《Dungeons And Dinos》


 Chapter 1: The End of one story.

    Rothburn cursed, after all this time, after all he had done, all he had sacrificed, betrayed, and done. He was nearly done, so nearly done. He wasn¡¯t a bad person, okay so maybe he was, but he had done it all for a reason. It would all be worth it once his great working was complete. He would repay those he had wronged several fold, or if not them then their descendants. And it had all been going so well. Years of planning had gone into ensuring that he would succeed. Contingencies on backups on alternative avenues. Making sure that the absolute minimum harm would be done. Making sure that THIS wouldn¡¯t happen. But it had, it was happening. First those adventurers had stumbled through his plans in the Cheertop mountains, and he could forgive that, they didn¡¯t know. Then that oaf of a Barron had been deposed by his oaf of a son, and he had lost that avenue to obtain Magicite. Those adventurers had shown up at his mines to save some lost heirloom or other and blundered through slaughtering his workers.


    Of course, once they realised someone was doing something, they had to investigate, and that led them through weavarach forest, where threw the local arachnae into chaos, cutting off the trade routes for months on end. He hadn''t even been doing anything nearly close to there! Even after all that, they weren¡¯t acting against him, though it sure felt like it. That is until the king, greedy moneygrubber that he was, sent them to retrieve some ¡®royal artifacts¡¯ he had, in truth, stolen. Still, it wasn¡¯t his fault that the royal family owned seemingly every speck of Mythril in existence. And the awful jewellery hadn¡¯t been worn in decades, mouldering in a forgotten chest below the castle. So, he had taken them, and the do-gooding brats had followed. It had been obvious they were after him after that, they got it into their heads to stop him, and they had pursued with the single-minded obsession that only the naive could wield.


    In the end he didn¡¯t even know how they were messing up his plans, not until now. Those adventurers were scary, the sort that shouldn¡¯t exist. The one in front, the leader it seemed, was some sort of unkillable close range fighter. His first impression was [Vanguard], a common enough class, but then there was the [Juggernaut] class that ran through it, two front line classes was rare, but impossible was that his third class seemed to be [Berserker]. Three front line classes, no one had three front line classes, it simply never happened. Even those who were raised from birth to serve a purpose, fill a role, couldn¡¯t control the third. It was a wildcard, random, chaos. The more similar the first two classes one had were, the more disparate the third.


    The others were like him too, three complimentary classes. The [Ranger] had [Archer] and [Duellist], if he wasn¡¯t mistaken, deadly at any distance. But not unheard of. There had been another, some sort of stealth class, but he hadn¡¯t seen them in a while, though that didn¡¯t mean they weren¡¯t there. Then there was the mage. It was the mage he was most wary of, and not just for his abilities. The goblins he had guarding the entrance had all gone, not a spell, just good old fashioned betrayal. The traps had been marked; false passages ignored. The mage knew all his tricks. He knew them before he got there. After all he had done, Rothburn had been betrayed to the other mage. It was almost poetic, after all the deceit he had peddled to get here.


    But that wasn¡¯t all, the mage was like his friends, three magic focussed classes. [Mage], obviously, but also a [Sorcerer], and [Warlock]? If the others made no sense for being unfairly powerful this was absurd. A cosmic joke, these three classes, all magic focused classes, were almost identical, but they each approached the same issue, magic, from a different angle. It was widely accepted that whatever prevented someone from getting three similar classes made it so a second magical class couldn¡¯t be gained. What was worse was these weren¡¯t his only classes. There was another, his scrying showed. A fourth. People gained classes at milestone points in their progression, level ten, twenty-five, and fifty. Beyond that there was a single other class available. Level one hundred. Most people never reached fifty, some never made it to twenty-five. Those who made it to one hundred were legends.


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    It was inevitable that they would break through. Nothing he had could stop them, but he tried to slow them down. Hoping he could buy more time, enough time. He didn¡¯t make it. They had shown up once he was committed, so he split his attention, slowing the progress in order to hold them off himself. And then the impossible, he held them off. The meathead took blast after blast, slowly advancing only to get thrown back, the archer sent arrow after arrow into his shields, but couldn¡¯t get through, the mage stood at the back making arcane gestures, and didn¡¯t do anything more than flashes of light. The mage tore his magic apart, yes, but he never launched an attack of his own. It was after one especially powerful attack of his that he dared change strategy, pushing all his attention into the working for a few precious moments, lowering his guard while the others were recovering. And the mage tore his wards to shreds. In a moment he was defenceless, and the shadow struck. A single blade in his side, and then they were gone. His shields raised again. He wouldn¡¯t make that mistake again. It was a brush with failure, with death, but it was worth it. In those moments he could devote himself to one task he made more progress than he had made since the fight started. One more would drive him to the edge, a few precious seconds, a minute, and he could be done, but he wouldn¡¯t, couldn¡¯t do it. The next blade could, would, end him.


