Pan

“So, wat’s your name?” I ask our little stray not wanting her to know that I already knew all the pertinent information about her including her three sizes. “My name is Antonia.” She replied probably not even remembering that I’ve worked with her for some time now, or that’s what I thought until she said “I know who you are. Everybody at work talks about Pan the VIRGIN.”  Oh, god why did she have to say that?

I really wish she hadn’t said that about me. It’s embarrassing to hear that all the women at work talk about me that way. Not even paying attention to what was said Rose explains everything that’s going on to Antonia, as we approach the next marker location I suggest that we leave any further explanations until we get to where I work. At each location, we find a pair of the Knight Squirrels that we must fight. At around the fourth or fifth location I decide to start experimenting with learning the attack patterns of the squirrels since I seem to be the only one taking hits from the damned things, plus since Rose has already leveled past me It’s as good a time as any for me to see just what I can do to even the playing field a bit.

After the eighth or ninth fight with them I start to notice a small experience bar growing in my HUD. After the tenth fight Rose starts to yell at me telling me to just fight them rather than dance around them like some kind of pansy. God this woman irritates me to no end. Fine. Killing all the squirrels we find on our way to my work, we arrive at the Parking lot of the building only to see another sixty of the Knight Squirrels and another thirty critters that we’d never seen before. “So, is there some kind of way to separate these things so we don’t wind up in some kind of mass melee?” I ask Rose since she seems to be our resident expert on everything that’s happening to the world now. “Sure, there is, but I have a question for you before we start this shindig. Have you upgraded your stats yet?” she asks me.

Ummm, we can upgrade stats? I think to myself. “Just a moment.” I say to her since once again she has left vital information out of any kind of conversation we have had. Going into my menu I see an option for character upgrades. “Am I supposed to have thirty-eight stat points?” I ask her since all this crap is new to me still. “No.” she replies in a very growly fashion. So taking that as my que to keep my mouth shut I spend three points into each stat except for strength agility and vitality. Those I put five points into.

After I do that I finally look up at the sign of the building I had worked at for years. Seeing the sign my jaw drops again as the sign had changed to say “Carlisle’s Wonderful Goods”. Looking higher to roll my eyes at the heavens I notice something that made me cringe. On top of the building is another squirrel. THIS ONE is the size of a mac truck, and it’s looking right at us.

                “Ok, Rose I have to ask you something rather important. Why have all the enemies that We’ve fought so far been squirrels?”  I say to her rather bemused at this point since I had seen a lot more impressive creatures come out of the mass of monsters that appeared this morning on the news. “Well, it’s because this city is so large it’s become a kind of beginner’s dungeon. So, what’s the most populous creature in a city? Rodents have the largest population in any city, and since we haven’t gone underground at all since this started all we’ve seen are squirrels. If we’d gone into the sewers we would have run into rats rather than squirrels.” She replies to me as if it had been an obvious answer. “So, why squirrels then? Wouldn’t rabbits have had the same kind of population?” I ask her not really getting it.

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                “Rabbits would have the same population, but since we haven’t entered into any of the park districts then all we’ve gotten are squirrels who have more of a tendency of going everywhere than rabbits do.” Rose said. “Hey, you guys promised that you’d give more of an explanation when we got here. I’m waiting!” Antonia said to us breaking into the explanation that Rose was giving me.

                “Let’s wait until we’re inside to talk about that.” I said to Antonia knowing that it was probably better to explain once than repeatedly. Muttering under my breath I say “Maybe I can escape from Mama Sue in the resulting uproar.” Having had some reservations come to mind once I saw the quest rewards screen that had appeared this morning. Looking at Rose I ask her to start pulling the enemies to us to which she replied “It’s called kiting an opponent.”

                Now she starts giving out things I haven’t asked for. “Ok, how many can you kite to us without us being overwhelmed?” I ask her knowing that this would be important to our survival. “Two or three should be plenty to worry about for now.” She says to me as she starts to head for the enemies. “Hey make sure that when you get to the new ones that you only bring one back with you so we can see what they can do!” I yell out quickly before she can get too far from me the answer that I receive back from her is less than polite as far as gestures go.

                She reaches the first group waiting for a second for one of them to notice her before starting on her way back to the group that we’re leading. I move slightly away from them so that there would be less of a chance that they would be brought into the fight that was about to happen. Getting to within ten feet of me I rush past Rose so that I can get the first hit off the pair that Rose had managed to bring back towards me knocking the first one to the ground and heading towards the second so that Rose wouldn’t be attacked while she was dealing with the first one I hit.

                Managing to hit the second one as easily as the first one I’d knocked down I pass a quick look back at her to make sure she would be able to take care of it before resuming the fight in front of me. The Knight Squirrel that I had just managed to hit was getting back to its feet before I brought the Khopesh down on its neck severing the head from it. Up until this point every time we had managed to kill one of these things they had disappeared immediately leaving not even a speck of blood behind as evidence of its grisly demise; This one however not only stayed where I had killed it but the head landed a few feet away giving a slight wobbly spin to it before coming to a stop. Looking back at Rose I see her finish her fight only to see a bloody carcass remaining where she had been fighting her own monster.

                Jaw dropping for the third time today I’m about to ask her what the hell is going on when I feel something ram me in the back. Trying to turn swiftly to deal with my attacker I see Rose rush past me pinning it down with a knife before slicing into its neck leaving a horrid gash there. Breathing harshly, it takes a moment for me to ask what’s going on with the corpses that we now have around us. “When these things first appeared, they were more like balloons that would pop when we defeated them. Now that some time has passed they’re more real than they were when first coming into existence. Think about it this way when we first had to deal with them they were more spirit than body though they had a sort of outer shell for us to fight. Now though they have taken on a more corporeal form than before so not only can we get money, items and experience from them, we can also get things like meat and potion ingredients from them.”