I felt something wet and rough pass over my face. It smelled like dead wet rats and felt about like sandpaper. Then, as my eyes opened, I saw a giant black lizard.

I startled the rest of the way awake and pushed back. This wasn’t like when Blink had scared me by being close. No, this lizard was the size of a gator. It was black and stood up taller than a gator, closer to a komodo dragon.

It took a moment for my hind mind to slow down and realize that I was looking at a large Ropola. “Blink?”

The lizard dipped its head just a bit and licked a wound on my leg. Then the 100-plus pound lizard shimmered just a little and was gone.

I propped myself up and looked around. The orc was dead just a few feet in front of me. His throat was missing, as was most of a leg. I was still staring at the orc when I saw his right arm twitch.

I jumped up and looked around for my sword. As I scooped it up, I saw the arm that was twitching get yanked free from the body, and then I heard a crunch.

I checked my status screen and saw that Blink had now leveled yet again. She had changed a lot. Even picked up a spell and something called a title.

Name

Blink

HP

80

MP

25

Race

Ropola*

SP

105

Defense

10

Level

19

Core

Open

Experiance

Redacted*

Titles

Perks

Dungeon Raider (Solo)

Alt form*

* this form may be taken once a day.

Strength

30

Dexterity

18**

Intelligence

9

Willpower

18

Vigor

35

Vitality

40

** Dexterity is relative to size. Once young adult size is reached all Movement Dexterity uses figure at 2 times normal.

Nature’s gifts

Scales

+6 defense

Claws

+4 Attack Slashing

Mouth

+6 Attack Impaling (Optional poison)*

Tail

+2 Blunt attack. (25% chance to stun for 3 seconds)

* Poison on bit may be either digest which stops healing until magically healed, or paralytic which will cause a numbness that will spread and deepen the more is injected. Must hold bite for 3 seconds to take effect.

Natural skills

Level

Pounce

25

Stealth

30

Tracking

15

Imitation

20

Bonded advantages

Level

Deepened bond

4

Shared spells

1

Shared spells

Level

Fire strike

1

“Wow Blink, you leveled up a lot!” I said with genuine happiness.

She came through for me again when I needed her. I didn’t know where she was, but then she was here tearing the neck out of the orc while I passed out and hallucinated. I could understand seeing things; I was almost dead after all, but then she showed up.

I got the rest of the way to my feet and then moved to her. I could tell where my bonded was both from the bond and because there was a bloody stump of an arm showing up a little as she chewed.

I sat down next to her and started to pet my giant friend.

“Blink, I missed you. I don’t know why you left when you did but thank you for coming back. I was worried about you. I couldn’t feel the bond anymore and only knew you were okay from the status screen. Every time I would see your status drop I got worried even more.”

She stopped crunching on the arm long enough to nuzzle me before burping. The stench that came with the air from her stomach was enough to make me fall over. Her head shimmered back into view, and the edges of her mouth twitched up into a toothy grin.

I felt the desire to go home rolling off of the bond with her. Which caused me to check my mana to see how long I had been out.

My mana was full again, which brought me great joy. Then my stomach dropped out as I saw that Lannah’s was also full, which meant that I had left her in the storage room for several hours.

“Blink, when I left home, there were goblins all over the place, and Lannah was stuck in the storage room.”

Across the bond, I got an image of Lannah getting eaten by goblins and a slight laugh from Blink.

“No, we covered her in with stone so she should be safe and why are you laughing at her?”

Pressed hard and deep in my mind was Blink angry and Lannah calling her a pet.

I reached down and hugged Blink. “She didn’t know better and I will let her know but we need to go and clean up the goblins. Lannah can get us to town where I can learn how to level.”

Blink stood up and bumped her head onto the orc’s axe, and then she started to walk away. About five steps later and she was out of sight again.

I picked up the axe and started to head back down the trail. A few moments later, I grabbed my staff from the ground, and we kept going. Finally, we headed back downriver to cross through the washout. I had no desire to try to climb down the cliff face and didn’t know how Blink would make it.

We weren’t running back, but we were hiking quickly. I hated that we weren’t moving faster, but I had no idea what we were heading into. For all I knew, most of the goblins had survived my attack and were waiting in ambush someplace. Or worse, it could have been that they had run off to get more orcs.

