Black. Nothing. No sound. No smell. No taste of blood on my tongue. No air against my skin. Was I even breathing here? Was I a biological form here? I could remove my hair, which implied I was here. As soon as I let go, the hair would vanish, just like last time. I had felt myself and whatever counted as the 'floor' here, but the sensations were gone as soon as they came. It wasn't like when you press your hand to a stone or wood, and the imprint on your fingertips remains- I could press my hand on the 'floor' for as long as it felt like, and as soon as I pulled it off, it was as though it hadn't been there in the first place.

  I tried lying down. As soon as I imagined myself looking out into the void again, I didn't even feel gravity shift- let alone the shift of the surfaces around me move along my body, or even disappear. It was as if the surfaces existed only when I focused on them.

  I would feel it against my back as I lay down. When I looked forward, I felt it now on my feet, in an instant, an infinitesimal moment. It was surreal.

  I was here, and in Chagrin's body, as normal. Why? What was this place? I had resorted to calling it The Void in my head, but I had never experienced anything like it.

  It was unmistakably similar to the Negative Energy Plane. Subjective personal gravity, the inability to fly, a lack of any forms of light, and all other senses. Yet, I could still produce sound and hear it myself. I could still see my own body in full color. I could still taste myself, even if it was more texture than taste. I could still feel myself, and the odd 'surfaces' that only appeared when I thought to reach out to one.

  The only stable structures that could exist in a realm like the Negative Energy Plane were rare minerals strong enough to exist in a void, or literal Void Stone, solid material made of pure darkness that would very literally leap towards people and kill them within heartbeats.

  Undead were one of the few creatures that could survive in such a plane, and even they were not immune to Void Stone. So to think that this place, somewhere I traveled when I slept, or was close to death, or otherwise, was the Negative Energy Plane? Hard to imagine.

  It was just scarily close, and yet unnervingly different. Not to mention the COMPLETE lack of any other forms of movement here. Nightwalkers would have surely killed me by now had I been here as long and as many times as this.

  I sat. The surface wasn't cold or warm; it was just... there. Crosslegged, on whatever you could define as the ground.

  It was odd. Black, forever and ever and ever. Not the type of black you'd see in the night sky, or in the void of space, or even 'true black' as they had recently invented back on Earth. It was a completely different kind of black. If I couldn't see the strands of hair poking down into my vision, or the bridge of my nose when my eyes were open, I was only able to tell when I had my eyes closed based on the sensation. The difference in the darkness of the two was astounding- no light peered through my eyelids when I closed my eyes. Not even the little floaters in my eyes were visible here, because there was no light to show them.

  Was this the afterlife? Was this what was waiting for me at the end if I were to die? Was there any point to questioning any of it?

  I sat there for a long time, just reveling in the eerie peace of the place.

  ...

  When I was sick of waiting, I sat up and spoke out into The Void.

  "Open character sheet, please." It was important to be polite about things beyond your control.

  In front of me, the same window as always, popped up. My stats, class, race, attacks, spell list, backstory, ideals, bonds, and so on. I glanced around, seeing nothing too out of the ordinary. I checked near the top, where it listed my level.

  "Nice... 4 levels from one random encounter? Sure, nearly could've died, but that is... ok, damn..."

  The screen showed small + symbols next to my classes and their levels. I was still at 1 in cleric, the first I took, and the other two into wizard, my main class for the build I was aiming for.

  I clicked the + button on the wizard side. This gave me a few more hit points, another hit die, and some more spells. I just kept clicking it until it didn't give me the option anymore-

  My hitpoints rolled a 6, a 6, another 6, and a 4, bringing me up to a very healthy 46 hitpoints total at level 7. I did the quick math in my head, and it turns out I ended up at the perfect average for my multiclass here. A little disappointing, but at least I wasn't essentially screwed for hitpoints now.

  Hit dice went up as normal, now with 1d8/1d8 and 6d6/6d6. Nothing new here. I couldn't even measure how well they were used during short rests, since I had really only been doing long rests as of late.

  I also got a new ability from reaching level 6 in wizard, namely from my subclass. Momentary Stasis- as in the name, it lets me temporarily halt someone of size class large or smaller in time. They would only be frozen for a few seconds, and with my current intellect, I would only be able to do so 5 times per day or so. Still, this could give me those few seconds I needed to cast another spell, get further away, hide, or any number of other actions. It was a fantastic set-up ability- this, if I could land it on a creature, could make it nearly impossible for the creature to succeed in saving themselves from any of my other 'big hitter' spells.

  If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  Speaking of which, I got to make the selection between another 8 spells, ranging in level from the level 1 and 2 slots I had, now all the way up to level 4 slots, which was a huge jump in power and variety. There were spells that let you store other spells, classics like Fireball or Lightning Bolt, unique ones like Animate Objects, and more. Magic galore.

  I spent some time combing through every single one of the systems, or I suppose The Void, brought up as an option. There were far too many to choose from, and this didn't include the ones I would get from my background. After all was said and done, my spell list looked something like this (I could always change my prepared cleric spells, any long rest I needed):

  Cantrips (1 new one here)

  Guidance, Mending, Minor Illusion, Firebolt, Shocking Grasp, Ray of Frost, Mind Sliver (New!), Toll the Dead, and Produce Flame. Mind Sliver was a psychic attack that allowed me to intrude on another creature's mind, obviously. If it were a successful blow, it would also make it harder for them to succeed on the next save they needed. In regular terms, it just made it harder for them to resist spells and magic, getting knocked over or thrown around, or really any other effect, like ever.

