16.3 p͏a͏t͏r͏e͏o͏n͏.c͏o͏m͏/S͏t͏r͏a͏t͏o͏t͏h͏r͏a͏x͏A͏f͏t͏e͏r͏D͏a͏r͏k͏

Kayla groaned. "I don't want anything with even the word 'Inn' in it, no way, just no way! I'm not an innkeeper anymore!"

Rina looked a little deflated by this proclamation, her boasted collection of Classes having completely failed to produce results for the otterkin.

"Perhaps it would be better to wait Kayla, once we get to the city we can go and find a Class library, they might have something that suits you more"

Kayla nodded glumly as Lily grabbed up the Affinity crystal excitedly and began running around with it. It took all of ten seconds for the crystal to jerk to the side so hard that Lily was ripped off her feet and literally dragged across the ground as the crystal slammed up against the spine of massive black book bound in an ancient binding that looked like it was made from the skin of some creature. Fur and even claws still sticking from the rough stitched thing.

The four of them stared at it and the then crystal flashed so bright that they all cried out and flinched back as the shop was filled with a searing light that burned their retinas.

Fey wiped at her eyes and blinked several times, clearing them of colourful dotted afterimages and flashing floaters. What the hell was that?

"What the hell was that?" said Kayla aloud.

"A r-really really strong Affinity, I- I haven't seen one like that… ever…"

Lily grabbed hold of the book, which was nearly as large as she was and hauled it from the shelf. It fell to the floor with a thud, its title made visible to all.

WITCH DOCTOR

Fey turned on Rina. "Why do you have a sketchy looking Class like that? Wait, are those teeth sewn into the cover? Rina!"

"H-hey I don't know do I! I have no idea how it ended up in my shop, I- I don't recall purchasing it, it must have been Zal who acquired it!"

Fey stared down at the grizzly looking book which Lily was examining with a slightly obsessive air.

"Are you sure about this Lily?"

"Hmm? Oh, yes, absolutely! I can practically feel the book calling to me, it's like it's pulling at me, demanding I open it, I've simply got to have this Class Fey."

The otterkin didn't wait for Fey's reply, her small hand found the edge of the cover and she flipped it open. The lettering filled pages on the inside were a dark brown-red, jagged chicken scratches that reeked of the occult. Looking at the pages made Lily feel uncomfortable, it was wildly different than the paced, formed, writing of an ordinary book, instead the dynamic lettering seemed like it was designed to let your eyes fall into it, like a geometric fractal..

She kept looking and after a while she could see the pages moving of their own volition, dancing across her vision, rippling, unfolding, she could feel a migraine beginning but she couldn't look away. She felt as though she were falling into the page. The pages shifted, rolling across each other like waves, blooming like a flower but only moving laterally, abstract and not abstract, both at once, a concept that made her feel quite literally of two minds.

She felt differently looking at the moving shifting script now, like she could assign meaning in a way she could not before. When she looked at one of the sharp blooded runes it evoked… something. She wasn't quite sure what… and the roiling geometrices now… meant… something. She felt frustrated, lacking the understanding, like a word on the tip of her tongue, impossible to recall to the front of her mind. She tried pushing further, staring into the bottomless depths of the book, an endless void filled with elusive information.

Then she fell over the horizon.

A boiling object, black and transparent, like glass, a collapsing geometric star with many sides, falling in on itself like a tesseract. She could see the shape of it, she now understood what the book had been trying to impart. It burned through her like a firestorm, searing the star into her mind, stripping away everything she was until nothing remained simply to make it fit. It was agony, this waS wroNg, iT wAs rIghtt----

Reset.

It was a new way to see, a view of the world through an interloper's eye, an awareness of the mechanisms behind reality, behind magic… A Class.

The cover of a book is a bit like a door, when you open that door it is your mind that walks through. In this case literally.

Lily gasped and fell backwards from the book. The book was as it had been, to an outsider's perspective it had remained as it had been opened, unmoving, the same page, that is until Lily fell away, then it slammed shut with a bang and a puff of red dust.

Everyone stared at the macabre black book, the book remained as it was, yet somehow, strangely, it imparted a feeling of smugness. The group turned to Lily who lay on her back breathing hard, her eyes bloodshot.

"L-Lils?" said Kayla softly.

"H-holy shit! That was, gods, I- I feel so-"

"Like your mind has just been put through a strainer? Like your brain has been doused with frosty lemon water?"