I slowly got to my feet. My left hand had seen better days. Better day - singular. I got the hand yesterday. Oh Alysa, you managed to break your new body on the first day! My new human body. I was still not used to saying that.

  I had survived the endless waves of attacks. “ My starter town awaits”, I shouted. I felt reasonably safe now that the sun was out. But the wolf was still out there somewhere and the rabbit that ran off might return with more rabbits. I didn’t want to stand around to find out. The rabbit corpses littered the area. That was going to attract more predators.

  It suddenly occurred to me that I had no money. My only possession in this new world, besides my clothes - which no longer looked pristine, and a pair of plain boots - which had mud sticking out of them now, were the four prestons in my pocket. They were probably not enough to even get me past the gates of Palomp. I didn’t believe that anyone besides Iyev would willingly eat those things.

  I looked around the battlefield for uncharred rabbit corpses. Not every rabbit had died to a luminous blast. There had been enough of them silly enough to throw themselves at the dome, right to their very end. I dragged four rabbit corpses that looked reasonably intact.

  “This little one, I’ll call him Alysa’s starter fund, and this fat one, I’ll name him Alysa’s bed and breakfast budget”. I pointed to the next one, “Alysa’s gear and supplies kitty and finally Alysa's everyday pocket money”. Then I pulled them by their ears and threw them on my shoulders. I wasn’t leaving behind the night spark corpse either. So up he went on a shoulder too. I slowly walked towards the road. When I neared the road, there was a brief embarrassing moment when I couldn’t remember which direction I had come from last night. Then I leaned heavily on my recall and somehow picked a direction and walked. The heroes in the stories never seemed to have trouble with directions. “Demon lord’s castle? Right up ahead. Dragon’s lair? Take a right at the first intersection and then left all the way, until you see smoke rising”. Simple.

  I walked on - and I really hoped, towards Palomp. As I walked, there was a constant feeling of being watched. The fear of a predator in the shadows. Deep down, I knew it was just in my head. I was still shaken by the events of last night.

  Little later, I found a stream, which I was all too thankful for. I was too thirsty after the battle and had not had any water since I parted with Iyev. My hands were killing me. The night spark in particular was very heavy. “You better be worth a lot of money, lightning bunny”, I muttered. “Is this the life of a mage - can't carry my own luggage, need a big dumb brute to give me a hand? Where’s my inventory, System ?”

  “And you are just a dumb brute cast in the intelligence mold”, the System suddenly chimed in my head.

  “Because I’m lacking in imagination and intelligence is my muscle?”

  “It appears you do have some self awareness then. You wield magic as if a brute would operate a kitchen knife ”

  “If I recall correctly, imagination is also a key attribute for a crafter? How would negative imagination work anyway - I try to craft a health potion and end up with a poison bottle instead? How could anyone have less imagination than someone with no imagination?”

  The System quickly clarified, “First, a zero in any attribute simply means that the attribute is at base level for your race, adjusted for age. A zero agility doesn’t make you rooted to your spot. It just means you have the bare minimum agility for a human of your age range.”

  “Do different races have different base levels then?”

  “That is correct, Alysa. Orcs, for example, have higher base levels for strength and constitution. But every point that goes into a stat gives the same amount of improvement to everyone, regardless of their race. Getting back on topic, when it comes to the requirements for skill activation, having a negative value for any attribute is no different than having a zero. Your imagination doesn’t go below the base level even when you have a negative value for that attribute. Instead, the negative value forces a penalty on the effectiveness of skills. Your skills are five percent less effective for each point below zero for a relevant stat. A crafter’s potion would be that much less effective.”

  “In short, my imagination is acting as if it is stuck at base level. I can activate skills that need zero imagination, but the skill will be twenty-five percent less effective? I’ve been fighting with a handicap all this time?”

  “You didn’t think an intermediate tier skill like luminous blast with forty one intelligence needed three shots to slice a level one cabbage, did you?”

  “ Just to confirm, I can still find a way around the imagination requirements and turn the activation into a contest of sheer magical might - as I did with my safe haven skill?

