Jason made his way back to the camp. When he arrived, he saw that Ceri was lounging up in the branches of a tree, while Kera was assisting Lumiriel in navigating her status screen. Somehow, Lumi had shared the controls with the other girl, allowing Kera to manipulate the screen at Lumi’s direction so she didn’t have to move and risk reopening her wounds.

Jason resolved to ask her how she’d done it later. It would be useful to know.

“Ok,” he announced, “I’ve got good news and bad news.”

“Also some great news,” he added, holding up a [Golden Strawberry], “but I’m sure you can guess what that is.”

“Bad news first, always.” said Lumiriel with a grimace, as Kera pointed out something on the screen.

“The bad news is pretty bad. I think I found that monster again. He’s right nearby, hiding or lairing underground. Worse, the area around it screamed ‘Officially-A-Dungeon’ to me, whatever rules there might be for those here.”

That got both their attention. Kera hunched her shoulders and made a whimpering sound, and Lumi reached up and gave her hand a reassuring squeeze, even though it surely hurt to move her arms.

“The good news is he’s hurt badly. You must have landed a critical hit or something on him, Lumi; there was quite the blood trail leading into the dungeon. While it’s probably a bad idea to stick around, he should be gone for at least awhile, I’m guessing”

“You think he’d come after us?” asked Lumi.

“I’m pretty sure he’s actively after Kera for some reason,” Jason said. “You mentioned earlier that he was what chased you before, that first night. Right Kera?”

Kera nodded. “Y-Yeah. It was definitely him. Seeing him in the light... I-I don’t know how I managed to get away the first time, but it was definitely him.”

“That hissing sound he makes...” She wrapped her arms around herself, trailing off with a shudder.

Jason crossed over to their pile of gear, and rummaged around for his potion making supplies while he talked.

“Right. Remember how he seemed confused at first, seeing the three of us? And then he acted like he was trying to catch our scent with all the tongue flicking, before going right for Kera? I don’t think that was a coincidence.”

“Sorry, Kera,” he apologized as he began mashing up one of the strawberries. “I know you probably don’t want to think about this, but it’s important.”

Kera took a deep breath, and then straightened.

“No,” she said firmly. “You’re right. We should kill him while he’s injured.”

Jason paused, midway through mashing up a berry. “That’s not where I was going with this. I actually think we should get out of here as fast as possible if you have some kind of monster after you. He’s way higher level than us.”

“No.” Kera said, voice low and hard. “He’s hurt, and there’s three of us and only one of him.”

“If we can get Lumi patched up,” she said with venom, “Let’s put him in the ground. No more running and being helpless for me.”

Jason and Lumi exchange glances.

“Are you sure?” asked Lumi softly to Kera. “Taking a life in revenge? Is that a line you want to cross?”

Kera shook her head. “It’s not revenge,” she stated.

She pointed to Jason. “You said he seemed after me. This isn’t revenge, it’s self defense. It’s putting down a monster who attacked travelers on the road.”

Jason gave Kera a long look. “I’m not so sure that’s the case.”

He glanced at Lumi. “What do you think?”

Lumiriel sighed. Then she looked up at Kera. “I think she needs this, frankly.”

“I’m right here, you know,” Kera complained agrily.

“Sorry," Lumi apologized. "Jason just wants to make sure you aren’t going all Anakin on us or something.”

“No,” Kera said with a small smile. She closed her eyes briefly, taking another deep, steadying breath. “No. I just... I have to stop running,” she said. “I’ve spent most of my life running from one thing or another. Always scared of something. Always afraid, always hiding.

Kera reopened her eyes and looked down at Lumiriel.

“You almost died," she said. "All I needed to do was reach out a hand while he was distracted and use my spell and he would’ve been the one on the ground first. But I didn’t, because I was too scared, and you got hurt. I need to be better. I need this. I want this.”

The three fell silent then, thoughtful, with only the soft grating of stone sounding as Jason scraped mashed strawberries and mushrooms into the frogskin cup.

Jason moved to Lumi’s other side, and moved her hand gently on top of it so she could conjure water into it.

He cleared his throat.

