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The Beta-Testers Chapter 2: Embracing Your Class By Draconicon

As Sarah walked down the hill, the lioness quickly figured two things out. First, that she wasn't actually going downhill, but that it was an illusion from the game. A trick of the programming, making it look like she was.

Second, that someone else had already tried out the arena, and their body was apparently more air-worthy than it looked.

She paused as it shot over her head, following it to the crest of several buildings nearby, and winced at the loud, painful sounding crash that filled the air. A broken sword clicked across the cobblestones towards her, coming to a stop before it fizzled out.

Well...looks like someone wasn't ready for a real fight, she thought with a shake of her head.

Dismissing the thought of offering him some healing - he'd died on impact, otherwise his equipment wouldn't have fizzled away - Sarah turned east again, and got back to walking. The soft clank, clank, clank of her metal boots on the cobblestones made her feel like a tank as she made her way along...and it felt good.

She smiled as she lowered one hand to her weapon, a mace at her side. It was surprisingly light to her touch, but then again, she had picked a class that was strong enough to actually mean something. She wasn't about to be one of those ladies that decided to pursue the typical stereotypes. No frilly dresses for her, no 'support mage' characters for her. She planned to be in the thick of it with every fight, and making damn sure that everyone around knew who had saved their bacon.

The lioness reached up with her other hand, stroking along her cheek. Sarah was honestly surprised how quickly she had gotten used to her new body, as well. The feeling of fur aside, it was so much...quicker, she supposed, than her old one had been. Not that her human body was bad - she had put a lot of work into maintaining it, after all - but she didn't have the time to be a gym bunny, nor, if she was being honest, the focus. She kept herself in shape, and that was about it.

This body, though...

She swore that the arms and legs had been sculpted by a fan of the wrestling scene, because they felt thick and powerful as they could possibly be. Every time she took a step, she was conscious of the way the armor hugged her legs, how it squeezed them, and how her legs bulged back against the metal. Her arms seemed able to adjust the plate metal without any difficulty, and she swore that it would have been much harder in real life.

Real life...

A chuckle slipped past her lips. Well, this was the reason she gamed. To be better than real life. And to be cooler. Much, much cooler.

Her walk went smoothly, for the first twenty minutes. She walked past a few shops as she headed towards the arena, the city rolling under her feet - or so it felt, due to the elevation view - as she kept the six-pointed fighting ring in sight. The tall turrets on the walls and the weapons that stood up like giant statues on said towers made for a great landmark.

However, after those twenty minutes, things got a little...wonky.

She rounded a corner, figuring that she'd take a shortcut, only to find herself walking right in the middle of a mugging. The lioness ducked, feeling the dice roll in the back of her head, and grinned as she made her dodge check. She hit the pavement, rolling forward, and was on her feet a second later, taking in the situation.

It had to be an NPC in the situation; none of the players would be stupid enough or bad enough to get cornered by three lurking rats. Each one of them was armed with nothing more than a dagger, and Sarah smirked as she pulled her mace from her belt.

"Heh, why don't you three get out of here before I chase you out?"

"Yeah? Make us, pussy cat!"

"Heh, if you insist."

She was low level, but she had a feeling that the game wouldn't just drop her into a situation that she was too underleveled for. Not in the beta, at least. She thought back to her character creation, and smiled as she remembered one of the abilities of the cleric class. Empower Weapon had sounded rather mild then, but it wouldn't hurt now.

On instinct, she touched her hand to the triangular top of her mace, and immediately it started glowing with a bright, golden light. The alleyway lit up, and the rats leaned away from it, hissing softly.

It was all the opening she needed.

Sarah darted forward and swung, the dice rolling with every move she made. Again and again, the numbers came up positive, letting her take a hit right on the chest and not feel a thing, as she brought down the mace on their heads once, twice, three times. The rats fell backwards, two of them unconscious, one of them still standing, though with blood running down his head.

The lioness panted, but she still kept the smile on her face. Now she knew that she'd made a good character; she was barely feeling a little tired, and she'd just decked two people at once. Man, she was good.

She brought the mace down, pointing it at the rat.

"Tell you what. You surrender right now, and I'll fix that cut on your head. You keep fighting, though...well, I don't know what's gonna happen, but I get the feeling it's gonna be worse than what happened to your friends there."

The dice rolled...and she didn't feel them come up positive this time. The rat only glared at her before lunging forward, and this time he got lucky. His dagger came up towards her cheek, and nicked her under the eye. Just a little higher, and he would have blinded her.

