Limitless Path

“Leveling up. Why, what does it look like?” Beth replied.

"What?" Both Kim and their mother said at the same time.

"What level are you?" Beth asked, turning to Kim.

"One! Wait, it says class change menu available, is this what you mentioned inside earlier?" Kim exclaimed, looking over at Beth excitedly.

"While I'm very happy for you dear, you girls shouldn't be running around like this fighting. It's not safe," their mother admonished.

"I understand what you’re saying, but if my knowledge of these things is anything to go on, we’re gonna need to fight," Beth replied.

“Oh, you’re an expert in weird monsters appearing now, are you?” their mother asked snippily.

“Well, actually, something like that, yeah,” Beth replied with a shrug and a small grin.

“I don’t appreciate the snark,” their mother replied. “You two go back inside for now; it’s too dangerous out here.”

“Sure, Mom,” Beth said, leading Kim back inside. They stopped in the mudroom to remove their shoes before heading into the kitchen and sitting at the island, Beth grabbing a glass of water.

"So, tell me," Beth said, plonking down on a barstool beside Kim.

"Tell you what?" Kim asked.

"Don't be a dummy, what classes do you have? What are you going for?"

"Woah, calm down Beth, you know I don't really play games or anything. What do I do?" Kim responded.

"Alright, what you have to do is just think about selecting or opening the class selection menu. After that, a menu with a few options will pop up," Beth responded excitedly, gesturing in the air with her right index finger like she was pointing at things on a list.

Kim's eyes narrowed slightly then, after a few seconds, widened in surprise. She was looking at what Beth assumed was her class selection menu and Beth watched her face, nearly vibrating with excitement.

"Well?!" Beth couldn't take it and grabbed her sister's right arm after a minute.

"Geez, relax," Kim grunted, poking Beth in the side. "I have three options. Young Warrior, Young Mage, and Tempered Fighter. What does that mean?"

"Well, I had the first two, but I had my Brawler option instead of that third one. What's the description of it say?" Beth started tapping her chin, decidedly ignoring any mention of the princess option.

"One who has faced varied challenges, tempering themselves as a balanced warrior. That doesn't seem that helpful, or good?" Kim's face scrunched a little.

"Actually, it might be the best of your three. What does it say for stat points?"

"Uh, stat points? Um, it says +1 to each Strength, Dexterity, Endurance, and Wisdom per level and 2 free points per level," Kim said.

"I can't make this decision for you, but I say Tempered Fighter. It seems already like the other two are some kind of default classes that everyone might get, but this third one is more tailored to you. If I remember right, the others also give a total of five points every level, while this special one gives six. Maybe there's things we don’t know about stats yet, but that alone would make it my pick. Being level eleven and having ten more points than a Young Warrior might make a huge difference," Beth rattled off almost without taking a breath.

"Okay, Okay. You're such a damn nerd sometimes," Kim replied with another poke before she got a far-away look in her eyes for a moment. "OK, I'm a Tempered Fighter now, whatever that means."

"You should have gotten some free points for getting to level one. You should probably spend those as well," Beth ignored both the real and virtual jabs.

"What should I spend those on then? What did you use your points on?" Kim asked.

"I'm not an athlete super star like you, so my Endurance was only four. I put both my points in Endurance to catch it up to my other stats. Endurance is important for both stamina and resistance to damage, so I definitely wanted to catch up on that first."

"OK, my Intelligence is only 5, should I increase that?" Kim asked doubtfully.

"Can you show me just your stats?"

"Sure," Kim replied with a weird little hand wave. Beth assumed she was associating gestures with actions like with modern touch screens.