpent did not let go. Satisfied for the moment, Kaesar went in search of one of the remaining targets. It did not take long to find it, it was behind one of the boxes, and once the Desperate Rat caught sight of him, it immediately lunged towards Kaesar. Backstepping quickly, Nero lured the rat until it was directly under the hanging snake. The good news was that Jorry followed his instructions and dropped down. The bad news was that it fell too late and fell behind the rat. That wouldn''t have been so bad, but it seemed like it had not controlled its fall and landed on its head, leaving it dazed. The rat immediately turned around and attacked the confused serpent. Nero quickly came to kill it before it could do any harm. "That was a good first try," he said to his companion after the rat was dead and it had recovered. "But don''t just fall, push off from the broom and try and tilt your body, so you don''t hit head first. Also, aim where it''s going to be, not where it is at. If you aim where it is at, you are guaranteed to miss." So they tried again, and this time it went a bit better. Jorry managed to land on its stomach, its body absorbing most of the impact. Unfortunately, it fell too soon, a few inched in front of the rat. Jorry quickly tangled it up and strangled it, but it wasn''t what Nero was looking for. "You jumped the gun this time because you did not expect to fall so quickly. There is a difference between pushing yourself down with speed and merely falling. It is going to take some practice, but you will get the hang of it I am sure." As they say, third time is the charm. This time Jorry managed to land on the rat correctly and wrap it up in a second. But this time Nero had accidentally attracted the attention of two Desperate Rats at the same time, so it spelled the end of the current practice session. After putting the broom back where he had found it, he exited the storage room and reported his success to the owner. After receiving his due, a fifty percent increase on last time, he made his exit under the pretext of getting to the next job quickly. He, of course, did not have another job, but it was a good excuse to drive the price up. Nero did not really feel bad. Usually, magicians charge gold instead of silver, so the restaurant was still getting a good deal in the end, and he needed to save up some money. A win-win situation was always best when conducting business. "This was a good first step," he told the little snake on his shoulder. "But we are going to need more practice, much more. We are doing good. You''ve grown, and it won''t be long till that small body, with neither wings nor hands nor feet is no longer helpless against the sky." Jorry just stared at him blankly before resting his head on Nero''s neck before going back to sleep. **** My dreams are spoiled by circumstance, My plans are wrecked by Fate or Luck; Some hour, perhaps, will come my chance, But that great hour has never struck; My progress has been slow and hard, I''ve had to climb and crawl and swim, Fighting for every stubborn yard; But I have kept in fighting trim. ''The Fighter'' Samuel Ellsworth Kiser 006 The Humbling River My dreams are spoiled by circumstance, My plans are wrecked by Fate or Luck; Some hour, perhaps, will come my chance, But that great hour has never struck; My progress has been slow and hard, I''ve had to climb and crawl and swim, Fighting for every stubborn yard; But I have kept in fighting trim. ''The Fighter'' Samuel Ellsworth Kiser **** "Wha'' ''chu readin'' boy?" The old voice started Nero out of his study. He had been sitting behind the front desk of Ground Sheer for a few hours now and, as usual nobody came by. That was fine with Kaesar, it gave him time to read up on a variety of subjects online using the network feature. At the moment he had fallen into a bit of a hole. Nero had started the night continuing his studies on games and game culture, but it had somehow dovetailed into a survey about Japanese history. In a way, it made sense, the Japanese had been a significant part of the development of games in the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Though Japan wasn''t around anymore, it had sunk in the twenty-third century, its culture remained strong. At least he knew why Ludendorff had been talking about Neko-Maids. He had been in the middle of the ''Tale of the Heike'' when Furu, unknown to Nero, had walked up behind him. "How did you know I was reading?" Though NPC''s had status screens of their own, they did not have options or network functions on their menu. Besides that, other people were not able to see other''s status screens without particular skills or items. There should have been no way Furu was able to tell what Nero was looking at. "Ya always readin''." The old man snorted before taking a swig of a bottle he carried in his had. "It''s the eyes. Only when some''un is readin'' will there eyes move like that." "Oh, and how did you see my eyes?" Furu had been behind him. "I didn''." The old man took another swig and collapsed into one of the chairs in the room. "But that''s all you do here is read. So, wha'' ''chu readin''." "Nothing important, just a history book from my home." Nero would have to reevaluate this old man, lazy and drunk Furu might be, but he was sharper than he let on. "Bah, history. I suppose you Outlander types have ya own history. What good is history anyway? ''s already happed. Nothing we can do ''bout it now, can we?" "We can learn from it," Nero said, a bit miffed. He focused more on societies and cultures, but history was still a significant interest of his. "All knowledge and experiences passed down help the future generations." "Then why do people make the same dumb mistakes?" "Because they did not learn the lessons of history. All situations are both unique and old situations. Nothing is exactly the same, but enough cases have happened in history to take an approximation that can help you." "History''s only as good as its use, eh?" Furu muttered as he stared at the ceiling, absently taking another chug of his bottle. Then he snorted in laughter. "Guess that makes me good eh? Livin'' history, I am, and I''m mighty useful. Go ahead boy, ask me about the history of this world and old Furu will teach ya. Can''t go knowing about our past can you, Outlander or not?" Caught a little flat-footed about the old custodian''s sudden turn for the genial, Nero floundered for a moment to come up with a question. Eventually, he decided on a simple one. "How old are you?" "Hundred an'' four today. Can''t ya see, I''m celebrating." Furu waived his bottle a bit before chugging down some more. A hundred and four? Only? If that was the case, then he should be in the prime of his life. Nero had thought him to be at least four hundred. Unless Gods'' Nature was using the old life expectancy as the default setting for humans? If so, during the middle ages people would be lucky to make it to forty, let alone a hundred and four. Perhaps magical healing and others such things could account for the longer lifespan. But that was for another time. Right now Nero had a golden opportunity in front of him, a chance to get a first-hand accounting of the last hundred years. Of course, Kaesar could not expect Furu to be impartial, mainly as he was apparently not sober, but an accounting from the ground was invaluable as a tool for something to go on. "How long have you worked with Ground Sheer?" Better to start off small and build his way up to more noteworthy events. "''Bout seventy years or so now? Somethin'' like that. I helped build it. ''Fore it was just the eight of us, now it''s enormous. Cours, been a busy hundred years." The old man looked wistful as he talked. "Why did you start it?" Nero took the revelation rather quickly, not having any trouble believing the story. "Things were busy back then, everybody an'' their mother wanted to get out there an'' explore. There was fortune to be had if you survived and made it back. ''Course, not many did. That was when these training hall things started to appear. Too many people were goin'' off an'' getting killed, ya see. The lord didn'' like that. Started trainin'' people up a bit, made a huge difference. Some people had the idea to do the same for money. Ground Sheer was one of ''em." "Why Ground Sheer? Why that name?" "Bit of a story, that. Before we decided to start a training hall, we were adventurers like everybody else. We had dreams ya see, we were going to find a tomb and strike it rich. One of our guys had found a passage in a book about some martial artist''s dungeon, we set off south to see it, a bit past Machy. By the time we reached the location, out of the original eight, only five were left. The others had already been resurrected back here. But when we got to the location, half the place had been buried. One of us had a bit of magic know how only a few spells. One of ''em shook the dirt up good and allowed us to dig. Took a few months, and three more of us died, me being one of ''em, but we were able to get in. No treasure though, only manuals and techniques to train. We had spent quite a pretty copper on this trip, so we needed money if we wanted to start another. Decided to set up a temporary training hall to train people in the techniques we found. Named it after the spell that got us in the tomb in the first place." "Did you ever go on another outing like that again?" "A few times, but nothing really came of it. We just kept the hall open to pay for it. One thing led to another, and here we are." The old man had a nostalgic look on his face. "Why were things so hectic back then?" At Nero''s question, Furu turned a disbelieving look to him. "Ya don''t know." He blinked a little before a look of realization came over him. "I suppose you Outlanders wouldn''t. I was almost a century ago." "What are you talking about?" "The Rupture, boy! Greatest event in living memory! Whole countries wiped off the map. All the gates disappeared, an'' civilization was left a scattered mess." "The Rupture?" Nero said, tasting the word. "What happened?" "Nobody knows, do they? One day everythin'' ''s fine an'' the next we have earthquakes and tornadoes all over the place. Lost all communication between cities and many of ''em just disappeared. We still don''t know the full extent bet countries were left isolated and only recently have we got back in contact with Selwe and Minas Cassu thanks to you Outlanders." "How did you lose contact?" "''Cause we lost the gates of course," Furu said it like it should be obvious. "Can''t really talk to somebody on the other side of the continent without a gate, can we ya daft boy?" "What gates?" Kaesar really did not like being treated like an idiot. "Honking great stone arches, portals to all over the world. Soon as the Rupture hits, poof! No more magic gates, no more communication. We still don'' even know how many cities and countries survive." "You depended on magic gates to communicate?" "Aye, it seems a bit stupid to rely on only them now doesn''t it? But they had been around for so long, an'' nothing had gone wrong, that people didn''t even realize they were doing it. Happened so quickly that nobody knows where they went. Best guess is that Nalukkhath, the City of Gates, was destroyed in whatever happened. Course we have to find it again. Supposedly it''s in the foothills of the Mountains of Madness, where ever that is." "If it''s been a hundred years, how come nobody has found it by now?" "Because it''s bloody far away and dangerous, isn''t it? You die, and you revive right back at the most recent holy ground you''ve been to. And there are very few sacred grounds left. Today if you want to get to Selwe it will take you a few years, and that is if you are on foot. This is only ''cause you Outworlders helped rechart the old road in the last few years. There are tones of strong monsters all over the place too. A terrible day or some bad luck can ruin over a year''s progress. Not only that, but there are no real accurate maps of the world. We have some basics, but there are specifics. We know that the Mountains of Madness are incredibly dangerous but how? Supermonsters? Will they drive people insane? Who knows? As long as we keep moving step by step, we''ll find out, but that isn''t going to be for a while." Apparently, the old man felt hotly on the topic. So Nero decided to steer the conversation in another direction for the moment, and double check the facts later. "How come you don''t help the students train?" Kaesar wasn''t judging the old man, he was just curious. "Do I care if those brats go out and die? The best teacher is experience, the pain will carve your mistakes into your bones, and you learn. Is it better to never feel the pain of death and resurrection or to never learn? When we started this hall, it wasn''t to keep people from dying, it was to make money and teach people to grow. There is a difference between surviving and living, if you want to be great you got to learn that on your own." Furu was going to continue but was interrupted. "What have I told you about drinking on the job you old bat?" Ken had come from the back rooms without either man noticing and was giving the old timer the stink eye. "Come on, it''s my birthday! I''m celebrating! ''Sides, we got snake boy here to work." "Work you are distracting him from." "He wasn''t doing anything, anyway. Just reading and shit. What''s it matter if we were talking." "Because I don''t want to deal with you scaring away customers again. The lord''s daughter was supposed to come by the other day with a contract, but she was terrified off because you were drunk. She wanted to give it to another hall because of you. I had to do some major damage control." "Bah, ''s that who she was? I thought she was another streetwalker, got too many of those coming by to get to the trainees. I just told her where she could find better customers?" "There hasn''t been a streetwalker in this area in five years! They stay in the Reds. Your memory is starting to go, old man. If you want to drink, do it somewhere else, I do not need you insulting any more nobility." "Fine, fine. I''ll drink in my room." With that, the old man stood up unsteadily and took his leave. Once Furu had left, the head trainer turned to Nero. "You can head home, training is done for the night." Ken turned to leave as well but was stopped by Nero. "How come you still let him work here? If you just need to take care of him, then why don''t you just let him live here rather than have him deal with customers?" Ken took a minute to think about it before responding. "He''s a bit senile but not enough to fire him. He''s got some good friends, Furu trained the lord and every instructor here at some point or another. He is also one of the few humans still alive that remembers a time before the Rupture, so we get him to lecture trainees every once and a while. It probably helps that he is my dad." And with a good night, Ken left Nero alone. **** As was usual with Nero, when he wasn''t at work or training, he was reading. He vacillated between sitting in the park and learning online about gaming culture and history or spending time at the bookshop and perusing the ''lore'' of Gods'' Nature. He was currently involved in the latter at the moment. The discussion with Furu the night before had sparked in him a curiosity about the ''Rupture.'' To follow through with that train of thought, as well as to get second and third opinions on the subject, Nero had turned to recent historical events to make a more complete picture. Not that Kaesar believed the old man to have lied to him, though it was possible, but because not only was Furu''s opinion subjective, he had also been drunk. So far, what Kaesar had found had substantiated what he had heard the night before. He mainly had accounts from Sarra Keep, due to his location, but he had a few insights into Selwe Castle from accounts of travelers in recent years since they had been reconnected. The ''Rupture,'' as it has come to be called in the years since, was an almost cataclysmic event in Gods'' Nature. It occurred almost a century ago and had been so momentous and world-shattering that the current year was recognized as 96 PR or Post Rupture. Nobody was sure what was the cause of it, or if they did they were not telling, but the general consensus was that some sort of battle or event had cause magic and nature to fall out of their stable order and wreak havoc. The aftereffects were also relatively unknown, though a few things had been discovered or theorized in the years since. The first and most apparent was the collapse of the ''Gates.'' Collapse perhaps wasn''t the right word, more like disappearance. One day the giant portals, called ''Gates,'' that connected almost all major cities had just vanished. People were naturally freaked out by their disappearance, many had loved ones in other cities due to trade or adventures or some other reason. While there had been panic, it hadn''t been too widespread. People had believed that it was a simple malfunction of their own Gate and that those in the Nalukkhath, the City of Gates, would have it fixed soon from their end. It was in the following days and weeks that the Rupture started in earnest, with natural and magical disasters that appeared as if from nowhere. People began to realize that something monumental was occurring. Many villages and farms in the area around the Keep were destroyed in the disasters or by monsters that had migrated. About a month after the disappearance of the ''Gate'' people in Sarra finally decided to do something on their own, since no contact was apparent. Unlike Selwe Castle, the initial starting location for players and a major city that had been reconnected with the arrival of players, Sarra Keep had not been the capital of their own country before the Rupture. A massive expeditionary force had been assembled to travel to the capital to bring back news as well as orders. It was a project estimated to take months there and to return, not helped by the rather large baggage train needed to support such an endeavor. It was a complete failure. Monsters were appearing in places they never had before and in more significant number and strength. The expedition managed to make it a little over halfway before being forced to turn back due to losses. With no capital to rely on, Sarra Keep was by itself in a brave new world. It wasn''t entirely hopeless, however. The territory surrounding the Keep was suitable for agriculture, and there was a forest to the south and jungle to the north, so there were no problems with supply. The general of Sarra of the time, who later went on to found the current ruling family, decided to take things slowly but surely. He instituted policies to adventurers who helped expand the frontier and reclaim lost land and knowledge. Where before adventurers had been a safe and stable job, able to chose anywhere in the world to ply their trade at their own level, now the world had become a much scarier place. The position became a mix of enormous risk and return. An adventurer who rediscovered a lost town or tomb could make enough money to live the rest of their lives in luxury, but the death rates were staggering. No matter if somebody permanently dies or not, nobody enjoys the pain of death.This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. What emerged was two classifications of people at the time. The title of adventurer meant somebody left the city to become stronger or wealthier through combat in the outside world. The average death rates, in other words, those that respawned in the holy ground rather than come back by their own means was around forty percent. It was dangerous, but so long as a person was careful and had a good team, then there was a good chance of coming back alive. The second title was only for the best of the best. The strongest, or luckiest, were called Pioneers. These were the people on the front lines of the wild, always venturing into the new and uncharted territory. The job was entirely voluntary, and quite a few people took it upon themselves. Those in the front lines had the best chance of finding things undiscovered by anybody else and thus had first dibs on rare treasure or knowledge. An excellent opportunity comes hand in hand with significant risks, however. The death rate for Pioneers was a staggering ninety percent. This was because so much of what they did involved unknown risks. A random monster that you had never seen before could be over thirty levels higher than you with abilities you''ve never encountered. A Pioneer could trip and fall down a cliff never discovered previously and be forced to restart back at the Keep. It wasn''t rare for Pioneers to wander into a monster nest without knowing. But Pioneers were also able to get fabulously wealthy. The ''Rupture'' had quite literally reshaped the continent. Old maps were accurate on a broad scale, like the general shape of the continent or the approximate location of cities and towns, but they were useless on a subtler level. Rivers and mountains had sprung up in areas they hadn''t been before, and the old roads were utterly destroyed. A Pioneer that managed to chart a reliable route could become enabled by the general and own their own town if they could establish it accurately. Initially, there had been no real distinction of Adventurers and Pioneers, both falling under the broad definition of an adventurer. But as time progressed the differences in difficulty became more apparent and more and more people started becoming Adventurers rather than Pioneers. Now only twenty percent of all adventurers were Pioneers. It led to a different ideological perspective on which was the best way to make a living. Slow and steady, with minimal risk and minimal reward or fast and reckless with high risk and high rewards. Catchphrases started to appear like; ''A Pioneers leads and Adventurers follows,'' or ''Pioneers get the meal and Adventurers the leftovers.'' Of course, Adventurers had their own in response; ''Pioneers find treasure and Adventurers find their bodies'', or ''In a pile of treasure, Pioneers get one and die, and Adventurers get the rest and live.'' Quite frankly, Nero thought that they were both equally valid, and a person should only do chose which method was more comfortable to them. This culture of adventure and rediscovery continued for over eighty years around Sarra Keep. The original general had died as well as his son, leaving the grandson tho rule over the Keep. Expansion had colonized to the sea in the west, only a few weeks away, as well as to the north and the south a little bit before those directions had halted. The jungle in the north was incredibly dangerous, not because of monsters but the terrain was just too rugged and varied to fight reliably in. Progress in the south had stalled because a massive amount of undead of all sorts congregated just past the forest. So expansion continued towards the east for years, and people became more and more curious about the state of the once capital of the nation. Eventually, a Pioneer managed to make her way all the way to the old location. All she and her team found was rubble and bodies. The capital had been completely destroyed in the Rupture and nobody, but strong monsters were left. It was only a few years later that the Pioneers of Sarra Keep met the players who had started in Selwe Castle. Selwe had not gone the route of adventurers, they had adopted a more state-centered approach to recovery. The army was in charge of expansion, and there were no rewards by the state for discoveries. This meant Selwe developed much slower but more stable. When players first started appearing, they were in a culture that was ambivalent to adventure. It was for those who did not have jobs or education in societal affairs. Was it any wonder that, upon encountering Sarra Keep and their culture, that players adopted it as their own? The difference between Pioneer and Adventurer as well as training halls all became popular with players who then imported it to Selwe. Large guilds and organizations also offered up massive rewards for new location or knowledge. Players had started to say that they were living in the ''Age of Pioneers.'' Players who took the highest risks leveled up faster and had chances to get better items. Only the best players, or those who wanted to be the best, became Pioneers. While this was all interesting to Nero on a cultural and historical level, he found it fascinating, he also had a notion of the significance of the Rupture. Could this be Gods'' Nature''s main questline? From what Kaesar had learned in his recent studies on games, most games had a central narrative. It was the dominant story of a game that other, smaller, tales would fall under. In MMORPGs, like Gods'' Nature, the main questline usually involved massive, world-changing events. Players would be required to band together in the hundreds of thousands to complete these main quests. The Rupture certainly fit the bill for such a narrative, at least in scale. Nero shrugged the thought off as irrelevant as he got up to put the books away. It wasn''t like he would have anything to do with such a significant quest in the first place, besides being an observer perhaps. Kaesar was always honest with himself. There were millions of players at the moment, with projections of reaching a billion players shortly. The chance of him, who was treating Gods'' Nature as a vacation, having a relevant role to play in shaping the narrative of the entire world was so minuscule it did not bother thinking about. **** "We''re gonna try something different this evening." Nero was once more at Ground Sheer training. The evening was only beginning, and he had just finished his warm-up exercises. Though they were called warmups, in truth to others, they could be considered a full training regime. It involved standard stuff like push ups, pull ups, a jog, and other traditional exercises. It also included more diverse types, like holding a log over your shoulder while squatting for ten minutes and other various forms that would not be out of place in pre-modern times where people did not have machines to facilitate their training. It went on for an hour before Nero finished and was called over by Rob. Usually, this was when they would go through a few forms and practice bouts with a variety of weapons, Kaesar had gotten the basics of a few weapons down, like the sword and spear but nothing really clicked with him. The idea of a weapon being ˇ®an extension of oneˇŻs selfˇŻ was all well and good, but for Nero, it still felt like waiving around a stick or piece of metal. ˇ°Alright,ˇ± Rob said as Nero approached. ˇ°You still donˇŻt have a weapon you like?ˇ± ˇ°No sir.ˇ± ˇ°ThatˇŻs what I thought. Truthfully, you do not have much talent with anything weˇŻve tried before. You are by no means the worst IˇŻve seen, but it''s going to take a long time of dedication if you want to become competent with anything. If you had a preference, we could focus on that weapon, but since you donˇŻt, we are going to have to think outside the box.ˇ± ˇ°What do you have in mind?ˇ± Nero wasnˇŻt really opposed to the idea of stopping training in weapons. While he believed that continual growth and learning was essential, a person can grow in different ways. Practice in something that you do not like, that you might not use and you are not good at is not good growth, it is foolish stubbornness. Nero could be stubborn at times, but he was no fool. ˇ°WeˇŻre gonna teach you to fight with your fists. You can already throw a punch, so you got that at least. None of us are pugilists or martial artists so we are gonna wing it. What you are gonna do is try and attack me. I will counter and hit any openings I see. I will only use my cane, but this should serve as a bit of practice against armed opponents.ˇ± Nero nodded in agreement as they moved to a corner of the yard. The other trainees were watching a demonstration from Dode on how a shield could be used to catch an opponent''s sword and disarm them. ˇ°Come at me whenever youˇŻre ready.ˇ± Nero did just that, launching himself at the instructor with a straight punch aiming at his head. It turned out exactly how he expected. The cane flashed out, hitting Nero on the wrist and then pummeling his chest. ˇ°You are projecting your actions way too much, any half decent fighter could see you coming a mile away. You stared at where you were aiming, you pulled your arm back too soon, and your shoulders told me the angle. All these things need to be corrected if you want any sort of chance in a fight.ˇ± Nero nodded in acknowledgment while rubbing the sore spot on his chest. One of the good things about fighting in a game was that there was no permanent damage unless it was beneficial. His knuckles had split on that first night, but the losses remained even now, they seemed to have gotten more robust as well. ˇ°Again.ˇ± This time Nero tried to put the instructions into practice. He stared into Rob''s eyes and got closer before trying to hit him. The cane once more moved, though this time it struck his right leg. Kaesar jerked to the side, almost falling over as the rod followed with another blow to his chest which put him on the ground. ˇ°WeˇŻre gonna need to work on your footwork. While none of us are martial artists, we know that a proper stance is monumental to any fighter. Too rigid and you can be pushed over. Too soft and you wonˇŻt be able to use your full force. Your legs were too far apart for proper balance, and you focused too much on my eyes. It doesnˇŻt matter if I cant see where your gonna hit if you canˇŻt either. You need to keep up a certain level of situational awareness at all time.ˇ± As Nero got off the ground and dusted himself off, he nodded once more and then attacked. He defocused his eyes a bit, trying to take in the whole of Rob and keep some attention on the cane. Kaesar decided to try and take the older man off guard. He approached as he had before, but once Nero got close, he attempted to land a kick on the old manˇŻs legs. The cane flashed, and Kaesar was once more eating dirt. ˇ°Nice try. ItˇŻs a good idea to try and surprise an opponent but only if it can benefit you. Being unpredictable is good until you cannot achieve your goal. I would also recommend staying away from kicks for a while. The legs tend to be stronger than the arms and can deal more damage if used properly but they have their own drawbacks. First, they can be caught easier, once somebody has a hold on your leg the fight is essentially over. Second, effectively using them requires a better sense balance than you currently possess. Until you have a better grasp on your stance and footwork, it will be better to focus on simply learning to fight before you go down that road.ˇ± Getting back up, Nero nodded once more in acceptance of the advice and tried once more. He failed of course. Then he tried again, and again, and again. The practice continued in such a way for the remaining hours of the session. Kaesar tried to attack Rob and would be repelled, usually getting another bruise for his trouble. If it werenˇŻt for the fact that this was a game and not his real body, Nero imagined he would be in too much pain to move. Needless to say that by the end of the session Nero had become intimately acquainted with the sand-covered floor of the yard. It was somewhat of a relief when Rob held up a hand to signal the stop for the night. ˇ°WeˇŻll end it here for tonight. You did good boy. Keep up like that, and youˇŻll have a decent grasp on hand to hand combat by the time the course is over.ˇ± ˇ°Thank you.ˇ± Nero panted from the exertion of the evening. ˇ°Just stating the truth, now come on. Ken wants to say something to the lot of you.ˇ± With that, the trainer led him towards the other trainees. Everbody was gathered in a group and was looking at Ken who stood in front of them. Once Nero and Rob arrived, he spoke up. ˇ°Now that everybody is here, we can get started. We decided to hold our usual expedition this Sunday instead of in a few weeks. For those of you who do not know, Ground Sheer usually has two expeditions per training season. The first in the middle to help trainees get a good grasp on where they are and how they need to improve and the second for you guys to get a feeling of how far youˇŻve come. Expeditions usually take a few days and provide you with much needed real-world experience. Typical enemies are low-level goblins and animals. This time it will only take a day, we will be going to a nearby mine to clear out some ratmen. Typically these would be too high level for you, but they have only recently evolved and are weak for now. Some of you may die, or all of you may die. This type of thing is something everybody has to experience if they want to become an adventurer.ˇ± There were mumbles and whispering among the group as they realized what they had signed up for. ˇ°Prepare yourselves well this week and have a good evening.ˇ± The crowd started to break up, chatting amongst themselves as they headed home. Nero hung back as he wanted to talk to Rob. ˇ°Am I also going to be included?ˇ± He asked. ˇ°You are coming as well. As Ken said, even if you die this is something any aspiring adventurer should experience. Training is only good for getting the basics down. A real fight, win or lose, can teach as much as a thousand training sessions.ˇ± ˇ°Alright, IˇŻll be there.ˇ± Death wasnˇŻt permanent anyway, the most Nero had to lose was time. ˇ°Come in a little early tomorrow, I want to teach you something before your shift.ˇ± ˇ°Sure, see you tomorrow then.ˇ± As Nero walked off, he decided to speed up his plans for Jorry. He would try and complete it before the expedition. **** ˇ°Thanks for this, I donˇŻt know why we are getting more rats than usual but if we had to wait for the mages to come by it could start affecting our business.ˇ± ˇ°No problem, IˇŻm happy to help.ˇ± It served NeroˇŻs purpose well, with the increase in work Nero had managed to accumulate the money he needed for his plan ahead of time. He wanted to do one or two more jobs just to be sure he had some left over for the day to day stuff. Kaesar was unaware of what was causing the sudden increase in vermin, in fact, he would not have even known it was an increase if the various shopkeepers didnˇŻt point it out to him. It was unimportant though, it just meant that business was good. ˇ°IˇŻll be in the area for a while, just come find me if more show up.ˇ± With those parting words, Nero left the small restaurant to look for one more job. He had a few hours of free time before he was to go to Ground Sheer and meet up with Rob. ˇ°Status.ˇ±
Name Nrvn Qsr Level 5 (20 Points Unallocated)
Nature The Beast (Natal) Alignment Neutral
HP 184 MP 100
STR. 17 DEX. 14
Spirit 10 Knowledge 20
END. 7
This most recent job had pushed Nero to level 5, and his stats had progressed reasonably well in the last few days. Endurance, Strength, and Dexterity had all increased the previous night with the harsher training regime and Knowledge had gotten a whole two points when he was studying the Rupture. He still had not allocated his points yet, he probably wouldnˇŻt until he gave magic a try. Nero had not enjoyed using weapons, but close quarter combat might prove different. Altogether, he was progressing rather well for somebody who was not really dedicated to becoming good at the game, though that could be because he had more time to spend on it than the average person. Ludendorff had not been kidding when he had said that leveling in GodsˇŻ Nature was hard, Nero must have killed a thousand rats over the last few weeks and he was still only level five. Granted, he wasnˇŻt fighting all the time like other players, but Nero was completing quests regularly. Taking a look at the snoozing snake on his shoulder, Nero wondered what level Jorry was at. It should be the about the same as his. It probably didnˇŻt matter, right now he should focus on getting one more client before he has to leave. Right now he was wandering close to the outside wall of the Keep, he had noticed that the increase in rodents was more noticeable nearer the wall. Sure enough, a woman was waiving him down right now. ˇ°Good to see you.ˇ± The woman said as he approached. ˇ°You as well.ˇ± It took a moment to place the face, but Nero eventually recognized her as one of his earliest clients. ˇ°Thanks for getting rid of those rats, I hear youˇŻve been doing well for yourself. Think you could do it again? I noticed one this morning when I was setting up shop.ˇ± ˇ°Sure.ˇ± ˇ°Standard fee?ˇ± She asked as she led him to the storage shed in the back. It varied from store to store, but most owners kept their food and stuff outside the building, Nero was not sure why. ˇ°Yep.ˇ± Usually, Nero would try and haggle a bit but he wanted to finish quickly, he might have time to get the next step of his plan done before he had to leave.
Get rid of the Desperate Rats
Rats.Rats.Rats.RATS! They just keep coming, once more it is time to dive into the deep. Clear the Desperate Rats before nightfall to claim your reward.
Desperate Rats: 0/21 Rating: E+
A bit more than usual, but then again the amount had been increasing recently. The rating was the same as usual for Desperate Rats, normal rats usually got an E rating, and their more prominent counterparts got a + to signify the higher difficulty. Still, it was nothing Nero couldnˇŻt handle with Jorry. If he were by himself, it would be a different story, too many enemies would focus on him at once. As usual, Jorry descended from his should right before the door. It allowed the two to separate the enemies quicker. As expected, once the door was closed behind them, the Desperate Rats launched themselves at the pair. A few fell from the rafters in the ceiling, Nero sidestepped those, having expected it. The rest came at the two from the ground. It only took Jorry a moment to catch one in his jaws and tangle up another. As he squeezed the life out of his prey, he continued to harras another two. Nero was dealing with six by himself, he managed to grab one and punt another. Altogether, the two fought as the had dozens of time before, and it wasnˇŻt long until the rats attacking them were wiped out. Once they had room to breath, Kaesar once more put Jorry up in the rafters to hang down as he went to lure another rat. By this point, the snake managed to land directly almost every time, but more practice never hurt. This continued as usual and by the time that Nero had lured the eighteenth enemy, Kaesar would be able to finish up in another ten minutes, giving him plenty of time before he had to be at Ground Sheer. So it was a surprise when he received a notification.
Get rid of the Desperate Rats
Rats.Rats.Rats.RATS! They just keep coming, once more it is time to dive into the deep. Clear the Desperate Rats before nightfall to claim your reward.
Desperate Rats: 21/21 Rating: E+ (D+)
Nero blinked at the screen a little unless he had miss counted or Jorry had killed more than he realized, there should have been three more rats to go. And what did the D+ rating in parenthesis mean? He scratched his head in bewilderment and turned to look at the small snake hanging from the ceiling. ˇ°Did you kill some while you were upˇŞShit!ˇ± As he was speaking, he noticed a blur out of the corner of his eye. He turned to face it but was surprised when a rat lunged at him. He tried to step back to avoid it, but it was fruitless. -22 ˇ°What the-?!ˇ± As he got a good look at the what had caused so much damage, Nero realized it wasnˇŻt a rat. Or at least, not only a rat. There, circling around him to try and get in another hit, was a mouse. A mouse riding a rat like a horse and waiving a sowing needle like a sword. More than a little confused, Kaesar was startled from his thoughts by a thump behind him. When he turned to look, he realized that Jorry had fallen to the ground. Looking up the rafters once more, he saw two more rat riding mice. His distraction cost him, however, as he did not see the first mouse go in for the attack, accompanied by another that had shown up. -21 -24 -22 ˇ°Shit!ˇ± Nero typically wasnˇŻt one to swear, but upon realizing that in a few seconds he had already lost about half his health, he realized what kind of predicament he was in. He jumped back to try and make some distance from his enemy. In doing so, he noticed two more mice with needle swords approach. Including the two that had jumped down and were attacking Jorry, it made a total of six. The next few seconds were spent jumping around as Nero tried to evade the mice. For some reason, the rat mounts were faster than the rats up till now, so he did not have time to counter-attack. Every time he tried, the mice would move out of the way, and others would counter-attack, costing Kaesar more of his dwindling HP. Unfortunately, Jorry was nowhere near as mobile as Nero due to his small size. It took less than a minute before, with a mournful hiss, the small serpent succumbed to his wounds. ˇ°Fuck!ˇ± Nero was surprised how much seeing Jorry die like that actually hurt, the lazy snake had actually started to mean something to him by now. Unfortunately, Nero had no time to mourn or get revenge. With his companion dead, it freed up the two mice to join in on the assault. It was too much for Kaesar as his already poor health finally disappeared. In his last moments, Nero saw the mounted mice raising their needle-like swords in a victorious cheer before his vision faded to black. **** I have to fight my doubts away And be on guard against my fears; The feeble croaking of Dismay Has been familiar through the years; My dearest plans keep going wrong, Events combine to thwart my will; But fighting keeps my spirit strong, And I am undefeated still! ''The Fighter'' Samuel Ellsworth Kiser 007 All By Myself I have to fight my doubts away And be on guard against my fears; The feeble croaking of Dismay Has been familiar through the years; My dearest plans keep going wrong, Events combine to thwart my will; But fighting keeps my spirit strong, And I am undefeated still! ''The Fighter'' Samuel Ellsworth Kiser **** There was quite a bit of controversy about death in Gods'' Nature. On the one hand, it was somewhat harsh, every time you died, all experience is lost, and one equipped item will drop. The system meant that if a player was high enough level, it could cost them months of hard work and a good weapon or armor could be even more valuable than that. It was also worse if the item dropped is the bag, since there was no inventory system, then an expanded bag was all players carried around. The thing would never disappear so; theoretically, a player could find their death site and reclaim it. But if somebody died out in the frontier then it would take weeks getting back to the location. In other ways, it was reasonably lenient on players. It was only one item, no matter what, and no skill experience ever lowered. Not only that but if the player had recently leveled up, then the loss was barely noticeable. Some people used this to their advantage in suicide tactics while facing bosses out in the wild. While this system did spark some discussion, and more than a few people disagreed with it, it was not the primary source of the controversy. That blame solely at the feet of what happened to the player after death. Once a player died, and some believed NPCs as well, they were not ejected out of the game for a length of time. It was the opposite. Players were forced to spend a length of time in what the community around Gods'' Nature had come to all ''Purgatory.'' It wasn''t the official name, as there was none, but rather a description of the experience. Dead players were stuck in what could only be described as a void of everything. This did not mean an endless darkness or a barren plain, nothing existed at all but the player. This included the player''s body and senses. There was no darkness because there were no eyes to see. There was no sound, sense of touch or smell. There was no pain or pleasure, merely existence at its most basic form. It couldn''t even be described as a floating conscience because there was no sensation of floating. This was controversial because of the sheer alienness of the experience. Humans interpret the world using their senses and to be suddenly bereft of that can be horrible to people. Some players panic upon their first death and quite a few describe it as the worst experience of their lives. Players can always log out, the only option on the menu available, while dead. But as soon as you logged back in players had to continue their sentence. Standard time is an hour, though it can be extended under various conditions, like being cursed or being killed in a territory that views you as a criminal. It should be noted that, after the initial panic, many players came to see the experience as enjoyable. Like a sensory deprivation chamber, only more complete than anything in reality. But most people just were not able to get used to it, too different than their day to day existence. Nero felt the panic most people experienced the first time they died. It wasn''t painful, but jarring and when he tried to call for help nothing happened. Kaesar attempted to move his body or open his eyes, but the sensation wasn''t there. He imagined it was a bit like phantom limb syndrome. Where people lost limbs but still felt like they were there on a purely mental level. Eventually, the panic passed, and Nero was able to calm down. He did not know how much time had passed, nor how long he had left in ''purgatory.'' So, he just existed there, with no real concept of time, space or anything. It suddenly struck him how revolutionary this experience was. He was the epidemy of Descartes ''Cogito Ergo Sum.'' The philosophy of ''I think, therefore I am.'' Stripped of all senses so they couldn''t lie to him, he became a mind in the purest sense. This existence had been a thought experiment before, but now philosophers could actually undergo it. While man-made, it could still provide a whole new realm of study. It was only now, removed from the hustle and bustle that was Gods'' Nature, that Nero fully realized the implications of virtual reality. The ability to stimulate various environments, situations and experiences was immensely useful in a variety of fields of study. Theoretically, with enough data and artificial intelligence whole cultures could be stimulated in a virtual world for study. Take ancient Rome for example. Due to the writings of various figures throughout its heyday, such as Cicero, Ceasar, Cato, Seneca, Markus curious and other characters, people now have a rather good idea of what their lives were like. But if those entities, and what was understood about the culture, was simulated and tested, a more complete grasp of history could be uncovered. And that was just history, it did not cover fields like combat in the past or the future or possible societies or even mythology. Once Nero thought about all this, he felt a little underwhelmed that virtual reality was instead used for a video game. An impressive one, but still not living up to the technology''s full potential. After thinking about it for a little more, Nero shrugged. Or he would have if he had shoulders. It was probable that somebody had already seen the potential he did and was, even now, trying to bring it to fruition. Instead, Nero turned his mind to a situation closer to home. Like his slightly inglorious death. While death at the hands of mice was a bit embarrassing, and mice riding rats was weird, it wasn''t what was occupying his mind. Instead, it was a few minor details that stuck out to Kaesar, the most prominent being the completion of the quest. Nero and Jorry had only killed eighteen Desperate Rats before the mice had shown up, of that Kaesar was pretty confident. It was always possible that he had miscounted, but if that was the case then missing three was a rather large error. So, how had the quest been completed? There was a possibility that the rats the mice were riding were the ones in the quest, but if that was the case then why was it listed as killed. Furthermore, there were a total of six mice with rats, three more than those who were unaccounted for. Nero had three theories. The first and a bit unlikely was that he had merely miscounted. The second was that only three mice were mounted when they arrived and helped capture the other rats for their brethren. This was even more unlikely as it takes a significant amount of time to train any mount to respond to orders adequately and the mission counted the Rats as dead. It wasn''t impossible due to the existence of magic and skills, but Nero classified as the least likely. That left the third option, and one Kaesar saw as most probable. The mice, arriving while he was hunting the Desperate Rats, had killed three of the rats themselves, for whatever reason. Nero had no idea why they would do something like that. He was a little curious but shrugged it off as something he would never know. Kaesar was a bit put out that he died, and he held a small desire to take revenge, but at the end of the day, he did not care enough to go hunting for those mice who had likely left the shop already. He had just leveled up, so not much experience was lost, and he had no item of particular value on him. The worst that could happen is he losses his bag and all his money in it, which he could always retrieve. Eventually, his time in purgatory had to come to an end. It started with a general tingly feeling, like a wind passing over his skin. The next moment Nero was standing in a vast open field. Nero knew the area, it was the sacred ground on top of the hill in the keep. It was in the center of the city for defense purposes, as once it was lost nobody would be able to respawn safely. As Kaesar watched, a few more people were spawned near him. It started as an outline, then the next second the person appeared in full. A few of the people looked despondent or sad, others were angry. "Fuck! So close! Now I have to do it all over again." One particularly excited man yelled as he spawned. Nero had no business in the field after he came back to life, and so he decided to take his leave of the area. The item he dropped appeared to be the shirt he was wearing so he quickly pulled out a spare from his bag and put it on. His death had cost him an hour of time before he was supposed to go to Ground Sheer, but he still had another left. Enough time to go back to the restaurant and get paid as well as pick up a few items for what he had planned for Jorry. Speaking of the little snake, he was nowhere to be found, he hadn''t appeared with Nero. He was a bit worried that they might get separated. Kaesar decided to check on The Nest to see if the there had been any change.
The Nest (1)
"To grow strong does not mean to grow solitary."
Allows for the recruitment of NPCs into The Nest. NPCs in the Nest receive stat boosts while fighting with other nestmates. Upon death, NPCs will revive around the player. NPCs disappear upon logging off and reappear upon login. Synergistic skills can only be used with other nestmates.
Current Number of Nestmates Allowed: 1
Current Number of Nestmates: 1
Nestmates: ''Jorry'' (Deceased, time until respawn: 4 hours and 56 minutes)
Stat boost to Nestmates: 0.01%
So he was still dead. It made sense after the serpent had been killed by the bird it had taken more than a single hour to reappear. Until then Nero was by himself. It felt a bit weird being alone. Jorry had been a constant since early in the game, and now Nero was noticing his absence. It did not take long to reach the restaurant again, and Nero went straight to the storage area. He was careful in entering, ready to leave at any second, but caution was unneeded. It seemed like the mice had vacated the area. His shirt had also disappeared, though whether it was the mice or something else that was responsible for that, Nero did not know. Now knowing the area was clear, Nero reported to the owner of the successful completion of the quest. Just because he had died did not mean Kaesar felt he did not deserve to be paid. Finished with his work, Nero went about setting up his plan. His first stop was a tailor. In this world, due to skills again, personally created apparel gave stat bonuses, so mass production never took off. If somebody wanted any clothes, they either had to make them or buy them from somebody who owned a shop. What Nero needed wasn''t anything fancy like dress clothes or armor; instead, he bought a leather jacket. It could also be called a coat as the interior was lined with wool. The leather was from some sort of animal that Nero couldn''t identify as it wasn''t a cow. It cost a pretty penny, about fifty silver in total, but it was not only necessary for what Nero had planned but also useful in the long term. Fall was well on its way, and winter was coming. "Do you do commissions?" He asked the woman who was fitting him for the coat''s adjustments. "We do, they cost a bit more, but you can also provide your own material if you like?" She answered. "I, unfortunately, do not have any material. But it shouldn''t be difficult. I need you to make me a stuffed snake." "A stuffed snake? What do you mean?" She asked, looking confused. "Basically you take some cloth and shape it into a hollow snake, and then you stuff it with wool or something like it." Nero had expected something like this, the middle ages did not have stuffed animals after all. "It needs to be small, like a gardener snake and realistic." "All right, I think I can do that." She said, looking a bit unsure. "It will cost you though. Come back in a few days, and you can see what I have."Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. "Thank you, I''ll see you then." Taking his leave of the store, Nero had enough time for one last stop before he had to go to work. He traveled to one of the higher ends of the city and stopped before a rather large building. When he entered a foyer, Nero was assaulted with a cacophony of sound, as people talked over each other and the occasional blast of force resounded. This was the local mage association. People came here for certification as a mage, to hire help or for specialized instruction. Kaesar did not need anything particularly special, so he went to the front desk where a man was sitting and reading a book, completely ignoring the hubbub around him. At Nero''s approach, the man looked up and asked him his business. "I need to know how much it cost to hire somebody to cast an enchantment?" "Permanent, semi-permanent or transitive?" The man asked. "Transitive." The names were self-explanatory. "Which spell?" "Animation, I need for it to move around on its own." The man looked at Nero for a second. "You making a puppet then?" "Something like that." He answered. "For something like that I would recommend a permanent enchantment, it is more useful and won''t disappear on you in a fight." "I just need it to work for a few hours, and it doesn''t need to do anything fancy." The man judged Kaesar for a second and then answered. "Most apprentices can do it. If you don''t mind shoddy work, it can cost about a gold and a half." Nero frowned, it was more expensive than he initially expected. He had the money though so he eventually nodded his head in acceptance. "Alright, I''ll be back in a few days, I was just checking the price at the moment. Thanks." "No problem, have a good day." As Nero took his leave, the mage returned to his book. **** "You''re a bit late. Nevermind, we''ll get started now." Rob said as Nero approached. "All right, what do you want me to do." "Nothing, right now you are just going to watch. Follow me." The old man led Kaesar back into the building of Ground Sheer and through the hallways. Eventually, they came to a double steel door. It was markedly different than the other wooden ones. Rob pushed open the doors, and Nero was hit with a blast of cold air. "This is the cold room. We store meats and other food here, so they don''t rot." Indeed, the room was filled to bursting with a variety of meat and other products. Some were still animal shaped without skin, like a deer carcass hanging from the ceiling and others were already cut into appropriate sections. "What you''ll eventually be doing," Rob continued as he led Nero to the back of the room where a long table was full of intact animal and beast bodies. "Is disassembling these animals. We usually get them whole and take care of them ourselves, it saves money. We got these at a great price so don''t worry if you botch a few, though try not to destroy too many. We have mostly deer, wild birds, a few bears and two Ratman, though save those for last." "I''m going to be doing this on the expedition then?" Kaesar asked, catching on. "You''ll also be fighting, though not as much as the other trainees. You are still a little too green for extended combat in a team. One idiot making a mistake can cost a group of hundreds their lives. But yes, you will be in charge of disassembling the ratmen. Your primary focus will be getting their hides off, we will be selling them this winter, and if you do a good enough job, we can give you a small cut of the profit. Still, there is no reason not to learn the whole process. I''ll show you a few times then leave you to it. Experience is the best teacher after all. Take off any clothes you do not want to be ruined and put on an apron." Nero nodded and removed his new jacket and dropping his bag, the cold air fogging up his breath. The instructor reached for a buck and hauled it over to a table with one hand. It was an impressive sight for an old man, though his level was probably rather high, as was his strength stat. "It''s usually easier to do something like this on an incline but needs must." He said as he grabbed a knife and put his cane down, leaning over the table. "First thing you want to do is remove the genitals, or the udder if they have one. Some people like to eat them, and if they are prepared a certain way then they can be good, but for our purposes, they just get in the way." His knife moved with skill as he cut at the groin of the buck. Nero winced at the sight. "Next you are gonna need to remove the musk glands. Not all animals have them, and they can be in a variety of different places, especially on monsters. For deer, however, they are around the knee, see it? You cut those off. Next, you split the animal from bottom to top, all the way to the throat. Make sure your blade is sharp. Tougher monsters have thicker hides, and I had a friend who had to drag a wyvern carcass for months because his edge wasn''t sharp enough. Be careful not to cut too deep and get your knife under the skin. Peel it back slightly, try not to get hair on the meat." As he talked, Rob kept his knife flashing. It cut and peeled its way up the body, exposing the red underneath. "Next you are gonna want to cut open the chest cavity. It''s easy to do, just cut between the ribs. Most animals have either ribs or cartilage that acts like it. You then reach inside," Nero blanched a little at the ghastly image, "and grab their windpipe. It''s best if you cut it as close to the skull as possible, less of a mess that way." Once the windpipe was cut and put to the side, Rob reached to the cut near the stomach and pulled, opening it up further. "This is the trickiest part, one misstep can spoil the whole operation. You are going to want to work your way down the carcass, removing organs as you go. Try to use the blade as little as possible and always be careful when you do. A pierced organ, mainly the bladder, can ruin the meat of any animal. Some animals have venom sacs, and so on, they can be tricky. Many organs can also be sold for food. Particularly the heart, liver, and kidneys. If it is a high level or magical monster, like a wyvern, chimera or gods forbid a dragon, then everything can be saved for alchemy. Once all the organs are removed, you remove the anus. Not all animals have it, some are weird like that, but those are rare. You cut around it from the outside then pull it through the chest cavity. Now roll it over to drain the blood." Rod did so, letting the deer''s body rest belly down. The blood pooled under it and flowed to the floor where a grate lay under the table. "You follow the general gist of that for pretty much most monsters. There are differences between fish and birds, as well creatures with scales, but those can be learned at a later date. Now we reach the part that is really important for the expedition." The trainer grabbed his cane and traveled over to another table where a ratman carcass lay. It was an ugly thing, precisely what you would expect if you heard the term ''ratman.'' Like a giant rat, four feet long and thick had decided it liked the idea of walking on hind legs. Its chest was already opened, and all its innards had been removed. "Our primary task will be the fur, we can make a good profit by selling it this winter. Ratmen can be skinned like any animal, once the guts have been removed. I don''t know of anybody who eats them though, so their meat is generally useless unless you are starving or want to feed it to an animal." Rob took up another knife, this one thinner and more curved. "You want to keep the hide as intact as possible. Cut one line from head to tail, on the back if you have to, though skilled skinners can use the chest cavity. You cut around the feet to free it, and then you slowly work your way all over the body, cutting the membrane that connects the flesh to the hide." It took the old man barely any time to completely remove the hide from the beast, long years of experience coming in handy. "Try not to ruin the fur and try to not cut into the meat. It will take some practice, but this is generally one of the easier parts. We''ll start you on a few deer, their hide can also be sold, but it is mostly used for leather rather than fur so there is no real benefit to selling it now when we can use it ourselves. Once you get the skill, you should improve rapidly at least enough for something low leveled like ratman." Walking back to the original table, Rob dragged the carcass he had been working on to the side, the blood only a small trickle now. He grabbed another body and put it on the table. This one was female, not a buck like the other. Rob held out a knife to Nero. There was a moment of hesitation before Nero did what he always did when faced with a conundrum. He shrugged his shoulders and went with it. What followed was a study in human habituation. There was a bit of nervousness at first as the new and somewhat gruesome task proved to be a challenge. Nero''s hands were a bit unsteady, not used to handling a knife as well as hesitation. He had some basic experience, high school dissection, but there was a significant difference than a classroom where everything smells of disinfectant and a meat storage with relatively fresh corpses. The first body he messed up in many ways. His cut was too shallow and then too deep, piercing the stomach. Stomach acid flowed out, and a stench rose that had bile rise in Kaesar''s throat. He pushed it down and continued, even though the carcass was now ruined. He cut the windpipe too far down, leaving a bit of it dangling from the head. Nero managed to remove the organs without problems but had trouble with the anus, nicking bone. He put aside the body to drain and moved on to the next. While during the first try Rob was quiet, the following ones he offered up advice. The second deer, Nero forgot to cut the umbilical cord and the bladder emptied all over him and the body. The stench was horrible, and Nero would be throwing this set of clothes away as soon as he was done. It certainly did not help that his enhanced sense of taste allowed him to get a taste of the particles in the air. But, as with all things, practice makes perfect. By the fourth body, Nero wasn''t making mistakes. He was nowhere near as quick, clean or efficient as Rob had been, his cuts were curving and occasionally too deep, but he no longer ruined the meat by piercing organs. After the sixth deer, Rob had him try on the ratmen. It was the same principle and, while his hands were still a bit unsteady due to their humanoid nature, Nero managed to keep from ruining their bodies. Once those organs had been removed, and the corpses put to the side to drain, Nero went back to the first deer to start on skinning now that it had drained sufficiently enough. Like with the organs, Nero made quite a few mistakes though not as extravagant in scope. He cut into meat and bone quite a few times. Sometimes he put too much force and cut the hide. Unlike the organs, however, it was a more repetitive task, and Nero let his mind wander as his hands slowly but surely peeled back the skin. The skill to disassemble monster and animal corpses was useful in Gods'' Nature. Like most things, the game mixed with reality whenever it could. When a player, or anybody, killed something their bodies did not disappear, dropping coins or items. Instead, players had to take apart the corpse, or bring it to somebody who could, and then have those turned into objects. This angered a lot of people, used to not having to work as hard for a good sword. Like in the real middle ages, metal was expensive. You either had to mine it yourself or buy it. Thus most people wore leather and carried bone weapons. This wasn''t all bad as the bone was a lot tougher in the game than in reality. Boss monsters, large ones, in particular, could be turned into many strong weapons. From what Nero had read in his studies of the game, many people actually liked this system. It gave a real sense of accomplishment and meant that players were not subjected to random loot drops. It had been compared to the classical ''Monster Hunter'' games of the twenty-first century. It could be inconvenient though, any large body had to be dragged back to civilization, so any noteworthy expedition had to bring carts as well as specialized personnel to take the carcasses apart. It was work that was well paid, even if the player did no fighting. The exception to this was when players or NPC''s who used equipment died. They always dropped one piece of equipment. If they had others, it would respawn with them. In this manner, it was better to go after ''intelligent monsters.'' Monsters who used tools were generally harder to face than those that merely moved by instinct. Killing a bandit chief boss could get some proper equipment, but the bandits could plan, lay traps or use poison. There was always a risk or reward for any adventure. It also made player killing a viable way to play, though most high-level players did not. For the simple reason, that senior players were almost all pioneers and were out on the frontier where players were scarce. Not only that, but most other players just do not have any worthwhile equipment compared to what they could gain by raiding an undiscovered dungeon or beating a high-level boss. That left player killing for those who were strong enough to hunt the highest levels, or if they just enjoyed the activity and did it for fun. "Good job, you should have gotten the Disassembly skill by now," Rob said as Nero finished the last of the ratmen. Sure enough, when Kaesar checked his skills menu, a third had shown up.
Disassembly (1)
"We all fall apart eventually."
This skill allows for the preservation of materials during and after the disassembly of bodies. You can harvest what you will from them, though you make mistakes.
This seemed less like an active ability than the other two skills he possessed. Instead, it was passive, more a numerical representation of his actual knowledge of taking apart bodies. "We''ll stop here for the night, now that you have the basics. You can use the bath behind the building to clean up. You got other clothes?" Nero nodded. "Good, you are gonna want to change into them, you smell like a pile of corpses after a week in the sun." "Thanks, I''ll see you tomorrow." Nero left, picking up his jacket and bag on his way to the bath. The bath behind Ground Sheer, walled off from the courtyard, was a mixture of simplicity and luxuriousness. It wasn''t a bath in the traditional sense. More of a small and shallow pool that at its thickest, only came up to Nero''s navel. For all its simplicity, it probably cost a significant amount. It was enchanted to keep the water warm, even during the hight of winter, and to remain clean. Nero guessed that it cost a good number of gold coins every month to keep the enchantments up to date. Still, it was nice. After having scrubbed himself furiously to remove the gore and urine from his body, Nero just lay in the warm water, staring up at the sky. He found himself yawning, relaxed as he was. Kaesar realized that it had been a few days since he had slept and he was overdue. That was fine with him, he could not proceed with his plan for another few days because he had to wait for his stuffed snake. Speaking of the stuffed snake, Jorry should have respawned by now. Checking the Nest, Nero realized that he had to summon Jorry once the time was up for the snake to respawn. Doing so, Nero was greeted with a small light as the serpent''s body reformed in front of him, only for its eyes to comically widen as it fell into the water. Chuckling to himself, Nero grabbed the small snake and lifted it up onto his shoulder. "You alright?" He asked, apparently not getting a response from Jorry. "I was worried for a second there. You did well though, I don''t think we could have beaten those mice. They were fast and did a lot of damage, we just weren''t prepared for them. They were probably of a higher level as well. If we see them again, we''ll run until we are strong enough to fight them." Nero felt no shame in running away from a losing fight. Pride could get you killed, in Gods'' Nature it might not be permanent, but it still was not good. He also did not have enough competitive spirit to really desire revenge. He shrugged his shoulders in apathy once more at the thought. If they met the mice again and he and Jorry were at a high enough level, then he would fight them, but otherwise, there was no reason to risk it. **** Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend. King James Bible, Proverbs 27:17 008-1 Broken Wings Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend. King James Bible, Proverbs 27:17 **** It had taken longer than Nero had hoped for the tailor to finish up his request. A few days had stretched into almost an entire week, and Nero was set to leave on the expedition tomorrow morning. While there was no real rush and he could always try his idea when he returned the following day, Nero liked to get things done ahead of time. Still, he thought as he walked into the shop with Jorry on his shoulder, Kaesar had enough time to accomplish his mission if she had it available now. Otherwise, he would resign himself to waiting for next week. "Sorry for the wait," the shopkeeper said as she noticed her customer. "There were a few false starts, I have never tried to make something like this before." "So its ready then?" Nero asked. "Yep, one stuffed snake ready to go. How does it look?" She put her creation on the counter for inspection. It was probably not going to win any contests nor did it look like anything he had seen in the real world. Granted he did not know much about children toys. The thing was made from what seemed to be genuine snakeskin, though it could be something else, and was a dark green bordering on brown. The eyes were some yellow-green buttons. "That looks good." He picked it up easily as it wasn''t big, a little bigger than Jorry. That was okay though. "This is actually my second one. My kid took a liking to the first one, so I decided to make another. You only need to pay for this one. Including the materials and time, adding the fact that I have never made something like this and it comes to a total of thirty-three silvers. I''ll round it down to thirty since my son has been having a good time." "Here you go." He handed her the money. "You did good work, I''ll come see you if I need anything else." "No problem, it was a fun change of pace, and I could always use more regulars. Have a beautiful day and tell your friends where to find if they need to stock up for winter." It''s incredible what some subtle flattery can get you. If you are too overt, then it can backfire, but the next time Nero came to this shop there was a good chance that he could get another discount. That is why he hadn''t haggled for more money off, too many times people sacrificed long-term investment for short-term gain. It is one thing if you are just passing through a town but since Nero estimated his sisters were at least a month away, he was going to be staying in the Keep for a while yet. All Nero had left to do was to go get the stuffed animal enchanted, and then he would be all set. It would wipe out the majority of his money, and he would be left with a few silvers but apart from food and other basic necessities he did not spend too much money anyway. **** It was a beautiful day. It was getting on the year and winter was coming, but the weather had decided to ignore that fact. The sun was beating down from overhead, but it was not too hot. Any discomfort felt by the fall heat was brushed aside by a cooling breeze. This was the type of day that was so idyllic that it appeared in commercials and postcards. Nero thought it was a waste to spend it inside the bookstore. So here he was, once more in that little park that he often returned to. He was laying against a tree and using his pack as a pillow as he took a nap. His jacket was removed and hung from a tree branch above him, blocking the sun from his eyes. It had been a few days since he had slept and with the expedition coming up tomorrow he wanted to be in top shape. Truthfully this is what Nero imaged a vacation would feel like, laying in the sun and not thinking about anything in particular as he let his mind drift off to sleep. His little snake was curled on his chest and absorbing the ultraviolet rays of the sun, its tongue flickering in and out as it lay still. Occasionally it would open its eyes and look around before once more laying down to rest. Eventually, Nero was woken up by the sunlight in his eyes. It had moved from its earlier position in the sky and was now glaring down at him. Seeing no reason to remain to lay there if he wasn''t going to get any more sleep, Nero stood up and stretched. He still had some stuff to do before he made his way to Ground Sheer for the evening, so he grabbed his bag and walked off. Nero had not been gone long when there was movement in the grass. A small serpent''s head looked around the park for a few moments in confusion. It had fallen off Nero''s chest while he slept and had not climbed back on as he left. Without the human around it watched the area warily. It tasted the air a few times and, not liking what it discovered, had curled up to make itself a smaller profile. It stayed that way for a few minutes, hidden in the grass in the shade of the jacket that had been forgotten as well. After about ten minutes it peaked its head up and looked towards the entrance to the park. There was Nero, returning casually to pick up what he had left behind. Unfortunately, that moment of inattention proved to be a fatal mistake. While Kaesar was still at the entrance, some twenty meters away, a shadow covered the small snake. Talons gripped it tightly, and a beak came down on the tiny head, piercing it in brutally quick manner. It was the falcon that called this park home, the same one who had repeatedly killed Jorry for who knew how long. While nowhere near sentient, there was intelligence in the bird. It had no desire to tangle with Nero, who was significantly larger than it, over a single Gardner snake when it could find prey elsewhere. The only reason it kept hunting Jorry was that he continued to respawn near the bird''s nest and was an easy catch. Once the snake had left with the human, it had been no skin of the bird''s beak, though it meant searching further for meals. It had seen the serpent a few times over the last few weeks and kept an eye on it. But it had made no move with Nero so near. Once the human had forgotten the small serpent, however, it held its sights on the potential prey. Its instincts were those of a hunter and scavenger, always on the lookout for opportunities for lonely morsels. Its intelligence, rudimentary that it was, kept it from attacking right away. The wariness of the snake meant that if it exposed itself too soon, then there was a chance it could dodge the bird''s initial dive and hideaway. So it waited. The opportunity came when the human started walking back into the park. The serpent''s attention turned to its companion and the pressure on the bird skyrocketed. Thankfully for the falcon, it managed to get the kill quickly and was going to be able to take off with its prize before the human got near.The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. Unfortunately for the triumphant hunter of the sky, it never thought about danger coming from above. There were, of course, more dangerous flyers in the world, but they were not present in Sarra Keep, so a bird of prey like the raptor had very few natural predators in the area. It stayed on the ground for no more than two seconds, but that was enough. A shadow fell on the bird as it had on the snake. This one was thin and hit the falcon on the back as it delivered the killing blow to the serpent in its claws. It was pushed to the ground by the unexpected weight, and that meant it was over. Nero smiled as he saw Jorry fall out of his jacket on his once tormentor. The bird was doomed now. Jorry was small and could not wrap around the entirety of the hunter''s body, but he did not need to. Birds had three ways to fight, all things considered. They could use their wings to bat and their foes, though this was not very efficient. Their real danger lay in their razor-sharp claws and beaks. But when you have a snake wrapped around your neck and strangling you to death, neither of those could come into play. Birds were not flexible enough to bring their claws so high up, and its head was locked into place. It only took a minute for the falcon to die in Jorry''s grasp. Nero''s plan had worked flawlessly. All things considered, it had been relatively simple in nature. Nero got the idea from an old documentary he had watched a few years ago. Called ''exotic hunters'' or something along those lines, it talked about the strange hunting techniques of individual animals. One part of it had been dedicated to specific snakes. These would hang from trees in the forest and drop on prey when it passed under them. It had talked about a cave where hundreds of serpents hung from the ceiling, waiting to fall on bats as they passed by. While the idea of so many serpents above you, waiting to fall on your head, was terrifying it provided a guideline on how a landlocked reptile could kill a bird quickly. The plan had been simple, a fake snake was enchanted to look and act like a real one for a few hours and would not move from its spot under the jacket. The jacket would provide cover for Jorry as he hung in wait. Nero would leave, the bird would take the bait and Jorry would drop on it and wrap around it. Two things could have gone wrong. The first was that the bird would just not take the bait. Nero had no idea about its intelligence level, but Jorry had proven smarter than the average snake so it was a worry that the plan could be seen through for some reason. Kaesar had thought this had happened when he returned to the park and there was no sign of the bird attacking. Thankfully it fell for it. The other was that Jorry would miss when he fell. This was the most worrying as it would leave the snake exposed without Nero nearby to save it. This outcome was a genuine possibility as, though the two had repeatedly practiced ambushes of the sort, it had always been against rats and not birds. The two seconds the falcon was on the ground was enough though. Quite frankly there was no real reason to do this, it would at most give satisfaction to Jorry. Perhaps it had merely been Kaesar remembering the poem he had told his companion at their first meeting and wanting to help a friend overcome a problematic past. Maybe it was Nero desire to see constant self-improvement in himself and those close to him. It could have been merely a way to motivate and foster loyalty in an underling. It also was an excellent opportunity to teach a tactic that could come on hand in the future. Any of these or all of them could be used to justify his actions. What was fact was that he had emptied his wallet, spent weeks worth of time and effort to kill a little bird that posed no threat. And there would be no physical reward. So it was a surprise when he was flooded with messages once the falcon died.
