Stephan’s torch flickered in the unnaturally cold cave, its flame guttering as if the air itself was trying to snuff out its warmth. Shadows danced across the rough stone walls of the winding path sloping deeper into the earth. Twenty paces in, the tunnel opened into a tall, wide cavern.

  Inside stood a man.

  Stephan’s gaze slid right off him. The realization that he had seen someone hit a heartbeat later. He couldn’t recall what it was that he had seen, nor could he hold the man in his mind. His build and height were average, unremarkable, his clothes plain. Nothing memorable, just another person who melted into the crowd. The face…

  Stephan frowned. There was something disconcerting about the face. He looked at the man again. He was closer, holding a knife raised, poised to strike. Stephan’s eyes just passed him and the man vanished from his mind.

  Where thought failed, instinct took over. Stephan gasped and jumped back.

  His heart raced as the knife plunged through the air where his neck had been a split-second ago. Without looking, he swung his mace. Bones crunched, followed by one wet thud of a body hitting the stone floor.

  Stephan stood over the corpse, heart racing. He had caved in the man’s chest.

  As the last breath left the eerie stranger, Stephan finally saw what was wrong with him. The face was blurred. Not wounded or deformed, but smeared, half-finished, or perhaps forgotten by the time the eye focused on another part of it.

  With a puff, the body dissolved into icy fog that danced around Stephan.

  He drew two steps back and waited for the warmth to enter him, but nothing came. Defeating the monster hadn’t brought him any closer to the next level.

  He swallowed and scanned the cavern. There were no other figures. No movement. Just still stone, skittering shadows, and two branching paths. Exactly as Tod had described them.

  The left path quickly narrowed into an unpleasant crawl that ended in a cramped, dead-end chamber. The right one led to three larger caverns.

  Fearing potential ambush as he crawled back into the first chamber, Stephan chose the right tunnel.

  Drip. The faint sound came from down his chosen path.

  The corridor was short, with a sharp bend at the end. Drip. Drip. Stephan advanced carefully, the dripping growing louder and heavier with each step, until it seemed to hammer directly against his skull.

  He squeezed between two rocks and emerged into a large chamber.

  A shallow pond lay at its center, perfectly still, illuminated by a thick yellow beam of daylight. A large, jagged hole gaped in the ceiling, letting in the light and the water of the outside world.

  His first thought, and Tod’s warning, told him to watch the pond. The dripping was thunderous, hammering at his ears, yet the water’s surface didn’t ripple, nor were there any droplets hitting the pond.

  Stephan turned towards the sound, which was surprisingly coming from the corner. Instead of a dripping stalactite or water coming in through the orifice, he found a hunched form hugging its knees, slightly larger than a gremlin.

  The humanoid creature was made of damp stone. A drop of water gathered on the tip of its long, pointy nose.

  The drop fell, seeming no different from a raindrop, but struck the stone floor hard and rang like a bell.

  Stephan stepped towards it, and the creature raised its head towards him. Where eyes should have been were two moss-filled hollows, fixed on Stephan.

  Its stone mouth, invisible when shut, spread open into a carnivorous grin, completely lined with teeth like jagged stalactites and stalagmites. Stephan expected it to pounce and prepared to duck, when the creature flicked its head instead.

  It launched the drop towards Stephan. Already prepared to dodge, he threw himself to the side, and the wall behind him exploded as if struck by a maul, spraying shards of stone.

  Stephan sprinted as another drop gathered on the monster’s nose, but before it could launch it at him, his mace crashed into the rocky head.

  The impact rang like metal striking metal, and the creature collapsed into a heap of mossy stones, slick with dew.

  Again, no feeling of warmth flowed into him, and Stephan clenched his jaw.

  I could fight a thousand of these, and I wouldn’t get a level.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  He was busy thinking why that was when something yanked him by the ankles. His face slammed into the stone, and his mind blanked out from the impact. Then, just as his head grew muddled, he was plunged into icy water and snapped back to consciousness.

  He gasped. Blotches of blood trailed from his swollen nose, red plumes dancing before his eyes as bubbles of air escaped his mouth. Stephan immediately closed it, already drowning.

  Before he had time to orient himself, icy hands crawled up his body. A young woman came into view, floating inches away from his face. Without a sound, she wept icy tears from pitch-black eyes, her black hair drifting like weeds, tangling around him.

  Her cold hands closed around his throat, and she started choking him while soundlessly sobbing.

  Stephan thrashed and lashed out. He struck her face with a fist, then again and again. Water clouded with more red, and the pressure on Stephan’s neck vanished.

  He staggered upright, gasping and coughing, and found himself standing knee-deep in the pond. The water was crystal clear, and completely empty.