    Perhaps heartened by his injury, seeing him bleed for the first time, the party redoubled their efforts, the lug took more hits, brought the ranger more time, she moved into melee, striking again and again at his shields, taking hits herself, splitting his attention. The shadow, revealed, joined themselves, delivering potions to the others, taunting him into attacking them which he ignored. And the mage fought as well. Tearing his shields, unravelling his spells, healing his team mates.


    He had no choice, he turned his attention from the great work, holding it in place, throwing his all at the invaders, gambling on being able to make up the lapse with moments gained as they recovered. Seconds spent and lost. More wounds, perhaps, but he knew where the shadow was, he only struck when he could get all of them at once. Seconds lost for moments gained. An arrow to the knee for progressing a crucial part, a minute of pushing back the shield when it got too close the cost of using more magic than he had to spare, emptying his reserve of one resource to protect him as he found his wards failing. The shadow fell back choking as he did the same, the space between them a cloud of ash, blood flowed from a dozen wounds as the archer collapsed.


    Then the unthinkable, the [Mage] behind him, through his wards, and the dagger in his side was now in his back. And as he fell, throwing away any attempt at preserving himself, turning his last moments to finishing what he has started, what he had given his life for, he saw that same mage smiling as he planted more daggers in the backs of his own teammates.

 Chapter 2: The end of one thing ... Again.

    Melvin awoke to confusion and pain. He had been so close, his team had gone in to finish the evil wizard, and they had almost done so. They had made it through his hideout with almost laughable ease, thanks to whatever tricks the mage had used. They had fought, and they had been at a stalemate, neither side winning, but they didn¡¯t need to win the fight, they just needed to hold out until the ritual stalled out, hold the [Wizard]¡¯s attention until he made a mistake, and he had. Of course, the wizard was also playing for time, if he could keep the ritual going long enough, he would accomplish whatever goals he had, but there really wasn¡¯t an alternative, they had failed at preventing the ritual from beginning, and they couldn¡¯t stop it once it was going. Well, maybe Mage could, but he said it was better to let the ritual run down, than to try stopping it directly. Letting a fire run out of fuel, rather than trying to extinguish it.


    So, they had fought, and the wizard had thrown them back, they had gotten a good hit in, thanks to Chloe, and it turned into a brawl, like he had wanted. A direct fight, where the last one standing would be the winner, and he was very good at being the last one standing. But somehow, somewhere along the line, something went wrong. Every time the [Wizard] threw them all back, he lowered his guard for a moment to focus on the ritual, and they had a chance to further bloody their foe, if they were fast enough. They didn¡¯t always make it, perhaps half of the time they were too slow. But the [Wizard] didn¡¯t go down, even with what should have been a debilitating wound, even after what had to have been hours of spellcasting, He didn¡¯t stop his casting, never stumbled over a word, never flinched as they pounded on the ward¡¯s mere inches away. But they had Mage¡¯s potions to keep them going, and he knew he had the endurance to keep going, even without them. But then at the climax, the moment of the [Wizard]s glorious victory, when even he felt the ritual had reached its climax, He had gone down.


    The [Wizard] had sent the walls and floor and ceiling swirling together, making a thin wall, and Mage had vanished. Then, as he had bashed through it, hoping he wasn¡¯t too late, he had seen them, Mage behind the [Wizard], that creepy knife he gave Chloe in hand, and then Mage stabbed him. Right between the shoulder blades. And Mage looked at him, and he smiled, and he vanished.


    Melvin opened his eyes. He was sitting in the [Wizard]¡¯s ritual room, where they had fought him. Sitting against the wall he had made a hole in, but he had been on the other side of the wall. he looked to the left; Chloe lay propped up against a bench. He looked to the right, ben was propped up in a chair, hit bow across his lap, swords and quiver at his feet. He looked across; the wizard lay where he had fallen. And standing over him was Mage. Melvin rolled his head, but nothing else responded.