Congratulations!
You have created and completed the Secret Nest Quest(?) ''Revenge against the Sky.'' Attunement to Nature has deepened.
The Nest 1->2
The number of nestmates has increased to two. Stat boost to all nestmates has risen from 0.01% to 0.02%.
Assimilation 1->2
Assimilation of ''Jorry''s taste buds'' is complete. A new aspect can be assimilation.
You have learned ''Beast tongue.''(?)
Nestmate Jorry is now evolving(?) from ''Gardner Snake'' to ''Black Rat Snake.'' Evolution will be complete in 10 minutes.
Nero was surprised at the popups for a moment before his eyes fell on Jorry who was covered in a light that obscured his form. Nero wanted to deadpan for a moment. Did the game think that Jorry was a Pocket Monster or something? Still, it gave him time to look over the notifications. The first thing Nero did was click on the (?) about the Secret Nest Quest.
Everybody has their own desires and ambitions. Secret Nest Quests are your responses to these. Succeeding means achieving a greater harmony with your nestmates. Failing says you are not attuned to their desires and Nature.
So basically it meant quests related to nestmates without popups until they were finished, one way or the other. What was really interesting was the first popup said Nero had ''created'' the quest. It likely meant that it was either his talking to Jorry about the poem or it could have been because the entire thing had been his idea. The leveling of the two Nature skills was self-explanatory. The Nest would provide a slightly higher bonus, and he could now recruit another animal into The Nest. Kaesar had not really kept track of the progress of Assimilation, so he did not know how much more had been left when he completed the Secret Nest Quest. Still, it was nice that he could now assimilate a new trait, and he had an idea of what to choose. Which brought him to the next notification.
Beast Tongue
"May all the beasts of the land, the birds in the sky and the fish in sea hear my words."
A passive skill that allows for the understanding of animals and monsters of all sorts. Only those who identify as, and help, beasts can learn this skill.
That was interesting. There was no level of the skill, it likely would not level up in the future. Did this mean that Nero could talk to animals now? If so it opened up a lot of possibilities. It probably wasn''t an ordinary skill, at least Nero hadn''t heard of it yet in his study of the game. The ramifications were intense, however. Nero could now communicate with animals. Learn what they know and accept quests from them like he did humans. Of course, it required testing, but it could prove to be a game changer. The last notification wasn''t too much of a mystery, but Kaesar pressed on the question mark just to be sure.
Evolution is the process by which animals and monsters advance. They have no Nature to deepen. Instead, their bodies are shaped by their actions. Once specific requirements are met, such as a high enough level, completion of specific quests or ingestion of particular substances, they will evolve into a new being. Actions taken before evolution as well as species will decide the outcome.
That was pretty much what Nero had already read about, though it was a bit more clear here. He decided to look up ''Black Rat Snake'' while he waited for the evolution to finish. After a few minutes of browsing the network and reading, he got a grasp on the breed. Like the name suggested they were black and were sometimes known merely as black snakes. They hunted mice and rats as well as rabbits, lizards, and occasionally birds. They were native to North America and were helpful to farmers as they got rid of pests. They also grew to be on average four to six feet long. By the time Nero finished reading, the light around Jorry had received slightly to reveal the changed serpent. It wasn''t much larger, only a few inches longer and slightly wider. That could because it had just evolved or because it was still a young snake. Where before it had been a dark green, it was now black with a pale underside. "How are you feeling?" Nero asked his companion. "I feel good. Powerful. Thanks." Jorry could be thanking Kaesar for his concern or for his aid in the Secret Nest Quest. Either way, Beast Tongue was working its magic. Though Nero was a little disappointed that there was no lisp on ''s'' like in popular media when snakes talked. 008-2 Broken Wings ˇ°Ouch!ˇ± Nero said as he bit his tongue once more, his friend snickered at his misfortune. ˇ°ItˇŻs easy for you, you donˇŻt have any teeth, and youˇŻve lived with it your whole life.ˇ± ˇ°That just means I donˇŻt bite it. I donˇŻt understand how you can mess it up.ˇ± Jorry said. ˇ°ItˇŻs because I forget about it and once I remember to try and use it like you do, I end up overthinking it and closing my mouth.ˇ± After the completion of the hidden quest on top of getting a variety of skills, Assimilation had completed its job increasing NeroˇŻs sense of taste, leveling up in the process. That had allowed Nero to choose another trait to assimilate. Sticking with the theme he had decided to absorb JorryˇŻs tongue. Now he had a forked retractible snake tongue to help taste the air around him. Ideally, it would allow him to get more information from his sense of taste. While not nearly as overwhelming as the taste buds were, he was still sorting out what he detected in the air. It would be a long time before Nero had the experience to correctly sort out the variety of particles in the air. That wasnˇŻt the main problem, however, distracting though it was. The main problem was that humans were just not used to using a serpentˇŻs tongue efficiently. Nero often forgot about it for a while, where a snake would use it unconsciously, and would consciously dart it out into the air. Eventually, through long practice, it would reach the point of the subconscious movement, but that would only happen with constant reminders. It did not help that his new tongue was rather thin and long, meaning that he often bit it. Still, it would prove useful in the long run. Nero would no longer be dependent on his eyes if he were blind or if the area was dark. Not only that but it almost wholly halted the possibility of an ambush if he could detect what was near using the air. ˇ°So, did you get any skills from your evolution?ˇ± Nero asked his companion, changing the subject. ˇ°Just one. ˇ®Devour.ˇŻ I get a five percent boost for an hour after I eat an animal or monster. It can only go up to twenty percent at max, and it had to have been killed by me within ten minutes before consumption.ˇ± Jorry replied from his position on the humanˇŻs shoulder. They were both in the courtyard at Ground Sheer. The expedition would be leaving once the sun rose. Nero had arrived early. Instead, he had never left after last nightˇŻs practice and had spent the evening talking to the snake. He had slept the day before and carried all his belongings with him in his bag, so there was no reason to leave. Kaesar had asked for permission from Ken and gotten the go-ahead to remain. Apart from that, he had done some training on the dummies while Jorry watched and had looked up anything about their destination online. ˇ°Can you even eat four rats or the like in an hour? I thought it would take longer to digest than that. Stat boosts would be useless if you are too bloated to move.ˇ± ˇ°I think there is a difference between using the skill and eating regularly. I will have to try it out later.ˇ± ˇ°All right, so useful against small animals in numbers but not too good with things you canˇŻt eat quickly. Still, so long as are given time to prepare it can become beneficial. When it levels up, it can either increase the bonus, how many bonuses can be stacked or how long it lasts. WeˇŻll have to test later.ˇ± ˇ°I just want a rematch with those damn mice. One day IˇŻm gonna swallow them whole, rat and all.ˇ± ˇ°Wait till we get stronger before we do that, they kicked our buts last time both because it was a surprise attack, they were more mobile than we are used to and because they are probably at a higher level than us. Give it a few weeks when we are stronger, and then we will try and find them.ˇ± From the short amount of time they had been able to talk to each other Nero had gotten the impression that Jorry was a petty little snake. He was somewhat relaxed and lazy most of the time but could hold a grudge. Killing the bird who used to hunt only seemed to give him a taste of revenge and he wanted more. Kaesar had been somewhat ambivalent about his death at the hands, or paws rather, of those mice and hadnˇŻt desired revenge. He had killed hundreds of rats by now, dying in return wasnˇŻt such a big surprise. But since Jorry felt that way, Nero had just shrugged his shoulders and decided to go along with him. There was nothing wrong with getting back as people in his book, even if he did not feel the need to do so often. ˇ°Besides,ˇ± he said to the serpent, ˇ°IˇŻm pretty sure we will run into them again. I have a few ideas that IˇŻm curious about that we can investigate when we get back.ˇ± ˇ°What are you thinking?ˇ± Jorry asked. ˇ°Nothing concrete, just a few snippets of knowledge coming together that is painting an interesting picture. As I said, we will need to investigate when we get back from the expedition.ˇ± The sky was starting to lighten up, and the instructors had told the trainees to be there by dawn so they could set out. Already a few had wandered into the grounds. They were carrying packs of various sizes and were already forming small groups of friends to talk while they waited for the rest of the party and the instructors. ˇ°Fine, so where are we going anyway? You never told me.ˇ± ˇ°You were there with me when they told us, do you not remember?ˇ± ˇ°I was probably asleep, I donˇŻt really care that much about what most humans say.ˇ± The snake waived its tail negligently. ˇ°We are going to a placed called the Derailed Mine to hunt some ratmen. From what IˇŻve gathered it is one of the bigger mines of the area and produces a lot of copper for the keep. It is not too far away so we should only be gone for a day or two at most.ˇ± ˇ°Ratmen? So basically, human rats? Or rat humans?ˇ± ˇ°Basically. There are one of the possible evolutions of rats, and they evolve around level twelve. They arenˇŻt that smart compared to other sapient races, but they are bulky and usually show up in large numbers. You won''t be able to eat them as they are shorter than average humans at four or five feet but they are still large.ˇ± ˇ°So, Devour and Bind won''t work on them then? ThatˇŻs not good, I won''t be able to fight properly then.ˇ± Jorry said in worry. ˇ°If you were a year older, then you would be long enough for bind to work on them but for now you are too small. WeˇŻll think of other ways for you to help. IˇŻm probably not gonna be fighting too much either since IˇŻm still low leveled and new to the training program.ˇ±This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. ˇ°IˇŻm not small!ˇ± The snake hissed at his friend. ˇ°IˇŻm just young. One day IˇŻm going to be huge! Bigger than the city.ˇ± ˇ°IˇŻm sure you will,ˇ± Nero said placatingly. ˇ°If you keep fighting and growing you should be able to keep evolving. You remember that poem I told you when we first met?ˇ± Jorry nodded. ˇ°Jorumangadr, who I named you after was called the world serpent because he was so large that he encircled the entire world. ThatˇŻs where the whole ˇ®Though I may devour the five continents and swallow the three seasˇŻ comes from. He would be large enough to swallow a mountain whole.ˇ± ˇ°A mountain? WhatˇŻs a mountain?ˇ± Because of the difference in species, it was easy to forget how young Jorry really was. The snake had only been a few weeks old before meeting Nero. His ability to talk so well could be because of the different growth rates. ˇ°You know that hill that the city is on? Imagine that but much larger. So big that it can reach the clouds.ˇ± ˇ°Whoa, thatˇŻs big. And Jorumangadr could eat that whole?ˇ± ˇ°So the legends say.ˇ± Nero shrugged in response, not willing to get into a discussion on mythology with the young serpent right now. ˇ°I donˇŻt think I want to be that big,ˇ± Jorry said hesitantly. ˇ°I donˇŻt think mountains would taste good.ˇ± Nero chuckled a little at the small serpent. ˇ°Still, Jorumangadr wasnˇŻt perfect was he? He didnˇŻt have hands or feet, and he couldnˇŻt fly. Someday IˇŻm gonna be able to fly. Then I won''t be helpless against the sky and other birds. IˇŻm gonna be the best! And then IˇŻll be better than that stupid world serpent. IˇŻll take his name and title.ˇ± ˇ°Sounds like you want to be a dragon then,ˇ± Kaesar replied in amusement to the young serpentˇŻs declaration. ˇ°A dragon? WhatˇŻs that?ˇ± ˇ°Where I come from, dragons are the most famous and influential creatures. Every society has them in one form or another. They are called winged serpents sometimes because they are like a snake that can fly. Some have wings, and others fly because they are powerful. Jorumangadr can loosely be considered a dragon because it is such a powerful and famous serpent.ˇ± ˇ°Then IˇŻll become a dragon then. IˇŻll evolve and evolve until I become the best.ˇ± ˇ°If that is what you want, so long as you keep trying then there should be nothing stopping you.ˇ± At the end of the day GodsˇŻ Nature was a game. It had levels and infinite potential for growth. Jorry wasnˇŻt limited by birth or species. He could become anything he wanted to be unlike in the real world. Besides, it would be funny if a small gardener snake he found turned into the most powerful of creatures. ˇ°And if I become a dragon, then you can become one too.ˇ± ˇ°That would take a long time, but it should be possible.ˇ± Jorry was probably talking about the assimilation skill. Nero did not really think he wanted to go through the process to turn into a full-fledged dragon, for a few reasons. The first is that the sheer number of times he would have to use the skill on the various parts of his body to get that far. It would take decades of dedicated assimilation. Another reason was that as far a Kaesar knew, the skill was permanent. If he turned into a dragon, then there would be no turning back into a human unless he learned a magic spell to do so or assimilated back towards humanity. Besides, Nero was pretty sure that it took more than just the form of a dragon to make an actual dragon. While they were present in almost every culture, and thus loosely defined, most would agree that dragons were more forces of nature than real animals. At the end of the day, it just wouldnˇŻt be worth the effort to get a body that would be less suited to him than the one he had for his whole life. ˇ°All right! Everybody gather up!ˇ± Ken yelled to the assembled trainees as he walked into the courtyard with Dode and Rob on his heels. Nero rose from his position to join the rest. ˇ°Anybody who is coming should be here by now so weˇŻll be setting out. WeˇŻll be taking some wagons that you all can ride to the mine, although if anybody has their own horses, they can ride those instead. Follow me, and IˇŻll give you more information when we are on the road.ˇ± The leader set a rather brisk pace as he led the procession our of ground sheer and towards the gate of the city in the west. ˇ°You know, IˇŻve never left the city.ˇ± Said Jorry to Nero as the walked in the back of the line near Rob. ˇ°Me neither.ˇ± Answered Kaesar. ˇ°Both Sarra Keep or the city I was born in.ˇ± ˇ°Really? But you know so much.ˇ± ˇ°Where I come from we can get information from all over the world in an instant. We can see mountains and oceans and planets without leaving our house. Most people travel at some point for vacation or something but my dad, before he died, wasnˇŻt the type to leave the house unless there was something he wanted. After that, I was busy taking care of my sisters, so there was no real opportunity to travel.ˇ± ˇ°Sisters?ˇ± Jorry said, testing the unfamiliar word. ˇ°Generally it means females with the same parents, they are called brothers if they are male. Mine are a little different. They were adopted like I was. After their birth parents died me and my dad took them in and raised them.ˇ± ˇ°So your father wasnˇŻt your real father? The one that hatched you?ˇ± ˇ°Pretty much. I heard my dad took me in as a favor for a friend. Never really cared too much about it. You see, to me birth and blood are irrelevant when it comes to family. Families are those you love and those who love you. My sisters and I do not like each other less because we do not share the same bloodline. Once you learn more about the world and different ways of life you realize that family can mean a whole bunch of different things.ˇ± Jorry was an interesting mix of maturity and naivety. Probably due to his instincts as an animal, he understood hunting, killing and reproduction already but he was also ignorant of the world at large. Emotions, or at least the terms and feelings they referred to were almost entirely foreign. Human terms sometimes excapted him, and he saw things from the perspective a snake. If nothing else it would make for some exciting conversations. ˇ°I guess we can see the world together then. I do not plan on staying in the city forever, once I am done with the training hall, and I meet a few people, we can head out. Maybe south, I hear there is a nice forest a few weeks away that is perfect for lower levels like us.ˇ± Said Nero to his companion. ˇ°Cool. I want to see a mountain, and the sea and a desert and a big cave and-ˇ± The snake were interrupted by Ken. ˇ°Alright, here we are. Everybody gets into a carriage, no more than eight per ride.ˇ± The group had reached the wall, and left the city proper and was standing near a building that had a few horses stabled in it. There were three carriages nearby with a driver each. The trainees filled into their rides quickly, Kaesar rode in one with six others and Dode. It seemed like nobody had their own horses. Nero figured that made sense, horses were the privilege of the wealthy after all. The cost buying one and keeping it fed and housed was probably more than most could afford. Unless of course, it was a horse based society, then everybody would probably have a few and would learn to ride as soon as they could walk. Once everybody was seated, and the carriages had started to move Ken stood up on the leading wagon, maintaining his balance despite the jostling. ˇ°Alright got some information for you all. As you know, we are heading to the Derailed mine to clear out some ratmen. They are newly evolved and shouldnˇŻt be over level seventeen at most. I know that seems high to you, but so long as you work together and be careful, you should be able to take them down. Do not get cocky! Ratmen can swarm if you let them. If you die, we will pick up your item and give it back to your next training session, but that is about it. You are going to be on your own for the majority of the expedition. The intel we have says there are about a hundred and fifty or so of the vermin in the mine, that is about eight to ten each. I recommend working in teams to take them down, chose those you are comfortable with and stick together. Once you kill one, bring it back to the entrance to us. Apart from that, you will learn by yourself. We have a long trip ahead of us so you can take a nap if you want.ˇ± With that, the head of Ground Sheer sat back down on his wagon. ˇ°Then I am going to sleep, wake me when we get there.ˇ± Said, Jorry, as he laid down on NeroˇŻs shoulder. Nero could only smile wryly at his companion before opening his menu to do some reading. There was no way he would be able to sleep on the bumpy carriage ride. **** ˇ°ˇ®ItˇŻs a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you donˇŻt keep your feet, thereˇŻs no knowing where you might be swept off to.ˇ± -J.R.R Tolkien 009-1 A Walk on the Wild Side ˇ°ˇ®ItˇŻs a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you donˇŻt keep your feet, thereˇŻs no knowing where you might be swept off to.ˇ± -J.R.R Tolkien **** The carriages rattled along at a decent pace, there was some jostling, but it could have been worse. The expedition was heading to a somewhat substantial mine that saw a lot of trade so it made sense that the road between it and the keep would be adequately paved. That did stop Nero from bounding every so often, there was little in the way of suspension and shock absorption in such low-quality carriages. Every time he rose a little from his seat he would come back down on the hardwood surface, there were no cushions. The group had been traveling for almost two hours now and, from what Nero had read about, they were getting close to their destination. Every few minutes the convoy would encounter another traveler on the road. Most of them seemed to be farmers or traders heading to the city early in the morning to sell their ware. Occasionally they would meet an adventurer or a group of them on their way back to town as well. Early on in the expedition many of the trainees had conversed with each other about the upcoming battles. The initiates talked about possible formations, who they wanted to team up with and how many ratmen they believed they would be able to kill. Eventually, that conversation shifted to where the trainees were planning on going after they graduated and what they wanted to do. Most of them had desired to become adventurers, as was expected, but a few had other interests. One of them wanted to learn to fight to defend himself while being a traveling merchant between Sarra Keep and the newly excavated Lost City to the east. There were projections that with the influx of outlanders, players, and colonists it would not take long for the city to be reestablished. Its location between the Keep and Selwe meant that it would likely be a hub of trade. If a merchant could get in on the ground floor of the redevelopment, then they could stand to make millions. Unfortunately, there was still no safe road between it and the other cities so being able to defend one''s self was essential. Another of the trainees, a woman with a greatsword across her legs, was looking to join the army instead of adventuring. Apparently, her family had achieved distinction in the military for generations, and she wanted to do the same. Taking a training hall course before joining gave a slight pay raise as well as better chances of making it into the officer core. The conversation between the other six occupants of the carriage went on for the first hour before petering out slowly as few tried to get some sleep in the bumpy seats. Nero did not engage with the others. Jorry was asleep on his lap, having fallen off his shoulder after a particularly nasty bump. He idly scratched under the snake''s chin as remained lost in thought. He had tried to read early in the ride, but the jostling had made that impossible, so instead, he found himself practicing with his new tongue. In the last few hours, Nero had gotten a better hold on his new appendage. He was still bitting it every once and a while but nowhere near as often. It wasn''t yet to the point of subconscious use, that would take weeks, but it progressed none the less. Kaeser also occupied himself with trying to distinguish the particles in the air. The easiest had been the dust and dirt kicked up by the carriages. Other than that he recognized the sweat of Dode as he rode in the morning sun and the smell/taste of the horse. There was the metallic taste of steel from the armaments of his compatriots and the occasional unique wift of one of their distinct odor or taste. Which was which he was not nearly good enough to tell but his little experiments validated his decision to assimilate the tongue. It wouldn''t be long before he would be able to tell people apart by their taste/smell and know exactly who was who and how many beings surrounded him. "So what are you doing here?" The question came from Nero''s side, it was asked with a tone of curiosity rather than rudeness. Apparently one of the other trainees had gotten bored enough to try and engage him in conversation. "Same as you probably, wanted to learn to fight and this seemed like a good enough place." The one who had asked the question was a young man, he looked to be in his early second century but since this world went by the old standard of human age that likely meant that he was in his late to mid-twenties. Nero recognized him as the person who had talked about wanting to be a merchant earlier. "Not what I meant, I mean why did you sign up so late, you could have waited until the spring and gotten the full course?" "I am probably not going to stay in town that long, so I figured that I might as well take what I could get while I am here." While true, Nero still had no definite plans. He was certainly going to wait to meet up Sofia, although he should probably get in the habit of calling her Medea, and his sisters but after that, he had no real plans. He did not even know if he was going to stay with them. "So where are you from? I haven''t seen a snake type beastman before, I saw a dragon type once, but that guy was way different looking." Apparently, due to his tongue, he looked like a snake therianthrope. Nero would imagine that a true snake beastman would have more serpentine characteristics than just the tongue. Still, Nero saw no need to correct the impression, but he did have a question. "You don''t find it odd that I have this tongue and can talk to animals?" The other man snorted a bit in amusement. "You don''t get out much do you?" He asked to which Nero tilted his head slightly in question. "I''ve seen weirder just by walking the streets. I knew this one guy that could supposedly talk to rocks, he kept insisting that they were smarter than most people. He always carried around this one green stone that supposedly told the best knock-knock jokes. I didn''t believe him at all till he had me tell it a joke while he was gone and then he had the rock tell it to him." Kaesar had to blink at that for a moment, trying to wrap his head around the idea of talking to inanimate objects. Animals were one thing, they were clearly alive and had some concept of the world around them. Rocks, on the other hand, were much different, they showed no sign of life. Besides, would the man be able to talk to all stones? What about pebbles or concrete made of rock? What happens when a rock is split, does it die? There was just so many questions. "Then there was that time I saw what must have been a child of a dwarf and a giraffe type. Her torso only came up to my waist, but she could look me in the eye no problem." His companion kept talking, not noticing Nero''s growing confusion as he immersed himself in describing all the odd people he had seen.Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. "Don''t even get me started on the outlanders. When they first arrive, they seem pretty normal but they have this ability that they call their Nature, and it can help them become anything. I once gave directions to one who had seven eyes, all around his head like a crown. They kept blinking at me and were of different colors. Trust me, spend enough time in the Keep and you will see some really odd people. having a long tongue and a pet snake that you can talk to is in no way odd." While nice to know he wouldn''t be getting odd looks if he kept assimilating traits, it still left Nero with a feeling of slight culture shock. He had not seen anything that strange since starting Gods'' Nature, just what sort of game was this? Granted he did not get out much, he spent most of his time in the park or bookstore reading or in the training hall. The only occasion when he really spent a lot of time in public was when he was job hunting, and even then he passed most of his time in smaller streets closer to the wall rather than the main thoroughfares. Business on the main roads would probably not have need of his skills in extermination when they made a lot more money than the smaller establishments. Still, it put into perspective just how diverse some of the other Nature''s could be. Nero had thought that his Nature was on the stranger side, but when he thought about it, there was probably plenty of players who had more ''beastly'' Natures. Not counting the beastman race, the idea of talking to animals or changing shapes into one was almost certainly not unique. Off the top of Nero''s head, he could think of at least five other descriptions of Nature''s that could give them similar skills to his own. Not the least was shapeshifting or old school druids that he had learned about in his research about gaming. It was almost impossible that another Nature was the exact same as ''The Beast'' but there were probably thousands who had something similar. Not only that but stranger ones also probably existed. The one with eyes all around his head could have a Nature based on one of the numbers of mythological creatures. Or it could be a skill that was learned outside of the Nature of the player. Or it could be an item that allows the wearer to see all around him. It struck him then, the sheer magnitude of what Gods'' Nature was. It was freedom in the most real sense. With strange magic, odd creatures, ridiculous items and Nature''s that were only limited by a person''s imagination, this world was truly limitless. Earlier Nero had thought that Jorry could turn into a dragon if he really tried because this was primarily a game. But that wasn''t really no limits was it, a dragon and a snake were still somewhat similar. What was really revealing was that there should theoretically be a way to turn Jorry into a cat, a fish, a human or a tree. And if Jorry could do it then there was a good chance that Nero could as well. He could become anything he wished to be, an animal, a king, a god or the devil. For a second Nero had this image of himself with his forked tongue, a tail, goat hooves and horns that he had assimilated from other animals. He imaged walking down the street looking like the biblical devil and laughing diabolically as he plotted world conquest. The image was humorous, and if he had the chance he might do something like that as a prank on his sisters, but for now, he merely sat in a bumpy carriage thinking about the sheer freedom he now had at his fingertips. For the first time in a long, long time Augustus felt something welling up inside him. A sense of intense curiosity, a desire to go out and explore, to see the wondrous and terrible things that that this world had to offer. For the first time in years, Augustus was feeling excitement. "You know, I don''t even know your name. Sorry about that. I''m Paul." The sense of excitement died when his fellow trainee reminded Nero where he was. "Nero." "Nice to meet you, Nero. So what do you plan on doing after you finish your training." Kaesar shrugged in response and asked "You?" in return. "I''m planning on being a merchant. Times like these, a man needs to know how to fight if he wants to stay safe on the road." Nero had heard that earlier but didn''t think that mentioning it would be a good idea lest Paul think he was eavesdropping. "Once I graduate it will be a perfect time too. Rumor has it that the lost city to the east is about to be cleared by outlanders. Once that happens trade routes will open, and I can make a killing as they rebuild." Nero knew about lost cities from his readings, they were the large settlements that, for one reason or another, had not survived the rupture. "How did you hear about it?" Nero asked something like that would probably slowly spread from word to mouth until an official declaration was proclaimed. But rumors were often unreliable, and many people had ruined their lives by listening to tales of opportunity. "I have a friend who works in The Bank. He told me that it was the founders themselves who were clearing it out. And you know them, I don''t think they have failed yet, so it is only a matter of time." There it was again, The Bank. Not a bank, but The Bank. There were forums about it online, dedicated to its accomplishments, how to get recruited and who its mysterious creator was. From what Nero had managed to gather, it was an institution created by two players and, with the help of some NPC''s, they had created a system of storage and money lending that nearly every player in the game swore by. As time passed and more cities were pioneered, its influence spread and grew. Its creators were supposedly two of the earliest players, and they led a team of high leveled people to complete challenging quests. Typically they would be more well known, but they had a policy of keeping their privacy filters on and not responding to requests for interviews. "Wouldn''t a new city not have a lot of money for merchants?" Nero asked. "Normally I would agree with you, but once it is set up then the Banker will rule it, won''t he? They say he has more money than the entire keep. That the Banker has a pool of molten gold and a harem of beautiful women that follow him wherever he goes. Supposedly he managed to seduce many outlanders who are super strong. Man, what I would give to have his life." "I thought there were two founders?" "Well, there are. But one of the two is the Banker, he''s the real leader and creator of The Bank. He''s probably the wealthiest man alive at this point, and he got all of that by himself. The other one is the Reaper, he''s the muscle. I hear that one is a real demon, a sort of lich who has a horde of undead that follows him around and that likes to torture his enemies to death." Nero was willing to bet money that those were merely rumors for the most part. The nicknames he had heard of online, but the rest was probably an exaggeration of the truth as it passed from person to person. Most likely the Banker was a player who had decided to exploit the game''s undeveloped economic system, and the Reaper was a friend or family member who likes playing as a necromancer type class. "Where is this lost city exactly?" Nero wondered. "To the east, in the Skali hills. If you were going to Selwe, then it is about a third of the way there. The beginning of the journey is rather easy, baring monsters, but near the end, you got to be careful to head a bit north to not have to cross the river of wrath. Apart from that you still got to navigate around the local mountains. Its a trip that can take anywhere from a few months to over a year depending on the weather and if the caravan needs to avoid strong monsters. At least, so I hear." Sometimes it was readily apparent how little the infrastructure of this world was developed. While cities and the roads to towns near them might have cobblestone pavement, there was no highway or safe paths. Anybody leaving a settlement was taking their lives into their own hands. "I plan on starting with necessities, once the path is a bit safer. Food, clothing, weapons, stuff like that. A new city will need tonnes of the stuff so it should be low-cost, high price goods. After that, in a few years, I think I''ll move on to more expensive goods like silk or fish. But that is in the future for now-" Paul''s continued ramblings were put to a halt by the carriage stopping and Dode yelling ''We''re here'' to the occupants of the carriage. "I suppose for now we just got to kill us some ratmen, don''t we?" Paul said with a grin as he descended from the coach. Putting Jorry once more on his shoulder, Nero did the same. 009-2 A Walk on the Wild Side Descending from the carriage, Nero took a look around the area. They had stopped in a small town, probably no more than thirty buildings were built around a central street of dirt. The purpose of a few was apparent, like the tavern and a general goods store. Others were probably the dwellings of the miners. All together it was a scene that wouldn''t look out of place in a wild west movie. Some people were watching as the group dismounted and congregated around Ken and the other two instructors. They did not look too poor, but there was a threadbareness about their apparel that was different from the people Nero had seen while in the keep. Likely due to the difference between a capital and a small mining village. "Alright, everybody listening? Good, I won''t repeat myself so pay attention." Said Ken to the group. "You are here to kill the ratmen that have infested the mine. You have until sundown to do this. Once the sun sets us instructors are going in there to clear whatever is left. How you do this is up to you, so long as you do not destroy the mine we do not care. I recommend grouping up, but if you feel like you can survive on your own then go right ahead. There are supposed to be over a hundred ratmen here, so I want at least five for each of you, anybody who doesn''t meet the quota is going to face extra training with Dode." The other instructor grinned maliciously, and Kaesar saw more than one trainee shudder. "If you die, then you will revive back in the keep. Meet at the usual time at the training grounds tomorrow. Bring all the bodies to the entrance once you kill them, Rob and snake boy here will take care of skinning them. You get a bit of money for any you kill over the required five." There was a bit of muttering from the assembly at that, but Ken continued on. "Do not expect any help. This is a time for you all to get experience. A single battle, good or bad, is worth weeks of training so I want you all to fight your hardest; otherwise, you will die. Am I understood?" ""YES!"" "Good. Then follow me, we''ll head to the mine now." With that, he turned and started walking on the dirt road towards a rather large building at the end. The instructors entered, and the others followed them. There was a bit of a pause when Ken stopped to talk to a man for a few moments, and Nero caught a glimpse of a pouch changing hands before they were led out the back of the building. It was a vast area facing a hill through which a tunnel opened. There were some tables and seats arranged in a semicircular fashion facing the tunnel''s entrance under the shade of strips of cloth held up by poles. Around these tables, about ten men in full armor congregated. They were relaxed and casual, chatting with each other and playing dice. A few of them were even sleeping in their chairs. The armored group spared a glance at the new arrivals before going back to their previous activity. "Alright, there is the entrance, try not to get lost." The head instructor pointed to the tunnel, wide enough for three people to stand side by side and not touch each other. "We''ll be set up here so bring the bodies to these tables when you want." There was a moment of silence as the trainees shifted, awaiting further instruction. They were not going to get it. "What are you waiting for?!" Dode yelled at the group, making more than a few jump in surprise. "Get in there!" The group scurried as the rushed into the mine. There was a bit of a pile up for a moment, to the chuckles of the armored onlookers, but within a minute they were all in the tunnel. Nero was left outside, standing a bit awkwardly before Rob walked up to him. "Come grab a seat, I imagine we have a bit of time before the first ones come back out." He led Kaesar over to an unoccupied table and sat down in the shade, resting his cane across his lap as Nero took a seat as well. Jorry slithered down and onto the table and curled up in a patch of sunlight to sleep. "So, how are they supposed to see in the dark?" Nero asked Rob who smiled in response. "That is up to them, we did not tell them to bring any torches, and I imagine many of the lanterns of the mine have been destroyed. This is one of the things experience teaches. Next time they come to a mine to explore, they will remember to bring light. Sometimes being prepared is more important than being strong." "So who are they?" Nero asked a different question as he nodded towards the armored figures. Ken and Dode were chatting with them, and by the relaxed smiles on their lips, they were probably familiar with each other. "Soldiers?" Rob answered the question with a confused tilt in his voice. "You can tell by their uniform." Actually, Nero couldn''t, they looked different than the city guards he was used to, but he saw no reason to mention that. "I mean, it seems like you guys know them from somewhere." "Oh, well a few of them were trained in Ground Sheer. A good portion of our students ends up in the army either because they want to be or they just were not making enough as adventurers. Many people would prefer a steady income rather than try and get rich at the cost of dying numerous times." Nero nodded in acknowledgment but then asked a question that had been bugging him for a while. "How come they don''t clear out the mine? They should be strong enough to kill the ratmen, and it probably wouldn''t take long."If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. "That mostly has to do with how training grounds interact with the military. If stuff like this happens, monsters popping up where they shouldn''t be, then they tend to leave it to the training grounds as a way for trainees to get experience. We, in turn, have to respond rather quickly. It is one thing if a mine is shut down for only a week, it is another thing entirely if it goes on for longer. If Ground Sheer was unable to respond soon enough, it would have been given to another training hall. Because so many of our students go into the army after they graduate, the military has a vested interest in giving them a chance at combat. It also saves them from having to mobilize at the slightest problem. This applies even to high-level monsters. They would ask the more advanced hall''s if they wanted the chance and if they refused, then the military would send out soldiers. Those who you see here are more like the guards of the town, and they are just here to make sure that no ratmen leave the mine." "How did the ratmen get in there anyway? This isn''t their normal spawning location is it?" "Not usually, no. They are generally closer to major cities. What tends to happen is a rat levels up enough to evolve into a ratman, and that helps other rats do the same. They are mostly found in the larger sewers or in damp caves near waterways that are closer to civilization. The only way this could have happened is if a rat or a group of them left their regular place for some reason and came to this town. They leveled up here and decided to inhabit the local mine. It is rare, but it does happen. They are sapient to an extent but are nowhere near intelligent otherwise they wouldn''t have come to such a popular place." "Won''t they simply respawn in the mine in a few hours?" "Normally yes, but they have not been here long enough to infect the area." At Nero''s confused look Rob explained. "Like how our Sacred Ground, where we revive, is created by some humans staying in one place for a period of time, it is the same for monster species. If a group stay in one place for a while or if they are powerful, they infect the area around them with their power. Once they die they respawn in that location. For ratmen, even if there were a thousand of them, it would take months to properly infect an area. They are that weak. If it were something like a wyvern, then they would only two of them to remain in one area for around a week to infect it properly." "So when we kill them, where will they respawn?" "In some random area far from other animals. Because there is a rather large group of them, it will probably be in an abandoned cave or mine. If there is one close enough, though I do not think there is, it might be some long lost tomb of sorts. Those usually have powerful creatures or guardians in them already, so I doubt it." Nero nodded in understanding as a ping like noise rung in his ear. His Knowledge had increased by one from that conversation. This had been the first time it had risen from anything other than reading. The next couple of minutes passed in silence as Nero once more found himself absorbed in his thoughts and Rob leaned back in his chair with his eyes closed. The silence lasted until a noise was heard coming from the tunnel leading to the mine. Nero looked up to see a group of five trainees make their way out of the shadows. Thier faces were flushed with exertion and triumph as three dragged ratmen by their tails towards the table the two instructors were sitting at. A few words were exchanged, and Ken pointed the group towards Nero and Rob. The five dragged the bodies over and dropped them onto the table, startling Jorry awake. "Here you go." One of the men in the group said before turning around to return to the mine. "Alright, you are going to skin these. Follow the usual pattern and put the pelts on that table." Rob said, nodding to a table on the left. "Once it is full, bring them to a carriage and fill it up. Dump the bodies and entrails in a pile off to the side, I''ll deal with them. I''ll only help if you get too many to handle." Deciding to get right to the task, Nero noticed a problem right away. He had no apron, and he did not want his clothes wholly ruined. Remembering what the instructor had said about being prepared, he decided to bite the bullet, he took off his jacket and shirt, leaving him in only his pants as he set to work. He first gutted the creature as he had been shown before setting it aside to drain and starting on another. By the time he was done with the third, the first had drained enough that he could skin it. Throughout the work, he noticed the difference between doing this job in the field compared to in the freezer. For one, without an apron or clothes, he felt every drop of blood an viscera on his skin. It wasn''t pleasant, but it at least wasn''t a bladder full of urine again. The second was the fact that, with his new tongue, his sense of smell/taste was now on an entirely different level to before. With all the particles in the air, Nero learned a person could tell the difference between a liver and a kidney based on taste alone. Knowledge like that he could have lived without. It took half an hour to finish skinning the third ratman, and by then other trainees had returned with more bodies. Rob showed no sign of helping so Nero continued his grizzly work alone for hours. By noon the table was creaking under the weight of the pelts, and the bodies and entrails of the ratmen were starting to stink under the midday sun. Nero took a few minutes to bring the pelts to a carriage and when he returned he saw Rob shooting a fireball at the pile of bodies. They erupted into flames rather quickly as the instructor took his seat once more. Nero had seen magic before when he had gone to get the stuffed snake enchanted, but this was the first time he saw it used destructively. Deciding against asking about it, at least for the moment, he set himself back to work. Jorry, on the other hand, was feasting like a king. He would sort through the discarded innards for the parts he wanted and bring them back to be slowly eaten in the sun. He seemed partial to livers and hearts more than anything else. The day passed rather quickly, absorbed as Nero was in work. Before he realized it the sun had started its descent across the sky. There was still over an hour till sunset, but the shadows were already starting to grow longer. His ''Disassembly'' skill had risen three levels throughout out the day. The flow of bodies had slowed down as the day progressed and it was with surprise that Nero finished with the current carcass, throwing it on the pyre, and found no more to work with. Rob noticed his pupils pause and said; "Bring those pelts to the carriage and meet me back here." Nero did as instructed and once he returned Rob spoke up once more. "Alright, that should be enough for now. We can finish once the mine has been completely cleared. For now, I want to hunt a ratman for yourself. One will do, but you have to fight it. I do not care how, or if you have help but you need to kill a ratman and bring the body back before sunset." Nodding in understanding, Nero walked to the entrance of the mine, picking Jorry up along the way from his napping place. He hesitated at the opening a little, realizing he did not have a light source before shrugging and deciding to enter anyway. He would wing it. **** "All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them." -Galileo Galilei 010-1 Into the Shadows "All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them." -Galileo Galilei **** The first thing Nero did upon entering the mine was light his pocket lantern. It was a small thing, little more than a glass box the size of a fist, with a metal clasp that allowed it to attach itself to a belt. He used it when reading during the night in the park. It did not provide much light, but it was enough to not run into a wall. Quite frankly using it or any light source was a bad idea. He stuck out like a sore thumb in the dark of the mine, but Kaesar had little choice. He was nowhere near proficient enough with his new senses to use them in this environment. All he could get from the air was the acrid taste of coal, the pungent scent of sweat and a metallic taste that could have been anything from the tools used by the miners, to the weapons of the trainees. Briefly, Nero wondered about what precisely this mine produced before he refocused on the task at hand. he had no desire to be killed because of inattention. Jorry was alert as well, his little head shifting this way and that as his tongue darted out, tasting the air. By all likelihood, the serpent would detect others before Nero even had the chance. "I don''t like it here." The little snake suddenly blurted. "Whats wrong?" Asked Nero. "Don''t know," he gave what Nero guessed was the snake equivalent of a shrug. "Tastes funny. It''s too dry like it hasn''t rained for weeks." "I''m not surprised, unlike natural caves that are mostly caused by erosion, this one is human-made. There probably is no water at all here." "What''s erosion?" Sometimes it was glaringly obvious how young and ignorant the small snake was. It likely had never even left the park before Nero came along. "It''s when water or wind slowly wear away at the ground." "Oh, like when it rains, and the water makes little lines in the dirt?" "Exactly." That was a pretty good analogy now that Nero thought about it. "Only the water flows for so long that that rock gets carved away." "That''s amazing, but this place does not taste like water. It tastes dry, like dirt and metal. There''s also a lot of blood." "There should have been a lot of fights in the mine by now, and the trainees have dragged more than a few bodies back to the entrance. I''m not surprised that you can taste blood. All I can taste is coal, that''s probably the dry stuff and metal." "Coal?" "Think of it as a sort of rock," Nero explained to his companion as the entered deeper into the mine. That wasn''t strictly true, but he had no desire to get into the complexities of geology at the moment. "The people here dig it up because it''s valuable." "So they get paid to dig this coal and then use the money for food as we do?" "More or less." As the two had walked, they had passed under many support beams and had noticed the occasionally broken lantern. Miners had likely hung them up at intervals, so they did not need to carry them around. If this was a coal mine, then Nero had no desire to risk an open flame of a torch in this place. The two had come to an intersection. Looking at the ground before the splitting paths, Nero was unable to get anything from the mess of prints left behind by the other trainees. Deciding at random, he walked down the left-hand road. The tunnel was slightly sloped and curved in places, and within ten minutes Nero was no longer sure which direction he was facing. They came to another intersection, this one having three possible choices and Nero decided to stick with the left hand once path more. If Kaesar was honest, he was impressed with the size of this mine. While the walls were uneven due to mining, they were never small enough that two people would have trouble walking side by side. The length was nothing to scoff at either, and he had been walking for a quarter of an hour and still had not come to any dead end. "Something''s coming." Jorry suddenly said, startling Nero slightly. Nero pressed himself against one of the walls and covered his small lantern with his hand to block out the light. He strained his ear and eyes but couldn''t make out anything. All he could taste on the air was dry coal and metal, though he detected a slight undertone of blood that hadn''t been there before. "What do you smell?" Whispered Nero to the serpent. "Metal and blood, there''s at least three of them. One of them has a carcass from something that recently died with them. The body is a ratman." Nero relaxed slightly, the group was probably some trainees returning to the entrance with a kill. Come to think of it, now that he paid attention he could see a bit of light around a corner further ahead. He got off the wall and uncovered his lantern as he made his way forward. He was still a bit tense for any surprises.Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. As he neared, he heard a thump of something heavy hitting the floor, and a voice call out in the dark "Who''s there?" "Don''t worry; I''m from Ground Sheer too," Nero called back in response. Nero finally got a good look at the group. Like Jorry had said, there was three of them, two male and one female. The woman seemed to be in the lead, and she was the only one of the three to have a light source on her. Initially, he had thought it to be like his miny lantern because it was attached to her belt, but it seemed to be a sort of stone that emitted light. "Snake boy?" Nero had to smile wryly at the nickname but didn''t bother to correct her. "You here to collect us? I thought we had another hour at least." "Nope, the instructors want me to have a go as well. " He recognized her from the carriage; she was the one who was planning on entering the military upon graduation. "Oh, well good luck." She said as she motioned with her head for the two men to pick up the dropped carcass. "Up ahead the mine splits again, we cleared out the middle path, but I''m not sure about the other two." Nero pressed himself against the wall to allow them to pass with their burden. "Thanks for the advice." "No problem, but be careful. A few of us have died already, and you are by yourself. Don''t try and fight if there is more than one of them." She yelled back as her group disappeared around the corner. Sure enough, after a minute Nero and Jorry reached another intersection. "Which one should we take?" Asked Jorry. "Let''s stick with the left for now, that way we don''t get lost." As they progressed down the tunnel, Nero noticed the walls were much rougher than before. This was a newly dug tunnel compared to the rest of the mine. Their pace slowed down considerably as the tension Nero was feeling rose. Unfortunately or fortunately enough, that tension was useless as the two companions arrived at a dead end. There were a few discarded pickaxes an unlit lantern but no ratmen. Nero let out a sigh as his shoulders relaxed. "Come on; we''ll try the other side." He said to Jorry. So the two returned to the intersection and entered the right-hand tunnel. This one was more regular compared to the shaft earlier, so it was probably older. The progress was still slow, though the tension was lower after the release from earlier, so it took a while before the companions encountered another intersection. This one only had two choices and, when he looked, Nero was able to distinguish a few footprints in the dirt. The one leading to the right had a few boot prints, but it seemed like they had been covered by something being dragged over them. That was likely from somebody dragging a carcass back to the entrance. The one heading towards the left, on the other hand, had several prints that were distinctly non-human. The choice was obvious, so Nero took the tunnel on the left, careful to make as little noise as possible now that there was a good chance of meeting an enemy. Since he had no experience with stealth, however, he still created quite a bit of sound as his footsteps dislodged pebbles. In the silence of the mine, Nero suddenly became acutely aware of the beating of his heart, like a drum pounding in his ear. He heard his clothes rustle as he walked, his forehead started to sweat. "Something''s ahead," was the almost inaudible whisper of Jorry, almost causing Nero to jump in alarm. "Two of them at least. Ratmen." That was bad, ratmen were already higher leveled than him, there was no way the two of them could take on two at once. While death was not permanent and the sensation was muted, Nero had no desire to experience any unnecessary pain. But there was no guarantee he would be able to find one by itself, and this could be his only chance. "We''ll take a look," he whispered, covering his lantern. "If they separate we''ll take one on, otherwise we''ll try the other tunnel." Slowly, ever so slowly now that he had no light, Nero inched his way forward with his hand on the wall for guidance. Every second felt like an eternity as he kept his ears peeled for any sound. Nero''s tongue darted in and out almost instinctively as he desperately tried to tell what Jorry had sensed. Eventually, Kaesar caught the taste of something besides coal and dust, a weird feeling he couldn''t identify, but that felt fuzzy on his tongue. Eventually, his ears picked up slight sounds as they echoed through the mine. They were guttural and squeaky at the same time, making for an odd combination. As he inched closer, Nero could distinguish the sounds enough to tell they were voices. He paused a moment in confusion before realizing his Beast Tongue allowed him to understand what the ratmen were saying. "...ood here. Miss old..." "...ace bad. Don''t ... die. Kill..." Nero still couldn''t see them, which was probably for the best as they most likely had better senses than him. That wasn''t even counting the whiskers. "..ad. Mice out there hu... rable One must die!" "Venerable mouse strong... hurts." Nero was a bit shocked that he ratmen even knew a world like ''venerable,'' but that was overshadowed by his brain making a connection of disjointed facts. The little things like the increase in rats in the city when they were more familiar outside the walls. Or why they were called ''Desperate Rats'' rather than their regular names. More obscure things made sense now too, like why the rats were so far from their natural habitat. Or why mice were riding rats like cavalry. It all fits together now. Most likely a mouse had leveled up, possibly evolved, enough to gain intelligence. It then brought other mice under its banner and started to subjugate or exterminate the rats. They fled into the city despite the risk of people like Nero hunting them down. After that failed, a few of them made their way here where they evolved into ratmen. It was like a parody of the classic Redwall novels. That raised the question of how powerful this ''Venerable Mouse'' was if ratmen were still afraid of him. The mice who had killed Nero and Jorry were higher leveled but based on the damage they weren''t over twelve at the most. " ... at''s that?" One of the mice suddenly said, reminding Nero that this wasn''t the time or place to get lost in thought. "It smells like blood. Lots of blood." Nero almost cursed aloud, the reason he hadn''t been able to taste the blood like Jorry was likely because he had spent the day disassembling ratmen. He had been covered in the stuff. And the ratmen had likely smelled him. He started retreating as fast as he dared, trying his hardest not to make any noise. Thankfully the ratmen were in no hurry as they carefully walked towards his previous location, barely visible in the darkness of the tunnel. It was a tense minute as Nero half expected them to jump at him any moment. "Smells like blood. I hungry." "Hungry too, but no food." "I saw worms in back." "Worms not good, but hungry." Thankfully they seemed too busy contemplating their empty stomachs to pursue any further and Nero slowly walked backward away from the pair. The conversation became intelligible as he retreated, turning into distant sounds and then silence. It was another minute of retreat before Nero allowed himself a sigh of relief. "Come on," he said to Jorry as he took the lantern from his pocket. The light was a welcome reprieve as he wiped his brow. "We''ll try the other tunnel. If we can''t find one by itself, we''ll come back here and see if we can separate them." 010-2 Into the Shadows The other tunnel, as it turns out, was even rougher shod than the one from earlier. The walls were completely uneven, and the floor was covered in stray rocks. This had likely been the new tunnel the miners had been working on before the infestation. As Nero crept along, warry of displacing rocks, he struggled with a decision. He had been putting it off for a while now, but he believed it was time to use the unallocated stat points he had from leveling up. If he were going to fight a ratman, a creature of a higher level than him, he would need all the help he could get. The question on his mind was what stat to invest in. He couldn''t add points to Knowledge or Endurance, so that left spirit, strength, and dexterity. He still intended to learn magic at some point, the novelty alone would be worth it, but that was far off and investing in spirit now would not help with a fight. That left him strength and dexterity. Nero had done some investigations into stats in general, and he felt he understood them to a degree. First of all, strength was a bit misleading. When a person hears the word ''strength,'' they think of muscles, of power, being able to lift heavy objects and hit hard. That wasn''t the case in Gods'' Nature. Nero felt that it had been misnamed a bit. Rather than strength, it should have been called ''body.'' Studies conducted by players and NPC''s alike came to the conclusion that when raising the STR. stat it was the entire body that improved. Of course, your physical damage improved, but so did your speed. The total HP of the person also increased, along with taking slightly reduced damage. The Endurance stat, on the other hand, allowed players to endure longer and feel less pain, but the damage remained the same. Dexterity was also a bit of a misnomer. Instead, Nero would call it ''control.'' It did not directly increase hand-eye coordination as some might assume but rather increased what Nero could only describe as ''feeling of control'' one had over their own body. Dexterity did not make somebody great at sports or arts and crafts, it merely deepened the control somebody felt over their body. It was little things that most people do not notice, like their balance or the position of their shoulders that were mostly subconscious that were most affected. Dexterity was less direct in its benefit than strength. It did not increase damage, HP or anything like that. But from what Nero had read online, it was advised that every player, no matter their playstyle, take at least a tenth if not more of their points into dexterity. The reasons were many, but it was merely practical. A mage casting a spell needs perfect control, lest it backfires or misses. An archer needs to be acutely aware of themselves and their surroundings to be effective. Close combat types needed it even more because how much a fight relied on balance and positioning. The crux of his problem was this; does he take the more direct benefit of strength and deal more damage or does he invest more in dexterity and deal less damage but (hopefully) control the fight more easily? Faced with this quandary, Nero did what many would in his place. He copped out. He split his twenty points evenly between strength and dexterity, raising them to 29 and 25 respectively. His HP went from 209 to 309, an almost 50% increase was pretty decent as far as he was concerned. Dexterity wasn''t nearly as noticeable, but Nero did notice that he was stepping on a pebble he hadn''t felt before that was causing his foot to slightly tilt. That could be the increase of dexterity helping with his sense of balance, or he could be delusional. Either way, the points had been used, and there was no getting them back. Nero comforted himself with the idea that either way he would have to invest in dexterity at some point anyway. As he and Jorry crept along, Nero kept a hand ready to cover his later at the slightest noise and, though his companion would be the first to notice, an ear out for any unusual sound. They had been creeping down this tunnel for a while now, and it was getting noticeably thinner. Where before three people could walk side by side, not two people would barely be able to pass each other as the walls were less than a foot from his shoulders on either side. Kaesar was glad he didn''t have claustrophobia, or things could have really gone downhill fast. "I smell one." Nero stopped as Jorry once more whispered in his ear. "One? Or more?" He whispered back to which Jorry shook his head. "I can''t tell, the air flow is different here. We need to get closer." Now alerted, the two proceeded with even more caution. Nero''s heart was starting to hammer as tension once more rose in his chest. "It''s only one this time," Jorry suddenly said. "I''m sure of it." Nero stopped and took a deep breath. This was it, his first real fight. Against the rats, he had a size advantage and could just pick them up and strangle them to death. When the mice had killed him, he had been unprepared and couldn''t catch them. Practice fights in Ground Sheer were fewer fights than him getting him but handed to him repeatedly as he slowly tried to improve. This was different than all those, he was about to face a humanoid monster stronger than him who could very well end his life. Nero noticed his hands were shaking. Strangely he didn''t feel fear, uncertainty yes but the clammy feeling of terror was not present like it had been when he had evesdropped on the other ratmen. So why was Kaesar shaking? Nero put it down to nerves as he desperately tried to calm his breathing.The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. He had to be careful, even with the new stats he could easily die to this foe who had twice his level easily. He needed to think of some way to raise the odds of victory. What did he know about ratmen? They were recently evolved, so their coordination wasn''t at its best. They were pretty dumb, so trickery could work. They were shorter than he was by two feet so he would have to aim at their heads for the most part but kicking them could prove useful if he could do it without losing his balance. They had claws and sharp teeth which they would probably use in a fight. If they were anything like regular rats, then their senses would be more developed except for its eyes. All together it was giving him the beginnings of a plan, but he needed to investigate something first. Nero took a few minutes to look some information up online before deciding what to do. He told Jorry his plan, and they slowly crept forward. It did not take long for Nero to hear shuffling up ahead. A rat''s sense of hearing was much more accurate than a human''s, so it had likely heard him as well, not being distracted by a conversation like the two from the other tunnel. He still didn''t uncover his lantern though, he still had a use for the darkness at the moment. "Food? Blood? Food!" He heard it say, detecting him. It was time to try his plan. "RUN!" He suddenly shouted at the top of his lungs as he stood up and charged towards the ratman still a distance away. "Mice are here! The ratmen are dead. The Venerable One killed them. Argh!" The first part of his plan was relatively simple and was designed to make the enemy hesitate enough for Nero to get close and take control of the fight on his terms. If it worked, then he could get a few good hits in and set up the next part so that he would have a good chance of winning. It took four things for the plan to work. The first was Nero''s beast tongue giving the enemy the idea that he was another of their kind. Usually, the ratman''s sense of smell would immediately disprove that but the second thing he had at his disposal was the fact that he was covered in the scent of ratman blood. He had spent all morning and afternoon disassembling them, enough that the ratmen recognized the smell of blood before the smell of a human. The third factor was, of course, his mention of mice and the ''Venerable One.'' This would lead credence to the idea that Nero was an ally and the smell of blood combined with his words would help plant a feeling of fear in the enemy''s heart. The fourth and most important factor to the first part of his plan was a ratman''s stupidity. Nero could shout all he wanted and bathe in blood for days, but anybody with a bit of common sense would know it was bull if they thought about it for a second. But this tactic was designed to not give the enemy a moment to think, to make them panicked as they were left unsure and indecisive. "Mice!?" It shouted in alarm and fear. Nero could barely make a form out in the darkness as it stopped in place. The ratman was hesitating to attack and was probably confused and thinking about running away. Unfortunately for it, that moment of hesitation was what Nero had been aiming for. He had rushed towards the ratman delivered a punch directly on its cranium which probably rattled its brain on impact. Disoriented and confused about the sudden turn of events its hands raised to clutch its head in agony. Nero took this moment to start the second phase of his plan. It was even more straightforward than the first. He dropped Jorry on the thing''s head. The snake immediately wrapped itself not around the neck but instead around its mouth, efficiently constricting it closed. Then Jorry started doing his job, he began to pull at the thing''s whiskers. The second part of the plan was to get Jorry to keep the ratman disoriented enough for Nero to whale on it. The snake was not long enough yet to be able to constrict a ratman''s stocky neck. So, Nero, had him keep the thing''s mouth closed, taking away one of its weapons. Rats, and ratmen, actually had rather lousy vision compared to humans. Every other sense was enhanced to an insane degree, but their eyesight was rather sad. They had enough to distinguish light in the dark, thus why Nero had kept his lantern hidden until this point, but they were unable to identify objects up close. Instead, they used the sense of touch through their whiskers to make sense of the world around them. Those same whiskers were being rather savagely mauled at the moment. Nero now uncovered his lantern, giving him some much-needed light. He saw the ratman desperately trying to shake or scratch Jorry off itself. This was hampered by its rather short and stocky arms, but it was doing some damage, so Nero went on the offensive once more. -21 -19 -23 Nero was doing much more damage against it than he had against the rats, likely because of his new stats. Unfortunately, because it was panicking due to Jorry, the ratman''s flailings sometimes scored hits on Nero despite his best effort to dodge. One particular tail swipe and claw combo had managed to do more than a hundred points of damage. It made sense, he wasn''t wearing any armor, and he had no defensive skills so something higher level like the ratman should be able to wipe the floor with him. As it was, the opposite was happening. For all its power, the ratman was a recently evolved beast. It panicked quickly and thus was not able to fight properly. It was almost blind due to Jorry. The fact was that Jorry was probably causing more pain, but Nero was dealing more damage. This caused the ratman to switch between them often. If it was less panicked, it should have focused on one of them until they were dead and then turn its attention to the other. In the end, the fight dragged on for a bit, the monster grew weaker due to pain, but it still had way more health than Nero, so it took a while for him to kill it. But it fell eventually, leaving Nero panting for breath. That fight had been much closer than it should have been. Nero only had 63 HP left, one or two more hits would have killed him. Looking back on it he saw many instances when he should have been able to dodge when he should have gotten it in a hold rather than keep punching it. It was a sloppy fight, probably more in line with a bar fight than a match between experienced fighters. So then, why was he smiling so much? He calmed his breathing as he approached Jorry. "You alright?" He asked the little snake which was a bit bloody, a few claw marks were running down his back. "I''m hurt, but I''ll live." The snake said, wincing a little. He suddenly laughed. "But we killed the bastard." "We did." They should have lost that fight. It was only because of trickery and working together that they had won and it had been a close thing. "Come on, we''ll head back now." Picking up Jorry and placing him on his shoulder, Nero grabbed the ratman by its tail and started to drag it towards the entrance. **** "When you catch a glimpse of your potential, that''s when