  “What in Hope’s name,” he muttered, dragging himself onto the solid stone.

  He had heard folktales of walking dreams, magical monsters that distorted reality, but they were just that - stories.

  The standing wave, a giant wave that stood frozen while you looked at it, but crashed down on you the moment you looked away, the sitter on the chest, which paralyzed its victims, then sat on their chests until they suffocated.

  There were countless stories, but that was all they were. Then again, gremlins too were creatures from fairytales, yet they had slaughtered his friends and neighbors.

  Shivering, Stephan shook his head and went to grab the mace and the torch where he had dropped them. The spare torches were, unfortunately, in his sash, completely drenched.

  He took one of them and tried to light it on the burning one. The wet resin hissed and spat just as much from the water as it did from the cave itself, but finally it caught and started to burn.

  Well, that was a waste, but they should last long enough.

  In fact, if he kept going at this pace, a single torch might serve him. Still, Stephan gripped the two of them, their flames joined. It was a little brighter and helped him more thoroughly check the pond and the rest of the cavern. Nothing.

  That’s three out of five to ten. And all I got to show for it is being wet and miserable. Should I finish the job if I’m not going to get a level, or is it more reasonable to leave? I’m risking my life for nothing.

  He frowned. Why am I not getting any closer to leveling? Is it because I don’t feel any righteousness from doing this? Is this righteous?

  Stephan hesitated for a moment before continuing towards the next cavern. There was a job to do, and he was already there.

  Perhaps it’s because I’m not standing for the innocent? Or there’s no emergency. The guards would’ve handled this cave anyway. Regardless, he had committed, and he would see the job through.

  Besides, he was getting precious practical lessons about combat. Something he had never had the opportunity to experience before during practice. Hitting monsters with a mace was something he discovered he had a surprising amount of talent for, considering all he had been hitting before were dummies and bushes.

  Stephan stopped reminiscing and focused on the present. The narrow corridor’s rocky ground formed primitive, natural steps, climbing to the next chamber. He paused before the rise and hesitated.

  “What am I doing here? I should be back in the village.”

  Ever since getting his class, everything had been busy, always something to do, a problem to solve, but being wet in a cold cave cooled Stephan’s head. Lacy had lost her memories, he had gone back in time, or had a vision of the future or something. He had gotten an impossible class; the Paladin was dead, and suddenly the reality of it all caught up with Stephan.

  Is there a way to see my information? Something like Identify? The words flash before my eyes when I level up, but I’m not that good with letters.

  And he wasn’t ashamed of it.

  He never needed them. He was a cobbler’s son and apprentice; he expected he would work on shoes for Brighthollowers and people of the surrounding villages.

  As for classes, everyone knew the three skills Commoners got in their first ten levels and the six the Artisans got. As for other classes, your mentors would teach you if you were lucky enough to get one, otherwise you fumble your way through it. Letters were a luxury taught by Lady Clara once per week to all those who wanted to learn or listen to her read stories.

  Perhaps Lady Clara knows about Paladin skills? Maybe she can make sense of all of this.

  Shuddering from the cold, he stood where he was and shook his head.

  Get the job done. I can ask those questions once I’m back in town. If they don’t know, they will know someone who should. One step at a time, I’ll get to the bottom of it.

  He looked up.

  But first, the top of these stairs.

  So, Stephan climbed. There should’ve been only nine steps, but even as he walked he seemed to stay in place. Five, ten, twenty steps, but he was still at the bottom. He looked back and found he wasn’t at the bottom. He was in the middle of a very short corridor, on the fourth step.

  He looked ahead, where five steps remained. Finally, he checked the walls. A big, meaty tongue licked the lips of stone before darting at him.

  Stephan blocked with the burning torches. The monster’s burnt flesh hissed and stank, and the wall opened up in a roar.

  Stephan threw one of the torches into the maw, and the nightmare, whatever it was, choked and screamed and burned. The corridor shook, then calmed as the shrieks stopped.

  Stephan took another tentative step forward, then another, and another, and five steps later, he had reached the top of the stairs.

  [Stephan Cobblerson, Paladin level 6

  Class skills: In Living Memory XVI, Blessing of Healing I, Blessing of Arms I, Smite I, Blessing of Protection I, Inspiring Aura I, Blessing of Conviction I

  Attributes: Agility: 15, Charisma: 15, Composure: 16, Dexterity: 15, Endurance: 16, Intelligence: 13, Luck: 15, Perception: 15, Presence: 14, Strength: 15, Toughness: 15, Vitality: 16, Willpower: 16, Wisdom: 15]