Name: Natasha

Race: Mandrill lvl 6

XP: 10

Size: 70

Type: Beast

Faction: Unaligned

Armor: 0

HP: 36/36

Strength: 5/Speed: 10/Endurance: 5/Magic: 2/Plasticity: 1/Luck 6

Senses: Vision 3, hearing 4, smell 2, taste 1, touch 2

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

Skills: Bite 1, strike 2, grapple 2, throw 1, climb 2, sneak 3, hide 1, dash 1, dodge 1, block 1

Spells: Bluster 5 MAX, windfury 2

I woke up some indeterminable amount of time later, the night still well into the dark as my eyes opened, though I was fairly warm surprisingly. My eyes opened and I couldn’t really see anything more than five feet in front of me. The only light peeking in was from the stars overhead, but even those were blocked out by the trees. All I could really see though was a big pile of floof. All around me were a bunch of other monkeys. They must have seen me sleeping and just piled in around me. I raised up slowly, trying not to disturb any of the others sleeping around me, slipping one off of my back and climbing over another. As I maneuvered through the huddled mass of fur, and my eyes started to adjust to the dark, I did notice Boris was in the middle of his own huddle, but a fact that I was too tired to notice earlier, he was totally free of wounds, even if there was scarring. So he either leveled up, or I was right about there being another way to heal.

Once free however, I started to think, what was the agenda for today? Just more testing things out? I really should, considering I had just gained a bunch of stuff. I need the xp, and I need to figure out just how the heck this system actually works, cause so far I’m barely scraping along. Humans no doubt have all of this stuff figured out already, whereas I’m just starting from scratch. My only source of knowledge is trial and error. Like for example, there must be another way to get xp other than just killing things right? Otherwise how would there always be more creatures of different levels?

Regardless, I will need to be testing things. So, what’s on the list of things to test? My hearing, omnivore, blocking, climbing, and discern weakness. Blocking is on the backburner, because it requires me to get hit, but the rest seem fairly straight forwards. I raised my head up, closing my eyes to see if I could hear anything better than I had before, and oddly enough I couldn’t tell the difference at first, likely because I’d already acclimated to the difference, but eventually I realized that I could hear more than I thought I could. All the monkeys are sleeping, lightly breathing, and fidgeting around. The light breeze rustling through the trees, I can sort of even hear the frogs in the distance.

That is a decent improvement but I really need to pay attention to notice it. Hopefully once I get used to it I’ll notice things better. The whole reason I chose this one after all was because I didn’t want to be snuck up on, but hey I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth, Now that I think of it, that’s a really weird saying. Why would you look a horse in the mouth at all? Maybe that’s just one of those things people used to do before cars. Though that doesn’t explain the gift part. The Trojans really should have looked their gift horse in the mouth.

Anyway, onto the next thing, testing the new climbing, and omnivore, should be easy enough, just climb up to the tops of the trees and start picking a whole bunch of fruit. See if that does anything, and if not then… I guess I’ll need to eat some meat. Which I do not look forward to. I mean, I’m not a vegetarian or anything, but I used to eat my steak cooked medium, and now eating it raw is…yeah. Ironically I would have thought that killing the animal part would be harder, but so far I haven’t had any real issues. Mostly because everything I’ve killed has either been a bug or trying to kill me first.

I imagine it’ll probably be harder on me, emotionally if not physically. Though I remember reading somewhere that normally you don’t eat predators because something about getting your nutrition second or third hand. So it’s normally better to eat cows and deer instead of coyotes. Though I don’t know if that’s actually true or just a myth. Either way it would probably be better if I were to hunt the equivalent to a deer instead of just eating something that tried to eat me. Though I’m kind of getting ahead of myself. Right now I should be more focused on trying to gather up a lot of fruits and veggies and such to see if eating until I’m full actually does anything.

