The ground crunched beneath my feet, no longer plain stone, but covered in coral. Earth coral grew underwater, but I couldn't think of these things as anything else. Intricate branching shells were glued to the rock, and taking out my torch revealed an array of bright colours, despite the darkness.

A few steps in, I took to the air instead. They were too densely packed to avoid stepping on, and unlike the hairy blob thing, I deemed them worthy of continued existence. I couldn't face the crunching as I destroyed them with my weight. A bunch of beetles expressed their displeasure at having to share their airspace, but nothing attacked.

From above, the landscape was even more spectacular. Things with far too many legs, or with no legs at all, meandering across the vibrant corals, all far more colourful than the greys and browns of upstairs. How ironic that all this colour was wasted in a cavern with no natural light.

I felt less sanguine about the environment when a ten-metre wide patch of the landscape bulged upwards in front of me, a swarm of small snake-like creatures falling off the sudden cliff. The cliff split horizontally and opened up into the biggest mouth I'd ever seen, but I was agile enough with my wings now that a quick flap was all I needed to avoid flying straight into it.

Okay, so there were some things in the area that still wanted to kill me.

Nothing responded to perceive presence, not even the thing with the ten metre wide mouth, so hopefully nothing would be an actual threat. I gave myself a bit more altitude, so as to better cope with any further ambush predators, and continued my journey to the site of the second village.

Unlike the first, there was something there; an ornate, triangular structure ten metres tall, with a central spire reaching triple that. It was decorated with the corals, and had large, open windows. Aside from the coral decoration and sheer grandness of it, the style matched the structures of the new town. Presumably, this had popped into existence when I had repaired the first shrine. Had this shrine been restored as a part of that then? Hopefully not; I wanted my class level!

I dropped back to ground level. The building may well be occupied, and flying in through a window would be impolite. The doors, of which there were three, one on each side, were as empty as the windows. Little more than decorated stone arches with no method of closure.

It was indeed occupied, by three of the many-armed blobs, all wearing a scent I'd never smelled before in the villages or town. They still weren't wearing actual clothing, though, so I was once again treated to the sight of pulsating internal organs. I stored my torch back in my item box to save myself from needing to look at them.

They were gathered around a central pedestal that stood completely empty.

New side quest: Make an offering to the destroyed shrine

You have entered a sacred place, but the shrine that should be present here has been utterly annihilated by those who would contend the will of the Goddess. Make an offering to recreate the shrine and restore her blessing to this land.

Clear conditions: Sacrifice mana crystals worth a minimum of 200 mana to the destroyed shrine.

Reward: Gain one class level

Perfect.

No, not quite perfect. The overly-limbed blobs seemed quite upset at my presence.

"ttylkkyxxzk," gargled one, freaky mouth-arm pointed right at me.

"Yeah, I still don't speak your language," I replied. "I'm not even sure I can. I'm pretty sure my vocal cords can't do that."

If the base cost was two hundred instead of one, did the other milestones change too? The last shrine had still given me a bonus reward for five hundred, but maybe the higher ones shifted? I really wanted to offer up a thousand, in the hopes of getting a third class, like had happened in the catacombs. The stones I'd collected from these blobs didn't go that high, but maybe I could offer more than one at once? Or I could just use the one from the dragon upstairs, which was worth somewhere over six thousand. It seemed that casual insanity was the trademark of dragons in this place.

Well, why not? And from the mana build-up I could detect from the trio of blobs, it wasn't as if I had long to decide. Proficient empath informed me of a cold indifference. They weren't angry at me, or showing hostility; they seemed to think I was just a random creature from outside who had wandered in. Without a barrier, it probably happened often. I couldn't communicate with them or understand them, and was, by their definition, naked, so I couldn't blame them for jumping to conclusions.

Side quest complete: Make an offering to the destroyed shrine

For making an offering worth more than 500 mana, additional reward granted: A strengthened barrier provides healing and restoration to all within its domain.

For making an offering worth more than 1000 mana, additional reward granted: You have gained one new class slot.

For making an offering worth more than 5000 mana, additional reward granted: Level cap increased by one.

The trio of blobs made some very interesting noises that proficient empath helpfully informed me were gasps of surprise, before all three were blasted away from the still-forming statue, striking the walls with wet thuds as their half-formed magic shattered.

"Really?" I complained at the shrine, once the cloud of dust had condensed into the traditional Goddess' statue shape. "I've had people trying to capture me, experiment on me, mutilate my soul, and the barriers didn't react. Now there's a few poor priests just trying to defend their temple, and you do that to them?"

These barriers really were a mystery. I was fairly sure they reacted to killing intent towards me, and the mages had got through because they didn't want to kill me. Wanting to wipe my memories and keep me alive and protected forever, while ensuring I never completed my quest, didn't count as sufficiently hostile. That couldn't be the full story, though. Sometimes, I felt like the Goddess was watching from heaven somewhere, tossing a coin to see if the barrier would react or not.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Continuing to mutter at the unfair statue, I helped out the blobs, who were pinned to the wall, unable to move, by dragging them to an entrance arch, where the barrier shoved them out of range, about twenty metres distant from the temple. The blobs might need to find some new priests, since their current ones got banned. Oops. Perhaps I should have tried harder to explain myself first?

Filing the blobs away under 'not my problem', I took back to the air and aimed myself at the former location of the evil tree while celebrating my rewards. Not just a level and a new class slot, but an increase to my level cap! I didn't even know I had a cap, although what would have happened after level ten, with all my skills enhanced and no empty slots, I had no idea.