She was vaguely aware of a healthbar somewhere going down, but her focus was entirely on the rat and the way that her cheek felt. How the blood was coming down. How he hadn't listened to her. How he...just...hit her...

"Oh, ho ho, you made a mistake there, ratty."

"Yeah? What's a pussy like you know about anything?"

"...You better hope for your sake that you're talking about my species and not my gender."

"Yeah? And what if I am?"

"Then I don't feel so bad about doing this."

Heavy weapons, power attack...yeah, that'll do. Sarah roared like the lioness she was as she brought the weapon up from beneath, dealing an uppercut-like blow to the rat's chin, but that wasn't the end of it. She kept the momentum from the swing up, and brought the glowing head of the mace down right on his crotch, pulling him right back to earth. The rat let out one of the loudest screams she'd ever heard, from man or beast, and she glared down at him.

"Not so high and mighty now, are ya?"

He collapsed, his eyes closing. She got the feeling that he was probably dead, rather than knocked out, and she sighed as she pulled her mace back. In all honesty, she should probably not let her temper get the better of her like that. She knew that it was against character alignment, and definitely against any sort of teamwork, but when someone started getting at her like that...

Well, an argument for another time. A quick check through the loot menus told her that they didn't have much, maybe a little coinage adding up to a gold, and the three daggers between them. No clothes looting, though. Probably didn't want to get the game rated for necrophilia or something. She shrugged, pocketing the loot; she could probably find someone to sell the daggers to later.

But...wasn't she forgetting something?

She tapped her chin, turning on the spot, before seeing the figure still huddling in the back of the alley. Riiiiiight, the NPC, she thought as she hurried over. What little healing ability she had, she summoned, and pressed her hand to the stranger's shoulder. She 'felt' the power being sucked away, and the figure slowly lifted their head.

It was a mouse, she saw, and a rather small one, from the looks of it. Maybe even a child. Sarah smiled a bit, patting their shoulder.

"You okay?"

"Y-yeah...I'm okay."

"You sure? Those guys looked pretty tough for someone like you."

"What do you mean, for someone like me?!"

She bit back a chuckle. Oh, the familiarity of that line.

"I mean that they looked bigger and stronger, and there were a lot of 'em. But you're okay, so that's great."

"Yeah...thanks, though. I guess."

"What's your name, kid?"

"What's it to you, lady?"

"Just wondering. After all, I did save your life."

"Uh...yeah...guess you did. Name's Kajus."

"Well, I'm Sarah. And this, Kajus, is your lucky day."

She reached into her pocket and pulled out one of the daggers she'd just pocketed. As she handed it over, she felt a twinge, almost like a vibration in her pocket. Blinking, she reached down and opened it, and immediately groaned.

"Quest log in a journal? That's so...old school."

Still, it explained something. Looked like she'd stumbled on a radiant quest, something that'd pop up here and there in the overworld, and she had gotten an optional, hidden objective done. The lioness chuckled, and closed the journal again.

"Well, you take care of yourself, Kajus. I've gotta get going."

"Yeah...I'll take care. And you too. That was...pretty freaking awesome, lady."

"Name's Sarah! Use it!"

She shouted after him as he ran off, shaking her head at the little scamp. At least he was a little better about being rescued by a girl than some of the people she was used to. She still remembered that guy at Saturday Night Sorcery that got pissed when she saved him in a game of multiplayer, and spent the whole rest of the night trying to sabotage her.

Just another reason to get out of those toxic environments and make a name for herself here.

As she turned around, she got back on track for the arena. She took two steps and felt another little ping, one that she definitely understood.

"Oooh, a new level..."

"You...how..."

The lioness stared with jaw slack at the fighting going on in the arena. After seeing one of the players get launched to the heavens from a fight, she'd decided to pay a gold to see what a bout was like before signing up, and she was glad she had.

Of the various combatants in the ring, she figured that she could fight maybe a quarter of them with a reasonable chance of winning, and that was if none of them leveled up before she got to them. As it stood, the rest of the fighters - NPCs as well as PCs - were outleveling her. She had no idea how that had happened, but it was happening.

One of the lower level fighters that was doing surprisingly good was a blue and white dragon, swinging around a two-handed sword with surprising efficiency. He cut through this fighter and that, was gaining levels faster than she could imagine, and was setting her blood on fire. She glared at him as he won three bouts in a row before finally getting up from her seat...

