Elijah expected the book to detonate in his face; instead, a shadowy form pulled itself free from the bookshelves and caught it in a clawed hand. Elijah stopped himself and backed away as the shadows reformed and coalesced into the shape of a person. The figure heavily resembled the Ink-Bound Wraith, but its features were more humanoid.

  Elijah sprang to his feet beside Benjamin, his blade coalescing in his hands at this new threat. It was bad enough that the wraith had changed forms—which likely meant new attacks—but now it was also holding a book. If they killed it, they risked the wraith dropping it and blowing them all up.

  “Wait, Elijah,” it whispered. Its voice was familiar, though it sounded like it’d been stretched thin. Like it was speaking through tar. “It’s me.”

  The black ink surrounding the creature’s face pulled back to reveal Bo’s face hidden within. At that moment, Nicholas came around the corner and stood behind the creature who had Bo’s face.

  “I found Bo’s portal, but he…” Nicholas stumbled over his words, unsure of what to say about the man’s altered state.

  “Bo?” Elijah asked, his guard shifting to be less threatening but still pointedly dangerous. “What happened to you?”

  ”He get ink sickness, duh,” Bitter Bat said from his place on the floor pinned beneath Bitter Root. “So sorry, sneaky sneaky boy, dead man walking.”

  Elijah shot a glare at his familiars, who were still roughhousing, not even the threat of an ink wraith. Returning his eyes back to the creature—Bo—he saw the rogue’s player tag floating above his head. That at least confirmed it was actually Bo and not something else.

  Probably.

  Elijah activated his Reality Warp just to make sure that this wasn’t some devious trick by the AI. It was definitely Bo; everything seemed to match correctly. He was fairly certain the game couldn’t use the same entity ID as another existing creature, which was why he had to append an additional number when he cloned himself or his friends.

  Something twinged on his senses around Bo’s class, so he activated his Reality Awareness and took a closer look. Elijah realized what he was seeing almost immediately; it was the same thing he saw when he looked at his own class closely.

  “You’re gaining a subclass, Bo. You’re becoming an Ink-Bound Wraith,” Elijah whispered.

  Bo nodded his head. “I know, I’m letting it happen.”

  Nicholas took a step back from the rogue. “What do you mean you are ‘letting’ it happen? You’d be becoming a monster, Bo.”

  Bo shook his head. “It’s just a class, guys.” He turned his head to face Elijah. “You didn’t become a monster when you got your Dragontooth class.” His head tracked around, impossibly far, until he was staring at Nicholas. “And you didn’t become a monster when you merged with your dryad class.”

  Benjamin cleared his throat, catching their attention. “Guys, this is a riveting discussion, but why don’t we focus and track down Sasha first?”

  “And tree boy!” Bitter Root shouted, then hit the ground hard as Bitter Bat teleported away and started searching through the books once again.

  Elijah had to explain to Bitter Root and Benjamin exactly what they were looking for while the others began their search. The library was still massive, but he hoped that they’d find Sasha and Bitter Dryad soon, especially considering how quick it had been to find the rest of the party.

  He found another key book and pulled it from the shelf, and had to admit it was the most adorable sight he had seen in a long time. Sasha was sitting on the floor while Bitter Dryad braided her hair, placing flowers that had grown from his bark-like skin throughout her hair. She looked like a princess being waited on by her attendant.

  “Sasha?” Elijah said, catching her attention.

  She smiled up at him. “I knew you’d find me, Elijah.”

  The quiet moment between them was broken when Bitter Root looked into the portal and saw the scene. Elijah didn’t know if the goblin just intended to cause chaos, or if he really didn’t know how the Dryad would react.

  “Ha! Tree boy a flower girl,” the goblin mocked.

  Bitter Dryad wasted no time switching from the gentle nurturing attendant to a fierce fighter as he launched himself through the portal. The two familiars filled the room with a cacophony of swears and screaming as they bit, kicked, and punched each other while rolling on the ground.

  As Elijah helped Sasha through the portal, Bitter Bat added to the mayhem as he teleported on top of the other two and added his own limbs and swears to the tumbleweed of chaos. Elijah didn’t really care, as long as they didn’t knock over any books, but it really did sour the mood of the party’s reunion.

  He let them duke it out for a few minutes while the rest of the party gathered, and he leaned on Nicholas and Bo’s help to separate the three creatures.

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  “We need to discuss Bo’s ‘transformation’,” Elijah said once they’d gotten the familiars settled down. He could have simply un-summoned them, but he did not know what this dungeon held in store for them and wanted the familiars on standby in case something bad happened.

  “I’m telling you,” Bo growled. “It’s fine, it’s a class upgrade. I can already tell it’s boosting my ability to be stealthy, and the ability to teleport between shadows is going to be very handy.”

  Elijah was about to argue against it further when Sasha cut in. “Bo, I think we’re just worried about you. You said it yourself that this dungeon is damaging itself in order to specifically fight against us. What if this is part of its plan?”

  Bo shook his head. “It doesn’t work that way, Sasha. Yeah, the dungeon created the Wraiths in order to fight us, but dungeon cores have no control over classes or players. I was offered this class because the game’s AI, Fate, saw an opening to bolster my effectiveness.”