    Mage noticed, and was by his side in an instant, checking him over, hushing him, reassuring him that it was over, they had won. ¡°How, what? I can¡¯t move.¡± He mumbled, ¡®I know,¡± Mage responded, ¡°It¡¯s just a minor sedative, to keep you down for a while, it¡¯ll wear off in an hour or so, I wish I could have kept you under for longer, but anything that strong would be, well, having you awake isn¡¯t a bad thing, it¡¯ll give us a chance to talk.¡±


    Realization led to rising horror, betrayal, he had known Mage as long as any of the party. They had all been summoned together, after all. They had fought side by side and back to back ever since. True, he didn¡¯t know the other mans name, but it had been a joke, or so he had thought, when they first met mage was the first to figure out what was going on, or at least the first to voice it aloud. While everyone else was introducing themselves, mage had opened his status, before anyone knew they had a status, and confirmed his class. And it had stuck, a new name for a new world. A new life. And mage had been there from the start, urging them on, determined, sure, that there was a way back.


    No sooner had the thought crossed his mind than Mage spoke to address it. ¡°No, no I¡¯m not betraying you, not really. It¡¯s not like that, this is part of the plan, I didn¡¯t tell you about it because, well¡± he gestured around, at the room they fought in, the bodies of his teammates slumped around, the wizard lying with a dagger in his back. The daggers in all of their backs, actually. They all had those same handles protruding from between their shoulder blades. ¡°it had to be like this, I, I had to do it, couldn¡¯t let you know, knew you wouldn¡¯t agree to it.¡± Mage tried to explain, but all Melvin saw was the room, filled with magical substances, artifacts stolen from across the continent. The bodies of his friends in a triangle around the body of the wizard, laid out naked.


    ¡°The plan?¡± He asked, ¡°the plan was to stop Him, return everything to the way it was, use what we found to find a way home.¡± And then he got it. Mage had been the most determined, from the start he had tried the hardest to find a way home, not for himself, but for them. Mage had been the crux of the whole operation. The whole reason they got involved with the wizard was because Mage was investigating ways to get back. The resources he said he could use, stolen. The people he said could help them had conditions to their aid. Access to knowledge required them to provide a service of equal value. Everything they had done had been guided by Mage, until it wasn¡¯t. Until mage went off and returned more powerful than any of them, with a fourth class. After that mage hadn¡¯t led, they had wandered along the path in front of them, solving problems, completing tasks, but there hadn¡¯t been any goal. Mage stopped leading so He had to step up, had to decide what they did as a group, because otherwise they would¡¯ve drifted apart, and he still wanted to go home, they all wanted to go home, and whatever chance there was of that, it was with all of them, together.


    Except mage, he hadn¡¯t wanted to go back to Earth. He hadn¡¯t wanted anything except what they wanted. Until he wanted to stop the wizard. Until he took charge like he used to. Until he led them into a cave filled with exactly what he had spent so long trying to get hold of, all at his feet, his friends unconscious by his own hand.


    ¡°You¡¯re sending us back?¡± he whispered, half asking half just unable to believe.


    ¡°I am¡± Mage whispered back, ¡°I¡¯m sending you all back, but the sender can¡¯t be sent, I have to hold everything together from this side, and besides, I¡¯m more fit for this world anyway, or another, there are others, you know, uncountable others. Maybe one day I¡¯ll come back, but not yet. I have more to do. I need to stop the summoning¡¯s. Not just for us, but for the others who could one day be where we are, where we were.¡±


    Mage glanced over his shoulder at the entrance, and stood, Gesturing. In marched goblins, dozens of them, carrying baskets and bags, some with weapons, some without. And passing him without a glance, they began unloading their goods where mage directed them. Piles of stuff, most he recognised, stuff the wizard had taken, stuff they had reclaimed, stuff that had been left where they found it. Piles of ore, and herbs, crystals and relics. An old sword they had recovered from a bandit group, chests of gold they found in a series of lakes, each with the location of the next carved into the bottom of the lid. There were the crown jewels of a king they had met, and the pearl necklace that he knew to be cursed. On and on they came, until finally in came the captives, the monsters the wizard had defending this very room, bound and in cages, and then mage began to stab them, those daggers of his plunging again and again into creature after creature. Their bodies desiccating and shriveling before his eyes.


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    ¡°The problem was power,¡± Mage called as he worked, ¡°the amount you needed was beyond anything I could handle, More than any mage could. But the wizard here knew that, he knew that there were limits to what a human could do. But there are ways to handle more. Blood magic, for example, can give you a temporary boost. And dungeons can handle obscene amounts, in theory, thus the wizards plan to create one bound to him. But even then power alone isn¡¯t enough. I advanced from mage to blood mage for the power, but It wasn¡¯t enough, so I became a sorcerer, mages handle external magic, sorcerers handle internal, you have to be born a sorcerer, or at least that¡¯s what everyone believes. To move between worlds though, simply tearing a hole isn¡¯t enough, you need to get to the other side, then tear another hole. And you can¡¯t let any of the in-between bits out.¡±


