The first thing I noticed was a soft, tickling sensation on my nose. I opened my eyes- ash fell from the sky, and I lightly swatted at the soot that had landed on my face. I was quickly distracted, however, as I noticed my hands.

I mean… logically, I knew things were going to look slimmer and such. But damn, it was a real switch- going from having fingers as lanky as I was outside to something so… dainty, honestly.

Hopefully they’d be graceful enough for some good pickpocketing, or lockpicking or- well, whatever other rogue shit I wanted to get up to. God, why was I smiling so much, they’re just hands, jeeze! I shook both of them, before smacking myself lightly on the face to focus up- oh man my cheeks feel so smooth, I like that a lot, actually-

BLUGH! Focus, damn it!

With every bit of self control I had, I wrenched my thoughts away from figuring out this new body to looking around. I found myself in an alleyway, tucked between a pair of buildings. Peaking high over the roofs, I could see the spires of what must be either a truly impressive castle or an incredibly sinister church. The sky was a dark, burnt red, and I could see the tendrils of fog starting to swirl through the streets.

Oh yeah, that was an absolutely kickass aesthetic.

It was fairly quiet- city must be winding down for the evening- so I decided to take some time to see exactly what my stats were like. The character creation screen mentioned something about initial values being tied to body type; the devs probably wanted to do something kinda simulationist to start with.

I flicked open the menu, and instead of the normal screen from the Foyer, a much more unobtrusive square of holographic text popped up. There were a few tabs- Skills, Inventory, Journal, Social- there we go, Attributes. 

Actually, hang on- the Social tab just reminded me of something. Shouldn’t I have logged in at the same place as Rae? Where was she- I was totally alone in this alleyway. 

…Maybe she was just taking a little longer with character creation. Otherwise, definitely had a bug report to file with the devs here.

Okay, so- Attributes. Opening up the menu, I was pleased to see that my Agility was clearly the outperforming stat- I was small, lean, and had some definite muscle definition in the legs, so I’d be a quick and jumpy little guy.

Er, girl. Because… yeah. Hard to mistake me as anything else right now, so why not? Ash Caldera was a girl.

Right. Stop grinning like an idiot- Focus. I am… focusing. Attributes- was Focus an Attribute? No, no it wasn’t- that’s a shame, I could use a little something extra there. Awareness was an attribute, and it was a few points above the average. Those pointy ears must be good for something then, huh?

Might and Toughness were a little lacking, but that wasn’t a surprise. Toughness more so- it seemed to govern my body’s baseline damage reduction, while HP was that same familiar little red bar in the corner of my vision that only popped up when I focused on it. 

Finally, we had Stamina- the representation of how easily I would start to feel tired in-game. It was fairly decent as well- just short of Awareness. All in all, this seemed exactly what I’d need in my kit as a rogue in the making. 

Flipping over to the Skills tab (and still wondering what was taking Rae so long), I was greeted with the Ashbound’s tarot card- flipping over to give an overview of the magic I had at my fingertips. To the left and right, I could see grayed out and chained over some of the other tarot cards representing the other magic systems. Interesting- would I have a chance to unlock abilities from the other systems? That would be cool, see what kind of stuff could combo together.

…Wish I had actually looked at the other choices first, now that I’m thinking about it. I just sort of locked on to the telekinetic stuff and got tunnel vision. I’d need to keep an eye out on the ‘net for that game wiki, hopefully.

The symbol for the telekinetic pair- “Push and Pull”- was highlighted with a blue circle, and a symbol that reminded me of a magnetic field. The symbols for the other pairs were dull gray, but their names were still visible- “Eye and Arm”, “See and Shroud”, “Hear and Feel”, “Drain and Boost”, and “Past and Future”.

Oh shit was there time magic in this? Hell, that would have been SO COOL! Alright, whatever- I’ll just have to see what the alt character situation is later, I needed to figure out what I could do exactly.

I tapped on the “Push and Pull” symbol, the rest of the card fading away as three new words popped up- two with a numerical value of 1 each, “Power” and “Finesse”, and one set at 0, “Bond”. 

So, that must be how this “class” levels up- putting points into how strong your magic is vs how much fine control you had over it. At least… it seemed that way. I wasn’t exactly sure what “Bond” meant- and none of them had any explanatory text attached.

Maybe it was something to do with how close you were to the source of your magic? I’d have to drop a couple points into it later, when I’ve leveled up a bit.

