“God damn it, Carl,” Jacob’s voice exclaimed from the hallway outside my door.

I opened the door to my room and looked at Jacob, a septuagenarian with a sour disposition and even worse body odor. He was leaning on his walker as he glared at me challenging.

“I know you were the one who stole my pudding,” Carl accused, pointing his bony finger in my face. “You know that butterscotch is the only flavor I like.“

“Why would I steal your pudding?” I responded with a roll of my eyes. “I don’t even like butterscotch.“

Jacob blinked at that. “Because… Because you’re jealous of my hair.“

That made me burst out laughing, though I had to resist reaching up to touch my hair, or lack thereof. Most of my hair had fled more than two decades ago, leaving me with a silver Caesar ring around the sides. I’d long since stopped caring much about such a minor thing

“Oh yes, I’m jealous of your hair,” I responded with a chuckle. “Now, I think you’d better go get yourself checked out because your dementia is getting worse.”

Jacob glared at me even harder. “You… You…” He took a deep breath before hissing, “You’ll pay for this. Once I have enough evidence for the lawsuit…”

I just remained where I was, not bothering to say anything at first. As unfortunate as it was, Jacob actually did have a bit of dementia. Once upon a time, at least according to him, he’d been a pretty sharp lawyer. These days, his only legal skills seemed to be in threatening to sue anyone who annoyed him.

“Can we hurry this up?” I asked Jacob patiently. “I have a big date to get to, and I don’t want to be late.“

“Just you wait,” Jacob told me before he turned and shuffled off down the hallway of the nursing home.

Once Jacob was gone, I stepped out into the hallway myself, using my cane to keep my balance. The nurses kept telling me that I needed a walker, but I wasn’t that bad yet. Needing a cane was bad enough.

I slowly made my way down the hallway to the cafeteria, silently cursing just how long it took me to travel such a short distance. Getting old really sucked, but it was still better than the alternative. But eventually, I arrived at my destination, the corner table that I’d reserved for the occasion. My date was already at our usual table, waiting in her wheelchair.

Margaret was a white-haired octogenarian, who must have been quite a beauty back in her younger days, because she still managed to hold onto a great deal of charm. She was a widow with three kids, seven grandchildren, and two great grandchildren. None of whom ever bothered to come visit her.

My lovely date and I were both bored and lonely, having very little to do in this place. That was why we’d begun doing our weekly date nights. They were less about romance and more about companionship and giving us something to look forward to.

“Maggie,” I greeted her with a pleasant smile.

“Don’t Maggie me,” Margaret responded with a smile and a twinkle in her eye. “You know I prefer my full name.”

“I’m sorry,” I lied as I took my seat. “I forgot.”. Then I joked, “They say that memory is the first thing to go.”

“And what is the second?” she asked.

I gave her a deadpan look as I answered, “I forget.”

Margaret was dressed up for our date, as usual. She loved the excuse to put on her good clothes and jewelry, and I was more than happy to provide it. Tonight, she’d even gone all out and was wearing one of the gaudiest pieces of jewelry that I’d ever seen. It was a large gold amulet with a golf ball sized red gem right in the center.

I gave Margaret’s necklace a quick look, though I made sure not to look too closely. Most people would assume that thing was a piece of costume jewelry, but I knew better. I considered saying something about the item, then decided that it would probably be better to just not bring any attention to it.

“You’re looking lovely as usual,” I told my date.

“Oh, you charmer,” Margaret responded with a wink, clearly enjoying the attention.

It was around this time that someone brought food over to our table for us. The nurses and other staff seemed to find our date nights amusing, so they played along and made things a bit nicer.

About halfway through the meal, Margaret asked, “So, Carl, what did you do before you retired?”

“Oh, nothing too exciting,” I told her with a chuckle. “I was with animal control. You know, rounding up stray animals that make a nuisance of themselves and the like.”

“That does sound interesting,” Margaret responded with an interesting look and a faint smirk. “But I seem to remember you telling me once that you used to be an accountant.”

“Being an accountant was boring,” I explained, “so I changed careers.”

“I see,” my date responded pleasantly. “And I just happened to remember that you once said you were a garbage man…”

“Sanitation engineer,” I corrected her pleasantly. “I quit that one to become an accountant. I thought it would be less smelly.”

“Smelly, hmmm?” Margaret mused, watching me with sharp eyes that reminded me of a predator about to strike. “I think that I might be smelling a little something myself. I think it might be BS.”

“I’ve gone through a few careers,” I said with a wink and a smile. There was clearly nothing wrong with Margaret’s memory, because she was still just as sharp as anyone I’d ever met. “And were you, by any chance, a reporter?”

“Oh, heavens no,” Margaret responded with a pleasant laugh. “Just a mother whose children loved to take liberties with the facts.”

“Well, maybe you should have been,” I told her. “You just might have missed your calling.”

We both laughed at that and continued with our dinner. Once we were done eating, I announced, “Now, I think it’s time for dessert…” I reached into my pocket and pulled out a pudding cup and set it on the table in front of her. “I got you your favorite. Butterscotch.”

Margaret accepted the dessert and laughed again as she reached for her spoon. “You really are a charmer.”

Just then, a loud scream suddenly filled the air. I snapped around and looked at the door to the cafeteria, realizing that the scream had come from the other side. Before I could even take three breaths, four figures burst into the room.

The figure in front was a slender woman, one of the employees of the nursing home. From the look of terror on her face and the blood that was splattered across her front, I immediately suspected that she was the source of the scream.

Three men stepped into the room behind her, with one of them having a hand on her shoulder from where he was pushing her forward. He was tall and muscular, with well-tanned skin and dark red hair that was brushed back. His clothes immediately stood out as he wore a pair of black leather pants and a top that seemed to be scale armor. A large, double-bladed axe hung from his other hand.

The second man was lean and wiry, with light brown skin and dark hair. His clothing choices were just as unusual as the first man, comprising of leather armor over most of his body, with at least half a dozen knives and daggers strapped to him in various places.

And then there was the third man, who was wide and stocky, wearing a black leather biker’s jacket with lots of buckles and studs. Of the three, he looked the most normal, except for the fact that he held a golden scepter with red gem set into the head.

None of these men belonged in the home, and I seriously doubted that they were there as visitors. My eyes went from the blood on the woman’s clothing to the matching blood that dripped from the axe the first man held.

“Where is she?” the large man demanded of the scared employee. When the woman didn’t answer fast enough, he raised the axe and held it in front of her. “I won’t ask again.”

Before the terrified woman could answer, the wiry man abruptly exclaimed, “There…” He was pointing right at me and Margaret. “She’s right there…”

“What the hell?” the stocky man blurted out. “She’s wearing the damn thing. Right out in the open.”

“Makes it easier on us,” the large muscular one said.

My eyes widened and I looked at Margaret, specifically, at the amulet she was wearing. Now I regretted not saying something about it earlier.

“What’s going on?” Margaret asked with a look of worry.

“Players,” I answered grimy, looking back to the three approaching men. They’d casually tossed the terrified employee to the side. “Rogue players.”

I stood up, grabbing my cane as I did so. I could feel the power radiating off the three men, power which clearly marked them as being more than normal humans. Most players radiated this power to some degree or another, whether they wanted to or not.

“Go,” I told Margaret, even though I knew it would do no good. It was already too late to escape these men. On second thought, I said, “Give them your necklace… That’s what they want.”

“But George gave this to me,” Margaret complained. “Before he passed…”

One of the male employees ran across the cafeteria, yelling, “GET OUT OF HERE. WE’VE ALREADY CALLED THE POLICE.”

Stocky man raised his scepter and suddenly fired a ball of energy out of the end. It flew across the room and hit the employee, who immediately collapsed to the ground with a gaping hole in his chest.

“Stupid NPCs,” the stocky man said with a dismissive sneer.

“Just grab it,” the large man ordered, gesturing towards Margaret.

The lean man ran towards our table, his eyes firmly locked on Margaret, who was frantically trying to roll her wheelchair away. I grimaced and swung my cane, keeping it low and using the handle to hook the player’s ankle. He lost his balance and flew face first into the ground.

“Smooth one,” the stocky man exclaimed with a laugh. “You just got taken down by an old man.”

“SHUT UP,” the wiry one snarled as he got back to his feet.

The wiry man reached for one of his daggers, only to wince as a dinner plate suddenly smacked into his face. Margaret was already grabbing a second plate from the table so she could throw that one too.

“You leave him alone,” Margaret commanded.

“SHUT UP,” the wiry man spat out, throwing a dagger and hitting Margaret in the chest. She flopped backwards with blood gushing out.

“MAGGIE!” I croaked in horror.

“Just grab the damn amulet,” the large man with the axe ordered.

A cold rage formed in my chest as Margaret died in front of me. She was…harmless. She hadn’t been any threat at all to these men, and they’d killed her simply for being inconvenient.

I swung my cane at the wiry man, though he casually tore it out of my hand and tossed it aside. I grabbed hold of the edge of the table to keep from falling over.

“Hey, Mike,” the wiry man called out to the stocky one. “Lend me your rod. I want to make an example of this one.”

The stocky man, Mike, casually tossed his scepter to the wiry one, who caught it with a malicious grin. He held the scepter out and fired a ball of energy out at the wall, apparently just trying it out to make sure it worked. Then he pointed it right at me.

“You’ve got guts, old man,” the wiry man admitted with a sneer. “You aren’t even flinching.”

I just glared at the man, saying, “It’s not the first time I’ve had a scepter pointed at my face.”

“Well, it’s going to be the last,” he responded before squeezing the shaft, clearly intending to fire the weapon. However, nothing happened, much to his obvious surprise…but not mine. “Why…?”

But unlike this player, I was expecting this and immediately took advantage of the opportunity. While he was distracted, I reached out and snatched the scepter from his hand. Normally, there was no way I should have been able to do that to a player, but he was overconfident and not paying enough attention.

“Let’s see how you like it,” I said as I pointed the scepter right at his face.

“You’ve got to be shitting,” he started to say as he reached out to take the scepter back.

I squeezed the shafter and concentrated on the weapon, which warmed in my hand and fired a pulse of energy at him. A moment later, the wiry man collapsed to the ground without a head.

“ZEKE!” Mike exclaimed.

“A scepter from an Obsidian Temple guard,” I commented casually, having recognized the design of that particular weapon. The red gem on the head and the specific filigree decorations were unmistakable. “Powerful but slow since it has a seventeen second cooldown between uses, and you have to take it back to the temple to recharge after every nine shots.”

There was a vague sense of satisfaction at having killed the man who’d murdered Margaret, but I was definitely not satisfied. One of the men responsible was gone, but two more remained. I glanced around the cafeteria and saw that everyone else had already run away, leaving me alone with the two remaining players.

