Consciousness came back with a sense of falling. I immediately assumed the Captain had dumped me in whatever bottomless pit was most convenient.

After a second or two of reflection, I realized I wasn’t falling so much as descending. There wasn’t even the feeling of air rushing past me, just slow descent into black. At least, it seemed that way until a wall appeared. How I knew it was a wall was a mystery, as I could only see the top of it, to which I was approaching. It split the blackness in two.

My feet gently touched down, but it still felt like I was falling - or maybe more like I was being pushed downward harder than gravity tends to. I had to keep descending. Carefully, I peeked over each side of the wall.

Images of myself appeared, though I couldn’t tell if they came from the blackness I was seeing or the blackness of my mind. Perhaps they were one in the same. Each side of the wall showed a different version of me, and I understood instantly. This was a choice. I had to keep falling, but I got to choose which side of the wall I wanted to be on.

To put the decision in the parlance of D&D, one side showed me following the College of Lore, the other the College of Valor. No option for sorcerer, sadly. The question boiled down to whether I wanted more skills and magic, or better weapons and armor. It wasn’t really a choice. If I couldn’t be a sorcerer, I’d at least want to console myself by donning a breastplate and charging through enemies with a greatsword all while singing glorious fight songs. Or at the very least, put on some armor that actually felt like it might stop an arrow.

Leaning toward the College of Valor side, I smiled and gave myself to gravity. This was going to be awesome.

Except that I wasn’t falling. I was leaning off the wall, arms outstretched like a suicidal madman, still feeling like I was being pushed down, but motionlessly hanging there. Something was wrong. I tried stepping off the wall, but my foot was repelled. I tried leaning harder over the side, but I barely got five degrees away from vertical before I was pushed back. Something was definitely wrong. I tried to climb down from the top of the wall, but it was having none of it.

Did I do something I shouldn’t have? I looked down the College of Valor side, still satisfied with the vision of me standing tall in armor. What was stopping this? Did I not deserve it? Doubtful - after all, I beat two goblins to bloody pulps with my bare hands. If that didn’t scream ‘tendency toward martial solutions,’ what did? I pushed with all my might against the invisible force, trying to get my feet just enough off the edge to push….

A whipcrack of lightning broke the black. Startled, I slipped, falling back on the top of the wall. The jagged white was held, still, along the Valor side. Looking at it from my perch, I could see a figure in the white. A Dragonborn - humanoid with a rounded dragon’s head and scaled body. He was tall, smiling, confident. His bronze scales glittered from an unknown light source. He held a large spear with one clawed hand and a metal-banded horn in the other.

In that second, I knew. Kevin’s theory of there only being one person for each class archetype was right. There was one other trapped in Dungeonia as a bard.

And he beat me to the College of Valor.

I felt like I was being crushed by the pushing force. With nowhere else to go, I rolled off the other side.

I’d have to follow the College of Lore.

*******

Long before I started trying to control my dreams, I found myself on a bus. I think it was a school bus. There were others with me, though I can’t remember who. We were traveling down open highway in midday, with miles of farmland all around, as is common in northwestern Ohio. A bright light went off in the distance. The other occupants of the bus, recovering from the blindness of a brief second sun, started screaming. A mushroom cloud had formed where the light was. My first thought before the panic of the situation set in was, ’Wow, if Toledo’s getting nuked, the whole nation must be doomed.’ At that point, everything went grey. Not white, not black, but grey. Like the whole universe, darkness included, suddenly got shut off. I knew instantly that I was dead. With a small sense of pride, I can say my first reaction to this was: ‘Oh well.’ I was alone in the grey. I quickly realized that, while I had no body, I was still able to think, still me, and came to the conclusion that the afterlife was nothing but an eternity with yourself. This caught me as quite practical. After all, wouldn’t good people who aren’t hounded by past misdeeds be able to exist without torturing themselves? In which case, they had decent afterlives, and bad people had horrible ones? It made much more sense to me than having a saint play the role of bouncer to the party that was heaven, or weighing one’s heart against a feather. My thoughts on my own afterlife were that I’d be okay with it - after all, I’d spent many hours lying in bed with nothing but my thoughts to keep me company, and I’d done well in those times. Centuries might be pushing it, though. For the most part, I was content. Every worry I ever had for the future was gone. I was weightless. Physically, emotionally and spiritually untethered.

