"Wait," Morgana called, "You're still disguised as Maestro."
"Oh, shit," Leo whispered. "Can you snap your fingers and give me that generic sorcerer look you gave me before."
"Way ahead of you, silly," Morgana responded just before she snapped her fingers.
Leo was enveloped in a puff of smoke which seconds later transformed into the thick crimson coat and deep hood that covered him from head to toe.
"Excellent," Leo said as he swept at the skirt of his robe so he could sit on the plush high-back chair they'd placed on the dais at the end of the long hallway that was the Game Master's office which in Leo's mind might as well have been a throne room. "Now to get into character…"
Not a moment too soon for at that very second the heavy-set doors at the other end of the room began to groan and creak as something pushed against them.
"She's here, she's here," Morgana whispered from her hiding place behind Leo's chair. "Have you decided on her job class yet?"
"Which of the suggestions the others gave popped out to you?" Leo asked.
"Hmmm, I liked Life-sucking Spectral Killer, Deadly Wraith Hunter, and First Knight of Morgana," she said happily. "What about you, Leo?"
"I liked Ghost Warrior and Wraith Lancer…" Leo mused.
"Well, whatever you choose best to decide quickly," Morgana suggested.
The heavyset doors slid open with a groan and shudder. Then, crossing into the hall through the tiny slit of space she'd made between them, was Ath3na.
"Hello~~o?" she called. "Anyone home?"
"Welcome, substitute reaper," Leo answered in the pompous voice he'd used the first time he wore the crimson robe. "Enter of your own free will, and leave some of the happiness you bring with you when you leave."
"Huh, isn't that a line from Bram Stoker's Dracula?" Ath3na asked. "Kind of sloppy writing, don't you think?"
There was a pronounced cough from the shadows behind the open side door to the right of Leo's chair where he knew Agatha Christoff and the others were hiding.
She had wanted to write the script for this encounter but Leo overruled her because they were out of time. Now, Leo could only assume she was fuming in the dark and scoffing at his amateur performance.
"Writers…" Leo thought just before he cleared his throat and resumed his speech. "Long has it been since one has come to visit me in my hall… Tell me, why have you come?"
"I was told this was the place where I would be given my job class?" she asked in a loud voice that carried to the other end of the hall.
Leo raised his hand and silently beckoned her forward.
Ath3na moved slowly toward the Game Master's dais while taking care to walk only on the frayed red carpet that traversed the length of the hall. Her eyes darted left and right, taking in the shabby heraldry banners and dust-covered portraits that lined the wall. Above her, the high ceiling was lost in the gloom but she could see a layer of cobwebs that were so thick they might as well have been curtains.
"What a shabby throne room," she whispered to herself. "It's got one hell of a creepy vibe going on which I assume is the point, otherwise, WTF…"
The only light sources in the hall belonged to the two large braziers on opposite sides of the bottom step of the dais. They each spewed out bright blue flames that brought no warmth to their surroundings.
However, this cold didn't seem to disturb Ath3na in the least as she walked onward, and Leo guessed that her evolved form now preferred the chilly air of the Abyss to the warmth of an afternoon sun.
After she'd arrived at the bottom step, Ath3na saw the violet tag over Leo's head that read [Game Master], prompting her to bow her head to him.
"I'm here to receive the job class that was promised to me," she said, sounding a little uncertain.
Leo tapped the edge of his arm rest with the fingers of his right hand while he debated in his mind what to do next. He took so long to think about it that Ath3na had to clear her throat to grab his attention.
"Uh, I'm here to receive the job class that was promised me?" she repeated, sounding a little confused now.
"Yes, yes," Leo answered in a hurry. "However, in order to confer you a class, I must know more about you, substitute reaper."
"Um, really?" Ath3na definitely looked confused now. "You mean like a survey?"
Leo ignored the question and raised his hand once more so he could swipe open the administrator menu which Ath3na couldn't see. He tapped on [NOTES] and pulled up the list of questions McCloud and Bronte had created for him to ask Ath3na, choosing two that made the most sense for this particular scenario.
"Tell me, are you a warrior who prefers to fight at the front, a hunter who chooses tricks and ranged weapons for your trade, or a mage whose power overwhelms all who challenge her?" Leo asked.
Ath3na took several seconds to think about it, but when she finally spoke up it was with a question of her own, "Can you tell me more about these three choices?"
Leo was very glad Morgana had given him a hood that wrapped his face in shadow otherwise Ath3na would have seen his flustered face. Her questioning him was not part of the program.
Luckily, an administrator window appeared before him, and he was glad to discover that it was a message from Agatha with a script for him to use.
"Um," Leo cleared his throat. "I cannot say more than I already have, substitute reaper. You alone can discern the fighting style that yearns to escape your soul!"
"Fine," Ath3na reached behind her back for the rusty iron spear only to realize that she'd left it in Masamune's workshop for maintenance and repair. "I do gravitate toward melee weapons… so I guess I'm a warrior?"
"Excellent choice," Leo said, while in his mind a hundred class choices were instantly deleted in favor of the ones connected to a warrior class. Unfortunately, there were still a dozen to choose from. This prompted Leo to ask his second question, "What will you be willing to sacrifice?"
