The floor of the temple disappeared, the walls turned into hazy mist and Dee was floating in space. He could feel the cold stone under him faintly, but everything was far away.

  Around him the threads of fate flexed. There were hundreds, thousands of others all praying at the same time, opening the door to the next step of their journey. He was part of a grand web, a mandala beneath the Universe that was vibrating and supporting him. The web was the path and they were the path, all the walkers on the web. They were joined by the great design, joined by the same desire, to learn, to grow. To be something more.

  Dee wanted something more. He wanted to reach out to a faraway string and be a pirate on a skyship crashing through a storm, be a Class Seer in a hidden library, searching for the origins of the class system, of be a barbarian War Lord crashing into battle with his subjects.

  He wanted to be all of them. But his thread was already chosen, he was a Games Master. He felt the hands of Lady Moonspur reach down and urge him forward as if he were a lost duckling. The cosmic force rushed in and pushed him forward on his class journey. He was something more now.

  I’m level 2.

  The cosmic feeling quickly faded and the cold stone of the temple was right there again.

  That was a trip.

  He wanted to stand up and shout or cheer or do something. What was his new ability? He waggled his fingers, frowned, tried to make something happen. Nothing.

  Yuri was looking up at the windows; stained glass, they showed scenes of lost miners embraced by the goddess, cave-ins where miners huddled in the dark around a singular light. Lady Moonspur was a god of the lost in the dark, the light that showed the way to freedom.

  Yuri saw he had finished. “Congratulations on reaching level 2,” she said. She smiled at him.

  “Why didn’t you pray?”

  “I don’t need to level up,” Yuri replied.

  “Are they all levelling up?” He pointed to all the other people in the temple.

  “No, people pray for guidance or rituals. Some of them are using NPC abilities. I prefer to use my magic and Elemental Crests.” She twirled her staff around. “Gods are important for levelling up but they don’t help in battle, no matter what Tianna thinks.”

  “You’re not really bothered about gods?”

  “Gods are boring, no mystery. I want to know about crests, how they form, how the Ancients used them to change the world.”

  She ruffled his hair and petted his chin. “You really don’t know anything about adventuring, do you? I’ll have to teach you everything. It’s a shame I can’t be your class mentor.”

  She sat down beside him, her robe whispered as it settled around her legs. Again, he was struck by her beauty. A real elf witch, dark haired, pale skinned. Elegant but with that dangerous fierceness lurking beneath. Like a sleek and beautiful fish that floated on the surface to show its shimmering scales, but would sink away into the depths when it got bored. She was steeped in magic and knowledge that he would never have.

  She ran a finger down the back of neck. He shivered as his neck hairs rose.

  “Where did you get your class from, do you remember that?”

  “No. Yuri. I actually didn’t come from this world. Imagine a world where people don’t have classes, no PC or NPC. People just sort of muddle through life with no rules or anything.” It felt like the right time to be honest.

  “Oh, what an imagination you have! How horrid, no class skills or mana effects. What a drab idea. That can’t be true. You just don’t remember.” She pulled a small tome from her bag, a dark night-blue book with silver spine that shimmered. Mist flowed out from it, cascading through her gloved fingers. “You don’t have a class manual, like this?”

  She flicked open the cover. The pages were impossible to see. Not that he couldn’t read the writing, but the pages themselves refused to show up in his vision. It was like starting into an out of bounds glitch.

  “What is that?”

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  “My class manual. All my abilities are recorded here. Everybody gets one when they bond with their class crest. It lets you know what to expect from later levels.”

  “I can’t read it.”

  She threw her arm around him and drew him in, holding the book out in front of his face. “Of course not. Only a Mist Witch can read a Mist Witch class manual. Can you imagine how terrible it would be if you could read class manuals?”

  She pushed her lips against his ear. His face flushed. “You could spy on anybody, know all their abilities. Per… verse.” The last word, said in a lingering whisper set off ASMR tingles down his body.

  “That would be pretty useful.”

  “No! It’s horrid. If you want to learn about a class, you should ask them or adventure with them or duel them.” She pushed him away suddenly, as if he had said something disgusting.

  Dee kept his opinion to himself. He was the kind of nerd that would read all of an RPG manual to understand the classes and monsters. If you could read manuals, why not study them to see what you were up against? That wasn’t rude, but from their point of view it would be like reading all your personal emails, he guessed. And trying to explain that he was from another world was going to be very difficult. His head started to ache a little.

  Yuri slipped her manual back into her bag.

