Brat had appeared during breakfast, flickering beside the coffee pot with a distracted expression and a faint ring of blue around his eyes.
“I’m close,” he’d said without preamble. “Closer to breaking the comms lock than I’ve ever been. And the Key’s code is finally starting to decompress. I need to focus everything on it.”
Will had paused mid-bite. “Everything?”
“Every process I’ve got.” Brat pointed at him with one hand while his other tapped through invisible controls only he could see. “Which means you, Prince William, are going to rest. You’ve had a hell of a few days. Take it slow. Read a book. Maybe breathe for once.” He’d added, with a faint smirk, “And stay out of the bordello.”
Then Brat’s form had begun to dissolve, pixels breaking away from his outline. “…and don’t forget to spend your attribute point…” carried faintly as the last of him vanished.
Now the room was still again—just the hum of the palace, distant footfalls somewhere deeper below, and the slow creep of sunlight across the cushions.
A faint shimmer lifted in the corner of Will’s vision.
[ATTRIBUTE POINT AVAILABLE — ASSIGN 1 POINT TO ANY CORE STAT]
Will closed the book and summoned the menu. He considered the point only briefly. Strength had served him well before—stability had mattered in every fight, and still mattered now that everything beyond the walls of Belhaven felt unpredictable.
“Strength,” he said.
The prompt responded at once.
[ATTRIBUTE UPDATED → STRENGTH +1]
[RETROACTIVE HP ADJUSTMENT: +5]
[HP PER LEVEL INCREASED TO 17]
The adjustment settled through him, subtle and grounding, not a surge but a quiet reinforcement.
Will opened the full status menu for the first time in a while.
[NAME: WILLIAM VALCAIRN]
[TITLE: PRINCE OF AELORIA, LORD OF BELHAVEN | THE FIRST CHAMPION (5% XP BONUS)]
[DESIGNATION: THE DREAMER PRINCE]
[CLASS: CHAMPION]
[LEVEL: 25 | XP: 30,000 / -- ]
[SOCIAL SYNC: 40.50]
[STATUS: ACTIVE]
[VIP BUILD: ACTIVE]
[HEALTH: 590 / 590 (100%)]
[STAMINA: 385 / 385 (100%)]
[MANA: 225 / 225 (100%)]
[REGEN: 10% PER HOUR | ROYAL SIGNET BONUS (+50%) → 15% PER HOUR TOTAL]
[ARMOR CLASS: 40 (PASSIVE) | 50 (MAX ACTIVE)]
[DAMAGE MITIGATION: 40% | 50% WHEN SHIELD ACTIVE]
[ELEMENTAL RESISTANCE: FIRE 0% | WATER 40% | AIR 0% | EARTH 0% | ARCANE 0%]
──────────────────────────────
[ATTRIBUTES]
STR: 17 | DEX: 15 | CON: 15 | INT: 15 | WIS: 15 | CHA: 15
Champion Gain per Level → +17 HP | +10 SP | +5 MP
──────────────────────────────
[CLASS SKILLS]
LIGHT BLADES (ADVANCED)
SHIELD DEFENSE (ADVANCED)
CHAMPION’S RESOLUTE: Fortifies nearby allies, increasing regeneration and defense within a fixed radius.
[COMMON SKILLS]
RHETORIC (ADVANCED) | PERCEPTION (ADVANCED) | ARCANE LITERACY (ADVANCED) | COMPOSURE (ADVANCED)
[SPECIALIZED SKILLS]
EMPATHY (INTERMEDIATE)
──────────────────────────────
[EQUIPMENT]
MAIN HAND → Royal Sword of Valcairn (Epic, Rank 2)
+3 Damage | Azure Flame Attribute | Upgradeable → Legendary (Rank 5) | Soulbound
SECONDARY → Royal Dagger of Valcairn (Rare, Rank 1)
+1 Damage | +1 Dexterity while wielded | Upgradeable → Legendary (Rank 5) | Soulbound
ARMOR → Royal Issue Shirt of Mithril Mail (Rare, Rank 2)
+15 AC | Auto-Repair | Weightless | Upgradeable → Legendary (Rank 5) | Soulbound
SET → Royal Garb of Belhaven (Attire Set)
Passive: +25 AC while wearing official royal attire (any two pieces)
ACCESSORY 1 → Signet of the Prince
Regeneration +50% | Active
ACCESSORY 2 → Traveler’s Sigil Band (Uncommon)
Passive Temperature Adjustment | Water Resistance +40% | Active
ACCESSORY 3 → Brooch of Verdant Grace (Rare)
Effect: Once per day, summon living vines to entangle nearby enemies for up to ten seconds. (Resets at dawn.)
