Morgan Mackenzie was experiencing something that she had never before experienced. Absolute serenity. Or as close to it as it’s possible to get, she mused to herself. She stood upon ground that was not ground. She could feel smooth loamy dirt beneath her bare feet, but she could not see it. Or anything else, for that matter.

But the darkness did not feel oppressive. It was serene, calming, like a warm blanket on a cold night. For the first time in days, Morgan did not feel naked, even though she still was. There was an expectancy in the air, like something was about to happen. But she did not feel frightened by it or rushed or anything else. Merely calm. Whatever is supposed to happen will happen in its own time…

After a period of time that could have been a few seconds, or an eternity, the darkness receded slightly as Morgan received another notification:

Class Selection Curation commencing…

Choosing your Class is a commitment to a life-long path. This Choice is permanent, and may not be undone! If you find none of your available options acceptable, you may delay Selection until you meet conditions for other Classes.

The area around Morgan brightened further, gently illuminating roiling black mists that retreated away from her to form a dome nearly thirty paces across. As the wall of mist retreated, a portion remained directly in front of her. It swirled and spiraled around itself in eerie tendrils to form a vaguely humanoid shape. As the shape coalesced into more detail, it seemed to solidify. The coal-colored shadow gave way to flesh tones starting at the feet, rippling upwards until suddenly Morgan was looking at…

Morgan. Or a nearly perfect copy of me, thought the original Morgan. Other-Morgan stood perfectly still as they inspected each other, while Morgan herself shifted awkwardly in sudden nervousness. They were exactly the same yet, somehow not. This other woman seemed wild, almost feral. Her hair was tangled and frazzled, with grit and small bits of twigs and leaves caught in it. She stood on the balls of her feet with her knees bent slightly as if she were about to spring in any direction. Her intense blue eyes never blinked as they roved up and down Morgan’s own body, rapidly flicking about as if watching for danger from any possible direction.

Those were not the only changes, however. Morgan had never been overly obsessed with her body image beyond her lack of curves, but compared to this Other-Morgan she suddenly felt soft and flabby. Her doppleganger’s breasts were larger, just big enough that gravity was noticeable in the sway as the other woman took slow deep breaths. Morgan would have felt jealous of that alone, but it paled into insignificance before the rest of the differences. This reflection of Morgan had muscles. Not big garish oversized muscles, but a wiry toned body like skin stretched over whip-cord steel. There was little softness here, aside from the natural femininity that was only magnified by the rest of the physique. Other-Morgan’s lean abs and belly flowed down to the natural vee shape that Morgan herself had only ever dreamed of showing off at the beach. She has a freaking eight-pack, thought Morgan.

It was not a musculature for showing off, though. The woman’s skin was marred with scars, and the rope-like tendons of her arms flowed into bony wrists and battle-worn hands with jagged elongated nails. Her feet were dirty and stained and in a similar state, toes splayed out like talons gripping the earth for better purchase.

Both Morgans studied each other for a long moment before another notification interrupted:

Before making this irrevocable choice, know thyself!

Morgan wondered for a split second if the Other-Morgan received a notification as well, but all doubt left her mind when her altered reflection hissed and dropped into a crouch while looking up and around frantically. The sudden movement startled the original Morgan, and she stepped back a pace and held up her hands in a peace-making gesture.

“Whoa, hold up it’s okay! Its okay!” she said to the frightened alter-version of herself. The feral woman bared her teeth at Morgan while gliding backwards with cat-like grace. Arcs of energy began to crackle threateningly around her hands, which the woman had raised up into a defensive position. Morgan resisted the urge to draw up her own power as she slowly backed away another step to give her other self some more space. She lowered her own hands and turned them palms out towards the wild version of herself and spoke again in slower, softer tones.

“I don’t wanna fight you, girl…”

“Nnnnnnnn!”

The other woman seemed to be trying to force a word past her clenched teeth, or not to know how to say the word in the first place. Then those wild eyes went wide and the woman swayed as the sparks fizzled out around her hands, before she shook her head and resumed her defensive stance. “Nnn-” she tried again and then took a deep breath. “No! No fight.. Talk-”

“You understand me?” Morgan asked, relieved that she wasn’t trapped in some sort of death-match with her mirror image. Probably not a death-match then, she thought. Maybe. I hope…

The other woman seemed relieved, if her shift in stance back to a more relaxed but wary posture was any indication, while nodding her head happily up and down. “Talk is...” the woman continued to struggle as if she knew the meanings but not the words to convey them.

“...hard. You speak give words!”

The last part snapped out like a plea or a demand, Morgan could not be certain which. “You want to talk but don’t know the words?” she asked the other woman.

A triumphant smile changed Other-Morgan’s feral appearance to one much brighter and less savage, almost innocent and completely without deception. “YES!” she beamed at Morgan. She bounced from foot to foot happily for a moment then tried to talk some more. “You un- unner… no.” Another deep breath followed. “You. Understand. Good. Gooder? No... please. Talk. More words. I learn.”

The original Morgan stood in confused thought for a moment while the other-her pulled at her tangled mat of messy hair in frustration, before speaking up again.

“You learn to talk better when I talk with you?” Morgan said.

“Yes yes!” The other woman seemed almost giddy and did the quick dance again. “Talk more!” the Other-Morgan demanded eagerly.

“I have no idea what to say, though. Should I just ramble? And why do you look like me?” responded Morgan. The exuberant happy radiating off her other self was contagious somehow, but then everything about this strange manifestation had been extremely intense, as if the other woman was incapable of holding back her expressions. The next thing the doppelganger said made total sense given the situation, but was still a shock for Morgan to have it confirmed.

“Not look like Morgan. Am Morgan. You Morgan, me Morgan. We am Morgan.”

“I think I understand! Are you some possible future me? Some way this world works with its magic and levels that we don’t have back on Earth?” Morgan asked, thinking it may be some sort of test or kind of spirit walk like in the movies. Pop culture for the win! she thought, until the wilder woman’s entire demeanor changed.

