[System: congratulations Shapirith for reaching level five, you may now choose your class]

The avian Player already knew her class will be Pilot, she worked to build the first dwagons and the deluge of new classes being taken over even legacy avatars was crushing old guild politics under the steaming wheels of the revolution, that was the dream.

Right now she was going to fly her own dwagon for the first time, they added another wall to the vault surrounding the workshop area and airfield, equipping her helmet gave her a double HUD that was hard getting used to.

The fastest xp in the game came from mounting a cannon post on the vault wall, the mountain kept a steady supply of giants to shoot at, catching a good wave could pass you to class level in a single afternoon and though everyone shared the other duties as well, jealousy of the security guys that got the first promotions was the main reason why she, as head of human resources was among the last to get it, but she already had her own biplane after taking a few extra shifts in engineering to complete it.

Patting her steam blasters and climbing to the pilot seat she messaged the main computer to start feeding the boiler, whistle and shakes told her she was ready even before her HUD lit up, touching the controls and grabbing her nav sticks she ran the final tests.

Pulling up was a thrill of thunder and steam whistles, leveling at five hundred meters and looking at the ant farms below.

Spotting a group of marauding giants she aimed her steam powered machine gun and strafed them, killing three instanty and scattering the others, a few twists and curves got the last one down and her fuel reserves low so she turned back, gaining only two levels in the span of five minutes combat and twenty minutes of the most fun she ever had in the game.

Going back to the vault's main keep she couldn't help but smile looking at all the different races walking around everywhere, once the kids realised they didn't have to pick a Human or die at the spawn they chose everything else, the few giants were a problem at first because of the common monsters in the region but Allen's paint jobs fixed that.

By age of fifteen Nariza was at the absolute top of the food chain, but that only meant more responsibilities for the level seven pilot and she went to her office, smiling to her satire secretary and entering to start going through her paperwork, not literal papers just lists in her HUD of applications, demands and requests.

Her first priority was for her own people so the requests got processed first, from shift changes to a few internal disputes including one incident that required special attention.

"Klimor call Aduma and Brond to my office please", she rang to her secretary.

"Yes meeam", she liked the sound of his goaty voice.

Passing most of the demands to the other departments she started scanning the applications when Aduma charge through her door followed by a flustered Brond and a stranger.

"This is an internal affair maam", being polite was in the job description, "i need to ask you to leave"

"I will not leave my children to ruin their lives in your silly playacting", the woman splattered.

"I understand", Nariza replied, "and how can you be convinced that they are not", pause, "in fact", locking stares with the woman, "ruining their lives?"

"I just want them to return to the guild" sounding desperate, "we promised to look after them in the game"

"When they reach level fifteen there should be no problem with them joining your guild", checking her schedules, "that would be next tuesday at the most"

"But they can't join the guild looking like this", the woman looked disgusted at the avatars, "they are monsters"

"I assure you maam that we remove all behavioral suppressant from all our avatars" was the only answer prejudice will meet at the vault for as long as she was in any position of power.

"You children don't understand", she tried desperately, "there are monsters everywhere", looking at her children, "starting from level one is hard enough without self imposed handicaps"

"Did you ever kill a goliath maam?", the stranger shook her head, "how many giants did you kill on your shift yesterday Aduma?", knowing it was an unfair question didn't stop Nariza from pounding the hot iron.

Looking at her display, "twenty one", the girl answered eliciting a shocked stare from her mother, "its a lot of fun in the armedrillo".

"Why don't you guys show your mother our compound", taking a visitor's pass from her inventory, "and amswer any questions she has" taking advantage of the shocked silence to lead the trio away.

"Thank you miss", the mother said almost to a closed door.

With one more duty for the day she checked the time and asked Klimor if Allen could meet her earlier for his class session, though she loved her previous avatar, the class passive skills were sometimes quite a burden, but she was still the resident expert on the whore class and thus demanded to be allowed to train Allen in its secrets and intricacies, only after she assured them sex was not a requirement did the others relent.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

"Your father is here again", Klimor called after a few minutes of blissful silence, "may I send him in?"

Sighing, "yes", this was her responsibility.

"Welcome father", meeting him at the door was an honor he didn't appreciate but expected anyway.

"Good afternoon" looking at her from head to feet and crooking his face, "Shapirith" he finally said, "congratulations for attaining your class", clearly a bitter pill for him, "when are you coming back home?" Getting to the point, "your mother is very worried about you"

"The new compound is nearly finished", knowing this was not what he asked for, "we will move there sometime in the next month"

"You cant live in a coffin for a month", the words shot like bullets, "why not come home and talk to us?"

"You lied to me papa", steeling her voice, "mama lied to my face" she still couldn't believe it when she woke up sweating at night, "it hurt me more than what the bandits did", her lower lip trembled, "all the time I told myself at least in the real world someone still loves me for me", nose crinking, "and then you lied to my face when I needed you because of an avatar and guild prestige"

"We only want what is best for you", his voice got softer, "will you at least call your mother so she knows you are doing ok?"