  “That was a clever workaround, but most skills can’t be cheated that way”, the System warned.

  “System, going back to something you said earlier - You said base levels are adjusted for age. Does that mean base levels can go down with old age?”

  “How very astute of you, Alysa.”

  “Well, I do have forty-one intelligence”, I said smugly.

  “There it is. I was wondering why you hadn’t yet bragged about your forty-one intelligence today”

  “I d-do not bring up my forty-one intelligence that often..”

  “Sure you don’t”, the system replied. I could almost sense an eye roll. The System continued, “To answer your question, the base levels do go down when you get old. But it isn’t just the base levels that can drop. Once you are past a certain age and your levelling progress has long plateaued, it gets increasingly hard to keep your attributes from dropping. But the higher you have climbed up the levelling ladder, the longer you get to stay at that peak, before the inevitable decline. You can still have a really long life if you pick up sufficient levels. Further information on this topic won't be spoonfed. I recommend interacting with the people of this world, hero Alysa.

  “ Still, you’ve been unusually chatty today, System. Wait, I know what is happening! Holy info-dumping blue screens! Am I finally getting the long awaited new world information packet?”

  “ Good bye, Alysa”.

  “ W-wait, System. Don’t go.”

  “It is expected that the residents of this world learn and experience most of the things on their own. Of course, there are some concessions for summoned heroes”.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  “If I had only kept my mouth shut you would have stayed, wouldn’t you?”

  I felt the traitorous system smirking as she made her exit from my head.

  Two hours into my walk, I saw the first set of patrolling soldiers from Palomp. They looked curiously at the small woman carrying rabbit corpses. I nodded at them and moved on. They didn’t stop me. I wasn’t stopped until I ran into the third patrol team. They were a couple of men on horses - one was rather well dressed with his hair combed back neatly, while the other looked like he was making a quick stop between pubs.

  “Halt, lass. What’s a young woman doing all by herself in the middle of the forest”, the more well dressed out of the two asked.

  “Falmus, she is prolly, one of ‘em demon-loving cultist witches. Heard they are always going into the woods, feeding prestons to tame stray monsters”, his scruffy looking friend added.

  I did toss a preston at a rabbit that one time. That probably didn’t make me a cultist witch, did it? I certainly didn’t tame the monster, not as much as I made it want to tear my neck out. Probably not a Cultist witch then.

  “Apologies, lass. My friend here is easily swayed by tavern tales. Bruckus, when was the last time you saw a cultist witch, if ever?”, the one named Falmus asked.

  “Sally swears her cousin has seen ‘em cultists in the woods, dancing next to preston trees, scantily clad”, the bigger of the two men said. He smelled like he was on his fiftieth bottle of the morning.

  Falmus looked at his friend. “Sally, the waitress at the Crystal moon tavern? I know that woman. She has quite the imagination; the woman may as well take up crafting”.

  Then Falmus turned to me smirking, “Lass, do you partake in any dancing in the woods?”

  I knew to watch out for the teasing and unsavoury remarks a medieval world would throw at a woman, but I was still dumbstruck by this exchange.

  Falmus saw my expression and chuckled, “There you go, Bruckus. The lass is mortified at the very idea.”

  I briefly imagined dropping a vanishing shield on his head.

  “My friend here lends his ears to too much tavern gossip, but let’s not be sidetracked, lass. So, I’ll ask you again. What’s a lone young woman doing out here?”, Falmus asked, his voice gaining more intensity with each word that came out.

  “I’m a merchant. My carriage broke down”, I casually replied.

  “Lying cultist witch..”, Bruckus spat out, but Falmus quickly cut him off saying, “You aren’t fooling anyone with that lie, lass”

  He was wrong. I had fooled someone already. I had the backstory to prove it. I briefly considered confirming that backstory to get out of this situation. But I wasn’t sure I wanted to be introduced that way for the rest of my life.

  “Do I really need to explain myself to you? Do Palomp patrols stop every traveler on the road to harass them?” I wasn’t sure why I said that. The last thing I needed was to pick a fight with the soldiers of Palomp.

