I emerged from the door to find Mike pacing nervously; it didn't fit his new form. He should've been leaning against a wall or parked in the corner table of some darkened inn, calmly taking in the whole scene and planning for every eventuality. Instead, he was a wreck. I couldn't blame him.

I took a deep breath and tried to remember. I couldn't. Knowledge insisted upon itself in the place of memories. I was something called a Light Surgeon, and I was just barely above the novice level. As soon as I knew that, I began to see... differently. I knew that there was more to light - from suns, from torches, from sources unknown. I knew it had potential, and that I'd begun to learn how to tap into it. I knew somehow that I'd be able to weave illusions as something of a side-hobby to my more serious studies.

Sourceless light, incidentally, was what illuminated the odd, dimensionless, wall-less waiting room we were in. Nothing had changed since I'd last been in it. The floor was undefinable material that suggested stone but wouldn't commit. There was no ceiling above us. Rather, we seemed to exist in a dome whose only limits were the very sense of ending and limitation.

I remembered Alex's advice. I searched my knowledge, rather than my memory, for anything or anyone to whom I was beholden. I knew of nothing. I sighed in relief. It occurred to me that, before he'd even had a chance to cleverly save my life in whatever twisted nightmare we'd been dragged into, he might have already saved my soul.

"So?" Mike asked.

"'Light Surgeon,'" I told him.

"Shadow Assassin," he said. "Went with my gut, I think. If this shit is serious, flim-flam and fast-talk don't seem like they're going to be as important as slipping a dagger into somebody's back all quiet-like."

My stomach probably should've turned, but it didn't. "Makes sense," I said. "And hey - light and shadow. We'll definitely be best friends."

He laughed at that. "I don't think they did anything to weird to my mind. I'm still me, I think. I still like you. I'm not being told you're my existence shell enemy."

I shrugged, letting the malapropism slide. "Give it time. We might have to share a tent in a magic swamp."

"Well, I mean, I'd probably kill you in the real world after something like anyway."

"With your farts."

He laughed again. He was easy to manage.

Mary emerged from her door. She looked dazed, but not sick or scared.

"You okay?" I asked.

She blinked a few times. I saw her doing what I'd done. "Mistress of Battle," she said. "Tactics. Rallying the troops. Specialized fighter and hint of bard, I think. That's good. I can work with that."

Mike and I filled her in. We didn't know if there was anything extra to glean from the three roles combined. We tried. We really did.

Sam was next. She waved off the niceties and strained like she was trying to shit. "Fuck," she muttered. "Fucking messing with my mind. I do not like that."

We let her have the moment.

"Evoker," she said. "Master - er, Mistress, I guess? - of the Arcane Elemental Matrix. Huh. So, okay, it's like the magical versions of enthalpy and entropy. Fire and frost, but hoity-toity. And then there's just... magical energy, outright, from some special plane, which is fucking dumb. And then... it's right there. It's just out of reach. Fuck. I have to gain levels or whatever fucking bullshit. Then I'll know what my next options are."

"That's super fucked up," Mike said. "That's way more mindfuck than I got. I just know how to use daggers and swords and sneak around and stuff. Wait... huh. Something about actual shadows, though. Okay, damn, same mindfuck."

We filled her in too. Again, we couldn't piece anything extra together. All of us knew we were just waiting for Alex. It felt so wrong to be so reliant on him. It had never been like that around the table. His antics and ideas had been a fun sideshow. Now it seemed like they might be the difference between life and death.

Alex emerged. He, too, looked dazed for a moment, but it cleared up quickly. His eyes trailed up and to the left. "Yeah, no, no memories," he said. "But there it is. Yeah. That's good. That's real good."

He broke out into a smile. "Guys," he said. "We have to stay positive. We can't let this get to us - not yet. So gimmie a guess. One guess. Anybody. Then I'll tell you."

"Blue Mage," I said. "Use the most readily available hostile resource and turn it around."

"Well shit," Alex replied. "That's fucking clever, Nate. That's like a B plus."

"Swear to god, Alex," Sam seethed.

"Fine, fine," he said. "Okay. Mimic."

"Mimic?"

"Mimic," he repeated with a grin. "Final Fantasy Six, coming in clutch, so were you this close, Nate. Man, that is some poetry right there. Anyway, guys? I think we're gonna be okay. I really do. So, the next thing that needs to happen, is I need all of you to fight me. That's how it works. I gotta see what I can copy, and how many I can keep in my head at a time. We also need to start running tests on how the experience and leveling system works. Oh, shit, I also need to see if there's any fun interactions between my shapeshifting and my mimicry!"

Alex's door - the only one that had remained - vanished. He saw us see it, turned, and shrugged his shoulders. We all began looking up and around, waiting for the sound.

"FIND MY FOLLOWERS. FIND MY RELICS. WISE AND CLEVER CHAMPIONS, SAVE MY WORLD."

The final door appeared - an ostentatious double one, clearly indicating it was for all of us.

"Well, rain check," Alex said. "Who's the leader?"

We all knew what he meant. It was nice of him not brag.

Mary stepped forward. We all fell in line behind her. With only the clothes on our backs - no armor, no weapons, no backpacks, no torches, no ropes, not even the classic flint and steel - we braced ourselves to venture forth into the unknown.

I hung back with Alex at the rear.

"I think I need to tell you something," I whispered. "But you have to promise to be cool."

"Promise to handle Mike instead," he said.

I managed to keep my jaw from dropping. Instead, I just sighed and shook my head. "I'm almost entirely sure you didn't do this, Alex," I said, "but you're really going to make the most of it, aren't you?"

"Hopefully we all are," he said.

"Can you shapeshift just your clothes?" I asked. "You might want to. Take the inspiration from us."

"Crap," he said. "Thanks. Man, I hope this doesn't mean we're in some PG-13 adventure. That'd be a real bummer."

I was going to say something clever about people in PG-13 movies still being able to die even though they couldn't have raunchy sex, but it was my turn to walk into the blank whiteness once again.

"Maybe we'll actually remember something this time," I joked.

Did we? Well, that's either a story for another time, or it's not.