But for a Slime

Chapter One Hundred Six

“And he would likely… really be upset to have lost those pleasure slaves, yes?”

Gwenvaire’s grin grew then soured, “It would… yes, he would truly be upset by the loss but he would likely… he will not take it lightly.”

Joe’s grin turned ferocious, “I do not want him to take it lightly. I…”

Joe’s anger immediately cooled and he grew concerned, “I… Gwenvaire… I’m… going to be attacking your clan.”

Gwenvaire’s smile cooled and grew bitter, “I know. But… my brother has abandoned … betrayed his family and chosen to make you his enemy. I… if… just… one thing.”

Joe smiled, “What?”

“Please do not destroy my clan.”

Joe laughed at that, then grew relieved, “Your clan … some of them, have been rude to me, but being rude isn’t evil. Not fun, or polite, but not evil either. As for your brother, he… he’s the one who will be the target of my anger.”

“I… understand, Joe,” Gwenvaire grew somber at that, and a bit sad.

Joe frowned at that and he sighed, “Do you want me to leave him alone?”

Gwenvaire’s eyes flickered, confusion warred with fear, “I… no. He cannot escape his fate.”

“His… fate?”

Gwenvaire stared at him for a moment before turning away and hiding the coming tears, “I understand he’s forfeit his life, but I … he’s still my brother.”

“Forfeit his life? You think I would kill him?”

Gwenvaire looked back up, confusion greater now, although her previous fears still left a few tears in her eyes, “Of course. He has insulted you.”

Joe sighed and shook his head, “He has done… quite a bit, and I will hurt him immensely, where it hurts. But hmm… you may be right. Some of what he has done has been worthy of… yeah… I don’t know… but to be honest. I never planned on killing him. He might fear death, but there is something much worse for him. He will live. I don’t know that he will be happy that he lives.”

Gwenvaire looked at Joe and wasn’t quite sure how to take his statement. She was relieved that her brother would live, but found herself quite a bit terrified at what Joe would see was a greater punishment than death.

“Then, what do you plan?”

Joe smiled, “Hmm… nothing too terrible for most, but to him, it will be terrible.”

Gwenvaire watched on and sighed before turning away. Her worry growing. Joe caught it easily and pulled her into a hug.

“Don’t worry. I won’t maim him or kill him. He will escape unscathed, but he’s not going to live well after.”

Gwenvaire felt her relief return and Joe smiled seeing it, hugging her once more before releasing her. The two fell silent in companionable silence until Joe finally sighed and shifted.

“So, we should probably head out and get to those slaves faster than he does.”

Gwenvaire smiled at that, sighing softly, “You are probably correct.”

“So, is it far?”

“No. Shall we?”

Joe smiled and nodded, but didn’t offer any other response. Gwenvaire quickly stood and Joe rose to his feet as well now that she no longer occupied his lap. As they both prepared themselves, Joe looked over and saw Stephliquen then smiled and beckoned her over with a wave. Gotta remember that people crippled with lower intelligence can respond immediately to visual cues. Stephliquen nodded and came over. Joe then pantomimed leaving the room, pointing to Gwenvaire and himself before pointing out of the room. He then pointed to Stephliquen then pantomimed whether she would stay or come. She took a bit to understand before she nodded then pointed out the door. Joe nodded, beckoning her onward.

All three headed out of the inn where Gwenvaire took the lead and quickly had them at the local slave merchant who’d purchased the other two girls that had arrived with Gwenvaire.

Joe paused then and considered, “Then… I don’t want the … him to find out. How would be the best way to do this?”

Gwenvaire thought for a moment, “You are correct. We need to be unknown after we purchase them.”

Joe nodded, “I’m known pretty well. Should I enter with a cloak?”

Gwenvaire shook her head, “I think I should be the one to accomplish this.”

“But… you are likely more known than I?”

“Stephliquen cannot speak to accomplish this. You and I are known, but everyone believes I am no longer here.”

Joe frowned, “But… I don’t …”

“Joe. Thank you for your concern, but I do not believe you would be able to … handle this well.”

Joe grinned sardonically then shook his head, “In this, at least you seem to know me.”

Gwenvaire chuckled and shook her head, “Allow me. In my cloak, I will be relatively unknown and completely unexpected.”

Joe sighed, “I will wait here then.”

Gwenvaire paused, “Maybe around the corner, but keep an eye?”

Joe nodded and turned to leave but Gwenvaire caught his sleeve, “I will need funds.”

“Oh. Right,” Joe nodded and pulled out some cores and broke or shattered them before he handed them to her after dropping them into a second empty pouch, “That should be enough, right?”

Gwenvaire smiled but didn’t say anything, nodding firmly before turning to the entrance of the slave merchant. Joe watched her go then grew nervous as she entered the door. He didn’t understand why he was nervous, but a slow building knot grew in his stomach as he grew concerned. His breathing grew deeper and slowly more ragged. When he began pacing, a hand fell on his shoulder and he jumped in surprise, turning to see Stephliquen standing beside him a look of concern on her face feathered by a bit of worry. Joe grinned ruefully and took a deep breath, nodding his head and saying thank you.

Stephliquen immediately responded, obviously ignoring his words and focusing on his gesture, nodding firmly and taking on a stoic firm cast to her face. Joe felt his eyebrow flinch at that, and a sudden feeling of déjà vu came over him. I’ve… what… why do I feel like … He calmed himself, shaking clear of his upset and putting the feeling of déjà vu aside. Can’t really ignore her… Politeness drove him and he turned to her.

“Right. We haven’t really met and don’t know each other… and our language is rather a mess. So… let’s see if we can work with that. Uh… can you show me your status? If that’s OK?”

Joe spoke more to calm himself than to really expecting any answer as he knew she could not respond. He pulled up his hand slowly, however, and pointed at it. Then said ‘status,’ causing his box to flicker up and appear before her.

She seemed surprised by this, and exclaimed in shock before leaning forward excitedly and poking at the screen. Huh… ok… so she knows about user interfaces… it seems. But… she really doesn’t understand anything about the system? Why would she be… oh! He blinked and stared at her, shifting Stephliquen several notches up in his list of priorities. He returned his focus back to her actions, studying her carefully.

His status did not react to her prodding so she retrieved her hand and stared at it. Joe decided to up it a bit and poked at his screen, changing it over. She exclaimed again, some odd words or phrase Joe could not parse, and tried fiddling with it again, finding it nonresponsive. She grew frustrated and simply grabbed his hand and began poking around the screen. Joe hid a smile, finding the whole situation humorous, if a bit intrusive, and allowed her to play with it a bit. Finally, he pulled his hand back and got her attention. He pointed at her, then at her eyes, then at him several times. She quickly nodded, seeming to understand and Joe then closed his status screen before pointing at his mouth, then at his arm where his status tended to form when he wanted to show others.

“Status,” Joe spoke slowly then pointing at his arm where the screen appeared.

He closed it again.

“Status,” and again, lifted to show the screen appearing.

He closed it one last time.

“Status,” and pointed again.

By the third time, she was already looked at his arm expectantly and then nodded.

Joe then didn’t say anything, pointing at his ear instead, then miming speaking, pointing at his mouth, then at her ear several times. She seemed to get it and Joe stepped back to wait as she settled in for the long several minute wait for her hearing to catch up. The long wait caused him to grow nervous again, but this time he was able to calmly wait. The wait ended up turning out quite a bit longer than expected because Stephliquen suddenly spoke.

“Sa’us,” she spoke, an odd accent and the lack of t’s made understanding her hard.

“Sa’us,” she tried again.