The two orcs that had been here had almost killed me, and I had been rescued both times. So, I was happy about the idea of fighting more of the goblins. This whole thing made me happy that we were moving on.

Once we got the goblins taken care of, we would head south and see about meeting up with the rescue team. That way, some others could fight the goblins, and I could learn to read.

Fifteen minutes later, we were looking into the smoldering ravine. The whole area was badly burned, and the fire had spread out of the ravine on both sides. It hadn’t taken hold to a great deal, but I could tell it had been close. Even a minute or two more and we would have had a full-out forest fire.

The remains in the washout were crispy. I had thought the burns on the orc were bad, but these caused me to throw up twice before I could even climb down. It was putrid, and the fact that the birds were already there made me throw up again once I did climb down.

We got through the burn and then headed up the river. I wasn’t sure where I would encounter goblins or how many of them, but I knew it was time to get ready. I figured that Blink could take most of them herself, but numbers were still the issue we were dealing with.

As we came into the riverbank, the gremlins greeted us. There were dozens of them screaming and yelling. Their feral mouths turned into hideous smiles when they saw us as they charged.

It was at that time that I noticed that Blink wasn’t the one they were charging. No, they didn’t even see her. She was in full stealth, and I was the target. For some reason, I felt that she was using me as bait. It was then that I got a yes through the bond and saw her appear, taking out the backline of gremlins.

For their part, they had already thrown their little toothpicks of rending at me, which either bounced off or missed. I had tucked my chin so my coif caught the ones that might have taken my face.

I waded into the ankle bitters using my staff like a golf club. Gremlins weren’t much once you were armored. Yes, the ones that got behind my shinguards hurt my legs, but that was just a few.

Blink had no problem. Gremlins are a strange type of dumb. They see anything that is meat and think they can eat it. But, for some reason, they didn’t try to attack goblins and orcs, and those two other races provided them the structure they had to survive and not have extinction-level battles.

They didn’t have anyone to tell them ‘no’ in this fight, and they all came when Blink hissed at them. Those who had been after me turned and attacked her. It was brutal beauty in motion as she used her whole body as a weapon.

Her tail would snap back and forth, catching the twenty-pound bundles of hateful teeth and sling them several feet away. Her mouth would snap and end at least one and sometimes two. Then she would charge forward, bulling over several and crushing them under her clawed feet.

I shifted my staff into my left hand and drew my sword, and started in on those who had their backs to me. After just a few minutes, the chance of fear from me was so great the gremlins were fleeing from me as she snapped them up.

I saw that I had a 5-minute fear count down on my heads up. So we ran. As we approached where the goblins’ camp, I saw a shaman and a handful of goblin warriors.

The shaman began his chant and pointed his ugly little staff at me. A green fog rolled out in a spiraling cone. The fog caught one of the warriors on its edge, and it began to cough.

I adjusted my approach, jumping onto one of the rocks in the river and around his area of effect. As I jumped back onto the shore, I saw the Shaman’s arm holding the staff get snapped off.

I parried the first goblin’s spear with my staff in my left hand and thrust my sword into his gut. As that happened, a ripple went out from my sword, and the timer jumped back up to 5 minutes.

The rest of the goblins bolted in all directions. The one that I had skewered was trying to pull away, so I helped him by kicking him in the face. As I did that, I rounded to the next closest that had recovered slightly.

He wasn’t running but had raised his hands in deference and fear. I had seen them do this to the orc when he came to camp. Goblins were cowards, and this one was trying to live.

I felt a revolution from my life on Earth spread through my limbs as I looked into the goblin’s beady little eyes. I had been taught to spare those who surrendered. I was about to tell it to run when I remembered Lorie.

I felt well up in me someone else. Someone who was full of anger and sadness. I knew that was all of the dreams and all the emotions from someone else that I stuffed away. As I walked past the coward, I dropped the tip of my sword in a backhanded swing.

The goblins head rolled, and I ran to the next. The softness of mercy towards those who surrendered is only for those who were not evil through and through. I might not know how I could make that judgment, but I knew it was right. My dreams were real; these were monsters.

I danced through the goblins like they were nothing. If I wasn’t striking one that was fleeing towards my home, then Blink was. The half dozen goblins that were on the bank died in mere moments.

Then we sprinted. It was now us that were assailing my home’s cliffs.