UTILITY → Bag of Holding (Legendary, Rank 1)
Expanded Storage Capacity | Auto-Sort Enabled
SPECIAL ITEM → Drake Egg (Unhatched)
SPECIAL ITEM → Golden Key (??∴???-UNCLAS/ERR)
──────────────────────────────
[OPEN QUESTS]
- THE WHISPERING TREES — CORRUPTED DATA. (Edras)
- THE HOWLING BEAST OF THE WESTERN CLIFFS — Investigate nightly howls. (Union)
[CLOSED QUESTS]
- THE AEGIS OF THE CROWN — +18,000 XP | Champion Class Quest Complete.
- ECHOES BENEATH THE CLIFFS — +9,150 XP | Champion Skill Rank Up.
- RATS IN THE VINEYARD — +2,700 XP | Champion Skill Rank Up.
- EXPLORE BELHAVEN — +100 XP | Quest Complete.
- MAINTENANCE OF THE CROWN’S STEEL — +50 XP | Hidden Quest Complete.
He dismissed the menu, leaned back into the cushions, and let the morning light settle over him. The palace breathed in its steady, familiar rhythm, and for the first time in days, he found himself matching it.
The Key pulsed softly somewhere in his inventory—quiet, patient—and Will felt none of the panic that had chased him through the ruins, or the hollow ache that had followed him out of the forge. Just a steady center, built from what he had already endured.
It was enough.
For now.
The suite was unusually quiet without Brat.
Will lingered a moment in the sitting room, the book he’d taken from the shelf the night before resting on the arm of the couch, as he listened to the distant harbor wind. Brat had flickered out half an hour ago without ceremony—muttering something about combing through comms partitions and whatever the Key was doing to the backend. The Aegis upgrade was still days away. Champion quests? Finished. Nothing left to do but wait.
He sighed and let his gaze drift toward the door on the far wall.
The Training Room.
He hadn’t stepped inside since returning from the Iron Drake’s cavern—too much happening, too many other fires. Now, boredom tugged at him, and the thought of checking his newest trophies felt like a reasonable distraction.
He walked over and pulled the door open.
Mage-lights warmed instantly across the ceiling, casting steady gold-white illumination over polished stone and mirrored walls. The air inside was still, clean, faintly metallic.
His eyes drifted upward.
The trophy rack above the mounted weapons gleamed with three displays, arranged neatly in a row. On the left sat the first trophy he’d earned: a curved black fang polished to a dull sheen, its brass plaque reading Rats in the Vineyard; beside it lay a jagged iron scale, edges ridged like reptilian armor—the Iron Drake’s mark, a faint reddish shimmer pulsing across its surface when viewed from the side, its bronze plaque set neatly beneath it; and on the right rested a shard of blue crystal no larger than his palm, thin and beveled, etched with delicate fracture lines, the silver-etched plaque beneath it marked Aegis of the Crown.
He felt something settle warmly in his chest. These weren’t just trophies—they were breadcrumbs of the strange journey he was on, reminders of the fights he’d survived.
His gaze dropped to the training weapons beneath the trophies. Rows of wooden swords, staves, padded clubs, and spears mounted on polished brackets.
A short training spear caught his attention—a wooden haft with a dulled steel cap meant more for form than function. He pulled it free from the rack.
He turned it idly in his hand, feeling the lightness of it, then swung it in an arc through the air, testing its balance.
Is this something the system would even let me use? Or am I locked out since I hit the level cap?
No answer came. Just the muted swish of wood through air as he tested the balance.
He started toward the back of the room.
The four class statues stood in their familiar half-circle alcoves carved into the rear wall. Their stone surfaces were smooth, detailed enough to catch light in ways that almost felt alive.
