Lewis Shaw was having a bad day. As the town Reeve, responsible for administering the Kings justice, he was charged with some troubling responsibilities, but seldom did they weigh so heavily. When half the Warner clan descended on the town, demanding the head of the one who killed their patriarch he had kept some hope that he could keep things civil.

The problem was, that the Kings justice - or at least Lewis’s administration of it - didn’t extend into dungeons. That was the responsibility of the Guild master for the town. With Guild Master Albrecht out of town, and the villain in question being his deputy, people turned to the Reeve to do something. Normally, he wouldn’t have dared.

Quite aside from the legal aspects, Reynard was a dangerous man, and Lewis Shaw did not like to cross dangerous men. However, the Warner clan boasted a fair number of current and former adventurers, and some of them were quite dangerous as well. They normally kept to their estates outside of town, but now they were here, filling up the Green Tanner Inn, and making demands.

At their insistence, he’d had Reynard’s home and guild office searched. It went beyond his authority, and likely Reynard would have put up more of a fuss were it not for the presence of angry Warner mid-levelers. They’d found a large number of gems, which was suspicious, but not necessarily incriminating, and Liam Warners possessions, which definitely was.

Now that the girls story had been proved, the Warners were even more fired up. But he managed to calm them somewhat, leaning on their loyalty to the crown, promising them a trial once there was someone with the authority to hold it. He’d sent messages to Albrecht, and to the Court, desperately pleading for someone to come and take this problem off his hands.

Then came the news that the Dungeon had been killed. The Warners were incensed, accusing Reynard of doing it to destroy the evidence of his crimes. Reynard blamed the girl, of all things, claiming the the level 3 adventurer was some sort of master criminal. Lewis was inclined to side with the Warners on this one. Of the crimes that Reynard was accused of, concealing an extra level of the dungeon was the one most likely to stick. Without an dungeon to examine, all his accusers had was a suspicious number of gems and opposing statements.

But that was assuming that it was either of them. An Enchanter had been seen in town, and everyone knew that high-level mages were prone to stealing dungeon cores. Lewis was still waiting for that shoe to drop. There was no way a master mage had come to Oakway just to make some piddly little purchase.

Now there was this little wrinkle.

“Gone? What do you mean she’s gone?” he asked incredulously.

“I mean that rat-bastard guilder has kidnapped her!” Luca shouted. He was the latest Warner to force his way into Lewis’s official chambers.

“How is that even possible? You Warners are all over the inn she was staying at.”

“I don’t know.” Distraught, the man sat down uninvited. The Reeve looked at him sourly, but didn’t say anything. The man could probably beat him to death with his bare hands. “It was noisy last night, the innkeeper told us that she was just gone the next morning.”

Noisy was one word for it. Lewis had heard that that while the Warners spent the day harassing him and the Guild, they spent their nights trying to empty the Green Tanner’s cellar. Lewis himself had avoided the place since they showed up - he got enough of them during the day.

“Are you sure she hasn’t just skipped town?” he asked. “She’s an adventurer after all, they’re not known for… sticking around.”

“She cared about justice for Sir Liam as much as anyone!” the annoying man declaimed. “And… the window latch was broken, and there was blood on the bed!”

“Well, thats something we can investigate,” the Reeve said, heading towards the door. “I’ll put my best men on it.” As he’d hoped, Luca got up and followed him out of his office. “Abbott! Take this man back to his inn and look into this missing girl case.”

“Sir!” Abbott led the man away, which was job done as far as Lewis was concerned. Who cared what happened to Katherine Meland?

* * *

The best inn in Oakway was one that Kandis had not even visited, the Blue Girdle. It set its prices high to deter adventurers, who had money, but were famously averse to spending it. A lack of adventurers meant it was a safe haven for merchants passing through town. They were not put off by high prices, but they did require a certain level of luxury that the Blue Girdle was happy to provide.

The man that had taken rooms yesterday did not fit in with the other guests. His lean figure made for a stern contrast with his plumper fellow-travellers. Unlike the other merchants, he didn’t mingle. He sought no new contacts, looked for no fresh deals. Instead, he disappeared into town on his own business.

