The humanoid cows were at least 300 yards away, tiny in the distance. Without my enhanced perception, they would have looked like formless lumps. Now I could see them clearly, but they were apparently too far for Identify to kick in.

“We could slip around them,” Ruby suggested, gesturing toward the distant valley floor.

I shook my head. “I can’t. I need the experience.”

“The we go hunt cows,” Steve said enthusiastically. “They’re probably magical cows, so it’ll be an exciting hunt.”

I liked the guy’s spirit. Ruby did not look as eager, but did not argue. Steve took the lead, slipping into the tall grasses and gliding forward in a crouch. He hadn’t said he had a stalking or stealth ability, but the experienced hunter moved like a ghost.

I followed as best I could, but I made noticeably more noise than him or Ruby, who followed me. Her stealth ability must have activated. I needed to get one of those.

We closed more than half the distance to the herd of cows and paused behind a rare bush that allowed us to stand tall and survey the herd. The cows were milling about, occasionally ripping a handful of grass to munch on. Most of them carried long spears with steel heads. The whole situation was so weird.

“I can hear them mooing,” Ruby said, coking her head to one side and brushing her long hair from her ear.

As soon as I focused on my hearing, I heard it too. A chorus of moos at different pitches and clearly from many different voices. That was weirder still. I’d seen cows on Earth and they all pretty much sounded alike. Not these.

Then I blinked in surprise as the moos became clear. “I can understand them.”

“You speak cow?” Ruby asked.

“Linguasight. I’ve used the Identify aspect of it exclusively so far. This is the translation function.”

“What are they saying?” Steve asked.

I concentrated and the various voices started clarifying. Not that it helped much. “They’re just babbling. I can hear snippets about grass and the ground and feeling hungry and something about a bull.”

That bit of conversation had been surprisingly explicit. I was not about to repeat some naughty cow fantasy.

Ruby chuckled softly.

“What?”

“Nothing,” she waved it away, still smiling. “Just thinking of a video game my bother showed me once.”

“You play a lot of games?”

Her expression turned into a glare. “I am not a gamer.”

I grinned. “You claim you’re not a nerd or a gamer, but you go to comicons and you make references to games while we’re on a death planet. Sounds pretty gamey nerdy to me.”

“I still have that hunting knife.”

“Fine. Can’t take a joke.”

“Don’t call me a nerd.”

“Okay, okay.”

What was it with her and nerds? There had to be a great story there.

“Are you a gamer?” she asked, her tone still hard.

I shrugged. “Some. When I can find time.”

“So you’re not a hardcore gamer?”

When I shook my head, she relaxed. “Good. Those guys give me the creeps.”

Probably because she was beautiful and most hardcore gamers never left their moms’ basements. Seeing a pretty girl in the flesh must have challenged their social skills to the max.

I returned to studying the cows and trying to make anything useful out of their mindless conversation. They seemed as stupid as Earth cows, but they had to be more than that. They carried spears.

Identify triggered finally. “Soilstrider Cow. Common. Level 16. These territorial animals are fiercely protective of their domain. Like Celtic tribes of your home world, they’ll charge into battle, heedless of the odds. Earth elemental manipulation abilities.”

I scanned several of them, noting their levels ranged pretty widely from level 12 to 15. The earth elemental powers worried me, but otherwise their biggest threat was their sheer numbers. I felt confident in defeating 2 or even 3 of them if I could get close with Mirror cloak, but not 50.

“How many could you shoot?”

Steve didn’t hesitate. “If I start firing at about 100 yards, and if they run as fast as normal cows, I should be able to drop as many as 8 before they reached us, assuming arrows affect them like normal cows.”

That was really good. I hoped he was as good a shot as he believed, but that would still leave far too many magic cows to swarm us under. Their individual levels were not too high, but there were so many of them, together they still represented a major threat.

I glanced to Ruby and she shrugged. “I have no idea what the effective range of my darts are or how fast they work.”

