Daniel Kensington Author

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Added 2025-04-27 16:15:11 +0000 UTC

Patreon didn't like the tables for skill sheets at all, but the gist is there, I guess. I'll figure something better out before the next preview, though the full skill sheets are rarely presented.

Chapter

The space beyond the door was all shadows, but the door was definitely open.

The timbers that had crossed it were set to the side and the door-halves themselves were folded back against the wall on either side of the opening.

Had whatever I was chasing gone through the door? And how had it even opened the door when the sounds had been so like a small creature of some sort?

Now I was getting pissed, because the door had to be opened by a person, which meant one of the not innocent-animal explanations was on the table — a person either hired by Rawlin or Uncle Jack himself, or some homeless guy, but I thought homeless-guy wasn’t likely, because some of the locks that had been on that door required keys.

I crept to the doorway and peered through, but the light from the main basement only penetrated a few feet into the other room, showing nothing but a cobbled stone floor, unlike the concrete of my side.

Maybe I could just shut the door and trap whoever it was inside to deal with later — a night locked in the basement would probably teach any trickster a lesson — but I was pretty curious about what the locked room looked like.

And pissed.

“Hey!” I called into the darkness. “Hey, come out! I know what’s going on.” I hesitated — if it wasn’t a trick and was a homeless guy, I didn’t want to startle or scare him into taking a swing at me or something. “Hey, look, let’s not take this somewhere bad, okay? Come on out — I’ll fix you … I don’t know, some corned beef hash or something.”

I turned on my phone’s flashlight and pointed it into the darkness, but it only illuminated a few feet. It was as though the other room was completely empty and the only thing I could see was a bit of the floor and ceiling. At the threshold the flooring changed from smooth concrete to rounded stones mortared together. Even the ceiling beams looked rougher and somehow older than the main basement, as though the other room had been built a century or more earlier.

I took one step closer, then another, trying to make my light catch anything but emptiness on the other side — all the while preparing myself to endure a jump-scare … or straight-arm some trickster to the jaw if he got too close.

Heather’s talk of bad horror-movie decisions ran through my mind, but I shook my head and scowled.

“This isn’t a movie,” I assured myself. “House isn’t haunted, no such thing as ghosts, and nothing in there is waiting to eat me.”

I shrugged away the sudden chill that ran through me and stepped over the threshold.

As soon as I did, my phone’s light went out, other lights from within the room came on, blinding me, and I heard the sharp clicks and clatters of multiple locks being set on a suddenly slammed door.

I tried to spin around and leap for the door, but I couldn’t move.

I strained my muscles, but couldn’t twist to see behind me, couldn’t turn my head, couldn’t even blink, and I realized the light in my eyes wasn’t lights, it was letters, glowing in my vision.

Giving up on trying to move, I paused to read.

Welcome to Arctara

“What the fuck?”

The letters spun apart into little dots of light, then reformed.

Syncing inherent skills

Please wait…

I tried again to turn my head, wanting to scan the darkness for anything that might be coming for me. My heart started racing at thoughts of the many things that could be lurking in the darkness. I could see, I could breathe, I could feel my body, but I couldn’t move — no matter how much I tensed my muscles, my body stayed frozen in place like a statue.

Then more words started scrolling in my vision, floating in space like some kind of video game.

Initial Skill Cap Exceeded…

Selecting most relevant skills…

Randomizing bottom quintile…

Entity transfer complete…

Body

Health

Fortitude

Endurance

Agility

Perception

Understanding

Charm

Martial

Tahlén Blade

Unarmed Combat

Swordsmanship (General)

Longbow

Dodge/Evasion

Weapon Maintenance

Life Skills

Cooking

Item Repair

Foraging

Fishing

Hunting

Survival Skills

Navigation

Specialized

Crafting (General)

Tinkering (Mechanical/Technical)

Alchemy

Lockpicking

Perception

Skills synced, please select a general starting class for bonuses:

Fighter

Rogue

Artificer

Monk

I struggled again to move, but I couldn’t — not even to blink — and the line about selecting a class started to flash insistently.