    Mage seemed to be unable to stop once he started speaking, as though he was unburdening himself of a long-held secret. ¡°that¡¯s where the warlock class came in, I needed access to knowledge, the sort no one had, not just magical, or the power they can lend, though it certainly didn¡¯t hurt having the extra oomph. And you know what I found? It didn¡¯t matter. None of what I found was something we could do. Sure, with every living mage I could create a portal, like the one which brought us here, but that¡¯s not going to happen. There are pinnacle classes that can do it, but none of you would be able to get them. So I got creative, if a dungeon could do it, then I needed a dungeon. But I couldn¡¯t create one, And I certainly wasn¡¯t about to bind an existing one, even I¡¯m not that twisted. But what do you know? our old friend here is making one, and all I have to do is let him do most of the work, then swoop in and steal it out from under him? He does all the work, he makes all the sacrifices, the enemies, and I get all the rewards? Well, couldn¡¯t say no to that.¡±


    By the end Mage was practically shouting, growing more fervent by the sentence. And then Chloe moved, standing up. And instantly he froze. She didn¡¯t move though, she just looked at him. And the look of betrayal was enough to break both their hearts. Finally, mage went on, his tone subdued, ¡°I¡¯ll send you back, the wizard was only going to make a tiny dungeon, enough to boost his power, make him unkillable, that sort of thing. But there¡¯s more a dungeon can do. A true dungeon, that¡¯s a half step from divinity. Inside, Reality is what the dungeon makes of it, even the impossible.


    She didn¡¯t speak, didn¡¯t try to stop him, just stood there, then slowly, she sat back down. Perhaps that hurt the most. That Chloe chose not to act, that they all knew if she asked he would, might. No one spoke after that. There was no point. This was what they wanted, not how, but they could live with it. Mage would stay, and they would let him, they would let him drain the life from the wizard, dozens of monsters he had put to sleep rather than let them fight their way through to get to this room, this point. At some point Ben woke up as well. They told him, he took it well, just sitting, perhaps the lure of seeing his family again was enough to quell any resistance. The wizard never woke up. When Mage plucked the daggers from their backs, they sat together, like they had after Mage left, like he was leaving them again, only this time, he was having them leave him. The room changed, the offerings or resources, or fuel, vanished, and then an arch rose from the ground. Behind the core, which had taken shape like a growing pearl. Mage stopped moving, at some point, and when they passed through the shimmering curtain of light, they saw his eyes were empty. They came through into a room, unfamiliar, a bed, tv on a cabinet, shelf of clothing, and a single picture on the wall gave them some idea, Mage, holding a ginger tabby. He was smiling, mage didn¡¯t smile very often.


    Chloe was the first through, Melvin bringing up the rear, a reversal of their usual marching order. And as he looked around, she darted back through tears beginning to run down her face, before he could process she was gone, the light flickered, and she was back, Mages form clutched in her arms, then the world vanished.


    Mage felt them leave, he felt Chloe dart back, he felt her scoop him up, his body larger than hers, but she did it anyway, system granted strength on display, and he felt her take him through the portal. He didn¡¯t know what would happen then, while hooked into the dungeon he was disconnected from his body. He felt the world unravel, the room around him vanish, replaced with the between, the empty nothing that contained everything.


    He felt his grip slip, holding to the one world even as he reached for the other. He managed to hang, suspended, but to hold to one fully would mean releasing the other, and he was the bridge Chloe had to travel across. So, he held on. His mind the bridge she carried his body across, and as she drifted across, no time passing from one end to the other, he felt himself pulled along, until he was hanging to neither, fingertips touching both. He felt himself detach as she crossed through, pulling him away from the world where he was a dungeon, able to stretch across realities, and into the world where he was an empty husk. Pulling him away from the world where he had a body, and a life. He couldn¡¯t hold both, be both, so he pulled them together. Not close enough to touch, or even interact, but enough that he wasn¡¯t torn apart.


    He was a core, in a land of magic and system. He was a man, on earth. He was both, he was neither, a core, on earth. Reality slipped, sliding past, through itself.


    He plummeted towards Earth, pulling the weight of a world. For a brief infinite moment, He was the destroyer of worlds and the creator. Power and reality made manifest. But he was not omnipotent, he couldn¡¯t change that he was on a collision course, he could adjust where he fell, but it would not matter, it would be the end either way. So, he shifted direction, instead of just moving through space he moved through time, sending himself back, forward, anywhere. He struck like divine retribution, impacting with a force equal to that of a star going supernova, and it didn¡¯t matter, he took the strike, absorbing the impact. Dungeon cores were made of sterner stuff than anything reality could dish out.


