"You're joking, right?" Vile asks, her normally tiny dark eyes wide with confusion.

"Why would I be joking about that?" The crow replies, visibly annoyed. "I feel like I'm the only one making sense here!"

"Wow.. just... wow..." I blink, looking to Carrie-Anne with concern, "Are you alright? Are you sure you're not sick or something?"

"That's a good question." Slave says, "I knew a cat a while ago that stopped seeing stats and experience levels. They ended up dying two days later."

"Oh no!" I say, turning to the black cat, "What killed them?"

"Oh, they got run over by a cart." the black cat replies, "Although now that I think about it, maybe that was just a coincidence."

As for the center of this intense debate, the black bird upon my back, she just sighs, "Okay, if all of you are done with your ridiculous comedy routine, could someone just explain this in a way that's... not insane?"

All three of us stand silent for a few moments. That's a surprisingly tall order, after all. Not so much the idea of making sense of the system, that's incredibly obvious, but how does one even begin to explain logic to someone who is clearly irrational? It's like trying to describe color to the blind. Personally, I'm very much worried for the crow. She had always kind of felt like the most 'together' one among us, too. I suppose that we all have our demons, deep inside.

"Um, let's see... well, there are numbers for each of the six attributes, three physical, three mental." Vile says, speaking somewhat slowly, uncharacteristically unconfident in her words, "These have a base amount, along with a general bonus, which determines how much they increase with each experience level. The base numbers are influenced by ones general health, species, class and natural talents. The bonus can be enhanced through exercise or overcoming related challenges."

I nod in agreement. This is all pretty basic stuff, of course (even if I had only fairly recently learned about the training bonuses). Carrie, however, simply stares blankly before shaking her head. "Okay... let's just break this down a little..." she sighs, "Experience levels? What, do you get those from experiencing stuff?"

"It's mostly from killing things. You can also get some from quests and other sources, but mostly killing."

"I don't know about that." the black bird says, "I've done an a lot of killing. Like, a lot, a lot. I don't remember seeing anything about experience levels."

The rat furrows, but clearly isn't ready to give up. "You should get a notification at the end of a fight. You know, when the battle music transitions to the 'victory' fanfare. How else would you get stronger?"

"I just... get stronger. I build up my muscles, I study, I practice, and I develop muscle memory through repetition. How else would I get stronger?" The crow blinks. I find myself growing more concerned by the moment. "Wait, there's battle music?"

"Anyways, you start out at experience level one, at once you earn one hundred experience points, you gain an experience level. From there, the costs per level steadily grow, requiring eleven thousand at level fourteen, and increasing by approximately a factor of ten for each eleven levels beyond that..." Vile continues.

I didn't really know exactly how the advancement formula worked, in truth. At least not specifically. I did notice that it's requiring a lot more experience to level up than it used to, however. I'm also a little surprised by how 'messy' the formula is. I would expect it to increase by ten times every ten levels, not eleven.

Carrie-Anne closes her eyes, sighs and shakes her head, "No, no, let's not gloss over the other thing." she says, looking down at the rat. "There's battle music?"

"Of course. It runs about a forty-five second loop, and continues for as long as the fighting is going on."

"I... see..." The crow says, even if her tone implies anything but.

"This is all pretty common sense stuff... are you sure that you're okay?" Slave asks, sharing my concerns.

"Of course I'm okay! I'm better than okay!" the crow angrily squawks, "This, all of this... it's just pure nonsense!"

"Wait," Slave asks, "So does that mean that you don't see combat rounds and damage numbers, either? How do you know how much you're hurting an opponent, or whether you're getting close to dying?"

"I just look at them?" Carrie replies, incredulously, "People tend to die when cut through their vitals, or when they bleed enough. It's not that complicated. The same works for me, of course... I avoid getting hurt. When you're about to die, you're bleeding a lot and can't move very much, if at all. As for attacking, I just do it whenever I see an opening."

The black cat just sighs and shakes her head. "So strange..."

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Carrie-Anne just huffs in response, but still looks very much on edge. I feel like a part of her suspects that we're all crazy, but ultimately recognizes just how implausible that is.

"Wait, I think I might have heard something about this..." Vile says, "Yeah, rogues and the like are often specifically trained to ignore the system, to the extent that it can be even become genetically inherited."

"Really? Why on earth would they do that?" Her mount asks.

The small black rat shrugs in response, "I think the official argument is that they consider the system to be a sort of 'training wheels', which encourages people to focus too much on statistics, rather than properly honing their own skills and instincts. Thinking back, I believe they refer to statistics and min-maxing as 'nerd shit', and think that they're too cool for it. My theory is that they're just bad at math and ashamed to admit it."

"Ooh!" I perk up, "Is being bad at math cool now?"

"No." The rat responds, plainly, deflating my hopes.