After a third time, she grew visibly frustrated and Joe considered a bit before raising a hand to her shoulder this time. He gripped it only to catch her attention and then had her focus, once again pointing to her ears and his mouth. She nodded this time, more serious and a bit piqued. Joe also was a bit irritated, although at himself as he’d spoken English. This time, he offered the word in Common.

“Status,” he spoke slowly, his status flickering on.

The Common word for Status was quite different, and she frowned to hear it, but Joe had no way to explain so simply ignored it, repeating it a couple of times. The benefit of the common form was that it had no t’s in it, since she seemed to struggle with that. It also had the benefit of being native to this land, so hopefully even if she didn’t understand what she was doing, he hoped the correct word in the local language might prove enough to trigger her status. If it needs intent as well… understanding… she’s… screwed! Not sure… Can I get her to say help? Or … hmm… how do I teach her to say status in her own language?

He stifled his sigh and repeated the word several more times then fell silent, waiting. This time, the wait was conclude quite a bit quicker as Gwenvaire exited with two women, one a rather short but quite beautiful human if he were to guess simply by looks, and another that was quite stunning in her beauty, if cold and aloof. There was an ephemeral look to her beauty that Joe found enticing, but was more interested by how odd it was. He couldn’t quite place it, but there was something … off… about her beauty. It accentuated it, made her more beautiful, but was alien in a way that felt like it should leave a shiver of fear down his spine. Oddly enough, he felt no fear looking at her in spite of the fact that something about her made him certain he should fear. Some kind of… visual magic thing? Why am I so calm? Seems dumb to cause someone to fear then also make that fear not have any affect. Maybe the opposite? Make me think I should fear, then not fear, become complacent… something like that?

Joe stepped back around the corner, not wishing to remain in sight of the place and waited for the women to come join him. A few moments later, Gwenvaire walked around the corner and stepped up to his side, although she remained more distant and professional.

“Joe. This is Kalia and Xylarnae. Xylarnae? Kalia? This is Joe McConnell.”

* * *

Xylarnae came out of the slave merchant’s shop with shivering excitement. For so long she’d been bound to the slave life and even long before that, incredibly fearful. However, now she could feel Fate singing. She shivered, uncertain of what she would find, but her life held vibrancy for the first time in a very long time. She breathed deeply of the air and for the first time, fate twined through the air and deep into her lungs. She was so close to her fate and she finally felt free. Years had passed, trapping her within a nightmare where she’d been one of the lucky few to save herself, all four. And it was only due to how strongly fate twined around her.

Gwenvaire led her to Gwenvair’s husband, as Xylarnae had hoped, and she came around the corner to see a base human, quite tall, standing before her. He was handsome, a rather moderate handsome for a base, and she felt a twinge of disappointment to see a base. He stood just over the height of the fae, about the only thing that was truly remarkable about him. She kept her disappointment hidden and smiled politely as Gwenvaire introduced them. He offered a polite bow in turn, which she found surprising as they were simple slaves, but it seemed he was a kind man. He would have to be for Fate to sing so strongly for her.

He offered his greetings then turned back to Gwenvaire and they quickly moved away, heading back towards their inn, it seemed. He did pull out two cloaks and asked both to wear them, fully covering their faces and forms. Huh… a cautious man. Seems… odd, given his strength.

Xylarnae dithered, cautious to delve Fate in his presence but seeing as how kind he was, she took the chance and hoped to lean on Gwenvaire’s and Kilniara’s friendship, if needed.

Fate swelled and her eyes opened and she stumbled, barely concealing her gasp as it erupted from her lungs. Kalia quickly caught her arm and asked after her, but Xylarnae ignored her, quickly scrambling up and after the man, her eyes glued to his fate and basking in its splendor. A silver glow permeated everything with gold radiating from the depths of his fate. And nothing else. She stared, awed, enraptured, jealous, and terrified. He’s… he’s untethered! I see… no chains!

She turned her eyes to Gwenvaire, then Kalia, the tethers obvious in their blunt strangulation. Her eyes turned to her own fate, then turned to the sky, staring into the heavens where the sun, stars, planes, and the cradle stood large. Untethered… how!? All… All are tethered… everything on this plane! But… he!

Her shock was immediately replaced by greed and an utmost desire to be absolutely, unbreakably, tied to this man who could break tethers. How?!

* * *

Kalia caught Xylarnae and quickly pulled her to her feet, “You OK? What’s wrong?”

Xylarnae ignored her and stared after the base with awe, rapidly sprinting after him without any concern for her demure image. Kalia stood frozen in shock for a moment before quickly, but very gracefully, gliding back up to her side. She stared at Xylarnae with some concern, then alarm, as she saw Xylarnae rapidly progress through a series of emotions that the fae found troublesome. When Xylarnae showed naked greed, she quickly looked at the base and grew quite concerned.

“Xylarnae! If he’s an eccentric! Control yourself! There is… little I could do, now!”

Xylarnae started after hearing Kalia’s abrupt harsh whisper, then grew immensely embarrassed, her face flushing a brilliant red before she quickly calmed to a soft blank smile. Kalia still felt her heart racing. What… what has she seen?

* * *

Joe turned with Gwenvaire, making sure to point to the low intelligence Stephliquen so that Gwenvaire could get her attention and have her follow after. Stephliquen nodded when Gwenvaire softly touched her hand and Stephliquen began following after easily enough, although her face was screwed up in concentration, obviously still waiting to hear the word that would allow her to open up her status sheet. Joe nodded to her and received a nod back before Joe turned to lead the way.

He’d made sure to offer cloaks to hide the two women from sight, their beauty enough to really draw attention but figured it would be enough to make it home. They made it to the inn and he held the door for them all, whispering to Gwenvaire as she passed.

“Lead them on up.”

Gwenvaire nodded and continued towards the stairs, stopping half way to beckon before continuing on. The others seemed more than inclined to follow, so Joe didn’t have to herd them as he came up after.

Luckily, the inn was empty as it usually was during the morning and afternoon, with a single occupant so drunk and asleep in the corner Joe thought little of it. They climbed the stairs in relative silence and then entered the room before everyone seemed to relax, cloaks coming off heads and bodies quickly for all. Joe went to his bed and sat, Gwenvaire settling in beside him quickly before he waved at the other beds and single chair, offering seats to the other three. Joe struggled to hide his humorous smile at the disdain the tall ephemeral woman showed. Huh… used to the finer things in life. He turned his attention back to the others and found Stephliquen still crunched up in avid concentration awaiting his words. Man… that … th… was it always this long? The intervening journey added to the weight of just how bad intelligence could affect people and how long the conversation could take. He turned to the last and found himself taken aback, her stare was avid, almost greedy, and he shuffled a bit in discomfort until Stephliquen suddenly blurted out a phrase.

“Satutus!”

Nothing happened and she grimaced in anger before trying again, “Status.”

Joe grinned to hear the word, easily understood and waited with baited breath but nothing happened and he frowned. She tried again with a slightly different pronunciation.

“Sutatu-us.”

Joe shook his head and walked to her, catching her attention. He shook his head and made a large X symbol with his hands. Likely absolutely useless because what meant yes or no could be absolutely different in any language, especially one separated by light years and millions or billions of years. He tried anyway, and she struggled.

He finally attempted to tell her to go back a syllabus again, and she did so, too far, but it was enough to get the ball rolling as he had her go to the next before smiling brightly and nodding and acting quite happily for her when she said it correctly. Despite the encouragement, and her repetition, nothing occurred, her status stubbornly dormant. Joe sighed and then stepped back.

