A pleasant breakfast spent getting to know new people turned into a pleasant afternoon of swapping stories. Likely due in no small part to Bernard's decision to grease the wheels with a bit of alcohol.

"So my friend is looking at this gap across a creek right?" Barry exclaimed, waving his bowl of masato for emphasis. "And he says, I can make it across that. So I bet him ten bucks he couldn't. He told me to 'hold his beer' and took a runnin leap at the thing. He made it of course, and I owed him ten bucks, but it was the best ten bucks I ever spent because the far side was pretty loose-packed dirt and caved under him. He tumbled right on backwards into that creek and came out covered head-to-toe in mud."

After the third or fourth random story about people he didn't know and never would, Bernard changed the subject a bit. "So, what happened to you guys after Aegis came? I got transported here on a staircase that fell down a hill. I fell down those stupid stairs three times, then almost got crushed by some sort of pig-ape monster."

"We got pulled from all over. Trevor here is from the south, I was in New York, Janet over there was in California, and Barry won't tell us anything other than it's not the same as any of ours." Hank said calmly. He took a deep drink from his bowl when he finished.

"There were more of us." Janet said softly. "We were up to twelve when those things descended on us."

"Janet, you don't have to-" Trevor tried to cut in.

"No, I want to say it. I need to say it. It was like something out of a nightmare. I can't even find the right words to describe them. They were monkeys, but with wings, and instead of arms and legs they had sharp bone spikes. We had started off so well. Handling everything that came at us better than we could have hoped. We managed to get some gear from the store, not much, because it's expensive, but enough to protect ourselves.

She took a deep drink. "Or so we thought." The mood had turned significantly gloomier by this point. "I watched helplessly as one of them landed on Jennifer and tore her apart. It happened so fast. Then more and more of them appeared, just falling from the sky and shredding people like, like, flying blenders. By the time we managed to fight them off there were only six of us left, but Tom and Jean were too badly hurt and died within a couple hours.

"Since then we've almost constantly been under attack from increasingly strange monsters and some of them even looked almost human from a distance. None of them spoke though, and I'm sorry for being so suspicious. I, I, I'm just sorry." She broke down into tears as Bernard absorbed her story. The other three were clearly fighting back the emotional backlash of their experiences as well.

Bernard watched them for a minute. He decided the best thing he could do to help was to share his own story. Take their minds off of their own horrors for a while and show that they weren't alone. He began to speak, not leaving anything out. He told them how he was only here because he was lucky. Not always good luck, but lucky. Falling out of that tree was horrible luck, but landing on that cat and surviving that fall was good luck.

He ended up with a much bigger audience than he expected, as most of the natives and even Henry, Leo, and Rose came to listen. The number of times he almost died in the last several days was mind boggling for someone that was used to the biggest physical danger being a mugging or accident.

Peytah spoke up next, the shaman no doubt busy with his hallucinogens as he wasn't there. "Half of our people have died since the gods chose to change the world. The monster that Curupira, Bernard, helped us defeat was the third attack from these new demons. We have lost hunters to the demons as well, including my own son. We only learned of this 'leveling' thing when Henry showed us. I don't doubt Curupira would have taught us this new magic himself, but he was recovering from his battle.

"At first we despaired, all were certain that the gods had abandoned us and the world to the demons. Now we have begun to learn how to survive in this new world. We even decided to try different classes." By way of demonstration he gestured and muttered a vaguely latin sounding word that wasn't translated by Aegis. A small bolt of what appeared to be pure energy shot out and splashed against a tree.

The damage was minimal, but trees were notoriously sturdy things when compared to flesh and the fact that there was any damage at all meant it was liable to hurt critters quite a bit. "I took a level of Force Caster for one of our tests and was just… able to do that." He pointed at the splintered bark on the tree.

Bernard was stuck on a specific part of Peytah's announcement. "Wait, you can take other classes when you level?" All he could remember ever being offered was the option to continue leveling in his selected class. The others gave him strange looks. "What?"

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

"It was in the initial speech Aegis gave us. You could take a different class for every level if you wanted to. You just wouldn't get any feats for a class until you reach the right level in it to get one." Trevor offered after a momentary silence. "Did you not get that one?"

"I definitely missed that one. I was probably unconscious. I got hit in the head a lot that first day." Bernard answered with a sheepish grin.