    The impact washed out, energy converted to energy, force to force, and it washed out, a wave that swept away from him. And he rode it, his consciousness expanding to cover everything within his domain. Within his dungeon.


    And then it reached the end, sweeping past itself and back to his core. But he had so much energy, so he swept himself backwards through time again, with almost contemptuous ease throwing himself back through time, he didn¡¯t care when. and he did it again, dropping himself from orbit to impact the Earth. Again he swept out, covering the surface, and again and again he repeated the process. until his energy was spent, until when he reached out and pushed, the world pushed back, and he felt the resistance.


    So he plucked himself from the surface of the Earth, and sent himself back, the tether he had used to find Earth leading back to the cave he would likely spend the rest of his life in. Eternity or until he was destroyed.


    In a cave a world away, several things happened at once, a portal closed, the only connection between core and body severed. Another portal opened, swallowing the orb, only to disgorge it near instantaneously, But the cave was awash with energy, space so knotted and warped it refused to allow any more perversion of its natural laws. It tried to  snap back into shape, displacing him to the edge of the nearest stable stretch of space that could contain him, and He once again found himself falling, to a world spread out below him.

 Chapter 3: Unseen Obscene

    Kieth gave no indication that he had seen the servant enter his room. He had, of course, but to allow himself to react to one of such lower class would be a poor reflection on him, especially in front of his guest.


    He spent his days split between the capitol and the Mint. not that anyone outside a few high ranking officials knew that. The identity of who ran the Imperial mint was one of the most tightly kept secrets. and if it ever leaked the first he would know of it would be the [Assassin] ending his life.


    Not that he blamed Joseph, he was a good man, loyal to the throne above all else, as he should be. But their knowledge that Keith''s days were numbered by how many people knew of his existence did lend the man to enjoying himself a little at his expense. Likewise the knowledge that his life could end at any moment made Kieth more open to seeing his desires fulfilled.


    His life was one of Hedonistic excess. He had an effectively bottomless purse to draw from, and too many reasons to do so.


    But not at the moment. Right now he was speaking with one of the few men who knew who he really was, and that meant he was as sober and focused as it was possible for him to be. So no, he did not see the servants. Whatever they had could wait.


    And so it was quite a shock when not only did the servant approach, uninvited, but even dared to speak, and to his guest directly as well. If the shock hadn¡¯t paralysed him he might have ordered the man''s execution immediately. but perhaps it was as well he didn¡¯t, because whatever was said, whispered into his ear, it was enough for the man to cut the conversation short, and within an hour he was gone. His carriage kicking up dust as it sped away down the road and back towards the capitol.


    He didn¡¯t see the servants, and he certainly didn¡¯t hear what was said. And if Joseph visited him that night he wouldn¡¯t be able to argue. It was a simple hierarchy; The only people who knew who he was were above him, and everyone else was below. How far below varied, but to him below was below. So he didn¡¯t know who was above him, he knew them, their faces and names, but he didn¡¯t know why they were above him, what role they served. And if he did come to find out, both he and they would not live to see the morn. or at least he wouldn¡¯t.


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    But he did see the dawn, and it was a glorious one. the sky in the distance rent in twain by trailing curtains of light. the mana swirling and rippling, heightened enough that even from here he could sense it.


    A fine final view for the servant, whose fate had been sealed the moment he passed along the message, even if he hadn¡¯t understood the importance of what he had passed along. The [Seer] would have joined him hanging if Kieth had anything to say about it, but alas [Seer] was a rare enough class that replacing his current one would be difficult, not that Kieth even knew who his seer was, he lived somewhere behind the kitchen, he thought, but he had never seen the man. Or maybe he had, he wouldn¡¯t have known anyway, they were just another servant most of the time.


    He vaguely recalled watching the sky over that way flash with light, but he had been so deep into his wine, and one of his favorite serving girls, at that point he hadn¡¯t given it much thought.


    Still, he had to wonder. If the man who took his reports on how much coin was produced and released each month was also responsible for the hall of heroes, what could such a hypothetical mean?


    The Summoning of heroes was about as far from his area of expertise as farming, but  he knew there were strict limits on how many and often summonings could be performed. And if someone was calling for a mass summoning, then that meant something was very wrong, the sort of something that couldn¡¯t be dealt with by the Heroes they already had, or a full batch of new summons.


    This was the sort of thing that broke nations and shattered continents, and he was mindful that he could see the likely source from his window.


    Perhaps it was time to organise for a trip, somewhere far away, with solid defenses. Yes, perhaps it was time he checked in on the swampland farms. they had been neglected the last few years, too far and unpleasant to be worth a trip, but important, somehow.

