The sky was blue and clear today, and from my current height, I could see far into the distance, the horizon panning out around me. Taylor was holding on for dear life, a pair of sunglasses, and tightly closed eyes keeping what little wind got past my magic field out of her vision. I flew over the large park, looking for the tell-tale traces of where the Bazaar might be, though the massive oak trees were occluding my vision of the ground. The full parking lot and the occasional pedestrian were my guides, leading me towards the crowd.

I landed with Taylor on the border of the park proper. Giving her some time to regain her bearings, I took a look at the surroundings. In the far distance, the obelisk sat perched atop a hill, a crowd of people clustered around it getting or changing their classes. From the ground, I could now see a line of people marching into the wooded areas along the very trail where, a full month ago, I was struck by lightning kicking this whole adventure off.

Taylor and I joined the line marching into the woods. The general mood of the crowd was joyful and calm, which made me happy to see and participate in. I hadn’t felt a calm and relaxed atmosphere such as this for a long time, and it immediately brightened my mood. After a bit, we came to the entrance of the mercantile area and were now beholding a large banner declaring ‘Zilker Bazaar’ complete with inviting font and color. The crowd I entered with spread out, and I could get a better idea of what I was seeing.

It looked like every local businessman in Austin was here in force selling both new world and old world wares. Most interesting to me were clothing stalls with shapes and weaves accommodating different races and extra appendages. Things like baseball caps with spaces for ears, or blue jeans with built-in tail holes. I was immediately drawn to a stall that sold modified sportswear; leggings and shorts with zippers down the sides to accommodate clawed feet and tails. I couldn’t find any tops or dresses with holes for my wings, but after a little bit of searching, I found a tailor who set up a stall and could make modifications. I had either destroyed, outgrown, or out evolved my entire wardrobe, so I was more than willing to spend some time picking out new things to wear.

I had lots of money and material to barter, so I went from place to place dragging Taylor with me as I went a little bit shopping crazy. Though she was still unable to wear clothing without feeling uncomfortable, she seemed to have lots of fun picking out some new outfits for me. After a couple of hours of meandering around, I walked away with two backless sundresses, two pairs of jeans, a stack of workout equipment, and some higher rarity fabric underwear. They came with ties on the sides to make putting them on over my sharp toes easier.

I felt a little bit bad though that I was the only one getting things, so I took Taylor to an accessory stall to let her pick out some stuff. Jewelry seemed fine for her to wear, and she joined me with gusto. She had several ear piercings already but didn’t have anything more than some plain studs in today.

I looked over the wares of the vendor, marveling at his unique collection. He had made all of the jewelry himself and had an assortment of hairpins, necklaces, watch bands, bracelets, rings, and earrings, all made of gold and silver. The pieces were adorned with smooth rock-tumbler polished topaz, turquoise, garnet, amethyst, and malachite.

“What do you think, Vic? How does this look on me?”

I turned to look at Taylor, who was holding up an expensive-looking necklace in silver engraved with trees and flowers, and inlaid with malachite.

“It looks amazing, though it would be hard to find something here that didn’t suit you.”

Taylor preened at my compliment as turned to the shopkeep, a goatkin who was watching us with a happy expression.

“Sir, how much is the necklace?”

“Five small gold coins, or 3000 dollars, even.”

The necklace certainly didn’t look that expensive, but comparing it to what the other stalls were charging, the price seemed normal. It was impressive to me how far the value of the dollar had fallen, the system currency becoming the new standard.

I wasn’t particularly good at bartering so I didn’t even bother trying most of the time. I decided that while it was expensive, five gold was still doable considering my current coin stockpile.

I started reaching for my money pouch when Taylor stopped me.

“Vic, you should grab something too. There are lots of nice things here, and you don’t have much jewelry.”

“Why don’t you pick something for me?”

Bringing a hand to her chin, she began to look through the various bits and bobs that were being offered.

“Hmmm… How about one of these?”

Taylor grabbed a strange ring with a clasp on one side and held it up for me to look at. It was another silver piece, carved with wispy lines and impressive vine shapes. Now that it was in my hands, I could tell that the ring was slightly too large for any of my fingers.

“It’s a bit too big for my hands. Could we get it adjusted? And what’s the clasp for?”

The shopkeeper chuckled, pointing to a sign I had missed right by where the piece was located, inscribed with the words “tail ornaments”.

“Oh wow! That’s a cool idea. Yeah, I’ll take both the necklace and this tail ornament.”

“That’ll be seven small gold coins, please.”

I started reaching for my bag when Taylor grabbed my arm and stopped me.

“How about five small gold and two spools of monster spider silk?”

The goatskin looked thoughtful, before responding.

“Six gold, five silver, and the two spools.”