“What can I do… not sure if I can do anything. Can’t really talk and no way to …” Joe sighed and groaned in despair at the realization that they’d likely have to go pretty deep into basic language development to even get to the point of discussing topics that could appropriately encompass the idea of ‘status.’ It was a long way from ‘I am Joe’ to ‘status is the representation of an individual, system, or object in numerical values against a baseline or percentage.’

If I could just show her mine and mayb… ooh!

Joe beckoned Stephliquen to him and he sat down beside Gwenvaire before waving to the bed across the small aisle between them. Stephliquen took the seat quickly enough and Joe slithered forward, holding out a hand. He then began slowly and deliberately.

“Status,” his word was carefully spoken but that wasn’t the point for this attempted session.

His status flipped up and then he began showing his screen to her, not speaking, but simply pointing at each item on his status list and pantomiming their meaning, hoping that in describing the meaning, she would be able to grasp what she was looking at and find the appropriate word in her own language.

He looked at his own status and frowned. OK. This… is going to be a bit more difficult than I thought. How do you explain HP, SP, or MP? That’s… He decided to skip them and move to his attack and defense, then magic attack and defense, finding himself struggling to find a way to pantomime magic. Heh… another person from Earth… sure… alien from light years upon light years away? Who just happens to look human… man… this is… Joe shook his head and let out a small huff of mocking laughter before he moved to his next attribute.

OK… strength… easy enough. He pointed to that listing on his status and began flexing, pointing to his muscles, then miming lifting heavy weights and doing hard work. She seemed to nod at this, although appeared a bit confused and Joe decided to be happy with her acceptance of what he could do so far. He then skipped dexterity and agility, not even being willing to try, and pointed to speed instead. Just need one or two to click… hopefully that should do it, right?

With speed, he mimed movement, using his fingers as a running man and contrasted fast and slow people while pointing at the stat. He quickly began coming to an end of low hanging fruit for easy mimes when the rest of the list left him stumped, unsure of how to mime endurance, intelligence, wisdom, will, learning, and luck. He frowned and looked back up at her, hoping something might stick, but she proved as lost as before and Joe sighed. Wish I could just… turn it to her language. That would make the most sense, but way too easy, right? Can’t have something so eas…

Joe found his eyebrows shooting up through his hairline when the characters and words of his status began wiggling madly and quickly changed shaped to a very odd and boxy alphabet of mostly oddly shaped squares with relatively empty space with a small set of dense dots in the upper left corner. QR codes? Those look like… QR codes… sheesh! Really empty ones, but… Joe’s surprise turned to consternation when he noticed that almost every letter there was some kind of box filled with dots in various positions and of various sizes and shapes. Despite his shock over such a uniform alphabet, Stephliquen exclaimed in shock then excitement as she leaned forward and took in the new display. Joe grinned to see a break through, then suddenly remembered that with this, his issues were solved. However, he thought carefully. Huh… so not a local… but definitely not from Earth… don’t recognize the language at all… but… maybe? Some small local language I’ve never seen before? But it seems so weird … never ever heard of a language with QR code like alphabet.

In any case, he quickly turned his display back to English. Stephliquen pulled back and cried out in disappointment and disapproval. Joe ignored that and quickly pointed to the upper right corner which had the word ‘status’ written to display the main status page. He pointed at it eagerly, drawing Stephliquen’s attention before turning it back to her language. She looked at it carefully, then back up at Joe with some confusion, and Joe quickly mimed speaking while pointing at the ‘status’ tab written in her language.

“Status. Status.”

That seemed to do it, her confusion evaporating before an excited understanding, realization dawning as she quickly spoke up, calling out status in her own language.

“Shezar,” her voice came with command and an experience with the word that resonated deeply, making it obvious she’d said the word often and regularly.

Joe smirked to have the realization, but laughed when she still jumped in surprise to see her status page show up. The smirk quickly turned to a groan of despair when he saw her stats of all single digits in the common blue background. Commoner… probably level one… or very low… only see a single digit… so.. hah! Now I know how the others feel… Joe grinned at the realization then sighed and had her push her current job tab and growled when he saw the same digits. No other jobs… This… is going to be hard!

He turned to Gwenvaire and she simply smiled at him with a small shrug, “They are all very weak…” her smile quickly turned to a bitter smile, “just like my brother likes them.”

Joe’s own happiness turned to bitterness with the realization and he sighed, “I will… try to help them…”

He turned from Gwenvaire to the other two, “I will try to help you as best as I can. Do not worry.”

He nodded firmly but with slow deliberation as he spoke and held both their gazes for a time after he finished speaking before turning back to Gwenvaire.

“I’m going to have to work hard to get them up to a decent level. It’ll take some time, but I’ll be able to do it. When I do, they’ll be able to rapidly grow after that.”

Gwenvaire nodded and Joe found himself settling, tension receding from him and exhaustion quickly settling in. He looked up at Gwenvaire and smiled ruefully, “I’m so sorry, but I’m exhausted. I really need to sleep!”

Gwenvaire looked at him in surprise before nodding, “Sleep. Sleep! You look exhausted!”

Joe smiled, “Yes… but more… just… really lost and really happy to have you here.”

Gwenvaire smiled at that, a small blush coming to her face and Joe stood, “I’ll head to the other room. You guys need all the beds. Good night.”

Gwenvaire giggled but replied as well, “Good night… in the middle of the afternoon.”

Joe smirked and looked back over his shoulder with a chuckle, “Good to have that snark back.”

Gwenvaire’s smile softened again and the two stared at one another until Joe slipped into the other room. He fell asleep on the bed as soon as he fell into it. Exhausted.

* * *

Stephliquen’s heart leapt with joy when she saw her alphabet on the strange alien human’s page then almost groaned as she struggled to read. The implant has failed! I cannot … She struggled to remember from her own memory some of the words displayed on the odd male’s page and when he pointed excitedly at the top left corner, it took an extraordinary effort to dredge up the symbol from meaning. Status! When it did come to her memory, she realized why it had looked so familiar; the word one she used instinctively on a daily basis to check the status of her own people and ship. It was likely the only reason she remembered it, her alphabet a dense and condensed form of reading that required SI implant assistance to parse some of the more difficult and lengthy forms. It was an advanced form of reading, given how the man’s language seemed to still be based on meat memorization. Makes sense, given the apparent technology here, but… to also have an embedded personal holographic display!

She sighed at the odd disparity, finding the differences so odd. Luckily, it seemed that most of her display kept to single words or short phrases, and not the dense paragraphs of meaning that a single square could contain. Maybe… I will need to learn a meat written language… this… is difficult!

She sighed, turning back to exploring her personal status. Her eyes narrowed as she carefully counted the dots on the grid used for her language, attempting to place them correctly and struggling over the next word on her status display. At least… it shouldn’t be a problem with speech… I might have to learn their language! She smiled softly in relief, grateful that the shift to dense speech hadn’t quite occurred for her planet, yet.

* * *

Zilnek shivered, his back hard up against a brick wall deep in the alleyways not quite into the poorer sections of the town. He was cold and exhausted, but could not afford to sleep at all, fearful of pickpockets and worse. After he’d fled the inn with a pouch full of Joe’s cores, he’d absorbed them all as rapidly as he could, exhilarating in gaining growth after growth, but grew despondent when he’d reached his thirtieth maybe… thirty first?... growth and all the cores fell into an empty void, bringing no more growth. He despaired, seeing only double digits but feared opening his status, the deep dark grey, almost black, of a criminal stared back at him. He shivered and wept. He had nowhere to go, no options, and no home. He could not return to his home again, as that would be the first place master… his previous master would look. He was a very intelligent man, and too powerful for Zilnek to ever defend himself from him. His head began to bob, exhaustion dragging him to sleep against his will. He quickly roused himself, fear spiking through him and rousing him for a time, a very short time before he returned to his cold and tears.

