But then something amazing happened.

The bodies of five dead raiders lay on the ground all around her. Without warning a silvery mist started to climb away from them. It looked like steam at first, but it twinkled and shimmered.

It stretched out little smoky fingers towards Ashely. They were like waving fronds of seaweed. But when one of them finally touched her body it instantly flowed into her. All of the other clouds seemed to sense where she was then, and they swirled in towards her, spiraling and flowing into her body.

It felt good. It felt like a cool breeze on a hot day. It felt like finally drinking pure clean water after hours of stumbling through the desert.

Then it was gone.

HP+25; Now 65

XP+250; Now 2050

She put a hand up to her neck. There should have been a ragged wound there, but she only felt a bumpy ridge of scar tissue instead.

"Wow," said Rebus. "That's a neat trick."

She waved her good arm at one of the bodies.

"I saw something about it," she said. "I get HP back from them."

Presumably the XP I'd get in any case but I'm not going to lie, that felt really good.

"Very handy," said the cat. "Here comes the kid."

Alexis ran into view, and went to the woman on the ground who was still staring wide-eyed at Ashley. At the same time she saw Mistress Hegel limping her way across the road towards them.

The old woman stopped in front of her, but when she finally got a good look at Ashley her face went blank.

"What have you done?" she croaked, and backed away.

Nice, very nice. You're all welcome.

The village chief groaned and heaved himself to his feet. He was still bleeding profusely, but he staggered over to his wife.

At least that's what Ashley thought was happening. When he got there he raised his hand and gave the child a thunderous slap that sent him sprawling into the dirt. The sound of it echoed with a crack across the huts.

For a moment she thought he'd killed the kid, but Alexis pulled himself up and sat on the ground alone, staring up at the adults with lost eyes.

"They would have killed you," he whispered.

"Then they should have," the woman said bitterly. "Better than this."

"You were told to hide. To run and never come back if you had to," the man said with a growl.

The child's face fell and he stared down at the ground.

More villagers were slowly coming out of their miserable huts and gathering nearby. They stared at Ashley with obvious terror.

A wave of contempt for these ignorant villagers washed over her. She'd just saved all of their worthless lives and they were acting like she was the monster.

"I guess you didn't want someone getting ahold of this." She pointed at the tiara on her forehead. "Was it really worth your lives?"

Mistress Hegel spat on the ground.

"Yes," she said. "More than worth it. You're cursed with that thing now, but we will all suffer for it. I should have let you take your own life when you asked."

"Why? What's so terrible? I just saved you all."

The village chief snarled at her.

"Just leave, we have failed. That vile thing has haunted us for generations but we kept faith like we were charged. Now it owns you and we have failed. Leave us and go to your doom."

Ashely looked at Mistress Hegel, hoping for some kind of understanding but the woman wouldn't meet her eyes.

"Go!" a voice yelled from the small crowd that was watching.

"They would have taken it," Ashely said. "You think those... worms" - she pointed at the dead men - "Would be better owners of this thing?"

The village chief shook his head.

"We've hidden it for generations. Nobody has taken it yet. At least not until I gave it to..." he looked at Alexis with a frown.

She had a bad feeling about that.

"Alexis," she said. "Maybe you had better come with me. We can find somewhere safer for you."

"He is one of us," said the Chief's wife, her face contorted with anger. "He belongs here. You'll not take him with you."

"Oh really?" Ashley said.

She tried to raise her arms, but the one with an arrow sticking out of it didn't want to move properly. So she held just one hand out, pointed at them.

"It's your call Alexis," she said. "I'll keep you safe."

Mistress Hegel barked a bitter laugh.

"Not likely, that."

The child looked around in obvious confusion, then started crying.

The woman stepped in front of him, blocking the boy from Ashley's view.

"You have your answer, so leave."

Ashley's eyes narrowed. Another wave of contempt washed through her. It was surprisingly strong.

Filthy peasants.

Part of her wished she still had enough MP left to give them a parting gift. But it was obvious there was nothing for her here now.

