Dunner watched the proceedings silently from the nearby branch of the orchard’s granny smith. What is this fool doing?

Earlier when he went by the tavern to check on the kid, he was expecting someone depressed, but he was starting to wonder if Harold was not better described as truly demented. Who manages to antagonise twenty five wasps when sneaking up on an orchard? He's gonna wear out our Farmgard field.

Dunner was not who the two guards thought he was. His real name was Kalle. He was actually the adopted son of the old couple at Salcret’s orchard, who everyone knew.

Sitting in the tree he wasn’t wearing the disguise either; he’d been watching the moon and the bats through the branches when he noted Harold’s frantic approach and surmised his intentions.

Now the question was if Harold would notice him sitting up there, or if Kalle would even be recognised. Despite not being the real Dunner, Kalle really was a [Warlock], or a kind of one.

He got his chance at the Class when he found the old man Dunner’s hermit cave on a solitary exploration of his, a couple of years back.

The man had been an unpopular figure, rumoured to have often taken advantage with offers of strange Spells and other ultimately unfair deals, according to some of the older folks. Kalle's own parents didn't care to comment.

Kalle had picked up the dark wooden wand laying by the bedding, and despite some trepidation, attempted casting some Spells. On the third go, a ghastly scream had interrupted the silence of the dwelling, emitted by a grey and green skull, trailing a thin smoky essence.

It struck a nearby tree and was absorbed. Kalle stood frozen, heart beating like a sprinting hare's.

As the seconds passed, he relaxed gradually and took a few steps to get a closer look.

Even after a couple of minutes could not tell for sure if anything had actually happened, and so he returned back to the wand he dropped earlier.

But as he glanced back at the woods again, he noticed the branches of the stricken tree had started drooping, and the colour of the leaves looked significantly aged compared to its neighbours, just not in colour but rather… Their poise. What a strange spell, it seemed it did not do much. But with it wailing like that, it would at the very least freak somebody out.

Kalle was not planning on accepting the Class at that time, he had just wanted to try the 1st Skill offered by the System. The enticer-Spell in this case.

This was what one did, being Classless. Every opportunity for a Class came with a Skill, depending on the nature of the Class it could vary a great deal. But the real kicker was this; once you accepted, you were locked in forever, but you received nine more Skills on top of the enticing one, of varying qualities.

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It made being Classless for any duration, once you qualified at age sixteen, a real test of character. Who could resist 10 new extraordinary ways of interacting with the world, permanently, on the mere premise that maybe some rarer Class down the line would be a better fit?

Such a windfall of Skills and Spells came only once in life. Subsequent Class upgrades had far fewer Skills to offer in most cases, despite the capstone surges every 10th level.

Of course, there were myths regarding such matters. That the ten Skills and Spells gained when accepting a Class was to show the Aspirant how the sky was the limit. But most people, no matter how hard they said they worked, got three Skills on reaching a new capstone. The lucky ones got four, while it was said that the occasional great leaders and the like could gain five consistently. And then there was the famous [Sage] who it was said had gained six on more than one occasion, but at that point you were talking about legends who were meant for the tales of history.

Kalle had all this in mind as he picked out a strange bangle of sorts among the belongings, with thick red wire forming a pattern across a stiff leather. He recognised it as the one other magic item rumoured to be in the old man’s possession, besides the [Warlock]’s wand. The only question was what it did, the secret had never been pried from the [Warlock] as far as he knew. Maybe now it wouldn’t ever be.

Kalle turned the thing around, looking for clues. Eventually he decided to put it on, the old man may have had a bad reputation but he wasn’t wanted by the law, so to speak, and despite being magic, at the time Kalle had been certain the item was not meant to be capable of doing anything too bad.

He thought he felt something, but it was impossible to tell what. It took him another fifteen minutes to figure it out; not until he’d gone over to the old man’s watering hole and received the shock of his life. I’m the old man!? No, no wait... That’s ridiculous. It must be a bangle of disguise of some sort, a rogue’s item, did he use it to hide his age?

This was the craziest day. The body looked like it perished years ago, how could these items just be left lying here?

Kalle sat down heavily, his mind churning. Could this be it? His opportunity to take a magic Class and start working towards a future he had not imagined could be his before?

He had never felt compelled to take any of the Classes that he had chanced upon in his life thus far, and the one enticer-Skill his Aspirant status provided had been plenty to help around the orchard, when you could take another each season, as you had not yet locked in.

Suddenly he had felt the accumulated stress of over a year having passed, of being Classless, he was turning eighteen next.

This could not be merely chance. It did not feel like it. Maybe it was wishful thinking, but maybe that was enough, wishing it.

Eventually a life-changing decision was made and the familiar prompt had shown up.

[Class Aspirant detected. Warlock. Wailing Bolt. Yes/No?]