passion is born." Zig Ziglar 011-1 Hot Blooded "When you catch a glimpse of your potential, that''s when passion is born." Zig Ziglar **** "Are you feeling better?" Nero asked Jorry who was starting to move around on his shoulder. He was currently dragging the corpse of the ratman back towards the entrance by its tail. As one would expect of something of that bulk, it was taking a significant amount of time. Thankfully he had leveled up after that fight and had placed all his points into strength, making the load significantly lighter. "It still hurts a bit, but I am mostly healed." The cuts on the snake''s back had stopped bleeding and were already scabbing over. In Gods'' Nature, you would only die if your HP reaches zero, but all injuries would still require healing. It was interesting to watch the wounds close by themselves as Jorry''s HP slowly rose back to full. If Nero knew magic or had some potions, then they would close much quicker. But who would waste valuable medicines on something that would disappear in another twenty or so minutes? "You did well back there. I was worried, but you managed to hold on tight. I couldn''t have done it without you so thank you." Nero wasn''t looking at his companion, but he could feel the little serpent shuffle awkwardly on his shoulder. "No problem," he said, embarrassed at the praise and thanks. "What are we going to do when we get back? I want another shot at those mice." "We''re a bit too weak for that," Nero answered, chuckling at the apparent shift in conversation. "If these ratmen are so terrified of them then they need to at least be of the same level. That is not counting the fact that we are outnumbered. We need to be at least level ten to stand a chance at fighting the group we met. The boss, the ''Venerable one,'' is at an even higher level." "Wait a while and get stronger then? Won''t somebody beat us to it if we do that?" "Que sera, sera," Nero shrugged uncaringly but noticing that Jorry didn''t know what that meant, he continued. "It basically means what will be, will be. We can only control our actions, not those of others so what is the use of worrying about it? If it makes you feel better, apart from other outlander''s like me I do not think that other people will get involved." "How come?" Jorry asked. "Because nobody has until now. Think about it, who cares about mice and rats? Nobody notices them until they become a nuisance and even then all they do is get rid of them. This ''Venerable one'' is keeping things pretty quiet and we have heard nothing about it until now. Granted we do not get out and about much but I think one of the shop owners would have mentioned rumors about a mice conspiracy." "So nobody knows about it but us?" "I can''t say that for sure or that nobody will discover something is going on in the future but the likelihood of it happening and them doing something about it is very small. We only know about it because we coincidently met the mice while doing extermination work and I happened to get beast tongue and then by chance we encountered the rats, which I could coincidently understand, talking about this ''Venerable One.'' That is a lot of coincidences." "We were just lucky then? Then how come other outlanders might get involved?" Jorry questioned. "It wasn''t all luck, though that played a part of it. At the end of the day, everything is interconnected, every event and action has repercussions so somebody would eventually notice that the mice were doing something odd. We probably would have encountered them some time in the future even without this trip. And outlanders get more involved in anything and everything they come across. If they got a trail, then their curiosity will push them to investigate it where others might leave it along." Left unsaid was the fact this was a game, and thus they were players seeking entertainment. As soon as they thought they had found a new quest, most players would rush to complete it. Though Nero still didn''t understand the quest system of this game very well, he would have thought that this expedition would have counted as a quest. At least hunting this ratman should have generated a quest. "We have a few things going for us though," Nero continued. "Obviously we already know about this event so that means we can prepare but other than that the important thing is that it is happening in the keep and it is really low level. I will be shocked if this ''Venerable One'' is even level twenty-five. Most outlanders and everyday people for that matter do not look for adventure at home. So this mice problem is not significant enough for people to search for and is a place they would not think to watch." "So, unless we are unlucky, we have time to get stronger? And once we do, we can kill them?" There was a noticeable amount of bloodlust in the small animal''s voice, but Nero didn''t put it to mind. More to the point, he just didn''t care. "Pretty much," Nero could see the light from the entrance now. "I want to finish with this training hall before we do that though. And I want to see about getting some more levels." "How are we going to do that? More rats?" "I don''t think we can keep up the extermination business going, not without risking running into those mice and dying again. We''ll have to think up some new ideas. We''ll also need a way to make money."If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. They exited the tunnel now, the evening light wasn''t too blinding after the dark, but it still caused Nero to squint as he adjusted. He saw Rob, sitting at his table, waving him over. As he approached, dumping the carcass on a pile of ratmen bodies that had developed since he had left. "It''s kind you got back now, we were about to head in and clean the place up. We thought you had died in there you were taking so long. Still, good job. I and the other two will clear out the rest of these vermin and, once you are done with all the bodies, we can take off." Rob stood up, leaning on his cane he walked towards the entrance of the mine as Ken and Dode did the same. He waived a hand towards the pile of bodies and said; "Hurry up with these, I want to be out of here as soon as possible." Sighing a little, Nero grabbed a body off the pile, the one he had just thrown on, and set to work. Jorry sensing that he had some downtime decided to get back to his third favorite hobby, after killing and eating things, sleeping. While he did, Nero looked around the entranceway, his hands not resting from their task. He noticed that there were fewer trainees than he thought there would be. Some might still be in the mine, but there was a good chance that more than a few were dead from today''s events. From the twenty or so that had arrived this morning Nero only counted twelve. All of them looked a little worse for wear, with dirty and torn clothes. One of which was the woman who he had briefly talked to in the mine. She gave him a small nod of acknowledgment when their eyes briefly met before returning to the conversation she was having with one of the soldiers. With Jorry asleep and nobody to entertain him, Nero''s work passed tediously, though he did get another level of disassembly for his efforts. Thankfully, and to his surprise, he did not have to wait long for the instructors to return. Not even twenty minutes since they had entered the mine, the three men returned to the entrance with the remaining ratmen. Floating behind Rob, like some demented shopping bag was at least forty corpses, all looking the worse for wear. The instructors seemed fine, however, not a scratch on them or a hair out of place. For all, anybody knew they could be on a Sunday stroll rather than viciously extermination a species. It took them twenty minutes and no effort to do forty times what Nero had almost died doing in an hour. As was becoming the norm on this expedition, Nero was struck once more with a sense of incongruity. Where before he had realized the complete freedom this game offered, the ability to do anything and be anyone, now he understood the importance strength played. This was no joyful revelation, no excitement bubbled up in his chest. Instead, it was a cold and clammy feeling. Never having felt it before, Nero was still self-aware enough to identify it as fear and insecurity. It is easy for people to say might makes right, that is how the world works after all. It might be covered up and justified by morality or virtue but at the end of the day only those with the ability to enforce their beliefs really affect the world. In real life, however, what people might lack individually can be made up for in numbers. The weak can join together to overthrow the strong, that is why any ruling class must fear the people, not the other way around. Napolean once said that quantity has a quality of its own. That same Napolean was close to conquering all of Europe. It does not matter if you have the best-trained men in the world or that one man is worth a hundred, once that hundred and first man shows up you die anyway. You can have an advantage in technology but all it takes is somebody else to get their hands on it as well, and the board is equalized again. One needs only look at myths and legends or stories of the past to find proof of this. Whether you read the Volsung saga or the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, whether you are Achilles or Yoshitsune, when too many people are set against you, you die all the same. Perhaps the most obvious example of this is Leonidas and his Spartans at Thermopylae. Ignoring the fact that there was three times the number of greeks as Spartans, the tale has been made famous in books and movies as the brave and skilled few stopping hundreds of thousands. Sure it is impressive that they held out for a week, only three days of which had a battle, but at the end of the day, they died all the same. The Persians just did not care, these Spartans of legend were a footnote to them who they killed and then used their bodies as warnings. In a game though, so long as you are high enough level then no matter how many low leveled enemies you face, they will never defeat you. Most do not consciously realize this, after all when you level up you go to more difficult areas, so the challenge remains the same. But if a max level character returns to the starting area, they could stand there all day, and they would not even get a scratch. Their HP would regenerate faster than others could damage them. In a game like Gods'' Nature, where the only barriers are strength and imagination, what was to stop a high-level player or NPC from walking into a city, killing the king and marrying the queen? Only a stronger person would be able to stop them and even then they could do the same themselves. What was to stop a high-level player, or even the instructors themselves, from deciding they merely did not like Nero''s face and brutally murdering him? It wouldn''t be permanent, but that did not mean it would be enjoyable. Suddenly Gods'' Nature did not feel like a vacation, it felt like a prison. He had been playing for about two months in the game, a little under two weeks in real life, and he had at least twenty times as much time before he was healed enough to leave the hospital. "Alright, as soon as we finish with these we can head home." Rob''s words shook Nero from his temporary paralysis. "R-right." "I''ll help you out, I want to finish as soon as possible." Grabbing one of the bodies from the pile, Nero tried to continue with his work. He had trouble for a bit as his hands were shaking. Taking a deep breath to try and calm down. It did not take long with Rob''s help to disassemble all the remaining bodies and load the pelts into the carriage. As he took a seat and the caravan started its way home, Nero realized that the instructors had fully understood that a significant number of trainees were going to die, why else would they only take three carriages instead of an extra for the hides? Thankfully(?) enough had been killed that there was no problem fitting all the trainees into the two remaining carriages. Indeed, the expedition had really broadened Nero''s horizons. He had gained information about the mice incident, gotten another level and, most importantly realized what kind of game Gods'' Nature really was. It was freedom, with all the joys and terrors that brought. While he had unlimited freedom, so to did others. If he was going to have a good time in this world, then he needed to have enough power that he could not be killed like an insect. He stared at his hands, they were shaking once more. It was no longer from fear. Perhaps it was good that in the dark of the evening, after a hard day''s work, the other trainees were too tired to pay attention to Nero. Something was disconcerting about the smile on his face. 011-2 Hot Blooded The ride back to Sarra Keep passed mostly in silence, a few of Nero''s fellow trainees had fallen asleep due to the exhaustion of the day. Kaesar, on the other hand, was too wound up to fall asleep. That was ignoring the fact that as a player he needed even less rest than the inhabitants of this world. He was lost in thought about what to do now. It is easy to decide that you want to be strong but is difficult to actually gain that strength. Otherwise, everybody would have the power to rule the world. Not only does it take effort, but it also demands dedication and opportunity. It is hard work and a lot of pain if you want to be the best at anything, let alone combat. In the real world, martial artist and fighters train for centuries to perfect heir craft, and even that is no guarantee of success. A game streamlines things by giving people numerical values like levels and stats, but those are not the be all end all of strength. Things like items, abilities, companions and even experience all affect the power you can bring to bear to accomplish your goals. Nero was already slowly but surely increasing his abilities by training at Ground Sheer, but that was far from enough. If he wanted the power to command his own freedom he had to become somebody that stood out from the masses, somebody that couldn''t be dismissed. That did not require becoming the strongest in the world, but it did mean having enough ability that if somebody messed with him, the results would not be worth the effort they put in. The problem was that he had started late, Gods'' Nature had been out in the real world for two years now, a decade had passed in the game. Sure it wasn''t a lot of time in the grand scheme of things compared to his life expectancy, but it was enough for other players to get to a high enough level that they could kill him with a sneeze. Sophia, or Medea as she was called in the game, played casually on her downtime and without ambition but she was already in the hundreds of levels. That was not even counting the NPC''s who had lived their whole lives in the game. Where players were just barely reaching the two hundred, Nero imagined that there were plenty of monsters anywhere from level three hundred to a thousand, if levels went that high. If he wanted to reach their level, or at least close enough to not be dismissed, he needed to improve fast enough to outpace them. It wasn''t like they would sit still while he did so either. He had a few advantages though, so it wasn''t like he was hopeless. He knew enough about the game now to know how hard it was to progress the higher in level you get. Naturally, that meant that earlier levels would take less time than later ones so while equaling others would be almost impossible, closing the distance was an achievable goal. Another thing he could use to his advantage was the fact that Gods'' Nature was not a structured game, but rather a game in a world. There was a subtle difference, but it was there. In a typical game, the world is structured by the creators to provide paths for growth. That means you should meet low-level enemies near the starting locations and they slowly get stronger as the player develops. Gods'' Nature was not like that, there were weak monsters interspersed with the strong without any real design. Indeed those of the same species tended to stay close to each other, and those of similar strength congregated towards each other, but that doesn''t mean there was a formal structure. You had to find monsters that were weak enough for you to kill without too much risk of dying, lest you get set back months, but they also have to be strong enough to provide enough experience to progress. That wasn''t even counting lousy luck, sometimes an overwhelmingly powerful monster will just stroll through and kill everything, Nero had read more than a few rants online about how players had spent months getting to a location with the appropriate level of monsters to grind, only to be killed and sent back to a city. Luck wasn''t the only factor, sometimes there were places you just shouldn''t go if you want to improve. For example, south of Selwe, the starting city, when players were trying to progress they discovered the area was a poisonous swamp with high-level monsters. Conservative estimates placed the average level of that area at around three hundred, not counting the fact that fighting in a toxic swamp wasn''t something humans liked. So they progressed west, and they eventually met Sarra Keep near the east coast. The same thing happened once more to the north of the keep. A few weeks walking, days if you ride a horse, there is a significant obstacle in the form of the Ittolan jungle. Strictly speaking, it wasn''t impossible to cross it, there just wasn''t a point doing so. The entire area was filled with a variety of monsters of differing levels, so the risk of running into something you couldn''t handle was high. Not only that but the terrain worked against the player as well. In movies and other media, forests are portrayed as wide open, with enough room for people to walk and fight in. That is not true for forests in real life before human habitation. Often times the trees and such were packed so near each other that you had to squeeze to get by. Add in a variety of poisonous insects and snakes, and you have a place nobody wants to visit. A bit of progress had been made to travel north from the keep through the jungle, but it had ground to a halt after a while. Now most players were focused on clearing the area between Sarra and Selwe as that was a relatively well-known area and it had monsters of varying strengths for people to level up with. Not only that but from his reading online, Nero knew that the reclamation of a lost city was an excellent opportunity to find treasures and skill for high-level players, so real exploration of the world was at an all-time low since the start of the game. It wasn''t like the NPC''s could tell players where was the best place to level up, ever since the Rupture communications had been cut with all other cities. Old maps were useless because monsters had changed locations and whatever had caused the catastrophe had shifted lands enough for mountains to appear where there were none before. All this meant that people did not have an easy time finding places where they could raise their level efficiently. Nero, since he had come later had a better idea where to go than those who had started the game with no idea about the world.If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. Another advantage he had was less clear-cut. That was the fact that he had the free time to play the game more than the average person because he was bedridden. Theoretically, this meant that he could overtake those who spent less time playing the game because they were occupied by things like work or school. There was an offset, however, if other people were on a rest period they could play the game even more than Nero did. Not only that but rest periods generally lasted for decades whereas Nero just had about two years of real-life time before he would be going back to work. Nero realized that once it reached that point, he would probably stop playing Gods'' Nature, so the point was probably moot anyway. What he needed was to get powerful enough to enjoy his vacation without worry. Catching up to dedicated gamers would probably be impossible at that point, but he could at least break even with those casual players or those who had started a little later. That still left the question of how to get that strength. Nero wasn''t naive enough to believe that he should just start grinding levels and keep going that way. Even if he could find the perfect locations to do so, it would not mean that he would have strength equal to his level. He needed to be challenged to improve, he required opportunities to grow beyond level and gain experiences in a variety of forms of combat. This was a world where the methods of killing and fighting were even more varied than real life. Some people might fight with a traditional weapon system like a sword and shield or a bow and arrows, but there might be people using unconventional weapons like chakrams or tonfas. That wasn''t even mentioning magic which had no limits to its applications beyond what people could think of. If Nero were ever to fight somebody that was skilled in using methods he wasn''t familiar with, it would matter if they were the same level, he should just wash his neck and wait for death. He needed to know how to use his level correctly, gain experience fighting various monsters and people, gain enough skills and then use them at the best time on top of trying to reach the same level as people who had a decade more than him to do the same. It was a bit overwhelming, to be honest, but that only made his blood pump faster. Nero had never been really challenged in his life, and he decided he liked this pressure. Besides, once you realized what you had to do, you just had to keep taking steps towards your goal, and you would reach it eventually or die trying. But since death wasn''t permanent in this game Nero felt like he had a good chance of getting stronger. First of all, Nero had to order his priorities. He would be staying at the keep for a while yet as he wanted to finish his time at the training hall and meet up with Medea and his sisters who were still months away. Because of that, he would not be able to go far from the city to go hunting. On top of that, he wasn''t decided whether he should stay for the winter training hall to learn magic or not. He initially wanted to try everything until he found something he liked and then recreate his character with a more appropriate Nature. Now he wasn''t so sure. From his investigation into Natures, Kaesar had realized that the Beast was actually a somewhat subpar Nature. Other Natures gave boosts to various stats or gave skills that were used in combat. On the other had all Beast provided was the ability to talk to animals and take on animal traits. More skills would develop later but so far this Nature seemed to be a more passive one than others, it provided miscellaneous and auxiliary skills but nothing directly related to combat. Maybe that was because it had been created in a spur of the moment. Either way, Nero wouldn''t be able to reset his character for a few months anyway so he would keep it for now and see how things developed. That still left the question of magic though, Nero wanted to at least understand its basics before he went out into the open world so he could be better prepared. Suddenly Nero remembered a conversation he had a while ago that might provide the answer to his problem. Checking the time, he realized it was around seven in the evening in the real world, which was perfect. It did not take long for the call to connect. "Hello, Gus?" Thankfully she was playing the game, so there was no time delay. "Hey Sophia, Medea sorry." He still wasn''t used to calling people he knew by their avatar''s name. "No problem. Did you just want to chat or did you need something?" "I was wondering how long till you reached the keep." "I''m still a few weeks away so not too long. Any particular reason your asking?" "I miss you." "And?" "Fine, I was wondering if that offer to teach me some magic was still on the table, you said you were a Sage right?" Nero asked. "Sure, I''ll only be able to stay for a month or so before I have to continue my quest, but apart from that, I''m all yours," Medea answered. "Thanks, I was planning on taking a training course to get the basics, but if you can teach me for a while, then I can skip it." "You have plans? I thought you were just loafing about on vacation like a tourist." She said good-naturedly. "I recently decided that I want to go out and explore, but I want to know the basics before I do." There was a noticeable pause as Sophia contemplated that. "Once you do, be careful. There are a lot of dangerous things out there, I can''t count the number of times I''ve died." Nero grimaced. "I know, but I will do it anyway. Staying alive does not always mean living after all." He said firmly. "Alright, as long as your sure. I''ll see you in a few weeks. It''ll be just like old times. Hopefully, you''ll argue less." Sophia new better to try and change his mind once it was made up, so she turned to a lighter topic. "I still say all my arguments were valid, besides those were the most fun parts of the class. Admit you would have been bored without me there to liven up your day." "I would have, but I also got into a lot of trouble for being unprofessional." "Worth it?" "Fine, it was worth it. Just for that, I''m going to hit you when I see you." "You are a hundred levels above me, if you hit me, I''ll die." "Worth it." With that, she hung up. Nero stared where the screen had disappeared before looking around the carriage. A few of the other trainees had stirred in their sleep from his call, but they hadn''t woken up. Nero leaned back in his seat and stared up at the starry sky. "Nobody can control me, my actions are my own." He whispered to himself. This game was turning out to be much more fun than he thought it would be. **** "Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever." Mahatma Gandhi 012-1 Take On Me "Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever." Mahatma Gandhi **** "Are you sure you want to do this? It''s not going to be easy." Rob asked Nero while frowning in thought. It was the evening of the day after the group had returned from the expedition. Nero had arrived at the training hall a bit early to talk to one of the trainers. "I''m sure. I just don''t think that I will get better by continuing the way we have. When I fight you, I don''t last long enough to grow really, and when I train on the posts, I don''t face any challenges. Even if they are better than me, the other trainees are closer to my level and can fight back." Rob continued to frown. "It is not like I do not agree with you, I just think you are underestimating how difficult it will be. What level are you?" "Six after the expedition." "Most reached level ten or eleven, some died, but they were still level nine. We have two who even reached level twelve. While levels do not entirely represent strength, in the early stages of growth a difference in a few levels can be crippling. Each time you increase, you get new stat points to allocate. Somebody at level twelve has twice as many stat points as you. It''s not only that, you must have realized that training gives points as well. The others train every night and have been for longer than you, they have more base points than you do. Again, this doesn''t necessarily mean they are strong, but if your skills are equal, which you admitted they aren''t, then they will still have a significant advantage." Rob explained "I wanted to talk to you about my schedule as well. I was thinking that instead of giving me the money for the hides, you keep it as payment for a full course. If it is not enough, then we can do the same with the final expedition. That way I don''t miss out on training time." "We never know what expeditions are available so I can''t tell you if you''ll get the opportunity to make some money." After he said that the instructor was silent for a few moments before he came to a decision. "All right, from now on you''ll be part of the regular program and train with the rest every night. As for the money, we''ll keep what you would have made with the ratman hides. We''ll sign a contract that you''ll pay off the rest in the traditional way through the guild. If we have an opportunity in the next expedition, then you can work part of it off. Does that sound right to you?" While Nero would rather not have debts, now that he knew the general path he wanted to take in Gods'' Nature, he wasn''t as opposed to working for the guild. Besides, if he was lucky, he might have the opportunity to pay it off before he finished the training course. It was worth it if it got him more experience fighting those closer to his level. "That sounds fine. Can we start tonight?" "Now is as good a time as any. Do you still plan on fighting barehanded? If so you are going to have even more problems than usual. You will be facing trainees who use weapons and shields. If you are serious about this, then I recommend you do some training outside standard practice time. Stats increase faster in real combat, somewhat slower during sparring and much slower if you only do routine exercise. If you can''t find real enemies to fight or a sparring partner, then I recommend you do some weight lifting, running or other such practices. It won''t give as many points, but every little bit helps if you want to improve." That was actually a bit of a problem for Nero. Not because he wasn''t willing to put in the effort but because it would cut down on his reading time. Even when he had been working two jobs, he had made time for expanding his knowledge. Once his sisters graduated from university and moved out, he had a hope of returning to school himself and did not want to be behind his classmates when he did. As it was, Nero was still learning about games in general and Gods'' Nature in particular. He had gotten the basics down, but there was still a lot he was interested in, not to mention how he had become curious about how premodern cultures and legends had influenced games. Culture and history had always been his primary focus, and he wasn''t willing to sacrifice long-term gain (knowledge) for short-term benefits (stat points). Suddenly Nero had an idea and could have smacked himself for not thinking of it sooner. Audiobooks. Since the network functions allowed access to the internet, he would have access to the vast library of audiobooks he could listen to while exercising. It would slightly limit his choices to published works, and he would have to search through forums and such on his own time but that was fine, he wasn''t planning on training all the time. "We should get that contract out of the way before training starts up," Rob said, leading Nero up to Ken''s office. What followed was a brief discussion on exactly how much money the average trainee paid, how much Nero would be paid per ratman hide and how he was going to pay for the rest. It was a relatively painless process, and it did not take fifteen minutes before he was back in the training yard, this time in a group with the other trainees. "You all got your first taste of real combat yesterday," Dode said, addressing the group. "A few of you did better than others. Those who died follow me. You too snake boy. The rest of you are with Rob." The group that followed the instructor to one side of the yard, only nine people including Nero, was a little less than half the total number trainees. The only one he was familiar with was Paul who hadn''t been in the carriages on the ride home. Once they were far enough away from the leading group, the instructor addressed them once more. "Most of you died because of stupid reasons. You either did not pay attention to your environment, or you allowed the enemy to call for backup. So here is what we are going to do, one by one you will take turns facing the rest of the group who will try to knock you down. You are free to use any method. Once someone''s knees or back touch the ground they are out. Once we finish, you will run laps for each time you hit the ground and three times if you fell while facing the group. If you knock someone down, I will take a lap off. If a round does not finish is five minutes all of you will run two laps. Go get your weapons." Nero narrowed his eyes in thought as he put Jorry down on one of the benches to the side while the other trainees grabbed wooden weapons of choice. Something was a bit off here, this exercise would be helpful in training against groups, but it was a bit limited in training people to keep an eye on their environment. Strictly speaking, the laps were merely motivation for the training. The trainee''s goal is to come away with a few laps to do as possible. The best method would be for all the people on the attacking side to work together to knock down the defender, but because whoever did it would have a lap taken off they would all attack but with no cohesiveness. On the other had the defender was almost guaranteed to fall at some point and thus incur three more laps, there was very little chance of facing off against eight others and taking them down within five minutes. The easiest way to not have to run laps would be to stay up for five minutes when it was your turn and take down two of the other trainees. Easier said than done.The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. "Bert, since you died trying to face two ratmen by yourself like a moron, you''ll start us off." The first defender was a stocky man in his early twenties with a sword and shield combo. He separated himself from the group and walked to where the instructor indicated. "Begin." There was a bit of hesitation on both sides as they thought about what to do. The action started off after a few seconds by a man wielding a spear charging at the defender. He aimed a blow at the man''s chest and was deflected by the shield. A sword blow from the defender aimed at the shoulder was avoided by tilting his body forward and using his spear as a polearm to try and take out Bert''s legs. Likely knowing that his legs would be a target, the defender quickly stepped back to avoid the swipe and moved to back the attacker with his shield to destabilize him, but he was prevented from doing so by the other trainees. By this point, hesitation had long since vanished and, following the spearman''s example, the other trainees had charged in an attempt to be the one to knock down the defender. Nero stayed back a bit as he tried to keep watch of the situation. A trainee dual wielding a sword and curved dagger tried to hamstring Bert and would have likely succeeded had she not staggered back at the last second with a grunt. She shot a look at the instructor before pressing the attack once more, though the defender was now aware of her position. Nero too looked towards Dode and noticed in his hands some small metallic balls. After a few more moments Nero watched as the instructor''s fingers moved briefly and another of the attacking trainees grunted in pain. That one had been about to take out Bert''s knee with a strike from his wooden club. It continued in this vein for another two minutes or so, the defender holding out admirably and remaining standing thanks to the instructor''s help in stopping any blows that sneaked through his defenses that would have knocked him down. Unfortunately, he still accumulated a lot of damage from a variety of hits and eventually fell to his knees from a sharp blow to his shield from the same man with a club from earlier. The round ended with the club wielder looking triumphant and Bert gasping for breath and wincing in pain with every movement. Nero had only attacked a few times and had mostly stayed on the periphery of the fight, so he was still in good shape. "Bert can come rest up during the next round. Farus, I heard you died because you were showboating, so you are next." This set up clearly favored those who came later as they would be in better shape to take down defenders. Bert looked beat up, which he was, and would probably be bruised to hell in the morning. The next round did not last as long. Farus turned out to be the woman with the sword and dagger combo. Without a shield, she had a lot more trouble blocking blows, and it was clear she was much more used to being on the offensive than the defensive. She only held out for a minute and a half before falling prey to a trip from the spear wielder. Despite that, she was even more battered than Bert had been. Once the first defender joined the attackers the third round started, this time facing the club wielder that had taken down Bert. Despite only having his club, he managed to last almost four minutes. He was still battered but had managed to take less damage than the two before him. He might have even endured the entire five minutes had Dode, around the four-minute mark, stopped helping the defender and instead started to hamper his moves enough for more blows to land on him. It was at that point that Nero realized precisely what the instructor was doing. As he had known, the laps were merely motivation, the real training was getting beaten up. Dode would keep them up long enough to take enough damage to turn them into a walking bruise and then let them fall to make sure they had to run laps anyway. Nero also noticed he interfered much more with those who had scored a point already. If this kept up, then everybody would have taken down the defender once and been downed once themselves, everybody would run two laps after being injured meaning those who were defenders early would have recovered more by the time to run came. Knowing this now, Nero had an idea. He started to become more aggressive in pushing the defender and trying to take them down. He made sure to not go for a knockdown blow early, even when presented an opportunity, lest he gets struck by the instructor''s iron balls. Unfortunately, Nero played it too safe during the fourth round, and somebody else managed to get the point after three or so minutes. During the fifth round, Nero tried to take down the defender and ended up getting an iron ball in his solar plexus for the trouble. The sixth round he had no opportunity to take down his opponent as the defender, a staff user, seemed quite used to playing defense against a group. He managed to hold out almost five minutes before a strike from the instructor his ankle, destabilizing him enough for another trainee to trip him. If the look of resignation on the seventh defender''s face was anything to go by, the other trainees had likely guessed the purpose of this training as well. Another thing Nero noticed was for every defender Dode would give the reason for their death before the start of the round. As time progressed, the reasons got more severe, giving an advantage to those who had performed better during the expedition. It was during the seventh round that Nero finally got the point. The defender, a late teenage girl with a sword and shield, had overextended a swing after two and a half minutes and Nero managed to get a leg behind her knee and push, sending her to the ground. The eighth round''s defender was Paul, who used an odd combination of two long and short spears. Nero did not go in for any knockdown blow, knowing the Dode would prevent it. Even so, he did not go easy on the aspiring merchant despite their acquaintanceship. Perhaps because Paul knew he should focus on the two trainees without a point, he managed to avoid a takedown for four minutes and eventually fell once the instructor interfered. Finally, it was Nero''s turn to be the defender. He was last despite not having died during the expedition at all. If things progressed as they had up till now, he would last perhaps two minutes and get severely beat up in the process. There was no way he would be able to survive the five minutes, Dode would make sure of that. So he didn''t try to survive. Once the round started, Nero immediately started running towards the group of attackers. Up until this point, none of the defenders managed to get the point while facing the group. It was merely too difficult to focus on one person long enough to knock them down. Perhaps the group thought Nero was just aggressive, or maybe he was trying to take somebody down quickly, either way, they were not prepared for what he did. Because he was barehanded, he did not have to toss anything to the side as he jumped at the group, his arms wide as if to give them a hug. Despite the attackers being relatively clumped together, most managed to avoid the tackle. Two unfortunates did not, however. They fell down in a tangle of limbs and curse words. Nero had undoubtedly lost the round but, by taking down two other trainees, he did not have to run any laps. On top of that, he had avoided turning into a walking bruise by trying to fight the group. On the other hand, the two he had taken down plus the trainee who had not gotten the chance to knock Nero to the ground would have to run three laps. A fact they likely realized if the dark looks they shot his way was any indication. "Alright," the instructor yelled to the group. "Everybody run your laps around the yard, and then you can rejoin the main group." More than one trainee release a resigned sigh as they started their laps, looking more like a hobble than a run. After a moment of thought, Nero joined them. Despite not being forced to run, he did so anyway. He had realized that despite getting one over on the others, they would probably benefit more in the long haul than him. He had gotten a bit more experience fighting but had not taken the chance to try and fight a group and had missed out on a golden opportunity. If he was going to be serious about learning to fight, he could no longer use these tricks to get out of troubling situations. In real life, they would be useful, but during this was training, not real life. So he ran all three laps with the two trainees he had knocked down and the girl with a sword an shield who had not got the point. His actions got him looks of grudging acceptance from the group after the laps were done and they went to join the larger group. Nero saw no point in notifying them of the fact that, because he hadn''t been beaten up, he was still much better off than they were. 012-2 Take On Me The rest of the evening past in a blur of activity and pain for Nero. Regular training included sparring, team battles, common weapon forms and a few muscle building and endurance exercises. By the time the instructors called the day to a close, Nero was sore in places he had never thought could be sore. He had come pretty close to dying a few times as the difference in levels meant he took much more damage than the other trainees. Luckily, the training hall had an ointment of a sort that prevented severe bruising, so instead of looking like he had gone three rounds with an elephant, he looked like the walking dead instead as he slowly limped his way to the park. He did not even have the energy to lift feet as they dragged along. His spirits were not helped by the fact that Jorry was chuckling to himself on his shoulder. "You look horrible." The small serpent commented. "Thanks," he said sarcastically. "You''re welcome." Apparently, snakes do not get sarcasm. Now that he thought about it, what did they understand? He had never really tested Beast Tongue in any depth barring a few talks with Jorry, and many of the inconsistencies could be accounted for by the fact the snake was merely young. Either way, that was something for tomorrow''s Nero to worry about. As he hauled himself onto his favorite bench in the park, he tried to think about what he would need to do once he woke up. He could always go back to the bookstore for some reading, but he had other things to do as well. Nero needed to set up some sort of exercise regime and find a new source of revenue now that he did not want to risk meeting the mice. Nero''s eyes started to droop as he felt Jorry slither his way down his chest. "I''m going exploring." The serpent said. "I''ll be back by morning." "Alright." Nero absently murmured, the words not really registering in his tired mind. "Good night." Kaesar''s night passed in what seemed like moments. It was filled with blurred visions of distorted colors, at one point he was sitting at a desk in school, and a giant version of Jorry in a suit was trying to teach him about proper footwork. When Nero pointed out the fact the snake didn''t have feet, he was slapped by the snake''s tail. Then he was hit again, and again. Over and over his companion hit his face with the tail. Eventually the stinging started to feel different, and it was with a clouded mind that Nero realized that the sun was up in the park and he was awake. Why was he still getting slapped then? Looking down at his chest, he noticed the small snake with its tail poised to strike once more. Thankfully for Nero, sitting up dislodged the violent serpent before it could whip him once more. "Why did you wake me up?" Kaesar asked. "I was bored." Was his answer as Jorry gave what Nero could only guess was a snake''s equivalent of a shrug. "Besides, it''s morning." "Alright, I guess we should get going." Standing up he stretched, feeling a bit stiff from sleeping on a bench. He was still sore from training, but it was less painful this morning and more like the pleasant ache that came from exertion. Picking up his companion and putting him on his shoulder, Nero started moving into town. "First things first, we need a job." "Why?" "Because living costs money." Nero deadpanned to the snake. "We need money for food, clothes, and tools. I have some ideas for training, but the items it will require will almost certainly wipe out the money we have at the moment." "What are we doing then?" "You gave me the idea actually." "I did?" "Well, the dream you did. You know what a dream is right?" Nero decided to take the offended look he received as confirmation. "Anyway, where I come from people can talk to each other from very far away. It is cheap, and anybody can use it to coordinate with others. It is a relatively new thing," it was only a few centuries old, so it was comparatively new, "and before this was invented, people had to deliver messages by hand. If I can get a job like that, then I can be paid to run all over the city." Nero was bassing his idea off the premise that morse code and the like couldn''t be used due to monsters attacking any infrastructure outside of cities. On top of that, NPCs couldn''t use the network function of the menu, so they did not have access to the internet for communication. Because of this, large-scale networking was probably more difficult in Gods'' Nature than in real life. He was also counting on magical communication not being widely available, and thus paperwork, packages and such would need to be hand delivered. If this were the case, people would need to be hired to carry messages. Nero was trying to become the medieval equivalent of a mailman.If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. After asking a guard if an organization for such a purpose existed, he was directed towards the top of the hill. It was a formal looking building made of stone, and many people were entering and exiting it every minute. When Nero entered and met the receptionist, he told him his purpose for a visit. The man looked at him gratefully before directing him to a side room where he started discussing employment at what he learned was called the Carrier Guild. They spent ten or so minutes discussing various facets of the job. Nero would work from sunrise to noon five days a week and get paid based on how many deliveries he made, any tips he received for quick work would be his to keep but, because he would only be working within the city, the average pay for delivery would be rather low. On top of that, he would not be trusted with deliveries of high importance right away. That made sense to Nero, they couldn''t let just anybody handle military communique''s, large sums of money or items of value. Thankfully, the combination of higher literacy, due to everyone needing to read message popups, combined with less developed communication infrastructure meant there was a backlog of reports, messages, packages, and payments to be delivered. There would be no lack of work. The lower pay would also not affect Nero too much, his only expenses were food and the occasional change of clothes when they began to rot. The process was surprisingly painless. In the modern world, people are required to jump through a number of hoops to get approved for jobs, but here it took him applying and a quarter of an hour of discussion. While Nero appreciated the ease, he couldn''t help but wonder if they were too lax with their security. For all they knew, he could be a spy sent to gather intelligence on the country''s defenses. It took a moment for Nero to realize the absurdity of those thoughts. Who would want that information anyway? And if they did, how would they even use it? This wasn''t a world where countries were neighbors, where people would travel the globe in a few hours due to flight. This was a world where the closest significant settlement was on the other side of the planet on the east coast. Even if you wanted to make an argument that the lost city that was being developed could be an enemy, they were still months away. It might be a problem in the future, but in Gods'' Nature right now the only threat that cities faced was monsters. While it was possible that some form of infiltration by monsters could happen, if they wanted to destroy the keep then a direct attack was more likely. Come to think of it, if monsters developed sapience, were they still considered monsters? What was the dividing line? Jorry could be classified as a monster due to being an animal with the ability to grow by killing humans. What about humans or other humanoid beings like orcs or elves, could they be considered monsters? Nero shrugged his shoulders in dismissal and just decided to view the issue as something to research later and set about making his first delivery. Despite living in the keep for over a month, Nero was in no way an expert on its geography. More than once he had to stop and ask for directions. Due to that and taking some wrong turns he ended up taking over half an hour to arrive at the shop he was searching for. The rest of the morning followed that pattern, and by noon he had delivered nine letters and two small packages. His pay for the day''s hard work was a meager sixty-one copper coins. Compared to the silver coins he had received for his extermination jobs it was pitiful. It couldn''t be helped though, these were low priority deliveries, and he had taken quite a long time. Thankfully he wasn''t in desperate need of money. On the other hand, he had gotten another point in strength due to all the running he had done throughout the morning, so it was still a net gain in his eyes. Once he was finished delivering messages, he set off towards the mage association where he had animated the stuffed snake. That had only been a few days ago, but it felt like much longer due to all that had happened since then. He didn''t spend a lot of time there, only checking the price of what he wanted to be done. He did not have the money at the moment but that was fine, he was in no rush. His idea was to get training equipment for Jorry. Nero had plenty of options if he wanted to train, the entire internet was full of regimes that did not require equipment, but that was not really the case for Jorry. After all, who had tried to train a snake in strength, dexterity, or endurance before? Snakes were almost pure muscle and were generally capable of doing everything they need to without training. In a game, however, gaining stat points was unlimited and thus everything could benefit from training. Nero''s idea was to use two pieces of metal and use magic to magnetize them to repel each other. Jorry could then coil around them and try and compress them close to each other. It was a magical equivalent of a hand strengthener. In that way, he could gain stat points in strength while Nero trained. It would be slightly less costly than the animation had been but it was still outside of Nero''s budget for the moment. Since Nero had no idea how to train endurance bar getting hit, the only other stat Jorry could train at the moment was dexterity. Snakes already had excellent motor control and were some of the most nimble creatures in the animal kingdom, again because they were almost pure muscle, so the only thing Nero could think of was some sort of obstacle course that would force Jorry to bend and contort in ways he wasn''t accustomed to. Once again though, he was stymied by lack of funds to make something like that. Thus, when the pair arrived at the park once more, Nero went with only other option he could think of. "Alright, I want you to hang from the branch like we practiced before," Nero told his companion. "Why? Are we hunting something?" The snake suddenly way more excited. "Nope," Nero popped the ''p'' sound as the serpent wilted in disappointment, much to his quiet enjoyment. "What you are going to do is hang there by your tail and pull yourself up using only your upper body. Keep doing that over and over." "Do I have to?" Jorry whined. "You want revenge right?" The snake gave a reluctant nod. "For now this is the only thing I can think of that can get you some stat points. Once we get some money, we can find you a more enjoyable way to train." "Fine." Jorry slid from Nero''s arm on to the branch. Watching the snake hang from the branch and try to pull himself up, Nero wondered if this was perhaps the first time in history that a snake tried pull ups. Shaking that thought off, Nero set about his own training. **** "Lay this unto your breast: Old friends, like old swords, still are trusted best." John Webster 013-1 A Kind of Magic "Lay this unto your breast: Old friends, like old swords, still are trusted best." John Webster **** It is incredible how fast time can pass when you keep yourself continually occupied. Barring the few times Nero had to log out for checkups, he spent all his time in Gods'' Nature training or reading. Not much had actually changed really, only the intensity with which he threw himself into the tasks, so it wasn''t really a surprise when three and half weeks passed in the blink of an eye. He spent every night at Ground Sheer training and, while not to the same extent as the first night, would still come away with more than a few bruises. Following that he would either sleep if he was tired or take that time to investigate forums and the like online for information about the game. In a way, it was more useful than knowledge from in-game books as it pertained to stuff other players were doing and what they had discovered for themselves about the mechanics of the game. It also steeped him further in the lingua-franca of gaming. Once the sun started to rise he would set off for work. Being a delivery boy did not really pay well, mostly because he was only making short trips within the city and they were of low importance. Despite that, Nero was getting enough money to survive and even have a little put away for future use. It also increased his understanding of the city, its streets, and its inhabitants. Before he knew it, he was building connections with people all over the city. Like the baker apprentice who usually burned the first few batches in the morning, Nero could often get a bit of breakfast for free if he passed by. Or the old lady at the pawn shop who was more than willing to give gossip and information to anybody willing to listen. Kaesar''s exploration also led him to realize what exactly Paul had been talking about that day in the carriage. There were more things in heaven and earth than he had dreamed of. Just the week before he had seen two orcs arguing, not that rare a sight, but they had been arguing over the value of a weapon. The sword that was the subject of their dispute didn''t seem that impressive at first glance, but when Nero passed by it had opened two eyes on the handle and, seeing him, had given him a friendly wave. Unsure what to do, Nero had waved an awkward hand back in response and been on his way. The people could also be incredibly diverse. While most of the population of the keep were human, other races and cultures had settled in their own little districts as well. The acrid smell of coal in the dwarf''s neighborhood was perhaps only matched by the pungent odor of the troll''s small but tight-knit family compound. People, players, and NPC alike could be as standard or as weird as anything else. At one point Nero had seen what could only be a monkey. It was a bit shorter than him and nude save for its black and white fur, walking on two feet (hands?) with its back strait and a cane in its grip, it looked as casual as any other passerby. The uncanny valley feeling only increased when noticing Nero''s stare, it raised its top hat in greeting before sauntering off. It (he?) pulled off the look of a Victorian gentleman rather well, Kaesar could admit, but it was kind of ruined by its tail swinging behind him as he walked. When Nero wasn''t at Ground Sheer or working, he and Jorry would be training. It was for the most part straightforward fare of muscle building and endurance raising exercises for increasing strength, with the odd smattering of what little he knew of yoga for flexibility and raising dexterity. He hadn''t managed to save enough money for Jorry''s official course so the snake was stuck with whatever Nero could think of at the time, much to his grumbling protest. Perhaps the best exercise they had found for him was to practice jumping. It involved the snake coiling itself like a spring and trying to jump high enough into the air to then twist itself around a branch. It was a surprisingly good way to raise both strength and dexterity, at least according to Jorry as Nero could not see the snake''s stats. Though the pair hadn''t increased in level over the weeks, they still saw significant growth both in stats and in skill levels. Jorry''s Bind skill, despite not using it on live targets had increased by three levels. Something that was far more useful as the snake grew. It was either because Jorry was so young or because of his recent evolution but the serpent was now over a foot long and still growing, much to his pleasure. Nero had increased the level of both The Nest and Assimilation when the progress on Jorry''s tongue had been completed. The Nest had only received another increase in Nestmates available and a small increase in the bonus they received while Assimilation hadn''t said much at all barring ''larger traits may be assimilated.'' Unfortunately, it was still impossible for Nero to get the scales he wanted or the flexibility and muscle control that Jorry so casually displayed. That left him a bit torn on what to assimilate. He wasn''t going for the eyes because a snake''s eyesight was actually worse than a human''s. In the end, he decided to go with the jaw, a snake''s split jaw was able to handle food much larger than normal. Nero wasn''t sure what it would be useful for, but it at least helped increase Assimilation''s level for more significant changes down the road. There was the possibility of recruiting other animals into the nest, but any significant and useful traits generally were not too common and would take auxiliary assimilations to work correctly. Like how Jorry''s taste buds had only become really useful after Nero had assimilated the tongue as well. Apart from that, Nero just had not found another animal he had taken a liking to. It wasn''t that he hadn''t tried, he had kept an eye out while he investigated Beast Tongue but for the most part animals were merely uninteresting. They did not have room for more profound thought for the most part, more concerned with living their daily lives and finding food than anything else. Apart from conducting a few experiments, most of Nero''s days off were spent in the bookstore, getting a nativist perspective on the game. For all the excellent information forums and blogs might provide, it was limited to a player''s perspective and could sometimes be false. The internet was not famous for only containing the truth, and more often than not people were merely bragging and did not provide proof of their claims. That is not to say that all the information in books was necessarily accurate, but there was a significant difference between the effort it takes to write a book and a small forum post. That and Nero tried to keep his studies to books which were either primary sources or provided references to such. It was actually while Nero was reading a book on the properties of sacred grounds in the bookstore that his routine was finally interrupted. "Why am I not surprised to find you in a fortress made of books?" Nero heard an amused voice say, taking his attention from the page. Looking up, he noticed that he was no longer alone in the corner of the bookstore he had repurposed for his own use. He was surrounded by piles of books, some of which were as high as his seated form. Peering over one of these piles was a face of an old friend. "For the same reason you knew where the bookstore was in the first place. Because we are a pair of unrepentant bibliophiles and we like it that way." He answered, allowing a grin to stretch on his face as he rose to his feet to give the woman a hug. She gave a small laugh and returned to gesture. "It good to see you, Sophia."A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation. "You too Gus, though you should probably call me Medea" she answered. Pulling back from the embrace he took the chance to get a better look at her. She did not seem too different from what he remembered in real life. She had kept her hair long and straight, her skin was still the darker color that hinted at her Mediterranean heritage, and she stood with a confident grace, her expressive brown eyes staring at him in turn. The only thing that seemed out of place was robe-cum-dress she was wearing. It looked like it wouldn''t be out of place in a magic show, either as the magician or the lovely assistant. "You look different. Shorter." She noted. "Nothing I can do about it." He shrugged his shoulders uncaringly. "I''m using a helmet rather than the usual capsule, so my measurements aren''t really the same." His unique circumstance probably brought to mind what had landed him in the hospital in the first place. She shuffled uncomfortably for a moment before responding awkwardly. "Look," she began, "I apologized once but will repeat it: I am sorry." "You don''t have to apologize. It was an accident, and I don''t regret what I did." "Not for that. While I am not happy with what happened, I have come to terms with it. I can understand your reasoning for your actions, I would have done the same in your position. No, what I am apologizing for is what came after. I shouldn''t have left you alone like that. I should have visited, talked to you, brought flowers, something! Instead, I was wrapped up in my own pitty, too busy feeling sorry for myself. I was so caught up in the trauma of seeing you like that that I never really thought about how you felt, confined to your mind like that." "You do not have to apologize." He repeated, this time more forcefully. Seeing the mist in her eyes, he continued. "As you said, if our situations were reversed I would probably have done the same." "Knowing you," Medea snorted in amusement followed by a slightly wet chuckle. "You would probably take the opportunity to pester me non-stop when I couldn''t retort." He smiled. "Besides, I wasn''t really alone. My sisters come to visit sometimes. And your uncle helped out a lot. Now that I am playing Gods'' Nature I can talk to you guys whenever I want." "Speaking of my uncle," she started, playing with her hair and not looking him in the eye. "He didn''t say anything strange to you, did he?" "Not really, I wasn''t in the best condition to hold a conversation, so it was mostly him talking at me than anything else. Looking back on it, it was weird at the time, but now that I know he was the creator of Gods'' Nature it makes some sense. For the most part, he just thanked me, told me he was in my debt and that he would take care of any problems with my hospitalization. He came back a few days later with the helmet for playing the game and talked a bit about how to use it and Gods'' Nature. He left after telling me to talk to you if I ever need to contact him." "Good," she sighed in relief. "My uncle spent more than a few years out of contact with any humans while developing the game, so he''s a bit eccentric at times. The first thing he said to me once he got back from the hospital was to ask if we were courting." "He doesn''t really know much about you does he?" Asked Nero with a wry smile. "To be fair, he spent most of my lifetime on Gods'' Nature. Once my mother died, he took pretty good care of me, though by that point I was almost entirely independent. It mostly involved him checking up on me every few weeks and asking if I needed money. You never came up, so to him, it must have been a surprise that we are so close." "I''m not judging him," Nero denied." I know more than most about being too busy to properly take care of a family. All I''m saying is that he obviously doesn''t know how picky his niece is when it comes to partners." "I''m not picky." She mockingly huffed. "I just know what I want, and I have high standards." "You are picky then," Nero chuckled. "Anyway, do you have some free time? I still have a couple hours before I need to be at the training hall so we could start the lessons now if you want." "Sure," Medea nodded in agreement. "As I mentioned, I''m a Sage, so I have a lot of magical knowledge. If I''m only teaching you, we can probably cover basic theory in a few hours and get into specifics another day. Are you actually planning on using magic?" "I don''t know," he shrugged his shoulders. "I created my Nature to give me a chance try a little bit of everything. Right now the only thing is specialized in is giving me access to supplementary skills. I''m sure you noticed my new tongue." He had managed to make the movement of flickering his tongue to taste the air unconscious over the last few weeks. Now he stuck it out so she could get a better look. "I noticed, but I thought you had managed to get access to an evolutionary pool of some sort of beast type. I knew you weren''t a normal snakeman, they tend to have scales and no hair, but maybe a subspecies of a sort." "Evolutionary pool?" He asked but was waived off. "I''ll teach you about them later. So your nature gives you snake traits? Or any animal trait?" "Neither, it is more like I can copy traits of my companions. Speaking of which, I haven''t introduced you to Jorry have I?" He asked rhetorically as he looked around for the snake. Nero finally saw him curled up asleep in a patch of sunlight streaming through the window and went to pick him up. "Jorry?" "Short for Jormungandr, an interesting story I''ll have to tell you sometime." Picking up the dozing snake, and getting a sleepy ''what'' in response, Nero brought him over to the table the pair were sitting at. "Oh, he''s so cute." Medea always had a thing for reptiles, she had told him she used to have a pet iguana as a child who she had named ''Smaug.'' So it was no surprise when she stole Jorry from Nero''s hands and cuddled the confused serpent to her cheek. "Who''s a good deadly animal? You are, you are. Aren''t you the most adorable world serpent ever." Jorry just looked at Nero in alarm, as if to ask what on earth was happening. Nero completely ignored his desperate look. "He''s grown and evolved since I met him so his much bigger than before. He wasn''t even a month old when I found him. Another skill that I got from my Nature lets me talk to animals, so I''ve been teaching him a few things here and there." "If only we could do that in real life, the things we could learn." She sighed at the thought and finally stopped nuzzling the snake. Medea still did not let him go though. Instead, she started to scratch unconsciously at the base of the head. It must have felt good as Jorry''s eyes closed in pleasure. "Anyway," Nero said, trying to get back on topic. "Before we start I have a few questions. There are some conflicting statements in a few of these about magic I was hoping you could clarify. Give me a few seconds to find the right books." The passage Nero was looking for provided more challenging to find than he thought. After a minute of searching, Medea spoke up once more. "Hey," she said softly. "Hm?" Nero looked at her, she was still petting Jorry, but her eyes were a bit unfocused as if not really paying attention to the snake in her hands. "You ever wonder," she started hesitantly. "If things could have been different. If I had said yes back then I mean." It took Nero a moment to realize what exactly she was talking about and another to think about the answer. "It would be a lie to say I, over the years, never thought about what could have been, that''s human nature after all. But, looking back I think it was for the best. With everything that happened right afterward, there would have been no way I could have given you the attention you deserved, I would have been too busy and have called it off. That might have soured our friendship, so in a way, I am glad you rejected me." "I mean," she pressed. "If nothing happened, if your father hadn''t died. Do you think we could have made it work?" "No," he answered right away this time. "Oh, we could have made it work, but I don''t think it would have lasted. At the end of the day, I just wasn''t what you were looking for. There''s nothing wrong that. You shouldn''t have to compromise your happiness to satisfy my romantic interest." Medea studied his face intently for a moment, looking for something perhaps regret or wistfulness. She apparently found nothing because she sounded almost surprised when she asked: "You really mean that don''t you?" "Indeed," he nodded. "If we were to be in a romantic relationship I would want it to be because you wanted it, not because you wanted to avoid making me sad. Was I sad? Certainly, but sometimes sadness is necessary." "Thank you." She seemed to compose herself. "I suppose I have been a bit melancholic and uncertain since the accident. I''ve been looking back a bit too much I think." "We all get like that sometimes, I was the same in the hospital before I started playing." He shrugged in acceptance before changing the subject. "So, magic." Not the most subtle of transitions but Medea seemed to appreciate the thought as she grinned at him in thanks. "Magic." **** 013-2 A Kind of Magic "Before we begin that for the most part what I am about to explain is concerned with RPGs, specifically the fantasy genre. There are differing norms for sci-fi or historical RPGs and other genres of games. We also need to define magic. For simplicity sake, we will simply call magic as non-organic actions performed through the use of energy. A scorpion''s poison would not be magic but if that same scorpion breaths fire, we will classify that as magic for now. This isn''t exact, but it will do the basics." Nero jotted down a few notes on a piece of rough parchment he had bought for such occasions. The pair were in a remote corner of the bookstore where they wouldn''t be disturbing the reading shopkeep. "The first thing you need to know about magic in Gods'' Nature is that, unlike other games, it is not systematized." Medea started to explain. "I know you don''t really play video games, but you should at least know the basics, right? If you say the right words and perform the right actions, according to the system of the game, then the desired effect appears. For example; somebody does a small chant, points with their hand, and then a fireball appears." Nero nodded in understanding though he felt no need to tell his friend that he didn''t know that before playing Gods'' Nature and started to investigate games. "Now, there are ways to do the same thing in this game, but I''ll get to them later. Another way to use magic in games is through the use of skills, this is the most common and oldest form of magic, dating back to the early days of video games before augmented reality and other such advances allowed for more player freedom. Whenever somebody pressed the right button, the skill would be cast, and it could take the form of magic or a physical technique or something similar. You following so far?" Nero once more nodded, though he noticed there was some overlap between the two kinds of ''magic.'' "As you have probably noticed, these two systems are not mutually exclusive, you can have one with the other in augmented and virtual reality games. You perform the action or chant to activate the skill. Gods'' Nature has taken both a unique and traditional approach to magic in the game. We have skills that can be used, both actively and passively, and those active skills can be classified as magic for the most part. For example, I can name three separate skills that, once used, allows the person to fly despite not having wings or the body structure to do so." "Can you use any of those?" Nero couldn''t help but ask, the idea of unaided flight was appealing. "I can use two of them, but I probably couldn''t teach them to you. A quirk of my Nature if you will." That was disappointing, Nero thought, though now that he knew it was possible he would have to investigate ways for him to do it himself. Maybe he could use a form of assimilation to get wings? But that possed its own problems. "Anyway, where Gods'' Nature is unique is in the limits it places and the lack of boundaries it actually has." Nero quirked an eyebrow in question at the oxymoron, but Medea was already explaining. "What I mean is, even if somebody has a skill, that skill requires a foundation to be used. That foundation is belief. You have to believe that you can actually use the ability, you have to know what it involves, and you have to picture it working with a firm beliefe. Only then can you impose that belief onto the world through magic. If you think you cannot do something, then you will not be able to do it, no matter how hard you try. This is where players have an advantage over NPCs because we treat this as a game, we do not think that the limits we face in real life will affect us here. Most players learn to use skills quickly because we see it as part of our avatar, it is natural to use superhuman abilities because that is why we play Gods'' Nature in the first place." "So the reason I could use assimilation right away was that I never thought about not being able to use it in the first place? Then wouldn''t it be better to not know about the importance of belief? So you never doubt you''ll be able to do something?" "Good question and I thought that as well before I investigated more deeply into the lore of the game. One of the questions I asked myself was why multiple people with the same skill produced two different results? If it was only size differences than it could be attributed to power but it can come in other forms. Take our fireball example from earlier. I''ve seen the standard fireball be of differing sizes, colors or speeds and they still did the same damage. Here, watch this." Medea raised her hand in front of her face with the palm up. In only a moment there was suddenly a ball of water floating in her hand. "This is a little parlor trick that any magic association will teach apprentices to help them learn to control basic magic. What do you notice?" "You didn''t invoke a skill." "Exactly! There was no need to chant or to activate a skill. Now watch again." The ball of liquid remained floating above her palm before, with no apparent reason, it started to shift in in place. It elongated and curved in on itself making a hoop. Then more strands of water separated and conjoined in differing patterns until the water flowed in such a way that it was unmistakably different from the earlier simple sphere. "You see, with just my belief and my energy I can make it perform actions that would require a myriad of skills. This is why the same ability can act differently. Different beliefs produce differing results. In our example, a new player will merely use a fireball as they have seen it used in other games because the will not know any better. Somebody who knows about belief and willpower can get that same fireball skill to be an invisible ball of heat and leave it floating in the air as a trap, or can get it to shoot like a rapid-fire gun. This also where the limits and benefits of skills appear, no matter how you alter that fireball, it will always do the same damage. Or you could conjure a fireball with only your energy and manipulate it how you will. It is a trade-off of consistency with variability. Any questions?" "How come more people do not use pure energy manipulation then?" Nero asked. "As I mentioned, players have an advantage when it comes to skills, but this also comes with a disadvantage when it comes to perception. They think ''I can do this since I have the skill.'' But that has the implication ''I can''t do this because I do not have the skill.'' Thus skills can be helpful in getting started, they often become crutches to lean on, at least in the case of active abilities." "Then how do people learn skills? I mean those that are not given by their Nature." "This is where chants and gestures come in. If they cannot believe that they can perform magic, by accepting chants people convince themselves that they can achieve magic. Another thing is that the greater your desired outcome, the harder to believe you are actually capable of doing it. Even with bonuses due to my Nature and my knowledge of the power of belief, I still need to chant to do significant things or extraordinarily complicated things. It is a form of self-hypnosis, a way to convince yourself to convince the world. The more complicated the action, the longer the chant. By that same notion, if you continuously do the same bit of magic over and over, you slowly convince yourself that you are able to do it and thus the chant gets shorter. If you ever meet somebody who can cause a tidal wave or a major earthquake without a chant, they not only have access to a stupendous amount of energy but also have supreme confidence in their ability for a reason."Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings. "Why do you keep calling it energy? Why not mana or magic?" Nero couldn''t help but ask. "Because I have seen different sources of energy used to perform skills. There are skills and abilities which consume HP, blood or other sources to power them. Whether we call it magic or mana, qi, chi, or the power of friendship, it doesn''t really matter. I merely refer to it as energy because it is an all-encompassing term. I know this one player who uses solar power to use magic. During the day and on nights with a full moon they are essentially bottomless batteries, but on the new moon, they cannot do anything. Any other questions?" "Yes, you keep using the word belief. Are we talking about the equivalent of faith? Is it a religious thing?" "As with many things, the answer is not just yes or no. It is more nuanced than that. Yes as in that it is faith, although it is more faith in yourself and your ability to shape the world. No, because religious-based magic is a clear, distinct field that I won''t get too into right now. But it should be apparent that a game called Gods'' Nature has something to do with the divine. There are a few churches and religious institutions that players know about, but there hasn''t been any concrete proof about the abilities or even the existence of gods. Most players think it is either the main story or a late game aspect of Gods'' Nature." "Does anybody actually know what the main story is? Or if there even is one?" "The general consensus is that it does exist, what large game would release without a central narrative after all, and that it has something to do with the Rupture. Many believe that the game being released during what is essentially an age of exploration means that once enough areas, or one, in particular, are discovered the main plot will progress." "Nothing concrete then?" He clarified. "Nope, but we got a bit derailed." Medea tried to shift the topic back to magic. "Right, then apart from using them as training wheels is there any reason to use active skills?" "Yes and this is where Gods'' Nature again takes a unique approach to gaming. After learning a skill, that is it appears in your menu, you can naturally increase its level to get it to provide more benefits or do more damage. In most games this is done by simple repetition, you perform a skill enough times, and it will level up. You can do the same in this game, and it is generally considered the brute force method. It is not bad, but it pales in comparison to the other one. The other way to level up a skill is to actually learn about it and get better at it. A sculptor can become better by carving different shapes using different materials and so to can a skill improve by using it in different ways for different purposes. By knowing the limits of the skill, using it in conjunction with others and thus trying out new possibilities you naturally become better at using it and thus level it up. Anybody can get a skill to level twenty-five through repetition and with a few years to level fifty. It takes an expert to get to level seventy-five in a skill. It is possible to max level a skill with repetition only but not only would it take longer than our lives, let alone and NPC''s, but the use you get out of it would be less than a level fifty person who actually knows how to use a skill properly." "If it takes that long for a single skill to be mastered then how does anybody get there?" "For players, it is easier to level skills close to their Natures, even more so for skills created by the Nature itself." Medea smiled to herself in thought before shaking it off and continuing. "That is why it is important to learn more about your skills rather than just using them, it increases the speed they rise in level. No player has yet reached level fifty in a skill, let alone mastered it but from what I''ve read NPC''s who do so are considered strategic resources. A ruler of a great empire would be flattering towards a farmer if their skill was maxed. I should note that not all skills are created equally. Any skill is useful in the right circumstances, but some are more useful than others. That ball of water earlier was a basic skill that if mastered could be used to kill a dragon. What I did later was water manipulation, a passive skill I got when I learned to control water with just my belief, and if I maxed it, I could probably destroy a few mountain ranges in an hour. Of course, that is a long way off, I have devoted my time to skills more than levels, and it is still only in the thirties after over a year." Nero tried to think about that power, the ability to rewrite maps on a whim. He felt himself shiver, in excitement or fear he did not know. Unfortunately, it was getting late, and he had to get to Ground Sheer. "I need to go," he told his companion as he rose to his feet. They were a bit stiff from sitting at the table for so long. "I have to get to the training hall. I''ll be done around midnight, what do you plan on doing?" "I still have to touch base with the local magic association about my quest. Do you have a place we can meet after you''re done?" Medea stood as well, stretching her arms and back. He bent to pick up the napping Jorry, trying to ignore the way her dress/robe hugged her generous curves. "If you know where Ground Sheer is we can meet there, otherwise I know this little park not far from here. You head east for a bit and take a side street between a bakery and a candlemaker. You''ll come out on a fence around a mansion, follow it south and you''ll eventually reach the park." "Thanks, I''ll see you there then." They walked together to the door, and Nero was about to bid her farewell when she suddenly hugged him. Because she was relatively short at only six foot two, her head barely tickled his chin. "I''ve missed this. Teaching you, being able to talk to you whenever about radome things. You have no idea how boring it is without you at school. Your sisters come over sometimes, but it''s not the same." Nero was never a very affectionate person, he liked his space, it was something he had gotten from his father. Still, he wrapped his arms around his friend and returned the hug. "I missed you too, but time passes quickly. Before you know it, I''ll be back at work annoying you, and you''ll wish to put me right back in the hospital." Though he couldn''t see it, Nero was sure Medea was smiling in exasperation. "Besides, with Gods'' Nature, we can spend even more time together. Once I get to your level we can go exploring together, I want to see you do magic." "Then you better hurry up, now that I got what I wanted regarding skills and knowledge my level will be multiplying. You''ll have to work hard to catch up." She pulled away from him a smiled. Nero pretended he did not see the moisture gathering in the corner of her eyes. "You don''t have to worry about that. Instead, you should be more afraid of being left behind when I go on cool adventures, and you''re too weak to come. After all, if you can do it, I don''t imagine it is very hard." She gave him a friendly swat on the chest for that. With friendly ''see you later'' she set off into the city. Nero stood there for a moment before letting out a sigh, his shoulders slumping slightly. Ignoring Jorry''s inquisitive look, he perked himself up and set off to his own appointment. **** "Look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see, and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious." Stephen Hawking (8 January 1942 ¨C 14 March 2018) One of the greatest minds and men humanity has ever produced. We are the poorer for his loss. 014-1 Save Me "Look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see, and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious." Stephen Hawking **** Walking away from Nero, Medea did her best to keep her stride even and smooth. Her face was schooled into an impassive frown and though her eyes were still red, they no longer glistened with tears. As she walked her stride became stronger and more firm as she calmed her emotions. Her impassive frown dissolved into a blank facade. Sophia did not regret turning Augustus down all those years ago, he just hadn''t been what she was looking for in a partner. He still wasn''t, to be honest. Sophia Bartholomew was a woman who knew what she wanted and wouldn''t settle for anything but the best. Her mother had raised her to love life with a passion, and she looked for that same passion in a partner. Augustus had a lot of qualities, both good and bad, but he was not passionate in the least. He was calm, intelligent and could come up the most ridiculous plans at the drop of a hat and then make them work. But Gus was also arrogant when it came to that intelligence, not an arrogance that thought it was better than others but one that saw no point in other people''s opinions about himself. He was also almost entirely unempathetic and sadistic. The closest he got to empathy with people he didn''t care for was to yawn when they did. Apart from his sisters and herself, he showed a practically psychopathic disregard for others, often finding joy in their suffering. At least he used to, back when he had felt some passion, small though it must have been. His father''s death had changed things. Gone was the teen who had an insatiable lust for learning and in its place was a robot, one she hardly recognized today. It hadn''t been instantaneous, and it was only looking back that Medea saw the gradual change. Initially, things had seemed to go as well as they could have, Gus had processed his grief in as close to a healthy way that Sophia thought possible. He had been sad, cried a bit and made sure to be there for his distraught sisters. Then, with a calm logic that was frightening, he accepted that his father, the person he was closest to, would never be coming back. Then he set about addressing all the problems he would face in the wake of this change. He dropped out of high school right away and took his equivalency exam to get his diploma. He got full marks and made it look so easy that Sophia often wondered what had been the point in him staying in high school in the first place. He then came to her, despite having been rejected the last time they met, and asked if she knew of any job openings that didn''t require a degree. Those were almost extinct in the modern world, where almost everybody had a degree, but he had been lucky that one of the school janitors had decided to go into retirement for a few decades and had left a position open at the school. Gus returned to the school not two weeks after he left, only two and a half after his father died, but as a janitor rather than a student. Within two months he had taken up a second job working as a laborer in construction. She had once asked him why he had taken two positions when he could have supported his sisters and himself with just one five hours a day job and gone to university on the side. Nero had said that he didn''t want to sell his father''s house, the only thing he had to remember him by, and he was trying to save money for when his sisters went to their own higher education. He fully intended to go to university later himself, once they had become self-sufficient. In many ways, Gus had become a better person, at least in the eyes of society, with the death of his father. He worked hard to support his family, he never gave up on going to get his own degree, he still kept reading anything that caught his attention, and the casual arrogance that he once held was gone. Early on Sophia had been shocked to find him actually talking to his co-workers rather than disregarding them entirely. His psychopathic tendencies had almost wholly disappeared, replace with friendliness and charm. And it was killing him. It was a gradual thing, almost unnoticeable to all but those who spent the most time with him, but it was there. He smiled and chatted to those around him but the smile never reached his eyes, he never laughed, and when he was left alone he would hunch over and sigh. More and more he took to addressing situations with a dispassionate and uncaring shrug of the shoulders. Augustus''s sisters had told her more than once about finding him with a book in his hands just staring into space with a blank look on his face. He still asserted that he would go to university one day, but he no longer talked about it with any desire, it was merely another step on the road. This accident reaffirmed Medea''s view that something was definitely wrong with her friend. It wasn''t that he had saved her life at the risk of his own. She knew herself well enough to know she would have done the same if the opportunity had been there. She had been shaken up by it but not to the point she couldn''t recover. What really made her sad, angry, worried, and a host of all other emotions was Augustus'' casual acceptance of everything. He didn''t care. Whether he was in the hospital or at work, healthy or paralyzed, he gave an uncaring shrug. So long as his sisters were alright and getting the education they deserved so they could do what they want in the future, he did not care. He wasn''t suicidal, at least Medea didn''t think he was, he was too practical and logical to take his own life. At this point, Medea didn''t think he could even muster up the desire to do so. He wasn''t living a bad life, and he had centuries ahead of him. The problem, Medea believed, is that he had nothing to live for, nothing to excite him. Once his sister did graduate from university, and he no longer had to take care of them, then what? He no longer displayed the passion for learning he once had, he read more out of habit than curiosity. Sophia was worried that once his sisters had left the house to live their own lives, he would waste away. Like his father before him, he would eat, drink and do all that was necessary to stay alive and he would die anyway. Life just wouldn''t interest him enough at that point to bother with the effort of keeping his heart pumping. Like so many before him, Gus would see the centuries he had left as too much a bother and become another of those known as the Stricken, those who died because long lives are not always a blessing.This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. Sophia did not want that, she did not want her first and best friend to waste away to death. So far, however, nothing she had tried worked to spark anything close to desire in her friend. She lent him books to try and re-spark his interest in learning, she wanted to introduce him to some other women, hoping that a lover might do the trick but he had smiled that fake smile, made some small talk and excused himself. She had once tried to get him try Gods'' Nature once her uncle had released it but he had instead got his sisters interested in it, insisting he didn''t have time to play. It was hard to help somebody when they didn''t think they needed help. Sophia had thought about asking him out herself, she knew he still held slight feelings of romantic interest in her. She would have done so if she thought it would work, even if he wasn''t what she had in mind for a romantic partner. The problem was that for all his dispassion, his lack of empathy, and general disinterest when it came to the human race, Augustus knew people. He knew how people worked, how to manipulate them, and what they desired. He would see through her in an instant, and she couldn''t imagine the consequences to their relationship if that happened. Now though, now she finally had some hope. It was a little thing, and she would have to spend some time verifying it, but Medea was feeling optimistic after meeting Nero. He finally seemed interested in something. He wasn''t learning about magic or Gods'' Nature because it would be useful to him later in life, in fact, every minute he spent learning about lore was a minute he neglected to learn about real life topics. He was learning about them because he was curious. While she had briefly been teaching him in that bookstore, his eyes had been more focused and determined than she had seen them in years. This accident could be the chance she had been waiting for, the opportunity to nurture in him an ambition that went beyond his sisters. It would take some effort, and she would need to be careful not to be obvious lest he notice her plan, but by the time Augustus was released from the hospital Medea hoped that he would have recaptured some of his ''Joy de Vivre'' that he had lost. In a way, Medea could understand her friend''s interest. When she had started playing Gods'' Nature, almost as soon as it came out, she had been voracious in her appetite for knowledge about the world. Despite being the creator''s niece, she knew exactly as much as the next person about the game, so she sought to rectify that with knowledge of the game itself. She had fallen in love with the lore, with magic and had ended up deleting her first character so she could become a Sage. She was far behind others when it came to levels, but she doubted anybody else on the planet knew as much about this world than she did. As soon as she was done with her current quest, she would leave to increase her level. Not because she was afraid of falling behind but because there were places that held the knowledge she wanted that were too difficult to get to at low level. Before she did that, Medea would try and instill in her friend the same ambition, to go out and see the world. But first, she had to complete this quest. Her face was still blank as she walked into the mage''s association. Nero would recognize it as where he came to get the stuffed snake animated. As Medea walked in she was assaulted by the sounds of hundreds of people talking, arguing, practicing magic in one of the practice rooms or fiddling with a variety of instruments. To the right of the building, she saw a young man in robes chasing pink chicken with a crocodile head. To the left, she spotted three people sitting at a table drinking tea on the ceiling. A typical day at any mage association. As Medea walked to the reception desk, she drew more than one appreciative glance, both because of her beauty and her rather flattering dress. She paid them no mind as she was used to such glances. The receptionist, a young mage with his nose buried in a book, didn''t notice her right away, so she cleared her through to grab his attention. "Can I help you." His eyes lit up at seeing her, but she didn''t care. "Tell Morin that Medea is here." It wasn''t said softly so more than a few people heard what was unmistakably the order in her voice. "I can send someone for the professor, but he usually has a class around this time, you might have to wait. Do you have an appointment?" The receptionist gave a signal to one of the other mages to go tell Morin of his guest. "No." Medea just said and made no move from her position in front of the desk as if she was going to wait for the teacher right there. "Ah," feeling a little out of sorts at the odd behavior of the woman in front of him, the receptionist tried a different tact. "If you want you could take a seat and give you some refreshments or we could schedule an appointment tomorrow?" "He''ll see me now." It wasn''t an order, just a statement. Usually, Medea was not this rude, but she had a part to play, a facade to keep up, for this quest to be successful. Sure enough, almost as if her words were prophetic, hurried footsteps were rushing towards them. An older gentleman rushed out from the back of the building, disheveled and breathing hard. "Lady Medea," He gasped for breath from his short run. "We were not told you had arrived. We would have met you at the gate if we had." More than one confused and surprised look was sent towards the old man. Morin was a figure of some renown, a teacher of many of the mages here and had been invited to the castle to meet the king on more than few occasions. To see a mage with a level over three hundred so desperate to please this woman was a shock to many. "No matter," Medea waved off the old man''s words and paid no attention to the surprised, and curious looks sent her way. "I had things to do before coming here. I assume that everything is prepared?" "Yes Ma''am!" The old man''s head bobbed up and down quickly in answer, looking like a chicken pecking for grain. "No expense spared, you''ll have the most exquisite quarters while you are here and we have set aside a personal lab for your use." "Good," Medea nodded as if such difference was expected. "I assume the mornings are okay then? I have things to do in the afternoon, and I prefer to work on my experiments in the evenings." "No problem, no problem. I''m sure the Arch-Mage will set things up accordingly. If you could please follow me, I''ll take you to her now, and we can get everything all hammered out." There was a collective intake of breath from the room. The Arch-Mage was the idol of more than a few people here, despite never seeing her first hand you would have to be blind, deaf and stupid not to know of her. She was easily one of the strongest mages known and was famous for having an odd temper. To meet her could be considered luck, either good or bad, as not even the monarchs of the Keep or Selwe could talk to her unless she was in the mood to meet them. Would you anger somebody who was known to drop meteors on people who annoyed her? Despite that Medea was not worried in the least. Right now she was a rare commodity, somebody who the Arch-Mage had begged to meet and teach at the association. She was being paid more than most players made in a year for a month of teaching. If Nero knew that every hour he spent learning personally from her was worth hundreds of thousands of gold coins, Medea wondered what kind of face he would make. It wasn''t even that this was an exaggeration, she hadn''t been lying when she said that nobody in the world knew more about the lore and magic than she did. Right now Medea was too low level to actually use most of what she knew, Morin alone could kill her with an errant sneeze let alone the Arch-Mage, but they wouldn''t risk doing that. They knew how valuable somebody with a knowledge stat of over a thousand was. 014-2 Save Me "You know, I don''t get you," Paul said suddenly. "Hm?" Nero responded, not taking his eyes off the trainees who were sparring at the moment. The instructors sometimes had them hold mini tournaments of sorts, round-robin style elimination matches. The winner gets to keep fighting, and the loser is changed for another trainee. Currently, the reigning champion, the military brat he had met in the tunnels whose name he now knew to be Mei, was on a five-round winning streak. It was almost her personal record but whether she could keep it up or not was unsure. It only took one mistake to undo all her progress, and as time wore on, she started to have more minor slip-ups. "What are you even doing here?" Nero shot him an odd look at that question. "I mean, I know you are here to learn how to fight, that''s obvious. But why Ground Sheer? Why not another training hall? No offense but this place isn''t really your style." "Inertia mostly, I guess." Nero shrugged the question off. "This was the first hall I applied to, and I got accepted right away, so I see no reason to change now." "But that doesn''t make sense. Ground Sheer is a pretty straightforward hall, they teach you the basic techniques to survive in the wild during the summer, but the fall and spring courses mainly show you how to hit things correctly and then give you plenty of opportunities to practice. You don''t think or fight like that. You''re tricky and cunning and prefer using tactics rather than brute force. Last week was the signup for Cloud Cover, I was surprised you didn''t ask for a transfer to them." "Cloud Cover?" Nero asked. "Another hall but one that focuses more on taking advantage of situations." Paul gave a brief overview of what he knew before returning the question. "I know why I am here, as a traveling merchant I won''t be setting up ambushes or the like so I just need to know how to not kill myself with my own sword. For the life of me, I cannot understand what you hope to get out of this place. You train harder than anyone, you take on every extra task that is available, and your improvement has been impressive. But you poke at every loophole when you can, you have never won a single one-on-one bout and never fight fair. So what are you doing here?" It was a fair question, what was he hoping to get out of this training hall? He had learned the basics of fighting by now, he was no master fighter, but he could hold his own. All he was getting out of Ground Sheer was time to practice time and stat points. While those were useful, he could accomplish the same by doing the standard player thing and killing lots of monsters and level up in the process. "I don''t like leaving things unfinished I guess?" It was a part statement and part question. "I started it, I might as well finish. Besides, I have things to do in Sarra Keep so I can''t leave just yet." Paul didn''t seem to believe him but decided not to comment as he was called to be Mei''s next opponent. He was right to doubt, Nero wasn''t too sure of his reasons either. It was true that he didn''t like leaving things unfinished, but he wasn''t opposed to stopping something if it no longer served its purpose. Paul had a point, Ground Sheer did not suit him very well. In a straight up fight like they were doing right now, Nero was lucky to survive a minute. Some of that could be attributed to his late start and lower level but not all of it. In team battles or free-for-alls, on the other hand, he was always one of the last standings because he knew when to fight and when to retreat. At the end of the day, Nero did not believe in fairness. He believed in advantages and disadvantages, whether in physic and intellect or opportunity. No two people are truly equal, if they were, then they would be the exact same person. Thus a part of Nero''s mind was always dedicated on how to increase his advantages and make opportunities for himself. So what was he doing at Ground Sheer? The question plagued him all evening as his mind kept going in circles. It was only when the instructors announced the end of the evening''s activities and Nero felt a vague sense of disappointment that the answer came to him. Was he... having fun? Certainly, Nero had enjoyed his time in Gods'' Nature. The world and lore were interesting, and it gave him something to do outside of laying in a hospital bed. He also enjoyed the feeling that he was improving at something, learning had always been his passion. Augustus had never been a violent person, he understood the necessity of violence in certain circumstances as well as the attraction it had for many people, but he had never craved it or engaged in it. So was he really having fun fighting? Beating people up and getting beat did not sound fun to Nero but that seemed to be what was going on. Perhaps it had nothing to do with the actual fighting aspect an more to do with the novelty of the experience? That sounded more likely to him. He didn''t enjoy the brutality but learning about a different way of life was always a good thing in his mind. That answer didn''t cover everything, but it satisfied Nero for the moment, so he set off from the hall with a light step. As had become a habit over the last three weeks, he walked to the little park to meet up with Medea. By this time at night, she would be finished with whatever occupied her during the day so they would spend most of the pre-dawn hours talking about a variety of subjects. Sometimes she would run a little late, and Nero would take that opportunity to do some exercises to help increase his stats. This evening Medea had arrived first once again and had already been set up for a while. She was laying in one of two hammocks while staring at the stars, the cool autumn breeze gently rocking her. It always struck Nero how useful magic could be, especially to somebody who seemed as gifted with it as Medea. The first night they had met here, she had taken one look at the park and smiled. With a wave of her had two hammocks had set themselves up perpendicular to each other between four of the trees. On colder nights she would conjure a purple flame that kept the area warm without burning any of the environment. All this she did with no incantations, or ''aria''s as she liked to call them. "Man, I can''t wait for this summer." She said as he approached, not even looking at him. "Once break starts I think I''m going to have my own little vacation. I''ll get Fergus to take care of the workload and just spend my time like this, wasting the days away and relaxing." Fergus was the Vice-principle of the school, a hardworking man in his second century that had turned down the head position allowing Sophia to get the job despite her not even being half a century old. "That would drive you insane." Nero settled into the other hammock, Jorry taking this time to slither his way over to Medea. She honestly spoiled the snake. "You think so?" "I know so. You''re like me, we don''t do lazy. We need to be doing something, we get tired too easily if we do nothing." "I suppose you''re right." Medea sighed and scooped Jorry into her embrace. She then fed him a little pellet of sorts, Nero didn''t know what it was exactly, but the relish the serpent seemed to have for them made him think they were the snake equivalent of candy. "I''ve been meaning to ask you, what''s it like talking to animals? Have you experimented at all?" "A bit." Nero relaxed more into his hammock and put one foot to the ground. He pushed slightly to get more swing. "Jorry''s pretty young, so most of our conversations are me explaining things to him. He''s a bright kid and picks up on things rather quickly. Most of it''s abstract until he sees more of the world, he''s never left the area after all. He''s a bit lazy though." Nero grinned as he saw the snake''s head poke above the neighboring hammock to glare at him.Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators! "I''ve noticed some commonalities between animals though." Nero continued. "They can all vaguely understand human language. Is that discriminatory? Should it be called sapient language in Gods'' Nature because there are so many different races? Anyway," he shook off that odd train of thought. "They also seem to know that most sapients races can''t understand them. Most animals I''ve talked to also have an innate understanding of certain aspects related to day to day life. They know about food, mating, and survival already but the more complicated things get, the less they intrinsically know. There is a restaurant down that way," Nero vaguely nodded in the direction despite knowing Medea couldn''t see him. "They have a cat that I''ve talked to. He can go on and on about quality and proper preparation of food, mostly cream, that he learned from living there." "Is it contact with other races that give them more knowledge then? I wonder if they are affected by the culture they live in, to the same extent." Medea asked. "I think it is like us, just life experience. They are not too good with names of things, but when I describe things to them, they generally recognize it quickly enough. A bird I talked to didn''t know what a mountain was, but when I called it a hill that reaches the clouds she recognized it instantly." "How much of our stereotypes are true then? Are birds birdbrained? Are turtles and snails slow speakers? Are cats as egotistical as they act?" She couldn''t help but ask. "Again, I think they are just like us and vary on a case by case basis. One bird I met definitely fit the description of birdbrained, it was distracted by shiny things easily, could finish a thought and forgot things easily. But another one was surprisingly educated, it had spent a bit of time as a pet to some noble and had learned etiquette and the like. He called himself something like ''Sir De Whimsy Propington the Eighth.''" Nero heard Medea stifle a snort of laughter at the thought. "I haven''t met any snails or turtles, but I do know not all of our stereotypes are true. Jorry, for example, doesn''t elongate ''S'' sounds when he talks." "I''m jealous." She said. "You get to talk to all sorts of exotic creatures. Right now it might not seem like much, but once you leave the keep, you''ll see some really cool monsters you''ll be able to talk to. I know for a fact that not all of them are hostile and have rudimentary forms of civilizations. Just imagine the things you could learn." "From what I hear it''s not that rare to be able to talk to animals. Anybody who becomes part animal gets a similar skill." His response was waived off. "That''s different. You only get the skill to talk to animals that are similar to you. Cat people can speak with felines and snake people can talk to other serpents. I don''t know many who can talk to all creatures in the animal kingdom that aren''t at least level five hundred." "Huh," Nero responded plainly. "I always thought it was pretty standard. I can think of plenty of other Natures that could give a similar skill." "I''m sure there are, but not many people would try something like that. They usually go for Natures that provide boosts to stats or growth with specific skills like swordsmanship. Probably between forty to fifty percent of players use the pre-set Natures." "Pre-sets?" Nero asked. "You know it takes three months to be able to create a new character right?" Nero nodded to her question. "Sometimes a player won''t like the way their Nature turns out, so most do not want to risk losing that time. There are tonnes of Natures online as well their progression and what skills they get. It will vary from player to player depending on actions taken when playing but the general layout is there for most standard RPG jobs. Mage, priest, warrior, rogue, assassin, ranger and a lot more. It also became a status thing, famous players sometimes post their Natures online, and others try an copy them." "I never knew, though I suppose it makes sense." After all, Nero wasn''t sure he would keep the Beast and if he didn''t that meant he had wasted fifteen in-game months. "Still, if you want to speak to animals I''m sure there are items or a spell you can use. This is a game filled with magic after all." "You''re probably right. Next time I meet Octavia, I''ll talk to her about it." It took a moment for Nero to place the name. "By Octavia, you mean Nico right? What does she have to do with it?" "You didn''t know? Her Nature is something along the lines of ''Creator,'' and she specializes in making magic items that she uses to fight with. I''m surprised they never told you, she is probably the best artificer among players right now." "They never talked to me about Gods'' Nature with me before the accident." He explained. "All I know is their avatar''s names and that they are pretty strong because they have been playing since the start. Do you know Maude''s Nature?" "I don''t know the exact name, but from what I have heard she uses some form of undead and staff. Or was it a spear? Either way, it should be along the lines of Necromancer or something similar." "Necromancer? Maude? I would never have guessed. Out of the two, you would think she would be the one to play a lifestyle job." It was difficult for Nero to imagine the sweetest of the siblings having anything to do with combat or undead. He decided to put off that odd thought until they met in the game and he could talk to her in person. "Still, what are you thinking about making." "I know a few universal translation spells that I could probably adapt for animals. It would take more magic than I would like but if we can turn it into an enchantment for items, it shouldn''t be a problem. I''m just worried that they won''t arrive in time for us to create it. I can only stay in town for another week and a half at most before my quest needs me to travel to Selwe." "That''s a long trip, what''s your quest?" He was curious as to what could ask her to travel the length of the continent. "Just some favor to the mage association. It is not difficult, only a C rank, but they really helped me out a while back, so I wanted to pay them back. Worst comes to worst, I''ll meet up with the twins some other time. I just can''t help but think about all I could learn with an item like that." Medea seemed a bit down, so Nero tried to cheer her up. "You never know, they could get here tomorrow. Or even tonight." **** You know what they say, speak of the devil, and she shall appear. As Nero and Medea were relaxing in their hammocks and enjoying a pleasant conversation in the night, a carriage rolled its way towards the front gate of the keep. Typically something like this happening in the middle of the night would warrant careful examination but as soon as the poor sop who had drawn the unlucky straw for the graveyard shift saw the insignia on the carriage and who was driving it, he didn''t hesitate to order the gates open. He also ordered a runner to bring a message to the king of the keep, this was too important to keep under wraps. As for the carriage itself, it was a simple thing, at least on the surface. It seemed to be made from dark wood, and it lacked many of the ostentatious decorations many of the aristocracies liked to adorn their personal transport with. The driver was an unassuming man dressed in standard fare with a hat hanging low over his eyes. He held the reins in his hands but didn''t do anything as four black horses pulled the carriage forward. The only thing that appeared remarkable from the outside was the silver crest on the doors. Much like the rest, it wasn''t very grandiose, but the simple design of an outline of a man sitting on a throne with a scythe and hammer crossing behind him was enough to terrify the poor gate guards. Once the carriage had rolled its way past the great doors of the keep and turned a corner, it halted. Out of it stepped two women who began to stretch the kinks out from their long journey. "Fucking finally!" One cried as she popped her back. "That took forever. Next time make something faster." "I''ll get right on that." The other answered sarcastically. She went to the driver, who still hadn''t moved, and pulled out a wooden tablet of sorts. She fiddled with it for a bit before putting it away. The carriage suddenly started to roll again and disappeared around a corner in seconds. "Come oooonnnnn," the first one wined. "My Onii-chan senses are tingling." "Onii-chan senses?" The second deadpanned. "Yep yep, all true imoutos have it. You wouldn''t know because you''re a failed product." The first said matter of factly while the second scowled at her. "He''s that way." She declared, pointing to west in an exaggerated fashion. "Actually, he''s that way." The other woman pointed towards the northeast casually, her face set in a smug smirk. "Looks like your Onii-chan senses need to be checked." "How would you know?" She puffed her cheeks in a pout. "I''ve had some people check up on him. He likes going to a small park around this time of night." She must have said something wrong because her compatriot was staring at her with a devilish smile. "What?" "You''ve been spying on him~." "I have not! I''ve just been making sure he''s doing all right. Like any good sister would." That didn''t seem to appease her companion who suddenly took off in a run towards the north-east. "I''m telling Onii-chan you''ve been spying on him." She yelled back. "Goddamit, get back here Claudia!" Octavia yelled as she took off after her sister. Anybody who had was up at this hour would swear they heard a little girl running down the street while singing; "I''m telling, I''m telling, I''m telling on you~" followed by a bunch of swear words. **** "Sisters is probably the most competitive relationship within the family, but once the sisters are grown, it becomes the strongest relationship." Margaret Mead 015-1 Little Sister "Sisters is probably the most competitive relationship within the family, but once the sisters are grown, it becomes the strongest relationship." Margaret Mead **** Perhaps Nero should have noticed something was off when Jorry sat up from his perch on Medea and looked around the area in confusion. Or he could have realized when the sage got a twinkle in her eye and a smirk on her face that promised trouble. There was also the subtle change in the taste of the air, though he could be forgiven for not catching the last one as he still did not have the same finesse with his new senses as a snake would. Therefore what came next shouldn''t have come as a surprise. It did. "Onii-chan banzai!!!!!" Was the warcry and two young women falling as if from nowhere onto him was the battle tactic. It proved to be super effective as he stared wide-eyed at the pair who fell onto him. He let out a groan of discomfort as the air was knocked out from his lungs from the impact. This was followed by another pained noize as the hammock in which he was resting gave out under the combined weight of the three of them. In less than two seconds Nero went from peacefully stargazing to being buried under two other people and in pain. Jorry stared nonplussed at the pile of limbs, unsure if he should help his companion or not. The laughing of the beautiful lady, the one who gave him treats, sealed the deal, so he just decided to lay back down to watch just in case. "Ah-ha!" There was a triumphant sound from the pile of bodies and an arm reached out, thumb raised in success. "Sneak attack success, I told you it would work." "Ouch," answered another voice, this one muffled. "I knew it would work, I just didn''t think it was a good idea. Now get off me." "Hehe, you''re just jealous. Did you see his face? It was priceless." Finally one of the two attackers stood up, allowing the other to do so as well. "This better not kill him," Octavia said as she dusted herself off and gave her sister the stink eye. Claudia stuck her tongue out in response while grinning unrepentantly. "He''s tougher than that, right bro?" There was no response. Nero hadn''t moved from where he had landed on the ground and had not made a sound since the fall. "Bro?" She asked once more, with a bit of worry in her voice. "You all right?" "Of course he isn''t all right!" Octavia snapped at her twin. "He was just tackled by two full grown women with over two hundred levels more than him. He could be stunned or paralyzed." She crouched next to her brother and waved her hand in front of his face, but his eyes just stared blankly past her, not reacting at all. "Wah," Claudia cried out in distress and hurriedly crouched over the prone form as well. "Bro? Gus? Augustus? Answer me! Are you all right? How many fingers am I holding up?" She said this really fast and tried to shake him awake but got no response, which only worried her more. "Oh no! What if we hit him so hard he lost all his memories? He''ll be helpless! We''ll have to teach him everything, but he won''t know who we are and won''t recognize us as his sisters. He''ll end up falling in love with us and then do naughty stuff to us, and then he''ll remember and feel all guilty. But we''ll be pregnant, and that will make it worse, he''ll start drinking and going to bars. And then, and then..." As Claudia continued to shake her brother, she devolved into a delusion that was a part worry, part fantasy, and part pure silliness. Eventually, she was stopped when she reached the part about ''explaining to the kids when they grow up,'' by her sister. "Your an idiot." Octavia deadpanned. "Just give him a small potion, he''ll be fine." Claudia stopped shaking the unfortunate man and stared at her sister with wide eyes. "Oops, haha." She laughed to herself and reached into a pouch at her side to get the potion. Maybe because they were so worried about Nero, or they were distracted by Claudia''s tangent, but they too failed to notice a few things. Things like Medea desperately trying desperately to stifle her laughter. Things like Nero''s face twitching as he struggled to remain stationary. Like their brother before them, the twins were surprised when suddenly the ''paralyzed'' man shot up and wrapped his arms around the pair and dragged them to the ground once more. The pair fell with an ''oof,'' but they did not have a moment to get their barrings before Nero was on them. He unleashed his counter-attack in a well-practiced way, born from years of experience, and the high leveled players were rendered powerless under his fingers as he mercilessly tickled them into submission. Medea finally lost control, and the laughter burst from her lips in a torrent. She laughed so hard that she too fell from her hammock, taking Jorry with her to the ground. Not that she noticed, rolling around as she was in mirth. "Hahahaha, stop it, haha, we give, we give up, haha." Claudia desperately tried to say between peels of laughter. Her sister, even more, vulnerable to the attack could not even string words together.If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. Nero finally stopped after a few more seconds, panting for breath from the unusual exertion. His sisters took a few more moments to calm down. He stared at them for a moment, and his face morphed into something much softer. "It''s good to see you two. I''ve missed you." Sophia might have been his best friend and first love, but his sisters had been by his side for much longer, and there hadn''t been a day in over a decade and a half he hadn''t spent at least an hour with the pair. The accident had changed that. They only got to see each other when the twins visited him in the hospital where he couldn''t respond adequately. Sure he could talk to them online, but it wasn''t a viable replacement for the intimacy of face to face communication. "WE MISSED YOU TOO," The pair yelled in response as their eyes misted over. They dove at their brother, this time with less of a tackle and more of an embrace. He was all too happy to return the hug, and for a few moments, the three of them held each other tightly as if they were afraid the others would disappear. Eventually, the group hug ended and all three rose to their feet and dusted themselves off. As Nero looked over to their observers, he was unsurprised to see Jorry giving the group a confused look from where he had landed on the ground. What was odd was the look on Medea''s face, one he hadn''t seen before. She was looking at him like she hadn''t ever seen him before like he was a curious specimen for dissection, but it was interspersed with both hope and what seemed to be melancholy. "What''s wrong," Nero offered her his hand to help her up. "Nothing," she quickly replied as he pulled her to her feet. She was not about to tell him that this was the most emotion she had seen him display in years, that he hadn''t been this playful since before his father died. She also wasn''t going to tell him that she was going to see to it that it would continue. "Sophia? Is that you?" Octavia asked as she got a good look at the other person in the park. The sage nodded but corrected them all the same, "Medea." "Right." Claudia nodded in understanding. "You should already know, but I''m Nico, and I go by Octavia." She was smacked in the back of the head by her sister. "Idiot! I''m Nico, and I go by Octavia. You''re Maude, and you go by Moron." "Wah, Bro! I''m being bullied, help me." Nero did no such thing, he instead took this moment to get a good look at his sister''s avatars. They were fraternal twins, and thus weren''t identical, but they did share a few commonalities. Nero was pretty tall, not the biggest but above average at seven foot even. Despite being women, his sisters almost matched him as they were both six foot eleven inches, nine more so than Medea. That wasn''t the only point where they differed from his friend. Where Sophia was rather petite with enough curves to be noticeable but not too prominent, both Nico and Maude were, as one of their classmates had put it ''built like a brick shit house.'' Augustus had been young when their parents had died, but he remembered their mother being the same way, with more than generous curves and long legs. The best way to describe them was Amazonian, women built for war that still held unsurpassed beauty. Their faces also had a few commonalities, like their father''s prominent cheekbones and their mother''s button nose, but that was where the resemblances ended. Maude favored long hair, reaching all the way to her lower back that she sometimes wore in either a braid or a ponytail, unlike herself in real life, her character''s hair wasn''t black but rather a really pale blue that looked almost like white. Her skin also looked paler than he remembered, not unhealthy looking but less like snow and more like ivory. Her eyes hadn''t changed, still the same ice blue as he recalled. She was dressed a bit oddly, wearing both hard leather armor and a cloaklike cover. Nero saw no sign of the spear or staff that Medea had told him about. Nico, in contrast, wore armor. It resembled old European knight armor, though there were clear differences made to accommodate for her womanly figure and she wasn''t wearing greaves but a layered metal skirt. Nico had kept her hair blond, like their mother''s and it was shorter than her sister''s. She had tied the back in a sort of bun with a strand of braided hair and had kept the front a bit more wild so that it fell past her shoulders to frame her face. Her eyes were also the same aqua green as usual, and her skin tone had not changed. Nero also couldn''t see a weapon on her. As he watched them argue, Nero felt a swelling of pride in his chest. These two were no damsels in distress, they were more fitting to be superheroes than anything else. They held themselves with a self-assurance that not many eighteen-year-olds could match. They were no longer the little girls who had climbed into his bed because of nightmares, they were now women who could take care of themselves. It made Nero feel a bit nostalgic, but at the same time, he was happy for them, glad he had helped them grow. "What are you smiling about?" Medea asked from his side. "Nothing," he repeated what she had said earlier. "I was just thinking, they''ve really grown up, haven''t they? I guess I never noticed because we saw each other every day." "They have," his friend nodded in agreement. "You should see them in school, they are a couple of heartbreakers. I think every boy and a few girls in their year, the ones below them and even the seniors have asked them out at some point or another. Their teachers tell me they are very mature, they never cause trouble and are always willing to help out. Their grades are as perfect as ever, in case you are wondering. They should have no problem graduating next year, although there have been some arguments about which one of them will valedictorian." "Maude," Nero said without hesitation. "They both could do it well but Maude is more willing to be involved in things like that, and she is the more expressive of the two." "That''s what I thought as well, but there is still no guarantee it will be either. They don''t really have any competition at the moment, but they still have a little over a year before then so anything could happen. You should be able to get out of the hospital by then, even if you won''t be completely healed." As the two of them watched, the argument seemed to have dissolved into ''do too'' and ''do not.'' Nero wasn''t even sure what they were arguing about, and he doubted they did either, but the sky was starting to lighten, and he would have to be getting to work soon, so it was time to break it up. Nero picked up Jorry from the ground and asked him "Do you want to meet my sisters?" The snake looked unsure for a moment, staring at the bickering pair before nodding his head. Nero walked to the twins and interrupted them. "I''d like to introduce you guys to my little snake friend here." Nero was confused why Medea started howling with laughter once more, and the twins were suddenly very red in the face. **** 15-2 Little Sister Nero paused as he panted for breath, sweat beading his forehead. He knew from experience that if he rested for more than five minutes, it would disappear leaving him smelling no worse for wear. It was merely another feature of the game that allowed it to mirror reality while providing convenience. He was taking a small break from delivering messages, his most recent customer being an old lady who complained for minutes about not getting enough company before reluctantly handing over his fee. He could see why she didn''t have many companions, she struck Nero as a thoroughly unsympathetic character. Looking to the sky, Nero saw clouds gathering over the sun, providing welcome relief from its harsh glair while also preventing him from getting a good sense of time. He could tell it was approaching midday but more than that he wasn''t able to say. It was one of the things he had discovered after a few weeks spent in God''s Nature, he had become somewhat adept at keeping time without the use of clocks, using the sun during the day and the moon and stars at night. It was possible to get the exact minute by looking online for the time and doing some mental math to account for the time dilation and time zones. There were, of course, online apps that did it for you, but by the time Nero had discovered them he was skilled enough that it wasn''t worth the hassle. His small break over, Nero took off at a light jog to return to the message center. He ignored the little pop-up message saying he had another point in strength, the first he had gotten in a while despite the harsh pace he set. He wished Jorry was with him, having rarely gone without the small serpent since meeting him, but unfortunately, his sisters had fallen in love with the reptile and had ''snakenapped'' him when he had left for work. Jorry didn''t really talk much unless the two were alone but Nero hopped a day with his siblings would allow his companion a chance to open up more, even if they couldn''t understand him. Although that might no longer be the case soon, Medea had been talking to Octavia about the idea of an item that allowed talking to animals. They seemed to have many ideas, remaining deep in a discussion even as he left for work, only sparring him a muttered ''see you later'' before returning to their talk. While others might have been put off by the casual dismissal, Nero was glad that the twins were getting along with his friend so well. They had had some rough patches over the years. Besides, he got more than enough attention when Claudia had realized he was leaving and had stuck to him like a leach, begging him not to go. It was only the promise of a meeting as soon as he was finished with work and distracting her with Jorry that had allowed him to escape. Speaking of Claudia, she had been acting weird throughout the night. Nero wasn''t talking about the blushing and stammering when he had accidentally made a dirty joke without realizing, the pair always had been easy to tease. He was thinking more about how she was... hyper wasn''t the right word, chipper and lively perhaps. Either way, she had been acting out of character from her usual behavior. In real life, Maude was the picture of refinement and decorum. She never talked back, was a hard worker, had a lot of friends, helped him with the housework, and acted very demure in public. She had all the class of a high born woman from Victorian England. It was understandable in a way, their parents had died when they were relatively young, and they had been raised by both Seneca and then Augustus. Seneca had been a firm believer in manners, not because of some misplaced belief in tradition but because the way style could be used to shape the perception others had of you. He had taught Augustus who had continued the twins'' education after his passing. It was general things like sitting up straight, keeping eye contact when talking to somebody, elbows off the table when eating, stuff like that. Unfortunately, it seemed the teachings had too much of an effect on Maude. Nico had learned alongside her sister but had adapted them into her own. She complemented her manners with a razor-sharp wit and a sarcastic sense of humor. Nico wasn''t willing to be anybody''s puppet and was a lot more self-assured than most people her age. The same couldn''t be said for Maude. She was just as smart as her sister but nowhere near as headstrong. It made raising her more comfortable, but it also worried Augustus that she was too willing to fall in line, that she couldn''t stand by herself. With college approaching fast, he had been concerned she would be taken advantage of and swept in somebody else''s pace. The woman who Nero saw last night was anything but meek. Instead of falling into pace with others, Claudia had swept up everybody else into her own, her headstrong sister included. She had been playful and outgoing, more than willing to joke around in ways he had never seen from her before. Nero didn''t know what to attribute it to, possibly the accident had shocked her enough to change her habits, though he doubted it was that. It could have been the proper reunion after months of separation, she could have been having a perfect day, or it could merely be how she acted in Gods'' Nature. No matter what the cause was, it gave Nero some hope. His role wasn''t to turn them into some sort of idealized women. As their brother, caretaker, and somebody who loved them, his purpose was to give them the tools to find out who they were and who they wanted to become and them to aid them in achieving whatever they desired out of life. Deciding to end the day''s work a bit early to meet up with his sisters sooner, Nero sped up his pace as he returned to the message hall. Tommorrow was Saturday so he didn''t work and Sunday he didn''t have training at Ground Sheer so maybe they could spend the day together. **** "You need to be more careful, I''m pretty sure he suspects something." "Huh?" was the unelegant response. "I get it, we were excited to see him again, but if you keep acting like you normally do, bro is going to notice, and then he''s going to start asking questions. Worse comes to worse, we might be forced to stop playing Gods'' Nature. All our plans down the drain because you couldn''t control yourself. Is that what you want?" Octavia starred hard into her sister''s eyes, trying to impress upon her the seriousness of the situation. The effect was somewhat ruined by her continued petting of the small snake in her hands. "I get it, I get it." Claudia capitulated. "I was just too excited to see him again. I''ll try to control myself better. It''s hard though, I''ve gotten so used to Gods'' Nature that not being ''Claudia'' while playing is going to be hard." "I know it will be," Octavia gave her sister a commiserating look, knowing how much ''Claudia'' meant to her. "Just put up with it for another month, once we have the papers in our hands, we can provide bro with enough proof that he should go along with us. Until then just act like ''Maude,'' that means no fighting, no swearing, no overly affectionate actions, and try and tone down the jokes." "Fine, but when he''s at work, I want to use the training room. And no golems, I want players or NPCs." "That fine, we''ve been focusing too much on our levels lately, we can use the opportunity to train some skills. I know a few training halls that would love for us to take a few of their recruits and beat them into shape. We''ll make sure not to use Ground Sheer, but there are some higher level ones that should be able to put up a decent fight."This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. "Great," Claudia''s smile would have unsettled any who saw it, but the only other occupant of the carriage was a small serpent who was too blissed out by the scratching as Claudia joined her sister and managed to hit just the right spot. The smile turned into a slight frown as she tilted her head as if listening to a voice only she could hear. "Also do not invite Steel Mil, the Foundation is using it at the moment to train its high-class members. Hero boy is there as well." Octavia''s face matched her sister''s grimace when she heard her sister''s words. "Great." She said sarcastically. "I was hoping not to see them for a few hundred more years. If we''re lucky, we will not run into them, but knowing our luck, we''ll see them pretty soon." Octavia shook herself slightly as if to rid herself of the thought. "Bro should be done work in a few hours, I want to get this out of the way before then." "I can''t believe we told him to treat the game like a vacation and he goes and gets himself another job." Claudia shook her head at the thought. "He does know that he could get some good money from hunting right? His level would rise too, and he could join use much faster." "From my understanding is that he wants to finish his stint in the training hall before leaving the keep. You know how bro is, he likes to be in control as much as possible. He wouldn''t start a fight until he knows he has a chance to win. It''s not a bad idea though since Sarra Keep hadn''t been discovered we never joined a hall, but I hear it does have some advantages. That''s probably what the Foundation is doing, refining their basics and learning the common sense of fighting in this world." "Should we do the same?" Claudia asked doubtfully. "No," Octavia denied with a shake of her head. "Not only do we have better things to do, but our way of fighting is entirely different from anything they could train us in. The most they could provide is a chance to practice on other NPCs, and we can accomplish the same with the training room." "If you say so." Not really caring, Claudia looked out the window of the carriage to see them pass by the row after row of opulent houses. "We should be there in another few minutes, let''s deal with this buffoon quickly and get back." "Claudia!" There was rebuke in her sister''s voice that only made Claudia roll her eyes. "Try and control yourself will you, I don''t care that he''s a moron, he''s still the king of the keep. Just put up with him for an hour or so then we can leave." "Fine, but if anybody looks at me wrong again, I''m not going to stop at a few limbs." Octavia nodded in agreement, not just because she was fed up with other people''s wandering eyes but also because Claudia''s violent temperament served a purpose. The twins got much more respectful treatment when they were known to physically and psychologically break those who messed with them. **** Turns out that Nero shouldn''t have ended work early. His sisters were occupied with something, and Medea was not responding to his messages, likely busy herself with whatever it was she did when he was delivering messages. So Nero had a few hours to kill. It wasn''t too bad though, it gave him the opportunity to try something out that had been on his mind for weeks. Sitting on one of the few benches in the small park he frequented, Nero tried to delve into himself and grasp hold of his Mana or MP. Unlike other players who were trying to learn magic, Nero was trying to create his own personal spell as he doubted the magic association had what he needed. He was also doing this to put the various theories Medea had been teaching him to the test. Finding and grasping the wellspring of energy within himself was surprisingly easy, likely due to knowing exactly what to look for and the game making things easier for players. Apparently, NPC''s had much more difficulty in this aspect than players because magic had always been a part of them, whereas players had an advantage in finding foreign energy in their bodies. Either way now came the hard part of shaping the magic into what he wanted. Other players might start off learning magic from a spellbook or an instructor. They would find their magic, recite the incantation and voila, instant magic. What Nero was trying to do was much harder, but according to Medea, would be more useful in the long run. He was trying to shape the magic to his purpose with raw belief. He was trying to force the mystical energy to bend to his will. Naturally, he was unsurprised when his attempt was unsuccessful. What did surprise him was the stinging sensation in his hands when he failed. Shaking his hand to try and rid it of the numbing sensation, Nero checked his status screen. Sure enough, he had lost a few HP points and over twenty of his meager MP. Because of not training in magic before now, as well as not allocating any points to it, Nero''s spirit was still at a pitiful 10, leaving him with only 100 MP in total. This repercussion fitted the warning he had received from Medea. If you weren''t careful, your magic could backfire on you. In severe cases, such as more significant spells, it could even lead to death. Thankfully, Nero was too pathetic in magic to even hurt himself too much. Once his hand was no longer numb, Nero tried to review where something went wrong. After a few minutes of thought, he eventually settled on the belief aspect of things. This was the downside of doing things Medea''s way since Nero knew that belief and willpower were the critical elements in forming the spell he subconsciously doubted whether he could actually cast the magic. Nero sighed to himself as he decided to try another way. Kaesar decided to try and form an aria, a chant that would help self-hypnotize himself into doing the magic. Medea had explained it as a sort of crutch for higher level magic, but one that was useful. Thankfully she had also mentioned that anything could be an aria, so long as it helped put your mind into focus. That meant Nero could make a general purpose aria for all little magic, like what he was attempting right now, that would not give away what he was doing to potential enemies. He needed a word or a phrase that was short, so it could be said quickly in times of need, but also one that he could attach to the idea of magic. He also needed an image to signify the change, a mental trigger that would force his mind to release its inhibitors against the spell. His friend had mentioned her psychological trigger to be a spark setting the world ablaze. After a few jokes about pyromaniacs, she had also referred to others such as releasing a notched arrow, or the cocking of a gun. The emphasis in the image should be on immediate action, something that only took a second but could have long-lasting consequences. This part of forming an aria actually came to Nero reasonably quickly. Unbidden, an image of a snake, like Jorry, coiled and ready to spring, rose in his mind. Deciding that the model would work well enough for the moment, Nero tried to think up the words of the aria. It needed to be succinct but also represent what he wanted the magic to do. It was a way to convince himself that he was in an alien world and that standard rules of logic did not apply. It was not for another five minutes, as he turned various phrases and words over in his head that he stumbled on one he thought would work. Even then, Nero repeated the word to himself dozens of times. He tried to convince himself that by using this phrase he was changing, both the world and himself. By using this phrase and image, he was destroying all blocks on his mind. And so, after twenty minutes of repetition, Nero decided to put it to the test. Sitting on a park bench, Kaesar grasped the magic once more and directed it to his fingers. Then, with a word that was a part whisper and part declaration, the coiled snake sprung into action. "Evolve!" There was no flash of light or magical explosion, but Nero was sure he succeeded. Gone were the customarily rounded tips of his fingers, in their place was the pointed tips of claws.
Spell Created
Claws
By shaping magic around your fingers, you generate sharp claws. While in use, maximum MP is reduced by 10%.
