Gil nods with a small grin.

“Look at you. Less than… a… hm. How long have you had a class?”

“Almost a day now.”

He whistles appreciatively. “One day in and you’ve got as good an understanding of the system as I did a week in. And I got a whole tutorial instead of whatever you’re in the process of getting. I… nope, time limit. The book comes first. Put your Class Card between the cover and the first page, then carefully close it. And I mean carefully.”

I raise an eyebrow. “That sounds like it comes with an ‘or else’.”

“Oh, it comes with a heavy ‘or else’.” He chuckles grimly. “I won’t tell you all the details, but I’ll say that eleven of us went into upgrading our systems, and only six of us came out.”

Yeesh. That’s sure one hell of an ‘or else’.

I hold my card between two fingers and look down at the open book with a whole lot more reluctance than a moment ago. But it looks like this is a necessary part of moving forward in this world, so I don’t really have much of a choice in the matter.

With a deep breath to steel my confidence, I place my card against the first page–right under all the text–and pick up the cover with my other hand.

“Wait!”

I flinch, then swivel to look at a very distraught Gil. “What?!”

He taps his palm. “You have to pay me first.”

Oh, you—I bite back some unflattering shit and roll, take my card away from the book, and offer it to him. He taps his own card against mine, then nods in satisfaction and sends his card away while spreading his hands.

“Sorry to startle you. Go ahead.”

Sure, yeah, I’ll just do that. Not like my heart’s beating three times faster than normal or anything. No amount of calming breaths are going to take this edge off.

“Okay.” I say to myself, repeating my actions up until my card is in the book. “Just wondering, but how can this go wrong?”

“I don’t have a clue. All I know is that I lost acquaintances that day, and that they died when they upgraded their systems. It could have been faulty manuals, or a lack of Worth, or any number of other things. But it happened when they did exactly this, so I felt the need to warn you.”

Probably would’ve been fine without the extra pressure, but I guess I can understand where he’s coming from. And… that little attempt at stalling did nothing for my nerves. So here we go. I guess. Right now. Aaaand… now. Definitely not stalling.

“You’ll be just fine.” Pearl whispers into my mind. “I won’t let a book written by ________ hurt you.”

I close my eyes and let out a long breath. It does nothing to calm me. And I carefully close the cover over my Class Card. An icy grip takes hold of my heart, and darkness seeps in from all corners of my vision.

You have come in possession of an upgrade manual.

To upgrade, you must meet at least three of the following requirements:

Clearance level ???: Not met.

Complete understanding of the Shellraiser language: Not met.

Possession of a Mind and Soul based class: Not met.

Completion of quest ‘Serenade of Shattered Shells’: Not met.

Location ‘Deepsea hall of Risen Shell’ found and cleared: Not met.

Requirements not met. Unable to upgrade system.

...

Override activated: Permission of a living Shellraiser of ??? ???

Conditions met; initiating system upgrade.

Thank you, Pearl, for being whatever all those question marks are hiding. The grip on my heart softens and warms significantly, but a little pressure remains nonetheless. Maybe as a reminder of how I literally didn’t meet any of the requirements.

“She’s still alive.” Gil mutters under his breath. “That’s a good sign.”

I choose to ignore him, and instead hold the book close to my chest as wisps of smoky power the same colour as Pearl’s body whirl around it. They slowly close in, like a tornado focusing on one specific house it really hates, removing parts of the book as they go. Eventually the entire book is whittled down to nothing and disappears from my hands, then the whirlwind peters out atop my Class Card. Leaving only a tiny stamp right next to my picture. A stamp that’s coloured the exact same as Pearl’s body and shaped exactly like her shell.

“Is… is that it?” I ask with a deepening frown. “I don’t feel any stronger. Or any smarter. Or… anything, really. Did I just destroy a priceless book?”

Gil just shrugs. “To everyone else, maybe. But to you–no. Try opening your Class Card and you’ll see.”

Oh, right–my information tab. I pull open my card, then pause as the obvious change hits me in the face. Wherever had been white before was now the same colour as Pearl’s body, and even the gold now has little flecks of colour strewn throughout it. But those are the smallest changes.

Each of my blank inventory spaces now has a lock icon over it and a Worth cost over the icon. All of them say fifty right now, but they’ll probably get more expensive as I unlock them. And if I can buy inventory spaces from my card, then what about stats?

I swipe over to check, and yup–the screen is completely different now. All of the nicely colour coded numbers and letters are now pure black, each shot through with specks of the colour that they used to be. And right above each of them is an arrow pointing upwards with a cost right next to it.

