When I was a player, I had intended to be an alchemist. Arguably the three most useful crafting skills were Alchemy, Blacksmithing, and Enchanting. As I stood here watching her, I wondered if I should modify my goals. This was my life now and did I want to be focused on making potions? It was going to require some thought.

  Then Kittikork yelped. This time I knew for sure it was pain. She pulled her hand back from inside the log and there was a wicked gash from the middle of her forearm down to the top of her hand. She stumbled back behind me. As she did, I quickly assessed her to make sure she was okay.

  Average Success-

  Kittikork the Ogress Class: Outcast Level: 4th

  Occupation: Herb Gather HP: 318/340 Mana Points: 180

  Highest Stat:? Resistances/Immunities: ?

  What I saw made no sense. I had more HP and the same MP as she did, but she was three levels higher. Not that I had time to think about it because as she jumped back a creature made its way out of the tree truck. I immediately recognized it as being like a badger. If its temperament was anything like a real badger, then it would be very territorial.

  I immediately saw the blue aura around it, which indicated it was an appropriate level challenge for me. Likely it was within one level of me +/- but there were other factors which the game designers had been reticent to tell the players. Either way, I had a long, pointy spear, so I was ready for it.

  As it leaped out, my superior reach allowed me to attack it first. The first thrust drove the tip of my spear into its chest. Now that I had a better look at it, the creature was clearly about three feet long and a foot wide. The claws it was bearing were curved and likely four inches long.

  The spear impacted, and I got a damage notification. My setting still showed me damage automatically. I was gonna have to figure out how to shut that off. It might get me killed in the middle of a battle. For now, it was nice to see the creature’s health bar and the damage. It gave me a baseline to work from.

  Piercing Damage: 51

  That knocked the creature’s health bar down by just over a third. So safe to assume it had around one hundred and fifty HP. It must be a durable little bugger, given that I had an enhanced spear and a higher-than-average level skill for my level. It began clawing at my weapon, but I pulled the spear back.

  I managed one more glancing blow against it, which hit for (32) damage, but that didn’t stop the little monster from leaping up and burying all four sets of claws into my leg as it tried to take a bite at my ogre jewels. They might not be the pride of any family, but I wasn’t gonna have them bitten off on the first day.

  I felt the rage rising within me, but I didn’t want to waste that racial skill right now. Another notification popped up but at least it wasn’t a damage one, so I could ignore it. Presumably, I resisted the rage because I maintained control of my faculties.

  It was tearing into me and those claws really freaking hurt, but I ignored the pain and the damage as I slammed the butt of the spear against its head. I wasn’t going to stab at my leg with the pointy end and it would have required me to flip the weapon around anyway.

  The blunt end wasn’t as effective, but apparently the creature was more intent on killing me than it was on protecting itself. Maybe it had a rage mechanism. Either way, it let me bash away at it. Finally, on the fourth blow, I felt the head cave in and suddenly its little body went limp.

  I began to pull the claws out of my leg, but then wondered about ogre physiology. It was too close to my femoral artery for me to be comfortable if I were human, so I cast Regeneration. It was lackluster, to say the least. At my current level, it only healed me for 12 HP. The only comfort was that I got two level ups which pushed it to 21 HP per casting.

  The little bugger had done over one hundred damage to me, but it was all but healed up now and so I felt more comfortable prying out the claws. By that point, Kittikork came over and assisted me. She kept staring at me strangely between pulling out claws, but I figured if she had something to say, she would say it. I had to remind myself that these weren’t my people. I wanted to hang out with players, not mobs run by AIs.

  One more Regeneration closed up the wound the rest of the way after the claws were gone. Then I looked at Kittikork. The wound on her arm was still open. That didn’t make any sense. She was an Outcast, like me. She should have had access to the same spells I did. Why wouldn’t she have healed herself?

  I cast my heal on her and was pleased to see it go up to level four, which meant that it was now healing a whopping 4 HP per second or 32 HP over the duration of the heal. As I thought about it, the spell was scaling pretty quickly. It wouldn’t exactly be an answer for critical damage, but it might actually end up being useful.

  When I finished and made sure the wound was closed, I asked her, “Why didn’t you heal yourself?”

  “Me not past first threshold yet. No learn magic till then.” Then she added, “How you know magic and be only level one?”

  I wasn’t sure what the mobs knew about players. I knew that the AIs knew all about them, but how was I supposed to handle this. The contract rules said I couldn’t tell other players about being a former player but did that apply to mobs? But then again saying, “Hey, I’m a human,” probably wasn’t gonna earn me any help from the ogres.

  “I was just born this way,” I said, opting to play dumb for now. That probably went with the ogre motif anyway.

  About that moment, I saw the little badger’s big brother coming through the woods for us. Or maybe it was its mother. Heck, I didn’t even know if the mobs made baby mobs or not. I couldn’t recall seeing any babies in the game except related to one quest and giant eagle eggs.

