Belladonna wanted to quickly move on from the subject of her real life vampirism, lest anyone figure out the trickiness of her phrasing and question her more about it. However she couldn’t help but examine the expressions of her friends.

All of them, except for Revenant who already knew it, had just learned that they would eventually find themselves changing races into whatever they had decided for their in-game avatars. Yet none of them seemed particularly broken up about it.

In fact there was only one emotion filling the room, and that was excitement. Nerdy, barely contained excitement about their fantasies coming true.

Saige and Lilith were fervently discussing with each other in hushed tones, telling each other what they wished would happen to the other as well as what they wished would happen to themselves.

Both were completely fine with any amount of transformation of their bodies, however Saige was very clear that if he did not get at least a pair of fluffy ears and a tail, that he would be rioting, and Lilith eagerly agreed to be there by his side in the riot.

Vestra was muttering to herself with a strange, slightly disturbing smile on her face as she touched her face. Running her hands over her smooth cheeks and delicate features, all whilst never stopping muttering to himself.

Figg was not much better, although his mutterings were much clearer and louder, as he very obviously was obsessed with how his plants would react to his new form. Clearly forgetting that his ’new form’ would come with antlers sprouting from his head. That seemed like something he would have to learn in due time, to really get it through his thick skull. Pun very much intended, as they always should be.

Shaking her head at them, Belladonna moved on to talking about how she achieved her new ability through her constitution, which she wasn’t bothered about sharing at this point, before telling them about her conversation with a god and then moving onto-

"YOU DID WHAT?!" Revenant screamed at the top of his lungs, shooting out of his chair from his previously relaxed position, as he slammed his hands down onto the table.

"I had a conversation with one of the gods. It wasn’t very long and was kind of confusion, but they mentioned how they knew about what we talked about and-"

"Which god? Which God was it?!" He shouted, practically leaping over the table with how intensely he was leaning over it.

"It was Sylvi... Goddess of Trickery." Belladonna answered with a slightly annoyed expression. Sure, it was an absolutely massive deal but that was no excuse for constantly interrupting her. That was just plain rudeness.

"She pulled me into this weird dream domain type thing, and just started talking nonsense at me. I can barely remember half of it, to be honest. But she mentioned that since I forced you to tell the truth, that got her brother involved, and she got the information about our conversation from him. And then... Oh right, she gave me something."

Belladonna rooted around in her bag in front of Revenant’s stunned eyes. She had a conversation with a Goddess, an actual living Goddess, and she was brushing it off like it was nothing. Either this girl truly didn’t understand the scope of what she had just told him about, or she was really dense. Those were the only two explanaitions he could think of and understand.

Of course he had no idea that the mind breaking experience of Sylvi’s realm had altered Belladonna’s mindset. Even she knew little of it, as she had started to simply accept things as they came. Embracing the madness that the towers receptionist had spoken about.

Thinking too much had nearly been her end in that realm, so instead of being the rock in the middle of the river, constantly being beaten by its current, or even the leaf drifting along the surface and flowing mindlessly with the current, Belladonna’s mindset had become a little different.

Instead of the rock or the leaf, she was moving against the current, flowing and shifting smoothly through its waves. Like a little steamboat, puffing along no matter what happened, happy as could be.

"Ah, here it is." Belladonna exclaimed, pulling a leather bound book from her bag and tossing it into the table. It slid across the wood, gliding past Revenant’s greedy, grabbing hands and instead into the delicate hands of its intended owner.

Vestra flinched slightly as the book landed in her hands, perfectly aligning itself so that it was already perfectly straight and the right way up, as if it was eager to be opened and read.

"What is it..." Vestra muttered, the image of the shifting, white light radiating black sun reflected in her wide eyes as she became enraptured by the sight. Her fingers drifted over the image, which seemed to react to her touch, becoming slightly more intense and almost real wherever she touched, before going right back to being an image.

"In all honesty, I haven’t a damned clue. Sylvi called it... Oh crap, what was it? Oh yeah, ’The tale of the black sun’. Whenever I looked at it, it always messed with my head. I was stupid enough to open it once, but the pages were totally blank. But I was told to give that to you by a Goddess and I am not stupid enough to say no to that.

I’m guessing she wanted you to have it because you are one of her followers, right? She’s the one that you are following in the footsteps of as a Divine Mage?"

"Yeah, that’s right. She created Illusion magic and mastered it. The Black Sun is her greatest achievement, and is the symbol of her church. When the Gods were creating the universe, Syvli was bored of their creations.

All so normal and aligning with reality. So she made something of her own. An illusion of an impossible star. A star as black as night, yet that glowed brighter than all the others. But her illusion was so perfect, so detailed, and so utterly believable even in its utter impossibility that she didn’t just trick the beasts, or mortals, or the gods.

Sylvi managed to trick the laws of the universe itself, and made the Black Sun real." Vestra explained with a goofy smile and a small chuckle, her eyes lifting from the book to look at Belladonna with a gaze filled with admiration for the Goddess. However a few moments later, that admiration shifted into confusion, as she slowly frowned.

"But I don’t get it... That tale is arguably the most important thing in her doctrine. I mean they still see it in the skies every few decades, like a solar eclipse. So why give me a book about the most well known story?"

Vestra asked softly, not really expecting an answer. However it came soon after she opened the book, and took a look at the first page. Indeed, just as Belladonna said, the pages were blank. At least at first.

Before Vestra’s eyes, words started to write themselves onto the blank page, writing an introduction to her from the Goddess themselves. However she was a little too distracted by the words floating above the page to pay attention to the ones written on it.

[Class Change Item Acquired]

[Class Change Quest: In the footsteps of the Goddess

Reward: Unique Class]