"Well, most of us have stuck to just the one class, but we did figure out how to change them in case you're interested. It's not hard, you just gotta focus on other class options when you're leveling up and you get a list of stuff you can pick."

"Hmm. I'll have to look into that. My class is great and all, but I don't have a lot of offensive options to work with."

"Oh, you're plenty offensive." Henry offered.

"Oi! Don't make me hurt a child now."

*****

That evening another group of natives and a few Lost Folk, the term they had settled on to describe those that had been forcibly displaced, found their way to the zone. They melded into their growing group without issue, mostly because they were a ragged group of survivors that were just grateful to have found other people. The natives had lost most of their village before fleeing, while the rest were an eclectic mix of people from all over the globe.

There were a few more combat classes among them, but most were either still classless or took something related to their existing skills. For example, Bernard wasn't sure what they would do with a blacksmith in a bunch of treehouses but they had one.

The influx of people was equal parts welcome, worrying, and exhausting. Welcome, because there was strength in numbers. Worrying, because they didn't have much in the way of food stores or medicine. Unless you counted hallucinogens, which Bernard wasn't. Exhausting, because he had to talk to all of them, then go out with the hunters in search of prey to keep their budding community from starving.

"It's getting kind of swampy in this direction." Bernard said quietly.

"Yes, we should find some soon. Are you sure you wish to hunt caiman? They are dangerous prey." Matwau asked cautiously. He was one of the hunters Bernard saved from that giant centipede and always went out of his way to accommodate Bernard in any way he could. Bernard did his best to avoid him as a result.

"Sure, they aren't that dangerous to me, and there's a lot of meat on them." It would also allow Bernard to prove to Henry that caiman actually were delicious and that the cat had been a fluke. Even better, he wouldn't have to butcher it with a relatively sharp rock. He could delegate that particular unpleasantness on the natives. They were used to butchering things and knew how to do it properly. "We should catch some fish too if we get a chance."

Whatever reply Matwau was about to offer was lost in the sudden chaos that erupted all around Bernard. The vine he brushed out of his way while he spoke ended up not being a vine at all. It was actually a snake. Not just any snake either. This snake was massive. A head twice the size of Bernard's swung down to look at him for a moment. He didn't get a chance to truly judge its size though, as the colossal danger noodle immediately decided he was food and whipped around him faster than anything that size had any right to move.

Crushing pressure enveloped him in a heartbeat, and Bernard groaned as he felt his bones creaking and bending under the relentless might of the snake. It didn't seem to care about the thorns that punctured and tore at its flesh, nor for the damage Thistle dealt to it as it drove the thick wooden spines deep into its own muscle tissue.

If anything it squeezed harder, as though it knew it was now doomed and was determined to take its killer with it. Or it was eager to get to his juicy, tender insides. His vision went dark, and he both heard and felt the clack of teeth on his wooden armor as it attempted to swallow him. It didn't get far on account of the thorns, and before long its grip on him weakened as the damage piled on it began to take its toll.

Congratulations! Your group has slain a Ravenous Anaconda!

"So," Bernard retracted his helmet to wipe snake spit and blood from his face. "We aren't going to tell anyone about me almost getting eaten by a snake, right?" He looked around at the hunters with him. They were totally going to tell everyone. He sighed. "So can we eat this thing? Are we done hunting?"

The hunters all hesitated and looked at each other. Peytah eventually answered the question. "We do not usually hunt or eat them. The capybara are far better tasting, and removing a big predator causes problems we prefer to avoid. Still, the deed is done. We may as well bring it back. This one is much bigger than we are used to finding too, so it may be a good thing we eliminated it."

"What's a capybara?" Bernard asked curiously.

"It's, well. About this tall?" He held out his hand around two feet from the ground. "They're hairy and have big square teeth too. There is also the javelina which is close in size to the capybara. Both are much better prey than this."

"Well, we'll just have to try for some of those next time I guess." Bernard grunted. Now that the battle had ended he was a bit annoyed that even with heightened senses and a connection to the forest itself he missed the giant snake's presence. He really needed to step up his game if he was going to make an honest go at living in this jungle. Not that this was the first time he came to that conclusion. The need to be better was the whole reason he was out here with the hunters to begin with after all. The others were all preparing for dinner, patrolling the immediate area around the zone, or helping design the treehouse village.