The other woman looked at her with an expression like she had just smelled something gross and unpleasant. “No stupid!” Other-Morgan said, stomping one foot like a young child in a tantrum. “Not future Morgan. Now Morgan. Always Morgan! Talk more! Then Morgan tell… better”

The Other briskly turned and paced back and forth with a muttering prowl, as the original Morgan stood in stunned silence. After a few moments she drew a breath and softly spoke.

“I’m not sure what to talk about. If you really are me then shouldn’t you know all of the shit I’ve been through ever since I got here?”

Wild-Morgan seemed to pick up on the sadness in her voice, and ceased her pacing to step slowly towards Morgan with a knowing look. She placed her palm gently on Morgan’s temple and softly said “You Morgan.” Then she slid the hand down Morgan’s neck, between her breasts, to rest it just over her navel. “Me Morgan. In-...” She seemed to struggle for the word, but finally managed a quiet whisper. “Instinct. Feelings. I am. Are. This so hard… please more words I learn…fast. I learn fast you- no. I. Learn. Fast. If. You. Help. Talk. Any words. Please.”

The effort of so much verbalization seemed to completely drain her, and Other-Morgan melted down to a sitting position with an exhausted whooshing of air from her lungs.

“Phew…” said Morgan, taking a half-step back. “That’s some heavy shit to drop on a person like that. So you’re what, my gut feelings and instincts? Then how can you even talk at all?”

The sitting woman raised an eyebrow at her with an expression like Morgan had asked another stupid question. “Only here. This place. This… Time. This is place of knowing. Only get one.. What word. Visit. Only one. Never again after. Please talk more. All words help.”

“I was telling the truth when I said I just don’t know what to say,” said Morgan. “All I can do is ramble shit off you already know if you are me and all that.”

“Ramble fine. Ramble IS fine. Learn me how words- Learn how words fit. I learn how words fit. Ramble is good.”

“Wait, so you know things but not how to put the words together? Can’t you just borrow that from me if we are the same person?” Morgan sat down herself with her legs crossed under her and looked her counterpart in the eyes. “Or does it not work that way in this place?”

Her other self looked back with a grin. “You getting it. Here we not one, we apart. But only in this place. After, one again. And I lose words. This only- This is only one time thing. For knowing self. Agreement.”

Morgan propped her chin on her hand and her elbow on her knee in thought. “So this is obviously something to do with choosing a class in this world. And after this I’ll never get to talk with you again? And you say you are my instincts or instinctive self. Were you ever with me on Earth?”

“Yes. Must have agreement choose- Both agree-” the woman shuddered with the effort, but finally spoke an entire coherent sentence. “We both must agree on the Class we choose!” The words left Other-Morgan clutching her head and panting, but grinning at her success. She seemed to consider for a few moments before choosing her next word. “Correct. After this no talk again. Probaly. Probably? Maybe in very strong dream, only maybe. Very very maybe.”

“So it’s not likely we’ll talk again, but there’s a slim chance we can if I dream deeply enough?” Morgan asked. The other woman nodded with a smile and made a rolling gesture with her hand, begging for more words.

“What about Earth? Have you always been me, has it always been us, even before this world with magic?”

“Always us. Me always- I have always there. Been. There. With you. But sleeping mostly. Earth safe. You safe. You were safe. With tribe. Family. Me- I not always needed, so asleep. Awake more when you little, and scared. Awake less when bigger.” The words seemed to come a little easier to the feral version of Morgan, and a more confident and less fidgety woman was slowly taking the place of the frightened girl that had first appeared. “As child. Awake more when you child, and needed me. Then asleep until not child. Until woman. First mating. Awake for mating. Always awake for mating! Fun!”

The original Morgan found herself blushing furiously, covering herself with an arm across her chest and a hand between her legs. “I’m not sure how to feel about that um… can we talk about things other than mating, please?”

“HA!” the other woman laughed. “You no fun, that why I awake then, you too- what word- embarrassed. Shy. Need me those times. Even though you want same fun still need me! I help not be shy, you have better matings.”

Morgan shook her head and feared she would die from embarrassment. And from being embarrassed by my own inner self, at that!!! Forcibly regaining control of her composure, she cleared her throat before talking again. “Ahem. Yes. Well then. Um. Earth. You were asleep on Earth most of the time except when I needed you. What happened here, how did you wake up, so to speak?”

“Already awake. Other woman steal mate, you- we- angry. MINE! OURS! Territory! Already awake when you angry!” the woman had lunged to her feet with anger. She seemed to be completely open and expressive no matter what the topic, unable or unwilling to even try to control her emotions, and the words became more snarl than speech by the time she finished.

“But then I decided to go find another man,” Morgan said with a twinge of regret and sadness.

The other woman slapped her hard enough to send Morgan ass over teakettle. Ears ringing she stumbled to her feet shouting, “What was that for!?”

“NO REGRET! NO SHAME!” the other woman shouted at her angrily. “She take, if she can take, he not worthy! Find better!”

“Hey I completely agree with you there, dammit! No need to hit me! I thought you wanted to talk!”

The other woman seemed utterly chastised, verging on tears as she clutched Morgan in a desperate hug. “I sorry. You think. I feel. I am only feel. Can only think here, is hard. Hardest thing I ever do. But have to, so you can understand me. Understand self. So WE can understand…”

She stepped back from Morgan with a calmer expression. “Please, more words. Getting easier to say what mean. What I mean.”

Morgan rubbed her jaw but the anger had faded with the pleading hug and apology from her other self. She paced back and forth under the dome of shadows while she spoke. “So you’re like my primal self, all the primitive feelings, and you were close to the surface because I was so angry. And then we fell through to this world, and I panicked and freaked out. What did that do to you?”

“Then I was very awake! More awake than ever before, except when you were a child and afraid of the dark, or your first man many year later. Only other times I was that awake!”

“But I don’t understand, why are you always asleep?”

“It so hard to explain. Never truly asleep. But close. All peoples are, for a long long long time. Earth is safe most places, most times. Earth is- Earth is tamed. Not no danger but danger is less danger, no.” Another pause and deep breaths. “Earth is less dangerous now. Except war places. Biggest danger other people.” The other woman gestured as she spoke, her expressions flickering so openly and honestly Morgan could almost forget they looked so alike. Those expressive eyes locked on hers and Other-Morgan said “You understand me?”