So, I waddled through the cluster of sleeping monkeys to get to the nearest tree, and hoisted myself up onto the lower branches, climbing out onto the edge of the clearing and scanned the branches slowly. I could barely see anything, but I could still make my way over to one branch and the next. These yellow leaf trees all grew kipples on them, but I wanted more of a variety than just that. So I gathered maybe ten or so, and trailed around the general area until I found a bit more variety.

That’s when I noticed a couple of others for the first time. There were these big old hefty nuts hanging from the base of the branches on one tree that looked sort of like a coconut tree but with long branches. They were not like walnuts cause they were more of an upside down heart shape and quite a bit bigger they almost filled my hands. Closer down to the ground I found some berries on a bush. They looked like a bundle of grapes but the size of peas. And once I was on the ground, I spotted something growing out of the ground. It kind of looked like horseradish, but a bunch of them were growing in a cluster so I figured I should probably try it.

Once I sorted everything into the pile the first thing I tried was the nut. I broke it open easily enough, just bashing it against a rock and the shell broke away, leaving two supposedly edible egg shaped kernels. I popped one in my mouth and it tasted okay, but a bit confusing. Kind of salty but savory? Kind of like soy sauce but solid or maybe dried mushrooms. It was good, but not something you could really binge eat. I will call them… heavy nuts. Because they’re pretty dense, and I’m not feeling creative.

Next were the berries. I pulled one from the bunch and bit into it. It popped like a little tomato but it tasted mildly sour in my mouth. Like those sour candies, but instead of having that white dust on the outside, it’s full of goop. These I could probably eat for hours if they didn’t make me sick. …Actually, now that I think about it, I really should have thought about poison. Any of these could be like nightshade for all I know. Well, suppose it’s too late to worry about that now. I’ll know if I get sick later at least. I’ll call these pickberries, 'cause they’re sour, like pickles.

On to the last one. The big horseradish looking thing. Now this I wasn’t particularly looking forward to, since I’ve had horseradish before, and if this was going to be anything like that, then I’d need to spend a whole meal trying to make this thing taste appetizing. I took out the knife… actually I should differentiate between the two since I have an actual knife now. I’ll say the tooth knife. I took out the tooth knife and cut off just a little bit of the plant, giving it a quick sniff, but I didn’t smell anything. Not sure if that is promising or concerning. I raised it up to my mouth, closed my eyes, and gave a very tentative bite. Nothing. It tasted almost like nothing, just faintly sweet. In fact both the taste and texture were familiar. It was like a water chestnut but in the shape of horseradish. Honestly it wasn’t bad at all. I like water chestnuts, but it was really confusing to bite what looks like a horseradish. Thus I will call them… the pond radish.

Now that I have some actual food for once, it’s making me want to get back into cooking. Or I should say cooking at all for the first time here. At least then meat wouldn’t be so bad if I could actually cook it. Though then again I don't know if I would get whatever benefits I would have from eating it raw. Assuming I get any at all. I’m getting ahead of myself. You know what I really want now? Rice. That would be great. Egg fried rice with soy sauce. Or maybe some chicken and dumplings. Oh, or crab legs. I really wish I had some advanced warning before coming here. I would have had one great big last meal. Now I don’t even know if crabs exist in this world, much less how to make them taste good. Either way, time to test my omnivore trait. See if just eating a bunch changes anything. First, I took the metal knife and picked my finger.

-1 hp

Good enough. Just need to figure out how exactly hp works. So I started filling my belly full for the first time in this new world. I tried to mix it up as I went, not binging on any one of them at a time. Though admittedly I had to take the berries slow. They were easily the most potent of the available foods. I am really lucky none of them turned out to be bad, since back home there were a lot of veggies that I could not bear to eat raw. Like imagine trying to eat raw garlic, or potato, or a straight celery stalk. I’m sure some people do, but… blech. Either way, after about ten minutes I couldn’t take another bite. In fact I probably overate a little bit considering I’m a monkey and probably have a smaller stomach than a human.

