With a furrowed brow, Mark concentrated and mentally dismissed the character sheet, causing it to vanish from his view. He glanced over at Keith, who had recoiled slightly, his eyes widening in surprise. Keith's face went slack, his jaw dropping as he seemed to stare into space. He looked up speechless for a moment. Then, as Mark had anticipated, Keith turned to Fred with a torrent of questions, his words tumbling out in rapid succession, eager to make sense of what had just occurred. He’s going to have problems accepting and adapting—I’ve had a few extra days and not so much all at once. How much babysitting am I going to need to do?

  “This isn’t how an Ice Elf works.” Keith complained to Fred.

  “It’s not how you wrote it up, but this is how the Structure put it into play in the EverNever. You are an Ice Elf, but more than that. So, to balance things and make sure you're not OP, you get this.” Fred looked over at Mark. “You okay over there? Didn’t expect you to be so quiet.”

  Mark smiled. “Been listening to the two of you, so I don’t ask repeat questions.”

  Fred nodded and turned back to Keith. “I know you have more questions.”

  “That’s a given. Just trying to get my head around everything so I know what to ask.” Keith pointed at the area in front of him.

  “Keith, one of my abilities I didn’t know I had is understand animals, so I’ll be able to talk and understand Skwilly. Seems like someone may have been planning things out—don’t you think?”

  Looking up, Keith replied. “How fortuitous. One problem solved. Funny how that all fell together.” He glanced over at Fred.

  “I used my influence where I could—but this one isn’t me.”

  “Sure.” Mark drew the word out for effect. “Don’t be surprised if I remain skeptical there.”

  “Be whatever you want to be.” Fred’s lips thinned.

  “While you’re being whatever you are, I’m going to activate the ability and specialize in Skwilly. Could give us an advantage we might exploit.” Mark grinned, “Skwilly, you understand me now?

  The creature looked up at Mark, eyes wide. “You can be understood.”

  Mark nodded in unison with Keith, then spoke up. “Looks like I’m set linguistically.”

  “So I’m racially a somewhat altered from what we know ice elf and an interesting combo of knowledge seeker, with a little mystic thrown in. Need to still choose some spells soon. Did you get confirmation on your cleric-monk build?”

  Mark nodded, then shook his head. “I’m an Eurythelon, which looks to be some sort of guardian priest—“

  “Technically, you're a priest guardian. It’s a class that exists and fits your monk and cleric main characters. Valgrin proved more of a challenge. He always tried something wildly different. You, Malcolm, stayed in a type, for the most part. Both of you are a hybrid of characters you played before altered for the EverNever.”

  “Yeah, got that figured out.” Mark scratched at his chin. “I’m guessing I’m the fighter of this duo.”

  “I have a nice katar-ish long dagger thing.” Keith held up the translucent blue bladed katar. “Goes by the near groan inducing name of Frostbite. Does some interesting things with ice. Other than that, I’m mostly a jack of all trades trying to learn everything. I’ll need to study myself to determine how to play myself. One question does come to mind, Fred, why do I seem to be taking this at face value and not freak out? This is a huge step.”

  Fred looked down at the stone floor, “There is an acclimation process or spell which ever way you want to name it. It is there to help onboarders accept, understand, and basically stay calm.”

  Keith sprang up from his stone perch, his eyes blazing with fury. "You're messing with our heads?" he growled, his voice dripping with menace and barely-contained rage.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Mark moved gracefully between his friend and Fred, gently laying his hand on Keith’s shoulder. His touch was light but firm, a silent gesture of reassurance. “You seem to still be you, and me…um…me. I can see this acclimation thing as a positive, but I also don’t like the idea of my head being messed with.” He turned to Fred, “So, how much mental manipulation are we undergoing?”

  "It's more of a gentle nudge than outright control," Fred clarified, his voice steady but his eyes betraying a hint of anxiety. “True mental manipulation is frowned upon, severely, in the usage for onboarding. We don’t want to alter thought, just provide a source of comfort and magically confirm to you, you’re not going crazy thinking these things.” As Fred finished speaking, he looked at the others with wide eyes, his brow furrowed with anxiety, the worry clearly etched across his face.

