1.3

A jolt of energy shook Harold awake, and a cross between electricity and some.. warmer feeling engulfed every part of his body.

The feeling didn’t cease, permeating up and down the length of his body. As if someone had truly bottled lightning, and had sent it shooting up from his legs, up through his torso, and let it bounce around in his skull.

The first thing he noticed was just how expansive his surroundings were. Harold was underground, no doubt about it, yet the space itself evoked a feeling akin to an open field, wide open and ready to receive his childlike wonder.

The rock structure was fascinating, wild, yet forming a patchwork of crystalline perfection that was more organized, to his mind, than anything else he had ever observed. The rocks were one thing, but scattered along every wall was crystal. The crystals each glowed different hues of green, some dark, some bright, some didn’t glow at all.

It was a dim kind of brightness that flooded his every visual input, with each individual gem shimmering as if to take on an existence all of their very own. Strangely, Harold’s mind wandered back to a cherished children’s show of his, where a certain Avatar battled firebending siblings amid a vast expanse of beautiful green gems.

The second thing he noticed was the bundle of warmth still in his arms. Wait, warmth? In a cave devoid of life? He looked down to find Amber there, in the same position she likely had been when he grabbed her.

The presence of another person in the cavern jolted Harold back to reality. No longer mesmerized by the crystals on the wall, he finally noticed how unnaturally cold the cavern was.

A cave in a mountain perhaps? Harold mused to himself, it would definitely explain how frigid the temperatures were. He roused himself, shaking Amber awake.

She woke with a mumble “Wha-what’s happening?” She stumbled to find the words, disoriented as she already was.

“I don’t know, the moon seemed to… I dunno, shut off? Then everything blacked out and now we’re here”. Harold was unsure as to what had happened. Was this some elaborate prank by Robb? Or a kidnapping maybe? He waited for his close friend to jump out of a nearby rock formation and yell ‘SURPRISE’, laughing about how he had somehow moved the two of them to the top of a nearby mountain.

But nothing came. The silence of the cave was growing ever more disconcerting to Harold, and he roused himself to get up. No prank ever sprang itself, after all.

Amber got up with him, using his arm to balance herself as she rose from their relatively warm resting place to feel the cold of the cave.

“What should we do? It doesn’t seem like anyone’s here to help”. Amber seemed fairly concerned.

Harold shrugged, “I have absolutely no idea”. They had not been moved with anything else. All they had were the clothes on their backs. No food, no water, no phone with which to contact outside help. Off to a great start, he mused to himself.

Amber sighed. “Whether this is a prank from Robb or not, this is too much, and even if it’s not a prank, our first course of action should be to get some food and water, starving to death won’t help us get out of here.”

Harold nodded, and the two located a nearby entrance, the only opening, it seems, connecting this cavern to a wider series of tunnels.

As they walked along the passageway, surrounded by the same glowing crystals that had mesmerized Harold when he had awoken, there seemed to be a tapering off of whatever power source it was that kept the crystals alight. As they continued onward, the lights became dimmer and dimmer, shrinking more with each passing second. The crystals themselves became less numerous, smaller, and less concentrated.

Harold took the lead, forging his way through the ever growing darkness as seconds turned to minutes. They had been walking for quite some time before they reached a widened portion of the tunnel. Strangely enough however, Harold noted that while the passage widened, it did not split into two seperate passageways, instead leading into another, presumably enormous, cavern.

Then they heard movement. It wasn’t strange to see life in caves such as these, but what he saw was utterly inhuman.

[Lvl 4 Spiderling]

[Lvl 2 Spiderling]

[Lvl 5 Spiderling]

He had walked forward briskly enough to come face to face with a monstrosity of an insect, by any Earth native’s metric. The monster itself was two and half feet tall, three feet wide, with fangs sharpened and legs as fuzzy as the day it was formed.

Both Harold and Amber immediately screamed and high tailed it backwards, to what they judged to be a safe distance, only to hear a soft patter of footfalls, or more accurately limbfalls, scuttling towards them. Both kept running.

It had been roughly ten minutes by the time Harold and Amber reached the end of the narrow passage, finding themselves once again in the large cavern, both of them hoping that the bright crystals would ward off their unwelcome insect enemies.

There had no such luck however, and the light patter of spiderlings continued to approach them. Harold knew they were up against the wall. It would be three on two, and without the tight passageway, he had no illusions of their chances.

“We have to fight them here, or it’s over.” Amber said. Her voice wavered for a moment, but her eyes scanned the cavern, looking for anything that we could use.

Harold did the same. “The crystals maybe?” He reached out for the nearest crystal, the dimmest one that he could find. Perhaps it would be easier to pry off the wall? Assuming whatever energy powered them kept them attached. Instead, Harold was met with a series of words scrawled on the air before his.

[Contact with beginner mana source established, assimilate?]

He glanced upwards, spooked by the seeming randomness that assaulted his vision. He saw Amber staring off into space as well, and it seemed as though she had gotten the same message while reaching for a crystal.

He did the only thing he could think of. “Yes”.

The dim crystal grew dimmer, and Harold felt as if a part of him that had never existed, had suddenly come back to him. He felt a swelling sensation in his chest, as if his very soul was building up to critical mass.

[Minimum requirements met, please select a class:]

[Present contact with earth mana source: Common Class Option, Earth Mage]

[Present contact with earth mana source: Common Class Option, Earth Spearman]

[Soul affinity processed: Rare Class Option: Rock Vanguard]

[Previous experience analyzed, proximity to nobilis detected: Unique Class Option, Gem Soldier]

There was precious little time to think, the sounds were still coming closer, and there was definitely no time to consider the ramifications of these pop-ups appearing in front of them. He quickly selected the most advanced option: Gem Soldier.