* * *

Joe rose with the sun and sighed, for the first time in over a month, he felt comforted, Kilniara lay in his arms and rested comfortably there. A status window called for his attention to the side, an odd one, but Joe quickly minimized it to enjoy the moment. Huh… a dream… but… He opened his eyes with joy and rolled his head to the side to gaze down on Kilniara then froze when her red feathery hair was replaced by a deep void black soft carpet of hair draped across his chest. His breath froze in his chest and he stared for a bit before realizing who was cuddled up against him.

Joe found himself conflicted. He was comfortable beyond what he could understand, a sense of home and rightness leaving him comfortable for the first time in a month. Despite the comfort, he felt a bit… distraught by the newness of the relationship and on top of that was the quickness with which his emotions seemed to have grown for Gwenvaire. It just… how’d I develop emotions so quickly… and… why … But…

Joe sighed deeply but softly and turned back to look at Gwenvaire again. He tried to pursue his thoughts on the issue but felt his heart soften and simply stared at her for a bit and then turned his head back to looking at the ceiling. It’s … good… this is good… It’s alright. Yeah… this solves the whole two wives thing. We’re all good now… but… Tears welled up in Joe’s eyes, his heart still quite irrevocably in pain over what had happened. So… choice is made… let it go… just… He breathed deeply and willed his heart to just let things go. That proved quite ineffective so he simply turned to his mind, firmly making the choice even if his heart seemed in fervent rejection. Suddenly, a soft wave traveled up his arm where Gwenair’s head rested against his arm and his heart softened, the worry in his mind evaporated with relief coming to him and Joe leapt for it, happy to have it. Maybe… not as bad as I thought… maybe… Gwenvaire snored softly at his side and he let her sleep, turning to what he usually did when Kilniara rested … Joe felt the subtle pain of the loss of Kilniara, but for some reason, Gwenvaire’s presence seemed to quickly shore up against the pain and Joe found the pain in his heart slowly healing. Joe leapt for that release from the pain and settled into his practice for the day, choosing escape.

OK… so… status first… He mentally brought back the message that popped up and found his eyebrows knitting in confusion. Before him was the typical message pop up he saw back when he was in one of the priest jobs for Saga and Mimir. It was then that he realized he’d never seen any messages in all the time he was pursuing the line of Loki jobs. So… they really suppressed the Loki line pretty hard, I guess?

He turned from his musing and saw a popup that was a bit unusual. Usually, the faith jobs had the picture of a person and their job reflected in a generic body figure in clothing representing their new job. This one was different. There were two people, both equally dressed in incredibly ornate robes, one of which was himself and the other was the old priest back at the village: Dunarl. Joe frowned to see the old priest in such ornate clothing then his eyes opened wide with some shock. Wait… Dunarl was a Loki priest? That… makes sense why he was stuck out there… maybe… then… why he’s not there any… oh… the magic… was it too big? Is that why… he left?

He looked over the image and smiled then shook his head. Seems both of us are now… what… popes? Is that… wasn’t the pope supposed to be the leader… then… Joe’s eye’s narrowed as he stared at popup once more and realized it looked a lot like a multiple choice, showing Joe and Dunarl side by side. Can I… choose? Then… Joe really didn’t want anything to do with the leadership of any temple and stared at the popup for a bit. Right… so… uh… let’s try it the easy way?

Whispering softly, he said, “I abdicate.”

His smile shone when the image with his face pasted on the pope body faded both in color and in brightness before being crossed out with a large red slash. Joe nodded and then tried again.

“I vote for Dunarl.”

A green odd shape almost like a square with an odd triangle inside it formed over Dunarl and Joe shrugged, glad to be done with it. He dismissed the popup and then turned back to his routine, finding peace and normalcy in it. He began working his mana, using both his personal mana and mana point mana as well as working on his mana points themselves. He had to expend all his system mana to get to his personal mana, as usual, but found the practice quite normal. Practice continued until Gwenvaire stirred, quite a bit later in the morning than Kilniara typically did, allowing him to practice for quite a bit longer. When she did stir, Joe stiffened and found himself in an odd double state. He felt home, and quite happy that she was there with him, but at the same time still feeling a distance that wasn’t normal for those found laying next to one another in bed.

Gwenvaire woke then started, pulling back from Joe before looking up slowly, her head turning towards him even as she held her breath. Her concern tickled Joe’s funny bone for some reason and a small smirk came to his lips as he watched her ever so cautiously glance up. When she did finally look up, her eyes shot open when she saw him looking at her and then she ducked down with an ‘eep’ and buried her head into Joe’s chest. Joe chuckled slightly and brought his hand up to caress her back and comfort her while she remained buried in his chest.

Joe stopped his laughter and simply held her until she calmed and waited. After a time, she looked back up at him again, but blushed deep red as she did so. Joe smiled and then took a deep breath.

“You OK?”

Gwenvaire nodded, still very embarrassed, “Yes, but just a bit… hmm…”

Joe’s smile fell a bit, “Yeah.”

Gwenvaire looked up at him and her smile grew, “But … very happy here.”

Joe felt his eyebrows jump a bit and his smile fell a bit more. Gwenvaire noticed and quickly grew serious.

“What’s wrong?”

Joe sighed and looked back down at her, “I’m just… very concerned. This is … way too fast.”

Gwenvaire nodded her head, “It is… not quite so. It is common for adventures, and the commoners to an extent, even more so among the nobility.”

Joe grinned, “Not really a commoner versus nobility thing for my people, but certainly not normal amongst my people. In the old days of my people, maybe, I believe there were many who chose and married within months. Not so for us today…well… I forgot about Las Vegas.”

“Las Vega?”

“Ah… oh… it’s a city on my plane that is … famous for impetuous people marrying much faster than is wise.”

Gwenvaire grinned in a bit of shock at that, “You have an entire city famous for it?”

Joe chuckled, “More… visitors to the city who do so than the people living in the city, but…”

Gwenvaire sighed, “Then… you would be amenable to taking some time?”

Joe sighed in relief and spoke back rather quickly, “Yes, please!”

Gwenvaire giggled at Joe’s comment, “Your relief is similar to my own.”

Joe smiled at that, “And that only comforts me.”

“So… get to know one another with some time.”

Joe’s smile was much more relieved, “That seems perfect. I don’t like how the circumstances seemed to have thrown us … into this situation.”

Gwenvaire grinned and turned away, “I’ll leave the room to you.”

Joe frowned then grinned with a snort before nodding, “Thank you.”

Gwenvaire smiled and then grew shy before suddenly darting forward to kiss him quickly and then fled the room as fast as she had stolen the kiss from him. He blinked in surprise and stared with some shock to see her gone. He grinned, chuckled. Well… time to start the day.

Right… I’m married. When… did I get married? This… Joe grit his teeth and dropped his head back with a groan. He grimaced, angry, feeling boxed in yet once again. And stood. He paced the room for a time as his thoughts wondered on his current predicament, but even as his thoughts gnawed at the situation, he felt a sense of calm wash over him and he relaxed into it, soon peaceful once again, the frustration and anger evaporating before some form of peace he couldn’t quite grasp but deeply desired.. Deep in his mind, an idea formed and floated into his conscience. Right… just… relax. Gotta figure this out… just need time. We can get this done.

