Rayna threw the rock at the Jaranin’s forehead. The growling feline yelped and hit the ground, its tongue lolling out of its mouth. Rayna didn’t have anything against the Jaranin—which was a large cat monster with blue fur and stripes down its back—but it had attacked her first, and with her amulet almost empty of Mana, Rayna was trying to avoid unnecessary fights.

Unfortunately, with her System still down, Rayna gained nothing from this encounter. She placed a hand on her amulet and pushed some more Mana into it.

She was getting better at gauging how much Mana she had left. At first, she kept running out of MP and giving herself a headache. Now, after practicing for a few hours without the help of her System display, she could tell when she was hitting about half of her Mana pool.

She wanted to get better at doing this with her Health pool as well, but she didn’t feel comfortable getting hurt on purpose until she had her amulet to fall back on. Right now, it could only heal a few gashes before it would be empty again.

Rayna’s stomach growled, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten in who knows how long. She filled up on water from a stream, but that had been a few hours ago.

She turned to look at the monster. Could she…?

Rayna shook her head. She needed to eat something, but monster meat was not on the table! Were monsters even edible? They melted into the ground if she absorbed their Essence. That seemed like a clear sign that their meat was not safe for consumption.

But all of the animals that Rayna had seen since coming to Ember—besides maybe the Cani in Lord Emery’s mansion—had been monsters. What if there weren’t any regular animals? She could wander this forest for weeks without finding anything edible.

I have poison resistance, Rayna thought. It should be fine, shouldn’t it? All I would need is a fire…

Rayna’s mouth watered at the thought of fresh juicy meat cooking over a barbecue. She gave in, dragging the monster to a cave she had seen nearby.

She left it there and went in search of wood to start a fire. She had seen enough movies to have a general idea of what to do, but she couldn’t help wishing she had a lighter or some flint.

Near the entrance to the cave, she made a small tipi with the larger sticks and filled it with dried leaves, twigs and some tree bark to use as kindling.

Rayna used a sharp rock to make a groove in a thick branch and filled the spot with kindling as well, hoping she was doing this right.

She grabbed her other stick and put one end in the groove. “All right, survival movies, don’t fail me now.”

Rayna twirled the stick between her palms, applying pressure downward to dig the stick into the groove. She used light pressure at first, scared she would wreck her fire starter, but she gradually increased it until the groove turned black and started to smoke.

“What are you doing?”

Rayna jumped to her feet, raising her stick defensively.

The newcomer was the same race as Lord Emery, her yellow scales contrasting with her dark leather cloak. She tilted her head curiously, examining Rayna’s setup.

“It looks like a campfire, but I can’t figure out what this part is for,” the woman said, pointing at Rayna’s fire starter. “Is this some sort of ritual?”

“It’s for lighting the fire,” Rayna said. “Or it’s supposed to be. Why didn’t I hear you come in?”

The woman smiled. “I can be quiet when I want to be. My name is Nali. I was traveling through the area and grew curious when I saw you collecting firewood.”

Rayna sat back down. If Nali had wanted to hurt Rayna, she could have done so already. That wasn’t to say that Rayna was going to let her guard down, but the fire was more important at the moment.

“I’m Rayna,” she introduced herself as she placed her stick back in the groove.

“Rayna? That’s a nice name,” the woman said. “What brings you through here?”

Rayna started twirling the stick again, going even faster than before. “Got lost,” she said truthfully. “Was trying to find something to eat.”

Her hands blurred as she spun the stick, and the kindling finally burst into flames. Rayna shouted triumphantly and carefully fed the little fire until she was sure it wouldn’t go out right away. Then she tipped it into her larger tipi.

Rayna grinned as the logs caught fire. “See? Who says survival is hard?”

Of course, without her System enhanced strength and speed, she wasn’t sure she would have managed to light it at all.

Nali looked intrigued. “That was very resourceful. Have you lived in the wilderness all your life?”

Rayna shook her head. “I went camping once when I was a kid, but I’m not much of an outdoorsy person.”

Rayna turned to the monster, wondering how she was going to skin the carcass without a knife, but the look of the beast dashed her hopes. It was already starting to smell, its flesh peeling off its bones, and flies buzzed about its head.

That’s a no on monster meat.

Rayna’s shoulders drooped.

Nali followed Rayna’s gaze, her nose wrinkling in disgust. “You weren’t going to try to eat that, were you? Monsters aren’t edible.”

Rayna frowned. “I thought Pyrias were kept as farm animals.”

“For their eggs and feathers,” Nali said. “Not their meat. Even monsters steer clear of eating other monsters.”

“Then what do you eat?” Rayna asked, a whine sneaking into her tone. She would be more put together if she wasn’t so hungry.

Nali held out her hands and a bowl of steaming hot stew appeared. “Regular meat. Anything that doesn’t have a level is edible, provided it isn’t poisonous.”

Rayna’s mouth watered. It smelled like beef. Did they have cows here? Maybe it was only like a cow, similar to how the Cani looked like a dog.