“Five gold, two silver, and three spools.”

“Hmmmm… alright. Deal!”

Taylor put on the nice necklace and helped me to place the cuff on my tail right before the feathers at the end. As I walked away from the stall, I turned to Taylor.

“Wow. Where did you learn to do that? I didn’t know you knew how to barter and haggle.”

Taylor grinned big.

“Once I got my identify skill to the max level, I derived it into appraisal which lets me look at the worth of items. Combined with the bonuses to speaking I get with my rank 2 changes, I was able to pick up the haggling skill about an hour ago while we were walking around the clothing stalls. This was my first time using it.”

“Oh, that’s pretty cool. So, I’ve been meaning to ask, but what exactly happened when you hit rank 2? It’s clear you changed a bit, but I thought you were a magic race, not a monster. I don’t see why you would get more instincts.”

She looked thoughtful for a little bit.

“Let’s sit down somewhere with food, and I’ll tell you about it. Maybe your little friend could help me a bit too hmmm?”

I hadn’t realized Taylor knew about Luna. I’m guessing Cindy filled her in while I was training. We found a seat at a picnic table outside of a small food court selling various types of barbequed monster meats, the area filled with exotic and unfamiliar yet still tantalizing aromas. I went to one of the stalls and picked up some monster grasshopper gumbo for both me and Taylor, and found that the taste was not unlike king crab. I was just happy that it tasted better than skullback.

Taylor leaned closer to me and spoke in a softer voice as she started her explanation.

“Alright Vic, so here’s the deal. I’m sure it’s unnecessary to say, but I’d prefer if this information stayed as close to the chest as possible.”

“No problem Taylor. I wouldn’t tell someone unless it was critical.”

“Well, here I go. When I hit rank 2 I started to feel real freaky, like there was some kind of power welling out of me. I couldn’t figure out what it was for the longest time, but when I went out hunting with the boys, we found a rare monster called a Spriggan. It’s like a type of evil nature elemental thing… crazy shit, and extremely annoying to deal with. Anyway, we killed it, and I could kind of sense the same energy coming out of it when we were got close. And that’s when it clicked; I’m not a pure magic race. I’m not exactly a pure magic race. I have some weird monster race parts as well.”

“Okay, but I don’t get what the big deal is. Why does that need to be a big secret?”

“*sigh*, Vic I have the powers of both. I have a large internal mana reservoir, and I can produce aether which then fuels my mana reservoir. Don’t you get it? Someone like Cindy is only particularly strong around the right places because of the ambient mana. I’m strong everywhere. Unfortunately, I also have the same problems that both have. My rank ups aren’t as impressive as yours, and I don’t evolve or reset level as you do, but I still have some minor physical changes and some… rather intense instincts.”

Okay, that’s a bit of a bigger deal than I thought it was. One could consider Taylor yet another protagonist level person given that ability. I was starting to understand just how advantaged the beta testers were over everyone else. I had a sneaking suspicion that it would end up being both a gift, and a heavy burden.

I’d imagine Taylor was rather close to my power level as well as she had not been idle after the attack on the Gems. It was, naturally, hard to be sure. I thought I was a bit stronger than her just based on appearance, but I wasn’t the only one improving, and Taylor didn’t need to hunt monsters to grow in strength.

“Anyway, Vic. I was wondering if you could ask your little friend about it. I could use some guidance… anything helps, honestly. I just thought that if anyone would know what’s up with my body, she would. I want to know if I’m in any danger.”

“Alright, I’ll ask.”

Luna, were you listening?

Yes, I was. I’m sure you’ve guessed just as much, but every beta tester was a custom race with custom abilities, and no two are the same. Taylor is pretty close to figuring it out herself. Dryads may be a magic race, but they are still fairly close to their monster cousins, the Spriggans, in both classification and ability set. Taylor is a Spriggan/Dryad hybrid, though the Dryad side is much stronger which is why you see it the most. It’s also likely why she felt some strange familiarity with the Spriggan they fought, considering that Spriggans have a strong natural sense of community. She should be fine, regardless. She is not in any danger of unintentional self-harm.

I went ahead a shared what Luna said. Taylor wasn’t particularly surprised by the information but was happy that she now had a direction and understanding of her abilities. It seemed that many of the beta testers were hybrids between two different races or subraces, though the effects that brought were wildly varied. It made me curious about what made the other beta testers in my little community special.

Luna, are all beta testers hybrids like me and Taylor?

No, certainly not. Many have experimental skills, impossible races, or unconventional forms. If I can get the chance to examine your comrades up close, I can determine what the beta package they each have is and maybe provide some guidance. Only you wanted me to, naturally.