Taking a deep breath I tried to calm myself and figure this out.

I’d walked through a mysterious door, found myself unable to move, my phone light went out, and there was some sort of video game interface in my eyes … a psychotic break was definitely on the table here.

Given the incessantly flashing “choose your class” message, I was willing to bet that my psychosis wouldn’t let me move until I did that.

I considered the options.

Monk was right out — my psychosis would probably make a vow of celibacy come along with that and, while I’d never gotten what you’d call a lot of action, I’d still like to have the option. Artificer was out, too, since the whole skills thing seemed to be focused on a lot of martial stuff. If I was going to spend the rest of my life in a loony bin thinking I was living in a game, then I’d at least like it to be interesting — Artificer sounded like I’d be spending my crazy-time making bracelets out of beads and string or something.

So Rogue or Fighter?

I actually gave Rogue some thought, since it would probably be safer, and get me let out sooner, if I spent my time in the psych ward sneaking around rather than picking fights.

In the end, I decided on Fighter, because … I like to fight and I’m good at it.

Maybe not competitive-level good, but I enjoyed my MMA sparring and sword sessions, and I could hold my own pretty well.

I still couldn’t speak, so I focused on Fighter and tried to project the thought to my crazy-part. Yeah, that one.

Fighter Base Class selected.

Applying bonuses…

Fortitude +5

Endurance +3 (Health 99)

New Skill! Armor Proficiency - movement penalties for medium/heavy armor reduced 12%.

New Skill! Enhanced Regeneration - health regenerates 13% faster.

Unarmed Combat +5

Weapons Maintenance +5

New Skill! Power Strike - +4% damage with melee weapons or unarmed combat.

New Skill! Shield Defense - -4% damage when using a shield.

New Skill! Battle Awareness - Perception during combat +3.

New Skill! Weapon Mastery (sword) - +5 to all sword skills.

New Skill! Taunt - +10 to Charm-based negative interactions.

New Skill! Second Wind - when Health is reduced to 10% or below, it is reset to 25% and +10 to Endurance for 30 minutes.

Evaluating…

Class Skills Exceeding 50

Please select a class specialization:

Swordmaster

Brawler

Great — more to pick. Really, I just wanted to be able to move because my nose was itching.

Swordmaster! I thought, trying to project it forcefully.

Swordmaster specialization selected.

Applying bonuses…

Tahlén Blade +10

Swordsmanship (General) +5

New Skill! Blade Dance - Attack speed +7%.

New Skill! Master’s Strike - Triple damage once per combat.

Skills Sync Complete.

Welcome to Arctara!

Enjoy your stay.

Alexander Thomas Mercer

Class: Fighter/Swordmaster

‍

Body

Health

Fortitude

Endurance

Agility

Perception

Understanding

Charm

‍

Martial

Tahlén Blade

Unarmed Combat

Swordsmanship (General)

Longbow

Dodge/Evasion

Weapon Maintenance

‍

Life Skills

Cooking

Item Repair

Foraging

Fishing

Hunting

Survival Skills

Navigation

‍

Specialized

Crafting (General)

Tinkering (Mechanical/Technical)

Alchemy

Lockpicking

Perception

‍

Class Skills

Armor Proficiency

12%

Reduced movement penalty in medium/heavy armor.

Enhanced Regeneration

13%

Increases Health Regeneration.

Power Strike

Increases damage done by melee weapons and unarmed combat.

Shield Defense (-damage %)

Reduces damage taken when using a shield.

Battle Awareness

Increases Perception during combat.

Weapon Mastery (sword)

Increases Sword skills.

Taunt (negative charm)

Increases Charm when initiating negative interactions.

Second Wind ()

When Health reaches 10% it is increased to 25% and +10 Endurance for 30 minutes (24 hour cooldown).