Today, he had returned to his room after breakfast. In the privacy of his room, he set up a runic apparatus and placed a clear crystal in the centre of it. He waited a moment for the magic to activate, and was rewarded with a blue glow from the crystal, and then an illusion of his master’s face appeared.

“The girl is gone, there may be another mage and the dungeon is dead.” He said. His master did not care for pleasantries.

“Fled?” the image said, focussing on the most important issue.

“Unknown,” the man said carefully. His master did not like incomplete reports, but he did not tolerate inaccurate ones. “There are reports that she was taken but… the signs could have been easily faked. A splash of blood and a broken latch. People are talking about an Enchanter being seen in the town, so there could be another player.”

“Description?”

“Black robes, hooded face. He cast some sort of… portal spell to escape from from further attention.”

“A temporary portal?”

“They described it as a golden doorway that he stepped through and disappeared.”

His master was silent as he contemplated this. He didn’t enlighten his servant, but the man already knew - that did not match the description of any spell known.

“A description of the girl?” his master finally asked.

“Yes, but she registered as an Illusionist with the Guild.”

His master cursed, a rare exception to his control. “Yes, no need to bother with the details then. We won’t be able to trust any account of events. Is there anything else you can say for certain?”

The man thought for a minute. “Lady Rankin’s catspaw has been severely compromised. Even if he doesn’t get arrested or thrown out of the Guild, she will likely cut him off. Also, she will not be getting any further jewel shipments.”

“Trivialities. Very well, take a week and see if you can determine what actually happened here. I’ll go over your report when its written and see if theres anything I can use.”

“You don’t want me to try pursuing? She can’t be more than two days away.”

“No, this is a wild goose chase. We’ve been set up to fail.” Anger filled his master voice, and the man was glad it wasn’t directed at him.

“The [Oracle] lied? Is that possible?” he asked nervously.

“No, they just gave me the information too late to do anything with it. Even gave a warning about how slippery this one would be. We’ll keep an eye out for when she surfaces again, but I’m not going to waste any more resources on this one. I’ll see you when you get back, Parkes.”

The man bowed, but the image had already disappeared.

In the same moment that Kandis Hammond appeared in a barn in rural Latora, six others appeared in world. Their locations were widely dispersed, but no less carefully chosen. One such person, a male, appeared in an austere room. As he looked around, he quickly became aware of the other person in the room, and older man dressed in grey robes with silver embroidery.

“Rejoice mortal, for you have been chosen as champion by Rakaro. Here, clothe yourself.” He handed the naked stranger a white tunic.

“What? How am I understanding you? Whats going on.”

“All will be explained.” the man said. “First clothes. Do not spend your Ability or Development points.”

“You know about the messages?”

“Dress.” The man complied. “Good. Come with me.” He led the man to the next room, which contained a single chair, and a desk with a book on it.

“My name is Anril,” said the man in grey. “What is yours?”

“Borys.” said the worldwalker.

“Sit then, Borys. Rakaro, in his wisdom, has decreed that you will choose the development path that is right for you. However, the [Status] will not tell you everything you need to know to make an informed choice. The book before you outlines the proper methods to develop yourself. Read - and then choose.”

“But this book isn’t even in Polish…” Borys looked at the book and was surprised to see that he could read the cover. He opened the book and started to read.

“I will return in an hour,” Anril said, and left the room. When he returned, Borys was still going over the material.

“Have you chosen?” Anril asked.

“I have questions-“

“I do not have answers for you. I do not know where you came from, or how you got here. I only know that you are to serve Rakaro’s will.”

“What if… I don’t want to serve?” Borys asked cautiously.

“Obedience is one of the things you will learn here.” Anril said grimly. “Do not think yourself capable of escape. Even with your points spent, you will still be level one.”

“What the fuck is this…” Borys muttered to himself. He glared at his captor. “Fine. Guess I’ll choose the path of the warrior.”