“Alright then,” he said to Kera. “Let’s get Lumi healed up first, and then we’ll devise a plan. I don’t think it’s a good idea, but if you feel that strongly about it, let’s be smart about it.”

Kera merely nodded.

Holding up the frogskin cup, Jason activated his skill.

“Restore Health. Brew Potion, Infuse.”

With a glow, the yellow- brown fluid turned a brilliant red. Jason examined it.

[Healing Potion, Least] - The lowest tier of healing potion, this will give the imbiber a weak level of regeneration for five minutes. Least potions are weak enough that several can be consumed in a row without ill effect.

“Well I guess that answers my question of whether potions have cooldowns,” Jason said. “Sounds like no, but drinking too many makes bad things happen, so they might as well have.”

He passed the cup to Kera, who then carefully tilted it forward so Lumi could drink. Immediately a soft glow enveloped her, then faded.

“Ow.” Lumi winced. “That smarts. I can feel it working.”

“I’ll make some more,” said Jason, “I doubt just one will do it.”

In the end, it took three potions in total, but they did their job. In short order, Lumiriel’s wounds miraculously vanished, as if she’d never been injured.

That’s when they ran into a different problem.

“Man, that’s kind of a rush at the end there. Kind of light headed. I feel... better than good.” Lumi said as she hauled herself to her feet. Jason’s blood soaked shirt-bandage was discarded into the dirt. She stretched her arms over her head, and rolled her shoulders; she’d been lying backwards in a rather awkward position for almost two hours.

Jason turned away suddenly and covered his eyes with a hand.

“Um, Lumi...?” He said, and cleared his throat.

“What?” She asked, turning towards him. “Wait, why are you...?”

She looked down at herself, turning beet red as realization dawned.

Her clothes had been completely shredded. It hadn’t been obvious while lying down with Jason’s shirt being pressed against her wounds, but her T-shirt might as well be a rag now, for all the good it was doing. Her bra had fared similarly; Seraptis’ claws had gone straight through cloth, metal, elastic, and flesh alike.

Kera snickered, but averted her eyes as well.

Lumi snatched up Jason’s shirt from the ground and tried to use it to cover herself.

She stammered a bit, mortified.

Jason coughed politely with one hand, his other still blocking his view. “Uh, tell you what. I’m going to go... over there for a few minutes,” he gestured vaguely, “and check my status. I knew this would come up eventually. After Kera tore her sleeves off her shirt because they were coming apart, I got to thinking about how to deal with.. uh... wardrobe damage.”

“You two, um, work something out. Have Kera bring me what’s left of your shirt, afterwards. In the meantime, I’ll see what I can do to get some kind of repair skill.”

Jason quickly retreated a distance away from the two women before the temptation to peek got the better of him. He found himself a large rock to sit down on, facing away from them. He called up his status screen.

A series of notifications popped up, and he found himself quickly distracted.

Level Gained. Alchemist Level 4. Skill Point Gained. Stat Point Gained. Level Gained. Alchemist Level 5. Skill Point Gained. You have acquired a new Class Skill, [Discovery, Rank 1]. [Discovery]: As an Alchemist, you diligently work to uncover new ways to manipulate the natural forces that govern the universe. Choose an Alchemist Discovery.

Two levels? He wondered. We didn’t even kill it, and it counted for so much?

Jason selected the [Discovery] notification, and a long list appeared.

He quickly skimmed it, growing more and more alarmed. Many of his options seemed to involve permanently altering himself in some way. Some seemed relatively benign, like [Cognatogen], which would give him a permanent one-time boost to Intellect and Spirit, but many were downright horrifying just by name alone, like [Tumor Familiar], or [Vestigial Arm].

Why would anyone want such a thing? Jason shuddered. A whole mess of these give me a real Jekyl and Hyde vibe.

He continued to browse back and forth through the list.

Or Green Goblin, he noted, as he came across several options relating to what appeared to be explosive potions. Seems like there’s ways to make specialized magical grenades after all.

As fascinating, and disturbing, as his new options were, Jason had other priorities in mind. Seeing as the [Discovery] skill had ranks, he guessed that more ranks meant new selections, possibly of a wider variety. Briefly, he wondered if there were prerequisites in play here like everywhere else.

