I clutched my sword tightly as I looked around, definitely not liking the look of this place. I was in the middle of what appeared to be a desert, with lots of dull stone and sand, but absolutely no trees.

Just a short time ago, I’d left the safe zone with my new companions and had gone with them through the stone arch that I’d seen. To my surprise, I almost immediately found myself in an entirely different environment than where I’d been before. It immediately made me think of one of those transporters from that old Star Trek show.

“Be careful, Miss Donna,” Giles warned me. “There is a different type of monster here than what you’ve been fighting.”

“Every area has their own ecosystem,” Grayson added. “Including their own wildlife and monsters.”

Giles stared at the pages of a book, then he carefully closed it and put it into his pack. From what I understood, those were the map directions that they were using to find their way through the Laybinth and to wherever it was that they wanted to go. And according to what they’d said, the route could change without notice, so we couldn’t count on the directions completely.

“I feel so confident in this,” I muttered sarcastically, wondering if it was too late to go back and hang out at the pond. The fact that everyone else had decent armor while all I wore were rags didn’t help with my mood.

“Mister Grayson, if you would,” Giles said.

Grayson nodded and continued moving ahead, taking the lead like he had when I’d first seen them. Lenore followed right behind, her bow ready. She still didn’t have any arrows for the thing.

“What is it with calling everyone mister or miss?” I asked Giles.

I was a little annoyed at the way he kept calling me ‘Miss Donna’ since every time was a reminder of what I now looked like. However, I didn’t correct him on either the name or the ‘miss’ bit because that would only create even more awkward questions. Still, I was definitely curious.

Grayson chuckled from the front while Lenore snickered. Giles just let out a sigh. “I’m an invoker, and two of my bargains are with celestial type primals.”

“Okay,” I said, though I had absolutely no idea what that had to do with anything. I assumed that ‘invoker’ was his class, but I had no clue as to what a primal was.

“Celestials are all about law and order,” Giles explained. “At least in theory. In practice, they just love their rules and they want everyone else to follow whatever rules they come up with. As part of my deal with them, I have to follow certain rules that they gave me. One of my deals requires me to use formal language when addressing people by name, and the other one prevents me from telling lies.”

“You can’t lie?” I asked, more than a little skeptically. In my experience, people who claimed that they never lied were usually just trying to cover up their lies.

“Technically, I can still lie,” Giles admitted with a wry smile. “But there are consequences if I do. If I break my deals, then I’ll probably lose the abilities that come with them.”

“And that would suck for all of us,” Lenore said. “At least while we’re still in the Labyrinth.”

“Those abilities are useful,” Grayson agreed cheerfully.

I was about to ask more when Lenore suddenly looked up into the sky with a scowl and a muttered profanity. “Looks like we’ve got some flying assholes.”

My eyes went up and I quickly spotted what she meant. There were monsters flying through the air, coming straight for us, but they looked absolutely nothing like the rat dogs that I’d faced before. These ones seemed to be round spheres, each about the size of a beach ball, with scaley bat wings. The big balls that made up their main bodies, also had large mouths with lots of sharp looking teeth. And the worst thing was the fact that there were almost a dozen of the freaky things.

“What the fuck are those?” I demanded.

“Monsters,” Lenore answered with a smirk before commenting, “Noobs.”

Lenore held up her bow and an arrow suddenly appeared in her hand. She shot the arrow at one of the monsters, hitting it dead on in the middle of its body. It dropped and spiraled as it fell, but it clearly wasn’t dead since it caught itself and kept coming towards us.

“Shit,” I spat out, realizing that I couldn’t just climb a tree and blast these monsters from a safe distance, even if there had been any trees around.

I blasted a ‘Hex’ at the nearest monster and missed it completely. I cursed at that, especially since it would take a full minute before I could try again.

“Your aim sucks, Red,” Lenore called out, right before she fired another arrow right into the open mouth of the same monster.

“No shit, Captain Obvious,” I snapped back.

While this was going on, a faint glimmering white and gold aura formed around Grayson, followed by a second one that was only slightly different in color. These had to be his enchantments, those boons that he’d told me about.

Grayson lunged forward at a surprising speed, using his shield to smack one of the monsters that dove town towards Lenore, then he spun around and sliced the wing off of another one. That monster hit the ground where Grayson’s sword promptly went right through its main body.

One of the monsters swooped down near me and I swung at it with my sword, but I was clumsy and barely grazed the creature. Suddenly, Giles’ halberd swung down and tore into the thing, right before it could bite me.

“You’ll want to increase your strength and dexterity of you want to use that weapon, Miss Donna,” Giles said.

I scowled at that, kind of pissed at failing at both the sword and my ability. I hated feeling so damn helpless.

Giles held up his hand and the air suddenly shimmered. A moment later, a shimmering dome formed over the area, so it looked like we were standing inside a giant soap bubble. As soon as this dome appeared, several of the monsters dove down and smacked right into it before bouncing off.

“This is well worth a little formality,” Giles said.

“It won’t last long,” Pham explained, “so we have to make use of it while we can.”

