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Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Eleven

  Alex spent the next five weeks on the edges of the Warped Forest, grinding on the low-level mobs that she could take without endangering herself.

  The biggest challenge she had was finding enough creatures in the safer areas near the chasm that she was capable of killing. Whenever she got twitchy and tried to go further into the forest, she ran into something large and scary, and of a level that turned up ?? when she analyzed it.

  The only good thing that had come from her slow grind was that she'd used the time to establish her camp and work on the basics of Gamemakers Online. After the first night sleeping under a bush, she found a better spot with a spring-fed pond and a defensible hollow, which she bolstered with a spiked palisade.

  It felt more like a war zone than an adventure, surrounded by tall walls, but she needed her sleep each night if she wanted to hunt well the next day.

  The little shrew followed her to the camp, making appearances during the evenings. Alex took to capturing insects to feed the shrew, and in turn was rewarded with an occasional companion.

  "Do you have a name, my pointy-nosed friend?" she asked the shrew one night.

  The brown mammal lifted its little head and stared back at her as if it understood her question. On a whim, Alex analyzed the shrew again.

  Axomavillaratonii, critter, level 0

  "That's a mouthful," she said. "Would you mind if I just called you Axo?"

  To her surprise, Axo nodded.

  "You don't seem like you're from the Warped Forest. Did you get lost or choose to come here?"

  Axo squeaked, which could have meant any number of things, but then the critter made little jumps, followed by peering into the sky.

  "Hunted by hawks? I guess you came from the plains," said Alex.

  Axo nodded again.

  "Very shrewd of you to come here," said Alex, waiting for a reaction, but Axo stared back blankly.

  "Puns aren't your thing, huh? I used to groan at my dad's puns. At least until he died, and then I found out how much I missed them," said Alex.

  Axo rubbed its face with its tiny paws.

  "Thanks, Axo. But it's okay. I don't cry about it anymore." She raised an eyebrow. "Hey Axo, what does a gorilla wear to the beach?"

  The shrew stared back from its spot in the grass.

  "A donkey thong," said Alex, slapping her leg. "Oh, I kill me. Actually I kill mobs, but who's counting." She sighed. "See, this is what happens when you play solo for too long. You start telling bad jokes to critters. Anyway, night, Axo."

  #

  On the forty-fifth day since she'd been in Gamemakers Online, Alex had hunted down a pack of ferocious badgerpines. She'd been watching them for a few weeks, foraging for grubs in the undergrowth, but hadn't wanted to tackle them because the critters were level 5 and could shoot spikes over a dozen yards.

  Alex had been hunkered down in a blind waiting when she saw the first snaggle-toothed badgerpine waddling down the trail, four of its companions right behind it. When the first badgerpine reached a curve in the trail, Alex cut the rope, releasing the suspended logs that she'd prepared a few days before.

  You have hit a badgerpine for 29 damage with a BFL!

  You have hit a badgerpine for 15 damage with a BFL!

  You have gained a skill point: +1 Devious Device

  While she was excited about the damage, the real benefit was that the logs split the critters, giving her a chance to pick off the first before the others could join the fight.

  Alex leapt from behind the blind, striking the badgerpine with her spiked whip.

  You have hit a badgerpine for 14 damage! The badgerpine is affected by Bleed!

  As the badgerpine puffed up, readying a volley of spikes, Alex kicked a makeshift lever attached to a tree, which released a woven mat to fall between her and the creature. With a growling puff, the spikes imbedded into the grass mat.

  While the other creatures were still making their way through the underbrush towards her, Alex struck the first badgerpine two more times, killing it.

  You have gained experience: 50 XP

  Alex ran down the trail, expecting to find one badgerpine coming around the log, but a second appeared with the first, growling rabidly.

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  Before it could launch a spike volley, Alex cast Dewdrop Orb on the lead badgerpine, capturing it. But she wasn't quick enough to avoid the second, and a spray of spikes hit her across the midsection.

  You have taken 6 damage!

  With a chunk of her health gone, she knew she couldn't take another hit. She retreated to the blind, drawing the badgerpine behind her. When it rambled into the space in a bowlegged trot, Alex pulled on a grass rope, which released a stacked pile of logs that cascaded into the badger and killed it instantly.

  You have gained experience: 50 XP

  Who do you think you are, Rambo?

  Chuckling at the reference, Alex climbed a nearby tree, using the notches she'd painstakingly burnt into its trunk. While she searched the undergrowth for the remaining critters, Alex reached into her Handysack for a Spicy Iguana Steak and quickly ate it.

  The game mechanics allowed her to practically inhale the food item, which was necessary for her to eat an eight ounce piece of meat in less than two seconds. Immediately, a fire formed in her gut, along with a "Now That's a Spicy Iguana!" icon near her health bar.

  The heat in her gut grew until beads of sweat broke out on her forehead. The first time she'd eaten one, it'd given her gas for days.

  When she saw a badgerpine waddling on the far side of the blind with the other a few paces behind, Alex made a quick recalculation and leapt, landing right in their path.

  The badgerpines startled but reacted quickly, puffing to send two volleys of quills into her, which could kill her even at full health.

  But Alex was quicker, releasing the lava-like substance from her gut in a torrent of fire and flames. It felt like she was a human volcano with indigestion. The two badgerpines were burnt to a crisp before even a single quill could be launched.

