Name: Natasha

Race: Mandrill lvl 2

XP: 4

Size: 70

Type: Beast

Faction: Unaligned

Armor: 0

HP: 10

Strength: 4/Speed: 8/Endurance: 4/Magic: 1/Plasticity: 0/Luck 6

[Talent points available]

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

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

[Ability upgrade available]

Skills: Bite 1, strike 1, grapple 1, throw 1, climb 1, sneak 1

[Skill upgrade available] [Skill points available]

Spells: Bluster 1

[Spell upgrade available]

I look at my status and tap my foot lightly against a stone. Whichever one of these I look at first, I get the feeling I’m going to be missing out on the others. Because it says I can upgrade my talents, but if I do that first, what if I gain access to new skills with higher stats? Or what if the stat I choose doesn’t benefit the skill I choose? This is why I was always bad at rpgs. I shake my head and just select talent points.

Talent points available: 1

Strength: 4/Speed: 8/Endurance: 4/Magic: 1/Plasticity: 0/Luck 6

Looking it over, the only one that isn’t really clear is plasticity. What was that supposed to mean? Also there were no mental stats so my usual go to of upgrading intelligence was not an option. I select plasticity to see if there’s a description that might explain it a bit more clearly.

Plasticity: The talent to adapt to different environments and resist exposure to the elements and magics.

Okay, so it is kind of a resistance based skill. Then what is endurance?

Endurance: The talent to resist damage, increase toughness and stamina.

Alright so endurance is more of the hp stat. So then, what is luck?

Luck: The talent to increase the likelihood to inflict status effects, increase the likelihood to resist a status effect, and increase the chance of gaining loot on kills.

Wait, loot. The lizard didn’t drop anything special, so I guess there’s no guarantee that it’ll drop anything. Still, probably a good idea to upgrade that more since it’s for resistance to things like poison. Still, for now, my plasticity is at 0 and that makes me uncomfortable. So I’ll up that one for now.

Strength: 4/Speed: 8/Endurance: 4/Magic: 1/Plasticity: 1/Luck 6

Probably not optimal, but I feel better at least. Next onto ability upgrades. I select it, and it pops up the abilities section. But only the abilities I have, obviously.

Abilities: Vision 2, hearing 3, smell 2, taste 1, touch 2, balance 1, omnivorous 1, aposematism 1, innate magic 1

I’m guessing that by choosing one of these, it’s just going to make them flatly better and not add anything to them. Upgrading vision most likely will not give me something like heat vision or something. Still while I’m tempted to choose vision, of these options I really want to upgrade balance. That is going to be really necessary if I am going to be spending time in these trees.

Abilities: Vision 2, hearing 3, smell 2, taste 1, touch 2, balance 2, omnivorous 1, aposematism 1, innate magic 1

Next on to skills, I have both a new skill point and a new skill upgrade. Which is good, but I’m going to go pick the new skills first before upgrading old ones. Looking through the previous options, I see the same few holdouts I saw last time, though now my perspective has changed a bit after having actually been in a fight. Still, after getting ambushed, none of these really would have helped me. Still, maybe it would help me in being the ambusher next time. So I grab hide.

Skills: Bite 1, strike 1, grapple 1, throw 1, climb 1, sneak 1, hide 1

Then skill upgrades. Which should I pick? Honestly, if I’m going to choose, it should be whichever is best to keep me alive. The question is, which is going to do that? In that last fight, the only things that kept me from dying were the fact that I grabbed that lizard’s foot, but the only reason the lizard is dead at all is because of the bite. I could also upgrade the throw so the next fight will hopefully not be so close at all… It was a hard choice really. Especially since I don’t know how much this upgrade will actually change. Right now, when I throw rocks, my aim is garbage, but will throw 2 be so remarkably better?

I hop a bit, taking a quick climb up a nearby tree to test out my new balance ability. At first I started leaning over an outstretched branch, testing the effect it had on my equilibrium, and keeping a tight grip on the branch. I didn’t really notice a difference at first but as I leaned further, I realized what the change was. It was like with birds and you move their bodies but their heads stay in place. My ability to balance wasn’t what improved, it was the sense of balance. It wasn’t massive, but it was noticeable. In which case, maybe throwing wouldn’t be worth it. As much of an improvement as this was, going from being bad at throws to presumably being average would probably be less useful than if I were to go from a good bite or grapple, to a better one.

