I woke with a start and quickly opened my eyes only to find a familiar blindingly bright lamp staring down at me… Eventually I will learn to give myself some time to let my eyes adjust when I wake up in strange places. Looking around at where I am, I noticed I am in a similar hospital room as my first trip to this hospital. This time, however, there were two beds in the room. The second bed was filled with none other than the furry werebear that was my original doctor, the same one I had just saved. I am really starting to dislike hospitals.

‘hello John’ Eve telepathically greeted. ‘I am standing guard right outside of your door.’

‘What happened after I passed out?’

‘I finally let the doctors surrounding you and the bear get to you because I assumed your order to not let anyone get in your way stopped when you lost consciousness. They were amazed at what you had done and asked me a ton of questions, but I ignored them. They took samples and did a complete workup on Dr. Fuzzy and started giving him blood, but I wouldn’t let anyone touch you. They were extremely worried about retaliation for what we did to that centaur though.’

‘First, Dr. Fuzzy? Really? And second, he attacked us. We really need some answers… Could you please find someone that was asking questions and tell them I am awake and want to talk?’

‘Ok, I will see who I can find’

Having nothing to really do but wait, I just lay in my bed and think. All my knowledge of the magic world is theoretical at this point. I have been reading how to cast spells and control mana from a book, but I froze up and just sat there when a centaur started charging in my direction. I really need a mentor, but for that I will have to pass as a different class. Time for some quick research.

Ok, codex, can I cast the same spells as any other class?

No

... Well what about similar spells as another class?

Few classes have much in common with necromancers.

Well tell me what these few classes are in order of most to least alike, and I will see if I can manage passing as one of them.

1. Bloody berserker: A melee class that becomes overcome with blood lust in fights and uses strengthening techniques to increase strength and speed. Blood empowers you no matter where it comes from.

That is just like what the path of blood gives me. Why is it a separate class?

The Path of Blood and the Bloody berserker class are quite similar because the Path of Blood was created by a necromancer who was studying a Bloody Berserker and copying it to let him empower his minions.

So, plagiarism… of a magical class… into a single path of necromancy. Seems stupidly overpowered, but I already gave away the fact that I can heal others so that won’t really work. What’s next?

The next three closest relate to summoning and the paths of necromancy that you don’t follow; would you like to see them anyway?

Nope skip it, give me something I can use.

5. Soul Mage: A mage that uses the power of souls to help usher lingering souls into the afterlife. A soul mage can see and communicate with souls but can not force them to do something against their will as a necromancer can. With no power to force souls, Soul Mages make contracts like warlocks do for their demons.

Wait, I wanted to make contracts with souls, but I haven’t found any yet. What is the catch, what am I not getting?

As a Necromancer, souls will inherently distrust you because you have the power to bind them in slavery. A contract system where you bind your soul to your word might appease some souls, but most wont trust you because of what you are. This is why you have not seen any souls around anywhere, they run when they feel you near. The Path of the soul was made by a necromancer that wanted to enslave souls and put them into their minions. After studying the interactions between captured soul mages and their contracted souls, the necromancer finally succeeded after years of trying. Said necromancer basically copied all of the soul spells she could from soul mages.

Ohh. I feel like I should have figured that out on my own. Feeling dumb, I sarcastically asked the codex if there was anything else I should have figured out by now. It responded immediately and made me feel like whatever god(s?) had given this codex to me has been shaking their head(s?) in disgust at how little I had accomplished.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

Yes, you should have found out that you can increase your mana pool in several ways, none of which you have tried or asked about. You can feel and emit a threat level of sorts to project your potential power as a warning to enemies. You have learned almost no offensive spells when you have some you could theoretically cast. You picked The Path of Blood and gained enhanced physical abilities and superior enchanting capabilities but have not practiced with either one of these. Do you wish me to continue?

Nope, I am good. Please remind me about that stuff later.

