[Initiating Character Race Transformation...]

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[…]

[Race will be changed from "Human" to "Ifrixian"]

[…]

[Feat gained from Human/Custom Racial point "Adaptability" will be removed.]

"What?" I shout into the darkness.

[Since your Race will no longer be Human, you will have to conform to your Race properly.]

"But, I'm a Blue Mage. How am I supposed to learn monster Abilities without it?"

[There is a chance to reactivate it by learning a monster Ability without the Feat. The odds are unfavorable, but still possible.]

I sigh, pausing for a moment of thought, "Is there anything else I can give up instead?"

[The only other viable point used during Character Creation is Minor Survival Craft. Would you prefer to delete this Skill instead Y/N?]

I cringe. Both have been with me since the beginning and both have been integral parts to the way I've been playing my character, essential pieces of my character. My eyes dart around the abyssal space, searching for an answer, a solution to this dilemma.

"Being a Blue Mage effects the activation of Adaptibility. What does it do without it the Feat around?"

[The wording of the Class description will change.]

[Piramis Blue Mage: Increase the base chance of learning a monster Ability to 12%. You are able to appoint the Apprentice status to one person. You may freely give the Piramis Blue Mage Feat to your Apprentice.]

"Hm…" I ponder. It drops from thirty to twelve percent, a big difference when fighting a boss or rare monsters in low numbers, but it still works. Of course, if I lose Minor Survival Craft and get it back it'll reset in Skill level. Well, the answer seems obvious, but still not easy to make.

"Alright, you can cut Adaptibility," I grumble to the darkness. "I don't lose any of the things I already learned, right?"

[Correct.]

[Feat Deleted. Race Updated. Please choose which new Racial Feat to add:

[Burning Soul: Add Fire attribute to unarmed, melee, and ranged weapon attacks. Learn Soul Bolt Spell.]

[Soul Render: Deal damage to target's MP with your unarmed, melee, and ranged weapon attacks equal to 1/5 damage dealt.]

[Phantasm Stride: 2/Day. Become silent, invisible, and intangible for 60 seconds. Charges reset at midnight.]

"Soul Render, please," I nod and smile to myself. Adding a third elemental option to my attacks might be useful, depending on the situation, but I already have a bolt Spell. Having a high MP cost backup bolt Spell is just inefficient. Phantasm Stride is good, but I already have Stealth and with the right equipment I can boost it up to Stealth II, not to mention I find my Blink Step/Assassination Skill that I can use multiple times in a day quite a bit more useful.

Letting me, a mage killer, choose a Feat that can help me drain the MP of my targets is like giving metal teeth to a hunting dog. A scary, flaming skull hunting dog that can appear out of nowhere, wreak havoc, and vanish without a trace.

"What about my stats?" I ask, shuffling my dream feet in the dark.

[They shall not be reset. From now on, the Racial benefits of "Ifrixian" will be: +2MP every level, Racial Feat (already chosen), and Arcane Sight (On/Off). Should the Pantheon decide that it is unbalanced, it will be modified at a later point.]

That's right. In this game, the Pantheon are the admins and the moderators. They get to choose how the world runs.

"So who got to decide on the new race? Was Dimitria one of them or did they all vote on it or something? Wait, who may I ask am I speaking to now?"

A robed figure materializes from the darkness, one I have met only once before and under less appealing circumstances.

"Azrael! Oh no, I didn't die in my sleep, did I? I didn't get the prompt for a revival."

The hood shakes back and forth slowly, "No, nothing like that. I did mention I am a guide of sorts. This is a just a rare opportunity for me to be involved in a racial transformation." He waves the sleeve of his robe and a hazy window appears, revealing my shirtless body lying next to a similarly dressed Victoria.

"So I'm not the first Traveler to change race?" I ask, stepping toward the window.

"There have been a few, but not as many as you might think. Plainly speaking, I have been involved in more Gender Change Quests than Racial." He waves his sleeve against the darkness and dozens of windows appear showing players in multiple situations. Some are fighting monsters, some are performing mundane tasks, a handful are just observing themselves in mirrors. All have contented faces that look like they've set down three ton burdens, finally free to do and be as they please.

"Do the citizens of Arc have the same opportunity as the Travelers in this regard?"

He waves the windows away, leaving only mine, "Quests are not normally available to the average Arcean. It is mainly through you Travelers the norms of this world are turned on their heads."

His words spark an idea and I force my dream self to use Arcane Sight, but a wave of Azrael's sleeve causes the robe to vanish.

[I would actually advise against that, lest your mind slip into an endless screaming eternity.]

My gulp must have been audible to him because I can hear him chuckle from the void.

[You are an amusing Traveler. Brave or foolish, I cannot decide.]

