James blinked and looked around. "What happened to the graveyard?"

Eli shrugged. "I think it’s our fault. We beat the dungeon, I think, so it’s gone now."

The party chat came alive as they returned.

Amy: Eli! Where have you been? Well, I know where you've been, but what happened?

Eli: We were cut off when we entered the dungeon, but we rescued Simon here.

Simon: Hi, I'm Simon. I work in Finance.

Amy: Yeah, I think I remember you. Military looking guy, right?

Simon. Heh. Yeah, I guess.

Cruella: Welcome back buttholes. Way to leave us hanging.

Amy: Wasn’t there supposed to be a second prisoner?

Samantha: There was another boy, but he ran off. Didn't like us much.

Eli: The graveyard is gone now.

Amy: Oh. The cave dungeon is going to get really crowded.

Eli: So you found it?

Amy: Sure. It wasn’t hard when we knew where to look.

Eli: Great. We'll be back in a minute.

"Why aren't you in the party?" Eli asked James and Dana. "Juggling conversation and party-chat is a headache."

"We wanted to do different things, so we decided to split up," Dana said. "After we found that we couldn't follow you down into the basement, we've just been killing zombies and skeletons."

"You tried to follow?" Eli asked.

"Sure. The door was open, so we figured it was worth a shot."

"But it didn't work?" Samantha asked.

"It didn't work," James confirmed. "It was like an invisible barrier."

"Amy says you found the cave," Eli said.

"Yeah. The goblins showed us," Dana said.

"The goblins are back?"

"Well, with the peace established, a bunch of them showed up, actually. They hang out on the bottom floor and the first floor, selling stuff to us and buying items we find. It's pretty good," Dana said.

"I'm spending most of my money on health potions," James grumbled.

"I wanted to go past the easy part of the cave where everyone is leveling," Dana said, pointing at James. "But Mr. I-need-health-potions here didn't want to go without a healer or more potions."

The mention of health potions made Eli notice Zack was no longer in the party, nor was Irene.

"Where are Zack and Irene?"

"They wanted to go on and do their own thing. Both of them seem to have a real problem with crowds," James said.

"They left? Permanently?" Eli asked.

"Not permanently, I don't think," Dana said. "But they didn't return to sleep."

"What do you mean, sleep?" Eli asked.

"You've been gone for two days," James said.

"Two days? I thought it was just a few hours."

"It didn't feel that long," Samantha added.

"So, you want to join Ravenous Barbarians again now that we're back?"

James looked to Dana, and the two slowly shook their heads. "I don't think so," James replied. "We're going to do our own thing a little. Being in a party with a healer is pretty amazing, but we have to learn to fend for ourselves too. Found one of those books that gives you a profession. This one was called Healer. It isn't like what you guys can do with spells, but more of a field medic type thing. Just got to practice it and then we should be good to go."

"Cool," Eli said, looking back over at the Infinite Innovation Solutions building. "Alright then, you want a lift back at least?".

"Sure, thanks," James said.

Eli added them to Ravenous Barbarians before warping back to the office building with all of them. Dana immediately left the party once they returned, and James followed soon after.

Cruella: I'm really crushing the second level of this dungeon, guys.

Eli: That's great, Cruella. Can't wait to see the place later.

He turned to Samantha. "So, are you staying in this party, or are you going with James and Dana?"

Samantha looked at the backs of those two as they headed for the stairs, bit her lip slightly, and then shook her head. "They asked me over a message, but I said I'm going to stay here for now. That voice told me we should stick together. I don't give a crap about her or whatever, but I get a lot of experience staying here and Dana is kind of an asshole."

"Well, glad to have you," Eli said. "What about you, Simon? You want to stay too, or are you dying to get back to the finance bros?"

"Working in finance and being a finance bro are two very different things," Simon admonished. "But I think I'm going to stay here too, for now at least. The woman said I should protect you two, and I got the feeling she won’t be pleased if something happens to you. The significance of us each being a different healer specialization isn’t lost on me either, so I’m going to stick around and get stronger. I got three levels just from those ritualists, so I’m going to read up on how all this works."

"Pick Experienced as a talent. It's too good to pass up," Samantha said helpfully.

Simon nodded. "Thank you for the tip. I'll see you people later."

"See you later," Eli said.

Amy: Looks like you've leveled up quite a bit.

Checking the Party screen, he found Amy had reached level 20.

Eli: Same to you. Did you go into the cave with Cruella?

Cruella: She's been out hugging trees.

Eli: ?

Amy: I've been in the forest, taming animals and practicing my violin. It's pretty good experience and I have a lot of pets now. You told us to search for Solomon, remember? Zack was out here somewhere too with Irene, but he wanted to be left alone.

Eli: Right. Have you found him?

Amy: Not exactly, but my birds keep disappearing in a particular part of the forest, and I found more of those traps—you know, like the first one I got stuck in. Keeping my eyes open.

Eli: Oh, that's interesting, but should you really be out there by yourself?

Amy: I'm not by myself. I have plenty of animal friends here with me. Got a little hut and everything. It’s very calming.

