All’s fair in love and warg.

The wargs charge headlong at our little group, dry leaves and clods of earth thrown up by the two beast's claws as they tear up the ground in their haste to get to us. The warg on the left yips in pain as Lisa's first arrow strikes home, burying itself in the beast’s shoulder with a meaty thunk. The creature’s frantic pace slows, but isn’t halted entirely. Its beady eyes narrow, burning with a vicious rage, then it changes direction slightly, heading straight for Lisa.

Despite the monstrous ball of teeth, claws and fury barrelling down on her, Mum stands firm. No matter how resolute she stands, though, it doesn’t take a genius to see that she will not be able to handle both charges at once. “Mum, focus on the one on the right. I’ve got the other one! Don’t take that charge head on, it’ll knock you flat!” With a defiant cry, I rush forward slightly, putting myself between Lisa and the Beast.

I launch the bolt of magic gathered in my offhand, yelling, “Come and get me you fucker!” Before the spell even lands, both of my hands grasp my spear as I drive the butt of the weapon into the ground, ready to disregard my own advice and accept the beasts charge. ‘Spears beat cavalry, right? This is just a horse… with sharp teeth.’ There's a whoosh of air on either side of me as an arrow passes on my left, and a bolt of fire passes on my right. All three attacks slam into the warg, causing the thing to whimper as it staggers noticeably.

The beast’s eyes refocus on me and narrow further. ‘This is going to really suuuuuuuck.’ The warg on the right arrives first, leaping into the air with claws extended and teeth bared, barreling straight at Mum. She sidesteps the attack, swinging her axe with all her strength. The axe buries itself in the beast’s chest, causing massive damage to the warg as the copper head of the weapon tears through muscle and shatters bone.

Momentum, however, is a bitch. The warg continues sailing onward, howling in pain at the grievous wound, slamming into Mum’s extended arm. An impromptu stress test is held, several hundred pounds of pissed off predator VS the bones in Mum’s wrist. The bones lose spectacularly. Mums’ wrist snaps with a dry crack. She screams out in pain, letting go of her axe.

I hear her scream and my blood runs cold with worry, but I have my own pissed off problem to deal with, my very own warg is bearing down on me like a train. With a roar, it leaps into the air, teeth ready to tear out my throat. I want to run, hide, or do anything other than what I actually do, stand firm. There is one final twang behind me, and I watch as if in slow motion as an arrow fly’s past, before it sprouts from the beast’s eye.

The wargs' controlled leap turns into a tumble as the beast yowls in pain. Despite the incredible shot, the warg is still alive, just. That changes as soon as its momentum carries it onto my spear. The shaft bends slightly, but holds, most of the **** dissipating as the spearhead plunges into the beast’s flesh. The creature lets out a garbled roar, then falls still. The impact tears my spear from the ground, and I slide backwards under the weight of the warg. This works out in my favour, as I avoid being bowled over by the creature’s body.

As soon as I am steady on my feet, a look over to see how Ash and Mum fared. Ash squares off against the mortally wounded warg, blocking the path between it and Mum. My spear is well and truly buried in the first warg, but we have a clear shot at the second one's back. I turn to the beast, shouting, “Hit it from behind!”

Moments later, an arrow follows my Ice Shard, both attacks slamming into the second warg from behind. It’s enough to draw the creature’s attention away from Ash, which is its last mistake. With a yell, Ash plunges her blades into the wargs neck, ending fight and the creature's life. Silence returns to the forest as we look around, searching for any other threats. We quickly determine the coast is clear, so I rush towards Mum. She’s sat on the ground, face as white at as a sheet as she cradles her wrist.

Her eyes meet mine as I skid to a stop in front of her as she mumbles, “I did well, right? I can keep up with you guys?” soothingly, I say, “you did great Ma, but now were going to see to that arm of yours.” She nods, presenting her arm to me. I look over the injury, wincing as see how swollen it is already. I nod to her, then say, “hold up one more second, okay? I’ll heal you in a moment.” She nods, cradling her arm again.

In the meantime, I have already drawn my spare clothes bag out of my inventory. I root around in the bag until I find my spare belt. The belt is relatively clean, as I’d only worn it once or twice, but I rinse it with some water all the same before presenting it to Mum. “This might sting a little, bite down on this for me, okay?” Mum nods and opens her mouth for me, allowing me to place the leather inside.

“Ready?” At her nod, I work through the gestures of Minor Heal, holding the spell ready to cast. “I’m going to count to five, then heal, okay?” Another nod. I begin counting, completing the spell on the count of 2. Mum howls through clenched teeth, biting down on the belt as the bones in her wrist grind back to where they should be. Still, the work isn’t completely done. It takes another 6 casts before her wrist is back to normal. By that time, Mum is sweating profusely.

When it’s over, Mum gives me a thankful look. I open my mouth, ready to deliver a quip, when I hear Lisa say, “Are you finished? Can you do anything for Em?” I look over at the pair, concerned by Lisa's tone, and find Em lying on the floor, head cradled in Lisa’s lap. I scramble to my feet, rushing over to the pair. I quick inspection shows no external wounds in so far as I can see, but a look at the party interface proves she’s taken some damage.

