The guild hall was hopping, and I meant that quite literally, as a large party of rabbit beastkin walked through the entrance right before me. It was difficult to tell if things had slowed down or picked up here because there were twice as many staff working in the lobby so there wasn’t a parking lot full of people down here like before. There were, however, dozens of adventurers moving up and down the stairs to the higher floors going about their business. I knew that the top two floors, four and five, were going to be dedicated to letting people sleep overnight, but I had no idea what the third floor was for, and I was curious to check it out.

I ignored the busy receptionists, instead immediately walking up to the second floor where the official offices were. Cindy was busy as usual, though now she was working from a laptop. My guess was they had someone good with computers set up a local system, and they were organizing stuff that way now. The combination of fantasy and modern technology threw me off a bit, but I quickly put it out of my mind.

Cindy looked up from her work, her expression unchanging, seeing me in the doorway.

“Vic. You’re alive. Good.”

Well, that was unusually curt. Wait… she had bags under her eyes, a stack of disorganized notes, and was constantly typing on her computer. She was in the Cindy zone. Otherwise known as the “bother me and I’ll fuck you up sideways” zone. I had the displeasure of being introduced to this state during midterms two years back. When her stress reached a certain critical mass, all she needed was a slight push before she exploded with rage. Last time, though, she couldn’t throw fireballs. I needed to tread carefully, speak slowly, and hope that I made it out alive. She turned her head slightly and glanced at me before rapidly returning to work.

“I have to say, you look stunning. I’m pretty busy right now, so if you’ve got things to report I might just push you off to visit other guild staff. You do need to at least meet them considering that you are one of the founding members.”

That wasn’t too bad. Her voice was emotionless and monotone, but it wasn’t angry quite yet. Her giving an actual response meant I might make it out of this.

I responded quickly, not wanting to waste her time.

“That’s… fair. I just wanted to let you know that Kaitlyn and I are still alive and well, and to give you some information about the elements I recently discovered. It’s some important stuff that might help you out.”

I had to wait for a while before she responded as she typed out another paragraph on whatever report she was writing. I needed to be patient. Patience was the key.

“Hmm… yes, take the information to one of the recordkeepers on the third floor. They will be able to sort it out and make it public knowledge if you so wished.”

“Great, will do. Um, is Steph around? I wanted to talk to her too.”

I waited again for her to respond.

“Steph is starting up our second location in the north. I’ll give you the address.”

With one hand still typing on her laptop, she reached into the desk and retrieved a notepad where she quickly scrawled the location. Did her race or class give her multitasking abilities? Or was she just have legendary skill filing paperwork?

“You can find a roadmap on the third floor if you need help finding it.”

As I walked away, I made sure to say thank you, but she probably didn’t even hear it. Glancing back, I watched a lionkin adventurer loudly walk into her office. I paused, waiting to make sure he would be okay.

I watched with incredulity as he shouted through the doorway, “Hey is this Cindy’s office or whatever?!?”

I felt bad for the annoying asshole. Cindy’s response was short and to the point, and only mildly combustible.

“GET THE FUCK OUT.”

I watched his slightly smoldering form bolt from the room. Considering he was conscious she was still in a pretty good mood.

I walked up the stairs, almost bumping into an elephant and tiger beastkin who looked more like anthropomorphized versions of the animals themselves than others I’d seen. The elephant was a mage of some kind, sporting a luxurious blue robe and a gnarled wooded staff topped with a blue crystal, while the tiger carried a pair of scimitars and wore a kangor breastplate. They took up the entire stairwell with their impressive height and size, and I had to tuck in my wings and tail while hugging the wall to squeeze by.

As I passed, the elephant shyly whispered, “…excuse me…”.

Moving into the third floor, I chuckled a bit as the tiger turned to his friend, and whispered with a sigh.

“Roger, bro, you’ve gotta be more assertive…”

“I tried bro… but it’s hard…”

I liked seeing adventurers out and about. People were getting used to the status quo and were finding where they belonged in this strange new world. It was becoming increasingly unlikely that what the waves did was going away and there were lots of people who weren’t particularly happy about their new lots in life. I could imagine therapists were doing rather well, assuming they didn’t have problems of their own.

