“No Chosen are allowed in Thals,” the guard growled, his swine-adjacent snout wrinkling in disgust. Tusks jutted out from his lower jaw, mangling the words as they left his mouth.

  His name tag wasn’t visible, but if Janet didn’t know any better, she would have called him an orc.

  His companion was the same race, but his skin was a bluish gray instead of the first guards ruddy red color.

  Janet couldn’t see anything beyond the solid wooden gates and the thirty foot wall that stretched around the large city of Thals. She had hoped with the size of the settlement, they would be more open to visitors.

  From the dozen arrows pointed at Janet from atop the wall, this was not the case.

  “We’re not trying to stay,” Janet said, keeping her voice neutral. “We just want to trade for some food. We have monster parts and some everyday items like books and clothes.”

  They were getting desperate. Janet was even willing to part with a few of their beds if it meant they had something to eat.

  Hunting hadn’t gone well over the last two weeks. The System dropped them in an area reminiscent of the African Savannah in heavy drought. The grassy fields they arrived in quickly gave way to long stretches of crunchy grass and skittish bony animals. Monsters roamed freely, attacking each other in what Janet had come to recognize as an attempt to remove competition for the dwindling food supply.

  “I don’t care if you have a legendary artifact, we’re not trading with your kind,” the blue guard said. “Why don’t you go bother the caravans?”

  “They won’t trade with us either,” Janet said.

  That was an understatement. The caravans took great pains to avoid Janet and the other humans. They would rather drag their wares through a bog than meet the Chosen on the road.

  Foraging helped to offset the food crisis, but it just wasn’t possible to forage the amount they would need in the nearly desolate plain.

  “You know, there is something you could try,” the red guard said, glancing mischievously at his partner.

  The blue guard nodded slowly. “It’s a good way to feed a lot of people, that’s for sure.”

  Janet pressed her lips together. Whatever they were playing at, it didn’t seem legitimate.

  It was probably better than nothing, though.

  “Well, aren’t you going to ask what it is?” the red guard asked.

  Janet swallowed her pride. “Would you please elaborate?”

  The blue guard grinned. “There’s the sunrise sea about an hour’s walk that way.” He jabbed his thumb toward the Eastern horizon. “There’s good fishing and some sea plants for foraging.”

  “Not to mention, lots of empty land in which to set up camp,” the red guard added. “You and your people can set up there without causing any of us trouble.”

  Janet narrowed her eyes. “Why are you telling me all this?”

  A large stretch of unoccupied land was nothing new. The thing that bugged Janet was how willing these two were to point her to ‘good fishing’ and a place to set up camp so close to the city.

  “Maybe we just want you out of our hair,” the red guard said. “Or maybe we’re taking pity on your sorry asses. Does it matter?”

  Honestly, it didn’t. Janet would take any chance she could get.

  Janet thanked them and turned to leave. She only made it a few steps before the guard called out to her again.

  “Hold up!” the red guard said. He pulled something from his Inventory and tossed it to Janet.

  She caught the bundle of knotted rope.

  “Can’t catch fish without a net, now can you?” he said.

  Janet put the net in her Inventory before they could change their minds. She pulled out one of the more expensive monster drops they had picked up on the road—a claw from a large feline creature—and tossed it to the man. “Thank you. I hope we can do business again in the future.”

  She walked away, smiling a little to herself at the incredulity of the guards. She would win the people of Ember over, she just had to convince them that the humans were worth keeping around.

  * * *

  “She had to know we were messing with her, right?” Boris said, examining the item in his hand.

  Turk wished he had been the one to toss the woman a net. From the look on his face, Boris had just received something far more valuable than that bundle of ropes.

  “What did the fool give you?” Turk asked, trying to see over Boris’ shoulder.

  “A Lamri claw!” Boris said incredulously. “Where did a weakling like her get a Lamri claw?”

  Lamris were large feline creatures that wandered the Kelinar plains. They were one of the variable monsters, ranging from C-3 to C-8 depending on their size.

  Even the C-3 monsters were dangerous opponents. Turk steered clear of the grumpy cats.

  “She probably met an injured one on the plains and finished it off,” Turk said. “If there’s one thing these people seem to have, it’s luck.”

  “It’s a shame, too,” Boris said. “If she wasn’t one of the Chosen, I’d consider recruiting her to the guild. If nothing else, she knows how to control her temper.”

  Turk laughed. “She reeked of exasperation. Do all humans smell that bad?”

  “All the ones I’ve met so far.”

  Turk shook his head. He almost regretted the little joke they just played on the woman. She didn’t have to pay Boris back for the net, but she had anyway. Only a moron would give something so expensive for a net that was undoubtedly riddled with tears, making it virtually useless. It showed a level of sincerity that Turk admired.

  Or a level of stupidity that he found amusing, he wasn’t quite sure which.

  It wasn’t a surprise that she was having trouble feeding her group. Turk could smell them; two thousand or so, all waiting a mile away from the city. The woman had been smart not to bring them all with her. The archers on the wall were antsy, especially when it came to this strange new race. The Chosen would have been shot full of arrows before they could even introduce themselves.

