The exit to the dungeon is boarded with rickety timber. I can see slivers of daylight streaming through the cracks in the boards. I pry at them with my fingers a bit, then, growing impatient, I steel myself and crash bodily through the obstacle. Boards shatter, splinters fly, I emerge in a cloud of dust and debris, bursting out of the cave and into the sunshine with a veritable scream of relief.

  “Aaaaah!”

  Wait—that wasn’t me. It takes a bit for my eyes to adjust to the brightness of the outside world, but eventually I realize I’m staring at a beautiful player standing just in front of me. Her name—or is that his name?—is Sherbert.

  “Who are you?” she(?) demands in a vaguely effeminate voice. “Why did you just come out of the mountain?”

  “I was trapped. Trapped in a terrible dungeon for days and days and—”

  Just then, behind me, I hear the creaking of automatons. They’re respawning! Not a problem for me, but this poor damsel(?) might get caught in our crossfire and—

  “Run!” I cry, grabbing her(?) by the (rather large) hand and pulling her along after me.

  “Where are we going?” Sherbert cries, following very easily.

  “No time to explain—we’ve got to get out of here before those things respawn!”

  “But—”

  “Run!!”

  Together we speed into the dense forest, and suddenly the bright sky is traded for the shade and cool of the trees.

  “I’m so happy,” I hear Sherbert’s voice behind me. “You have no idea how happy I am to see another person out here!”

  “Aren’t there lots of players in this area?”

  “No players at all! I’m totally lost! I’ve been stuck out here forever. Somehow I wandered so far from the village that I haven’t seen another player in days.”

  Well, that would explain her willingness to follow a random stranger who just popped out of a dungeon. That is—I think she’s a she.

  “You are a girl, right?” I confirm as I continue to run alongside her, and to my astonishment her big shimmery eyes overflow with tears.

  “Not you, too! I’m a guy!”

  At this revelation I trip over a rock and go somersaulting several feet before coming to an abrupt stop in the middle of a small clearing. Beside me Sherbert has also skidded to a halt on his dainty backside.

  “I’m a guy in real life and this character is male too! Male! I specifically selected it!”

  “Rrright…”

  “If I don’t tell people they flirt with me, if I do tell them, they bully me. I have trauma! I’m seriously going to delete this character! Waaaaa!”

  Poor guy. Guess he’s been getting bullied. Well, that’s hardly surprising, with a face like that.

  Figuring we’re far enough away from the dungeon and glad to have another person to talk to after so many days of solitude, even if it is this crybaby, I decide it’s fine to stop here, and use this moment to take a closer look at my companion.

  An elf by the looks of him, he has long pale green hair the color of, well, sherbert. His eyes are a soft orange color, set in a very pale, very delicate face. He wears copper leaf jewelry and a long rust colored caster’s robe that looks suspiciously like a dress.

  He’s a she. No matter how I look at him, he’s a she. But he insists he’s not a she, so I guess I’ll have to take him at his word. Besides, he’s definitely lacking in the produce department. No pumpkins at all. Not even kiwis.

  “If you’re so sensitive about being mistaken for a girl, why’d you make such a pretty character?”

  “Well, Sherbert’s an elf,” he says, sniffing and wiping his nose on his sleeve. “Elves are supposed to be pretty. I guess I got a bit too into it in character creation mode.”

  “Maybe a haircut would help?”

  “I tried. It just made me look like a spunky anime girl.”

  “Yeah, I can see that…”

  Sherbert’s eyes fill up once more with tears. “See? It’s hopeless. I really should delete this character…”

  “I mean, it’s none of my business, but…you must have invested a lot of time to get this far. It would be a shame to erase all that hard work. Oh, I’m Revelator, by the way,” I say, sticking out my hand abruptly in a too-late introduction. “You can call me Rev.”

  “Sherbert,” he says, shaking my hand hesitantly.

  “Nice to meet you.”

  Even as the words leave my mouth I wonder who this incredibly confident man is, introducing himself and talking to a stranger like he’s been doing it all his life. Where did the timid me of the past go? Did I lose him somewhere, back in the dungeon?

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  Guess I’ve changed a bit more than I realized.

  “Nice to meet you, but, now doesn’t seem to be the time for pleasantries.”

  Looking around, I realize he’s right. Seems like I managed to pull a handful of mobs with my aggrovating face; they’re approaching the glade on all sides, shadowy figures in the forest. In this kind of situation, I’m not too worried for my own safety, but—

  “Sherbert—you’re a caster, right?”

  “Healer, druid, but I can—”

  “Even better.” I hop to my feet, gripping my shield stalwartly. “I’ll round the mobs up, so wait till all their attention is on me, then run and hide behind that rock and cast heals from behind it. They won’t touch you.”

  “But I’m not—”

  “Just trust me. And if it looks like I need it, be sure and hit me with those heals, yeah?”

  Sensing my confidence and evidently willing to let me take over strategy, Sherbert quits protesting and nods determinedly. Then he takes off running according to my instructions.

  I shift my focus to the mobs, these tall treeish looking creatures. With the ease of a veteran, I round them all up in my aura. What are they, forest spirits? Stopping long enough to examine one of them, I find it’s classified as an elemental. Good thing my aura evolved, or I’d be worthless against them.

  My healing skills are doing their job keeping me alive, though these tree spirits hit hard. I’m about to reach for a potion to supplement my healing when I’m suddenly bathed in a soft green light, and my regeneration is boosted so that in just a few seconds, my health is full in spite of constant attacks.

  “Nice!” I call to Sherbert, who gives me a nervous but eager thumbs up.