And walking out of the arena.

Okay...can't match that guy as a fighter, and if I try, he's gonna send me right back to the spawn point. Let's see what other quests I can do...

She opened her journal, standing off to the side as she flicked through it. There wasn't much. A few tutorial things she could do, admittedly, but those never had much in the way of XP, and they definitely weren't needed at the moment. The controls were easy to figure out, and the only thing they might teach her would be the location of a save point or something. Nothing she needed right now.

Outside of that, the main quests seemed fixated on finding different factions or guilds to get involved with, none of which she knew about yet, and none of which she wanted to get too close to. Not without information.

That left one, specific to her class, and she tapped the ink on the page for more information.

Embracing Your Class: Cleric, floated in the air in front of her, and she scrolled through the information. It was something about picking the deity for her, finishing up the full empowering of her class, and picking what sort of route her character would take in development as she played. It was kind of like picking a guild, but it didn't seem to lock her out of so many options as the others did.

Better than nothing, she thought, tapping the quest to lock it in. She felt a mental tug from behind her, and started looking around. More and more, she was appreciating the elevation setting that the game had, allowing her to look 'down' at the southeast part of the city. Large spires reached towards the skies, and each one seemed decorated with what looked like holy symbols, or at the very least, elemental style ones. It looked holy, spiritual, and muckity-muck-churchy enough for her.

"Let's see if any of them are any good with firepower..."

#

After asking around in the Temple District - as the southeast part of the city was apparently known - Sarah was eventually pointed towards the temple of Milda, the fire goddess. The lioness was happy enough with that; fire was fun.

She stood on the bottom step, her hand on her hip as she took in the temple proper. The whole building was made out of a red stone, almost like brick, but deeper, and she swore that it was just a shade or two lighter than a blood-red would be. Orange streams ran down it, almost like dried up waterfalls, until she realized that it looked more like flames licking up the side of the building.

Braziers of flame bigger than five people standing in a line stood on the temple rooftops, making it flare and burn brightly, and smaller ones lined the staircase heading up. The priests outside wore open red robes and white loincloths, almost like they couldn't quite take the heat of the place. Those females that served were similarly garbed, even down to keep their chest bare.

Sarah stared at that for a few seconds before shaking her head, approaching the nearest one, a rather well-endowed wolfess. She tapped the priestess on the shoulder, and cleared her throat.

"Excuse me. I'd like to make an offering."

"Oh, Milda accepts most anything, bright one. Would you like me to take you to one of the altars in the temple?"

"Please."

Sarah felt a little more subdued as she walked up the steps, though it wasn't quite the right word for it. She didn't feel as if something was making her bend her neck as she lowered her head. Rather, it felt...powerful here. Big, and...she didn't have the words. It just felt wrong to look up, and so she didn't as she was led inside.

The heat grew more and more powerful as she passed beneath the roof of the temple, the metal armor soaking it up and holding it against her. She could feel the cloth underthings she wore getting soaked beneath the metal, and she had to force herself not to start panting from the heat. It felt like every five feet they walked, they passed another torch, or another brazier, or - on one occasion - a full bonfire with a dance of exultation going on around it.

Through it all, Sarah kept quiet, shaking her head to get rid of some of the sweat building up. In the back of her mind, she had to give it to the programmers. They'd built up something pretty darn impressive with this particular place. It actually felt more like a church of a god than stuff in real life did...though the heat was getting her in a pretty pissed off mood.

"Here we are."

The wolf priestess came to a stop, and Sarah finally looked up. The altar was a large one, perhaps ten feet square, with a small fire burning in the center. Unlike the other ones throughout the building, which glowed red and orange, this one glowed almost a blue-white, and closer to the latter color than anything else. As small as it was, she had no doubt that it would burn bright enough to consume her if she showed disrespect.

Sarah gulped.

"Um...I could use a little help, if you don't mind."

"Certainly, bright one."

"Well, first, why do you call me that?"

"Bright one?"

The lioness nodded.

"It is the way we refer to all living things. We are bright lights in the sea of darkness that is the world. It is our calling, as servants of Milda, to bring light, to bring warmth, and to bring life to everywhere we go. All of us, every living thing, has the potential to do it. So, bright one."

"I...see."

She'd heard that sort of 'mutual responsibility' argument before, and she still thought it was kind of a load of crap. Not completely, but it wasn't so easy as people made it out to be. If it was a responsibility, too many people shirked it. It had to be a choice, and not enough people made it.