  Boris finally tired of staring at his new treasure. “How do you reckon she learned common so quickly?”

  Turk blinked. “You weren’t translating?”

  Boris shook his head. “No. At first, I thought you were the one doing it, but then I remembered that you don’t have a translation spell.”

  “I don’t have that kind of coin lying around,” Turk said.

  “You do now.” Boris tossed Turk the Lamri claw. “This way I don’t have to keep translating for that insufferable aunt of yours.”

  Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

  Turk narrowed his eyes suspiciously at his friend. “And what are you asking in return?”

  Boris grinned. “You’ve got a cousin with a rare stealth Class, right?”

  * * *

  “All right, that’s not what I was expecting when you called this an ocean,” Devon said, eyeing the bright pink waves skeptically.

  “The guards were pretty sparse with the details,” Janet said. “I overpaid them for the net, so hopefully they’ll be more amicable next time.”

  “Overpaid?” Linn asked. “What did you give them?”

  Linn was the only Emberian in the group, despite how much their numbers had grown in the last two weeks. Some of the Emberian Tutorial Leaders had opted to join their group huddles rather than let the System send them home.

  Linn claimed that she had joined her players because she always wanted to travel the world and this was her chance. Janet had a feeling it had more to do with the fact that all of her players were under Level 10. The formidable bird-woman had already fought off several larger threats that would have been difficult to take down, even if all of the humans had worked together.

  She was also a wealth of information that Janet was taking advantage of as much as possible. If the locals wouldn’t help them, she needed to know more about Ember so they could help themselves.

  “I gave them a Lamri claw,” Janet said, pulling the net out of her Inventory.

  The woman squawked in surprise, her green plumage puffing up around her head. “That’s worth a small fortune! You could feed everyone here even if you sold it for half of what it was worth.”

  “Not if no one will trade with us in the first place,” Janet said. “The Lamri claw was to pique their interest. I plan on throwing a few more treasures around until I can get the rumor mill started. ‘Humans are stronger than we thought’, ‘humans are generous’, even ‘humans are idiots who don’t know what monster drops are worth’. I don’t care if it’s respect, curiosity or greed; attention is what we need right now.”

  “That makes no sense,” Linn said, smoothing down her ruffled feathers.

  “Actually, it sounds like it might work,” Devon said. “I’ll spread the idea around. I bet there are others who got lucky with the drops.”

  “Make sure they run the items by Linn first,” Janet said. “I don’t want to part with anything that is actually valuable.”

  “And a Lamri claw isn’t?” Linn asked, her feathers threatening to ruffle again.

  “Lamri claws are decorative, you said it yourself,” Janet said. “They can’t be used in weapons because they’re too brittle, they’re not good for potions because they burn too quickly when exposed to heat. I’m looking for items that we can use, not sell. The first step is surviving. We can worry about getting rich later.”

  “Whatever you say,” Linn said. “I hope you know how to fish.”

  Janet didn’t. Unfortunately, as she examined the net in her hands, it became evident that it was going to be useless. Something had torn through several of the ropes making it no better than a sieve trying to catch water.

  Janet put it back in her Inventory and pulled out her bow. “I need to check out the water first to see if it’s safe. Devon, go start getting the camp set up. I want it at least a mile away. We need time to react if anything comes out of the water.”

  Devon nodded and ran back in the direction of the group.

  Janet turned to Linn. “Do you know anything about the oceans on Ember?”

  Linn shook her head. “I’m from the rain forest, sorry. The most I’ve heard are vague stories.”

  Janet figured as much, but it never hurt to ask.

  “All right. I’m going to approach the water. Can you watch my back?”

  Linn was a much higher level than Janet, but she had one fatal flaw: she was a non-combat Class, and for some reason, Emberians took that to mean that she could only fight if her life depended on it. She protected the group when necessary, but each time she would talk about how fortunate they were that the monsters on the plains were weak.

  They weren’t.

  Janet had come to the conclusion that the woman had chronically low self-esteem and she believed that if she killed a monster, then it had to have been a weak one.

  Janet had given up on trying to convince her otherwise; it was hard to argue against someone’s upbringing, but she dropped compliments every now and then to try to boost the woman’s confidence. Being a Potion Master didn’t disqualify her from being strong. That was just about the most ridiculous thing that Janet had ever heard.

  Janet readied an arrow. Since ascending, she had put every spare point into Dexterity in the hopes of improving her weapon skills. It had proven a solid strategy so far.

  Her unique Class ‘Voice of the People’ was a non-combat Class that focused on communication and diplomacy. The only caveat was that it removed all her previously gained spells and skills, replacing them with communication-focused abilities. She had been allowed to keep Basic Heal, but nothing offensive or defensive.

  The warning had been in the description, so Janet wasn’t surprised by this effect, but it left her nearly defenseless without her weapon.

  The universal translation was worth it. It didn’t translate for other people—Linn was doing most of the translation for the group—but Janet could speak, write and comprehend any language within the System.