Eli: You know that place better than me, just be careful. I'm heading to sleep. I feel like I'm dead standing on my feet.

Samantha: Same.

Simon: Now that you mention it, I am pretty tired.

Amy: Glad to have you back. And welcome, Simon. I'll talk to you later. Go grab some sleep.

Eli glanced over to a part of the bottom floor where a large clump of people were arguing and haggling with goblins, who had set up little stalls filled with items. He wanted to take a look, but was just too tired. First, he'd check on his progression, make sure he assigned all his available points, and then sleep for a week. Only then could he go back to exploring.

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Warping back up to the 13th floor, he found his trusty old couch empty, but he didn’t dare lie down just yet. As tired as he was, he’d probably go to sleep and pick something without really thinking again.

He’d been mulling an important question over, but decided to keep that one for last. Instead, he checked his stats, happy to see them having gone up quite a bit from when he started. It was time to finally look at the skills available to me in a calm environment, rather than the middle of combat. He had quite a few skill points to distribute, too.

The skills from earlier showed up showed up first:

Increase Max Mana: Maximum MP increased.

Bless: Increase a target's Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution by 15 points.

Cure Poison: Cures Poisoned status.

Cleanse: Remove all ailments, poisons, and curses from a friendly target.

Plenty of new one had appeared as well:

Agility Up: Increase target speed and reaction time.

Embrace the Dying Light: Add light damage to target’s weapon equal to casters Wisdom.

Flames of Judgment: Burn your target from within, bypassing external shields.

That last one was interesting. Other than using Light in The Dark to slam the orb into monsters, this was his first offensive spell not dealing light damage. Perhaps he needed it, but Eli decided against picking it. With the Harming Healer talent, that would have to be enough damage dealing capability for the moment.

He'd decided to embrace his support role. In the last fight, he hadn’t been able to do much. Despite having skills that could harm, it was obvious to him that Priest of the Dying Light was not meant to be a damage dealer. With everything happening around him, all these people needing his help, Eli wanted to pick skills that would allow him to help others and keep them in the fight longer.

Scrolling, he found a few more available skills:

Beacon of Light: Increased effectiveness of all buffs in an area around the caster.

Sacred Ground: Target ground to create area where Dark-based area of effect spells are nullified.

Pillar of Light: For the spell's duration (30s) the caster's spells no longer require mana to cast.

Active Meditation: Increased Health, Mana, and Stamina regeneration of everyone around the caster while the spell is channeled.

Light's Seal: Hold the target firm, keeping it from moving while the spell is channeled.

Silence: Remove target's ability to cast spells for the duration of this debuff (30s).

Plenty of interesting ones to choose from. Ultimately, he wanted to keep the ones finally having dared to leave the building going for longer. Helping everyone level up would ultimately lead to increasing everyone's chances of success.

To that end, he picked up quite a few new buff skills: Bless, Agility Up, Beacon of Light, Embrace the Dying Light, and finally Cleanse.

After that, he added Light's Seal and Silence. Both would've been life-savers several times already, and he saw many uses for them going forward. If he couldn't kill some mobs by himself, he could at least hold them and allow others to do the killing for him.

Eli kept some unassigned skill points, though, because he wanted to check the available talents list again before making his final decisions.

Two talent points were available to him and he selected Executioner with the first one.

Executioner: Recover 10% of max HP and MP when a target is killed.

Gaining Health and Mana whenever a mob was killed would greatly benefit him going forward. Eli figured there'd be a lot of extended sessions going forward. He just hoped he didn't need to do the killing himself. The description wasn't entirely clear on that point. Depending on Zack's availability, mana potions might become scarce too. Sitting around meditating all the time did not sound like a good way of spending one's time, he thought.

Scrolling the list of Talents, he found several interesting picks for his final talent point but landed on two options:

Buff Maestro: Increases effectiveness of all buffs.

Aura Master: Increases the maximum number of active auras by 1.

Eli did not have any auras whatsoever, but that was about to change. During his sessions on the couch, he found himself leaning more and more into wanting the multi-class option. Adding auras to his arsenal of available buffs would be a boon, to be sure. He'd seen how buffs from Dana's Bard skills stacked with others, working off each other in interesting ways. This would be his path to more power, more power for everyone.

After picking Aura Master with his second talent point, he went back to his Character Sheet and selected Add Class.

"You won’t mind, will you?" he asked, lifting his gaze, as if speaking to God.

In reality, he was addressing Light, but he got no reply from the mysterious woman who spoke into his head and created tutorial dungeons for him. "Didn’t think so," he murmured, turning back to his Character Sheet.

He skimmed through the classes again:

Healer

Bard

Mage

Crafter

Apothecary

Barbarian

Shepherd

Fighter

Peddler

Tinker

Rogue

Beastmaster

Commander

He briefly considered the Mage class for versatility, before selecting Commander and pressing Confirm. Nothing much happened, really, except his Character Sheet now read Priest of the Dying Light (35) / Commander (1). A few starting items showed up in his inventory, but Eli ignored them. His health increased a little, and he noticed the primary attributes for Commander were Wisdom and Constitution. Perhaps that'd help with his small health pool.

