I didn’t wake up to a wolf eating me, but I did wake up to the sound of angry growling only a few feet away, as something massive with lots of sharp teeth, sniffed the air.

I jerked upright as it pawed at my shelter. I searched the floor for the sword, my brain instantly clearing of sleep from the shot of adrenaline. The summer squall had ended and now the forest was alive with critters looking for their next meal.

I just didn’t want that to be me! My fingers brushed against the pommel and I grabbed at the hilt, dragging the sword to me and placing it in between me and the beast.

That’s when I noticed Lexi was gone.

Oh crap. I hope she’s okay.

The little fae-dragon was fast and nimble. There was no way a predator as big as the one sniffing around my shelter could get her, but there were other animals out there. I didn’t know how well she would fare against a hawk or whatever the Mystaria equivalent was.

The wolf stuck its nose through the shelter and I had an idea. I grabbed one of the half burnt sticks from last night, scraped it in the ashes and shoved it in his nose.

He roared, flailing backward and tearing off the branches. One of the rocks from above fell and hit him in the head, knocking him senseless for a second.

Which made for the ideal time to strike! However, I was too stunned at the enormous size and appearance of the creature. It was one thing to have seen them in the game but... it wasn’t a wolf, but a Dire Wolf.They were the bane of the low level areas. It was death to face them without at least ten levels on your side... and I had one. Well, two if I counted the one I gave away to Lexi.

By the time my shock wore off, it had too. It pawed at the ground, snorting in anger as its dark, almost black eyes focused on me. It let out a low snarl as it moved slowly forward.

I pushed against the hollow to help gain my feet without taking my eyes off the critter. If I turned and ran, it would chase me down and eat me. When I did run, I had to make sure I could get away from it.

Which sounded easier said than done. It was huge, it’s shoulders came to my chest and its head was easily the size of my torso, with long, sharp teeth as long as my forearm.

“There, there, boy, no need to get hurt,” I said in as calming a voice as I could manage. I had the sword pointed at him like a spear, which I was really regretting not taking. The sword looked cool, but it wasn’t practical in any way for me.

I used my free hand to feel my way down the hollow, shuffling to my right to keep the wolf in front of me. I had to go slow, as not to fall.

“Nick, run,” Lexi said as she zipped above me from the hollow side of the log. She zapped the wolf in the face point blank with a dazzle.

I didn’t need to be told twice. I darted forward, then spun around and leaped up to the top of the overturned log and pulled myself up and over. I rolled several times, barely keeping the sword from stabbing myself. The wet, mossy ground came up in a rush and I face planted in it. I was up in a second, running as fast and hard as I could. My breaths came in ragged gulps as I jumped over fallen logs, ducked under branches, and leaped over shallow ponds that had formed in the storm.

It was all very dramatic, and absolutely worthless. The dire wolf was on me in twenty seconds flat, a massive paw hit my side, sending me spinning and the sword flying from my hand.

I scrambled around for it, hoping to find it before the wolf made it back around. His momentum carried him past me and he circled a big tree and then came to face me, advancing slowly with a low growl and what I swore was a smile in anticipation of his delicious breakfast.

I found a stick slightly bigger than my arm. Grabbing it with both hands, I leaped to my feet, raising it high in the air to make myself as big as possible.

“Well, come on then!” I screamed at him. He did, leaping through the air with his jaws open wide. Seven hundred pounds of wolf fell on me in two pieces, splattering me with gore. The severed head crashed into my chest, knocking me down. The body fell on my legs, its own pumping in the air as if it were having a dream as blood poured out of the gaping hole where its head had been mere seconds before. I hadn’t even heard the sound of an attack. One second I was about to die, the next... I wasn’t.

“You should never run from a wolf,” a shadowy figure said. Her voice was low and dangerous, but sultry at the same time. Here I was, covered in wolfs blood and clutching a stick like an old man warding off muggers. And she stood in the shadow of large pine tree, looking down at me.

“Nick! Nick!” Lexi called from behind the woman who saved me.