Current LVL: 1 Max LVL: 50
While the spell was a success, Nero still frowned a little. It was close but not really what he was going for. For one, only the tips of his fingers had changed, that would be of little use if the rest of his fingers were quickly broken. Another thing was that this was the first time he had seen a skill with a maximum level. Nero would have to ask Medea about it later. With a sigh, he set about trying to reshape the spell for his intended purpose. **** "Always be yourself, express yourself, have faith in yourself, do not go out and look for a successful personality and duplicate it." Bruce Lee 016-1 Fish Out of Water "Always be yourself, express yourself, have faith in yourself, do not go out and look for a successful personality and duplicate it." Bruce Lee **** "You know, when I said we should spend the day together, this isn''t what I had in mind," Nero said to the group. "What did you think we were going to do?" Octavia asked, not getting up from her position to do so. She was laying her head on Claudia''s lap who, in turn, was staring out the window of the carriage at the passing countryside. "I don''t know, maybe a bit of exploring around the city, a picnic or possibly you guys could give me a tour of what you do when I''m not around." "Technically, we are going on a picnic." Medea pointed out, looking at him from over her book. Her back was against the wall of the carriage and her feet sprawled over the seat. "A picnic where I''ll be expected to fight for my life." Nero deadpanned in response. "That is not my idea of a day off." "Don''t be dramatic, you''ll be fine. The highest level should be ten and, with your extra stat points from training, you should be around that level. Besides, worse comes to worse we step in and help you." Medea waived off his concern and returned to her book. Nero had no idea what it was about, the title was written in some indecipherable script. "I''ve been there before, it''s beautiful, and the water should be warm enough to swim in once you clear the monsters. It''s going to be great training for you and once you''re done," Octavia tapped something on the piece of wood in her hand, suddenly a table covered in food rose in the center of the carriage, "we can have lunch." "I have no idea how you did that," Nero said, eyeing in the newly appeared food with trepidation. "The bottom of the carriage shouldn''t be large enough to hold all this. And why did you prepare a roast chicken, how is it even still hot, we''ve been on the road for a few hours now?" "Not a chicken, a clicken," Octavia shrugged and returned the table and the food to wherever it was before. "A bird native to Gods'' Nature that is similar to, but not exactly, a chicken. As for how I did it? Well, this is my personal carriage, with how big this game is I wanted to be able to travel in comfort. I started on this baby when I was only level fifty, and it has gone through some significant improvements since then. I intend to keep making it better. It is still not bigger on the inside than the outside, and it can''t fly yet, but I''ll get there someday. If I work hard enough, once it is able to travel through time I''ll paint it blue and white." "So you built it all yourself?" Nero decided to ignore the last part of her statement as a joke. "Medea had told me that your Nature is ''Creator,'' I thought it was something like blacksmithing. This is impressive." "You weren''t wrong, my Nature gives me experience whenever I ''create'' something. The more involved I am during the creation then more experience I get. Because of that, I am pretty skilled in most forms of production, blacksmithing included. I can make things from as simple as a sword to as complicated this carriage." "Isn''t that kind of unfair though? If you get experience from creating items as well as fighting, doesn''t that mean you level up faster than others?" "Yes and no, it''s more complicated than that. It is true that production Natures like mine have an advantage early on, they were the first ones to reach a level a hundred after all, but to keep that rate up for a long time is something that very few can do. But the amount of experience a player receives decreases for each subsequent recreation. If the production-based players do not keep getting better at their crafts, they will fall behind. Mine in particular, ''Creator,'' emphasizes new creations. That means if I want to get any significant experience I need to continuously invent items that I have never created before. If I didn''t regularly hunt with Claudia, I would actually be pretty low level." "If I learned a production skill like blacksmithing or woodworking would I also get experience from it?" Nero asked, curious if it would be worth the try. "Sure," Octavia shrugged in response. "Though, like how I get less experience from hunting, you would get less experience from making things. Actually, now that I think about it, you probably get a reduced about of experience like I do." "What do you mean?" "Well, your nature ''The Beast,'' doesn''t provide you with any stat boosts or fighting techniques right? At least not yet?" Nero nodded in response. "I thought as much based on the fact you have assimilation and beast tongue. Both of those can be classed as supplementary skills. While not everything is known about the Nature system, players have classified natures into three broad categories. Those like warrior, hunter, assassin, and such get bonuses to combat, and fighting are generally called combat natures. Those like me, blacksmiths, tailors, engineers, and the like are production-based classes. We get bonuses applied to our creations as well as more experience for the effort. Our Natural skills generally allow us to create better items. The final category sometimes called ''lore based'' Natures. It''s a catch-all category for everything that isn''t part of the first two. You''ll see the most variety of skills here, but they are generally supplementary ones, they provide indirect benefits, and it is up to the player to put them to use." "I see, so I have a ''lore based'' Nature?" "Probably, sometimes Natures change after their second advancement. Besides, these are only broad categories that are helpful for general guidelines. Because the Nature system is so fluid and adapts to player growth, every single one might be completely unique. You would have somebody with a warrior Nature, whose description talks about item production and the skills it provides might be supplementary. You just never know."A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation. "So, what is your description then?" Nero asked, curious. "You can probably guess the gist based on the name. Some name their Nature to be deliberately confusing, but I wasn''t one of them. Fair warning though, unless you are really close to somebody do not ask about the description of their Nature. That''s essentially asking about the strengths and weaknesses of their characters. In gaming, where there is a lot of competition, that is a major faux pas." "Fair enough." Nero looked to his other sibling, the one who had barely said a word all day. "What about you Claudia? What''s your Nature? Medea said it was something like a mage?" "Something like that," she smiled demurely as she turned to look at him. "I have a combat Nature, though most of my experience comes from using summoned creatures." "Summoner? What do you summon?" Nero pressed, noting her straight posture, the way her hands were folded in her lap and her lack of excitement. This was a completely different woman than the one who had tackled him the other night. "I like cute summons." She answered. That told Nero absolutely nothing. This was a girl who once watched a nature documentary and called full grown hippopotamuses cute. Once, for her birthday, she had asked for either a kitten or a poisonous spider. "What about you Medea?" Octavia said when Nero was going to ask for more elaboration. "You never told us your Nature." "I told Nero." The sage said, but when noticing the reclining twin''s stink eye, she closed her book and elaborated. "I''m a sage, it a ''lore based'' nature as well. I get bonuses for raising the knowledge stat and learning spells, but I do not receive any direct assistance from my Nature when it comes to combat." "So that''s why you knew all those enchantments!" Octavia said in realization. At her brother''s confused look, she continued. "What do you think the knowledge stat does?" "No idea," Nero shrugged. "What is your knowledge stat at right now?" "Thirty-three, last time I checked." He got some appraising looks for his answer. "That is pretty high you know, for somebody who has only played Gods'' Nature for a few months. If you didn''t know what it does, why did you raise it so high." Claudia couldn''t help but ask. "It increased while I was reading. I like reading." He said simply. Octavia''s hand met her forehead with a loud smack as Claudia covered her smile with a hand. Medea let out a peal of laughter as well, startling Jorry who had been laying on her lap. "I should have known," Octavia murmured to herself. "Anyway, the knowledge stat is useless for the most part until it reaches fifty. Once it does, it becomes handy to those who know how to apply it correctly. What it does is present you with all the knowledge you have accumulated in the game. As you said, it increases when you read, but more specifically, when you learn. The more you learn, the more beneficial it can be. Once you have over fifty points in the stat, little popup screens start to appear in your vision. These are unobtrusive, so they don''t block your vision, and they only present you with the information you already know. If you''ve read about a monster and then meet that creature in the wild little messages will remind you about things like its mating habits, color variations or daily habits. These can range from very useful to completely irrelevant. The higher the knowledge stat, the more popups will appear and the higher the chance of something helpful appearing, like weaknesses." "But if it only shows you what you already know, then doesn''t it become a bit irrelevant if you actually memorize what you learn?" Nero asked. "Not really," Medea answered him. "Nobody can remember every word of the hundreds of books it takes to raise the knowledge stat to a hundred, let alone multiple hundreds. A single word can change the meaning of an entire thesis, so every little bit helps." "Not only that," Octavia continued. "Learning is not limited to book knowledge. We are learning every minute we are alive. If you have a high enough stat, these little messages provide you with a wealth of information. I have knowledge at over three hundred, one of the highest in the game due to its use in conjunction with my Nature. It tells me the names of people I have only heard about in passing, the value of the clothes their wearing, what their level likely is and, if I spend enough time around them, what their nature probably is. All this is based on information I already have but do not make the connection. I''ve heard that if somebody has a knowledge stat high enough, even if they are stupid, they can lead a small army to crush an opponent three times their number." "It''s not perfect of course," Medea took over once more. Nero''s head was going to get sore from swiveling between speakers. "It is up to the person to apply that information in real life scenarios, and there is no guarantee that what you learn is true. Just like not all books are factual, not all the popups are entirely accurate. But the more you apply the knowledge to real-life situations, the greater you refine it, the more use you can get out of it." "Alright, I think I understand," Nero said. "So, when you were talking about enchantments, you mean that because Medea has a high knowledge stat, she should get more popups than you when trying to think up enchantments?" "Precisely," Octavia nodded, since she was still lying down though, it didn''t really appear noticeable. "As I said, I have one of the highest knowledge stats known to players, and I specialize in creating items. Enchantment plays a significant role in that. The only way for her to be able to think of so many different options at the drop of a hat like that is if; A, she specialized in enchanting objects even more than I do, which I highly doubt. Or, B, she had a much higher knowledge stat than I do and got more popups to remind her than I did. The fact that she knows so many different spells that even I haven''t heard of mean that her stat must be at least a few hundred points more than me. I''m right, right?" At Medea''s nod of acknowledgment, Octavia pumped a fist in victory. "So how is it going? Creating a device that will allow you talk to animals, I mean." "Not too good," Octavia deflated. "With Medea''s help I have the right enchantments at hand, and finding the ones I want that can interact adequately and then forming the appropriate runes is always the longest part of making a powerful artifact. The problem is the material, we are talking about an item that will allow the wearer to understand every language that animals and monsters speak, even if we do not know the words or even if it exists in the first place. Unless we want it to be the size of a house, I''m going to need to experiment with the structure for right rune placement and use some of my most valuable material. If I can get it to work, it will be too expensive for most people to afford. It will be enormously useful, so much so that I''m not going to be selling any copies, but expensive to create." "If you need any help you can just tell me, I can''t do much but-" Nero stopped talking when the carriage ground to a halt. Quite frankly, he had forgotten that they were even moving in the first place the ride had been that smooth. "Looks like we''re here," Octavia said, getting up. "Claudia, can you grab the picnic basket. Medea can you make us some swimsuits. They don''t have to be anything fancy but something that will last the afternoon." The sage nodded in acceptance. "And you," she rounded on Nero. "You need to disable your privacy setting for the day." "Why?" He asked, confused. "Everybody knows that when you do eccentric training regimes, you have to record it, edit it, play a song over it, and make a badass training montage." Sometimes Nero wondered if his sisters were insane, but if the way both Claudia and Medea were nodding gravely in agreement, Nero asked himself if he was the odd one in the group. 016-2 Fish Out of Water "I''m still not sure about this," Nero yelled to his companions. "Don''t worry, you''ll be fine," Octavia yelled back. He would have taken more comfort in her words if he couldn''t hear the humor in her voice. "The more eccentric the montage, the more powerful you will become. That is common sense." "The how come my common sense is disagreeing?" "Because you have none!" She outright laughed now, Medea joined in, and even Claudia was using a hand to cover her mouth and stifle chuckles. "Fine! How is this going to work anyway?" He gave up on arguing, deciding that he wasn''t going to win. "These monsters are like flying fish in a way. Once we stir them up, they will jump out of the water to attack you. They are also pretty dumb, they''ll keep at it till they die or you do. All you have to do is hit them out of the air while staying on the board. If you fall in we''ll rescue you but to do that we''ll have to kill them ourselves and it would defeat our purpose. At most, they should be level ten, and there shouldn''t be more than two dozen or so in this lake. Once you''re done we can go swimming, the average respawn rate is a few days so we won''t have to worry about getting attacked." He eyed the platform on which he stood wearily. It wasn''t very large, probably the size of two surfboards side to side, and it wobbled on the surface of the water. To be honest, Nero wasn''t really confident in his ability to stay above the water. It was made by Medea, using her magic to shape an oval platform of wood. Looking towards the shore, he couldn''t help but feel a little aggrieved. Nero had initially planned for the day to be relaxing and worry-free, just him, his sisters and his friend enjoying a calm afternoon. Nero had succeeded, at least in part. While he was preparing to fight for his life, the girls were on the sandy bank, laying in lawn chairs Medea had conjured up, and basking in the sun. They were wearing bathing suits, also conjured, and drinking some sort of fruity beverages. While Medea and Octavia had decided to go with bikinis, Claudia was in a somewhat conservative one piece that flattered her figure, and Jorry was basking in the sun as well on her lap. While Nero knew that the twins were growing up, had already grown up, he didn''t know how to feel about them going out in public wearing clothes like that. Intellectually he knew that he had no right to tell them what they could or could not wear, but his protective instincts were still balking at the idea. Fortunately, apart from the four of them, there was nobody around to see them. The lake they had arrived at wasn''t large, only a hundred meters or so in diameter. It was surrounded by a strip of sand and, further back, a host of pine trees that gave the area some privacy. The water wasn''t entirely clear but rather a shade of emerald green that merged with a deep blue as it neared the center. It was in this blue circle at the center of the lake that Nero stood on his small wooden platform. Like the girls, he was wearing a conjured swim suite, just some lightweight shorts that wouldn''t drag him down if he fell in. There was one thing that stood out, to Nero at least, and that was his body. While he had ignored it for the majority of the time, he had been in the game due to the fact Nero was always wearing clothes, without a shirt on and only in shorts, he was confronted by the fact that this really wasn''t his real body. Unlike other players who used a capsule, he was just using a helmet. The frame his avatar was using was generic, slightly shorter than he was in real life and the arms were longer. Looking down at himself he didn''t see the muscle tones he had developed over the years of labor, he didn''t the odd scar he had picked up or the butterfly-shaped birthmark on his chest. In many ways, he looked like a mannequin. "You ready?" Medea asked. "Give me a second." Nero took a deep breath. He gathered his willpower, felt for that wellspring of energy in his body, and coiled a snake in his mind. Nero held the image for a second, reaffirming his belief that what he was doing was going to work. Then Kaesar released it. The snake sprung, the energy pooling around his hands. "Evolve!" With his declaration, the magic took shape. Nero didn''t have to look to know it worked, but he did anyway. His fingers now looked like dinosaur claws, though separated at the finger joint to allow movement. Though the tips were curved, spikes were protruding where the phalanges of the fingers joined as well as on the knuckles. This way, whether slashing or smashing the magically shaped white cartilage would protect the hand. It looked like he was wearing some sort of monstrous glove made of bone. "I''m ready." Medea looked over at him, interested. "Did you create that spell? You''ll have to teach it to me later." "You could probably do the same thing but better. These claws take up over three-quarters of my MP." While he used them Nero''s maximum MP was lowered from his, it''s pitiful 100 to an even more pathetic 20. "I have a few spells that are similar." She nodded in agreement. "But there is nothing wrong with learning another one. Anyway, here we go." She raised her had, and a bubble the size of her head appeared in it. The balloon slowly compressed itself till it was no bigger than a pill. She then threw the compressed pellet into the lake and, after a few seconds, the water shuddered as the air was released. The ripples on the water caused Nero''s platform to wobble unsteadily, but he managed to keep his balance. There was a moment of tense silence, Nero''s eyes were darting around the area, alert for any change. He suddenly heard a splashing sound from behind him. He whirled, arms rising to fend off whatever attack was coming. As he turned, he saw a blur pass close to his face. It was moving too fast to get a good look, but it was colored white and brown. Another splash, this was right in front of him, so his hands were able to intercept it. With his fingers pressed straight into his palm so as not to perforate it with his new claws, the spikes on his knuckles rammed into the leaping monster, a little red number appearing briefly above its head. There was a satisfying thud, and it''s small body shot back into the water from the blow. Nero had no time to celebrate as another sound of water being displaced to his right caused him to turn once more. This time he was more prepared, however, and when the creature lunged at him, he managed to catch it. This was the first time Nero got a good look at his enemies. It looked like nothing he had ever seen before. Like somebody had decided to crossbreed a rattlesnake with a seagull. Its body was no more significant than the average gull and was also covered in white and gray feathers as usual. That is where the normality ended, however, instead of tail feathers, it sported the rattler''s distinctive tail. Its beak also donned a pair of curved fangs that, even as Nero held it, tried to sink themselves into his hand. Its attack was blocked by the bone-like substance covering the back of his hand, but Nero still felt a stinging sensation from the blow. He would have tried to choke the life out of it like he had to the rats before, but instead, Nero threw it back into the water as hard as he could. He wasn''t sure these things even had lungs. Once more alerted by the sound of water, Nero tried to turn around again. This time, however, he was unsuccessful. As he twirled, the platform under him buckled from the continuous movement and wobbled unsteadily. He was forced to shift his feet and wave his arms to desperately keep his balance. This was all the opportunity the weird monsters needed, and two managed to sink their fangs into him, one on his shoulder and another in his leg. Nero roared, more from the shock of those needle-like fangs than from any real pain due to the setting of the game. A quick look at his health told him he had lost around a sixth of his total HP. Nero crouched down on the platform, wary of another attack, and grabbed the two gull/snake things attached to him and yanked them away, an action which damaged him further. Another of the monsters shot over his head as he did. Deciding he didn''t have time to choke the life out of them once more, Nero took a much more brutal path than merely throwing them back into the water. He squeezed, hard. His new claws barely felt resistance as they perforated the necks of the two, blood gurgled forth, dyeing the white cartilage of his claws red. They squeaked in pain, a sound which Beast Tongue translated to ''Argghhh.'' "Bite, bite, die." The voice of another monster alerted Nero to another attack. He rose to his feet once more and, using the bodies of the two creatures in his hands to smack away the third one. Nero decided he would rather have his hands free to ward off further attacks. It took a moment to shake off the two bird/serpent things, stuck as they were on his claws. While doing so, he has to sidestep two more lunges and bent out of the way of a third. Nero finally managed to dislodge the creatures, just in time to see another ripple in the water, indicating another lunge. "Kill you, eat-" Whatever the weird gull thing was trying to say as it attacked him was cut off as Nero, using his claws to cut at its lunging form. The sharp appendages cut bloody groves into its body, blood showering down on Nero''s face as the body tumbled back into the water. Another of the monsters lunged at his feet, and Nero kicked it away like a demented football. There was a second of silence, no monsters lunging out of the water, before the telltale sound of displaced water indicated another bout was about to begin. Nero wasn''t sure if it was coincidence or not, but the most recent attack was more coordinated than the others. He saw two monsters lunging at his head, three at his torso, one at his legs from his left and he heard another one behind him, though where that one was attacking he didn''t know. Desperately crouching down and tilting to the side, Nero managed to avoid the those who were aiming for his head, as well as the one behind him, and one of the ones pointing for his torso. Of course, he didn''t manage to avoid all of them. The one aiming for his leg managed to sink its fangs right below his knee and other lodged itself on his left forearm. The final monster rammed its beak into his solar plexus, knocking the air from his lungs an causing him to stagger back a little. If his center of gravity hadn''t been so low due to crouching, Nero would have ended up in the water. Luckily, due to its head-on collision, the monster was stunned for a second, allowing Nero to grab it with his unhindered arm and throw it into the water once more. Once that was done he grasped for the two still attached to his body and, using the same tactic as earlier, sunk his claws into their bodies at the base of their neck. Unlike the pair from earlier, however, when Nero was forced to release them to ward off further attacks, they did not dive under the water. Instead, their bodies floated up to the surface, dead.If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. It took another ten minutes of frantic struggle, with the number gull/snake bodies floating to the surface increasing, before Nero realized he wasn''t being attacked anymore. Thankfully there was no other concerted attack. The adrenalin was still pumping in his veins, he eyes kept roaming around the lake, searching for more enemies. But none came. The waters settled down, the only ripples coming from his board and the bodies that floated on the surface. "HeheheHAHAHAHAHA." It started as a chuckle before evolving into a full-blown laugh. His body was red with blood, his own flowed from the occasional puncture wound, but the vast majority belonged to his enemies. The water flying around had kept it from sticking too much, but that didn''t prevent his claws from being dyed a vivid maroon color, nor his hair looking more like rust than its natural dark brown. Not caring about his appearance, Nero continued to laugh. A quick look at his health showed he had only 56 HP left, two more attacks and he would have died. That just made him laugh harder. Quite frankly, Nero had never felt this rush before. Sparing wasn''t lethal, and killing rats were never too dangerous, and the mice hadn''t fought so much as slaughtered him. Even when fighting the ratman he had been at risk of death but, because of the nature of the fight as well as the presence of Jorry, he had felt in control. This battle had been chaotic and desperate. He had been forced to keep his senses peeled to their absolute limit to know when the next attack would come. Nero had made mistakes, yes, but more than that, he was sure that the Augustus of two months ago would have died in the first few attacks. Because of this sense of growth, this adrenaline-fueled joy, Nero felt good. Despite the stinging of his wound, he felt excellent. Polite clapping shook him from his laughter. Looking towards the beach, he saw the girls watching him. Octavia and Medea were smiling at him while giving light applause. Jorry had opened his eyes long enough to see what the fuss was about before closing them once more. Claudia, though, was staring at him intently. There was a dangerous look in her eyes, one Nero did not recognize, as she gazed at his gore covered form, her hands gripping the sides of her lounge chair hard enough to turn her knuckles white. Then the moment passed, her eyes softened, and she released her chair to also clap. "What the hell were those things?" Nero couldn''t help but ask. "Sullen," Medea answered simply. She waved her hand and the bodies of the weird rattlesnake/seagull hybrids, Sullen, flew out of the water and piled themselves up on the beach. She was forced to use an aria due to the complicated nature of the next part, with a cry of ''Cleanse!'' all the blood in the area, both on Nero and the board as well as in the water separated itself into a floating ball of red liquid. Medea produced a small vial from somewhere, and the giant red blob somehow managed to squeeze itself in the tiny receptacle. "The sullen constitute a significant danger in the waters of Gods'' Nature," Medea explained once her task was done. "They are like piranhas, they''ll swarm an enemy and eat it alive. They can also jump out of the water so, unless you have a large ship, you are not safe anywhere. These are only babies, once they reach level ten they develop a paralytic poison in their fangs and leave birthing lakes like these through underground waterways to head towards the sea. Once they reach level three hundred, they also get the ability to fly, though sullen prefer the water, so they return to these lakes to lay their eggs." Nero shivered at the idea of a flying horde of those creatures, complete with poisonous fangs and all. "You sure we got all of them? I don''t want to fight them underwater." "Here," Medea said, her smile turning dangerous. "I''ll prove it." Nero only had a moment to widen his eyes in fear and let out an inarticulate shout as the platform he had been standing on shot into the air. Nero landed in the water with a mighty splash. "Hahaha, did you see his face," Octavia said between peals of laughter. "The way his eyes went wide. Hahaha, oh god, my sides." Medea also collapsed into fits of mirth. Though she desperately tried to control it, Claudia couldn''t help laughing as well. "Very funny," Nero said good-naturedly as he rose to the surface, spitting out water. "Are you guys coming in or what? The water feels great." "Sure, give us a second," Medea said standing up, desperately trying to stifle her giggles. She took off in a run towards the lake and eventually crashed into the water once the resistance became more than she could run through. Claudia was much calmer in her entrance, she merely waded into a deep enough part for her to dive under and emerged a few feet further in. Octavia had perhaps the most spectacular entrance. Like Medea, she took off running towards the water, but once she reached the end of the beach, she jumped forward. In a display that would be impossible in real life, Octavia rose over ten feet into the air. With a cry of ''Cannon Ball,'' she curled herself into a ball and plummeted into the water, sending massive waves of water everywhere. The group spent the next hour or so playing in the lake. They dove to the bottom to see if they could find anything but got nothing but the occasional plants for their trouble. They also used the platform as a springboard for tricks. Nero had no idea before now that Medea could perform a double backflip like that. At one point a splash war had developed, Medea and Octavia against Nero and Claudia. The latter two lost when they were forced to surrender when Medea cut off the mana supply to their swimsuits, leaving them naked in the water. Eventually, the constant activity tired them out enough that they retired to the beach to have lunch and rest. Probably thanks to the magical carriage, the food was still fresh. After eating, lethargy set in for the group. Medea had already fallen asleep in her chair, and Octavia was fiddling with something on her menu. Claudia was reading a book and Jorry, in a rare display of energy, was messing around in the waves of the lake. He kept trying to bite the white part of the water when it crashed on the shore. Nero chuckled to himself at the sight of the young snake, before letting out a sigh. He didn''t want to get up from his position on the warm sand but now was the best time to have this conversation. Thus, with a herculean effort, Nero rose to his feet and walked to his sister''s side. He tapped her on the shoulder to drag her attention away from her book. "Let''s take a walk." It was a part request and part order, so Claudia just nodded in acceptance and got up to follow him. As she followed him, he didn''t say anything. Nero was unsure where to start. There was the possibility that the problem was all in his head and it was some big misunderstanding. Despite that, as their guardian and brother, he wanted them to be able to talk to him about their problems. As they walked Claudia also didn''t talk, seeming to be content to follow along in silence. Eventually, after over ten minutes of walking and nearing the halfway point around the lake, Nero decided to bite the bullet. "Alright, what is going on with you?" He asked. "Nothing?" Claudia blinked in confusion as she half answered, half asked. "I know something is wrong." He pressed. "When you first arrived you were energetic and playful. Ever since then you''ve been quiet. You haven''t made a joke or argued with your sister once. So, what is wrong?" The way her eyes widened with realization before looking away quickly told Nero that there really was something going on with her. "You want me to get into arguments?" "I want you to be happy, and I know you two like to argue. But don''t change the topic. Even in real life, you aren''t this quiet, and you love Gods'' Nature. Is something going on at school? Is somebody giving you a hard time?" "No, nothing like that," Claudia answered quickly, still not meeting his eyes. "Look," Nero sighed, frustrated at getting anywhere. "If it''s something private or embarrassing you don''t have to tell me, but I wish you would talk to Sophia or your sister about whatever is bothering you. You know we''ll always be here if you ever need anything." "It''s just," she said slowly, wringing her hand nervously. She finally looked Nero in the eyes, and he was surprised to see them wet with unshed tears. "I''m scared." "What are you afraid of?" He asked softly, dragging her gently into a hug. Claudia didn''t answer right away. Instead, she wrapped her arms around him and laying her head on his shoulder. "I''m scared of letting you down, I don''t want to disappoint you." She finally said, her voice choked with tears. "There is nothing either of you two could do that would ever disappoint me," Nero said firmly, sure of that fact. "But, you work so hard. You always take care of us. We were just a burden to you. Without us you could have stayed in school, gone to college and gotten a good job. Instead, you work all day and come home exhausted, and you still spend time with us." Nero made to speak up, to tell her that he did not regret any of those things, that he did not think of them as a burden at all. Claudia just kept going, her words spilling out like a dam bursting. "So I thought, I thought I should help out more. I tried really, really hard to be a good girl. I didn''t want to make it any worse for you, I wanted you to be proud of me. But then I started playing Gods'' Nature. It was fun, you know. We got to see a lot of exciting things, and magic is really cool. We were some of the first players, we were always out in the wild, fighting people and monsters. Eventually, I started to fall in love with it. Not with the game, the world or adventure. I fell in love with fighting, with killing. I deleted my old character just so I could create another one that could fight and kill more. People started to fear me, they would run away whenever I came near. And I liked that too. I don''t regret or feel sad for anything I did, I love the violence too much now to stop. But I feel regret that I do not regret my actions. I wanted to be a good girl, I didn''t want to make you worry or be afraid of me as well." Listening to his sister''s ramblings, that were full of tears and yet sounded ecstatic at the thought of violence, Nero''s eyes widened in surprise. Whatever he had thought the problem would be, this wasn''t it. Even as he patted her back softly, Nero sighed in realization. It turned out to really be a simple misunderstanding in the end, though not one he had expected. Drawing himself away from her, Nero held Claudia''s shoulders and stared at her. She wouldn''t look meet his gaze. "Look at me!" He said forcefully. She did so. "You are a very foolish girl. There is nothing you or your sister could ever do that would make me feel disappointed in you. You understand me?" She nodded dumbly, her face still wet with tears. "If you wanted to brutally murder everyone in this game, I would still be proud of you. If you become a serial killer in real life, I would help you dissolve the bodies. Does this make you think less of me?" Claudia shook her head in disagreement, eyes wide and mouth parted in surprise. "Then why would you think I think any less of you for the same?" At the end of the day, the misunderstanding stemmed from the skewed perceptions the twins had of Augustus. In him, they only saw the caring older brother, the hard-working guardian. He was a paragon of virtue in their minds, placed on a pedestal that didn''t really exist. The saying was right, admiration is the furthest thing from understanding. They did not see, not like his friend saw, his amoral, almost psychopathic tendencies. They did not see him twist his words to manipulate others for enjoyment, they did not know that there were precisely three people he cared about. He would gleefully and sadistically butcher anybody else with no moral qualms if it meant they were fine. "Sorry," Claudia said softly, wiping her eyes and giving him a watery smile. "I didn''t want to make you worry." "That is fine, but I''ll worry about you anyway. As your older brother, I''ll worry about you till I die, whether you are a good girl or not. All you have to do is be happy, that is your one job." Claudia nodded in acceptance and the pair started walking again, Nero''s arm around her shoulder as she leaned her head on his. "Besides, I think its funny. Imagine your friend''s face when they see sweet Maude brutally mow down monsters." Claudia chuckled for a moment at the image before suddenly stopping in her tracks. Nero looked at her to see her eyes wide open in surprise. Then, without any warning, her hand met her forehead with a loud ''SMACK.'' "Of course! Of course!" Claudia shouted in realization as she whirled to grab Nero''s shoulders and gave them a good shape. "I forgot about the gap!" "The gap? What gap?" Nero asked in confusion, unsure where this sudden burst of enthusiasm was coming from. "Gap moe!" She shouted as if it should be obvious. The way she pronounced it, mo-eh, told Nero that it was probably a Japanese thing. Sometimes Nero did not understand his sister''s mind at all. Looking at her though, as if she had just found the answer to the universe, Nero decided to just be happy that she was recovered from her bout of depression. **** "Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it." Terry Pratchett 017-1 Little Talks "Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it." Terry Pratchett **** "You know," Nero began softly, careful not to speak too loud lest he attracts attention. "You are going to have to speak up some more. Once they finish that translation item, I''m not going to be the only one able to talk to you." "I know," Jorry responded, just as softly. For once the snake wasn''t riding on Nero''s shoulder. Instead, he was slithering quietly on the ground next to him. Right now the pair of companions were slowly wandering through the sewers that ran through the hill under Sarah Keep. Nero was surprised there even was a sophisticated drainage system in what was ostensibly a stereotypical medieval city. To be fair, the fact that there wasn''t an abundance feces and other such waste on the street, as would be present in most pre-modern towns, should have hinted that either the game creator did not want that feature or once again magic had influenced the development of civilization. In this case, Nero thought it was the latter situation, the tunnels were wide passageways with a channel of filth and refuse floating slowly downhill from the peak of the keep towards the outside. From what Nero had learned, a few enchanted grates would filter the water back into an underwater source that provided clean drinking water to the city. The rest would be separated into organic matter for compost and non-organic matter for recycling. He had to applaud the keep''s ecological awareness, though that did not stop him from almost vomiting the first time his enhanced senses were exposed to the stench of the area. At the moment Nero and Jorry were carefully sneaking around the area and checking to see if any of the mice they had fought before made their home in these sewers. They were extra quiet to not alert any potential prey and to avoid being noticed by the occasional guards. Being in here wasn''t precisely illegal, but Nero did not feel like having to answer any awkward question that would inevitably be asked. Thankfully for his poor stealth skills, the torches that the guards carried were a dead giveaway in the dark of the tunnels, so the pair had advanced warning when to turn in another direction to avoid attention. With two new levels from the picnic expedition, the extra points going into strength to increase his damage and health, as well as his new spell, Nero felt confident enough to start investigating the mice conspiracy and the ''Venerable'' mouse. So long as they weren''t taken by surprise like last time, and there were only a few enemies, the pair should be able to deal with a fight. But more important than that was information. Currently, Nero knew too little about the situation, and so the pair were investigating the sewers as a potential location for a mouse hideout. "Are you scared?" "A little, I''m not really good at this talking thing. It''s complicated." "How is it complicated?" "There are a lot of words I don''t know. I''m afraid I''ll sound dumb." The snake began, and a look from Nero prompted him to continue. "It''s not just that, I''m uncomfortable talking. It used to be simple. Eat, sleep, and if I die, revive. It wasn''t a good life, but I was used to it. There used to be a few field mice in the park that I would hunt before the bird showed up." Jorry''s voice was nostalgic, but then it shifted to a harsher tone. "Now I''ve evolved, I''m stronger, I get to eat treats and try different food. But I have to worry about mice trying to kill me instead and talking to people." "Sometimes simplicity is good." Nero nodded in agreement. "There is nothing wrong with wanting fewer worries. Having more knowledge is better though. Whether you worry about future problems, or even know about them, or not, it doesn''t change the fact that they are out there. You said there were mice in the park? What would happen if the mice we fought went there recruiting, or just hunted them down like they did the rats? They would have probably killed you too. It is easy to be unaware of the world around us, the tricky part is to gain knowledge. Do you regret coming with me?" "No," it was dark in the tunnel, but the occasional sewer grate on the ceiling allowed enough late afternoon sun to show the snake shaking its small head in disagreement. "I''ve had fun, I got to kill a lot of things, and I''ve gotten stronger. I''m going to keep evolving, and I''ll become a great world serpent and fly. I don''t want to be helpless against the sky again, so I''m going to follow you until I get there." "Why do you think I can help with that?" Nero couldn''t help but ask, he was a low-leveled newbie, barely starting out himself. He was really curious about where this confidence was coming from. "Because you''ll never stop. You will keep going, keep getting stronger and better. Even if somebody is lost, if they keep walking they''ll eventually reach somewhere." There was a nugget of wisdom hiding in the serpent''s awkward words. "You do know that there are likely millions of outlanders like me, right?" Nero couldn''t help but ask. "Medea, Claudia or Octavia, they are all much stronger than me, and I doubt they would mind taking you with them. Hell, you wouldn''t have to worry about dying at all and, once they finish that translator, you''ll be able to talk to them just fine. So why don''t you go with them?" Nero wasn''t devaluating himself, he was just incredibly self-aware. Right now he was like all other beginner players. His advantages were his higher play time, higher than average intellect and education, as well as connections to a few influential players. There were probably thousands of other players with those same advantages. When it came to playing time, others could play twenty-four seven due to using the capsule if they were on a retirement period. There were as many people with important connections as there were powerful people. Nero was smart, he wasn''t ashamed to admit that he was almost certainly more intelligent and more cunning than 95% of the population. But that remaining 5% of 22,000,000,000 was still 1,100,000,000. There were bound to be many people more clever than him playing. Furthermore, Nero was hampered by some other factors. First of all, he lacked when it came to formal education. Just imagining what somebody with advanced knowledge of chemistry or physics could do with Medea''s powers sent a shiver down his spine. He was also incredibly young, he wasn''t even thirty. Other players were most likely way older and more experienced than him. It was like he was a six-year-old playing cards against a fifty-year-old, the older you were, the more tricks you have accumulated. Finally, and most damning in Nero''s eyes, he was woefully ignorant about games in general. Formal education could be overcome with self-learning and dedication. Age could be combated with energy and creativity. But in a game where everybody has the same starting point, it was those who made the best use of their resources which would prosper.Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. Nero was slowly learning about gaming in general. But he was behind those who had spent centuries in this industry, who played professionally, who knew tonnes of tricks from other games, who analyzed data for years and poured over spreadsheets all to create their perfect character. Just the term min-max, the idea to minimize disadvantages and maximize advantages, was something that Nero had no idea even applied to games before reading about it on a forum. He had always thought of games a hobby, recreational activity for those who wanted something more interactive than books and movies while not being interested in physical activities. Nero had severely underestimated gamers and their industry. The only good thing about this was that because Gods'' Nature was the first immersive virtual reality game, as opposed to an augmented reality game, and nobody had reached or even knew if there was a max level, many professional gamers were as blind as him when it came to ''endgame'' content. "Besides the fact that I don''t like talking to other people, you mean?" Jorry deadpanned, shaking Nero out of his introspection. "I could ask you the same question. If you asked those girls, they could have solved this issue quickly, and we wouldn''t be here. So how come you didn''t?" It was the afternoon after the trip, and the girls were hard at work finishing up the item that would allow them to imitate Beast Tongue. Nero had decided to use this opportunity to commence his investigation without telling them. But Jorry was right, those girls could probably solve this problem in half a day with little issue if Nero explained the situation to them. "Probably for the same reason as you," Nero admitted. "I think we can do this on our own and depending on other people''s strength can backfire in the long run. It is okay to use any means to accomplish a goal, but one shouldn''t sacrifice long-term growth for short-term solutions." "There you go, I do not want safety. I want to exceed my limits to continue to evolve. I won''t be able to do that if I never worry about dying. I know that if I follow you, I''ll probably die hundreds of times, but that is fine if you help me grow." Despite being young and shy at times, Jorry could be quite blunt when he wanted to be. "Fair enough, I guess we''ll be working together for a while then. Do you have any idea how to keep evo-" Nero stopped talking when Jorry halted beside him and went still. This had happened a few times before. Once had been a false alarm but the other two times had been a guard approaching from out of sight. The snake remained still for a few seconds, tongue flickering in and out as he tasted the air. After a few seconds, Jorry looked Nero in the eye and nodded his little head to the left, indicating that a nearby path was where the enemy was coming from. If it were a human or a false alarm, the snake would have just said something, so this meant it was another animal. Nero tried to taste the air as well but, apart from the foul taste of the sewers that he had become used to, he couldn''t notice anything different in the air. Nero frowned, a bit fed up with his inability to match the senses of his snake companion despite theoretically possessing the same mouth, tongue, and sense of taste. He would have to investigate a way to improve it later. For now, to be safe, Nero crouched down and snuck his way to the corner of the nearby intersection. Peeking around the corner, Nero couldn''t see anything out of the ordinary, but he remained patient and did not move from his concealed location. His patience paid off not even a minute later. Casually walking down the pathway of the tunnel not a hundred feet from his hiding place, illuminated by the nearby manhole cover, were a pair of rats and on their backs, with tiny needle-like swords, a couple mice were ridding. The pair did not seem to be in a hurry, and they reminded Nero of the patrolling guards he had seen a few times. They were likely doing the same thing, patrolling their territory. At the moment Nero had a few choices. He could try and follow them, but the advanced senses of the other party made him doubt whether his pitiful sneaking could really hide him for long. Besides, Nero had already spent a few hours down in these tunnels, and it was fast approaching the time he had to leave for Ground Sheer. He could also just leave, now that he knew the mice could be found here, Nero would inevitably be able to encounter them in future if he kept looking. Nero decided to take the third option, however, to fight. This was an excellent opportunity try his new found strength against a future foe. Nodding at Jorry to get ready, Nero whispered a quick ''evolve'' to deploy his claws. He wouldn''t wait for the mice to get too close, they would inevitably sense him long before that, but so long as they were close enough, he could rush out and surprise them. "What do you think the Venerable One will do tonight, Drain?" Suddenly one of the mice spoke up, its squeaky voice echoing off the walls of the tunnel. "The same thing he does every night Blinky." The other one responded in a deeper voice. "Try and take over the world." Nero really wanted to deadpan at the pair about the likelihood of a mouse, probably no higher than a level twenty creature or it would have evolved, taking over the world. But he held it in, waiting for a few more moments for the pair to approach. "I want a new rat, this one is dumb," Blinky said, drawing a sigh from Drain. "I''ve told you a hundred times, no new rats. The other rat group ran away, so we need to work with what we have. Just wait till we can ride birds, then you can get rid of it." "But its dumb," Blinky whined. "You''re dumb!" Drain yelled at his companion. Nero decided that the pair were close enough and took this opportunity to dash out of his hiding place and attack the pair. He tried to not to make a sound as he rushed at the pair, hoping to get closer but it took him a few seconds to speed towards the mice, giving them the time to notice him and spur their rat mounts at him with a cry of ''enemy!'' Nero tried to kick one of the mice away, something that shouldn''t have been a problem given their difference in stature, but to his surprise, the mouse/rat combo did not go flying. Instead, they merely skidded back a foot with a squeak and red -23 over their head. Despite his surprise at the resistance, Nero lashed out with his claws at the other mouse, and he managed to clip it slightly, doing five damage, but not without getting briefly stabbed by the small creature''s sword. The loss was minimal, only twelve points of health, but it still stung slightly. Clearly, his improved stats had made Nero a lot less vulnerable since the last time he had faced these rat riders. The mouse had spurred its mount back towards him, but Nero ignored it, focusing on trying to slash the closest one. The reason was Jorry, who had rushed behind him unnoticed, had finally arrived and, with a hiss, launched himself at the rat. By now the black rat snake was almost a foot and a half long, much more prominent than its foe. The rat rider barely managed to maneuver its mount out of the way of the lunging serpent but ended getting smacked by the tail and sending it skidding further away. While this was happening, Nero managed to land a direct hit on his enemy while it was distracted by Jorry''s appearance. The claws passed through the leg of the mouse and continued to carve its way through the flank of the rat, taking a large chunk of flesh with it. The red number that floated over the creatures as they squeaked in pain was a whopping -58, the highest amount Nero had been able to deal so far in the game. Missing one leg and thus unable to control the rat accurately, on top of bleeding profusely, the vermin were easy to kill with two more slashes. The fight ended up being much easier than Nero had expected. Without the elements of surprise and numbers, the mice''s low defense and vitality proved no match for Nero''s sharp claws. Jorry had a more difficult time of it, acting the part of the dragon to the rat rider''s knight. The mouse would dart in, land a few pokes on the serpent and dash away again. The damage was minimal due to Jorry''s tight skin and the sword''s inability to penetrate it entirely but if it managed to keep it up the mouse had a chance of killing the snake through a death of a thousand cuts. Unfortunately, Jorry wasn''t dumb enough to keep the same pattern and, during the next lunge by the rider, rather than try and bite his attacker Jorry swept out his tail and knocked at the mouse knight. With its momentum ended, Jorry managed to wrap himself around his foe and with a few applications of Bind the mouse and its mount met their ends with a final cry of ''Narf.'' The fight, if you could call it that, hadn''t even lasted a minute. Nero was honestly a bit underwhelmed, expecting a much more difficult struggle. "Well, that was easy." He couldn''t help but sigh in a bit of disappointment even as Jorry was busy swallowing the bodies of both rats and riders. 017-2 Little Talks "Eureka!" "Gah!" The exclamation of joy had surprised Nero so much that he had let himself slip from the branch he had been using for pull-ups. He only had time to widen his eyes before he crashed into the ground head first with a thud and a small red -21 appearing above his head. He was a bit stunned by the impact, so it took him a moment to realize that Medea and the twins were now standing above him, Claudia looking much too pleased with herself. The other two did not even try to conceal their smiles either. "Ow," he deadpanned at them. "It was Claudia''s fault!" Octavia said defensively, even as she held out a hand to help him to his feet which he gratefully accepted. "I''m sure it was," he said as he patted the dirt from his clothes. "And I''m sure you tried your best to stop her." Octavia and Medea both gave him innocent smiles that weren''t fooling anybody. Nero turned to Jorry who was still in the tree, hanging above their heads. "How come you didn''t warn me they were here?" "I thought you knew," the serpent said as it dropped onto his shoulder. Because Jorry wasn''t as small as he used to be, Nero buckled slightly under the increased weight. "You should have been able to taste them a while ago." "No, I couldn''t," the assimilation of Jorry''s senses had produced results, but they were underwhelming so far. They were not as sensitive as he had expected. Initially, he had thought it was due to unfamiliarity and that time would improve them but so far that had not happened. "So how come you guys are dropping by?" Medea groaned as realized where this was going. "We wanted to see if you wanted to hang-out," Octavia replied smiling, her eyes twinkling with mischief as she decided to play along. "Ugh. I hate you both, so much." Medea groaned, but she couldn''t help smiling. When was the last time she had heard Augustus make a pun? I had to have been years ago by now. "Anyway!" Claudia loudly said, bringing the attention back to herself. "I did it! I have created a way for players to talk to animals. Praise me!" She held up something in front of her. It was a stylized choker, the kind wore for fashion to draw attention to the neck area. I was made from a black lacy material and woven in a complicated pattern with a single red gem in the front. "Why you! You didn''t do anything!" Octavia shouted at her sister. "Without me, you could have never completed it." "All you did was sit around complaining that it was taking too long! That''s it! You were no help at all." "Exactly, I provided motivation. That is the job of a leader. Thus, if there are rewards, they should go to me." Claudia looked down at her sister, incredibly smug at her reasoning. "You bitch." Octavia looked like she was going to lunge at her sister, but she stopped when Nero spoke up. "Why a choker?" He couldn''t help but ask. "Costs mostly," Medea shrugged in response. "The only metal that would have accepted the enchantments was too rare, so there was no point using it for this when it could be put to better purpose. The spells woven into this fabric are absurdly complicated because they allow people to speak any non-human language, so the material needs to have enough ability to withstand the magic. This silk is also pretty expensive, but there is a place where it can be farmed, so it isn''t as rare as the metal. The jewel is also one of the few crystals that can hold overlapping rune formations, so it is probably the most expensive part. Unfortunately, it is essential if you don''t want the item to run out of power after a few uses." "No, I can understand using cloth rather than metal. I can also understand wanting a smaller item rather than enchanting something like a helmet. I was asking why did you guys make it a choker? Why not a necklace or something of the sort? It doesn''t look like something most guys would wear." "You don''t need one, so why would a guy wear it?" Claudia asked with a tilt of the head. "I thought you guys would have made extra to sell or something," Nero said. "Pfft, no," Octavia chuckled at the idea. "These things are so expensive and difficult to make that there is no way we could sell them. My Creation skill went up from 45 to 46 just by creating three of them. Do you have any idea how hard it is raising a level in a skill close to fifty? That should give you an idea about the value of these things." "Besides," Medea interjected. "Anybody who could afford these would be a dedicated player or a significant power. These people tend not to care about looks, and I have seen guys wear full dresses because they had good stat bonuses. Never underestimate a gamer''s desire for items." "I''m not even sure that Gods'' Nature has something like this out there. " Octavia said. "There are probably plenty of people out there who can talk to animals, there are most likely those who can speak with all creatures like you. But I have never heard of an item that will allow anybody to do the same. Right now we have a monopoly on them, if we were to sell these translators, we would be giving away one of our advantages to our enemies."You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story. "Enemies? You guys have enemies?" The three girls looked at him sadly, like they were looking at a disabled puppy or a person mentally handicapped. Claudia even went so far as to hug him. "There, there," she said softly like she was talking to a child. "Let Claudia protect you. I won''t let anybody take advantage of my brother so don''t worry." Nero pushed himself out of his sister''s embrace and gave her his best possible deadpan. "You do know this is an MMO right?" Medea asked hesitantly, almost as if she was afraid of the answer. "That means Massive Multiplayer Online." "I know that!" He snapped back, a bit too embarrassed to tell her that not too long ago he didn''t. "Then that means there are other people." She continued slowly as if talking to a child. He gave her the stink eye, and she continued in her normal voice. "That means players will compete over resources, like grinding spots to level up, quests, or rare items. Apart from us, you should consider all other players or even strong NPCs as enemies. A good player will use any advantage they have. That is why most high-level players in Gods'' Nature never reveal their Nature''s description, it would allow others to gain their same advantages, and they could discover their weaknesses." "But that doesn''t make any sense!" Nero said. "This game is like twice the size of earth, isn''t it? And supposedly, players haven''t even explored ten percent of it. If you fight over what you already have then you might miss out on better stuff in the future. That is not even counting the sheer lack of numbers of players. I have barely seen any other players despite living in this city for months." Apart from the recruitment square where players came to attract newbies and the spawn point which was always active, Nero had rarely seen other players while wandering the streets. "Exactly," Octavia said. "Right now everybody is focused on exploring or raising their level to explore. At the moment players are trapped in an east-west corridor between Selwe and Sarra. The monsters to the north and south are too strong for most players, and Pioneer players have a tremendous mortality rate, forcing them to start over from the cities where they respawn. But this situation won''t last forever, once these obstacles are overcome, there will be a mad dash of players trying to get any sort of advantage they can. Imagine what being able to get information and quests that nobody else can do for people." Nero could see it in his mind''s eye right now, asking animals like birds to scout the way for you was just the tip of the iceberg. You would be able to recruit beasts to your cause or negotiate with them to forge alliances. Nero had always thought that assimilation was his most useful skill, but if used correctly Beast Tongue could be even more deadly in the long run. "How many players do you think have accounts in Gods'' Nature?" Claudia suddenly asked, her eyes not on her brother but on the menu screen she had open in front of her. "Maybe, ten million or so," Nero guessed. "As of right now, the number is 753 609 743. Even as I said that number, it increased by another two hundred. Do you understand how popular it is now? There was no advertising for this game, you had to find a site to order them online because no stores sold it. Despite this, in only two years over three-quarters of a billion people have already started playing. No other game has ever been this successful, and it is still going strong. This time next year, we will probably have over two billion players. And they will all want a slice of the pie." Claudia looked really serious, not joking around in the least. "Where are you getting those numbers?" Nero couldn''t help but ask. "It is a black site, you won''t find it in any search engine, but almost all high-level players know it," Medea said as she too fiddled with her screen. "I''ve sent you a link." Opening his own menu and accessing the network function, Nero clicked on a link, and it brought him to a home page of a website called ''The Gods'' Pantheon.'' It was a simple layout, with only a few tabs to click on. Nero clicked on the one that said stats and, sure enough, numerous other facts were displayed beside the supposed number of players. There was the highest player level of 246, highest difficulty quest cleared of B- and other such statistics. "How reliable is this website? I thought that nobody knew anything about the creation of the game so who made this." He asked looking at Medea specifically. "Rumor is that the maker of the game created this. Not everybody believes it, but so far nobody has been able to disprove any of the statistics present." Octavia answered, and Medea nodded in agreement. "All right, I guess you are right not to sell these translators. It was a dumb idea." Nero said. "So, you''ve tested them, and they work?" "We haven''t tested them yet. We wanted to talk to Jorry first," Octavia explained. "But we know they work, I have a skill that tells me anything an item does so they definitely do what they are supposed to." "Alright, go ahead." Nero put Jorry on the ground in front of him, ignoring the snake''s betrayed look, as the girls put on the chokers. "Hello Jorry," Medea said softly, crouching in front of the snake. "I''m Medea, I''m glad we can talk now." "..." Jorry remained silent, Nero could read his companion pretty well by now, so he understood that the snake''s stiff posture meant he was paralyzed from shyness. There was a beat of awkward silence as the girls waited for the snake to response, but he didn''t. Nero couldn''t stop himself from taking advantage of this opportunity. "Well? Aren''t you going to answer him? It''s rude to ignore people Medea." His friend looked at Nero wide-eyed. "I didn''t hear him say anything. Do these not work? Are they not turned on? Could it be spell interference." She mumbled as she looked down at her choker. "Even if you can''t understand him, he still understands you so you should answer anyway." "What did he ask?" "He asked what those lumps of meat on your chest were," Nero said it a calmly as he could not to give away the game. He was rewarded with a wide-eyed, red-faced Medea. Nero roared with laughter. "Oh god, hahaha, the look on your face, haha." "Very funny," Medea said with narrow eyes, realizing she had been had. The twins behind her also laughed. "He didn''t say anything did he?" "Nope," Nero said, getting his chuckles under control. "He''s a bit shy. Common Jorry, say hi." He nudged the snake slightly, and they finally got a response from the serpent. "H-hello," he squeaked out, sounding more like a mouse than a snake. He was unprepared for the girls descending on him. Claudia got to him first and picked him up. She snuggled the snake to her chest with a squeal. "You''re soooo cute!" She would have continued to smush him, but Octavia managed to wrest the snake from her grasp. Jorry did not have time to rest, however, as Octavia copied her twin and squeezed the snake in a tight hug. "Can you say my name. Say, Octavia. Oc-ta-vi-a. Say it for mommy." She said in a cutesy voice. "Nero, help!" Nero ignored the plea. This was an excellent way for Jorry to get used to his sisters. It had nothing to do with petty revenge for not warning him of their arrival, no sirree. ***** "Be careful to leave your sons well instructed rather than rich, for the hopes of the instructed are better than the wealth of the ignorant." Epictetus 018-1 Go Your Own Way "Be careful to leave your sons well instructed rather than rich, for the hopes of the instructed are better than the wealth of the ignorant." Epictetus ***** "We''ll leave it there for today. Tomorrow will be the last lecture, and it will be focused on answering questions. I urge you to think deeply about what to ask as time will be limited." Medea said, drawing the lesson to a close as she checked the time on her menu. She was about to leave but one of the ''students,'' an old man wearing a magic robe and hurriedly writing notes desperately waived his hand for her attention. "One last question then," she relented at his anxious face. "How does the Accumulation of Belief work per the World Egg theory? Wouldn''t they interfere with each other?" "A quick answer is they would interfere with each other, but because the actor with the Belief is part of the World Egg, the Planet Consciousness will both support and hinder the superimposition of phenomena. This is why more alien phenomena to the Consciousness are more difficult to actualize. At least according to the World Egg theory. If you would like a more in-depth answer, you can find one in Marquis Du Bois'' treaty on the subject. We have three copies at the association library, and it can be found in most book rental stores. If you have more questions, please keep them for tomorrow and have a good day." Medea nodded to the group as they rose to applaud her. It had been a bit disconcerting the first lecture they had done so, but after a month she was used to it. As exited the lecture room, Medea rolled her shoulders to work the stiffness out. She was no stranger to giving lectures, both in the game and in real life, but standing for hours on end would make anybody sore. That wasn''t even counting when she had to use magic for demonstration purposes. She enjoyed teaching, mainly when the students were interested, but she honestly prefers teaching Augustus. She would only have to explain things once for him to understand and he would often ask questions that made her think deeply to answer. It was a shame that he was too low level to accompany her tomorrow or she would have been able to keep up their lessons on the road. Without company, it would be a long few months to reach Selwe. Though, with any luck, she would discover a few good dungeons to raise her level. Right now Medea was perhaps the pinnacle of players when it came to theory, but there was still a significant difference when it came to battle experience between her and other high-level players. For example, the two women who were waiting for her at the entrance to the Mage Association. "Sorry for the wait," Medea greeted the pair. Octavia closed her menu as she rose to her feet while Claudia kept her focus on the glowing blue ball of energy in her hands as she rose as well. A few popups told Medea that it was probably coagulation of souls condensed into a magical container. The temporary lecturer suppressed a shudder, that deep blue color would only be possible if tens of thousands of souls were condensed into a tiny area. Unless Claudia had an item that passively gathered them, which was reasonable given her sister, it meant that personally killed enough sapient creatures to populate a large village. Non-conscious monsters did not have an ego substantial enough to have developed a soul so they couldn''t have counted. "No problem, you gave me time to finish," Octavia answered, dragging Medea''s attention from the walking genocide by her side. "What were you working on?" "You''ll see," Octavia smiled mischievously. "It''s a surprise for bro." "Fine be secretive," feeling a bit petty Medea decided to wipe that smile from her face. "Have you started your final paper yet?" Sure enough, Octavia stopped smiling and pouted at the Sage. Unlike how it appeared in the game, Maude was more conscientious when it came to school work than Nico. "No, bro gave me a few sources, and I''ve already finished Paradise Lost, and I''m almost done with the Divine Comedy. Once I find a few secondary sources I''ll be able to finish it in a few hours." "You''re writing about the portrayal of women in pre-modern Christian literature right?" Octavia nodded in agreement. "Then those are good examples, but be careful, it is a common pitfall to assume that groups have unified opinion on subjects. Don''t forget that those books were written hundreds of years apart and in different cultures." "I know that!" The Creator whined a bit sulkily. "Besides, I was going to focus on the dichotomy of Milton''s Eve and Beatrice''s role in the Paradiso. I''m not writing a dissertation, just a high school paper." "Now that I think about it, Dante''s work probably has influenced Gods'' Nature." "How so?" "You know about sub planes right? Little pocket dimensions that have different rules and environments than normal?" Octavia nodded in acknowledgment, she had even explored a few places like that. "There are references in more than a few books about massive sub planes, and a few of them match Dante''s descriptions of hell, purgatory, and heaven. In the future players should be able to visit places like that." A look of wistfulness passed over Octavia''s face. "I can''t wait till we get out of this damn calm belt!" The calm belt was the nickname given to the area that players were able to explore at the moment between Selwe in the east and Sarra Keep in the west. It wasn''t like leaving it was impossible, but death rates increased exponentially when players tried and it usually only took a few weeks for an expedition to be wiped out. To the southwest was a land of the undead, the southeast was a poisonous swamp, and to the south was a wasteland filled with incredibly tough monsters. The northwest was perhaps the least difficult to traverse, level wise, but much like the swamp, it was the terrain that made it unappealing to most players. It was a dense jungle, so fighting in it was severe, to begin with, and that wasn''t taking into account that it was filled with insects, poisonous creatures, and plant type monsters that blended in perfectly. The north and northeast were the most likely areas for players to expand into, there were regular outings in those directions since the terrain of hills and plains was favorable, and the monsters were not too high leveled.Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. "It shouldn''t be long now," Medea said. "Once enough players get access to respawn skills it will be possible. In a year we-" She was interrupted by a shout of joy besides her. "Aha!" Claudia shouted in joy as the blue clump of souls in her hands started to shift. "Finally." "What are you doing?" Medea asked. "Making my newest servant," was the answer. The mass of energy finally seemed to settle down and assume a more solid shape. Its size remained the same, about a foot tall, but it now had a defined head, body and bushy tail and it was colored grey rather than blue. "It''s a... squirrel?" Medea half asked, half stated. "Don''t be silly." Claudia denied. "It''s a Killer Undead Squirll, trademark. I got the idea from Jorry, this little guy can act like my eyes and ears. I''m going to train it to be a ninja, super stealthy and deadly." "Good for you?" Medea said, eyeing the pale abomination in front of her, and bit curious why the younger girl felt the need to say she trademarked her creation. A few popups telling her that this little creature could probably kill and eat her in seconds. Not that it seemed inclined to do so, busy as it was rubbing itself against Claudia''s hands. "You never actually told me what your Nature was. "Hmm?" Claudia barely acknowledged the older woman, busy petting her new creation. "Oh, the technical name is Spiritualist, but the description is probably different than most other spiritualists. I use souls to power myself up as well as summons. It gives me a bit of control over the undead too and, so long as I was the one who killed them, I can manipulate souls into different shapes and purposes like this little guy." "I see," Medea said slowly, eyeing the dozens of popups that appeared in front of her. They ranged from similar skills and Natures she knew about to potential ways of fighting spiritualists and the composition of souls. "Do you absorb player''s souls when you kill them, how does that work?" "Oh, they are like NPCs. When they die and respawn their consciousness doesn''t remain behind, but a portion of their souls does, as well as an emotional imprint. The soul regenerates really quickly, so it isn''t noticeable." "Hey bro," Octavia interrupted with a yell at Nero, who had been doing pushups, of the girls'' arrival at the park. The Killer Undead Squirll ? faded from view, but Medea knew that it was still around and those with the appropriate skills would be able to see it. "Hello girls," Nero rose to his feet to greet them. Jorry, upon seeing the approaching group, had coiled itself around Nero''s neck and was watching them wearily partly hidden by Nero''s hair. "Any progress?" Octavia asked. "A bit, I got another point in strength, but it took most of yesterday and all day today to get it. At this point, I''m probably better off raising my level and raising attributes in a fight rather than keep training like this." "So you''re finally going to go out and level huh?" Claudia asked. "Not just yet, there are a few things I want to finish in Sarra before then. Besides, I still have another week with the training hall and later the final expedition before I end with Ground Sheer. After I finish there, I think I will leave and explore while leveling up." "Do you have any idea where you want to go?" Octavia asked. Left unsaid was the Nero was just too weak to follow any of the girls here. "I was thinking of traveling south for a bit, till Machy at least. The monsters between here and there shouldn''t be too difficult. Depending on if I die or not and what level I am after that then either westwards towards the sea or northeast following the Toadfen river." "Looks like you have it all planned out," said Medea. "I''ve had time to think about it." Nero shrugged. "Things might change before then, who knows. You are leaving tomorrow, right?" "Yep," Medea casually answered. A month ago she had been worried about Augustus, but from what she had seen so far he seemed to be getting better even without her help so she could leave with no worries. "I have to be in Selwe within the year, so I better leave sooner rather than later. You never know what you''ll meet on the road, and I plan on stopping in Valiskali for a while." "That''s the lost city being colonized right? Are you a high enough level for that." "I''m only going to be passing through the area to get a bit of lore about the old capital. I''ll be steering clear of the more dangerous areas." Nero nodded in acceptance of Medea''s answer, she knew what she was doing, so he turned to his sisters. "What about you two? Are you going to be staying in the keep for a while?" "We''re still not done what we came here for, so it will be a few more weeks before we are ready to leave. We''ll probably head back out around the same time you leave." Octavia answered before the mischievous smile from earlier crept its way back onto her face. "Before that, I have to show you something." "Sure," Nero answered, quirking an eyebrow in interest. Octavia sidled up to his side and opened up her menu. Medea curiously looked on from Octavia''s other side and Claudia, with a smile of her own, peeked over their shoulder to watch as well. "Just watch," Octavia said, keeping her mirth in check as she brought up an unnamed video. It started quietly, soft music began playing to a black background. After a few seconds, the music rose in intensity, and the black screen disappeared to reveal an image of Nero standing on a wooden platform in a lake wearing only swim shorts. Nero groaned, knowing what was coming. Sure enough, what followed was a training montage to intense music, clips of Nero fighting the Sullen being edited to match the music and once the song drew to an end in a final crescendo before falling quiet, the video ended with Nero, covered in gore laughing madly like some kind of serial killer. "I can''t believe you really made a training montage." Nero groaned once more, his cheeks heating up a bit in embarrassment. "That was pretty well done actually," Medea said while giggling. "Do you work with videos a lot?" "A bit," Octavia answered. "But that is not all." As she said that she brought up another video. This one began like the first, with soft music on a black screen. That is where the similarities ended however as the music this time was much sweeter with and had a more smooth jazz sort of feel. The video that followed was also a collection of clips from Nero''s fight, but it focused mostly on his movements and the way the light played in the moving water. It looked like he was dancing and the Sullen were back up dancers with the water as special effects. By the end of the video, Nero was much redder in the face, one of the only times he could remember being embarrassed to this extent. The girls'' laughter certainly didn''t help. "That looked like it belonged on a dating profile more than a training video!" He shouted. "Exactly!" Octavia said in between peals of laughter. "You have got to send those to me," Medea told the twin once she had calmed down enough to talk properly. "That''ll be ten dollars," Octavia responded, figuring she might as well see if she could make some money. "Fine, I''ll give it to you tomorrow at school." Medea agreed, and Octavia sent over a copy of the videos. "You girls suck." Nero was definitely not pouting, sociopaths did not pout. He was merely scowling in a manly fashion. That was his story, and he was sticking to it. 018-2 Go Your Own Way "Since I''m leaving tomorrow, there is one last thing I want to cover with you before then, Natures." Medea began as she paced back and forth in front of Nero. The twins were off to the side in a hammock together with Jorry doing... something. Nero figured he was better off not knowing. "I explained a bit about Natures a while ago on a call but what do you remember?" "They are unique to players," He began recounting what he knew. "After a while of playing they reach the Natal level and can improve from there. If players do not reach the next level by level 100, they are automatically upgraded. There is no limit to what a Nature can be, nor to the skills, they can generate. By performing actions more in line with their Nature, such as role-playing, its level increases faster. After the Natal level comes Applied, Realization and then the Mortal level." "Good, I didn''t want to go over the basics again. What I wanted to talk to you about is the next levels of Natures, specifically the Applied level. Most player''s Nature will only reach Applied once they get to level 100, this is probably going to be different for you. Because you have spent so long playing without significantly improving your level, your Nature should improve before level 100. The lowest level player to reach Applied, at least that I know of, was level 46 and that was only after spending over a year of playtime in the game. Based on what I know, you should reach Applied at the latest by level 80." "I reached it at level 64" Chimed in Claudia from the side. "Thank you for that interruption." Medea shot back sarcastically. "No problem." Claudia either didn''t notice or chose to ignore the heavy sarcasm in the teacher''s voice as she replied cheerfully. "Anyway, the important thing today is the skills you will get when you reach the Applied level in your Nature. These are generally much more powerful or useful than you first skills while at the same time complementing them and you are guaranteed to get at least two of them, though some have gotten more. But, on top of those skills, you will get a demerit. Call it a penalty, a debuff, a handicap or whatever you want, but once a player reaches the Applied level in their Nature, they get a major drawback. This can be crippling and some players, despite spending so long improving to reach that level, reset their character with a new Nature." "What kind of penalty?" "It is unique per Nature, but it always incites players to keep specializing in their Nature. For example, I mentioned how my Nature, Sage, gives me boosts to increasing the Knowledge stat right? My penalty is that my Knowledge stat does not sort itself. When other players get high levels of Knowledge, the popups start to sort themselves into the most relevant or the most advantageous, it stops showing things that have been proven to be false. My Knowledge stat does not do that. Remeber, just because it was written down doesn''t mean it is correct. If a writer accidentally writes the wrong element when talking about a monster, that will appear in the popups generated by the Knowledge stat. Normally that false information would disappear after the player verifies it or more reliable information is found, but my demerit prevents that, and I have to sort through all the information myself. It gets worse the higher the Knowledge stat as more popups appear, I had to get really good at speed reading." "What about you two, what did you girls get as demerits?" Nero shouted over to the twins. Octavia was holding Jorry by the tail and Claudia was waiving a treat above him, forcing him to pull himself up by muscle alone. "I can only use items I create," Octavia answered. "Even if I find an excellent weapon or useful contraption, I can''t use it unless I build it myself." "I can only gain experience from things that have ''spirits.''" Claudia also responded without taking her eyes off the struggling snake. "Unless they have souls infused in them golem and automata do not provide an experience for me. Also, most monsters haven''t developed enough of an ego to count as having a completely formed ''spirit'' so I get much less experience from them. Good boy Jorry." The snake had managed to lunge for the treat in her hand and catch it. Nero felt that Jorry''s smug look of satisfaction on his face as he ate was entirely inappropriate for what was essentially a pet performing a trick. "They seem to be not that bad," Nero said. "It depends on if players feel that they fit their playstyle. A popular Nature, Swordsman, can only get experience when using a sword. If players just want to use a sword, then that is fine, but if they''re going to branch out and use another weapon or a few magic spells, then they would have to use a different Nature to do so, which means creating a new character to do so. It is always fair and never wholly stops progress but, as I said, these debuffs encourage specialization. It isn''t completely dependent on the description of a Nature either if players with the exact same Nature play differently then every skill and demerit will be tailored to their own experiences." "If they conform to the player, then why are they such a big deal?" "You still aren''t certain you want to continue with ''The Beast'' Nature, right?" Nero nodded in agreement. "Once you reach the Applied level and know what your demerit is, that will be the best time to decide whether to keep playing as Nero or create a new character. You should think about whether your playstyle before then is what you will enjoy in the long run or if you will want to change later." "Alright, are there any other demerits at the more advanced Nature levels?" "Not that I am aware of, then again, I''m only at the Realization level and not too many players are at the Mortal level." Medea ignored the shouts of "I am" coming from both Octavia and Claudia and continued. "But so far there doesn''t seem to be. There is no known level cap, some NPCs have been confirmed to be over level 600, so if it continues in the same vein as it has gone so far, then there should be way more levels of Nature that we aren''t aware of and some of them might have demerits as well. Any other questions?" "I do have one, but it is a bit off subject. You know assimilation? Well, I used it to get Jorry''s tongue and sense of taste." Nero extended his serpentine tongue to demonstrate it. "So far it has worked pretty well, as in my sense of taste is much more defined but despite having used it for over a month I am still nowhere near able to use it to the same degree as Jorry. Is it because it requires a skill that I don''t have because I''m not a snake or because of something else?" "While I can''t say for sure since I have not heard about that exact skill before," Medea began, tapping a finger to her chin in thought. "I think you stumbled on to one of the hidden mechanics of Gods'' Nature." Noticing Nero''s questioning look and the twins suddenly paying attention, Medea went on. "You know how nobody knows anything about the creator of Gods'' Nature right?" Not exactly true for this particular group of players but they were the exception. "Well, because there was no advertising campaign and the official website is pretty barren, players have had to discover everything for themselves. Some things are widely known, like the Nature system''s levels and the fact that players can change races by joining factions. Other things are much less known, kept a secret either because people want to keep their advantage or nobody has posted about it online. One of these things is the sensation mechanic." "You mean the thing that dulls the pain you feel?" "Exactly, I want you to go to your settings and change it from five percent to a hundred. It shouldn''t be a problem since you can bring it back down after we''re done." Not seeing any reason to deny her, Nero did as instructed. He moved the slider from its lowest position at 5% all the way to its max at 100% and saved the changes as he left the menu. As soon as he did, he was overwhelmed by sensation. "Gah!" Nero shouted out in shock and pain. It was like he just left a dark cave into the blistering sunlight, only it was applied to all his senses and especially his sense of taste. Everything was so much clearer, the colors sharper and the light from the afternoon sun was much harsher. He could feel its heat on his skin much more clearly, but that warmth was robbed not even seconds later by a breeze much colder than he remembered. The ground dug into his bottom harder than before, and his muscles felt a lot sorer from their recent exercise than he remembered. The sound of the city around the park, once muffled, now came through in a much clearer fashion. Finally, his sense of taste and smell were amplified to an extreme degree. Before he could taste the dirt on the air, grass follicles on the breeze, the tang of sweat on his body, and the leather of the girls'' armor, now those tastes and smells were compounded by so much more. Nero could taste/smell the sewer from a grate from the other side of the part, the bricks of nearby buildings, a musky smell from an open window that hinted at the pair of people wrapped in each other''s arms inside. Even his companions'' smell had changed. Medea smelled/tasted like dry parchment and chemicals. Octavia had a metallic and smoky taste with a hint of oil that spoke longs hours spent at a forge or around machines. All Nero could taste from Claudia was blood, so much blood that it threated to clog his senses to other things.This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there. It took a few moments for Nero to regain his bearings from the shock and, as soon as he did, he immediately changed the setting back to 5%. "What the hell was that?!" He demanded of his friend as he desperately tried to calm his breathing from the shock. "I had no idea you would be so affected," Medea said, eyes wide open in shock. "Your assimilation of Jorry''s sense of taste is way too overpowered. Most players do not know it, but when their sensation setting is at 5%, they only have access to a tenth of their normal senses. They aren''t blind or deaf, but everything is dimmed, like its coming through a dark glass wall. People do not notice because that is all they are used to while playing Gods'' Nature. It is only at 50% that players get access to their natural sense modalities, but they have to put up with feeling half the pain they would in real life. At 100% your senses are twice as sharp, but you have to put up with all the pain you would feel. There are tonnes of skills that can increase any of the five senses, but I have never seen a reaction like yours. I guess that when you assimilated Jorry''s sense of taste, you didn''t just get the same ability to taste as your snake, but it was applied proportionally to you. Theoretically, if Jorry could sense things that are a hundred times its body length away then you could do the same, only your body is much more significant." "Why would anybody want to do that? That was way too much information!" Nero had calmed down a bit, but he still remembered the jolt of his brain as it tried to process all that it was absorbing. "As I mentioned, everything is heightened as you increase your sensation setting. Food is more delicious or more disgusting, things smell much better or much worse. You feel more pain and more pleasure. It is a trade-off that most don''t know they have available to them because very few people want to experiment with pain. I personally play with it set at 30%, not using my full senses is annoying, but I also don''t have much pain tolerance." "Huh, I didn''t know about that." Octavia murmured as she stared around her as if seeing the world for the first time. She had tried changing the setting to 100% as well, and it had turned out much better for her than for her brother. "This is pretty awesome." "It is, but its a trade-off," Medea answered. "I''ve noticed that the more you dive into Gods'' Nature and treat it like real life, the more benefits you get, whether it is increasing your Nature faster or getting more sensations out of it. I''m sure there are other things too that I don''t know about." "So you don''t know about any other hidden mechanics?" Claudia asked. "None that I can think of off the top of my head, but now that we have met up and registered as friends we can message each other whenever we want." In Gods'' Nature, it was only possible to register other''s as friends when you were standing in front of them, this was a way to prevent people from getting mixed up if they have the same name, and to stop other people from harassing famous players with friend requests. There were benefits to doing being friends. Of course, being able to tell when your friends were online and being able to message them without going through the network tab was nice. The real attraction was that friends were able to see the general area and location of each other and in a game as massive as this one, that was paramount to being able to meet each other. "Alright," Nero said, standing up and wiping the dirt from himself. "Since you are leaving tomorrow, let''s fight!" """HUH!?""" Were the responses from the three women. Their surprise was to be expected for many reasons. One of the reasons was that Augustus had never been competitive in his life, preferring to solve problems through argument and manipulation, so it wasn''t likely that he had suddenly become bloodthirsty. The other was the more likely one, the level disparity between the pair was massive, over a hundred, so even if Medea stood there doing nothing Nero wouldn''t be able to damage her at all without her HP regen healing it right away. "What?" Asked Nero, his head tilted to look at their shocked reactions. "Are you insane!?" Shouted Octavia and Claudia in concert. "Technically yes," calmly answered their brother, not the least perturbed by their question. "I fail to see what being a sociopath has to do with this situation." "I think they want to know why you want to fight me." Said Medea patiently to him. "You do know that you have no chance of winning right?" "Of course," Nero answered immediately as if it was apparent. "He''s a masochist!" Shouted Claudia, her eyes wide as she thumped her fist into her palm in realization. "I''m not!" Nero shouted back in anger. "While there is nothing wrong with masochism, that has nothing to do with this situation. I just want to try fighting a mage, all my opponents have been physical opponents so far and haven''t used magic." He said calming himself down and added as an afterthought; "Besides, I''m more of a sadist anyway." "I don''t think my fighting style is something most mages use," Medea couldn''t help but point out while ignoring Claudia who had pulled a notepad from somewhere and was writing something down with a mutter of ''sadist.'' "I guessed as much, but I still want to try facing magic, so I''m not too surprised when I leave the city." "Alright," the teacher agreed readily once she knew his reasoning. Nero was the type of person who liked to be prepared, and this wasn''t too much of a hassle. "Medea!" Octavia said in shock. "What?" "He will die!" "No he won''t," the sage waived off her concern. "I have plenty of ways to beat him without doing any damage. Besides, its better he learns now rather than be surprised out in the wild." "Grrr, fine. But if you kill him, I''m killing you." "I thought you guys were getting along?" Nero asked. ""So?"" Both Claudia and Octavia asked at the same time. "Whatever," Nero said, not even bothering to try to understand their relationships. "It''s fine if I die, I''ll just respawn anyway, and the holy ground isn''t too far away." That got him some odd looks from the girls but they shook it off, and Medea waved him forward. "Come at me whenever you''re ready." Nero didn''t hesitate to take his friend up on her offer and dashed right at her. He had decided to leave Jorry out of this as this wasn''t a real fight. Evidently, his quick move had surprised Medea, her eyes widened briefly in surprise, but just as quickly she responded. What followed wasn''t a fight, it was a dismantling. The pair weren''t far apart, but these few feet might as well have been a mile for all the good that did Nero. Medea brought her hand up in front of herself, wiggled her fingers a bit, and it was done. It started with a shift in the ground, the location where his right foot was placed shifted forward, bringing his foot with it and stretching his leg much more than he wanted. When he tried to balance himself with his left foot, the ground rose up to meet it, destabilizing him even further. Then there were two small pops of compressed air near his ears that caused his vision to swim and a larger one in front of his solar plexus. Destabilized, disorientated, and dizzy, Nero went down with that blow. "..Ow." He said as he lay pitifully on the ground. "I was ready to lose, but I thought I would at least do a bit better than that." "To be fair," Medea looked down at him to make sure she hadn''t caused too much damage to anything but his pride. "With my knowledge stat, I pretty much know what you are going to do before you do. I probably also have higher dexterity and strength than you even if I don''t focus on them, so you were moving relatively slowly to me. If you were larger, not human shaped, or had more magical resistance, it would have been much more difficult, but I know enough about humanoids to know how to upset their balance." "Still, that was impressive, five spells in an instant without a chant," Octavia said as she walked to the pair. Claudia also accompanied her, though she started poking Nero instead of saying anything. "Stop that," he said, wiping her hands away as he stood up. "And she did use a chant, arias don''t have to be words, they can be motions too. Every finger she wiggled was tied to a spell, she hypnotized herself along the lines of; ''if I wiggle this finger this way, this will happen.'' Right?" "Exactly," the teacher nodded in approval. "I''m not at the point yet where I can create multiple spells without some form of a supplement to my belief, even if they are low powered. You can only chant one spell at a time, so this is the best way to do it with small effects like this. You can also string spells together in a sentence or song, but those were not really good for a quick fight like this." "I see, so that is the advantage of knowing about the belief system, the ability to manipulate magic easily." "That''s one of the advantages," Medea answered Claudia''s question. "It takes a while to get the hang of it, but once you do, you become much more flexible when it comes to what you can do with magic." "How did you train to that point?" Nero tuned out the girls'' discussion, he had already gotten the lecture on belief and its uses. Instead, he picked up Jorry who had slithered over. "We''ve got a long way to go, huh?" He asked rhetorically as he rubbed his sore chest. Compressed air hurt after all. **** "I''ll miss you," Medea said as she pulled Nero into a tight hug. It was the afternoon she was set to leave, and he and the twins had come to see her off. "I''ll miss you too," he returned the hug. "If you''re ever in the vicinity of Valiskali, look us up. We''ll take you with us to level, somebody with your skills will be very useful." Octavia said from the side, unlike her brother the girls saw each other every day at school. "I will, by then I should be high enough level to match you two. I suppose this is goodbye then," Medea said as she pulled out of the hug and turned to board the carriage she had rented that would take her to the frontier before she would continue along by herself. Before she got into the carriage though, she turned to Nero one last time. "Gods'' Nature is a beautiful game, I hope you enjoy it as much as I do." And with that, she settled into the carriage as it set off. "Bye," Nero said as he waved farewell. He tried to decipher any hidden meaning from her last words, but if they did exist, he didn''t understand them. Was she trying to tell him to keep playing? It wasn''t like he really had a choice in the matter, it was either this or lay helpless in a hospital bed. Well whatever, if she needs to tell him anything she could message him at any time. It would probably be a while before they could meet up again but it wasn''t like they couldn''t communicate every day if they wanted to. Of course, Nero was ignorant that it would be years before they could meet again in the game. **** "Why, I''d like nothing better than to achieve some bold adventure, worthy of our trip." Aristophanes 019-1 Hungry Like The Wolf "Why, I''d like nothing better than to achieve some bold adventure, worthy of our trip." Aristophanes **** Sometimes people forget how much the modern world corrupts their sense of luxury. It is not a bad thing, there is nothing wrong with wanting a better and more comfortable life. But, when looking back over the vast majority of humanity''s history, it is striking how many things that are common in now were considered the pinnacle of luxury in the past. It was at this time that Nero couldn''t help but think back to a like in Shakespeare''s Richard the Third. A cushion, a cushion! My kingdom for a cushion! It should come as no surprise that sitting on hard wood for a while hurt, add to that the jostling from a carriage that was created without the advanced knowledge of suspension and force a person into that position for twelve hours and you have what can only be called a primitive form of torture. So, it was with considerable relief that Nero stepped down from the carriage where he had spent the most uncomfortable day of his life. The sun was setting, the darkening skies and late season combined to give the wind a chill that was on the colder side of comfortable. Nero did not care for that though, he was just happy to be out of the horrible ride and onto his own two feet. He was not looking forward to making that trip again in a week. As he stretched his sore limbs, he turned to his fellow trainees who, while seeming relieved to dismount as well, did not look as irritated as he was. The group from Ground Sheer were on the final expedition of the season and, when they returned to Sarra Keep, they would be considered to have graduated. It was a week-long trip, a day there and back with five days in between. They had left the city at sunrise and, traveling south, had reached a village as the sun was setting. They were not the only ones either. As he looked around, Nero noted that Maqi, the name of the village they would be staying at, was busting with life and that most did not seem to be locals. While carrying weapons in this world was extremely common, Nero doubted that could be said of caravans of armed men and women arriving at the same town. Whatever was happening here, it was bigger than a single training hall''s graduation trip. "We there yet?" Jorry asked sleepily from around Nero''s neck. He was too large to stay on his friend''s shoulder and had taken to napping while wrapped around his neck like some sort of living scarf. He weighed a bit, but after a while, Nero had gotten used to it. The lazy serpent had also spent the entire day sleeping comfortably, much to the ire of Nero and his abused posterior. "We are," Nero said to his companion. "We''ll go exploring in a bit, for now, we''ll follow the group to wherever we are staying." "Did I miss anything interesting?" The small serpent asked, still half asleep. Nero had no idea how the creature managed to sleep so much, was this normal for snakes? "It was amazing," Nero said sarcastically, still sore from the uncomfortable ride. "I can''t believe you slept through all that, there were explosions, donkeys jumping off cliffs and a marching band. I''m surprised you didn''t wake up and enjoy the entire ride." "Why would donkeys jump off cliffs?" Jorry asked innocently causing Nero to sigh in resignation. "You don''t really get sarcasm do you?" "What''s sarcasm?" Nero took a moment to think about how to adequately explain to the young animal without going into too much depth on irony and its connotations. "You can think of sarcasm like an obvious lie, something said in a way that nobody would really believe it but is used to prove a point. It can also be used as a means of humor." "So you were trying to be funny!" Jorry said in realization. "I didn''t get that at all." "Sure," Nero''s shoulders sagged in resignation as he answered despondently. He trudged his way forward, following the instructors who had dismounted the carriage along with the other trainees. "I guess it wasn''t a good joke." The pair didn''t have to wait long as the with Ken in the lead the instructors led the trainees to a medium two-story wooden building near the edge of the town. Once the large group had entered, the three men assigned four people to a room before calling the group together in the broader living space on the first floor. "While I''m sure you all enjoyed the trip," Ken smirked at the groans he received for his words, on trainee even flipped him off. "We are here for business. While some of you are aware of why we are here, others are new to the area and aren''t familiar to this yearly tradition so I will be going over the basics and what we are here for. This village, Maqi, is the barrier of civilization between Sarra and the wild. South of here is nothing but forest until you reach the frontier town of Machy and further south is the River of Souls and the Deadwall. Typically there isn''t much of importance this way, baring a few dungeons and tombs. The animals of the forest aren''t too strong, and the undead never cross their wall. As fall turns to winter, however, migrations from the north shift the hunting grounds of animals and monsters leading to an upsurge of low to mid-tier monsters being forced out by invasive and stronger predators. They naturally want food, and they seek to find it in human territory. While this happens, training halls like us send our recruits to get some practice while simultaneously helping keep the village safe by culling the population a bit. Because the way monster reviving works, they appear at the closest ''safe'' location, when they are killed by us the monsters will reappear in either territory unclaimed by powerful monsters or in an area far enough away that they won''t pose a problem anymore. Your job is to help them on their way. You will register with the local guild, and they will provide you with information about the common monsters and their corresponding rewards. We, at Ground Sheer, receive half of your rewards automatically as payment for your lodgings and other such things during the event. The other half you can either keep or use to start paying off your debt. I recommend that you all sync up with the local Holy ground first. If you die and are forced to respawn at Sarra, we will not care. Are there any questions?" "If this is such a common issue, why doesn''t country expand and colonize the forest? You said it yourself, the monsters there are not really strong." One of the trainees asked Nero remembered hearing that he had come with a trading caravan from Selwe. "If you really want to know then you can ask the king," Ken answered a bit, but he continued nonetheless. "I can think a few reasons, not enough population, the lack of rare goods to exploit, the long time it would take to set up a Holy ground, the loss of a low-level training area for the army and training halls, or any number of other reasons. Are there any other questions?" The group was silent and, seeing no further questions Ken continued. "This will be our final expedition, we three will be here if you want to spend some of your time on one-on-one training. We''ve given you the tools you need to survive out in the wild, how far you go will all depend on your own efforts and achievements. For those of you wishing to advance to intermediate training halls or into other occupations, our recommendation will depend on your performance during this expedition. You are free to leave at any time, but if you want to take the carriage back to the keep, we''ll be leaving on the morning of the sixth day, and you can meet us then. Until then, I wish you all the best of luck." With that, the three instructors left the trainees to their own devices. Immediately some grouped up into various clicks of friends or left the building to sync up with the local Holy ground. Nero and Jorry joined the latter group, not having anybody they were particularly close to in the training hall. Leaving the building, it wasn''t particularly hard to find the Holy ground at the center of the village where Nero sat on one of the benches that people used when wanting to sync with the Holy land. As a rule of thumb, Holy grounds were at the center of any sort of established civilization center. This was because of not only their central importance to the revival but also because they were the lifeline to which all sapient races cling. Unlike monsters, sapient races such as humans, beastmen, elves and other such creatures are not able to naturally respawn in the wild a safe distance away from where they died. Without being synced to a Holy ground, should they die, they do not revive at all. Because of this, the importance of Holy grounds could not be underestimated, and people would build their settlements around them to provide an extra layer of security. But, while Holy grounds were the keys to the continued existence of the sapient races, they were also a fundamental weakness. The destruction of the Holy land you were synced to was one of the only three ways for permanently killing something in Gods'' Nature that Nero was aware of. It was also the reason why the Rupture was such a cataclysmic event. During that time, whether it be monster swarms or natural disasters, hundreds of Holy lands were destroyed, and it wiped out entire populations because most were not able to reach another Holy land to sync up to before they died as well.This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. Even if two countries went to war, generally they left Holy grounds alone, because their destruction was such a reviled act. The other two methods were much tamer in comparison. The first and best way to die permanently in Gods'' Nature was merely old age. Though death wasn''t permanent for the most parts of the game, people still age and eventually, depending on their race, they would reach the end of their life cycle and die of natural causes. The third was Nero knew to die permanently was if you were killed something of sufficient strength or with specific skills. Once people, creatures or weapons reach a certain tier of strength, they gain the ability to permanently kill things, a sort of recognition of their ability to shape the world. Most countries had weapons with this ability, they acted as a deterrent force and were used sparingly on only the worst of criminals. Though this method of killing was more common than the destruction of Holy grounds, it was still relatively rare an nowhere near as reviled. The people who could use these skills were at most able to permanently kill only one person at a time and often had very long cooldowns, but the destruction of Holy lands would affect millions of people at once. All these thoughts flowed through Nero''s mind as he sat on his bench waiting for the sync to finish. This was the first time he had to go through the process as he was automatically synced with the Holy ground in Sarra Keep when he first started the game. The process wasn''t complicated, he just had to remain within the Holy land until he felt the connection form, but it was long and tedious. Nero had been told he would feel when it was complete but, despite sitting down for almost ten minutes, he felt no such thing. At least there were other people there to provide him with some distractions since the lazy snake at his side had decided to sleep some more instead of keeping Nero company. "Looking for a healer! Need to be level twenty or above!" A man in armor yelled. "Tank wanted, no level requirement but needs good armor!" A woman wearing a robe shouted out. She seemed to have more success than the man as already Nero could see three different armored forms approaching her. "I am looking for a party, I am a level thirty-three ranger and can act as DPS!" "I need a group of volunteers to hunt a goblin tribe with a war chief. Outlanders are welcome but must be over level fifty." It wasn''t only players that were using the Holy ground as a recruitment arena. In fact, without the use of specific terms, it was impossible to distinguish NPCs from players. "Seeling potions! Need health potions? You can buy these for cheap, and they will last you till level seventy-five, it''s a great deal they can restore HP or reattach a limb that has been cut. If you buy ten, you get a discount. Keep your party safe with our potions!" "Selling armor and weapons! We have everything from steel to leather and bone. If you bring material, we''ll forge it for you. Need a weapon repaired to keep hunting? We''ll fix it for you! We have arrows, swords, spears, shields, anything you need can be found at our smithy." Of course, whenever there was a large concentration of people merchants would come to hawk their wares. Holy grounds were generally in large plazas or squares to accommodate a lot of revivals. This led to them becoming the perfect meeting grounds and hundreds if not thousands of people would flock to them every day. Maqi''s was particularly busy due to the influx of foreigners that came to hunt monsters. Kaesar could see dozens of merchants, hundreds of players and NPCs, various entertainers looking to make some money from their acts, and a lot of armored guards that kept their eyes on the area in case of any trouble. It was like a festival was going on, which could be considered partially correct. Nero looked to Jorry and sighed, he had no idea how the serpent could sleep through all this hubbub. "Hey, newbie!" Initially, Nero did not pay attention to the voice, it was simply one amongst a hundred. "Nero right?" It was only when he heard his name being called that Kaesar turned to look. Approaching him was a lightly armored man who was waiving for his attention. Taking a closer look, Nero tried to place where he had seen his face before. It was relatively handsome in chiseled sort of way with a bit of stubble on his jawline. He was wearing a flat chest plate that gleamed in the sunlight and some armored boots and greaves. Apart from that, his only other characteristic was a flowing green mantle on his back. Despite this appearance, nothing really clicked for Nero so he tried to think back on who this man could be as he approached. Kaesar didn''t recognize him from Ground Sheer or from any of the stores he had helped with the rat problem. "You''re Nero, right? It has been a while, how''ve you been?" The man greeted with a smile on his face. "You''re... Ludendorff?" Kaesar asked hesitantly, slightly unsure of his guess. It had been months since he had started playing Gods'' Nature and met the player for the first time. "Yep," the player didn''t seem offended at not being recognized right away. He had always had a knack for faces and names but would never have recognized Nero if not for him sticking out in his memory as the biggest noob he had since met in Gods'' Nature. "So you decided beastman then? Or is that a skill?" The more experienced player asked as he saw Nero''s forked tongue flicker in and out of his mouth to taste the air. The newbie didn''t look like an ordinary snake man, but variances were always possible when changing races. "A skill," Kaesar answered before asking a question of his own. "You should be a high leveled player right? What''s a general like you doing here?" "Ah well," the player said as he took a seat next to Nero. "My bosses came to the keep a while ago and decided to use my skills to help train some new blood for The Bank." Ludendorff shrugged his shoulders in a ''what can you do sort of manner.'' "Oh, good. For a second I thought that there was some super strong monster here or something." "There is," the general said casually, and Nero had to hold in a sigh. "There have been movements from some powerful goblin tribes in the area, and there are some reports of tier three goblin king. By the way, tier three means that it is over level two hundred." Kaesar had actually already known that but saw no need to point that out. "It is a bit out of my league at the moment, but I wouldn''t worry about it if I were you. One of the stronger players is part of an advanced training hall and as part of his graduation expedition has to hunt it down. I''m also here to spy on him." "Should you be saying that? Here? To me?" Kaesar had to question the validity of saying something like that in such a public place to a man he barely knew. "Eh," Ludendorff shrugged his shoulders uncaringly and stretched himself over the bench. "He already knows, he''s a smart cookie and probably heard about it as soon as I got my orders. He just doesn''t care. He''s a nice enough guy, but my bosses can''t stand him for some reason so here I am. Speak of the devil, hey Gabriel. Over here!" The general stood up from his seat and waived into the crowd. Nero was unable to see who he was talking to due to some people blocking the way but he didn''t have to wait long. From the crowd, two people approached the bench Nero, and Ludendorff was sitting on. The first was a man of average height, probably a few inches shorter than Nero, who had a rather distinguished face with blond hair, blue eyes, and prominent cheekbones. He cut an imposing figure, wearing thick white armor made from a metal Nero couldn''t recognize. There was a sizeable diamond-shaped shield on his back and handle protruded from its top while a large blade sprouted from its bottom. Despite his armor and weapon making him look a bit thuggish, there was a warm smile on his face. Nero guessed this was probably the man Ludendorff was just talking about, Gabriel. His companion was a beautiful woman in a girl next door sort of way with short brown hair drawn into a ponytail that brought out the expression in her warm brown eyes. She was the same height as the man accompanying her, around six foot seven, which made her tall for a woman but far from the Amazonian status of Nero''s sisters. She was wearing a more streamlined form of armor than her companion, and instead of having a shield and bastard sword, she had two blades on her waist, on shorter than the other. "What a coincidence," Ludendorff said to the pair as they approached. "I was just telling my friend here about how I was sent to spy on you." The pair''s smiles turned decidedly more awkward. "I really don''t know what we did to anger those two. Those girls just seem to hate me for no reason." The man answered before looking at Nero and extending his hand out to shake. "Hello, I''m Gabriel, and this is my wife, Michelle. It''s nice to meet you." "Nice to meet you too, I go by Nero." Kaesar shook the man''s hand before doing the same to his wife. He was a rather good judge of character and, by the looks of it, the pair''s smiles seemed rather genuine and friendly with not a hint of arrogance or condescension in their gazes. If they were put off by meeting a low-level player, they didn''t show it. "Nero here is a bit of a newbie," Ludendorff explained to the pair. "I ran into him when he first started a while ago and gave him some advice. He doesn''t seem to have played too many games in the past." "That''s not too bad. I can''t imagine what it must be like for Gods'' Nature to be your first video game, it must be a unique experience," Mitchelle said. "Although it will probably be tough to play older games after this one, I know it ruined me for my old favorites." "Really?" Ludendorff asked. "I can see that for other MMOs or RPGs, but I still play some shooters and puzzle games from time to time if I just want some relaxing fun. By the way, what are you two doing here? I thought you were out hunting for that goblin king?" "We were," Gabriel admitted. "But one of our scouts found something but died before he could report it back, so we are here to meet him when he revives. You?" "I''m training a few recruits, but they ran into a Brown Wolf and were wiped out. I was waiting for them to respawn to reapply some buffs when I ran into Nero here." "Are you sure you won''t join The Foundation? We could really use a guy like you." Michelle asked. "I''m sure. I appreciate the sentiment but I like working for The Bank, and I''ve put too much into it to just leave." Ludendorff answered. "That''s a shame, if you ever change your mind, you know where to find us," Gabriel said before turning to Nero. "It was nice meeting you, I wish you the best of luck in Gods'' Nature." He said politely before turning to leave with his wife. "You too," Nero responded as the pair walked away. He hadn''t really interacted with the couple beyond a greeting, but that was no reason to be rude to them since they seemed friendly enough. "As I said, he''s a kind man. Don''t let that fool you though, out of the millions of players in Gods'' Nature he is easily in the top one hundred strongest." Ludendorff explained once the couple was once more swallowed by the crowd. "Those two were some of the earliest players, and they''re the leaders of one of the largest factions in the game. Despite its simple name and good reputation, The Foundation is not something you want to mess with." "Huh," was Kaesar''s only response, not really caring since it didn''t really affect him. If Nero could have seen into the future, he probably would have paid a lot more attention to what Ludendorff was saying and asked a lot more questions about the pair. Then again, if Gabriel or Michelle could have known the future, they probably would have spared no effort to permanently kill Nero before he grew to become the monster that would terrorize the entirety of Gods'' Nature. **** 019-2/3 Hungry Like The Wolf ˇ±You never told me what you were doing here in Maqi,ˇ± Ludendorff said, reclining once more on the bench. ˇ±I joined a training hall not long after we met,ˇ± Nero answered, idly scratching under JorryˇŻs chin. ˇ°IˇŻm here, as part of the final expedition.ˇ± ˇ±Which hall?ˇ± ˇ±Ground Sheer.ˇ± ˇ±ThatˇŻs a pretty good one I hear,ˇ± the general rubbed his stubble in thought. ˇ°YouˇŻre not planning on doing anything tomorrow, right?ˇ± ˇ±IˇŻll probably explore the town a bit, but apart from that, I donˇŻt have any other plans. Why?ˇ± ˇ±I was thinkingˇ± Ludendorff began slowly. ˇ°Why donˇŻt you join my recruits? They are a pretty good batch, baring this recent accident, and you all should be about the same level. Around level ten or twelve, right? I have a skill that gives more experience to people under my command, and since it just got to level thirty-five, I have a free slot you can use. What do you say?ˇ± ˇ±Well,ˇ± Nero thought about it for a moment. He didnˇŻt really have anybody else to partner with, not counting Jorry, and working with a team would be safer. The added experience would be nice as well. Kaesar would have to keep an eye on the group, he remembered talking about the competition between players with his sisters, but that didnˇŻt seem too relevant in this scenario. He didnˇŻt really enjoy working with others, but once and a while it was fine. ˇ°Sure, I guess IˇŻll join for the moment. Though I wonˇŻt join The Bank.ˇ± ˇ±ThatˇŻs fine,ˇ± the other player did look a bit sorry, but it didnˇŻt take long for him to get over it. One more low leveled player in a faction of tens of thousands wouldnˇŻt make a difference. ˇ°Recruit!ˇ± ***You have been recruited by General Ludendorff. Accept: Y/N*** Nero clicked yes on the prompt in front of his eyes. ***New Recruit: For the next twenty-four hours, you will be a recruit under Ludendorff. You will not be able to harm your General. For every other recruit within 50 meters, you get a 1% boost to experience. Current boost: 1%*** ˇ±That is an excellent skill,ˇ± Nero couldnˇŻt help but comment. ˇ±Ya, but I can only use it on others, not myself, and they have to be a lower level than me. Most of my General skills are like that.ˇ± ˇ±Still, I can see why other people want to recruit you. So how did you join The Bank.ˇ± LudendorffˇŻs eyes lit up at the prospect of telling the story and, possibly, actually recruiting Nero. The next few minutes were spent with the general retailing Nero about how, on his second day playing GodsˇŻ Nature, he tried to hit on a pair of ˇ®ridiculously hotˇŻ girls and getting brutally shot down. Being a persistent man, he kept trying to get their attention for a while before one of them got mad and murdered him. His first death in the game was a bit traumatizing but, while he was sitting in the Holy ground after reviving, the pair approached him and apologized. One thing led to another, and he ended up joining The Bank in its early stages. Though he was lower level than other leaders, he still held a high position in the organization due to the utility of his Nature and his loyalty. To be honest, Nero was only half paying attention to the story. He made the odd comment to keep it going, but for the most part, he was concentrated on the feeling that arose in his chest halfway through. It was strange like he was feeling nostalgic for something but at the same time, he was relaxing after coming home from work. It was a good feeling, but a bit peculiar. Kaesar guessed this was the feeling one received when syncing up with the Holy ground. His business in the area finished, Nero decided to wait for LudendorffˇŻs story to end before he left. So, with a few words of farewell and a promise to meet tomorrow morning at sunrise, Nero took Jorry and left. While he certainly wanted to wander the town to get a feel for it, Nero also had another motive, to train Jorry. It wasnˇŻt that the serpent was weak, other Gardner snakes would probably not have been able to contend against so many rats as young as he was. Since Jorry had evolved, he had grown considerably and was now surpassing two feet in length and was as thick around as NeroˇŻs wrist. From what Kaesar had read about the species, they could grow to be over six feet in length so Jorry was well on his way to being a real giant and would be able to handle himself well enough once he was fully grown. The problem was two-fold, the first and most apparent was that the pair did not have the years it would take for Jorry to reach full size. They would be facing monsters of significant power the next day. And that was the second problem, even if Jorry was fully grown he would be facing monsters that a standard black rat snake would never try and fight usually. Some more prominent serpents might hunt monkeys or such, but even the biggest would not work and hunt wolves. Of course, the most deadly snakes werenˇŻt the largest but the most poisonous. Unfortunately, JorryˇŻs species were non-venomous so, until Nero thought of a way to evolve Jorry into a more deadly serpent, they would have to stick to physically fighting their opponents. Thankfully, since they were playing GodsˇŻ Nature, there was a magical answer to all their problems. ˇ±Do you remember what Medea said about magic and belief?ˇ± Nero asked as the pair walked along the almost deserted streets of Maqi. Well, Nero walked while JorryˇŻs head bobbed along beside as he rode KaesarˇŻs shoulder. It was only thanks to the occasional torch that lined the side of the street and fullness of one of the moons that Nero was able to see the serpent shake his head in the negative. ˇ°Were you asleep?ˇ± ˇ±No,ˇ± the snake answered. ˇ°I was fighting a mountain.ˇ± Nero missed a step and almost tripped at the unexpected answer. Thankfully, his sense of balance was better than before due to the constant training that he was able to keep from falling to the floor. He stared at his companion for a moment, trying to figure out what the snake was talking about. ˇ±Are you... trying to be sarcastic?ˇ± Kaesar asked hesitantly. ˇ±Yep,ˇ± Jorry answered proudly. ˇ°Did it work, was it funny?ˇ± ˇ±IˇŻve heard worse,ˇ± Nero admitted. ˇ°And I was almost part of a comedy gag, so I guess that counts for something. But if you want to convey sarcasm, you need to work on your tone. Try saying things in a more deadpan or dry voice. But anyway, since weˇŻre probably going to be fighting some bigger animals from now on, you should learn a spell. Something that will help you do more damage.ˇ± ˇ±Like what?ˇ± Jorry asked, excited at the prospect of getting a new method of hurting things. ˇ±You could try doing what I did, only instead of growing claws, you could try to grow fangs. Or spikes around your body so that Bind will do more damage.ˇ± ˇ±Oooh, I like that idea,ˇ± Nero could see the serpentˇŻs dangling tail shake in excitement even as his eyes narrowed in concentration. A few moments of silence passed as the snake tried to create the spell. After a few seconds though, Jorry looked at Nero and asked sheepishly. ˇ°So, how do I do that again?ˇ± Nero sighed once more, he seemed to be doing that a lot with Jorry it appeared. He spent the next few minutes re-explaining MedeaˇŻs talk about magic and belief. As Jorry tried once again to form his spell, KaesarˇŻs feel took him to the ramparts of the wall surrounding the village. It wasnˇŻt very tall, all things considered, but it was enough to provide an advantage over any invaders. It also gave Nero a great view of the forest to the south. It wasnˇŻt a peaceful night, both because of the numerous people still in the plaza of the Holy ground, and because Nero could hear animals and humans from the woods. Since he had increased his sensitivity to 15, he could also taste a mixture of particles on the air. Fur, steel, and blood were only a few of those he could taste, though most he couldnˇŻt identify. Kaesar looked to the twin moons, one full and the other waxing. He was currently struggling over an issue that had been on his mind for a while. His skills, The Nest and Assimilation, in particular, were pointing in a direction he wasnˇŻt sure he liked. Nero wasnˇŻt a people person, that was the simple way to say it. He could fake it when he wanted to and could be charming and polite if the situation called for it, but by nature, he was an introvert. Kaesar liked his space and privacy and didnˇŻt go out of his way to meet new people. When he was forced to, he tended to remain silent for a time, trying to get a sense for their personality before actively engaging them. Even at home, when it was just him and his sisters, his idea of relaxation was to curl up on the couch with a good book. But his Nature was pushing him in a direction that would contradict that. He got stronger the more creatures that joined The Nest and the more traits he assimilated. It was a method more suited to somebody that wasnˇŻt so introverted. Natures were designed to grow with the user, to mesh with their personality and play style but it wasnˇŻt perfect. Because of NeroˇŻs limited time playing and his... adoption of Jorry, the game did not have a real representation of his day to day life, only what he experienced in the game. It was one of the reasons he was still debating whether or not to recreate his character once the time limit was up. As it was, Assimilation still wasnˇŻt at a high enough level for the few traits left that Jorry possessed that were desirable. There was one exception that Nero hadnˇŻt tried yet, because he only thought of it recently, that he had hope would work. If it did, Nero would gain another tremendous advantage over others, though it wouldnˇŻt be without some drawbacks. Still, that was for once he finished assimilating JorryˇŻs mouth. At the moment it was sitting at 96% completion, it would probably end tomorrow, and he would be able to test his idea out. ˇ±Ahhh,ˇ± Kaesar was dragged from his thoughts by JorryˇŻs scream of surprise. Looking down to the serpent around his neck, Kaesar saw the snake start to uncoil and, with a thud, he fell to the floor before the human had a chance to catch him. ˇ±What happened,ˇ± Nero asked as he bent down to pick up his companion. Jorry hung limply in his hands as he answered. ˇ±I donˇŻt know,ˇ± the little world serpent said, sounding distinctly tired. ˇ°I was trying to form the spell, I thought it was working! But then, I suddenly felt drained and my whole body just relaxed, and I fell.ˇ± ˇ°Where you trying to form fangs or spikes?ˇ± ˇ±Spikes, they sounded cooler.ˇ± Nero held back the sigh at the simple reasoning. ˇ°You probably exhausted your mana. If you donˇŻt have too much of it, forming more than a few spikes might have taken too much out of you. Once you absorb some more mana, try and make fangs instead, theyˇŻll probably be easier..ˇ± ˇ±No!ˇ± The snake shook its head obstinately. ˇ°IˇŻll get this, just watch. No spell is going to beat me. IˇŻm gonna be a dragon!ˇ± ˇ±Fine, but this time stay in my hands, so you donˇŻt fall if you fail again.ˇ± This time Nero really did sigh, though it was with a bit of fondness. Jorry reminded him of his sisters when they were younger. They used to be so headstrong and determined to do anything he could do. It was Nico more than Maude, but the latter had her moments when she wouldnˇŻt take no for an answer. Especially when their father had died, they tried to do their best to help out around the house, though they tended to make more of a mess than anything. Still, they persisted, and now their housework was better than his own. Looking back to the twin moons in the sky, Kaesar couldnˇŻt help but think that if he could find others as interesting as Jorry, he would be a lot less hesitant to use The Nest. The rest of the night passed by quickly. Nero spent a good portion of it wandering the town and helping Jorry with his spell. It took the snake significantly longer to create it than it took Nero and it was only when the sky started to lighten that the pair managed to come up with one that was both practical and ˇ®coolˇŻ enough to Jorry. Kaesar was surprised, but it turned out to be better than expected. Once the pair were done, they made their way to house Ground Sheer had rented to drop off the bag before moving towards the southern gate to meet up with Ludendorff and his group.If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. It was more challenging to find the general than Nero would have expected. The sky was only starting to lighten, but the gate was already packed with traffic, people returning from a night of hunting to sell their stuff or early risers heading out on their own business. It took over ten minutes to find Ludendorff through the crowd, he was outside the gate and to the side to avoid the massive crowd but partially hidden by a group of people that surrounded him. As Nero approached their eyes coincidently met and the general waived him over. ˇ±IˇŻm glad you could make it,ˇ± Ludendorff said while patting him on the back. Nero stumbled and almost fell from the difference in strength but managed to keep his balance. ˇ°WeˇŻre still waiting for a few more people who went to buy potions but while we wait IˇŻll introduce you to those already here.ˇ± ˇ±Guys, this is Nero, this is his first game so go easy on him. From left to right we have the twins Killer and Slayer,ˇ± Killer was a large black man in leather armor who was armed with two serrated daggers that he was twirling idly. Slayer was the complete contrast, a small Asian looking woman wearing heavy iron plate who had a bastard sword strapped to her back. Both of them flashed Nero smiles in greeting, revealing serrated teeth. ˇ°Well, they claim to be twins, but nobody believes them. Killer is a scout that can function as DPS and Slayer is a pure tank build that can draw agro.ˇ± Thankfully Nero wasnˇŻt as new as he once was and could recognize those terms without having to ask. He greeted the pair with a charming smile of his own. ˇ±Next we have Newt.ˇ± A tall woman brown-haired woman wearing a robe and brass knuckles who nodded her head in greeting. ˇ°She has some healing and buffing abilities, but for the most part, she focuses on placing debuffs on the enemy. Beside Newt we have Hope,ˇ± a tiny slip of a girl who smiled up at Nero warmly. She wasnˇŻt even five and a half feet and looked to be no older than sixteen at the most. SheˇŻs...ˇ± Ludendorff hesitated for a moment as if choosing his words carefully. ˇ°I guess DPS, but she mostly focuses on stun locking enemies and dealing critical hits.ˇ± ˇ°Nice to meet ya.ˇ± Hope chirped happily, shaking NeroˇŻs hand energetically. ˇ±Nice to meet you too,ˇ± Kaesar responded while smiling down at the girl who didnˇŻt even come up to his chest. He was reminded a bit of his sisters when they were younger and more energetic. ˇ°Last but not least we have Hacker,ˇ± an androgynous looking man who was wearing a dark robe. The man gave a small wave which Nero returned.ˇ°HeˇŻs our mage and specializes in lightning magic, though he does know a few other spells. The other two, Fishfood and Clarent act as a second tank with some support skills and healer respectively. TheyˇŻve been gone a while so they should be back soon.ˇ± ˇ±DPS, Tank or healer?ˇ± Hacker asked. ˇ±DPS,ˇ± Kaesar answered, ˇ°with some utility skills.ˇ± He did not have the constitution nor equipment to play tank nor the skills for healing or buffing. ˇ±Like what?ˇ± Hope tilted her head inquisitively as she asked. ˇ±Disassembly and I can talk to animals.ˇ± ˇ°Snakes?ˇ± Newt looked curiously at Jorry as he hung around NeroˇŻs neck, his head swiveling around to look at the new people and his tongue flickering in and out to try and remember their taste. Which reminded Nero that he should start practicing with tasting people, in a non-creepy way of course. ˇ±All of them.ˇ± Ludendorff drew a sharp breath. If he was any sort of decent general, he had probably recognized the strategic importance of that ability. ˇ±So you know what monsters are saying when you kill them?ˇ± If any of the group were disturbed by KillerˇŻs question, they didnˇŻt show it. ˇ±Not really,ˇ± Kaesar shook his head in the negative. ˇ°It is a bit complicated, but the gist of it is that not all animals or monsters have a high enough Spirit to be self-aware enough to talk. Only those that are strong, special in some way or spend a lot of time around other beings with high Spirit will be smart enough to converse.ˇ± Nero didnˇŻt feel the need to tell them that from experimenting with Beast Tongue he had a way around that particular problem. ˇ°Oh,ˇ± Ludendorff said a bit regretfully, but he smiled at Nero anyway. ˇ°Still useful though. So is that snake your weapon or something?ˇ± ˇ±Or something,ˇ± Nero tried to imagine using Jorry as some sort of demented whip but decided that wasnˇŻt a good idea. Who knows though, somebody out there might have a Nature like that. ˇ°Think of him as a summons, Jorry has his own skills and fights beside me for the most part.ˇ± When he wasnˇŻt asleep that is. ˇ°Can I hold him?ˇ± Hope asked hopefully, looking pitifully up at Nero. Jorry shook his head rapidly in senile but, deciding to be a bit petty, Nero agreed and took the serpent from his neck and passed it to the girlˇŻs arms. The betrayed look Kaesar received told him that his payback for the snake sleeping through the trip was well received. ˇ°Hello Jorry, my name is Hope,ˇ± she said softly as she scratched the snakeˇŻs scales. Apparently, JorryˇŻs aversion to new people was quickly dissolved by scratching that right spot under his jaw, as his eyes closed in bliss. "What level is your disassembly at?" Ludendorff asked, ignoring the byplay between the pair. "Only at level five." "But you can take off fur and such right?" Nero nodded, and Ludendorff turned to the group as a whole. "Do you guys want to only keep doing bounties or do you want to focus on harvesting materials? You''ll make more money that way but will level up slower than normal because you have to stop to harvest." "Hey, Fishfood! Clarent! Over here!" Hope suddenly yelled, waving her arms to attract their attention. Unfortunately, she still held Jorry when she did, and if the look on his face was anything to go by, he wasn''t happy with the swinging. "Perfect timing you two." The general greeted the pair. "This is Nero, he''ll be joining you for a bit. He knows the disassembly, so you need to decide whether you want to focus on leveling, like you have been, or slow down a bit but make some money by harvesting some monster pelts. Keep in mind you''ll need to drag around a cart to carry them so you will need to take care of that." "I think we should keep focusing on leveling and just take the bounties. That''s why we''re here in the first place," Fishfood answered. He was a tall man, a few inches taller than Kaesar and wearing some sort of robe with armor plates sewn on. He looked decidedly average with a standard straight sword at his waist and shield on his left arm. "Plus I don''t want to drag a cart around in a forest." Clarent was wearing some sort of leather tunic and was walking with a staff, giving her a wandering hermit sort of look. "You guys?" Ludendorff asked the rest of the group. "Hunting," Killer answered with a bloodthirsty smile and his ''twin'' nodded in agreement. Newt shrugged her shoulders in an uncaring fashion. "I wanna fight!" Hope said excitedly, her fist clenched in anticipation. "Either way is fine with me. But most of us wouldn''t be too much help with the harvesting anyway." Hacker pointed out. "That fine with you?" The general asked Nero who merely smiled and answered with a ''No problem.'' "That''s settled then, you two got the potions?" Fishfood and Clarent nodded. "Then you are all set. I''ll say the same thing I mentioned yesterday. Goblins are all over the place so you can focus on them but don''t fight if they outnumber you, are better equipped than you or have a spellcaster. Wolves and the like are pretty common but stay away from any that have fur darker than grey, we don''t want a repeat of yesterday." More than a few of the group winced at the reminder of their grizzly death at the hands of a brown wolf. Hope whimpered a bit and raised Jorry in front of her face as if he would protect her. "Apart from that, if you want you can try a few of the dungeons in the forest just be careful and have fun." "See ya teach." "Bye." "We''ll be back." As the group said their goodbyes to their general, they turned to the south to enter the forest. Nero reclaimed Jorry from Hope, who pouted a bit but let the snake go. He decided to hang behind the group a bit to get a feel for their dynamic and see how they interacted with each other. Unexpectedly, Fishfood also hung back and started matching Kaesar''s pace. "Sorry, I never really introduced myself. I''m Fishfood, I mostly work as a supporting tank. This is my computer wife, Caren." He reached his hand out to shake which Nero accepted, his brows scrunched up a bit in confusion at the last sentence. "Hello," an electronic voice that was distinctly female said from somewhere nearby. Suddenly a floating head appeared over Fishfood''s shoulder, it was colorless and flat, like a black and white picture on a grainy computer screen. "Nice to meet you?" Nero half asked as he was more than a bit confused. "Ha, I love the look on people''s face when they see Caren." Fishfood guffawed. "You''re an asshole." The ghost head swiveled on his shoulder to give him a disapproving look. "You love me anyway," he answered back with a cheeky grin. "Sorry about that, a little prank for new people. No hard feelings?" "Sure," Nero just shrugged, more confused than offended. "But when you say your computer wife you mean?" "Just that, IRL she''s an AI, and we''ve been married for six years now. Because of that, we managed to create a character in Gods'' Nature that is essentially two in one. I fight while Caren supports. Find that weird?" Nero just shrugged, not really caring one way or the other. This was the first time meeting somebody who had a relationship with an AI, but he had heard about it before, so it wasn''t entirely alien to him. It wasn''t his life, so he really didn''t care. To each their own. "Good, so how long have you been playing?" Caren faded away again as Fishfood struck up a conversation. The pair chatted for a while as the group approached the forest and entered. Nero took the chance to ask about various things like why they had joined The Bank, what were the benefits and how long they had been playing. He also got a bit more information about his current teammates and their skills. At some point, Killer separated himself from the group and pushed deeper into the forest by himself. He would come back every few minutes with an update, but nothing of note happened for over half an hour. "We''ve got a group of six goblins a few minutes out, no mages or armor. We should be able to take them." Killer explained. "Any other groups nearby?" Hacker asked. "Not that I could tell, they didn''t seem to be in a rush either, but they are wary and almost spotted me." "Are they coming this way?" "A bit west of here. There a few boulders we can hide behind, but the foliage isn''t dense enough to really catch them off guard. If I was a higher level, we could use some camouflage skills, but for now, we''ll have to settle for fighting them straight up." "Standard formation then?" Fishfood asked to which most of the group nodded, drawing their weapons and getting ready for a fight. Slayer and Fishfood walked to the front while Hacker and Clarent went to the middle with the rest of the group surrounding them. Nero once more hung at the back, not used to fighting in a group and so deciding to wait for a good time to insert himself. Ready for a fight, it did not take the group long to meet up with the goblins. The green humanoids also noticed them quickly and drew their weapons at the ready. This was Nero''s first time seeing goblins, they were small creatures, not one of them was taller than five feet, but they were dangerous nonetheless. Each of them was covered in wired muscle and scars that spoke of harsh living, and they charged at the group with their weapons raised at impressive speed. Most of them were simply armed with crude wooden clubs, but one of them had two steel swords, and another had a shield that looked to be a barrel top. The group was ready for them, however. Slayer rushed forward, her bastard sword swinging for two at once. The first jumped out of reach but the second tried to catch it on its club and was pushed back by the strength difference. The one who jumped away didn''t get off scot-free, however, as Hacker shot a small bolt of lightning with a cry of ''lightning shot'' that hit it in the torso, searing it black. Fishfood took a different approach, he only tried to challenge the one with two swords. One of the blades hit his shield and decided to strike back under the goblin''s arm. In doing so, he left himself open to the second blade, but he paid it no head at Caren appeared on his shoulders, and a beam of light flew from her eyes, blinding the goblin and allowing her husband''s sword to gouge its side. Newt was wailing on another goblin, there was no other way to say it. She didn''t have a weapon barring her brass knuckles, but they seemed to be doing fine despite the enemy having a shield. She was raining punches on the unfortunate monster, and every time it tried to counter-attack, she would step closer and punch it in the face. There would be a flash of light, and it would pause for a second and Newt would go back to rapid fire punching. For some odd reason, she kept screaming ''Ora ora ora'' with every punch. Nero guessed it was some sort of chant that applied the debuffs to her fists. Hope was... well Nero had no idea what Hope was doing. It could be called fighting or dancing, it could also be called sadistic torture. She was weaving in and out of the goblin''s range, and occasionally she would pull daggers, stilettos Nero realized, out of nowhere and jam them into the goblin. She aimed for joints like the shoulders and elbows and, at one point, the underside of the knee. With the blades lodged in its body, the goblin slowly lost the ability to resist or even move at all. Hope did all this with that same innocent smile on her face like she wasn''t doing something that violated the Geneva convention. Of course, Nero was only able to observe all this from his periphery vision as he engaged the last goblin as Killer went to support his sister. "Evolve!" The bone claws covered his hands as he caught the club that was swinging at his chest. The fight was surprisingly straightforward. The goblin was smaller than Nero but a bit stronger, so he had to use both hands to hold onto the weapon to keep it in place. Usually, that would only deadlock the pair, but Nero cheated. Once he had the weapon in his grip, Jorry launched himself at the enemy''s face and wrapped himself around the goblin''s neck. By the way, the monster''s eyes bulged, Nero guessed that Jorry had used bind to constrict its air flow. Nero grinned, that was the pleasant part. Last night the pair hadn''t been able to entirely give Jorry his spikes. The snake just didn''t have enough mana to support such constructs without them being extremely feeble. Instead, they had compromised. As Nero held the club in place while the goblin desperately tried to pull it free from his grip, he saw spikes, off-white and jagged, sprout from Jorry''s scales. They were only there for a moment, but that moment was long enough to gouge the monster''s throat and send blood gushing from the wound. The humanoid grunted in pain, unable to roar due to asphyxiation, and let go of its weapon to try and pry Jorry from its neck. That was the wrong move, without needing to hold the club, Nero let it fall to the forest floor. While the goblin''s hand reached to its throat to try and pull Jorry off, Nero''s clawed hands buried themselves up the knuckles in its gut. By that point, the fight was over, and it only took a few seconds for the enemy to kneel over, dead. "Good work," Fishfood said once the goblin had died. Apparently, with Killer aiding his sister, the rest of the group had rolled up the remaining goblins while he was fighting. They had apparently decided against helping and had just watched. Hope quickly picked Jorry back up and snuggled the snake to her face, ignoring the blood that covered herself as she did so. "Don''t forget to get proof of your kill. For goblins, it is their ears since they change depending on their levels the guild can know what level they were when they died." Nero only listened with half an ear as something was bothering him. There was a taste on the air, one he didn''t recognize. It was a strong one too, it overpowered the flavor of blood even though a considerable amount had been spilled. Looking at Jorry being tended to by Hope Nero decided to keep it to himself for now. **** 019-3/3 Hungry Like The Wolf ˇ°We should get a move on,ˇ± Fishfood said once everybody had collected their proof. ˇ°Wolves will be attracted by the smell of blood, and we donˇŻt know if these goblins were a splinter from another group.ˇ± There were no complaints from the group, so they headed deeper into the forest in search of more prey. ˇ±Does something taste odd to you?ˇ± Nero asked Jorry quietly as they walked. It wasnˇŻt that he didn''t trust the group, merely that he wanted to keep his suspicions to himself until he had proof. ˇ±No,ˇ± the snakeˇŻs head shook in the negative. ˇ°The same as usual. Blood, trees, bugs, something rotting, wolves, dirt, it has all been here since we got near the forest. There is some stale water not far from here is that it?ˇ± Nero shook his head, it smelled a bit like fur, though with an undercurrent of something else, so it might be wolves. That wouldnˇŻt be surprising since they were all over the area apparently and their smell would permeate the forest. And JorryˇŻs senses were acuter than his own so he would know if they were close. The blood wasnˇŻt anything new, and the rest was stuff that wouldnˇŻt be out of place in a natural forest. The rotting smell could be a tree or a body from any of the other fights in the woods. *Ding* Assimilation complete. Assimilation level up. Kaesar decided to give up that train of thought for the moment and focus on this new development. With this new level up, he could try to assimilate another of JorryˇŻs traits. He first tried to absorb his scales again and when that failed he tried to get the flexibility of a snake. Both options didnˇŻt work so Nero tried to go with his final idea. If this werenˇŻt possible, then he would have to find another animal to join the Nest before he could continue to assimilate traits. At the same time though, Nero was very iffy about this idea. Contrary to when he first got the skill, he was much more wary of messing with his senses, especially since his setting was now at fifteen percent. ˇ°Assimilate tactile receptors.ˇ± There was a pause before Kaesar got his response. *Adaptive assimilation possible of ˇ®Black rat snakeˇŻs tactile receptors.ˇŻ Assimilate?