 Anyhow, the initial description mentioned drinking “distilled liquid Light”- let’s see, did my inventory have… a bag of ball bearings, a single dagger, the starting clothes I was wearing (nothing to write home about, basically a step above rags), and…

Oh hell yeah. We’re cooking now- a set of five “Vials of Light”. I retrieved a single vial- an old-timey hollowed out bit of crystal stoppered with a cork, with a pale blue glow to it. 

Well, bottom’s up. I popped the cork, and chugged- the vial fizzling into nonexistence once I drained it. Immediately, I felt something warm settle into the core of my being. More than just warm, it felt alive- like it wanted to be used, that I needed to act and DO something. 

Now, just how did I use it? I flexed my hands, looking around- one of the buildings lining the alley had a wrought-iron bit of decoration sticking out and holding up the corner tiles of the roof. I tried to focus on both it and the burning magic in my gut, and then a blue tether of light suddenly lashed out towards it, and I found my feet swept out from under me as I shot forwards and upwards.

Fast! TOO fast- I cut the flow, just barely managing to catch the wrought-iron decoration with my hands, my momentum carrying me into a 180 degree flip on top of it, and the tiled roof barely clicking under my feet as I flipped into a landing crouch.

My heart was pounding. Holy shit. That was the coolest fucking thing I’ve ever done- sure, I nearly impaled myself onto a metal spike, but holy shit! Good thing I decided to stay with a small, light character- if I had been much heavier, I might have just ripped the metal off the building. As it stood, upon closer inspection it was pretty obvious this was a pretty shoddy bit of facade- a few bolts had been halfway torn out of the wooden corner pillar of the building from my own weight resisting against it. 

Still, not a bad job for my first attempt! Ash wasn’t gonna be just some newbie prowling the streets- I’d have to put in some practice here.

~-?-~

I had been hopping the rooftops of the city for about half an hour (in game time) at this point, and needed to down a second vial of Light to replenish my energy. There were a few close calls, and some wrecked signage as I had desperately tethered myself to whatever I could see to avoid falling too hard in some places, but I was getting the hang of it!

I had also figured out why it was so quiet- I was basically out in the furthest ring of what definitely had to be the capital of the Rashkel Empire. Can’t have an oppressed serf class without curfews and roaming guards.

Thankfully, the closest I had gotten to being discovered was a particularly bad crash into a cart full of weird, stubby root vegetables with dark brown leaves and stalks. I’m sure Rae’d have a better opinion on them, but to me they just looked… unhealthy. Maybe the growing conditions here weren’t very good- I thought volcanic ash was supposed to be good for growing, though?

At any rate, I had managed to launch myself by pushing against the cobblestones directly, three lines of blue leaping towards the individual stones and the ground beneath it. 

Obviously, someone as small as me isn’t going to have the power to shift the planet itself, so I was sent flying upwards- then, a quick pull towards the roof, and I rolled into a crouch. As much as I thought that pulling at structures to sort of swing myself around would be the better technique, it turned out pushing was the meat and potatoes of traversal here. 

As I caught my breath, I decided that I had given Rae more than enough time to try and reach out. I pulled up the menu, navigating to the Social tab. 

There was exactly one name on there- someone named “Reyne Steelwind” that I was currently partied up with. Obviously Rae- kind of an edgy name. Wonder if we’d both ended up with similar themes by total accident- though, Rae was sort of edgy in real life, too. In very much a “leather jacket lesbian” type way, but still. At least it worked for her, as much as I hated to admit it.

Now, let’s see- where was the text chat function…

…

… Fucking seriously? There wasn’t a way to send tells or anything? How the hell were you supposed to organize with party members- ESPECIALLY if you had just loaded in and ended up separated?!

That seemed like a pretty glaring oversight- ugh, probably more simulationist bullshit. Bet there’s some sort of speaker stone or crystal communicator or whatever you have to get to talk to other players across a long distance. What a pain!

At least clicking on her name pulled up a minimap- she was practically on the opposite end of the city (Cascarel, according to the map). At least we were IN the same city- I’d just have to make my way over to her.

I ran towards the edge of the roof I was on, pushing against the edge of it with one tether and pulling towards a belltower with another. Man, if I could figure out how to just apply a tether without actually pulling or pushing, I’d be able to do some really sick Spider-Man swings. That’s probably something I could figure out with enough Finesse- or maybe I’d have to up my Bond to unlock the less obvious skills? Assuming I was right about that. anyways.

