“You’re going to accept that,” the small, and floating figure said.

“What the fuck are you?” Bo said, and jerked away from it. The goblin glanced at Bo, and then at the tiny floating figure, and then zoned out, not quite seeing the problem. That had been the creature the goblin saw when it spawned.

The figure materialized shortly after the window appeared. It looked much like a teddy bear, except it was pink, and had the head of a sheep. Lips curved upwards and eyes filled with some sort of taboo information, the smug expression stared right at Bo as it floated from one side of the window to the other.

“I’m your streamer.”

The figure spoke quickly, as if it had downed ten energy drinks.

“What?”

“Oh dear lord. Listen here… Bo, every ten or so humans are assigned a streamer. That’s me. I’m the one responsible for providing commentary and cutting coverage between the most interesting moments to gain viewers, and hopefully subscriptions and donations.”

“People can see this?” Bo asked with a confused expression.

“No, this is exposition. Nobody wants to see that. Currently the stream is showing a girl named Kayla who’s already managed to kill an ogre. We’ve got three viewers. Isn’t that insane? I’m still new to this. The most popular streamer is sitting on twenty billion viewers. He’s talking about.” Its eyes seemed to zone out. “The dangers further down in the maze. Jeez. There’s a lot of shit ahead of you, that’s for sure.”

“Twenty billion? There’s twenty billion people in the universe?”

“Many more than that, and not just people, other life forms too. Anyhow that’s not important. What’s important is that you accept and become a tamer.”

“Why?” Bo asked.

A part of him couldn’t believe that he was taking this thing seriously. Usually, or rather for almost his entire life, if anything even remotely similar to this happened, he’d either be sure that he was in a dream or that somebody had slipped something into his drink, but now he was simply going with it. If somebody told him the moon was made out of cheese at this moment, he might have believed it.

“Because pet’s are adorable.”

“That’s true,” the goblin added.

"Since when could you speak normally?" Bo said.

"I've always been able to speak normally," the goblin said.

Zion coughed.

“You’ll get viewers who are interested in that. And it’ll be very dramatic when they die, so people are going to spread that, and the people who are interested in progression are also going to tone in to see your pets grow.”

“What do I care if I get viewers?” Bo said, not liking the narrative the little creature spoke with. “And what’s your name?”

“Zion. And the more viewers you get, the higher the odds you survive. The maze, originally your Earth, is predominantly a natural structure. Essentially, from what I know, they put a maze crystal into your planet's core and let it grow for 3000 years without disturbing it in any way. The structure around you is what you see. All of this is real."

“Now we could script it,” Zion added. “Would be a lot cheaper that way, and most shows do that, but there’s something about it being natural. When things are truly random, and you let things play out the way they naturally would, things get interesting real quick. Anyhow back to the point.”

“Apart from it being natural structure, there’s also the streaming side. My point boils down to this, if you earn the company much money, they’re going to be more lenient. Mistakes that might have killed you will only result in a temporary set-back.”

“Isn’t that the opposite to it being natural?” Bo said.

“Think of it like this. In photography, you want a nice picture, but you also want to brush it up a little bit. I’m capable of brushing it up a little bit with some abilities, nothing major, but the admins, now they’re capable of much, much, greater feats.”

“So…”

“Fuck one of my viewers left. Stream’s getting boring, okay I got to get back to narrating, you on the other hand need to make a decision. I’m telling you to pick tamer and make this goblin your pet, but you could always go and die. That’d be interesting in its own right.“

Zion disappeared.

“I will not become a pet,” the goblin huffed and crossed its arms.

“Right,” Bo said, feeling that he was walking on ice.

What was a class and what were the implications of accepting Tamer? The last time he’d heard the word was when a co-worker brought up socioeconomic classes, but he had a feeling it was hinting at something else here. He didn’t think [Tamer] was a certain economic class.

The word was probably used in the way RPG games used it. He hadn’t played any of them in a long time, work taking all of his time, but back when he was a child he’d play them from time to time.