Blade Dance

Increases attack speed.

Master's Strike

Triple damage once per combat. Requires Invocation.

Suddenly I could move again and I immediately spun to face the door, which was closed, and rushed back to it. The knob was solidly set and shoving on either half of the door had no more effect than if I was shoving on the surrounding rock walls.

“Fuck!”

I kicked the door, which worked no better than trying to turn the knob or shoving on it, then stepped back and scratched and scrubbed at my nose because the itch was driving me nuts … nuttier than I already appeared to be.

The welcome message and — I guess, my stat sheet — stayed floating in my vision. Since nothing seemed to be attacking me out of the shadows, I gave it a look over to try and understand better what was going on.

My name and class were clear. The “body” part seemed to be the same as a typical RPG’s attributes — strength, constitution, dexterity, etc., just with different names. Health was pretty clear, as well, but had it gone up from the first time? Ninety-nine seemed like it was probably a multiple of Endurance and I’d gotten +3 in that from picking a class — I guess it was 3x Endurance?

The Class Skills looked like they were all passive, they just worked, except for Taunt and Master’s Strike.

The Martial stuff seemed straightforward as well. Tahlén Blade was probably this game’s version of a katana? At least that was the type of sword I was most skilled with back home.

“This game’s” … that didn’t seem right, since I was actually in whatever the fuck this was, not playing it. This world’s? Was I in a different world? Was the locked door in Uncle Jack’s basement some kind of portal to another world? Universe? Dimension? What the fuck ever?

Yeah, whatever, if it looked like a game and talked like a game, then it could be gamified. I might not have played a lot of RPGs lately, but I’d been pretty good at them in high school — although this didn’t seem like something I’d be playing with a keyboard and mouse, so I should probably take it a lot more seriously.

Save game? I thought. Save!

Arctara has no save function.

Okay, so the System, whatever it was, responded to thoughts like that.

Help! I tried.

Arctara has no general help function.

Limited Introductory Support Activated…

Please make a specific request.

A specific request?

Exit! Quit! Send me the fuck home!

Arctara portal, Mercer Manor, is behind you.

It’s locked!

There was no response.

The exit’s locked — how do I unlock it?

Arctara portal, Mercer Manor, is open and functional.

System working as designed — no trouble found.

I thought about that, leaning my weight on the door again.

Was the exit maybe the threshold and Uncle Jack had put the door in place? But why not have a way to open it from this side?

It made sense to block off his house from whatever was in this … fine, we’ll go with world. Yeah, if there was stuff in this world that made things like Blade Dance and Master’s Strike a necessity, then I’d probably lock it off from my house, too, but he had to have wanted a way to get back through from this side.

I started feeling around the door’s frame and surrounding walls, looking for anything that could be poked, prodded, or turned, but after several minutes of searching I found nothing. Even if I had found something, I thought about all those locks and bars on the other side of the door — even the knob was locked — if any of them had been set, then some latch on this side wasn’t going to help anyway.

But who was back on the Earth side of the door to do that? Whatever I’d been following had sounded way too small, but maybe that had been a trick? Had I been led down here and trapped on the Arctara side deliberately?

My blood ran cold.

What was back on the other side alone in the house with Heather?

Are there other exits? I thought, desperately.

There are 7,284 portals to Arctara.

Where’s the nearest one?

Behind you.

I fought the urge to scream in frustration.

Other than the one behind me!

You have not discovered any other Arctaran portals.

Limited Introductory Support limit reached.

For future assistance, please submit a support ticket.

Fuck me.

Look — I still need some help?

Thank you for contacting Arctaran Support

Support Ticket # b482b495-3fa3-47c1-b33c-a5a93dce0121

Ticket received, please wait for assistance…

You are #27,824 in the support queue … but we have lots of reps, hang on!

(Estimated wait time … 06:47…)

I sighed. Well, seven minutes wasn’t so bad, was it?

Support Ticket # b482b495-3fa3-47c1-b33c-a5a93dce0121 updated.

