They looked at each other.

“Wow! What a fight.” Jason said, looking at all the blood on his axe. He looked a bit fatigued, but nothing too bad.

“How did it go with the Tank?” KillPrinsX asked

“Fine, obviously. The only thing was that he was a Tank, taking all the damage. He seemed to even have a good HP Regen skill or something, it took me forever to whittle him down. But I got him.”

“Well, I did well with the Sharpshooter. The only thing I wasn’t expecting was that the Engineer had some gadget that shocked me when I touched him.”

“That’s an Engineer for you.”

“And that’s when I got overwhelmed.” KillPrinsX face palmed herself again. “I should have used those new skills!”

“New skills?” Jason asked.

Uh-oh, she didn’t know if she should tell him about Nap Time.

“Uhh, have a skill called Force Push, but I didn’t use it when I should have.”

“Oh yeah, that’s a drag. Getting a new skill and forgetting about it in the heat of he moment. If it does what it’s name implies, you should have been able to push them off and had it made.”

“Well too bad… And thanks for saving me.”

“Of course. That’s what friends do.”

She smiled and blushed, and not knowing what else to do, she started looting the finished team.

The item pickup wasn’t all that good. Having killed the Keen Eye and the Sharpshooter, she looted them first. Jason found the Engineer’s electric shield and he gave it to her. It could do in a pinch, but it didn’t turn on when getting a punch to the face.

But! Some other items looted included potions and energy drinks… Finally the long and waited potions. She put them in her pocket and they showed up in her peripheral.

Oh good, a quick access menu. But it didn’t work with weapons.. or did it. She put her knife carefully in her pocket until it disappeared. Oh, that was the answer. The knife came up in the quick access menu. She focused her attention on it and it reappeared in her pocket.

She found nothing worth looting than a few more knives. Nothing better than she already had.

“So, what do you say, go and find some animals?” KillPrinsX asked.

“Sounds cool. But, I do have to say we should work on your reflexes and skills to use. You can always train and power level skills. But, there’s training, there’s using skills… and then there’s actually fighting.”

She knows that. She played plenty of games, but they all have their quirks; controls are different, gameplay isn’t always the same.

Jason put his finger up like a lecturing professor, “One can plan for the fight and lose to it’s changes. And, if one doesn’t plan necessity drives to win.”

“Since when did you become a strategist?”

“I’m not. But I did fight with one once, and he said something like that. I think.”

“So what should I do, plan or not?” She asked.

“Uhh, really I’d say you should always plan, but make it happen the way you want, not the way the opponent wants it to go. So, just know what skills you have and don’t forget. I guess that’s also part of the whole default thing. One can go through gaining and losing skills so fast that you don’t remember what you have or not.”

“So then, I’ll just have to remember not to default, then I keep my skills and don’t have to worry about it.”

They kept walking, discussing gameplay and strategies.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

One key datum she found was that there’s the Intelligence attribute, and then there’s the gamer’s actual intelligence. One is just a number and the other is one’s self.

It wasn’t for another ten minutes of moseying around before they heard the lighting. Then came the thunder, more thunder and a strange feeling that some one is about to die.

They heard it and started running.

“Last one there is a rotten egg!”

They had just found the cause of all the sound when they saw an immense elk bulldoze a guy into a tree, the guy slumped on the ground in a heap. Then he started to transform. His armor stayed the same, but the skin you could see started to change. His skin turned black, his face became demonic and, as he opened his eyes… well there were only two red points that shone through.

He stood proud, waved his hand, and summoned another creature, a Death Knight on a horse.

The Knight on the horse charged off to kill the elk.

Then a green figure came onto the scene and waved his glowing staff, the trees moved and imprisoned the demonic player, and the Forest Mage began to cast another spell. The wind picked up and energy flowed into his staff.

Jason looked at KillPrinsX. “He’d get a good shock if we stop his spell right now.”

“No…”

“Yeah!”

“No!”

“Yeah, watch!”

He threw his axe straight and true.

The Mage suffered the spell feedback.

“See?” Jason ran off to go pick up his axe.

“What the hell…?”

KillPrinsX followed, but she knew what to do.

She came in and started using HP Leech from twenty feet away, still running she pulled out her dagger and started carving up the mage, starting with the neck. Anytime he twitched consciousness, she cast Confuse a good three times, just to be sure.

Jason came down with his axe, but still not dead… KillPrinsX put her hand down on his chest and put everything she could into Knock Back.

She let go after a good five seconds and the Mage flew back, hitting a tree.

You have reached level 12!

She was quite happy until she had heart a hefty grunt and turned around.

The Banished Bear came running out of nowhere. Jason’s face blanched, as he nearly dropped his axe.

KillPrinsX cast Confuse as manny times as possible until the bear was too close for comfort. She tried to use Psychic Evade, and ended up getting a prompt…

You have just learned the skill Psychic Dash (tier 2)!

The bear sped past them both, and KillPrinsX put her hand out and gave the bear a good Force Push.

The bear toppled over and Jason came in with his axe.

KillPrinsX had maybe one of her brightest ideas, she saw the Mage’s staff on the forest floor and picked it up.

You have just acquired a rare magical item. The Forest Mage’s Staff. 100% Mana regeneration. Doubles strength of all spells (Mana based). Able to cast any spell that you has.

Oooohh Yeeeaaahhh…!

She cast HP Leech and watched the bear suffer the agony.

Then Confuse. The bear had barely blinked before getting up and running to attack again.

She cast Force Push right into it’s face. The bear looked like he hit a brick wall, and she cast again.

Jason had finally shaken off his fear of bears and started attacking it.

KillPrinsX tried something else this time, the next skill she tried was Paralyze. This one worked. The bear tried standing up again but stopped motionless and crumpled to the ground. Jason got a few good hits in.

Then the Death Knight came in on a horse.

Both of them blanched.

KillPrinsX didn’t know what to do, the best option was Force Push, so she did that.

The knight fell off his horse, tumbling to the ground, the horse toppled sideways, and the bear had finally awoken its self and started charging again.

KillPrinsX was almost out of any more effective skills. Anything that would do some good damage! She popped open her skill page for half a second. Got it!

She had one she hadn’t used before. Betray! She cast it on the bear and it went into a blind rage, doing circles, looking for something to kill.

The Death Knight and the bear weren’t enemies?

This was too much, but she had one more she might be able to cast… if she could only try.

She got herself ready to put everything into this one. A Curse from the Heavens!

Lighting rained from the sky, directly hitting the bear, killing it, and the Knight spasmed on the floor until Jason came by and took off it’s appendages, starting with the head. You can never be sure with the undead.

The tension eased.

KillPrinsX fell to her knees, Mana coming back fast, but not fast enough. She took a few seconds before standing up again.

“We did it,” she said, forcing out words between breaths.

Jason looked over, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t know all that would happen.”

“But we did it.”

“We did.” They hugged for a few seconds.

A voice from the trees shouted out to them. “Hey! Hey, can someone help me out here? Yeah, you with the axe!”

Jason looked over to a clump of trees very unnaturally close together. He peered though the spaces and found the man that had been trapped. Well, now not really a man, but something worse.

“Can you help me out? That axe chops wood doesn’t it?”

Jason said, “Oh, yeah. I can help.”

He cut out a tree in under a minute and the man stepped out from his prison.

“Thanks for saving me from that mage. I don’t know what would have happened to me.”

“No problem. It’s just fun and games,” Jason laughed.

“Who are you?” KillPrinsX asked.

“I’m sorry, let me introduce myself. I’m… Kev, Kevlar N. Lead.”

“Well, nice to meet you I’m KillPrinsX.”

They shook hands.