  Elijah’s eyes drifted to Nicholas, remembering how he’d told the party leader about his inability to separate his own thoughts from that of his Dragontooth class. Nicholas locked eyes with him and a kind of understanding passed between them. The memory was still fresh in both of their minds. He knew immediately that Nicholas would back him up if he pushed Bo.

  “Listen, we want to support you, Bo. But we have to know what’s going on with you. You’re already one of our most effective members and crucial in understanding the underlying systems. Why are you so worried you aren’t going to be effective?” Even the Bitters had stopped their quiet bickering when Elijah spoke.

  Bo looked around at the party; all eyes were on him now. He shut his eyes and took a long, deep breath. “Look, you all know I’ve been cagey about what I went through during the second trial. Fine, I’ll tell you.”

  Elijah wasn’t sure what the second trial of the dryad glade had to do with what was happening now, but he was willing to give Bo the benefit of the doubt and listen.

  “I didn’t have some crazy combat scenario, or puzzle trying to get me to specialize. I had a vision of the future,” he shook his head ruefully before continuing. “It wasn’t actually the future. Fate is good, but she isn’t that good. But it was a hypothetical future. One where all my friends no longer needed me because I was too weak.”

  “I thought it was bull, but then when I saw Nicholas come out with his unique class,” Bo’s eyes locked onto Nicholas’ name tag where his Legendary-tier class shone with a faint golden light. “That rattled me, because as a Rogue I don’t have very many options for powering up my class. I can’t just fuse with a tree and become legendary. There’s a reason none of the six celestials started as a rogue.”

  His eyes darted over to where Sasha and Elijah stood. “We already had you two in the party, with your high-ranking classes, so I felt useless for a while. Especially after Benjamin told me what specialization he was going for.”

  Bitter Bat provided the question that was on Elijah’s mind, though phrased differently than how Elijah would have put it. “What ugly mage want class to be?”

  Benjamin shot Bat an annoyed look. “I’m not the one on trial here.”

  “Nobody is on trial here, Benjamin,” Sasha corrected.

  “Bo, what I’m most concerned about is if this is going to change you. Kole said something to me about the Celestial-tier classes affecting people’s personalities. I want to make sure whatever this is, isn’t going to do that to you.”

  Bo scoffed. “He’s wrong. Shardline did several studies on the effects that classes have on the players. They found no link between personality shifts after playing the game and a person’s class.”

  Elijah knew that was wrong and knew that Bo knew it. “You told me yourself that Shardline had to pull the ability to create player-made dungeons because the class was warping people’s minds.”

  Bo rolled his eyes. “Yes, but that was a decade ago. Safety was looser and there were fewer protections in place. It can’t happen now; they patched those issues.”

  “Just like it can’t happen that the game glitches out and traps a million people in-game?” Benjamin’s words were quiet, but they seemed to echo in the library. It was as if the library itself was trying to reinforce Benjamin’s leading question. A taunt—or a warning?

  “That’s different, Benjamin. That’s the difference between a system glitch and the system maliciously screwing with people,” Bo snarled, though he looked immediately apologetic for the tone he took with the mage.

  “Look, the fact that we’re stuck in here is exactly the reason why I need to upgrade my class. We’re in this for the long haul and if I’m just a basic rogue, then at some point I’m not going to be able to keep up with you all.”

  “Look, guys, I’m not saying for you to trust this upgrade, but I am asking that you trust me that I know the system.” A smile crooked up on his face. “And that my ego is too big for any class to overwrite.”

  Benjamin laughed. “Well, I’ll definitely give you that one, Bo. Your ego is big enough for the five of us.”

  “Heh. Heh. Heh.” A booming voice echoed around the library, drowning out the sound of Benjamin’s laughter.

  Nicholas moved quickly, pushing past Elijah and Benjamin. As Elijah turned, he saw why and where the voice was coming from. A spectral Ink-Bound Wraith hovered just above the floor at the end of the row of shelves. Nicholas had moved forward to shield the others in case it chose to attack.

  [Boss Info]

  The Librarian (Level 50)

  HP: 350 / 350

  This was what they had come for, the boss of the dungeon, but now that Elijah saw it he wasn’t entirely sure they would be able to defeat it. It didn’t appear to have a corporeal form.

  “How curious that one such as yourself can take something meant for death and turn it into something useful. If only the Dragontooth King had been capable of doing the same, his empire might not have fallen.”

  The boss’ red eyes fell onto Bo, and Elijah realized those eyes were the exact same as the ones that had stared down at him and Nicholas in the hallway.

  “I’m curious, Wraith Bastard, which sovereign will you support? Will you support the Dragontooth Pretender who wishes to take all of my power for himself? Or will you support the Heartwood Usurper in his effort to take control?”

  Nicholas swiped his spear through the air as he guarded behind his shield. “Your tricks won’t work here. The Heartwood dryads stand behind the Dragontooth King.”

  The creature let out another laugh. “We shall see, won’t we?”

  The Librarian lifted his arms, and the ground began to shift. From the cracks in the stone, black ink began to rise out of the floor.