Commune check… Successful

Rachel's hands were covered in blood. She tried packing the wound, but Pendleton was in tatters. The last miniboss, a Gigantulla, had gotten him in the stomach with three projectile hair spears. The damage from each hit was modest, but each hair was barbed and coated in a poison. The poison caused hypersensitivity in the skin. Pendleton couldn't help himself. He pulled them out. That had been a mistake, the barbs caught as he ripped them out. He took a pound of flesh with each spear, and did something terrible to his insides as well.

"I'm cold," Pendleton said.

"Keep talking, Pendleton. Where are you cold?" Rachel asked. She glanced over her shoulder. Doc was still four folks away. She knew the triage documents and the protocol. Pendleton was last in line because he almost certainly was going to die. There was an argument that she should mercy kill him, but that would be bad for morale. She was already down four soldiers. Based on the look in Doc's eyes she was going to lose another. Killing Pendleton would make it six and then the squad would be wondering when she would make it seven.

"Mostly in the arms," Pendleton answered. He coughed, and that did terrible things to his stomach, but also caused him to hack up an upsetting amount of blood.

This whole thing had gone pear-shaped. The dungeon run could be over. Beating the final boss might not actually be in the cards. If she was honest what she was really afraid of was how many more of her soldiers would have to die to clear the dungeon. Stories talked about lone survivors all the time. She was Heroic Scale now, it could happen to her.

Rachel sighed. She would do almost anything for the mission. For her people she would do whatever it took. Even if it was going to cost her personally.

She closed her eyes and prayed.

I blinked. All of the information hit me instantly. People were still discussing Debbie's role in death.

Expend Free Action? Yes/No

Note: You must select the total number of seconds spent before activating.

I selected 5 seconds and mentally punched the button. Time stopped as the world grew impossibly still.

Commune Check… Successful

You are now communicating with Follower Rachel Blum

Doug: How can I help?

Rachel: Aw Shit. I was really hoping you could tell me. Doug: What do you mean Rachel: You're the god in this situation. Be wise and make a miracle

Doug: Let's take this one step at a time. What's going on. Rachel: I showed you what was happening at the start. Doug: beyond shit is fucked. Tell me what is going on.

Rachel: Everyone is poisoned again. We are out of antitoxin. Pendleton, Barns, Popovich, and Jones are basically torn in half and bleeding out. Doc is doing what he can, but it is a race against time, and he is losing. So, shit is fucked.

Doug: Let me think.

I closed the connection. The short answer was to use that Blessing of Relief ability I just unlocked. That was convenient timing. The Narrators were meddling again. This had Wilson's fingerprints all over it.

There was no point refusing to use the tools available. I wasn't going to just let people die.

I sighed.

Please select an action…

Go figure, I wasn't going to have time to figure out how this was going to swing back around and stab me in the back.

Please Select Followers to Bless…

The system was intuitive and accommodating. It was as simple as thinking about the Chimera Corp for the list of their names and the conditions they were afflicted with. The Poisoned condition they had was Epic Scale. A bunch of them had the Terrible Suffering Condition. That was Rare Scale. Then there were the people with the Bleed condition. That was only Uncommon Scale.

All said and done it was a matter for 317 points of MP to clear all those conditions. I could pay that.

Commune Check… Successful

You are now communicating with Follower Rachel Blum

Doug: Alright I got it. Rachel: Don't do that. It is like reality glitched. Time caught on something.

Doug: Sorry.

Rachel: Make it up to me by telling me what the plan is. What are you going to do Doug: I already did it. I removed the Poisoned condition, The Terrible Suffering condition, and The Bleed condition for you guys.

Rachel: Just like that? Doug: Yeah.

Rachel:... Why are you helping me?

Doug: You asked for help.

Rachel: I know. I remember Five seconds ago dumbass. But why are you helping us? Doug: Because I can. If I showed up on your door step begging for help, wouldn't you do the same?

Rachel: I wasn't begging, and probably not.