Though that said, no hp regeneration. Which makes me think my meat hypothesis was probably closer to being the correct one. Though why would that be an omnivore trait rather than a carnivore trait? Seems a bit odd if that is indeed the case. Unless eating veggies has a different benefit I’m not paying attention to. Either way, as nice as it is being full for once, I still have no clue how Boris managed to heal himself. I suppose I’m just going to have to get to hunting and see if it really is eating meat that’ll do it. Or if it’s finding something specific to eat, or not eating at all, but instead something entirely different that I haven’t even thought of.

After stuffing my face properly, I stood up, belly almost overfull as I felt heavy upon standing. I wanted to take some of this food with me, but all I had was this one little belt pouch on my hip, and not much is going to both fit inside and stay un-squished. So I decided instead to focus on my next little test, which was my climbing. I need to see how much it’s changed from yesterday when I was struggling to escape from Arargorn-ish. I turned to the nearest tree, intent on climbing it as quickly as physically possible, just to test if it was my speed that had changed or something else. I came to the bottom of the tree, set my internal timer and dashed straight up, zipping along the trunk up to the first branch. I did note a difference, but it wasn’t in speed, so much as ease. It was a lot easier to climb. I didn’t think it was hard in the first place, but now it was like climbing was nothing.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

That made me think that maybe it would have been easier to climb on those shingled roofs, which yes would have been nice, but wouldn’t have helped all too much in escaping. Part of me kind of felt like it was a waste of a point, but really, in the future I’m going to be doing something like climbing some sheer cliff and I’ll be thankful to have it. Just have to keep that delayed gratification in mind. That was how it turned out with the bluster after all. Though, not in the ideal way. Still, I’ll just chalk it up to an investment in the future.

For now, I should move on to testing out my discern weakness, which I want to test without risking getting killed again. Maybe go back into stealth and try going for more bugs, or something like that. I hopped off of my branch, grabbing onto the next one and swinging myself under it to head back into the clearing where all my fellow monkeys were. I looked at the little sleeping clusters and part of me couldn’t keep from smiling. Sleeping monkeys are just adorable. Though… now that I think of it, if I’m wanting to test out my discern weakness skill, and also wanting to learn how to heal, wouldn’t it make the most sense to just follow Boris around? After all, he already knows how to heal, judging by the scars. All I should have to do is sit back, watch his fight, and that should be good to test the new skill. Then after watch what he does to heal himself.

I nodded my head to affirm my own decision. Now I just have to wait for him to wake up. So what to do in the meantime? I suppose I could always just try and figure out another thing I had in mind. Fire. If I’m ever going to go into that dungeon again, I’ll need to be able to see. Now, I’ve seen lots of TV shows show people making fires before, but I don’t know if what they were showing was real or “movie magic” either. I could just try and test it at least. Give it a try and if it doesn’t work, then hey I’ll just try something else, or put it on the backburner. Though now I’m wondering if maybe fire magic might have been a good call. Bah! No sense in thinking like that. Wind has saved me several times already.

I shook my head, starting down towards the jungle floor, quickly gathering up sticks and dried leaves and the like gathering them all up into a bundle. Now I just have to… well… let me think. I grab one of the sturdier sticks and line it up with the flat part of another stick. Then I just have to do that little rotating thing with my hands. I tried to rub them together as quickly as I could, rubbing and rolling my hands back and forth like I was plotting something. It was a solid minute of this before my palms started to get sore and I didn’t see any signs of anything new happening, much less fire. So either there was a step I skipped, or that’s bunk.

The next one was to try a flint and steel. My new knife is steel, but I don’t exactly know what a flint looks like. As far as I know, a rock is a rock. I suppose I could just go around collecting rocks and rubbing the knife against it to see if it makes sparks after a few tries. May as well give it a try. After all, what else am I going to do for the next couple hours while waiting for the sun? I sighed, rolling up my metaphorical sleeves and started to look around the ground for stones. Which I will say was not anywhere near as easy as I thought. When it is dark, looking for anything specific is hard, especially when half your time is also spent looking for things that want to eat you.

