Backwoods Dungeon

Chapter Five

Mental Classes

The next classes were significantly less conventionally attractive. I figured I’d get Necromancer out of the way first because there was no way I would become a Necromancer.

I lived in the bible belt. We liked to think we were civilized, but if there was anywhere in America where the Salem Witch Trials might happen again, it was right here. Reviving the dead and using their skeletons to fight for you is cool in video games and movies, but in real life, it just sounded like a quick way to get burned at the stake.

I was not at all surprised to see a pale, skeletally thin version of myself when I pulled up the class. Bones swirled around the model and made up most of the armor he wore. He cut a disgusting but admittedly intimidating figure.

Necromancers harness the power of death to wield the bodies of the deceased. They are cruelty turned to a good purpose. Death wielded for the living.

Necromancers embody the good intentions that pave the road to hell. Only those of the highest willpower and fortitude can hope to become a Necromancer without succumbing to the hells and becoming that which they hoped to destroy. The rewards for such a path are many, however. Domination, dominion, and conquest are the realm of the Necromancer, and dead or living, all can be enthralled by their might.

The Necromancer wields enormous power that stems from their intelligence. A Necromancer can dominate almost any foe, be able to curse enemies from a distance, wield bones as armor or weapons telekinetically, or even sap the very life from their enemies to fuel their own. Their armies are legion, exceeded only by the pressure to turn entirely to the dark.

There is no peacetime for Necromancers. There is only the enemy and the struggle for power.

Would you like to become a Necromancer?

Note: If you choose to become a Necromancer you will gain the level-independent attribute Corruption. The higher your corruption, the stronger your spells become, but the more difficult it will be to see the light.

Wow. I wondered idly what kind of person would look at that description and think, “Yeah! That sounds like me! I’d love a good struggle to remember right from wrong!”

Well. Actually, I could think of about five people off the top of my head who probably would. My boss, for one, the bitch.

Er... my ex-boss. Shawna Sterick. God, it was going to be hard to get used to that. It still hadn’t sunk in. I’d worked as an IT Helpdesk Technician Level 1 for a company that made custom baseballs and basketballs for the past two years. The one constant in my life for that whole time was how livid I would get when she compared me to her kids. That micromanaging little shit would probably jump at the chance to summon demons and go graveyard diving.

I knew I was being unfair. She wasn’t evil. She just seemed that way to me. She was usually right about whatever she had chosen to micromanage that day, despite it rarely being anything more consequential than whether wires were visible or how imperfect a video tutorial I’d created was.

Punching a wall at work was apparently one step too far. Maybe she’d have been more sympathetic if I’d opened up about what had me so on edge lately. She had three kids and a fourth on the way, after all.

But I didn’t, and now I had to start hunting for another fucking job. And, of course, there was the new housekeeping task of culling the murderous goblin population in the backyard. On the plus side, at least I wouldn’t have to deal with her micromanaging how well I’d murdered goblins.

Was there, like… an exterminator I could call for this? The police? Animal control?

I sighed before choosing the next class.

Bards use the vibrations of the air to channel different abilities. Like the Warcries of the Barbarian, the Bard takes these simple effects to the next level. The Bard can disable, disorient, poison, and enfeeble enemies from anywhere sound might reach, and similarly, they can empower, enhance, regenerate, and rally allies and themselves within that same area. A skilled Bard can accomplish many of these tasks simultaneously.

Powered by a mix of Charisma and Dexterity, the Bard can channel the effects of their music to all enemies at once. Whimsical and fey of attitude, the Bard is rarely content to remain in one location or group. Bards travel to see the world and gain insights to channel into their music.

In peacetime, Bards are storytellers, often found in taverns and inns entertaining guests and patrons for supper. Bards are natural showmen who can draw in a crowd at a whim and excel in uplifting spirits or telling tall tales.

Would you like to become a Bard?

Note: If you choose to become a Bard, you will gain the level-independent attribute “Inspiration,” which can determine the range of your song and how effective your songs can be.

The Bard Theo was elfin. He looked like Link from the Zelda games, except he had a patchwork cloak, didn’t wear the stupid hat, and carried a fucking lute. I’d only ever seen a lute when googling one due to how often they appear in fantasy stories. They did admittedly look kinda cool. I wondered again why they went out of style. Were guitars just that much better?

