I reached out and grabbed one of the crystals from the second row. The perfectly-shaped gem, looking more like a video game key item than anything else, slid out of its slot easily. I held it up to my face, inspecting it closely.
It was about the same width and length as a bottle of soda, though obviously shaped differently, with six perfectly even rectangular facets, tipped on each side by a hexagonal pyramid. It glowed, as the others did, but this one in particular had a magenta hue to its light that I liked. One face was marred by a symbol, as I had noted before, but even up close, I couldn’t make out what it was supposed to be. It was an abstract collection of lines, all defined by curves that ended in sudden points. The longer I stared at it the more I got the suggestion of… maybe a tattered cloak? Or, no, an eye? I wasn’t sure.
After a few moments of examining it without anything happening, I held it out in front of me. Nothing continued to happen.
“Well,” Fallon observed dryly, “that was anticlimactic.”
I pursed my lips, feeling like there was something more to the crystal that I was missing. “Maybe…”
Thoughtfully, I reached out to the first gem, and once again, my status window popped open. This time, I focused on the last option, the only one not flagged “unavailable,” and the screen promptly changed, revealing a long log of actions that started with:
> You have awoken in [Unknown Cave One].
Humming to myself, I prompted the screen to move down, and it did so. I quickly scrolled past a list of other simple descriptions of what I had been through, including such fun memories as:
> You have formed a party with [Fallon Starcrossed].
and
> You have defeated [Prey Shadow] and gained 0 experience.
and
> You have taken light environmental damage.
Finally, at the bottom was just what I had hoped for.
> You have obtained [Identity Crystal: Rogue]. You meet all requirements for using [Identity Crystal: Rogue].
“I knew it!”
Fallon didn’t look anywhere near as enthusiastic as I did. “Want to clue me in?”
“Check out the action log,” I told the other girl. While she was distracted by that, I grabbed another crystal, this time the crimson-glowing one at the front of the line, and I felt my smile widen as it prompted a similar message on the little action log.
> You have obtained [Identity Crystal: Warrior]. You meet all requirements for using [Identity Crystal: Warrior].
“Okay, so we have a fun little diary of our adventures,” Fallon said, clearly missing the point. “I’m not sure what’s got you so excited.”
“Grab one of the other crystals,” I told her.
Fallon arched a golden eyebrow, but did so, grabbing the last in the line closest to her, the one with the bright blue light. I took the only one left, pleased to have correctly guessed what it would be before the action log confirmed it.
> You have obtained [Identity Crystal: Mage]. You meet all requirements for using [Identity Crystal: Mage].
“Is that one Cleric?” I asked, practically jittering with excitement.
“Yeah,” she said. “But… Wait, how did you know?”
I cackled like a lunatic. “You guessed that we got isenayed or whatever-”
“Isekai’d.”
“-into an anime world-
“You said that, not me..”
“-but you were wrong! It’s a video game world!” I pointed to each of the crystals in the order they had been arranged. “Warrior, Rogue, Mage, Cleric! These are all base classes, like in a roleplaying game!”
Fallon’s brow furrowed–then her eyes went wide. She turned to look from where her status screen must’ve been to the crystal in her hand. “Identity crystals… So, you’re saying you think these are going to unlock the classes they’re labelled with?”
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“Exactly!”
Fallon frowned, then looked from the crystal to me. “So then… we’re…” The girl’s mouth hung open for a few moments before she sighed. “I feel like I can barely think straight, and this is just one thing too many.”
Apparently, Fallon had, like me, managed to more-or-less run out of the brain power to deal with the endless stream of nonsense we had been growing through since we woke up a thousand years ago.
I grinned at her, the expression feeling about as forced and tired as she must’ve felt. “I think we should probably be safe to take a break, right?”
We soon found ourselves sitting at the base of the altar, leaning back against it. I toyed with the rogue crystal idly as we talked it over, and I was pleased to find that Fallon shared a few of my nerdiest obsessions–after she had started spewing Japanese story tropes at me, it had seemed a safe assumption, but it was still relaxing to talk about something that wasn’t caves and monsters and survival. Unfortunately, our tastes diverged in one major place: Fallon was a big fan of more character-focused games, while I preferred crunchy games that had major mechanical elements. She liked seeing a character progress linearly, while I loved a meaty class system–something I could really sink my teeth into.
