Ok, what even is that?

When John crawled upright once again, this time being prepared for waking up on his face, he saw Jack scratching at… something. It was curled up, with small leaflike scales covering its slender body. It let out a distressed sound as Jack kept scratching at the scales, unable to penetrate them, it seemed. “Jack, stop it. That is your new friend!” John cried out as he patted Jack’s head, using the hand to also pull Jack back slightly.

Jack growled but did as instructed, purring softly soon after as John kept patting him.

As John cast Observe, the creature slowly uncurled itself, it’s slender snout looking up from its coiled tail.

unnamed
Lesser Pebble Pangolin
Lvl 5
Reputation: +80 Artemis has imprinted her on you already, but Jack scared her.
Owner: John Newman

John looked at the creature that was called a Pangolin. He extended his hand to it; the scaled creature lifted it’s snout higher. It extended its ridiculously long tongue and licked his palm, only to retract it like a tape measure.

John chuckled as it did that. The Pangolin slowly uncoiled itself, giving John a quick glimpse, noticing no external sexorgans, so he assumed that the observe window was right and it was indeed a female.

“Hey there, little girl. Welcome to the team,” he said happily as he picked the Pangolin up. The creature let out a soft squeak of sorts. A few pebbles floating out of the ground and starting to dance around John’s hand. “Well, it seems you are an earth elemental, and you somewhat remind me of those badger things from The Last Airbender… Toph, your first name will be Toph. It would be unfair to have one pet have two names and one only one though… Yeah, I am gonna call you Toph Rock, cause you know, stone.”

The freshly minted Toph looked at him, then licked his finger again. John tickled the animal over her scaleless belly, Jack slowly approaching, licking her face. Toph looked warrily at Jack, only earning her another lick. Noticing no malicious intent anymore, Toph licked back, the two trading licks, seemingly making up for their first encounter.

With a new pet in his group, John felt quite happy. With a flick of his hand, he dismissed both pets, a curled up Pangolin tattoo added to his back, Jack’s design now a leopard chasing its own tail around the balled up Toph. John shattered the illusion barrier, closing his eyes as he was not a fan of watching reality shatter; it made him a bit queasy, he noticed.

John gave a small shrug as he found himself in his living room again, and without missing a beat, he raised his hand at the ceiling, casting Create Barrier again.

He chose hostile and humanoids this time. Not feeling like fighting anything related to coconuts for a while. It might be easy farming at a later date, and in his mind, the birds were actually quite easy to take down, but the laughter, that bloody laughter, was not something he wanted to experience again.

John stood in a white empty room for a little while as the scenery started to fade in. A green, hilly field came into view.

Entering dungeon 02: Meltarian Castle.

All of a sudden, there was sound. The low murmur of people talking off in the distance. The sound of the wind blowing through the grass on the nearby hills. The soft splashing sound of water dripping nearby. One by one, they reached his ears, soothing, in a strange way.

The air was slightly humid, the temperature around 18 degrees celsius, comfortably warm.

John switched to his battlegear, finding that his green cloak looked to be the same color as the waving tall grass around him.

As John looked around, he saw Jack and Toph playing in the nearby grass, the two chasing each other happily. Jack in front, Toph behind him. John’s face paled as he saw it; they were in a dangerous dungeon, and both of them could not really care for themselves as of yet. John sighed, then with a hint of unwillingness cast Dismiss Pet. Yes, Gaia had told him that they could fight with him, but that did not mean that he wanted to put them in danger like this. He did not know what his enemies would be, just that they were humanoid; he didn’t even know where he was, except for that it was green. The pop-up had told him he was supposed to be near a castle and that, well, that was all the information he had so far.

John slowly dropped to a crouching position, calling up his stat screen as he carefully started to move through the wavy grass. He made sure he was topped off in both health and mana, thinking that this would be the perfect opportunity to finally start leveling his combat skills. If not to keep himself alive longer, which in itself was a good goal to strive towards, it might be useful to protect Cynthia next time they went out hunting together.

As John slowly made his way over the hill he was sneaking on, he could hear a set of voices, low, rumbling and not that far away.

“The boss told us to wait here. But I don’t like it here! I wanna go home!” one of the voices called out in a whiny tone.

“Shush, be quiet, if the boss hears you, we will both get in trouble. Boss is smart! Boss got us a castle!” the other one chastised him.

“But I’m hungry!” the first voice countered without much strength.

“Then eat! You are literally holding food in your hands, you stupid oaf!”

“What? Oh! You are right! I love you!” The wet sound of lips smacking and a few moments later the sound of something meaty hitting something hollow could be heard, followed by a loud thud.

“What was that good for!” the first voice mumbled unhappily.

“Don’t ever kiss me again, you stupid pile of donkey manure!”

John finally got to the top of the hill, and looking down the other side, he spotted two big, broad humanoid creatures: one wore pants, the other what could only be described as a loincloth, even though it barely hid anything of the monster’s penis, no matter how tiny it was in comparison to his body. The almost naked one was eating meat from a bone while his other hand rubbed a bruise on the side of his head.

John, from his position amidst the grass, poked his head out, casting Observe on the clothed one while making sure to not stick out of the grass too far.

“Hmmm, thank you, Gaia, sometimes I think you really are looking out for me,” John whispered as he read the detailed description about the monsters.