“Useful in the labyrinth where firearms won’t work,” I continued talking about the scepter, mostly to buy enough time so that I could use it again. “But out in the real world…” I paused at that for emphasis. “It’s only really good for showing off.”

With that, I finished counting seventeen seconds and fired a second blast at the player with the axe. He stepped aside and avoided the attack with ease, then he rushed at me, crossing the room in the blink of an eye. Before I knew it, his hand was around my neck as he lifted me off the ground.

“You have some fight in you, old man,” the man said with a snarl.

I gurgled in response, unable to speak or even breathe. He was choking me with ease, and my life was literally within his hand. I knew my life was about to end and there was nothing I could do to save it. Not that I really wanted to. I didn’t have anything left to live for anyway, but that didn’t mean I was just going to roll and die over without fighting back. If there was any chance of taking this bastard with me, then that was damn well what I was going to do.

I’d dropped the scepter when the man had grabbed me, but I’d noticed a dagger on his belt. Without hesitating, I grabbed his snatched and drove it into his eye.

There was a loud CRACK sound and a sharp pain in my neck. An instant later, I lost all feeling and everything faded to darkness. It was finally over.

I was in a void. No body. No light. No sound. Nothing existed except for my consciousness, and even that was quickly fading away.

But then, glowing letters appeared in front of me. These were not visible letters as I no longer had physical eyes to see with, but I could still see them nonetheless. It was as though the message was being projected directly into my mind.

WOULD YOU LIKE TO RESPAWN?

Interlude:

Simon Harris scowled as his SUV came to a stop in front of the nursing home. He quickly looked over the notes on his cell phone, wanting to refresh himself on what he already knew about the situation. There wasn’t much.

The dark-skinned man adjusted his uniform and then glanced into the rearview mirror to make sure he was presentable. His hair and beard were mostly grey, retaining little of their former black coloring, but it gave him an air of dignity and professionalism. Simon nodded in satisfaction since that was exactly the impression he wanted to give.

Seconds later, Simon stepped out of the SUV while his companions did the same and moved into position behind him. He didn’t spare a glance at them, looking instead at the nursing home and the local police who were gathered nearby.

One of the local officer’s told another, “Looks like the Men in Grey are here.”

Simon pretended that he hadn’t heard the familiar nickname for his organization. A lot of people called them the Men in Grey because of their grey uniforms, and while some of his fellow Wardens enjoyed the air of mystery that this nickname implied, he wasn’t one of them.

A plain clothed detective walked towards them with a grim expression. “I’m detective Reese. Thank you for arriving so quickly.”

“Agent Harris of the Wardens,” Simon introduced himself. “Tell me what you know.”

Reese gestured to the building in front of them. “Simple version is that three players went into the facility, looking for one of the residents. They killed two people in route, killed their target and one other resident, then departed well before we arrived.” He shook his head at that. “Now we have five bodies to deal with.”

“Five?” one of Simon’s companions asked. “I thought you said they killed four people.”

Simon glanced at Maya Ramirez, who had been his junior partner and trainee for nearly a year. She adjusted her glasses though never took her eyes off of Reese.

Reese looked at her and nodded. “They did. The extra body belongs to one of the players.”

That statement made Simon pause in surprise. That was…unexpected. He glanced at his associates, first Maya, then at his new trainee, Lewis McNichols. They both looked startled by that as well.

“Then perhaps,” Simon told the detective, “you should take us through so we can see for ourselves.”

“Of course,” Reese responded with a scowl. “This way.”

They went inside the nursing home and were immediately met with the sight of a bloody corpse. One look was enough to tell Simon that this man had been an employee rather than a resident, and that he’d been killed with either a sword or axe. He would need to look a bit closer to know for sure, but that would come later. For now, he wanted to focus on getting an overall picture of what had happened before digging into the details.

Reese briefly spoke about the first body, and how the man had been killed by the players as soon as they’d entered the building. When they moved down the hall, they found the second body, a resident who had simply gotten in their way. However, it wasn’t until they got to the cafeteria that things became especially interesting.

“Margaret Sullivan,” Reese announced as he pointed to the body of an old woman which was slumped over in a wheelchair. “She’s the one they were looking for.”

“I see,” Simon said, though his eyes were locked on the headless body that had obviously been the player.

“This one was Carl Upton,” Reese continued, pointing to the body of an old man whose neck was bent at an unnatural angle. “He was eating dinner with Sullivan when the players arrived.”

“But what happened to the player?” Maya asked as she bent over to examine the body. “It looks like some kind of magic attack.” She looked up to Reese and asked, “Did one of the other players kill him?”

“That would make sense,” Lewis commented. “But why?”

“No,” Reese corrected with a shake of his head and a wry smile. “It was him…” He pointed to the body of the old man. “Security footage shows Upton getting into a confrontation with the player, and somehow, he was able to get the player’s scepter away from him. Upton blasted the guy with his own weapon.”

“The old guy did this?” Lewis blurted out in surprise.

“That sounds hard to believe,” Maya added skeptically.

Simon remained silent at that, and instead, he moved over to examine the old man’s body. The man looked…familiar.

“Cameras caught the whole thing,” Reese explained, gesturing to security cameras on the ceiling. “It would have been entertaining to watch, if it hadn’t ended so tragically.” He shook his head sadly. “Of course, one of the other players killed him right afterward, but Upton went down fighting. He made sure his killer felt it.”

“Carl Upton,” Simon said slowly with a cold chill running down his spine. He knew that name.

“That name sounds familiar,” Maya commented with a thoughtful expression.

Simon stared at Upton’s face, then he hunched down beside the body and moved the sleeve back to reveal the arm. There, on the now exposed forearm was a tattoo, one that looked nearly identical to a tattoo that he himself had on his shoulder.

“Damn it, Carl,” Simon exclaimed angrily, momentarily forgetting about looking professional.

Maya was suddenly beside him, asking, “What is it?” Then she saw the tattoo and gasped. “He has a Warden tattoo…” She looked at Simon in surprise. “He was one of us?”

“Yeah,” Simon responded as he stood back up. “Carl was one of us. He was one of the old guard…one of the twelve founding Wardens. He was also the one who trained me back when I was a rookie.”

Lewis and Maya shared a look while Reese just watched with interest. None of them said a word, for which Simon was grateful.

“Show me the footage,” Simon told Reese, his voice cold and hard. “I want to see who killed my old mentor.”

I awoke to the feeling that I was floating, that I was gently bobbing along on the surface of a pool. It reminded me of the old waterbed I used to have back in the day, before I discovered how prone the damn thing had been to leaking, and what a pain it had been to clean up.

When I opened my eyes, I found that I was floating in a pool, which was about fifteen feet across and two feet deep. Instead of water, the pool seemed to be filled with liquid mercury, a thick silvery liquid which ran off me in rivulets as I stood up, leaving nothing behind. I stepped out of the pool, already completely dry.

The pool was in the middle of a room that was only three times wider than the pool itself. The walls are rough stone with crystal veins running all through it. The crystal veins glow with a soft light, enough to illuminate the entire room

I took my time examining my surroundings, though I was careful to avoid looking too closely at my own body. At the moment, this room was what I was interested in. I had never seen anything like this place before. And even though I had absolutely no idea of where I was at, I still knew about this place, or at least, about places like this.

“A respawn pool,” I said in a whisper.

I took a moment to close my eyes and collect my thoughts. I remembered the players. I remembered Margaret’s death and then my own. Then, I remembered the message that followed, the words that had appeared directly into my consciousness. ‘WOULD YOU LIKE TO RESPAWN?’. Of course, I had answered yes, even if only in my mind. That seemed to have been enough.

This was not the first time that I’d heard of someone dying and then coming back. Of being respawned and given another chance at life. In fact, this was how players came to be. Well, not all players, I mentally corrected myself. All respawned were players, but not all players were respawned.

“And I am definitely respawned,” I thought aloud. “I died and everything.”

I paused at that, suddenly remembering Margaret and her final moments. I felt a surge of mixed rage and grief, both struggling to dominate my shaken emotional state. Margaret been a great woman and hadn’t deserved to end like that. She should have gone out in bed, surrounded by her kids, her grandkids, and even her great grandkids. She should have gone out with a cat curled up beside her, purring loudly into her ear, just like how she’d once told me she wanted to go.

“But that isn’t going to happen now,” I whispered. Not unless Margaret had respawned the way I had, and had also been given another chance at life. However, respawning was rare, so I knew that the odds were extremely unlikely. “All because those assholes wanted her necklace.”

Margaret’s necklace had been an artifact, a magical item that had been created by the Labyrinth, just like that scepter had been. I’d recognized her jewelry for what it was the moment I’d seen it, though I still had no idea of what kind of magic it might have contained nor of where her husband could have possibly found it. In the end, I suppose it didn’t really matter anymore. Margaret was gone and so was the necklace.

I spent another minute thinking about Margaret and grieving her loss. We hadn’t been anything more than friends, just two lonely people trying to keep each other company, but I was still going to miss her. But for now, I knew that I couldn’t afford to dwell on the past. Instead, I had to focus on my current situation.

With that, I finally looked down at my body. It was not my body, or at least, not my old body. For one thing, it was far too young, and for another, it was female. I’d been reborn as chick.

Then I noticed the pool that I’d come out of, the respawn pool. The silvery liquid had settled down and stabilized, without having so much as a single ripple. The entire surface now resembled a giant mirror, one that I could see my own reflection in. I moved closer to the pool for a better look.

I stood there for several minutes, silently staring down at my reflection and taking it all in. I was not only younger, I was a LOT younger. It looked like I’d lost over fifty years since the girl in the mirror appeared to be in her early twenties. I shouldn’t have been surprised by that, but I was.

People who were respawned almost always came back looking like they were in their late teens or early twenties. There were exceptions, of course, but I didn’t seem to be one of them. I appeared to be about the expected age.

The rest of my appearance was also quite different from before, in nearly every way possible. I should have expected that too. It was well known that people who were respawned always came back looking like different people entirely. Being respawned was less like coming back from the dead and more like being instantly reincarnated. Or as we used to say back in the Wardens, it was like rolling a new character at random in some game. You never quite knew what you were going to get or who you were going to become.

In my case, I was now a woman of around twenty or so, with long legs and the lithe and athletic build of a dancer. My new breasts were probably around C cups, large enough to be noticeable but not enough to immediately draw attention, for which I was thankful. I couldn’t imagine how annoying it would be to have everyone constantly staring at my boobs.

