Name: Natasha

Race: Mandrill lvl 4

XP: 870

Size: 70

Type: Beast

Faction: Unaligned

Armor: 0

HP: 24

Strength: 5/Speed: 8/Endurance: 5/Magic: 2/Plasticity: 1/Luck 6

Senses: Vision 3, hearing 3, smell 2, taste 1, touch 2

Abilities: Balance 2, omnivorous 1, aposematism 1, innate magic 2

Skills: Bite 1, strike 2, grapple 2, throw 1, climb 1, sneak 2, hide 1, dash 1

Spells: Bluster 4, windfury 1

I sat on the branch, watching the other monkeys calm down, slowly starting to descend back to the ground. I decided to stay up in the branches, watching Boris eat. One question having come to mind, and that was in looking at the many cuts and scratches across his body, how was Boris going to heal from this? After all, I assume he doesn’t know about leveling up, and those injuries look pretty bad, especially his leg. There’s one point where I thought it would be torn off. Though Boris didn’t seem all too bothered by the injuries. At least not compared to how I would have taken it.

Boris was content at just eating his meal and bothering nobody, while the other monkeys gave him a wide breadth and returned to their little pockets of three or four, but avoiding the gore left behind by the cats, which was understandable. It was hard to look at even from this distance. How are they going to deal with that? Just wait for something to come along and eat it, or are they going to… pick up the pieces? I don’t imagine monkeys bury their dead, and from the look at it, they weren’t going anywhere near the bodies.

I glanced at one gory scene a bit too long, feeling a bit of acid bubbling at the back of my throat and swallowing roughly. Looking away, I took a deep breath in, only just realizing how hard my heart was still beating. Now I remember why I’d come back, I was going to try and wind down. An irony not lost on me, but now this wasn’t the best place to do that. At least not until everything is cleaned up. No rest for the wicked, as Isaiah would say. So then, what’s the next thing on the agenda?

I suppose I should still be trying to level up, but the question really is more in the terms of long term goals. What should I really be striving for? I guess I’ve got the base level of my hierarchy of needs sorted for now, oddly enough. I forget how it was exactly. Physiology was first, but I don’t remember the rest of the pyramid after that. It was easy to talk about this stuff when you could just look it up on the internet and have the chart in front of you. Man, not having access to the internet is going to suck long term. All the random info you just have at your fingertips would be really useful right now. Like how to build a lean-to. I’ve seen people do it before on survival shows and camping videos, but doing it from memory? Yeah, not gonna happen.

Focus, stay on topic. Long term goals. What do I actually want to be aiming for? I suppose I would like to just not have to worry about dying, but that’s a pretty low bar all things considered. I could say that I would like to go home, but assuming that’s not an option. So what is the best possible life for a monkey in a fantasy world? I suppose becoming basically as human as possible again would be good, but considering my feet have thumbs and I’m as tall as a dog, that’s not exactly feasible. I can however alter my biology to some degree, so that’s something at least.

Maybe I should try and think of this more like a game. If you’re playing an rpg, what is the end goal? Well, besides beating the bad guy and saving the world. The goal usually would be to progress through each area, getting stronger, gaining resources to try and reach the end of the story… but in this case the story is my life, so reaching the end isn’t exactly something I’m in a hurry for. Maybe instead this is more of an MMO? In which case the point would be to do dungeons, and fight progressively stronger bosses until you get to the point where you need small armies to take on raid bosses the size of buildings. Wait… I am on the monster side though, not the player side. So maybe I could become a raid boss instead? That would be cool in theory, but a monkey raid boss does seem kind of silly.

Maybe I just need more info on the world before I make a decision. I should really be working on figuring out where the heck I am beyond just “a jungle”. All of which really just points me to wards going to that human town off in the distance, which will require that I level up a bit more. No more fancy plans or making traps. I’m just going to find something weaker than me that won’t injure me too much, and stick it with the knife. Probably a bug, cause I don’t feel bad about killing those… not a centipede though.

Turning away from the clearing, I look back at the other monkeys. I am glad actually that I didn't become a lizard or something. Having some others around for something that could loosely constitute a family was comforting at least. I had a place to sleep last night when I was injured, and I do not take that for granted. Still, I wish I could relate to them a bit more, or try to communicate something other than a scream. I shook my head. No sense in thinking about that right now. Think about the task at hand, hunting.