He filtered the list for ‘transmutation’ on a whim, and sure enough, it seemed the case. He had an option to upgrade his skill into a more advanced version. Not that he had any idea what it did yet.

Back to the problem at hand.

He tilted his head back, looking up into the trees and thinking. What he needed was a spell like [Mending]. It or something like it was common to most tabletop RPGs, and the games based on them. A sort of minor, magical repair spell for fixing broken objects. There would be one somewhere, he was sure. The problem was, they didn’t know how to actually get spells; so far, only Lumi could do proper magic, and those didn’t seem like proper spells, even. They were more like... raw manipulation.

Jason was an Alchemist. That proved there were magic-based crafting classes, right? Jason knew that there would have to be others, like ‘Runesmith’, or ‘Mystic Weaver’, or even simple old ‘Enchanter’. But they weren’t in his list.

Kera had said something about [Basic Spellcasting] being a prerequisite for [Ritual Casting], hadn’t she? Jason thought. Lumi’s skill nonwithstanding, she said it seemed like it was a sort of a baseline requirement for most magic. Maybe I need somethig similar, but aimed at items?

An idea crossed his mind.

Well... just winging it worked for both of them, right?

He leaned over, and picked up a small twig. Pulling out his pocketknife, he whittled it down until he had a small [Wooden Toothpick]. He snapped it half.

He held each half in front of him, fitting them back together.

“Mending!” he declared, focusing.

Nothing happened.

Worth a try. Didn’t really think it’d be that simple.

Jason put the broken toothpick down next to him and reopened his status screen to his awaiting Discovery selection. He filtered for ‘create’ at first, but realized that was too general. His was a crafting class after all. Instead, he tried ‘wand’, which surprisingly, did bring a few things up. One stood out to him: a Discovery that allowed him to select one of a number of skills to ‘charge’ objects with a potion effect as long as he had the materials.

Two different magic item crafting skills might do the trick, he thought. Even if it didn’t, imbuing objects with potion effects seemed like it would be useful. He made his selection after a moment’s consideration.

Discovery Acquired: Alchemical Infusion [Alchemical Infusion]: By immersing a specially prepared item during the potion creation process, you can charge an object with a single use spell-like effect determined by the traits of the potion infused. An object may be infused multiple times with the same potion, granting additional charges. The exact method of expending the charge depends on the item used. For example, a wand would deliver the potion’s effect to a target by pointing and speaking a command.

That’s an actually useful explanation, Jason thought. Then again, it wouldn’t be much of a ‘Discovery’ if I didn’t know how to use it.

Jason switched over to his Class unlocks, and changed it to order them by ‘newest’.

Sure enough, he had some new options. One stood out as exactly what he was looking for.

He paid for the class, and set it as his secondary.

Artificer Unlocked. Skill Point Gained. You have learned a new Class Skill, [Analyze Item, Rank 1]. You have learned a new Class Skill, [Analyze Spell, Rank 1]. You have learned a new Class Skill, [Basic Artifice, Rank 1]. You have learned a new Class Skill, [Engrave, Rank 1].

Four skills?! Jason thought. Sure, two of them are just analysis skills, but I only got one at first level Alchemist. How is that at all fair?

He paused, recalling that Kera had gotten quite a few with her first class; there were definitely some odd balance issues in this system.

Jason shrugged mentally. Oh well. More chances to find a way to break the rules in half later, I guess.

Moving on, Jason briefly checked [Engrave], and sure enough it seemed like a way to take a spell and try and fashion an item out of it, though it seemed it required some kind of special reagent. It wasn’t something he could use for now, but would no doubt be valuable down the line. Especially if he could engrave an item and then infuse it afterwards.

[Basic Artifice], though, seemed to be a step in the right direction. It was a little like Lumi’s [Elemental Cantrips], except centered around making temporary magic knickknacks, or conjuring temporary tools.

Remembering what Lumi had said about mental image, he set a command and gave it a try.

“Artifice,” he said. He felt his mana drain, and a mortar and pestle appeared in his hands. It seemed to be made of some strange, partly translucent blue stone.