While I looked myself over in the mirror pool, I slowly ran my hands over my body, feeling my soft and smooth skin, which was quite different from what I was used to. Feeling myself like this made it feel more real and less like some kind of fever dream. And as I did this, I couldn’t help but notice that I had a deep natural tan over my entire body.

My hair was dark, nearly black though not quite, with little hints of auburn running through it. This hair, which went down just a little past my shoulders, framed a face which was pretty, possibly even beautiful in a girl-next-door type of way, but which would never be considered model material. The nose was just a little too large for that.

And then, there were my eyes. I had to crouch down to get a better look at them in the mirror pool. My eyes were a brilliant green with specks of gold that were just a bit too bright to be natural. These eyes were definitely my most notable and standout feature.

All in all, I thought that I was on the pretty side of plain, with a few exotic features to make me look more interesting. I couldn’t quite determine which nationality or ethnicity would best describe my new appearance, but that was common among the respawned.

“I am one of the respawned now,” I said with the reality of that was still sinking in. “I am a player.”

I’d spent a large part of my life studying players. Researching them. Fighting them and coming up with contingency plans for how to deal with them when they went rogue. And, I had worked with players on many occasions. However, I had never seriously thought that I might actually become one of them myself.

If I really was a player now, then there was something else I had to examine, something even more important than my new body. With that, I took a deep breath and said, “Status,” while trying to flip a mental switch that I’d heard about numerous times but had never experienced myself. At least, not until that moment.

Suddenly, words and numbers appeared in the air in front of me, as though I was looking directly at a computer monitor. However, I could somehow feel that this information was being projected directly into my mind, bypassing my eyes entirely…just like with the message I’d seen after my death.

CLASS: INVOKER
LEVEL: 1
FREE STAT POINTS: 3

FOCUS: 8
PERCEPTION: 7
PRESENCE: 5
STRENGTH: 6
VITALITY: 7
DEXTERITY: 6
AGILITY: 7

TALENTS AND AFFINITIES:
-PRIMAL MAGIC

ABILITIES:

I carefully looked over my status screen, taking in every detail. I’d heard about status screens before, on countless occasions, but I’d never actually seen one, nor had I ever expected to. Only players had access to these status screens, which showed their statistics and abilities as though they were characters in some game. In fact, that was where the term ‘player’ had initially come from.

My starting stats all looked decent, with nothing below a five. On a scale of one to ten, with ten being the absolute peak of human ability, that meant everything I had was average or above.

However, there was one detail that immediately caught my eye. The class I’d been given was Invoker. I was an invoker.

“Well, crap.”

If I’d been allowed to choose my own class, then out of all the classes I knew about, invoker probably would have been at the bottom of the list. Most players considered it to be a broken class, and not in a good way.

I reached out to touch my status screen, but my hand went right through the letters. This was a reminder that I was really only seeing this in my mind. So, I tried again, this time without moving. Instead, I focused on my status screen and mentally touched my class name of ‘INVOKER’. Suddenly, a smaller window popped up in front of me.

INVOKER – A CLASS WITH THE INNANTE ABILITY TO SENSE AND CHANNEL THE POWER OF THE PRIMALS

That was it. No more information. No details. I mentally closed out the popup.

I’d talked to an invoker once, a drunk man who’d spent the entire time complaining about his class and how useless it was compared to every other class. That conversation was where I’d gained most of my knowledge about invokers, along with my low opinion of the class.

Players could grow stronger and more powerful over time, gaining new magics and abilities. However, invokers were a little different. They didn’t gain new powers of their own. Instead, they channeled…or invoked…the magic of more powerful beings, beings called primals. While other classes grew more powerful on their own, invokers had to beg, borrow, or steal their power.

Back when I’d been with the Wardens, we hadn’t known much about the primals, other than that they existed inside the Labyrinth…and wherever it had come from. Primals were beings of pure magic, more spirit than physical. Being an invoker meant that I would have to find some of these beings and then make deals with them. That wouldn’t be easy because negotiation had never been my strong suit.

“I should have been a stalker,” I grumbled bitterly. Sneaking around, stealing things, and attacking from the shadows. That kind of thing had always been more my style. “Well, as Mom used to say, there’s no point crying over spilled milk.”

With that, I turned my attention back to my status screen and the statistics that were displayed there. Most importantly, I was focused on the three free stat points that I had. I could add those to any of my existing stats to become stronger, faster, or more resilient. The question then, was where should I put them? What would work best for an invoker, and what would work best for me if I couldn’t actually rely on invoker magic?

Most players didn’t like to talk about their stats and abilities, but they tended to be a bit more open about how things worked in general. Because of that, I had a pretty good idea of how each of the stats actually worked.

From what we could tell, the numbers shown on the status screen were just a general overview, a simplified display that was easy for players to understand. But behind that, I’d always suspected there were hidden statistics, sub-stats that made up the ones we did see, and a bunch of background calculations that most players didn’t really need to know.

What I could see were various statistics and the number of points that were currently assigned to them. A score between four and six was considered average, while seven through nine were the ratings between fit and professional athletes. Once you reached a score of ten, you were in the area of absolute peak ability, the Olympic gold medalist level.

What I didn’t know was if these ratings were objective, or if they were based off the individual. Did a ten represent the absolute peak of human ability, or just the absolute peak of that specific individual’s potential? Was a petite woman with a score of nine in strength really as strong as a large man with the same number of stat points? There had been a lot of debate on that and I didn’t know if anyone had ever gotten a definitive answer.

I currently had three points available to assign, each one representing somewhere around a ten percent increase in ability. That meant, I had a couple stats I could currently push into Olympic gold medalist range, and one that I could move beyond that and into the superhuman levels that players were known for.

Focus seemed to be a combined rating for intelligence, willpower, and other mental attributes, such as the ability to concentrate or multitask. This was the stat that influenced how well a player could actually control their magic, which made it one of the most valuable stats for spellcaster types.

Perception covered senses and awareness of the environment. Presence was for how well you could project your will, which seemed the least useful to me until I remembered that this one might actually be valuable for someone who needed to negotiate with primals

“I’ll mark presence as a maybe,” I muttered reluctantly, noting that it was currently my lowest stat.

The rest of my stats were mostly physical in nature and were self-explanatory. All of those would be useful, though I suspected that vitality would be the most important for an invoker. Channeling magic put stress on the body, so the more vitality I had, the more energy I’d be able to use at once.

I considered my options for a few minutes before deciding to hold off for now. I wanted a little more information on my class and how it worked before I invested my limited points.

Then, just as I was about to close out of my status screen, I noticed a faint blinking in the top corner, almost as if there was an alarm indicator going off. I cautiously clicked on it, not sure what was going to happen. A new message popped up in front of me.

YOU HAVE BEEN WITNESSED BY AVEXIS, GODDESS OF SPITE AND PETTY REVENGE. AVEXIS APPROVES OF YOUR ACTIONS AND GRANTS YOU A BOON OF HER POWER.

NEW ABILITY ACQUIRED: INVOCATION OF SPITE

I stared at the message in surprise and confusion, reading it again several times to make sure that I wasn’t missing something. I was still a bit confused.

I’d been under the impression that most invokers had a hard time finding patrons, and that they usually had to invest a bit of time and effort before they gained their first ability. I didn’t think that I’d ever heard of an invoker getting an ability right off the bat.

“And what actions?” I asked aloud. I’d only just respawned and hadn’t had time to do anything. “What could earn the approval of a goddess of spite and petty revenge?”

About the only things I could think of, at least, from recently, was that I’d killed the man who murdered Margaret, and then I’d stabbed that other player in the eye just as he was about to kill me. Those actions had been spiteful, but they’d happened before my death…and before I’d been respawned as an invoker. And as far as I knew, there were no primals on Earth, and no way one of them could have been watching.

“Maybe it was for petty revenge,” I mused with a shake of my head. “For messing with Jacob.”

I closed the message popup and immediately noticed that my status page had changed. It looked like it had updated with my new ability.

CLASS: INVOKER
LEVEL: 1
FREE STAT POINTS: 3

FOCUS: 8
PERCEPTION: 7
PRESENCE: 5
STRENGTH: 6
VITALITY: 7
DEXTERITY: 6
AGILITY: 7

TALENTS AND AFFINITIES:
-PRIMAL MAGIC
--DIVINE TYPE

ABILITIES:
- INVOCATION OF SPITE

I tried clicking on my new ability ‘Invocation of Spite’, but unlike with my class, there was no popup with additional information. I tried checking the talents and affinities but got the same lack of results.

“So, I have an ability but no idea of what it is or how to use it,” I mused aloud while closing out my status page.

Well, that wasn’t quite true. I realized that I did know what it did and how to use it, though I couldn’t quite say exactly how I knew that. It was as though the information and been plugged directly into my mind, the same way that the status page and messages were.

Now that I’d checked out my new body, at least enough to know what I now looked like, and I had looked over my stats and abilities, it was time to get out of this place. Of course, that would be easier said than done.

I stood at the doorway to the respawn room, the only passage in or out. There was no door, just a simple arch lined with crystal to indicate where I needed to go, almost like some kind of ‘exit’ sign.

Right beside the doorway, there was a hook with a simple brown robe hanging from it. This was not one of those comfortable bathrobes, but probably something closer to what medieval monks might have worn. And on the other side of the doorway was a table with four weapons spread out on it.

At the moment, I was buck-ass-naked, so I immediately grabbed the robe and put it on. It fit me surprisingly well. There were a pair of sandals on the floor beneath the robe so put those on as well. They were the perfect size for my feet.

Once I was dressed, I went to the table and looked at the available weapons. My choices were a dagger, a sword, a mace, and an axe. These were all basic one-handed weapons, simple with no frills or decorations, but they were all that I had to work with.

I was familiar with all of these weapons but not in expert in any. Of the ones available, the dagger appealed to me the most, though I wasn’t sure why. I carefully picked it up and examined the blade. It was a bit rough, but it would do. Then, since a dagger didn’t have much as much reach as the other weapons, I picked up the sword…or tried to. It remained stuck on the table as though welded to the spot. A quick check confirmed that the other weapons were the same way, completely unmovable.

“Let’s see if I’m right,” I mused, placing the dagger back where I’d found it before picking up the mace. The mace came up with no problem, though now the dagger remained fixed to the table. “Okay, so it looks like I can only take one.”

Now that I was both armed and dressed, it was time to leave. I clenched the mace firmly in my hand, then stepped through the doorway.

I emerged into a large cavern with walls and ceiling made of the same grey stone as the previous room. Veins of crystal ran through the walls and ceiling, continuing to provide enough light to see with, though it was a little darker.

“Where the hell am I?” I asked.