The first one glowed.
The Champion statue, with the crest emblazoned on its chest, radiated a steady gold light that caught the floor beneath it. Completed. Stable. Done.
The others remained dormant—unlit, pale stone. Roads he hadn’t chosen:
Shadow, Arcanist, and Warden.
Will slowed.
The Shadow statue stood slightly angled, hood drawn low, face obscured beneath the carved cowl. The stone was a darker shade than the others—nearly slate—shot through with faint purple striations that only revealed themselves when the mage-lights shifted.
Something about it pulled at his attention.
He hadn’t really studied it up close before.
He stepped closer, rolling the spear absently in one hand. The faint patterns etched into the statue’s bracers caught his eye—interlocking lines, almost runic in nature, swirling toward the wrist where a dagger was carved.
Will leaned in. “What did he say again?” he murmured. “Oh—right. They make trouble look elegant.”
The linework intrigued him. Without thinking, he lifted his free hand toward the bracer—just to feel the texture, the detail, the craftsmanship—
His fingertips brushed the stone.
The statue blazed.
A sudden burst of purple-gray light—sharp, cold, threaded with deeper violet—flared outward, flooding the alcove. Will jerked back, heart lurching, the spear slipping from his hand and clattering loudly across the floor.
A system prompt snapped into view.
[SYSTEM LOG: CLASS CONFIRMED | SHADOW]
“What the f—”
He didn’t even get the word out.
Static cracked in the air beside him—sharp, chaotic—and Brat materialized mid-stride, nearly stumbling as he crashed into visibility.
“What the FUCK did you just do?!”
Will threw both hands up. “I touched it! That’s all—Brat, I didn’t mean to—”
But the damage was already done.
Two statues glowed now.
Champion: warm gold, steady.
Shadow: purple, pulsing faintly like a heartbeat.
Brat was already swiping open invisible panels, eyes blazing with panic. “No. No no no—this isn’t— Will, this is impossible. This is literally impossible.”
Will backed up another step. “Can you please explain before I—”
“You activated a second class!” Brat snapped. “A SECOND class! Haven doesn’t have multiclassing! It’s not in the code, it isn’t a feature, it isn’t even a prototype!”
Will swallowed. “So… what does that mean?”
Brat froze.
His expression shifted—panic sharpening into something colder as his eyes flickered up and down. “Oh, you’ve got to be shitting me.”
The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
“What?”
Brat brought two of the invisible panels together, lines of code reflecting across his irises—blue, gold, then something darker.
“It’s not a selection flag,” he whispered. “It’s a bypass. Something overrode the class limit.”
He pulled the window in closer, jaw tightening.
“And it’s tagged with—”
A beat.
“—Dreamer Prince access.”
Will blinked. “So… it’s coming from my side?”
“It’s coming from something that thinks you outrank the entire class system.” Brat looked up, voice low. “The system didn’t let you take Shadow, Will. It tried to stop you.”
The purple light behind them pulsed once.
Brat finished:
“It couldn’t.”
The room fell into a tense quiet—the glow of two incompatible destinies humming in the air in front of them.
Brat exhaled sharply and closed the floating panels with a swipe.
“Okay,” he muttered. “We’re not doing anything else in here until I figure out what the hell you just unlocked. Back to the sitting room before you fuck up something else.”
Will left the spear where it lay, pulse still racing.
Two statues.
Two classes.
One impossible future.
He followed Brat out, the twin lights fading slowly behind him.
Will sat on the couch, elbows on his knees, watching the little avatar pace in tight, irritated circles. The construct flickered in and out of focus as he tugged at invisible screens, muttering under his breath. Every so often he stopped to pinch something in the air or drag a window only he could see, then resumed pacing.
Will cleared his throat. “You look like you’re about to burn a hole in the floor.”
Brat ignored him for another ten seconds before finally stopping beside the coffee table. He pressed his palms together, took a breath that was purely performative, and said, “Okay. I figured some things out.”
Will straightened.
“Your level cap is still twenty-five,” Brat said. “That part hasn’t changed. But picking a new class reset your visible level to one.”
Brat lifted a hand. “And yes—before you ask—your XP got wiped with it.”
Will froze. “All of it?”