Jason grinned. Finally, he could stop literally banging rocks together and have some proper tools.

He released the spell, and both mortar and pestle disappeared.

Clearing his mind before he could get distracted, Jason closed his status screen and picked up the broken toothpick again.

Take two. If this doesn’t work, I’ll pick up [Basic Spellcasting] and try again.

Once again placing the two halves together, Jason contemplated the feeling he’d had when he’d actively spent mana. He focused his will on the idea of deliberately spending skill points, and his need to repair the toothpick. He had two crafting classes. He could imbue mana directly into liquids. He could use magic to engrave spells into objects. He had a spell, of sorts, related to building things. He knew the effect he wanted. It was even part of a common game framework: he knew how it should work.

Jason concentrated.

“Mending!” he declared once again.

He felt his mana drain ever- so-slightly, and with a small spark of purple energy, the two halves ran like wax, merged, and become whole.

You have acquired the skill [Mending]. 1 Skill Point has been deducted.

With a shout, Jason stood up and pumped his fist. The toothpick went flying, forgotten.

Kera’s voice came from behind him.

“I’m guessing that means you got what you were looking for,” she said.

Jason turned. Kera was leaning against a tree just behind him with a slight smirk on her face.

Embarrassed by his sudden outburst, he gave her a wry smile. “Uh, sorry. Got a little over-excited there. But yes. Turns out your method of ‘Focus on what you want, then wing and hope for the best’ gets results.”

“Of course it does.” Kera pulled away from the tree and approached Jason. “That’s how most people get through life.”

“I suppose you have a point there.”

“So, whatcha get?” Kera asked, as she passed him the remains of Lumi’s shirt.

“A second class and six new skills,” Jason said.

“Whaaaaat!?” Kera exclaimed. “From one spell!?”

Jason laughed. “No, no, no,” he said with a wave. “One was from leveling, which let me unlock a second magical crafting class, which gave me a bunch of new skills. Then I used your method, focusing on learning something new and the skills I now had, and just.. tried. And that earned me [Mending], which was what I was hoping for.”

“All that for one skill?” Kera asked. “Was that a good idea?”

“It’s fine,” he replied. “It’s the sort of class I was considering picking up anyway, and I’m hoping it will synergize well with [Alchemist].”

“I’ll explain in a bit, to both of you. First, though-”

Jason held up the tattered remains of the shirt.

“Mending.”

Jason felt his mana drain much more this time, but just like the toothpick, energy danced across it. Several ragged strips fell away onto the ground as the garment ran like wax, the damaged edges thinnning out, merging, and finally solidifying. Lumi’s shirt became whole.

“Whew.” Jason said, wiping a sudden sweat from his forehead. A quick glance at his status showed him he’d used most of his mana. “Apparently an entire ruined shirt is a lot more effort than a simple toothpick. I need to recover some mana before I can do that again.”

“For what?” Kera asked.

He gestured at Kera. “Well I can fix your sleeves, if you want, and I’ll probably need to try using it on my shirt, given that it’s pretty much ruined now with all the blood. Don’t know if it’ll work, but I mean to try. I don’t want to go dungeon diving without a shirt.”

“Fair.” Kera commented. “I’ll take this back to Lumi. Wait here a sec.”

Twenty minutes later found them gathered around their gear, sitting on some seats of packed earth. Jason still didn’t have his shirt; he estimated he’d need a little while longer to get all his mana back.

He briefly explained to the girls about his new class and skills.

“We need to get you some kind of elemental potion traits,” Lumi commented afterwards. Her hair was damp, and she was directing a slightly warm breeze at herself to help it dry faster. Healing potions didn’t clean up blood, and she’d given herself a hosing down while Jason had been occupied with unlocking his new skills.

“I bet if you mixed that volatile trait with something like frost or fire,” she said, “you could make those bombs. Then imbue that into some kind of wand, and have yourself a grenade launcher wand.”

“That sounds incredibly dangerous,” Jason replied.

