I was lonely. Very lonely. I was convinced there was nobody in this world more lonely than me. That was presumptuous and I knew it. Did not make me feel better.

After I was kicked out of my home I landed in the trees to roost for the day. My siblings returned to the cave soon after the sun had risen, father right on their tails. This made me feel even worse. So I got some more distance before finding a resting place. When night came around I got even more distance.

By now I had to have flown at least fifty kilometres. I chose a path straight east, always staying in view of the mountains, too scared to fly deeper into them. If there were more of those wyverns or maybe even worse creatures, they had to be further in. The forest seemed a lot safer. I had hunted within its trees for three whole nights!

The plains were just as scary as the mountains. Too little cover and too many humans. With the reaction of the villagers, I could not find the courage to look for company there. So I went east. Deeper and deeper into the forest.

There were no more plains to the north, the trees had swallowed them. The trees which continuously got bigger and taller. I was looking for something but I did not know what. My wings simply kept moving. The only breaks I took were to eat every once in a while and to roost whenever the sun was out.

All of 6 days and nights passed like this. I had to dodge a few birds’ territories but since I was just passing by they soon left me alone. This world was truly vast. In the far distance, I could make out the hazy shape of a tall tree stretching across the horizon. The mountains curved off to the south before that though, close enough for me to make out the bend.

I had to make a decision. Explore the giant tree that was definitely not ominous at all or stay close to the mountains and keep my waypoint. As I thought about my options, I wondered why I needed a waymarker for my parents' nest. I was not allowed back and I never would be.

Forcing away the depressing thoughts I decided to go for the tree. This was a new world with magic and everything, I had to explore interesting things! Adventure and all that stuff.

So I waited in a crevice on the edge of the mountains for nightfall. As it finally came around I took off with new excitement in my wings and got promptly slammed down. Someone had attacked me!

Catching my body in mid-air I saw my attacker take a long curve to go at me again. Sleek black wings carried a gold feathered body with a slim neck and large beak attached to its head. An eagle.

[Identify]

Species: Golden Eagle (adult)

Gender: male

Yup, just as I thought. I was probably encroaching on this guy’s territory. Maybe he even lived up the mountain and was just coming back from his day’s hunt when he saw me take off. I should have paid more attention.

For now, I had to survive. So I turned my body around and waited for him to approach. As he picked up speed I readied myself and then:

[Intimidating Screech]

He froze in mid-air and shot towards me just as planned. I turned my talons forward and let his speed carry him into them. Just as he was about to plant his skull right where I could crush it he regained control and just barely dodged my feet. I still managed to rip a long gash into his belly and blood splattered all over my tumbling body.

That almost worked. But I had to follow up and turned around to give chase. Seeing him take another wide curve I started to cut him off. I made sure to approach from above, birds have a hard time looking up after all.

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As I got closer he started to turn. Maybe he did not expect me to give chase, maybe I was just faster than he expected but he almost forgot to flap his wings when he spotted me. That let me catch up and, with a vicious hiss, I rammed my talons into his body.

I watched as it tumbled toward the ground. Deliberating if I should have eagle for my first meal tonight or hunt something else might have saved my life. Because from the trees a giant snake snatched the still living eagle and swallowed it whole, cutting off its despaired scream.

That made me reconsider. If monsters like that lived in the forest finding a safe spot for the day would be nigh impossible. On the other hand, I had not seen one real threat in the mountains. I knew wyverns probably lived somewhere in there, but if I was on guard a little I should be able to dodge them. And even if it came to a fight, I would just have to give it my all. A snake like that though would kill me before I could react. No fighting chance there. So I decided to stay close to the mountains.

Now that I was following the mountains almost straight south I considered inspecting some of the valleys leading off from the forest. The caves and crevices on the mountain flanks were the perfect cover for daylight resting and the small area should allow me to hunt without getting blind-sided by some huge monstrosity.

I was a little scared, I admit, but I had to get food. And returning homewards to find a safer territory there did not speak to me. I wanted to have an adventure. Something to get my mind off my loneliness. But first I needed to get stronger.

I picked the next best valley. It had a little river flowing through stopping at a small pond near the entrance and then flowing off into the distance beneath the trees. The mountains pressed it into a slight curve towards the south.

But before I went to explore I had something else to do. Allocate my Attribute Points. Yes, I had only 4 of them available but that was one more than I had gained through race levels in total. I decided to put them into Dexterity and Perception half each. First of all those stats were tied to speed giving me a better chance to escape any dangerous situation. Second of all my [Assassin] skills benefited greatly from both of those stats. I wanted to put a few points into Wisdom and bring it up to par but the speed stats seemed a lot smarter to me right now. This was my status now:

Species: Great Eagle Owl (fledgeling)

Age: 0

Name: -

Gender: female

Status: sapient, healthy

Level: 4

Class: [Assassin lvl 4], -

Strength: 8

Constitution: 8

Dexterity: 15

Perception: 15

Intelligence: 13

Wisdom: 9

AP: 0

Skills: [Owl Senses lvl 3], [Preening lvl 3], [Owl Stomach lvl 3], [Solid Grip lvl 2], [Soundless Flight lvl 3], [Intimidating Screech lvl 2], [Owl’s Shadow lvl 1], [Aerial Combat lvl 2], [Maths lvl 4], [Identify lvl 2], [Sneak lvl 2], [Surprise Attack lvl 2]

A whole load of Attributes. I was 3 months old and already had almost 70 total points. Granted, I had no idea how many stats others had, but it looked impressive to me.

There was another thing I wanted to take a look at: Notifications. Specifically, I wanted to know what gave me experience for my Class and what did for my Level. So I turned them back on and went hunting.

The valley was filled with the nightly sounds of a forest laid on the babbling of the river. I made out a few larger animals moving about but most of the active ones were small, predominantly insects, rats, mice and a few bats.

Taking out my first target for the night in a [Surprise Attack] I got my first notification:

~ding~ You have killed [Forest Rat (adult)]. For hunting your staple food you have gained experience.

~ding~ You have taken out your chosen target. Experience awarded.

A double, nice! The next one nearly escaped my attack and once I snapped its neck I got only one notification this time:

~ding~ You have killed [Horned Beetle (adult)]. For hunting your staple food you have gained experience.

This was my race level gaining experience, I knew that much. I had gotten this message before I had a class. This made me think I had to kill my “target” without being noticed to get [Assassin] experience.

The class description also talked about not being noticed so I was pretty sure about that. Now I only had to keep killing and I would grow stronger. As long as I struck before my target noticed I would gain experience for both my race and class. The only question left: Did they share the experience, or did both of them gain the full amount?

I had no idea how to test that. For now, I turned kill notifications off again and went back to hunting. Trying to be as stealthy as possible proved to be quite easy. Difficult was only killing my target in one strike. By the end of the night, I had still gained another level in [Assassin] and [Sneak]. The point went straight into Perception. More accuracy in my movement would help a lot in levelling my Class so I decided to dump my points into it for now.

Next on my to-do list: incorporate [Owl’s Shadow] into my hunting style. This would make it a lot easier to stay unnoticed.