Thinking of things going out of style... I’d been feeling like something was off for a while now. This felt like a game… but made for players from a different time period. Taverns and Inns? When was the last time anyone went to a fucking Days Inn and asked to entertain the patrons for a room for the night?

Well. There were a lot of poor people. The last time someone asked probably wasn’t that long ago. The last time someone did that and successfully received a room? Probably at least a hundred years. Maybe two.

Whatever angel or higher being that had instituted this weirdness really needed to get with the times. Would a patch be too much to ask for?

Initially, I had thought that I would pick Wizard, hands down. Yes, it had no practical use, but… well… fireball. Fuck, maybe I could fake a Dragon Slave. ‘Darkness beyond twilight, crimson beyond blood that flows,’ goblin bitches! Sure, I’d burn my mountain down, but it would be worth it!

But in reality, the only classes that made real sense were those that could heal. Paladin, Monk, or Cleric. Maybe Druid. I wasn’t sure about that one yet.

Guns could fill the role of any fisticuffs or hack 'em slash 'em better and faster than any of the classes I’d seen so far, baring perhaps Necromancer. But that was only because a Necromancer could give his minions Rugers.

Actually, Necromancer might not be a bad idea…

No. That would be stupid. Yes, I still didn’t believe any of this was real, but if it was, I wasn’t going to risk becoming a skeletal mummy of a man who literally had to struggle to tell right from wrong.

What had really happened so far? A few unusual creatures that wanted to kill me and had a language of some sort. A level-up interface popped up in my head like the start of a video game the moment I’d killed one. That’s all. There was no reason to think some demonic apocalypse was brewing beneath our feet.

The hairs on my arms stood on end when I thought about it. My lips went dry.

“The seals are broken. The hells awaken. Take up arms, humanity. The ancient battle comes.”

It was still written at the top of the class selection screen.

“No reason at all!” I said to my shower wall.

I opened the door and looked out the bathroom window. The backyard looked fine. Nothing strange about it at all. The wind blew the trees around a bit. The late afternoon was still sunny. It was Spring, but the weather hadn’t decided if it wanted to be fully hot or cold yet, so it kept waffling back and forth.

Today was hot enough for a T-shirt, but I might need three layers tomorrow. You could never really tell in April.

Was this what the “Hells Awakening” should look like?

I shrugged off the wary feeling, but it lingered there in the back of my mind.

Druids are nomadic creatures. Prone to solitary lifestyles, they commune with nature and draw their powers from her. The Druid can summon beasts to aid him in battle and command the elements. No creatures of the wild would harm a Druid.

Truly powerful Druids may hold complete dominion over the weather in a local area. Storms and cyclones obey them, as do the creatures of the land to an extent. Druids can also shapeshift, becoming animals which they are most familiar with.

Powered by their Wisdom and Strength, Druids hold connections to the earth and are filled with life. Creatures of nature, including humans, can find themselves recovering from otherwise fatal wounds or sickness just by being in the presence of a Druid.

In peacetime, Druids are often honored elders and wise men or women. They might also find their calling as village healers. Their long communion with the Earth has left them wise and capable of guiding younger generations. If they do not have strong bonds with friends or family, Druids might often take to the wilderness, preferring nature above human contact.

Would you like to become a Druid?

Note: If you choose to become a Druid, you will gain a special ability called “Healing Aura” which drastically improves the recovery rate of all living beings not aligned with the hells within a radius around you. This aura can be manipulated by various Druid abilities to have different or more powerful effects.

Wow. That was actually incredibly useful. I could heal people just by being near, turn into a bear to intimidate them, or become a mouse to spy on them. Thinking in terms of killing monsters like goblins still felt arbitrary to me. An aura of healing, though? Who wouldn’t want that?

My mom wasn’t exactly getting younger. She’d mentioned having a bit of skin cancer removed last year. She’d played it off like no big deal, but… well. Cancer.

Fuck cancer.

Only two classes left, but I doubted it was even a question. I wouldn’t be prioritizing fireballs over potentially healing family.