I top her health off with a Minor Heal, then open my mouth, intent on asking what caused the damage. Before I can ask, however, I noticed her arms and legs twitching. ‘Oh, she’s had her first Shiverblight attack. Fuck, I thought we’d have more goddamn time!’. She looks up at me groggily, then says hoarsely, “Spell feedback is fucking awful.”

I frown in slight confusion, then realisation dawns. In the final moments of the battle, only Lisa and I had attacked that last warg. This, apparently, was the reason. ‘What if it had been at the start of the fight?’ I banish the unhelpful thought but can’t help pondering the ramifications. ‘As if I needed any more reason to remove this thing.’

Unfortunately, there isn't anything I can do to help, so whilst Em rides through the effects of her disease and Lisa watches over her, the rest of us clear up after the battle. Ash insists Mum loots their warg, whereas Lisa and Em urge me to loot ours. I do so, holding my hand out to the beast and thinking, ‘Loot’. The warg’s body glows, before dissolving into motes of light which flow into my palm.

Checking my inventory, I now had several predator teeth, a poor-quality pelt, and several pounds of the beast’s meat. I eye the warg meat dubiously, and my suspicion only grows as a tool-tip opens, informing me that my Survival Skill was too low to determine if the meat was edible.

When Em is back on her feet, we cautiously make our way over to the thicket where the wargs had been hidden. The sight we found… was not pleasant. At some point, it might have been a goblin, the grey/green skin and short stature suggested as such, but the body had been well and truly savaged by the vicious predators. Frankly, the scene was too much for me. whilst Mum and I found a nearby tree against which to lose our lunch, Ash and Lisa searched the thicket, but found little else of interest.

It was quickly decided we’d move on for a time, then set up camp. Em had been mulling over the quest to heal her, the specifics of which I had shared with the group, and had come to her own conclusion about the last tier. Half an hour after the fight, she spoke up, saying, “The no sleep requirement is so arbitrary, right? Every other objective on every other tier is based around finding or developing a cure, so why throw in a random time limit?”

She looked around at the group as we walked in silence, listening to what she had to say. “What if it’s not an objective, but a clue?” At my confused look, she clarifies, “Think about it this way, every other tier doesn’t have a time limit, but this one does. Why?” I furrow my brow in thought, glancing over my shoulder back at Ash as she says, “It’s meant to be hard?”

“Well, yes, but at the same time, no. What if the reason the other paths lack time limits, especially such a short one, is because we lack all the stuff we need for those routes right now?” From the front of the group, Lisa says, “So, you’re saying that the only reason this option has a time limit is because we already have everything we need?”

A smile spreads across Em’s face, and she replies, “I was only suggesting it, but the 2 points of Intelligence and 1 of Wisdom the System just gave me for being a ‘clever girl’ sounds like pretty compelling evidence to me. By the way, does the System remind anyone else of an elderly grandpa giving out sweets?”

We immediately shift focus to trying to find a decent campsite, determined to cure this thing as soon as possible. As we search, we talked about our System notifications. I already knew that the System interacted with our subconscious to generate our notifications… I had just forgotten to tell anybody. I told everyone now, then asked what each of their prompts were like, genuinely curious about any differences.

Em’s notifications, as she just mentioned, apparently were rather grandfatherly in tone, and were supportive and encouraging in a stuffy sort of way. Ash’s were like mine, filled with snark and liberally dotted with references to stuff we liked. The family collectively groaned as we shared a fist bump in twinsy solidarity.

Lisa… apparently didn’t want to say? She insisted her notifications were ‘dry, clinical, and rather boring really’, but as spotting the shade of pink she turned when she said this netted me not one, but two new Skills, I quietly called shenanigans.

Mum’s notifications were apparently warm and reassuring. It was nice to see the smile on her face as she spoke about them, but it reminded me I needed to have a talk with her at some point soon. It was clear to me she was feeling inadequate compared to the rest of us, despite our reassurances to the contrary, but I still wasn’t sure how we were going to change her mind.

We move through the forest in silence after that, searching for a place to settle in. Eventually, we come across a decently sized clearing, and I call everyone to a halt. Looking around the break in the trees, the clearing seemed to speak to me, resonating with something deep inside me. Whatever it was, it told me that this would make a perfect campsite. ‘So, this is how that Survival Perk works, huh? Neat.’

Just like last night, Em, Ash, and I set up camp, whilst Lisa and Mum find us some firewood. Half an hour later, and we are set up for the evening. It's still only around 4pm (if our 24-hour clock even applies to this world), but that should hopefully give us plenty of time to work on a cure.

I get settled in, then glance at the notification icon on my HUD, which had been blinking occasionally ever since we took out that first Screamer Beast. To my surprise, a new window opens.

0----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------0

You have several notifications pending. Would you like to view a summary? (Y/N)

0----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------0

Authors note: This is something I’ll be trying from now on whenever lots of changes occur to the RPG side of the story. I will post the full summary first, which will include any Exp and Skill gains, new Skills learnt, any progress made on Quests, and other such things. If that’s not your thing, I will link the next full chapter as soon as it’s up, allowing you to skip the stats. The choice is yours!