“Over here, Lexi. I’m okay,” I said loud enough that both my savior and the fae dragon could hear me.

My mysterious benefactor stepped out of the shadows and I had to bite my lip to keep from gasping. While she wasn’t overly tall, maybe five-eleven, she certainly seemed taller since I was on my butt, looking up at her.

Taught muscles rippled under green skin as she flipped her massive two-handed sword around to face Lexi as the little fae dragon came barreling through, hands alight with a ready dazzle.

“No, Lexi, she’s a friend, she save me from the wolf... I think. I didn’t actually see her attack, it all happened kind of fast.”

Lexi zoomed by her, circling the... woman? Several times before coming to land on my shoulder.

“Careful, Nick,” she whispered in my ear. “She’s an orc.”

That made sense. The muscular woman had broad shoulders, but also wide hips, and flat, pointed ears that extended out from her head, unlike Elven ears that went up. Though, to be honest, I had a hard time seeing her as an orc. She was dressed in patchwork leather armor, and not a lot at that. An animal hide wrap covered her hips and barely dropped below them. Her top was little more than a bra with extra leather reinforced over her heart, that did little to hide her full breasts. Her left shoulder, which I assumed was her offhand, had a steel pauldron with deadly looking spikes sticking out of it. Deerskin boots covered her legs up to just past her knees, wrapped in leather twine with soft white fur coming out the tops.

None of that surprised me the way her face did... it was soft, and round, with a slightly pointed chin and thick, full lips that looked like they belonged to a supermodel. Her large bright blue eyes examined me and I could see the intelligence behind them. Her nose was pierced out of the septum with a silver ring and her lower lip had a matching silver ring, piercing it to the side.

She spun her broad blade around and jammed it into the ground a half foot deep. Even so, the spartan pommel was eye level for her. The sheer strength she possessed to wield such a weapon boggled my mind.

“Nick,” Lexi whispered to get my attention. “You’re staring.”

“Right, oh gosh, I’m so sorry,” I said as I tried and failed to pull myself up. My foot was caught in something. The orc woman cocked her head to the side and gave me a slight smile, then she reached out. I grabbed her hand, and she lifted me up as easily as I would lift a child.

“Wow, you’re strong,” was all I could think of and as I said it I felt like an idiot.

“The gift of my father’s people,” she said in her low, but undeniably sexy voice.

“I’m Nick,” I said, holding out my hand, then I realized it was covered with dirt and blood. I tried rubbing it on my legs but they were also filthy. Finally, I did my best on my tunic before offering her my hand again.

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A small, amused smile spread those plump, cherry colored lips, and she took my hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Nick,” she said my name as if it were unfamiliar to her. Then I noticed the small nubs of tusks that pushed out of the corner of her mouth. One was barely even visible, and the other was slightly longer. They looked as if they were ground down... was she trying to hide she was an orc?

When she didn’t give me her name, I didn’t push it. If she was out here alone, there was probably a good reason for it. Orcs in the game weren’t the most trusting of people. They tended to travel with their tribes, not alone.

Then my stomach growled, reminding me how hungry I was. I looked down at the wolf. Predator meat tended to be tough and stringy, since it was full of fast-twitch muscles and not a lot of fat. Fat, is what made eating animals taste so delicious.

“Listen,” I said while looking at the wolf. “I can’t do anything with this, but you strike me as someone who knows her way around a corpse, and I really could use some help.”

I looked at her then. She was examining me. Her eyes narrowed as I spoke, as if she were looking for some hint of deception.

“I do not do groups,” she said. She hefted her sword out of the ground and swished it through the air until it rested on her back. The blade ran at an angle, with the hilt protruding out over her right shoulder. Still, there was no way she was tall enough to pull that sword out of a scabbard...

She turned to leave, and I spotted how she did it. What I saw as a bra was more of a harness. The backside had a stiff leather U-shaped hook that she rested the sword on. All she had to do was pull down on the hilt to kick the blade up. It wouldn’t work for a sharp blade though... however, her sword looked anything but sharp with its cracked and chipped blade. Then again, with a blade twice as wide as any two-handed sword I’d ever seen in a movie, it had to weigh close to fifteen pounds.