"Guess you gotta be a little of both to be one or the other, right? Say, got any advice on how I can help Sonasolaria? Figure I can ask a guide like you."

[Why ask me when you already have everything you need?]

I feel an icy hand push me into the mirror and my astral self falls upon my sleeping body, jolting me awake from my dream. The sudden movement startles Victoria who already has Ramona's violet sword drawn overhead for a chopping slice.

"What? What the fuck?" Her eyes are wide on me, still unaccustomed to my new visage. My hands shoot up in front of me in an act of surrender and she lets out a sharp sigh, "Oh. Oh fuck. What was that? What's wrong?"

"Sorry. Sorry. My Race officially reset and it must've woken me up. Sorry." She slips the blade back into storage and we both lay back down, Vic rolling to her side to face me as I do likewise and face her. The movement of the flames evident in her eyes as it seemingly calms her back into a half sleep. I chance a question while her guard is down, "Do you know anything about a being named 'Azrael'?"

She shakes her head and yawns, "No, why?"

I stroke her blonde hair and she fully relaxes again, eyes closed, "We can talk about it later. You go back to sleep. I think there's something I need to check up on now that I'm awake."

I kiss her forehead and slide out of the covers. Vic and I made a little nest out of our bed rolls, some pillows the villagers made, and the convertable top of the vardo. With all of my sensory enhancements I make the best security : so Dawn naturally stationed me in a look out point, Victoria volunteering to keep me company.

In the driver's seat I draw up a blueprint screen and go through my inventory list, thinking about what Azrael said to me in the dream. What could we possibly have that can match Sonny's energy needs?

"Man, when was the last time I cleaned these out?" I switch out my Bolt Ring for the storage one, but find it still only contained the Emergency Kits we put together save for a few odd Stalker parts. I wave the scythe like arms through the air, pretending to be a Stalker and remember my little acquisition. After swapping back rings, I withdraw my Clockwork Coast Stalker.

The little blue contraption sits motionless, waiting for its one word command. "Uh… dance?" I barely gave a second thought to what I said, but it accepts the word and begins a jig, wiggling and waving its blunt scythes in the palms of my hands.

In an act of instinctual curiosity, I activate Arcane Sight and my mouth hangs open when I see the light blue aura on the dancing toy. Something is coursing mana through the stalker. I need to know what powers it. I need to know what magic is controlling it. I need to know how to replicate it.

I set the bug down after commanding it to stop and look for one more thing in my bracelet. And there, at the bottom of the list, is the newest bit of loot, the Stellar Ore. Its the size of a large grapefruit, dark gold with the black and red veins, and a feint blue aura.

"This thing is leaking mana. But, will it be enough? Hold." I set the ore on the Stalker and it squeezes it with the flat sides of its scythes. "Thanks, you little coaster. Hm. Guess that's what I can call you, since you're a little Coast Stalker. Coaster." The glow from both of them meld together and become shades darker. A spark of energy transfers over and the toy shivers.

"Coaster? Aw shit, are you okay?" I grab the ore from it and put it away. Almost imperceptibly, the tiny mantis-like head turns to me and then creaks up and down. "What the hell? Are you… sentient?" It holds its scythes up in an open V shape, looks at each in turn, and then shrugs its tiny shoulders.

I grin at the toy and extend a finger to it. It meets it with a scythe and we perform the act of shaking hands, "Welcome to the land of the living, little guy. I'm Ardacen. Are you okay with the name, Coaster?" Once more it shakes its head, clicking internal gears to make what I think is happy noises. "Neat. Wait…"

Just like his gears, my own start clicking together and turning. I place him on my shoulder and return to the blueprint screen. I make several sketches and notes all around the center before tapping the empty space, "I'll wait to show this to Dawn and Rachel. Maybe they can cobble all of these ideas together into a more cohesive form."

Some time after I put the screen away, the sun has risen a few fingers above the horizon. The villagers of Ifrix are beginning their daily routines and handfuls of birds return, only to find that they are unable to consume the Phantom vegetation. I wonder how they'll be able to grow and if they'll need anything special. "Richter might know, he's the Farmer," I say mainly to myself, but a pair of arms snake around my shoulders.

"Good morning-- Ah!" Victoria releases me and jerks back suddenly as Coaster crawls up her arm.

"It's okay, Victoria. Coaster, she's good. You two be friends," I say, turning around to see him posing menacingly at her while balanced on her forearm.

"This… this is your toy Stalker?" Her eyes switch from shock to concern to amusement as he skitters up her arm, around her shoulder, and back down the other arm to her palm. "It… He's alive?" She withdraws her own, a gunmetal grey Ore Stalker. Coaster inspects the inanimate copy before looking at her questioningly.

