By calling himself a wizard Mark was galvanized into thinking in D & D terms and looked around and considered the others. He had a series of brainwaves and came to conclusions that might be something like the truth.

“This is speculative but I’m going to suggest that we might want to think of ourselves in terms of fantasy characters.” He started. “Jo, it seems like you are some sort of rogue. Emily I’m thinking that you might be a ranger or similar and I think Charlie is some sort of basic fighter. Mike if you have magic and fighting you might be something like a paladin, but you don’t seem to have any healing powers or feel particularly holy. Kajal on the other hand does give off that weird vibe that might be holy and that would explain why those creatures in the other cave don’t go near him. They always seem evil.”

Mark had blurted out his thoughts in a quick torrent and it took a few seconds for the others to catch up. Whilst they were doing that he continued. “If we think of ourselves as a D&D party, we have two front row fighters, a couple of back row types in Emily and me and then hopefully Kajal will turn out to be a healer. If we were doing a dungeon, then Jo would be hiding in the shadows and striking from behind.”

“Hang on a second.” Jo interrupted. “I don’t want to go round killing people by stabbing them from behind. I don’t want to kill anyone at all!”

“Well let’s hope that we don’t have to go into any dungeons, or if we do, we only have to fight monsters that you’re happy to stab!”

“Don’t be like that Mark.” Mike stated. “I doubt that you would be any better killing someone than Jo. Even if you did it with a fireball rather than a knife. Let’s face it none of us are killers. The most I’ve ever done is knock someone out and I doubt the rest of you have done that.”

The group looked at each other and could see that they were all pretty much in agreement of that statement. Although Charlie looked like they were fighting themselves to say something.

“Well, if this is some sort of D&D game, we need to gain experience to level up. If we visit a town or village, we might find trainers who can help us understand our powers. Normally you get experience by killing but Emily is the only one of us who has killed anything, and she doesn’t seem to have levelled up in any significant way.” Mark continued.

“So, what do you think is happening?” Jo asked.

Mark actually paused to think before replying. “I don’t think this game works like other games. Nothing is instant. We’ve grown just by being on this planet, but I think we need to experience new stuff and actually practice with our skills and strengths to get better. I don’t think we just get handed power-ups. The other thing I’m thinking is that we’ve all got abilities that fit our personalities and whoever decided we would be a group could predict them and thus created this group based on their predictions. Otherwise, everything is just too convenient.”

“What do you mean too convenient?” Emily asked.

“Well, if you were to design a group that could tackle virtually any situation, what would you want? You need someone who is a good fighter, preferably two so if one is out of action the other can step in. You need someone sneaky who can break into places and hide easily. You want someone who can heal and whilst I’m sure Emily would be good at basic healing with her vet training, wouldn’t it be better if we had some sort of magical healing? I’m hoping Kajal can do that. Then you’ve got me the energy manipulator. I have no idea what I’m going to be good for eventually but just being able to do that fireball is going to be helpful if we get attacked by a group of animals or something. Already I want to practice more, and I’ve got some ideas.”

“Well, if you are going to practice, do it away from us.” Said Charlie. “You might want to let your eyebrows grow back first!”

“Nah, if I’m messing with fire, it’s better to get that out of the way and then let my eyebrows grow back!” Mark said with a grin.

The group continued talking, although Kajal mostly kept quiet. The small man didn’t know if he had any powers at all and wasn’t ready to have anyone relying on him until he had some proof about what Mark had suggested.

“So why don’t I get any magic?” Charlie asked.

“Actually, I think you do.” Mark answered. “The thing is, that I think it’s all internalised. Now this is just speculation, but I think along with your height, you’ve also got stronger. Have you also got faster? Are you quicker to react? Can you see and hear better? Do you heal faster from a scratch?”

Charlie thought for a bit and realised that Mark was correct. “Yes, all of them.”

“So, what I think has happened is that for most of us, if this wasn’t a game then we would all have had growth in different sections of our brains. Maybe new sections have been added. But with you Charlie I don’t think you’ve got anything new; you’ve just got better. So, you’re thinking faster and are able to process more of what you sense. Hence the speed, reaction time and senses. Your body must also have grown stronger in some ways, or you would be hurting yourself. So, I’m guessing stronger bones and muscles and a faster blood system.”

“So why has Mike got all that and magic?”

“Again speculation. I think Mike doesn’t have as much growth potential physically as you do but because he started as that much bigger and more muscular than you it seems like he has made the same progress when he hasn’t. I know his magic sense is smaller than mine, which suggests that his growth is being split. That’s always assuming that we are all making roughly the same amount of progress but just in different directions.”

The group all seemed to agree with Mark’s assessment of what was happening to them. He had explained why they were changing and some sort of mechanism for the change, only longer experience would tell them whether what he had come up with was the truth or so much hot air.

Once they had taken all this on board there was only two real questions left. How could they make better progress and what should they do next? As they discussed this, they came to the conclusion that it would very soon be time to move on.

>>>

During his watch that night Mark focussed on the energy around him. He could tell that there were several types of energy and that this really didn’t fit with his understanding of how physics worked. Heat and fire that was easy to understand and that allowed him to form a heat map of the area if he concentrated just on that energy. He could sense the others in the cave behind him, as well as Julius and they gave off other energies that were similar to but not the same as the plants nearby. He was also able to sense to a smaller extent the movement of the air and the water in the stream. Then there were the energies held within crystalline formations within the earth and rocks around him. If he were to describe all these different energies to someone else, he would have to use the analogy of different colours or flavours of energy but there was no simple one to one correlation as many things contained multiple energies and sometimes it seemed like these energies combined and at other times they were separate whilst both being in the same object.

As he sat and concentrated, he moved his senses over to the cave that contained the creatures that regularly attacked but were equally regularly beaten back. He could sense that there were a large number of small creatures moving around. His heat sense let him know that they were probably alive, although they didn’t seem particularly warm considering that they seemed to be gradually gathering speed.

Mark gradually gathered heat from the surroundings and the fire behind him. However, this time he sent the energy to gather at a greater distance in front of him. When he felt like the creatures were starting to pour out of the cave, he sent the fireball racing towards them. Many of the creatures were able to get out of the way but he managed to hit a number of them. As the creatures burned, Mark could sense two different energies coming from them. One he decided was related to death, the other he could only describe as evil.

The remaining creatures all started to move quickly towards him. He tried to create a second fireball but knew that he wasn’t going to have enough time to gather enough energy to make a large one. He shouted out and could hear the others stirring behind him.

Leaving it to the last second Mark let loose with his second fireball whilst grabbing his weapon and a hastily lit torch. Although the fireball was smaller, the creatures had much less time to get out of the way and he could sense more of them getting burned and dying. There were still a number coming towards him and he swung his hands around to keep them away.

The light from the torch and fire didn’t show him anything. They had yet to see what these creatures looked like despite injuring many in the past. As he wildly swung his arms around there was a streak of movement from behind him and then his sense of the creatures started to diminish as something started to eliminate them. By the time the others emerged from behind him, there were only a few of the evil creatures alive and they were hurrying back to the cave.

Whilst they stood around and tried to assess the situation, Julius emerged into the firelight with something small and dark trapped between his jaws. He strolled over to Emily who was stood next to Kajal and spat out a disgusting looking insect. The insect touched Kajal’s foot and burst into flame.