  1rst level spells: 4/4 spell slots

  Bless, Healing Word, Unseen Servant, Shield, Fog Cloud, Find Familiar, Heroism, Sanctuary, Chaos Bolt, Create or Destroy Water, Absorb Elements, Gift of Alacrity, Silvery Barbs, Magnify Gravity, Tasha's Caustic Brew, and Shield of Faith. Nothing new here, other than that I had previously put those spell scrolls I found into my spellbook. Not very powerful spells, but more options were almost always better.

  2nd level spells: 3/3 spell slots

  Heat Metal, Rope Trick, Locate Object (New!), Web (New!), and Rime's Binding Ice (New!). Locate object lets me search a rather surprising radius for objects with a certain quality nearby, as long as they aren't blocked by too much of any particular substance, such as a few inches of lead. Handy, as I could make the search criteria 'magic items' and never miss anything ever again. Web just let me shoot a rather large area into difficult terrain, and possibly restrain multiple foes at once. Crazy, crazy good crowd control. Rime's Binding Ice was similar, but didn't require concentration, and could actually do some damage.

  3rd level spells: 3/3 spell slots

  All of these were new now: Fireball, Phantom Steed, Hypnotic Pattern, Sleet Storm, Call Lightning, Elemental Weapon, and Glyph of Warding. Fireball is a big explosion, Call Lightning does what it says on the tin, i.e, conjuring a local thunderstorm to blast people with lightning repeatedly, Sleet Storm makes an area obscured for a few, difficult terrain, and slip and fall, Phantom Steed gives me a ghost horse to ride on for a while, Hypnotic Pattern lets me, well, hypnotize a huge area of enemies to do nothing for a while, Elemental Weapon temporarily enchants a weapon with elemental damage of my choice, and Glyph of Warding lets me store spells in glyphs for later use at the cost of some pricey materials.

  4th level spells: 1/1 spell slots

  All of these are also new- Conjure Minor Elementals (think of the mephits we had fought previously), Divination (speak with a god or higher being and ask it an open ended question), Otiluke's Resilient Sphere (Either trap an enemy in a big unbreakable bubble, or do myself- functions like a hamster ball), and Fabricate (lets me essentially rearrange matter into other things.)

  I now had dramatically more spell slots, as well as far more magical options for spells. The shenanigans I could get up to with these spells were a bit ridiculous, but I had a feeling I still wasn't out of the weeds. A lot of these would take time, money, and a safe place to do it all. While this dungeon was great in terms of safety after we had cleared it, it wasn't good for getting the resources and items needed to actually start doing more fun things with all of this.

  I looked at the rest of my sheet. My proficiency bonus had gone up to +3, so now my skills, spell save DC, and spell attack bonus were better, as well as just my regular physical attacks. I highly doubted I would be using my normal attacks anytime soon, but my paranoia for an anti-magic enemy or area was still creeping in the back of my mind.

  Other than my cantrip damage going up, and some anticipated stat changes due to our equipment, my sheet hadn't changed too much. It looked like Chagrin, or I suppose my body now, had begun to lose weight. Stress, walking miles and miles, had started to slim him down some. Yes, my physique was still unreasonably skinny, and still had an awkward amount of tub around my midsection, but it was improving. Still made my third leg look all the weirder, but I didn't question it. I tried to keep that thing off my mind as much as possible.

  It was nice to see numbers go up. Now I knew I couldn't be instantly killed by just any random street thug or evil goblin. It was relieving. I could feel my whole body relax a little. Into what, I had no idea, but even in this terrifying Void, I still felt calm, knowing my capabilities had improved.

  Had I nearly died to get to this level, and multiple times at that? Oh yes, 100%. Was I still going to die a gruesome death at the hands of an enemy I am completely unprepared for? Absolutely. Would I embrace it? No. Did I want to accept defeat? No. I still had so much to do, so much to see, so much to try, and so much to learn. I needed to figure out what this void was. I needed to see if there was a level cap. I needed to see how strong I could become, learn the ins and outs of this world. I had barely spent any time on Earth, in hindsight. I had my whole life ahead of me, and yet out of nowhere it had vanished. Did other people, who moved into the body of a character in this realm, exist? Or was I alone? Had I traded places with Chagrin's soul? If so, what was he doing with my body back home? Could I even call it home anymore, after what I had seen? After what I had been through? I'd had three near-death experiences in the last week or so. I woke up in the wilderness, struggling to get food.

  I sat in The Void, on whatever became of the ground. I kept looking over my sheet. How much could I fiddle with this? How much of it could I edit? I continued messing around with it, playing with buttons, back and forth, seeing how quickly I could flip between the pages, to bring my mind away from the questions I didn't want to confront. Even with Bucket and the scarce number of people I had talked to in this realm, I still felt incredibly alone. Were these people real? They seemed real. They bled, they made expressions, they mimicked what I understood people to be. Yet they had powers, or combat abilities, or magic, or unreal amounts of intellect or strength. For fuck's sake I had just watched a goblin girl with a literal laser canon blast the bug-head off a bona-fide devil while I was strangling it to death with a rope.

  This world was insane. This Void was insane. How could I ever go back? How could I ever think I could recover from this, if I ever made it back?