Feeling relieved once more, he then flipped open his status and felt his peace shatter once more. He sat up then froze, staring in some shock. He’d leveled all his theorist jobs up above forty as well as a new special theorist that seemed to have unlocked after the other nine theorists called skill theorist. He also somehow unlocked the mage line and while he wasn’t certain where that came from, it seemed like it was related to either mana-ologist or mana manipulater. Spell caster proved a dead end, but he’d gotten that to fifty, his navigator to fifty, and unlocked and gotten two Loki priest jobs to fifty: Patriarch and Pope. No other Loki priest job had opened up. On top of that, he’d unlocked some fifty combat jobs as well. He stared at them in shock.

He went through the jobs carefully, and found himself rather shocked by the learning stats that skill theorist gave at five hundred per level and the pope job gave him six hundred per level. All incredibly welcome as it only allowed him to develop ever faster. The fifty combat jobs proved quite disappointing, however their stats were all heavily in the physical stats and resistances and Joe found them quite comforting. And shockingly, he was quite a bit above all base stats. He had no fear of ever changing a job again. Even without any job, he would stand head and shoulders above almost any strong fighter back on Earth. What that might mean here on this planet, he wasn’t sure, but he now seriously considered initiating his plan to change to local stats. That, however, he decided to wait upon, curious to look at what the rest of his status would show.

He quickly went to his available jobs page and stared with some pride at the insanity that was taking shape there. He grinned as he read over the list and began considering where he would like to go next. He spent time glancing curiously over the nobility line, checking out several of the new available jobs under the grouping line which appeared quite interesting, and then looking at the list of mage jobs made available.

He finally shifted over to the extensive combat listings and found himself quite proud of what he was seeing. He’d greatly expanded his combat capabilities, but then grew more and more concerned as his eyes traveled further down the list of jobs.

He began to see distinctly Earth based martial arts, and though they could possibly be the system’s attempt at translation, he became ever more confused and weirded out as he began to see combative arts specifically created on Earth, some only within the last hundred or two hundred years.

His heart rate sped up and he began questioning what he was seeing, doubting the system and simultaneously growing a bit paranoid. Is there a connection between here and Earth? Maybe… Earth isn’t as isolated as I thought? How do they have Earth martial arts? And… that might explain all the humans around? Kidnapped by aliens… maybe not quite so… crazy? Isn’t that… no… but then they would know writing… there is no WAY they couldn’t have heard of that… What is going on!?

Joe’s fear ratcheted straight up into paranoia as he stared at the list of combat jobs, almost all of them martial art… No! I’ve studied ALL of these… then… to some extent… or know them pretty well… Joe’s clenched his teeth and went through the list more carefully. After a bit, he grew calmer, seeing several combat jobs he hadn’t personally studied but knew of that might be from Earth: boxer and wrestler. He also had never studied Tai Chi very much, so grew a bit calmer with his concern. Still, he was not very comfortable and quickly sought out more information by rapidly turning to his available skills page.

He quickly flipped over to his skills and scanned down the list of jobs to the combat listings. His paranoia was blunted when he came to traditional combat jobs such as swordsman and spearman and he found himself slowing to glance over the skills with curiosity.

His curiosity quickly turned to depression at what he saw in the combat line of jobs. Things seemed so… meaningless and generic that Joe wondered what exactly it all meant. He studied the combat line of skills carefully for some time before giving up with frustration.

These represent various jobs the class is inheriting skills from:

R – &#^@(&#

M – Mercenary

B – #(%*&@_#

D – Duelist

S – Soldier

G – Gladiator

H – Horseman

W – Warrior

What’s with these combat skills… what use … inherit R.M.B.D.S.G.H.W? Help! What does that mean? A pop up appeared before him and Joe read it then frowned with some disappointment.

No.

Still… I guess that does make these classes much stronger… gives them a lot more skills, but … does that mean stats as well? Probably… well… Help, does inheriting include the stats of the job you are inheriting from?

Huh… ok… succinct, but then… Joe paused and returned to looking at the skills available. His gaze immediately went to the combat skills first, his curiosity, expertise, and efforts to achieve this goal priming him to seek it out. His gaze slipped down ever further through the list of jobs then grew confused, then deeply weirded out and worried. That’s… that’s… no…

Joe found details in each of his martial arts rather specific to the art as he learned it back on Earth. There was nothing absolutely definitive that proved it was from Earth, but staring at them made him quite leery, his thoughts seemingly echoed on page and placed to show a decent and precise definition, if very basic and beginner level, of each of the arts he’d studied.

This… just… this seems really weird. Why … An odd feeling of déjà vu, or possibly something like a glitch in reality seemed to itch at him as he stared at the listing of skills. It was an itch that had him glued to the status screen for some time before he finally sighed and dropped it. Whatever was pinging his paranoia, it was outside what he could consciously grasp so decided to return to looking at the skills he’d gained for the rest of the jobs. He went back to the very top and started down, satisfied with his study of the combat jobs.

This proved both a boon and a curse. As a boon, he was able to complete his study of the new skills he’d gained. It seemed his theorist jobs gave a bonus to skill growth when reaching level 45, which excited him, but he’d only gotten two jobs above forty five. The level forty double learning, while narrow, also excited him greatly. It would be relatively easy to simply pick the correct theorist to match his other three jobs he was leveling to get the most bang for the buck, rotating through groups of jobs within each set instead of spreading out and doing a single job in each.

Skill theorist also snapped him up, and brought a huge grin to his face. It seemed he’d gained another free ‘char:’ skill. He quickly queried help for information and grinned when it was basically another free ‘char:’ skill; useless on its own, but oh so powerful when combined with other options. What really had him salivating was when he noticed the level twenty skill theorist skill: level zero skill growth! Ooh ok… ok… calm down… system’s screwed me over before… but… this should really… Right… time to ask some questions!

Help. What does level zero skill growth do?

Skills can now gain levels even from level zero without the job equipped.

Joe sighed deeply then grinned with avid greedy triumph! Right… this… OK! We can do this… alright… four top priority skills now… and this one… and I can just grow any skill… So!

Right! OK! That… we’re good to go so… yeah… I have a new ‘char:’ now… And my other ‘char:’s So… hmm… got a good chunk of ‘char:’s now… so… ten new ‘char:’s… nice… uh… only two unlocked…hm… the bow and cudgel… so.. ooh…no.. one more free, the new free char from skill theorist! O… the others are specialist’s fifty percent boost to learning, believer’s… wow… believer has three: enhanced magic, enhanced magic defense, and enhanced wisdom. Gifted has two: growth skills unlocked and subjob percentage loss +1. Mage has two as well: staff and wand. Oh… the Loki Pope has one with shadow Resistance increased by… what? That’s nothing… point two percent… that’s… and the battler job has one with numb… so… ten… nice.

Joe turned to the rest of his skills, and found that with his educational line, only two significant jobs showed: skill theorist and mage. Skill theorist gave hints to the development of skills themselves, and that excited Joe quite a bit. Jobs or classes, themselves, seemed to simply be a measure of growth and a way to distribute stats. Skills seemed to be where the true power lay, although with the skills he was seeing and how poorly distributed or scattered they were, he wondered at their use.

The baker, for example, only got a skill to work with grains and flour by level ten. If fifty was the max level, that only allowed for ten skills. Only ten skills for a baker? Either this planet had the poorest bakers in existence, or there was very little variety in baked goods. Joe wasn’t sure which would depress him more!

