Still pondering the last chat with the Briggs, I returned to town and headed to the central castle used by the town leadership. I was shown into the council chamber where the council was meeting. All of them were present except for Elizabeth Maberly. She was probably sleeping off another all-nighter at her adult night club, The Expanse.

I expected to find the council celebrating the victory over stage 2 and excitedly planning excursions up to stage 3, but the mood in the council chamber was instead somber. Paul the mayor waved a tired hand, and I scanned them.

"Paul MacDonald. Baby human level 51. Team Great British Baking Show. Class: Confection Cabinet Cheerleader. A leader of the Earth contestant community from the beginning, Paul has combined his love of good food with a passion to help his people succeed into a mighty administrative class."

So the Scotsman had hit the all-important level 50 and already permanented another spell and got his evolved class. The new one sounded interesting.

"Crystal Bonney. Baby human level 49. Team One Piece. Class: Coffee-shop Paradox Curator. With tons of untapped potential, Crystal had focused most of her efforts on ensuring others have the tools they need to take the fight to their enemies."

I hadn't actually noticed her class before. The expanded description I got from my evolved Identify suggested maybe there was a lot more the shapely strawberry-blond council woman could do with her powers. Depending on what we found on stage 3, she might be forced to branch out.

Then there were the dynamic fighter duo of Burns and Tony, the undisputed military leaders of Midmount Vale.

"Tony Waldau, baby human level 51. Team Avengers. Class: Penthouse Foundry Sensei. With practiced flair, Tony has embraced his team Avengers role and shines as a beacon of hope and optimism for all."

His class had evolved too, no doubt magnifying his Tony Stark persona abilities. Even Cyrus seemed to have gotten wowed by the former actor's Charisma. Was that why Cyrus wouldn't unlock my own CHA stat? It had grown to a ridiculously high number. When unlocked into full Charisma, it might totally alter how people interacted with me. Still not sure that would be a good thing.

"Burns Turner, baby human level 51. Team Pirates of the Caribbean. Class: Power Line Drill Sergeant. Burns has doubled down on mastery of powerful elements to unleash overwhelming destruction on anyone and anything who dares stand in the way of victory."

His class sounded powerful, and the description definitely fit the tough, no-nonsense previous stunt leader. He was a fighter who led from the front, who was willing to make hard decisions when circumstances dictated it.

"Lucas, I'm glad you made it," Paul said as a box of donuts appeared on the table in front of him. He extended it for all of us to grab our favorite treats to help fortify against the coming meeting.

"Got some sleep finally. So, what's got everyone so glum? We defeated both bosses, remember?"

Paul's smile vanished, while both Burns and Tony scowled. Crystal sighed deeply and said, "Broken classes."

Not good. She'd said that in plural. "I'm only aware of one broken class."

My good friend Edmund had been the first human to hit level 50 and permanent another spell. He'd chosen foolishly and broken his class badly, proving the wonderful open flexibility of the system we enjoyed had pitfalls and unexpected dangers too.

"There's more now," Burns said, sounding disgusted. "Several people hit level 50 last night after the battle with the zombies. Even got several crafters over the huge milestone because they helped set those charges inside the zombie ships.

"Brilliant plan, by the way." Seeing 2 of those escaping ships piled high with zombies explode in mid-air just before teleporting back to their home planet had been a glorious moment.

Burns managed a smile, but it only lasted a second before his scowl returned. "Except, we all ended up so tired after the fight, we didn't remind everyone to wait before choosing classes until we could study out the options with them to ensure they chose wisely."

My heart sank. "How? We told you what happened to Ed, and I warned you in this very room even before we went after Alpha about the potential danger."

Tony spread his hands and said, "We thought we'd have time, but things got crazy and we were focused entirely on saving our people and defeating Noctarus and his zombie horde. After, we all just crashed. Everyone needed a break. People made stupid decisions before we could warn them."

I rose and paced the length of the room, trying to rein in my anger. I'd warned them! We didn't have enough people left for a bunch of our strongest to wreck their classes. The council watched in silence as I paced.

When I returned to my seat, I scanned them, holding each eye for a second, not hiding my anger. "This is on you. I warned you twice."

"You're right. We screwed up," Paul said simply.

Crystal added, "But shouting and casting blame at each other isn't going to help. We have a major problem here. Some of the best elite fighters broke their builds, and so did a bunch of crafters."

"How do crafters destroy their builds? That doesn't make sense."

