Despite how I had thought this was going to go, Azarus made no effort to move quietly through the forest. In fact, he seemed to be doing the opposite. He was loudly stomping through the underbrush without a care in the world. I followed behind him, nervously clutching the spear that he had given me earlier. I only lasted five minutes before asking him why. Scurrying up to walk beside him, I cleared my throat.

“Uh, hey,” I asked hesitantly. “Is it a good idea to be making so much noise?”

Azarus snorted without turning to face me. “It’s fine. We’re not here to avoid monsters, we’re here to kill some. If making a racket draws ‘em here quicker, all the better.” He stopped for a moment. “Speaking of.”

I tensed up, wildly whipping my head around me in a circle. Despite what he’d said, I didn’t see anything.

“Is something here?” I furiously whispered to him.

Azarus was still relaxed. “Yup.” He said in a normal volume, still not turning to face me. “Nothing big, which is good. This will be a proper first monster for ya. Just give him a bit to work up the guts to attack us.”

I grew tenser now that I knew that some kind of monster attack was about to happen. Intellectually, I knew that both Grey and Azarus had reassured me that I wasn’t in any danger. That Azarus was more than strong enough to protect me. But knowing something wasn’t the same as believing it. What was about to try and kill us? What kind of monsters did this planet have? I tried to think of fantasy monsters I’d heard of before.

Suddenly, behind me, I heard a snarl and a whooshing noise. In a motion too fast for me to track, Azarus spun around and thrust a hand out over my shoulder, grabbing something. Belatedly, I yelped and jumped forward a step before spinning around.

Clutched in Azarus’s right hand was the snout of some kind of fucked up looking dog creature. It looked like a stretched-out hybrid of a wolf and a bear, with bulky limbs and a thinner body. It had the more rounded face of a wolf, but the larger blockier snout of a bear. Its proportions were all over the place.

The wolf-bear creature was snarling and clawing at Azarus, trying to dislodge his hand from its snout. However, the blows of the creature didn’t affect Azarus at all. They just bounced off of him like my own spear had earlier. Unbothered and unharmed, he grabbed the body of the wolf with his other hand and slammed the creature down onto the earth. Once he’d done so, he leaned his body weight down onto the creature, immobilizing it. Azarus looked back up at me calmly.

I was stunned at how fast the entire encounter had gone. If I had been in here alone, I’d have been fucked. That thing would have killed me before I’d even seen it. The electrifying feeling of adrenaline was still pumping through my veins.

“Oi.” I heard Azarus say. Snapping out of it, I focused on Azarus. “Lesson time, yeah? Time to get you your first General Skill.”

I let out a shaky breath and nodded at him. “Yeah. Yeah, okay.”

Azarus nodded back at me. “Alright then. First, we’re gonna get you Observe. It’s probably the most basic skill you can have and one of the most useful.” He told me over the muffled snarls of the creature. I tried to ignore it. “It ain’t hard to get. Literally everybody does, ya know? It’s just easier and faster to get it from trying with a monster instead of a person. That’s why we didn’t try before now. All you have to do is concentrate on the beastie, really.”

I opened my mouth before closing it again. I’d had a thought.

“How do you activate a skill?” I asked him.

Azarus raised an eyebrow from where he was laying on the creature. “You focus on the target and either say the skill out loud or in your head. You should be able to feel it activate.”

I nodded thoughtfully before giving it a try. I focused on the creature that Azarus was pinning and concentrated. “Observe. Observe!” I grew slightly frustrated. “Observe.” I was startled when information started streaming into my head. It was like I suddenly had a memory of looking at a unique Status window. Changing my focus, I tried to decipher it.

Name Mangy Warg Runt Level 5 Age ?? Species Monster Abilities ??

Snapping out of it, I blinked rapidly.

“That was fast.” I heard Azarus say. Re-focusing on him, I could see that he had a surprised look on his face. “I’m guessing it worked? Didn’t take you more than a second to get the skill.”

Taking a breath, I said to him. “I’m pretty sure that I got it before you even said anything. It just came too easily to me.”

“Aye, that sounds likely.” Azarus nodded. “It’s a damn easy skill to get.”

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

I shifted from one foot to the other. “But, uh. It didn’t seem very helpful.” I told him. “The skill didn’t tell me much. Most things on the window had question marks on them. I could only see its name, level, and species.”

Azarus shrugged. “I mean, yeah. It’s a new skill. It’s low-level right now. Your gonna have to practice with it if you want it to show more.”

“So, what. Just use it on things? Can you use it on anything?”

“Why ask me? Give it a shot, yeah?”

I did as he said, first on him. This time, I tried to use the skill mentally like he’d said I could. Observe.

??

I got nothing from him. Guess I was just too low-level to make anything out. I tried it again on a tree to my right. Observe.

Name Oak Age 53 Years Species Tree

That was all it said. Curious, I asked Azarus about it.

“Well, the way I understand it, you can Observe anything. But only things with a Status that can be represented by the System are gonna have anything more than a name, age, and species. Well, except for artifacts.” He amended himself. “Don’t worry about that for now though. We don’t have any around.”