The biggest skill that jumped out to him was the ability to now grow his skills from zero without having to equip the job. That, of course, required him to have that job equipped or a ‘char:’ skill assigned to it. His mind quickly went back to considering ‘char:’ skills and how he would implement them, considering plans before he cut his thoughts off. Focus… check out all the skills first! Then… back to the rest…

Joe sighed as he turned back to his skill listing. Spell caster proved to be both a disappointment and intriguing because of the listed skills: increased casting speed, increased power, vocal cast, runic cast, increased speed and power, body cast, lower mana cost, song cast, and apply to dual. He paused at that and had to ask help, but was a bit giddy with the possibility.

Help. What is the skill apply to dual?

Other skills in this Job are applied to both casts of a dual casting.

OOOH! Heh! Yeah… this… ooh! Joe grinned in glee then began to frown as he looked at the rest of the class and found no actual skills for casting any spells. Would … well… then… I’m still using my skills from Earth when fighting … especially with weapons… could… would I be able to cast spells manually? Is there such a thing? It feels weird to me to have weapon skills the way they are here… but at the same time, I have no clue how to cast any kind of spell in any case, so… then… I expect a skill? Or… man… this system is screwed up…

Joe sighed and turned to his other classes. So… mage… nice… but again… just a bunch of… magic? Unlock elements, unlock advanced elements, unlock life… OH! Healers… healing?

Joe jumped back to his available jobs and found the healer line unlocked, grinning, then frowned when he saw a regen mage right next to it. What’s… the difference? Help?

Seek out Mages for help.

Right… not gonna help… so… Joe frowned with his sigh this time and turned back to his skills. So… the rest of mage skills: unlock energy… OK… so … like a fire mage? Maybe? Ooh… others too, interesting. Joe reassessed when he took at the listing of mages opened and smiled. It wasn’t complete, the job listing making that clear, oddly enough, but still interesting to him.

He’d also leveled mana-ologist and manipulater up further and didn’t find them too useful, although increased targets and multi control intrigued him. Targets seemed easy enough, so he asked help about multi control.

Allows control of multiple threads of mana. Only one active at a time; others are paused.

OK.. that’s… really cool… and… threads? Threads of mana? That… sounds important? Wonder…

His thoughts digressed from his skills to his mana, squeezing out the mana from his core with effort while also trying to narrow it down. It worked, to an extent, narrowing into a small cone, but didn’t actually really become a thread, the cone continuing to widen. As he put more effort into it, the cone began to spray a bit more wildly. He soon chalked it up to a struggle to emit mana, his ability still very much trying to ‘push’ the mana out instead of ‘releasing’ it out into the void. Gotta work on that, so… ooh… but… my mana points? His eyes turned to the dozens of mana points floating around him and he pulled one forward. They got mana, right? And… He focused on the mana point releasing mana in a thin line and it did so with ease. Joe smiled. OK… now were cooking… but… His frown returned. What do I do with it?

He tried to control a thread of mana but he found his control to be almost nonexistent. He was able to have it smear across the space he was working in, like a kid playing with finger paint, but it was definitely not threads. He continued frowning at his efforts, then grinned. Right! Move the point… like a pen? Pencil?

Joe had the point emit mana with essentially zero velocity and simply moved the point, then began giggling as a brilliant flame red line trailed immediately behind the point. He soon had a three dimensional swath of a mana sculpture thing before him, the mana point drawing with mana. The word thread was apt, although Joe would just call it a line, a brilliant flame red line, but a line none the less that looked very much like he’d drawn with a pen on a piece of paper. Of course, he’d actually drawn on the actual space time continuum, three dimensional space, right in front of him. He began sculpting a poor rendition of a dog.

When he got to the eyes, the flame red eyes made the dog rather demonically terrifying and he wanted something a bit more friendly. Wonder if I can change the color? Brown… a nice friendly deep brown… give me brown… come on… brown, brown, brown… give it to me… brown! He continued to chant and squirt out a bit of mana with each chant of the word brown, but it still splatted out a deep flame red. Man… come on… give me the ability to draw on the literal space time continuum… but take away my color choice! So not cool! His joy at doing so quickly erased his slight frustration with a singular color and he went back to finishing his dog with a kind of child-like glee. He was about three quarters done when his mana point ran out of ink. He frowned, staring at it, then realized he’d emptied it of all mana. Huh… that was… fun… and cool.

He pulled the mana point up in front of his face and stared at it but it seemed completely normal, if empty. He stared at it a bit, just feeling the difference. He pulled another point next to it and quickly registered subtle differences between the points. A few more showed that there seemed to be some way he could see or feel how full it was. Even as he was watching, he felt and saw a small increase of mana return to the point he’d used to draw, and he smiled. OK… not bad… slow but… not bad… and… distracted again… back to it.

He turned back to his skills and continued. Huh… navigator… why… oh… right… the maze… and yeah… the map was NICE! He looked and found almost all of it was dedicated to mapping, which proved the name of the job. Nice skills… party on map, real time map, and target mob… so…ooh… that’s nice… can help people target the same mob? A quick check from help proved that true and he smiled. With sharing the map with the party… that … this is a powerful class! Gonna have to get these skills… if I can.

He continued down the list and found… Wait… what? Mage… again? Ha! Nice… double stats for that! WOOT! Right… soo… hmm… but all the same skills… so… right…

He didn’t even look at the combat skills again, frustrated to find most of them to be simple boosts to stats. Even more frustrating, the jobs from this plane seemed to essentially give a basic weapon and stat boosts without any skills to actually use the weapons. In contrast, the Earth jobs seemed to have actual skills related to the martial art. It was very basic, true, but still a skill! Ooh… wait… the combat jobs are related by concept instead of weapons… they seem to have skills… so… what is the organization? Hmm… Odd…

He ended his rabbit trail and turned back to the other skills, having already avidly explored the combat skills and found them depressingly useless. Right… so next is… Ha! Maxed out the Loki jobs… got max in Pope… no new job for the Loki line… so… that’s cool. Hmm… not much new for skills… just borrowed from previous Loki jobs and given earlier… look at Patriarch first. Nice… Extra learning and … ooh another double exp! Nice… Oh! That’s… where the simpleton curse comes from… that’s… not cool… Another curse, forget job… could be double edged? Use it against a criminal job… that could… hmm… interesting… Debuff immunity, wow… and disease immunity… really? That seems… OP? Wonder how that works.

He went to query the system about that then froze, eyes widening. His eyes then skittered wildly over the page skimming the pope line as well, finding it there, too. Resurrect? Resurrect? That’s!!! Joe’s breathing spiked, panting, then went erratic even as his heart spasmed and suddenly spiked, adrenaline dumping into his system like a flood.

“Resurrect Garnedell.”

Joe paused, excitement, hope, disbelief, fear, despair… all of it roiled in him and stirred his stomach, a massive cramp of tension tensing him up so tightly that his stomach ached.

“Resurrect Garnedell!!”

Nothing happened and the myriad of emotions violently storming in his stomach merged to greater heights into an inferno of rage.

“Resurrect Garnedell!!!!”

Noise began sounding in the other room, a background susurrus that Joe didn’t even notice or register; nor did he even care. His rage grew.

“Resurrect Garnedell!”

Nothing happened, and his raged soon warred violently with despair. What… HELP!!! Resurrect Garnedell! Nothing happened, still and no response came for a few moments until…

Invalid help request!

The pop up interrupted his raging despair, then redoubled it when he read what it said, then cooled it almost immediately when options rang through his thoughts. The door to the room opened and he glanced up to see Gwenvaire enter but it was an autonomous response, his entire conscious still focused only on his single task.

Help. How do I use resurrect to resurrect an individual? He waited with baited breath with the intensity of a predator soon to pounce upon its prey.