It was a rhetorical question, and not just because I was talking to myself. It was rhetorical because I also knew the answer, or at least, had a vague understanding. Every player that I’d asked, had told me that they’d respawned from a pool like the one I had, and that they were located inside of the Labyrinth, on a shallow level somewhere near an exit.

Of course, it was possible that some people respawned in deeper and more dangerous areas, but that none of them had ever made it out to talk about it. I was trying not to think about that possibility.

“Now I just need to find the exit and get out,” I said as I looked around.

There were creatures skittering along the cavern floor and coming right at me. I couldn’t tell what they were at first, not until a couple of them got close. Rats. Giant rats. They were about three feet long and had bony spikes jutting out of their backs.

This suddenly seemed like a good time to try out my new ability, ‘Invocation of Spite.’ I activated the ability by flipping a mental switch, then almost immediately screamed in pain. A surge of intense agony shot through my body, making me feel almost as though I had acid in my veins. It only lasted for a couple seconds though before all that pain flowed right back out of my body and into the palm of my hand. In my palm, I held a ball swirling red and black energy.

“EAT PAIN,” I snarled, mentally pushing the ball of energy away from me.

The little ball of pain shot out of my hand and flew a short distance until it hit the nearest rat. The monster dropped to the ground and spasmed, letting out a horrific shriek before abruptly going silent and motionless.

I stood there for several seconds, shaking a bit from what I’d just gone through. I’d expected some pain, but not like that. Not nearly like that.

‘Invocation of Spite’ was a dangerous ability, and not just for my enemies. I could fire a ball of primal energy that caused intense pain and damage to my target, but there was a price. An appropriate price, considering the ability’s name and who had given it. I had to channel that energy through my body, which meant that I felt a portion of it as well. If I wanted to use this power, I had to be willing to pay the price.

I was so distracted that I almost missed the second rat until it was right on me. I swung my mace at the last second, catching the monster in the side and knocking it away. However, the next rat lunged at me and bit my leg. I yelped at the sharp pain before slamming my mace down onto its head and crushing it.

More rats were coming at me so I couldn’t afford to be distracted. I ignored the pain in my leg where I’d been bitten and braced myself with the mace. At that moment, I wasn’t ready to use that ability again…not that I was able to. I could somehow sense that it had a cooldown, partly because of the amount of power that Avexis had allocated for me, and partly because my body simply wasn’t able to physically handle it again.

I swung my mace, hitting one rat and then another. I could feel their soft flesh smashing in and could even feel bones breaking. But unfortunately, there were more rats than I could easily deal with and more of them got through. I received two more bites and a few scratches before the current group of rats were finally dealt with.

When there was only one rat monster remaining, I braced myself to deal with the thing. It was about to charge at me, so all I had to do was manage one more good swing of my mace. Maybe two. However, I was already tired of these furry little bastards and wanted to dish out some real pain.

I took a deep breath to brace myself, then activated ‘Invocation of Spite’ again. Once again, the burning pain tore through my body before forming into a ball of energy in my hand. A moment later, that blast hit the monster, which let out a loud shriek before dying.

“No pain,” I whispered with a gasp. “No gain.”

Once again, my whole body was shaking from what I’d just put it through. I was already hurting from the bites and scratches, so I didn’t need that extra bit of punishment. But in spite of that, I still felt a strange sense of satisfaction…even exhilaration.

It had been years… No, it had been decades since I’d been healthy enough to move around like this. Hell, it felt amazing to just be able to walk without pain. I hadn’t been able to do that in several decades, not since a player had shattered my leg.

“Damn,” I exclaimed with a grin. “It feels good to be young and healthy.”

Being young and healthy again felt great, in spite of the aches and tiredness. I shook one of my arms, then switched the mace to that one and shook the other. Swinging that thing had gotten a bit rough towards the end, and now both of my arms hurt, in spite of having switched my mace between them in the middle of the fight.

“Strength,” I muttered. “I need more points in strength if I want to swing a mace around.”

I considered that for a moment, then opened my status screen and assigned my three free points. However, in spite of what I’d just said, I didn’t put any of them into strength. Instead, I assigned all three into vitality. Not only would vitality help with the aches and tiredness, but it would also toughen me up a bit so that I’d be able to handle ‘Invocation of Spite’ a little more easily.

As soon as I slotted those points, I immediately felt better. My vitality was now ten, my highest stat, and making me healthier and more energic than I’d ever been before in my life. I immediately caught my breath and was able to shake off some of rubber feeling in my arms, which convinced me that this had been the right choice.

“I’m a player now,” I reminded myself with a smirk. “I’ll be able to earn more points later on. This is only the beginning.”

---------

I stepped into a new cavern and looked around, immediately spotting several rodents of unusual size. Those giant rat monsters seemed to be everywhere, though at least, they were relatively easy to kill. I was able to one-shot most of them with a single ‘Invocation of Spite’ or a solid mace hit.

Before the rats could notice me, I stepped back into the tunnel that I’d just come out of and looked for something I could use. There wasn’t much there except rocks, which just happened to be what I needed. With a faint smile, I picked up a rock, gently tossed it up into the air a couple times to get a feel for its weight, then I threw it as hard as I could towards the nearest rat. My throw was lacking and the rock only made it halfway to my target, but it still managed to get the rat’s attention.

“Come to papa,” I said with an evil grin as I backed up further into the tunnel. “Or mama, I guess.”

The rat came charging at me, along with two more that had seen it running off. An ‘Invocation of Spite’ killed the first rat while my mace crushed the second one’s head. When the third came at me, I kicked it in the head, knocking it backward. When it lunged again, I was in a better position to hit it with my mace.

“Three down, a hundred to go,” I said with a nod of satisfaction.

Luring in a couple monsters at a time was a lot easier than having a dozen of them all swarm me at once. It was a strategy I would have to keep using.

I’d been wandering around for nearly two hours, but all I’d seen had been caverns and tunnels. And rats. Lots of rats. Fighting them had demonstrated the wisdom of placing extra points into vitality, since I suspected that without those extra points, I would have been too exhausted to continue. I’d also noticed a slight improvement in my ability to handle ‘Invocation of Spite’. I still felt the excruciating pain, but it didn’t seem to physically wipe me out quite as much afterwards.

Once I was ready, I attempted to lure in another group of rats, but I couldn’t throw a rock far enough to get their attention unless I went further into the cavern. I was hesitant to do that if I didn’t have to since I’d be out in the open and easier to swarm. I briefly considered trying to hit a rat with an ‘Invocation of Spite’, but I’d already learned that my accuracy with those attacks dropped significantly the further away I tried to hit. I’d already missed one target earlier, and there was almost nothing worse than paying the price in pain only to have it all go to waste.

I hadn’t had ‘Invocation of Spite’ for very long, but I’d already developed a passionate love/hate relationship with it. It seemed pretty powerful and had probably saved my life a couple times already, but the price… I shuddered at the very memory of how painful it was to use. Whoever had created that magic was a masochist. Or a sadist. Probably both.

That made me think of Avexis, the source of that particular ability. With her title as the goddess of spite and petty revenge, I realized that it would probably be a VERY bad idea to get on her bad side.

“Avexis,” I said aloud, not sure if she was somehow watching me or could hear me through the strange link we shared courtesy of that invocation. “Thank you for lending me your power.” I figured it couldn’t hurt to be polite, just in case.

After this, I turned my attention back to the giant rats. I moved further into the cavern and threw another rock. This time, it landed close enough to a rat to get its attention. It came at me, bringing more of its friends. But to my surprise, one of the charging rats was much larger than the others, nearly three times their size. The bony spikes on this monster’s back actually shimmered and glowed a little, resembling crystal from the cavern walls more than actual bones.

“Ah, crap,” I muttered with a grimace.

I hit the first rat in the head, feeling it die with a sickening crunch. I kicked the second rat in the side in order to get some more space, and then I backed up, swinging my mace in front of me. The plus-sized rat took its time coming at me, almost as though it didn’t think I was worth the effort of hurrying for.

“I’ve been saving a little something for you, big guy,” I announced as charged an ‘Invocation of Spite’.

The pain tore through my body and was quickly fired at the monster. I hit it dead on, causing the thing to freeze in place and shriek in pain. However, it didn’t drop dead as all the previous rats had. Instead, it snarled in rage and charged at me with a new aggression.

I hit the rat with my mace, feeling the impact run up my already aching arms, though that didn’t stop the monster. It bit into my shoulder, causing me to yelp in pain, though I was careful not to drop my mace. I couldn’t afford to be unarmed against this thing. I responded by kicking it, trying to do as much damage as I could while I fought loose.

“LET,” I commanded as I hit the rat alongside the head with my mace. “ME,” I kicked at it again. “GO!”

At this point, the monster let me go but it began circling me, looking to pounce again. It opened its mouth and revealed its bloody incisors, which it was clearly eager to bit me with again.

“I’ve killed bigger and nastier things than you,” I told the rat, not knowing or caring if it could actually understand me. I didn’t mention that I’d achieved that by using modern weapons, the kind I no longer had, and which wouldn’t even work inside the Labyrinth even if I did have them. “I’ll kill you too.”

When the rat came at me again, I stepped to the side to avoid its charge while swinging my mace as hard as I could. My mace smashed into the monster’s head, and this time, I felt something break. Half the rat’s head was sunken in and oozing, but it wasn’t down yet. I hit it two more times, turning what was left of its head into pulp. Then it finally stopped moving.

“About damn time,” I said, spitting onto the corpse.

Just then, I felt a pleasant warmth spread through my body. It only lasted for a second, but it had done something to me. I wasn’t quite sure what, but I somehow felt just a little stronger and more energized. Before I could really question this, another popup message appeared in front of me

YOU HAVE REACHED LEVEL 2

I blinked at that then opened my status screen. It looked almost the same as the last time I’d looked at it, except that it now said I was level 2 and that I had another free stat point. I immediately slotted that one into vitality since that stat had already been working so well for me. That, and because that one point also happened to push my vitality past the normal human range and into the beginning stages of what could be considered superhuman.

“That feels good,” I announced as my aches faded and my energy level increased again. “Better than a cup of coffee.”

I was about to turn my attention back to hunting rats when I suddenly heard some noise coming from the far side of the cavern. It sounded like movement, but not the skittering about of the rats. Instead, it sounded more like shuffling, clanging, and…talking.

My attention was now firmly locked onto the source of this sound, and I stared across the cavern, trying to see it. Then, I finally saw it. I finally saw them, a group of people emerging from another tunnel and stepping into the cavern.

I wasn’t alone.

Four players stepped into the cavern on the far side, each of them armed and armored. A group of rats immediately attacked them, so the players were too focused on that to notice me.

