"Good morning, Evie! Time to wake up!"

My eyes opened with a jolt. "Mom?" I tried, but no, it was a chirp. I was still a fox. As the dream faded and I took in my surroundings, I remembered where I was. I slumped a little. I had no idea what I was going to do. A thought hit me then, and I froze up in fear, unsure of what had awoken me. After sitting still for a few moments, it dawned on me that it must have been a combination of the sun rising and that I really needed to pee. I was starving and a bit thirsty - but those alone would never get me out of bed... or Den? Hole? Whatever. The need to pee was more pressing, so I crawled slowly to the entrance of my little hiding spot and looked around. The coast seemed clear, and I heard nothing moving, so I slipped out of the hole and made my way a bit further up the line of the destroyed wall. I could smell humidity in the clean air that told me I had slept through some rain. I walked a short distance in the light fog and found where a very sad bush was growing. I sniffed it a few times, found this was the correct place to pee, and did my business. Only after I was trotting back to my cave of solitude did I realize what I had just done.

I sighed, thinking, "Do I now have weird fox instincts on where I should be peeing? That is next-level weird, and I have no idea what I'm supposed to do with that."

At that very moment, my ears twitched, also weird, and a quick flash of movement caught my attention in the corner of my eye. Without thinking, I pounced, snatched up a rat by its neck, and shook hard. It snapped, and I took my meal back to the den where I could eat, let myself wake up, and think about what was happening. Back in my far corner, I settled down and ate while trying to figure things out. I really hadn't let myself think too much the previous night. It was just a huge shock, and then I was running on pure adrenalin until I passed out. I tried to think back to what happened and how I ended up in this situation, but the more I focused on it, the harder it was to piece things together. I could remember some things, like getting dinner with Mom, but I couldn't remember how we got there. I knew we went to the hotel and got ready for bed, but I didn't remember the drive back. It was like something was blocking out a lot of my memory. That wasn't the only problem, either. I was no expert, but I knew I should be more upset about everything. I had just dealt with a major traumatic event. Sure, I was afraid of running into more monsters, but I felt completely functional. Why wasn't I panicking about weird men chaining me naked to an altar? Why wasn't I more sad or angry about being taken away from home? It felt almost like it was something that had happened a long time ago. It was like I missed Mom, but more in the way that I missed Dad. It felt like I was used to it, and it wasn't a big deal. I wasn't sure if things just hadn't hit me yet or if something was wrong with me.

Trying something new, I focused on remembering how I had gotten here. I knew there was darkness, like being pulled through tar and then nothing. I was just suddenly on that altar. Somehow, it seemed like so much nothing, a vast blank space. Trying to focus on that made me feel something on a deeper level, and I shuddered. Determined, I swallowed and tried to focus more. Then, a flash hit me; I was being pulled through burning tar, my skin was melting, and my arm was being torn away, and the flash stopped. I stopped. Then I looked around. "Oh my god, what the hell was I doing?! I'm tearing apart and eating an actual rat! That’s so disgusting!" I immediately ran out of the hole again, leaving disturbingly little of the rat uneaten behind me. I wanted to be sick, but I couldn't. This fox thing was so not okay. Why would I be okay with being a fox?? I immediately closed my eyes, focused on my skill, and thought about being human again. Nothing happened for a very scary few seconds before, finally, I felt that odd shift again. My sight distorted before I was back on my hands and knees. It was freezing. I hadn't noticed that before, but I did notice my very pale, not sunburned skin. My hands looked somehow too small and thin. My hair wasn’t falling in my face. I slowly stood up and did not stand up very far. I thought this should be disorienting, but it was not. I knew I was five feet, eight inches tall, but looking around, I felt a lot more like five feet might be more realistic. I looked at my arms and hands again and saw that the black substance I had been covered in was gone.

Thinking about it, I remembered the other fox the previous night also had been clean when she had run off, so I guessed the transformation let it fall off. That was nice, at least. I felt at my head and found another problem. My usually very long hair was gone. I had maybe two inches of hair on top of my head. I plucked a strand out, and it was bright white. "Oh, this is just not going very well for me," I moaned, to my immediate regret. A snort and a heavy step from nearby caught my attention, causing my ears to twitch again. Still weird. I looked sharply to my side. Nearby, in the field, a massive cow roamed past and turned its head away and back to its grazing. Two important questions crossed my mind. "Why is there a cow haunting this ruin? Also, wait, my ears twitched?" I quickly put my hands back up to my head and found that, yes, I still had fox ears. They were definitely not small, and I had no idea how I had missed them just a moment ago. I tried to look up at them, which obviously did not work, before turning a bit and feeling something brush against my legs. With a yelp, I jumped straight up into the air and crashed back down, tripping on my own feet and landing hard on the ground, where I could see a long, fluffy white tail. My long, fluffy white tail. This struck me at the same time as the fact I was not wearing pants, and landing on the cold ground hurt. Also, I wasn't wearing anything else. I just blinked a few times before walking in shame to a shadow, once again as a fox.

