On the fifth day since receiving his class, Arn woke, rolled out of bed, stretched and looked himself over in the mirror. After long days of the constant hunger that seemed to go hand in hand with regeneration, and enough exercise to repeatedly rip and tear his muscles badly enough to cripple a normal person, he had lost 15 of his 240 pounds and replaced perhaps another 10 with muscle. Being honest with himself, he was still fat, but much less so, and his cheeks were no longer bloated. To his amazement and delight, some combination of regeneration and weight loss had cured his acne. Of all his attribute gains, perhaps most surprising and pleasing was 2 full points in charisma moving from a dreadful four to an almost average six. While fitness alone could only take charisma so far, it was obvious that more weight loss could add at least another point, and probably more.

Arn donned his “training shirt,” a leather jerkin that he seemed to spend 30 minutes patching every night, and Arn headed out, remembering to head to Elder Dannis’ house. Wonder what he has in mind. Skills? Be nice to work on something that doesn’t involve training to the edge of death.

Arn knocked, and let himself in. “Good morning Elder! Please tell me we are working on my skills! I could use a break from being a training dummy for the other students! Or at least tell Liara to train me on the sword! She helped me unlock Swordsmanship, but its at one!”

“Ha, ha, I can imagine your sick of being on the receiving end! Don't worry, I’ve lined up something else I think you’ll be excited about! Although it might not be a bad idea to pick skills first – lets do it! Start with the basics. You can’t pick skills unless you understand is what your class is for, yes? Sounds obvious, but so many idiots pick something flashy! Anyway, with no damage-based skill choices and being constitution-based, you are not going to be primarily a damage dealer. You will need to play the role of the Shield, protecting your party by occupying enemies’ attention. Right now, you don’t have any special skills to gain and keep the attention of multiple enemies like a Defender’s Taunt. And no one is going to want a Shield that doesn’t wear heavy armor and doesn’t have a problem dying now and then regardless! So your role will be Second Shield, you grab anything that slips through, or anything especially tough that you can separate out. That you don’t need attention from the party’s healer is a plus for that. With me so far?”

Arn paused. “Yes. Uh, I mean, I was hoping for a more prominent role, I do have a legendary…”

Elder Dannis interrupted Arn with a smack to the head. “Have I taught you NOTHING? A Legendary class DOES NOT MEAN YOUR DESTINED TO BE A HERO. If you think that, let me know, and I’ll cut off your fool head myself. When I was in the army, there was a young captain, Lanolin was name, something like that. Rich brat, but meant well. Anyway, patrol he led went bad, men started dying, he chugged all kinds of potions one after the other to try and save the day. Usually mixing and matching like that is just death, and if you get unlucky you might explode, go mad or worse. But that day, he rolled a legendary class, um … think it was called “Internal Alchemist.” Crazy damn class, by mixing certain potions he gained long lasting, powerful buffs. Take three weak potions, strength, speed and regeneration, swell up like a giant, heal like a troll, rip through your enemies, that sort of thing. But the class didn’t come with recipes, and he had more money then sense, tried every dang combination he could think of. Blew himself up, entire barracks actually; fool killed 100 men. Understanding me boy?”

Arn admitted, “yes sir. We have to figure out what my class can actually do and I have to keep my common sense. Got it.”

Dannis grumbled, “good. Not that I believe you have a lick of common sense, but we can hope. Anyway, Second Shield, it’s an important role, you’re going to draw too many enemies eventually. Second Shields save lives. Sometimes. Here is the thing though – contribution experience for being in a group that kills something isn’t enough. You’re going to have to kill things now and then if you want to level reasonably fast, and to do that, you need to do some damage. So those Holy skills, they are nice skills, folks will appreciate you having them, and the aura might even get you some monster attention. But they just won’t help you kill anything, or be a decent Second Shield. With me?”

Arn gulped . . . this was something he had been dreading after seeing the skill choices. “But if I take a bunch of death skills won’t the Holy Orders kill me on sight?” Dannis laughed heartily. “No, no, its true that some of the Orders will be able to sense you have death magic, but there are a lot of weird classes out there with some death magic skills, not to mention items using death magic. Who doesn’t want a blade with life drain? Well, they don’t, they think their shit don’t stink. They sense death magic, they aren’t going to buy you a round in the tavern, and may cause some trouble if they can, but they won’t out and out kill you."

Dannis paused. "So which skill? That Drain Life skill path, I bet that with a couple of points it becomes an aura, which would be an amazing skill, and might help you get enemy attention too. But anyway, one point in that sounds crazy flipping useless – you don’t want to be touching powerful enemies with your hands! Whereas that stun, Death’s Scream, that is guarantied to be handy, will help you keep powerful enemies away from your group and give you a chance to kill em. That is the one you need.”

Arn asked “is spending a point on a stun worth it when I may get Shield Bash?” Elder Dannis nodded, answering, “that’s a good one, but there is no guaranty it will ever come up for you. Besides, you can never have too many stuns. But we are getting off track, you are going on your first hunt!!!”

Arn hesitated, no longer quite as naïve as he was. “What is the catch? You want me naked and dipped in pig blood? I’m going to attract a swarm of something or others and blow myself up with firestones? Going to kill a whale from the inside? You have some insanity planned I’m sure.”

“You wound me boy. I’m not out to make you suffer. But your class is your class is your class, and the firestone idea isn’t a bad one. Well, it wouldn’t be a bad idea if you were a noble and farted gold, those things aren’t cheap. You know Taya and Mara are our newest hunters of course? They are camping out a tree stand, trying to catch a warg pack causing trouble for some of the eastern farms.” Arn sighed. “Great, wargs, my old friends. They like the taste of my flesh, I’m Tasty! So let me guess, I don’t get to sit in the tree with them, I’m bait.” Dannis chuckled. “You won’t be naked, you’ll have a sword and shield and you can kill as many as you can. But yes, you’ll be on the ground and they will be in the tree. Taya and Myra are fine hunters, but wargs aren’t stupid. They start getting shot at by humans they can’t reach, they are just going to run. Giving them something to go for…ok, call it bait, yeah, that is part of what your class is meant for. Just be careful, make sure you keep line of sight of the tree stand. Give the wargs time to take off your head, or consume most of you, that’s it. Nothing fixes that.”

Arn sighed. A legendary class. Meant to be warg bait. *&^#!!!!

Arn: Level Two Revenant

Attributes:

Constitution: 12

Dexterity 8 (+2)

Strength: 8 (+2)

Intelligence: 9

Will: 8

Charisma: 6 (+2)

Skills:

Block (4) (+3)

Death’s Scream (1)

Dodge (4) (+3)

Pain Resistance (4) (+1)

Swordsmanship (1) (+1)

Achievements:

Survivor

Tasty!