I hopped back out onto a branch, more than a little happy about my newfound sneaking speed. Before it took a long time before I could get out of earshot of the other monkeys, but now it just took minutes. And I could get right into stalking about for some giant bugs. Which didn’t take all too long to find. It seems that both birds and bugs are the most common animals in this area, though the birds don’t really seem like monster birds. Then again, I don’t really seem like a monster monkey either until I open my mouth. Regardless, I’m hunting bugs, not birds.

The most common sizable bugs I’m finding are those flat beetles, something that looks like a cricket but instead of black it was the color of sand, and the last one was the big bees, now that I know to look for them I see their hives are just really high up in the branches. The easiest to deal with is probably the beetles. I don’t feel like chasing crickets or swatting bees. The beetles were a bit hard to spot when they weren’t moving, their shells tended to blend in with rocks, but that meant I at least knew where to look.

I spotted one, circling around the tree to get onto a branch overhead. My game plan was to try and use windfury, jump off the branch and plunge the knife right into its back. Simple and efficient. If it’s still alive, just grab on and try to stab at its soft bits. Easy as breakfast… In theory. So I lined myself up above, took in a deep breath, and dropped. I was maybe fifteen feet up, breathed a sharp exhale and my knife was surrounded by a whipping wind. The knife thrust down, and landed on the beetle’s back. I felt the impact of the tooth against shell and it sent a shock up my arm. I landed harshly, unlike before when the lizard had broken my fall, I may as well have landed on brick.

-4 hp

My feet hit the ground and I wondered if I’d sprained my wrist. My whole arm went stiff as I tightened up, looking to the impact point and seeing the knife had left a groove on the outside of the shell, but all the blood I was seeing was from my own hand. I’d managed to cut myself in trying to punch through the shell. Figures. Still, I followed my initial plan, my other hand clamping onto the edge of the shell as the legs started flailing, lifting itself up and me with it. I naturally took the knife and started to wedge it between the body segments. This was much harder with my hand cut like it was, digging into my fingers and palm as I hammered it in.

-1 hp

The beetle started running forward, trying to flee and dragging my legs across the ground and I clung to the top of the shell. The knife sunk in an inch deeper and I tried to dig in my heels to slow its run, but the resistance as well as my newfound strength and a bit of leverage picked up the front half of the beetle off the ground. I was not expecting this, and was off balanced, now my entire weight was resting on the knife. It sunk in deeper, both to the beetle as well as my hand. I grit my teeth, wrenching both hands in different directions until I heard a snap.

-2 hp

40 XP

The beetle fell forwards as the part of its shell was peeled off of its body, a viscous clear liquid spraying out at the division. I pulled my hand back, and dropped the knife, falling back onto my butt. The ache in my hand stung but at least it had worked. I looked at my hand to assess the damage done, and saw exactly why I’d dropped the knife. My pinky finger was missing. A shiver ran up my spine at seeing my hand with one less finger. The palm and remaining three fingers all had a deep gash through them, which now that I was aware of, were now throbbing in pain.

So, the dive bomb was a mistake, cause now I was going to have to waste my level up on healing seven damage so that I can get my fingers back. A very stupid mistake, but at the very least I’ve learned something important. Do not risk injuring my hands. However hard I hit the enemy is gonna hit me too, so only hit hard on soft spots. Plus 40 xp leaves me with just enough xp to make it to level 6. So I still have one full heal in the bank.

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-1 hp

What? I looked down at my hand where my pinky was missing and watched as the blood sprayed from the vein. My eyes widened a bit in surprise. So I learned two things. One, don’t hurt yourself, and two bleeding is a thing, and it does drain your hp. Not good news at all. Still, it means that if in the future I get hit badly I will need to bandage my wounds, something to add to the list of things to keep on hand. At least it’s not draining fast. It hasn’t ticked damage a second time yet. Still, no need to tempt fate, I’ll hit that level up button.

As soon as I pressed it, I looked down at my hand and watched as the finger didn’t re-grow so much as it simply faded back into existence. I blinked my eyes, shaking my head slightly as I watched the semi-transparent digit gradually grow solid over the course of maybe three seconds maximum. I didn’t even have a chance to check if it was actually solid or not, I was too surprised. Though as soon as it was over I instinctively rubbed my thumb across it, and it felt good as new. Maybe this stupid mistake wasn’t so bad. I did learn something new, at the cost of a full heal unfortunately, but still. And hey guess I’m level five now.

I checked my page to see all the similar notifications to last time, but this time I wasn’t sure what all I was going to do. I hadn’t given it much thought yet, as I didn’t expect to be leveling up for quite a while. I thought about what stats I might be needing soon and really, if I’m going to be sneaking, speed is more important than anything, and it is my highest stat anyways. So bringing speed to 9 first before anything else.