After a moment of sulking, I noticed that the cow was not alone. There were people out in that field as well. I stood up on my hind legs and watched them for a moment, but every one of them was utterly still. It was an unnerving, unnatural stillness. All of them had black wisps rising from them from time to time. I smelled death. Then it hit me. This city was surrounded by what I could only assume were zombies. It was impossible to tell how many with the fog, but it was a lot. I didn't know why they were ignoring me, but I did know that I was going farther back into the city to be safe. I turned and ran maybe fifty feet, it was hard to tell while being this small, and stopped next to a shattered house. At least, I thought it had been a house. It was a ruin, after all.

"Alright, I need to get out of here. Those giant monsters are probably still somewhere around here. Zombies are surrounding the town… I need to find somewhere safe, preferably also somewhere with pants." I thought to myself - without accidentally chirping this time. I should be proud. As I tried to decide what to do next, I remembered all the prompts I had hidden. They had helped before. Well, sort of. Hopefully, I'd find something I could use in them now. With a quick check for them, I spotted some small dots off to the side of my vision. Focusing on them began a spam of messages. Most of them were hidden behind the main prompt that had previously been blocking my vision, the class selection screen. I kind of pushed that off to the side for now and began reading what it had been hiding behind it.

* Congratulations! You have destroyed the Great Devil Jalmonnoth, The Unclean, Lord of Undeath. Massive bonus experience is awarded for destroying an enemy 80 levels above you! (Error: no class detected; experience is lost)

* Title Awarded! [Demon Slayer]! All damage to demons is improved by 10%! All lesser demons and below feel fear in your presence! Greater Demons and above may go into a rage in your presence!

* Congratulations! You have razed the Necropolis Phoz Vazax! Great Experience is awarded for clearing a zone of terrible evil! (Error: no class detected; experience is lost)

Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

* Title Awarded! [Bane of the Unclean]! All lesser undead are weakened in your presence! Undead 10 levels or more below you will flee your presence! Undead 10 levels or more below you have a 10% chance to be destroyed in your presence.

* Stand and Rejoice, mortals of the Noble Lands! The [Hero] - has slain the Great Devil Jalmonnoth, The Unclean!

* Stand and Rejoice, mortals of the Noble Lands! The [Hero] - has destroyed the Necropolis of Phoz Vazax! The state of war between Phoz Vazax and the Noble Lands had ended. The mortals of the Noble Lands have been awarded +1 Constitution and +1 Resilience due to the great deeds of the Hero - ! Let their name be remembered for Eternity.

* Congratulations! You have restored to existence a long-extinct race of legend, [Kitsune]! The Gods smile upon you! You gain +1 to all stats. +5 skill points awarded!

* You have freed yourself from the restrictions of a slave collar! Access to additional class options is available! You are no longer forbidden to have a name! You are no longer forbidden from leveling!

* You have unequipped an item providing the skill "Universal Language Translation." This skill is lost.

I stared at these notifications for a moment. The first thing to cross my mind was, "Whelp. I'm pretty sure about ninety percent of that is about to come back and bite me hard..." I felt like I should be upset about the lost experience, but I really wasn’t sure what that meant. To be fair, I had played Dungeons and Dragons before. I had a feeling it was something similar based on the context, but how much would it really impact me, or how much was really lost? I had no idea. I was also pretty sure the first few notifications were mistakes. Firstly, they definitely did not contain my name, so it could have been any of us who had been trapped in that room. Maybe even something unrelated to any of us. I was pretty confident I'd not killed any sort of devil, and I had no idea what Phoz Vazax even was.

Clearing away these notifications, I pulled back over the class selection screen. It was now very different. I had dropdown selections for "Class," "Advanced Class," "Racial Class," and "Hero Class." I decided to check them in order. Under "Class," the list was standard fantasy fair, like Fighter, Rogue, Cleric, Mage, and Ranger. There were more, but I stopped reading and flipped to the next list. I was never a huge gamer, but my small experience was enough to recognize that this was the least of the classes. Moving on to the Advanced Class List, I saw "Spellsword," "Sky Captain," "Paladin," that I recognized, and many more, which seemed a bit less obvious to me. They felt like combinations of classes or classes with very specific purposes. No descriptions were given, so I kept looking for something familiar. I needed to find something that would help me escape this death trap and hopefully get home. I followed the list right down to the next section, Racial Class, and hit the dropdown. It was very short and very confusing. "Divine Messenger," "Oracle," "Trickster," and "Soul Thief." Those were all concerning in their own ways and going on the list of things to repress thinking about for now. The Hero classes were the last to look at, and I was holding my breath when I delved into the list. The options did not bring me comfort. "Champion of the Mortal Realm," "Saint of the East," "Guardian of the Sky," "Sentinel of Aeos," "Storm Of Chaos," and "Walker of the Lines."

"Ok, really? This is nonsense. This isn’t even fair! How am I even supposed to know what any of this means?" I thought to myself, chirp-free. "Seriously, Guardian of the Sky? Why would you even need to guard the sky? And how?"