Oh? That would be useful. You’ve already been around Donny, Cindy, and Kaitlyn, right? What do they have?

Donny has an extremely high affinity for fire, to the point that it’s kind of ridiculous. Right now, it’s not particularly obvious, but after a few ranks, I’d imagine he could melt steel with his aura alone. He’s already started to attune to the elemental plane of fire as well and should unlock summoning in due time, around rank 4 is my best guess. This will cause his ability to increase explosively, pun intended.

Cindy is rather special and started with a higher variant of the fey race. The race she became is impossible to receive naturally without the use of transcendent level items, just to give you an idea of its natural power. This brings numerous benefits as I’m sure you can imagine, but the largest one at present is that she will learn things extremely quickly, and she possesses supernaturally powerful charisma. Combined with her archetype, she is a force to be reckoned with.

Kaitlyn, on the other hand, has a natural attunement to the force aether stream, giving her control over her inertia and the ability to use external magic outside of her rank for movement and attacks. Most beastkin wouldn’t attune to an aether stream until they reached level 100, so she is well ahead of the curve. She is probably the closest to your power at present and stands a good chance of defeating you if you were to fight.

That’s… good to know. It takes a load off my mind knowing that my friends can take care of themselves. Can you back up a bit, though? The elemental plane of what now?

Yes, the elemental plane of fire, based on your Dungeons and Dragons books. That’s something I put in place to make summoning magic possible. There is a myriad of artificial pocket dimensions surrounding this one, and each one is full of a wide range of monster types that are available for summoning.

Is that anything like Norr’s personal area?

Not quite. That space was similar to virtual reality. You could not go there with your physical body. The elemental planes are a real place, more like dungeons.

I realized that I was going on a bit of a tangent, and I turned my attention back to Taylor and the remains of my outstanding food. She could tell I was having a mental conversation, so she didn’t mind too much, and we quickly got back into it. I listened as she talked about the different bandmates and their powersets and the various quests and adventures they’d accomplished in the past week.

“Do you think you’ll ever get back into music with the guys?”

“Honestly, I’m not sure. I’m never going to give up performing, but I don’t know if things will go back to the way they were.”

Taylor looked up at the tree canopy with a sad expression.

“Nick and Trevor want to go out and adventure, but James and I want to stay in town. It’s… hard.”

I moved to join her on the same bench and wrapped my arm around her. She leaned her head against mine, wiping away some tears, and we sat there for a while, just enjoying the atmosphere.

We were just about to get up and leave when we were approached from behind.

“Hey there beauties. Why don’t you come spend some time with me? We’ll have some fun.”

Standing and turning around, I was greeted with a large bearkin, complete with a two-handed axe. On his sides were two more guys, one who looked to be part frog, the other part fish.

“Yeah, I’m going to have to pass on that.”

He tried to smile but ended up just cringing. It was horrible to behold.

“Come on now, don’t be like that.”

Taylor rose to stand next to me, and we both stared at the big asshole. I was shocked that this was really happening, but Taylor was pissed. She wore a deeply condescending face, and was looking down her nose at them, scowling in rage. A quick identify informed me that they were all rank 1, so what they were trying to accomplish by annoying two rank 2 women was a mystery to me.

Eventually, the staredown ended when the fishman on the left looked away. Taylor scoffed and responded through clenched teeth.

“We are NOT interested. Leave.”

This did not seem to deescalate the situation. He started to get all huffy, and his face turned red like a tomato. Trying to keep his displeasure from his face, he leaned down to get close to Taylor.

“Now listen here, bitch. You’ll come with us if you know what’s good for you.”

Suddenly, the big man lunged to try and grab the Dryad, but before I could even make a move to stop him, he got yanked from behind, falling to the ground in a heap.

“Now wait just a second there. What, exactly, do you idiots think you’re going to accomplish accosting two incredibly strong women?”

Standing over the bearkin asshole and his two goonies was another man. He appeared to be in his twenties and carried on his back a massive sword, similar to something from final fantasy. He wore all black, the most chunni clothes I had seen yet, but the armor appeared strong and magic. It was without a doubt something he pulled from a dungeon chest, so I reserved my judgment. Dungeon gear tended to look rather eccentric.

He had dark black hair and piercing blue eyes the color of frost. His face was symmetrical and clean-shaven, and he wore a smirk that accented his looks. He was fit and carried himself with the confidence of someone who knows his limits and has seen plenty of combat. I put myself on guard, just in case he was dangerous.

I went ahead and identified him.

Race – Superhuman

Job – Adventurer

Class – Dark Blademancer

Rank – 2

Level - 63

He was probably a beta tester considering his aura, and he had killed a massive amount of monsters, reaching level 63 as a superhuman. He was probably about equal to me in strength, considering his level and rank, not to mention the strange aura he put off.