Doug: Let's try this, would you hesitate to do the same for any citizen of the Technacoast?

Rachel: Not for a second. Doug: Then we aren't that different.

Rachel: What? Doug: I just see people as the same regardless of whether they live in the Technacoast or not. Rachel: We are not the same as the greedy, decadent, deviants of the Fantasy

Coast. There is no way we could live together. Doug: Then how do you explain the Mandir? Everyone was living together alright.

Rachel: That place is special. One of the Big Six Gods holds it together. Otherwise it is just natural for us to fight each other.

Doug: Because Authority and Zach say so? Isn't it weird that they agree everyone under there control should be killing each other?

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Rachel: … Let's just drop this.

Doug: Okay. Are you able to get out of the dungeon?

Rachel: Not unless we beat the boss. We have to try. I am certain we can do it, but it may cost almost everyone's lives.

Doug: Why doing this?

Rachel: I'll tell you, mostly because it isn't that big of a secret. We need the Mcguffin. My orders are to get it and bring it back … and Doug? Doug: Yeah.

Rachel: Thank you.

Rachel… thanked me. Shit must be fucked.

There really wasn't all that much I could do, and that felt intentional. I was fairly certain this was meant to knock me off my game as I did the final preparations for going to war. This was a crucial time and things were delicate. A missed detail or simple mistake could have lethal consequences. There was no room for anything but the highest levels of focus.

"Level!" another Goblin cheered. This was met with the crowd cheering back "Level!"

After a moment during a lull in the noise someone shouted, "Next!"

The highest levels of focus… from me, and the leadership team.

That said there was something I did need to do.

Commune Check… Successful

You are now communicating with Follower Seth Cohen

Doug: Hey, Seth can you talk

Seth: yes… well can you give me a minute?

Doug: What is happening?

Seth: I am in the middle of Duel. One of Madigan's Pupils challenged Janie for the right to be one of the three leaders…

Seth:... anyways. Technically she does have a right to apply for the role, but that meant I had the right to challenge her for it. We are both from the Technicoast.

Doug: Should I close the chat? Seth: That is far too casual of a way to describe it.

Doug: Should I break the connection?

Seth: that sounds better, and please don't. I have them trapped in ice right now. They are shouting profanities and kicking ineffectually.

Doug: Did you do the thing with turning Ice into water?

Seth and then freezing. Yeah it is so profoundly effective. I have used the tactics to kill many mobs.

Doug: Are they attacking you?

Seth: Yes, but now things feel similar to how things were, before Grond started his plans to build an army. Except for the Bigfeet, we have not seen any in quite some time.

Doug: I think I picked a fight with Humbaba.

Seth: You do have a knack of pissing off powerful assholes

Doug: How do I permanently kill him. When he died I got a prompt about failing to clear the dungeon.

Seth: His Dungeon is an open Dungeon. You need to fight through the roving mobs to get into the central area. Then kill the mob that are forced to stay. This will summon more mobs, and if you can keep killing them eventually the Dungeons final boss.

Doug: So, trying to live and let live will just give him infinite attempts to kill people.

Seth: Yes. Why did you reach out to me?

Doug: Rachel reached out to me. Her people were poisoned. I was able to fix it for her, 'god powers'. Her team is almost certainly going to clear the dungeon, but a lot of people are going to die to get it done. She is completely aware of that now.

Seth didn't respond for such a long time, I worried he had closed the chat on his end - I mean broken the connection. Eventually he responded.

Seth: Thank you for telling me. Is there anything I can do?

Doug: If they don't try to push through today, they are going to make the final run tomorrow. So, I am sorry, but no

Seth was right. It was wrong to call this a chat. That was mostly how I perceived it. I strongly suspected that was because that is how I wanted it to work in general. Rachel was able to share her memories in full sensory detail, and I knew I could do the same. I strongly suspected I could pull memories from followers with the skill if I wanted. I wasn't going to do something like that without explicit consent if ever.

