Nenn sat as still as a statue while he let [Nature’s Regrowth] and [Nature’s Absorption] heal the battered humans. He had to focus on making sure the fallen member of the group lived. It had been touch and go, but as time wore on the human’s body began to heal through the wounds.When the worst of it had been mitigated a wave of relief washed over Nenn..

Nenn felt his body sway, and a moment later he was laying flat on the ground with the group of humans gathered around him. He couldn’t move at all. No matter what he tried, or what he tried to will himself to do, nothing changed. Nenn was still fully conscious, much to his relief. His body was sore. It was as if he had spent the day moving furniture around.

“What do we do?” the man who was on firewatch duty said. He was lightly armored and carried a battle ax. A warrior most likely

“Give it space,” said a woman who was clutching onto a tall staff. The woman’s cloak was missing so it was hard for Nenn to discern what time of caster she was. Definitely not a cleric, Nenn thought.

“It’s not an ‘it’, Analice. They are definitely a person. I mean when have you ever seen a, whatever this form is, write you a message in english,” The firewatcher said.

“Well… Whoever they are wrote that they were from Ottawa, Ivan. That’s the capital of Canada. Does that mean that they are from another Obelisk?” Analice said. Silence filled the air for a moment.

What in the actual fuck, Nenn thought. I’m somehow near another Earth obelisk now? But, that shouldn’t be possible, they should be spread far apart. Are they supposed to be far apart? A bit of kindling in the fire popped, puncturing the dead air.

“Yeah, that… shouldn’t be possible, maybe?” the yet-to-be-named man said. He was the previously fallen member of the group. Judging by the quiver on his back the man had definitely picked hunter as his class.

“Fuck if I know. We should just ask them what’s going on. They must be friendly. I mean they did save our sorry asses,” the final member of the group said. She was a short woman with a set of daggers gleaming at his sides. A rogue by the look of her armor.

Nenn stirred as he felt his muscles finally respond to his continued attempts to move. This prompted the thought of ‘do I even have muscles’ to enter Nenn’s mind. A few feeble attempts later and he was upright once more.

“Fuck me,” Nenn said as he groaned. The gathered humans nearly jumped out of their own skins as they took a few steps back from Nenn.

“Oh, I can talk now,” Nenn said. “When did that happen? I swear I couldn’t before.” Nenn checked his Status and a piece of paper fell from the heavens.

STATUS

COMBAT LOG UPDATED

The party has slain 6/7 enemy combatants, (4 Individual, 2 Party). You have performed 1 Heroic Save, additional experience awarded.

COMBAT LEVEL: 20

COMBAT CLASS: Druid (Tier - Undefined)

SHIELD: 500/500

HEALTH: 480/500

STAMINA: 1/500

MANA: 1/480, 10% of total mana locked in reserve

NEW SKILL OBTAINED

New Skill Obtained: [Shapeshifter’s Mastery](Passive): Continued usage of [Shapeshift] forms has granted the druid a basic level of mastery over the concept. Allows the druid to shift forms faster, more efficiently, and without resource penalty. Allows the druid the option to vocalize as it would in its base form.

“That’ll do it. I hit level 20 and got [Shapeshifter’s Mastery]. It lets me speak now. My name is Nenn by the way.”

“Mine’s Ivan. Thank you for coming to our aid. If it wasn’t for you we’d be…” Ivan trailed off as he looked at the ground.

“Dead. We’d be dead. And we will probably be dead sooner rather than later anyways. The name’s Analice by the way.” Analice looked at Ivan disapprovingly.

“Thankfully we’re still alive. And maybe now that Nenn’s here we have a chance to keep that streak going. My name is Paul and it's a pleasure to meet you Nenn.”

“We’re probably still fucked,” the rogue girl said.

“So how did you end up here anyways?” Ivan asked. The group’s attention returned to Nenn once more. Nenn began to tell them his story, starting off from the beginning. He told them about joining the trial, meeting the friendly goblins, and slaying several hordes of orcs. He reframed the story about the weird series of events that led him to the eldritch tree. He left out a lot of the key details and spun the tale as if it had been part of a class quest.