I needed to find something to fight- or like some quests or something. Anything that’ll get me some skill points here. As it stood, instead of an anchored arc, I slingshotted right through the opening in the bell tower, tucking my arms in to pass through the space before tethering off the bell itself to continue my flight. 

Apparently, that was enough force to get a single, resonant bwong out of it, causing me to wince. Yeah, that was gonna attract attention- idiot, why didn’t you think of that?

I poured on the speed, pushing with all my might on the next rooftop and trying to get as flat an angle as I could to gain distance without losing too much height. 

Shit, I shouldn’t stay in the outer ring. It would take way too long to get across the city at this rate, and at the very least I could use the wall of the central ring to slow anyone down who might have seen me. I rolled to a stop on a particularly flat roof, changing directions and heading just shy of the center of the city.

Night had fallen by now. I couldn’t see the moon in the sky- if this world even had one- through the cloudy ash up above. I feel like I should’ve been having breathing problems, but maybe since I was a “local” I was simply used to it? Built different, maybe? 

But the mists in the streets below swirled with an almost pearlescent reflection to them, occasionally lit up by the lanterns of patrolling guards. And even with the furthest ring asleep, there were lights beaming up from the middle ring. Whoever lived there didn’t have to worry about state mandated curfews, it seemed.

Probably nobility or something. And even with a clearer view of the towering monstrosity in the center of the city, I still couldn’t tell if it was a castle or a church. Honestly, it might just be both. Rashkel was ruled by a supposed divine emperor called the Eternal or something- co-opting religious imagery seemed about right for such a thing-

CRACK!

The tiles on the rooftop ahead of me exploded into shrapnel, and I tethered left into a panicked, very much undignified landing that had me slipping and crashing into a pile of what I hoped was just dirty laundry on the street below. 

ZHWIP!

I rolled to the side, a glint of metal flying nearly silently past my face as I turned- three sets of lanterns rushing down the street at me, as one guard fished something out of a pouch-

ZHWIP! ZHWIP!

Fuck, okay another bullet dodged- obviously the guards here were Ashbound as well, that made sense. Only one of them was firing at me, but just those two close calls had my heart hammering in my chest. 

I almost felt paralyzed. I wanted to run- what was the point? I had been found, they would chase me, I was doomed, worst than that I probably deserved it, walking around like some sick freak pretending to be something he wasn’t- fear kept me rooted, and hopelessness drained the fight out of me, this did not feel right-

“Now, in what world is that a sporting way to hunt?”

A hand clasped on my shoulder, and all of a sudden it felt like the icy grip despair had on my heart melted away, as my anger at the guards flared to combat it. It was like two tones in my head, battling each other for who could be louder-

Holy shit, okay no wonder only one was shooting at me- they had a whole diversified power set there. One telekinetic, one still a mystery, and one with the emotional pair.

I scrambled up to my feet, as a figure darted past- a flash of a blade glinting in the misty light- and the person with a hand on my shoulder helped haul me up.

“Head on straight there, madame?”

I looked over- boggling at this guy who seemed to be cosplaying a Victorian gentleman; he had the suit, a scarf around his shoulders, and a surprisingly stylish bowler hat that really tied the whole outfit together. Hell, even his mustache looked waxed- how the hell had he gotten such a stylish ‘fit, while I was still in street rags over here?

I nodded, still a little too unnerved to speak, as the gentleman’s friend darted between the guards- executing perfectly timed dodges and strikes, like they could see what they were going to do before they could do it. I couldn’t even keep up with their movements- in no time at all, all of the guards were down on the ground.

The bodies didn’t disperse into pixels or a puff of smoke, though there weren’t any visible wounds or blood. Knife-guy stood up straight, tossing back the hood of their cloak to look back over- it was… pretty difficult to pin down if they were going for a stone butch look like one of Rae’s ex-girlfriends, if they were just an extremely pretty guy, or some other option I didn’t know about. All I could say was that they had me questioning things that I would have to unpack later.

“Cyrus, quit larping with the newbie and grab some vials.”

“Jase, I understand you think you are just so cool because you can see about three seconds into the future,” the gentleman- I assumed this was Cyrus- said, before patting me on the shoulder and joining his companion, “But by IRL standards, this game has only been out for a couple hours at most. We are all newbies here.”

