David cracked an eye open blearily as the sun began to set, beams of light tracing down through the familiar pines to shine into the meadow where he lay on a thick pile of grass. He didn’t want to wake up, but something smelled delicious. It was sweet and juicy, almost crisp-smelling in the cooling air. He licked his chops in a lazy, practically automatic way and yawned hugely, lips wrinkling back over his stubby muzzle and exposing a maw with wickedly large canines. His other eye was forced open despite its best efforts to stay closed and its treacherous inability to focus on anything as he stared stupidly out over the meadow, grass and tiny purple wildflowers gently waving in the wind. David made an irritated chittering sound as he took a long, long time to fully wake up and coherent thought to bubble up through the grogginess.

–Health 36/40–

–Stamina: 140/140–

There was a whole bunch of annoying text that kept bouncing up over his vision every time he directed his attention at it, and his inability to comprehend any of it finally pushed him over the edge into wakefulness.

Damn, what happened? I feel like I got set on fire and rolled down a hill. Uh…what the hell were we–

“LIZARD MONKEYS!” David squealed as he bounced aggressively to his feet, spinning in quick circles like an enraged chihuahua when he finally recalled the events before he blacked out. His throat felt a bit tender with every breath he took, cool air somehow irritating instead of soothing. David realized that he had been moved over next to the trunk of his fruit tree, the thick bark only a few feet away from where he’d been lying.

A long, almost crocodilian snout swung up from the long grass nearby, slitted reptilian eyes opening quickly as they focused on him. Claire rumbled loudly with relief and bounced to her feet, “Oh my god, David! You’re okay! I thought the nasty little goblin things got you, why did you do that?! That was so stupid!”

“I uh…” David replied smoothly as she stared down her long scaly snout at him expectantly. He fidgeted his wings awkwardly and picked at the grass under him with his claws, ears flat as he looked anywhere but back at Claire.

“I dunno, I got a lot of them didn’t I?”

“I mean…sorta. Why did you run off by yourself you big stupid idiot?!” Claire hissed in frustration as she clacked her jaws together with a sharp noise, “You just left me and flew away! I had to come and save you! They bit me on the backs of my legs and it hurt a lot, plus I kinda stepped on you…”

David hung his fuzzy head in shame as he turned to look out across the meadow again with more wakeful eyes. The grass had been torn up completely in a few spots, and even one of the boulders that stuck up through the grass had a blood smear on it. The bulk of the creatures still lay in a pile where he had attacked them, but it was very obvious that Claire had been the one to finish most of them off by the gaping wounds on the corpses. The wind blew down off the ridge they sat at the bottom of and carried a mixture of blood, fruit, and flowers, along with the oddly familiar smell of mown grass to his nose while Claire moved to sit awkwardly next to him. He sighed explosively and turned away from the carnage to look at her as she stared down at him in silence.

“Yeah…That was stupid. I thought I could get ‘em, but that was too close. I should have backed off when I realized I was out of Stamina.” David stretched his wings out as he spoke, the appendages still aching a bit from being mangled before his Health had regenerated.

“Well…just don’t do that again. You gave me a heart attack.” Claire grumbled as she finally looked away, “At least we got a bunch of good stuff from the quest, right?”

A bunch of good stuff? Why do I never check the notifications?

David quickly brought up the display and scanned line after line of text that he’d put off reading since the Encounter Quest had popped up. Screech and Echolocation had gained a few levels each, putting both of them near their first rank up. He mostly disregarded the rest of the text, though he noted that something called “Ability Backlash” had done a total of 16 damage to him throughout the fight, grimly noticing as well that his Health had dropped to 7 after he'd fallen unconscious. David remembered how painful the massive Screech had been and shuddered, resolving not to do that again unless he had to. Towards the bottom, he finally found what he’d been looking for.