The third floor was cleared of rooms, the walls having been torn down and replaced with load-bearing pillars. It was amazing how magic could facilitate such a massive renovation this quickly. The entire floor was filled with new bookcases, spare computers for typing up information or accessing the limited local databases, and tables where people could sit down and research. The chairs against the walls were populated with a large assortment of races reading manuscripts and maps, or even reading fiction for pleasure.

With the destruction of most satellites and large servers no longer connected, there was no source for streaming videos or online books anymore, and it seemed that for now, people had replaced that desire for entertainment with traditional reading once again. I had been to my fair share of libraries, but I had seldom seen any as busy as this. The whole floor was filled with the murmurs of budding adventurers preparing for their newly received quests, or just chatting to kill time.

I walked through the library browsing the different sections, carefully avoiding stepping on the mess of extra limbs creeping across the ground. I learned very quickly that there were a time and a place for letting your tail hang free, and a crowded library was neither.

I spent an hour just browsing the shelves, picking up books, and reading a few pages before putting them back, until I meandered to a truly interesting part of the library. It was unique because none of the books there were printed on a press. They were each either carefully written or typed by hand, and I was immediately drawn to it because of the irregularity.

There were books on local monster types, how to skin the various beasts, what parts of them were the most valuable to certain crafters, and even a couple treatises on dungeons. Some of it was just an assumption on the author’s parts, but lots of it was good information produced by scouts sent from guild management. It was clear that while Kaitlyn and I were ahead of the dungeon diving crowd, the rest of the world was not sitting idly by. They, too, had improved.

In the center of this area was someone rather strange, and his appearance drew my eye. He had ink-black hair and appeared Hispanic, but his brown skin also had a soft glittering shimmer, the same as Cindy. He was wearing flowing clothes that looked loose and comfortable, with interesting patterns across them. The attire wasn’t exactly standard fare, but it looked nice and was rather unique. Based on appearance, he could be 14, or he could be 25. His elfen face was somehow both young and old all at once, and as I didn’t know him before, I could make no assumptions. I found it a bit annoying that I couldn’t use age as a metric anymore, but that problem would only continue to exacerbate itself.

In front of him were two pads of paper, and I watched with fascination as he performed an incantation, forming a black spell circle only a few inches in diameter which caused small droplets of ink to condense from the air before flying towards the page, forming letters. I walked closer and looked over his shoulder so I could read what he was working on. Lucky for me he was on the title page.

“Guild Guides Volume 1: The Races and their Ranks.”

“AAAHHHH!”

Oops. I must have read the title out loud. The boy was looking up at me with a surprised glare.

“Sorry about that. I didn’t mean to disturb you Mr. Book… fairy?”

“I’m an Ink Sprite, thank you very much.”

“Well. My mistake.”

Now that he was turned towards me, I could see a guild medal peeking out of his clothes. He must be a member of the staff.

“Hey, do you work in the library? I have some information I’d like to share and make public.”

With a sigh, he moved the two stacks of paper to the side and gestured for me to join him at the table.

“Yes, I am. I’m Wes, head Guild Librarian. And you must be Victoria Gale. The wings and horns match the description, though the skin and fur coloring are off.”

“Yep, that’s me. Some monster races have more variable appearances than most assume, and I had a bit of a pigmentation shift this past week.”

“Oh? You sound pretty knowledgeable. You’ll have to fill me in.”

“I will, but first, I have a question for you, if you don’t mind. So, you’re an Ink Sprite? What exactly do you do?”

He quirked his eyebrow a bit, in a typical librarian kind of way.

“Well, I mostly get bonuses when gathering knowledge and writing it down. I also have skills for copying information, as I was working on when you interrupted.”

“That seems rather… specific?”

“Yes, well, my archetype is Librarian. It makes sense, in a way, for me to get the ability to print and copy books. It’s damn useful too, particularly for making magic paper talismans. You said you had some information for me?”

