Elijah more so tripped out of the tree than walked. As he had approached the exit, the pain all over his body only intensified. Being inside had worked as an anesthetic, and that was wearing off now that he was leaving.

  He made it back out onto the grassy field. The Mother was nowhere to be found, and it appeared that he was the first of the party to have completed his challenge.

  He hoped that was the case, and they hadn’t all died inside their individual challenges.

  He sat down on the soft grass. Natural healing in this game was slow, not as slow as in real life, but far from the superhuman speed most video games gave you. That’s what made Sasha’s role in their party so important. There were hundreds of basic healing classes, but just like in every other roleplaying game, so few people wanted to play them. Elijah had looked at the numbers a few years ago. For every ten damage class players, there were five tank class players but only one healer. If not for Sasha, slow healing would hinder them, or sub-par healing spells from other utility classes. Or worse: health potions.

  Depending on who you asked, health potions either tasted like gym socks or dirty bus seats. Though he questioned the validity of any statement given by someone who knew what either tasted like.

  The grass was cool against his skin as he lay back on it. He was so tired; it felt like days since he’d slept.

  Slowly, he drifted off to sleep.

  And awoke when someone began shaking him while a wash of warmth spread over his body. He opened his eyes and looked up into the face of Sasha. He couldn’t remember a time when he’d been happier to see a healer in a game. Except she was crying.

  “Elijah! Don’t scare me like that.” She yelled at him before casting another ‘Cure Wounds’ on him. “I thought you were dead.”

  He blinked rapidly a few times, trying to process what she was saying. “Sasha? It’s a game. If I died, I would have just respawned in Nethy.” Granted if that had been the case he was certain that Arturus would make him wish he had died for real.

  She let his head drop from her arms, folding them in front of her. “That doesn’t mean I wasn’t worried about you, you idiot. This game feels so real sometimes that it’s hard to separate it from reality.”

  He nodded his head; she was right. He constantly had to remind himself that the stakes weren’t as high as they seemed. Yes, he had to reach Celestial-tier before people on the outside lost hope and started disconnecting people from their pods, but most deaths weren’t final in this game. He’d read plenty of articles cautioning people about that possibility when FIVR pods first came out. Mostly scare tactics by the older generation afraid of embracing new technology. The same thing had happened throughout history. Phones, personal computers, television. He’d even read one article that said that even the invention of the printing press had led to arguments against them.

  FIVR pods couldn’t kill you, even if they could do something just as terrifying by trapping your mind in the game you were playing.

  “So what was your challenge?” She asked him, hitting him with a final healing spell to bring him up to full health.

  He told her everything except for the interaction he’d had with the system AI. Everything except for the kiss at the end. Somehow, it didn’t feel right to tell her about the strangely intimate moment he’d had with the dryad turned system. He didn’t know if he worried she would get jealous, or if he hoped she would if he told her. Either way, he would remain quiet on the specifics of how she had changed Elijah’s internal code.

  “What about you?” he asked once he’d finished his story? “What kind of challenge were you given?”

  “It was a battlefield simulation. For the duration of the challenge, I had my level increased to fifty and was placed as a medic in the middle of an army. My task was to keep as many soldiers alive as I could.” She shrugged her shoulders. “Nothing like what you experienced, but I guess you wouldn’t expect it to be considering I’m not a fighter.”

  There was something in her tone that set Elijah on edge. Like she was hiding something more about the trial that she didn’t want to tell him. Not that he had any room to talk on that matter. “So did you get any good loot or upgrades for it?”

  Sasha smiled. “It’s an upgrade to my interface. I can sense the party’s health now when they are within fifty feet of me. It won’t help in large, spread-out engagements, but it means I don’t need to check health bars visually anymore.”

  Elijah nodded his head. “That will be useful. If Nicholas and I are both tanking on opposite sides of you, you won’t have to split your focus as much.”

  “You remember you are technically a caster and not a tank, right?”

  He couldn’t help but smile and laugh at her. “I know, but we don’t have the right party composition for me not to play at least a partial tank. Unless Bo wants to work on his constitution stat.”

  As if on cue, Bo came wandering out of the tree. “Not particularly, no. I’d rather just keep dumping all my points into Dexterity.”

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Sasha shot him a dirty look, but he paid no mind.

  “So what kind of challenge did you both face?” he asked, sitting on the grass next to them.

  “We should wait until Benjamin and Nicholas come out, that way we aren’t continuously repeating ourselves over and over.” Sasha suggested.

  Bo shrugged and laid back on the grass, closing his eyes. “Suits me, wake me up when they get out.” After a couple of moments, Bo was fast asleep on the ground beside them, snoring lightly.

  Benjamin followed next, looking worse for wear but far from as bad as Elijah was by the end of his trial. Benjamin’s robes had singe marks around the edges, and a wicked burn covered his forearms. Elijah tried to press him for information, curious about what the mage had gone through that had left him so hurt yet with a big stupid grin on his face. But the mage refused to share until Nicholas came out.