"I will consider it", she was on the other side of this particular conversation many times in the past few days, "it really hurt when she lied to me like that", mitigating tears in broken families with children reluctant to contact their relatives after giving back the legacy avatars they suffered so much to save.

"I appreciate this", he finally said, "I feel this is an abuse of my standing both as the guilds' representative and your father", looking aside, "please talk to us when you have the time"

She couldn't bear it any more, hugging him was everything she wanted when her friends were dying for the amusement of some sick old men and now she was denying it from herself over principles.

Reaching forward she touched his shoulder and when he turned to her she tripped on the carpet and fell into his arms, he caught her out of breath, "low level avatars don't have any balance with their low dexterity", chuckeling at her joke but still holding her for another minute, "you are always welcome to my office papa", she wiped her eyes, "I will call mama when I log off"

"Why not log off right now?" He wondered.

"I still have duties today", smiling at his surprise, "my job is important to me"

"I don't know how he did it but your Allen is a miracle worker", smiling back at her, "remember sometimes you're still just a kid"

"Quoting me will get you far in the vault", teasing him, "but maybe not that particular line", she walked him down the hall where Klimor was casually talking with two security personel in their mecha suits already steaming, with low levels they needed all the advantage they could get from their special gear if things got messy, she really wished they could use more advanced items but the mountain admin said steam was his tolerance point, even the few diesel pieces they did sneak in were well hidden in the puffs of steam, just giving a little extra umph when the dakka hit the fan.

Smiling as she walked past the naga and ettin Players, still wondering how the two headed thing worked out, she parted ways with her father at the lab's checkpoint as even most employees weren't allowed in there and no stranger would get past this point without raising the whole vault to a riot.

Going down these stairs had new surprises every time, the sounds and smells rising from below were always strange, never the same from yesterday, ozon drifted through the air today, cracks of lightning creating a continuous racket, knowing what was coming she equipped her helmet and set the vision to almost opaque only going on by her hand on the rail and in the increasing noise she had to muffle the sound twice when she got blocker warnings.

Opening the door she saw Allen shrouded with electricity and Meroa almost hidden in the shadows, a third, entity, was her best description, "ahh Shapirith" she jumped, only now noticing the mountain by the door, "we were just talking about you children", his slow cadre of speech was not unpleasant, "you met Gerush"

"She didn't know that Emet", cracked lightning and a dissatisfied lightning, "we met briefly at the reunion conference", seeing her puzzled stare the lightning added, "I was the system arbiter that informed you of the decisions made", recognition dawned on her and she nodded.

"We were just wondering how you were all coping with the changes in the game", the mountain Emet rumbled, "after all you are in the center of it", adding "the literal eye of the storm"

Gerush thundered, "Emet is trying to hold back progress", low buildup of pressure, "we just came to an accord to let you have what we oldtimers call electropunk themes inside the vault but restrict your outside ventures to steampunk", adding, "we are undecided about dieselpunk as neither of us likes the stuff but Rema loves it so she might have a say in future themes introduced", the man was an obvious talker as he thundered through the words, "how do you feel about the changes?", crackling, "as a representative for the children who actually embraced our hobbies for once", carrying on, "a thousand years of middle ages and pirate drama is well more than enough for any book"

"It's all great" Shapirith answered tentatively understanding these were too admins who didn't share the same passions and stepping too far could get her singed or crushed or both, "but the old leveling system and challenge ratings are all wrecked", like she could keep her mouth shut, "I went from null to level seven pilot in an afternoon of shooting goliaths in a barrel", clamping her hands to her mouth what was wrong with her?

"Ha the truth stings", Emet mocked Gerush, "I told you they were abusing all that good stuff to boost their levels", turning to her, "its just an inhibitions alleviator", adding "nothing to worry about", but she played a whore class legacy avatar for long enough to know how dangerous something like that could be and also how to counter it.

"Fine you can equip your giants with steampunk items", Gerush relented an argument, "but the vault still gets electropunk", he quickly added.

"I already agreed to that", the mountain shook with laughter, "thank you for emphasizing my point", she didn't like him at all.

"It seems we stretched our limited time again arguing about our pet projects", Gerush cracled in annoyance, "she didn't come here for us", turning to her, "still for your cooperation I will give you a small boon", the words had her shaking in fear, a tendril of blue lightning shot at her and she suddenly fealt light as a feather, "you can turn it off and on with thinking on my name or Emet's" then he cracked in laughter and vanished in a blast of thunder.

"I won't take your 'boon' away" Emet sighed, "but please try to be careful with it" and was gone in a shake.

She didn't understand what happened to her until she looked at her hand and saw coursing lightnings instead of her limb, thinking 'Emet' made her feel heavy but her hand felt like normal flesh and not some blob of dirt and twings.

Sighing with relief she turned to Allen and thought she was blind until she remembered her helmet visor was opaque and made it lucid again.

"Can you turn to lightning again?" Ofcourse this would be his first question, 'Gerush' she heard a distant thunder and fealt light, the room filled with almost unbearable light, "good", and he also turned to lightning, "thats a good trick" he said and turned back to being just his normal diamond scaled 'starburst' dragon, never a boring moment with Allen.