I rooted through the grass, feeling around for rocks, and on more than one occasion had the rock scurry away from me, sending a shiver up my spine. Though eventually when I came back to the watering hole I did note there were a few stones laying around, mostly covered in moss and grass, but they were there. I just needed to not attract the attention of the frogs, which were sitting in the middle as usual. I crept up, grabbing at one stone and tugging on it, barely able to lift it. Too big. Then I spotted a few that were under the water. Perfectly clean stones, but also wet. I’d need to dry them off before I could even try to use them, but it was better than the ones covered in moss. I reached into the water, eyes glued to the frogs, which had yet to move. In fact the only time I’d seen one move was during my fight with them.

Still I gathered about five different colored stones and held them in one arm before scampering back away from the water, and behind a tree. I rubbed each of the stones against my fur to dry them off before taking them back to my pile of sticks. I took out the knife and the first stone, which was a whitish color. I gave it a few tries sliding the steel across the stone but nothing happened. I have no way of knowing if I’m just doing it wrong so I’ll just assume this one isn’t it. I grab the second one, a darker stone, smooth and round. With this one I tried it but really even if it was, it’s so round I probably couldn’t do it anyways. Third was more of a jagged rock, looking a bit glassy, dark brown with a tan streak though it. I struck it once and could smell it on the stone near immediately. It smelled like smoke. I gave it about five more tries, and on the fifth I saw a little spark.

Yes! This must be flint, or something like it at least. I struck it a few more times and the sparks hit the sticks but didn’t light. I suppose I’ll need a bit more dried leaves and things to catch fire first. So I spent a few minutes gathering up anything dry I could. Luckily it wasn’t super cold at night here. Otherwise this would be harder, also I have only a skirt and fur, so that would certainly not be good. I’d need to be like those Japanese monkeys that live in a hot spring. After a few more minutes I’d gathered up a decent pile of dried debris and tried striking it again. This time the sparks hit it, they still didn’t catch but I could see the burnt flecks on the leaves. A few more tries and I could see some smoke. I felt like a caveman discovering fire for myself for the first time. I started fanning at it with my hands to try and help it along, but it wasn’t quite enough. So a few more strikes, and eventually I got a steady stream of smoke.

I spared a glance around to make sure I wasn’t about to get snuck up on again, but it looked like it was clear, or at least seemed to be. I watched the fire grow and catch. I had the foresight to know not to set a fire anywhere that risked burning down the jungle, so I sat near the fire, enjoying its warmth, now wishing I had some marshmallows with me. Oh! This means if I do get any meat now that I can at least attempt to cook it. Good. I was dreading the idea of eating raw meat. I may still have to do it to test things, but after that it’ll all be steak and ribs and bacon… assuming I can figure out how to cook those. Couldn’t be that hard right?

Still, now that I have a fire, I need to figure out how to make a torch so I can actually take the fire with me. I have a general idea, but the main thing would be getting a big stick, finding something to wrap around the end and just soaking it in animal fat, which I can actually do now that I can make fire. Still, not sure what I’d wrap it in since I can’t exactly make cloth. I suppose I could use something’s fur, or a large enough leaf maybe? Something to think about later I suppose. I have a general idea, I will just need some practice.

Though, now I still have a lot of time before the sun rises, and the other monkeys wake up. What else do I even have to do while I wait… This is kind of the first time I’ve had any real down time actually. Feels simultaneously relaxing and like a bit of a waste. I don’t know what it is about being a monkey but I keep feeling like I should constantly be doing things. Well, I don’t know if that’s a monkey thing or a me thing to be honest. If I was back home and you gave me an opportunity to lay around and do nothing, I’d have jumped on it, but now I’m sort of fighting for my survival on an hourly basis. Though I don’t suppose it really matters.