“Wait,” I said as she started to vanish into the forest. Even knowing she was right there, the green of her skin and the brown of her leather, combined with the light and shadows of the forest, helped her vanish. “Please, I’m trying to get to Griphondale and I could really use the help. Maybe there is something I can do for you in exchange?” I asked.

I had no idea what I could do for this incredibly capable woman who, quite honestly, could probably take an entire platoon of infantry in hand-to-hand. The rules of this fantasy world were different, and it was best I remembered that. On Earth, there was an upper limit of how strong someone could be, but here, I suspected no such limit existed.

She turned her shoulders, twisting her torso slightly to look at me over her shoulders. “What could you do for me?” she asked.

“I... I don’t know. But maybe if you stayed and sat for a while, we could talk? At the very least, being out here in the woods by yourself... it has to be lonely, right?”

It was a gamble. I really didn’t know what I had to offer her, but it was worth a shot. She scanned the surrounding area, turning almost in a complete circle. Her entire body was coiled anticipation and the way her muscles rippled under her skin would make a professional bodybuilder envious.

She nodded to the wolf. “Can you start a fire?”

I grinned. “Yes, yes, I can.”

Fifteen minutes later we’d hauled the dire wolf back to my campsite. From there, it was a simple matter to breathe new life into my little fire. While I worked on that, she pulled a wicked-looking knife with a large blade from her boot and began to eviscerate the remains of the wolf. Within minutes, she had removed all the soft tissue and internal organs, skinned him, and sliced the meat into strips. By the time my fire was ready, she’d used what little fat the wolf had to coat two rocks and place a pound of wolf meat strips on both. She then pushed the rocks close to the fire, letting the heat do the work.

To my complete surprise, she then dug out a small pouch she carried on her, uh, thong, I guess, and produced several pinches of salt she then sprinkled on the meat.

“Salted meat won’t make you sick,” she said, as if this was the only reason to do it.

“Tastes better, too,” I added, watching her in amazement. My perception of orcs was all wrong. I guess it was a good lesson for me. She was beautiful, smart, and thoughtful. All the things orcs weren’t supposed to be.

We sat in silence while the meat sizzled on the hot rocks. The smell wafted up, and my stomach growled in response. The orc woman raised a thin eyebrow at me.

“I haven’t eaten since yesterday after we had to retreat expeditiously from the Haunted Halls,” I said by way of explanation, gesturing at my stomach. To be honest, more than my stomach hurt. My shoulder ached from where the fade had clawed me and my side sent little bolts of pain into me every time I moved. The wolf hit me hard enough to bruise something, if not outright breaking a rib.

When I mention the Haunted Halls, her head jerked up. “You are trying for the Fade King?” she asked.

“Well, not really. I mean, yes, if we could,” I said, pointing at Lexi. “But we can’t. I’m not good enough with the sword to do much more than hack at things, and Lexi is a wonderful companion and excellent at crowd control, but she does no real damage.”

Lexi muttered something I didn’t catch before leaping off my shoulder and taking off for the sky in a buzz of displaced air.

“Fae dragons are very rare,” the orc said.

I nodded. “I gathered. Listen, you’re sitting here with me, soon to be sharing a meal... do you think you could tell me your name?” I asked.

She cocked her head to the side, closing her eyes as if she were in deep thought. After a long moment, she nodded. “Alissa,” she said sharply.

I smiled, leaning back against the tree, and tried to find a comfortable position. I situated myself so that I wasn’t aggravating one wound or another. I decided, since I knew her name, it wouldn’t be an invasion of privacy to peek at her stats. After all, if we were going to travel together, it would be helpful for me to know what she could do. I let my fingers rest on the gem in the hilt of my sword and her character sheet sprang to life in front of me.

“Wow,” I said reflexively.