The player in front was broad-shouldered and stocky, with chainmail armor and what appeared to be a plate chest piece. He held a large metal shield and was swinging a sword at the rats. I guessed that he had a warrior class, or maybe a more specialized version like stalwart or bulwark.

Off to the side was a second man in chainmail, though it looked like he was wearing some kind of sports jersey over the top of it. He was too far away for me to get a good look at it, not that it would do much good if I couldn’t. I’d never been a sports guy and wouldn’t recognize which team it belonged to.

Jersey guy was holding a pair of scepters, one in each hand. I couldn’t make out any details of those weapons from that distance, but he fired one at a rat, waited several seconds, then fired the other. He alternated back and forth, showing that those scepters were weaker than the one I’d used so recently, but they were ready for reuse much faster.

To the other side of the shield guy was a dark-skinned woman who was completely bald. The woman was tall and slender, wearing leather armor and holding a wooden staff. She held out her hand and fired blast of blue energy, revealing herself to probably be an arcanist.

The last of the four was a blonde girl who stood in the back, behind the others. She appeared to be in her mid-teens, making her younger than most players, but appearances could be deceiving, especially when respawns are involved. To match her apparent youth, the wore a flowing green and gold dress, with a matching witch style hat.

At first, the witch girl didn’t seem to be doing anything besides hiding behind the others, but then she held out her hands which began to glow. A few seconds later, three figures appeared on the ground in front of her. Three rabbits with horns on their heads.

“A summoner,” I said in realization.

The four players had already drawn the attention of every rat in the cavern, and they were quickly being swarmed. However, they were holding their old. The guy with the shield stood in front, trying to get the monsters attention while jersey guy and magic lady just cut loose at the rats. And then, not to be outdone, the summoner girl unleashed her three horned rabbits, which charged in and began attacking the rats.

I stood back and watched the fight, though I held my mace ready in case any of the rats came at me. None did. I briefly considered joining the fight, but I didn’t know them and they didn’t seem to need my help anyway.

Once the fight was over and all the rat monsters were dead, the four players finally noticed me. The summoner girl actually pointed at me while saying something that I couldn’t hear. After a few seconds, they began walking in my direction, looking wary but not outright hostile.

“Hey,” Jersey guy called out.

“Look at those robes,” the woman with the staff told her associates. “She’s a new respawn…”

“You’re right,” the shield guy responded.

The group all stopped and quickly talked among themselves, keeping their voices low. Then the summoner girl stepped forward and continued towards me. Three horned rabbits trailed behind her.

“Hi,” the summoner said in a friendly tone. “I’m Bunny.”

“Bunny?” I asked, glancing towards her cute rabbit monsters.

Bunny shrugged at that and gave me a friendly smile. “I needed a new name after I respawned, and it seemed appropriate.”

“I can see that,” I commented.

Before I could say anything more, she explained, “I don’t know if you know this yet, but respawned are legally different people than who they were before.”

“I am aware of that,” I told her. “Though, I haven’t really considered what that means since I woke up in that pool.”

I remembered when players first appeared, emerging from Labyrinth entrances and claiming to be people who’d died, regardless of the fact that they didn’t look anything like those people. It had created a lot of controversy, especially once they were able to start proving their claims.

Nobody had wanted to deal with Uncle Bob returning and trying to reclaim the inheritance that he’d left behind, or a dead wife coming back as a man and expecting to continue her marriage as though nothing had changed. There had been lawsuits. Lots of lawsuits.

Eventually, it had been decided that the respawned were legally separate individuals from whom they’d been before. They had no claim to their previous identities nor any of the wealth or relationships that they might have left behind. On the other hand, they were also free from old debts and obligations.

“I am…,” I started to say, only to pause and consider what name I should use. I couldn’t be Carl anymore. Carl was dead and gone. I was someone new, and that meant, I needed a new name. “Maggie,” I finally told Bunny. “You can call me Maggie.”

“Nice to meet you, Maggie,” Bunny said with a friendly smile. “My friends and I were just in the Labyrinth training…”

“And trying to find something to sell,” the guy with the Jersey offered from where he still stood back.

“That is Ace,” Bunny introduced the man in the jersey. “He won’t tell us what his class is.”

“Everyone needs an ace up their sleeve,” Ace said with a grin.

“The guy with the shield is Turtle,” Bunny introduced him to me. “He’s our bulwark.

“Nice to meet you,” Turtle said as he slowly came closer.

“Nice to meet you too,” I responded politely.

“I am Olivia,” the dark-skinned woman said, introducing herself as she came over to join us. She had a serious expression on her face and was giving me a wary look. “I am an arcanist. That means, I manipulate arcane energies.”

“And I am a summoner,” Bunny offered, gesturing to her three horned rabbits. “I can’t really summon anything besides these guys yet.”

All four of them were giving me expectant looks, and I knew exactly what they wanted to know. I briefly considered following Ace’s example and keeping my class to myself before deciding against it. If nothing else, being somewhat open with them might earn me a bit of trust.

“Invoker,” I told them. “I’m an invoker.”

“Damn, that’s rough,” Ace said with a wince while Bunny nodded agreement.

“Sorry to hear that,” Turtle told me sympathetically. “Invokers usually have it pretty rough to start with.”

“I’m doing all right,” I assured them with a faint smile. “I was just wondering, how the hell do I get out of this place? I’ve been wandering around down here for a couple hours.”

Ace gave me a look of surprise. “You’ve been down here for a couple hours? As an invoker?”

“We are pretty far in,” Bunny pointed out. “I mean, when I respawned, I was only a couple hundred meters from the entrance.”

“Same here,” Turtle said.

Ace smirked and suggested, “Maybe you got turned around and accidentally went further in.”

“Possible,” I said, though I didn’t really agree. After I’d left the room with the respawn pool, I hadn’t seen any options to head the other direction.

“It appears that you might be an outlier,” Olivia commented thoughtfully. “You’re lucky that you survived on your own long enough for us to find you.”

“You can come with us,” Bunny told me with a grin. “We were just heading out of here ourselves.”

I considered that for a moment before nodding. “Thank you. I’d appreciate the help getting out.”

With that, I shifted my mace to the other hand and shook out my arm again. I wished that I had a way to carry my mace that didn’t involve me actually carrying it in my hands, but such was life.

While I was doing that, I looked around at the dead rat monsters that were scattered around the cavern. The ones that I’d killed first had already begun melting away into a thick black goo. Most monsters did that when they died. In spite of what they might have looked like, they weren’t real animals. Instead, they were some sort of artificial beings that were created by the Labyrinth, sort of like living artifacts.

“This way to the nearest entrance,” Olivia said, using her staff to point to a side tunnel that I hadn’t really noticed.

“The second closest one is a three-day trip,” Ace told me as he drew his scepters again.

After this, the group began moving again. Turtle took the lead, marching forward with his shield at the ready. Ace and Olivia went second while Sunny and I followed up in the rear. Since they were letting me march at their backs, I assumed that they either trusted me for some inexplicable reason, or more likely, they assumed that a new invoker couldn’t possibly be a threat.

We ran into a couple more rats while walking through the tunnel, though they were killed off well before I had a chance. Between Ace’s scepters and Olivia’s magical blasts, the little monsters were quickly killed.

The tunnel opened up into another cavern, though one that was a little different from the ones I’d seen before. The walls, ceiling, and floor all appeared to be made of some bluish crystal, and there were crystal spikes jutting out from the ceiling and floor like stalactites and stalagmites.

“I hate this room,” Bunny complained, almost looking like she was pouting.

“Keep your eyes up,” Olivia warned.

I looked around the cavern but didn’t see any of the rats that I’d become so familiar with, so I looked up to see what Olivia was warning of. It took a moment, but then I spotted it. There was movement up near the ceiling.

A moment later, something dove down from the ceiling and came right for us, nearly crashing into Olivia before it abruptly changed direction and flew away. In that moment, I got a look at the monster. I was a large bat with small pieces of crystal along the struts of its wings.

“My pets can’t ever reach them,” Bunny complained. The horned rabbits hopped around near her feet as though trying to demonstrate how high they could leap and how lacking that height was.

“I don’t have that problem though,” Ace exclaimed with an eager grin.

Ace made a show of spinning his scepters, one in each hand, and then firing off both at once. Two pulses of energy shot out and hit the bat as it was turning to dive again. The monster crashed into the ground a short distance away, the impact finishing it off if the blasts hadn’t.

The bat’s death acted like a trigger, because a moment later, a dozen more bats swooped down from the ceiling. Several of them flung crystal shards as they dove, making me leap to the side to avoid being hit. Turtle flung his shield over his head and backed up, blocking another shard from hitting Olivia.

Olivia stepped out of cover and fired a blast of blue energy, missing any of the bats. She quickly stepped under the cover of Turtle’s shell again, remaining there for about ten seconds before stepping out and firing another blast.

One of the bats swooped down close to me and I swung my mace, but it was just out of range. I grimaced and tried again, only to miss a second time. I could see why Bunny hated those bats because I was starting to hate them too.

A shard of crystal dropped on me from above, grazing my shoulder and tearing yet another hole in my robe. I silently cursed, then decided that I was done with holding back.

“GET DOWN HERE, YOU WINGED RATS,” I yelled, right before flinging an ‘Invocation of Spite’ at a bat that had been in the process of swooping down towards Bunny.

The blast hit the monster and knocked it out of the sky with a loud shriek of agony. It smashed into the ground and was still twitching, at least until a horned rabbit impaled it.

Several pairs of eyes turned to stare at me in surprise, but before anyone could voice a question, the bats drew their attention back. I took several deep breaths, trying to ignore the residual effect of my ability. Instead, I focused on the bats that were still coming. One of them got close enough that I was able to hit it with my mace, breaking its wing and bringing it to the ground. A couple more hits was enough to finish it off.

I managed to fire off one more ‘Invocation of Spite’ before the fight ended. The last of the bats hit the ground and was immediately torn into by the only horned rabbit that remained. I just slumped over, resting my arms and catching my breath. Damn, I loved how much easier the extra vitality made recovery after a fight.

“I’m guessing you stumbled into a primal while you were wandering around,” Ace said, giving me a curious look.

“Something like that,” I agreed, deciding that they didn’t need the details. “Now, I don’t see an exit sign, so where do we go from here?”

“Where are we?” I asked.

I looked around and saw a small town, one that almost looked more like it belonged in the old west than in the modern world. The fact that some of the walls were made of concrete disproved that, though my initial impression still remained. Most of the buildings had wood facades and were two stories or less, though one of them was the exception, reaching the lofty heights of four stories.

My eyes settled on a nearby streetlight. This was not a modern electric streetlight, but an old-fashioned gas light that would have fit right into Victorian England. This light and other details like it were what had given me my initial impression.