“I think so,” Morgan replied. “You aren’t just my inner self. You’re the primitive side that kept humans alive before fire and guns. Survival instincts? No, not just survival. Primal.”

There was a savage glee in the Other-Morgan’s eyes as she spoke those words, her teeth bared and eyes bright while she slowly nodded. “YES!” she hissed at Morgan with a guttural tone that was both sensual and intimidating at the same time. “I am your fight!” she said, her clawed fists swiping through the air and trailing actinic purple sparks as she danced in place like a boxer. “And I’m your flee!” she hissed as she sprinted a circle around the shadowed dome.

Morgan’s own heart beat a sharp staccato rhythm as she found the other woman's complete lack of emotional restraint pull her along with its honest abandon. Other-Morgan darted behind her suddenly, hands slipping around Morgan’s waist to pull her tightly against the other’s body. She nuzzled at her neck, inhaling the scent of Morgan’s hair. One of the woman’s hands curled up to her breast while the other slid gently between her legs, and Morgan felt her whole body flush with heat as fingers danced and teeth lightly nipped her shoulder before an extremely erotic whisper reached her ear with a sultry soft rasp. “And I’m your fuck, when your man gets it just right.”

Other-Morgan spun away with an almost sinister laugh, leaving the original standing there gasping for breath. “Primal. That’s the best and only word. I’ve always been there, when you needed to survive. That’s my number one concern. Survival. For you. For your kin. For your tribe, your pack, your family. That has always been why I exist. Why I will always exist. When our people first tamed the fire to fight the night, I was there.”

Morgan could not speak. The Other-Morgan seemed to have found all the words she needed and now spoke with such intensity, such sheer ferocity and raw emotion, that Morgan herself stood captivated.

“I’m your primal drives. Fight or flight, hunger for food, for a mate. I’m why you want children, to nest up and nurture the next generation. Survive does not just include you. It includes your entire line. Your family, your legacy. I’m always there in the background, but I usually don’t have to do much. You have safety. You have food. You have family, and your world has laws and most people are peaceful. So I can just snooze in the background, letting you be silly or stupid because even if you make mistakes, you will still survive. And if you do end up wandering to those few dangerous places left in your world? I wake back up to warn you away from dark alleys or dangerous men or shadows in the woods at night. And of course I wake up when you get your freak on, it gets boring as hell just riding passenger all the time.”

Morgan was utterly fascinated. Everything the woman said made perfect sense in some ways, but her situation since arriving in this world still had no explanation. She tried to frame her own questions, but the words stumbled together.

“But wha-why-HOW? Even with magicI I don’t understand why we can have a conversation like this if you are that- that instinctual!”

“Because of the System that exists in this world. You have to make a choice, but it cannot let you make a blind one. It cannot talk to you, the same way I normally can’t. But it can talk to me in the other way, the way you can’t understand but can only feel. And here, in this place, right now, I can talk to you just this once. You’ve been making choices without understanding anything, but you can still change back, at least for the most part. You can’t turn back once you choose a Class.”

Morgan’s near-mirror image stepped forward with a grim look in her eyes. “You aren’t on Earth anymore. This world is not SAFE! And I can’t keep us alive alone because it is not Earth. We don’t have thousands of years and hundreds of generations of instinctual memory to draw on. I don’t know if the whole world is like these Wildlands we landed in. The System won’t tell me that. It only shows me enough to point you down the different paths and explain the consequences, and even that is vague.”

“Then we need a plan. What can you tell me about choosing a Class? What even is it? Like the video games I played as a kid with my brothers?”

The other woman nodded. “In a lot of ways it’s exactly like that. We’ll have a lot of options we could take right now, and others we don’t meet the conditions for. But you already have a big problem, even though its not completely your fault.”

“The Naked Affinity Aspect,” Morgan said as her counterpart looked heartbreakingly embarrassed and ashamed. “What do you mean not completely my fault?” she asked with sudden apprehension.

“I was already awake when we got here, and then everything went to shit. Right off the bat you earned the basic aspect pretty much by random chance. But after you spent points on the [Naked Instinct] I became something more. I’m a big part of why you only spent points on the naked skills, because I didn’t know enough!” By the end of her confession the Other-Morgan was almost weeping in shame, looking vulnerable and submissive for the first time since appearing. “And I screwed up, because now I know how stupid that was, to not have other skills..”

“What do you mean? It all made sense at the time. Other skills applied to using items or weapons, and we definitely didn’t have anything like that except for the bathtub and the loofah, if that counts…”

“They made sense because I don’t care about clothes, Morgan. Your instinctive memories go back farther than the time when humans first wove grass skirts or made a loincloth out of animal hide. Many times many times farther. We spent tens of thousands of years grunting at each other and huddling in caves before we even figured out fire, back when it was all me and you could barely worry about the next meal, let alone the next week or next year. When as women we were claimed by the strongest male, whether we liked him or not, and we were grateful for the protection and the chance of stronger children. Before our brothers tamed the first wolf or made the first spear, and that is how I think, or thought before this talk. It’s how I’ll think again when you leave here. So you have to understand, and we have to figure this out because there is no going back once you go forward.”

Morgan remained silent in thought as the other woman’s voice finished with a quiet sigh. It took her a few minutes to gather herself and take in the scope of that kind of revelation.

“So you pushed me to the naked skills because they were our best bet for survival, right?”

The other her nodded passively, as if waiting for judgement for a crime.

“But all the other skills I could see in the list, they were either useless without the right gear, or seemed pointless in general. I don’t really understand why you feel bad…”

“Because of what the System has shown me about Classes, Morgan. It curates a selection for every person who reaches level ten. And one of the primary ways it decides what classes, or how to modify your classes that are available…” She trailed off, looking more humiliated by the second, and it almost broke Morgan’s heart to see this other self suffer. “...they’re based off the skills you’ve learned,” she whispered, barely audible in the flat acoustics of the misty dome.

They both stood in silence for several long minutes before Morgan finally spoke. “Does that mean I’m stuck with the whole naked thing even with a class?” she asked flatly, almost a monotone without emotion.

