Ana woke up to pale morning light and birdsong, and a burning in her eyes. She''d never washed off her make-up — not like there was any remover or any cotton pads here — and now her mascara was trying to kill her. Fucking great!
She squeezed her eyes shut and wiped away what she could, but the damage was done. She''d just have to grit her teeth and bear it until the tears did their job. At least there was no one here to see the mess she''d made of her face.
Poor Nic. He''d deserved better. Now he lay in a pile in the bushes with the three assholes, where she''d left them after stripping them of anything of value. Not that there''d been much, but she''d found some small leather pouches of coins, which she took. They were weird, but they looked like they may be real gold and silver. She''d also taken Nic''s cash, which was quite a few quid, even after a night out. She left his cards, his driver''s license, and his phone. She didn''t want anything on her that might connect her to him.
She''d found a small camp nearby, where she''d also found the men''s packs. The three men had only brought supplies for a short hike and a single night, judging by the food she’d found. That meant that they couldn’t be too far from people. Or at least, so Ana hoped. All that she found was some food, a few tools, primitive camping gear, a thick, black book that looked like it might be valuable and, luckily, a spare robe. She''d put that on immediately, the air here being considerably more chilly than the London summer night she''d come from, and her wearing only a much too thin lavender party dress. The robe hung loosely on her, but it would do.
She''d slept in a kind of sleeping bag which was pretty much just two furs sewn together, but it was warm and soft, so she''d wrapped herself up in it. She''d have preferred not to sleep alone in a strange place, but she''d had a long day followed by a long night, and she was completely exhausted. She was a light sleeper and had her gun ready, so she''d been safe enough. Now that it was morning she rolled it up and packed it with the rest of what she''d taken.
Her heels also went in the pack. Even walking barefoot would have been better than trying to make her way through the forest in those. None of the dead men’s boots had fit her, and Nic’s massive loafers were right out, but luckily she had plenty of unused cloth lying around in the form of their robes. She cut long strips from one and wrapped her feet, packing the rest for spare material. She''d gotten pretty good at that on the street, where she’d had her shoes stolen more than once.
She considered strapping on the sword, but beyond “stick ‘em with the pointy end” she didn''t know how to use one, so it went in the pack, the hilt sticking out the top. She did, however, put both of the daggers on a belt under the robe. She could use those. She''d rather not, but she could, though as long as she had her gun it shouldn''t come to that. She had one mag of nine rounds left, and one single round in the spare. That should be plenty.
After a light breakfast of dried meat, bread, and cheese, plus water from a nearby brook that she prayed wouldn’t make her sick, she threw on the pack. Morning calisthenics were out: she was not doing goddamn burpees in the forest in a party dress. Other than that break with routine she was feeling pretty good, all things considered. Sure, she could never go back to London. It would probably be better to leave the UK entirely and go back to the US. And the whole thing with Nic had been pretty sad. On the bright side, she wouldn''t have his whining to ruin what looked like a pretty nice hike through a beautiful old-growth forest.
Now she just needed to convince herself that she wasn''t insane.
That might be tricky. Hiking left her plenty of time to think, and most of those thoughts revolved around the fact that she''d seen, or thought that she''d seen, a bunch of weird text last night, telling her that she had gained experience, that she had a bunch of Attributes, and that she had to spend points. Text that had frozen time until she did what it wanted her to. She wasn''t completely ignorant. She''d spent just under a year as Nic''s politely interested — meaning “actually not, but if it makes him happy…” — “girlfriend,” long enough to have picked up the basics of D&D. And Dark Heresy. And some robot game called Lancer and a bunch of other games Nic played. She''d sometimes amused herself by asking Nic''s friends which D&D they were playing that night, to see which of them was the worst at hiding their annoyance. She didn’t see why Nic needed a bodyguard with him to play pretend with math, but Mr. Stamper insisted, and she got her fun where she could.
The point was that she''d become involuntarily familiar with role-playing games. She knew about Classes, and Attributes, and skills and all that. But having it pop up right in front of your eyes, telling you that you got stronger by killing three men, was not a sign of a healthy mind.
Ana couldn’t just tell herself that she’d imagined it, though. She had two pieces of internal evidence that she couldn’t ignore. First, while she’d been reading all of the text, the world had literally stopped. Second, when she was done, and had been told that her perception was better, her perception actually had been better. The dark did have more shades of darkness, letting her see more detail even though the light was no brighter, and everything had been just a bit sharper.
Besides that, there was external evidence. She was suddenly in a new, unfamiliar place. There were none of the after effects that she’d expect if she’d been drugged, and the men that had attacked her had acted as though Nic and she had just appeared. Even if this had been some bizarre prank, she had shot three men dead, and no one had come running in a panic calling for an ambulance while trying to talk her down.
So, for now she had to proceed with the assumption that everything was real, that the text was there, and that weird shit was going to continue happening. That meant that she should figure out the situation better. The first time she took a rest, sitting down on an old log, she brought up her Summary again. It took a couple of attempts, but she figured out how. After asking out loud, “How do I get to see that damn individual thing again?” she got a notification in her peripheral vision. It said:
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<td style="width: 98.6508%">Individual Summary is displayed by invoking Individual Summary.</td>
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This was about as helpful as saying, “Do it by doing it,” but when she thought the words with enough will behind them the text popped up. This time, though, everything in the world continued as normal behind the text. Bugs buzzed by, trees swayed in the breeze, and birds sang.If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
“What do the Attributes do?”