Estimated wait times are presented in the format hh:mm.

Thank you for contacting Arctaran Support, ticket #b482b495-3fa3-47c1-b33c-a5a93dce0121 closed.

What the fuck? Closed?

“Hey! What the fuck? I still have a question!”

Thank you for contacting Arctaran Support

Support Ticket # d44d66b9-ff24-4e32-997a-bda6a438b788

Ticket received, please wait for assistance…

You are #31,278 in the support queue … but we have lots of reps, hang on!

(Estimated wait time … 08:18…)

“Mother —”

It was going to be like that, was it?

Fine, I’d break the fucking door down with … yeah, I had nothing.

Which meant I was going to have to find something to break the door down and that meant getting out of this fucking basement to somewhere there was light and, hopefully, a big fucking ax.

Chapter

Okay, so trapped in a locked basement.

Well, maybe locked — if this was a basement and not just an extension of the Earth-basement. If it was just an extension then I was fucked. But that didn’t make sense — there had to be a way out.

I tapped my phone and tried to hold the power button to reset it, but it was dark and nothing I did had any effect.

So, exploring in the dark?

I set my back firmly against the door to my world, stretched my arms out in front of me to avoid walking face first into something, and tried to take deliberate straight steps in one direction.

Shuffling my feet across the uneven stones of the floor to avoid stubbing a toe too, I slowly made my way into the darkness. I was just about to give up and return to the door to keep my bearings straight when I thought I could see just a bit of dim light straight ahead, so I kept going.

The light was very faint, but it was something, and as I got closer, I could make out shapes ahead that looked like stairs.

I stopped and frowned, thinking of how far I’d come from the door. If my estimates were right, then I’d come just about three quarters of the length of the basement back on Earth — where the portal and stairs were directly opposite each other.

I kept going and found that there were, indeed, stairs leading up and the light was dim because the top of the stairs were covered in debris. I climbed up and tried to carefully move the debris — wood, cloth, dead leaves, and such — aside, constantly wary for whatever might be up there to be disturbed by my actions.

Once enough space was cleared, I stuck my head above the upper floor’s level and looked around.

“Fuck me,” I muttered.

I was in the entryway to Uncle Jack’s house.

Well, a copy of that, at least, because this one was a mirror image with the bulk of the house stretching back over the space I’d just crossed below. It was as though the two structures were identical, but one was reversed and they were connected by the wall the portal was on.

Here the front door had a large crack running across its bottom half and it hung from only one hinge, leaving an opening for the leaves and weather to be blown in. The view down the hall into the parlor, kitchen, and back wall was lit by the uncovered windows there — uncovered and mostly missing, as the glass and frames lay scattered on the floor.

I climbed the rest of the stairs and looked around more, sticking my head into the parlor.

The library doors here were tightly closed, so I entered the parlor and got a better look at the kitchen area — not great, since everything was dark — which was very different as well. There was a large fireplace with an open hearth and a large cabinet where the refrigerator should have been. There was an old-style hand pump at the sink.

None of the furniture had been covered here, so the sofas and tables were beat up, as well, with water stains, grime, and torn cushions leaking stuffing.

A quick look out the back windows showed that the grounds here were even more overgrown than back on Earth.

I returned to the entryway and tried to ease the door open without it falling down completely. The bottom scraped against the floor and it wiggled in my grasp, but I managed to move it far enough to open a space to pass through and go out.

The time seemed to be the same here, as I could see the sun just appearing over the distant mountains … at least, unless the sun’s direction was reversed here too and that was the sunset.

I stood on the veranda for a while, watching, and the sun was rising, so dawn, and I started to see more differences.

Uncle Jack’s house was surrounded by a broad lawn turned meadow, then a wall of trees in the distance. Here, the way to the main road was still forested, but the hills looking toward the town were bare — in fact, the rising sun revealed that the view was open all the way down to the town in the valley several miles distant. The rolling hills were covered with fields and farmhouses — what looked like animals grazing on the hills and crops closer to the town where the land was flatter.