Her other-self actually cringed away while wringing her hands. “Probably!” she admitted, followed by a rush of words Morgan struggled to keep up with. “The system works on choices, and your class is the most important one or one of the most important ones you can make in your life here in its world! Once you choose you can’t go back but you might not meet the conditions for a normal class because of me and I don’t know how to keep us alive if you delay the choice and if I had pushed you towards different skills you would have better options but I just didn’t know I didn’t know I didn’t know…”

The woman had dropped down to sitting with her knees drawn up as she spat the words with anguished sobs, rocking back and forth like a forlorn child. “Hey.” Morgan said as she sat next to the woman and drew her into a hug with one arm. “Tell me truly, you did not know before now?”

Other-Morgan wiped her eyes but did not hesitate to respond. “Truly, I didn’t know. Wasn’t even able to know. And then we were here, and I was afraid you would hate me, and if you hate me you hate yourself, and that only ends one way. We die. Either on purpose or because we work against each other and get killed. Still, dead is dead.”

Morgan gave a chuckle and leaned her head on the other’s shoulder. “Yup, dead is definitely dead. But we’re alive right now, and I don’t hate you for not knowing. But I need to know what my options are, whatever you can tell me…”

“Well,” said her counterpart. “If we were anywhere with other people to help, it probably wouldn't even be a problem. You could delay Class Selection, and lock down the aspect with some gear or another bracelet. Then you could practice and learn new skills not under the aspect, and meet conditions for classes without naked restrictions.”

“I don’t think that would be the smartest thing to do, with Dire Wolves and Tyrannorabbits and Eel-Hydras and lord knows what else chasing us every time we turn around.”

“That’s why I thought you’d hate me. Without the learning bonuses from the aspect and the other skills, it could take days or weeks for you to learn a single spell. And you can’t level any more until you choose a class, so no more skill points or stat points to help.”

“What if I refuse to choose, but we keep going the way we have been, and try to look for a town or other people so we can do the whole ‘training new shit but with clothes on’ plan?”

Other-Morgan looked at her glumly. “The System doesn’t show me much, but I do know that we have not yet encountered creatures anywhere close to the most dangerous in The Wildlands, and that includes the Packmother. Unless you found a safe place to fortify and dig in for the long term, eventually something will pick up our scent that we can’t outrun and can’t fight off. Even choosing a powerful class won’t be a guarantee of survival, it only improves the odds a little bit.”

Both Morgans fell silent for a long time, one in deep thought, the other wracked with emotion she could not control. After what could have been either minutes or hours with no way to tell, the original Morgan finally spoke up.

“No matter what I choose, you’ll still be there even if you can’t talk, right?” The other woman simply nodded in the affirmative, sniffling quietly and wiping at her eyes.

“Okay. I understand the downsides. And I don’t hate you. If you really are me, or that part of me, you should know that’s the truth. Now, what can you tell me about the benefits? Are classes that powerful, and is there not some advantage to saying fuck it and going all in with the nudist thing?”

Other-Morgan looked at her in shock, which grew slowly into something akin to wonder. “Um!” she choked out the syllable with a cough, before taking a moment to catch her breath and continue in a more calm manner. “Yeah, there’s definite advantages. The double experience and points you already know. But you also learn any skills aspected under the whole naked thing a hell of a lot faster. Numbers are your thing, I can’t really count much past fingers and toes. After a dozen or so it’s all just either a heck of a lot or too many, to me. But I know you learn ‘Naked’ skills and abilities much easier, and gain skill levels a lot faster than normal too. It’s all because of the balance of not being able to equip gear.”

“That sounds like some powerful benefits, but it doesn’t explain what a class is.”

“A class is… hard to explain even with your words to help me. The System lets me know in a vague sense, but it’s stingy on actual classes and details. They’re somewhat like specializations or jobs, and a little like a mantra or a belief system, but not in the religious -well, there might be religious classes, I’m not sure- but…” She paused to consider the words. “Classes are a massive upgrade in your potential, at the cost of narrowing the focus of your life. There is power; from what I can sense there is a truly awesome potential for power with classes. But the most powerful ones will have the biggest drawbacks. But I won’t know any more than that until we move on to the next part.”

The original Morgan pushed herself up to her feet and brushed the dirt off her backside, planting her hands on her hips and looking around the featureless dome around them. “Well,” she said, “I can back out and choose to put this whole thing off if I don’t like our options, right?” She turned and offered a hand to her other-self, pulling the wild woman to her feet. “So tell me if you know, how do we move on to the next bit?”

That part was immediately made clear by another notification:

Having reached understanding of thyself, now understand the possible choices!

The charcoal mists surrounding them suddenly writhed and roiled, and faint purple flashes shone through as if lightning were striking in the distance all around them. Her other self literally flipped from a sitting position to a fighting crouch in a cat-like display of flexibility and a savage panicked snarl, eyes once again darting in every direction at once. As Morgan stepped over and calmly took her hand the more feral version of her whimpered.

“It’s okay,” Morgan told her other-self. “Out in the world you help protect me. I don’t think this system will just outright kill us with something like this. I know you’re all feeling and instinct, so in here, just lean on me…”

The flashes of lightning intensified, and low rumbling thunder soon announced its own presence as the mists retreated like a wave of ocean waters flowing back out to sea. The ceiling of the dome lifted upwards only a few dozen yards, forming low-slung and ominous clouds occasionally backlit by violent streaks of violet purple light. But what currently held their attention was the thousands of Morgans revealed by the receded mists.

There really were more of them than Morgan could have counted. Easily over a thousand, each standing on her own low stone pedestal raised just a scant handful of inches above the surrounding earth. Some of them wore armor, some of them silks and finery, and they seemed to be grouped with similar attire in clumps that followed various themes. As still and grey as statues, they stood facing the same direction, towards a larger raised section of earth that seemed to have a circle of brighter and more colorful versions of her.

“Can you tell me anything about this part?” Morgan inquired of her primal self.

“A little. These versions of you farther away from the center are possible classes that you don’t meet the conditions for. Either you don’t have the right skills, or they are incompatible with your aspect, or both. The closer you get to the center, the less conflicts those classes have with the way you are now. Easier to figure out how to get to, I think. Words are getting- I’m losing words again…”

“Then we should hurry,” the original Morgan responded. "If there’s anything you need to tell me, just speak up while you can, I don’t hate you. I’m not even angry about it anymore, now that I know the details.”