“And then I woke up in this form much to my surprise. I saw a mountain in the distance that I wanted to climb. I was hoping to see if I could find the Obelisk I originated from, but it doesn’t look like that will be a possibility. In the process of doing so, I stumbled on your camp,” Nenn said.

Nenn wasn’t sure if his face could betray his emotions, but at the moment he was starting to get a little bummed out that he wouldn’t be able to reunite with his friends for a while. Somehow he had ended up a ways away from where he should have been.

“Did your group manage to keep your Obelisk?” Analice asked.

“Yes, I think so,” Nenn said. “From our ally’s assessment we had removed the only active threat in the area, so it should still be under human and goblin control.”

“So, what you’re saying is that we aren’t completely fucked as a species?” Analice said.

“I guess so. Am I reading between the lines that you lost your Obelisk?” Nenn said. The look of defeat and shame was present on the group’s faces.

“Yes. That is correct,” Paul said after a moment. “We lost it on the third day. A huge group of snake people-”

“Naga. They are naga,” the rogue girl said.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

“A huge group of naga swarmed us all at once. They attacked our camp right after sunrise a few days ago. They came in quietly and before we knew it a lot of our compatriots had been killed in their sleep. By the time the alarm was raised it was too late. The naga had us out manned and out muscled. We are lucky to have even escaped.”

Paul’s hands were clenched as he finally took an arrow out of his quiver and worked it over with his hands. The arrow seemed to be in pristine condition. The dagger at his waist on the other hand looked like it had been thoroughly used and abused. The hilt was covered in dried blood.

“When did this happen?” Nenn asked.

“Four days ago. And we’ve been on the run ever since. Every night those… things keep attacking us. We haven’t been able to rest in a long time. We had to sleep,” Analice said.

Nenn turned to look at the remains of the night predators. The five that he had killed had been reduced to gleaming white skeletons of broken and battered bones. Then there was the corpse of the night predator that the group of humans had managed to kill on their own. It was lying in a pool of its own black blood. Upon closer inspection the body was twisted, and mutated. Like someone had started out with the body of a human, but then tried to turn it into an abomination. Nenn looked back at the piles of bone.

“Those things were human at some point,” Nenn said.

“How could you say that,” Analice said. She was turning a shade of green. Ivan and Paul looked uncomfortable with this truth. They had probably thought about it before, but did not have the time to come to terms with it.

“Necromancy,” the rogue said. She looked to be perfectly fine with this revelation.

“Yes, exactly,” Nenn said. “I don’t think these were night predators. If they were human to begin with, they shouldn’t be.” The group looked confused.

“Night predators?” the rogue asked.

“Yeah, the nighttime fauna of The Trial. From what I’ve been told they only exist during the night in the absence of light mana. Likewise, the daytime fauna seem to need light mana in order to exist.” Nenn said.

“That would explain all of the things that have gone bump in the night then,” Ivan said. “I guess we got lucky that they are allergic to campfires.”

“Yes. Yes you did.” Nenn was really starting to appreciate just how lucky his group had been when Ortango had stumbled across their Obelisk. Without the goblins' knowledge, they would have probably ended up in the same boat as this group.

“Okay, can I ask some questions? How many days has it been since The Trial opened up, and where on Earth was your Obelisk?”

“It has been seven days since The Trial started,” Ivan said.

“Seven days! It’s been seven days! I’ve been out of it for four fucking days?” Nenn said.

Ivan raised an inquisitive eyebrow. “I have only been here for six myself. We’re all from America. In particular we’re from the Obelisk that appeared in Denver. America had four Obelisks. One in Washington D.C., one in Denver, one in Texas somewhere close to the Mexican border, and one in Los Angeles.”

“I remember seeing that the Washington Monument had been replaced by one Obelisks without even a trace of it having previously existed. I thought that was odd then, but now…” Nenn trailed off.

“Things are fucked,” the rogue said. “This goes way deeper than we know. Typical rpg classes, naga, orcs, and goblins. It seems like our world has been tied to The System and The Trial for a very very long time. I don’t think it's a coincidence that the Washington Monument happened to be a replica of an Obelisk.”