  “Well, if you had yours, you would know what ability you just attained. Never mind, I’m sure it will be something useful and gamey! O-hohoho.”

  She took his arm and they strolled out of the temple. It kind of felt like a date, just the two of them finally. He tried to think of something to say. There was nothing. But walking arm in arm with a mysterious Mist Witch was good enough.

  Do I need to convince them that I come from another world? What difference does it make? Well, it would let them know I’m not an idiot. But I have a class here, so convincing them that I don’t really come from this world is gonna be hard. Ah what difference does it make? I just need to work out what my class does and how to survive here.

  Yuri looked up at the metal soaring up into the sky. “Wonderful. Ah one day…”

  “You’ll have a Metal Crest?”

  “Beyond that. When I’m strong enough, I’ll uncover the secrets of the celestial.”

  She pulled him tighter and leaned down to whisper in his ear. “You know my mentor thought it was foolish. Chasing the Moon. She was so strict.”

  “She taught you to be a Mist Witch?”

  “I had to prove myself, which of course I did,” she said airily. But she looked away.

  “I get it.” He did. Never being good enough. “You have to fight to prove yourself. It’s awful.”

  Her hand gripped his tight. Not romantically, like she had just stubbed her toe.

  Is she crying? Oh, what did I say?

  “You don’t know how hard I worked,” Yuri sniffled. Her eyes were suddenly brimming with tears.

  “It paid off, you’re a powerful Mist Witch now, the best!”

  “Do you really mean it?” Her haughty demeanour had disappeared for a moment and she looked just like he felt, lost and alone. Her tears made her eyes shimmer like points of velvet night.

  “Yes! You saved my life. I would be dead in a dungeon if you hadn’t… recruited me.”

  She stared at him. Puppy dog eyes that made his legs weak. Something clicked in his brain and an image started to form. But then she kissed him and it disappeared. The smell of her, the taste of her lips, he was in the inn again where they had been alone for the first time. Tears on her cheek smudged against his.

  “Very romantic,” a gruff voice said. They were not alone.

  A dwarf stared at them from a side-alley, a short club hanging from his hand. He waved it a little, casually, just to draw attention to his weapon. This was the kind of danger that Tianna had kept them away from.

  “I’m glad you think so. Witch Coil!” Yuri lunged with her staff suddenly. Purple energy shot from the crystal and wrapped around the thug. He yelped and a look of sheer panic appeared on his face.

  “Any more NPCs want to fight with a PC?” Yuri called out. She catwalked in a circle like a gladiator, calling out to the alleyways and rooftops around her. There were scrabbling noises as would-be bandits fled.

  “NPCs.” She shook her head and took Dee’s hand. “Come on, we should find the others.”

  “That was close.”

  “Not really. NPCs can only rob other NPCs. What can they do against a crest user? Nothing. Unless I used all my mana. And I have you for that, sweetie.” She smiled smugly. “You have nothing to worry when I’m around, my sweet little amnesiac.” She strolled forwards and pulled him along. She had haughty confidence in her stride again. Her tears were gone and she held her head high.

  Dee heard a thud and a groan as the dwarf was released from Yuri’s magic and fell to the floor. He did not chase after them.

  “How do you know he was an NPC?”

  “Lucky guess. PCs have much better things to do than hang around in alleys! I’m going to uncover the secrets of Elemental Crests.”

  “The same as your mentor?”

  Yuri threw her hair up and looked away. “No! I have my own path. Anyways, everybody needs a mentor. You had one, you just don’t remember. You studied and practised with your mentor and one day you formed your Class Crest and bonded with it. And then you probably copied your Class Manual from your mentor’s after you could read it. But you lost it in whatever disaster wiped your memory. Oh, how mysterious.” She gave him a cheeky smile.

  “But where did the first class come from then? Who was the first Mist Witch?”

  “I don’t know, who cares about Class Crests? Ooh, why don’t you ask that little fanatic, Tianna? She has all the answers.”

  “I think she would say that the gods made them?”

  “Exactly. I think the Ancients were the first to understand Elemental Crests and Oh, therefore Class Crests. It’s obvious, isn’t it? Somebody must have invented the first crest, and then others were inspired by that.”

  She stopped in the street suddenly. “I just thought of something!”

  “What?”

  “You said that you came from a world with no crests and classes. Maybe you’re an Ancient, ooh you fell asleep using an Ancient machine and only woke up millennia later. How wonderful! I need to write this down.” She pulled him along through the streets.

  Dee felt the eyes of locals on him and Yuri, but none of them interrupted their dash.