Other-Morgan grinned and pulled her along. “No bother with these. Too far away- too many conditions we not ever… meet. But what does Morgan want? Up here?” she tapped Morgan’s temple again, with an intent focus in her eyes.

Morgan had begun to be distracted by the sheer variety of the statues. She had seen one with massively exaggerated muscles barely contained in heavy armor holding a huge war hammer overhead. At the question she stopped for a moment, but only a short one.

“I want the magic. From the first spell I cast, even as we burned after the fruit fuckup -which was all me, I know I ignored you there- I wanted the magic. I miss clothes, but I don’t want to die, and I just…” Morgan lost her own words as her thoughts trailed off. “I want the magic more than I want to give a shit about modesty. I already run around in skimpy dresses and half the time without panties. I’ll have to figure something out when winter comes, or when and if I ever run into other people. But honestly?” She looked at her other self. “The magic is more important than anything except survival. You get me?” The other woman beamed happily back at her as Morgan continued. “What do YOU want? We have to agree, remember?”

“I want…” The primitive version of Morgan seemed to struggle again, as if she were regressing back to the wild child that had first appeared under the dome of shadows. “Want survive. Survive mean power. Must be strong enough. Magic better than fist. Much better. Always have fist. Not always magic.”

As they approached the inner sections of the rows of statues hand-in-hand, Other-Morgan stopped just before the displayed versions of their self began to show in color. “These must be closer to what we meet the conditions for,” Morgan said as the other girl nodded. She started to step further in, where the statues were lit in full detail and vibrant colors, almost as if they had been caught in mid-motion, but her alter-ego stopped her short with a tightening grip on her hand and a slightly sad frown.

“In there,” the other woman said, nodding towards the brightened center-most ring of statues, “no more separate. Only you. Us. We. Am one again there.” She struggled with the last few words, and then seemed to lose all capability for speech as she dropped back to gritted teeth and a frustrated expression.

“I think we’re on the same page though,” said the original Morgan with a smile, gently booping her other self on the nose. “You want power, to help with survive. I want magic. So I say we find the most powerful magic we possibly can, and we don’t take no for an answer, no matter what this System says.”

As her primal self grinned back at her, those words seemed to roll out across the assembled statues. The Morgans bathed in light up ahead of their current position flashed brightly, and several of them went dark while a handful of previously darkened ones farther back suddenly lit savagely bright. A low thrum could be felt in the earth as pedestals began to shift, while the newly greyed out statues moved backwards away from the inner circle, the now-glowing ones further back moved inwards to take their place. The ones that moved away seemed to be fighters, poses like martial arts contenders, except for one that knelt with head bowed and hands together as if in prayer.

Morgan resumed the journey inwards, pulling her other self along by the hand. A mere two paces away from stepping into the ring of light they were both brought up short as if running into a wall. One more notification sprang into Morgan’s view.

Having reached understanding and agreement with thyself, a Choice must be made!

Will you continue Class Selection at this time, or delay for new conditions to be met in the future? [Continue/Delay]

Morgan turned to look at her savagely grinning other self. The ferocity and confidence in her gaze was matched only by the sheer joyous energy that seemed to radiate off of the other woman as she pulled Morgan into a hug and pressed her forehead to hers. Morgan smiled and chose to continue, and the other faded back into mist that lost its color and dissipated while a familiar giggling chuckle sounded into the empty and still air. When she realized that the giggling was her own she snorted and clapped her hands together.

“Well then,” she said with a faint smile. “Let's get the last part over with…”

As Morgan stepped into the circle, the shadowy mist descended once again to cover all that remained outside the light. That left only a handful of figures at the edges of the glowing circle, facing inwards in stillness towards the center where a broad stone slab lay upon the ground. The top surface of the slab was polished smooth, the outer edges still rough and uncut stone as if the entire piece had simply been sliced cleanly from the middle of a boulder. The stone was sparkling white quartz marbled with brilliant purple and violet and indigo veins that reflected the pulsing lightning that still lit the black soupy sky.

She stepped closer, and as she fully emerged into the circle of figures the outer ring of light flared. Space itself distorted as the distance between the figures and the center stone snapped out with a quiet whisper of air. Morgan turned a circle where she stood, and realized she was now standing in an arena. “Oh dear…”

With even more intense curiosity she walked back towards the nearest figure that bore her face. Or rather, it resembled her face, if she were to grow a glittering crystal coating over her entire skin. At the woman’s feet lounged a shadowy crystalline cat that vaguely resembled the tufted shape of a [Shadowlynx] that Morgan was so intimately familiar with, if somewhat smaller than the one that had attacked her that day in the cave. On the woman’s shoulder perched some sort of bird, with razor-seeming talons and a wicked beak, and she saw upon stepping closer that the bird’s feathers were tipped in translucent crystal thinner than the thinnest paper.

Morgan came to a complete and sudden stop in surprise when the woman turned her head to watch her approach. “SHIT! I thought you were statues!”

“No,” the crystal Morgan replied. “Merely potential choices that may come to pass, allowed a voice to impart the knowledge to help you decide.”

“Ah… so how does the whole crystal thing happen? What are you?”

“I am the [Crystal Mistress],” this new Morgan replied flatly. “If you choose me as your class, you embrace the changes wrought into your bones when you consumed the Fruit of the Tree of Life and Magic, and then endured the [Mana Cascade]. It will allow you to control all crystalline structures and minerals, from the smallest grains to massive spires. Creatures you wound with sharpened shards or otherwise pierce with your crystalkinesis will absorb your crystals into their blood, allowing you to absorb their essence and life to increase your power, copying their forms in crystal for you to control. As you can see, clothing is no longer an issue.”

Morgan flatout stared with morbid fascination as the woman made a gesture akin to a sales girl waving her hand in front of a product, only the crystal version of herself lowered her hand past her face and the crystals coating her skin retreated to the sides in a rippling wave of molecularly fine edges and jagged lethality. As the crystal spines and scales stood up against the skin they retreated into the flesh, and Morgan shuddered at the obvious agony the cruelly serrated edges caused the potential future her. Especially when the crystals dug back into her breasts and between her legs; the woman flinched and blood seeped out from a thousand thousand cuts all over her body.