Body, Mind, and Soul are all twenty-five. Not sure if that’s a good deal, really, but one point of Fate looks like it’s going to cost me a hundred and thirty five Worth–more than three times what the others cost me. Not proportional to how many points I have in any of them. So… yeah, still not sure what’s a good deal.

Finally, I swipe over to the information tab. And the cover of the book’s right there–staring at me like a disappointed parent. …Not sure why I think it looks disappointed, but that’s the vibe it gives off for some reason. Oh, and there’s a warning sign on top of it telling me that I need fifteen Mind to even open the damn thing.

So I managed to lock myself out of something. Great.

Just as I’m about to close my card, I notice a swirling mass of black hovering right next to my ‘inventory’ tab. I don’t even try to touch it, since it might take away what little Worth I’ve got on me, but it quickly shows me that it doesn’t need my permission to do anything.

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Before my eyes, all the other tabs are pushed slightly to the left to make room for a brand new one. It coalesces into a perfect mirror of my other tabs, slams itself down through my screen with the force of an executioner’s axe, and unwraps the black stuff coating it to reveal a single word.

Quests

“Did I really not have a quests tab before this?” I mutter to myself as I press the tab. And nothing happens. “Gil, it looks like my new tab isn’t working.”

“Which one is it? Quests, Skills, ??? or ????”

I blink at the sound of the system censoring his voice. It’s nowhere near as horrible as when it censored Pearl, though definitely not enjoyable at all.

“Quests. And I couldn’t hear the last two you mentioned.”

“That’s completely normal. It’s not super important information, but the system doesn’t want you to know what the rest of the tabs are before you unlock them for yourself. Oh, and you have to get something new under that tab to be able to access it. Then it’ll populate itself with all the other quests you’re already a part of.”

“Guess I’ll just have to wait.” I say as I close my card and send it away. Then I put my hand on the two other things I just bought and deposit them. “I guess that’s all I can do for now. Before I leave–how many stat points am I expected to have?”

Gil holds up one finger. “One every time you pass a clearance threshold, and every class has their own starting spread. If you want more than that, you’ll have to buy them or complete quests. Or find items that give them, but that’s usually done by one of the two aforementioned methods.”

I scoop up my four new potions and send them to my inventory, then pause and feel at my backpack. It’s not wet, so my water bottle didn’t break in the fight, but I can feel something squishy at the bottom.

“Ah, crap, I almost completely forgot about these things.” I mutter to myself as I set the bag down and open it. Gil leans over my shoulder as I rummage through destroyed energy bars and somehow intact sapling containers, along with a pristine water bottle and some absolutely destroyed clothes.

It’s nowhere near as bad as I was expecting. With that relatively nice surprise out of the way, I throw my backpack over my shoulder, adjust the straps, and check my newly expanded inventory to see what I can make room for. Actually seeing everything as pictures is nice and all, but I can tell that it’s going to be a massive pain in the future.

As if responding to my thoughts, my screen shifts to a simple list view of everything I’ve got stored.

1x Shellraiser

31x empowered ghost quarters

1x everdriftwood sapling

1x everdriftwood sapling

1x Concentrated Shellraiser Nuclei

1x Shellraiser shell conglomerate

1x Healing Flask

1x Bottled Sleep Flask

1x Mana Flask

1x Meal Replacement Flask

1x All-seeing ice

1x Chainwax sealing kit

And somehow I’ve gone from having absolutely no space to having two free slots. Nice. I reach into my backpack and send two more of the saplings into my inventory, filling it to the absolute brim and putting me right back to needing more space. With a backpack still stuffed with precious cargo.

It must be showing on my face, because Gil snorts out a laugh and gestures at the door.

“The perpetual struggle of having too much stuff and absolutely no space.” He says as he watches me walk towards the door. “Good luck out there, Shelby. I’ll be here when you reach clearance level ten.”

I wave with one hand as I pull open the door. “As long as I live that long.”

“Oh, you will.” He says confidently. “You’ve already survived the hardest part.”

The tinkling of chimes and bells plays me out, then cuts off abruptly when the door slams shut behind me. I don’t even get a chance to ask him what the hell he meant by those cryptic parting words.

“Are we out?” Pearl whispers into my ear. “It looks like we’re out, but powerful people can be really tricky.”

I glance over at the pile of shellraiser sludge and what little rubble remains around it. If we’re still in that store, then Gil’s a hundred times stronger than I took him to be. Not that he showed an absurd amount of strength in the store–he only alluded to it and let my mind fill in the blanks.