Then I opened my eyes.

I was in my room, still attached to my body, everything as it should’ve been, with a nice sunny day in progress. Apparently, the afterlife was me alone in my room. That grey before was some sort of… staging area, maybe? I started thinking about events more, and noticed that I had no recollection of how I got on that bus, let alone why. It was a dream. I must’ve scared myself awake from the nuke going off, but didn’t open my eyes when consciousness returned. It was odd; I never really worried about nuclear war or anything. Then again, it’s usually the things you don’t take into consideration that kill you, isn’t it? I laid in bed for a while after that. I had gotten a full night’s sleep, my body had energy, and yet it was as though my spirit was drained. Thinking you’re dead and accepting it, even for a few seconds, takes a toll. It’s a special kind of exhaustion that’s hard to recover from. This was one of the catalyzing events that got me started on lucid dreaming - I realized dreams could have serious effects in the real world. Yet, in the end, I forcibly stopped dreaming because of those very effects.

So when I woke up after a terrible dream where I was screwed out of my preferred class choice, I decided to leave my eyes closed for a while. There was serenity in the grey of the mind. More than the dream, however, were the horrible things that had happened before passing out. Captain Minerva had caught us. She might have killed Jenn and Topher outright, as well. I knew I’d be opening my eyes to a cell, but as long as they stayed closed, I could pretend otherwise. Opening my eyes would be accepting grim reality. It’s hard to do that when a stray dream damages your spirit.

That being said, I found it odd that I could hear birds chirping from my cell.

And that I was on some sort of bed, not a cold floor.

With a rather comfortable pillow.

Perhaps I was still dreaming. I could chance a look around if I pretended it was still a dream.

The room was made of wood, not stone, and had a door and a window, neither of which had bars. I was in a bed. There were only necessities, which led me to believe it was a room at an inn. Outside the window was a tree, behind that another building. My sword, bow, lute and pack were all thrown in a corner. I was still in my armor.

As far as dreams went, I prefer something a bit more flashy, but it was better than what I expected reality to be. I looked at my hands. The palms were wrapped in bandages, but the fingers were correctly proportioned, not strangely disfigured as they would be in a dream.

Kevin must’ve dealt with the Captain somehow. He’s clever, so I wouldn’t put it past him, even if I wouldn’t have bet money on it. Did he drag me back here, then? One way to find out.

Trying to stand resulted in riotous complaints from my muscles, but I struggled through. I went to the door and found it unlocked. A hallway of numbered rooms was on the other side, ending in a staircase. I creakily descended into a tavern.

“Morning,” came a familiar voice.

It was Kevin, looking very relaxed at a table, holding a mug of something. I lumbered to a chair. He seemed unhurried and pleased with himself, which made me feel even more tired and achey.

“Mornin’,” I grunted.

“You don’t look well,” he cheekily commented.

I snarled. “No one who looks at you does.”

His rose his brow in slightly over-exaggerated surprise. “Well then….”

“I’m sorry,” I was more surprised than him. “I don’t know what the hell that was.” Something had gone off inside me, but it happened so quickly I couldn’t tell what.

He shrugged. “Don’t worry about it - rough night, yesterday. Breakfast? Grunt once for yes.”

Food was ordered, and I immediately had to ask: “So… Topher and Jenn, are they…?”

“They’re fine,” he smiled. “Resting at the local church under a healer’s supervision.”

I silently thanked God, then wondered if that might offend all the other gods in this world. “And what happened with the Captain? Did you fight her off or something?” I asked conspiratorially.

“Nope,” he grinned. “Seduced her.”

“So she’s into pencil dicks?” I clapped my hand over my mouth right away, as if it might somehow help.

“Holy crap, dude. I was just kidding.”

I held my arms out, genuinely feeling helpless. “I… That just came out. I have no idea what’s wrong with me.”

