In New Timpani, or now known as the Empire Tundra, four dark seeds have started to burrow down. Those four glowing objects weren't seeds, but hearts with a dark shattered color to show their step into the darkness. Four three-dimensional, gender-ambiguous shadows then emerged out from the ground, they looked around themselves and their new forms. They looked around to where they were and saw a bunch of snowmen and women that looked like they were made out of black snow walk around in suits, occasionally waving at the four. As they waved back, something caught each of their interest: A library, a florist stand, a record shop, and a tech store. They all went in different directions now toward their newfound interest.

The shadow opened the library's doors and looked around, the librarian who was a shadow ice maiden looked through her half rimmed glasses at it, "Ah, welcome to the Tundra's Public Library & Records. Since you look new, having an ambiguous form and you're one of the only people who come here, why don't you get a library card?" she said, she got out a form that was just to sign for the card, "Since you shadows don't really have a name yet, I'll just have you sign it and I'll put the name on it when you get one." the librarian explained,

The shadow didn't really know what to do, a signature was kind of the same as a name, it looked around on itself for something it can sign and saw its chest, it looked like a regal broken heart, so it drew the same heart on the form, "Alright, I'll get your card ready. For starters, here are some books for you to read so you can get your form started." the librarian said getting a stack of books out, the shadow simply scratched its head in confusion, "Oh, I guess you were recently made. I'll explain everything: When someone dies and their soul lingers, they turn into mementos and when they're revived by either fairy dust, electricity, and sometimes a new vessel, they become hearts and float around Talus, but they can be plunged into darkness when influenced by a great amount of energy! Some souls can be dipped into it gaining its powers but those plunged will become shadows and though they have more powerful magic, they are usually 'naked' which means they must form their own identity usually with books or outside forces. Now I'm sure that's enough exposition, I'll bring these books over there and you just get reading if you want to." she said, she carried the books over to a table and the shadow followed.

The shadow then got right to reading, he first opened up a book of species and races named, Monstrum and Fauna of Talus.  He flipped through the pages of numerous monsters, notable ones being a wolf-like monster, humans that are able to transform into birds, and naturally mechanical androids. But the shadow was uninterested in these, but he stopped at the reptilian ones, he read a page on one of them: Nagas: This human/monster are able to move through sand and the half of their warm blood and the other cold blood which lets them live in deserts, their snake-like tails replace their legs in order to help them traverse deserts.

As the shadow read more on that page, his form started to turn more human-like and forming a tail on the lower torso. But then he lost interest since he actually liked walking and it said their venom is poisonous to them, he flipped another page and read that one:

Prehistoric Nagas: This ancient ancestor of the modern Naga is an example of how great evolutionary adaptability can go. This prehistoric snake also has the combinations of notable traits of snakes. When their natural environment was a lush yet also sandy area, they gained human and snake-like traits together along with a new type of blood. Their green blood is able to have them adapt to warm days and cool nights and vice versa. Their snake-like features allow their scaly limbs to stretch up to at least five kilometers and can have a massive grip on things with their scaled giant hands that can change in size.

The shadow was now more interested in this feature and even looked at the pictures of them, progressively, his head started to form a sharp cobra's hood that connected down to his spine and his profile started becoming more upturned like a snake's snoot (specifically a hognose snout), his arms became bigger at the forearm along with them being more pointed. He then thought that was enough reading on monsters and he closed the book and pushed it away on the other side of the table. The snakey shadow was soon getting stiff and he stretched out its arms and it stretched all the way to the ceiling unbeknownst to him. He got back up and went to read a book about classes and jobs.

The other shadow opened the door to the record shop and it ringed a bell which alerted a shadow snowman to its presence, "Oh hey there, welcome to Cool Cacophonies. I see you're willing to hear some tunes so I can give you on to try out." The shopkeeper said, he got out a player along with some dusty vinyl records the size of CDs, "Just play away and I'm sure you'll find one that'll move your groove."

The shadow went through the records and saw one that peaked its interest, a blue record with a horned skull wearing a pair of shuttered shades and an afro on the cover. It placed the record on the player and put on the headphones on where the ears should be. The shadow started hearing some of the record's funky drums and bass and fast-paced metal guitar riffs and their intense loud lyrics. It then started to bob its head and then made a mouth on its non-existent face that started to open up a white smile of enjoyment, the smile's whiteness started to "leak" out across the face and soon made some kind of markings that looked like a black metalhead's face paint. The face now started to form two big white spots that became the eyes and then they widened in joy, the shadow was now banging its head to the song's beat with its white curled-ended hair whipping around, it then struck a very... striking pose at the end of it. "Heh, I knew you liked it," The shopkeeper said, "I hope you want to listen to more of that genre." he then brought out a whole crate of black metal and funk records. The shadow took off the headphones smiling with anticipation of the next ones, it looked like he already had headphones attached to his "ears" already.