There a class came with certain abilities and affinities. It decided how you’d have to go about the rest of the game. A warrior would be able to deal with things upfront, bulldozing their way through the masses, whilst a ranger would need to be more strategic. Different skills and abilities would be learnt to supplement their respective strategy.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

A class like [Tamer] on the other hand, probably didn’t have many combative abilities. If he had to take a guess, it would have many skills to do with taming other creatures. That’s what he’d become good at and he’d need to rely on them to do the fighting and protect him.

It was a viable strategy. He’d reliant on his pets that was for sure. If they messed up, there was nothing he could do. Picking this class essentially meant taking a part of the agency he had and giving it over to something else. He wouldn’t be able to micro-manage all of their movements in a fight, although he would be able to train them before hand.

When he thought of the possibilities, he decided. He’d be able to make himself an army, get some sort of pet that was strong and big, another that was fast, one that could tend to wounds, and maybe some sort of magical pet. It would be absolutely terrifying for anything or body to have to face off against him.

He clicked yes.

You have gained the class [Tamer]

The perk [Beast Evolution] gained. Your tamed are capable of evolution once they’ve reached a high enough level.

The perk [Tame Speak] gained. Capable of communicating simple thoughts to tamed.

The skill [Tame] gained. Once a maze spawn has been beat near death or won over, tame can be used. Maze spawn must be the sam

Five points have been added to Charisma.

The command status has been unlocked.

Many different windows popped up at once, fillin g up ihs sight. Bo went through them one by one. He gained multiple perks and skills. They seemed to be mainly oriented around the creature’s he’d tamed. What taming a creature meant, he wasn’t too sure, but he assumed it meant some type of control over them.

It also seemed there was some sort of stat system. Even though five points had been added into his charisma, he wasn’t sure what that meant. He didn’t feel any more confident or think of any pretty ways to speak. And he didn’t think he looked any different when he massaged his face.

“Status,” he said, wanting to see his status.

Bo Nylu

Race/Species: [Human]

Level: 1

Class: [Tamer]

Stats:

Unassigned points: 0

Strength: 2

Agility: 2

Stamina: 4

Toughness: 2

Intelligence: 3

Charisma: 9

Skill: [Tame lvl 1]

Perks: [Tame Speak], [Beast Evolution]

Bo found it strange to see his own stats written down like this. His strength reduced to a single number. There was so much more to it, different parts of his body with different amounts of strength, and also, in a life-threatening positions his strength would certainly increase.

Was it really possible to put a number on that?

Apparently.

“Goblin,” Bo said. “[Tame]”

[Tame] failed.

The goblin jerked its head towards Bo, squeezing its eyes. A window had popped up informing it of the attempted taming. Bo kept face in a natural expression.

“What did you do?” The goblin asked.

“I tried to tame you.”

“Tame?” The goblin spat. “Me? I am not to be tamed. I am too proud to be a pet.”

“Huh,” Bo said. “Well you were following me a few moments ago.”

“Foolish human. Many moments have passed whilst we sit, and I only followed you because of those frogmen were there.”

“Well then,” Bo said and stood up. “It was good chatting with you. I’ve got to go figure this out.”

“Wait,” the goblin said. “Are you just going to go there, alone?”

“That seems to be the plan.”

“But aren’t you afraid there might be monsters?”

“Of course there’s going to be monsters. I wonder if I can tame any of them:”

“I don’t want to die,” the goblin said. “I want to eat, but I don’t want to die.”

“Hmm,” Bo said. “Become my empl- become a member of my party. I’ll give you the party, you give me the employee.”

“Okay but not pet.”

“Just because I tame you doesn’t mean you’re my pet. It just means you let me be the leader. And you get cool perks like evolving and I think we can speak through thoughts.”

“Evolving!?” The goblin said. “I can become an orc? I can become large? Yes!”

“Right then. [Tame]”

[Tame] succeeded. You can access the goblin’s status. Due to being recently tamed, the goblin gained five unassigned points. .

“RIght,” Bo said. “I need a name for you. Goblin won’t work.”

“Big.”

“You want to be called Big? But you’re so small.”

“I will become big.”

“Okay, you're Big. I’m Bo. Let’s enter the maze. I’m getting nervous from wasting so much time.”