“Yeah but it’d be cool,” Kera said, “And we need some firepower until I can learn something really awesome. Like turning Ceri into a giant lightning breathing dragon!” The drake was perched on her shoulder, and she gave him a light scratch on the head.

Jason only imagined it, but he could swear could hear Ceri purr, from the way he nuzzled Kera’s fingers.

Lumi gave a small laugh, hand over her mouth.

“I think that might have its own set of problems,” she commented, dropping her hand.

Lumi changed the subject “Moving on. I guess next there’s the question of what to do with my class skill. I leveled up to three, and got a skill kind of like yours, Jason, [Magus Arcana]. It lets me pick out some kind of magical ability. Most of them seem to center around combat tricks, though some don’t.”

“Right, you were having Kera operate your screen for you earlier. How did you do that?”

She explained briefly, opening her screen to demonstrate how you could set your status to be viewable to the party by default, and how to grant temporary permissions.

She showed Jason the her list of Arcana choices.

“Hmm, there’s some interesting stuff in here. What were you thinking of taking?” he asked.

“I’ve narrowed it down to three. The first is something called [Twilight Barrier]. It spins a shield around me that drains health from things that attack me, negating some of the damage I might take, but it costs mana to maintain.

“The second is [Elemental Wellspring]. Best I can tell, it’s somehow only available because of [Cantrips]. I choose an element, and I can mix that element into any spell I cast. Seems like it could be a springboard into things like Pyromancer, or Frost Mage, or what have you.”

“How is that different from your cantrips?” Jason asked. “You already can cast spells of any element, right?”

Lumiriel shook her head. “I think my cantrips aren’t real spells; I’ve tried using it in conjunction with Spellstrike, which should let me channel attack spells through my sword, but it fails anytime I try.

“Which reminds me, actually. I also learned an actual spell; I got it from leveling, and it’s listed under [Basic Spellcasting], like Kera has. It’s got a proper name, and has a specific effect, so I’m wondering if that’s the difference.”

Kera spoke up. “Oh! I forgot to mention earlier, Lumi, I got a spell when I leveled, too. Like you said, it just does a single thing. My spell is ‘Tend Wounds’, which unfortunately is limited to using on things I’ve summoned. At least it costs almost nothing to cast. But it’s listed under [Basic Spellcasting], too.

“What did you get?” Jason asked Lumi curiously.

“Sharpen,” She said with a sigh. “Useful, given the state of my sword, but it would’ve come in handy earlier.”

Jason tried not to laugh; she probably wouldn’t appreciate it.

“Anyway,” Lumiriel said, continuing, “The last thing I was considering was [Empower]. That one is a little more directly useful. It lets me just burn mana to hit harder.

“That about sums it up. Thoughts?”

“I actually think [Wellspring] is the only good choice between the three,” Jason said.

“You don’t think [Empower] would be good?” asked Kera. “Why?”

“Two reasons,” he said. “Well, three, really.”

“First, the other two actively drain mana. In my experience, those are a kind of trap choice unless you can somehow boost your resource generation, because they usually drain things really fast, and once it’s done with, you can’t do anything else because you’re out of mana. Since Lumi is part spellcaster, that’s a problem.”

“Second, while I know you won’t be able to use it now, think of it as an investment. It will mean a wider range of spells, basically. If you get one element per rank, you could massively expand your repertoire for the points you spend. If you have several ranks, learning a single spell actually provides you with many variations.

“Last of all, it seems like that’s the kind of ability that could lead somewhere. You said it yourself, that it sounds like a direct line to an elemental caster class, but I could see it opening up other things. Casters aren’t the only ones with elemental themes in games.”

Lumiriel considered. Her head tilted back and forth as she hummed to herself for a minute.

“Alright,” she said. “That’s a pretty solid argument actually, especially that first part. I’ve played classes in action RPGs that had that issue. The devs were always nerfing my resource management combos. Drove me nuts, to the point I eventually stopped playing.

“I do need some kind of shield, but the twilight one doesn’t sound like it actually stops me from getting hit, and the empower even says its expensive. So [Wellspring] it is.”

Lumiriel made her selection.

The expected notifications appeared, along with something new.