Initiate the skill on a valid target by speaking the spell and name of a valid target or by thinking of the spell and looking at a valid target. Offer the requisite amount off mana.

Joe felt despair well up then pause. No target! Garnedell’s body! Whe… no… no… name… I can do the name! Speak and say the name… the skill.. resurrect…

“Resurrect Garnedell!” Joe shouted once again, waiting anxiously then suddenly grew despondent when he realized he’d already tried it three of four times before.

OK… something else… what… something else… what am I missing… what’s… Joe read the pop again carefully, studying it with an intensity greater than he’d ever had before. So… valid target… speak the spell… the name of a valid… or think the spell… look at a valid… so… think and speak? Have the mana… gotta have the mana… right? It didn’t even take the mana… But…

“Resurrect Garnedell,” Joe spoke firmly, no longer yelling, but with an intensity to his thought that left him breathing deeply. Nothing happened and he turned back to the popup, insanity driving him.

Not… spoke… check.. think… check… name… check… valid target… che… wait!

“Help. What is a valid target of the resurrect spell.”

Beside him, Gwenvaire stirred and looked to Joe, “A valid target of a resurrect spell? It has to be someone…”

Gwenvaire’s comment registered for a moment then disappeared into a blur in the background, Joe’s thoughts only upon the soon to come popup. It came.

* * *

Gwenvaire exited the room and settled in the other, finding the other three women all still asleep but slowly stirring. Joe’s diligence and early waking was something she would have to get used to, but if anything, she found his hard work appealing.

The women took a while longer to rise, and even longer to prepare. The short base Xylarnae…? seemed to be extra diligent, putting significant efforts into preparing for the day, cleansing skin and placing on a subtle layer of cosmetics. The three women spoke with one another with the slowness typical of those with low levels, long periods of silence and morning preparations interjected with longer sentences. Gwenvaire remained silent and allowed them their conversation as any interjection on her part would quickly derail their conversation.

The tall blonde proved unusual, ignoring all else and focused almost entirely on her system display, opening and closing it and exploring it with avid curiosity. She didn’t seem to be doing anything else. Gwenvaire watched on for a bit until all three finished their activities. One turned to see Gwenvaire and quickly settled on one of the beds to face her. The other two noticed and did the same, the blonde with a serious respect and the fae with a grimace of annoyance.

Gwenvaire prepared for a very long morning of conversation when suddenly she heard some loud shouts from Joe within the other room and turned from her conversation with the other three to stare at the room. They all stared at the door, the other three unable to offer any comment as their intelligence was so low, but Gwenvaire was able to react quickly and stood, turning to the door. She called back over her shoulder then stopped and realized it would take awhile and turned back to them, waving her hand in the universal ‘stop’ sign.

“Wait. I will check.”

The hand signs proved necessary, and Xylarnae returned to her seat quickly, Stephliquen, the statuesque blonde, also sitting back down. Gwenvaire nodded and sped to the door, ripping it open to see Joe sitting on his bed, an intensity to him that took her aback. She approached cautiously and sat by his side. He continued to gaze earnestly directly in front of him, and she realized he was exploring his status. Somehow, he was able to retrieve so much more from his status than any other.

“Resurrect Garnedell!”

Gwenvaire felt her eyebrows drop, then worry and fear quickly spiking through her. Joe… Concern quickly spiked through her and she looked around the room then dismissed the effort and thought back to her last memories of Joe, worry growing. After the dungeon breaks, he’d come before her brother as Patriarch alone, only with Kilniara. And now… she glanced around the empty room. Worry grew and she turned to Joe. She tried to speak, but found herself uncertain of how to respond and stared on helpless. How do his people console? What… should I do?

She lifted a hand to rest it on his shoulder then pulled back, concerned. Suddenly, Joe spoke again.

“Resurrect Garnedell.”

Joe’s statement sent a shiver through her, this time it was a deep forcefulness of command slathered in an extra helping of promised violence. She stared at him and grew worried. He’d never been violent before, not to those he cared for except in so far as to train them, but… Is he…

Her thoughts were interrupted once more.

“Help. What is an acceptable target of the resurrect spell!”

Gwenvaire stirred, despair coming to her even as she turned and stared with concern, “An acceptable target of a resurrect spell? They must have died within the last three days. You must have their body and they cannot have died in a dungeon, unless the dungeon is… willing to release the soul, or you’ve captured the soul. But even so… I’ve… only heard of some exceptionally powerful patriarchs and popes resurrecting with only a name, but it is … only rumors. How… how long ago did Garnedell die? Without his body… the amount of power needed is… the mana cost…”

Gwenvaire trailed off, immediately stopping when she saw Joe’s despair. Her heart crushed, feeling it as well, even as her heart shriveled in sync with Joe’s own, his despair overwhelming, drowning her and leaving her gasping at his emotional depths. She struggled to defend herself, pulling back her own heart and raising a small shield against it even as she shuddered and quickly threw herself into his side, wrapping him in her arms. He… I thought he only knew Garnedell for … not even a year? His pain … has he not seen a death before? How…

Gwenvaire struggled against the wash of anguish, her heart drowning in ache even as she sought to comfort him, washing their connection with comfort and commiseration as much as she was able while also watching on with concern. His pain was genuine. He truly cared for Garnedell, and Gwenvaire felt both awed and concerned by the degree of his emotion. In an attempt to free herself from the struggle of his pain, she sought out his thoughts on her, and found warmth and comfort soothing her heart. She smiled to feel it, surprised that he had found a connection so quickly. Within the shelter of a soft and low flame of friendship slowly, possibly, turning into something a bit more, she found strength enough to focus on his pain, comforting him poorly as he sobbed in her arms.

“Shh… Shh… It will be OK. Shh…”

* * *

Joe sobbed in abject pain, the soft blue glow of the last system message floating before him with its remorseless message destroying any hope he had. He’d never had the chance to truly mourn Garnedell, and hope returned but suddenly dashed shattered his control, the iron will holding back the massive wall of pain fell and it crashed upon him, ripping his pain out from the depths of his soul for all the world to see. It was deep, wracking, soul cleansing sobs that shook the entire bed as he released great coughs of sound that barely sounded as cries but the pain shown through like a beacon for all to easily see.

His tears were flowing so much he could hardly see through the wet curtain of water and simply clung to whoever was hugging him, their soft ‘shh’ helping to calm him. He did not cry long, but he did cry hard for several moments, the pain ripping through his heart until he finally took a shuddering deep breath about five minutes later and ended it. The pain remained, but greatly diminished; almost nonexistent now compared to before. He stood, taking another deep breath as his tears dried up, ending, even as he wiped them clear. His face turned blank and he calmed, turning to look back at the system message with a deadened face. Done. Nothing more to do. The body’s… gone.

A valid target of the resurrect spell requires a body, the soul, and the necessary mana to heal and rebind the soul to the body.

He swiped the message away and stood, turning to find Gwenvaire sitting on the bed, staring up at him in concern. The dress at her knees was soaked with his tears and he found himself warring between apologizing for wetting her dress and thanking her for offering him comfort. He opted for both.

“I… thank you. It really helped. Sorry about your dress.”

Gwenvaire stared at him in shock, laughing in some disbelief, “Are you OK?”

Joe smiled softly, taking a deep breath before nodding, “Probably. I’m… this was good. I’m not done mourning… but I got what I needed out. I’ll … yeah. Thank you.”

Gwenvaire stared up at him, her concern turning towards another emotion Joe wasn’t quite sure how to parse, “You… truly cared for him.”

Joe nodded, “Yeah. Of course.”

Gwenvaire’s eyebrows twitched at that and she smiled, “Tell me what happened?”

