“Hey, Gren, look who’s back to get nibbled on again,” Virgil sneered as we materialized on his side of the wall again.

“Shush, Virgil. Be polite.” She smacked him with her shield again, “Now, ladies, I’d like a word with you before you rush out past the boundary again.”

I wasn’t too keen on being called a “lady,” but my fairy character technically counted. I was a priestess, after all, and my figure was anything but androgynous. It was just something I’d have to get used to.

The rest of the girls looked at each other and Ette shrugged, “Might as well,” she said. Noa and I nodded in agreement. Presumably the guard was going to tell us more than just “don’t forget to run from a bad fight.”

We gathered around her and she sized us up. “For a bunch of greenies, you put up a good fight, and if you had been a little stronger, you probably could have taken that Matriarch down. Teamwork goes a long way, and a group like yours that works together will have far more success than a group of glory-seekers, each trying to upstage the other. If you stick together, I have faith that you’ll go far and do great things.”

Gren smiled a little, wintry smile, and then let her expression turn serious. “But there’s absolutely no reason you should have fought that Matriarch when you did. Yeah, you got unlucky that she was the first of the monsters you saw, but you could have bypassed her and tested yourself against lesser threats. Death, here, isn’t necessarily final, true. But if it were, your potential would have been squandered before you ever had a chance to shine. You need to learn to consider your targets and pick your fights, because someday a failed fight will be more than a minor setback.”

With the emphasis she placed on the word “consider,” I had no doubt that it would have been highlighted and in a different text color in a more traditional MMO. A keyword.

She looked at us each in turn. “Level 0, all of you. You had no business trying to fight a level 5 monster, much less a level 5 Zone Boss.”

“A ‘Zone Boss’?” Jazmyn asked.

“If you had considered your target …” -- again that keyword emphasis -- “... you would have seen that. And while I see that you’re inexperienced, your fellow squadmates should have had a better understanding of that, especially your tactician.” The look Gren gave Noa wasn’t quite withering, but it was definitely stern.

“How then do we consider, here?” Noa asked. Which was a valid question. There was no “/con” command to type in nor a colour-coded name floating above their heads. At least … not by default. If I saw buff icons above Ette’s and the rest’s heads, then perhaps there was a setting toggle that allowed for name displays. But that was something to look into later, since Gren was still talking.

“How do your special abilities work?” she asked rhetorically. “Intent. Focus. Will.”

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

“Like a spell?” Jazmyn asked.

Gren waggled her hand, “Not precisely. Yes, some people have developed magic or other specialized abilities that work similarly and give more information, but anyone can do the basics. You don’t need magic to walk or a special ability to breathe even if you do to walk through walls or breathe underwater. Now, go ahead and consider me and that lazy buffoon over there.”

[Gren. ??. Friendly.]

[Virgil. ??. Grumpy.]

It worked as she said, just a matter of focus and intent. The results weren’t strictly displayed, not even textually on the HUD where the minimap and health indications were, but more like a hint of an image in the mind. Regardless, I knew the results even if I didn’t exactly see them.

When she saw the flash of understanding in our expressions, Gren continued. “Now, no doubt you didn’t get to learn my level the way I saw yours. When your target is that much more powerful than you -- ten levels when you’re starting out, but the range widens as you get stronger -- you get very little. But that ‘very little’ is enough to tell you that it’s a bad idea.”

“So, you’re level ten?” Jazmyn asked.

Ette elbowed her in the side. “Guards are almost universally high level,” she said.

Gren just smiled faintly. “Your inexperience is charming. No, I haven’t been level 10 in over a dozen years.”

“I see that you’re ‘friendly’ and Virgil is grumpy, but I don’t need to consider you to see that,” Mikachu said.

Virgil piped up. “I’m only grumpy because someone keeps hitting me with her shield,” he said.

Probably “condescending” otherwise, but I kept my mouth shut.

“Now for monsters and critters and other opponents, you won’t get a personality disposition like that,” Gren explained. “Instead, you’ll see whether they’re hostile, neutral, or passive. Or a few other things, but that’s not relevant here. You’ll figure those out on your own later.”

Much of the rest of the explanation wasn’t especially helpful to us veterans of other games, but it was a good tutorial for Jazmyn. Hostile monsters would aggro on sight. Or, rather, within their radius which depended on the monster, the level difference, and a few other considerations, like if they were defending their nest or lair. Passive monsters, on the other hand, would only fight if directly attacked or otherwise provoked. And in many cases, a passive monster would try to run away rather than fight back.

In between, and most monsters in the tutorial zone, was neutral. That is, they needed provocation to attack -- which is why that big rat matriarch hadn’t done anything until we had attacked her -- but that provocation could be seeing their ‘friends’ in combat. Basically adds or linked spawns to put it in gamer terms.

“Now, you won’t see much in the way of hostile monsters until you start venturing further away from the city,” Gren said, “not unless a defense or raid event is going on, but there are some here in this area. Those flappy rats are hostile, and they have a pretty large aggro radius. Be careful they don’t catch you unawares in the middle of another fight.”

We nodded.

“Okay, I’ve taken enough of your time. Go out there, and fight some rats, get stronger, and try the zone boss again later. You were doing well, if slow, for being as underpowered as you were. But, ladies, the next time things turn bad, for heaven’s sake, RUN when it becomes obvious and not when it becomes too late. You weren’t that far from where Virgil and I could have helped you.”

Thoroughly admonished, we nodded and thanked her for her time -- was she really an NPC or was she a GM in disguise? Then we headed back out into the zone, away from the wall.

Feeling a bit cheeky, I gave a jaunty wave to Virgil as well, but received only a sneer in response.