"Not really in the mood to wear a toga," he chuckled.

Three Commander skills were available to him at level 1:

Rallying Order: Passive skill making it more likely that those around you will listen to your commands.

Commandeer: Select one of the target's skills and use it for yourself.

This was the one they'd used on Samantha to force heals out of her. He wondered if it was possible to use it on monsters. That thought made the Skill Tree pop up, and he perused the different nodes to find some of them buffing the ability to do just that, answering his question. That would be quite powerful, he guessed.

The third skill in the list caught his eye:

Aura of Defense: Aura increases defense, toughness, and resistances of all those within its reach.

Just what Eli was looking for. Unfortunately, with only one aura available, the talent he'd just picked wouldn't be much use just yet, but that was sure to change once he leveled up a few times. He picked Aura of Defense, then attempted to select Commandeer as well, finding he couldn't.

Frowning, he tried to deduce the reason. "Oh, of course," he muttered, realizing. He was only level 1 Commander, so he could only use the one skill point. Perhaps one point per level was the maximum. But no, that didn't work either, since you were able to level up skills just by using them. Perhaps the skills were capped so they couldn't go higher than your class level?

Maybe that was it. Time would tell.

Before going back to sleep, Eli recast Aegis of the Dying Light on himself, then activated Aura of Defense. He didn’t see any visual change around him. It was a little disappointing, but the buff appeared in his status window, confirming it was active. You had to toggle the aura on and off, but it ran passively once activated without draining any mana or stamina. How convenient. Eli used the Book of Professions: Enchantments but didn't have any the energy to check what it did.

Character Sheet

Name: Elijah "Eli" Davis

Race: Human

Class: Priest of the Dying Light (35) / Commander (1)

Profession: Enchanter

Guild: N/A

Party: Ravenous Barbarians

Level: 35 (+70-82% Experience gained from Talents and Items)

Status:

HP: 2608 (2174 + 434 from items)

MP: 1794 (1294 + 500 from items)

Stamina: 39

Attributes:

Strength: 20

Dexterity: 20

Intelligence: 66 (63 + 3 from items)

Wisdom: 90 (65 + 25 from items)

Constitution: 30 (20 + 10 from items)

Charisma: 2

Skills:

Heal (Level 5): Heal your target a moderate amount of health. Undead type beings take double damage. Scales with Wisdom.

Light in the Dark (Rank 2): Summon an orb of pure light to illuminate your surroundings.

Lesser Cure (Rank 1): Removes lesser ailments, curses and conditions from target.

Meditation (Rank 3): Sitting or lying down increases mana regeneration by 300% after 5 seconds.

Sigil of Light (Rank 5): Place a sigil on the ground that lasts thirty seconds. All party members within its bounds are healed for a small amount.

Harming Light (Rank 2): Light in The Dark now damages targets on contact. Has a chance to apply status: Blind. Required skill: Light in The Dark.

Warp (Rank 3): Teleport yourself to a previously marked location.

Aegis of the Dying Light (Rank 5): Surround yourself in a protective layer of light that will absorb damage from physical and attacks.

Feast of the Dying Light (Rank 1): Create food and water for the hungry to stoke the dying light.

Turn Undead (Rank 6): Provides a small chance of instantly killing undead and demonic creatures.

Agility (Rank 1): Increase target’s speed and reaction time.

Embrace the Dying Light (Rank 1): Add light damage to target’s weapon equal to casters Wisdom.

Bless (Rank 1): Increase a target's Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution by 15 points.

Cleanse (Rank 1): Remove all ailments, poisons, and curses from friendly target.

Light's Seal (Rank 1): Hold the target firm, keeping it from moving while the spell is channeled.

Silence (Rank 1): Remove target's ability to cast spells for the duration of this debuff (30s).

Aura of Defense (Rank 1): Aura increases defense, toughness, and resistances of all those within its reach.

Talents:

Creature of Life: Max HP +100, Max MP +20, +12% Experience gained from undead + 12%, Proficiency: Staves, Proficiency: Cloth

Human Racial Benefit: 10% extra experience gain.

Experienced (Rank 4): 10% extra experience gain per rank (40%).

Harming Healer: Damage with healing spells (Toggleable).

Executioner: Recover 10% of max HP and MP when a target is killed.

Aura Master: Increases the maximum number of active auras by 1.

Equipment:

Tome of the Dying Light (+50% healed, +20% experience gained, +15% wisdom, +5% intelligence)

Simple Ring (+10% HP)

Ring of the Blessed (+10 Wisdom, +10 Constitution, Increased buff duration)

The Ruler's Crown (+10% Wisdom, +10% Experience gained)

The Ruler's Mantle (+10% Intelligence, +10% Strength to summoned creatures)

The Ruler's Staff (+10% HP, +15% all buff effects, +10% buff duration)

Quests:

Find and rally other humans from Earth (1/5).

Find your sister.

Solve the riddle and find your way.