 Chapter 4: Thea is something wrong

    Thea ran. It was all she could do, besides hide, but the odds of that working again were slim, they knew her tricks now, knew what to watch out for if she suddenly vanished. And besides, in the time it would take to do so they would catch up to her, hiding didn¡¯t work so well when those you hid from knew where you had hidden.


    She wanted to ask why her, how this had all happened, but she knew the answers, she was there for it, she was the reason. She had been the daughter of simple folk, living a simple life, full of simple joys.


    When she reached her first class it should have been a joyous occasion, a time where she knew where her life was headed, to know which path she was destined for. A [Farmer], like her Father, a [Herbalist], like her Mother, even a [Farmhand] would have been fine, like her Brothers. She even would have been fine with [Healer], like her sister. But no, she was a [Tamer], a class that was fine, could have turned into [Rancher], she would have been fine with that, but it had gone the other route, becoming [Druid]. And that was where the trouble started.


    She didn¡¯t know what prompted her to look up, to take her eyes off the road ahead of her, perhaps it was the subtle lightening of the sky in that direction, perhaps she felt some prelude to the ripple of power which spread across the sky like a wave across a pond. Perhaps it was fate, but she did. She looked up right as the sky was rent by a flash of light, as a blazing star tore from nowhere to arc over her head and into the distance.


    She had never been particularly interested in the world outside her little corner of it, but even she knew this was not something that happened normally. And she could feel it, the power exuded that yet lingered in the air, a path across the sky leading from above her to elsewhere.


    So she followed it, veering off into the trees, following as it unerringly led her onward. Perhaps it was her class, but the plants seemed to move aside for her, or at least she knew where they were and could run between and around them without seeing clearly. Her pursuers had no such luck, having to slow and turn back as they got caught in underbrush. After a while she lost them, though they would find her again eventually, inevitably one of them would be able to find her, and the chase would be on again. But unlike all the previous times they had run her to ground, she didn¡¯t stop this time, didn¡¯t need to. She could feel the path she needed to follow overhead, an unerring compass, and she didn¡¯t tire as easily, running long after the sun had begun to rise.


    They had planned to run her to the ground. Tire her out with constant pursuit, never letting her rest for long. They had mounts, and she was on foot, she knew the area, but they could drive her out and into unfamiliar territory. But somehow that never happened, she had long since left the place she called home, but she was never lost, she didn¡¯t need roads or landmarks to make her way, and she had a destination, even if she didn¡¯t know what or where it was.


    A girl, alone, was a target. But even beside that, she was suspicious, unknown, and people distrusted the unknown, so there was a good chance some village would report her. But by the time they heard of her, she was long gone, sometimes by hours, sometimes by days, but even still it became apparent she was always heading in the same direction, the map of her movements went from a harried zigzag where they could pen her in with a dozen teams, to a straight line, out of their net, and the chase was on.


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    It was almost ironic, the way she began to rely on her class, it was the reason she needed to run and hide, but it provided her tools she needed. When she grew hungry, it let her kill, when she grew parched, it led her to clean water. It provided her shelter and warned her of dangers. It showed her how the land changed, how as she followed the heavenly path laid out for her, the plants were more vibrant, the animals less hungry, more healthy, larger than they perhaps should have been.


    She felt it in herself, too. The way she needed to take fewer breaks, and shorter. The way she grew faster and stronger, softness melting away. The way her senses sharpened, seemed heightened, except they never faded.


    They caught up to her eventually, in a small village that could have been her own, were it not for the hostile looks she received as she walked through, though there had been those towards the end as well, from some. Maybe it was superstition, but word that she was wanted combined with their own problems led to them laying their woes at her feet. Wolves had come down and ravaged their livestock, something had ruined their fields, a storm had washed away the bridge, and they were all just generally feeling quick to anger and more aggressive, violent even. And that scared them the most, wolves were bad, but when you hear your neighbour snap and fights broke out that ended in more than just bruises¡­


    So they turned on her, and she was almost relieved to find an outlet. A man tried to grab her and she hit him as hard as she could, and he went down with a cry. A couple of miners approached, snarls on their faces and picks in their hands, and she howled. And from outside the village an answering howl echoed. She had never seen a wolf, they were like dogs, or foxes, but bigger, she heard. They were so much more than that. They tore into the village, they tore into the villagers, and she felt every moment, every movement. She tore out the throat of a barman, she struck a miner and took his pick, lodging it in the chest of his friend. They were slow, so slow, she saw every strike and laughed as she dealt her own. A girl fled and she chased, pouncing and biting into her shoulder, shaking until the prey went limp. An old man drew a sword and she bowled him over from behind, claws digging into his belly as she leapt past him to get at the ones behind, grabbing his leg and dragging him away.