Nenn remembered what the eldritch tree had said about DREAMS TRANSCENDING REALITY. Nenn shuddered as the memory somehow played back in his mind with the same thundering intensity as it had been experienced the first time. Maybe that’s what happened to the Washington Monument. Maybe the pyramids too? The rogue girl is right. Our world definitely was not untouched by The System.

The group was silent as they processed this information in their own ways. Paul was still turning the arrow over between his hands. Ivan was staring into the fire, looking to avoid having to come to terms with reality. Analice looked to be deep in thought. And the rogue was staring at Nenn.

“Sorry, I don’t think I caught your name,” Nenn said.

“That’s correct,” the rogue said.

“She doesn’t want to say it,” Analice said. “We’ve all tried to work it out of her, but it seems that she’s determined to keep her name a secret.”

Nenn snorted, producing a sound that didn’t make sense to be coming out of his muzzled face. Nenn could get behind the logic of not wanting to share your name, especially if you used to be somebody of note before. But in the world of The Trial, that shouldn’t matter anymore. Not when the world was set up to give everyone an equalish start.

“So what have you been calling her?” Nenn asked.

“Rogue, mostly. Sometimes the rogue,” Analice said.

“Well I think she just needs a new name,” Nenn said. He paused for a second deep in thought. “Congratulations Sarah, you have joined the legion of other Sarah’s on this memorable day.”

“My name is not Sarah,” the woman, now known exclusively as Sarah the rogue, said.

“No, it definitely is Sarah now,” Ivan said. There was a small smile creeping across his face.

“You even look like a Sarah,” Paul said. He put the arrow down.

“You remind me of a Sarah that I used to know. I think it’s a perfect name, Sarah,” Analice said. The group, other than the red-faced Sarah, broke into laughter.

“Oh, that’s too good. I needed that,” Ivan said.

The group slowly returned to their solemn viewing of the campfire. Sarah looked like she was about to boil over, but that was a-okay in Nenn’s mind. After all, that’s just what Sarahs tended to do apparently.

Nenn got up. He was still stuck in his deathstalker form. Which was a bit surprising considering he had run out both his mana and stamina reserves. He trotted over to the previously reanimated human zombie and bit into its shoulder. He carefully dragged the corpse to the edge of the clearing where he casted [Rot]. The body began to fester and decay, but it was at a much slower pace than Nenn was used to.

I guess it just works better on living flesh than already dead flesh, Nenn thought. His [Rot] spell ran out a steam just after two thirds of the job had been completed. He casted it once more and watched as another shining pile of fractured bones appeared before him. The black sludge that had soaked into the ground was, of course, no cause for concern for Nenn.

For the rest of the group they sat their slack jawed.

“What kind of druid did you say you were?” Sarah asked.

“Wouldn’t you like to know. My status says my tier is undefined,” Nenn said.

“But, aren’t druids supposed to have [Entangling Roots] and [Thorn Shot] for spells,” Sarah said. She looked confused.

“Maybe your everyday garden-variety druid has those. I’m a bit different in my approach to the field of druid-ology,” Nenn said.

“So, that means class growth is open-ended?” Sarah said.

“It does appear that way, Sarah. It does appear that way. My group of friends all seem to have deviated from the normal class progression route. It happened when we made our stand at the Obelisk,” Nenn said.

“System fuckery,” Sarah muttered, then she turned back to look at the fire with the rest of the group. Nenn could tell they were exhausted and hanging to their own sanity by a thread.

“Go ahead and get some sleep everyone. I’ll keep watch,” Nenn said. “And tomorrow we can figure out how we are going to get your Obelisk back.”

The group grumbled briefly and set off to bed. Nenn sat at the fire and listened to the sounds of the forest. Everything was still, as it should be.

Hours passed and Nenn really wished that The System had let him keep his grandfather's watch. Other than keeping the fire feed and strolling around the perimeter of the clearing Nenn had nothing to do to pass the time. This was truly the first time in days that he had the opportunity to be bored.

Nenn’s head whipped around. Out of the corner of his eye he thought he saw something in the trees. Something circular in shape and familiarly sized. Nenn went over to inspect the area but found nothing particular. Nenn turned back to resume his watch, missing the tree’s massive singular eye vertically blinking.