Wizards channel arcane energies through the ambient magic that saturates the world. Able to take raw mana from the elements, a Wizard is a superb long-range fighter and, with few exceptions, excels at dealing massive damage to enemies on a wide scale from a distance.

Utilizing raw Intelligence to fuel their spells, the Wizard has honed their mind to be as sharp as their powers. Intense study and a deeper understanding of the mysteries of the earth and beyond lend strength to their already prodigious command of the elements.

In times of peace, Wizards tend to gravitate to the learned arts. Creating great monuments and relics, mixing poultices, and studying the world to bring order from chaos are all favored pastimes of the Wizard. Many are motivated by this desire to improve or leave their mark on the world.

Would you like to become a Wizard?

Note: If you choose to become a Wizard, the level-independent attribute “Understanding” will be added to your status screen.

So, Wizards were scientists. Or the Middle Ages equivalent, at least. I was a computer scientist, but I didn’t find much joy in learning for the sake of learning.

Perhaps I should be more interested, but this wasn’t the way to go for me. Increasing my understanding of the “Earth and Beyond” sounded like I needed to know a little about everything.

Someone with a working knowledge of everything should not have had nearly the same trouble with replacing a door I’d had last month.

I could imagine that “Understanding” attribute sitting at a solid one for the rest of my life.

The image of myself as a Wizard seemed filled with arcane power. A red glow suffused the area around him and his eyes were lit up with electricity. His robes were kingly, and his staff eldrich and menacing.

He looked badass. If the world had suddenly ended, the apocalypse was nigh, and the sky was raining ash or something, this would almost certainly be the class for me.

It hadn’t, though. The sky was bright and sunny. The day didn’t look any different from a thousand others. Jill was none the wiser to any Goblins and would probably think I was delusional if I tried to tell her. Rio probably would, too, now that I thought about it.

I’d finish playing around with this silly screen, and the world would return to normal. Soon enough, I’d forget about the five red-skinned gremlins that had attacked me in the woods. I could see myself wondering if it had even happened or if I’d just been severely dehydrated and a little manic the day after getting fired from my first well-paying job since I’d left the military.

There was only one class left. The Cleric.

Clerics are the mercy and the soothing word. Holy healers who do good deeds in the name of their deity and the common good of all.

The opposite side of the coin from their brothers, the Paladins, Clerics are capable of violence but do not excel at it. Instead, the Cleric focuses on the healing arts and bringing life and health to all who abhor the hells.

Pure Wisdom determines the power of the Cleric’s spells. Devout in whatever way that suits them, the Cleric may be found in plate-mail armor wielding a hammer or in the raiment of the priest, healing from afar that others may continue in their crusades well past their natural limits.

In peacetime, the Clerics can be found in the world's holy places, sanctifying the grounds against all who would harm others.

Would you like to become a Cleric?

Note: If you choose to become a Cleric, the level-independent attribute “Faith” will be added to your status screen.

Damn.

The class was all about actually believing in something. True honest belief. I didn’t… I didn’t think I could do that. It was the same problem as with 'Understanding' and with the Paladin’s 'Zeal.'

I struggled with my faith daily, waffling between believing in god and wondering if religion as a whole was nothing more than a global pacification system that simply came in different flavors. If my theoretical class abilities’ strength were based on my Faith, they would likely be weaker than my already flabby arms.

I couldn’t choose this class.

So, what did that leave me?

Necromancer was out, Cleric was out, Paladin was out. I wasn’t going to be a Rogue. Sure, I didn’t think I had enough zeal to be a Paladin, but I also wasn’t going to start robbing people, even if the demonic loot drops sounded good. I didn’t really want to assassinate people, either. Demons, maybe, but there were better choices for killing enemies if I chose my class based purely on that.

Still… Cleric. Healing myself. Healing my Mom…

I’d watched my Grandpa die of cancer. Even if I’d never be a good, faithful Cleric, maybe it would be worth it to be focused on the healing arts.

…My gut told me it wouldn’t be, though. Perhaps I would be a decent healer, and maybe I could even give my Mom an extra two decades. Maybe Rio and I could even have kids… but I’d never be great if Faith were the determining factor. I had great respect for those whose faith was unshakable. I envied them sometimes, having that rock.