    The first sign was when an arrow pierced her shoulder and she went down in a tumble, yelping. Then they were spreading out, surrounding her. Anger erupted in her, an anger she hadn¡¯t known she possessed or was even capable of, not just Anger, Rage. They were the ones. They had chased her from her home. They were why she couldn¡¯t stay and get married and have a family and live a good, simple, life. She tore into them, and they did not go down like she wanted them to. Like the villagers had. They had armor, and weapons, and they knew how to use them. They stayed together, close enough to support each other. They had spears and they kept her from getting close. First one, then another, fell. Them, her, she didn¡¯t know. One stumbled and she took his knee, dragging him back, but another spear pierced her and another, and she fell. An arrow fell between her legs, and she leapt from behind a corner, onto the roof, off, sending them both tumbling, but she was better suited to falling, and was on her feet before him, on him before he was on his feet. But she couldn¡¯t win, there were too many of them, and she ran.

 Chapter 5: Hunter, Prey.

    Michael looked over the scene and saw only carnage. He had been sent to retrieve a single girl, who had acquired a restricted class. Druids weren¡¯t the worst, they were actually quite nice people, most of the time, once you got to know them. But they could be, well, they were strong willed, and they didn¡¯t always see things the way they should.


    He didn¡¯t always enjoy his job, but it was important, and it was for the good of the people. Plus he got to travel, see things, meet people. He liked people, maybe that was why he was so good at his job, he understood, it wasn¡¯t


    Usually their fault, and they didn¡¯t mean to hurt anyone, but the system pushed, and things moved, and one day the world made the wrong type of sense. A [Butcher] looked at his family and saw meat, it wasn¡¯t that he didn¡¯t love them, he just knew the best ways to cut them up. Thankfully the shifts were incremental, and usually slow, so he could pick who was going to start having trouble before they did, so he could help. But then people gained a class, and you could leave a [Farmer] alone for a hundred levels and nothing would happen, but you never knew with some others.


    Kids who got [Herbalist] as their first class had to be watched, just in case, some got [Alchemist] and got rich, some got [Poisoner] and there were some hard questions that had to be asked. Most people only got a single level each year, so there was time, but others, like this girl, levelled faster. To get a class change that young meant she was unprepared for the change, her instincts changed almost overnight, and she didn¡¯t know how to deal with it all. She hadn¡¯t had years to grow into [Tamer], so the change was volatile, and she ended up with new instincts, new senses, and she lost herself, unable to resist the changes. If he had had any doubts, they were firmly laid to rest now, along with an entire village.


    A part of him knew it was at least partly his fault. He chased her, probably forced her to lean into the class, and had sent her into the wild. Most of the time he could guide them, teach them to live with the class, but not let it control them. But he hadn¡¯t known it would go this far, mostly he caught them in the first few days, if they ran at all, most simply waited, or their family kept them safe until he could arrive.


    But she had slipped away, out of the valley, and across the plains. He hadn¡¯t expected that, he thought she would try to hide, they always chose to hide at first, then he found them. But he hadn¡¯t found her, she slipped into the woods, where her class gave her the advantage, something she probably hadn¡¯t even known, and disappeared. His men had been so distracted by the starfall they had lost her, and after they looped around the other side of the woods hoping to cut her off, she had already slipped away. After that it was just a matter of casting the net and hoping to catch her before she was hurt, or worse. His skills would lead him to her, even if that didn¡¯t mean he would find her alive. He had had to cast a wide net, but he heard about a young girl traveling alone, with no supplies, and followed, from one town to the next, sometimes losing her, always afraid she would double back, or change course, but she never did. That made the decision easier to send people to head her off at the next village, waiting in a tavern. But she never appeared, seemingly ignoring the road and passing through farmland and wooded areas, despite visiting villages in her path before. He found her again before this, of course, and he wished he had moved to grab her then, but she was healthy, and he was curious. She wasn¡¯t just running, at least not from him. And she obviously was adapting to her class, so where was she going, where would she end up?


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    He followed, and then this. He heard the cries, but never thought he would see her slaughter an entire village. Nothing he knew about her predicted this, nothing about the [Druids] he had met over the years said the class made people violent, and then he saw her, and he didn¡¯t recognise her. She was standing in the middle of a village square, surrounded by corpses, and wolves. They savaged everyone they came across, not just those out in the open but in the houses as well. She kicked down a door and he watched in horror as she dragged a girl no older than she was out into the street, throwing her down, throwing her quite literally to the wolves. The first arrow that struck drew their attention, all of them, Her and the wolves moving out of sight, still killing. Then, unable to pepper them from a distance, his men moved into the village, and the wolves tore into them too.