“There is a price for power,” the woman gasped. “And the price for my power is pain. You will lose your resistances to it in exchange, for there are few things in this world that can counter me. I am limited only by how much Mana I can drain from my enemies and how much pain I can bring myself to endure, and nothing else. With enough Mana to drain, I could freeze the seas and shatter the land of this world, if only I could bear the pain of it. If you choose the Path of Crystal, take my hand.”

At that the woman ceased all movement, even the blood running down her skin freezing in place as she held out one hand upturned. Morgan did not hesitate in turning away and pacing towards the next figure clockwise around the circle. She had almost choked at the thought of enduring such pain, especially without her resistances.

She strode to the next statue, slowing to take in every detail of the next version of herself. This one was terrifying in its own right for an entirely different host of reasons than the [Crystal Mistress] had been. Where Morgan had nearly story-book pale skin, this possible future woman had a reddish dark complexion marred by cracks that spiderwebbed her body from head to toe. They didn’t quite form patterns around her features but gave the impression that they almost did so, fading to finer marks around the woman’s eyes and extremities, or broadening around her breasts and below her belly to almost obscure her most female of features. Sooty grey powder seemed to suddenly be pushed out of the cracks as the statue shifted its posture to look Morgan in the eyes, the ashen dust further covering the slender naked form.

“I am the [Magmastride Banshee],” she spoke. The voice was a rasp like dragging a half-charred log out of a dying campfire, and as she continued to speak her eyes went from black coals to fiercely shining embers. “I am walking ruin, empowered by the Mana that even now smolders in your bones, and by your practiced affinities with Earth and Heat and Flame. My scorching screams sear life from the very land, and I feed upon the ashen remains of my fallen foes.”

Morgan retreated a step for with every word the woman’s eyes glowed brighter, and the sooty cracks along her body were overtaken by a creeping liquid glow. The heat around the banshee intensified until it rippled the air around her, and tears of magma seeped from her eyes and the cracks in her body and even from her sex to drip sizzling and smoking upon the the stone pedestal. The voice came again, much louder and with a resonance like a roaring furnace or a jet engine, although still with a feminine pitch. “At the end of all that is, everything shall BURN! Mine is the Scorching Path!”

The woman’s heat-frizzled hair seemed to rise on the updrafts of the inferno as she spoke, before itself igniting into vibrant flame. The [Magmastride Banshee] then rose up a hand’s width off the stone pedestal as the veined quartz platform began to melt, simmering anger and barely-restrained rage turning the crystal into a seething mass of crimson-yellow liquid flame that hissed and spat like a thing possessed. The voice boomed out like the guttural snarl of a volcano one last time. “The price of my power is obvious! If you would walk the Scorching Path, take my hand and burn eternal!”

“Nope! Nope! NOPE!” Morgan chuffed as she quickly turned away from the heat. Just because there was power in burning the Mana she had in her bones did not mean Morgan could embrace it, as the Banshee seemed to enjoy.

The next pedestal she gave a wide berth as she skipped it to approach the one after. That Morgan did not look even close to human. An overly huge mouth gaped wide baring bestial teeth and vicious fangs. Bulging muscles outlined the scarred figure, and only the swell of breasts and lack of equipment between its legs gave evidence that it was even female. “Nope,” she spoke aloud. “Don’t even wanna know.”

The statue she now approached looked far more promising. A very peaceful and serene appearing version of herself gazed slightly up into the distance. What at first looked like tattoos of green vines or roots, were revealed upon closer inspection to be actual vines and roots covering the woman’s body. They traced beautiful concentric spiral patterns around her breasts and grew in delicate looping chains around her torso. From the waist the vines draped down the front and back like a natural skirt, but one that left the outer hips and legs bare. Her feet were stained a dirty green and tiny purple flowers grew along lines down her arms and legs that accentuated the figure’s beauty. As Morgan approached, the vine-wreathed figure turned its head to regard her, the wreath of blue and yellow blossoms that crowned her head rustling with the movement.

The statue spoke in a voice like the whisper of falling leaves in an autumn breeze. “For your service in awakening the Ancient Tree, by Right of your Title I am here. I am the [Leafless Druid], and my path is that of the Guardians of Nature. You have consumed the Fruit of the Tree of Life and Mana, and by the power of thy blood may claim kinship with the Tree and its surrounding forest. I am friend to all of the Living Wildlands, servant of the cycles of life and death, predator and prey.”

As the woman spoke the roots around her writhed and grew tendrils downwards, flowing around the stone into the surrounding earth. Up from where the roots touched dirt sprang dense tangled clumps that grew larger and larger, until the pedestal was surrounded by a dozen roughly humanoid shapes barely waist high to a watching Morgan. They had broad humped backs with no heads and proportionately massive arms tipped with vicious sharpened stakes for fingers as their hands. The blackened wooden tips oozed a viscous green toxic goop from within grooves along the spikes. Around the elevated druidic figure more spears of living wood had sprang up around her, covered in giant barbed thorns. “I command all that grows from the sun and the soil, calling Treants and even the Mighty Sentinel Trees to my defense or that of the Forest. From the Eastern Waters to the Western Mountains and from the Frozen Northern Peaks to the Southern Jungle’s edge, all of the Wildlands is my domain, and feeds my power over Life and Earth.”

As the last sentence still lay in the air, the ground rumbled under Morgan’s feet and a massive behemoth of moss-covered stone heaved itself up on the opposite side of the druid from where she stood. The [Leafless Druid] held out her hand. “If you choose this path all my power is yours without any restrictions save one. You must return to the Tree, and there remain all thy days. My power grows weaker further away from the tree. Three days wandering, perhaps four, the limits you may wander, else facing death as thy power drains away.”

Morgan backed away from the outstretched hand, shaking her head in rejection. Getting away from the tree was the whole point, and being trapped in the Wildlands, or in any single place anywhere, was definitely not on her agenda.

She padded her barefoot self over to the next pedestal, but it too had restrictions or costs she simply could not bring herself to pay, even for what seemed like extraordinary forms of power.