As the sun rose higher and I could see the town better I realized it was absolutely not the same town — this one had a medieval feel to it — I couldn’t think of any better way to describe it. Even though I couldn’t make out details, the roads, streets, and buildings all had colors and textures that screamed ancient-stuff instead of concrete and glass.

Well, that made sense if I was in a world where swordsmanship was a serious thing.

I did a quick calculation — almost two miles back to the main road, down what should have been the driveway, but was more of an overgrown forest track here, then seven more to town. Average walking speed was three miles an hour, but I knew I could push that, even jog if I wanted to, so call it five miles an hour on average. That was a two-hour trip into town and two hours back.

Maybe a little longer, since I was barefoot and still in my pajamas. The t-shirt and flannel pants were comfortable, but barefoot running on rough or rocky ground wouldn’t be wise.

At least it wasn’t winter. Did they have winter here?

I tried to decide what would be quickest — search the manor and grounds for something that would get me through that door or immediately head for town, hoping to find a farm or something before I got there. Farmers would have an ax, right?

I decided to spend up to an hour searching the grounds for anything I could use to get through the door, then head for the town and seek help there if I found nothing.

It only took about twenty minutes of searching to realize there wasn’t anything that would take the door down. The upper floors of the manor here were in as rough shape as the first — there wasn’t even a pair of boots or something in the bedrooms. I even checked the third floor, thinking if the weapons racks back on the other side were empty, maybe they’d been moved here, but the entire third floor was empty.

Outside I located a wood pile by the side of the house just around the corner from the kitchen door.

The logs were piled in a tidy pyramid, elevated off the ground and with a roofed structure covering them. I found the ax next to a large stump that looked like it had been used for the chopping.

The ax lay on the ground beside the stump, covered in heavy grass and vines. The head was rusty and pitted and the handle bowed alarmingly as I picked it up. There was no way it could handle even a single swing.

I sighed —town, it was, then, and hope I met a farmer I could borrow an ax from. Assuming meeting a farmer didn’t cause me even more trouble, because I had no idea what the people here would be like. For all I knew traveling strangers were sacrificed to the Corn God every new moon.

I started across the meadow — the only trace of the drive there was somewhat less vegetation and the feel of some remaining gravel or just small stones underfoot. It was better after I crossed the tree line, but there were still saplings and vines growing in the middle of the path along with a thick layer of leaves, making it hard to even tell where the path was.

About halfway to the road I spotted a small, fallen tree and had an idea. The trunk was fairly straight — it looked like it had been knocked over by a larger, fallen branch. I went and got it to test its strength. It was about ten feet tall, but the upper portion was too thin for my purposes. That broke off with a little applied leverage against the trunk of a larger tree and after I stripped the remaining branches, I had a six-foot staff.

It wasn’t as strong as I’d like and would probably snap if I hit anything too close to the middle, but it would work for walking and defending myself if it came to that. Better than bare hands if the others in this world were typically armed.

I made it to the main road, which was not in the best shape either. It wasn’t paved at all and consisted mostly of grass and dirt worn away by travelers. The ruts from wagon wheels and roots from the surrounding trees made the footing treacherous, so I was limited to a walk instead of jogging — the last thing I needed was to turn an ankle all alone out here.

Based on what I’d seen from the front porch, I thought the trees here would likely end in a couple miles and be replaced by farmland, so the road would probably be better maintained there. Farmers had to get their wagons to market, right?

I pushed on, but after a few hundred yards I heard sounds coming from behind me.

I quickly moved off the road into the tree line, wanting to see who or what it was before deciding whether to try speaking to them.

After a few minutes of the sounds growing closer, identifiable now as creaking wood, jangling metal, and the light thump of hooves on the dirt, a tall wagon pulled by two horses came into view. The sides were wood and it had a flat wood roof, with a door behind the driver. A man sat in the wagon’s seat holding the reins — he had dark hair and a full beard, well-trimmed, and was dressed in a dark red shirt and brown pants. The clothes looked as medieval as I’d thought the town looked.