In his defense, Harold had read one or two litRPGs, and knew that without actual knowledge about the system, his choice would basically be the same, regardless of how much time he spent in deliberation. He moved to tap the screen, and his hand fazed through the projection. He frowned, was this a visual illusion that the spiders used to trap their prey? To distract us?

He willed his choice with his mind, selecting the only unique class he had been presented with.

[Class Selected. Congratulations, Gem Soldier! May your journey in the Abyss be long and prosperous. Go forth and conquer, in the name Hrell]

The last part confused him more than all of what he had seen before, but there was no time to dwell on that. He saw another notification pop up, this time in his peripheral vision, and he turned to address it.

[Congratulations! Level Up! Level 1 Gem Soldier]

[Skill learned: Gem Manifestation - Summon a relatively small quantity of earth affinity gems in whatever shape you deem necessary.]

Harold nodded at nothing in particular. Alright, I can work with this. He looked over at Amber, whose eyes were now trained back on the passageway.

He wasn’t stupid enough to try and summon a sword. After all, he had absolutely no experience using that kind of object. Instead, he summoned his best impression of a war hammer.

It formed in his hand, bedecked in the same green crystals that lit the room. He hefted it up twice, trying to gauge its weight. Fairly light, all things considered, but hopefully good enough for him to bash a spider’s skull in with.

The two spiders came towards him, one after another, scurrying through that narrow corridor. Instead of finding two helpless humans, they came face to face with a considerably more determined human wielding a strange green device.

The first jumped as soon as it was in range, moving to impale him with its large fangs. It’s eyes seemed to bulge, and its maw seemed to shimmer, no longer obscured by the darkness, and was bashed away. It fell sideways, falling flat against the tunnel wall.

Stunned, but by no means incapacitated, the spider shook itself out of its daze. While it recovered, the second one, the larger of the two, who Harold presumed to be the highest leveled, jumped over the body of its fallen comrade. It too bore the same shimmering, and all too terrifying fangs of its sibling.

But this one was definitely smarter, and Harold had no trouble guessing why it had levelled more than the others. It bobbed and weaved towards him, evading his first blow, hissing in retribution. A scare tactic, perhaps, but it didn’t dissuade him from swinging again. Predicting the spider’s dodge, he landed a glancing blow on the beast’s eight legs. A wound to be sure, but definitely not fatal.

The spider lunged forward, catching Harold’s leg with its fang, while he frantically tried to beat it off with his hammer, succeeding only in dislodging the insect slightly, perhaps aggravating his own wound in the process.

He swung several more times, each hit growing lighter as his strength waned. But it was enough, and the spider lay dead at his feet. It was a good thing, too, because the first spider, at last recovered, finally made its move, but already wounded, it had scarcely scrambled forward before Harold brought the full weight of his hammer down upon its head, crushing it at last.

He sighed in relief, at least they had survived this ordeal. Then his eyes narrowed. Hold on, weren’t there three-

The final spider had crawled on the ceiling while its brethren tried to take his hammer head on. It pounced on his head, only to be blasted away mid-air by a bolt of something... blue. Blue? It was a jarring color in this cavern, and he whirled around to see the source.

Harold turned to see Amber standing there, one arm outstretched, panting a bit, no doubt she was the source of that bolt, and had exerted herself summoning that ball of energy. Above her head floated something he had only ever seen in video games. He doubted his eyes, even as he remembered the notifications he himself had received, but the line of text was still there.

[Amber Liddle, Lvl 2 Elemental Mage]

He stood, dumbfounded, while Amber yelled

“Hit it, NOW!”

He turned, ran towards the felled monster and swung his hammer diagonally, arcing down on the insect’s skull, and smashed what remained of its consciousness into the afterlife.

They stood there for a while, panting at the overexertion of the fight. Harold looked at the notifications he had accrued while in the battle.

[Congratulations! Level Up! Level 2 Gem Soldier]

[Congratulations! Level Up! Level 3 Gem Soldier]

[Skill learned: Analyze Mineral - Analyze the composition of most minerals]

[Skill Learned: Call of Stone - Increases passive affinity for earth-attuned beasts]

He looked towards Amber, who had also been looking through her notifications. His leg was injured, of course, but it seemed as though the spiders carried no venom or toxin, so as he bandaged his wound, stemming the flow of blood, his mind began figuring out what the hell was wrong with the world today.

“What the fuck” Amber began “just happened.” She shook slightly, like a leaf blown side to side by a small breeze, quivering while aloft.

Harold wasn’t much better off, even with the wound bandaged, he felt like he had traversed hell and back. After several minutes of daunting silence, he finally responded. “Do you also see the notifications popping up? Telling you that you got a level or something?”

She nodded, “I’m pretty sure that we’re no longer on Earth, probably? And if this is real, that we’re probably stuck somewhere far away from any possible help.”

“Mmm” he nodded “I agree, but first thing’s first, food and water, and making sure that any wounds that we have don’t get aggravated.”

He rose from the ground, looking around the large cavern, and then peering back into the passageway from which the spiders had spewed out. With a bit of dejection spilling out onto his features, he spoke slowly. “Guess there’s only one thing for it.”

Amber smiled lightly. “Hopefully, this bright new world will let me blast stuff away with some Harry Potter level magic. I wonder if they have house elves here. Oooh, maybe I can avada kedavra some bad guys!” Her smile broke into a grin as she attempted to cheer him up.

Her happy demeanor forced him to crack a smile. “Now there’s the Potterhead I know and love”. He bent down, briefly caught her lips with his own, and then helped her to her feet.

They turned back towards the gradually darkening hallway. “Well then, time to venture into the great unknown.”