“Already working on it,” Grayson responded.

With that, Grayson rushed forward and attacked one of the monsters that had been caught inside the dome with us. He sliced through that one with ease and then quickly turned to the next one.

Pham held up his staff with one hand while gesturing outward with the other. There was a shimmering in the air, though one that was quite different from when Giles had used his ability. Suddenly, a burst of wind shot forward, went right through the bubble dome as though it wasn’t there, and hit two of the monsters. The monsters split in half, as though cut by a giant invisible knife.

“What the hell was THAT?” I blurted out.

“Wind blade,” Pham answered. “I can reshape the air into a giant blade.” Then, he had a look of concentration on his face before he repeated the attack, this time hitting only one of the monsters.

Then, Pham reached to his belt and grabbed a scepter that hung there. I knew that some players used scepters as weapons, and it seemed that Pham was one of them. A moment later, he held the scepter out and a bolt of electricity shot out, missing the monster he was aiming at.

For several seconds, I just stood there, silently watching the group fight. It was obvious that they all had experience fighting like this, and that they had some very effective abilities. That made me feel even worse about my own lack of contribution.

When my own ability was recharged and ready for use, I didn’t waste any time before blasting one of the monsters. This time, I hit the winged beach ball and the ‘Hex’ aura snapped into place around it. The thing immediately staggered in the air, smacking into one of the other monsters before awkwardly attempting to regain control.

“About time you hit something, Red,” Lenore said as she shot another arrow.

“Bite me, Trash Panda Barbie,” I snapped back.

Pham burst out laughing. “It looks like we have two of them now.”

I looked around, noticing that Grayson had successfully cleared out all of the monsters from within the dome, and between Lenore and Pham, more than half of the ones outside the dome had been taken care of as well.

Giles moved towards the edge of the dome and swung his halberd out, hitting one of the monsters that was flying around on the outside. The monster dropped to the ground and he immediately hit it again, finishing it off.

It was at this point that the dome abruptly vanished and the remaining monsters all came swooping in at once. I got another chance with the sword, to a bit more success than before, though not much. I hit a monster and lopped off one of it’s wings, though I’d been trying to hit its main body instead. Either way, it dropped to the ground where Giles promptly finished it off.

“I hate this part,” Lenore complained.

As the goth archer said this, a suit of armor formed around her body, including a helmet that covered most of her head. This wasn’t like the black leather armor she had been wearing, but a full suit silver metal armor with gold trim, closer to what I’d expect of a medieval knight. She immediately grabbed her short sword and began swinging that at the onrushing monsters.

When my ‘Hex’ was ready to go again, only a couple of the monsters were left. One of them was the same monster that I’d blasted before. It didn’t look like nearly as much of a threat as the others, which may be why nobody had bothered finishing it off yet. I just blasted it a second time, doubling down on the enchantment.

A few seconds later, the rest of the monsters were finished off. The only one that remained was the one that I’d hit. That one was still fluttering around, barely able to even get off the ground. Everyone else just stood back and watched it, apparently waiting to see what I would do. So, I waited until ‘Hex’ was recharged, then blasted it again. Then, since I didn’t want to keep waiting, I simply walked up to the monster and stabbed it with the sword.

“When do I get my next ability?” I asked in annoyance. My ‘Hex’ hadn’t been much use during this fight.

“It isn’t consistent,” Grayson told me with an apologetic shrug. “Some people get their second ability at five, others at seven.”

“There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason,” Pham added with an amused look. “And you usually get to choose between several abilities…but not always. Sometimes you just get assigned one, with no options.”

“I think the system is just fucking with us,” Lenore suggested. Her metal armor had already vanished just as quickly as it had appeared.

“It certainly seems like it,” Grayson agreed.

This was not the answer I wanted to hear, but complaining would have been pointless. Instead, I looked back and forth at the others, remembering what they’d done during the fight.

“So,” I asked Lenore. “You summon arrows?”

“I CONJURE arrows,” she corrected. “Summoners create living beings and conjurers create inanimate objects.”

“You both use the same creation magic,” Grayson pointed out. “You’re basically just variations on the same class.”

“Is that kind of thing common?” I asked curiously. “Different classes using the same kind of magic?”

“Pretty much,” Grayson told me. “I mean, stalkers, shadowmancers, and darklings all use the same darkness magic. Enchanters, animators, and shapers are pretty similar too.”

“And don’t even ask about the fucking warrior types,” Lenore exclaimed with a very obvious roll of her eyes. “Now, those guys should all be the same class.”

“What is that about warrior types?” I asked.

“That, Miss Donna, is a common debate,” Giles told me with an amused look. “Warriors use physical magic, but so do a few other similar classes. Warriors. Bulwarks. Brawlers. Lancers. They all seem to be the same basic class, just with different focuses and specializations.”

“The debate,” Pham added, “is that a lot of people think that they started off as one class, and that some of the specializations were split off into their own separate classes. Others disagree.”

“Welcome to player theory crafting and debate,” Grayson told me wryly. “I’m sure you’ll find it quite fascinating.”