Isla had no skills that she could work on while they walked along the stream, so she used the interface of her HUD as they traveled. Her shield skill had reached level two, and long blades was now at level three, but nothing else had increased. She thought that her adeptness ability would have helped more of her skills to increase, but as she looked through the list, there were not really any that she remembered using much. The dodge skill remained at level one, and that was upsetting—not surprising given that she seemed to be getting hit constantly in combat, but upsetting. She was frustrated by the fact that she had been seriously injured in every encounter. Her Dexterity score was 20, so she was pretty nimble, but the chain mail shirt that she wore and shield that she used made it difficult for her to move around as easily as Ewtain did. She had the gymnastics skill, but she was not really able to utilize it either. If and when they reached a town, she would look into a full leather set instead of this piecemeal set she had.
This game was not what she wanted at all. Her main reason to play the online role-playing games was more for the social aspect of them. She was used to sitting at a computer and only partially paying attention to what was happening in the game, but now she was required to exert herself physically, which she was not used to doing and was frankly something that she genuinely disliked.
Several of the others seemed to be convinced that this was not a game at all, but too many of the aspects of this ‘world’ didn’t make any sense. The interface was similar to what they would have in a game, only super high-tech, and while she experienced pain, it was not as substantial as what she had experienced in real life. There might be some sort of drug that they had been given to dampen pain, or it might be that this was a virtual reality world where their brains were being stimulated to experience pain, but maybe the creators of the game had made the setting lower than actual human pain levels. All of the others seemed to be of the mind that they were indeed on another planet, or they took the attitude of ‘hope for the best but prepare for the worst’. Isla believed that she was in her own body because she knew her body, and it certainly felt like hers. She had broken her arm when she was 18, and it hadn’t healed correctly. The arm had a particularly distinct ache that would flare up when she would exert herself or when it was cold out. That ache persisted, and as far as she could tell, it was no different now than before her character was created.
There was one glaring inconsistency in her reasoning, and that was Vanya. Vanya could now feel and use her legs again, so why did the designers not heal all of them? Had they just not known about her arm?
Isla bumped into Vultressant, nearly knocking him down. Taloc had called a stop, and she hadn’t realized it. She minimized everything that she had been reading on her HUD and tried to focus on what was going on. Isla didn’t have the track skill, nor did she have any real-life experience doing so, but even she could see the tracks that Taloc was inspecting. The overgrowth was beaten down in what was clearly a well-traveled path that led off into the woods and continued on across the stream. The prints that she could make out were certainly not from a humanoid; they were from some sort of large animal, given the large prints.
Maroftis and Ewtain guarded the area, while Taloc spent a few minutes studying the tracks. When he was done, he came back to the group and spoke in a low voice. “I’m confused by the tracks. Whatever creatures made them appear to be walking, but with a strange gait, as if they were severely bowlegged. Then there are a few deeper tracks in pairs as if they were jumping, but the problem is that they’re several feet apart from each other.”
“The two of us have stealth and can scout ahead of the group if you want to find out what made the tracks,” Ewtain said to Taloc in a whisper.
There was some debate, but Isla did not participate in it. As far as she was concerned, scouting was a good idea, and she was happy that she wouldn’t be on the front line this time. Her ass was still tender from the scorpion strike.
Eventually, they followed the path made by the tracks while Taloc and Ewtain scouted ahead. It was slow going, but after about thirty minutes or so, the scouts came back and directed them to hide behind some trees off of the trail. They moved behind the largest trees that they could find. Taloc and Ewtain were still using their stealth skills, and Vanya suddenly blended into her surroundings so that it was difficult for Isla to see her, even knowing where to look.
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After a few minutes, Isla could hear someone coming. She could make out at least three different voices, but the language wasn’t Common. When they finally came into view, she could see that there were four of them. They looked like four-foot-tall frogs that were standing upright, and they walked like some cowboy from old cartoons—the ones that had a guy getting off of a horse and his legs maintained the shape that they had when he was riding. Three of the creatures had brown and green features; one of those was covered with spots. The fourth appeared to be the only one of them who was armed, and most of its coloring was black geometrical shapes separated by lines of white. It was like that on the arms, legs, and chin, but the rest of its head was a solid dark orange color.