The wagon had tall wood sides and a top, not the type of open bed I’d associate with farm work, so this was something else — still, he was alone and didn’t appear armed. He might even have an ax in the wagon I could borrow.

I stepped out of the trees when he was about thirty yards away and rested the butt of my staff on the ground, waving to him with my other hand and trying to smile in an entirely harmless way.

The man abruptly pulled his team of horses to a halt and stood up, replacing the reins he held with a loaded crossbow he had on the driver’s bench beside him. He looked around before returning his eyes to me.

“Who are you?”

Well, that was curt — on the other hand, maybe people standing by the road in the middle of a forest was something suspicious here. I tried to figure out how to best phrase my request, while wondering how the guy spoke English — I’d been expecting to have to mime something.

“Ah, my home is back a ways and off the trail. I need an ax or someone with an ax to assist with something. Do you happen to have one?”

“I’ve a hatchet for firewood, but I’ll not be giving such away nor follow a stranger off into the wilds.” He paused looking me over. “I’ll sell it, if you have the coin —” He paused and looked around again, brow furrowed. “Eight and six for you, as it’s seen some use.”

I didn’t bother to ask eight and six what, since if they were coins, I didn’t have any.

“I’m a little short on cash right now,” I admitted.

“What is cash?”

“Ah, coin — I’m afraid I don’t have any coins on me at the moment.”

The man snorted. “Waste my time? Stop a merchant with no coin at all to spend?” He took up the reins again with one hand, keeping the crossbow in his other, and twitched them to get his horses started forward again. “Out of the way, boy, and ask at a temple if it’s charity you’re seeking.”

Well, fuck you, too, I thought, but didn’t say because there wasn’t much point in antagonizing the first guy I meet in this world.

I stepped farther off the road and let him pass. The man glanced at me and shook his head in disgust as he went by, but didn’t say anything else.

After he was a few yards away I moved back onto the road and started walking again, watching the back of the wagon get farther and farther away.

“Maybe a ride?” I belatedly called out, thinking at least that would be an easier way to get to one of the farms or into town.

The man, merchant, I guess, didn’t answer except to raise one hand over the top of the wagon, fingers in a fist except for an extended pinkie.

There are some gestures that make their meaning clear even if you don’t know the culture and that was clearly a fuck you.

“Asshole,” I muttered, walking on.

The road here was mostly straight, so I was able to watch the wagon’s ass-end for some time as it pulled away from me, then it disappeared around a curve.

I was kind of hoping there’d be enough curves to hide the jerk from me for the rest of my walk, but when I made the turn, I could still see him a couple hundred yards ahead of me.

Hopefully not everyone in this world would be like that and I’d be able to get some actual help. I glared at the back of the wagon as we both traveled on, when suddenly the wagon slowed to a stop and I watched as a red and brown clothed figure toppled silently off the wagon’s left side to land crumpled in the road.

I blinked. Had the dude had an assholery-induced heart attack?

Then I dove for the tree line as four little green men came out of the trees, bows trained on the wagon and the merchant’s body.

Chapter

The things that attacked the merchant were little, no taller than the wagon’s wheels, so about four feet, and I could tell they were green because there was a lot of skin exposed, except for a sort of loincloth they each wore.

Okay, maybe not men.

As I took a closer look from the safety of the trees, I could see they had long dark hair pulled back in ponytails, and pointed ears that extended several inches away from their heads — some straight up, some to the side.

As I watched, the four tossed their bows aside and two started rummaging through the merchant’s clothes while the other two disappeared into the wagon.

Well, shit, I thought. What do I do now?

The merchant was clearly dead — when I looked closer, I could see the four arrows, two in his torso and two in his head, that had killed him. I was just glad I wasn’t close enough to hear the sounds as the two … whatevers pulled the arrows from him and examined them closely, probably to see if they were damaged or could be used again.