“Of course all of it,” Brat snapped. “Champion’s class arc was designed to take you neatly from level one to twenty-five. The system can’t store overflow XP past the cap. Anything extra—side quests, hidden flags, whatever—gets tossed into the void the second you max out. Design oversight. Classic Haven.”
He huffed. “Be grateful it didn’t corrupt your whole profile.”
“Back to level one?” Will blinked. “So I’m squishier now? That sounds like a terrible deal.”
“You still have all your Champion stats,” Brat said sharply. “All of them. Skills, ability, stat points, energy pools. Everything. You will begin as an overpowered level one.” He spread his hands. “You’re the safest squishy person in the entire game… here or Elysion.”
Will rubbed the back of his neck. “Right. Okay. That… actually sounds good.”
“It should.” Brat flicked another invisible window open. “Dual classes are unheard of here. In the main game, yeah, they’re a thing—but totally different mechanics. Point is, this isn’t a novel idea in gaming, but Haven was not built with the option. There is no code path for it. Yet here you are.”
Will leaned back. “Lucky me.”
Brat made a face. “Sure. Let’s call it that.”
He pulled another hidden window into his view. “Now. Your gains for Shadow. Per level you’ll get ten health, fifteen stamina, and five mana. Dexterity is the signature stat, so expect abilities to scale off that.”
“So Shadow really is the ‘thief’ archetype.”
“That is a painfully simple description, but yes.” Brat stepped back. “All right. Time for skill selection. You remember how this works from Champion. Primary skill. Secondary skill. Beginner tier.”
Will opened his mouth to ask what the options were, then stopped. The image of the multitude of options from his original Champion selection flashed through his mind, followed by the leather bracer fitted with throwing knives in his armory closet. The answer felt obvious.
“I think I already know my primary skill,” he said. “Thrown weapons. If that’s a thing.”
“It is,” Brat said, nodding. “And it’s probably the smartest thing you’ve done today.”
A bracketed prompt appeared:
[PRIMARY SKILL: Thrown Weapons — BASIC]
Brat arched a brow. “And do you have any thoughts on your secondary skill, Your Highness?”
Will’s confidence wavered. “Uh. Shadows are rogues and thieves, right? Is there a stealth skill?”
Another prompt appeared:
[SECONDARY SKILL: Stealth — BASIC]
“There you go,” Brat said. “Beginner tier. Limited concealment, reduced detection radius, nothing flashy. It gets better after level eight.”
“Right,” Will said. “And to get there, I need a quest.”
Brat gave him an exhausted look. “Naturally.”
A new prompt dropped into Will’s vision.
[NEW QUEST UNLOCKED: “Cats in the Warehouse”]
Objective: Purge corrupted vermin from the storage cellars along the eastern docks.
Reward: Experience + Item Drop + Local Standing
Will frowned. “This looks… familiar.”
“All novice quests follow the same template,” Brat said. “Different locations, different pests, same structure. Beginner content is copy-pasted across every class tree. Designers got lazy.”
Will stared at the prompt again. “Corrupted cats,” he muttered. “Great.”
Brat crossed his arms. “Welcome to multiclassing in a system that was never supposed to have it.”
He paused as his projection brightened, casting a faint sheen of light across the coffee table. A low, almost musical hum vibrated through the air around him.
Will leaned forward. “Brat…? You okay?”
Brat didn’t answer. His eyes flicked rapidly, following invisible lines of code. “Wait. There’s a flag in the Shadow architecture I didn’t see earlier.” He frowned. “It was buried.”
“A flag for what?”
Brat dragged an unseen window closer, scanning faster. “Not a quest marker. Not a stat modifier. It’s… Will, it’s a Key flag.”
Will blinked. “Another Key? Like the one from Champion?”
“Yes.” Brat’s voice sharpened with sudden clarity. “Exactly like that. Will, I just caught a system flag pointing to another Key fragment.” He looked up, excitement breaking through his usual exasperation. “This is why I couldn’t fully decompile the first one. It isn’t complete. There are missing sections—big ones.”
“So it wasn’t corruption. It was… incomplete?”
“Precisely.” Brat pointed, though there was nothing visible to Will. “The system just exposed a secondary Key hook tied to your Shadow class completion. Not the beginner quest. The entire class arc.”
