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The trainer that Blink had in mind, it turned out, wasn't in the Undercity at all. Rather, I found myself trailing at his heels as we bounced through dark tunnels and narrow walkways deep into the bowels of the Underlands. The little luminescent mushrooms gave me just enough light that I could trail along after him without much issue, the pale, bluish light blanketing our steps with soft, monotone hues. 

Eventually, we came to a larger chamber, with giant stalagmites reaching up toward the far, cavern ceiling. The mushrooms too grew from the tiny blue fluorescent patches of the tunnels to foot-tall hooded growths of red and blue and green, clinging in bush-like growths to the walls and floor and ceiling. It was vegetation that seemed indifferent to gravity, taking to the angles and jagged surfaces of the dark walls as if they were the lush forest earth of the ground above. Occasionally, a chipmunk-like beast would chatter at us, dancing along the stumpy trunks of the vegetation and reprimanding us for the intrusion. 

Blink lead us to the center of the chamber and stopped, glancing back and forth as he carefully surveyed our surroundings. I didn't dare speak, the stillness of those depths blanketed around us and making the very idea of speech seem like an abonination in my mind. There we waited, for minutes that seemed like hours, still and patient while listening to the quiet chatter of the chipmunks and the rhythmic dripping of water onto the cavern floor from somewhere high above us. 

Eventually, one of the little creatures seemed to just appear, its head darting out from some tiny hole in the stalagmites next to us before it scurried from its den. Blink simply waited, looking at the beast, and so I did too, together we watched it approach us and look us up and down from the earthy floor beneath us. 

Finally, after a long, quiet standoff, the little creature opened its mouth. And, rather than the chattering of its mates coming forth from the tiny lips, instead, it audibly spoke with the sounds of deep, human speech. "Well, what do we have here then?" it said, dancing back and forth on the little legs as it spoke. "Wanderers lost, perhaps?" little nose twitching as it questioned us, "Or maybe something more. Yes maybe, maybe, maybe."

Blink waited for the little creature to finish it's rushed, too fast speech, simply bowing slightly and smiling as he watched it dance and speak. Finally, as the little thing was finally taking a breath, Blink spoke, his words echoing loudly through the stone walls of the cavern, "Amedile, caretaker of the underground forests, my friend here has need of your wisdom." His tone was formal, ceremonial almost. Very obviously intoned ritually to trigger an NPC reaction.

And, of course, it appeared to have worked. For where the little chipmunk had just been hopping, the air and world blurred in front of us. Whiskers became skin, fur became leathers, tiny feet became tiny arms, and the silhouette of a wizened halfling shimmered into being from where once had been a beast. She turned to me, even as her body was still taking form, her lips already smiling as the outline of her stubby legs shifted from air, into mist, and into flesh. "Ahhh, I see. A newly born Druid has come seeking training," she said, her words gentle and rich where buy moments ago they had been squeaky and rushed. "But I also see something else in you. Yes, there is a... potential there, inside of you," she breathed, the deep breath rushing past her teeth in an audible sigh of air. "Indeed, with time and careful nurturing, yes, you might become the greatest of us all."

Stepping toward her, I looked back only briefly, feeling emboldened by the tiny nod and little smile from my comrade beside me. "Wise Amedile," I began, struggling to echo Blink's strange formality, "I am Magpie Frost, born here with the potential of an Arch-Druid. But as I stand before you I am nothing but a tiny mouse taking its first breaths of life. I have come seeking your instruction and guidance in the ways of our people."

The little woman paused, looking me up and down and considering my words until, finally, she nodded her head seemingly satisfied with the response I had given. "Yes, yes, yes," she began, nodding her head, "I do believe you will do. But I warn you that the trials ahead shall be greater than those of our kin. For great sacrifice is required, if great wisdoms are to be won."

I nodded, solemnly, struggling to show her an air of commitment and resolve. "Please, wise one. Show me what I will need to know. I will die a thousand deaths if a thousand deaths are required, but it is time for me to step foot upon the path now before me."

She grinned, a tiny, toothful thing as she nodded. Her body already moved into the steps of a dance, "As you say, young one," her words rose to me even as she danced through the fine, practiced movements, "Your words are well chosen. For I am the guardian of life and of growth, the dance of a thousand steps through which the world is reborn." Her body moved in slow, rhythmic steps, dancing oddly more from the waist, shoulders, and head than from the feet, "Watch until you understand, and then try to follow along. Dance with me, Magpie, and feel the magic of life around you."