"Listen up," she said. "I'm leaving. But I will come back. And if that child is harmed, I promise you will regret it."

She gave them a good hard stare with her apparently spooky eyes.

Mistress Hegel made a warding motion with her hands.

"We hear you, witch," she said.

"Oh, one last thing before I leave," Ashley said. "You're an herbalist. Go fetch me a healing potion. Actually, make it two. You must have something in your little hut there."

She was done playing nice with this ungrateful mob.

The old woman stared at her for a moment, then without a word she turned and shuffled back to her hut.

She returned with two small glass bottles.

"There," she said. "That's your payment. Now leave us be, please."

Ashley turned and walk out into the dark without another word.

"All in all not a bad night's work," the cat said as it padded along beside her.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

It's just a stupid game.

She told herself that, but she was trembling uncontrollably.

"I want out," she said. "I want to find somewhere safe to work on my user interface and find the damn exit button."

"Well," Rebus said, "Whatever that means, we should probably find somewhere for the night. You're in luck. This is my turf. There's an abandoned cabin a ways up the road. The roof is still mostly intact and that aura of doom on you should keep the wolves and bears away at least."

When he finally led her to it the shivers had stopped and she was worrying about getting the arrow out of her arm. She'd touched it a few times and seemed to be pretty solidly stuck inside her.

Probably hit bone.

Her health was creeping back up, but surprisingly slowly. There was nothing for it, she was going to have to just yank the thing out.

The cabin was worse than she had feared. It was a downgrade from the miserable peasant hovels. By the look of it, it had been abandoned for years. Half of the roof had collapsed inward and the walls were sagging. Normally she wouldn't have gone near it, but she was going to have to trust Rebus.

Since she apparently didn't have a single friend in the world apart from her familiar.

The cat curled up next to her, and watched with big eyes as she grabbed the shaft of the arrow.

"One... two..." she muttered.

She pulled with all her might, trying to rip it out like tearing off a bandage.

She screamed.

It came out with a squelching sound, and blood started pouring down her arm.

-20

Health 48

She pulled the cork from one of Mistress Hegel's potions with her teeth and sniffed at the contents suspiciously. It smelled nice.

Maybe a poison would?

But if she died then she would presumably get out of this. Or not, of course. Maybe she'd just restart somewhere else. She didn't want to lose whatever edge she'd gained to this point.

She spat the cork away and sighed.

No choice. Per usual.

It burned going down her throat, but the text immediately told her she'd made the right choice.

Minor Healing Potion Consumed +60

Health 100

So a bit of overheal. Small favors and all.

"All better?" Rebus said.

She wiggled her bad arm. There was a definite twinge of pain, but it was probably moving at about 90% of normal.

"Good as new I guess. Excuse me for a bit, okay? I need to try a few things."

With the cat curled up near her, she decided it was time to work through her options systematically. This was the first chance she'd had to try to think clearly.

"User interface," she said loudly. "UI. Controls. Options. System. User access...."

She tried every verbal command she could think of and got nothing but vaguely interested looks from Rebus as he watched her with one eye.

Gestures were next. She tried swipes, pointing, and a variety of swirls and squiggles.

Not one thing had any effect. But she remembered seeing something about a UI upgrade. So logically there had to be some way to access it.

Unless that just means the text.

Which would suck, but made no sense. There had to be some way of seeing her stats and spells and such.

"Fingers," Rebus said lazily.

"What?"

"I saw a man from another world once. Or at least that's what the old hag said he was. He didn't seem very interesting, but I noticed him doing something strange with his fingers. Kind of padding his palms with them."

"Rebus, did you just give me a tutorial?"

"A what? I don't even know if it's related to what you're trying to do but it was strange and here you are doing strange things. Don't mind me, I'm just the cat."

But something in what he said jogged her memory.

"Appraise!" she said, pointing at him with one finger.

That much worked. The text flowed up beside him.