Crystal grimaced. "Probably wouldn't have happened if they hadn't just survived getting knocked out by that sleep spell, then Lake Town nearly got overrun by hordes of zombies while they lay helpless and unable to defend themselves."

Tony added, "Yeah, every single crafter with a broken class made the same mistake. They tried to add a permanent combat spell to their crafter builds. Clearly a dumb idea, but they were all so freaked out by last night's surprise attacks, they tried anyway."

"This is a disaster."

Paul tossed a half-eaten donut onto the table with a sigh. "Worse than that, probably. It seems more than half of everyone who hit level 50 broke their classes."

Crystal scanned a document in front of her. "In addition to Edmund, other broken fighter classes include Margery Madison from team Princess Bride. Was developing a really interesting class based on living plant-based weapons and armor, but for some unknown reason permanented a spell that created a mist of acid."

I hadn't met Margery before, but knew Robin Wallace, her teammate with the Fiery Skyrider class. She could fly and shoot exploding fiery missiles. She'd been on Burns's elite squad who tried and failed to infiltrated Noctarus's castle.

"Let me guess, now her acids destroy her own weapons?" I guessed.

Crystal pointed at me and nodded. With a sigh, she continued. "We also lost James Switek from team Miami Vice."

"James," Tony said with a sigh. "He'd been doing so well."

Again, I hadn't met him. Apparently he'd been a security guard on set back on Earth and started developing a hand-to-hand fire-based build that sounded really impressive. Then last night he added an earth-based elemental stomp spell, hoping to get a ranged attack, but fire and earth ended up pretty much canceling each other out, a lot like poor Ed's predicament.

Even weirder was the destruction of Jamey Randall's class. From team Outlander, Jamey had developed a really cool class focused on super speed to deliver concussive shock damage. He'd permed a spell called Momentum Barrier that formed a magical shield that grew in strength against faster impacts.

He'd assumed it would offer the perfect protection for his super speed, but instead whenever he tried to speed up, the barrier appeared and blocked him. In essence, he'd totally nullified his own class. New class name: Second-rate Couch Potato.

I grimaced as I listened to the list, and those were just the fighters. There were another 8 crafters who broke their classes with combat spells. Some weren't too bad, but others pretty much destroyed both their crafting abilities and fighting potential.

When she finished the list, my anger was again boiling. "This is probably the biggest screw-up since we arrived here. We needed those people!"

"Don't you think we know that?" Paul snapped, his usual friendly demeanor cracking under the strain.

Again I fought down my anger. It wasn't helping. Instead, I tried to focus on solutions. "So what have you come up with to deal with this? Tell me you have a plan."

Burns shrugged. "What can we do? We need to orchestrate moving the entire settlement to stage 3 and dealing with the deadlier threats we'll face there."

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

"And we have to do it with some of our strongest people crippled, the very people we had been counting on to lead the charge up the hill," Tony added with a disgusted shake of his head.

Crystal added, "All that effort to focus on your elites, and look what that got us."

"It was still the right choice," Burns snapped. "We didn't know the dangers. Now we do. We still need to focus on the elites we have left and ensure everyone else makes better choices."

"What about Ed and the others with busted classes?"

They hesitated, exchanging glances before Paul sighed and said. "What would you have us do? We lack the ability to help them. The survival of the rest of the settlement has to come first. We're moving into a new stage with zero information about the dangers we'll face there."

"And we don't have time to babysit people who can no longer defend themselves or contribute to the progression of the town," Burns added simply.

"So, what? You're going to just toss them aside?"

"You know better than anyone how dangerous this world is," Tony interjected. "Lucas, we have to establish a new settlement, figure out the challenges to stage 3, and ensure enough of us survive to climb to stage 4. That has to be our priority."

Well, that sucked. Their points were valid from one perspective, but I didn't like it. Were they prioritizing everyone else really just to ensure the most people survived, or did they see no benefit to themselves in helping people who couldn't add experience to the town's coffers? I hated to think their decision making might be influenced by how much they'd personally benefit, but it was a possibility I couldn't ignore.

"Can we even help them?" Crystal added, her tone soft, almost pleading.

"We can."

"How?" Paul asked. Out of everyone there, I trusted him to want the best for everyone.

"Their classes are broken, but classes evolve with every permanent spell. If we can help them reach level 75 and permanent another spell, we might be able to salvage things and evolve to a class that still works."

Paul looked relieved, but Crystal whistled softly. "That's a lot of levels."

"And a lot of effort helping people grow who can't do it alone," Tony said.