  “Hang on. These guys’ll be dead in another minute!”

  “That was amazing!”

  I sit across from Sherbert a few minutes later in front of a campfire while he prepares some food with his cooking skill. The tree spirits dropped some nuts as loot earlier and my new friend here insists they’re delicious.

  “I’ve never seen anything like it! You didn’t even fight! You just stood there and they burned out in your aura. It was so cool!”

  In no time at all Sherbert seems to have forgotten his two great traumas of being lost for days and bullied for his appearance. He’s gone from a crybaby to a happy, excitable companion, friendly and talkative and eager to please. Somehow, I get the feeling he’s just glad to have someone to talk to after being on his own for so long. Truthfully, I can relate.

  “My aura kills them in one minute and twenty-two seconds. It also heals me based on the percentage of damage I do. So the more monsters there are—the more HP they have—the more I heal. Of course against opponents with less health, or just a handful of them like the tree spirits I fought back there, especially the ones that do a ton of damage, I struggle more. And against ranged opponents, my aura’s totally useless…”

  “Ah, ah hah…very interesting…” Sherbert nods at appropriate intervals without fully understanding, I think. In fact I’m not sure he’s heard even a word I said. But that’s alright. I don’t really mind the amiable, clueless type.

  “What about you?” I ask. “How did a healer get this far into the game on his own?”

  “I wasn’t on my own the whole time. Sometimes I’d join parties, but they kept kicking me out for being a crappy healer. Or I’d just leave because they wouldn’t stop flirting with me… Of course, when I was on my own, I’d shift into my tank form and fight monsters myself…”

  As he tells his story, I examine his character profile.

  [Character name: Sherbert

  Level: 13

  Race: Elf

  Class: Druid

  Subclass: Revivalist

  HP: 459

  MP: 426

  Constitution: 16

  Strength: 20

  Agility: 5

  Intelligence: 25

  Luck: -

  Skills: Adult Ankylosaurus Form (8), Extended Healing (8), Fishing (2), Gastronomist (6), Nature’s Power (2), Regrowth (7), Slam (3), Trample (3), Woodcarver (1)

  (total armor 274)]

  Wait. Some of these skills need a closer look.

  [Adult Ankylosaurus Form level 8: You can transform into a terrifying prehistoric tank.

  +150 HP

  +55 Armor

  +8 Strength]

  He has a dinosaur form? What the heck?

  [Extended Healing level 8: Nature’s presence lingers when you focus on the art of restoration.

  Increases duration of healing spells by 138%

  Decreases healing frequency by 38.6%]

  He spread out his healing spells? Why?

  [Regrowth level 8: You channel the power of nature to improve regeneration.

  Heals 3% HP/second

  Duration: 5 seconds

  Cost: 30 MP

  Adjusted frequency: 1.63 seconds

  Adjusted duration: 11.9 seconds]

  So the Extended Healing skill draws out the Regrowth spell and makes it last longer. Why would he do that? So he can throw it on himself, I realize. Since he probably can’t cast spells in his dinosaur form, he casts the Regrowth spell as an elf, turns into a dinosaur, then runs into melee. This way the heal spell lasts throughout the fight he’s in, regenerating him slowly the entire time. I get it.

  [Nature’s Power level 2: You are bolstered by the brutality of the wild.

  +1 Strength

  +1 Constitution

  +20 Armor

  Cost: 100 MP

  Duration: 30 minutes]

  And he must have taken this skill to strengthen his dinosaur form, just like these Slam and Trample skills. The picture is coming together quite nicely. More importantly, a plan is beginning to take shape in my mind…

  “Sherbert, have you come across any other skills that heal by percent of health like your Regrowth skill?”

  “Hm? Yeah, I think so? When I was at the Druid’s Enclave, they had a bunch of skills like that. But I didn’t really need them, so I didn’t bother learning.”

  “I see…”

  “I’m not very good at picking skills, character building, that kind of thing. I’m used to having all that stuff figured out for me by the computer. I’m a total idiot.”

  “You’re not an idiot. Your build makes perfect sense. I’m guessing you started out wanting to play a healing character, but because you couldn’t find a steady party, you ended up taking the Ankylosaurus form so you could solo more easily, and built your character around that.”

  “Actually Ankylosaurus form was the first skill I took in the build menu,” he admits sheepishly.

  Ok. Maybe he really is an idiot. That aside—

  “But your character works, though. Maybe not in the conventional sense, and I could see where a raid might be annoyed with your build when they asked you along to be a healer, but—”

  “Don’t get me started on dungeon raids! Just because I couldn’t heal as fast as a priest, the White Striders were so mean to me!”

  Ah. They got to him too, huh? Those White Striders are merciless.

  “Honestly, I’m not sure I even want to play Tetra Chronicles anymore,” Sherbert admits. “This game, it’s just not what I was expecting.”

  “No? What were you expecting?”

  “More, you know, transaction options. Pay to win. Not saying this to brag or anything, but I bought my capsule with full intent on sinking a fortune into TC. Only when I logged in I found out the only purchasable options were skins that had zero impact on player stats. And, well, I’m really starting to think I’m not a good enough player to get by on skill alone. What?” he says, blushing deeply. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

  I realize I’m staring at this guy open-mouthed.

  “Whale,” I say, pointing directly at him.

  “W-what?” His blush deepens.

  “Whale,” I say again, then without meaning to I throw my head back and laugh.

  “Stop it!” Sherbert’s big shiny eyes tear up pathetically. “Don’t laugh at meeeee!”