Familiar: Rebus (Level 2)

Common Cat

Allegiance: Lawful Evil

Spirit Level 2: Sentient

Speech: Common (10), Dark Tongue (3), Feline (7)

Health: 250

Intelligence: 10

Strength: 3

Constitution: 7

The text went on and on until it wrapped around into a second column. There wasn't much remarkable apart from his health which was surprisingly high.

I guess it's good if he doesn't die too easily.

His Cry of the Hunter skill was listed of course, and on cooldown.

"Hey," she said. "Why are you level 10 in human speech but only level 7 with other cats?"

"Cats aren't really social by nature," he said. He didn't seem surprised by the question. "I don't spend a lot of time around them."

"But you speak human perfectly?"

"I'm a spirit in a cat body. That's why I'm your familiar. You think a normal cat would have hung around for all that?"

She had to admit that made sense at least.

The past couple of hours were catching up with her and she was feeling sleepy despite the fact that she was currently hiding in a filthy ruined shack that was probably full of spiders and rats and things. But she was determined to find her damned user interface before she gave in for the night.

Padding his palms with his fingers?

She tapped her middle finger into her palm.

Nothing happened.

I guess I'd be popping up the interface accidentally all the time if it was that easy. The ol'double-tap it is then.

Two slow deliberate taps did nothing, but two quick taps was paydirt.

STATS SKILLS EFFECTS ITEMS MESSAGES

She laughed and clapped her hands in delight, which startled Rebus.

"Something happen?"

"You're a genius. The palm thing was the trick. Thank you."

"Good to hear it. What are you talking about?"

She grinned and sighed.

"I don't know how much you're just pretending and how much you really understand about this," she said.

"I won’t lie to you. I'm your familiar. It's part of the deal."

"Well there's lying and then there's judicious omissions, am I right?"

The cat's eyes narrowed.

"Everyone deserves that little bit of privacy, no?"

"Fair enough. But thank you regardless."

"My pleasure," he said and wrapped his tail around his body and appeared to go back to sleep.

It's all in the fingers.

She tried a few combined taps that ended up scattering text all over the place. Eventually with enough retries she found some simple right and left motions and managed to select her target.

MESSAGES

No contacts

"Damn," she muttered. Not even a help button. She carefully plodded through every menu option. Everything was there including all her current spells, which was relief because she was worried she was going to forget them. Her magical tiara was right there under ITEMS, with all its effect summarized as well.

It was all very convenient and completely unhelpful.

No contacts. There wasn't even a space to send out a random message into the void. If she had to set up contacts before she could send a message then there was no way to yell for help to an admin or whomever.

And one thing that was very obviously not there was a LOGOUT option.

Unless logout is a UI upgrade?

Which would be ridiculous.

One thing was obvious. She needed help. She needed other players, and the more experienced the better. The cat had basically just admitted that they existed, so she wasn't alone here.

Wherever here was.

"Attention," she said out loud, enunciating very clearly. "I withdraw any consent I may have given to participate in this game and I request my immediate logout. If I remain here any longer it is against my express will and is probably unlawful confinement. Please end my session immediately."

The only response was the wind in the trees and the distant sound of bats squeaking in the sky.

If Rebus heard, he was choosing to ignore it.

"Bastards," she muttered.

She broke out of sleep with a deep, rattling gasp. A moment of panic grabbed her, and she scrambled around the floor of the cabin, not even sure what she was trying to find. Something. A weapon maybe? It took only a few moments until her head cleared and she remembered where she was, and on her knees, clawing through dirt and leaves.

"Rebus?" she said shakily.

There was no reply. He wasn't where he'd been.

But something else was with her.

She had no doubt about it. Someone else was in the decaying little hut. It was seated in a corner, barely more than a shadow.

Fear constricted her throat, but she managed to croak out, "Dark Shield."

The shimmer of the spell across her body didn't comfort her at all. She stuck out her hand.

"Tell me why you're here or die," she said. Her voice sounded petrified even to her own ears.