There was a whole lot to unpack there. I could never have imagined 14 words conveying so much. After a few more hours basking in the temple we started walking towards Dunmar. But I spent pretty much all that time and the next day as we walked thinking through those 14 words and the rest of the experience.

From what I can figure, Ilki taught me some sort of spell-like powers. Or abilities? But definitely not exactly spells. There’s no involvement of spoken runes. Although with trial and error I’ve found it does take a small amount of Mana. Like 1 Mana over the course of … a while … like maybe a half hour or so, near as I can guess without a clock.

For now, I’m calling the first one Pet Telepathy and the other one Pet Sense Link. Why those names? Because they make sense to me. That’ll have to do.

Also, while pondering all of this I got an Interface notification, “Wisdom increased.” Nice. Apparently attributes don’t just come with level rewards. Assuming it isn’t some delayed-release god’s implant from Ilki, this probably means attributes can also be increased the mundane way, from relevant self-improvement efforts. Like the Earth’s known ways of going about getting stronger and wiser. Maybe the fact that the Interface doesn’t have a stamina attribute means that the magic or whatever that the Interface works on just doesn’t consider stamina. Then again, I guess I don’t really know for sure that it wasn’t some kind of delayed-release thing. So … maybe I should pick an attribute and try working on it without adding to it in the Interface to see what happens.

That last part of what Ilki said, “you are not limited to one”? I’m less certain of what that means. It’s not like that came with the kind of packed meaning somehow layered into a touch and an intonation the way the earlier words did. And I’m not sure logic applies to things like this. So I could be barking up the wrong tree trying to interpret it based on the context of pet oriented abilities. Could be. But it seems from context like it’s probably talking about “one pet”. I’ve not tried for more than one because in the games I’ve seen that have pets, getting a new one usually requires releasing the previous one. Nobody said there’d be pets in the Three Moons world, though, let alone that they’d work like games that do have pets. So I’m going to try it.

Easier said than done.

I decided to try for a hawk, because that’d be seriously nice for scouting. And finding a hawk wasn’t hard with Search magic. But actually getting a hawk to come close enough for me to try to make friends with it? How? Best I came up with was figuring the way to a bird’s heart is through its stomach.

So I spent the next day trying to catch all the small mammals I could find. Once again, finding was easy; catching is harder. I rigged a whole bunch of traps and got one mouse. 

I first tried with the mouse for maybe an hour near one of the nearest hawks, which showed no interest. And then I tried for some minutes with the next nearest hawk before it swooped in and swiped the mouse, ripping off its tied down foot in the process. But the hawk utterly ignored my friendly talk as it dived in and sped away. Hope the mouse died when it was swiped rather than suffering while being carried off. 

After that failure, I broke down and cheated with Grasping Vines to get a rabbit. Then I went back to the first hawk and tried again. This time after about an hour, it stopped ignoring the rabbit and instead flew from nearby tree to nearby tree looking at me, at Midnight, and at the rabbit. This was not how I imagined it going. So I just started talking to the hawk as it continued its circuit of flying, perching, and looking from each of the nearby trees. Like, “Hey, hawk buddy, would you like this nice tasty rabbit? I’d love to have a hawk as a friend. And as a bonus, you could be on good terms with this big kitty too. Doesn’t that sound nice?” It went on like that for quite a while before the hawk flew down and snagged the rabbit while I released the vines just as the talons connected.

It felt like it worked. The hawk flew up to the tree nearest me with the rabbit and set to snacking, but it wasn’t flying off far. It felt like this was a boy hawk.

Maeve: “Let’s call you ‘Felix’. Yeah, ‘Felix the Hawk’ sounds good.”

While I looked up at him, his indicator changed from “hawk” to “Felix (Maeve’s pet)”.

With only slight “what if” panic, I quickly looked over at Midnight. It still said, “Midnight (Maeve’s pet)”. Also, I still felt connected. Yay! There’s no “there can be only one” situation here.