Will’s pulse kicked up. “Like the Champion.”
“Like the Champion,” Brat echoed. “Which means there’s probably one more for Arcanist. Another for Warden. Four classes.” He counted them off with quick flicks of his fingers. “Four fragments. One full Key.”
A slow thrill spread through Will’s chest. “So when I finish the Shadow class…”
“We’ll get the second piece,” Brat said. “And I might finally be able to figure out what these Key codes actually do.”
Will exhaled, excitement turning into purpose. “All right,” he said quietly. “Okay. That’s different.”
Will stood up. “Let’s get to that warehouse.”
New class.
New skills.
Level one.
Again.
Another step. Maybe a small one—but still a step closer to getting home.
The last corrupted cat came at Will in a low, feral streak of gray-black static—more rabid dog than feline, jaws distended, eyes flickering with broken code. Will didn’t bother stepping back. He let the creature’s momentum carry it forward, lifted his right arm, and flicked his wrist.
One of the mithril knives he had pulled from his bracer earlier leapt from his hand, slicing the air in a clean, effortless arc. The blade struck the creature square between the eyes.
The cat dissolved in a puff of corrupted light, scattering like ashes sucked into a draft.
A heartbeat later, with a faint pulse of purple from the runes on his wrist, the throwing knife materialized back into its slot on the bracer, resetting itself with a soft glimmer.
A soft prompt pulsed at the edge of Will’s vision:
[CAT DEFEATED — +100 XP]
Brat stood nearby, slow-clapping with theatrical boredom. “Finally. I was beginning to think you’d forgotten we were in a hurry.”
Will snorted, rolling his shoulder as he flexed his fingers. He drew out a single knife in a small flourish, letting it glide across his knuckles once before catching it with ease. The blade balanced perfectly. Smooth. Controlled. Oddly natural—something he’d never have dared to attempt in the real world, but here the system subtly guided his movements and precision.
The warehouse around them was dim, its lanterns guttering in the afternoon light filtering through cracked boards. The rest of the docks outside were busy—workers shouting, carts rolling, gulls calling—but this building remained abandoned, as if everyone sensed something inside had gone wrong.
Brat lifted one hand and counted off his fingers from one to five. “Well, you’ve got…” He lowered one finger. “…about four seconds before the Boss Cat shows up.”
He dropped another. “Maybe three.”
Will exhaled, drawing out all three knives now—two in his left hand, one in his right. “I get the sense the devs weren’t trying too hard.”
“Oh,” Brat said, widening his eyes theatrically. “Sweetheart. You have no idea.”
Will rolled his shoulders, letting the moment settle, and thought back to just a couple hours earlier in the suite—getting dressed, enduring Brat’s commentary, and heading down toward the docks.
After he and Brat had finished selecting his Shadow skills, Will had stepped into the closet off the bedroom where a new outfit had been laid out for him: blacks and grays, with subtle threads of purple woven through the muted royal crest. The fabric was loose and flexible, shifting with each movement.
Brat had circled him with a suspiciously pleased look, wearing a similar ensemble in miniature—dark tunic and shorts—because of course he did.
“Stealth. Movement. Acrobatics. Hijinks,” he’d said.
Will raised a brow. “Acrobatics?”
Brat sighed. “Yes, acrobatics. It’s part of the job description. Don’t look at me like that.”
Then, with a grin: “Think of it as your Shadow garb.”
Will withdrew the bracer from the weapons cabinet next. Thin black leather, traced with concealment runes so it would blend into anything he wore, and fitted with retrieval runes that called each knife back to him after it struck its target.
Captain Taren had escorted them down to the eastern docks, stopping at the threshold of the warehouse to wait, arms folded behind his back as Will and Brat entered to handle the quest alone.
Now—
Brat snapped his fingers. “Aaaand time.”
Something shifted in the dark at the far end of the warehouse.
A low growl reverberated across the floorboards, deeper and rougher than anything Will had heard from the low-level beasts. The shadows thickened, gathered, then peeled back.