Next is the abilities. I could upgrade innate magic again, but I don’t want to get a new spell before I really know how to use the ones I have, and besides, I can think about upgrading my other senses too, or upgrade my balance again. Or I could find out what happens if you upgrade omnivorous. After all that just determines what you can eat. Would upgrading it mean I get more from eating, or would it make me like a goat that can just eat nearly anything? It was worth a try at least, so I selected it. Though as I did, nothing seemed to change really. At least not as I could tell. I’m sure it did something, but I’m not sure exactly what. It could have been either interpretation and I wouldn’t really know.

For skills, this was straightforward. I was upgrading sneak to 3, there was no other option that would have been anywhere near as useful right now, and as for the new skill, I could finally grab the last one I’d pegged from the list on my first day. Block. Finally I had what felt like the most basic skill set I needed. Not that I’d be fantastic, but I can move on to another set of skills to get started on at least, and now I have a way to actually reduce damage.

Lastly the point in spells, I put a fifth point into bluster, getting it up to level 5. Though as I did, the spell changed from level 4 to level 5 MAX. Max meant I couldn’t upgrade it any further right? Well, that’s not great. Bluster was a pretty good spell. Does that mean all abilities can only reach a maximum of level 5? If so that’s really not great considering the gap in difference between each of these levels was noticeable but in no way massive. There has to be some way higher level people get better abilities, right? I select the spell again to see if there’s any info on it now that it’s maxed out.

Bluster 5: A basic spell, casting a short burst of wind that can knock the target away.

MAX [You cannot progress any abilities, skills or spells past 5 until your next evolution]

Evolution? Well that raises more questions than it answers. When and how do I evolve? What will I evolve into? Wait, is Boris an evolved monkey? If so, does that mean I’ll turn into a bigger monkey like he is? I don’t really want to look like Boris. He’s like a tiny bulldozer with a beard. Though, he does look pretty powerful, so maybe I’ll get some extra bonuses from evolution. Not really worth worrying about right now, though. That’s more of a ‘cross that bridge when we come to it” kind of problem.

Regardless, now I’m level 5, and with my extra point in sneak I feel at least somewhat confident to go try and sneak into humanville. All I really have to do is not get injured again in the meantime… and obviously not get caught once I get there. That would be bad. Still, I test out my new stealth, and I can basically move at full walking speed and be moderately quiet, but once I try to actually slow down and sneak around, it is remarkably effective. I basically don’t make a noise any more. Like a cat. Actually, it would make sense that a cat probably starts with a stealth of 3 or 4. Not gonna lie, it feels a lot nicer than sneaking before, worried about stepping on a leaf or branch. Now I basically avoid them without even thinking, or if I slow down it almost doesn’t matter if I step on them or not.

I sped back up and started straight for the direction of the town, though at this point in the day I could see the sun rays angling further and further. It must be getting into the evening. It didn’t feel like that much time had passed, but I’d been fairly busy all day after all. Woke up, practiced bluster, explored the cave, explored the woods, made a net, and fought a horde of rats and a monster centipede. I’ve been pretty busy all day. I hopped from tree to tree, and somewhere around twenty minutes later I could see the edge of the woods. The yellow leaves mark the edge of the woods with a flaxen border across the ground and open out into a bright green field dotted with bright white flowers.

I eventually came to the last of the trees, looking out at the town in the distance, maybe three hundred hundred yards or so of open grass before what looked like a small stone wall about hip high for a human, then another fifty or so feet before a larger wooden wall maybe ten feet up. The houses I could only sort of see from here, but they had what looked like thatched roofs and wood paneled walls. Not that much of a surprise for a medieval world, but it had a different shaped roof than the typical medieval European buildings, and lacked those signature white squares on the walls. There was a gap in the stone wall where a road was, but no way I was using the road, and the wooden wall had a pretty wide looking gate on it that was still open.

I stepped out of the woods, and onto the border of fallen leaves. It felt weird being out in the open again. My first time being out of the jungle since coming here. I felt very exposed. It was odd. I sort of felt safer in the dangerous jungle filled with monsters that wanted to eat me than I did stepping out in the open with nowhere to hide. I shook my head, dismissing the creeping anxiety and pushing forward out into the verdant grassland.