I could probably stay where I was until they were done looting the wagon and moved on — unless they planned to move the wagon off the road and wait for the next traveler. If they did leave the road with the wagon I wouldn’t know if they were leaving the area or just hiding it, though, so I’d be vulnerable to a possible ambush if I waited.

Going past them in the forest seemed like the best choice.

I moved farther back into the trees by a few dozen yards, then made my way parallel to the road, moving slowly and carefully to make as little noise as possible, and keeping an eye toward the road in case the things finished before I was past them and they came off the road.

The closer I got to where the wagon and the creatures were, the more attention I paid to looking toward the road, and that’s why I almost tripped over the fifth creature.

I came around the trunk of a large tree, caught a glimpse of green that wasn’t plant life out of the corner of my eye, and jumped away, bringing my staff up in preparation to swing — then what I was seeing registered and I froze.

This one was female.

Very … very obviously female, with large, bare breasts. She might have only been four feet tall, but those tits wouldn’t look out of place on a full-grown woman. A human woman, since this was obviously a woman, just not human. They didn’t look comically large, just … big — and they fit well with the woman’s narrow waist and wider hips.

She was barefoot and wearing only a brownish loincloth like the four who’d attacked the merchant. Her black hair was bound in a ponytail so long it reached the ground.

I relaxed a bit as I saw that she was gagged and wouldn’t be screaming for the other creatures, but she was also bound. Her hands were tied behind her back with rope and a second rope was tied around her neck with the other end tossed over a high tree branch and secured to another tree some distance away.

It was a setup where she couldn’t sit without the rope around her neck choking her and couldn’t raise her hands to free herself.

It kind of pissed me off more than the other four creatures killing the merchant, because that obviously had a purpose in getting the guy’s stuff. This … well, there was only one reason I could think of to tie up a girl like that — a pretty girl, I realized, taking in her face.

The green hue of her skin wasn’t at all unattractive — I think a certain captain normalized that decades ago. Her eyes were red with something of a glow to them — which was disconcerting, but not unattractive. Her nose was a little pointed and she had full, red lips where the gag didn’t hide them.

Okay, the sharp, pointed teeth showing around the gag were a little more than disconcerting, but the overall effect — including the large, pointed ears that extended from the sides of her head and had a delicate, pink hue to the inside — was both pretty and exotic in some weird way.

So … do you leave the pretty green girl tied up and at the mercy of four creatures you just saw kill a guy in cold blood? Even if she’s the same sort of creature?

“I should’ve gone past on the other side of the road,” I muttered, then knelt down in front of the girl — which put me even closer to those magnificent breasts. Her areolas and nipples were a much darker green than the rest of her skin, standing out and drawing the eye.

I put a finger to my lips, hoping she’d understand that and keep quiet.

Closer now, I could see her eyes were darting around fearfully.

“I don’t know if you can speak English,” I whispered, “but I’m going to take that gag out and get you loose. Be quiet, do you understand?”

The girl nodded quickly, some of the fear leaving her face.

“Okay.” First, I tried to just pull the gag from her mouth and slide it down her chin, but it was tied too tight and when I went behind her to try undoing the knot I found that was also pulled too tight to easily untie it.

“I wish I had a knife or something,” I muttered.

“Mmph!” the girl made a noise and jerked her head to the side.

There were four large sacks there, two tied to the ends of each of two, inch-thick poles, as well as a belt with a sheathed knife.

“Excellent,” I whispered, retrieving the knife and sliding it between the back of her head and the gag.

The knife was a little dull, but I managed to get the gag free, and before I could move on to her bound hands the girl spat out the gag.

“Hurry,” she whispered. “Soon return — are four. Warriors of Black Mountain Tribe — well-armed.”

