[You have gained the class Court Jester]

“Did some random, all-powerful being just make a literal fool of me? I’m just going to say it, today is not going well so far.” A series of pop-ups floated in front of Ash’s vision, like those little squiggles in your eye but far more intrusive. He shifted around, but the messages remained in place. After some swift experimentation, he figured out he could dismiss them with a simple thought.

“Well, that was conveniently easy.”

Ash took a deep breath and sighed in exasperation before looking around the room once more. There was a second doorway off to the side, but he decided to double back to the library he’d seen earlier. Like most of what he had decided to be some sort of temple, there wasn’t much left in the library. However, in his first glance through, he’d noticed several books that were mysteriously well maintained.

When he made it back to the library, he carefully picked up the first book he could find that wasn’t rotting to pieces. The binding looked well handled, but otherwise in good shape. Flipping through the pages, Ash wasn’t able to read anything, which wasn’t surprising, but he didn’t even recognize the symbols. He glanced through the other five books; in one of them, the words were shimmering, symbols and signs flickering and changing form and function, sparking one of those notifications in his mind that was somewhat unsettling.

[You have discovered Book of the Polyglot. Your class allows you to use Book of the Polyglot. Would you like to use this ability book?]

“Polyglot, huh? So, some speak and spell magic, is that it?” Ash flipped through the pages, fascinated by the flickering words. “Sure, why not. Apparently I died once today already, got knocked out by a goddess, and learned that magic is apparently a thing, so screw it. Yes, use the book.”

The flickering of the signs sped up, changing so quickly they were almost a blur. Light began flooding out of the words, a bright white that threatened to burn his eyes but he couldn’t look away. His gaze was locked onto the increasingly bright light until it peaked and the coloration became a deep red that slowly shifted through the spectrums of color until it was a deep purple that reminded him of the mask he now owned. Finally, the light settled and Ash was able to blink again. He looked down at the book and the wording faded off the page.

[You have gained the ability Translation]

“Welp, hopefully this has a better affect on me than high school Latin class.”

He picked up one of the other books and was suddenly able to read the covering, sparking his Interface to respond.

[You have obtained Book of Fireball. You do not meet the class requirements to use this ability book.]

“So I can do close up magic and talk to people, but not set the world on fire with magic? How am I suppose to save the world without the fiery destruction of such a classic spell?” He shrugged his shoulder. “Oh well.”

He picked up the other books one by one and started to feel a little annoyed when he also failed to be able to use some sort of ice storm book and something called the Chaotic Reckoning. He wasn’t sure what that second one was, but it would have probably been powerful… or he at least would have had fun with it judging by the name.

He reached for the next book in the pile and received the notification that was still a little unsettling. It would take some getting use to the sudden motion in his vision before he stopped flinching.

[You have obtained Diplomatic Ascendancy. Your class allows you to use Diplomatic Ascendancy. Would you like to use this ability book?]

“What does that mean? Well, whatever, more abilities less problems, right? Maybe? Sure, use the book.”

Unlike the Book of the Polyglot, the pages of this new book started to bleed blackness. An inky waterfall started seeping out and pooling on the floor. When the pages were left completely blank, even the ink on his hands having splashed onto the floor, the black puddle rose up like a shadowy figure. It drifted in front of Ash, its hands stretching out and engulfing his face as he, once again, stood completely frozen. His eyes threatened to bulge out of his skull as the inky figure’s hands clasped around his mouth and flowed into his body. It tasted like death and ashes and threatened to gag and suffocate him. When he felt like he’d pass out from lack of air, the figure completely vanished inside of him.

[You have gained the ability Danse Macabre]

“All that for a dance ability? At this point, I really hope this ultimate evil is some high powered socialite I’ll be forced to wine and dine or I’m going to be useless unless I can find a rifle somewhere.” He turned to the final book. “Hopefully this last one is at least useful.”

[You have obtained Purity’s Might. Your class allows you to use Purity’s Might. Would you like to use this ability book?]

“Purity, huh? Well, hopefully this one is less unpleasant than the last few. But chances are it won’t be.” He braced himself. “Yes please, magic person in my head. Use the book.”

Contrary to the last book, the ink on this one vanished completely without so much as a trace. When only the slightly yellowed pages remained, they began to dissolve into a mist as white and thick as a cloud. When he was left holding nothing but the binding, the cloud floated around him, coating him in a cool dampness. He’d been holding his breath, out of trepidation from the ink creature, but after a moment, the mist grew denser and started to heat up, becoming steam more than mist. The increasingly hot vapor started to force its way through every pore in his body, burning him from the outside in, and threatening to boil him alive. The pain was more intense than the others and he couldn’t keep his mouth closed, opening up to scream once more. As he tried to do so, the last of the mist was sucked into his mouth, burning his throat and lungs until it was all absorbed.