The [Shadowclad Rune-Witch] offered mastery of enchantment runes and simply ridiculous abilities with the Shadow Element, but came with an allergy to sunlight similar to vampires of Earth legends, along with the magic not working in the day.

Another flat refusal went to the [Flame Raiment Elementalist]. That one offered the ability to shift into Morgan-shaped elementals made of Living Mana of the respective elements. To become Flame or Stone or Lightning instead of merely wielding them, but the cost was to never return to her flesh and blood form. Morgan did not even wait for that one to finish holding out its hand.

Morgan avoided several others that looked like the Class simply included physical changes that were far too extreme or grotesque. She had no desire to become some sort of mutant beast that only dimly remembered humanity, even if the [Stormclaw Were-Tigress] looked like the most badass comic book superhero she could have ever imagined. The poofy tip of her tail was adorable! But the rest, she thought to herself. The neon purple fur was just too much, even as much as I love purple.

She was actually beginning to grow concerned after ten or so Classes that she had to reject. She had travelled almost halfway around the circular arena, and absolutely nothing had felt right to her nor had any of them caused any twinge of instinctual pressures. Nothing except for the nopes, and Morgan was in full agreement with her inner self there. The [Wildlands Beastrider] offered the ability to tame and bond with powerful creatures to help her fight or carry her around, and that sounded awesome at first. But she would have had to give up her Elemental magics and spells, and neither Morgan nor her now-quiet inner self would have liked that. Even without the required Class Quest to make amends with the Packmother, it was another nope.

Morgan was about to approach the next statue when movement in the distance caught her attention. One of the statues five pedestals further down was moving, without her having to approach. Curiosity broke through the tedium of her constantly rejecting the previously offered classes, and she broke out into a jog towards the distant moving figure.

As she padded closer the moving figure resolved into very familiar motion patterns. Still a few dozen yards away she couldn’t help blurting out, “Are you doing fucking YOGA!?!?”

“Yep! Took you long enough to make your way over! I can’t leave the pedestal without you, but I got bored just standin here,” came the rather unusually chipper and happy response in a confident tone of voice. A voice that lacked the exaggeratedly ominous effects the other contending Classes had spoken with. This new future-Morgan unfolded herself from a pose that now-Morgan did not think she could manage even with enhanced Agility. Scattered across the pedestal were what looked like discarded food wrappings made from folded leaves tied with string and even a simple stone jug that had been tossed aside to break upon the quartz disk once it was emptied.

“Yeah, I got hungry too. Had to eat something. You really took your time!”

Morgan could only stare up at this striking possible future version of herself while her heart beat triple-time in her chest. Instincts stirred nervously in her belly, equal parts anticipation and fear. “I don’t even…” she said as the future-Morgan seemed to preen under her gaze. The woman tossed her lustrous hair behind her back with a shake of her head and spread her arms and feet wide, showing everything off.

“You like it?” she quipped down at Morgan with a grin. Her body was utterly striking. A tattoo of a knotted celtic braid crossed her eyes from temple to temple, vanishing into that those raven-black locks of hair. It was a cobalt blue ink that gleamed reflective in the odd ambient light, as were the other tattoos that wreathed the figure standing on the pedestal. Geometric shapes laid in interlocking patterns across her shoulders, reminiscent of fractal patterns Morgan had only ever seen in computer generated estimations of paradoxical structures. The inked blue forms on each shoulder worked inwards along her collarbones, to spiral down to the center of her chest in finer and finer lines that neared but never touched until they both reached a simple coin sized circle above the woman’s sternum. Her breasts were as bare as Morgan’s own, but below that her ribs were traced with rows of tiny triangles outlining very tiny yet extremely detailed runes in a linked chain that followed each rib around her torso.

Below the woman’s sternum toned six-pack abs were outlined by shaded depictions as if some sort of scale armor had been drawn on her belly. The shiny glimmer of the lines of the tattooed armor descended to a narrow point less than a finger’s width above her most tender bits before arching back up and out over her hip bones in the image of a thin woven braid-like belt. Cobalt threads traced lightning patterns up her sides to connect the armor image to the belt, and the belt itself had circled runes inscribed into it. Those patterns seemed to morph and change to Morgan’s eyes as the woman twisted slightly back and forth at the waist to show them off.

Solid bands an inch wide wrapped around the woman’s thighs just below her bared vulva, then gave way to patterns of interlocked triangles and norse runes and celtic swirls that extended down past to her knees. Her shins were layered with nested chevron patterns that pointed down towards feet that seemed to have sandals tattooed around them. As the future-Morgan lifted her feet to turn the now-Morgan saw the soles of her feet were also covered in tiny patterns like the soles of running shoes she had seen on earth.

“Holy shit I want these tattoos!” blurted now-Morgan as the future-Morgan turned her back and stretched her arms above her head, holding her hair out of the way. The tattoo belt that had arched up and out from below the front of the woman’s pelvis had wrapped around her hips and arched back down to a point just above her tailbone.

From there it rose upwards along her spine, images of interlocking plates that bracketed the ridges of the bones all the way to her shoulders where it joined the geometric shapes Morgan had seen from the front. And directly on the woman’s finely muscled shoulder blades gleamed two feathered wing tattoos. These ones were different, in the deepest black that Morgan had ever laid eyes on. The wings were of a distinctly different style than the cobalt blue and purple lightning tattoos, as if etched by a different hand.

“Are all your tats…” Morgan trailed off, not even sure how to ask.

“Enchantment Runes?” the other woman asked as she turned to face Morgan with a grin. “Yep. Whole body [Living Runic Enchantment]. And if you choose me, you get to learn the first one to set you on the path!”

“You- I can’t even right now!” stammered Morgan. “How are you so different from the others? They’re all like doom and gloom robots or some shit.”

“I am the [Skyclad Sorceress],” the other replied. “And I’m only here because you challenged the System!”

“How did I do that?”

“Oh, I dunno, maybe by teaming up with your own inner self and declaring that you would find the most powerful magic you possibly could, and take me for your own, no matter what the System had to say about it!” The woman beamed down at her, and Morgan felt her instinctive excitement begin to faintly sway towards fear. “Or by asking what would happen if you went all in with the nudism aspect. Coulda been either. That’s all I know, other than that these others in the circle ain’t worth your time.”