The halfling woman didn't speak again after that, rather she closed her eyes and moved in the light of the cavern around us. I watched for a few minutes before attempting the steps, feeling slow and clumsy compared to the fluid, full-body motions of the druid before me. Blink took a step back and watched, occasionally demonstrating a move that I had failed to grasp, or moving my arm just a few inches to the left or a few inches to the right. It took a good half an hour before I felt at all comfortable with the dance, moving along in the woman's footsteps and clumsily matching the motions of her body. 

We rolled our shoulders, together, moving our arms in a complex string. I found that the dance was more about giving the appearance of fluidity as if there were no bones in our bodies, our forms flowing along like water through a stream. The strange lights of the chamber seemed to dance across our skin as we moved, giving a perfect, unearthly ambiance to the subtle motions of our bodies and our feet. I was reminded, vaguely, of the strange dances common during the turn of the twenty-first century. Ones meant for darkened basements and artificially lit dance floors, but that looked strange and unimpressive under the full light of the day. There were no strobes in the cavern, but the blues, greens, and reds of the cavern around us seemed to dance off of our skin with each fluidic step, echoing over our bodies in a kaleidoscope of colors.

The dance itself I realized, as the steps came more naturally and my arms relaxed into the long, fluid movements, was perfect for this place and this world. In the deep tunnels of the earth that had never seen the sun, luminescent plants shining into the deep caverns of unending night, the movements had the same, unearthly quality that I had seen in the vids and simulations during school. And as the hours flew by, the quiet breaths of our rhythm filling my heart and my mind, it felt as though we were in an entirely different world. It was then and only then, as my senses faded and I became finally aware of the magic and mystery around me, that the World accepted me.

Dancing in front of my vision, the druid, Blink, even the cavern around me faded from view into a solid haze of darkness, I panted and stared at the text in front of me, jolting me back into my mind and my senses.

Arch-Druid Ability Unlocked!

Lifegiving Aura (Legendary)

1 Second Activation: Upon activation Lifegiving Aura cleanses all removable debuffs from affected players.

While Active: Applies the following bonuses to allies in a thirty-foot radius:

Regeneration: 20 HP Restored Per Second

Indomitability:  Immunity to Poisons, Shock, and Environmental Damage

Rebirth:  Fallen Allies will continue to regenerate HP and, at 50% HP, will be given the opportunity to revive

Legendary:  

Passive effect: For 10 Minutes after Active Channeling ends, the following bonuses will be applied to allies in a thirty-foot radius:

Regeneration: 5 HP Restored Per Second

Restriction:

Only one active and one passive Aura may be maintained by the Arch Druid at any time.

I only had a moment to consider the powerful active effects and the drawbacks of dancing around like an idiot in combat while maintaining them before I realized what had happened. When the ability had unlocked, the world had gone dark and, apparently, the system had transferred me into an instanced area separate from the shared game world. It was similar to what I had seen in the videos, from when the third Aura was unlocked, and I wondered absently whether I was about to see some kind of scripted event as had happened to the other Druids after transitioning. 

Curious and distracted from my new Ability Upgrade, I went ahead and waved the Ability Notification aside, bringing a dark world of pure darkness into my view. I stood that way for only a moment before an event notification was issued through the instance:

Trial Of Wisdom

The Event Title flashed eerily in the dark emptiness of the area. I couldn't even see what it was I was standing upon, the hungry darkness closing in from all sides. The bright white of the letters cut through my vision and as they faded out, only then did I see the creature even then flying toward me.

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

It was a snake... with wings. It was huge, easily a good twelve feet long if it was a foot, and it seemed to create its own golden light as it moved, slithering more than flying through the air toward me on its thin leather wings. Not knowing where I was, or what I was standing on, I didn't dare move even as it hovered to a stop some few feet away, body twisting weightlessly in front of me. It hovered in front of my face, eyes boring deeply into mine, and its tongue darted out to test the air.

I glanced around, but even in the light of the snake... no, the serpent's scales there was nothing here to be seen. And so I waited and watched wondering if this was to be the Animal Spirit, come to bestow me with the enhancements of my class. I watched and squirmed in an innate, instinctual fear of its inhuman skin and sharp teeth, until it finally spoke. 

"Whats do whe have heres, we wonders," the thick, deep chords of its voice intoned. "Ah child-ling Nymphs come to claims my power," It muttered, more to itself than to me I thought.

I opened my mouth, having to force out the words through my own heavy breathing, never daring to take my eyes off of its menacing teeth, "I have come to you to learn, spirit. Would you honor me with your teaching?" I didn't have to work, this time, to keep my tone humble and respectful, continuing the formal speech that we had used in order to persuade training from the halfling. Those teeth were too sharp, and those eyes were too monstrous, for me to be anything but a timid girl alone in the dark.