At some point in the conversation, my eyes started to grow heavy, the soporific influence of the void my adrenaline had left behind hitting my brain hard. Around us, as if sensing our sleepiness, the brilliant light of the crystalline chamber slowly started to dim. At another time, that may have made me panic, but I just didn’t have any panic left in me.
Fallon seemed just as exhausted as I was, and the last thing I remember was studying the lines of her jaw and neck as a powerful yawn overcame her. In that weird way yawns do, I mimicked the motion, the reflex deep and satisfying enough that my eyes drifted close for what was only supposed to be a moment.
#
With the unending, thorough light of the crystals around us, it was impossible to tell how much time had passed when I woke up, but it had been long enough that Fallon’s hair had dried into a plush, curly pillow that we were sharing, her head on my shoulder and my head rested against hers. The crystals were brighter again, too. Had they just settled down for some equivalent of night?
I sat in place and breathed in the scent of the girl cuddled against me. Fallon smelled like honey and apples and something clean and sharp that I couldn’t identify. I thought I had stayed still, but she still stirred, as if my own awakening had prompted hers.
I lifted my head, allowing her to do the same, and our eyes met. Hers were a brilliant blue, the color of the sky on those clear days when it seemed like a dome that went on forever. My own, by comparison, were a muddled blend of brown, green, and gold that reminded me of a particularly sour soup. Still, with how she was looking into them, I couldn’t help but feel that she liked what she was seeing.
Our faces were still close, our mouths only inches apart. I noticed that Fallon’s lips had parted, and realized that mine had done the same. That moment seemed to hang there for a short eternity, suspended as if in… well, crystal. Let’s see you come up with a better metaphor when you’re surrounded by a skillion tons of the stuff.
It broke sharply and suddenly, as if we were both following a silent cue. Fallon sat up more fully, depriving me of her body resting against my side. I lifted my arms over my head in a big stretch, rejoicing in the latent strength of my new muscles, and without a word, we both proceeded back to the little pool we had plunged into earlier.
Fifteen minutes later, our faces wet and awake, our bodies refreshed by more water, we returned to the altar. We still didn’t need to say anything to know that we had reached the same decision. I picked up the first identity crystal I had found, the one labelled with the rogue class, while Fallon held up the cleric crystal she had chosen earlier.
Each of us holding our chosen identity crystals in one hand, we reached out and pressed our palms to the smaller gems, projecting our own status screens.
“Good luck,” Fallon told me.
“See you on the other side,” I replied with a wink.
Then I reached out with my thoughts, sure in the sensation without knowing exactly how, and mentally nudged the identity crystal, giving it my assent.
My crystal lit up a moment after Fallon’s, their lambent glow building with each passing moment. Fallon gasped and I goggled as the two identity crystals began to dissolve, as if the matter that made them up was being fed into their flaring lights, and then a warmth filled the muscles of my hand.
It quickly ran up my arm and coursed through my body like an electrical current, the light progressively dimming as it sank into my flesh. By the time the sensation got to my toes, the glow was all but gone, and I felt charged, like I was fourteen again, having eaten an entire pizza and chugged an energy drink, surrounded by friends, ready to stay up the entire night and utterly convinced of my own immortality.
On my activity log, messages began to stream by:
> [Identity Crystal: Rogue] consumed.
> Class unlocked: [Rogue].
> Class Pool tab is now available. [Rogue] has been automatically assigned as Primary Class.
> You have reached level 1 with the Rogue class, bringing you to total level 1!
> Action Ability Unlocked: [Swift Strikes]
> Equipment Conjuration Unlocked: [Skill Weaponry]
> Equipment Conjuration Unlocked: [Light Armor]
> Abilities tab is now available. [Swift Strikes] has been automatically added to Action Slot 1.
> Equipment tab is now available. [Basic Skill Weaponry] and [Light Armor] have been automatically added to Primary Weapon Slot and Armor Slot.
I threw back my head and let out a wordless cry of excitement, feeling the power of my new class rush through my body. I couldn’t help it.
After so long struggling to merely survive in this world, I finally had some sort of actual power, and it was like a drug!
Magic, monsters, dungeons, whatever else this world wanted to throw at me, I felt, for the first time, like I was actually ready to face it all. And it felt absolutely amazing.