He looked down at the bearkin and continued.

“I need you asshats to get something through those abnormally thick skulls. I spared your lives once already, and this is the second strike. If I ever, and I mean EVER, find you trying to continue this half-assed manga gangster style shit again, I’ll end you. Do you understand me?”

The three asshats in quests hastily nodded their heads, before standing up and scurrying away.

The man turned back to us, wearing a complicated expression.

“Sorry for getting involved. I was sure you could handle them yourself, but your friend didn’t seem to be taking it too well, and I knew I could end it quickly. I have a bit of history with those assholes, you see.”

Wondering what he was talking about, I turned and looked at Taylor. She was putting up a brave front, but I could tell from the slight shake of her shoulders that it scared her. I can’t believe I didn’t notice. It made sense, and I should have realized. The last time she was accosted by some random guys, her friend got kidnapped, and she got hurt pretty bad. I went ahead and wrapped her in a hug and sat her down at the picnic table. Joining her there, I gestured to the man to sit with us, and he nodded with a happy smile. He removed his sword, leaning it against the seat, and sat opposite of us.

“You said you had a history with those dudes. What’s the story?”

“Well, it’s kind of funny. I’m from San Antonio, just down the interstate, and the big guy in the middle used to mess with me in high school. I was in transit to Austin when the first wave struck. After a series of coincidences, I ran into him again, but obviously, it didn’t work out for him very well. He’s not evil, just misguided, and immensely stupid. I’d rather not kill him if I didn’t have to.”

“I feel ya. I’m Vic, by the way.”

I reached out to shake his hand.

“Nice to meet you. I’m Evan.”

“So, Evan, what’s with that get-up? You a fan of bad anime or something?”

He groaned, and his head fell to the table with a soft thunk.

“I found it in a dungeon. I’m superhuman, right? My power had to do with shadows, and I found this dungeon full of monsters wielding dark magic. I found this armor set after killing a boss, and it was too good to pass up. Its stats are great and all, but it makes me look really…”

“Chunnibyou?”

“Yes! Exactly. I’m already a freaking Dark Blademancer for cripes sake. It was the best class I could choose, you know? Suiting both my power and my previous sword-wielding. With this get up it just makes it so much worse. On the bright side, the people that even know what that word means are limited, but still. I’m not a big fan of the vibe I put out now, you know? Anyway, aren’t you in a similar situation? I see those wings. You’re sporting an impressive wind tunnel yourself. I can’t imagine that’s intentional.”

It took me a second to realize he was talking about the rather low vee in my armored vest. Wind tunnel. Nice. I blushed and turned to look away, pretending to be watching the crowd.

“*cough*. Touché. So, are you in town to join the Guild?”

He nodded again.

“Yep, that’s right. It’s pretty awesome. Only a month into this shitshow and we already have an adventurer’s guild! I’m not super big into all of the tropes, but that was a good one, at least.”

“Well, when you get there, tell them you’re my friend. It might help you out. It’s the least I can do to thank you for your help.”

“Oh wow! Thanks. So, um, Vic. I don’t know when all of the cell towers will be back up, but do you want to trade numbers? I’d like to go adventuring with you, sometime, if you were interested.”

I felt my heart beat a little faster.

“Sure! Sure. Here you go.”

I entered my contact information into his phone, and he punched his into mine. As soon as we were done, though, he stood bolt upright, a look of abject terror on his face. This dude was pretty strong, so anything that could freak him out like this was bad news.

Over the din of conversation around us, I heard a squeaky feminine voice shout, “Evan SAMAAA!!!”

“Oh God no. How did she find me?!?! EVERY. DAMN. TIME. Sorry, Vic, it’s been awesome, but I’ve got to go. Call me!”

“Sure thing, but what’s going on?”

“There’s no time! I can’t let her find me again. Stay safe!”

He grabbed his sword and fled, quickly getting lost in the crowd. I watched with a hint of fascination as a short girl with long pink hair done up in pigtails appeared. The girl was impressively top heavy for her height and probably had some intense back problems because of it. She was wearing a pink dress, complete with lacy frills, and carried on her back a bow and arrows, as well as a long magic staff.

“Evan Sama! Where did you go? Sempai! Wait!”

With my mouth hanging open, I watched the human hurricane leave. If that pink nightmare was coming after me, I’d be running for the hills too. Stay safe, Evan, and good luck.

I turned to check on Taylor and was surprised to see her watching me with an ecstatic look.

“Vic! You just got a guy’s number! It was awkward as hell, but you did it! I’m so proud of you!”

Taylor wrapped me in a hug as I mused to myself.

Huh. I guess I did, didn’t I?