First, should I enhance mapping or fast travel? Mapping could get me live updates of remote locations and enemy tracking. Fast travel could let me teleport between arbitrary points instead of only from shrine to shrine. Mapping was more likely to give a useful upgrade, and probably a bigger upgrade since I'd gained it at level two, compared to five for fast travel. Fast travel had greater potential for being amazing if the upgrade was good, but it could equally make little difference.

I decided on fast travel, because the chance of being able to jump between arbitrary locations was too good to pass up.

Skill enhanced: Fast travel

You can move instantly between spawn points and shrine locations.

Hey, I've been had! That hadn't even changed! The shrine locations bit was new, but shrine locations were my spawn points. Did it imply that I could jump to destroyed shrines now? Or shrines I hadn't yet visited? I'd need to try it out, but my dreams of instant, unrestricted teleportation were shattered.

While I may have made vast improvements in my aerial dexterity, I still wasn't up to reading my skill list or browsing new classes while in mid-air, so I continued my journey to the cavern's centre. There was no cloud of miasma this time, nor any sign of my body being attacked by disease, so hopefully the way down would no longer be blocked.

A hundred metres away from the staircase, the sea of corals abruptly ended. A few metres beyond that were a ring of marble pillars, supporting nothing, but simply poking four or five metres into the air. Presumably, they delimited some sort of boundary.

I dropped down for a landing and walked towards the staircase on foot. Or at least, where the staircase should have been. There was indeed a tree, and rather than sitting nearby, it was now directly over the exit. On the bright side, literally, it wasn't the same sort of plant as before. What had previously been black, scorched bark was now shining with its own golden light, which broke and shimmered in a hundred iridescent colours when the light from my torch caught it. It was still leafless, but that no longer made it look creepy. Now it looked like it wasn't supposed to have leaves.

"I greet you, chosen hero of the Goddess," it said.

"You can talk?!" I responded, the retort slipping out before I considered that its predecessor wouldn't stop talking. Or monologuing. Or monologging. No, not monologging; that's even worse than dupliKatie.

"I can indeed talk," replied the rainbow tree, sounding mirthful. Or at least, mirthful was my best guess, given that proficient empath was telling me nothing, and reading the emotions of trees wasn't exactly part of my Earthen skill set. "For millennia have I guarded the passage to the abyss, keeping imprisoned the demons that dwell there. Do you now seek to pass this way?"

"Not right this second, but I'll need to soon," I answered. I didn't want to jinx things, but the tree seemed friendly. I couldn't help but be curious, though. "Out of interest, has anything happened recently? Say, over the last few days? A demon invasion or something? Maybe a giant black dragon?"

The tree chuckled. It didn't even sound strange; a completely normal bit of laughter, with just a touch of incongruity from the fact that it was coming from a tree. "Nay. The demons know better than to attack. There has been no activity here for centuries."

This wasn't quite like the spider queen. She'd popped up and accused me of killing her kids, despite that happening before her own appearance, but this time, the previous war seemed to have been completely erased from history. The Goddess really didn't seem to believe in consistency.

"And, when I do want to travel downwards, you'll let me? No surprise quests, attempted murder, or perverted bondage games?"

"Bondage games? Whatever sort of hero has the Goddess picked this time? But no, I shall do the duty that is required of me."

That was an interesting snippet of information. "This time? There have been other heroes?"

"Of course. One comes along once every few hundred years. They never stay long, but things are never boring while they're here."

Was that real? But she obviously remembered a different yesterday from the one I'm pretty damn sure really happened. She'd only just started existing! Were all her memories fake, or was there any truth to the older ones? No-one else had mentioned other heroes visiting before. Besides, wasn't this entire world new?

And why did I immediately start thinking of this tree as a she? She's a tree! Were rainbows female?

"Thank you for the information, and for not immediately trying to murder me like most of the things I've met here."

"You're welcome, little hero," answered the tree, laughing again. Well, I'd take a mirthful tree over a murder tree any day.

It would be worth a longer conversation in the future, but now that I was back on the ground with nothing trying to kill me, it was time to finish looking over my upgrades. How had my status changed this time?

Name: Katie

Primary class: Princess of undying laughter (level 9)

- Class skills -

Trigger respawn

Item box {Enhanced}

Mapping

Appraisal {Enhanced}

Resistance focus {Enhanced}

Fast travel {Enhanced}

Secondary class: Aberrant monster tamer (Level 4)

Improved silk

Draconic breath (red)

{empty} [+]

{empty} [+]

{locked}

Tertiary class: None {locked}

- Combat skills -

Unarmed dabbler: Level 5

Proficient dodger: Level 18

Spear proficiency: Level 16

Proficient blocker: Level 20

Dagger proficiency: Level 15

Sword proficiency: Level 19

Proficient parrier: Level 11

- Resistance skills -

Friend of fear

Pain immunity: Level 33

Poison immunity: Level 34

Corrosion immunity: Level 31

Disease immunity: Level 40

Mind magic nullification: Level 27

Heat nullification: Level 30

Light tolerance: Level 4

Cold resistance: Level 20

Curse nullification: Level 25

Soul magic resistance: Level 14

Spatial magic tolerance: Level 2

Suffocation tolerance: Level 4

Earth magic tolerance: Level 2

Blunt damage resistance: Level 20

Piercing damage resistance: Level 20

Cutting damage resistance: Level 20

Void tolerance: Level 2

- Crafting skills -

Improvisational artisan: Level 15

Artistry: Level 4

Mining: Level 5

- Scouting skills -

Proficient stealth: Level 13

Perceive presence: Level 10

Proficient empath: Level 10

Sense danger: Level 6

- Magic skills -

Perceive mana: Level 10

Bend mana: Level 6

What? Why was my third class locked?!