Jase groaned, “Whatever- we’re on a timetable here, and wasn’t it your idea to hit Bentham Keep while they’re distracted with that party anyhow, mister “criminal mastermind”?”

They even air-quoted at him. Man, is this what me and Rae looked like from the outside? I cleared my throat a little, and both of them turned their attention back to me.

“Um- hey, uh thanks for the rescue.”

Holy shit I hadn’t realized that my voice had changed, too. I mean- well, there hadn’t been anyone around to talk to since I logged in, and I was already a pretty quiet person, but just… holy shit, that caught me off guard. 

It wasn’t even much of a change- just a bit softer around the edges, but still on the lower register of feminine. Cyrus grinned, tipping his hat as he tossed his cane up dramatically and snatched it out of the air before bowing.

“The pleasure is all ours, madame! Jase won’t say it, but any opportunity to rough up a few of the Eternal’s guards is always a good one!”

“Good source of Light, at least,” Jase said, before tossing a small bundle my way, “Here- you were decent enough a distraction, and I’ll bet you’ve gone through a bit figuring out how to do shit, yeah?”

I snatched the short bandolier looking thing out of the air, a small menu popping up next to it with three vials of Light in the inventory space- oh, wait a second. Those weren’t lanterns hanging off their belts earlier, it was the vials- huh! Multi-purpose and a fun bit of immersive world building!

I wasn’t going to say no to some extra resources, so I tucked the vials into my inventory, before swapping a few onto my hotbar alongside the pouch of ball bearings- I was gonna figure out that shooting trick the other guard did, and it’d help to have that immediately available.

“I mean, I’m down a vial’s worth, and I think,” I focused on the warm core of energy in my gut, “...About halfway through a second- but I’ve only really been in the game for half an hour, local time, so I’m not particularly hurting for it.”

“Oh wow, you are new- pretty decent efficiency with burning Light though. What’s your set?”

“Push and pull.”

The moment I said that, Cyrus’s eyes lit up, practically sparkling as he turned to Jase.

“A telekinetic~! Now, isn’t that just convenient, eh Jasey?”

Jase blinked, initial surprise turning into a grumpy scowl.

“Cyrus,” Their tone was a warning, but the fancy man didn’t seem to want to heed it.

“You were the one lamenting how we’d only pulled together a crew of two so far- and now we don’t even have to worry about finding an entry point on the lower level, we can use the balcony just like you suggested!”

“Cyrus, we barely know them and they haven’t even agreed to anything, you’re getting ahead of yourself.”

“Spiffing point!” Did- did he really just say “spiffing”? Hoo boy, I mean at least I can appreciate someone committing to a bit, but…

Cyrus turned to me, still just as eager as before, “So- actually, do you prefer the feminine appellations? I shouldn’t assume. I’ve been told I tend to steamroll through conversations with an excessive amount of vim and vigor.”

I blinked, “Uh- huh?”

“Your pronouns,” Jase said, making a gesture with their hands, “Hand ‘em over. You cool with the she/her stuff?”

I… hm. I mean… it only made sense, right? It’s not like I knew either of these two IRL, they wouldn’t know who I was before. 

But also I wasn’t… honestly, I didn’t want to be Eric Stahls right now. These games were an escape already, and Cyrus here was pretty in-character. Why should I bring any of my IRL baggage to the table here? I wasn’t here to be some loser fry-cook, I was Ash Caldera- badass in training!

So… yeah. Ash was obviously a girl, and I could easily work with those assumptions.

“She and her are fine,” I quickly replied, and Cyrus nodded.

“Wonderful! So, dear madame- I don’t suppose us puckish rogues here could convince you to join in on a night of merriment and anarchy? There’s some wealth in dire need of redistribution, and the more the merrier I say!”

I glanced to the corner of my vision on the minimap- Rae had clearly been moving around on her own as well, moving up into the middle ring. She was still alive- honestly, she was perfectly capable of handling herself and… well, I did kind of owe these two.

“Anarchy, huh?” I managed a smile at that, “I’m game. What do you have in mind?”

Cyrus’s smile in that moment reminded me a lot of Rae’s- a dangerous glint, though less teasing and more… arson? Arson-y? You know the vibe.

“Well, tally-fucking-ho then, chaps! We’ll fill you in on the fly- to Bentham Keep!”