Kevin hummed incredulously. “What, do you have a thing for the dear Captain?”

“No, I… Well, not more than any other hot chick.” I shook my head vigorously. “Sorry, I’ll just try to keep my mouth shut. So what did happen?”

He leaned back, but watched me more intently for my reaction. “Actually, she apologized.”

I was pretty sure my face didn’t disappoint him.

“Yeah, that’s how it struck me, too.” He took a sip from his mug. “And she said some interesting things after that. You and Jenn were right - she was trying to catch us doing something incriminating. It seems her superiors wanted her to tell us we were absolved of any wrongdoings in Woodsedge, and that we should talk to some guy named Erevan or something. Wait, I think that’s actually Everan. Anyway, she didn’t like the idea of us getting a free pass, so she followed us expecting that we’d break some law or another so she could take take us in, you know, forcefully and stuff.”

I couldn’t help but notice how right on the money she was.

Kevin continued. “When she reported in to her superiors, she found out someone in power had been watching the affair, and they actually sided with us. I'm pretty sure she got reamed hard for it.”

That was odd. They could see what was going on but had to wait for her to report before they could tell her to stop? My head hurt.

“She was called back to Rikston, but she said she at least ought to do what was assigned to her before leaving. She offered to have everyone who was unconscious carried to the nearest town, and I agreed.”

I rubbed my temples. “So we tried to do the right thing and it actually turned out okay for us?”

“Seems like it. I guess whoever’s running all this is a nicer DM than you,” he grinned.

“Don’t be too sure,” I growled. “We’re indebted to someone in power - that’s just the kind of rope I’d use to hang you. And I’m pretty sure the Captain will kill us if she thinks she can get away with it.”

“We’ll see,” he said.

“God, I hope we don’t.” I tried to massage my headache away again.

He gave me a few nods of consideration. “I did try to tell her our side of what all happened at Woodsedge, but she said, with respect, that we were liars and criminals, and she wouldn’t believe it.” He shrugged. "Some people, eh?"

“Wonderful,” I sighed. “Though, to be fair, you are a rogue and I did take the criminal background.”

“Yeah, but at least we’re lovable.”

“Well, screw her and good riddance. Let's move on,” I looked him dead in the eyes. “What was wrong with you last night? Topher said you went crazy. Hell, I saw you and yeah - you were crazy. Effective, but out of your mind. What happened?”

Kevin’s lighthearted demeanor deflated. “I don’t know. I heard, or maybe felt, something while we were breaking for camp, and I wasn’t able to calm down. I felt… unsettled. Then Topher and I were walking along the edge of the woods - one second he was lying about coming with me to give you and Jenn some alone time, the next I’m waking up in the middle of a fire. And getting smacked in the face by you.” He added, surlily.

“Trust me; you needed it,” I responded, utterly blameless. “And we’re going to have to keep an eye out for similar stuff.”

He gave a noncommittal snort. “Anyways, the memories of what I’d done started coming back after I calmed down. And you’re right - I was pretty effective. You’re welcome for saving you from that zombie, by the way.”

“That’s right, I meant to ask: Do you know anything in D&D lore that makes one undead change into another undead?”

“…Change?”

“Like turning a zombie into a ghoul, or something.“

“Uh, no. Not really. I doubt taking all the meat off a zombie would even turn it into a skeleton as far as game rules are concerned. Why?”

I shook my head. “Weird stuff. We can look into it later.”

“If you say so. Hey, maybe if you cut off a zombie’s hand it would turn into a… whatchamacallit… Crawling Claw!”

He probably needed a change of tone. “Ha! Oh man, I forgot about those things. Now I just want to make a bunch of them, stick ‘em in a tube and reenact that scene from Labyrinth!” We started laughing, which really made my headache flare up. Worth it. Actually, no - it wasn’t worth it. It really hurt.

It showed enough to make Kevin concerned. “Whoa, hey man, are you okay?”