“Leading to the Sword-saint?” Anril said. He smiled slightly, apparently happy with Borys’s choice.

“Yeah, sure.”

“Then you should know what to do. You will not have enough points to meet the requirements until Level four, but that should not be a problem. Focus on Finesse and put the remaining points in Strength. Have you chosen and intermediate profession?”

“Weaponmaster?”

“Suitable. That has skill requirements, which we can see to shortly. Save Development points for that, but spend the rest. You will earn enough Development points through levelling to afford your final Profession by the time you meet the pre-requisites.”

“Fine.” Borys stared at the air for a short time, before announcing he was done. Anril then led him to the next room which was set up something like gym, albeit with some unfamiliar looking equipment.

“Run.” Anril said, pointing to a side of the room that had been kept clear. “Back and forth, until you run out of Stamina.”

“Won’t that knock me unconscious? And whats that thing over there?” Borys said, pointing at something that looked a lot like a medieval rack.

“That is none of your concern.” Anril withdrew a coiled up whip from his robe. “You can lose consciousness from running, or you can lose it from pain.”

“What the- arrgh!” Anril was done talking. His whip lashed out and struck Borys on the arm that he’d instinctively raised to protect his face.

“You fuck!” Borys screamed, and rushed at Anril with his fists clenched. Anril calmly caught Borys’s first strike in one hand. As Borys froze in shock at having his blow stopped, Anril twisted the captured limb. Suddenly Borys was kneeling on the ground, crying out in pain.

“Run.” Anril repeated, letting go of his victim. Borys swore some more, but got up and started running, one arm hanging limply by his side. Anril watched his charge carefully, noting the moment when the [Run] skill was awarded. Every time Borys started to slow down, Anril ‘encouraged’ him to keep going with a lash of his whip. After about ten minutes, Borys fell to the ground, unresponsive even as Anril lashed him a few times to make sure.

Putting away his whip, Anril easily picked up the fallen man and carried him over to to the device Borys had noticed before. He started fastening Borys into the device, manacling his arms and legs with heavy steel shackles.

Borys came to as Anril was carefully positioning a very dubious looking device over Borys helpless body.

“What are… you doing? You… bastard..” Borys said weakly. He pulled at his shackles but to no avail. Crafting skill times Levels trumped his mere Strength.

“Good, you’re awake.” Anril said repressing his emotion. The next part was going to be quite difficult. “You should have 30 Hit Points, correct?”

Borys swore, and screamed, but when Anril reached for his whip again, he nodded. “30, yeah.”

Anril nodded back. “This will be quite painful, but it is necessary. The device allows us to generate precise amounts of damage, so we don’t have to risk killing you.”

“Damage? Killing me?! Wait!” Borys screamed, but Anril had already triggered the device. 3 slim blades sunk into Borys flesh, and he screamed some more. They quickly retracted and Borys was left gasping under Anril’s emotionless gaze.

“That should have done 15 points of damage, correct?” When Borys didn’t immediately reply - aside from curses - Anril made an irritated noise and produced an small healing potion. Borys was so shocked by the sensation of his wounds closing, he forgot to curse for a moment.

“15 points?” Anril repeated, remorseless. Borys nodded, defeated. “Your [Body Development] should increase in the next round” Anril continued. “The more damage we can do each round, the less rounds we need to do.”

“You sick fuck! I’ll kill you when I get out of this!” Borys raged impotently. Anril looked on calmly.

“You are quite unable to do that at the moment. If it helps, after you have been recognised as Rakaro’s Champion, you will outrank me in the Church hierarchy. My fate will be for you to decide.” He paused to let that fact sink in, before giving his charge the bad news. “Our target for today is 1200 damage.”

Woken by the crack of thunder, Farzin Zolfali knew that the Gods were feuding again. Another man might have dismissed it, but Fazin was a man who had been directly touched by the Gods actions twice, and he knew that this would be his third time. The stars stared down at him from a clear sky, as he looked all around the dark waters that surrounded his boat. A second bolt of lightning struck, hitting… something dark a few miles away. Downwind of course. His presence had been planned.