…Shit. He could’ve been playing me that entire time.

With a sigh, I let that thread fall into my pile of passive worries. “We’re actually here, Pearl. The dread creeping up my spine is doing a wonderful job at reminding me. Why were you so quiet in there?”

“Oh, there wasn’t a real reason. I just didn’t want to talk to him.” Pearl says easily as I trek over to the hole the risen grave was guarding. Then she pauses. “Actually, that was a lie. I didn’t want to risk him being able to hear me inside of your head. And… um…” She shudders. “I didn’t want him to hit on me.”

I can’t hold in the laugh that rips free from Pearl’s complete sincerity. She puffs up her cheeks and puts her hands on her ‘hips’, looking as affronted as someone her size and shape can.

“I’m being serious here! He told you to your face that he wasn’t interested in humans. Which means he’d be interested in me–a non-human!” She continues, which only makes me laugh harder. “Oh, laugh it up, why don’t you! When you show up there next time, and he’s got a table for two set up, you know that other plate’s not for you! Because it’s for me!”

She wails that last line like it’s the end of the world. But there’s a little theatrics in her delivery that weren’t present for the rest of her tiny speech.

“Oh–oh god, I can’t breathe.” I cough through the laughs, stopping to lean down and rest my hands on my knees. “You’re killing me, Pearl. I–ahem–I promise I won’t let Gil try to court you. Swear on my soul.”

“Your Soul stat’s only one.” Pearl states seriously. “Swear on something more important.”

I wave my hand and cough a few times before answering. “Okay, okay. I swear on… my… um… my Class that I won’t let anything bad happen to you. Is that good enough?”

From the immediate brightening of her mood, it looks like it is. “Yep! And I’m going to hold you to that. To completely change the course of the conversation–let’s go check out what the risen grave was guarding. Then we need to find out how to get you that one skill point Gil alluded to.”

“Good point. Not sure how he could’ve done it, but there’s a chance he screwed me out of it by making me buy the potions.”

I step over the last bit of the shellraiser remains, glancing over my shoulder to make sure I’m not going to get ambushed as I do. A sort of sordid warmth washes over me as I get closer and closer to the hole; a dirty heat that sticks to my skin and crawls into my mouth like a swarm of tiny flies. Death and grime emanate from it in equal parts, but somehow, the worst thing of all is the heat.

Sweat cascades down my forehead. It sticks to everything it touches, including my lips and eyes, coating them in a thin film that somehow makes the heat even worse. I pull my shirt away from my body in a desperate attempt to stay cool, but it does about as much good as an ice cube in a blast furnace.

“Holy hell, this is insane. How did the rubble mask all this heat?”

“The remains were probably plugging up the hole while we were looking through the rubble.” Pearl pants. Looks like she’s not immune to the heat, either. “Whatever animated it–whether it was a quest or just us getting close–must’ve been amplified by the heat. But too much heat hurts it, and too little heat…”

She trails off and glances back at the mass. It was either get burned or die in the relative cold. Unfortunately for us, the only way forward looks like it’s going to take me into the middle of the inferno. If my shields could move with me, or if I had some kind of protective gear, then maybe I’d be able to stand it.

I lick my lips, which are somehow drying out in the extremely wet heat, and carefully creep up to the edge of the hole. Just standing this close is making my eyes water. But the edge is right here. Less than a foot away. There’s no light coming out of the hole, so it’s probably safe to look down.

Yeah. I just have to… take the last step and lean over the blazing hot death hole. No problem. None at all. I gulp around a big mouthful of nothing as Pearl whimpers in discomfort, then bite the bullet as fast as possible.

My hair sticks to the back of my head. All my eyelashes clump together in one uncomfortable mass, which I didn’t even know was possible. I feel rivulets of blood leaking from my lips, trailing down my chin or into my mouth with the tang of iron. My eyes can barely make out a blurry shape down below.

“Identify.” I say through a dry mouth and yank myself out of the way of that… horribleness.

A wracking dry cough shakes my body as the system processes the request. Luckily for me, it counts the identification as part of my current quest, so I don't have to pay out any of my single-digit remaining Worth.

Tainted Perpetuum Oystershell Beacon.

A beacon made from the shells of a long extinct shellfish that can reflect and amplify whatever they are shown.

Tainted by the remains of a single Shellraiser, reflected and amplified tens of thousands of times over.

WARNING: Destruction of this beacon will instantly fail ???