I groaned. “I still ache from all that running we did to lose the Captain - which worked out great, by the way. That coupled with running through a crypt with undead all about, heaving an iron bowl of fire over,” I held up my bandaged hands, “then hauling Topher around and having my Arcana skill pester me constantly throughout really put the hurt on.” I paused a second. “Now I’ve got a massive headache. You’d think sleeping in an actual bed for the first time in days would help, but no.”

Our food was delivered, and I expected the pain would dissipate with food. It didn’t. I held onto the hope that adding something would help. “Salt?” I asked. The salt was passed. A little better, but not enough to distract from the agony. “Pepper?” The pepper was passed. It didn’t help the food much, which was an annoyance on top of everything else. I dropped my fork. “Yeah, I think I’m going to just need some water or something.” A cup of water was passed. “Thanks, I… Wait….” Something was wrong. I held the cup in my hand, looked at the salt, then the pepper, then back again. “Did this…?”

Kevin was excitedly suppressing a smile. “What’s wrong, Jack?” he teased. He took a drink from his mug.

Except he never touched it. The cup slowly hovered back to the table.

My jaw dropped. “Wait, are you…?”

He beamed, unable to contain himself anymore. “Level three! Arcane Trickster, all the way! Invisible Mage Hand is the best. I haven’t used my real hands since you sat down. You’re really out of it, so you're forgiven, but yeah. Oh, and take a drink of your water.”

I gave him a look, suddenly worried that there might be some magic he picked up that would mess with me via water, but I took a sip. Nothing special. He kept his grin up and pointed at my cup. “Praecantatio,” he said, snapping his fingers.

Nothing seemed to happen. I looked at him expectantly, and he looked back, still grinning. I slowly took another sip.

“It’s cold!” I exclaimed, taking a long swig just to be sure. “What, did you research a brand new cantrip in the time I was out?”

“Nope; it’s Prestidigitation. Figures the ultimate handy spell could do it.” His mug floated up and let him take another sip.

“Man. And Topher and I were hoping to make some money off of researching a beer chilling spell. But I’m glad you have magic now - congratulations. Now we—“ A horrifying connection bridged two facts in my mind. “Oh… God, no.” My headache, which had been subsiding, found new ammunition for the war against my brain. “Did you… just wake up as an Arcane Trickster, or did something happen to you that made you one? Like… a dream or something?”

He gave it a thought. “I… did have a dream about it. Something about walls and having to jump down a side…”

“…and each side showed a different version of you as the different archetypes for your class, right? And you had to choose one because it felt like gravity was pressing down harder and harder on you?”

He gave a couple owlish blinks. “That’s exactly right. Did that happen to you, too? Are you level three now?”

I nodded. “Yeah.”

“You don’t seem too happy about it.”

“I’m not. I thought the falling thing was just a dream.” I asked for more water, as it seemed to be helping before. “But yeah - remember how you said there might be one adventurer for each class type? Well, the other bard must’ve beat me to the College of Valor.”

He made a face. “Yuck, are you sure?”

“Don’t quote your prom date.” I felt it that time. Like the colors in my soul flared up, sent out a tendril, and cracked it like a whip. Somehow, it was therapeutic. Or would be, if I wasn’t so concerned with being able to control it. “…Sorry. Anyways, I tried jumping down the Valor side, but got thrown back every time. Eventually an image of a Dragonborn appeared and I knew that it was him who’d gotten there first.”

Kevin frowned in thought. “Was Dragonborn even a race choice? Didn’t we specifically talk about how it wasn’t?”

“Yeah, but that was before the other race and class choices started disappearing. If someone got to it early, it might’ve been gone before we even got to that page.”

He made a gesture that was somewhere between pointing at me and a one-handed shrug. “That makes sense. Anyways, at least you’re level three. You should have a second level spell, right?”

That was true. I flexed my magical limb to see what came of it. “Hey! Looks like Enhance Ability,” I said, pleased.

“Not bad. Always nice to have.”

“Yeah - maybe not my first choice, but definitely top five. Not sure what I did to earn it, though. Unless I was wrong about learning spells organically, based on needs.” My water finally came. I motioned to Kevin for a chill spell, which he obliged.