The thing is though even with the divide I established I could feel Seth's well everything. He had the anxiety of a parent. That acidic burning unease that seems to sit in your stomach while pulling your insides back. It makes it hard to breathe and impossible to stand still. It never really stops. Mostly it waxes and wanes. Sometimes you can almost forget it is there. This was not one of those times.

He was also struggling under the weight of grief. In that moment it was like a leaden stone around his neck. The crushing weight of it made it hard to stand. It caused muscles to tighten and strain. Nerves pinched and everything felt like it could snap at any moment.

That last bit was the acute stab of guilt. It was a sharp pinpoint of agony right in the heart. Every beat caused a shock of agony. I knew that one well.

Seth: This is all my fault. This world killed Samatha, and it nearly killed me so many times. I just wanted to prepare her for that. I did wrong. I did it so wrong. What am I even doing? I should be with her. I am just hiding here while she is in a dungeon. All those years lost and I am wasting my life on bullshit politics

This wasn't a good track for his mind to focus on. Especially if he was still in a duel.

Expend Free Action? Yes/No

Note: You must select the total number of seconds spent before activating.

I selected 1 second before mentally pushing the button. Time stopped.

Doug: Seth, please try to hear me. Rachel has been lied to. She would have killed you. That won't help her now.

Seth: Then what should I do!

Doug: Time is stopped. Take the moment. Take a breath. Keep breathing. Understand the situation. Really think. Look at it from all angle, even the ones you don't want to. After that, when you are ready, act. Move with purpose and intent.

That's what worked for me, at least when I managed to actually do it.

Please select an action…

God, I hate that specific prompt. If that prompt had a face, I would punch it in the dick.

Seth: … I can't actually breathe while time is stopped. It is actually quite upsetting.

Doug: Ah, Shit.

The one good thing about emotional instability is it can turn, and people do want an outlet. I felt the laughter from Seth. It was fragile and a little desperate, but it was genuine.

I think we were out of the spiral.

Most of us guys aren't that great at processing emotions. We are taught, often violently, to simply suffer in silence. The lie we are told is our feelings are inconsequential. That is a statement on both the intensity of our emotions as well as a comment on their perceived value. At least in the world-that-was that meant most guys simply tried to power through everything. It never worked, but talking about it was complaining, and no one likes a whiner.

I was better off than Seth. He had grown up in a dystopian police state, and been subjected to the nightmare that is war. I -the titan- was raised in a peaceful time, in a place that was a bit of a mixed bag. The other important thing is I -the titan- had actually gone to therapy. After Marnie passed Kate wasn't doing well. The Titan wanted her to talk to a professional. She didn't want to go. Eventually to prove that she should, the Titan signed up to talk to someone as well.

I got some value from it. One of the first insights was I -the Titan- would do things for Kate that we would never do for ourselves. Not a great situation.

The thing is all we can do is struggle on and try and do better. I mean it's not like I am great with this. My ability to articulate feelings was through the metaphor of external injuries. Seth and I spent a bit more time just talking about Cosmic Martial Arts. He hadn't progressed again despite Craft reaching Expert level. He had also broken a lot of stuff, but had not unlocked the Destruction skill.

Time had long since started up again. Seth's opponent was completely trapped in the ice but petulantly refused to surrender. That was going to take awhile.

I was snapped out of the chat -I am just going to call it a chat- by Angelica poking me, "Doug, Philp is here. He says Toad told him to get a pact from you."

I blinked the prompts away, and looked at Philip and Spine.

Philip grinned sheepishly, "I didn't want to poke you."

Spine nodded, "I tried and he stopped me."

"And Angelica stepped in," I observed.

"And I'll do it again," she added.

Ignoring the obvious teasing I focused on making another pact for Philip.

Philip accepted it, and then about two minutes later after he had sent out all his pacts and so on I received a prompt

Pact system over burdened.

You now have the Manableed Condition

Note 1: Condition is suppressed while Mystic Well has MP.

Note 2: You will lose 1 MP per second.

I shouldn't be surprised. I am a little mad at myself for not seeing something like this coming.

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