Though, would grappling or biting be better? Bites do the actual damage, but grappling would make the bites possible. Would more bites be better, or just one strong one? What if I can’t bite through their hide? Well, given my stealth, maybe an ambush would be better? Sneak, grab, bite. I suppose that could work, reality is usually much messier than plans. I sighed, sliding down back to the floor level. I sat mulling it over for a good long while, but eventually just had to choose grapple. If I’m going to be sticking to ambushes, the grab is what needs to be good, we can work on the bite later.

So then, what’s next? Ah right… Spell upgrade. I still don’t even know how to use my one spell yet. Either way though, I only have one option. I can go from bluster 1, to bluster 2. I wish I could test it out before I upgrade it, but I still don’t even know how. Though that said, I don’t have something like a mana bar. So does that mean mana isn’t a thing in this world or is that because it is innate? Or maybe mana is a thing, but I don’t have any. So I just have a spell with no mana to cast with. That would be extremely unfortunate. I simply accept upgrading to bluster 2.

Name: Natasha

Race: Mandrill lvl 2

XP: 4

Size: 70

Type: Beast

Faction: Unaligned

Armor: 0

HP: 10

Strength: 4/Speed: 8/Endurance: 4/Magic: 1/Plasticity: 1/Luck 6

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

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

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

Spells: Bluster 2

I nodded and stopped for a minute, thinking about the changes I had made. I was a, what, maybe two hour old monkey, planning on how I was going to be ambushing and killing monsters. Yesterday I was at home, in my bed, eating a bowl of reheated rice on my bed. Man, I wish I had rice right now… No, no spacing out. That’s how I almost got made into lizard food. I gave myself a couple slaps on the cheeks and stood back up on all fours. Right now my focus is getting to level up. So I need to find something that I can hunt safely. My hand then idly finds its way to my bag. Oh duh… I’m stupid. I have my “knife” with me, I don’t need to bite anything. Though would that count as a skill of its own? Or maybe it’s a strike? I was thinking punch, but stab could also work, maybe? Blech, too many questions. I’ll deal with it later.

I stood, walking back towards the center of the monkey camp and sat, watching the others to see what all they were doing. After watching for a while, I mostly just accounted for them grooming, socializing, and a couple playing. All except for the great big one. I think I’ll call him Boris. He spent most of his time just looking big and scary, watching around the group and picking away at the big rat corpse. None of the other monkeys seemed all too eager to set out hunting, so I suppose that this will be a pretty solo adventure for me, at least for now. Maybe those humans will come back tomorrow and I can get a better look at what they’re doing there. Though that assumes the cave is anything like the ones in actual games, or that they didn’t come for ores that they mined out and don’t need to return.

Actually, thinking about it, if those humans were here, it means the direction they came from likely had some town or village in that direction too. After all, they wouldn’t travel for miles and miles for one little cave. Which also made me think, if people were nearby then I might be able to learn something from watching them. That however would require that I followed them home, and didn't die on the way there or on the way back. So I’ll probably save that until after I level up a bit more. I huffed slightly as another monkey walked past and joined another circle.

I wasn’t all too eager to get myself into more danger, especially not right after having my arm torn open. I unthinkingly rubbed at my elbow where the teeth had sunk in, remembering the bone that was stuck out. I could still remember the pulsing pain that shot up my arm. I have to remember next time to keep a lookout for lizards in the trees, as well as other predators. Just being high up doesn’t mean I’m safe. Though hopefully, next time I’ll be the hunter. I’ve kind of gotten a basic idea of how to do it, but I’ll still need to test it out, see what works. Though I’m really not looking forward to it.

Standing, I start towards the edge of the clearing again, grab one fruit as I go and start eating it. Though walking and eating is a lot harder when you move on all fours. Still, eventually I get the hang of it just about the time I come up to the cliff face again, looking into the cave entrance. I knew I couldn’t go in to hunt, but I could climb over it. It wasn’t a massive cliff, maybe like thirty feet? The trees here are higher than that. My climbing skill was good enough to scale the outside of the cliff without effort, almost like second nature to me… Which I suppose it actually is now. Scaling the rock wall until grabbing ahold of a vine and slinking up to the top. The forest continued at this higher elevation, but I could see one or two differences. Firstly the vines, they were all over the place, and secondly, the trees. Where below there was this almost golden yellow beaming through, up here the leaves were reddish orange. Odd considering they were so close by.