Instead of words, Leo snapped his fingers, and although nothing happened right away, his action prompted the second snapping of fingers, which, to those who heard it, sounded more like another person snapping their fingers rather than an echo of the first.
Three puffs of white smoke appeared in the space between Leo and Ath3na. They changed shape to form three easily recognizable objects; a sword, a shield, and a wand.
As he was doing this entire cut-scene on the fly, Leo had dug deep and thought of similar cut-scenes in the games he created. This particular scene — which Morgana had been kind enough to reenact for him just like they planned mere minutes ago before Ath3na barged into the hall — had come from the intro of his first creation, MnMI.
"Choose what you are willing to sacrifice," Leo repeated.
Ath3na took another long moment to think about her choice. Eventually, she moved toward the wand. "I'm not really a big fan of magic and I don't think I can sacrifice my defense…"
At the mention of 'defense', a shudder passed over Ath3na's body, and Leo guessed she was remembering the time she'd overdosed on spirit essence.
"I choose to sacrifice this," Ath3na answered. "After all, I do have the powers of a Life-sucking wraith now…"
Finally, the pieces clicked inside Leo's mind and he decided to combine his two favorite suggestions of Ghost Warrior and Wraith Lancer for Ath3na's class. In hindsight, it hadn't been as difficult a choice after all as the answer was really rather obvious if he'd just thought about it some more.
"Very well," Leo said. "Henceforth, magic shall be your crutch. In exchange, you shall receive a reaper's blessing from the Lady of Adventour, Morgana, which may boost your strength, agility, or vitality."
This was the bonus he and Morgana had agreed to give players who'd evolved. Make no mistake, there was no altruistic intent in this action. They simply wanted to avoid the pitfall of frequent player deaths, and reaper blessings were small change for Morgana.
"Who is Morgana?" Ath3na asked. "Is she the new Lord of Death I'm supposed to serve like the intro said? When do I meet her?"
"Is it finally time for me to make my appearance?" Morgana whispered excitedly.
"Don't you dare show yourself now," Leo whispered back. "Now's not the time… your big reveal requires a big event…"
"Fi~~ine," Morgana pouted. "But it better be a proportionally large event, Leo."
Leo swiped on his administrator window and tapped a quick message to McCloud about customizing Ath3na's SRS to reflect her recent choices.
Theoretically, Leo knew they could use the SRS to manage the abilities and attributes Ath3na gained while playing the game. It was important as he didn't want to end up with a ridiculously overpowered player who could make game-breaking actions like the ones that headlined his favorite novels.
"Um, what's next? Any more questions you want to ask?" Ath3na asked.
Leo shook his head. "No, no, that's all I wanted to know."
Ath3na wrapped her arms over her chest. "Huh, kind of anti-climactic, don't you think?"
In response, Leo raised both hands forward, and in the style of a cackling Emperor Palpatine, he raised his voice even more and read aloud the last of Agatha's lines, "Ath3na, first among the heroes of Adventour, I, the Game Master, emissary of Lady Morgana, do confer to you…"
A piano began to play at that exact moment in a tune that not only lifted spirits but gave those hearing it a sense of accomplishment from earning an achievement. Next came the soft singing of a woman's voice that matched rather well with the piano's tune.
In his mind, Leo thought that Shannon had chosen the perfect background music for this scenario, and he hoped McCloud was recording the whole thing.
"…the class of Wraith Warrior!" Leo raised his hands in a flourish.
There was another snapping of fingers which resulted in Ath3na's gamer tag altering into [Ath3na [Lv. 2 Wraith Warrior]]
Seconds later, Ath3na said, "Cool… so what does a Wraith Warrior do?"
---
Mere moments after Ath3na left the hall, and after Leo had given her a brief tutorial on the [SOUL] option in the player menu, a tired Leo slumped in his chair while the rest of his team shuffled into the Game Master's hall to gather around him and Morgana.
"McCloud, did you record all that?" Leo asked.
The werewolf in charge of programming nodded his head, "Yes, Game Master. We can start rendering a streamlined cutscene for bestowing jobs ASAP."
"Good, do that," Leo sighed. "No way in hell do I want to do this again for the tens of thousands of other players…"
"It was a job well done, sir," Shannon said just like a loyal assistant would.
"Um, yeah," Bronte son of Brontes agreed. "Way to adlib, boss."
"If I may, Leo," Agatha cut in. "We should reshoot some of those scenes. I can write you a better script for next time."
"Sure," Leo caved. "We can do some voiceovers. It's not like they'll see my mouth move anyway."
"You know," Dani inserted himself into the conversation. "We could actually charge players job class bestowing fees."
"Could we?" Morgana asked, her eyes lighting up with interest.
"No!" Bronte and McCloud said together.
"Dani, I want to monetize as much as the next guy but why don't we find less intrusive ways to do it," Leo countered.
Dani shrugged. "Fine, fine. But I do think we should charge players a fee if they want a class change."
"That, I can agree with," Leo said. "Right, Morgana?"
"Of course, silly," Morgana nodded approvingly. "And now that we've overcome this crisis, I assume it's time to plan our first event?"
Leo leaned forward in his chair. A grin played on his face as he clasped his hands together and said, "Yes, let's do that next."