Isla was content to wait until they passed unless she received word that they were to act. The frogs seemed pretty harmless, but with her luck, they were super poisonous and had a taste for Human flesh. They walked past her position, and they were almost out of sight when Vultressant walked over to the trail and called out to them, presumably in the language that they were using. He had his hands up in front of him to show the frogmen that he was not a threat, although if that was how they interpreted the gesture, it was hard to tell.
They rounded towards Vultressant, and the armed one put a hand on the hilt of his sword but did not actually draw the weapon. Vultressant stopped moving towards them and conversed for a moment with Orange-Head. The other three looked like they were ready to bolt, but they were also scanning the woods. It was unclear whether they were looking for others or for the best direction to run. The Wizard’s ability to learn languages fast was very useful, but Isla couldn’t help being annoyed that her adeptness skill didn’t work that well.
After a few minutes, the situation seemed to become less tense, and Vultressant called out in Common, “Come out one at a time, and be as non-threatening as possible.” Vanya was the first to move, and she materialized as if she had taken off a cloaking device. When she made it to where Vultressant was standing, Taloc came out from behind a tree on the other side of the trail, where the rest of them had hidden. The frog with all of the spots made a noise at his appearance but did not run away despite looking like it wanted to do so.
Ewtain went next, and Isla was about to reveal herself when he made it to the others, but she saw Maroftis start moving first. Even though he had his hands up, he caused quite a commotion. The spotted frog and one of the other green ones took off down the trail, jumping around ten feet at a time. The orange one shouted something at them, which caused one of the fleeing frogs to stop and slowly walk back, but the spotted one never slowed and was quickly gone from sight. When they had all settled down again, Isla raised her hands and went over to the others.
“They are willing to take us to their village. Only the orange guy can speak Common, and his is apparently rudimentary, but there are some who speak it in the village. We should be able to get supplies and maybe directions from them. The way that they talked to each other seemed friendly, so I took a chance.” Vultressant said the last to Taloc, who was definitely looking at him with disapproval in his eyes, maybe skepticism. Isla was still trying to get a read on the facial expressions of everyone. She had always been able to gauge the moods of everyone here when they talked online, but she had not been able to determine many of their non-verbal cues yet.
Taloc never replied, so Vultressant went on, “The three women are herbalists, and the man is their protector. Oh, and apparently, they have encountered some of you lot before.” He pointed at Maroftis. “The one that ran off had a brother or something eaten by Koraks, so you can’t really blame her.” He repeated what he said to Maroftis.
“Wait, what?” Maroftis asked.
Vultressant nodded. “Oh yeah. Don’t worry though; I told them that you only eat chicken, and only when the chicken has it coming.” Maroftis didn’t appear to understand, but Taloc and Ewtain were looking at Vultressant as if he were a crazy person, and Isla too found his behavior to be out of character; he was typically analytical, and although he did joke, mostly he took things very seriously, even in games. “Relax. After I learned their language, I received this notification: ‘You have learned the language, Anuran. Anuran is an amphibian-based race that is somewhat primitive, tribal, and friendly. They make willing slaves and are generally the whipping boys of the other races who encounter them. Their diet is made up almost entirely of fish, so they are likely to be located near a large body of water.’”
Ewtain stared at Vultressant with his mouth open. “Whipping boys?” He asked with not a shred of belief in his voice. The Gnome just shrugged and projected his HUD for all to see the notification box, which was as he had read it to them. No wonder Vultressant had taken the chance that he did.
“You should have seen the entire notification that I got when I learned lizard boy’s language,” Vultressant said, nodding at Maroftis. “His race are apparently the jerks of this planet. Anyway, the one with the orange head is in charge and called Galuk, but I didn’t get the names of the females. Can I tell him that we’re ready to go now?”