"It's better than leaving them behind to die."

"Perhaps," Burns said, eyes distant, voice soft, as if he was speaking more to himself than to the rest of them.

That wasn't great. Burns was a brilliant fighter and an inspiring leader, but he was more than willing to make hard decisions when they had to be made. He'd been willing to kill people past salvation before.

"Don't give up on them yet," I insisted. Burns snapped out of his little reverie and they all focused on me. "Listen, when we get up to stage 3, as soon as we ensure we've got a secure settlement, I'll organize hunting parties to help them level up by experience sharing."

"The crafters won't like that," Crystal said.

"Then they'll have to focus twice as hard on leveling by crafting. I can't help them with that."

"I think that's a good idea," Paul said with a warm smile.

Burns shook his head slowly. "I'm not sure it's wise to expend so many resources on crippled warriors."

For a moment, all I could do was stare. "You're the one who kept pushing everyone to focus so much energy on elites."

"And look where that got us. Half of them will be all but useless in stage 3, and maybe beyond."

Tony interjected. "Right. We can't sink more effort into a lost cause. We need to get everyone to higher levels so we're not reliant on a few elites. Class problems have effectively crippled several of them, but if they fell in battle, we'd still be in the same pickle."

"True, but I've fought more boss monsters than anyone. Most people cannot handle that level of fight. You're setting up our people to get slaughtered."

"Not if we work together," Paul argued. "We've proven that large groups can wield massive amounts of power."

"Large groups didn't defeat Alpha or Noctarus. It was me with a small team."

"And what if you die?" Tony asked softly.

"Then you'd better have a few other strong people ready to step in and do the hard work."

"We have a few elites left, and that includes your team. They've shown that they'll continue to excel, regardless of what we do. Thus it falls to the council to help the rest of our people improve," Paul said.

They were making a knee-jerk reaction that would prove disastrous when we faced the next boss. I wasn't a town leader, held no official sway in that room. I hadn't wanted that power, but had that been a foolish choice? I could see the dangers they were walking into, but couldn't force them to listen.

That meant I had to ensure my team continued to progress fast, despite the danger that would put them all in. It was obvious that the council didn't really understand, despite both Burns and Tony being fighters.

Burns said, "We do need leaders and strong fighters, but it's not the council who will make them rise. Some of us will have to individually make the hard decisions to excel."

"At least consider including some of those with broken classes with your teams when you go out to hunt or explore."

"We'll do what we can," Tony said, but Burns's gaze turned thoughtful again. He'd come around once he took time to think things through.

"In the meantime, I'll work on ensuring everyone understands the dangers of class evolutions," Crystal added.

"I worry there are dangers we don't know about," Paul said with a frown.

I got an idea and glanced up. "So, are there manuals in the store that we could purchase that might offer guidance in class evolutions?"

"Finally! Someone thinking to ask a meaningful question," Cyrus said and Eva chimed in.

"For being the first human to suspect maybe other people in the multiverse bother to write things down, you receive a gold Discworld loot box."

"Discworld?" I asked as the gold box appeared hovering above the table in front of me.

"Terry Pratchett, king of humorous fantasy. In his Discworld series, he included a famous orangutan librarian."

"I need to ask Cyrus more questions," Crystal muttered to herself.

"New Quest!" Eva announced in a booming voice that made all the council members jump. "Leverage your newfound motivation to think beyond the narrow confines of your previous council meetings and ask meaningful questions to expand the boundaries of your understanding of the multiverse. Trust me, you really want to do this. Reward: Depends on the quality of your questions."

I chuckled. Cyrus hated dumb questions, but loved to reward insightful ones that gave him the chance to talk about how amazing he was, or how awesome the game world was that he'd created. When I willed the loot box open, it flashed and disappeared, replaced by an old-fashioned library card catalog.

"What the . . . ?" I whispered as I examined the free-standing wooden cabinet. It stood about 5 feet tall on 4 fancy, carved wooden legs. Six little drawers packed each row, and 7 rows stacked on top of each other to make the entire catalog. Each drawer had one of those little brass pull handles and a framed slot for labels.

"Midmount Vale Population Catalog. You've entered the age of the written record. Great job! This self-updating information catalog not only contains the name, level, and class information about every still-living resident, but also any crafting items listed for public sale."

"Whoa." I pulled open a random drawer and it filled with little catalog cards as I watched, each one appearing with a little flicking sound like I was shuffling a deck of cards. I pulled a random one out to study.