  Anger briefly flashed across his face, but Falmus calmed himself.

  “Where ya got ‘em rabbits from, lass?”, Bruckus took over the questioning.

  “They are mine. I killed them” I didn’t lug them around for miles to hand it to this foul smelling oaf.

  “What? A little thing like you?”, the rough looking man laughed.

  “I didn’t beat them to death with a club, if that’s what you are asking. We aren’t all barbarians”, I made sure I was looking straight at the oaf when I replied. ‘No, Alysa. Stop making things worse’, my inner voice warned.

  Falmus, who was taking a sip from his waterskin coughed, unable to contain his laughter. “Careful Bruckus, she is feisty”.

  Bruckus wasn’t pleased. “Think you are a highborn then, want me to bow and call you a lady because you claim to have a primer?”, he mocked.

  I wasn’t sure what being a highborn had to do with primers. But Falmus was suddenly curious. “Pray tell what primer does the lady possess”, he said. It didn’t escape me that I was upgraded from a lass to a lady at the mere mention of a primer and I didn’t think he was teasing me this time.

  “ A light primer”, I said. There was no way I was mentioning the other two. One was akin to showing a demon club’s membership card and the other was magic that didn’t even exist.

  Falmus frowned. “Fine, don’t tell us then”, he said. But I just told you?

  They stayed silent for a moment. Then Falmus took a deep breath to compose himself again and spoke, “We’ve got an outpost by the bridge. It's on the way to Palomp. The cook will be willing to take them off your hands, lass”. He was pointing to the rabbits on my back. “For a fair price, of course”, he added.

  And just like that I was demoted back to a lass. Was my light primer not good enough for him? Too good?

  I quickly checked my mental notes to see what Iyev had said about primers. ‘Dark - bad’, the mental notes said. And Iyev had circled over that line a lot. It felt like I had a really long conversation on primers with Iyev, but that was almost the entirety of it, wasn’t it? That strange, preston-loving lad with misplaced priorities - he could really ramble on for hours without really saying anything useful. At least Bruckus didn’t call me a demon temptress. So that was an improvement?

  “How much do you reckon I can get for these from your cook?”, I asked.

  Falmus smirked and added, “Are you sure you are a merchant, lass? You aren’t very good at this”

  I immediately checked my status sheet to see if I had accidentally accepted the ‘Naive young merchant’ backstory. No, this was all me. I had managed to make myself appear naive and incompetent entirely on my own.

  Falmus making that comment was all the encouragement Bruckus needed to insert himself back into the conversation, “I’m telling ya, Falmus. She is a cultist witch”.

  Falmus ignored his friend and spoke to me, “ I reckon the dark one can fetch a decent price. Haven’t really seen a horned rabbit in that shade. The horns and the core should go for a tidy sum. Can’t be sure how much. Easier to say with the normal rabbits. The fat ones could get you around eighty bronze.”

  “The core?”, I asked, realizing that it was better to ask Falmus than to appear foolish in front of the actual buyer.

  Falmus studied me again. “Monster cores, lass”, he said.

  “Even the cook will outsmart you, lass”, Bruckus mocked . “Some merchant you are! You will end up paying him for taking them off your hands. ”

  I scowled at Bruckus, which he enoyed all too much.

  “Come on then, hop on the horse, lass. You’ll get there in no time this way”, Falmus said, offering a hand.

  “You want me to get on that thing...with you?”

  “That’s exactly what I said. Unless, you prefer to ride with Bruckus here”, he said suppressing a smile.

  “Absolutely not!” My response was swift.

  “Then stop wasting my time, lass. Climb up”

  “I think I am fine on foot”, I countered.

  “ It’s a good two miles to the outpost from here and those rabbits sure look heavy”

  They were heavy, but I didn’t want to spend one more minute with the drunk village idiot and the jerk.

  “I think I can carry them just fine”, I replied.

  “Suit yourself”, he chuckled, and then cantered away on his horse, back on the way he was going for his patrols. Bruckus soon followed, but not before shouting out a warning at me, “I’ll be keepin’ an eye on ya, cultist”