Nali held the stew out to Rayna, and she grabbed it without a second thought. She was halfway through inhaling the stew before she realized that Nali was holding a spoon out to her.

Rayna’s ears burned as she accepted the spoon, forcing herself to eat at a more civilized pace.

“Sorry,” she mumbled between bites. “I’m not sure when the last time I ate was.”

“Don’t be,” Nali said. “It seems you’ve had a rough time.”

She patiently waited for Rayna to finish the stew.

As Rayna passed the empty bowl back to her, a shimmer by the cave entrance caught her eye. She squinted, making out the glowing shape of a figure peering into the mouth of the cave.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Rayna was beginning to question the usefulness of magic. If a stealth spell lit you up like a Christmas tree, could it really be considered stealthy? Maybe there was something she was missing.

Rayna’s full stomach was putting her in a good mood, so she decided not to antagonize her savior and went with the direct approach instead.

“Are they with you?” she asked, nodding at the vague figure.

Nali blinked. “What gave him away?”

Rayna lifted an eyebrow. “Besides the fact that he’s a better light source than the fire?”

Lord Emery dropped his cloaking spell.

Rayna groaned. “You don’t have to follow me all the way to the border. I’m leaving… just as soon as I figure out where the border is.”

“That’s not what we came here to talk about,” he said, coming to sit by the fire. “But what do you mean by ‘light source’?”

“You know, the magic glow,” Rayna said, holding up her hand and casting Basic Heal. Her palm glowed green, and she pointed at it.

Lord Emery grew excited. “You have magic sight? Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Is this not normal?” Rayna asked. That would explain a few things. “Besides, our conversation was rather short.”

Nali smiled. “I must apologize for my husband and his treatment of you earlier. He is normally a more reasonable person, but the current state of the System has him on edge.”

“The state of the System?” Rayna asked.

Lord Emery shook his head. “That isn’t what we came here to discuss, either. Rayna, I owe you a proper apology. I was wrong to yell at you and I was wrong to dismiss you for something outside of your control. If I may ask, has your System come back online yet?”

Rayna looked at the rotting monster and back at Lord Emery. “What do you think?”

Nali watched Rayna with a thoughtful expression. “Where are you from?”

“A small village on the edge of Helia,” Rayna lied, hoping they didn’t ask for too many details. “Why?”

Nali shook her head. “No reason.”

Lord Emery’s brows knit together. “What are you doing?”

“Trust me,” Nali said. “Rayna, I like you. I would like to be your patron, if you would allow it.”

“What?” Lord Emery shot his wife a look of betrayal. “I found her first!”

“And you turned her away,” Nali said. “I believe I am well within my rights to offer now. Perhaps we should start a bidding war and see which of us is the first to cave.”

The last statement was made in a tone that said Nali was richer than her husband, or at least, she had more disposable funds.

Lord Emery’s mouth formed a thin line, but he didn’t respond. His wife took this as his surrender.

Nali clapped her hands together. “Excellent! Now Rayna, I would like to emphasize that no one will try to force you to accept my patronage, but I would be honored if you did. I believe that once the world learns you exist, there will be plenty of people lining up to sponsor you.”

Rayna had lost the flow of the conversation. Was magic sight that impressive, that it would lead a rich noble to sponsor you on the spot?

“I think you have the wrong person,” Rayna said, standing up. “Thanks for the stew.”

Rayna moved to leave, but Nali was faster, placing herself between Rayna and the exit.

“I don’t have the wrong person,” Nali said. “You have demonstrated remarkably high Strength and Dexterity for an Initial—that is what we call someone who is below the First Ascension at Level 25—and you just lit a fire without the System’s aid, which is intriguing if not impressive.”

Her expression turned smug. “And we have changed languages five times in this conversation without you batting an eye. Either you are gifted in linguistics, or your species has some sort of telepathic translation ability, which is almost as rare as magic sight and a very sought after gift at the moment.”

“She could just be using a translation skill,” Lord Emery pointed out.

Nali shook her head. “No. Translation skills tell you when the conversation has changed languages. Look at her. She doesn’t even realize she’s doing it.”

Rayna opened her mouth and closed it again. Telepathy? Was that something she could do? She had just assumed that the universal translation was still working.

“More importantly,” Nali said. “And I’m going to be brutally honest here, we need as many strong fighters as we can get.” She took a deep breath, her face growing serious. “The Dark Age is upon us.”

“Nali!” Lord Emery hissed.

She ignored her husband. “Within a few years at the latest, I fear. Your System outage is only the latest in a long line of malfunctions and failures. When the System can no longer take the strain, it will collapse, along with our ability to use any of its functions. Spells, skills, Inventory; the only thing we will have access to is our stat points, since they are a part of our bodies and not strictly part of the System.”

“You don’t have to spell it all out,” Lord Emery said, crossing his arms and tapping a finger on his forearm. “We all know what’s coming.”