“It is a common name among my mother's people. I don’t see what is so surprising about it.” she sounded hurt, almost embarrassed and I gathered it took a lot for the muscular woman to open up to people. I let the gem go to clear my vision.

“I’m sorry, Alissa... it wasn’t that at all. I can... see things about people. Sometimes I can see their strengths, and you are very, very strong,” I whispered.

She nodded. “Even for my father’s people I’m strong. Some say I’m blessed by Ozrimar himself. It’s—” she stopped speaking and looked sullenly at the fire.

I may not play a psychiatrist on TV, but even I can spot a hangup that big. I decided to let it rest. No need to push her since we just met. Heck, I might not even get to know her. She could leave at any minute.

She reached over and flipped the meat with her bare hands. Despite how hot the rocks were, it didn’t seem to phase her. Since she was happy, for the moment, to sit in silence, I rested my fingers on the gem and looked at her sheet again.

Alissa

[Unknown title, earn her trust to learn more]

Level 5 Barbarian (Berserker)

Race: Half-orc

Age: 23

Height: 5′11

Weight: 180lbs

Faction: None

Body: 25

Strength: 40

Agility: 18

Endurance: 30

Intuition: 22 (-10 in settlements larger than 30 people)

Willpower: 25

Charisma: 20

Movement Speed: 44 (Feet per second)

Skills:

Survival (woodland)

Hunting

Cooking

Stealth

Abilities:

Go Berserk! *

Cool Down: Number of minutes active times 10

Upon activation, all of Alissa’s physical stats are doubled, but her mental stats are halved. She can go berserk for up to ten minutes.

*Warning — while berserk Alissa feels no pain, no pity, no mercy. She will kill and kill until all her enemies are dead, or she is. While berserk, Alissa’s hit points are doubled and she cannot be knocked unconscious, but she can be killed.

Her skills and abilities were pretty amazing... and her stats blew me away. She was not only incredibly strong, but agile and tough. I could definitely see where having her along as an ally would be invaluable. However, that aside, the fact that she had a title that was hidden intrigued me.

Gain her trust?

I smiled. I felt like I had just received a quest. And maybe I had. Adora put in me in this part of the world. Maybe it wasn't a coincidence?

She pulled two of the strips of meat off the closest rock to her, stuck out her pink tongue to test them and when they passed muster she bit off a chunk.

I reached over and took one strip, juggling it between my hands to keep them from burning until I rested it on a patch of my tunic that wasn’t stained with blood. The smell of the cooked meat brought Lexi back into the improvised shelter. She landed on my leg with a thump and tore into the meat, regardless of the fact that it was too hot to eat.

“Hmm, delicious,” Lexi said while she stuffed her mouth. I pulled it apart, blowing on it to cool the food off before I could even hold it.

“Oh my god, you can cook!” How in the hell was a piece of wolf meat cooked on a rock, the greatest food I’d ever tasted?

“Among my people, cooking is a valuable and prized skill,” she said. Alissa had a large amount of sorrow in her, and whenever she said her people, it came out in her voice. I sensed, though, this wasn’t the time to push. Instead, we ate in silence, well except for the near moans of ecstasy from the damn good food.

Once it was done, I wiped my hands as best I could, picked up my sword, and stood up. “Alissa, Lexi and I are heading for Griffindale. I need healing and help if I’m going to clear the Haunted Halls. I think Griffindale is the place to get that help? I can’t pay you, but maybe just having some company along will make your journey less lonely. Would you come with me to the city? Once we’re there, you can go your own way, but I, for one would love it if you came with us...”

Alissa grunted, stood in one fluid motion without bracing herself against the ground or anything. She just extended her legs and up she went. “I will come with you, Nick Spencer. For now.”

She said nothing else, proceeding to gather up the rest of the meat and place it in the small pack she carried with her.

“Outstanding, and thank you,” I said. When she didn’t reply, I went about putting out the fire and making sure there was no chance of it starting a bigger fire. The sooner we could get to the city, the sooner I could get help. I wasn't about to tell the two girls, but my shoulder throbbed in time with my heartbeat.