* Adaptive assimilation likely meant that it wasnˇŻt possible to receive the exact same sense of touch as Jorry, but Nero could still get something. Though he was wary of a sudden increase in his sense of touch, Nero braced himself and activated the skill. Though he ended up not needing to be so tense as once the skill activated it took a moment for him to even realize what it had done. Nero stopped following the group, though they didnˇŻt really notice as he had dropped behind them to talk to Jorry. He sat on a nearby log and removed his boots and socks. Kaesar hesitantly set his bare feet on the forest floor, wincing as he did so from the new sensations. He placed them in his pack and slowly stood up barefoot. Nero took a few hesitant steps, wincing from the occasional twig that dug into his feet. Anybody who has walked barefoot through a forest for the first time knows that it is not an enjoyable experience. Sharp twigs, small stones, bugs, and mud are only a few of the things that can put anybody off doing it a second time. Not to mention the shards of glass one might find in most forests these days. In real life Augustus would never have done something like this, the hygiene risk alone would make it not viable. But in GodsˇŻ Nature, where he didnˇŻt have to worry about infections that werenˇŻt magical, where any cuts he received were healed in moments by his Hp regeneration, doing this could be immeasurably beneficial in the long run. A snakeˇŻs senses were a mixed bag, their sense of sight and hearing were actually comparatively worse than the average humanˇŻs, but the rest were heightened to compensate. Their sense of smell/taste could detect things a considerable distance away in the right conditions. Some serpents also had a sixth sense as they were able to identify heat to a precision of half a degree, though since black rat snakes were not a species with said ability, Nero did not have the option of assimilating that useful trait. But all snakes, with no exception, had an almost supernatural sense of touch. As should be expected of an animal that spends its life on its belly, it could feel the vibrations in the ground to an absurd degree allowing it to hunt even the lightest prey. What Nero had done was assimilate the tactile receptors that allowed serpents this ability. It had been the only other trait of Jorry''s he could think of that would provide benefits. Black rat snakes were just not that special or unique when it came to features, so his options were limited. Kaesar had been worried about his sense of touch increasing too much, but thankfully he needn''t have worried. Much like how certain parts of the body are more sensitive than others, the trait had increased the areas most used with the sense of touch. His hands and feet. Pulling off his boots had been interesting, he was feeling the coarseness of the leather, the dry dirt, the folds, and creases from wear and tear, as if for the first time. It was when Nero stood up that the full effect could really be felt. Touch was perhaps the sense we use the most unconsciously. We can always tell when there is an increase in light, noise, smell or taste but what does an increase in the sense of touch feel like? Unlike when he had assimilated Jorry''s sense of taste, Nero wasn''t overwhelmed by these new sensations. Mostly because he no idea how to interpret them. Kaesar could definitely feel vibrations in the ground, likely from the rest of the group as they kept walking. He could also feel fainter ones farther away, though how now and in what directions he didn''t know. Nero could feel the earth shift under his feet as he adjusted his balance. He could detect movement in the soil a bit further away. Whatever it was, it was displacing the dirt and rocks without actually moving them. It was like when it moved into a location, whatever was there merely disappeared only to reappear once it had moved on. Nero wasn''t sure what it was, maybe a magical form of an earthworm or something. It was more significant than the other things wriggling in the soil, but its exact location and size he was in no way practiced enough to tell. Either way, that was only one of the new things that he was experiencing with the most recent assimilation. Whether it was the patter of nearby ants or the creaking of trees as they shifted in the wind that he felt more than heard, Nero was suddenly way more conscious of the world around him for the first time. With Kaesar''s enhanced sense of taste as well as his flickering tongue he could know the general gist of what was around him, but suddenly he could feel it as well. It was providing much-needed context to some of the sensations he had been trying to understand for the last few months. Taking a few steps forward, wincing because of a particularly sharp pebble, Nero tried to adjust to this new dynamic. He wasn''t anywhere near understanding everything he was sensing, but that would come with time and practice. Though he hoped he would develop calluses soon enough on his feet as the occasional sting was getting annoying. Ignoring his prickling feet, Nero sped up to catch the rest of the group. His arrival was noticed and Newt, who was in the back of the column, asked the obvious question. "Where''d you go?" "I was testing out a new skill," Nero answered simply. "A new skill? You mind showing me?" The woman looked at him in interest, trying to see if there was anything different. "It''s passive, so I don''t really have anything to show." He shrugged his shoulders in seeming helplessness. "And it requires you to not wear shoes?" Hacker asked in disbelief, noticing his lack of footwear. "Pretty much, though I doubt this is the weirdest skill you''ve ever seen." "Damn right!" Clarent said with a laugh. "I know this one guy, real suave, gentlemanly looking guy, but he has a skill that turns all his fingers into tentacles. Supper creepy." "That''s nothing," Killer said with a vicious smile. "I''ve heard about this one pioneer who can turn skin into armor. They say he''s covered in an extra layer of skin that he peeled off from another player." The conversation kept on like that for a while, each listing off a variety of skills they had either seen or heard of. It continued for a while, each skill getting more outlandish and dubious as it went on, but was stopped once the group discovered another bunch of goblins. Nero hadn''t joined in the discussion he had started, still trying to get a read on his new abilities. While was doing so, he discovered that the creature in the ground, the one he had noticed before was following them. It kept its distance and made no action besides staying with them, so Nero didn''t say anything to the rest of the team. This group of goblins only consisted of four and were taken down quickly, though one managed to score a good hit on Hope. She was healed easily by Clarent, so I wasn''t an issue. Nero had been worried that their follower might try and take advantage of their distraction to try something, but when nothing happened, he relaxed a bit. The rest of the day passed like that, the group running into the occasional goblin horde and whipping them out if they were able to or steering clear of them if they were outnumbered. They saw the rare wolf tracks but anytime they tried to follow it would lead nowhere so they would be forced to give up. Occasionally they would run into other players or NPCs who were doing the same, and the respective groups would steer clear of each other, clearly wary of a fight. Throughout the day Nero kept his focus on their hidden follower. It generally stayed a small distance away, but it would sometimes fall back, out of Kaesar''s range, only to return soon after. After a few hours, Nero was starting to think it was some sort of scavenger and followed them to eat their kills. The sun was on its way down when the group settled near a stream for a break and a drink. "We''ve been lucky today, twelve goblin packs," Fishfood said as he leaned against a rock. Caren''s floating head was playing in the water beside him, though she passed right through without even causing a ripple. "How many ears do we have?" "Ninety-six, that''s a little under four gold. Not bad for the day." Newt replied. "If we keep this up we should be able to level up in two, possibly three days," Hacker said as he leaned against a tree. The entire group had been killed yesterday, which reset their experience to zero for the level. Nero, who was of a lower level and hadn''t died, had actually managed to increase to level fourteen not even an hour ago. "Do you guys want to keep going or head home? We don''t want to be out once the sun sets and have to fight in the dark." Fishfood asked. "We have a few hours still, might as well stay out. Besides, there is a cave dungeon near here filled with ratmen. It showed up about a month ago, and they breed like crazy so it should be packed." Killer said, Slayer grunting in agreement beside him.If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. "What''s the recommended level?" Hacker asked, interested. "Fifteen to twenty from what I remember. We should be fine so long as we don''t get swarmed." "Place like that is bound to be controlled by someone, it is too good not to use on their own trainees," Newt said doubtfully. "Nah," Fishfood suddenly spoke up. "I think I know which one you''re talking about. Normally the local military uses it, but they are busy around this time of the year. I heard the General talking to the bosses about potentially buying the rights for its exclusive use." "Wouldn''t other people be using it though?" Hope raised her own doubts. "Probably," Killer shrugged. "I hear it''s pretty large though so we shouldn''t have too much trouble." "Alright then," Fishfood stood up. "Sounds like a plan, anybody have anything else to say?" The rest of the group remained silent, Nero included who had taken this little break time to wash his feet from the accumulation of grime throughout the day. "Killer, lead the way." "It should be about twenty minutes east of here." The scout said as he looked to the sky. It ended up taking more than a half hour and some time backtracking, but the group managed to find the cave system. There were other people there, milling about and chatting or exiting the cave to head back to town for the night. Their arrival garnered barely any attention, and the group was able to make it into the caves without a problem. As they lit their pocket lanterns, Nero took a look around the area. Unlike where he had fought the ratman before, this area was a full-fledged cave rather than a mining tunnel. It was damp and dirty, stalactites and stalagmites dotted the area at irregular intervals, and the ground was uneven. With his newfound sense, Kaesar was able to feel things wriggling in the dirt and taste the distinct smell of bat droppings. "Try and remember the way we came, we don''t want to get lost down here," Fishfood told the group as they made their way forward into the depths. After a few minutes of exploring and not finding a single ratman, the group stopped some nearby players on their way back to the surface. They were able to get some directions to areas where the ratmen regularly frequented. What made a place a dungeon in Gods'' Nature didn''t have anything to do with its actual structure. A dungeon, as Nero had read was ''a place where monsters live and spawn.'' A bit like holy lands, dungeons were places that monsters respawned at rather than in a safe yet random location in the wild. If monsters stayed in one location long enough they ''infected'' it with their power and turned it into a dungeon. The weaker the monsters, the more was required to create a dungeon. The ratmen had lived in this cave system for over a month, and they were estimated to number more than two hundred upon their arrival. This was more than enough to turn this location into a dungeon. Since then they had started to develop habits that their hunters had noticed and took advantage of. The group found their first ratmen where the other players had told them to look. It was only a group of three and, though ratmen were tougher than goblins, they were dealt with rather efficiently by the group of nine. Jorry, in particular, seemed to enjoy using his new spell on an enemy that once almost killed the pair. Every red number that flew from the ratman''s body as Jorry''s new spikes gouged their way into its flesh was accompanied by a hiss of pleasure from the snake. It is a new side to Jorry, one Nero had only seen briefly. He knew the snake could be petty and, but this was the first time his companion was deliberately cruel. The first fight was simple, the second one was anything but. It started out with no complications if a bit more severe than the first due to the number of enemies. Jorry, whose tongue was better at scouting in the dark cave than Killer''s eyesight skill, notified the group of approaching ratmen. There were seven enemies so the group decided to lure them to a broader area where Haker could use his magic more efficiently, and they could coordinate better. They ended up in a large, cavernous room dominated by a large stone that made up most of the floor. The fight started like the first one the group had fought that day. Slayer took on two at once while the rest squared off individually against the rest. Hacker and Clarent provided support when needed. The one Nero and Jorry were facing was larger than average, but once Jorry was wrapped around its neck its desperate flailings for air were of almost no threat to the pair who were now much stronger than they were in that old mine shaft. When Hacker managed to score a lucky shot on one of Slayer''s foes, rupturing its eye with a bolt of lightning, the fight was all but over. One by one the ratmen started to fall until only Newt''s and Hope''s was left as those two focused more on control rather than damage. Seeing that the others were done with their kill''s Hope decided to stop playing around and tore one her stilettos from the ratman''s shoulder and buried it under its jaw. When Newt''s was dispatched by Killer from behind the group, let out a sigh of relief, the adrenaline wearing off slightly. Perhaps it was nobody''s fault that the group was not ready for what happened next. It was mostly coincidence that they had chosen a room with a floor of stone rather than one of dirt. Stone actually conducted vibrations better than dirt, but only if it was in direct contact, otherwise the area where rock met soil acted as a buffer and muted most things Nero would have been able to sense. Furthermore, Killer''s eyesight skill and Jorry''s enhanced taste buds were useless when your enemy buries itself under the earth and leaves no air holes. So the group was utterly unprepared when wolf dropped from the ceiling into their midst. There was a moment of confused inaction as the everybody stared and tried to understand what they were seeing. That moment was all the carnivore needed to leap at Slayer who, much to her credit, managed to get her shield between them before it could tear out her throat. The wolf snapped at her, jaws and claws desperately trying to find a soft target as the tank pushed herself backward in an attempt to make room to rise to her feet. The rest of the group had gotten over their confusion for the moment and were rising to their feet to help out their party member. Killer, in his rush to help his twin, didn''t take care to look up for any further enemies. The next wolf that landed did so on his back. It sent the two sprawling in a tangle of limbs and fur. It was lucky the wolf wasn''t prepared for such an opportune landing otherwise the scout would have likely died right there. As it was, he received some deep scratches, and the canine managed to get its jaws around his arm, forcing a pained cry from his lips. "Hacker! Newt! Stay with Clarent and keep an eye on the ceiling. Tell us when others are dropping. Fishfood! Blast the one in front of Slayer." Despite the panic and confusion and his speeding heartbeat, Nero found himself able to give directions clearly. Their main priority was to get Slayer on her feet and regroup since she was their main tank. "Evolve!" The claws that covered his fingers were quickly buried in the guts of the wolf attacking Killer causing it to yelp in pain and release the scout''s arms. Not wasting the opportunity Killer drove one of his daggers into its ears causing a huge red 250 to float above its head and killing it. "Watch out! Four more!" They didn''t have time to celebrate however as more enemies started falling from the ceiling. Nero was barely able to look up before rolling away hurriedly as one of them landed where he had been standing. "Keep them stunned for as long as possible!" Kaesar yelled, hoping that Hope and Newt would follow through. Fishfood had already helped Slayer to her feet and left her to deal with the first wold while took on one of the new arrivals. Nero would have to deal with the one in front of him by himself as Killer would be next to useless with his mangled arm. "Clarent heal Killer!" The wolf lunged at him, and Kaesar desperately sidestepped and swung at the wolf who jumped to the side to avoid his claws. That was fine though because as Nero was lunging at the enemy, Jorry launched himself from his partner''s arm and onto the wolf''s head. Like that ratman all those weeks ago Jorry acted as an impromptu muzzle, only this time he activated his spell, digging sharp bone-like spikes into the canine''s jaws. "We''ve got three more!" Clarent cried. "Fuck!" Nero wasn''t one to swear often, but even he couldn''t help when facing this situation. The wolf he was facing was already starting to claw at Jorry, tearing bloody stripes through his scales. "Killer you take one, Hacker help him!" Unless they got lucky, all they would be able to do is stall it for a bit. But even as Nero said so, he was moving. Instead of trying to kill his current foe, it was better to disable it for the moment. Getting beside the wolf, Nero dug his claws into the sides of the enemy. Bone scraped against bone as Kaesar got a good hold. Using all of his above average strength stat, he hefted the massive animal into the air, causing the canine to finally realize it might be in trouble but it only had a few moments to wriggle for freedom before it was brought down. "Evolve!" There was a satisfying crunch, and then a whine as the bone like spike Nero had grown on his knee dug into the wolf''s back. A massive red 148 floated in the air followed by a smaller 12. Because of the improvised spell creation, Nero hadn''t fortified his knee enough to deal with the weight and had thus damaged himself. Unfortunately, he didn''t have time to deal with the pain as he still had enemies to deal with. Leaving the likely paralyzed wolf to Jorry, Kaesar turned to asses the situation. Slayer was close to finishing off her opponent but would likely take another little bit, so she was not an option at the moment. Hope and Newt were dealing with one each but were nowhere near finishing them up. One of the new arrivals had decided to target Fishfood, and he was barely keeping both enemies at bay with Caren''s help. Nero thought he could last a few more moments and so chose to intervene where it was really needed. Even injured, Killer would have been able to kill one of the wolves with Hacker''s help and Clarent''s healing. But two was way over the trio''s ability. Killer was able to keep one at bay with his knives for the moment while Hacker tried to shock the other into submission. Unfortunately, the mage was apparently low on mana as each individual bolt of lightning was tiny in comparison to his usual abilities. Only the fear of pain kept him from being mauled. But when one of his shots missed, the wolf took full advantage of the opportunity to lunge at him. Thankfully Nero arrived quickly enough to bodyslam the airborne wolf, sending it flying. "Help Killer!" Kaesar said as he dove after his foe. Hacker nodded and took a breath before helping his friend. Nero needed to kill one of the wolves quickly before Fishfood was overrun and, seeing Slayer shield bash her current enemy before going in for the finishing blow, he got an idea. In a repeat of what had happened with Hacker, Nero bodyslammed a wolf that was lunging at Fishfood. "Slayer!" The tank looked up as she pulled her sword from the wolf''s neck and nodded as she went to intercept the sliding canine. Nero''s timely aid had not gone unpunished however as the wolf he had first knocked back took this chance to lunge at him from the side. Kaesar barely had time to turn slightly before the monster was on him. His hands instinctively went for the opponent''s jaws in a desperate attempt to stop it from ripping his neck out. His hands managed to find their way to the upper and lower jaws as he tried to keep them from closing but, even with his bone coverings, the teeth still dug into the palms of his hands. Worse yet, his sides were left undefended from the monster''s claws as they tore great furrows in his sides and shoulders. Crying out in pain, the fifteen percent sensitivity really showing its effect, Nero drove his newly spiked knee upwards into the wolf. Right into the groin. It doesn''t matter which sex or species, that is always one of the most sensitive places on the body. The wolf went slack with pain for a moment and a moment was all Nero needed. He squeezed his hand around the enemy''s jaws, teeth digging into his bloody palms, and he pulled. With almost superhuman strength, the wolf''s lower jaw dislocated. It howled in pain, though the sound was distorted by the broken jaw, Kaesar didn''t give it the time to gain its bearings. With an adrenaline-fuelled shove, the roles were reversed, and Nero sat astride the enemy. With an animal like fury, he tore into the wolf''s soft underbelly. His own claws dug into soft flesh over and over again. Unmindful of the pain in his hands or his shoulders he kept clawing, sending bits of fur, guts, and blood flying. By the time Nero calmed down, the wolf was already long dead, its lifeless eyes staring up at him in a pained expression. Looking up, Nero noticed that the rest of the group was finishing up their own foes and helping each other to do the same. Though he wanted to collapse in exhaustion, Nero had one more thing to do before he could relax. Barely managing to stand, and ignoring the blood that flowed from his open wounds and the little red 1s and 2s that showed up as he did so, Nero shambled his way towards the wall of the room. Digging his fingers into the compact soil, Nero closed his eyes to properly search for vibrations. Sure enough, the group''s stalker was making its escape above their heads. Within moments it had left Kaesar''s detection range, and he finally let himself relax as he slid down the wall. "What the fuck was that!" Nero blearily opened his eyes, a struggle because of the adrenaline wearing off, to see who had asked the question. It was an unfamiliar voice, and he realized this was the first time he had heard Slayer speak. "That was fun!" Jorry said, his voice as flat as Nero had ever heard it. Kaesar couldn''t help it, he really couldn''t. He laughed. He laughed hard and long, each movement sending waves of pain from his wounds but he still laughed on. Jorry had finally used sarcasm correctly! **** "I prefer the gorgeous freedom, And I fly to lands of grace, Where in wide and clear meadows All is good, as dreams, and blest. Here they rice: the clover clear, And corn-flower''s gentle lace, And the rustle is always here: "Ears are leaning... Take your ways!" In this immense sea of fair, Only one of blades reclines. You don''t see in misty air, I''d seen it!It will be mine!" ''I Prefer The Gorgeous Freedom'' By Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Blok 020 The Piper "I prefer the gorgeous freedom, And I fly to lands of grace, Where in wide and clear meadows All is good, as dreams, and blest. Here they rice: the clover clear, And corn-flower''s gentle lace, And the rustle is always here: "Ears are leaning... Take your ways!" In this immense sea of fair, Only one of blades reclines. You don''t see in misty air, I''d seen it!It will be mine!" ''I Prefer The Gorgeous Freedom'' By Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Blok **** ˇ°You know,ˇ± Ludendorff said conversationally to Nero who was seated beside him in the front of a wagon. ˇ°You never told me what you thought about ˇ®em.ˇ± ˇ°Hm?ˇ± ˇ°The group,ˇ± he nodded to the people in the back of the carriage. ˇ°How they fight and whatnot. What do you think?ˇ± ˇ°Well,ˇ± Nero said slowly to organize his thoughts. The carriage lurched forward as it hit a pothole in the cobblestone path. As they were nearing Sarra, the dirt road had turned to paved stones a while back. ˇ°IˇŻm no expert, but they seem pretty good to me in a fight. A bit dysfunctional and some of them probably have some sort of psychological issue but other than that they worked well together and didnˇŻt panic in a crisis, so thatˇŻs something.ˇ± ˇ°What kind of issues?ˇ± ˇ°ItˇŻs not my area of study so take what I say with a grain of salt but they all display more than a bit of sadism, and IˇŻm pretty sure Hope has a disassociated personality disorder. She might be bipolar, but the mood swings donˇŻt seem sharp enough for that.ˇ± ˇ°Never thought of that, could be true.ˇ± Ludendorff shrugged. ˇ°Anything else?ˇ± ˇ°Slayer obviously has problems with communication, Killer is used to being independent and sometimes forgets heˇŻs in a team, Hacker can be a bit arrogant, Newt tends to focus on only one thing in combat, and Clarent is too passive and doesnˇŻt take the initiative when it is presented. Fishfood is probably the most well-adjusted to working in a team, possibly due to his computer wife, but he seems a bit rigid in his thinking and lacks adaptability when surprised. DonˇŻt take this as pure truth though, IˇŻve only worked with them for about a week.ˇ± The general looked at his companion in surprise. ˇ°That is quite a lot for somebody who isnˇŻt an expert.ˇ± ˇ°IˇŻm no expert in fighting and, like I said, psychology is not my area of study, but I like to think I know people pretty well.ˇ± Nero shrugged. ˇ°Combat wise I didnˇŻt see anything I thought was too egregious but IˇŻm only a novice myself. I think Newt and Hope might have some prior training in some martial arts and I wouldnˇŻt be surprised if the twins have been in some street fights.ˇ± ˇ°And you?ˇ± Ludendorff asked as he pulled the carriage to a halt in the back of the line up to enter the city gates. Once Nero sent him a questioning look he elaborated. ˇ°How do you evaluate yourself?ˇ± The line progressed steadily as merchants, mercenaries and others sought to enter Sarra to sell their wares or return home. ˇ°IˇŻm not good with a team, IˇŻm too private and independent for it. I react around others rather than with them. I chafe under authority because I tend to think I know better and I do not communicate enough for others to understand my train of thought which leads to misunderstandings. This week was fine because there was no official leader, but in an organized team, I would be a major source of problems. Apart from that I keep my cards too close to my chest and donˇŻt trust others. Combat wise IˇŻm not bad for somebody who only has a few months of training but not to the point of being a prodigy. I think quickly on my feet, and I can solve problems in creative ways, but I also get stubborn and bullish if I feel justified.ˇ± ˇ°That was,ˇ± Ludendorff struggled to find a word that wouldnˇŻt come across as insulting, ˇ°honest?ˇ± ˇ°I try to never lie to myself,ˇ± Nero shrugged once more. ˇ°I know my strengths and my weaknesses, and I dislike false humility.ˇ± ˇ°No, no. I appreciate the bluntness.ˇ± The general was quick to clarify. ˇ°Operations would go much smoother if everybody was that clear when it came to their own abilities. Too many times people promise things they can''t deliver or do not speak up in fear of failure. But it''s rare to meet somebody so blunt." "I can be polite and circumspect when I want to be," Nero admitted. "But ever since I have started playing Gods'' Nature I haven''t really seen the need to be. Maybe it is because it''s a game, maybe it''s all the fighting I have been doing, either way, I''ve found myself talking more directly." "Ha! I get it, trust me I do," Ludendorff exclaimed. "You should play some other online games sometime. If you want blunt, you''ll never find a group less circumspect than online gamers. Gods'' Nature is a bit different because you can see people face to face but when you have the power of anonymity people tend to pull fewer punches." "I''ll think about it," Nero lied. He was only playing Gods'' Nature because it was this or lay in a hospital bed doing nothing for months. Once he was released and finished his rehabilitation, Augustus would be back at work. Maybe in future, once his sisters had graduated from university and had started to live their own lives, he would try a few. "If you do decide to play one, tell me. I was part of a major guild in pretty much every popular, and a few of my friends still prefer them over Gods'' Nature." "Thanks," the carriage inched its way forward again, drawing them nearer to the gate guards that were inspecting the arrivals. While nowhere near the level immigration inspections in the real world, cities did need to keep an eye out for wanted individuals, restricted goods, and undesirable types. "Will we have any trouble entering?" When he had gone on the expedition with Ground Sheer they had been waived in with no fuss due to the guards, have been graduates of the training hall and thus familiar with the instructors. "Nah," the general waived off his concerns. "So long as I show them my Bank papers they never cause us any problems." "Alright, then I''m going to go rescue my friend from Hope before he dies of asphyxiation." "When you do, do you mind sending Fishfood up here?" "Sure," with a casual wave Nero left the front seat and disembarked from the stationary carriage and made his way to the back. A few moments later Fishfood took his place beside the general. "Sup boss?" "I just wanted to talk to you about something." "The new guy right?" "What do you think of him?" "He''s no gamer, that''s for sure." Fishfood started, having expected this conversation for a while now. "He understands a bit of the lingo, but that is about it. He seems to have no desire for loot or equipment, all his clothes are those that don''t provide any sort of stat boosts or skills. Many jokes flew over his head, and his train of logic tended to go differently than the rest of the group. That isn''t a bad, but it does mean that he''ll need some training to be a big player in Gods'' Nature, especially if he''s going to be on a team." "I already knew he wasn''t a gamer from the start, he was a total newb when I met him," Ludendorff explained. "He also just told me straight up that he wasn''t going to do well on a team." "Fair enough," Fishfood shrugged and continued. "In combat, Nero performs pretty well, probably thanks to that training hall. He thinks on his feet and doesn''t panic, even in dire situations like when we were ambushed. Speaking of which, any news on what caused that?" "A bit, supposedly a mutated wolf has a bit of earth magic that allows it to travel in the ground. It''s only a puppy, and a low-level one at that, so it uses its ability to lead other wolves in ambush." "That would explain it, did Nero ask anything about it?" "Not one word, I don''t think he cared." "It''s times like that when it is apparent he isn''t a gamer." Fishfood looked a bit chagrined. "That smells like a sidequest, and anybody else with his skills would be all over it. That is another thing about him, whatever his Nature is, it''s lore based. It gives him some pretty good supplementary skills, especially in recon work and information gathering. I think he derived his only combat spell from that snake of his so maybe some sort of shaman or druid with a focus on animals rather than combat." "So maybe a scout or ranger," Ludendorff said thoughtfully. "Maybe a full-on pioneer? With his disassembly skill, he would be fine in the wild for a while. Something where he can work alone and put his skills to the test. What do you think Caren?" "He displays several sociopathic tendencies, such as lack of empathy and social withdrawal," the holographic image faded into view over Fishfood''s shoulder. "There is also a high probability that he plays on either the realistic or horrific setting." The pair drew in a sharp breath. Sociopathic tendencies were actually quite common in the Bank, so long as they were channeled appropriately, they could be put to use, but Caren''s other statement was almost unimaginable. Playing Gods'' Nature on the realistic or horrific settings was the domain of monsters. "How certain are you?" Ludendorff asked forcefully, staring at the pixelated face. "87% sure. There were many times when I noticed him performing actions that make no sense unless he was playing on at least the realistic setting. He would wipe away blood I couldn''t see only for it to appear on his hands, he would protect himself from splatter when there was none in my eyes and his eyes would following things I couldn''t track. There is a possibility of it just being some weird habits or coincidences, thus the 13% uncertainty, but it happened too often for it to be anything else." Fishfood summed up the pair''s thoughts succinctly. "Fuck." Their reaction would make sense if one were to consider the fact that Gods'' Nature was a game. A very realistic virtual reality game but a game none the less. People played games to have fun and live out fantasies, not to be traumatized. In reality, if somebody came face to face with a wild wolf or monster, they are more likely to void their bowls than they are to try and fight it. Even if they did, imagine getting covered in gore everytime you wanted to try and level up, it wouldn''t be a fun experience. Thus, even a real game needs to temper realism with enjoyment. The game''s four settings were the compromise that the creator of Gods'' Nature came up with. Cartoon, animated, realistic and horrific were the four ways players could play the game. Players were only able to play on the cartoon level of detail until they turned fourteen. With this setting, there would be no blood or gore, bodies wouldn''t change at all when damaged, and there would simply be a few red pixels with a damage number and if a limb were ''damaged'' it would just stop working. The entire aesthetic of the game would be bright and colorful, looking nothing like real life. The animated setting was a step between cartoonish and real life. Things would appear colorful and not realistic but there would be blood and damages would appear on a body. You might lose a limb or such, but there would be no gore, such as intestines and the like, when you killed an enemy. This was the setting most players used because it was the one most reminiscent of games they were familiar with and because there was a lot less hesitation when it came to killing things when they looked animated. There was a massive divide between the animated and realistic settings. While playing the former made it obvious you were playing a game, playing on the later gave the impression of living in the real world. When injured in the eye you won''t just get a blinded status effect, your eye might be gouged out until your health regenerates. Cutting something in half won''t just kill them and leave a shade of red on each half, the innards and organs will fall to the floor. Gameplay wise there wasn''t a real difference, as damage dealt and received would remain the same, but the visual and emotional impact were on entirely different levels. Despite this, many played with the realistic setting, and they were called monsters. This was both a compliment and an insult. Those people were the worst and the best of the players. They were those who reveled in slaughter and bloodshed, who used Gods'' Nature as a way to vent their violent and horrific tendencies. But, there were others who played with the realistic setting who were the exact opposite, those were the best players in the game. There was an almost unofficial rule that if you wanted to be one of the best in Gods'' Nature, you had to play on the realistic setting. By suppressing their disgust and hesitation, players were able to get a lot more information than if they were playing on the lower settings. With more details, they could make out critical bindings in armor, discoloration in skin tone from previous injuries, weaknesses that weren''t apparent even on the animated level. It generally took a long time of getting used to before players were comfortable enough with the realistic setting before they could operate in it as well as they could at the animated level. The horrific setting, in contrast, provided no benefit. It was purely for those who enjoyed the bloodshed. "You mean every time he... dealt with the goblins?" Fishfood looked a little pale at the thought of what Nero might have seen while killing the humanoids. Seeing his recruit''s mind stuck on the idea, Ludendorff gave him a moment to recompose himself. The carriage had arrived at the guards and, while the general was showing them his papers and explaining that they were on their way back from Maqi''s annual hunting festival, he kept an eye on his younger companion. This small hunting team was the best of the best in terms of recruits. Out of the tens of thousands of players that few were the ones that qualified to be trained under him. Very few in the organization benefited from his skills in increasing growth rate. These eight were going to be raised to be an elite team and, so long as they didn''t mess up, they had high positions in the organization waiting for them to reach the required level. When Nero had commented that each of the group had psychological problems he had been neglecting to take into account the daily impact combat would have on players. These people had to risk pain and death every day to improve and be the best, it took a particular mentality to achieve that. They had to enjoy the fight, they had to have a killer instinct that most lacked. As the carriage drove past the guard station at the gate and deeper into the city proper, the general kept an eye on Fishfood as he whispered a conversation with Caren. He decided the recruit would probably be fine when he suddenly chuckled at something his wife said. Though Ludendorff wished that it wasn''t at his expense when Fishfood turned to him with a teasing smile. "I''ve meant to ask, what''s with the beard?" "Noticed it, did you? What do you think?" Where before there had been only a bit of stubble on his face, over the last week it had started growing into an excellent beard. "I think it looks nice," said Caren. "Very manly." The general flushed a little at the praise. "I don''t think it will help though. Those two don''t seem the type to go for the manly men." Fishfood added on after his wife, making the general slump in depression. "How would you know?" Ludendorff asked petulantly. "I don''t," Fishfood admitted easily. "But after all you''ve tried, I don''t think the two richest women in Gods'' Nature will fall in love with you over a beard." "Ah, but you see young grasshopper," Ludendorff said in a faux sagacious voice. "Though you got lucky with Caren, most of us are not so fortunate. We must prove our dedication through trial and error. Though my love may not win the first battle or the second, even if it fails on the hundredth, so long as it wins the hundred and first battle then the war is mine. Even if they do not care for the beard, I shall try something else, and there will come a day when love triumphs!" "...Sure." Fishfood agreed with a deadpan voice. "I would be more inclined to believe in you if you were only in love with one of them, instead of trying to get both twins." "Love cares not for numbers," the general waived the criticism off with ease. "Think about it, two beautiful and powerful women with all the money and strength they would want, but lacking in love. Their loneliness continues until they realize that what they have been searching for has been right in front of them the entire time in their loyal subordinate. Doesn''t that sound like a great fairy tale?" "It certainly sounds make-believe," Fishfood agreed easily as the carriage parked in a special lot behind a tall building. He rapped on the wood to tell the passengers they had arrived. The carriage wasn''t anything fancy, but it did have an enchantment to block out sounds so the passengers wouldn''t be disturbed in their rest. That was why Ludendorff felt comfortable enough to have these conversations. "Especially since I''ve met those two. They don''t belong in a fairy tale, they belong in a horror movie. As the serial killers!" "You''re probably right," Ludendorff laughed a little at the idea of either of those two women being princesses. The others had disembarked and were stretching their legs from the long ride. He noticed with some amusement that Jorry was keeping a wary eye on Hope from his position on Nero''s shoulder while the human was talking to somebody over the network function. "Still, that''s probably why I like them. I never liked the wishy-washy princess types." "It doesn''t hurt that they are hot twins, does it?" Fishfood asked with a sly look. "That too," Ludendorff agreed with an energetic nod. Before he could go on to explain the wonders of twins, he was stopped by Nero approaching the pair, his call done. "I suppose this is farewell then," Kaesar started. "I''ll be leaving the keep soon so we probably won''t be seeing each other for a while. I want to say thanks for your help, your advise when I first joined was very useful and your skill helped me gain a few levels in this last week." "It was no problem, you sure you don''t want to join the Bank. We would treat you right?" Nero just shook his head at the offer. "You leaving now then?" "Not just yet, I''m waiting to meet somebody here. She said she was nearby." Nero looked around for a moment before seeming to spot something. "There she is." Ludendorff was surprised that he wasn''t looking towards the entrance of the lot but rather the large building behind him. There were very few people in the area, it was a private location after all, and only one person was walking towards the group. The general felt his mouth part in surprise as he recognized her. If the armored chest plate and metal skirt that did nothing to hide the curvaceous form beneath weren''t familiar, then he would have known her by he golden hair and aqua green eyes. The general found himself gulping in nervousness and trying to calm down his erratic heartbeat. This wasn''t too difficult as it was all too common when he met either of the sisters. It took a moment to connect the dots, but when he did, he whirled to look at Nero in surprise. "You were waiting on her?" He half shouted in surprise. "Well yeah," Nero backed up a few steps, a bit off-put by the intensity of the other man''s gaze. Whatever Ludendorff would have said would remain unknown as a shout interrupted the two. "Onii-chan banzai!" It spoke of how much more reactive Nero had become through intense combat that as soon as the shout registered to his ears, he jumped aside in a hurry. It was a good thing too as, appearing from nowhere, Claudia fell onto the ground from the sky right where he had been standing before. "Ouchie," she said pitifully as she hit the ground. "Hah! Serves you right!" Far from being sympathetic to her sister''s pain, Octavia added salt to her wound by bringing Nero into a hug and sticking her tongue out at the twin laying on the ground. "Welcome back." It spoke of the long familiarity the two girls had with each other that Octavia quickly stepped back from the hug and greeting as Claudia shot to her feet and tackle-hugged her brother in turn. Ludendorff watched with wide eyes, never having seen his bosses act this way. They were eccentric usually, so that was normal, but they never displayed this level of familiarity with others before. It took the general a moment to realize Octavia was walking towards him. He found himself standing a bit straighter and puffing out his chest as he always did in their presence. "I heard you''ve been helping Nero out," she said with a smile that made Ludendorff want to melt. "Thank you. You''ve done a great job." "No problem, happy to help." He managed to squeeze out, and Octavia turned to rescue her brother from their hyperactive sister. It took a few moments of struggle to get Claudia to let go after which she pouted and made to follow the pair as the blond dragged Nero into the building. Before she had advanced a few feet however she paused and turned to look at Ludendorff for a moment. After a moment of thought, the woman walked towards the general, causing him to gulp in nervousness. He liked both sisters but he wasn''t blind to their faults either, these were the two who had given him his first death in Gods'' Nature within moments of meeting him after all. And Claudia was always the more mercurial of the two. So it was with nervousness but minimal surprise that Ludendorff was able to look into her eyes when she approached him and grabbed him by the beard and forced him to look at her. Something that wasn''t difficult considering there were only a few inches in height between the pair. "Octavia was the carrot, I''m the stick," she said harshly to him. As if to emphasize the point, dozens of ghosts and spirits faded into view around the group, their weapons ready and their faces contorted in a rictus of pain. Hope was looking exceptionally pale as some sort of ghost/monster/squirrel thing perched itself on her head. Ludendorff knew more than most about Claudia''s Nature, and he knew how these spirit warriors were created. It was not a happy thought. "You will not mess with Nero, from now on you are to treat him like he is our boss. If he says jump, you don''t ask how high, you just jump and keep jumping until he tells you to stop. Got it?" The general tried to nod but was unable to thanks to the vice grip on his new beard. Thankfully his eyes seemed to get the message across. "Good! If not I''m going to rip this beard out with my bare hands and feed it to you. But just to make sure you get the message, you and this team of yours are going to report to the training room at sundown." And with that, the beautiful yet deadly woman let go of his beard and followed her siblings into the Bank leaving a stunned group behind her. "I would make a joke about you being whipped," Fishfood said after a moment. "But I''m too busy trying not to shit my pants in terror." "I think I''m going to shave my beard." The general said in a daze. "I think I''m going to be sick," Hope said, eyes wide in fear and surprise. "You''ll be fine, just don''t mess with him anymore and hope he doesn''t tell those two." Ludendorff tried to comfort her after recovering himself, but by her disbelieving look, she wasn''t buying it. Ah well, he tried. Thankfully death wasn''t permanent in Gods'' Nature. He just hopped his bosses wouldn''t scar them for life. **** "Where are we going?" Nero asked Octavia as she dragged him deeper into the building. She had walked by a counter of sorts while ignoring everybody who was lining up and had stepped into the hallway behind it. From there they had navigated a few corridors and up three flights of stairs. Kaesar was just curious why nobody had tried to stop them yet. This looked to be a rather important building, but all the occupants had only stood to one side looking at the pair with wide eyes but not stopping them in any way. "Just a sec, we are almost there." She said and continued to lead him by the hand, Nero idly noted that despite probably having a much higher strength stat he wasn''t feeling too much force from her. "Here we are." They had stopped in front of a pair of large wooden doors. They seemed to be decorated with a few mosaics, but Nero didn''t have time to see what they were before they were pushed open. Inside was a room of moderate size dominated by a long oval table made of some sort of crystal. Comfortable looking armchairs were arrayed around it while a chandelier provided some lighting. There was a casual opulence here, nothing tacky but enough for visitors to know that the owners had wealth. "Octavia? What''s going on?" Nero asked, really curious about what this was all leading up to. Rather than answering, the Creator brought him to the end of the table, and half shoved him into the head chair. "Have a seat. Would like something to eat? Drink?" She looked nervous, Nero realized. Octavia was shifting on the balls of her feet, her hands awkwardly at her side as if she did not know what to do with them and she wasn''t maintaining eye contact as she usually did. "Something to drink I guess?" Though he decided to play along with whatever this was about, his words came out as a question due to the oddness of the situation. The way she smiled at him though told him he had done something right, but for the life of him he couldn''t figure out what. Octavia hurried to a corner of the room and opened a cupboard he hadn''t noticed. From it, she withdrew a glass and pitcher of some sort of crystal and poured some liquid into the cup which she brought over. Taking it from her Nero was surprised to find that it was cold to the touch. As if reading his mind Octavia explained. "Everfrost is a crystalline metal that always remains cold, no matter the heat outside. I made these myself." The way she proudly puffed up her chest when she said it made Nero crack a smile. The drink was rather good, a sort of fruit juice he was unfamiliar with, but that didn''t stop him from finishing the glass entirely. It couldn''t be helped, after all, he had only had water to drink in months as the middle ages weren''t known for their refreshing beverages.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Jorry, quiet as he always was when around others, had slithered onto the table and was staring up at Octavia pitifully. It only took a moment for his sister to cave in and go to the cupboard once more. She returned with a plate piled high with the treats the girls had taken to giving the snake. Jorry dived in with gusto. It was around this time that Claudia entered the room. Unlike her sister, however, she didn''t seem to be too nervous and immediately made a B-line for Nero and plopped herself down on his lap. Well used to Claudia''s eccentricities by now Nero simply shifted a bit to get comfortable. He was just glad her leather armor was a lot less hard than Octavia''s metal skirt. "Ok," Octavia said as she drew a nervous breath. "Ok, I guess we should start." She withdrew an orb-like jewel from the pouch at her waist. "Do you know what this is?" Octavia asked her brother. "Oh, I know! I know! Pick me!" Claudia raised her hand and waved around like she was in a classroom. She was ignored by her twin however when she saw Nero shaking his head. "It''s called an Occularis crystal," she explained. "With it, people can project a portion of what they are looking at or what they have seen into the past into an image for others to view." Setting the Occularis on the table and waving her hands over it, it lit up, and a picture was thrown onto the opposite wall. Nero recognized the image from the park when they had first reunited. It was him, leaning over her and smiling down at her, his face framed by the stars. He would have thought it a good picture if it weren''t for the fact it looked like it came from a romantic movie. Octavia coughed in surprise and quickly brought up her menu and did something with it that erased the picture and replaced it with a pure white screen. "As you saw," she said with red cheeks. "It can be a bit finicky. I''ve been trying to improve it to allow it to show video but so far no luck. Anyway, players have discovered they could use it to show NPCs stuff they have seen on their Network function." The white background was replaced with a big title; "The Bank: Past, Present, and Future." It took Nero a second to recognize what he was looking at, so at odds was it with what he had come to expect in Gods'' Nature. "A powerpoint?" He exclaimed in disbelief, to which Octavia blushed in embarrassment and Claudia chuckled. "It''s useful," Octavia said feebly before straightening her posture and looking Nero in the eye for the first time since arriving in the room. "Alright then, what do you know about The Bank?" "It is a large and powerful organization, and it functions as a bank." When Octavia waited for him to continue, he simply shrugged his shoulders as well as he could with a hundred and fifty pounds of little sister on him. "That''s it." "I suppose hearing nothing about it is better than hearing bad things. But for your information, we were the founders of The Bank." Octavia preened in pride, and even Claudia looked smugly up at him. "Oh," Nero said simply, already expecting something like that after seeing the title on the powerpoint. "Good job." "You really don''t get it, do you?" Octavia said, deflating. "I suppose that is what this show is for anyway. So sit back and let me explain." From there the presentation really started. Nero''s sister launched into an explanation about how the bank had started as a way for her to get materials for her Nature. From there it had developed into a sort of auction house then into a storehouse for goods that players didn''t want to carry around with them all the time and from there into a full-fledged bank. As it grew so to did the number of people who worked for them and eventually it had developed into a full-on faction. Afterward, she talked about the westward expansion from Selwe, the starting city, until Sarra. Octavia explained about the history of the Calm Belt, the road that stretched the length of the continent between coasts, and the trade revenue it brought the five factions who had developed it. She talked about how the bank had helped establish a standard currency between the two leading city-states, the usual gold, silver and bronze coins that were familiar to most players. Finally, Octavia talked about their plans for the future. How The Bank''s team had discovered the lost city of Valiskali in the center of the continent that Nero had heard rumors about and how they were planning to develop it into their own personal trade based city-state and connect it to the Calm Belt. She explained that it was a significant resource sink at the moment, but once it was set up, it would provide a substantial source of revenue in the future. "And that is what we''ve been doing for the last decade in the game. Any questions?" Octavia asked as the presentation came to an end. Nero had only really understood half of that. He was in way over his head when it came to talking about taxation, sources of revenue, a rate of return, credit, currency exchange and other business talks. His studies had always focused more on history and culture rather than economics, but he got the general gist of things, though he did have a few questions. "Why are you only telling me about this now?" "We wanted to finish talks with the Minister of Selwe and the King of Sarra before we presented you with any of this," Octavia explained. "With their permission and approval, we won''t have to fear invasion from either side and thus our plans will be much more stable. Both believe that we are a colony of sorts for them, we didn''t tell them our full plans, and we will have to pay them a bit of tribute for now, but that is to be expected. The Bank is mainly made up of players, and we are not yet strong enough to stand toe to toe with the higher levels in Gods'' Nature. We expect that within twenty years, that is four in real life, the average player level will reach around four hundred, and the highest levels might be about five hundred to five fifty. At that point, we will have a strong enough force so they won''t want to casually attack us." "Fair enough, but why are the rumors about you two saying you are guys with a harem of beautiful women?" That was bugging Nero for some reason. "Likely because we spend most of our time in the field, so not many people actually know what we look like. Most of our main team is also composed of women. That, and Claudia has been fanning the flames of the rumor." "I think it''s hilarious," Claudia spoke up for the first time from her place on Nero''s lap. "What about it bro? Want to join our debauched harem? We have nightly orgies, and you''ll be the only guy," she joked. "Sounds perfect," said Nero sarcastically. He might have been worried as an older brother if he didn''t know that either of them hadn''t even had a kiss before, let alone an orgy. "Final question though, why all this? Why the presentation and show? Why not just say you ran The Bank? I probably would have agreed to Ludendorff''s offer of joining if I knew you two were in charge." "Well," Octavia hemmed, looking nervous again. "The thing is, we don''t want to go to University." She peeked at her brother from the side of her eye, half expecting him to get angry but he simply waived at her to continue, his face carefully blank. "As things stand, we already spend less time in Gods'' Nature than other top players due to high school. We''ve been able to keep up due to the fact we have the entirety of the bank as support, but college will take up even more time. Now that we are making some good money with Gods'' Nature we figured it would be better to invest more time into it than study for potential jobs we might not even get." "How are you making real-world money?" Nero asked. It couldn''t be helped that he didn''t really understand. He knew of e-sports and the like, but at heart, he was still a bit of a newb. His studies into gaming culture hadn''t yet taught him about the ways people made money in MMOs. "Some people have more money than time and are willing to pay real-world cash for in-game currency. Others want to be the best but aren''t willing to put in the effort and instead pay real money for high-level items and the like. Because there is no official auction for Gods'' Nature, The Bank has taken that over, and we get a cut of every trade that goes through us. It is a measly 0.5%, but with thousands of trades going on every second we have a substantial income that we then use to buy items ourselves or to reinvest in our growth. For the longest time, we''ve put all the money back into our operations, but now we can start seeing the fruits of our labor and make real-world money. We were actually going to talk to you about all this once this school year was done and we had some actual money as proof, but we wanted to tell you before you left Sarra." "Fair enough," Nero took a moment of pause to think. "Did I ever tell you two why I was so set on you going to University?" The twins shook their heads. "Because it will give you options. We''re young, you aren''t even twenty, and I''m not even thirty. We have a long, long life ahead of us and we need to find the things that make that life enjoyable. It takes three years of work on average to save enough money for one year of retirement; thus your job will be a big part of your life. In University you are exposed to all sorts of walks of life, it is an opportunity to learn about something you might really enjoy. If you have already found a job that you enjoy and it can support you too, then I see no reason to try to take that from you. I''ll never force you to do something you don''t wish to do." At his words, Claudia wrapped him in a tight hug, and Octavia whispered a quick ''thank you'' and turned away to wipe the mist from her eyes. "However," Nero continued. "There will come a time in the future, maybe in a decade or two, when Gods'' Nature won''t be so popular. It is growing right now, but nothing lasts forever. When that happens, and The Bank can no longer support you, I want you to promise me that you will go to University. Even if you already know what you want to do by then, it is still a great place to learn. You know what I say about learning? The day you stop learning..." ""...is the day you start dying."" The twins completed in tandem. Others might have been freaked out by their synchronicity, but Nero had seen it too many times to be bothered. ""We promise."" "I suppose this is a good thing then, it will give me a few more years to save up the money you will need." Though Nero had wanted to go into higher education himself, he didn''t mind waiting a few more decades if it meant his sisters were happy. "Actually," Claudia started hesitantly. "We were hoping you would stop working and go back to school instead." Octavia finished for her sister really quickly. "What?" Nero asked surprised. "Somebody has got to pay the bills and the insurance for the accident will only cover us until I am fit to work again. Besides, university costs a lot of money, and you know how I feel about student loans." "We thought that we pay the bills instead and you take the money you''ve saved and use it for yourself," Octavia explained. "Hang on a minute," Nero said. "Even if you could pay for all the expenses with the money you make from Gods'' Nature." Something Nero wasn''t sure was actually possible since he didn''t know how much they could make. "Even if you could, I''m not going to waste the money I set aside for you two." "It wouldn''t be a waste," Claudia clarified hurridly. "You use that money to go to school, and we''ll pay the bills and save enough that if Gods'' Nature fails someday, we can do the same." Nero took a moment pause and think this proposition through. Others might have felt insulted by the offer, considering others were questioning their ability to take care of themselves. They might have rejected it because it was a blow to their pride. But, while Augustus might act arrogant sometimes due to his natural intellect, he had no pride to speak of. The idea of mooching off others didn''t bother him in the slightest, he was more concerned with whether their plan could actually work. "I''ll make you a deal," Nero finally said after thinking about it for a few moments. "I can''t do anything as I am right now, so we have some time before this becomes an issue. You''ll be graduating in a year, and a few months, by then my nerves will have been regrown, and I''ll have started my physical recovery. That is about six years in the game. If at that point Gods'' Nature is still gaining popularity and hasn''t plateaued and you have saved enough money to put one of you through college, I''m talking tens of thousands of dollars, I''ll go back to school. Do we have a deal?" ""Deal!"" The pair said immediately. "All right, then do you have anything else you wanted to show me?" Nero asked, to which they shook their heads. "Then I''ll head off, I need to sync back up with Sarra''s holy land. Do you want to come with me or stay here?" He asked Jorry who was only halfway through his pile of treats. The snake looked at his companion, then to the food. Nero then food before he answered by taking another bite. Smiling wryly, Nero stood up. His motion sent Claudia to the ground with a yelp, but he didn''t pay it any mind and stretched his sore muscles. Sitting down for hours was uncomfortable, no matter how soft the chair. "I''ll see you two later, I still have a few things to do in town so I won''t be leaving for another few days." With a wave, Nero left the room and made his way to the exit of the building. "Dat ass," said Claudia as she stood up and dusted herself off as looked to where Nero had recently vacated the premises. "That went well," said Octavia as she collapsed into a chair. "Much better than I feared." "Should we have told him that we already have enough money to put us both through university and still have some left over?" "Nah," Octavia waved her sister off. "We''ll surprise him at graduation. The look on his face will be priceless." "You know what this means though, sister?" "Indeed I do sister." "Operation; ''Love Love Onii-chan'' can begin. Immediately implement plan eleven!" Claudia declared grandly. "Where am I supposed to find a steamroller?" "Goddamit, I said plan eleven!" "Oh right," Octavia said, a bit subdued. "I guess I got a bit too excited." "I understand my less amazing twin," Claudia said sagely. "But we must have patience. Seducing the wild Onii-chan takes time, effort, mountains of lingerie, and numerous panty shots." "I''mma hit you," Octavia threatened with a raised fist but her sister backed away quickly. "Fine, but we need to build up to it slowly. We can''t really do anything until he is a high enough level to join our team. That will take a few years so the operation will have to wait a bit more I guess. For now, we just need to keep it a secret from him." Almost as soon as the words left her mouth, the twins froze in realization. Slowly, their heads turned towards the end of the table where Jorry lay staring at them. He was frozen halfway into a bit of a treat. "If you don''t tell Nero about any of this, the next time we see each other I''ll give more treats than you can eat," Octavia said quickly. The gluttonous snake stared at her for a second, the pile of food, her, the food before looking at her one last time and nodding his head reluctantly. The twins shared a sigh of relief as Jorry went back to its meal. Or at least he would have if he hadn''t suddenly gone still. The sisters held their breath, worried that the snake had decided against helping them but that worry was replaced with a whole new one once he spoke up for the first time in their presence. "Something''s wrong." He said lowly, thankfully the sisters now always wore the choker that allowed them to speak with animals so they could understand him. "What?" Octavia asked the serpent. "Nero, I think he''s fighting something. And it''s not going well." "I''m on it," Claudia said as she picked up the snake and dashed from the room. As she did so, she sent out her spirits to look for her brother. He couldn''t have gotten far since he had only left a few minutes ago. Unfortunately, before they found anything, Jorry went slack on her shoulder. "We''re too late." He snarled. Claudia''s heart clenched at those words, but she didn''t slow down as she flew from the building in the direction of the holy land. A few seconds later she got the information she wanted, and she turned back and dived into an alleyway. What she saw there made her clench her fists and grind her teeth in a fury. Lying in a pool of his own blood, being knawed on by dozens of mice and rats, was the lifeless body of her brother. Around him were a few bodies of the vermin, showing he hadn''t gone down without a fight, but that was little comfort to his sister. When something dies in Gods'' Nature only one item ''drops'' but the body remains, this allows players to disassemble them for parts, but it also means that wild animals can eat the dead bodies of players. The mice were apparently quite pleased with their feast. Intellectually Claudia knew he was okay, that he was even now in purgatory waiting to respawn in Maqi. When you stare at the bloody, wide-eyed corpse of your loved one as it is slowly being eaten by mice and rats, your response isn''t based on intelligence. A sound escaped her throat, a low keening wail that slowly built up into a higher pitch. In a regular human, it might have been the sound of grief, but Claudia was no ordinary human. Through her adventures with her twin, they had numerous opportunities to change their race. Octavia had decided to stay human since none of the races fit her but Claudia had accepted one''s offer. Her wail was her vengeance. First, the mice shook in pain from the noise, then they spasmed as they lost control of their motor functions and finally, in dozens of small showers gore and brain matter, their heads exploded due to the sound. Not one of them could survive the banshee''s cry due to the level difference. They all died before even trying to put up a fight. "What''s going on here," the sudden voice behind her made Claudia whirl about, ready to unleash hell. She stopped when she saw it was a pair of guards, likely attracted by the noise. They eyed both her and the body, palms on their swords. "I found the area after he had died," she said instead as she reigned in her fury. "I killed the mice." "You''ll need to come with us, the higher-ups will want to know about something like this." One said, advancing on her slowly. Disinclined to go anywhere with them, Claudia reached into her pouch and withdrew a token. On one side was the Bank''s symbol, on the other the royal crest. "Right, um, miss. Never mind then," the other guard said nervously as he recognized what that little token meant. "You can be on your way, but we''ll need to report this. If mice are killing people in the street, then we need to start hiring exterminators." "Whatever," Claudia said dismissively as she stomped her way back to the bank, intent on venting her frustration somehow. By the looks of the long shadows on the ground, the sun was close to setting which would provide her with the perfect opportunity. **** The sun was barely peaking over the horizon when Nero made it back to Sarra. He had spent the night in another uncomfortable carriage ride. He had been lucky enough to hitch a ride for only a silver coin, but it lacked the padded seating of the one he had used when traveling with The Bank''s recruits so his but was once more suffering from the unpaved roads. Nero was more than a bit angry at the ambush and subsequent death. Not just the death itself, but also the fact he had to spend the entire night making his way back. Kaesar was also angry at himself for not noticing it. The vibrations of the nearby main road meant he didn''t feel the approaching horde of mice, the numerous city smells meant that when he tasted the air, he didn''t notice the mice despite being quite familiar with their taste by now. All his supplementary skills had not prevented him from being surprised and subsequentially killed as he was overrun with dozens of small targets. His recent increase in level meant he could kill them with a swipe of his claws, but he wasn''t at the point where he regenerated health faster than they could take it. Mice did not have a robust defense, nor were they particularly durable, but they could swarm, and they were agile. That was more than enough to take him down. Dismounting from carriage Nero gave his fellow passengers a farewell before making his way to the holy land. As he walked, he sent a message to his sisters to meet him there, they had talked the night before when Kaesar respawned, and they had explained what had happened after he died. Kaesar was careful to stick to main roads this time, wary of another attack. Nero knew he had been getting close the mice''s main base, and he had a good idea where it was, but he hadn''t expected retaliation like this. But what were they trying to achieve with killing him? They had to know he could respawn, everything could respawn in Gods'' Nature, so why try to attack him in the open? If anybody found out about this mouse conspiracy, it wouldn''t be hard to exterminate them all with a well-trained mage. Either way, he would find out today. Once he arrived at the holy ground, he bought some breakfast from a stall to eat while he waited. It didn''t take more than a few minutes for Nero''s sisters to arrive with Jorry on Claudia''s shoulder. Upon seeing her brother, the spiritualist dashed into his arms and gave him a tight hug, as if she was afraid he would die again. Jorry took the opportunity to slither onto his shoulder and give him an affectionate squeeze of his own. "What happened?" Octavia asked. So he explained to them about doing the extermination work for money, hunting rats and then getting killed by the mice for the first time. He talked about what he had overheard from the ratmen and how he had started hunting the mice''s hideout upon his return to Sarra. "They probably killed me because I was getting close to their hideout." Nero finished. "So," Claudia said, almost shaking in anger. "We go there and kill the lot of them." "No," Nero shook his head. "Jorry and I will be doing this alone." "What? No way!" Claudia denied furiously. "You died last time, in seconds. There is no way you can kill them all. What is to stop them from ganging up on you?" "It was an ambush, I was unprepared. So long as it doesn''t happen again and I can mitigate the amount that face me at once, I''ll be fine." Claudia stared into her brother''s eyes for a moment, whatever she saw there was enough to convince her to relent. "Fine! But I don''t like it. If you die again, we will step in." "Deal," Nero agreed readily. "You probably don''t have a lot of time," Octavia spoke up. "A day or two at max. The guards will have reported it by now, and they can''t ignore a danger to their civilians so close to home. Whatever you want to do, you need to do it fast." "No problem, as soon as I finish here-" Nero stopped talking as he felt the subtle connection between himself and the holy land form. "It''s because you''ve synced to this one before," Octavia explained as if reading his mind. "Resyncing takes a fraction of the time." "All the better, I''ll end this now then," Nero said. "Be safe." "Try not to die." With a hug goodbye and those parting words of encouragement from his sisters, Nero set off. A part of him wondered about what he was doing, rejecting their offer of help. Yesterday Nero had no problem receiving their support when it came to money, so this should be no different. But it was. For a reason he couldn''t fathom, ending this mice based mystery was different. Nero couldn''t understand why though. Had he worked hard so far to complete it? Sure, but taking his sisters'' help would make the job easier. He wasn''t one of those macho men who believed everything had to be done by themselves. Nero was a pragmatist, getting things done the most efficient way possible was his usual modus operandi, but in this case, he ignored the best way and was doing this the worst way. Hell, he could just sit on his ass for a few days, and the issue would solve itself. The guards were now aware of the mice problem, so there was no need for Nero to move, but instead of doing thing the logical way, Kaesar was deliberately making his life harder. For what? Nero had no idea. Getting into the sewers was easy after so many times spent scouting the area, getting near the area he wanted to be without getting spotted would be hard though. "Alert me immediately if you taste anybody," Nero said to Jorry. "Sure thing." The pair quickly and quietly made their way around the sewers. They stopped several times to let guards go by on their patrol, but for some reason, they encountered no mice. Eventually, they reached their destination, a blue barrier. Progress halted there, Nero knew he wouldn''t be able to cross. This was the area directly under the mages guild, and they had set up this barrier, and other traps passed it for any would-be thieves. So far, all the mice encounters Nero had down in the sewers had been in the area surrounding this location, Nero was confident that their base had to be located nearby. "We''ll split up here," Nero said to his companion. "Don''t go too far and if you see anything come back to me immediately. We are looking for something out of the way, maybe a hole or grate that most people wouldn''t pay any attention to. It should be covered in traces of the mice so it will smell like them. If you find it, come back immediately, don''t try and fight unless you have to." "Got it!" The snake slithered away and around the corner to look. Nero went in the opposite direction, keeping his eyes peeled and tongue flickering as he searched for any trace. It took a good ten minutes, and Nero was the first to find it surprisingly. It had come across the tip of his tongue, a hint of fur, that had led to a close investigation of the area. He found it wedged between the barrier and a wall. It was a small grate half obscured by some trash and no bigger than Nero''s hand. Making a note of the location, Kaesar went back to pick up Jorry. Once the pair returned to the area of the grate, they spoke in hushed whispers. "Can you feel them?" Jorry nodded a bit at the question. "I can feel a bit, but the vibrations are faint, probably from the other side of the barrier. But I can definitely taste them. They have been all over this area." Nodding a bit, Nero took a moment to think about the plan of attack. Though Gods'' Nature was a game, its denizens weren''t necessarily stupid. There was no way mice would conveniently live in an area that a player could gain access to quickly, so instead of going to them they would have to come to Nero. The grate wasn''t tall enough to allow a mouse to come out of while riding on a rat and at most four could come out at any time, but Nero had no idea how many were hiding in this base, there could be hundreds for all he knew. There was nothing he could do about it, he would just have to gamble. "Here is what we are going to do," Kaesar began explaining. "You''ll go in there and, once you are spotted, you''ll lure them out here where we can fight together. Our goal is to kill them as quickly as possible, so try and smack them and bite them more than binding them. Are you all right with this?" "I got it, we''ll teach these bottom feeders that they can''t mess with us." Jorry seemed to be in high spirits at least. The snake wasted no time in slithering through the holes in the grate. Nero crouched at the exit, ready to attack. He steadied his beating heart, well aware that his last few months of effort had come down to this. It was only a few moments before Nero heard Jorry''s voice again. "Comming through!" Shouted the snake as it wormed its way out of the grated hole. Behind him was the tide. There was no other way to call it, mouse and rat poured over each other in an effort to chase the snake and once they exited Nero slaughtered them. Nero had read once online that in Gods'' Nature physical strength was the strength stat multiplied by muscle mass. It was for that reason that even if people had the same strength stat one might be stronger than the other. The mice and rats were not too different in level than Nero, but when it came to dealing damage, they had to swarm in the dozens to match him. With their natural low defense, lack of durability, and the