“So what makes you different?”

“I’m different because I’m all or nothing. I get rid of your naked aspect, because it gets rolled into the class. I don’t demand you give anything up you haven’t already been doing without. I don’t restrict you from learning any magic, because I AM magic. Not just magic. I am Sorcery. I don’t need all that frivolous bullshit like magic wands and arcane powders like a weak-ass MAGE!”

She spat the last word with such contempt that Morgan flinched back. The woman’s voice did not seem to grow in volume or power, yet as she spoke the skies darkened and the clouds crept lower while the bright arcs of lightning intensified. “Wizards. Mages. Shamans. Druids. Priests. Warlocks and Necromancers. Fools every single one. They miss the point entirely.”

As the [Skyclad Sorceress] gazed down at Morgan with glowing flecks of violet-hued Mana in her eyes, the tattoos began to light up with vicious pulses of power that she could feel from a dozen feet away. “Before the first Wizard wrote his notes in the Book that became the Grimoire, there was Sorcery. Before Mages built the first Tower, there was Sorcery. Before the first Druid humped a fucking tree and gave it a name, there was Sorcery. Priests pray to Gods for power, but those Gods ascended because of Sorcery.”

The woman’s voice stayed perfectly calm, but every time she spoke the word sorcery her tattooed runes flashed and thunder rumbled closer. Lightning began to blast craters in the featureless terrain in the distance, the sound merely muffled thumps that Morgan could feel with her bare feet through the ground rather than her ears. “Shamans make bargains with spirits and elementals, without even knowing they draw upon Sorcery! And Warlocks and Necromancers? Pulling demons from the Hells, or ripping souls back from the other side of the Veil? They blaspheme against Sorcery itself!”

The last words were a scream, and fire erupted from the skies to fall upon the other statues one by one in brilliant white bolts that left no rubble, only sparkling molten quartz puddles where each had been before.

”You can feel my power, and I know you must ask the price. There are two. That pesky aspect will be gone. You choose now to commit to the Path of Sorcery and walk with me, and that’s it. No more clothes, no more equipment, no tools. Nothing but your body and your mind and your will and your power. There will be no penalties for equipping items, for it will be impossible for equipment to affect your body. Sorcery already flows in your blood and lays in your bones as crystal cinders. But there is another price.”

The Sorceress pushed her hand forward, and just above the edge of her stone pedestal a shimmering barrier appeared against her hand. While the skin of her palm and fingers smoked and sizzled, the woman looked down and spoke once more. “Your inner self told you some, and I can tell you just a little more. You challenged the System, and in return I am its challenge, and its offer to you, but you must understand. It is not good, nor evil, it doesn’t know right or wrong and it doesn’t care who lives or who dies.”

She pushed harder against the barrier, runes dancing with cobalt fire up and down her body. The barrier flared into a complete translucent gold cylinder surrounding the pedestal, tightening closer in response to the Sorceress’s attempts to step down uninvited. Morgan couldn’t breathe, and stood there watching slack jawed. She had felt the power, in the very earth and in the sky, crashing down upon the other pillars. A single one of those terrible skyborn flashes had contained more Mana than Morgan guessed she had expended the night she ate the churple and burned in the tree. She continued to stare almost helpless as, within the confines of the barrier, the [Skyclad Sorceress] spread her wings.

They rose up behind the woman’s back slowly, twice again higher than the midnight mane of hair. At first the wings seemed pinned in tightly, squeezed by the shimmering golden light. And then the Sorceress’s body erupted in liquid lightning that flowed upwards, into and underneath the feathers, and those wings flexed.

The barrier shattered as the wings snapped open in a burst of palpable power. The pedestal of quartz was reduced to flying rubble and Morgan instinctively brought up her own [Wind Barrier] to protect herself as the [Skyclad Sorceress] flapped her wings a few times to hover, almost as if stretching herself after a nap. Then the woman dropped to the ground in front of Morgan. The wings were as night made manifest, an expression of purest darkness that held an actual weight upon the eyes that looked into it. They stretched out over thirty feet to either side of the Sorceress, and the edges rippled gently in the stillness around the two women.

“The system only cares about one thing, Morgan. Stories. Your story. Lulu’s story. Every single living thing on this planet has a story. Everything with a soul anyway, so even the elementals and the sentient beasts and some of the plants that can move around and think for themselves have a story. And stories are built piece by piece with the choices you make. The System doesn’t care what choices you make, only that you make them, and live your story until the end.”

“I think I understand,” responded Morgan. “About stories and choices, i mean, that part makes sense. But what does the system want from me in exchange for your Class?”

“Sometimes people or things try to remove a soul’s choice. I don’t mean like torture, or threatening to kill someone, or using extortion or blackmail. Those victims, as sad as the truth is, still have choices they can make, even if all of their options have been reduced to shitty ones. They can still choose to comply, or defy, or ignore, or whatever they can think of. No, sometimes people like Warlocks or Necromancers go all the way bad. And they start fucking with Souls. To directly compel a Soul is a total abrogation of free will and making choices. To the system, there is no greater sin. In fact it’s the only sin.”

“So, I would have to fight those kinds of people?”

“When you come across them. Your story is still yours; the challenge and the bargain though, is that when you are faced with such sins you do not turn away. Do not do nothing as so many have before. Embrace your Aspect, and embrace this one rule of the system, and I will set you on the path. You’ll receive the [Living Rune Enchantment] skill so you can start learning your tattoos. You will choose your own most likely, and end up looking different than mine. You will lose that pesky naked aspect and become the [Skyclad Sorceress]. It even comes with stronger bonuses and benefits because you simply won’t be able to equip items, even if you try. So…”

The winged woman finally held out her hand. “If you choose this Class, simply take my hand, and we can move on to the last thing and get this over with.”

Morgan didn’t hesitate. In full agreement with her inner self, heart pounding with excitement, she took the woman’s offered hand.

“And one last thing,” she told Morgan as they clasped hands and the beautiful wings of night vanished with a snapping absence. “You’ll have to find the wings yourself: they aren’t part of the package…”

“WHAT!?!?”