The largest of the three Coyotes noticed the object before the others. Whatever the thing was, it was flying above their heads and was shiny. Sniffing the air, the thing didn’t give off a strong smell but he felt himself tense up at the intrusion of this curiosity. A growl began to grow deep inside him right before a blast of light lit up the sky. The other two pack mates were howling in pain to either side of him while he yowled himself. The shiny thing had attacked them and all that filled his mind now was that it needed to be killed! Only a few moments had passed but the shiny thing was flying away from them instead of fighting. How dare it attack him and flee; it needed to feel the crush of his razor-sharp fangs! Stars danced across their vision as all three Coyotes launched after the newfound enemy with the intent to maim and devour.

V.V. had just casually floated over to the large animals that she knew now were called Coyotes since she’d gotten close enough to Alex to have their connection back. Once she’d positioned herself in a spot that she felt all three of the animals could see her from, she began the first step of her brilliant plan. Dazzle was usually used to stun enemies up close with bright light and that’s how she used it now, but more so to piss off the monsters than to stun them for any real length of time. To her slight surprise, the Coyotes did seem stunned for a few moments which allowed her to get further away than she’d planned for. How was she supposed to know the creatures had developed even more impressive night vision than before the System returned. As she approached the opening to the path, she slowed herself just enough to ensure that the Coyotes could see exactly where she was headed.

The night had already passed into early morning hours by the time the Coyotes had been taunted into following what they believed to be a shiny snack. The path they headed down was a tight fit but manageable if they stayed in single file, turning around could be an issue though. The leader could see the reflective round morsal just ahead of him and he was gaining. It was only a matter of time before he bit down into what he hoped was delicately soft flesh, the shininess of said flesh was no bother to him. They continued to run, and they continued to gain on their foe before the shiny ball slipped into thick trees at the end of the path they were on. The chase had come to an abrupt halt as the leader attempted to squeeze through the tightly packed trees but was forced to give up in favor of crunching through the overgrowth with his powerful jaws.

V.V. was above and behind the Coyotes. She watched as they tried to chomp their way further into the forest to find her. A snicker almost left her before she caught herself. Now was not the time for laughing at her enemies, she could do that after she was done with them. She waited for over a minute before deciding that the annoying tree monsters weren’t going to descend on the extra-large doggies. A shame, she thought, but ultimately this meant there was more for her to enjoy. It was time to use a few of her precious experiments on these volunteer test subjects. The Coyotes were not well equipped to cut down trees but were still making quick work to expand and extend V.V.’s path for her. Watching them, she hesitated to begin the trials simply because of how useful her volunteers were being. She twirled a few bottles around her, flipping them this way and that, watching the beautiful colors mix together in the bottles. Waiting for a bit longer wouldn’t hurt anything and she still had over an hour before the light of day broke the horizon.

The path had been expanded enough that the other two members were by his side now. The need to go for the kill wasn’t as strong anymore but it was still there. If they could just get past the obstacles that were the damned trees in front of them, they could have their revenge. The further they moved away from the clearing, the more they felt the need to attack, to rip, to tear, to consume. Just a bit more, just a bit further, so close to satiating the urge to feed. As V.V. watched the dedicated animals below her, she got the sense that they were becoming what she’d felt they should have been like all along, mindless monsters. Just piddling around a clearing, waiting for prey to come to them was not what Mana Warped did to anything, let alone animals that hunted on a regular basis. They were getting close to the other side of the forest where the other large animals had fought to the death. If they managed to break through to that side, her experiment would be harder to conduct. Since she had access to a very nice, enclosed area, it was time to begin.

The first bottle smashed over the leaders head just as he’d ripped a rather difficult sapling out of the ground. The satisfaction of ripping the body of his enemy from the place that gave it life was consuming his thoughts right before pain decided to occupy his mind. Pain! It felt like something was biting onto his skull and sinking needle-like teeth deep into his brain! The leader let out a howl of pain that could not be compared the yelp he’d expressed earlier from the blinding light. Slamming his head into the dirt and rolling around in an attempt to dislodge the creature that had surely attacked him while he was occupied was all he could do. The other two Coyotes were panicked and confused by the largest members outburst and were unable to do anything to help or flee as they began to have their own issues. V.V. tossed a sickly green bottle at the left and a very bright pink concoction at the right Coyote.

The left Coyote began to gag and paw at its face as a green haze floated up from the shattered bottle at its feet. The right Coyote mimicked the leader as it attempted to remove the monster that had attached itself to its face. Unlike the leader, who’d been struck with one of V.V.’s precious acid concoctions, this beautiful pink slime was exactly that, a slime. Normally, companions didn’t have access to the System but when Alex gained his Class, something that V.V. had never heard of happened. She gained more than just an increased bond with Alex and a greater since of self for herself. She gained access to certain things only Free Users had access to. While she was technically a User before Alex took his Class, she was bound to a myriad of rules imposed on her by not only the System but her homeworld. Now, she could gain experience, credits and levels. These things were restricted to Users who were summoned and had even more restrictions when summoned to new worlds. Whatever Alex’s class was or maybe, whatever he was, had changed the rules. She couldn’t help it now, she giggled.