Arcana Acquired: Elemental Wellspring, Rank 1 Elemental Wellspring - You have learned to draw further upon the primal power that runs through your very being, forcing the spells you cast to take on new forms. Choose an elemental type you have access to. Whenever you cast a spell, you can draw upon your wellspring to infuse that element into the spell, with varying effects. Synergies detected. Heroic Potential detected. Calculating... Congratulations! Due to possessing a full set of skills involving the conjuring, shaping, and infusion of innate magic, as well as the possession of a structured magic skill, you have been granted access to a unique skill, [Spell Shaper, Rank 1]. Do you wish to purchase it now for 1 Skill Point? Y/N?

The three of them looked at one another, eyes wide. Lumi recovered first.

“Obviously!” Lumi confirmed with excitement, as the others just stared at her screen.

You have acquired the skill, [Spell Shaper, Rank 1]. Please select one of the following options: Barrier, Bolt, Blade

“Yessss!” Lumiriel crowed, looking at the tooltip for Barrier. “Talk about luck of the draw! A proper, manipulable, shielding spell!”

She selected Barrier without even looking at the other two, which had seemed self explanatory.

Kera spoke up first, because Jason’s mind was too busy racing through the implications of rare classes and synergy skills.

“Don’t forget to pick an element too,” Kera said.

“Oh I’m gonna do more than that,” Lumi said with a grin. “I’ve got plans, now.”

She brought up the entry for Elemental Wellspring. She quickly selected ‘light’ as her element. Then she immediately boosted her skill rank to 4, even though each extra rank cost more than the last. It cost her a total of 6 points. Apparently her elemental cantrip skill could produce any elemental effect, so she was able to pick whatever she wanted. She took ice, fire, and shadow as her other three elements.

“Light and Dark, Fire and Ice?” asked Kera, but Lumiriel wasn’t finished.

“Not quite,” she replied as spent her remaining skill points on ranking up [Spell Shaper]. Each rank added new choices on top of the previous ones, and this time the cost didn’t seem to increase. She learned both Blade and Bolt, as well as one of the new shapes, Jet.

Then Lumi took a deep breath, and opened her class list. It was filled to the brim with a wealth of new elemental options.

“Perfect.” She breathed. She grinned and pointed out two of the new options.

[Sunwarden]: An armored elemental warrior who wields the holy strength of light and fire to shield her allies from harm. [Duskreaver]: A master of fell magics, the Duskreaver strides the battlefield with a sword wreathed in ice and shadow, laying her enemies low.

"How’s that for fancy multiclassing?” said Lumi. Her voice was thick with satisfaction.

Jason was speechless.

“Which one will you take first?” asked Kera. She bounced a little in her seat, Lumi’s enthusiasm clearly infecting her. “You got another class point since you hit level 3 [Spellblade], right?

“[Sunwarden],” Lumi nodded. “I want more defensive skills first.”

She purchased the class, gaining another skill point. She also gained a rank each in her armor and shield use skills. Apparently, if you got the same skill from different sources, the ranks stacked.

Lumi then equipped [Sunwarden] as a subclass to [Spellblade], and since apparently she could do that now too, set [Knight] as her secondary for the time being. She added her stat point to Might, and used her remaining skill point to rank up [Basic Mobility], as it had already proven its worth.

Jason shook his head, dumbfounded. “That is just... wow.”

“I feel inadequate now.” Kera said with a lopsided grin.

Jason laughed. “You and me both. Don’t worry though. Dungeons mean monsters, which means spells for you, with any luck.”

“I think Lumi just stole all the luck.”

“Yours is way higher than both of us, you know. I actually suspect that’s how you got away from the snake guy the first night.”

Kera just shrugged.

“Gimme ten minutes to set up some spell triggers,” Lumi said. “I don’t want to fumble about with my menu in the middle of a fight.”

“Sounds good,” said Jason. “My mana is recovered, and I need to clean and fix my shirt. Also, I think between Lumi and I, we can now whip up some conjured potion vials.”

He stood up. “Afterwards, I’ll make us some health potions to carry. Then we can go kick some snake butt.”

“Snakes don’t have butts,” Kera retorted.