“Yes, I recorded what I could. Here.”

I reached into my backpack and brought out my notebook, turning to the page where I documented the different aether streams and their combinations, as well as my notes on elementals, what they were, and effects that the streams could have on them.

“Vic, do you mind if I duplicate your notes? I can see that more research is required before we fill out the rest of the elemental web, and I’d think you want to keep your notebook as is.”

“No, I don’t mind at all.”

He brought out another stack of paper, and with a simple wave of his hand, a familiar magic circle appeared, splattering ink over the surface and forming a perfect copy of my writing. It was like the wizard equivalent of xerox. He took the copy and began to carefully scrawl additional notes along the margins, probably based on the information I just gave him. His neat writing made my nasty scrawling somehow look even worse, but it was still legible. Mostly. My notetaking skill is not of particular renown.

Wes turned to me and nodded in satisfaction once he was done.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, my workload has just increased. Again. I desperately need more workers. Do let me know if you find any other ink sprites through your adventurers who would like to work here.”

“Can do. Thanks for the help.”

As I walked away, I pulled up the top of my status sheet.

Name: Victoria (Vic) Gale

Age: 1 Month

Gender: Female

Race: Storm Paraelemental Warrior (Rank 2)

Class: Way of the Storm Martial Artist

Job: Fighter

Level: 30/40, 115/2983 to next level

Affinity: Heart of the Warrior, Enhanced Physicality, Wind, Water, Ice, Electricity, Electronics, Crafting, Graceful Presence

Character Archetype: Lone Wanderer

Current:

Regen:

Health:

550/550

80/day (160/day)

Stamina:

625/625

440/hour

Mana:

400/400

330/hour

Strength

47(52)

Agility

52(62)

Dexterity

37(40)

Constitution

44

Intelligence

40

Wisdom

33(35)

Charisma

35

Luck

20

Unassigned

3

Before I knew it, I had turned a month old. It was weird that the system considered me little more than an infant, but it was a bit of a milestone for me. It has been a full month since I worked in a coffee shop, had gone out with my friends for fun, or seen a movie. I have fought, killed, and almost died numerous times. What would I look like after another month? After a year?

I had to stop myself there. I tended to go on mental tangents, and it was important to focus on the present, not the future. The future was a mystery, the past was unchangeable, and only in the present could you make a difference. I would do my best to keep focused, for my own sanity’s sake.

I still had three unassigned skill points to spend, and I wanted to make the most of them. I decided to put one of them into constitution, and the other two into charisma. I had plenty of strength, dexterity, and agility, and my magic had yet to bottom out when I was in combat. Most of my magic regeneration was done outside of battle, so focusing on wisdom wasn’t high on my list either.

None of the stats were as simple as they seemed, and I was interested in their possible additional features. I wanted to figure out what charisma did aside from make people prettier, and I hoped that by bringing it up a bit I could start to notice more effects. As I spent the points, I couldn’t help but feel a twinge of fear.

How long would I still look like myself? One day, would I look in the mirror and see a stranger? I shook myself from that line of thought. Panicking and refusing to improve would not help. I would not let my fear of my changing appearance stand in the way of protecting myself.

I left the guild through the back door, walking into the training ground from the building adjacent. James and Taylor were meditating in the yard beneath a tree. Curious, I stopped to watch what was happening. James seemed to be asleep, quietly napping in the shade, but Taylor was getting up to some dryad antics.

I felt as if I had been ignoring her for quite a while, so I decided to check on how she was doing and spend some time with her. There was no rush to get back to the dungeon ASAP, so I could relax for a time. I sat down, joining James basking under the canopy.

I watched Taylor breathe, the leaves covering her body and the grass beneath where she sat pulsing and visibly growing as she exhaled. The cycle repeated several times, when suddenly Taylor reached out her hand, dropping a large seed into the grass before her. I watched with intrigue as the seed sprouted, growing bigger and taller before my eyes. I thought it was a small shrub, but it continued well past four feet, hitting an impressive fifteen within a minute. Unlike the rest of the trees in the courtyard, this one I could not identify. The bark was a grey-silver and lightly shimmered when the sunlight touched it. The leaves that started sprouting were almost translucent, letting ample light through to the trunk. It was obvious that this was some type of magic plant discovered either in a dungeon or in the wild.