Sarah looked past the fire towards the great statue of the goddess at the far end of the room. It stretched up and up til it stopped barely a few inches below the ceiling. It was wrapped in flapping robes, almost like they billowed out around the wearer, and seemed to lick up along the body in the fashion of a hungry flame.

At the same time, the woman depicted in the statue seemed to be controlling it. Her hands held the flames, rather than being swallowed by them, and the fire burning in her eyes was like something out of holy vengeance.

She really liked that.

The wolfess gently nudged her, bringing her back to the moment.

"What would you offer the goddess of fire?"

"I'd like to offer myself."

The wolfess arched an eyebrow, and Sarah did the same.

"Or doesn't she swing that way?"

"Hahahahaha!"

To her surprise, the kindly wolfess immediately started giggling at the question, the laughter echoing around the almost too-quiet hall. Though everyone turned to look, Sarah was surprised to see that most of the priests were smiling, almost indulgently, and some of them were laughing along with her. This was most definitely not the sort of church she'd find in real life.

She helped the wolfess calm down - though she had to fight a few snickers of her own - before the priestess could continue.

"Sorry. I wasn't trying to imply anything like that. I was just surprised. We do not have as many women take up the mantle of Milda as you might expect. They tend to prefer serving the water goddess, Vilte."

"Well, I'm in the mood for something hotter. So, if I want to give myself to Milda, what do I do?"

"Well...first, we need to put you on the altar."

That seemed simple enough. Sarah nodded, climbing up on the stone slab. She walked a little closer to the fire, and swore that it glowed brighter as she took a step towards it. The priestess grinned.

"Oh, that's good! Milda likes you already."

"Yeah, I'm a reaaaaaal likeable lady..."

"Good, good. Now, you need to step into the fire."

"...Come again?"

"That's the ritual. You give yourself to the fire, and Milda will preserve you, and re-forge you so that you come out the stronger on the other side."

"In...that?"

She nodded towards the fire. Even with just a step closer, it'd gone from the height of her foot to the height of her knee, and the heat was just as proportionally stronger. She swore that she'd be a mummy at this rate.

But the priestess nodded, and Sarah groaned.

Well...it's just a game. Let's give it a try. Worst that happens is that I wasted my time coming here...

She took another step, and the flame leaped higher, almost as high as her thighs. Another step, and it was past her waist, and expanding outwards. A third step, and she was stepping into it, bracing herself for the searing, deadly heat...

Only to feel something different. Oh, it was hot, there was no getting around that, but the lioness felt more like she was in an almost uncomfortably hot bath rather than being licked to death by hungry flames. She smiled, gaining confidence, and took another step, and another, steadily falling deeper and deeper into the flames.

By the time she was in the middle, the fire had swallowed her up completely, soaring to a good ten feet above her head and completely covering the altar. The roar of it consumed any sound that may have happened outside of it, and Sarah felt it rushing through her as much as it went around her, felt the heat seeping into her chest, her limbs, her belly, and even her head. Fire...fire entered her, and she welcomed it.

_This...this is amazing...

And so are you, Sarah._

The voice came out of nowhere, and the lioness almost jumped out of her skin at the sound. She whipped her head back and forth, trying to see its source, but there was nothing but fire. Could it be -

_I am Milda...and I welcome you to my service.

You...you're actually here?

I am. And so long as you serve me, I will care for you.

Yeah. You and every other guy that I've been with.

You don't have to believe I am different. It is enough that I am. Will you swear to the service of the purifying fire, and the cleaning flame?

Do I get fireballs?_

She swore that the flames heaved a sigh of annoyance at that, and was almost impressed. The fact that the game actually took responses so far out of character as that -

Yes, you get fireballs.

• And answered them! YES! Sarah pumped her fist, and nodded.

_You got me, then.

Very well. Prepare yourself for your initiation immolation.

Wait, what -_

The flame suddenly went from hot bath to hot, hot, HOT! The lioness roared as it surged up around her, consuming her body, her armor, her everything. Her healthbar started dropping faster than a stone in a lake, and her legs - what was left of them - broke down and she collapsed. She hit the altar hard, on her hands and knees, and then just her hands as she was broken down in the flames. Health dropped by the dozens, faster, faster...

And stopped at 1.

Slowly, the fire burned around her health bar, and it built back up. One became two, and two became four. It doubled, again, and again, until it reached her full health, and her body came back together as it did. She stood up, slowly, and started walking to the edge of the flames, testing her new self.