I was too jaded for that, though.

What did that leave me with? Barbarian, Bard, Monk, Wizard, and Druid.

Barbarian… well, Rio always said she liked a big guy.

I grinned goofily but decided not to pick that. Wizard and Monk, too, were out. Wizard because for all of its “Understanding” it didn’t seem to be capable of much other than destruction. Monk, because while it had self-healing, it couldn’t heal others, as far as I could tell. Also… after almost getting killed by a few goblins, I wasn’t eager to devote myself to close-ranged combat with my fists.

That left Bard and Druid.

Neither class was my favorite to play in the various RPGs that featured them. Druids were usually a bit hokey, and Bards were rarely all that effective.

I could read music pretty well, but even in high school, when I was first chair trumpet and the school's best piano player, I knew I’d never go to Julliard.

Nature though…

After all of that, it was the mosquitos that decided it.

I grew up in a city. A big city. Until I moved to the country, I never for a minute imagined wanting to live elsewhere. Now though? The rocks and the trees. The hardy grass and weeds that could grow in such an environment and the tall oaks that covered every inch of the small mountains?

I loved it.

From afar, anyway. From the safety of my back deck overlooking the ravine that tumbled downward behind our house.

The idea of going out into that wilderness and not worrying about itching? Hell, that was worth all the fireballs in the world.

I chose Druid.

“Congratulations. You have become a Druid. You have been granted the passive skill “Healing Aura.” You can turn this skill off at will. Note that this skill will deactivate if your mana is depleted. Turning this skill off restores passive mana generation.”

I blinked as an explosion of smell like evergreens and wildflowers assaulted my senses. Rock and dirt. Bugs and birds. Suddenly, I was aware of all of them. I could feel the processed hardwood floors beneath my feet. The concrete holding up the houses’ foundation. The metal of the fence outside.

All of it came to me at once, a dim awareness of my surroundings that came with no filters. I couldn’t orient myself with this or even tell where any of it was. Just that it was there.

…

“Wow, my house has a lot of bugs…” I thought, horrified. Of course, this newfound aura around me gave me no indication of whether all those bugs were safely outside my home. Just a general awareness that they were there.

'I’ve made a terrible mistake…' I thought with a laugh.

On the upside, I could feel the aura around me healing everything within. My sore ankle felt instantly soothed as it began to heal faster.

The screen blinked away before being replaced with a similar one, which I immediately recognized.

“It’s a skill tree,” I thought, amused.

The tree was sorted into five tabs labeled “Nature,” “Elements,” “Shapeshifting,” “Passives,” and “Aura,” and each tab had a selection of different abilities I could choose from. A large green 1 was in the upper left of the screen.

I supposed there would be one skill point per level. That was assuming the gong I’d heard when I killed the goblin was a level-up sound. I hoped the levels came quickly, because there were a lot of options, and it didn’t seem like any of them were barred to me.

Skill tree wasn’t the right word. There was a general progression that it appeared to want me to follow, but if I wanted to, I could skip right to the big abilities at the bottom. One of the options under the elements tab was Tornado. Just. Tornado. Right there. And I could select that as my first skill if I wanted to.

I thought that was a bad idea. It wouldn’t be laid out progressively if there wasn’t some solid reason for me to first take the abilities at the top. The mana cost of summoning a tornado must be prohibitive or something like that.

In the upper right, just opposite the skill number, was an “X” that I mentally clicked.

The screen closed, and that was it.

I blanched, wondering if I could get it back, but I needn’t have worried. I didn’t have to think “Skill tree,” or “Class” or anything like that. It was even more straightforward than that. I just pictured the menu I wanted, and it returned. I could even continue viewing the other classes if I felt like it, all at the speed of thought.

For now, I wouldn’t choose any skills; if I did, I’d probably make sure it was passive. This…

This seemed to be real.

I was a Druid, and I could heal, shapeshift, summon creatures, and apparently tornados.

Awesome. It was… awesome. Yet, for all that, none of these fancy new abilities would help me find a new job before Rio got home tomorrow.

…Fuck.