  “It stinks,” Keith sat back down. “How do I know what’s me and what’s not.”

  Mark folded his arms, while turning back to Keith. “I do find easier to accept I can do magic. But, to the best of my knowledge, I’m thinking like me.”

  "Me too, which I can’t decide if that is comforting or terrifying.” Keith mumbled.

  A long, loud sigh from Fred snatched the attention of the other two, and Skwilly. “You’ll both need to figure that out going forward. I will have to send you on to the onboarding dungeon. Also known as the tutorial dungeon. Yours will be a little different, since both of you are at a higher level than most of our newcomers. As you gain experience, you’ll be able to expand your character. I don’t have time to get into all the ways right now. Suffice it to say, neither of you will be shocked by the structure of advancing. What is it Valgrin?”

  “Basic info question, what is a Priggy?”

  Mark’s barked laughter echoed off the walls. “Priggy? Is that what Skwilly is?”

  Fred and Keith nodded in unison. Then Fred explained. “He’s based on a creature type created by an imaginative fourteen-year-old, from your world—British chap, as a matter of fact. He wanted a name that combined something about light and pigs. Prism piggy became Priggy—much to the amusement of himself and the other teens he played with.”

  “Okay, that makes some sense.” Keith said.

  “On to your info. There are some items that talk about advancing at a certain level—that will cost points, and in some choices it will be level it up or take another option. You aren’t limited to only those items and level upgrades, though many are necessary for growth in power. One last thing before I send you out into the world—you can call the stats, abilities, and other info in your character sheets and get smaller info dumps. Character sheet, gets you what you’ve seen, status check gets you health and magic pool, using section headers is another way to pull back limited data.”

  “Yeah, got told all that with the initial character sheet.” Keith interjected.

  “Any hints on how to find this dungeon and any helpful hints at those differences you mentioned?” Mark recrossed his arms and leaned against the rock wall.

  Fred ran his hand through his short brown hair. “ The dungeon will manifest right outside in a few minutes. Typically, this is an entry-level encounter. You two aren’t entry level, so there will be some adjustments to the levels of the monsters and any traps or puzzles you encounter.” Fred opened his mouth, as if to continue, then quickly closed it.

  “Out with it,” Keith demanded. “You almost added something there, then you didn’t. We’d like to know whatever you know or suspect.”

  “Uh…” Fred’s complexion reddened. “I don’t know whether this helps or hurts you—some are unhappy about your involvement. I don’t have any control or accurate knowledge of what you’ll face, but it would not surprise me to find out that the level might be higher than it should. The Structure has some guidelines and restrictions, but there are ways to exploit or just push it to the limit.”

  “Why would anyone oppose us that much?” Mark asked.

  “This is the last question I’ll have time to answer. There are a lot of what we call creators for the EverNever, comes with the nature of the world. You two are within almost every top five list of creators and frequently are the top two. That fame comes with, uh…haters…I believe is the term in your world.”

  Mark pushed off the wall. “Which one of us is number one most often?” He smiled as he asked. “And don’t answer that one—not knowing lets us bicker about it.”

  Keith nodded and laughed.

  “I wouldn’t tell you, anyway.” Fred answered, then walked through the cave entrance. “Plus, it’s time for you to go through the door.” He pointed to the left.

  Both Mark and Keith walked outside and saw a bright lime-green door standing by itself under the tree Keith had climbed to get away from Skwilly.

  “Only way to make that brighter would be to use electricity.” Keith quipped.

  Mark shrugged. “Well, guess we need to go through the ugly front door to nowhere. I’m guessing it teleports us to the dungeon?”

  Fred stood silent, still pointing.

  Sighing, Mark looked over at Keith. “Now he plays the strong silent type. Want me to lead? From what you’ve shared, I don’t think you’re the fighter of the two of us.”

  Keith made a sweeping gesture with his hand. “By all means, lead the way.”