The Summary was replaced by a list of descriptions:
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Strength: Affects the maximum amount of force your muscles can generate.
Endurance: Affects your ability to maintain physical exertion, as well as your ability to stave off the effects of hunger, thirst, and exposure to the elements.
Vitality: Affects your ability to withstand physical harm, disease, and poison, as well as your ability to recover from such effects.
Agility: Affects your general ability to control your body, as well as your ability to track your body’s relative position in space.
Dexterity: Affects your hand-eye coordination, as well as your ability to perform single or multiple simple or complex actions with one or both hands.
Perception: Affects your ability to sense and interpret stimuli of any kind.
Acuity: Affects your clarity of thought, your mental quickness, and your ability to keep track of and order information.
Willpower: Affects your ability to resist your own impulses and external manipulation, as well as your ability to resist mentally harmful effects.
Charisma: Affects your force of personality, as well as your ability to recover from mentally harmful effects.
Connection: Affects the strength of your connection to the World Soul, as well as your ability to draw on and manipulate that connection.
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“All right,” she muttered after reading everything and went back to the Summary. “Better check out the rest, I guess. What’s my race mean? Outsider?”
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<td style="width: 98.6508%">Outsider, Summoned (Human aspect): You are a creature from outside of this plane of existence, summoned for a specific purpose. You may or may not be bound to do your Summoner’s bidding, or to perform a specific task. You are physiologically indistinguishable from a Human, and any inspection save for particularly powerful inspection abilities or spells will return you as Human.</td>
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She snorted. Apparently she wasn’t even human anymore. She could live with that. Outsider. It fit. Sometimes she felt a little like an alien who’d come to Earth to observe the humans and their weird little lives. She’d never fully felt like one of them. There were so many things you were supposed to do and have as a human that she simply didn’t.
“All right. What do my Class and abilities do?”
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Guardian Angel (Paragon): Due to your exceptionally high moral standards and willingness to sacrifice for the sake of the well-being of others, you have become a paragon of selflessness and devotion. You are devoted to one or a small group of individuals, and none shall harm them so long as you draw breath. Special: As a reward for your self-sacrifice, each Attribute’s base value increases by 1 for every level you gain in this Class.
Hidden Class (Guardian Angel): This Class may be hidden from inspection. While hidden, the related Class levels will be shown as belonging to another Class appropriate to you. This ability can be disabled for any and all other individuals as desired. Note: This ability is ineffective against particularly powerful inspection abilities or spells.
Devotion: You are devoted to one or a small group of individuals. You are always in a Party with the objects of your devotion, and can sense their direction relative to you and their general condition. You gain extra Growth Crystals when defending an object of devotion. These Growth Crystals are bound to you and cannot be traded. You cannot willingly allow your objects of devotion to come to harm. If you have no object of devotion, you can bond with an individual by swearing your life to them. This bond can only be broken by your death or theirs, or if they formally dismiss you. You can have a maximum of 1 bond. Maximum number of bonds increases with Class level. Current objects of devotion: Anastasia Cole.
Guardian Angel: While within 3 feet of an object of devotion you can absorb any harm meant for them, including magical or physical attacks or poison. While fighting to defend an object of devotion the base value of each Attribute counts as 3 points higher. All values increase with Class level.
Danger Sense (Special): You have a subconscious and supernatural ability to sense when an object of your devotion is in danger, so long as they are within 30 yards of you and the origin of the danger is within 3 feet of them. Ranges increase with Class level.
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“Objects of devotion, Anastasia Cole… how the hell does that work?” she said to herself, but she wasn’t going to argue. If she was bound only to herself that was an absolute victory as far as she was concerned. It wasn’t like she disliked all people. She liked Mr. Stamper, and she was very grateful to him. She liked some of her colleagues. And she’d liked Nic— when he wasn’t being an annoying or grabby little shit. She’d just rather not be stuck to anyone. It made things messy.
But if all this was real, and if she understood everything correctly, then she was always going to know if someone close to her was a threat. And as long as she was fighting to defend herself — and if she was in a fight, of course she would be doing that — she’d get stronger.
Something must have gone very wrong in her favor. She was all for it.
A fairly clear path led away from the stone circle and the camp through the forest. It passed a large stream with a simple wooden bridge, where Ana refilled the waterskins she’d taken, and about an hour and a half after her first rest she arrived at a dirt road. Around that time she really started to wonder where the hell she was. She didn’t think they had forests like this in England. Since she had no way of knowing which way to go, and she didn’t want to wait for who knew how long for a passer-by she could ask, she went north-west, for the simple reason that it kept the sun mostly at her back.
The road was wide for a dirt track, maybe eight or nine yards, but the forest packed in close on each side, and she kept a watchful eye on the trees and bushes. After perhaps two hours of walking, and a short break to eat something and rest her feet, her vigilance was rewarded.