Time seemed to remain frozen, with Lilith and the others unmoving. I could still interact with the system, and move around the room in which we’d fought the boss, but I couldn’t leave it. I decided to poke the remains of the boss.

Loot distributed. You have gained: Spectrum Goggles.

Spectrum Goggles: These colorful lenses protect your eyes against blindness, glare, liquids, gasses, or objects, and other physical threats in addition to forces caused by rapid movement.

They were predominantly red in color, and I put them on while I waited. They were exceptionally comfortable, and I didn’t even notice I was wearing them after a minute. Which of course, meant they were magical. Perfect fit and comfort were hallmarks of magical gear.

“You finished before me?” Lilith asked in surprise, when she saw me poking the body of the Toymaker with my boot.

“Yeah, once I realized I could sort the class list by affinity it wasn’t that hard of a choice at all. Maybe that’s the real test, knowing to sort by what you’re most interested in?” Everything had a hidden meaning behind it, right?

“I’m surprised you thought ahead to do that. Yes, that would have made your decision much easier. We can wait to show each other our new shinnies when Derrick and Aisha are finished.”

Ω

It took the other two a long time to finish their class selections. Lilith and I spent hours playing checkers, she won every game. She always wins every game. Even the times I’ve tried to bend bad luck against her, she still wins. It felt like practicing martial arts against Momma, every move contained a lesson that I might not have been smart enough to learn without explicit explanation, and Lilith didn’t provide those. She just smirked at me as she beat me, again and again.

Derrick started moving first, and then Aisha came too not long after.

“So, we’re all classed! Awesome job, team. Let’s share what we got!” I was excited to talk about it, but the other three all shook their heads at me.

“Let’s go back to the picnic, and do it there,” Aisha said. Apparently the other three wanted to get out of the dungeon, since the Toymaker had been flesh and blood, and the body creeped everyone but me out. Leaving a finished dungeon was easy, you just had to pull up the dungeon menu and click exit.

The walk back to camp felt like an eternity. I wanted to run ahead, but we stuck together at Lilith’s insistence in case we ran into any monsters along the way. We had to dispatch a few forest spiders, a constricting snake, and a two-foot-long millipede along the way. Nothing truly awful, but everyone else was afraid to even touch the millipede. It had a lot of legs, so what?

“We’re back! Did you miss us?” I shouted when we broke through the edge of the woods to the campsite.

Mommy and Aisha’s mother were talking to one another, seated near the fire, while momma and Aisha’s dad were on the other side of the fire sketching shapes and figures in the dirt with sticks. Arkaziel and Bobbi were bickering over a tray of cheese and meat.

“Welcome back, everyone. I see you found your adventure. Tell us everything, dear.” Mommy, with her golden eyes and wind-tousled hair, looked like a powerful goddess. The halo and chain wings really helped with that, I suppose, but she stood apart from all the other people in Winona even more than Momma did.

“You got classes!” Momma shouted, hopping over the tables in a blur to hug Lilith and I. She moved so fast I barely registered it as movement instead of a teleport. Even at level ten, with a class, I could barely comprehend how fast Telos was.

Aisha’s mom had dark skin and purple hair, while her father had dark skin with black hair. His coloration was closer to Arkaziel’s than to Aisha’s mom. Aisha’s mother, Nadia, and father, Idris, had very different reactions to the news that Momma blurted out. Idris nodded to Derrick, his trap pupil, and they fist bumped, while Nadia jump hugged Aisha and didn’t let go for an even longer time than momma hugged Lilith and I, until Mommy joined the hug and trapped me even more.

“Alright, alright, that’s enough fawning,” Lilith scolded our mothers after a few minutes flew by. I agreed. There was a limit to how many hugs I was comfortable getting in a day, and this had exceeded that number.

“We decided we’d all share our classes now that we’re back. I’ll go first,” Lilith took control of the situation. I don’t know how she was the de facto leader of our group, but she was, and Derrick or I only got to lead if she let us. It was fine though, she was smarter than me, as long as she didn’t get caught up in a scheme.

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“I gained the class Iridescent Invoker, which is an offensive and defensively equalized caster class built around creating Luminous Echoes whenever I cast a spell, which I can then use to improve my subsequent spells. Combined with my existent trait of Iridescent Intellect any spell I cast will be altered to the job at hand, giving me raw power, and versatility to control the field of battle.” Lilith’s lips quirked into a smile as I clapped for her. The adults joined suit after an awkward moment of just us kids clapping for Lilith.

“I picked Zephyr Trapper for my class.” Derrick coughed a little awkwardly. “It focuses on my use of traps and combines wind into my sword and traps. I can add wind effects to my traps, and use my wind abilities to move or trigger traps as needed. This should let me be a real help to me and Alexander with holding the front line during any fight.”

When Derrick finished Lilith clapped for him, and I fell in first, but it wasn’t long before he got a full round of clapping himself.