[You have gained the ability Cleansing Mist]

With the final book finished, he dropped to the ground and rolled onto his back to rest for a minute.

“I really wish I knew what some of these abilities did. Translation makes sense, but I have no clue about these others. Supposedly they’ll help me save the world. The goddess… I’m just going to call her Morgan at this point. Morgan said my general actions would lead me to where I need to be. Well, where I need to be seems awfully politically oriented so far, and people do not want me to be responsible in a social situation.” He tried to take an introspective look at himself and his Interface seemed to pick up on his intent, bringing up some details about himself. A silhouette of a man appeared in the corner of his vision, all in green, highlighting his physical wellbeing. Underneath it were two bars for his mana and stamina, the latter of which was fairly low after the exhausting ability absorptions.

“Ok, so it’s think-to-act, huh? What else can we get out of it?” He thought about the most recent ability he’d gained and a description popped up.

[Cleansing Mist - Target is left in a clean and pristine state.]

“A cleaning ability? Still a little lame, but being the lazy person I am, I can see it being useful. What about some of the others?”

[Interface - power granted by a divine being. Allows for interactions with the world, providing hints and useful knowledge.]

[Sleight of Hand - (performer ability) Items within a limited distance can be teleported to your hand. Items in your hand can be teleported to a distant location. Items and destinations cannot have agency and must be within sight or in a known location for ability to take effect. Ability can fail if someone with agency exerts a stronger force on the target. Mana cost scales with the weight of the object and distance of the teleport. This ability can be used to access a personal dimensional storage.]

[Magician’s Coat - You have a dimensional storage.]

[Translation - (Storyteller ability) passive ability that allows the reading and speaking of any language]

[Danse Macabre - (Performer ability) You move with confidence and ease. You gain a slight passive boost to your agility, and your movements are silent. You have gained an inherent understanding of The Dance of Death.]

“Actually, some those sound pretty awesome. Dimensional storage? I get an inventory? No more hiking with an eighty pound pack? Count me in.”

He looked at one of the remaining books he’d left on the ground and threw all of his concentration at it, trying to spark one of his new abilities. Like with the Interface, it seemed to be inherently understood. As he concentrated, the book disappeared with an inaudible pop. The sudden weight in his hand was unexpected and he ended up dropping the book on his foot. He hopped around swearing for a moment until the pain settled. The little semiotic representation of his health taunted him as the silhouette’s left foot dimmed to a yellowish-green color.

“Alright, so that’s going to take some practice,” Ash said through gritted teeth. He concentrated on the evil, foot-hampering tome on the ground, but was prepared this time when the sudden weight appeared in his grasp. Holding it in one hand, he concentrated on one of the two remaining books and had it appear in his free hand, the weight straining his grip. With another thought, the books in his hands vanished again, reappearing on the ground with the third one.

“Ok, that’s pretty awesome. I can get use to that.” He snapped one of them back into his grasp, but this time, instead of sending it right back to where it had been, he concentrated again and the book vanished completely from sight. He looked around the room and couldn’t find it, having tried to send it to his storage space through his Magician’s Coat ability. Thinking about his storage space brought up a series of grids labeled as his storage inventory. The only thing sitting in there was a clipart image of a book labeled Book of Fireball. He popped the three books in and out of existence with his spell for several minutes to see the affect, but it barely even drained the little blue mana bar in his screen. However, the further away from the target location, the more mana it would cost. It was still a minimal amount, so he tried an experiment. Stepping into the hallway, he moved to one end and started sending and summoning the books from one end of the long hall to the other. It took noticeably more concentration and mana at a hundred meters, but he was very happy with the ability.

“I will never have to get up for the remote again… assuming there’s television on this planet. If all my powers let me become super lazy as the means to save the world, I won’t complain.”

He turned to his remaining abilities and thought about his Cleansing Mist, a simple incantation coming to his lips before he could reconsider.

“Be clean.”

A white cloud, much like the one that had spilled out of the ability book, flowed out of his hand and engulfed his body. The cool dampness coated his skin and new robe, settling in before vanishing completely. Rather than leaving him burning and anguished, he felt pristine. His skin felt tight and clean, and his robe smelled fantastic.

“Yep, I can get use to that one for sure.”

When he tried to concentrate on his last ability, Danse Macabre, nothing happened. He looked back over the description and noticed that it was a passive boost. However, he noticed that, as he walked around the room, his steps were completely silent. He ran down the hall, and rather than the slapping of bare feet on polished stone, his movement would be unnoticed with the exception of a passing breeze. He wasn’t sure what the ‘Dance of Death’ was, but he could figure that out in time.

Playing around with his abilities, something started to nag him. He pulled the inventory grid back up, looking at the three books that sat in there now.