As I spoke, the eyes darted toward me with an inhuman quickness. The neck twisted in the air as it coiled and twisted itself aloft faster than my eye could track. It was the grim knowledge that, if it decided to attack, I would never even see it coming, that made the silence yet deeper and the darkness more daunting. 

"Vhery wells," It said, nodding in the air before me, "I shall relinquish my powers, if this little creature will answer the questions I ask." It tilted its head as if considering before it continued on. "And question the first, I would puts there before its: It hated the body it wore as a childs. It hated the heavy flesh and the thick limbs. Why?"

I blinked at the question. And I blinked again. I knew my transcripts and records, to include my Father's notes, had been transferred to the DDO server in accordance with the contract. But the idea of something that personal, that embarrassing, showing up in-game, live-streamed for the entire world to see, it was both shocking and disconcerting to me. To say the least. Still, over the last decade, the game had grown to become... something else. I knew it before I had even signed up. And, if the truth were told, it was a large part of the reason I chose to come here in the first place. So, with as much dignity as I could muster, I swallowed my indignation and thought about the serpent's question.

"Well, it wasn't me," I said, feeling out the words as I continued. "My body wasn't fat or twisted, and my face wasn't distorted and ugly, not in the real world." I thought, echoing the hateful thoughts I had dwelled on for so many years. "It was a horror that I was forced to wear, forced to live my life through. And it was never even real."

The serpent hissed, its tongue tasting the air and whipping back and forth, as it turned my words through its head. "And what is real, to it? The world out there, that it disappears to for mere moments every day? No, noes, that does not seem right to us. This place, these worlds where it did wear the heavy flesh, looking out upon from its twisted face - even as its looks out now from the too perfect body that it does not otherwise possess. Not out there. This worlds here is where it bleeds and cries and sweats. This world here is where its ambitions lie, what it dreams about absently in the mornings and thinks about when it closes its eyes."

The serpent hovered for a moment, again tasting the air between its breaths, as it seemed to think. I was left agape, voiceless, as the words filtered slowly into my churning brain. It continued, "No, this is where its life is. So why, tell us, did its body assail it? Why did it rebel against its world day after day after day?"

I sputtered, the emotions swirling through me, from fear to pain to indignation, "I... was ugly. I suppose. I was teased and bullied and chased. And the weight kept me from running away, fighting back. It was just... always there. And I knew what it was like to be without it, in those few moments in that other world. To feel weightless and free. I wanted... I wanted to feel the same kind of freedom in here I guess. As I did out there." My brain spun at a thousand bites per second, trying to make sense of the things it was telling me, the things it was revealing to me, and to put the thoughts, somehow, into words.

"Yess," it more hissed than spoke. "Yess, we think it is right. But still we wonder, we wonder why when it finally did get its freedom, when it had told itself that its body here was a lie for so long... when it had told itself that its real worlds was out there. In the place it only barely visits. Why did it seek to change its face, its body, when it was reborn to us?"

I hesitated, my mind ripping through the memories of my first day in this place, not but a few days ago and yet somehow seemingly like a lifetime had passed here. I cut apart my thoughts, my desires, during those critical moments of character creation. And I asked myself what it was that I had wanted. What I had really wanted.

Unconsciously licking my lips, somehow not unlike the serpent tasting the air, I gathered my words, "I tried a lot of variations. I never had the chance to before, never had the freedom to experiment beyond the form that my Father had chosen for me. Somehow... when it was my choice... the different settings didn't feel as bad." I thought, breathing, "Even the dwarven women, who reminded me a bit of my old student Avatar, didn't feel quite as foreign and unfamiliar to me. When I was choosing it myself to see what it was like."

"But it did not chooses to bes a Dwarf, no it did not." Its eyes narrowed, taking on a dark air of violence as it continued, "No, insteads of the Dwarf, a form which would have been familiar to it, it chose the tall slim Nymph as its Avatar. And instead of a human, a skin that it could have worn exactly as if it where out in that other worlds, no changes at all, it chose the Wings of the nymph. It made its bodies tall and lithe and it made its face prettier."

I nodded, understanding what it was saying but not knowing how to respond. Eventually, the serpent continued, "It thought it wanted truth when it had come here, it did. But it discarded the truth of the body it had worn for years, girl bits or boy bits notwithstanding when its decided against the form of the dwarfs. It wanted 'truth', but it took not the human's form, where it could have lived and worked and played with the body it had longed for. The body from its other worlds."