Two and a half days of walking towards Dunmar later, I was starting to get the hang of noticing when Felix had spotted something interesting. Of course, most of what he found interesting was prey. But we also avoided a pair of ogres along the way thanks to Felix spotting them from far enough away. I’m pretty sure we can handle a lone ogre again at this point. Especially with preparation. Not so sure about two at once.

Then Felix spotted something very interesting indeed.

It was a battle. One man fighting a half dozen goblins on a bare hillside with trees at the top. As I watched from Hawk’s eye view, he slipped his sword deep into one goblin while parrying another with his dagger. But the rest were looking for openings as well and at least one sunk a knife into his side.

I said, “Let’s go!” and Midnight and I hustled towards them. Midnight wouldn’t go at top speed because she didn’t want to leave me behind. But we headed over the rise in between at least as fast as I could go. When we reached where we could see, I saw another goblin fall over backwards towards us. We kept running over a clearing past a pit; and two more goblins, one with a spear and one with a hatchet, fell to the sides. The man spun and slashed the last goblin that had gotten behind him. There was a goblin spear sticking out of the middle of his back. The man’s sword slipped from his grasp after his strike and clattered to the ground. He fell to his knees and I could see the last goblin had a thick gash diagonally from one end of its torso to the other. It too fell and then the man himself toppled face forward onto the goblins legs.

When we reached them, I’d apparently stared long enough to pop an indicator on the man.

Simon Drac

Level 4

Health 1/50 🌢

Mana 30/50

{[cure wounds]}

Just as I cast, his health dropped to 0 and then rebounded from my spell. Literally just in time. Out of the corner of my eye I notice a fallen goblin moving and then Midnight put a stop to that. I checked over and the rest were dead. So I set about alternating between healing the guy and pulling weapons out of his wounds. But he stayed unconscious. Maybe he hit his head on the way down and healing didn’t cover that? I don’t know.

Simon, huh?

I collected up a little pile of the useful stuff from the goblins and dragged all of their corpses – obviously except Midnight’s snack – over by the pit where there were a couple others that had arrows sticking out of them. Curiosity and some scrabbling noises led me to look over the pit edge. Spike trap … several dead or dying goblins and one trying to climb its way out.

{[flame]}

Update: none trying to climb their way out.

Looking around further, I found a little pile of supplies as well as what looked like a hastily dropped bow and quiver inside the trees at the top of the hill. So I brought those over beside Simon. Then I set about making a campfire. Felix brought us a rabbit, so that should cover those of us who don’t like to snack on goblins. Once I got that rabbit cooking on a spit, I took Simon’s armor off and started looking it over to repair it. Nothing risqué here. I left the tunic and hosen on. Though he’s tall, probably late 20s or maybe early 30s, with rough-cut short brown hair, and definitely kinda’ buff like one of the more fit guys in a caber toss competition, so .. anyway. Fixing the armor. Right. Just fixing the armor.

{[repair]}

Simon: “What are you doing?”

He sounds … maybe calm? Maybe a little suspicious?

Midnight growled at him and Simon suddenly rolled over towards his sword. Must have looked around for it before speaking.

Maeve: “Down, Midnight! Simon, fighting my pet would be a pretty horrible way to repay me for fixing your armor, don’t you think? Besides, she’d kick your ass.”

I was totally winging this. Nonetheless, I think it came out pretty cool. Although this is no time to go striking a victory pose over managing not to sound awkward. But my guildees would have been all like, “Awww yeeeaah.”

Midnight, being a good girl, held off and struck a wary cat pose. 

Simon: “Uh. Maybe that fight does seem like a bad idea. At least without my armor. So you can repair armor?”

Maeve: “Yep.”

{[repair]}

It took multiple castings. There were a couple places where it looked like there’d been mundane patch jobs. And there were a few previously unrepaired parts without fresh blood, so I guess it makes sense that he sounds a bit surprised.

Simon set his sword back down right where it had been and cautiously came to sit by the fire, glancing between me and Midnight the whole time.

