I stay there softly petting my girlfriend until I finally feel some movement coming back into her. “Hmmm… Ami…?” She starts to roll over so she can look at me. “How long have you been petting me.”

“Just for a little bit.” I smile. “But I don’t have a watch so I can’t really say for how long.”

Sam just smiles at me and leans in for a kiss. I gladly accept.

“Have you slept well?”

“Like a dream.” She replies and then stretches. “What about you?”

“I did as well. This hut is really cozy.”

“Mhmm, it is.” Sam nods. “One day I also want to take you to a cabin in the far north, so we can cozily huggle together while it’s snowing outside.”

“But what if we get snowed in?”

“We just have to take plenty of food. And that way no one can disturb us.”

“Hehe.”

Sam pulls me close and hugs me tightly before she loosens her grasp again. “I want to stretch my legs. Are you coming too or are you going to stay in bed for a bit longer?”

“Nah, I’ll come too.”

We both roll out of the bedroll and put our clothes on.

“I am pretty happy it’s not raining today.” Sam looks out of the hut. The sun is actually shining quite brightly, when we look up we can see a couple of beautiful white clouds drift in the sky.

“It looks like it’ll be a nice day.”

“Mhmm.” Sam nods as she leaves the hut. I follow along and together we head over to the campfire. There’s still a couple of embers from last night that look pretty hot. But apart from that there doesn’t seem to be a lot of activity around.

“The others must be using their time to sleep in.” Sam takes log from storage and gently places it on the embers. “Do you want to do anything in the meantime? Or do you just want to wait.”

“Maybe we can try to prepare some food for them? If we can catch a fish we can make some sushi.”

“It’s a bit of a shame to not use the fish we Hilda caught yesterday though.”

“Hmm… but I want some fresh cold sushi…”

“Alright, how about we do both. While I catch some fish, you prepare some of the fish from yesterday. That way we are both happy.”

“Yay!” I jump up enthusiastically. “But that reminds me, we definitely need another companion.”

“Why do you say that all of the sudden? Isn’t the five of us enough?”

“We need someone with ice magic, Sam, that way we can refrigerate our food.”

It look like Sam wants to say something but that she suddenly doesn’t know what to say. That lasts a couple of seconds before she scratches her chin. “Wouldn’t Nikki be able to learn that? Or does she solely know how to cast fire?”

“I don’t know… I don’t really know how her class works….”

“Well, we can ask later. For now, let’s get to work.”

“Oki.” I give her a smile and Sam starts heading off to catch some fish.

I have to wait a bit for the fire to get going again before I can start cooking, but once it’s nice and hot enough, it doesn’t take long for the food to be on the plate and sizzling away.

In the meantime Sam also arrives back, with a couple of fish speared onto one of her arrows.

“They are still not awake yet?”

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

“No activity.” I shake my head. The fish in my little skillet is already starting to smell very very good.

“Hmm.” Sam takes out her knife and gets ready to start working on her fish. “Could you go and check on them? I’ll take care of the skillet.”

“Yeah, I’ll go take a look.” I nod and get up. If they want to sleep on a bit longer that’s all fine, but it’s probably not bad to at least go and mention we are busy making some food.

I walk over to the hut that’s closest to the fire, that being the hut of Hilda and knock on the wood before peaking inside.

Inside I see Hilda peaking over her bedroll at me, it looks like my knock woke her up. “Amicia… Is something wrong?” She tries to sit up a little more.

“No, Sam and I are just making some breakfast. But it’s fine if you want to sleep in longer.”

“Is it that late already?” She asks.

“Well, the sun is already pretty high in the sky.” I point up.

“Oh…” She rubs the proverbial sand out of her eyes. “I’ll be up in a minute. I’ve slept long enough already.”

“Okay, but you don’t have to hurry, we are still preparing.”

Hilda smiles after which I move on to the little hut my sister and Nikki. But before I knock on the wooden wall, I can already hear some silent talking.

“Are you two awake?” I softly ask.

“Amicia?” My sister replies. “Yeah, we are. We are reading a book.”

“More specifically, I am reading a book while your sister is cuddling up to me.” Nikki corrects her.

“Potato, potato.”

“Ah, okay.”

“Did you need us for something?”

“Not really, Sam and I are making breakfast. I’m just spreading the word around.”

“Oh, breakfast…” My sister comments. “I think I could use some breakfast.”

“That’s not a bad idea.” Nikki ads.

“Alright, then I’ll go back to the campfire and help Sam a bit more.”

“‘Kay, we will be right there with you.”

And with that, the breakfast bell had been rung.

After I arrive back at the campfire it takes only a couple of minutes before the first couple of bedheads appear, it’s my sister and Nikki.

A couple of minutes after them, the last person of our party arrives as well.

“It doesn’t happen often that you are the last one to get out of bed, Hilda.” My sister grins.

“Why don’t you try to get poisoned next time to see how exhausting that is.” Hilda snaps back but with a smile on her face.

“Or you could take a couple of points in Paladin.”

“Is that possible?” Sam asks. “To multiclass in this game like in Catacombs and Chimeras?” At the same time Sam starts offering some food to all of us.

“In a way, but it works a bit differently.” Hilda replies. “It would be easier for a knight to ‘multiclass’ into Paladin than it would be for me. For me it would only add a couple of minor bonuses and stat increases and maybe that disease resistance your sister has. But for a knight they would be able to synergize a lot better, receiving more prominent divine skills. Their stat increases would also be more efficient.”

“It mainly depends on class adjacency.” Nikki explains further. “Like for you, as a ranger, it would be easier to spec into a rogue like Hilda, than it would be to spec into a mage or a tanky class. You won’t be wasting a lot of experience like that. That said it’s still not true multiclassing as you will always stay a ranger.”

“So, basically it’s just taking elements of another class?”

“Yes, pretty much.” Hilda nods. “Apart from Ami who can be both a healer and a tank, a true multiclass like that doesn’t exist.”

“At least as far as we know.” Lise ads.

“Fair enough. You have to realize that most of our knowledge is from the time when we thought this was just a game. Now that we know it’s more like an alternate reality, there’s no one who can tell for sure.”

“That makes sense.” Sam nods. “But that actually brings me to something Ami and I were wondering about a bit earlier.” Sam first looks at me and then at Nikki.

Nikki bounces back a little, probably feeling a bit targeted. “Uh, has it something to do with me?”

“Yeah.” I nod. “Sam and I were just wondering if you could learn ice magic…”

“Ah.” Nikki looks relieved that the question wasn’t very difficult. “I definitely could. While ice magic is the polar opposite of my preferred magic, it’s still magic. But, it would could me a lot of points still to get any good spells for it, and…”

“And?” Sam tilts her head.

“It’s not fire magic.” My sister laughs.

“Yeah.” Nikki chuckles. “Fire magic is my thing. I want to be the strongest fire mage in this world and ice just doesn’t cut it for me.”

“Big explosions go boom?” Sam says.

“Exactly.” Nikki gives her a thumbs up. “And I don’t really want to compromise on that.”

“That’s valid!” I reply. “We were just wondering if you could.”

“That’s okay.” Nikki smiles. “But why were you wondering to begin with?”

“Well…” I scratch the back of my neck. “We were looking for someone to refrigerate sushi….”

The group stays silent for a couple of seconds before my sister snorts very very loudly. “Of course it would be you who would think about that.”

“B-but Sam was in on it too!”

Sam laughs. “Technically I just proposed that Nikki might be able to do learn it. The food refrigeration part was all you though.”

Now the rest of the group starts laughing too.

-Noooo! My foodie brain has betrayed meee!!!!-