"It was the Stellar Ore. Want me to charge your Stalker, too?" I ask, but she shakes her head and puts hers away. "It gave me a few ideas to solve Sonny's problem, but I'll need Dawn and Rachel's expertise as Tinkerers." I show her the blueprints and her eyes scan the notes and poorly drawn sketches.

She raises her eyebrows and nods in appreciation, "This might work. And you said the Stellar Ore did this to… Coaster? That's his name?" One of her eyebrows drops questioningly.

"He seems to like it. Right, Coaster?" I extend my hand to him and he crawls over, making my shoulder his perch. He nods his tiny head at her, "See?"

She smiles, kisses my forehead, and we both jump down for breakfast and to see if the others feel like early birds today, too.

"So, even though we can hold them we just can't seem to interact with them in any other way," Gorm explains, a frustrated growl behind every word. I hold my chin as we stare at a fist sized, pyramid shaped fruit with dark and light bands of red, its ghostly fiery figure sitting harmlessly on a table.

"None of us can even bite down on it," he continues, scratching the back of his head. He takes a deep sigh and picks it up, observing it from all angles. My Analyze tells me it's a Phantom deefor, a fruit of some kind, but since I'm not a Farmer or Harvester, Analyze won't give me any further details.

"Is a deefor normally safe to eat as is?" I accept it from him and he nods his head with a grunt before I bite off a mouthful of one of the ends. The taste is a mellow mixture of a juicy watermelon and a not so tart lemon. I can feel the liquid running down my bony jaw. Although Gorm accepted my new visage in stride, the act of biting into the fruit has him gasping in surpise, fanged mouth fully on display. "It's good," I say, tilting my head over to him and wiping my jaw with my forearm.

I hand the deefor back to him. He gingerly tries to continue eating the fruit and is pleasently suprised to find that he, too, is able to do so.

[Phantom Deefor heals you for 3HP!]

[Phantom Deefor heals you for 1MP!]

"What the," I exclaim when I see my small notifications.

"Normally, Deefors only heal you for a little HP at a time," he explains, spraying deefor juice everywhere. I shield my face and Coaster with my arm as he continues speaking and searching an upper corner of the ceiling in thought. "Looks like it also adds a partial MP boost as well. Oof! Hey!"

I jab my finger into his gut, "Is this new?" Although Gorm has always been a big soldier type, his body now resembles the stereotypical retired athlete who didn't remain active or vigilant of the kinds of things they ate. The bulging belly may be tough due to his Half Orc skin and under layer of muscle, but it never stuck out quite as much as it does now.

He glared at me with squinting eyes and then burst into a spray of laughter. Once more I have to shield myself from the deefor juice, pulling the hood from my tunic over my head and my mask over my face.

"Hey! Your flames are gone." He glances around my hooded head.

"Really? I don't feel any different. Is the hood catching on fire?" I can feel something happening to my head.

"No, your little friend just skittered on top and made himself at home."

Dramatic reveal, indeed, Rachel. Looks like I'll be able to have more fun with this than I thought. Gorm made me take several more bites of the fruits and vegetables before I left, learning a bit more about them.

One of the vegetables, a pale blue potato looking thing called a golinga, or Liar's Cure, was so bitter I had to eat another of the deefors to mask the taste while making my way to the crafting area. People supposedly use it to cure others from all kinds of illusion-based debuffs. "Blech. Did the programmers have to literally make the truth so bitter?"

Bad puns and breakfast aside, we continue our journey away from Ifrix and further down our path. Richter drives the vardo, Elsbeth plays immediate lookout, and Kona scouts down the road and gets overhead views on her broom.

Conner and Sonny join Dawn, Rachel, and me in the main workshop area, along with some of Dawn and Rachel's apprentices.

An older male and teenage female Human, both of which are sporting from-the-knee down prosthetics, must be Dawn's new Blacksmiths, based on their heavy aprons and thick looking gloves.

Two of the other three are lithe Saurion females with a new arm from the shoulder down each. The third is a little Lupine girl with a condition familiar to me, both of her hands were replaced. The shiny black metal seemingly matches her tan arms, light brown fur, and wavy, dark brown hair in a nice way, but not her grey tunic with the turquiose emblem of two crossed hammers, one much larger than the other.

"Lavina?" I ask the Lupine Faunus and she beams at me. "Aren't you a little young to be here?"

With a wide smile, her eyes dart over to her teachers, "Miss Rachel and Miss Dawn say, 'Like, don't ever let no man tell you what to do.'" My own eyes roll over to Dawn and Rachel and they both give her thumbs up for her perfect recitation. Still, I can't help but smile at her and offer her my fist. She bumps it, showing she must've spent some time with Richter as well.

"Alright, everyone," I say, clearing my throat. I bring up my blueprint screen, "Here's what we're going to do…"