Getting up, I walked over to the werebear and touched his arm. I was pleasantly surprised that from that little touch I could sense that his body was ok. Better than ok, it was doing great. Unfortunately, I was unpleasantly surprised that my light touch woke the sleeping man. He screamed. That made me scream. My scream made Eve plow through the doorway holding a certain glowing lance at her side. That made the door splinter (because opening doors is for normal people) and get knocked off its hinges with wood chips flying all over. This made both men in the room scream again while we heard more screams from outside the room.

__________________________________________________________________________________________

Ten minutes later with everyone calmed down and two large security guards leaving, I sat and started a conversation with the doctor. He was the whole reason I came here and was my only real contact to the magic world. He was also the only person in this hospital I had seen that was obviously a werebear.

He looked like a grisly bear but his face was slightly more humanoid shaped. Everything about him screamed half human and half bear. Hands that had little brown pads on them and huge claw like nails that looked to be neatly trimmed. He was the size of a normal bear (I think) but for some reason I didn’t think this is what a fully transformed werebear looked like. The codex quickly came up with the answer that this was a ‘Half transformation’ that only strong werebears could use. 

“So… Um… What’s up?” Social awkwardness might just be another power of mine.

“… Thank you for saving me. Though no one seems to know how you did it.” Hearing this I immediately began to word vomit at him an explanation. I was out of breath by the time I finished. People are hard to deal with.

“Well ok. That was a lot more information than I asked for. Why don’t you start with how you healed me?”

“Oh, I’m a soul mage so I used soul power to keep your soul in your body and force your soul to heal itself.” I lied easily there. It was close enough to the truth anyway.

“I thought soul mages were just legends. That is amazing! If only I could do that I could help so many more patients!”

“So that means finding a teacher will be hard?”

“Um, that is to put it mildly. I do not know if there are any soul mages alive currently. In legends they tend to keep to themselves and harness energy form their contracted souls.”

“Hmm, ok. Are you the only werebear here?”

“No, all of the staff here are werebears. I am just the only one strong enough to take the half form that I'm in right now.” He replied while raising one eyebrow at me. It is strange to see a huge bear like creature raise one eyebrow. I continued with my questions.

“What about books? Can I find any books about my class?”

“The only races on this continent that might have something like that are the different elven races or the Dwarfs. Dragons might also have some, but they would probably eat you before giving you a book.” I paled at his words. The codex told me dragons were born at a power level of 2 and reached the power level of 1 within their first century of life. They were the number one creatures on my ‘Run away as fast as possible if seen’ list.

“Hmm well what do I do now? I have no clue about the world and don’t want to get killed by some random asshole. Is there a governing body I can report to or what? Do magic races use different currencies and how do I make said currency… Also… I never got your name… and I know nothing about werebears…” After sighing the werebear began talking about the magic world.

“Well, my name is Arto and I am a senior member of the werebear clan. I can try to answer any questions you have, then you can decide what you want to do. The magic community in the Americas is currently in a feudal system with separate groups constantly fighting for land. Houston does not currently have a leader though… The previous leader was a lizard man and he was assassinated last week. The magic community here is in chaos and the centaurs are being incredibly aggressive. They are attacking anyone they think they can win against to steal their territory. Because of what your bodyguard did to that centaur, this hospital almost certainly a target.” Arto sighed and continued. “The werebears have been neutral running this hospital for over 200 years now. We treat any injured we can and now because that centaur was killed here we are all in trouble. You did not mean to cause trouble, but it seems that trouble has found you.”

I sat quietly and listened through his entire speech, and all I could think was one thing. I said it out loud.

“Well this sucks, and not at all in the good way!” Arto just looked at me and I reluctantly continued. “I guess I will try to help defend the hospital and all the werebears, but I expect to be paid well and for you to answer all of my future questions. You defiantly owe me one.”

“Well we will welcome the help, but I am unsure of how much help a strange soul mage and his extremely strange bodyguard will be. Either way, you can help heal the injured in the hospital. I really want to see how your healing works.”

I have no clue if I can be much help defending the hospital, but I need allies. I might as well try. What is the worst that can happen?