    They had fought wolves before. The trick was to always assume there was another one out of sight, but never like this. Wolves leapt from rooftops, from behind walls, even taking a spear if it meant another could tear into one of his men, there wasn¡¯t anyone else left by this point. And then the wolf pack broke, and they were left in a village surrounded by death, and she was gone.


    In the end they only killed three wolves, injured perhaps twice that. They lost five men. The village was a total loss. He knew where she had gone, the same direction she had always gone, he no longer cared what awaited her at the end, if there was one. He had heard stories about this once, when a class got so strong it overwhelmed the person. She had to have been at least his own level, perhaps higher. She would be coming up on her second class advancement, she probably still had a second class slot open, soon to get a third. There was no doubt in his mind she was lost. He couldn¡¯t even begin to guess how he would guide her to living in peace, if she even could. There was also the worrying concern that she may no longer be human. Humanity had been the only civilised race on the continent for centuries, since the now collapsed empire had conquered it. There was a rumour that you could tell how much non-human blood someone had by how fast they levelled. Whatever remnants of other races integrated into humanity long ago. But sinking too deep into a class could awaken those traits, and just like a class could grow the more it was embodied, a race could begin to shift too, if it was embraced.


    Classes themselves were products of interbreeding, the original humans no part of the system.

 Drop it like its Rock.

    There were many things wrong with how I woke up, for one it was unusual to wake up before an alarm began blaring from across the room, forcing me to vacate the comfort of my bed, for another I was usually in said bed.


    You know that feeling where right before you fall asleep you feel like you are falling? That¡¯s generally because your brain notices how suddenly you are losing consciousness, forgets it was trying to go to sleep, and tries to wake you up because clearly something must be wrong for you to be losing consciousness. This was like that, except I was waking up, and I was actually falling.  Plummeting through the air like a stone.


    Which was the next most obviously wrong thing about this situation, I was falling, and all I could see was this stupid rock, a rock falling towards the ground below me. It didn¡¯t take long to realise I couldn¡¯t move, or see my body, I couldn¡¯t close one eye and see my nose, I couldn¡¯t see anything of myself.


    And it wasn¡¯t just any falling stone, a meteor, a blazing comet wreathed in flames. It spun and tumbled, weathering the ablation as evenly as it could, but it was burning up, dissolving away into specks of light.


    I screamed, and it flared, burning form exploding with light. And, it helped, the fire sloughed off like it had lost traction, falling in waves and ribbons.


    When I hit the ground, it was possibly the most terrifying moment of my life, but in a weird way, it was almost calming, familiar. I had time to process on the way down, not a whole lot of time, but enough to where I basically said my goodbyes to the world and just braced myself to go splat, or crack, or whatever rocks do when they hit the ground at a much too high speed. Then I hit and didn¡¯t splat, I just sort of struck, Boom, and then I was in the middle of a crater, or the rock was, I still couldn¡¯t see myself, or feel, actually, there was definitely a falling sensation, but I couldn¡¯t feel my body, not the aches and pains I was so used to they barely registered, not the pins and needles of a limb I slept on wrong, nothing.


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    I felt the impact though, in an abstract, oh I guess I just hit the ground at terminal velocity, kind of way. No pain, no splat, just boom, now I¡¯m in a crater that wasn¡¯t there before, and didn¡¯t it feel good to do that. The raw power of slamming into something and feeling the power behind the impact, but not being any worse for it.


    I don¡¯t really know what I did after that, just sort of lay there, which is a pretty reasonable reaction to falling from the sky, if you ask me. I did eventually snap out of it, once the sky darkened and it was night, then it was day, just soaking in everything, then I realised I had just lay in a crater for what was probably a full day, and never felt anything, no cold, no hunger, no nothing. And that was strangely what snapped me out of whatever fugue state I had entered. Because once you notice something is wrong, you start noticing everything else that¡¯s wrong. I shouldn¡¯t have been able to just lay in a crater for a full day, and I also shouldn¡¯t have made said crater when I fell from wherever I fell from. Also I woke up falling from a great height, and that¡¯s something else to notice, so yeah, I started to panic. But then I realised I couldn¡¯t panic, not that some halfway rational part of me realised panic would get you killed in a situation like this, but because I just couldn¡¯t do it, physically couldn¡¯t bring myself to freak out over how messed up everything about this is. And I tried to panic over that too, but again, couldn¡¯t panic, so I just existed in an existential state of zen, freaking out while totally calm.