“Really?” he said. “I’d have guessed it was because you’ve been having such a hard time keeping up with all the running and marching. Just enhance your constitution and you’d be good to go.”

“Huh. You’re probably right,” I acknowledged. “By the way, what spells did you end up getting? You can only choose from enchantment and illusion, right?”

“Well, like you said, it wasn’t a choice, but even then you’re only mostly right. I get one spell from any school every so often, starting at level three. Right now I have Disguise Self, Silent Image and Shield.”

“All useful,” I said. “Especially Shield.”

He nodded with a smirk. “Yeah, I was really happy to get that. Cantrips-wise, I already have Message from being a High Elf, and you know about Mage Hand and Prestidigitation already. Last one is True Strike.”

“Hey, that’s a good one for a rogue,” I said. “Gives you a sneak attack.”

“Yeah, but it takes an action to cast. I did some math, and it turns out I’ll average more damage attacking twice normally than hitting once with sneak attack.”

“Assuming both hit,” I added.

“Right. And I’d actually come out ahead by level five with the sneak attack damage, but that’s assuming I don’t get to sneak attack for any other reason. And there are other problems. It only has a thirty foot range, and since I want to mostly use my bow, that’s not so great. Also, it’s a concentration spell, so if I get hit after casting it there’s a chance I’ll simply lose the spell and have wasted time. I’m sure it’ll be nice, just… situationally.” He seemed a little saddened by it.

Which annoyed me. “At least you got your first choice of archetypes,” I muttered.

“Oh, yeah - sorry, I’m complaining about one lousy cantrip and you’re stuck with a lot more of something you don’t want,” he said. I grimaced and went back to my food. “There’s nothing wrong with the College of Lore, though. Let’s see, you got your second level spell, and… Oh, that might explain it.”

I cocked an eyebrow. “Explain what?”

“Your little quips and put-downs. Think that’s your Cutting Words addition to your Inspiration ability?”

“I guess that’s… actually, I think you’re right - it would explain what was... well, going on inside me when I said those things.” I rested my chin in my hand. “Doesn’t explain why I can’t seem to control it, though. Heck, I’ve used it three times already; I can only use it one more time today.”

“Want to get it out of your system?” asked Kevin.

I shook my head, which made it hurt more.“No, best to keep it just in case. Sucks if it turns out I’ve blown through most of them already, though.”

Kevin started tapping his fingers on the table. “Also, I think you get proficiency in, like, three skills of your choice? Any guess what they might be?”

My headache flared up at the idea of the worst case scenario. “I feel a quiet dread at the prospect….”

“What?” Kevin smiled. “Think they might all be knowledge skills?”

“I mean, of course that’s what they are, right?” I fell back in my chair, angrily exasperated. “First Arcana, now Religion, History and Nature to boot. Because God hates me or something. It was bad enough when they were all chiming in because of Jack-of-All-Trades. And I got Expertise at level three, too! How much do you want to bet that my Arcana skill just got doubled overnight?”

“Hey… Hey! Calm down, dude.” Kevin held a hand out. “So much for quiet dread. It’s not that bad. It’s not like—“

We were interrupted by a pockmarked young man in plain robes. “E-excuse me, sir?” He had a timid voice, and I couldn’t tell if it was just how he was or because of what brought him here. “Mister Kevin?”

He was standing very close to the table, which put me on edge. “Something wrong, kid?” I growled.

Kevin waved me off. “I saw you at the church this morning, right? Acolyte…” He squinted and held the last syllable.

“Raymsby, sir.” The kid smiled and gave nervous bow. “Yes. Nice to see you again. How’s your day? I’m here because the priest sent me.”

“Good news, I hope,” said Kevin.

Raymsby took a quick pause that indicated otherwise. “It’s your friend, the… half-elven lady? The priest thinks it would be best if you came by.”

The kid sprang back as Kevin shot up from his chair. “What about her? Is she alright?” he asked.

“We… don’t know. The priest wants to talk to you.”

Kevin looked down to me. “Let’s go, Jack.” With that, he was off.

I groaned, convinced that my headache would never go away.