After taking a few seconds to examine the down, I looked behind me, at the glowing portal that I’d just stepped out of. This was a literal tear in the fabric of reality itself, as well as the local entrance to the Labyrinth. The whole thing was about nine feet wide and fifteen feet tall. It was a respectably sized opening.

“Gideon Heights,” Ace said in answer to my question. “We’re in Gideon Heights.”

“South Dakota,” I mused aloud.

Bunny gave me a curious look. “You’ve heard of it?”

I hesitated a moment before answering, “I’ve been here before.”

What I didn’t say was that the last time I’d been there had been a few decades ago, right after this opening to the Labyrinth first appeared. It had been well before the town had been built around it.

The others all gave me questioning looks at that, so I simply said, “It’s been a long time.”

“Okay,” Ace joked with a grin. “Maggie is a woman of mystery.”

“Look who’s talking,” Bunny teased Ace. “Mister…I can’t tell you what my class is.”

“Touche,” Ace responded cheerfully.

“We led you out of the Labyrinth as promised,” Olivia told me.

I gave her a polite nod. “Thank you. All of you.” I shook my head. “I have no idea how I would have found the way out on my own.”

“You were in there pretty far,” Bunny agreed. “Now for the fun part.”

Bunny gestured towards two people who were approaching us. One was a middle-aged woman and the other was a younger man, both wearing professional looking grey uniforms. The uniforms were different from what I used to wear, yet similar enough to give me a sense of nostalgia.

“The Men in Grey,” Turtle announced in a grim tone, shuddering as he did so. “And paperwork.”

I glanced down at myself and the torn and bloody robe that I was wearing. That robe clearly marked me as being newly respawned. Then with a sigh, I straightened up and stepped forward meet the pair of Wardens.

“Hello,” I greeted the Wardens politely. “Do you want to do this here, or would it be easier to do in your office?”

The two Wardens paused then shared a glance before the woman answered. “I was going to suggest our office.”

“We’ll see you later, Maggie,” Bunny said as the four of them went off on their own, leaving me with the Wardens.

I followed the Wardens to a nearby building which was labeled as being their office. Once we were inside, the woman sat down behind a nice wooden desk while the younger man opened the drawer of a filing cabinet and pulled out some paperwork. He set the small stack of papers on the desk by the woman, then left the room.

While they were getting ready, I sat down at the seat across from the woman, placing my mace on the ground beside me. It felt good to lose that weight. Then I slowly looked around the room, taking in all the details. There was the large filing cabinet that occupied most of one wall, with a liquid fuel lantern like what I used to use for camping sitting on top. Beside the desk there was a sword and crossbow, both clearly cared for and ready for use. What I didn’t see was any sign of a computer or light switch. That was to be expected.

I smiled faintly, definitely feeling the nostalgia. I’d spent countless hours in offices like this, ones that were too close to a Labyrinth entrance to rely on any modern technology. The Labyrinth had a strange effect on things like electronics and certain chemical reactions, such as the ones that firearms used, and that effect even extended beyond the Labyrinth to the area around any of its entrances. If you wanted to work anywhere near the Labyrinth, you had to get used to doing things the old-school way.

The woman across the desk had a name on her uniform. Davis. Agent Davis had a pen in her hand and a notebook open in front of her. She quickly wrote down a few things, giving me quick glances as she did so.

I didn’t recognize Davis from my time in the Wardens, though it probably would have been more of a surprise if I had. After all, that had been a long time ago and the organization had grown even larger since then.

I remembered the early days, when there had only been twelve of us. We’d been an ad-hoc group of military, intelligence, and law enforcement individuals, thrown together on short notice for the task of dealing with players, who’d recently begun to appear. The idea, at the time, had been that we would contain the problem until the important people decided what the official policy was going to be.

Back in those days, the Labyrinth was new and monsters kept emerging from the openings. When people began appearing as well…and ones who claimed to be dead people… Well, there were a lot of questions and even more suspicions.

A large part of our duties involved detaining players for investigation, resulting in them and many others referring to us as the wardens of their prison. At the same time, some of us thought of ourselves as being more like game wardens, overseeing the strange new ecosystem that was the Labyrinth, and the ‘wildlife’ that emerged from it. The name stuck and we became the Wardens.

“Now then,” Agent Davis said, breaking me out of my reminiscence. “I assume that you are newly respawned.”

“That is correct,” I agreed.

Davis stared at me with a thoughtful expression before saying, “You seem to be well prepared for this…” When I didn’t respond to that, she continued, “So, you may already be aware of what I am about to tell you, but I am still required to do so.”

“I understand,” I told her.

The Warden on the other side of the desk nodded, then began to give ‘the lecture.’ It was the same lecture that I myself had given dozens of times before, though some of the details had changed since then. For the most part, Davis just explained my situation as a respawned player, which would be useful to most newly respawned, but which was merely an unnecessary refresher for me.

“We will begin creating new identification forms for you,” Davis told me as she wrote more down onto one of the forms. “Now, what name will you be using from now on?”

“Maggie,” I answered. “I’m going by Maggie now.”

I didn’t give a last name since most respawned didn’t bother using one. Or if they did, they simply used the name of the place where they’d first respawned, which would make me Maggie Gideon, since I was in the town of Gideon Heights.

Agent Davis asked me a few questions about my class, but I wasn’t legally required to provide that so I didn’t. Then she measured my height, which was five-foot-seven, and wrote down a physical description of me. A short time later, she handed me my new legal identification card.

I glanced over the card, smiling faintly at how little information was present. The only name on it was ‘Maggie’. Instead of a ‘date of birth’, I had a ‘date of respawn’ listed, with the current date. I was a little surprised to note that the current date was nearly a month from the last date I remembered.

“And no DMV picture,” I joked, knowing full well that the reason Davis hadn’t taken my picture, was because cameras wouldn’t work.

“Only if you get a drivers license,” Davis told me with a faint smile. “Which is kind of pointless at the moment since you have to get good a mile or two away from here before any car will even start.”

“That isn’t real high on my priority list,” I told Davis. “But thanks anyway.”

“Now then,” Davis said, giving me a knowing look. “I suspect that the real reason you were so eager to fill out the paperwork was so that you had access to the amenities we offer new players.”

I gave her a friendly smile and a nod of acknowledgement. “You suspect correctly.”

Davis chuckled at that and then moved to closet door. After rummaging around for a minute, she pulled out a small pile of clothing and handed it to me. She followed that up by giving me a key.

“Room C on the second floor,” Davis told me. “We only provide room and board to new players for one month. After that, I’m afraid that you’re on your own.”

“Thank you,” I told her with a nod of appreciation.

“No,” Davis told me with a smile. “Thank you for making this easy. Do you know how many new players insist that we contact their spouses…or demand that we get them access to their old bank accounts?”

I nodded sympathetically at that, knowing exactly what she meant. I’d had my share of those encounters and still remembered players crying…and even threatening me over things that I had no control over.

“Their…our situation isn’t your fault,” I told Davis. “You’re just trying to do your job.”

Davis nodded at that, looking pleased that I understood. Then, just as I was about to leave, she cautiously said, “You don’t have to answer, but… What did you do…before?”

I hesitated at that, not inclined to answer. However, I had a feeling that Davis suspected something, and it would probably be smart to remain on good terms with the local Wardens.

“Why,” I finally answered, giving her a grin, “I used to sit behind a desk, just like that one.” I enjoyed the look of surprise on her face, right before I stepped out the door and left.

----------

My new room was small and cramped, reminding me of the college dorm room from oh so long ago. It was about half the size of my old room back at the home, having space for a bed, a small desk, and little else.

I took one look around the room and then dropped my mace to the floor beside the door. It hit with a heavy thump that would probably annoy whomever was beneath me.

But as small as the room was, it was a room with a bed, and at the moment, that was really what I needed. And as a bonus, there was a connected bathroom, even though I had to share it with whomever was in the next room. For the moment though, I had it to myself.

“Thank God that indoor plumbing still works fine,” I exclaimed upon seeing the toilet.

Bunny had given me some water earlier, and it had finally run through my system. I dropped my ragged robe into the garbage bin, then eyed the shower. A nice hot shower would be great, but first…

With a sigh, I sat down on the toilet, being thankful that I hadn’t had to go in the Labyrinth. Pissing in my new body didn’t feel nearly as strange as I would have imagined. It was the same basic sensation and feeling of relief, just with a few details being off.

Once I was done, I stepped into the shower, eager to get cleaned off. A nice hot shower was just what I needed. Unfortunately, I quickly discovered that while this place had running water, it wasn’t hot. Because of that, I took a cold shower, cleaning myself as quickly as I could.

“Well, that was disappointing,” I said when I stepped out of the shower.

I used a towel to dry myself off, taking extra care with my hair since it was a lot longer and thicker than I was used to. It was strange to have a full head of hair again, but also pretty nice. In fact, I was even starting to feel an odd sense of pride in my new hair.

“Enough of that,” I grumbled, feeling self-conscious about the fact that I enjoyed having hair again. I’d always thought myself above such petty vanity.

Instead, I turned my attention to the rest of my body. I’d been in this body for nearly a full day now, and I was starting to get a feel for what it could do. Of course, it was the wrong make and model, but I had to admit that it was still pretty nice.

“It’s not like I can trade it in,” I told myself with a sigh. “This is what you’ve got now, so you’d better get used to it.” I snorted at that. “Easier said than done.”

I slowly ran my hands over my body, taking in the smooth skin and strange new curves. Then I paused with one hand rested between my legs. There was an unfamiliar absence there, one that reminded me of what else I’d lost.

For several minutes, I just stood like that, silently mourning the loss of my oldest and dearest friend. He’d only been average sized and almost completely useless in recent years, but I was still going to miss him anyway.

At this point, I finally left the bathroom, locking the door behind me as I did so. I didn’t want to risk my new neighbor inviting themselves into my room. A minute later, I collapsed onto the bed, closed my eyes, and drifted off to sleep.

The Broken Yardarm was a nautical themed diner, which didn’t make any sense to me since we were in South Dakota, well away from any ocean. In fact, we were about as far away from the ocean as you could possibly get inside the continental United States. Still, the food was good, especially the bacon, which I happily ate while reading the local newspaper.

My attention was on the wanted ads, specifically, the job listings. Several local businesses were advertising for positions they needed filled, though none of them really appealed to me. I really didn’t want to shovel out barn stalls or work as a waitress.

I looked at my new ID, which I’d gotten yesterday and which sat on the table in front of me. The damn thing was nearly useless. Sure, it would work as identification for the Wardens and among players, but beyond that… I shook my head and ate another piece of bacon.