I scowled. “Just running in firing will get us killed. We need another plan.”

We brainstormed a bit, but every idea crumbled under the simple math. We didn’t have enough people or enough offensive firepower to deal with 50 cows at once.

I scanned the field around them, looking for any other advantage. A flash of color caught my eye and I focused on a clump of trees on the far side of the cows, partway up one of the hills ringing the grassy valley.

Movement in the trees drew my gaze, but it was so far way, I couldn’t make out details. “There’s something in the trees on the far side.”

“I don’t see it,” Ruby said, shielding her eyes.

Steve nodded after a moment. “I see it, but can’t tell what it is.”

“More monsters?” Ruby asked.

I shrugged. “Maybe. I’d rather deal with one monster on the hill than get trampled by 50 cows. Let’s go check it out.”

Steve again took the lead and we circled wide around the cows. I didn’t know if their earth powers helped them feel movement, but they did not react to our presence. We crouched at the edge of the grasses and scanned the forest again.

I spotted the movement first. It wasn’t a monster, but a woman inching out onto a branch to study the field and the cows. I nudged the others and pointed, so relieved I nearly laughed out loud.

“Let’s go say hi.”

As soon as Ruby spotted the woman, she rose to her feet and started waving. I pulled her back down and hissed, “Careful! We don’t want to start a stampede right when we’ve found another team.”

“Sorry. I’m just so excited to find more survivors.”

She led the way at a crouching run out of the field, making for the trees where the woman crouched. The woman noticed us immediately, waved once, then scurried back to the trunk and slid down.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

By the time we reached the shelter of the trees, she had been joined by 3 men and another woman. One of the men, a tall, well-muscled, dark-haired fellow, stepped forward and smiled warmly.

“By Thor’s hammer, it’s good to meet another team.” He spoke with a slight German accent.

Ruby rushed forward with a joyous expression. “Tony Waldau! You’re alive.”

“Is that you, Ruby?” Tony asked as Identify told me he was level 16. He wrapped his arms around her and she hugged him back eagerly. Was she crying?

He stepped back after a moment and smiled down at her. “You seem taller.”

She laughed and wiped away tears. “It’s a long story. Have you seen Elizabeth?”

“No. You’re the first team we’ve found.”

“You’re team Avengers?” I guessed.

“We are,” said the woman who had been up in the tree.

“Natasha Portman, level 11 baby human. Team Avengers.”

Huh. That was the first time Identify showed a team name. Was that because we’d figured out how the teams worked?

Natasha looked like Black Widow, complete with a skin-tight black one-piece suit and cool metallic bracers on her forearms. I bet they had some kind of shock ability.

Another fellow identified as Clint Kingsley said with a grin, “Team Jumanji! Sweet.”

He glanced meaningfully at Ruby’s outfit and she shrugged, then shared a commiserating look with Natasha.

We exchanged names and stories. Tony and his team had found each other pretty quickly, so had managed to fight off all the monsters they had encountered without losing anyone. It took me a minute, but I finally recognized Tony. He was going to play the main hero in the movie. He was a big deal in Germany.

Natasha, the Black Widow, was from the Netherlands, but spoke with a perfect British accent. Sally Rogers was tall with brown hair, wearing a simple, brown tunic and flip flops. She carried a cool round shield that could deflect magical attacks back at her attacker. Cyrus had dumped not-so-subtle character-specific gear on them too.

Clint was a Scotsman wearing a black t-shirt and white cotton pants, but no shoes. He’d gotten a really cool bow similar to Steve’s, but with an added enchantment that allowed him to create specialty arrows, including a splitting arrow to hit 2 targets at once and an arrow imbued with fire. Steve couldn’t quite hide his jealous glances at that bow.

Scott Mortensen was a talkative South African black man who had been a truck driver. He was wearing actual jeans and black leather work boots, although he had no shirt. He didn’t seem to mind, nor did the ladies. He had one of the most ripped physiques I’d ever seen. I had thought I was in shape, but he made me look like the Pillsbury Dough Boy by comparison.