The pieces finally started falling into place in my head. I wasn't sure how or why, but in a moment it was like something clicked together and everything, my world my thoughts my dreams, everything had suddenly shifted. And I understood, I thought, where the serpent was leading me. I opened my mouth then, finally, and nodded my head, "So what then, serpent, is your question?"

Laughter seethed from its lips, a haunting, hissing sound, as its eyes lit up before me, "My questions to it are three: What is its reality. What is its truth. And what is... its true form?"

I smiled, a serious, mirthless thing, as I opened my mouth, testing my words to gave my answers in sequence, "My reality is here, in this place, but it also lies in the other world that allows me to experience it. My reality is where my consciousness is, it is the experience of whatever world that I happen to be in, and all worlds are tied together. This world gives solace, it creates ideas that affect that world, which in turn affect the world we are in. So long as a place is experienced, and that experience is shared, that is what makes something real to me."

I took a breath, pausing and testing the thoughts against my tongue while choosing my next words carefully, "Truth, likewise, is a shared experience. If I have a thought, a knowledge in my heart, and I cannot share it or if I chose to pretend that it is something else, then I am giving someone an idea, an experience that I do not share. In lying, I am creating a rift between the two of us - their experience and mine. When I was in school I was hundreds of pounds heavier than my schoolmates, I was experiencing that weight and other people were experiencing me wearing it. That was truth. But there was another truth that I could not share, a truth that, in another world, I did not carry that weight or the same deformed features, and I was not someone who they would have loathed and teased. Because even if I had said the words, they would not have believed me, and my experience could not have been shared."  

Feeling more confident with every word, I finally reached the conclusion of my speech. The third question that had sounded so impossible before I had begun to speak and yet seemed so inevitable now, "My true form then, it is the form that both I experience wearing and that other people experience of me. My true form is my body and my true form is my mind - the body that I experience myself having, and the body that I know other people are relating to me in their minds. Any form that I can accept, that I can truly feel is mine, and that can be experienced empirically by the rest of the world, that is a shared truth. And that is my true form."

The serpent hissed, and I could almost see it smile, as it accepted my answer. "Well spoken, Arch-Druid. Shapechanger. Child of two worlds. I accept you and your namesake, and I give to you my reward." The voice fade, becoming fainter and fainter as the scales of its body seemed to disappear. One by one the scales faded from view as its body seemed to dissolve in front of me. I watched, awestruck, as the darkness claimed the creature before me, leaving nothing behind but the brightly glowing muscle of its still-beating heart.

"My power is yours, child. Now, do not hesitate. Add my truth to your own. And our true form shall be one that will topple the tallest forest and humble the proudest mountain." Faintly the words barely whispered into my ear, "Take my heart, cherish it, and protect it as your own."

I reached out then and took the ruby red glow of the serpent's heart in my palm. It was smaller than I would have thought or even would have imagined. And as the thick fluids filled my mouth and tough meat slid down my throat I did not feel nauseous. Instead, I felt warmed and nourished. When it was done, when I felt our hearts sink and begin to beat as one, a foreign, unimagined ecstasy poured through my veins. Liquid joy making me twitch and cry out, a primal, vulnerable sound torn from the sheer pleasure of the serpent's power now inside my body.

Class Feature Unlocked!

Druid of the Serpent

"Your cold heart beats to the rhythm of the serpent. You have discovered the Arch-Druid's Wisdom and claimed the venomous truths of the serpent for your own."  

Feature Unlocked:

Serpent's Mastery:  You may now shift parts of your body into animal form without shifting the whole. Transformations may be edited in the Ability Panel and are limited by Variance restrictions.

Serpent's Bite:  Your natural weapons now inflict lingering Poison damage. Potency is variable as determined by Equipped Weapon Damage and Willpower.

Collection Unlocked!

Hearts of Magic

Serpent-Form Acquired

I stood there, reading the text with my mouth hanging agape for several minutes. The first thing I did when I had collected myself was to open the interface and bring up the transformation panel, just staring at the new Serpent-Form that was now listed in my options. It was a good thing too, I soon discovered, as the dark edges of the instance faded into a deep blue, sunlit sky and I found that I was falling.

My fingers quickly mashed the buttons that allowed me to shift, shrinking me down to find the cold scaled beneath my legs and the winds billowing the leathery wings in front of me. Desperatly, I worked the invisible controls with my translucent, insubstantial hands until I managed to halt our speeding decent. And there, in the solitary winds above the world, I discovered what it was to fly.