Unfortunately, I no longer had a birth certificate or social security number, no records of education or job history. In short, I was in a legal grey area and most companies wouldn’t even consider hiring me. I’d always suspected that this kind of thing might have been intentional, that the powers that be were purposely nudging players towards the kind of work that only players could really do, the dirty and dangerous kind that most people wouldn’t even consider if they had better options.

“Hey, Maggie,” a familiar voice exclaimed.

I looked up and saw Bunny waving to me as she stepped into the diner with her friends. Olivia moved towards a booth, but Bunny and Turtle marched right up to me. Ace was left behind for several seconds before he shrugged and came towards me as well. Only then did Olivia change direction and join them.

“What are you up to?” Bunny asked, sitting down at my table without even asking. Her friends immediately joined her.

“Job hunting,” I answered wryly as I closed the paper and set it down. “Not a lot of options.”

“True,” Turtle said as he began looking over the menu. “But it could be worse.” He looked up and explained, “Gideon Heights is a player town, so a lot of people around here are players.”

“Property is cheap,” Ace added. “No technology means that nobody else wants to live here.”

“They could have built the town a couple miles away,” Turtle continued. “Then we would have had technology, but also more people and higher prices. At least this way, players have a cheap place to live.”

“Perfect for off grid living,” I commented with a chuckle.

Back when I’d been a Warden, there had always been homesteaders who wanted to live an old-fashioned lifestyle, and they’d appreciated the cheap land near the Labyrinth openings. Sure, there was no technology and they had to deal with the occasional monsters who slipped through, but a lot of people thought that was worth it.

“I only have one month of help,” I said, referring to the room and food vouchers that Agent Davis had given me. “I figured, the sooner I can line something else up, the better.”

“Good idea,” Olivia offered.

“A lot of new players procrastinate,” Bunny told me. “At least, that’s what I’ve heard.”

“We all have a lot to adjust to,” Turtle said with a shake of his head. “New bodies. New identities. New powers. It can get a bit overwhelming, so I don’t blame people for wanting to take their time.”

I nodded at that, then told him, “I just figure that it’s better to hit the ground running.”

“Good policy,” Olivia said, apparently starting to warm up to me a bit. “Keeping busy makes it easier to not think about everything I lost.”

The others nodded at that, especially Ace and Turtle. Bunny, however, didn’t look bothered at all.

I didn’t ask them about their previous lives since that was considered extremely rude among respawned players. Of course, if someone offered that information on their own, that was entirely different.

“I didn’t really have much to lose,” I admitted with a shrug. “For me, this is mostly upside.”

“Me too,” Bunny agreed.

I stared at the blonde girl, reminding myself that in spite of her apparent youth, she wasn’t really a teenager. In fact, for all I knew, she could even be older than me. I found that possibility to be kind of amusing.

“So,” I said to change the subject, or at least, to get it back on the original track. “What do you all to do to pay the bills?”

“We collect some bounties,” Ace answered. “The Men in Grey put bounties on any monsters that leave the Labyrinth.”

Turtle chuckled at that. “Yeah, but none of the ones around here are very high. This Labyrinth entrance only lets out small fry like those rats, and once they wander far enough away, other locals can just shoot them.”

“Delving the Labyrinth can be a lot more profitable,” Bunny agreed cheerfully.

Olivia scowled at that. “But also a lot more dangerous. Especially the further in you go.”

“That’s also how you get stronger,” Ace pointed out. “I mean, we can’t level unless we kill monsters and stuff. And face it, it might be safer to stay behind here in town, but you’d never get any stronger if you do.”

“And leveling is a little addictive,” Bunny told me with a broad grin. “There’s nothing like it.”

I considered that for a moment and how great it had felt to slot more points into my vitality. I found myself nodding agreement, understanding exactly how that kind of thing could be addictive.

“I think,” I mused aloud, “that I’ll probably go the delve route as well. Money and leveling.”

“It’s been working for us, so far,” Turtle offered.

“Why don’t you come with us on your run tomorrow?” Bunny suggested eagerly. “We’re only going back to the shallow area, but that’s because we want to train and get stronger before going deeper.”

Turtle nodded at that and glanced to Olivia. “We can consider it a trial run.”

I considered the offer for a moment before nodding agreement. “Sounds good to me.”

----------

It was early evening when I stepped into the bar. In spite of my apparent youth, nobody stopped me for an ID check. This was a place that was used to catering to the respawned.

I’d spend most of the day exploring the town and seeing what it had to offer. The answer was, not much. Sure, there were a few stores that had just about everything I needed for my new life, but those were pretty useless to someone who didn’t have a single penny to their name.

“Let’s see,” I mused as I looked around the bar, pausing when I spotted the person I was looking for.

There was a man sitting at a table in the corner, appearing to be in his mid to late thirties. He had dark hair and long bushy sideburns that looked like they were trying to form a beard but couldn’t quite manage it.

A few seconds later, I stood beside the man’s table and asked, “Are you Wolf?”

Wolf gave me a suspicious look before asking, “Who are you and why do you want to know?”

“I was told that you’re the only successful invoker in town,” I answered casually as I sat down in the seat across from him, not bothering to wait for an invite. “And as a new invoker myself, I wanted to get some advice on the class from someone who actually knows what the hell they’re doing.”

“You’ve got balls, girl,” Wolf said with a chuckle.

“Not anymore,” I responded pleasantly. “I go by Maggie.” I gestured to the beer in front of him and said, “I’d offer to buy you a drink in exchange for talking to me, but I’m dead broke.”

Wolf stared at me for a moment, almost seeming amused. “I bet you’re wishing you’d set up a carry-over account.”

I nodded at that, regretting the fact that I hadn’t. Over the last decade or two, a lot of people had been creating ‘carry-over’ accounts, savings accounts that could be accessed by anyone with the right passwords. This was considered a form of insurance for the unlikely event that they happened to respawn after death.

“Never thought I’d need it,” I admitted with a shrug. “Too late to worry about it now.”

“You’ve got that right,” Wolf agreed, pausing to take a long drink from his beer. Once he set it back down, he said, “You can owe me the drink.”

“Sure,” I agreed.

“As I’m sure you’ve already discovered,” Wolf told me after a few seconds, “Invokers don’t start off with any abilities, like every other class does. That means we’ve got to fight through the Labyrinth without until we find a primal willing to share their power, and a lot of invokers are so desperate by then, that they’ll accept any contract, no matter how bad.” He gave me a flat look. “Be careful, become some deals could be a LOT worse than not having an ability.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said, taking a mental note of that warning.

“There are different kinds of invokers too,” Wolf continued, immediately grabbing full attention. “Priests. Druids. Warlocks. Shaman…which is what I am.” He shrugged at that. “Basically, this just refers to the type of primals that we specialize in dealing with.”

“Types?” I asked since this was new information to me.

Back when I was still with the Wardens, we hadn’t actually known much about primals. Sure, the Wardens might have learned a lot more since the, but I’ve been completely out of the loop for awhile.

“Yeah,” Wolk told me with a nod. “You’ve got different types. Think of them as like, different types of animals, or different flavors of magic. Each type has certain traits and tendencies that they usually follow. If you know how they work, you can usually get an idea of what kind of ability they might give you…and what kind of price they might ask.”

“You’ve got celestial and infernal,” Wolf continued. “Celestials are all about rules and order. They like sticking their invokers with strict contracts that make you follow a bunch of rules. Infernals are almost the exact opposite, being all about chaos. Those two types tend to hate each other, so if you have a contract with one of them, the other type will usually dislike you on principle.”

“Celestials and infernals,” I mused to myself, wishing I had something to write this down on.

“Faerie are all about being entertained,” Wolf said, pausing to scratch his chin. “They might give you power if they think you’re interesting, but they might also screw you over for a laugh too. They’re some of the worst for bad deals.”

“So far, none of those types sounds particularly pleasant,” I told Wolf.

The other invoker chuckled at that. “They aren’t. That’s why I tend to stick to naturals…primals who identify with plants and animals.” He gave me an almost predatory grin. “Basically, nature spirits. I’ve got a contract with a bear primal that gives me the strength of a bear.”

“That sounds pretty good,” I responded thoughtfully. “But what would a bear spirit ask for?”

“Food,” Wolf answered simply. “I have to give it a lot of food.”

“That…makes sense,” I said.

“Natural primals are pretty simple,” Wolf told me with a chuckle. “That makes them easier to deal with.”

“What about the divine type?” I asked, thinking about my own ability.

Wolf snorted at that and gave me a curious look, probably wondering how I knew about the divine type of primal when I hadn’t even known about there being types.

“They’re the biggest mixed bag,” Wolf finally answered. “They’re usually focused on some concept or idea, which can be anything from generosity to genocide, and they’ll want you to support it too. Mostly, they’ll either want that, or attention and worship.”

I nodded thoughtfully at that, then cautiously asked, “And have you ever heard of one of them giving an ability to someone without some kind of deal?”

“What do you mean?” Wolf asked curiously.

I hesitated for a moment, then explained, “I respawned with an ability from some goddess. I’d never even heard of her before, much less made any kind of agreement with.”

Wolf leaned back in his chair and scratched his chin again. “I… I have heard of that kind of thing happening,” he said slowly.” He gave me a curious look. “Not often, but it does happen. No idea how or why though.”

“I see,” I said with a sigh.

“Whoever this goddess is,” Wolf told me, “I can only assume that you either did something to get her attention…and…”

“And?” I encouraged him to continue.

Wolf leaned forward. “I’m thinking that this might be like a dime bag… You know, a free sample so you get a taste for her power.”

My eyes widened in understanding. “So I might go to her for a real deal.” Wolf nodded at that and I just leaned back and muttered, “Well, crap.”

“Well, you get a free ability for now,” Wolf told me cheerfully. “If nothing else, that is a huge head start for an invoker.”

Wolf and I continued talking for nearly an hour before he said that he had to go. It had been an educational conversation, and I was more than happy with the fact that the only thing this information had cost me, was an IOU for a drink.

My arms ached from swinging my mace, and that was starting to feel almost normal. It had only been two days since I’d left the Labyrinth, and there I was, right back inside of it for training. I was beginning to regret not having taken another day or two to rest first.

I was currently walking through a wide tunnel which kept branching off in other directions. The crystal veins around me glowed with an almost eerie green light. It let me see my surroundings, but everything felt just a little off-color and spooky.

“You know,” I commented wryly. “I think I’m starting to get to the point where I can identify one tunnel from another by the shade of the rock and the color of the crystal glow.”

“Really?” Ace asked. “They all still look the same to me.”

“This tunnel[ is sort of green,” Bunny pointed out. “That last one was more blue.”