The Boss Cat stepped forward—easily the size of a wolf, its body flickering in and out of solid form. Black static crawled along its spine. Its eyes glitched, layers of red and violet overlapping. Each breath rattled like corrupted code scraping along stone.
Brat’s clear voice rattled off. “Boss time. Try not to embarrass me.”
Will steadied himself and hurled the knife in his right hand—feeling his Champion strength send it faster and harder than the system would have accounted for at level one.
The blade struck the creature’s jaw with a crackle of corrupted light.
The creature shrieked, spinning, tail glitching out like a skipping frame. It sprang forward.
Will slipped sideways and threw a second knife. The blade shattered into purple light on impact.
The Boss Cat staggered.
Will didn’t hesitate. He leveled the last knife, took half a breath, and threw with everything he had.
Light split the air. The Boss Cat convulsed once—then collapsed, dissolving into a cascade of dark brilliance that faded into the floor.
Silence fell.
A soft chime rang through the air as the prompts unfurled:
[BOSS CAT DEFEATED — +500 XP]
[QUEST COMPLETE: “Cats in the Warehouse”]
[COMBAT XP EARNED: +2,800 XP]
[LEVEL UP → 8 (PENDING ACCEPTANCE)]
[PLEASE SELECT ‘ACCEPT’ TO LEVEL UP]
Will focused and accepted.
The rush came immediately—warm, electric, threaded through every limb.
[LEVEL UP → 2 (ACCEPTED)]
[LEVEL UP → 3]
[LEVEL UP → 4]
[LEVEL UP → 5]
[LEVEL UP → 6]
[LEVEL UP → 7]
[LEVEL UP → 8]
Brat flung both hands up and pivoted in a slow half-circle, as though performing for an invisible audience. “The noble art of grinding continues! Huzzah!”
Will exhaled, tension bleeding out of him, and laughed.
[+70 HP | +105 SP | +35 MP]
[COMBAT SKILL RANK UP → THROWN WEAPONS (INTERMEDIATE)]
[COMBAT SKILL RANK UP → STEALTH (INTERMEDIATE)]
[INVENTORY CAPACITY EXPANDED — +7 SLOTS | POTION STORAGE UPGRADE (3x EACH)]
Where the Boss Cat had fallen, a small shimmer remained. As the last motes of corruption faded, two objects settled onto the boards.
A single curved claw, ash-gray, veined with faint circuits.
Will crouched to pick it up.
[ITEM ACQUIRED: CAT QUEEN’S CLAW]
[RARITY: UNCOMMON]
[TYPE: TROPHY]
[EFFECT: NONE]
“Proof,” Will murmured, turning it over, “that corruption bleeds, even here.”
Brat leaned over his shoulder, squinting. “Lazy designers. They swapped ‘Rat King’ for ‘Cat Queen’ and called it a day. Honestly, the plagiarism should be a crime.”
Will stored the trophy into his inventory with a quiet blink of light before reaching for the second item. In his hand he held a small lantern-shaped charm, matte black, fitted with a thin clip suitable for the bracer.
[ITEM ACQUIRED: LANTERNSHADE CLIP]
[RARITY: RARE]
[TYPE: ACCESSORY — BRACER CHARM]
[EFFECT: Once per day, blend into ambient shadow for up to ten seconds, making it extremely difficult to track.]
[COOLDOWN: Resets at dusk.]
“Forged from the lantern casings that once guided sailors home, now turned toward those who walk unseen.”
He read the familiar structure of the prompt—same format as the Brooch of Verdant Grace—before clipping it onto his bracer.
Brat leaned in. “Cut and paste job. They swapped the vineyard flavor for dock flavor and had a beer.”
Will shook his head, unable to hide a smile.
Brat brightened suddenly, walking backward toward the exit. “Well! Quest complete. And even better news—” He grinned. “—it’s almost dinner, and it’s been far too long since you flirted with a certain barkeep at the Golden Oar.”
Will straightened from his kneeling position on the floor. “Brat—”
“What? I’m supporting your emotional development.”
Will brushed dust from his knees, adjusted the bracer at his wrist, and headed toward the warehouse doors.
“Fine,” he said quietly. “The Golden Oar.”
Brat beamed. “Excellent choice, Your Highness.”
They stepped out into the late-afternoon light of the docks.