Emma woke up half an hour later, far more alert than she'd been when she laid her head down. Part of that came from being refreshed by her nap; though most of it stemmed from a burning pain in her neck, pain that only intensified when she tried to raise her arm above shoulder height to rub her eyes.
[There's a reason beds exist separately to sofas, unless you're really hard up.]
"I used to sleep in the car all the time, and it never got this bad. Is this body defective?"
[That's a good question. I could check for you, if you're willing to link it to the System now. Do you have a class in mind?]
"Not really? I didn't get to choose last time; either time, I should say. What are the options when I'm not dying, or high as a kite?"
[You've not really fought in this body; nor done much of anything to be honest. You're looking at either the Apprentice class, which is a generic placeholder that lets you level up before changing class at a later date, or the Chef class.]
"What would it take to unlock extra classes, if I went with Apprentice?" Emma asked, ignoring the Chef option entirely; she had Epitaph for that, after all.
[You'll be notified when classes are unlocked for selection. Some become permanently available once you hit a certain threshold, for example a particular level or a certain amount of a particular stat. These tend to be the more common classes; someone who puts on armor and picks up a sword might get to choose between Knight and Blackguard, while someone who went for their guns might get Marksman as an example.
The rarer, more powerful classes tend to have more specific, time-limited requirements that you either accept or reject in the moment. You got Revenant for dying within a minute of System activation, and Chaos Conjurer before that for fighting nightmares while on a bad trip. Fairly typical examples, both of these; think of rare classes like hidden achievements. You'll know when you find one.]
"So I'd be raising a second class entirely from scratch. Not the worst idea in theory, but a time sink for sure. Is there no way to link this body to my existing Damned Apostle class? I'm not really strong enough to be comfortable thinking about multi-classing."
[Actually, that might be possible. You'll have to wait until the Solstice at Level 0 though, so hold that thought.]
Any further discussion was interrupted when Noah abruptly appeared in the living room, landing on the single-seat sofa in the corner and sinking into the soft padding.
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"Frumentarii," Felix's eye twitched. "Why does my sister look like something out of a Lovecraft story? Switch view to Elizabeth Knight."
[ERROR 404]
"Designate Elizabeth Knight as an alternate and equivalent name to Elizabeth Faust. Goddamned Empire bureaucracy," Felix muttered under his breath.
The point of view bounced again, this time to Elizabeth, sat at the head of the table and busy adding some extra table salt to her meal. On the bright side, Emma no longer looked like something out of Innsmouth. On the other hand...
"Why is she a pony?" Felix facepalmed. "Frumentarii, refocus all surveillance on the Knight household. Someone's playing games here, and I want to get to the bottom of it."
Now, finally, Emma came back into view. An ordinary person, no hooves, no tentacles, just a normal teenage girl with red hair and green eyes, as she'd been for the decade plus that Felix had known her.
"Hold on," Felix frowned. "Wasn't she a suit of armor last time?"
Before he could ask for clarification, Emma stood up and spun around, staring directly at his magical fly on the wall.
"Null and Void."
The screen caught on fire, accompanied by a shock wave that blew Felix clean off his chair and sent him sprawling into the desert sand.
---
"Has Felix been in touch at all?" Emma asked, as she retook her seat, reaching for more mashed potatoes.
"Not for several weeks; last I heard he was still busy working on his Dungeon," Elizabeth replied. "Why?"
"No reason."