Artifacts, huh. Whatever, I put it out of my mind like he said. “Did you try and Observe me when we first met? Did I have anything?” I asked him curiously.

He shook his head. “Nah, it’s considered rude to Observe people you don’t know. If you're Awakened, you can always tell when someone is doing it. I felt it a second ago, for example. Guessing you didn’t get anything from me.”

“Ah,” I said awkwardly. “Sorry?”

“Don’t worry about it. Anyway, we got something else to do, yeah? Still need to deal with the beastie.” He told me, leaning harder on the monster.

I started. Somehow, the monster that had tried to eat me had completely slipped my mind and attention while I had been testing Observe. Focusing back on it, it seemed to be struggling against Azarus in a weaker fashion. It was still struggling, however. The look in its eyes hadn’t changed from earlier. It was still feral and rabid as if bloodshed was all it desired. Nevertheless, it was still slightly uncomfortable for me to see Azarus treating it so roughly.

“We didn’t talk about monsters much,” I asked him, uneasy. “But, uh, they’re not like animals, right?”

“What? No. ‘Course not.” Azarus told me, bewildered. “Low-level monster like this? Only thing on its mind is ripping people apart. He don’t even need to eat what he kills. Now, it’s time to put him down. Take that spear of yours and give him a good stickin’.”

I took note of what he said. ‘Low level’, huh. Taking a deep breath, I grasped my spear more firmly and got into the stance that Azarus had shown me earlier. I paused. “Does it matter where I stab it?”

“Nope. This thing doesn’t have organs. More Aether shaped like a monster than flesh and blood. Now quit delaying and just stab the bloody thing.” Azarus answered, irritated.

I did what he said. I thrust the spear forward at a spot on its chest that Azarus wasn’t covering. I didn’t quite hit the spot I had targeted, but the spear still slid into its chest fairly deeply. The monster nearly instantaneously stopped struggling and snarling, growing unnaturally still with startling swiftness. After a moment, the creature burst into a puff of greasy black smoke, completely dissipating its form.

Turning away, I vomited off to the side. I didn’t do so because I was bothered by killing something. No, I did it because the smoke smelled fucking terrible. God, I’d never smelled something so vile in my life. It was like someone had mixed rotten meat and waste together.

The moment that the creature grew still, Azarus jumped off of it from where it lay. He’d moved far enough away from the Warg that he’d completely dodged the smoke. Walking over to me with a cheery grin, he slapped my back with one huge hand. “Ye’ll never forget your first whiff of Miasma. Breathe it in. Savor it. That’s the smell of progress, my friend.”

I glowered up at him, my hands on my knees. “Couldn’t have warned me about it?”

He just grinned down at me. “Nope. Time-honored tradition. Gotta let the greenhorns really experience the smell, you know?” He paused to look at me speculatively. “Surprised, though. Didn’t think you’d kill it in one blow. I thought for sure you’d have to poke it a good three or four times. What are your Virtues like?”

Wiping my mouth with the back of my hand, I straightened up. “You mean my stats, right? Well, I’ve got ten in everything. Is that good?”

Azarus drew his head back in surprise. “You’re fucking with me. You’re only level one and you’ve got ten in each of your Virtues?”

I blinked at him. “Yeah?”

He shook his head. “Gotta be a Precursor thing. Having that many at level one is downright bizarre. I sure as hell didn’t have that many when I was Awoken. More like ones, twos, and threes in everything. Guess that explains it.” He paused to give me a considering look. “If you’ve got that many points now, I’m wondering how many free points you’ll get when ya level up.”

“Free points?” I asked him.

“Yeah, when you level up you get a certain amount of Virtue points that you can put where ya like. Amount ya get is based on what race you are, yeah? Dwarves and Humans both get six. Who knows what you’ll have? Guess we’ll see later. Plan is to get ya at least two levels out here. But never mind that. Take a look there.” Azarus told me, pointing to where the monster had been laying.

I gave him a puzzled look but did what he said. I moved over to where the smoke had dissipated, set my spear down, and crouched. I was about to ask him what I was looking for when a glint caught my eye. Focusing on it, I reach for the glint with my right hand. Scooping up a small pile of dirt and leaves I sorted through it, revealing a small gem, no bigger than a bead. Wiping it off, I held it up to the light. It was mostly opaque, but I could see a small wisp of rainbow light floating in the perfectly spherical gem. I stood up and gave Azarus a questioning look. “What’s up with this?”

“That,” He said. “Is a monster core. It’s a small one, cause the monster was weak, but it’s still a core. Monsters leave them behind when they die every time, and they’re damn useful. They’re mostly used in Professions. Keep it, yeah? We’ll do something special with it when we get back since it’s your first.”

I gazed back down at it. Monster cores, huh.

“Well, time to get a move on.” I heard Azarus say. “Gonna do that a bunch more, yeah? We didn’t come out here to kill only one monster.” Looking back up, I saw Azarus had turned back around and started to tromp back through the forest. Scrambling, I picked up my spear and hurried after him.