I wasn’t sure which Avenger he represented. Cyrus had done an amazing job lining up people with similar names to characters, but already the attempt to shove us all into movie pigeon holes was looking stretched.

As we wrapped up introductions, Tony fixed me with a serious stare. “I know I’m not your team captain, but this game is serious, Lucas. You can’t hold back.”

“Why would you assume I was?”

“Levels don’t lie. We don’t have time to coddle anyone who won’t pull their weight. You’ve got to do your part and take the risks like the rest of us. Everyone has to level up.”

“Get with it, or your team will ditch you,” Natasha added in a scornful tone.

“Huh. Do you guys always flaunt your ignorance with so much pride?”

Sally took a threatening step forward, hefting her shield. “Want me to show you what a level 9 punch feels like, weakling?”

I chuckled. “Only if you don’t mind when I punch back.”

Steve stepped between us all, raising his hands in a calming gesture. “Hold on, everyone. Take a step back.”

Tony nodded. “You’re right. Fighting each other is stupid. Lucas, I’ll only warn you once. If you prove to be a negative influence on my team, we’ll have to part ways.”

I forced myself to take a deep breath. They would actually have a point if I was anyone else. They couldn’t know about my body evolving, and I couldn’t tell them.

So I only said, “There are reasons you see me as level 1.”

“We don’t have time for excuses,” Tony said. “Know that our team is motivated to beat this game and save Earth. If you guys are going to join us, you have to keep up.”

“You’re making assumptions again, Tony. I was just going to offer to let you join us if you didn’t slow us down.”

Scott laughed in his loud, friendly way. “Let’s leave the posturing in the schoolyard, boys. We’ve got monsters to fight.”

Tony nodded. “We’ve wasted enough time on this. You know our position. We’re happy to have every person we can get join us and help, and now you know what will be expected of you. Keep up, and we’ll get along fine.”

“Sure,” I said, keeping my tone calm, despite my urge to throw every single one of them over a tree.

Tony turned, dismissing me and focusing on the rest of the group. “Now that we’ve got some extra bodies, I think we can take out those cows. That herd represents a ton of experience we can’t pass up.”

“That’s why we came over here.”

Tony continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “Let’s adjust our previous attack plan. If we split up, we can strike from 2 sides and split the herd. 50 cows with spears could trample us, but 2 groups of 25 we can handle easier. If they get too close, we retreat into the hills and whittle them down.”

“They have some kind of earth manipulating powers too.” They might be acting like jerks, but I didn’t want to see more humans die.

“How do you know?” Natasha asked.

“Lucas has an upgraded Linguasight utility,” Ruby offered. She still stood near Tony and looked happy to have found a friend she knew from before.

“Do you know how their abilities work?” Tony asked.

“Not yet.”

“Okay. We’ll have to test that before the main strike.”

Steve spoke up. “Me and Clint could hit a couple from a distance, then retreat back into the trees. That might give us a chance to see what they can do.”

Tony considered that, but I spoke up first. “Clint, what effective range do you have with that bow?”

He considered the question. “I haven’t used it enough to know for sure, but I’d like to start at 75 yards.”

“What if the cows can strike with earth that far?” Sally asked, shifting her shield as she spoke.

“We’ll set up 2 teams north and south of their position,” Tony decided. “If they get into trouble, we’ll rush the cows from both sides.”

That sounded a bit reckless, but I didn’t have a better idea. I needed the experience even more than they did. Even if I was alone, I would have tried to find a way to sneak in and start sniping cows or killing the stragglers. That would be even more dangerous.

As we finalized the details I said, “For a bit more safety, and maybe as a secondary test, I’ll sneak closer to the herd from the south. If I move slow, my cloak’ll hide me almost entirely.”

Tony considered that. “Good job stepping up, Lucas. I like it.”

Ruby said, “But if the cows can sense movement, they’ll still find you.”