“Good job, lad.” Idris cheered Derrick on, since his parents weren’t here with us, but as his mentor, Idris seemed very proud of my friend. “You’ll have to join the Traps guild, now, and you’ll have the name Trapmaster Derrick in short order.”

For some reason Momma and Uncle Arkaziel started laughing after both looked at Derrick more closely. I could tell from the way their eyes flickered around they were using telepathy to talk to one another. Why did they keep looking at Derrick? Weirdos.

“I picked the class Luminous Healer. I can create Luminous Conduits between me and my allies. If I cast a single spell, it can effect another person who’s in the conduit web, and any offensive spells I cast generate boon for the nearest connected ally. My conduits also provide damage absorption and regeneration, and I can lay down an Illuminated Path to get someone somewhere faster. Obviously, between my Light and Support magic access I can heal, buff, debuff spells. I only have one damage spell, for now.“

“Wow, you’re amazing Aisha,” Nadia cheered her daughter on loudly, and Idris, our mothers, and the StarMane’s cheered her on too. I clapped loudly, Aisha had gotten one impressive class.

“Well, that just leaves me? I chose Kaleidoscopic Kineticist for my class. Through the class features Chromatic Kinesis I can choose one power or color I like. With silver, I can gain control over metals, with Amber I can control earth, or with Cyan I can knock people around with waves of water. Not that that’s my only class feature, I also have Rainbow Rush that doubles my speed and creates energy trails that have different effects based on my active Kinesis. My class skill lets me activate afflictions on my enemies, and buffs on my allies, which also interacts with my trait.” I grinned.

“Curselord lets me have a twenty percent chance of granting enemies a random affliction, with a five minute duration. Tides of Woe lets me drop a curse on someone that afflicts them with a random malady every twenty seconds, while they last for thirty seconds. All afflictions I generate on enemies give me a stacking attack and speed buff, and every use of a Kinesis grants me speed and attack power, too. I’m a speed brawler.” I was very proud of myself.

Aisha’s parents looked slightly afraid of me, but Aisha clapped first, followed by Lilith and Derrick and my parents, then the rest.

“Amazing job, kid. I knew you had some edge waiting to come out.” Arkaziel pat me on the shoulder, then gave me a proud squeeze. It was weird, normally Arkaziel would complain about how I was too soft and like Momma, but this time he seemed proud.

Mommy gave me a big hug, and whispered into my ear. I assume she did the same for Lilith, but I hadn’t been able to overhear.

“Good job, Alexander. You’ve got a very unique class there, with a lot of versatility. I’m very proud of you, son.” Then I got a giant hug, complete with the chains of her wings looping around me, and it was minutes and I could barely breath, before Momma managed to separate us, so she could get her hug.

“You did great, little guy. Some scary sounding powers there though, ya know. Sometimes scary is good. We’ll have to work on some equipment for you. It’s hard to be a fist based fighter without some good gloves. Did I ever tell you how mine were made?” Momma asked with a grin.

“No, you haven’t! Tell us!” I clamored for any story of Momma’s past.

“Let’s see, it was in the Tower of Aetherius, right Ark?” Momma rubbed her chin thoughtfully.

“Oh yeah, you’ve got that right. It was in the city inside the big worm. You wandered off on a special mission and left me stranded in town with Werylin, while you forged your soul into a pair of gloves.” Arkaziel laughed. “She goes off and learns to make Soulsteel without even telling us, that’s how it went all the time, you turn around, and no more Blue, or Blue’s fighting a horde of mercenaries..” Arkaziel coughed and fell quiet, looking sheepishly at Momma.

“She caused far less trouble in cities when I joined the party,” Mommy said smugly. “Although I suppose we did destroy a few of those cities, so that does seem worse.” Her smugness was short lived, but her change to sadness got her a hug from Momma, which put her smile back in place. Those two were like that, just always there for one another as if by magic before the other even knew they were sad or had an inkling that they might need support.

“I’m not some walking force of destruction, ya know? Sheesh.” Momma grinned at everyone, then ruffled my rainbow colored hair. “You and me, buddy. Everyone else seems to think we’re troublemakers for some reason.”

“Because you are, mommy.” Lilith said definitively, her arms crossed with a stern look.

Mommy fell off the bench table she’d been sitting next to Momma on, her the chains on her wings no ward against the uncontrollable laughter that sent Kallos to the ground.

Lilith defiantly met my fake-sad look.

“Oh please, you’ve got the title Progenitor of Peril. You can’t be innocent if you’re the one who started all the peril! Think of how hard I have to work to clean up all of the messes you make. The description of my Patron of Providence trait might as well say it’s due to fixing all of the chaos caused by my brother or mom.” Lilith tsked and tried to extract sympathy from me, but I refused to give her any, just this once.

“Thatta boy, stand up for yourself.” Momma cheered me on.