“She doesn’t,” Nali said pointedly.

Lord Emery stopped his tapping, turning to Rayna with furrowed brows. “You don’t?”

Rayna was still digesting everything Nali had said. Dark Age? System failure? This was even worse than being thrown into a death trap. The System was throwing them into the coliseum and telling them to fight a minotaur with their bare hands.

Rayna started to pace. “Let me get this straight; we’re going to be stuck fighting monsters like that one—” She jabbed her thumb at the melting tiger. “—without healing spells? What causes a Dark Age, can we stop it? Is that moron Eldar doing anything to help?” Rayna shook her head. “Actually, scratch that, he’ll just make it worse. Tell me you people have a plan.”

Lord Emery gawked at her.

“I thought as much,” Nali said gravely. “Tell me, Rayna, how badly is the tutorial malfunctioning that it spit you out nearly a month early?”

Rayna stopped pacing. Should she deny it? But the look on Nali’s face said that this wasn’t a guess; she already knew she was right.

Rayna sat down on a rock, rubbing her face. “It’s not exactly a malfunction,” she said. “More that the Administrator is incompetent, and he keeps screwing things up.”

Lord Emery stiffened. He opened his mouth to argue, but Nali held up her hand.

“It may not seem like it,” Nali said. “But that is, in and of itself, a malfunction. He is trying to do too much, and as such, he makes mistakes. Why don’t you tell us what happened?”

“Where do I start?” Rayna said, massaging the bridge of her nose. “We didn’t really know what we were signing up for—or what they were signing up for, I guess. I was a bit of a special case.

“When the Administrator realized that he had basically kidnapped us, he tried to fix it by giving us an easier tutorial as an apology. He was still ironing out the kinks when I left. One of those problems got me stuck in that forest while he wasn’t looking, and the Liaison couldn’t get me out of there until I cleared enough area.”

Rayna shook her head. “I don’t know how to get back to the tutorial, and now my System is on the fritz and you’re telling me he dropped us in the middle of the apocalypse?”

The silence stretched as Rayna waited for them to say something.

“Kidnapped?” Lord Emery asked, his voice low and afraid. “You weren’t willing?”

“It’s a bit more complicated than that,” Rayna said, defending the Administrator for some unfathomable reason. “He thought we agreed; we thought we were joining a game. This is a lot like a popular pastime back home. Except on my world, the monsters aren’t real. It’s role play.”

Nali raised a hand to her mouth. “How many did he take?”

“About ten million, I think,” Rayna said. “But we lost a lot in the first trial. That’s why he adjusted it.”

“Ten million,” Lord Emery breathed. “Why would he take so many? We thought he would bring a fraction of that number.”

Rayna shrugged. “You both know how this works a lot better than I do.”

Nali put a hand on her husband’s shoulder. “This is why your plan isn’t working. We never dreamed he would bring this many.”

Lord Emery scratched his cheek. “This isn’t good. I would need to know how he adjusted the tutorial to come up with new estimates. Rayna, can you describe how he changed it?”

Rayna explained the new trial, basically giving them a summarized version of the message they had received when they returned to the tutorial area.

“Simulations?” Lord Emery frowned. “The System can do such a thing? That would take an enormous amount of energy!”

“There aren’t a lot of people using them, though,” Rayna pointed out. “Not in my group anyway. It’s a total waste of energy.”

Lord Emery blinked. “A waste of…? I thought you weren’t aware of the energy problems.”

Rayna shook her head. “Not that kind of energy. The simulations only give ten percent of the Experience. You might as well just kill a Robi, since it would be roughly equivalent to a simulated Level 3 Emurian, and that’s if you can actually beat the simulation. But if you can beat it as a simulation, why wouldn’t you just beat the real thing?”

Lord Emery’s face grew more and more confused as she spoke. “That’s technically true, but weren’t your people dragged here against your will? Why would you fight true monsters when a safer option was presented?”

Rayna smiled ruefully. “That’s not how gamers think. Besides, the tutorial wasn’t going to last forever. Growing as fast as possible is the safer option.

“Why do you think I picked the Forest Gecko as my first fight? It gives a hundred Experience per level, and it was a good stat match for me, though I didn’t take its category into account because I didn’t know that kind of thing existed. My goal was to hit Level 25 by the end of the tutorial, but I think my broken System is going to mess that up.”

Lord Emery’s mouth fell open. His wife, on the other hand, grinned.

“What did I tell you?” she said. “A tutorial adjustment tells us nothing about the temperament or potential of the Chosen.” She turned to Rayna. “My offer is still valid. I wish to sponsor you. If you accept, I will provide you with any resources you need to continue your growth—within reason, of course—you will be able to stay at any of my taverns and inns—and I have picked up a fair few over the years—and I will personally tutor you in the ways of the System.

“That last part is for you alone, but I’ll extend the rest of the offer to all of your people. If we work together, I think we can stop the Dark Age and I’m ready to put every last copper draka on the line to prove it.”