His course of action obvious, Farzin raised sail, and headed towards the dark shape, now dimly visible as flames took hold. He sighed. You could try and avoid the God’s plans but it was far easier to go with the flow.

By the time he reached the vessel, it had almost burned down to the waterline. He wondered at that. Were there no sailors to fight the fire? Or had those lightning bolts been carefully aimed? He did not worry about a third bolt. The Gods got to have their little tantrums, but as soon as they did, the rest banded against them, forcing them out for a while.

There! In the water! Clinging to a barrel a single figure drifted. Farzin adjusted his course to take him next to the castaway.

“Ho there! Can you grab a rope?” The man - for now he was closer, he could tell that much - weakly shook his head. Farzin shrugged, and threw a rope ladder over the side. Then he lashed a line to the mast and jumped over with it.

In short order, he had the man aboard, as well as the barrel - you never knew when a bit of salvage would be profitable - and they were both drying themselves off with blankets that Farzin had dug out of stores.

“Rough night?” Farzin asked, which provoked a bout of choking laughter. “Once you’ve dried off a bit, I’ll see if I can find you some clothes.”

“Thanks,” the man said “You saved my life.”

“It was nothing,” Farzin demurred. He was still waiting to see just what sort of trouble the Gods had seen fit to dump in his lap, but there was point in being rude about it. “My name’s Farzin Zolfali, a humble deepwater fisherman. Whats your name, and where were you headed?”

“The names Wilson Tylar. I wasn’t headed anywhere, one moment I was home, and the next I was on a boat… that was on fire.” Wilson hesitated and then continued. “Does the word ‘Worldwalker’ mean anything to you?”

Ah. There it was.

On Latora, zombie infestations were a rare, but well known fact of life. Zombies themselves were not any great threat - even the strongest of them could be defeated by a Level 4. Every now and then, though, the zombies got lucky. An isolated village without a healer, a lack of guards on walls, a victim too drunk to wake up screaming. It took a number of chance events for a zombie spawning to get out of hand. As it had in the village of Burves. Now, it lay deserted. With nothing living in the town, the zombie villagers had left in search of fresh kills. Only those zombies too damaged to walk were left, and without prey, those few had gone into torpor.

Eventually, the roaming zombies would encounter civilisation. Exterminators would come, the area would be cleansed and life would return to Burves. That would take some time though. Burves was isolated and saw few visitors. For now, the streets were silent. Nothing moved in the darkness.

Until it did. New life was detected in the heart of the village. Slowly, the remaining zombies woke from torpor. Slowly, they aligned themselves in the direction of the new life. Slowly, the started crawling towards it.

The only thing that could be stranger than suddenly appearing in a different world, Isidre found, was appearing in a home that was fully furnished, but completely empty. She was able to find her way around, thanks to a glowing gem that served as a light source. Clothes were a priority, and she managed to find some that fit in the rooms upstairs. She’d found a weapon as well - a heavy walking stick that doubled nicely as a club.

She had just started puzzling over her [Status] screens, when she heard a noise from downstairs.

“Hello?” she called, but there was no reply. The scraping noise came again. Gathering her courage, her weapon and her light source, she cautiously headed down the stairs.

There was a corpse crawling through the door.

For far too long a time, she just stared, frozen by the impossibility of what she was seeing. Then she realised it was headed straight for her and she screamed and fled back to the master bedroom. Slamming the door shut, she pressed her back against it.

This isn’t going to work, she thought. This never works in movies. Think Isidre. There are zombies, you have a stick and… the professions. They’re all fantasy professions… there has to be a profession that works against Zombies. She started browsing through the list, frantically searching that sounded like it would work. She could hear that the zombie had reached the stairs, so there wasn’t much time. Finally she found it. [Paladin].

The zombie was pushing against the door by the time she was ready, but it was much easier to hold with her new strength. She took a deep breath, and then opened the door.

“[Holy Light]!”

She cast as soon as she had eyes on her target. She was surprised and relieved when it worked, a golden light streaming out and evaporating the crawling corpse.