It was...easy. Instead of a clank, she felt a crackle as she walked, as if the metallic thud of her boots had been replaced with the crackle of fire. Step, crackle, hiss. Step, crackle, hiss.

She stepped beyond the bounds of the fire, and stood in front of the priests. They gasped, and she slowly looked down at herself.

The lioness stared at her armor. Formerly a neutral, 'good' white, it now had an almost Eastern red color for most of it, with streaks of orange and gold spread through along the arms and wherever it started to curve. Sarah shook her head, running a gauntlet over it, and she smiled at the way it seemed to shimmer, reflecting everything as if it was seen through the blaze of a fire.

A woman's voice suddenly rang out through the temple, loud enough to make her jump.

"_Behold, my newest cleric. Sarah, born of the fire, will serve as healer and protector to all that she deems worthy."

Heh...all I deem worthy. Now that's a good reason to stick with this temple._

She stepped down from the altar, helped by the wolfess, and gave the woman a sudden hug. The wolfess groaned a bit, but returned it after a second, patting her on the back. Sarah smiled.

"Thanks for the help."

"No problem, Burning One."

"Let me guess. Cleric title?"

"Yes, indeed."

Did she say how much she liked this church? She didn't think she'd said it enough.

The lioness smiled as she made her way out of the grand temple, walking down the steps. Her mind was already going over the new abilities that had popped into her during the whole reconstruction thing, and she was loving the sound of some of them. Fire Whip, Blazing Weapon, Purifying Flame, Inferno Wall; all of them promised so much pain to those that got in her way.

Sarah hit the street just in time to almost bump into a different dragon. One of the guys from her clan, of all people. She steadied him as he bounced off of her, and chuckled to herself.

"Oh, man. Looks like you hit one of those radiant ambushes, huh?"

"You too? Looks like you came out of it better than I did."

"Hey, you lived through it. Better than dying and losing out on the XP."

"Debatably. Owwww...."

"Yeah, yeah, you big baby. Let me help."

Unlike with Kajus earlier, her healing power seemed to come much easier now. Her hand lit up with flames, though, which had the two-toned blue dragon leaning back a bit. She rolled her eyes and slammed her hand down on his golden armor.

"Just hold still and take it."

"YOOOOOW!"

"It's just some steam."

She shook her head as the dragon's scratches on his face and arms started disappearing, the healing fire burning through his body and purifying it back to an earlier state. In the space of a few seconds, she saw his health bar go from the bottom third up to about three quarters. Not perfect, but certainly not bad for an easy heal.

He took a few seconds to calm down from the steam burn, and then shook his head.

"Mmmph. I was hoping the healing would be nicer..."

"Yeah, well, I'm a fire cleric."

"That...might explain a few things. I'm a paladin for the water goddess."

"Heh, Vilte?"

"Yeah. I'm Teryx, by the way, and you?"

"Sarah."

They shook hands, and she heard a soft 'ding.' Looking up, she saw his name above his health bar, and she chuckled a little bit. So, that's how the game handled friends, huh? Exchange a name, and...well, that was true to how a lot of people saw it, she supposed. Know a name, know a person.

They let go, and Teryx gestured towards the water temple, an arched oval of a building a few blocks away.

"Would you like to meet some of the other priests? They've got a...nicer sort of outlook, I think, than all the fire people."

"Thanks, but I like this. Besides, I look gooooood in this."

She slammed a hand on her armor, and the dragon laughed.

"I suppose I can't argue that. Oh, by the way, have you seen Hank?"

"Hank? Skunk guy that held us all up?"

"Yeah. Ronald put out a message for the clan; you might have been a little busy at the time."

"Yeah...might have been. It's not something about making us an actual 'pride' that he fucks because he's the top lion, right? I've seen guys take roleplaying too far, and -"

"No, no, nothing like that. He's just got a message from our admin."

"We've got an admin?"

"Yes, a snow leopard named Mr. Lee. Apparently, Hank got himself stuck in the, um..." The paladin blushed. "In the Red Light District on the north side of town. Underpaid for someone and...well, we're seeing if we can raise some money."

"...Heh, you know what, why don't you guys keep doing that?"

She turned, immediately finding which direction north was before heading out.

"Where are you going?"

"Well, for one, I gotta see this for myself. You guys go raise your money. I'm gonna go raise a little hell..."

The End