I nodded. “I saw them,” I whispered back, working on the rope binding her hands. I managed to cut that loose and decided to cut the noose where it stretched above her head instead of trying to slide the knife between the rope and her neck.

“Hurry, please,” she whispered again.

“Almost got it,” I said.

The last of the rope parted and the girl immediately started pulling at the loop around her neck.

“Come on, let’s get out of here,” I whispered, but it was too late as the sound of crunching leaves and snapping branches sounded from the direction of the road, and one of the creatures came around a tree trunk to stand staring at us with wide, red eyes.

He was nowhere near as attractive as the girl, with a scowl around his eyes, abnormally large cheek bones, and a bulbous nose.

He had the same sharp teeth, though, as he snarled, shouted something, and rushed at us, drawing a knife from his belt.

I quickly dropped my own knife and grabbed my staff — I wanted to be able to attack from farther away and there was no way I was getting involved in a knife fight. Those were too vicious and dangerous for my taste.

The creature ran straight for me, knife raised above his head.

As he neared, I swung the staff, catching his forearm with a satisfying crack that sent the knife flying, and I followed that up with a shin-strike to the side of his head.

That knocked him off his course toward me and into range of the girl, who shoved the knife she’d picked up deep into his lower belly, then sawed it up and around to spill the creature’s blood and insides out onto the forest floor.

My gorge rose at that — it was one thing to break another guy’s nose in a fight or gut an animal you’d just hunted, but this was something that could speak and act like a person. I was almost more affected by it than the merchant’s death, which had been more distant and abstract.

There was no time to think about that, though, as the other three creatures were in sight, rushing through the forest toward us. One had another knife, a second some sort of short sword, but the third was the one that worried me as he tried to nock an arrow to his bow as he ran. That was going to be a problem and probably get me killed.

The one with a bow was behind the other two and stopped at the edge of the clearing while they rushed forward.

I was just about to try and slip by the two attackers and go for the bowman when the girl threw the knife she held. She didn’t even bother to watch its path, just threw it and dove for the other knife dropped by the one we’d already killed.

Her throw caught the bowman in the left eye and he collapsed to the forest floor.

I didn’t have time to be impressed, because the other two were nearly on us.

The one with the sword came at me while the knife-guy went at the girl.

I caught his first blow with my staff, turning it aside, then swung one end for his head. He dodged back from that and lunged forward again as the end of my staff passed him, causing me to twist to the side. The twist put me on his sword side and I brought the lower end of my staff up into his elbow, then followed through as his arm went up and shoved the side of the staff into his face. There wasn’t enough force to the shove to really hurt him, but it got me inside the reach of his sword.

My mind assessed opportunities in a second and I realized this wasn’t a fight with rules, so I brought a foot up right into the little bastard’s groin, lifting him several inches off the ground.

The creature fell onto his back, dropping the sword and clutching at his balls, which gave me a clear shot to bring my staff down on his face with a sickeningly satisfying crunch.

I spun around, looking for the last one that had gone after the girl, but the clearing was empty, then I heard crunching leaves and caught sight of a flash of green. I dashed that way and saw the girl running as the other one chased her. She had a knife in her hand, but was apparently smart enough to not get into a knife fight — no matter who won one of those, the result was nearly always bad.

“Back this way!” I yelled and the girl glanced at me before turning her next dodge into an all-out run toward me.

I readied my staff, but as soon as the girl passed me and spun to face her attacker by my side the thing skidded to a stop. He looked at the two of us, then around the forest as though searching for his buddies, and finally turned and took off running.

The girl laughed and shouted something after him in a language I didn’t even recognize.

I set one end of my staff on the ground and leaned on it as glowing text sprang into my vision.

New Skill! Quarterstaff — +5

“Fuck you, System,” I muttered then turned to the girl to see if I could get some questions answered, but before I could say anything she looked at me, swallowed hard, and threw herself to her knees. She leaned forward until her face touched the forest floor and extended her arms toward me with the knife laying on her open palms.

“Thank you for life, Master.”