–Encounter Quest: Break the Horde complete!–

–15/15 Beasts Defeated!–

–CalculatingParticipation…–

–9/15 Enemies Disabled - 5 Killing Blows.–

–Performance: Exceptional–

–SysAutoGen_EQReward…–

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

–Received: Selective Skill Token: D–

–SysAutoGen_BonusLoot…–

–Received 1pt!–

–Gained 130xp!–

–Level up! x2–

–Gained 3pts!–

“Reading?” Claire asked quietly as David’s jaw dropped open when he realized he’d gotten almost an entire level and some change from the single quest.

“Yeah, two levels and a skill token. I was close to leveling though, what did you get?”

“I got an Outstanding rating? I’m almost level 5, or did you mean the loot? I got another Mutagen, this one’s a D rank though.” Claire seemed suddenly a little proud of herself, “This one isn’t even mean! It’s a Swift Mutagen!”

“That’s awesome! Hey uh…”

Claire turned to look at him again while the orange light fading through the trees cast moving shadows across her scaly hide, “Yeah?”

“Thanks for saving me. I’m uh…that was dumb of me. Thank you.” David squeaked out regretfully, “I’m not sure it was worth it to pass out and almost die for a couple of levels and a skill.”

The enormous reptile cracked its jaws open and made a deep amused rumbling sound as Claire shook her head in agreement. David bumped her with his shoulder for a second before he bounced into the air and flapped hard, scooping the cooling dusk air under him as he fluttered up to his comfy branch and began to waddle his way over to a fruit before pausing suddenly. He flipped his head to look down at Claire as she continued to eye him with some amusement from where she watched below the tree.

“Hey, you want one of these?”

“Sure, I’ll try one!” Claire replied with cautious optimism as she tilted her head curiously to regard the fruits he was indicating.

David dropped a few of the larger ones down for her, careful not to bombard her directly as they bounced wetly off of the tree’s roots to roll away while she chased them down almost like a cat. He snagged one for himself and began to eat while he called up his Status for a quick once over.

User: David Fisher

Species: Duskling

Rank: F

Health 40/40

Stam 140/140 (++)

Level: 4

Exp: 014/125

Special: Echolocation F

Traits: 4/4

Nocturnal: +8% Damage, Stam Regen, Exp Gain at night.

Next Upgrade: E

Echolocation: Manipulate high-frequency sound waves to see with more than just your eyes. Next unlock: E

Flight: Allows for flight and gliding. Moderate Stamina drain. (stam+)

Next Upgrade: C

Small: Your form is small, weighing no more than 65lbs. (stam+)

Next Upgrade: D

Abilities: 2/4

Screech F (2pts): You emit a loud screech, damaging enemies around you. Low Stam consumption.

Next Upgrade: E

Glare F (2pts): You fix your target with a baleful gaze, inflicting Fear. Moderate Stam consumption.

Next Upgrade: E

Empty:

Empty:

Mutagens: 1/5

Unnerving Mutagen B: Your appearance is unnerving. May cause enemies to reconsider aggressing you.

Empty:

Empty:

Empty:

Empty:

Now that’s some progress. Guess this means we’ll have to go exploring if we want more quests…that’s so sad. I was starting to love this tree. I promise I’ll come back and visit!

A wet, unpleasant sound drew David’s attention away from the screen as he quickly looked away, only to see Claire with three of the large fruits crammed into her jaws and stuck to her long snaggly teeth. She shook her head back and forth several times in an attempt to dislodge them before angling her head upwards and rolling them to the back of her maw with an undignified horking sound. She froze mid-gulp as she saw him watching before snorting at him and simply swallowing down the fruits with one final bob of her head.

“...Soooo…wanna see what a ‘Selective Skill Token’ does?” David called down to her through the wide flat leaves of the tree with some amusement of his own this time.

She nodded enthusiastically, bits of fruit juice flying free of her jaws.

David grinned as he fluttered down onto the grass next to her while she shuffled a bit to make room for him. He paused expectantly for several moments as nothing happened.

“You don’t know how to use it, do you?”

“Not a clue.”