Compared to the black cat ruins, the glitchlings in this part of the country lived in squalor. While they had mentioned the glitchlings living under the city, they didn’t tell that these glitchlings shared their network of tunnels at least in part with the severs. While the water didn’t infiltrate their dwellings, the stench did. Kiresula felt like losing her breakfast when she clambered down the stairs. An enchantment on the door to the caves kept the smell away from regular people, but the glitchlings seemed not to have these kinds of luxuries. The air was humid and while the way to the glitchlings was easily findable by the footsteps and general erosion of the path and eventually, the din of a group of people, but Kiresula could only hope someone got her back out since this place seemed to be a bit of a maze. While she tried to remember her path, she was unsure as to how well it would help her in this place where the only light came from the holes with gridded cover through which the water from the roads flowed into the sewers. Eventually, she entered a cave and saw a group of glitchlings listening intently to an unseen person’s explanation about the classes of glitchlings. Kiresula quietly approached and listened, eventually, she saw the person who lectured the group of younglings: A tall, female glitchling, who often referred to ‘what the [cleric] taught’. The teacher was wearing threadbare clothes and she looked quite thin, as if hunger was her life partner. Her hair was long and badly braided, with irregular sized segments. As Kiresula quietly listened, the teacher looked at her, tilted her head in an unspoken question while keeping on explaining the newly available classes to her dozen of students. Kiresula shrugged her shoulders and made a gesture to encourage the teacher to continue. As a teacher, she would never interrupt another teacher’s class when said teacher had the rapt attention of her students. It felt utterly antisocial to her, to cause a teacher (she caught herself thinking ‘fellow teacher’, but realised this was no longer the case) the additional work of catching the attention of the class again, revising what she was was talking about before the interruption and only then to continue.

Eventually, the teacher finished her lesson by reminding the students to have a good mental image before asking the [cleric] for their classes.

Only when the students had left did Kiresula approach. “Hello, teacher, thanks for allowing me to listen to your lecture.”

The person’s confusion lifted upon hearing the voice: “Kiresula, you are, right?”

“I am, indeed. I understand that Mayana is here already?” she said.

She nodded: “Mayana is here, yes, so is Kju. I will lead you to them.”

“Please do!” Kiresula said.

As they were walking through the tunnels, the teacher, Arisha, told her about the recent changes. A few days ago, the first glitchlings received their classes and started improving their area. Lights lit up places which Arisha explained previously were dark and navigated by experience. The walls were covered in edible moss. Kiresula saw many glitchlings practising magic or combat skills. Some others were working on making meals and creating furniture and enchanting the walls with various functions.

Then, she saw a figure and ran towards her before her conscious mind had even recognised who she was: Mayana. Kiresula hugged her and gave her a kiss.

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Mayana had a hand on a dagger that was sheathed at her side, but upon seeing her wife, she shouted and hugged. “I missed you!”

Kiresula responded: “I missed you too! Every day was a torture without you!”

Mayana pressed her so close to herself that Kiresula could hardly breathe: “Yes, same for me. I couldn’t even sleep well. Haina was here and I told him to go away until he brought you! But for some unholy reason, it took much longer to release you than us.”

Kiresula held her tight: “He was here?”

Mayana nodded: “He was. He wanted us to come with him, but I said that I am not going anywhere without my wife.”

Kiresula and Mayana spent a lot of time catching up and caring for each other. Hugs, kisses, caresses and words of affirmation taking away the hurt they both felt. It turned the hard and spiky things in their metaphorical souls soft and bearable again. They talked about how their isolation hurt them, cried on each other’s shoulders and in general let out their feelings and supported each other, not in strength but in their shared experiences. While Kiresula normally tried not to let her emotions show or even didn’t feel them herself but instinctively pushed them down only to collapse later, having lived in almost complete isolation had made her not care about the presence of others. The other glitchlings tried to tactfully ignore the tearful reunion of the couple. Eventually, they got over each other and noticed that Kju looked at them with a smile. Kiresula also hugged Kju and asked: “I guess you are halfway to level 64 now?”

He grinned: “Halfway to the halfway point. I am level 16 now.”

“Lucky git,” Kiresula said, while grinning broadly, enjoying the banter with the [cleric].

“So lucky that I had a certain [Seferian Mage] take me on a journey to level up. Otherwise, I’d still be level 1,” he joked.

“Talking about levels, that [cleric], I think he’s called Haina or Ahina, wants to see all of you. He asked you to come tomorrow to the place outside of town where Kju waited last time.” another glitchling said. “He mentioned something about wanting to go on a dungeon run with you. Do you know something about that?”

Kiresula nodded: “Yeah. That was kinda how we got released: We agreed to work with him.”

“Released?” the glitchling sounded concerned.

Kiresula looked at the others: “What have you told them?”

Mayana responded: “Not much, we thought that it would be better if you would explain what happened.”

Kiresula explained the entire story about how they fled from the Holy Order all the way to Ilkshehir only to be caught on the last leg of the trip by mentioning a particular oddity about the changes in magic point costs of spells. How Haina offered the group freedom in return for service and how she helped to free Kedsel using the [Forbidden Fruit] spell.

The other glitchling seemed impressed: “Wow, I don’t even know a lot of regular folks who do the Forbidden Dungeon. I thought that glitchling classes and levels were just an imitation of the real thing, but you… you actually believe they are the same?”

“They are not. They are governed by a different system. They use different stats and different prerequisites to gain a class. They work differently, like, you can have more than one synthic class – and you don’t have the ranks in the traditional system. To me, they are the same in what they can do, but different in how they go about doing it. If it has the same skill ceiling can only be determined by two people with equivalent classes at the maximal level.” Kju explained.

The glitchling looked impressed: “Thanks for the information, Honoured [Cleric].”

Kju made a gesture as if he was wiping the formality away: “No need for such language. We are all of the same system!”