“Where’s the masque? Don’t tell me I lost that already. What am I, a boot?” He went back to the temple’s dais room to see if he’d dropped it, but couldn’t find it anywhere. Looking inside himself again, he had a similar feeling about the mask as he did his abilities. Concentrating, he felt a tingle pass over his face and a shade covered his vision for a brief moment before his vision returned to normal. A slight weight settled on his face and he reached up to feel. His fingers brushed the familiar polished crystal that he remembered from earlier, the mask having been summoned directly onto his face. With another thought, it vanished again, his fingers once again finding flesh rather than crystal. Pulling up his Interface, he brought up a description of the mask.

[Infinity Masque - Storyteller and performer abilities are more effective and cost less mana. Provides a passive boost to user’s agility and speed]

Standing at six feet four inches and after years of painfully strenuous exercise and work, Ash would not have been considered fast or highly mobile. However, between the mask and the Danse Macabre passive, he was feeling surprisingly limber as he stretched out, easily touching his toes for the first time in years.

While exploring beyond the dais room, he found a staircase that descended down through the mountain. He found a few landings on his way down, but they were blocked, either from locked doors or crumbled down stone. Not wanting to risk one of those large chunks of stone coming down on his head, he continued down the stairs.

Eventually, the stairs ended at a final door. Making sure none of the infrastructure was going to immediately kill him, he pushed through the door and was greeted by the fresh scents of nature. After spending most of the day testing his new magic powers and looking for anything useful in the temple, the day was already almost done. Not wanting to be stuck in a strange forest at night, he decided to stay close to the temple for the night and get a fresh start in the morning.

When he looked out of the temple when he first arrived, he saw an expanse of forest that stretched for miles. Unfortunately, the stairs let him out on the other side of the mountain and there was only rough, rocky ground stretching away from his temporary basecamp. Looking around, he found a few dead shrubs he could use for fire kindling, but was without the means to start the fire. It wasn’t the first time he’d slept in these scarce conditions, but after testing his new abilities, his stomach was painfully empty. Scouting the area, he found a nearby creek that fed off the mountains’ runoff. A stomach filled with water helped reduce the hunger pangs a little bit, but, being unfamiliar with the local fauna, he wasn’t able to find anything that seemed edible.

Walking across the rocky terrain, the only sound of his passing was the shifting of pebbles that skipped across the ground and the clack of his walking staff on the rocks. He found a few smooth rocks at the creek, stashing them in his storage. Near the staircase leading back up to the temple, he found a comfortable place to sit and started practicing his Sleight of Hand ability. Taking out one of the stones from the creek, he threw it as hard as he could and tried to catch it mid-flight. It was significantly harder to pull the moving items to himself; even on a miss, he was able to pull the stones back to him so long as he could see them, but several of the stones landed and skipped across the ground until he lost track of them. Eventually, he was able to pull even the flying stones to his hand more times than not, but he’d need to keep practicing it.

He was about to get up and collect some of the stones he couldn’t see from his position when he heard the shifting of loose gravel from behind him. Immediately, he jumped to his feet and turned. At first, he didn’t see anything, until he noticed that some of the rocks were moving at him. Looking again, he noticed that it was a massive snake, camouflaged perfectly for the environment. Ash estimated it was probably about fifteen feet long with a body almost as thick as his torso.

“Sweet Jibbers Crabst, that looks like the snake that tried eat Ice Cube.”

Ash retreated back a few steps, his mask forming around his face as he snapped his staff into his hands, which he’d placed in his inventory. Realizing its ambush failed, the serpent slithered quickly across the ground, dashing straight at him. It moved surprisingly fast for its size, but only in quick bursts. Jaws stretching wide enough to swallow a pig whole, the snake lunged. Ash peddled back as his staff whirled through the air, clubbing the beast in the side of the head and momentarily stunning it. Though he was fairly informed in combat, he could feel his Danse Macabre ability influencing his movements and guiding his strikes as his staff lurched out several more times to smack the beast, each landing with a bone fracturing crack until he finally received a notification.

[You have defeated Chorus Mountain Snake]

The snake’s body disintegrated into black, ashen motes that disappeared into nothingness. The last of the motes vanished with a white flash that coalesced into a small, slightly opaque crystal that dropped to the ground and clacked against the rock. Ash snapped the crystal into his hand and inspected it.

[You have obtained Imperfect Mana Crystal - Quartz]

As the crystal sat in his palm, he could feel a slight electric tingling pulsing out from it. Unsure of what to do with it, he snapped it into his inventory.

“So, note to self, monsters are a thing.” The evening was getting late, so Ash decided that, to avoid any further ambushes, he’d sleep on the landing at the bottom of the temple stairs, since it had a door to close. “After the excitement, it’s going to take forever to crash out, especially on those stone floors.” Ash grumbled to himself as he went back to his temporary hideout. He shut the door and, in the darkness and despite the lack of padding, was asleep in minutes.