The third shadow walked inside the flower shop, a tiny jingle played which surprised it a little and it walked away. It opened the door cautiously and it saw the bell on the top, relieved now, he went inside and looked around the spectacular plants. "Welcome, this fine place is called Botanical Botany. Just tell if me anything catches your interest." a shadow ice maiden said behind a flower pot, the shadow started to walk around. He looked around and saw a big blue and frozen, openly spread flower planted in a pot, he was intrigued by that instead of the giant jagged trees or fantastic plants, "Ah, I see you like the Icicle Fairy Trap, or shortly, a Fey Crocus, yes it doesn't look like a regular crocus but that's because it's from the Forest of the Fey. Here's a book if you want to read more about it." The owner pushed a fantasy-looking book down the table and the shadow started turning the pages. The shadow got to the fairy section and read it:

Contrary to the popular belief, fairies are actually quite harmless unless provoked. They are in touch with nature the most and have several types of-

Yawn! This chapter was getting kind of boring, the shadow flipped through some more and more and more and it was nothing but boring dreck about forest sprites, tree people, and whatever a Slimeinoid was. The shadow rudely threw away the book and went back to staring at the Icy Forest Trap or whatever the florist said, the shadow wasn't sure if she even was an actual botanist. The shadow started to become lost in the flower's aura or whatever it was that was sensed to attract it over to it. Shortly, the head of the shadow started to grow some kind of bump and soon after that, a giant icy blue and purple flower burst out of the bump which was revealed to be a flower bud. The flower on the head was the same as the Fey Croacus but way bigger that covered everywhere on the head and had just the right amount of space for the face. The shadow decided to leave the store silently, not really affected by what just happened but just to get away from that weird florist.

The last shadow went inside and it turned out it wasn't a technology store, but an abandoned one. It went around and looked at the broken computers and pulled out wires connecting them, it seemed to be interested in them but it then saw an actual working computer. The shadow went toward it and tapped on the old monitor a little and the computer started up and it showed a video of moments of football players being tackled and spectacular plays, there was obviously no general idea what this video was supposed to be but the shadow was getting really engaged with it and was quietly cheering them on. The shadow's eye sockets started to open up showing two dark glowing eye holes and then started forming robotic armor around its body in the form of a robotic soldier but if it was a football player, a visor covered the eye holes and it just showed a digital grid for it. As the football robot enjoyed more of it now sitting on a stool and holding some dispensed snacks from its body, a group of young teens came in looking pretty heroically but silly enough that you couldn't stop to laugh and point at them at how silly they look along with their stupidly glamorous weapons that you would know looked like they came out of a cereal box. The football robot paid no attention to it as it just somehow kept on eating its snacks. The wimpy and of course laughably weak kids then started to charge at a robot they just assumed to be evil because it had a dark color scheme.

The snakey shadow just left the library with his new library card, it was entitled to the owner of Mojave "Moe" Cobra with its owner already being held by him. Moe was walking down the streets in some new hand-me-down clothes, it was the librarian's old beach outfit before she became a shadow ice maiden, since she had no use of it anymore she gave it to Moe. Thankfully, the outfit wasn't a bikini but an orange crop top (on account that this was a woman's outfit) with a turquoise flower jacket tied at the hip, a pair of beach pants (which he pulled up to hide his midriff) along with a set of snorkeling goggles without the mouthpiece just for eye protection since Moe was taking the fields of science as his class. He was drinking a concoction out of a flask with the shape of a beaker and an Erlenmeyer which tasted of fruit punch. He was thinking of doing hot chocolate next even though he wasn't cold until he saw some familiar figures. A person with white curled-ended hair that was just walking out of a record store that looked like a metalhead, coming from their face paint, he then started to put a compact vinyl record (or CVR) into his ear which was actually a record player and headphone mix. Moe, though he never saw someone like that but the totally dark figure had helped him find out, "Hey, Shade! Nice spikes." Moe said pointing his fingers at the spiked wristbands,

"Oh, hey Shady, I didn't expect you to be so 'snakey', did you find an identity yet?" the shadow man replied with,

"Yep, I'm now called Mojave Cobra, or Moe for short. I'm a scientist now... wait, you don't look like you have a class yet." Moe pointed out, to be real, Shady was just a regular metalhead,

"Oh, I guess that's true. Oh! Also, I got an identity too, my name is now Record Scratch or Rex. Now, do you know anywhere I can find a class?"

"That's easy, I have a book on every basic class here. You just find the class you like and just build on that for your love for music or very resilient vocal cords. But hey, what can happen I'm a scientist and a snake-man!"

Rex went through the pages but soon a page caught his interest, Wraith:

A Mage class is a class that uses hand movements and different fields of magic and with the effectiveness of your voice-

Before Rex finished reading, he was already turned into a Mage, he now had a wizard's hat on him and a silver staff with a treble clef on the top. Shortly, the flower shadow saw the two and greeted them, "Oh hey guys, you already found an identity? What am I saying, of course, you did! Can I use this book for a second?" he said in a very quick manner,

"Alright Nightshade, here you go," Moe said handing the book of classes to him, "Anyway, what's your name you chose?"

"Oh, it's Crocus or Crow, which ever sounds better for you."

Shortly, Crocus became another magic class: a Flower, specifically the powers of a flower that he

However, as the trio talked more and more until meeting with the football robot (Who named himself, Colt and just Colt), there was still a shadow without an identity. And no ordinary who looked like a girl, shadows never had any gender-dependent traits except for this one, she watched in the four shadows' shadows until they left and she was all by herself, on the walls with the other shadows, sad and tired. As she curled up in a ball, a bright flash of light appeared, she looked up and saw there was a giant portal and out shot a jack in the box with four puppets popping out and soon a hand came out from the portal. Frightened out of her mind, the shadow ran away in the shadows until she stopped near a castle's steps. She collapsed and she was completely tired, "My my my, what's wrong, sweetie?" a queenly voiced said, the shadow technically looked up in a 2D angle and saw a tall black and icy woman with hair that looked like it was always n the cold wind, "Do you need some help getting out of there?" she continued sympathetically, "Why don't you come with me? I'm Brainbox, I'll help you out of there." Brainbox put her hand over the girl's shadowy head and pinched the air, she pulled it back and the girl was now in the third dimension, "Now why don't we go back home, I think there's something familiar about you." Brainbox then brought the walking shadow back to her- no, their frozen palace.