Midnight outwardly relaxed when he sat down. Though I sensed she was still keeping a close eye on the new guy while I studied the armor for any missed broken parts. I’m even more glad than usual that she’s here. As far as I recall, I’ve never been alone with a grown man other than my dad without nurses right outside the room or something. This is way outside my social comfort zone. But I’ve got Midnight. Definitely have to give her a good scritching later.

Maeve: “Any chance you saved any of the broken off pieces? This spell can put things back together if it has the pieces to join. But some are missing.”

Simon: “No. But thanks for … fixing it.”

He looked down and checked himself over.

Simon: “And me, I suppose.”

Maeve: “Heh. Yeah, you were a little banged up. Was that your pit trap?”

Simon: “Yes. It was supposed to catch more of them. Or all. All would have been nice. Things did not go according to plan.”

Maeve: “That’s what I thought. A good idea. Just needed more backup plan.”

Simon: “Haha! Yes. So it did.”

Finished with what I could fix, I set Simon’s armor aside and checked on the rabbit. Not quite done. “Inventory” Some berries would hit the spot to tide us over.

Simon: “Was that ‘English’?”

He recognized it? Oh, right. Una did say I’d find someone from my world on the way to Dunmar. I closed the inventory and handed Simon a half handful.

Maeve: “Yep. Are you from there too?”

Simon: “If you mean ‘Earth’, yes. But I’m from ‘France’.”

Maeve: “Maeve r’Enatus, formerly Emma Campbell. This is Midnight. And that’s Felix up there in the tree.”

Simon: “Strange. There was no pet system …”

Maeve: “So you played Three Moons too?”

Simon: “Beta Tester. I’ve been here for … years, I think. I’m not exactly sure how long. And you?”

Maeve: “Oh. I guess it’s been around 10 days here. But I pre-ordered, so I was one of the first players when it opened to the public. Ran a guild for years. It’s not exactly the same, I know. But hey! You didn’t introduce yourself now and yourself then.”

He’s blushing? Blue eyes. Strong features. I’d call his face rugged even without the scars. Despite all that, he briefly manages to look vulnerable and cute when he blushes. But why is he blushing?

Simon: “Simon Drac, formerly Simone Marie Moreau-laurent. But please never use my dead name.”

Maeve: “Wh … um … OK. I won’t, Simon.”

It took me a moment. But I think I get it.

Simon: “Thanks. Noone else in this world knows it. Even the other ‘Earthers’ I’ve met. I don’t know. I guess. …”

Maeve: “Thanks. For … uh, for trusting me.”

Simon paused. Thinking something over, apparently.

Simon: “Well, you saved my life, didn’t you? So. Thanks for that.”

Maeve: “Oh, I think the rabbit’s done.”

One rabbit and some fried veggies wasn’t a lot to share between two people, a hawk, and a big cat. So of course I had to supplement with some beetle even despite Midnight’s earlier snacking.

Since it was getting towards dark, we built the fire up a bit more and then compared notes on our time here. Simon started off in Dunmar and trained with the guard there for a while before roving the surroundings to hunt monsters. He tried scouting north once, but he found some of the monsters near Dark Wood were obviously too much to solo. And when he tried to work with the Novgora guard, he found they wouldn’t trust outsiders who weren’t there on behalf of any sort of official cross-kingdom endeavor. So he came back to Selkir to practice on smaller monsters and think about the problem of how to get further. 

I figured he wouldn’t want me to ask about before, so I didn’t. But he did mention a few things. Like he’d been in the French military and the SCA, although he had a lot of trouble with jerks not taking him seriously in combat back in our homeworld, sometimes even after he’d kicked their butts with skill. For my part, I told him about my gamer life and why I jumped at even a potential for a new life here despite not entirely believing it till it happened.

Also, he said the other “Earthers” he’d met, Darcy and Kuro, had headed for Selkir City. They told Simon they wanted to see the capital and also to see if they could learn some more spells there.

That might be a good idea.