* Congratulations! You have gained the [Hero] class Guardian of the Sky! You are now the Guardian of the Sky! +50 Hit points, + 50 Mana, +60 Stamina, +5 Agility, +5 Dexterity, +10 Attribute Points, +5 Skill Points, +5 Spell points per level! You have gained the following skills! [Airship Control], [Airship Maintenance], [Navigation], [Proficiency: Longbow], [Proficiency: Short bow], [Proficiency: Saber], [Proficiency: Knives], [Proficiency: Spear], [Proficiency: Glaive]. You have gained the following Traits! [Lightning Immunity], [Starlight], [Blessing of the Sky]. You have gained the following spells! [Control Weather], [Channel Lightning], [Channel Wind], [Sun Ray]. You are level 1.

"WAIT NO!" I chirped in alarm. "I didn't pick anything!" The system did not respond. Then I flashed bright white and suddenly knew.

Earlier today, I had no idea what magic really was. I didn't know ships could fly. I surely did not know every constellation in an alien sky. I did now, though. I knew if I looked up, even in the middle of the day, I'd know where every star was. I knew which strands of the world to pull on to make those clouds turn into a storm, and I knew that I was absolutely going to [Sun Ray] the next monster that made me feel like I needed to crawl into a hole and hide.

"OK. This is not as terrible as I thought. I can navigate for the first time literally ever. That is a good start of exactly what I wanted!" I quietly chirped to myself. A feeling of safety came with this. The suggestion that there was likely a road that the Walmart Cultists followed to get here also popped into my head. I just needed to find it. Making my way back to the edge of the city, I stayed just inside the layer of stones from the fallen walls to keep myself obscured from the zombies and began my patrol around the city. With my ability in fox form to see those wisps on creatures, it was like they had flags over their head, so it was easy to stay clear of them. They were also standing still, which was odd but great for me. After about three hours of this game, drinking from what I hoped was a recent rain puddle twice, avoiding the temptation of ambushing two rabbits, and one chime of "You have improved your [Stealth] skill. level 2." I found ruts in what must have been an old road. It looked like it headed straight for the building I escaped from, and the ruts had to be from a heavy wagon. I guessed it must have been how they were planning to transport us out. I turned away from the city and started down the trail. It was more defined than I had first thought as if the grass and vegetation didn't want to grow on it, even if it did seem little more than a muddy path.

I took only a few steps before I noticed the smell of blood. I quickly looked around and spotted two bodies on the side of the road. One was missing his head, and the smaller form was completely desiccated. I didn't want to think about what happened to them, but I also realized I had an opportunity. Carefully approaching them, I inspected the smaller form. I was pretty sure the body had previously been a woman. She was several inches taller than me, but she wore a cloak over a tunic that was mostly clean of blood and a riding skirt. Realistically, riding skirts are very fancy pants. My dreams were coming true. She had a knife on her belt, and everything seemed to be in wearable shape besides a slight musky smell. I looked around, ensured the coast was clear, and returned to my human form.

After stripping her out of the clothes, a process that was much easier than expected since she had no weight at all, I ran into another problem. I had a tail. I had to cut down the back of the skirt from the top far enough to go around my tail and then hold the cloth together with the belt at the top, but I had clothes. I took her cloak, and as soon as I threw it over my shoulders, I was suddenly no longer freezing. It was unnatural to suddenly feel comfortable all over in the cold. I hadn't even put on the hood, and my feet were bare, but I felt no cold. Just as oddly, her boots fit me so perfectly it was like they were made for me. She was wearing a necklace with an interesting pendant and a pouch with some coins. I felt justified in taking them. When I was finished, I didn't exactly look like a cultist, but there was a definite dark theme to the outfit. I was feeling a bit less defenseless with a dagger on my hip and not being a tiny fox weighing maybe ten pounds. I got started down the road. I had been here too long and didn't want to be here at night. I took a single step before I remembered the red fox. I couldn't return to that place to look for her, but maybe she also found a way out. I looked around for anything that might help. A simple idea struck me, and I gathered a few stones from the rubble and made a crude arrow pointing down the trail. I doubted monsters would understand the reference. Just to make sure she knew it was from me, I took another stone and scratched it into the soft earth next to the arrow, "Exit here, Find Evie" in English. She spoke to me, so I was hoping we were from the same place and she could read it. I didn't have a lot of hope that she was still here, which made me feel a little heartsick for some reason, but I couldn't leave without at least trying something. With that, I turned and started down the path and into the encroaching forest.

* Now Leaving "The Desolation of Kingsgrove"

It took almost an hour before the trail ended at a T intersection with a more solid road. I had been traveling through a forest with a canopy so thick it was nearly like walking through the night, and this wide road under a daytime sky was such a relief. This road, too, was entirely devoid of vegetation, but unlike the trail fighting not to be mud, the road looked like something I'd see in a historical documentary of Rome with even stone pavement. They looked unnaturally even, actually. Looking back and forth, the road was entirely empty, and there was no indication of which way led to an evil cult town and which way led to a warm bed. I thought about it briefly and remembered something from the class selection. "Saint of the East". I shrugged. "Well, that’s as good as I'm going to get, I guess!" I took a quick glance at the sky with my new super impressive stargazing skill, turned to my right, and started walking.