I took a few steps forwards, and grabbed one of the vines from the ground, pulling at it lightly. If I could use it as a rope, that would be very useful, but trying to heft it up, it was way too heavy for that. At least for my tiny monkey arms. Coming over to the tree I try to climb it, and find the bark much less grippy than the other trees. I could still climb it, just not as fast. It was actually faster to climb the vines hanging from the trees instead, which I will admit did manage to make me feel more like Tarzan. Once I got to the branches, I took a look out at the distance, over the trees of my home and was greeted with an expanse of miles and miles of those golden leaves before they tapered off into a field off in the far distance, and just on the edge of the horizon was something. Squinting and leaning forward as if either of those things helped, I eventually came to the conclusion that it must be that town I’d speculated about, something like five miles or so away.

That was both good and disappointing. Disappointing for the fact that I was hoping their town would be near the trees, not in an open field. Imagining trying to spy on them as a monkey with nowhere to hide, just seemed silly. But either way, that is a distant goal. Right now I was just looking at reaching level 3. Though that said, how much xp would that require? Going from 1 to 2 required 100 xp. Would that mean going from 2 to 3 will require 100 more, or is it progressive? Would it be a flat increase to 200? Or would it be exponential, going to 300? Or maybe it was based on some other arbitrary measurement like 150? I really need to stop going on these tangents, stop asking these questions and start figuring out the answers.

I took a look around, trying to find anything that was moving, something you could reasonably hunt. Monkeys normally didn’t hunt anything besides bugs or other really tiny things, so I’m not sure how I’m going to find anything really worth hunting like that lizard. There were those frogs, but something tells me they are scarier than they look, given everything else was leaving them alone. Maybe poison. I started scuttling around from tree to tree, looking for anything around on this upper level, beginning to worry that everything here was camouflaged, or worse, it was totally empty.

It took me something along the lines of maybe an hour before I actually spotted something, which didn’t fill me with confidence. The first animal on this upper level looked like a deer, but not just a deer, this one was massive, antlers like a crown standing out and it must have been the size of a small building. So the idea of hunting that thing was completely out of the question. I opted to use my sneaking skills to try and silently creep away unseen. Heading back the way towards the cliff where the cave was wouldn’t have taken too long if not for the fact that I was sneaking the whole way, trying to make no noise. Which was proven to be a good idea, because on the way back, I managed to spot a wolf. Now when I say wolf, one may think of a large dog, but no, it must have been 200 pounds. I wouldn’t even be a meal, just a chew toy.

I was beginning to think that this area above the cliff was the “next level” so to speak, where the stronger monsters live. Of which I am woefully inept. I very gingerly skirt through the branches, at a snail's pace to stay out of sight of that thing. Heading back to the cliff face and sidling over the edge to climb back down to my meager starting zone. I slide on down to the ground again, and this time, instead of going to my meager monkey village, I go back to the watering hole. That is the main place I’d seen other creatures besides monkeys, so it was worth a try sneaking around there. Scaling up one of the trees, I specifically check it for any other living thing first before sitting on a branch and watching the pond.

The frogs were still there, or were they toads? I don’t remember the difference. Though on the outskirts of the water I could see another creature. It looked like a bird, standing on two long legs, bright blue feathers, a long tail, curved beak, and a crest of yellow on top of its head. Like a mix between a parrot and a secretary bird. Birds aren’t usually super dangerous, what with the hollow bones and all. If I can get the drop on it, then I can just… Well… Thinking about it, just ambushing and killing something isn’t as easy as saying it. It’s one thing to kill a lizard trying to eat you, but being the aggressor feels… icky. I never went hunting before as a human. I never had a problem with hunting but I lived in the suburbs most of my life, the only wildlife I had contact with regularly was mosquitoes. Maybe I could just wait and see if I could find something I didn’t feel bad about killing instead. I’m sure that there are plenty more actually monstrous monsters out there, right?