  Either way this thing was over six feet long and almost two feet wide. It was barreling down at me. Without thinking I just lifted my hand and called out, Flameburst. No special aiming, I just wanted to try to hit it. Well maybe in the face if I could.

  Once, twice, three times, I got off Flameburst before it was too close, and I had to lower my spear to attack it. All three of the mini fireballs still didn’t hit as hard as a good spear thrust but at least they hit from a distance. The biggest problem was that they used up the rest of my mana and that wasn’t a good thing. It was gonna take me over half a minute to regain enough mana for even one regeneration spell.

  Fortunately, I had learned my lesson. I traded a better hit for pivoting out of the way of the charging monster. My spear took it in the shoulder, but I kept a firm grasp on it. I didn’t let the weapon sink in too deep and get stuck. It worked because I hobbled the beast’s leg, which bought me the time for another thrust into its side before it whirled on me.

  I was anything but agile and almost tripped over my own feet trying to get away from it. The creature was also bleeding badly now. It was down to almost 40% health, but I knew better than to hope that it would run away. This thing was a bundle of fury. Even with its lame front leg it tried to leap at me.

  I kicked up at it and send it flying twenty feet away. Of course, that time I fell backwards over my own feet. By the time I got back to my feet, it was charging back at me. This time, I thought to try and use my size to my advantage. I lifted the spear up high and thrust down at it as it came at me. My strength drove the spear into the creature’s back, pinning it to the ground.

  It was left with only a sliver of life and was bleeding out, but still had enough vigor to slash a set of deep gashes into my leg before I could back out of range. I waited for it to die as my mana built back up and I cast regeneration on myself. It made a bunch of pathetic noises as it died, but I have to say that for some reason it didn’t really bother me that much.

  As soon as it was dead, it was like Kittikork had permission to speak. She came over to me and put her hands on the sides of my face, moving it from one side to the other as though inspecting me. “You have fire and healing. We must go back and tell auntie right away.”

  I wasn’t sure what was so off about this but, she had that look. She wasn’t gonna be deterred, so I followed her. “I asked, did you at least get enough herbs?”

  She said, “No. Must getz goodies from bodies. Me no knowz how. Leave here. Ask auntie. She know what to do.”

  “We have enough time. I’m not going to change. Let’s loot these and finish your gathering, then we will head back.”

  Chapter 6- Legend of the Oni

  It took some arguing but finally; I convinced her to stay by refusing to leave. She was anxious but then began to loot the rage badger corpses. At least this time the name matched the creature. What was confusing was how she knelt next to the carcass. Rather than just waving her hand to loot it, she took out her small dagger and began working on its skin.

  As I sat there watching her, she looked up impatiently and said, “You do da other onez.”

  I was dumbfounded. My only experience with looting in this world involved hitting a loot button. As I paid closer attention, I began to understand. The auto loot option was still available to me. But she was getting more items than I might normally get from a creature.

  I was unsure what she expected me to do, but I pulled out my belt knife and started trying to imitate what Kittikork was doing. Another notification popped up. I still hadn’t read the ones from combat, but this one kept flashing every time I tried to cut at the fur.

  Available Gathering Skill: Skinning Cost: 150 XP

  Would you like to spend the XP necessary to buy this skill?

  Legends of Selmia was a game with consistent XP even if it wasn’t always as fast as you wanted. You earned 20 XP for killing a similar level monster. For each level above your own you got a cumulative +25% XP. Creatures that were past certain levels were worth extra. I expect those level caps are what the NPC’s call thresholds. There was also a numerical bonus if you were outnumbered.

  Thus, I had only gotten 31 and 39 XP respectively from the level 3 and level 4 rage badgers. Whereas I had gotten 175 from the three level 3 snapjaws because of being outnumbered. Even the huge bonus I had gotten for fighting and ultimately dying to the bear-pede only pushed me up to 815 XP total.

  There was no way to justify the expense of 150 XP to buy a skill now. I wondered why I had gotten certain skills for free early on and other skills were costing me XP. It was like the system made it easy for me to fight as a monster, but made me pay for anything else.

  Ultimately, because I didn’t accept the skill, I botched the skinning. At least I got some twenty pounds of rage badger meat. Even then, that was less than half of what Kittikork had harvested from hers. When she looked as though she was going to criticize me, I asked her to just get started with her gathering.

  It ended up taking her two hours of gathering. She tried to hurry, but she was constantly distracted by looking back at me. I killed two more rage badgers and a sparkling hare. None of them were over level three, so I ended up with another 93 XP. The question in my head was whether I should automatically level up to level two when I got the necessary XP or not.

  If I understood correctly, I would get some stat points by leveling up, but my racial bonus already dwarfed the gains I would make in terms of Strength and Constitution. So, while I could and likely would end up adding to my casting stats, I didn’t feel like I knew the set up well enough to assign the two points I already had available.

