Gimble and Ford tumbled through the portal, followed by Sunny, and Ford yelled, “Lilly! He needs help!” Lilly jumped to her feet from where she sat and ran to Gimble’s side.

She gently placed her hands on his hand and pulled it away, “Gimble, show me yer eyes,” Lilly said softly. Gimble nodded and pulled his hand away, revealing the scratches and the empty bloody sockets where his gentle blue eyes once were. Lilly grimaced at the sight, closed her eyes, and cast a spell. Soft blue light emanated from her hands, and Gimble’s eyes reformed in their sockets good as new.

Lilly looked down, letting her hair fall over her face, “There ye go. Good as new,” Lilly said cheerily.

Gimble waved his hand in front of his face and smiled a wide idiotic smile as he exclaimed, “I CAN SEE!!” then he embraced Lilly in a massive hug.

Suddenly being embraced by the muscular Giant startled her, and she said, “Alrigh’, big man. Alrigh’, ye can let me go now,” Gimble let go as he was told and stood to hug everyone else. Lilly didn’t move; she still looked down at the ground. Ford leaned over and saw a couple of drops of blood fall from her chin and land on her green dress.

Ford scootched forward and asked, “Lilly, you’re bleeding. Are you alright?”

Lilly jumped slightly and turned away from Ford, “I’m fine. Why do ye ask?”

“I saw you bleeding. Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Sure, I’m fine. Don’ worry abou’ me.”

Ford felt a knot grow in her stomach, and she grabbed Lilly by the shoulders and forced her to look into Ford’s eyes. Then she let go and backed away, “Lilly, where…what happened…how?”

Lilly stared back at Ford, blood streaming from her empty eyes, “I’m sorry,” she whimpered out, and everyone else stopped what they were doing and turned to Lilly.

“What happened?” Ford asked again.

Lilly continued to cry bloody tears as she tried to elaborate, “The spell tha’ replaced absolute heal is called replaced. The caster gives up the par’ of their body tha’ will fix the other person. So, I gave my eyes up for Gimble,” Lilly broke down in tears, crying blood.

Max came to her side and embraced Lilly, consoling her. Ford just stared at her in shock and awe at the fact Lilly would give up so much for them. Then a terrifying thought occurred to her, “Lilly, where is Wrath?”

Lilly looked in Ford’s direction and gave the weakest smile Ford had ever seen, “Is this wha’ it’s like in yer head? In constan’ pain? She never stops screamin’. It never stops.”

Ford felt horrified and ashamed that Lilly was the one in pain instead of her. One thought and only one thought ran through her mind, ‘I have to heal her,’ then she opened her Yggdras system and went into the healer skill tree.

Healer selected. Select route; combat medic, savior. Savior selected. Skills: repair bones, cure, mend flesh, absolute heal. Ford immediately put points into mend flesh and received a notification. Unable to allocate points into mend flesh, skill interferes with regeneration. She cursed and tried several more times; she received the same notification each time.

Ford stood and screamed, driving a fist into the stone wall behind her over and over, again and again. Her bones breaking with loud cracks, flesh and blood smearing the wall with gore. ‘I need to help her! I need more power! I need her!!’ she had this last thought as a sharp pain struck the side of her head, and she collapsed unconscious.

***

Parameters have been met. Essence required. Testing. New essence acquired. Life essence acquired. Air, Dark, Blood, and Life essence used. Essence succeeded. Parameters have been met. Error. Insufficient data. Acquiring data. Data acquisition will complete in twenty-nine minutes and fifty-nine seconds. Fifty-eight, fifty-seven, fifty-six.

***

Tanashi stared at the screen with pure amazement on his face, “Did she just-?”

Samael took a sip from her goblet of wine and said, “Told you she had potential.”

“Yes, but creating a Grimoire and two powerful sub-classes is unthinkable!”

“Well, start thinking it,” Samael said smugly.

Tanashi began biting his nails nervously and said, “I don’t like what I’m thinking.”

“What? Are you scared, little Tanashi?” Finn said mockingly.

“Shut up! You can’t even make a boss fight, right!”

***

Three, two, one, zero. Data acquired. Parameters met. Evolving. Evolution complete. New sub-class: Greed. The Greed mages take power for themselves and never let anyone else have them; only the genuinely greedy will kill an army to save one life. Ford awoke with a pounding headache and a notification. She read the notification and silently cursed to herself.

Greed class created. Quest: fill the Grimoire; reward: a unique piece of equipment of your choice, plus two-thousand EXP. Quest complete: fill the Grimoire; reward: a unique piece of equipment of your choice, plus two-thousand EXP. Redeem the unique equipment at any time.

She looked around the room, seeing that everyone was napping against the wall near her, so they didn’t accidentally start the boss fight. The room itself was un-exciting and dark with stone floors and walls. Ford opened up her Yggdras system and looked at the new selections.

Select Class: Labor, Assassin, Mage, Archer, Beast-master, Warrior, Sin, Angelic. Sin selected. Select class: Berserker, Fox. ‘Fox?’ Fox selected. Select route: reversal, borrowed, taken. Reversal selected. New skills acquired; skill: undue: cancel a spell or skill after it has been cast as though it had never happened; cost: double the spell or skill’s cost; level: zero of five.

Skill: lock; lock the last spell or skill cast for ten minutes; cost: double the spell or skill’s cost; level: zero of five.

Ford ignored the skills for a moment and went into the taken route. New skills acquired; skill: Fox dreams: tap people in an endless illusion until you decide otherwise; requirements: INT: twenty-five, AGI: twenty-five; cost: two-hundred mana per second; level: zero of five.

Skill: sleight of hand: take an ability or skill point from someone else; requirements: SOL: twenty, AGI: twenty-five; cost: ten-thousand mana; level: zero of one.

Skill: copycat: copy any skill a person has in their skill tree; requirements: PER: twenty, AGI: twenty-five, SOL: twenty; cost: same cost as the skill you copy; level: zero of one.

Skill: ravage: take someone’s skill and ability points until they have zero stats; requirements: SOL: fifty; cost: ten SOL points per stat; level: zero of five.

Skill: Fox den: take a person’s class and undue anything they did with it within the past five hours; requirements: SOL stat must be higher than the other persons; cost: ninety-nine percent of HP, MN, and STM bars; level: zero of one. Warning; HP, MN, and STM bars will not regenerate for one hour.

Ford put one point into Fox den and copycat, then closed her stat screen, ignoring the level-up notification. She then made her way over to Lilly, who lay sleeping against Gimble; Lilly twitched and shivered in pain as though she was in a nightmare. Ford shook her awake, noting the strip of cloth over her now vacant eyes. “Lilly,” Ford whispered, “It’s me, Ford. I think I have a way of helping you.”

Lilly shook her head, sobbing, “I don’ think you can. It won’ stop. Ford, it won’ stop.”

Ford pulled her into a close embrace and whispered, “Don’t worry. I am here,” then she cast the spell, Fox den, taking Lilly’s Angelic class from her. Gimble woke with a scream as his eyes were again taken, and he woke everyone up, and Ford passed out as all her stat bars hit one.

***