Zzhehzzhehzzheh

Watching the creatures suffer didn’t give her any particular joy, but seeing her experiments work definitely did. She’d spent five-thousand credits on that slime and then imbued it with several fun poisons. She had every right to be happy seeing it wriggle its way into the panicking beast’s nose, mouth and at least one eyeball. Alex may have some moral response to seeing an animal she knew he’d think was ‘cute’ in such a state, so this was a great time to test out her toys. The largest Coyote had started to recover right when another glass shattered over its head yet again. Pain… Pain was all that was left in the animal’s mind when it finally, mercifully stopped. As the leader thought its last thoughts, the other two continued to struggle for their lives. Lefty as V.V. had come to call it, was lying on the ground, still alive by the struggling breaths it attempted to drag into and out of its ravaged lungs. Righty thrashed around but it was quickly slowing down as it couldn’t breathe at all. V.V. gently lowered herself to Lefty’s side and like the angel of mercy that she was, drove a powerful spike formed from her body into its throat. Only a few seconds later, Righty collapsed to the ground and V.V. gave it the same fate as Lefty had received.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

“Well, that was an intriguing bit of data collection.” She said to herself as she coaxed her slime back into a new bottle and began the looting process which unfortunately meant chopping the beasts up. Alex had freed her from some of her shackles but looting via the System wasn’t one of them. She collected everything that she deemed valuable and floated up to examine the scene. Gruesome was the thought she felt Alex would have if he saw the three corpses that she knew now resembled what Alex would consider dogs or ‘puppies’ but it had to be done. What good was it to have all these toys and not test them on rabid monsters? She continued to convince herself that what she’d done was definitely the right thing as she floated back towards Alex and the Orbs. Casually flicking open her Status as she appeared again into the open air of the clearing, she thought about how it was odd that the tree demons had stayed their grubby little rock throwing hands.

Companion/User: Vibrant Void

Age/Sex: 1/Female

Level: 1

Exp: 3112/1000 *LOCKED*

Class: None

Profession: None

Credits: 3218 (Limited Access)

Abilities: Consume, Dazzle

Skills: Map, Detect, Scan, Combat Orblet

Spells: Lifestyle

Skimming over her Status, she lamented that the System Store had arbitrarily locked her out of quite a few categories. It couldn’t be helped though and what was truly annoying her was that although she’d miraculously been given the opportunity to gain experience and level, it was locked. Skimming through her memories from when she’d been more closely bonded to the System, she did recall other instances where Summoned Users were able to level but there weren’t any details on how such a thing happened. What she was quite sure of though, was that the System had no knowledge of a Summoned User’s experience being locked from use. Something she found even more interesting was what happened when she expanded the Locked part of her Status’s description.

*LOCKED*

Esco rt the ed nsrze R oLdr to the crente of the ni ldas and ac quir e the Zo ne hRsgit. After the islan d’s ceor are a is urden the r n z Re dseLd’sr o control, bind the oC er to yours elf to allo w gleliven. The m ore opwer ful teh conquered Zeno becomes, the more puoe rfw l yo u will become. Evevol the Zone into a eTro itrry and grow ti to lev el Tereh for more ini fmort aon. This information is Confidential.

“Well, that’s as unhelpful as always. I planned to take him there anyway but having a pseudo-quest to do it doesn’t hurt I suppose. It’s obviously not System generated but I’m not sure how whoever made this request got into my Status. For that matter, the binding spell that’s attached to it is fascinating. I can’t even so much as mention it to Alex for some reason… Oh well!” V.V. talked to herself as she slowly floated across the clearing towards the hideout. She was far more intrigued by how someone had added something to her personal System Status than she was anything else. Most sentient beings would be mad at the very least, if not terrified that someone could inject unwanted information into their Status. V.V. didn’t believe that whoever had added the information was the cause for her being unable to level, however. Adding some words and a restriction on sharing the words were one thing, but fundamentally preventing a Sentient being from growing stronger was on another level. If they could do that, why not do any number of grander things like teleport Alex to the center, turn the island’s monsters inside out and have him drink in a near-infinite source of Mana through a proverbial straw?

Did they actually want to help Alex though? It seemed that way from what she could read of the message but maybe they just wanted to ensure that he’d be gobbled up by whatever monsters inhabited the center region or Zone. Zones were areas that could be claimed by User’s to build settlements, personal dungeons, teleportation arrays, and more. V.V. wanted Alex to get to the center to claim the area above the Mana Crystal but didn’t think he’d be able to claim the Zone itself. The Zone was the area that surrounded a Mana Crystal. The stronger the Mana Crystal, the wider the Zone became. There were usually numerous tasks that needed to be done to actually Claim a Zone. To have the System recognize you as the Owner of the Mana Crystal wasn’t as simple as being the one to occupy the area. A Focus would need to be built and that took rare materials, superior craftsmanship and a host of various Magics that would then need to be carefully imbued into said Focus. Shaking her little body to drive away the annoying and seemingly impossible task ahead of her was all she could do for the time being.

Her contemplation put itself on hold as she approached the hidden cave. The night had almost fully retreated as light could just barely be seen in the distance. V.V. scanned the area for any potential threats before finally making her way to the nearly invisible cave opening. Once inside, she made her way the short distance to Alex and the Orbs. He was still sleeping soundly while the Orbs slowly rotated above him. Seeing that he was fine, she went back into the crawlspace and decided to go over the spoils she’d gained over her long night of adventuring. She’d gathered thirty-three Coyote Claws and over one-hundred Coyote Teeth, the smallest of which was almost three inches in length. Unfortunately, the amount of Mana in the smaller teeth was barely enough to be stored in her Inventory, let alone used for any future poisons. On the other hand, the Coyote Fur was brimming with Mana. All three coats were just begging to be used by a skilled Tailor or Leatherworker to make something fantastic. V.V. was of course, neither of those professions, so moved along with her examination. She’d fished out only one eyeball that hadn’t started disintegrating immediately after being plucked. Twirling it around herself for a moment, she played with the new ingredient before storing it again. The examinations continued until she finally heard Alex stirring from his long rest.