Autumn Vale

The message popped up just like the one over the cave did. Which means this must be the name of the jungle. I stepped out past the last of the yellow leaves and into the grass, dropping my shoulders low to try and be sure I wasn’t spotted all the way up to the first wall. After all, even if they are on the lookout, I’m only one little monkey. So I made my way as quickly and quietly as possible to the wall through the tallest grass, which took a lot longer than I expected. Even with my increased sneaking speed, an empty open field feels even larger than it is. Though once at the stone wall, I climbed up to peek over. Now I could see the stumpy lookout towers to either side of the gate, both of which had at least one guard that I could see sitting there looking bored.

So, not going near the gate then, I circle around to the left, further away from the gate before hopping over the stone wall. Being a monkey has its perks and climbing was one of them. I slinked over to the base of the wall, grabbing a hold of it and scaled up in seconds. Once I made it to the top, I hopped over to the thatched roof and quickly ascended to the peak. Once on the roof I could see the full scope of the town. It very much resembled the starting zone in a game. A quiet sleepy village with not a lot going on. The only guards I could see were the ones at the gate. All the roads were dirt, and all of the buildings looked similarly made save a few in the distance. All thatched roofs and wood, some of the walls are also thatched on the smaller buildings. The taller one had bits of stone.

Those bigger buildings in the distance, I could tell were important. Probably something like a town hall, courthouse, or local lord’s mansion. Or whatever the world equivalent would be. All in all there looked like maybe a hundred houses at most. I could pretty much see the entire town from on top of the roof, though not very well. I very gingerly started to hop from one roof to the next, trying firstly to stay out of any sight of the roads, hoping to be able to get a sense of what this world was like. Maybe if I can find something like a guild, or a temple to some local god, or some sort of administrative body, that would shed some light on things. So I scanned over the horizon, and I did find a big stone building that looked like a church. It even has a cross on top.

Wait a second. A cross? Like, as in Christianity? Not even a similar looking symbol, no that looks like a genuine Christian church. Now I am very confused, but it does mean I now have a destination to aim for. I started trying to move from building to building, but they looked to be built in clusters around the roads. The cluster that I was on was surrounded on three sides by roads and the last one was the wall. I kind of wanted to call it a block, but that would imply some sort of planning. Regardless, it means I’d need to cross a road to get anywhere. The concept of which I was not too pleased with.

Coming to the peak of the last roof, there were a few people milling about on the road, walking or driving some wagon along. They had horses, and they looked like normal non-fantasy horses. The people were dressed pretty colorfully, there was a guy wearing a bright red coat, and a sash around his middle, another guy wearing what kind of looks like a flannel pattern from a distance, but it’s blue and white. A woman and her husband looks like, both wearing bright orange to match, that’s cute. I waited for a large wagon to roll past, quickly dropping down from the roof and darting beneath it. I used the cover of the cart to slip across the road unnoticed and up to the opposite building, climbing up to the roof in five seconds and scrambling up over the peak.

This journey was going to be anxiety-inducing to an extreme degree, but it looks like stealth 3 was good enough to slip by when nobody is really on the lookout for me. So as long as I’m careful, I can probably make it all the way around to that church in… maybe an hour. Which should be plenty before the sun goes down. Then after sundown with my black fur it will be smooth sailing trying to sneak my way out of town again. I hopped from rooftop to rooftop, doing my best not to disturb the occupants of the houses any more than a bird might. I came to a house that had a second story on it and without a thought jumped up onto the siding, one long arm swinging over and hoisting me onto the roof.

Now I had a much better view and could see the town from a finer angle. Now I could tell what a lot more of these buildings actually were besides just houses. I could see a small marketplace, a squat stone building with a thick chimney and open front, which if video games were in any way accurate I’d call that a blacksmith. There was one building that was pretty wide, two stories with lots of windows. Maybe a tavern or inn, or maybe just a wealthy person’s house for all I could guess. Oh! There was a windmill in the distance. I’m getting distracted again, I am supposed to be sneaking.

I vault over to the next building, this time the gap was pretty wide, a bit of an alleyway between the two but nothing too rough. The stretch of buildings until the next road ahead is pretty wide, so as long as I stay on the inside away from the roads I won't really need to worry about being spotted too much. I can even speed up a bit, so long as I don’t make any more noise than a flock of pigeons. Ahead I can see a tree in the green patch between buildings, like its own little safe haven, a little patch of total cover that I can sit down and catch my breath for more than half a second. I came to the edge of the roof, leaping to the nearest branch to swing myself up and landed on my feet. Though with the sound of the rustling branches came a voice from below, and I made eye contact with a woman sitting at the foot of the tree and reading.

Crap.