I opened up my menu to look it over for a moment, sorting through my skills, abilities, stats. Maybe since I’m constantly letting my mind wander and getting me in trouble, now’s the perfect time to do just that without having to worry about dying. After all, normally when you have a game system people try and focus on a certain “build” they’re aiming for. So what sort of build is it that would even be available to me? Looking over my stats, my main thing is just speed, though my luck is abnormally high too. Maybe I should try to focus on that. Wait. Luck is a stat, meaning luck is a real thing in this world. Crap, all those years I spent saying that I don't believe in luck, and here it is just rolled out in front of me, but how can I make use of having a high luck stat? It’s not like I can challenge a frog to poker.

Maybe what I should do is think about things that would be chance based. Well, wait a minute. This highly depends on how luck even works. Like is there some weighted number generator that determines everything? Or just certain things? Or is it like a sliding scale of how luck can affect things. Thinking about it, if it works the way I think then luck would be extremely broken, so I doubt that is how it works, both because there’s clearly some kind of “balancing” going on, and because not everything alive has massive luck stats. I reach over and poke the luck stat to confirm my suspicions.

Luck: The talent to increase the likelihood to inflict status effects, increase the likelihood to resist a status effect, and increase the chance of gaining loot on kills.

Huh, so it’s not blanket luck. It’s based on statuses and loot. Though I haven’t actually received any loot from killing anything yet. Which could mean monsters don’t get loot or that I just haven’t gotten lucky. On the other hand the resisting and inflicting status could be interesting if I were to come across any poison or disease or things of that nature, seeing as how I have a naturally high luck, I could abuse that. Heck, with high speed and a poisoned knife, that could work out really well if I could build into that, but I would need to find some way to both gather and keep poisons on my person. Since I don’t exactly have a surplus of glass vials lying about.

I looked down at the fire, poking it slightly with a stick, entertaining myself with ideas of a swift and sneaky ninja monkey. Though in reality, the chances are that evolution would probably throw a monkey wrench (heh) into those plans. Which makes me wonder. If Boris is the next level in evolution for me, what sort of bonuses am I even going to get from that. He is quite a bit bigger than I am, so maybe more strength and endurance. Which isn’t bad at all, but wouldn’t exactly make me more of a sneaky ninja monkey. Looking at how he fought before, stealth is not Boris’ forte. Well I suppose it isn’t any of them but me, considering how much noise they were making during the fight.

I looked down at my bright red nose and shrugged slightly. I suppose mandrills aren’t exactly built for stealth, but hey I could always just go about breaking stereotypes. No one said you couldn’t have a strong rogue. Though that makes me wonder, if I evolve at level ten, presumably, then I will very likely evolve again. What would I even turn into beyond being a bigger monkey? Maybe I might eventually end up as some giant king kong monster. A queen kong if you will. Or maybe I’ll be something more along the lines of a Sun Wukong sort of thing. There’s no way to really even guess until we get there, which is unfortunate. Makes it way harder to plan around. If I were back home I’d definitely be looking up some sort of wiki on this.

Actually I just realized something. I slept as soon as I got home yesterday, which was right as the sun was going down. Assuming the sun went down at around seven-ish and I slept about eight hours, then it should have been like three AM when I woke up. I’m going to have to wait three hours in order to wait for the other monkeys to wake up. I was hoping to follow Boris around, but what could I do to fill two more hours? I mean, I could just lay down for another couple hours for a nap, but I really don’t feel all that sleepy, especially not after spending so much time trying to start a fire.

I could just try to spend some time-

Snap

My head whirled around at the sound, and the upgrade to my hearing did in fact help, as the source of the sound was still far away. I almost missed it because of the crackling of the flame, but looking into the dark, I really couldn’t see it. My eyes had adjusted to the light of the fire, and so all I could do was look into the dark and peer out looking for a shape. Eyes narrowed, I did spot it eventually thanks to the gleam the fire left in its eyes. Two of them, solid black spheres locked right onto me, sending a chill down my spine. A pair of fangs silently caressing one another as the long spindly legs silently crept forwards.

I hate spiders.