“And the one before that was almost violet,” Olivia commented almost absently.

We all paused while Olivia pulled out a notebook and wrote something down, probably the very thing we were talking about. Olivia was the group’s navigator, mapping our path so that we could find our way back when we were done. Then, as if to emphasize this, she bent down and used a piece of chalk to draw an arrow in the direction that we’d been walking.

“I still can’t believe we’re actually on another planet,” Ace said with a shake of his head.

“Another dimension,” I corrected.

Nobody was quite sure of what the Labyrinth was or where it was located, but because the very laws of physics were off…and not always stable…most researchers agreed that it was in some other dimension. Technically, they used terms like sub-space and pocket dimension, but the details didn’t really matter. What mattered was that the Labyrinth existed outside of our world, and that passages between the two would sometimes open without any rhyme or reason. The first recorded entrance had been discovered in the Australian outback nearly sixty years ago, and more than a hundred more had appeared across the world since then.

“I wonder where this place really came from,” Turtle said as he looked around. “This place is so strange… It clearly isn’t natural.”

“Personally,” Ace offered, “I think the Labyrinth is just a glorified holodeck that went all Skynet.”

“What?” Bunny asked, staring at Ace as though he was an idiot.

“Look, it makes total sense,” Ace insisted.

“Please don’t,” Olivia complained with a roll of her eyes.

“Please do,” I told Ace, trying to get a better idea of what he really meant.

“Please don’t encourage him,” Olivia told me with another roll of his eyes.

Ace just grinned. “Please do.” Then he stepped back and gestured around us. “This place… It creates new environments all the time and changes them without warning Tunnels. Cities. Forests. All sorts of places. It makes all these monsters that try to kill us…and then it makes all sorts of artifacts that we can use to fight back.”

“The Labyrinth is a contradiction,” Bunny agreed a little uncertainly. “I mean, we do have monsters all over the place, but we also have safe zones where the monsters won’t go…and where food sometimes just shows up.”

“Exactly,” Ace triumphantly exclaimed. “I figure, some alien race probably build the Labyrinth a long time ago. Maybe it was for training…or just entertainment…like some kind of giant game.” He shrugged at that. “I figure, it probably grew too big or went out of control, and now it just keeps spreading. Like kudzu.”

Olivia gave Ace a flat look. “So, now you’re saying that the Labyrinth is an invasive weed.”

“I’ve heard worse theories,” I admitted. In fact, I’d heard variations of that same one before too.

“Like that one where the Labyrinth is actually Hell,” Bunny offered cheerfully. “And players are all damned souls who escaped.”

“Or that we’re all demons who are pretending to be the damned souls,” Turtle added.

“I do like that one,” Ace said with a chuckle.

Just then, I noticed the skittering sound coming from down the tunnel. “Heads up,” I called out as I turned to face the approaching rats.

Several dozen giant rats came rushing down the tunnel at once in some kind of rodent stampede. A couple of them were even the extra large variety that were much harder to kill. However, we’d already dealt with enough of these monsters that we knew what to do.

Turtle moved forward to intercept the main flow the rats, using his shield to block as many as he could while he also swung his sword to catch any that tried skirting around him. Just as it looked like he was about to be overrun with sheer numbers, his entire body began to glow, indicating that he’d just activated his ability, one that made him a LOT tougher and harder to hurt for a short period of time.

While Turtle was doing this, Ace and Olivia both unleashed their own attacks, killing as many rats as they could from a distance. Ace held out both of his scepters, alternating between them as he fired his attacks. Most scepters would have been long since drained of power, which suggested that he was using some kind of ability with them. I didn’t know if he channeling his own power through the artifacts, or if he had an ability that let him recharge them on his own. In the end, how it worked was less important than the fact that it did.

Olivia stood there with her wooden staff clutched firmly in hand while she held out her other hand and fired blasts of blue arcane energy. Her attacks were more powerful than Ace’s, but also a lot slower. She was only able to launch one attack for every four or five of his, but each of hers took out several rats.

Bunny stood back and called orders to her horned rabbits, sending them after any stragglers that slipped away from the main group of monsters. Her pets were fast and vicious, charging the rats and impaling them on their small horns before tearing at them with their claws. But unfortunately, the rabbits were fragile and were easily taken out themselves.

My own job was to deal with any monsters who made it past the rabbits. I stayed close to Bunny, Ace, and Olivia, watching our backs and sides to make sure there were no surprise attacks.

Just as I was starting to feel useless in the fight, one of the extra large rats burst through the wall of rabbits, killing the last two. Bunny leapt back and cursed since all of her pets were gone and I knew it would take awhile before she could use the summon ability again.

“I’ve got this one,” I said, gritting my teeth against the searing pain that shot through my body and then out my hands.

My ‘Invocation of Spite’ hit the rat dead on, causing it to collapse to the ground in pain. I ignored its loud shrieks and the instinct to feel sorry for it. It wasn’t dead yet and assuming it was, would be a good way to get killed again. And as I expected, it quickly got back to its feet and charged right at me, now completely pissed off.

“I thought you had that one,” Ace said, firing two blasts at the rat, one after the other. It barely seemed to notice the attacks.

I stepped forward to meet the giant rat, slamming my mace down on its head as hard as I could. There was a sickening crunch as its head caved in. I kicked the monster back, then leapt on it for another swing, smashing what was left of its head.

“I do,” I told him with a grin.

“And that should do it,” Turtle announced as he straightened up and shook himself loose from the pile of rats.

Turtle’s shield and armor were pretty scratched up, but he himself didn’t look like he’d been hurt at all. Considering how many rats had been attacking him, I considered that a minor miracle, or at least, a pretty powerful ability. It was just a shame that he wouldn’t be able to use it again for at least half an hour.

Once I looked around to make sure that there were no rats remaining, not even a straggler off to the side, I was able to turn my message to the popup message that had appeared in front of me.

YOU HAVE REACHED LEVEL 3

I’d already felt the change, the increase in power level. It was subtle, something that went on in the background, behind any of the stats I could see. But I could still feel it.

When I looked at my stat page, I saw exactly what I’d expected to see. It looked the same as the last time I’d seen it, with one exception. I had one free stat point to assign.

My first thought was to assign it to vitality again since that had become my favorite stat, but I quickly decided against it. Sure, it would be nice to become even healthier, but as an invoker, there were other stats I would need to rely on as well. It was about time I started working on those too.

With that, I assigned my free stat into focus, bringing it up to nine. That would be a damn good number for anyone who wasn’t a player. As it was, being a player just meant that I’d have opportunities to increase it even more.

I turned my attention to the others, who were already starting to move down the tunnel again. I shrugged, shifted my mace to the other hand, then followed behind.

----------

I stepped into the new cavern and then paused to look around in surprise and even a little wonder. It was smaller than many of the caverns that I’d recently been inside, but much brighter. Instead of having veins of glowing crystal, half the wall and ceiling space was covered with it. There were even large crystal stalactites hanging from the ceiling, acting almost like chandeliers.

But as impressive as the walls and ceiling were, I was even more interested in the pond that occupied the middle of the cavern. It was only about fifty yards across, but the water literally glowed from beneath. There had to be crystals on the bottom, and probably a lot of them. It was strangely beautiful.

“I don’t see any monsters,” Bunny said.

That brought my attention back to something that I never should have lost track of. I silently chastised myself and then did my own visual sweep of the room. I paid special attention to the ceiling, half-expecting to see monster bats waiting up there. There weren’t any.

Once I was confident that no monsters were going to immediately attack, I looked around again. There was a strange feeling to the air, almost like static.

“Do you feel that?” I asked as I looked for what might be causing it.

“Feel what?” Bunny asked blankly.

Turtle shook his head after a few seconds. “I don’t feel anything.”

“It looks like you’re imagining things,” Ace told me with a shrug.

I frowned at that, focusing more on what I was feeling and trying to get a sense for what it was. “No, I’m definitely feeling something…”

Olivia gave me a thoughtful look, then asked, “Could it be because you’re an invoker?”

I paused in realization. “I think you might be right.”

This thing I was feeling, the static in the air, it was…familiar. It took me a few more seconds to realize why it was familiar. It was sort of like the energy I felt when I used ‘Invocation of Spite,’ though it was completely different at the same time.

“Primal energy,” I whisper in understanding. “Just a different type.”

“What was that?” Bunny asked.

I cautiously moved around, paying close attention to that static sensation and trying to determine where it felt strongest. The others all stood back and watched me with bemused expressions. Eventually, I stopped in front of the pond.

“I think,” I said slowly, staring into the glowing water. That was definitely where the static was coming from. “I think there’s a primal in the water.”

Just then, a ripple suddenly moves across the pond, starting in the middle and then moving off to one side. I stare intently, realizing that it isn’t just a ripple. The water itself is shaped like some kind of a snake, at least for a moment, before the ripple settles back down and vanishes.

“An elemental,” I whisper in realization.

When Wolf and I had been talking about the different types of primals, he’d mentioned the elemental type. He’d said that elementals were similar to naturals, but where naturals were aligned with plants and animals, elementals were more aligned with the environment itself. He said that they usually represented the elements, and not just the classic elements like earth, air, and fire, but also ones like lightning, ice, or copper. What I was seeing now could only be an elemental.

“A water elemental,” I stated with a grin of anticipation. “I think it’s time to see if I can make a deal.”

“Good luck,” Bunny told me cheerfully.

I crouched down and put my hand in the water, sure that this would get the elemental’s attention. After all, I was an invoker and it was a primal. We were a match made in the Labyrinth. Nothing happened.

“Elemental,” I called out, trying to get its attention. “I would like to make a deal with you.”

There was no answer. No response. I tried a couple more times but nothing changed. A short time later, the elemental rippled across the surface of the water again, but this didn’t seem to be in response to me. It just seemed to be stretching out and changing position.

“Here, primal primal primal,” Bunny called out with a giggle. I gave her a flat look which only made her giggle again.

The others all sat down and took a break while I continued trying to get the primal’s attention. However, nothing I did worked. I asked to talk to it, offered it a deal, and even repeated Bunny’s call of ‘here, primal primal primal’. It just continued to ignore me, if it even noticed me enough to bother doing that. Eventually, I realized how futile this was and that I’d been wasting everyone’s time.

“Sorry,” I told the others with a sigh of resignation. “I’m ready to continue on now.”

“Sorry it didn’t work out,” Turtle told me sympathetically.

“Water magic could have been cool,” Bunny said with a sigh of her own disappointment.

Just before leaving the cavern, I turned back to take one last look at the pond and the missed opportunity within. For the first time, I truly understood exactly why presence was an important stat for invokers.