When the tree reached full adulthood, Taylor stopped, standing up. The vines covering her had grown, now forming an elegant evening gown that fell to her feet. She opened her eyes, now staring at me.

“Vic, sweetie!”

She dove into my chest, wrapping me in a leafy embrace.

“Hey, Taylor. It’s good to see you.”

The commotion was enough to wake up James, who gently opened his eyes, letting out a slight smirk when he saw Taylor. She had gone from hugging me to tracing the seams on my armor with creeping vines, laughing as I struggled to push her off.

“Hey, Vic. You’re looking good. Did you rank up again?”

“Nope, just a bit of an upgrade. Not quite rank 3 yet.”

I was still struggling to push her off, so I turned to James who was stretching nearby.

“A little help here?”

Reluctantly, he reached over and pried Taylor off me to the sound of cracking vines.

“Hey, Puppy! What are you doing! I was busy with some very important work there! Vic is hiding some stellar curves beneath that… VIC WHAT ARE YOU WEARING.”

James let out a sigh and looked into the air for help. He was still holding Taylor as she struggled to get out of his grip a few feet off the ground, his digitigrade legs pushing his already tall frame to seven feet. I just looked right back at her and started picking the broken vines and leaves out of my clothes.

“Taylor, did you just call James ‘Puppy’? I’m guessing your relationship has improved. A little more than simply bandmates, hmmm?”

The grabby Dryad had the sense to look a bit bashful. She stopped struggling, and James gently sat her down.

“Yes, well, it’s nothing official yet, but James and I have been going steady for the past week or so.”

I had to pause a second to make sure I heard that correctly. Taylor. Going steady. Had the world ended? I flexed my wings and glanced at the magically grown sparkling silver tree. I guess the world HAD ended.

“Congratulations! I’m happy for you. Taylor, did you have plans today? Clearly, you were working on some magic stuff, but I wanted to spend some time with you. We haven’t don’t anything together since before… all this.”

“Ooo! That sounds nice. Do you want to come to The Bazaar with me?”

“The what now?”

“The Bazaar! A bunch of crafters set up little stalls by the Zilker Park obelisk. Everyone calls it the Bazaar. I haven’t been yet and wanted to check it out.”

“Sure, that sounds fun. Do you want to leave now before it gets too hot out?”

Taylor smiled big and nodded in confirmation.

“That’s fine with me!”

Working out the logistics of how we were going to get there was slightly annoying. I didn’t exactly fit in most cars anymore because of my extra appendages, and when I suggested that I just fly us down there, Taylor spazzed out a little bit. I had indeed been neglecting her a little, but this was more extreme than I expected, and a bit much, even for Taylor.

I was taking a trip into my room to grab some monster items for barter, particularly the spools of spider silk, and was startled by a tap on my shoulder. It was James.

“Vic, sorry about Taylor. She just had her rank up and is dealing with some of the changes it brought. She became a new variant of Dryad. More specifically, one focused on music, community, and relationships. It mostly applies to plants, but… well, usually it just makes her a bit cuddlier, but sometimes she flips out when the instincts get too hard to handle. This has, unfortunately, happened before. If you give her some time and put up with it for a bit, it’ll start to fade.”

I nodded my understanding. Instincts were a bitch, without a doubt the most annoying and painfully realistic part of this new world. It only made sense that different races would have different proclivities, but that didn’t make them easy to handle. We all had a lifetime to get used to the instincts that made us human, so it made sense that we felt stark contrast with our new bodies and what they did to our minds. Like all things, it would improve with time, though the short-term growing pains were troublesome for many, myself included. I left the apartment, pushing my way past the myriad adventurers occupying the Garcia’s bottom floor, and rejoined Taylor out back.

With a monster pouch and money bag packed full of stuff to trade, I wrapped my arms around her from behind and took to the sky with a mighty beat of my wings.