And so I waited. I sat, hiding in that tree, periodically checking for lizards as I watched creatures come and go. Birds, more of that gazelle thing, monkeys, a couple snakes, and finally, the giant centipede came back. Just looking at it made my skin crawl. I would have no problem at all killing that thing. Though I doubt I even could. It was something like the size of a full grown man. It’s covered in armored plates that I doubt I could cut through, and every single pair of legs looked like knives, gross wiggling antennae moving independently in either direction. As much as I want that thing dead, it’s very much beyond my abilities. So I continue to wait.

Bird, bird, frog, monkeys, more birds, a snake. I have no clue how hunters do this, it’s so boring… I just sit here, methodically checking for things to come by, or might try to eat me. At this rate I won’t be getting to level 3 at all. I thunk my chin down on the branch, hanging my limbs down on either side and waiting, trying not to fall asleep when I finally see something new. Another bug scurries out of the brush, looking like a beetle but flat and the size of me. Gross, that I could feel no qualms about killing. The only defense it looked like it had was the shell, which bode well at least. Finally, I could get around to being proactive, no more just letting things happen around me. I need to get to level 3 quickly.

Climbing down, I very quietly started to sneak along the way towards the pond. I circled around the brush, picking up a stone in one hand and my knife in the other. Without thinking, I took in a deep breath, and held it. Pushing forward slowly enough that it wouldn’t make any sudden noise, I peeked my face out, seeing the beetle thing flat on the ground, drinking away. I raised my hand wielding the rock overhead, taking a quick jump forward and chucking it as hard as I could down at its back, and bounced off. Only then did I realize in all my waiting I had forgotten my initial plan from leveling, and the whole point of leveling grapple. I watched the stone ricochet off the armored plate and quickly swivel to face me. I had done little if not nothing with that first attack and lost the element of surprise.

The beetle reared up, and showed the tiny ant-like head as well as the rows of dozens of needle tipped legs. The sight made my stomach seize, and I very much did not want to attempt to fulfill my initial plan of grabbing it. Unless I could somehow get ahold of that shell without getting stabbed, grabbing would be too close for comfort. Instead I did the sensible thing and quickly grabbed another rock to try and throw at the soft underbelly. While my aim is particularly bad, I was only maybe ten feet from it, and so the stone cracked against one of the legs, dislodging it. This couldn’t have been a lot of damage, but any damage is good damage.

Immediately after however, it was followed by the beetle charging forwards. The way bugs scamper is bad, when they are big, it’s even worse. You can very clearly hear every click and crack of the exoskeleton as it moves. And as it bared those pointy little jaws, I began internally screaming, but outwardly I just hopped straight up and backwards, skirting around the edge of the pond. I wanted to, if I could, somehow get on top of it. I could see a way, just jumping on over as it charged, but every time it got close it reared up to bite again. It lunged, the jaws clipping my arm, but this time I jumped forwards over it and landed on the tail end.

-1 hp

I didn't expect those tiny legs to be able to pull both it and me, but I was wrong. With it trying to sprint forward and throw me off, but I instinctively reached down to grab onto one of the sectioned plates on its back. As soon as I’d gotten my grip on it, I held tight, being unceremoniously dragged through the dirt before raising the rat tooth and jabbing it between the plates to stab at the soft spots. It seemed to have an effect, but it was still moving. I would like to say I was super cool and just started ripping and tearing like a more typical video game protagonist, but what I was doing was more akin to wild flailing, hoping to hit something important.

It took maybe a full minute to get the creature to stop, but it had felt like an hour. As it stopped moving, this time I didn’t wait, gripping the shell near the head and making sure to finish it off. I stabbed it a few more times for good measure, being sure that the pop up told me it was actually dead, and as soon as the window showed up in front of me, I dropped it, and collapsed onto my butt. It went better than the lizard at least.

40 XP

It wasn’t as much as the lizard was, but it was good. Progress is progress. I looked down towards where I’d gotten nicked and smirked. I don’t know how to heal yet other than leveling up, but at least it was only one damage. I took in one long deep breath, wanting to savor the small victory, but suddenly everything went black.