"Adam Palomino. Baby human level 38. Team Friday the 13th. Class: Salvage Picker Mystic. Adam's unique build allows him to forge items, then sacrifice their durability to unleash spells related to their inherent abilities. He has a rather limited inventory of available common-grade weapons for sale."

That actually sounded really neat. I hadn't met Adam before, and I wasn't sure how I felt about finding out so much about him from a card catalog. Sure, I could see all that with my upgraded Identify if I did run into him, but this seemed somehow more invasive.

"What is that?" Paul asked.

When I explained it, their reactions varied widely.

"This is wonderful," Crystal exclaimed. "We can help people figure out gear or spells they may need, and quickly identify individuals who are falling behind."

"I don't like anyone having that much information on all of us," Burns said with a scowl.

Tony nodded. "Feels invasive."

"Would you donate it to the council?" Paul asked.

Before I could answer, the top-left drawer pulsed with a subtle light. Intrigued, I pulled it open. The glow came from the first card. It read, "Remote access authorization. Write the names of anyone you authorize to access the data from the card catalog from their personal menus."

"Huh. That's new." I explained the access and glanced up, "Is this kind of master access normal?"

"Of course. As town leaders, you should know how your people are doing at all times."

"That makes sense, I guess," Paul said. Tony didn't look convinced, and Burns was still scowling.

I shrugged. I wasn't going to burn it, or anything. Not until I spent more time thinking about it. So I added Paul's and Crystal's names to the card. Tony and Burns could request access whenever they wanted.

"Sorry. That totally distracted us from the question of class manuals. I'm assuming there are?"

Cyrus responded instantly. "Of course! Most of you focus almost entirely on weapons, spells, armor, or potions, but the store can offer much more. There is a wealth of information available for a reasonable price."

"As in, the more valuable the information, the more it will cost us?"

"Right again, Lucas. Class evolutions manuals tend to be common grade, so quite inexpensive."

"Great thinking," Crystal exclaimed.

I nodded. "I'll see what I can pick up and add it to the town store you're running. Have people read them there, not check them out, so everyone can use them."

"That will be wonderful!" she exclaimed.

I sent a message to myself asking Jeeves to look into it and see how many class manuals he could buy with up to 5 tier-7 mana crystals. With class evolution manuals to help guide our choices, that should help reduce problems moving forward. If only Cyrus had explained all of this earlier, but that wasn't his style. He was more than willing to let people make foolish decisions without thinking things through. It made the game more entertaining for the mystery viewers he always talked about.

"There's another thing you need to know," I added before the council got distracted by mundane business I didn't want to hang around for.

I gave them an update on the Briggs and a summary of my recent run-in with them. I shared my suspicions that they might be working for Queen Marisara herself, then warned them the Teamsters might harbor them.

"Elizabeth might be able to help convince the Teamsters that the Briggs are a threat to all of us," Tony said.

"How?"

"Apparently Ray Winstone from Team Narnia is one of the leaders of the group. He's developed a passion for both Elizabeth and those Tasty Cake mushrooms. He spends a lot of time over at the Expanse and is working as a bouncer there now."

"How do you know all that?" Crystal asked suspiciously. She didn't hide her disgust over Elizabeth's adult entertainment club or how popular it was with some of the populace.

Tony shrugged. "Elizabeth isn't the only one with a lot of fans who pass on tips."

Interesting. Both Tony and Elizabeth had been popular actors. I hadn't thought much about it, but a lot of people were still fans. Had they both developed information-gathering networks? Good thing to keep in mind. Also, if I ever ran across the Teamsters again, knowing Ray had developed a love for those mushrooms might help. I still had a lot more than anyone knew.

Cyrus's voice suddenly boomed outside, loud enough for all to hear. "Congratulations, Earth contestants! Well done, you plucky humans. You defeated both stage-2 bosses 2 days early. I love your enthusiasm. You've already established a town on stage 3. I look forward to seeing how you deal with the exciting next level, and will be sharing another big announcement soon. Good luck!"

"Wait, someone already claimed the town?" Crystal exclaimed.

"Who?" Tony added, but they all looked equally confused.

I held up my hands when their gazes turned to me. Chuckling, I said, "Wasn't me. I do the boss killing, remember?"

"Then who?" Burns reiterated.

The door banged open and Elizabeth Maberly marched inside, wearing a copycat Tomb Raider outfit, complete with her long, dark hair in a ponytail. "I did, of course."

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