“Maybe, but that’ll tell us the range of their senses.” It was a huge risk, but no one else could do it and it gave me a chance to prove they were wrong about me.

“Okay, let’s do it,” Tony said with a smile that made everyone stand a bit taller. “We’ll communicate using the team chat.”

“What team chat?” I asked and immediately regretted it. Why hadn’t I let Ruby ask the obvious question.

Tony gave me another of those pitying looks. “When you completed the quest to find your entire team, one of the perks was unlocking the team chat feature.”

I wanted to punch myself in the face. I’d been so excited to find Steve, I’d waved away all my notifications, including my loot box. Ruby and Steve had done the same.

Very aware of the stares of the other team, I opened my quest menu.

“Congratulations, Lucas! You have completed the quest Find the remaining members of your team. 4 of 4. Team interface unlocked. You receive a silver Adventurer’s loot box.”

The loot box popped into the air in front of me. Within seconds, both Ruby and Steve got their boxes. We willed them open and an adventurer’s outfit popped into my inventory.

I got another shirt, green this time, and a pair of tactical pants, complete with a bunch of pockets.

“Sweet,” I muttered, wanting to put on the pants right there. I resisted the urge and checked out the team interface. It was a new menu option that showed members of my team, their levels, and current health and mana percentage. There was also a chat feature, allowing us to communicate at any distance.

“How did you have so much gear if you hadn’t even received your loot box yet?” Natasha asked.

“I’ve been busy,” I said, and with an effort did not look at Tony as I said it.

Ruby growled. “Another stupid crop top and an extra pair of shorts. Really?” A pair of black, fingerless gloves appeared and she put them on, still scowling. “The gloves are cool, but I got another pair of boots. I like the elk boots better.”

“So you have an extra pair of shoes?” Clint asked, not hiding his excitement.

“I don’t think you want to wear Ruby Roundhouse leather boots,” Ruby said.

“I’d take anything at this point if I they’ll fit.”

She hesitated, clearly torn, until Tony said, “We won’t pressure you, but on our team we’ve agreed to share loot to the person who can best use it.”

“We’ve been doing the same,” I protested, but neither of them seemed to hear.

Ruby nodded. “Of course, Tony. I was just trying to decide which pair would work best for Clint.” She sighed and all of a sudden her elk boots disappeared, replaced by tall brown leather boots.

“You can auto-change your wardrobe?” I exclaimed. Why hadn’t I thought of that.

Tony glanced at me again and I wished I’d stapled my trap shut. He already thought I was a slacker and that I didn’t bother checking my notifications. Now he thought I was daft too.

“First time I tried it,” Ruby said with a shrug.

So I willed my new pants to replace my shaggy shorts. My shorts disappeared, leaving me wearing only my boxers. My new pants fell to the ground at my feet.

Natasha whistled and Sally clapped. Ruby looked confused, and Tony’s expression made it clear I’d just proven I was an idiot.

“Hey, it’s not as easy as you made it look,” I exclaimed as I yanked off my boots so I could don the pants. My face felt hot as I put my boots back on.

Scott clapped me on the back. “No worries, my friend. It took most of us many tries to figure it out too.”

“We do appreciate the show, though,” Sally added with a wink.

I deliberately turned to Steve, who had quietly donned a pair of new boots and now wore aviator’s glasses. He held up my moccasins. “Mind if I share these?”

“Go ahead.”

He tossed them to Clint. “Here. These’ll help you move more quietly than boots anyway.”

“Thank you,” Clint said.

Ruby shrugged, and her boots switched back to the cream-colored elk leather boots. “I guess I should have waited a minute.”

“We’re good, then,” Tony said, drawing everyone’s attention back to the plan. “Let’s split into our teams and do this. If anything goes wrong, we retreat to the trees here.”

I marched away near Tony and Ruby, who were the assigned southern team. Natasha, Scott, and Sally headed north, while Steve and Clint waited. The 2 archers would begin their cautious approach in 15 minutes.

That would give me just enough time to walk out to the herd alone.