  Janet didn’t tell Linn the particulars of her new Class because she had no desire to fight with the woman every time she went to do something dangerous. Linn would no doubt argue that she should sit on the sidelines whenever a monster attacked. Their current group dynamic only worked if Janet led by example.

  Not to mention, she had no intention of missing all the action.

  Janet stopped a few feet past the shoreline. The water came up to her knees, gently buffeting her as the waves tickled the sand. She waited silently, keeping her eyes peeled for any attacking monsters.

  Motion in the corner of her eye alerted Janet to the fish before Linn’s shout reached her ears.

  Janet turned in a flash and sent an arrow flying into the fish’s mouth, killing it instantly. Another fish jumped at her and she sent another arrow flying.

  This happened four more times before Janet stepped out of the water.

  The assault stopped almost immediately.

  Janet went to retrieve her arrows, already distracted by future plans.

  The aggressive fish could prove an obstacle for any decent fishing effort. If they attacked any time someone touched the water, Janet would have to assign archers to shoot the fish monsters down while someone else risked their lives to throw the net—that was if they could repair the net in the first place.

  Janet held her arrow up to inspect the fish. She wouldn’t have long. Smaller monsters decayed in a matter of minutes.

  It looked like a cross between a flying fish and a piranha. Its tiny teeth were serrated, as if it cared more about causing the most harm than actually eating its prey.

  As Janet examined it, she started to get the feeling that something was off. She sniffed the fish. It certainly smelled like fish, but there wasn’t the overpowering smell of rot that accompanied a monster corpse.

  A quick look at her notifications confirmed Janet’s suspicions. The fish didn’t smell like rot because it wasn’t considered a monster.

  Which meant it was edible.

  “Those jerks!” Linn snapped, running over to Janet. “They knew this would happen! Are you okay?”

  Janet held the fish out to Linn, still impaled on the arrow. “Can you tell if this is poisonous?”

  Linn’s feathers stood on end. “You want to eat it?!”

  Janet nodded. “If they’re edible. The guards actually pointed us to something useful. I’ll be honest, I thought they were just messing with me.”

  “They were just messing with you,” Linn said. “That fish looks like something out of a nightmare and there’s hardly any meat on it anyway.”

  “But is it poisonous?” Janet asked again. “You have a potion that can tell, right?”

  Linn clicked her beak in irritation. “It’s a waste of a good potion,” she muttered, snatching the arrow from Janet and pulling a small yellow vial from her Inventory.

  She poured the yellow liquid over the fish and waited. A few moments passed and the liquid turned white.

  “It’s clean,” Linn said. “Although, this won’t tell us anything about the quality of the meat or a human’s ability to digest it; only that there are no toxins or poisons that the potion can detect.”

  “Good enough,” Janet said, collecting the rest of the fish. “We’ll take these back to camp and see if they’re edible. If all goes well, we’ll feast on flying piranhas tonight.”

  * * *

  Jessa watched in horror as the woman named Janet roasted a craila fish over a campfire.

  Should she warn them? Craila fish were terrible! They were bony, had too many spikes and teeth to harvest much meat and to top it off, they tasted like rotten picklefruit.

  When Turk asked her for this favor, she thought she was going to watch a bunch of Chosen lose fingers; this was far less entertaining.

  The man named Devon stood next to Janet, bouncing impatiently as the fish cooked. He apparently gave up waiting and pulled a piece of meat off the bone, hissing in pain when it burned his fingers.

  He hastily blew on the fish and popped it into his mouth.

  Jessa was trying not to hurl.

  Devon chewed thoughtfully. “It wouldn’t be my first choice, but it’s edible.”

  Jessa checked her translation spell to make sure it was still active. She could have sworn the man just said it was edible.

  “What does it taste like?” Janet asked, somehow still contemplating her insane plan.

  “Can I be honest?” Devon said. “It tastes like salmon marinated in pickle juice.”

  Janet tried the fish next, her nose wrinkling. “You know what, it’s still better than the System rations.”

  The Azuranian’s name was Linn. Jessa hadn’t figured out why she was fraternizing with the Chosen yet, but she seemed particularly fond of a large group of Initials, doting on them like they were her hatchlings.

  Linn took a bite of the fish and gagged. “That’s better than the rations? I’d say the only improvement is the texture.”

  “When you’ve been eating moldy gym socks for over a month, regular gym socks can be quite the delicacy,” the man said with an air of saying something profound.

  “I didn’t need that word picture,” Janet said. “Gather anyone with an inclusive Dexterity over two hundred. We’re catching enough of these to feed everyone by dinner.”

  The Chosen jumped into motion and Jessa took the chance to sneak over to the fire and grab a bite of the fish.

  One taste was enough to solidify her convictions; craila fish were still gross.

  Did the Chosen lack taste buds? That could be an advantage with the current food shortage. People in Kelinar were getting increasingly desperate.

  Either way, Turk was going to want to hear about this. Even with her disgust over the human’s choice of food, Jessa had to admit, her interest was piqued.