fact that only four or five could exit the grate at once meant that it wasn''t a fight so much as a slaughter. Every swipe of his claws took multiple lives, and soon bodies started to clog the drain, the mice having to push through them to exit. Any vermin that Nero missed were attacked by Jorry. Unfortunately, as Napoleon used to say, quantity has a quality of its own. Once enough mice had gotten passed Nero, Jorry was only able to deal with a few of them at once. Those who got passed both man and snake started to attack the man. They stabbed at him with needle-like swords and bit him with their teeth. Each attack did little individually, but enough of them would bring him down. A fool would have felt the stinging pain from these blows and turned to kill the attackers. But Nero, even overcome with adrenaline, was no fool. He knew that if he stopped attacking the grate for even a moment, he would be overrun and killed. His only hope was to keep killing the horde until it ended and hope he could live long enough to survive the task. So Nero kept killing, and killing, and killing some more. Eventually, arms exhausted, with his bare feet and ankles bleeding from the numerous wounds, the tide slowed and finally stopped. Not wasting a moment, Nero turned to kill the mice who had been attacking him. They had more room to maneuver, so their agility was put to full use as they dodged Nero''s attacks but all it took was a glancing blow to spell doom for any of the vermin. Panting for breath in a pile of mice and rat corpses, with hands bloody and covered in entrails, Nero checked his health. He was down to 57 hp, but that was fine for the moment. He would recover it, and then he would send Jorry in to check for any remnants. "Well, that was brutal." A dry voice from behind Nero alerted him to the fact that he really should have been paying more attention to the grate. Whirling around, Nero came face to mouse with an unusual sight. It was a mouse, as was to be expected, and was flanked on each side by six fellow mice who had come through the grate and mounted some rats. But it was the centermost mouse that was the oddest sight. It was fully dressed in a robe and trousers, each looking like they wouldn''t be out of place on a small doll and it carried a staff, more of a twig, in its hands. And it rode, not a rat, but a snake. Longer and thicker than Jorry, though not by much, it was a species that Nero didn''t recognize. "I suppose we have gotten off on the wrong foot. I am assuming you can understand me and aren''t just standing there like an idiot because you have been struck with my beauty." The mouse boss said in a deep voice that sounded out of place with its small body. "Allow me to introduce myself properly, I am Augustus Aquilanus the third. I am a noble of Sarra keep and mage. I have also been referred to as the Venerable One and a host of other such titles by these simpletons." ""Gus-Gus!"" The mice calvary chanted at the introduction and Nero had to suppress a twitch at the name. This was just adding insult to injury, though Augustus did mean venerable, so it made some twisted sort of sense. "Yes, yes. Quiet down, you morons. I''m hoping to have my first intelligent conversation in months." Augustus, the mouse, yelled at his subordinates. "Anyway, as I mentioned, I am a mage, or I was at least. In an accident, I turned myself into this, and I have been trying to get back to normal ever since. I am preciously close to getting through this barrier and taking the materials needed for such an endeavor. I was also a noble. Thus once I resume my original form, I would be willing to compensate you significantly if you were to simply leave, or better yet help me. All animosity between us would be forgiven since you have not inconvenienced me too terribly." Truthfully, if one looked at it from an outsider''s perspective, Nero would probably come across as the villain in this situation. This whole situation started because he was hunting rats and had coincidently met some mice. The two had fought, and Nero had lost. Things could have ended there, but instead, Nero and Jorry had hunted down the mice for weeks, killing dozens in vengeance for the one death. After the mice lashed out in retaliation, they had ended up here, in the mice''s home where the pair had enacted what could loosely be called genocide. From another perspective, Augustus (the mouse) had only been trying to turn himself back into a human. Though he would do it by stealing it wasn''t something that couldn''t be rectified with enumeration once he was in human form. The worst thing they had done before Nero got involved was capture a bunch of rats, not a bad thing in the least. Here was an opportunity to end everything, to stop this cycle of violence before it continued out of control. The smart thing would be to take the deal and walk away, even if Nero killed Augustus (the mouse) he would merely respawn and possibly get his body back in the future. A wealthy noble and mage could make all sorts of trouble for Nero, poor and low leveled as he was. Nero''s response was quick and straightforward. He swiped at the mice on the Venerable one''s right, impaling two rats and mice and smacking the other pair into the disgusting water below. "Why?" Augustus (the mouse) asked as he backed up in fear on his snake. "Because you pissed me off." There it was, the reason for everything was that simple. The reason Nero had rejected his sisters'' help and why he was rejecting the reasonable offer before him. Anger and petty vengeance, and Nero was okay with that. Life didn''t need to always be complicated, sometimes you just needed to do what you want in spite of what is smart and sensible. "Jorry! The snake!" Jorry sprung at his foe, knocking the noble mouse to the ground and entwining himself with the opposing snake. Though his enemy was bigger and likely stronger, Jorry simply wrapped himself around him until they looked like a corkscrew and activate his spell. The enemy snake died impaled on spikes of bone. From there, things ended quickly. Three rat riders were no match for Nero, low on health though he was. Once they had been soundly killed, Nero reached for the squirming Augustus (mouse) and crushed him in his hands. Thus died Augustus Aquilanus the third (mouse version), not with a bang but with a squish. Staring down at the bloody mess in his hands and the carnage that surrounded him, Nero was overcome with a sense of euphoria. He threw back his head in laughter. It wasn''t the laughter that came with the relief surviving a deadly battle like when he had faced the wolves. It was the laughter of realization. The realization that here he was, barefoot and ankle deep in blood, gore, entrails, and who knew what else, and he had fun. He laughed at the absurdity of the idea and the truth of it. He laughed because all this bloodshed and violence was the most fun he remembered having in a long, long time. Jorry stared at his companion laughing like a madman in a dirty sewer and gave the snake equivalent of a shrug and devouring another mouse. **** "Democracy don''t rule the world, You''d better get that in your head; This world is ruled by violence, But I guess that''s better left unsaid." -Bob Dylan Side Story #1 "Democracy don''t rule the world, You''d better get that in your head; This world is ruled by violence, But I guess that''s better left unsaid." -Bob Dylan **** Helcait had to stop himself from giggling in glee. There was a tingling in his stomach, the kind you get when a childhood fantasy comes true. He felt like he was in a spy movie! He had been invited here by ''secret'' message serendipitously passed to him during a ''coincidental'' run in at a local bar. It was after midnight, and the only light came from a pair of lanterns. There was no window in a hidden room such as this, so it was only two doors and four stone walls, giving the place an asphyxiating feeling. The only items of furniture were two chairs and a sofa with a table in between where the lanterns stood. Thankfully Helcait was not claustrophobic. He had been led to this room by the councilmen who had written the message. "Please have a seat," Queineas, the councilman who had invited him, said as he closed the door behind the player. He was an older gentleman and was dressed in the high-quality silk of the council''s official robes. If Helcait wasn''t mistaken, the man was very influential and held a rank of Marquess. He was also a major player in the ''Imperial'' faction. "I feel it goes without saying that anything we say here is of the utmost importance. Discretion is paramount." Helcait once more held in the urge to giggle as they sat down on the couch. This wasn''t the time nor the place. This wasn''t the real world where he was a socially awkward shut-in. This was Gods'' Nature. Here he was Helcait, leader of the third largest guild, The Four Winds. He needed to act the part. "Of course," he responded with as much gravitas as he could manage. "Though I would like to know what this is about? Your letter was quite vague." "A necessary precaution you''ll find," Queineas said as he took his seat on one of the individual chairs. "We cannot be too careful with this. It could very well change the world as we know it." Helcait sat a bit straighter in his seat. While this had always smelled like a quest, it sounded like this might even be one of rank B or higher. If so, the opportunities it could present would be enormous. One only needed to look at The Bank. They had completed the only know B rank quest, and in return, they had gotten an entire city. If Four Winds managed to finish a similar achievement, they would surpass Foundation easily and possibly The Bank. "Go on." "As you know, the Rupture destroyed numerous cities and countries. Even today we are still feeling the after effects." The Councilman explained. "Perhaps the most significant impact is the shutdown of the Gates. Without them, we are cut off from most of the world. It was only when you Outlanders arrived that we managed to get in contact with Sarra and Minas Cassu but the rest of the world remains closed off to us. The distance between us, however, is too vast for any sort of reliable trade routes. We need to change that. Thankfully a solution-" Though the player was engrossed in the ''backstory'' of the quest, as it might provide clues for later, he didn''t fail to notice the door behind the councilman open quietly. The look on his face must have betrayed him as Queineas stopped talking and looked behind him. Two men entered and closed the door behind them. The first one Helcait didn''t recognize. He was likely a mage of some sort based on the robes. They were covered in intricate lettering that softly glowed in the dim light of the room. The guild master recognized them as runes, a way to imbue items with magic, but what exactly they did he did not know. The second man who entered was much more familiar to Helcait. He was another councilman in Selwe, one famous for providing monthly quests for hunting bandits. His name was Fabricio if Helcait remembered correctly. He was younger than Queineas by a fair amount, and the robes of the council looked much better on him than they did on his aged compatriot. Fabricio was also famous for being a hardliner of the ''Isolationist'' faction on the council, the bitter rivals of the ''Imperials.'' "Greetings councilman," Helcait greeted the man politely but warily. The pair had met a few times, both for quests and at formal events but the guild master was more curious what the man was doing in this hidden room at the moment. "Helcait," Fabricio nodded his head in return as he took the vacant seat next to Queineas. The other man remained standing behind the pair of councilmen. "I trust you have been well?" "I have, and you?" "The same." "Now that we have the pleasantries aside," Queineas said, drawing attention back to him. "I was just explaining to our companion the details of his mission. I hope you understand how important this task is if both of us are willing to work together to see it accomplished." "Of course," Helcait said, more and more curious about a quest that could bring such bitter enemies together. "Please continue." "As I was saying, we have found a way to shorten the distance between the cities. We have recently uncovered a way to reopen the Gates." It was only the experience as a guild master he had accumulated over the last decade that kept Helcait from showing his surprise. "It requires an item called a Lodestone. We have records of four that have been found throughout history, and we have good reason to believe we know where one of them can be found." "The catch?" Helcait needed to ask, it was okay to have ambitions, but they need to be achievable. "The catch is," Fabricio spoke up. "The only location that we know holds one is very very far away." "How far are we talking?" The younger councilman pulled a rolled up piece of parchment from his robes and laid it on the table between them. It was old and decaying, likely drawn before the Rupture. Helcait recognized it was a map of Gods'' Nature, he had seen a few before and there were some posted online. "This is us, Selwe," Fabricio said while pointing to the south-east coast on the vast continent that dominated the map. "This is Minas Cassu," here he pointed a bit to the south, also on the coast. "Sarra Keep." He dragged his fingers across the continent to the west coast and slightly to the north, just below where the equator would be. "Here is where you need to go." Fabricio dragged his finger north, up and up it went until it stopped on a little dot nestled between the two massive mountain ranges. "Hayheath."Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. Helcait let out a breath in disappointment. The distance between Sarra and Hayheath was slightly less than between Sarra and Selwe, but the guild master was well aware that it might as well have been three times as long for all it mattered. "I''m afraid what you are asking is impossible," Helcait explained. "The distance is too great, one bad encounter and the entire expedition would be sent back here. Outlanders like us are just not strong enough yet to make it that far. I''m sure you''ve heard of the Calm Belt? The furthest north we have managed before being wiped out is Vilcasu and the Darkmoore River. Not even a third of the way there." "What if you could bring holy grounds with you?" Queineas asked, having expected this response. The question brought Helcait up short before his eyes widened in surprise. "One of the Saints?" He asked excitedly. Those who could create sacred grounds were generally called Saints, though they weren''t necessarily part of a religion. Unfortunately, after a few moments of thought, he had to let go of his excitement. "If one of them was available it might be possible, though it would depend. Even then, you are talking about a journey that would take years and would probably cost everybody dozens of deaths. I''m going to have to decline." "Not one of the saints," Queineas said. "This has to be as covert as possible for as long as possible. All known saints are carefully watched by all parties so their movements or disappearance would be noticed right away. Instead, we have come by a rare opportunity with the arrival of our friend here." The councilman gestured to the man in robes behind him who had remained standing. "This is Homer, he is an Outlander like yourself. Though his level is only in the late hundreds, he can create temporary holy lands. They take about a day to set up and can last for two weeks." This time Helcait was unable to keep the surprise from his face. All known ''Saints'' were at least level three hundred and NPCs to boot. Homer, by himself, could provide the means of players to break out of the calm belt, especially if the skill or spell could be taught. "That would still require an enormous investment in time and materials," Helcait said hesitantly, frowning because the opportunity to surpass The Bank and Foundation was tempting but he was unsure if it would be worth the risk. "This is what the plan would be, should you accept," Fabricio said, once more pointing to the map. "I would recommend a group of one thousand to five thousand Outlanders. Large enough to deal with any significant problems but not too big so you can live off the land. Just your elites. You Outlanders can go days without sleep and require less food which will speed things up considerably. Your first stop will be Valiskali, you should be able to get there in half a year." "We''ll have people there to help you with supplies and any requirements you would need," explained Queineas. "From there you just need to head north to the Darkmoor river, which you are familiar with. If you keep heading north from there, you will eventually reach the Mistfen river. You would follow it through the Ishval jungle." "According to our records that is where the jungle is thinnest, so it should only take a few weeks to cross." "Once on the other side, you will be at the Stepp." Fabricio continued, unmindful of his older companion''s explanations. "From our histories, this is a plains area, there will be a few rivers and lakes, but other than that will be just grasslands. Supposedly the monsters there should be between level 200 and 300, baring the occasional mutant. This would be a good place for your expedition to hunt for levels as you make your way through." "This is where things get a bit tricky," Queineas picked up. "The shortest distance would be for you to head North-Northwest. Unfortunately, that will bring you near the Mountains of Madness, you would not get very far if you were even the slightest bit unlucky. So we recommend you head due west until you reach the Rune river. It flows north to south, and by following it north, and then a bit further, you''ll reach where the Mountains of Madness and the Khuramunz highlands meet. There is a pass between them, possibly the safest way to cross. Once on the other side of the pass Hayheath is only a little bit east of there." "All this information comes from before the Rupture, thus we haven''t mentioned any of the cities that were along the path as we are unaware of whether they have survived the test of time. All this is subject to change at a moment''s notice so you will have to be careful and make decisions as you go. We estimate a period of five to ten years, depending on the amount of opposition you face." "In return," Queineas said as he stared into Helcait''s eyes as if to emphasize the importance of what he was going to say next. "Should you return with the Lodestone, you will receive a position of nobility. The minimum you can expect is Viscount, but it is also possible you will be awarded the title of Marquess. What do you say?" **Pioneer of the Gates You have been requested to travel halfway across the world to find a Lodestone, the key to once more opening the gates and ushering in an age of prosperity. It is a long and arduous task, but the payout might be worth it. Rank; B+ Rewards: Title of nobility in Selwe (Viscount minimum)** The quest popup that appeared in front of Helcait drew him into contemplation. He was excited at the idea of the expedition, the adventurous spirit of gamer begging him to accept, but he had to think of Four Winds. This could make or break them. The councilmen allowed the player to think on the offer, and Homer remained quietly behind them. The reward was undoubtedly attractive. To the people of the modern age, a title of nobility might not be very desirable but in the Middle Ages, or Gods'' Nature, which had very little social mobility it was an enormous difference. The first was land, Gods'' Nature had more land than people due to the Rupture so a Viscount would receive a piece of land the size of roughly 150 000km, though most of it would be undeveloped. An earl would get a more substantial holding and Marquess, of which there was only a handful in the entirety of Selwe, would govern a genuinely enormous tract of land. From which they could levy taxes, develop into cities or sell rent to others. Since Selwe was the starting city of Gods'' Nature its land prices were enormous and Four Winds would make millions, if not billions of dollars should they govern a March. The other aspect of the rewards would be the fame and prestige of the expedition. Should Four Winds record it and make it into a documentary, or TV series, their glory would rise, and that would be another source of revenue even should the quest fail. Players would pay good money for information beyond the Calm Belt. The downsides were also great though. This was an enormous undertaking, one that would essentially paralyze the guild until it was complete. The lower leveled players would be left behind to complete smaller quests, unable to do anything significant until their elites returned. It might take a decade which would be long enough for many other smaller guilds to overtake them and for The Bank and Foundation to do who knows what. In the end, it was the rank of the quest that convinced Helcait. The Bank had completed a B rank quest and gotten a city situated right along the major world trade route of the world. Helcait did not think Four Winds was inferior to The Bank and by completing a slightly more difficult quest, they would get even greater rewards. Besides, wasn''t it a gamer''s dream to go on adventures such as this. "Very well, I''ll accept." There were smiles from all four men in that hidden room as they shook on the agreement. One thing was sure, this quest would change the world. Just not in the way anybody expected. **** "The story of life is quicker than the blink of an eye, the story of love is hello, goodbye." Jimi Hendrix 021-1 Im a Rover "The story of life is quicker than the blink of an eye, the story of love is hello, goodbye." Jimi Hendrix **** The morning was dark and dreary, the wind blowing a chill down the spines of anybody unfortunate enough to be up at this early hour. The sun should have been peaking over the horizon, but the mass of dark grey clouds kept the morning light to a dim level. Despite the beginning of what would surely be a dismal day, a few early risers were already up and about, entering and exiting the city proper. Huddled as they were in warm clothes, desperate to keep as little skin exposed to the wind as possible, they paid little attention to the small group to the side of the city gates. Though a few did sneak passing glances at the two attractive women, who seemed immune to the chilly morning air. "Do you have a change of clothes?" "Yes dear." "A fire starter kit?" "Yes dear." "An extra blanket?" "Yes dear." "A blade for disassembly?" "Yes dear." "Your P.L.S.S?" "Yes, dea-. What? P.L.S.S?" "Personal little sister security. An essential part of any adventure, I never leave home without one. If you get one now, we''ll throw in a second for free." Nero rolled his eyes at Claudia''s joke. A part of him would dearly like to travel with the twins, but at the moment their abilities were too far apart. Either he would spend most of his time on the sidelines because he wouldn''t be able to help or they would waste time finding low-level opponents for him. Neither option was optimal. So he was setting off by himself, with only Jorry to accompany him, until he reached a level high enough to not be a burden. Nero figured that as long as he got within fifty or so levels of the twins, it would be okay to travel together. "How long are you two planning on staying in town?" Rather than respond, Nero decided to change the subject. "A few more days," answered Octavia. "We''ll be heading to Valiskali soon, and we''ll be there for a long time, so we are buying a bunch of supplies and the like. It''ll be a while before we can be self-sufficient. Anyway, I have a few things for you, I managed to finish them last night." The creator reached behind herself and, seeming from nowhere, pulled out a sack. "I thought there was no inventory system in Gods'' Nature?" Nero couldn''t help but ask. "Don''t you know, you''re not supposed to ask a lady where she keeps her things?" Octavia said with a wink, drawing another eye roll from her brother. Reaching into the bag, The Banker retrieved a pair of leather boots. "I figured a bit of protection is better than nothing," she said, looking at her brother''s bare feet. "I removed the soles and added a few straps to keep them in place while allowing you keep using your skill." "Thank you," Nero said while taking the boots and putting them on. The straps around the bottom of his feet were thin, not interfering with the vibrations he could feel from the people walking by the group. "I also made this jacket," Octavia then withdrew a thick leather jacket, there were metal plates around the shoulders, chest and back area. "Both are enchanted to be very durable and flexible. I figured that the reason you weren''t wearing armor was that it got in the way of your movements. You won''t have to worry about that with these." Actually, the reason Nero hadn''t bought any armor had more to do with price than anything, he wasn''t very wealthy, and anything worth a damn was several dozen gold coins at a minimum. That was just for regular armor, anything that was enchanted or gave stat boosts were significantly more expensive. That and Nero just forgot about equipment for the most part, not really having a gamer mindset and desire for better gear. Contrary to what his Nature described, Kaesar saw nothing wrong with using human creations to gain an advantage, he just had not seen the point at the moment as he had focused on hand to hand rather than the use of a weapon. Of course, he saw no reason to tell all this to his sister. "Thank you," he said again. He discarded his old jacket, well worn and faded in the months since he had bought it to help Jorry get revenge, and put on the new one. It was indeed warmer than the old one and, when Nero stretched his arms, there was much less resistance. "Finally, this!" Octavia said proudly, drawing out something else from the sack. It was black hoop of sorts, one covered in white and grey lines, about the size of Nero''s head. "One of my most magnificent creations! This is going to change the world!" "What is it?" Asked Nero. "The Hammer Space Hoop, or space hoop for short. Watch!" Taking Nero''s old jacket and folding it up, the creator put through the hoop. As it crossed the boundary of the black material, the coat disappeared. "It''s linked with one of the Bank''s vaults, in this care ours, and any object that passes through it will be sent there. The only limit is the size, and it doesn''t work on anything alive. So if you come across anything you think might be worth something on your trip just toss it trough here and it will be sent to our vault. No need to carry it around like the rest of the plebs." "How come I''ve never heard about these before?" Nero stared at the innocuous object in wonder, well aware that the transporting of objects was one of the limiting factors for any major expedition. "Wouldn''t everybody have one?" "The same reason I won''t be selling any of these," Octavia said, pointing to the choker on her neck that allowed her to speak to animals. "The material is rare at the moment, though unlike the chockers I know where I can get more, so I''ve only made ten or so. Once players get to level three hundred or so, we will be able to hunt Void Worms whose hide I need to make them, and they''ll become more common."A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. "I think you are trying to buy my affection here," Nero joked as he put the hoop into his bag. "Totally! Is it working?" Claudia asked excitedly. "Sure, I''ll just call you Sugar Mommies from now on." "Was that sarcasm?" Jorry asked from Nero''s shoulder, perking up at the thought. The little snake had taken a shine to the verbal art form. "Did Jorry just talk?" Both twins asked excitedly, never having gotten a word from the snake before besides in a unique situation. "Can you say my name? Say Octavia, and I''ll give you a treat." "Screw that! Come on Jorry, call me mommy!" The snake, realizing he had attracted their attention, dove into Nero''s new jacket, only his head peeking out from the collar to watch the twins wearily. While he was comfortable enough around the girls to not mind their presence, Jorry was still pretty shy with anybody but Nero. "Leave him alone you two, he''s not a baby. Jorry is just a bit shy. Besides, I thought he told you when I was getting attacked?" The two girls pouted but did as requested and turned their eyes away from the growing snake, allowing him to let out a sigh of relief. Though he didn''t emerge from his hiding place, finding it a warm recess from the chilly wind. "He did, but that was kind of a unique situation. He hasn''t talked to us since then," Claudia said petulantly. "We hoped he would be over his shyness with us by now. We''ll let it slide now, but you better call me mommy when you get back. You''ll be all grown up by then." "What are your plans?" Asked Octavia. "Nothing concrete," Nero shrugged, more interested in the journey than the destination. "I''ll be heading south first, leveling up as I go. I might spend a month or two around Maqi. I still need to finish paying off Ground Sheer, so I might work for the guild for a while. After that who knows." "Are you going to the bone wall?" "Probably, if I head south from Maqi, I''ll reach Machy and eventually the bone wall. That area should be around level fifty. If I stop at a few dungeons along the way, I should be somewhere around there by then." "After that, you should head west to the ocean," Claudia suggested. "Unless you get really unlucky the highest level in that area should be level one hundred. Though there is no holy ground between Machy and the sea, so if you die it will be right back to the beginning." "I''ll do that then." Nero agreed readily, already having had that idea briefly in the past. "I should be able to survive off the land so long as I stick to the forest. Supposedly so long as it isn''t the fall, the woods should be filled with game." "After you get to the sea," Claudia said, getting excited at the idea. "You should be around level one hundred or so, depending on how much you grind and how lucky you are. You should be able to make it to Valiskali at that level." "We''ll see, I would prefer to be a higher level before joining you, so I might take a long way around to level some more. But this is years in the future, who knows what will happen between now and then." "I guess," Claudia said softly, the depressing prospect of not seeing Nero again for years once more settling in her mind. Kaesar wanted to apologize for ruining the mood upon seeing her downtrodden look. He didn''t say anything though as he looked towards Octavia, the creator not meeting his eyes and her mouth turned down into a frown. There was a tense moment of awkward silence, the impending farewell acting as a chasm between the siblings. Not willing to allow this to be their final memory of each other for a while, Nero opened his arms wide. It took a moment for the twins to realize what he meant but, when they did, they dove into his embrace. Nero hugged them tightly, their heads resting on his shoulders as they enjoyed each other''s warmth. The relationship between the girls and Nero was an odd one, part brother, father, and best friend. He still remembered helping his dad babysit them when they were only infants, playing with them in their early years and holding them as they cried after their parents'' deaths. After that, he took on an older brother role, taking care of them and spending time with them. His father, Seneca, had never been the warmest parent, so Augustus had been there to make sure his younger siblings were looked after and got enough attention. And once Seneca died, it was Augustus who assumed the role of parent. From their early teenage years, to now as young adults, he had been there for them when they needed him, making sure the girls had the clothes they needed, the food and attention they deserved. There had of course been trying times, puberty was a hassle in the best of cases, but with a little bit of help from Sophia the family had made it through, stronger than ever. In return, the girls had supported him. Made food for him when he arrived late in the evening from one job or the other. When others their age were out with friends, the twins were at home studying, keeping the house in shape and just being there for Augustus when dealing with people got too much. Nero knew he had psychopathic and sociopathic tendencies, but he was well aware that he would be much worse today without these two girls in his life. It was the rare day when they didn''t spend time together, either in conversation or in the quiet company of people they loved. For those reasons, they were perhaps his best friends, even more than Sophia. This would be their first real goodbye. The accident had been sudden, and Augustus wasn''t able to talk to the pair afterward. Playing Gods'' Nature allowed communication, but it wasn''t able to provide them the familiarity of their daily life. Now they would be separating for months, possibly years, Nero felt a bit like a parent sending their child off to a foreign university. There were feelings of melancholy and sadness, but there was also pride, the pride that these two had grown out of their need for his help. They were going to make their own way in the world, and Nero was sure that the pair would make quite an impact. "It''ll be fine," Nero said softly to the pair. "I''ll just be a message away." "You better call," Claudia said weekly, her voice wet. "Every week." "If you need anything," Octavia said, her voice as choked as her sister''s. "Anything at all, just tell us, and we''ll fix it. You just need to head to the nearest branch of the Bank." Perhaps to the girls, it was Nero who was leaving home. They, who knew the ins and outs of Gods'' Nature more than most, who were some of the strongest players in the game, were seeing their weak brother making his way in a harsh world. One where death and pain were common. They must have been as worried about him as he was about them. Despite their feelings though, it was not as if this was a permanent goodbye. "It''s time for me to go," Nero said, trying to withdraw from the hug. He was stopped by Claudia drawing the other two into an even tighter embrace. "Nooooo," she whined piteously. "Just stay with us, never leave. We can be together. Forever!" "You know that isn''t possible," Nero said patiently. "Someday you two will move out and start your own lives, just think of this as practice." "We''ll never move out! Never!" Claudia said forcefully, her arms even tighter, so much so that they were starting to hurt Nero who was much weaker. "Claudia!" Octavia suddenly shouted, well aware that her sister was treading on dangerous grounds. Her shout was enough to shake Claudia from her obstinacy. Rebuked, she relaxed her hold on her siblings allowing them to withdraw from the hold. "Sorry," she said meekly. "I get it, I''m going to miss you two too. But just watch, we''ll be back together before you know it. Then we can form a party and go on all sorts of quests together." "I''d like that." Satisfied as well as he could be in this situation, Nero gave the pair one last look and turned away. He didn''t say goodbye or farewell, because that would somehow make the parting feel more final. Besides, knowing those two, they would call him before the end of the day. Despite that, Nero never looked back, as he knew it would make leaving all the harder. The girls watched his figure for a while until he was almost wholly lost to the gloom of the morning. They kept watching even as the sky opened up and it started to snow, the first of the year. Eventually, the pair shook off their melancholy, they weren''t weak little girls anymore who required their brother to get things done. They still had the most powerful player faction in Gods'' Nature to run and a lot of money to make. 021-2 Im a Rover "Watch out!" Nero shouted to Jorry, as the snake slithered to the side to avoid the pouncing fox. The pair were now well away from Sarra but still not close to Maqi yet. IT was late afternoon, and the weather had cleared up a bit. The air was still chilly, and the ground was still damp from the snowfall, but the sun occasionally poked from behind the clouds to provide some warmth as it continued its path through the sky. The pair weren''t really making good time in their treck away from the keep and, at this rate, it would be late morning before they made it to their destination. Nero was fine with that though, as it gave the two companions the opportunity for some grinding. They had stuck relatively close to the road but had wandered off into the fields to find a few enemies. The area was filled with mostly a few bird type monsters and foxes that preyed on them. Due to investigating the area online, Nero knew that most of the foxes should be between level 15 and 25. Taking advantage of the enemy''s miss, Jorry launched himself like a spring to try and land of the fox''s head. He missed but managed to land on the mammal''s back. The snake was shaken off before he managed to wrap himself around his vulpine foe, but Jorry activated his spell quick enough to draw blood from his opponent before he fell off. The fox ''Yip''d in pain, jumping back from Jorry. Nero quietly watched, not helping in the slightest besides the occasional word of encouragement. This fox was smaller than most, and he was using it as a test whether Jorry would be able to take on a fox by himself. The vulpines were faster than the wolves Kaesar had faced before, despite about the same level. They sacrificed toughness for this speed and nimbleness, but against Jorry, whose main damage came when he got a grip on his opponent, it was a very useful sacrifice. Jorry already had bloody grooves on his back from a blow early in the fight when the fox had pinned the snake to the ground. Nero would have intervened then, but the snake managed to get a bite on the paw keeping it pinned to the ground. Since then neither side had managed to land a decisive blow. Jorry was smarter and more nimble but couldn''t get a hold on the fox who was faster. After ten minutes of stalemate, Nero finally intervened. The fox, whose entire focus was on Jorry, was unprepared when Nero dug his claws into the sides of the beast. With a harsh tug, Nero yanked his nails from the fox''s hide and grabbed it by the throat. A quick pull followed by a snapping sound indicated he had broken the poor animal''s neck. "Hah... Thanks," Jorry gasped in tiredness. Nero wondered whether it was really gasping, which shouldn''t be possible for snakes, or if it was his brain trying to make sense of the serpent equivalent. "How did I do?" Jorry asked hopefully. "You did fine," Nero assured. "Though you weren''t able to kill it by yourself, you managed to stall it long enough. In the first place, snakes aren''t supposed to have head to head fights. You are better with ambushes and one-hit-kills with poison. Still, if the worst comes to worst, you should be able to hold on until I arrive." "That''s good," Jorry sighed in relief. "Are you hungry?" Nero asked, his stomach rumbling at the thought of food. Jorry nodded his head in agreement. The pair hadn''t had anything to eat since before they set out this morning and it was now early evening. They would be walking through the night, or at least Nero would be, so stopping for a meal would do them some good. "Let''s find some wood, and I''ll cook our friend here." While dragging the dead fox, the pair found a small crop of trees that provided enough dead wood and stone to make a small fire pit. With the use, a flint and steel Nero got a little flame going, which he fanned and fed until it reached a large enough volume. While the blaze grew and warmed up, he set about disassembling the fox. After removing the fur, he placed it beside the fire to dry, he buried the innards that Jorry didn''t want to eat in a hole off to the side so I wouldn''t rot in the open air and attract wild animals. Nero then made a rough spit and set about his first try at survival cooking. He had read a bit about it online and tried to follow the instructions he remembered. Kaesar let the flames die down a bit to not burn the meat and attempted to spin the body so that one part wouldn''t be exposed to the heat for too long. In the end, he managed to cook it well enough, though a significant portion of the animal was blacked due to keeping it over the heat for too long. Without any garnishes or spices, apart from some salt, it was a pretty plain meal but not worst tasting thing he had ever eaten. It was pretty filling though, so Nero only managed to eat two of the legs, and Jorry ate another one on top of the liver. Left with so much meat, Nero stripped what he could from the bones, salted it and wrapped it in the hide before putting it into his bag for later eating. Relaxing against a tree, Nero allowed his mind to drift as he waited for the fire to die as he digested his meal. "Are you planning on recruiting a fox?" Jorry asked. Apparently, once an animal or monster was recruited into the Nest, they immediately got an understanding of the skill and the benefits it could bring. Jorry understood that he got a stat boost based on the level of the Nest. Usually, the shy snake would be opposed to being exposed to others, but if it meant growing stronger, then he was willing to get over his discomfort. "I thought I would," Nero answered. "You don''t anymore?" "I don''t know," Nero shrugged ambivalently. "They have more than a few traits that would be useful to assimilate. Their fur, claws, paws, whiskers, eyesight, hearing, even their tail could be helpful for maintaining balance." "So why haven''t you tried yet?" "It didn''t seem right?" Nero half asked, not exactly sure how to put his thoughts into words.Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. To tell the truth, if he were able to create another character with a different Nature he would have done so already. His skills and Nature pushed him to develop himself with the aid of others, assimilating their traits to make himself stronger. In the long run, Nero could see this sort of Nature being stable, he would have a variety of features that could be useful in a range of situations. It was a Nature that grew stronger the more traits he assimilated, the more ''beastly'' he became. But it was the social aspect that made Nero wish he could change it. He could be charming when needed, make small talk and converse with others without any significant problems, but at heart, he was an introvert. Nero knew himself well enough to notice his misanthropy, he didn''t like dealing with people. Jorry''s recruitment had been almost accidental, Nero had intended to make use of the snake as a tool to help with exterminating various pests to make money. The snake had been practically a pet afterward, something to feed and take care of but not a sapient being. Then Nero had gotten the Beast Tongue skill. Kaeser didn''t know whether Jorry had been self-aware before meeting Nero as Medea had mentioned it required either an absurd amount of natural talent for an animal to have enough Spirit to be sapient naturally. Most ''smart'' animals developed enough spirit to communicate in their own language only after being exposed consistently exposed to other sapient beings. Before they reached that level, they were pretty much bundles of instinct with just the desire to live, grow, eat and breed. Jorry had been pretty average, intelligence-wise before Nero started talking to him, not having the common sense to leave the park to avoid the falcon. But once Kaesar got the Beast Tongue skill, he was able to communicate with Jorry as would with a human, though a young one. The feelings of awkwardness that usually came from human interaction had not been present due to their familiarity but whenever Nero communicated with other animals the discomfort returned. He was determined to overcome his reluctance to grow, but he hadn''t found an animal yet who was interesting enough to motivate him to do so. Beast Tongue simulated a high enough spirit to allow him to communicate with animals, but only when Nero talked to them directly. Otherwise, they remained bundles of instinct that tried to kill him. At this point, Nero was contemplating merely kidnapping a ''dumb'' animal to follow him around until it spent enough time around him to achieve sapience without the need for Beast Tongue. "I just thought I would run into a bunch of exciting monsters, you know? Something more than mere animals who can''t think for themselves. Like whatever followed us last week and dropped the wolves on us. Odds are it was some sort of mutated wolf or something, and it could plan in advance. I would rather have somebody interesting than boring if we''re going to be spending a lot of time together." Nero remembered a few of the Sullen he had been attacked by on the picnic had been smart enough to talk, at least enough to voice their desire to kill him. But so far, out of the twenty or so foxes and assorted animals, the pair had hunted today, no one seemed to be even close to self-realization. They just attacked him as soon as he got near. "I guess," Jorry said, not really understanding Nero''s thoughts. To the snake, all that mattered was what abilities this new companion would bring to the table and if it would help grow the Nest, increasing the stat boost he would receive. "But if you do find somebody... interesting, even if it were another snake, you wouldn''t? I mean, I could still..." Jorry started hesitantly and trailed off. Nero looked to his companion, who was looking anywhere but at the human, and took note of his nervousness. It was times like this that reminded him how young Jorry was. He was only a few months old, less than ten if they converted into snake-years, and he was prone to all the insecurities that children faced, unsure as they were with their place in the world. Augustus had encountered those thoughts as a child as well, afraid he was being replaced by his sisters, and they had faced it in turn, wondering whether Augustus preferred one over the other. "I''m not going to replace you," Nero encouraged softly. "Even if we recruit a whole host of other snakes, I think your the only one who''ll become a world serpent and I don''t want to miss you turning into a dragon. So you aren''t getting rid of me that easily." "Of course," Jorry said with rising pride. "I wasn''t worried." "Of course," Nero agreed readily. "I wasn''t," Jorry repeated, sensing he wasn''t being taken seriously. "Your help will make things easier, but even without it, I will become the best dragon ever. Just watch!" "I believe you," Nero agreed once again. Jorry stared at him intently, trying to be sure he wasn''t being made fun of. Satisfied, the snake finished swallowing his meal and slithered over to Nero. The serpent then wrapped itself around his arm inside the warmth of the jacket. "Wake me up if you need help." "I think we''re done for the day," Nero said, rising to his feet and kicking a bit of dirt to smother what was left of the fire. "We have a lot of ground to cover, and I won''t finish assimilating the sense of touch for another day or so. There is no real rush." Where before it had taken a month or weeks, it now only took a week and a half for assimilating a trait to be complete, likely due to the increase in skill level. "Sure, whatever you say," Jorry said sleepily, the cold air of the day having made him groggier than usual. Unfortunately, the snake wouldn''t get the rest he desired due to the most unexpected of noises. "Do you hear that?" Nero asked. "Hm?" Was all Jorry replied as he was already half asleep. "It sounds like, singing?" Nero half asked in confusion. "Bad singing." "Cause there are a bunch of singers out in the wild at night." Though tired, the snake couldn''t miss an opportunity to try out sarcasm once more. "That''s why I''m confused!" Nero said exasperatedly, maybe teaching Jorry sarcasm wasn''t the best idea. "Can you taste anything?" "Blood, fox, ash, snow, nothing else." "Really? I''ll try and follow it," Nero was aware of many folktales and myths about following mysterious singing into the night, but his curiosity had been peaked. So, like a good protagonist of a horror film, Kaesar wandered off into the darkening evening to find an unknown sound. Thankfully, Nero wasn''t in a horror movie, so he didn''t meet a grisly end. Instead, he was just confused. "La la la la la la la la, gonna eat, gonna eat, gonna eat a rabbIT~ I''m gonna eat it ''cause I killed IT~ a rabbit is delicious, it crunchy, and juicy, and tasTY~ la la la la la la la la la~." The singing was off key, the lyrics made no sense and, combined with the image, Nero just knew he was in for a headache. Somehow, don''t ask Nero how a fox had wrapped a dead and bloody rabbit in its large and bushy tail and was carrying it while singing, and somehow, skipping. Despite walking on four legs. Nero wasn''t even sure that was possible. "AAHH!" The fox suddenly screamed in fright, catching sight of Nero. It jumped back, dropping the rabbit carcass in the process, and crouched low. "Grrrr, growl, hiss, angry face!" It might have been more intimidating if the creature wasn''t saying the words and actually performed the actions instead. "You can''t have mah bushy tail!" There was that headache after all. Maybe Nero should have been more careful with what he wished for. ***** "I am sometimes a fox and sometimes a lion. The whole secret of government lies in knowing when to be the one or the other." -Napoleon Bonaparte 022-1 Aching to Live "I am sometimes a fox and sometimes a lion. The whole secret of government lies in knowing when to be the one or the other." -Napoleon Bonaparte ***** "Why would I want... your tail?" Nero asked, confused about the direction of the conversation. "Because it''s so soft and fluffy, the best tail in the whole world." The fox responded before realizing what it had said. "But it''s mine, so you can''t have it." "Relax, I''m not after your tail," Nero brought his hands in front of him in a pacifying motion, trying to show he was no threat. "Really? M''kay," the fox accepted Nero''s words readily and released its tension right away. It sat down and started scratching its ears idly. Nero was surprised with the quick acceptance but wasn''t one to look a gift horse in the mouth at the moment. "So, whatcha you doing here?" "Mostly hunting and leveling up," Nero said, taking a moment to get a good look at the new arrival. Like the other foxes he had hunted that day, it was a red fox. It was the largest and most common breed of foxes in the real world, though Nero didn''t know if that remained true in Gods'' Nature. This one was on the small size, even smaller than the one that had been his dinner that Jorry had killed by himself. "What are you doing then?" "AH! That''s right!" The animal stopped scratching itself and immediately dashed for the rabbit it had dropped upon noticing Nero. "Phew," it sighed in relief as it picked up the carcass with its surprisingly nimble tail. It then turned a suspicious back to Kaesar. "So ya after the rabbit then, but it''s mine too." "I''m really not," Nero smiled wryly. "I already ate." "Good!" The fox nodded imperiously and relaxed its wariness once again. By the way, it accepted his words so quickly, Nero was starting to think it was a bit naive. "My rabbit''s super rare, it took me a whole day to find it." "That''s impressive," Nero flattered, to the fox''s obvious delight as it sent its tail waving in the air behind it in joy. He sat down on a nearby rock; this conversation could take a while. "So you live around here? How old are you?" "Don''t know," the beast said casually as it laid down on the ground, all fear was forgotten as it set its prey in front of it and started to devour it. Nero wasn''t put off by the bloody sight as he would have been a few months ago. "I was born here a while ago." "Were the leaves on the trees green when you were born?" Nero gestured to the trees behind him, trying to get a frame of reference for the animal''s age. It looked young, but most foxes were born in the spring and usually in groups, so it was possible it was just small and had chased the rest of its nestmates away. "Green?" Oh, right. Foxes were canines and only had dichromatic eyesight, they couldn''t tell green from red and orange. "Nevermind," Nero changed the subject. "Were you alone this whole time?" "Nah," the animal said, idly chewing on the rabbit''s liver. "There were others, but they died. Don''t know where they went." "You don''t seem sad about it?" "It''s because they weren''t awesome enough," the fox answered proudly. "If they were as awesome as me, they wouldn''t have been killed. I''ll never die!" "Someday you will," Nero said a plan coming to his mind. "Nuh uh!" The fox denied. "It''s true, no matter how awesome you are someday you''ll die," Nero explained. "It could be old age or being killed, but everybody dies." "Not me!" The fox shouted harshly, for once its easy-going mood replaced by seriousness. "I''m too awesome! If anybody tries, I''ll kill ''em and eat ''em. Nobody is gonna kill me and take my tail." That was an oddly specific example, Nero thought. Likely its litter had been skinned, and the fox had seen it causing it to develop some sort of trauma. "There''s nothing you can do about it," Nero shrugged casually as he reached into his bag. This was a risky move since he was trying to recruit the fox, but it could pay off. He withdrew the skin and jerky of the fox he had for dinner. "This guy was bigger than you, likely stronger than you," Nero said, showing off the size of the pelt. "I killed him easily." "So?" The fox asked, not looking at Nero and, instead, looking off to the side petulantly. Nero internally sighed in relief, he had taken a gamble that it wouldn''t take offense to the killing others of its species. He had figured that comradery between the same species wasn''t strong in monsters, but he hadn''t been sure. "Two days ago, I too was killed easily," Nero admitted. The beast looked to him in surprise, its head tilted to the side in confusion. Noticing he had its attention, Nero did what everybody else would do. He tried to convince the child to follow him away from home. "You know what I did?" "What?" "I came back, and I killed everything which tried to kill me." Strictly speaking, this was not true, Claudia had killed those who had murdered him, but Nero wasn''t going to explain the semantics. "That''s how I know I''m awesome," it felt a bit embarrassing saying it like that, but when in Rome. "Being awesome doesn''t mean not dying, it means continually getting back up and coming back stronger than ever. If somebody takes your tail, you come back and kill them twice over to prove your point." The fox didn''t say anything for a few moments as it thought about what he had said. Strictly speaking, something like that was only possible in Gods'' Nature because death wasn''t, but Nero was counting on the idea of permanent death being foreign enough to the fox that it would think over that point. He was saying all this on the assumption that it wasn''t death that really scared the fox, but the trauma of seeing others in its litter being murdered and skinned and fearing that outcome. The question was whether it was the pain of death it feared or the humiliation that came from being killed. Nero suspected the later based on its fear of losing its tail.Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. "I''m not the only one either," Nero said, pulling the dozing snake from where he had been sleeping wrapped around Nero''s arm. Its ability to fall asleep was awe-inspiring. "This is Jorry." "Huh, wassit? Enemy?" The serpent mumbled before slithering down Nero''s arm and into his warm jacket. "He was like you," the fox looked at him confused. "Well, a bit like you. He was weak, no skill or power. Jorry was living in a small area, and every day he would be killed and eaten. He would revive the next day, only to be killed and eaten once more." The fox recoiled in revulsion at the idea. "So you know what we did?" "What?" It asked, getting caught up in the story. "We went hunting, the bird that had killed him was too strong for Jorry, so he needed to get stronger. After a while, when he was stronger, I brought him back to where he died. There, he ambushed the bird, trapped it and strangled it to death." "Wow," the fox said softly. "If you want," Nero said softly as his chance was presented. "You can come with me." "Huh?" It asked confused. "I have a skill that allows us to get stronger together," he explained. "If you follow Jorry and me, we can all get so strong that nothing will be able to hurt us." While that was Jorry''s goal, Nero was mainly here to enjoy his vacation, and for that, he needed strength as well. Seeing the fox remain silent, Nero pressed his advantage. "I''m not going to lie, there will be times where we die, and it will be painful. As long as we keep coming back stronger though, there will come a day where nothing can kill us." The fox remained silent, not looking at Nero but staring behind him into the trees where it made its den. Nero had presented the carrot, now for the stick. "Or you could stay here," he said, standing up from his seat and towering over the fox. "You might go a while without dying, maybe even years. But all it would take is one strong monster or person deciding they liked the area and then you would have nowhere to go. You would die over and over again." The creature flinched at his words but finally looked at him. "Maybe you would be eaten, maybe skinned. Your pelt and tail sold and used to make clothes or something." "I''ll do it!" The fox said suddenly, its voice a soft growl. "Hm?" "I said, I''ll do it!" It repeated, stronger this time. "I''ll follow you, but you gotta promise me something." "Depends on what you ask." "Anything that kills me, anything that kills us, we have to destroy them!" It said forcefully as if to make sure Nero would agree. "Sure," Kaesar agreed readily, more than likely he would have to do that anyway with how petty Jorry could be. "All right then, I''ll follow you," the fox agreed, and Nero was rewarded with a message. **The Nest (3) - "To grow strong does not mean to grow solitary." Allows for the recruitment of NPCs into The Nest. NPCs in the Nest receive stat boosts while fighting with other nestmates. Upon death, NPCs will revive around the player. NPCs disappear upon logging off and reappear upon login. Synergistic skills can only be used with other nestmates. Current Number of Nestmates Allowed: 3 Current Number of Nestmates: 3 Nestmates: ''Jorry'' (Gardner Snake), Red Fox Stat boost to Nestmates: 0.03%** "Woah," the fox said, likely getting the information about ''The Nest,'' like Jorry had. "So this is what you meant. Are you going to recruit a bunch of others to increase this skill?" "No, if there were too many of us it would make leveling more difficult. For now, the three of us are it. I look forward to fighting with you." Nero explained politely. "Do you have anything you want to bring with us or are you fine setting out right now?" "I''m good to go, just let me finish my rabbit." The half-eaten animal had been temporarily forgotten in the conversation. "Sure, go ahead." Nero was in a good mood, he had recruited another animal into the nest, one with enough desirable traits to last him months at least. By then Assimilation would probably have leveled up enough to allow him to get the last few traits he wanted from Jorry, further postponing his need to recruit anybody else. Did Nero feel wrong about emotionally manipulating a child into following him into danger and adventure? Not really, for two reasons. The first was that nothing he had said was wrong if the fox didn''t support him it was mostly waiting to die, there was no reason they couldn''t both get what they wanted. Nero got a bunch of desirable traits, and the fox got a way to get stronger. The second reason was that Nero didn''t think he had forced the fox into anything, it had made a choice on its own in the end. "So what''s your name?" Nero asked as the fox ate. "Don''t got one," it answered quickly. "Huh, do you want one?" "Sure," it seemed intrigued by the idea, its tail waving in excitement. "But its got to be as awesome as me." At least its bravado had recovered. "Let''s see," Nero gave it a few moments of thought before deciding to name it after a mythological figure. His study of culture helped him here, dozens of names rushing to mind. Foxes were usually portrayed as trickster characters, mischievous and sometimes malevolent. First things first though, was it a male or female? Nero didn''t see any testicles, so it was probably female, though Nero was no expert on canine sexual characteristics in Gods'' Nature. That narrowed it down a bit. "How about Kuma Lisa? She''s a famous trickster fox where I come from that often outsmarts her opponent." "Nah, the name sounds boring." "Ninhursag? She was one of the oldest fertility goddesses. She ruled over mountains and was one of the principal deities in ancient Sumerian myth. "Too complicated." "Maybe something from eastern legends then," Nero gave it a few moments of thought. There was the Kimiho of Korean myth and the Kitsune of Japanese fame, and the ones they had been based on, the Huli Jing from China. "Come to think of it, most of the eastern fox myths are nine-tailed foxes." "Nine-tails!?" The fox looked at Nero in shock, as if the thought was utterly foreign to her. She then looked towards her own tail which was waiving in excitement. "So much fluff," she said in a daze. "All right, I''ll just throw out a bunch of names, you choose one you like." "Go ahead." "Daji, Kayou, Xi Wangmu, Inari, Huxian, Tamamo," Nero listed. There were surprisingly few named Kimiho as they were usually depicted there as monsters who ate men''s liver. "Whose Inari?" The fox asked. "A fertility god that could be either male or female, it rules over foxes, rice, agriculture." "Nah, how about Tamamo?" "She was another nine-tailed fox, perhaps the most famous one. Sometimes legends say she was also Daji and Kayou before she became Tamamo, but that is mostly cultural appropriation. She was a courtesan and, when discovered, supposedly killed tens of thousands of people who chased her. After she was finally killed, she turned into a stone that would kill anybody who got near it." "I like her, Tamamo it is." "It''s nice to meet you Tamamo," he should have started with that one, looking back on it. This fox seemed to be enthralled by the idea of killing and revenge. "But what''s a courtesan?" "I''ll tell you some other time, we should be going if you are done." Nero had no desire to get into sexual dynamics and court politics at the moment. "M''kay." Tamamo agreed readily, leaving the bloody and messy carcass that had been her meal behind. Perhaps had Nero answered Tamamo''s question he would have saved himself a major headache in the future. As it is, his sisters would be the ones to do it, year in the future. Much to their amusement and his consternation. **** 022-2 Aching to Live "So how good are your whiskers? How much can you sense?" Nero asked as they followed the path towards Maqi. The night had been cold, but thankfully his new jacket provided some much-needed warmth. He had spent the night talking with his new companion, getting a feel for her personality and mindset. "Don''t know," the fox replied. "Never thought ''bout it." Much like many animals, Nero had talked to, Tamamo didn''t really see things from a human perspective. Asking her about her whiskers was probably like asking a person to describe their eyesight or sense of hearing. It just was, and there weren''t any words to compare it to. That said if Nero was going to assimilate that trait, he wanted a frame of reference. "Alright," he tried a different tactic by stopping on the path. The pair hadn''t been going very fast, they were still about an hour from their destination, and the sky was already brightening with the sunrise. That, unfortunately, did not help with the cold just yet, but the atmosphere was bright enough to promise a beautiful if chilly day. After noticing her partner had stopped, Tamamo did the same. "Try and focus just on your whiskers, see how far away you can get a feeling." "Why?" "I just want a frame of reference," Nero said to her and, though her head tilted cutely in confusion, the fox did as asked. Tamamo''s eyes closed as she stood perfectly still, her whiskers twitching in the wind. "There are a few bugs around, not many. There is some sort of animal in the grass a bit behind us." A gopher or something of the sort Nero had guessed as he felt it leave its subterranean burrow and the taste of dirt smeared fur in the air. "There is a bird in front of us in the trees, I think it has a nest." That was surprising, the forest was over fifty meters away, was further than Nero could read based on the vibrations of the ground, though he could get the barest hint of bark and sap on the breeze. "What can you feel from the forest?" "Not much," Tamamo said with a foxy frown. "It feels like a big blurry lump, the wind passes through the leaves and the trees, but beyond the first few I can''t get nothing." Nero nodded in thought before responding, he also made a mental note to try and get her grammar up to par. If they were going to spend any length of time together, he didn''t want to deal with the headaches that came with incorrect sentence structure, though that could wait for later. "That enough, we should keep going." Tamamo opened her eyes resumed her walk beside him. "What ''cha thinking ''bout?" The fox asked to her human companion after a few minutes of silent walking. "Just comparing our various sense," Nero answered absently, his mind formulating what he knew into various categories. "My tongue can taste and smell various particles on the air but if I want any sort of cohesive idea it needs to be reasonably close or upwind. You seem to have a wider range but less exactitude, focusing more on the airflows themselves rather than what they carry." "Never thought ''bout it like that." "That''s not all though," Kaiser continued, following that train of thought further down its tracks. "I can feel the vibrations in the ground pretty well, you probably can too to a lesser extent with your padded paws," Tamamo stopped for a moment to lift up her front paw and look at the pads covering it. Shaking it off, the fox resumed her walking a little faster to catch up. "But it isn''t perfect when it comes to moving from one medium to another, say from stone to dirt or dirt to tree. You don''t suffer from that because there is only one medium, the air, that the vibrations move through." "That''s good, right?" "Outstanding even," Nero nodded in agreement which caused Tamamo to preen in pride as she rose her head high, her tail swinging behind her in delight. "Though I wonder if it would work even better with my enhanced sense of touch. But that''ll have to wait for a few more days for testing." "So what now?" Tamamo asked curiously. "We could go straight towards Maqi, but before we do that, I want to see how you do in a fight." "Oh," the fox responded with trepidation. "What level are you?" "Twelve," Tamamo said softly, her tail started to swing wildly in agitation. "Lower than average for foxes in the area but considering your age that is actually pretty good. It is high enough for now though." "What are you planning," the fox asked in worry. "Nothing bad," Nero reassured her. "You''ll definitely be able to handle it." "Oh, ok then." She still sounded worried, but that was normal for those going into a fight. "Come on, we need to get off the path for this to work," Nero said as he led her into the trees off to the side of the path. Unlike Machy which had started off as a military outpost to keep an eye on the Bonewall in the south and Maki which was the northernmost outpost of the Sarra kingdom and acted as a vanguard against the monster in the Ishval jungle, Maqi had started off as a small logging outpost. After the Rupture, Sarra had lost its supply lines to its old capital. At the time the three sons of the general of the keep, who later became king, were dispatched into various territories to secure land. Machy and Maki were both military men and were thus sent to secure the borders whereas Maqi was focused more on administration and development and therefore was sent to gather wood and clear up farmland. Interestingly enough Maqi would be the one to inherit his father''s throne not even a decade later and institute the adventurer and pioneer system which allowed the military to focus on internal stability while the adventurers risked their lives as explorers. Before that, Maqi would found the town in the southern woods as they were more hospitable than the Ishval jungle. It would slowly but surely expand into a massive clearing in the forest, separated from the hills that neighbored Sarra by only a relatively thin stretch of wood that was being whittled away, piece by piece. Until such time though, goblins use that stretch of uncleared forest as a staging area for ambushes on unsuspecting caravans. They were rarely, but they proved enough of a nuisance caution had to be taken when crossing that particular bit of road.Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel. All this Nero had learned from the grumblings of Furu. The old man would moan about guard duty for hours while simultaneously cursing the ''Green Pigmies.'' While interesting to Nero, who always enjoyed history, the useful info had come from one of his discussions with Medea on the cultures of various humanoids. She had mentioned off handily that goblin scouts were more often than not the weakest and most incompetent of their group. They would operate by themselves because nobody else wanted to work with them. And when they inevitably died, they would respawn and make their way back to their camp where they would tell others about what had killed them and then get sent out again. It was an inefficient system but one that played to the goblins strengths of fast respawn rate and high numbers. By combining these to factoids together, Nero theorized that the stretch of woods separating Maqi from Sarra should be filled with weak goblins acting alone. Not very good for leveling or farming for bounties but an excellent place to put Tamamo into a somewhat fair fight to see how she did. Nero had been about her level when he had hunted goblins with the party from The Bank. Though he had numerous advantages over goblins, such as height, strength, and such, he believed Tamamo wouldn''t have a problem with one weaker than those Nero had fought. All that said, it took a surprising amount of time before they managed to find one of the humanoids. It could have been the cold or the early hour, but by the time they had seen a valid target, Nero was half convinced his theory had been wrong. Thankfully Tamamo had managed to pick up movement in a clearing a ways away. They had snuck close enough to get a good look at it before stealing away again. By then the sun had fully risen and started to warm the air slightly. "Alright, you should be able to handle this one no problem," Nero told Tamamo quietly. "Right, right," the fox repeated to herself anxiously. She had calmed down in the hours they had been searching the forest, but upon seeing the goblin, she had gone back to full nervousness. "I can do this, I can do this. I''m awesome, I''m great, nobody''s gonna kill me. I''m gonna kill them. I''m gonna kill them all!" A bit psychopathic but Nero didn''t really care, whatever helped psyche her up. "I''m going to be in a tree nearby, keeping an eye on things. If you get the drop on it, you''ll be fine." "M''kay," Tamamo answered softly. That was probably as good a response as Nero was going to get, so he snuck off to get into position. The clearing they had found the goblin in wasn''t huge only a big stone in the middle that the scout was using as a seat set it apart. The scout wasn''t anything impressive either, just wearing a fur loincloth and holding a large stick as a club. Because the green humanoids didn''t have senses any better than the average human, Nero felt safe enough to climb a tree that was pretty close to the clearing. The season meant that most of the foliage should have disappeared, but this area was mostly filled with species of evergreen and the needles of tree Nero chose, a fir if he wasn''t mistaken, provided excellent cover. Perched as he was above the clearing Nero could see Tamamo slink nearer the rear of the goblin. "Hm, what''s going on?" A voice asked next to Nero''s ear. Thankfully he didn''t scream in surprise, but he did jump a bit. The tree swayed slightly with his weight, but Nero managed to hold on. "Keep it down," Nero whispered to Jorry. The snake had woken up, finally, and had slithered its way onto his shoulder. "Why are we whispering?" The snake whispered back. In response, Nero nodded down at Tamamo who had stopped at the edge of the clearing. "We''re watching a fox fight a goblin? Why?" "That''s Tamamo," Nero explained, but Jorry just looked at him blankly. "The fox from last night? The one I introduced you to? The one I recruited?" Jorry just continued to look confused. "I literally waved you in front of her face, how are you not remembering this?" "I''m sorry," Jorry snapped back sarcastically. "I''m sure you always remember everything that happens when you are half asleep. So excuuusssseee me!" "Whatever," Nero was really starting to regret teaching the snake about sarcasm, the little bastard was way too good at it. "She''s only level twelve, so I decided to pit her against a weak goblin to see how she does." "All right then," Jorry said merely as he settled down to watch as well. The pair sat quietly while they waited for Tamamo to pounce. And waited. And waited. And waited some more. "What''s taking her so long," Jorry finally asked after a quarter of an hour passed. "I don''t know," Nero answered with a shrug. "Maybe she''s waiting for the goblin to move." "Fine, but if this keeps going, I''ll go back to sleep." It did, in fact, keep going. The clearing remained the same for another half hour, the only movement was the occasional swivel of the humanoid''s head. Nero understood why goblins failed so often if this is what they considered scouting. He told himself that if nothing happened at the hour mark, he would go down and kill the goblin himself. Jorry meanwhile, had gone back to sleep. Something finally changed after fifty minutes. The green humanoid stood up and made its way towards the tree on which Nero was perched. He tensed, ready to drop on the creature if he thought he was spotted. Fortunately, or not, the goblin remained oblivious to the human ready to end its life. It merely was relieving itself on a nearby tree. Not only did Nero get a closer look at goblin anatomy than he had ever wished, but the wind also carried particles of urine into the air and Nero had to stop himself from gagging at the taste. Once the monster was done, he returned to his rock to grab his stick-slash-club. Nero spared a glance for Tamamo. He would have thought she had fallen asleep if it weren''t for the way her ears were pressed against her skull. The goblin seemed to have decided to do some actual scouting, imperfect as it was. It wandered the clearing, poking things with its stick. Eventually, it started to walk close to Tamamo. Nero tensed. This was probably what the fox had been waiting for, a chance for the enemy to get close enough for an ambush. Any moment now Tamamo would burst from her hiding place in the bushes and pounce on her unfortunate victim. But as the seconds ticked by and the goblin got closer and closer to the fox, nothing happened. Tamamo remained stationary. Until she couldn''t anymore. "FFFOOOODDD!" With a startled yet happy shout, the goblin noticed the hidden fox and jumped forward, ready to beat the fox to death with its club. "WWAAAAAHHHHHH!" Tamamo let out a war cry of her own and pounced on her enemy. At least that was what Nero had initially thought, but Tamamo did not attack the humanoid, instead dashing past it and into the open clearing. The goblin gave chase. Now that he thought of it Nero realized that Tamamo''s shout sounded less like a battle cry and more like just plain crying. Nero stared, nonplussed, as he watched the goblin chase the fox around the clearing in circles, waiving its club-like branch ineffectively with repeated shouts of ''FOOD.'' Enough was enough, Nero thought. With a whisper of ''evolve'' he dropped from his perch and onto the forest floor. The clearing''s inhabitants didn''t notice, so caught up in their game of chase were they. The goblin only saw Nero when the back of his hand, covered in bone spikes, smacked it in the jaw. The backhand was brutal enough that the creature went flying into a tree where it lay unconscious or dead. Tamamo continued to run around the rock, unaware of the dispatch of her attacker until she rounded it and caught sight of Nero. She dove for him, jumping into his arms as she continued to cry. "Wahh," she blubbered, though Nero''s wasn''t even sure if foxes had tear ducts. "I don''t wanna die! I don''t wanna die!" She cried. Nero held back a sigh. Others might have their heartstrings pulled at the pathetic sight. Nero''s only thought was if he should abandon the fox if she continued to prove this useless. ***** "Only I can change my life. No one can do it for me." -Carol Burnett