  They waited.

  And waited.

  Hours passed by as they watched the opening for any sign of their leader.

  Elijah was finally about to send a message to Rose asking her to look for him back in Nethy when a hulking figure appeared in the tree's opening. Nicholas stumbled out of the tree, nearly dead on his feet. Sasha got up to run to him, but fell back when the entire world began shaking.

  [GLOBAL ANNOUNCEMENT]

  THE WORLD QUAKES!

  A Player has unlocked a new unique class: Heartwood Sovereign

  Bo was immediately awake and readying himself for an attack as the announcement boomed around them. Elijah could see the changes in Nicholas. His shaved head was now covered in a cowl of thick tree bark; dark golden lines traced his neck and arms, contrasting his umber skin tone, and his left hand now terminated in the dagger-like claw of a dryad.

  The change altered more than just his class; his very body had been affected. But he was still Nicholas, still their friend, and he was sitting at only four health points. Whatever challenge he’d faced must have been just as difficult as Elijah’s own, if not more so. After all, he was a class that excelled in fighting and defending against damage. Or at least, he had been. Now he was a Heartwood Sovereign, and there was no telling what that meant for him or the party.

  Sasha immediately went to work healing him.

  Before they could extract the information from Nicholas about what had happened, the Mother appeared to them.

  “Congratulations, children of man. You have completed the trials I bestowed upon you and each received his or her own piece of ascension. My time draws near; I can feel it more clearly than ever.” Her voice was still sorrowful, knowing what was coming for her, but there was a hint of hope present in it as well.

  “There’s nothing we can do to change the outcome, is there?” Sasha’s voice was soft as she looked up at the Mother, her hands still pressed firmly against Nicholas’ chest.

  The mother shook her head. “This is just a memory. While I must travel to my future the long way, it has still all occurred in your past. There is naught that you may do to change it.”

  With her final pronouncement, she faded, the trees and the clearing fading as well. They once more stood in the antechamber of the trials.

  [Trial Two]

  The Trial of Ascension

  Description: Each of you has travelled his or her own path towards understanding ascension. You have each proven yourselves worthy of the Mother’s gift, but one amongst you now holds the key to her bones.

  Reward: 400 XP

  Once again, everyone had skyrocketed in levels thanks to the challenges they’d faced and the generous reward from the not-a-quest. The trial must have suppressed the level-ups because when Elijah opened his menu, he saw he had gained almost five-hundred experience instead. The four-hundred from the trial and another ninety from defeating his shadow version. That was enough to have raised him from level fifteen to level seventeen.

  He wasn’t the only one who had gained levels either. Benjamin was at level fifteen, and the others were all sitting at level sixteen. Their levels were evening out again after having become unbalanced by several side trips.

  He placed his hand against Nicholas’ shoulder, curious about the unique legendary class the man had earned himself.

  There wasn’t much he could see, just that he’d gotten himself a little boost to his constitution, as well as increasing his intelligence from a one to a three. Two new skills were also present: Shield Wall and Entrap.

  He assumed that those skills, or at least one of them, must use mana if his new class started with a boost to it instead of boosting one of the other stats.

  “That figures. I wondered why this dungeon seemed so difficult, and why the rewards seemed so good.” Bo leaned against a wall, rubbing his eyes. “I just asked a friend in Nethy to check out this dungeon on a map. It’s not even one linked to the starting area around Nethy; it’s a level eighteen dungeon. We were under levelled for it.”

  “You told someone in Nethy where we are?” Elijah stammered. He hadn’t yet told anyone about what Rose had said to him. It had slipped his mind at first, then he decided to wait until Nicholas came out so he wouldn’t have to repeat himself.

  “Your friend didn’t say anything about what’s going on in Nethy, did he?”

  Bo cocked his eyebrow at Elijah. “What do you mean?”

  Elijah told them everything he knew. About the army of Reapers, and about how Rose was going to try to protect them. Gasps rang out across the group as he revealed the danger they were facing.

  Bo’s eyes glazed again before he swore under his breath. “Laz isn’t answering me anymore. I asked him about the Reapers, and he quit talking. Sorry guys, I think he might have given us up.”

  Sasha patted his arm. “You didn’t know Bo. Don’t beat yourself up about it.”

  “Yeah, especially since Arturus is going to beat us up himself.” Benjamin added unhelpfully.

  “Enough, guys, we need to finish this.” Nicholas groaned as he slowly got to his feet. The bark skin moved and flexed as if as pliable as normal skin. He grinned at Elijah. “Guess you aren’t the only unique class in the party anymore.”

  “Finish this? We’re going to have the entire Reaper army bearing down on us at any minute. We need to leave. Teleport somewhere safe, or just run.” Bo shouted, obviously shocked at Nicholas’ casual acceptance that they had landed themselves in serious trouble.

  Nicholas shook his head, his grin widening even further. “No way, Bo, I’ve got a plan now.”

  It barely qualified as a plan, but it was their best chance.