  You have gained experience: 50 XP

  You have gained experience: 50 XP

  Dracayrs!

  Once again, the game's love of pop culture made her laugh, though the chuckle came with a spicy belch. She knew little about Patron Dimple or Professor Marzio, but clearly they enjoyed peppering Gamemakers Online with references from the real world.

  As her shoulders relaxed in the exhaustion of victory, she heard a low growling from ten feet behind her. In that moment, she realized that the badgerpine from the Dewdrop Orb had managed to survive its watery suffocation and it was preparing to fill her back with deadly quills.

  She did the only thing she could think of, and dropped to her stomach, right as the spikes went over her head. Before the badgerpine could close the distance, Alex rolled onto her knees and cracked the final critter with her Vicious Thorny Whip.

  Critical hit! You deal the badgerpine 35 damage! You have killed the badgerpine!

  You have gained experience: 50 XP

  You have reached level 2!

  "Oh, thank Merlin," said Alex from her knees.

  If she'd lost the fight, she would have taken a 500 XP penalty, erasing two days of preparation. Not only that, but she'd hunted everything she thought she could comfortably kill. Anything else would have taken next-level thinking to conquer.

  Since this was the first time she got to put points into her character, she was so giddy she was light-headed. But she didn't want to die to a wandering monster while she was lost in her character sheet, so she surveyed the area first, looting the carcasses as she went.

  Alex received two badgerpine meats for her troubles, and one of the bodies didn't disappear after looting it, which meant she could cook it down for either a chimeric stone or a worthless bauble.

  With the area cleaned up, Alex hiked back to her camp, slipping through the gate before settling onto her favorite thinking rock and bringing up her character sheet. Right away she saw new information that had her brimming with excitement.

  Character: Alexandria Duke

  Level: 2

  Strength: 1

  Intelligence: 1

  Cunning: 1

  Agility: 1

  Endurance: 1

  Charisma: 1

  Class: Undecided

  Subclass: Undecided

  Health: 18/18

  Faez: 25/25

  Fatigue: 67%

  XP: 20,013 / 50,000

  Skills:

  Analyze: 2

  One-handed Slashing: 1

  Fire Spells: 2

  Devious Device: 2

  Sense Direction: 2

  One-handed Whip: 2

  Water Spells: 2

  Cooking: 2

  Spells:

  Dewdrop Orb: 2

  The list of attributes was a nice change, and she'd been given three points to put into increases, but without knowing what her eventual class or subclass might be, it was hard to pick.

  The increase in hit points was a huge boon, and so was the increase in mana. She hoped that since she'd leveled it'd be easier to increase her skills. She hadn't been able to get any above two, and even getting One-handed Whip, her most frequently used skill, had been devilishly difficult.

  The thing she didn't like was the increase in experience. She'd hoped that the next level would be another 20,000 experience over the last, but it was fifty percent more than that. While it was true that higher level monsters gave more experience, the ratio wasn't as high as she'd hoped.

  As she stared at her stats, she thought about saving them for later when she got to pick her class, but the battles had been tough enough. She needed every advantage, especially because she knew she had to venture into the middle of the forest now that she had leveled up.

  "Ha, level two," said Alex. "It's like I think I'm suddenly epic class or something."

  Of the six attributes, she quickly eliminated strength. That was a stat usually reserved for frontline tanks carrying heavy armor or wielding cartoonish massive weapons. While she wasn't opposed to the role, the realistic pain made standing up to blow after blow unappealing. Her legs were still smarting from the badgerpine quills.

  Charisma was the next stat she ruled out because of her remote location. She was aware that some games utilized it for sorcerers or bards to power up their magic or song, but she was interested in neither class.

  Endurance was a consideration, but not because of the implications for her eventual class, whatever that would be. Having more hit points increased survivability, which was always helpful, and with the high XP penalty, she didn't want to play a glass cannon that died after every other fight. Alex put one point into Endurance. The other two would go into whatever stat she thought best for her long-term plans.

  Her first inclination was Intelligence, only because she felt like it described her in real life. Agility was good, because it would help her hit foes and increase her dodginess. The last one, Cunning, had a particular sublime draw. Normally that slot had a stat called wisdom, or spirit, depending on the game. But those were both high-minded descriptions that had always led her to choose other paths.

  While she thought of herself as an intelligent young woman, it wasn't her raw smarts that had made her a top gamer or earned her a place in Gamemakers Hall. While some people thought of cunning as a negative, as if the results were always achieved through underhanded and duplicitous means, she thought that the attribute required a rigorous attention to detail and a thorough understanding of the problem. No one just lucked into cunning results, and while it was a way that Bond villains and thieves were described, it belittled their preparation and efforts.

  "It's not like taking over the world is a task easily begun," said Alex to no one but herself.

  The more she thought about it, the more she liked the idea of Cunning as her main stat. She had a feeling that it would help her with the devious device skill, which had been her main survival tool in the Warped Forest.

  It also described the extent of the challenge before her. She was going to have to be cunning to beat the hardest game in the world. Straight-up raw ability wasn't going to do it. Cunningness would help her leverage the options she'd been given, which were few and far between.

  "What are we going to do today?" she asked aloud as she hovered her finger over the floating character screen. Alex selected the Cunning stat twice. "We're going to take over the world."

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