“[Divine Weapon]!”

Her stick started to glow with a golden light. Emboldened by her victory, she started heading out, only to see another corpse creeping up. It took three blows from her stick to finish the zombie off, but only because the first one missed.

By the time dawn broke, she had finished off every crawler in the village. She spent the day going through houses, finding the occasional trapped zombie, but also acquiring food, better weapons, clothes and armour. She spent the night barricaded in the sturdiest house, but there were no further attacks.

In the morning she headed out along the only road, looking for civilisation. It would be three more days before she learned that this was a minor incident, that she hadn’t been transported into the zombie apocalypse. In a way, it made for a nice distraction from the fact that she’d been kidnapped into another world.

In one moment, Washiyama Kaito had been re-arranging his figure collection. In the next, he was standing, naked, in a strange room. It took a moment for him to realise this however, because in the room was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

“Kyaaaa… are you a real cat-girl?” he asked in wonderment. The vision giggled.

“No, silly, I’m a fox-kin! Can’t you tell?” She struck a pose, showing off her fluffy tail. Like her ears and hair, it was a silvery white colour, darkening to black at the tip. “Did you want some clothes?” she said.

Kaito now realised that he was naked. “I’m very sorry!” he apologised, covering himself and bowing deeply. The girl just giggled, and handed him some clothes.

“They said you might be a little strange. You’re pretty funny!”

Kaito tried to respond while dressing and simultaneously keeping himself covered, but it was all too much for him. He wanted to ask for some privacy, but he was too embarrassed. The girl herself showed no signs of embarrassment, seemingly more interested in entertaining herself at his expense. Kaito wanted to resent her, but couldn’t hold a grudge against this goddess.

Eventually, he managed to get the clothes on. “Please excuse me,” he said again, “My name is Washiyama Kaito.”

“Pleased to meet you, Washiyama Kaito! I’m Ettalle!”

Is that a first name or a surname? Kaito wondered. “Please, call me Kaito!”

“Sure thing, Kaito!” Ettalle said. “I guess I should explain about what you’re doing here, right?”

“If thats alright?” Kaito didn’t want to seem demanding. Ettalle giggled again. Such a lovely sound, Kaito thought. Pointing at some cushions, she indicated that he should sit.

“So. You’ve been summoned by Naldyna, the Goddess of Nature, to be her Champion.”

I’ve been isekaied? But I didn’t get hit by a truck…Kaito thought to himself. He waited for Ettalle to continue.

“Um, thats it. Thats all I know.” Ettalle said. “Oh, wait, you might not know about the [Status] thing? You buy Abilities and stuff through it. You should have a bunch of points to start with, but you’ll get more as you Level.”

“Ah.. but if I’ve been summoned, then I’ve been summoned for a reason, yes? Is there some great danger I’m supposed to save everyone from?”

“Oh! Well, probably, that does sound right.” Ettalle said airily. “But I don’t know what that is. I’m not aware of any particular huge danger, Latora can be a pretty dangerous place sometimes though.”

“Is there someone I can talk to who would know?” Kaito was starting to suspect that his goddess, while lovely, was not the best person to be getting information from.

“Well, Lady Naldyna would know what she summoned you for, of course, but she, um, makes her own appointments.” Ettalle looked a bit awkward. “She’ll probably tell you what she needs when you’ve gotten a few levels? You won’t be good for much until you do.”

“Ah… and you’re here to help me get some levels?”

“Yep!” Ettalle said, bouncing up and down. “It’ll be fun. But first, you should spend your points.

“Right…” Kaito started going through the screens. There was a lot of information there, even if it was annoyingly concise. Eventually something jumped out at him. “Wait… I can change my race?”

“Is that option there?” Ettalle asked. “We don’t get it because we’re born with it already taken. But if its there, you can take it. You can probably only take it once though, I’ll bet the other options disappear once you take one. Gender should be the same.”

Kaito shivered as a cool wash of clarity swept through him. All his life, he’d been preparing for this moment, and he’d never known.

I… I… I could be a cat-girl?