Some awkward silence follows, before it's finally broken by Carrie who asks: "So, what's the battle music like?"

"Oh, it's great! It's kind of jazzy and high tempo... I always look forward to it!" I chime in, "There's also boss music, too, which is a little more intense and orchestral, and also seems to play for a little longer, but it's nowhere near as catchy."

"It gets old, quick." Vile says, to which Slave nods in agreement, "Especially when you find yourself in a series of shorter fights in rapid succession of one another. It makes you wish that you could just turn it off, but it is rather helpful for letting you know when you're under attack."

"I... see." Carrie-Anne replies, looking more confused than ever. I think she's internally wondering whether this is all some sort of joke. I'm wondering something similar, as I couldn't put it past the clever crow to just play dumb to tease me, but her reaction seems awfully genuine. My own concerns are somewhat alleviated. Sure, it seems strange, and also like a significant handicap, but she seems to get by well enough.

"Anyways..." the crow shakes her head, as though trying to cast away the many strange idea which now fill it, "We're getting deep into the undead territory now. We should start encountering much larger groups of dead soldiers pretty soon."

"That sounds like it might be a problem." I reply.

"It should be fine. They tend to be rather predictable." the crow says as me and Slave take our 'passengers' up a steep hill, still following the road. The sounds of battle have increased all around us, with too much of it seemingly happening everywhere to narrow down any specific sources, "Really, it's incredibly unusual that the previous groups that we had encountered didn't just ignore us. They should only recognize humans and similar creatures as potential foes. I can only assume that those other smaller bands were just oddities."

At that word, we finally reach the peak of the hill. From here, the landscape opens up dramatically, offering a clear view for miles around. Miles of bare dirt, dead weeds and destroyed ruins. It's a rather sad sight, on multiple levels. For one thing, it's just so easy to envision this place as green and full of life, of beautiful meadows and cultivated fields, which line the well trodden road. Then there's even sadder denizens of this place. The whole world ahead has been reduced to a massive, chaotic battleground, with no sides, alliances or tactics of any sort. Clumsy, impossibly thin humans rattle around in what remains of their armor, awkwardly striking and clawing at their most hated of foes, which just so happen to be whoever is standing in close enough proximity. There's a constant clamoring of swords on swords, swords on shields, feet upon the earth, but no cries of pain nor elation. Even when a clumsy strike hits somewhere vital, it's largely ignored by their foe, who continues their own endless assault.

The only exceptions to this are when something structurally essential is damaged, like the legs or spines, to the extent that they can no longer support the weight of the undead body. At that point, the soldier collapses, continuing to crawl or squirm upon the ground as best it can, depending on the extent of the damages, in a desire to continue their endless fight. As for the 'victors' in these melees, they are completely apathetic, simply shambling over to the next closest opponent, and resuming their assault.

There must be thousands of them, some of which still carrying ancient, tattered banners which represented their long since forgotten alliances. Who knows just how long this battle has been going on so far, or just how long it might continue. I can only stand there, looking on in horror.

"Just keep moving." The crow on my back says, "They should ignore us animals. See?"

She points a wing to a small group of crows pecking at some of the bits of flesh dangling from the less mobile soldiers, the dead men making no effort to so much as swat them away. I briefly wonder if Carrie happens to know those crows, but then again, it's a bit racist to assume that all crows know one another.

"If we were human, we might be in trouble." Carrie-Anne continues, as both myself and Slave step forward with some hesitation, drawing ever closer to the ancient battleground, "While they might ignore animals, they're still sort of drawn to life. They'll see any sort of human warrior as a highly desirable target."

"Are you sure about this?" Slave asks, nervously, crouched down somewhat as she looks about at the skirmishes happening all around her. She's not the best around living humans, let alone undead ones.

"Hey, you're the ones who wanted to travel through this place. Don't worry about it. Just don't attack anything, don't make too much noise, and don't run." The crow nods, "We'll be through this place soon enough."

The cacophony of battle raging all around us fades all at once. Sure, the metallic clangs and thuds continue in the distance, but in our immediate vicinity? It all dies away. I raise my head, and look about, only to meet the gaze of countless men, nearly rotted away on their feet. They stop their fighting, and even without proper eyes, it's readily apparent just where their attention happens to be focused: Entirely upon our group.

"Um... you know that thing that I just said about not running?" Carrie says, "Maybe that wouldn't be such a bad idea, after all."

---

Slave: "Okay, I kind of get the joke: You're like an ordinary person living in a video-game type world, right?"

Carrie-Anne: "I still don't quite understand but... sure?"

Slave: "So, there's no hit points, no experience levels and no quests... but dropped items still disappear for you after several seconds, right?"

Carrie-Anne: "Well, yeah, of course! Why wouldn't they?"

Slave: "Okay. I'm just trying to figure out where the 'line' is."

Vile: "Good luck with that."