  More than that, because I got extra XP for fighting monsters above my level it would be detrimental to my progression. Even for players, Legends of Selmia didn’t just have one clear path of progression. Increasing skills by usage was often every bit as important or perhaps more so than mere levels. Players needed the levels because they started with low health, but I didn’t have that problem. I already had more health than three level one players combined.

  It gave me a lot to think about and I was still learning the differences between being a monster and a “player.” Kittikork’s staring also kept disturbing me. I never met anyone who could stare so loudly. She said nothing, but between plucking various roots, mosses, and flowers she seemed to be trying to peer into my soul.

  Finally, as the sun was setting, and I knew we needed to get back I asked her, “Are you about finished?”

  “Mez haz everything on auntie’s list. Wait no, mez still needz some bladderwort. I have everything on auntie’s list, but I was just looking for some bladderwort. It sometimes grows out here. No find any yet,” she paused as she was speaking, like she was uncertain. She finally continued, “We go back.”

  As I started to move she suddenly blurted out, “Is youz one of them?”

  I couldn’t help but wonder how she had figured it out. I mean I didn’t think the AI’s could even act as though they were aware of the difference between players and NPC’s. I cleared my throat to answer, but she cut me off again.

  “Youz must be Oni. Tell mez it’s true. Maybe our tribe can finally regain our land.” The hopeful look on her face seemed strange with her ogre features, but was a good reminder of how complex this game could be. That was a good thing since if I’m going to be stuck here for my digital afterlife, I would go insane if I had to hear the same dialogue repeatedly.

  Rather than give it away immediately, I played dumb. Maybe what she was thinking wasn't what I thought it was. “What do you mean?”

  “Youz have magic at level one. Never seen that before. And youz have fire. Not even auntie has fire,” Kittikork said. Now that she had started talking about it, her excitement bubbled out of her. It was more than a little amusing to see an eight-foot-tall ogress acting like a little child. “Youz just have to be onez. Were youz sent here to free us?”

  Now I was getting a bit confused. One thing I liked about Legends of Selmia was that they were building a world with deep lore, but the developers pledged there wouldn’t be any chosen ones or prophecies that had to be fulfilled a certain way. They said you could choose your own path and that prophecies could play out in many ways or not at all. Of course, those were the same people who had destroyed my body and co-opted me to help run their game as a digital slave for however long I lasted.

  “Who are they? I only just arrived.”

  “The Oni, of course,” Kittikork said as though that explained everything.

  I knew what the word Oni meant from Japanese lore, but didn’t know how it related in this situation. “Are you saying that you think I’m not an ogre?”

  Now it was her turn to look confused. “Oni are ogres. Theyz just evolution of ogres. Theyz smarter and have more magic. The legend says that one Oni would be stronger than a dozen elites.”

  It was interesting to hear her use the game term elites. That was a sub-type of monster that was stronger than others of their own kind. They didn’t normally appear until level twenty or higher, but back when I was in the outside world the message boards had threads about someone claiming to have fought an elite boar or goblin or other lesser monster.

  Once again, I kept this close to my vest. So, I tried to say something mysterious. “I will be whatever the spirits decide. For now, I’m just a level one ogre outcast. Even you are a higher level than me.”

  “Yes, but youz use a spear good likez warrior. Youz have magic at level one. Youz must be an Oni. Tribe must learnz about youz,” she said.

  That wasn’t good. I didn’t want to be with the ogres any longer than I had to be. Was this the AI’s way of trying to make me stay a monster? Thinking quickly, I said, “Kittikork, you can’t tell anyone. If you do, it could ruin whatever destiny the spirits have for me.” I tried to couch in the terms that I thought an ogre would relate to. As if I had any idea.

  She thought for a moment and then said, “Mez tell auntie. She knowz what to do.”

  “Deal. You can tell Mistress Shemi, but only her. Promise?” I asked.

  She nodded vigorously and then stared at me like she was waiting for me to pull a rabbit out of my hat. I noticed that while talking we had managed to get all the way back to the shaman’s hut. “Just remember your promise, we are back now.”

  She nodded again and then ran off towards Shemi’s hut. I immediately got a notification.

  You have completed: Escort the Alchemist’s Niece

  Auto Rewards: 100 XP, +50 Faction with Ogres, +75 Faction with Ghazban Village.

  See Shaman Shemi for further information.

  Nice that the basic rewards got handed out automatically but for more specific things like an apprenticeship I would have to play or rather live it out. If I had to be killed and trapped in a digital world it was at least a good thing that the world was detailed. Now though, I was hungry. So I would see Shemi and then find out about food.

  When I walked into the hut, Shemi was busy grinding some of the moss that Kittikork had collected in a mortar. “You have my thanks for bringing back my niece.”