Joe sighed, “Nothing much to say. We were down in the advanced dungeon, exploring a bit deeper… something like the third floor? Maybe the fourth? I’m not sure. Suddenly, things started going crazy and monsters just started attacking us willy nilly. It wasn’t…”

“The dungeon break!”

Joe frowned, “Is that what it was? What’s happening with that?”

“It is similar to the monster tide, but from dungeons. If a dungeon panics… fears for it’s life, it can wildly eject all monsters out onto the surface. It is incredibly dangerous… How did you survive?”

Joe huffed and chuckle, “I almost didn’t. I was lucky, able to make some kind of wall, and alternate using my mana and endurance… system and personal. Took regular breaks… but… I almost… I shouldn’t have made it. It was hard.”

Gwenvaire’s concern grew at that and she stood, resting a palm on his shoulder, “But you did.”

“Yes… but…” he sighed, “Garnedell… he…”

Gwenvaire commiserated with a soft brush of her hand but said nothing, waiting kindly.

“Garnedell died. Some adventurers came and warned us of the dungeon break… but they obviously wanted to use me as bait so sliced open my thigh as they ran past. It wasn’t enough to hurt me, so I was fine. Garnedell and Zilnek began to panic, but Garnedell tried to help me as much as he could. I’m… I don’t know what happened next. I don’t… I can’t understand why, but Zilnek grabbed my spear and shoved it into Garnedell’s legs, ripping out his thighs. He did it on purpo… why would he do that!? Why! WHY!?!”

Rage spiked through him and Joe turned away to pace, his jaw clenching as he did so. He paced back and forth a few times, Gwenvaire watching him with concern but not coming forward. Joe noticed and calmed, sighing as he turned towards her.

“I’m sorry. I’m not angry at you.”

Gwenvaire smiled at that, “I know.”

Joe’s rage petered out, replaced with embarrassment and a bit of shame, “I wouldn’t hurt you, ever.”

Gwenvaire immediately relaxed, sighing deeply and stepping forward to place another hand on his shoulder, “Thank you. It means a lot.”

Joe chuckled morosely, “Why should you thank me for that. It’s only right I do so.”

The two fell silent at that for a few moments, both basking in each other’s presence until Gwenvaire continued.

“He did it to sacrifice you … you and Garnedell.”

Joe narrowed his eyes, “To distract the monsters while he fled.”

Garnedell grimaced but nodded firmly, “Yes. He would not have made it otherwise.”

“He made it out?” Joe asked, a deep burning rage swelling again before evaporating into glacial calm.

Gwenvaire stared at him with some fear and Joe quickly calmed himself. He tamped his anger down quickly and kicked himself, metaphorically even as he apologized again.

“Sorry… sorry. Just… really angry.”

Gwenvaire stared at him then smiled sadly, “I can totally understand.”

Joe sighed, “So he did make it out?”

Gwenvaire considered her words carefully as she replied very succinctly, “Yes.”

Joe grimaced, clenched his teeth, let the rage sweep through him, then sighed and released it all, “I’m not… what an idiot… why would he…,” Joe sighed again.

Gwenvaire stared at him cautiously, “You have first vengeance right… likely the only one. No other will claim vengeance for Garnedell. He has no family.”

Joe stared at her, shock warring with rage even as his desire for revenge warred with his absolute certainty that if he were to do so, he would utterly lose himself. He simply sighed, turning away.

He said nothing and sat back down on the bed. Falling silent. After a few moments, Gwenvaire joined him, both sitting next to each other in silence, but the silent companionship was exactly what Joe needed.

* * *

Gwenvair shivered as Joe raged, even if he seemed calm now, deep within him, a rage she’d never noticed before burnt with a passion that terrified her. With all that she had, she kept a hand on him, in some small way, and pressed calm into him as best she could. What terrified her the most was that her calm seemed to do nothing for him, the rage burned as bright as ever. Only Joe’s desire to mask it kept it hidden and controlled, and Gwenvair shivered to see it, even as she still continuously poured her comfort and strength into him, seeking to help him as best she could.

* * *

A large stalky dwarf, barrel chested in a way only a dwarf can be, but even larger than the average dwarf, dominated almost a third of the street, barreling his way down the street. Behind him, his brother, smaller and less muscular, stalked after. Both were massive, but before the lead dwarf, the one behind seemed small and … normal. Hidden between the two, a young woman huddled, fear driving her gaze down while each sound triggered a terrifying leap or jerk of fear. The dwarf behind beheld it every day and struggled to keep his sigh contained, raising a hand to softly place it on his niece’s shoulder.

“It’ll be alright, lass. All is now well.”

Her niece jumped slightly with her uncle’s hand but then turned to look back at him, a soft despair deep within her eyes. She said nothing, but her gaze shouted the truth. No. It won’t. I have no future. No family. Nothing… I will grow old alone… with no one.

His uncle saw it all, his own firm eyes softening at the message in hers and she turned away to huddle behind her father once again. He couldn’t bring himself to tell the truth, that she was right, so he dropped it as he had no strength to fight against it.

* * *

In front, a massive barrel chested dwarven father traveled on, unconcerned and adamant to seek out those he owed his debt to. He would not stop. He would never stop. And it was the fact that he had stopped in despair over his daughter’s curse that he’d sworn never to do so again. The shock of his brother stepping up had been more than enough to shake him from his stupor. Having his daughter returned helped more than he could ever possibly understand, but his resolve only returned deeper. I WILL repay my debts!

They wandered the streets, seeking into the pleasure districts of the great capital, no place for his daughter to be, but where he was certain that his lascivious brother had gone. His brother professed no remembrance and so he’d continued walking ever further. The districts shifted from brothel to slave merchant, and he refused to stop. It took almost a month, but finally, his brother cried out in soft surprise. He immediately stopped, turning back to his brother, staring at him over the top of his daughter.

“Here?”

“I think… maybe?”

“Lead.”

His brother sighed and nodded, “Brother. Why do you do this? All is well and the work is finished. Let us return and rebuild our lives, for the good of the family and your daughter. Can’t you see? It is…”

He growled, halting his brother’s speech before continuing, “Go.”

His brother sighed, then nodded and began leading them. It was halting at first, a few pauses at intersections, a couple times of doubling back, but soon his brother moved with ever greater certainty until they stood before a rather high end slave merchant of pleasure slaves. He grimaced in anger. How could my brother squander such time and wealth on wasteful pursuits as this? He is so talented and his capabilities far exceed mine. What drives him to such failure that he seeks to drown himself in meaningless pursuits of pleasure? He should so easily bring amazing change to all great dwarven works and artifice, yet, he chooses such folly, wasting money on pleasure slaves. Where does he even keep them all? How will I reach out to him?

His brother stopped before the merchant and grinned as he turned to him, “It’s here. I am certain of it. I remember this place. She is here, truly, a base human with her fae friend. I could not afford them, but they were truly delecta… Ahem… We will find her here. Do not worry. I remember it now, you will see…”

He grunted hard and waved his daughter at the door, “Enter!”

The door chimed softly as they entered and he almost paused to inspect the runic work for such a device but then turned back to stare into the entrance of the merchant house. Luckily, the main floor was empty, the small rooms surrounding the main hall empty and awaiting soon to come customers.

The chime alerted the staff of the hall and an older matron with greying hair but still with her beauty saw the three of them and came forward, her face kept softly neutral.

“Here to buy? Or… to sell.”

He growled, a deep rumbling warning.

“Apologies. I meant no offense. What do you seek?”

“Information.”

The slave merchant paused, narrowing her eyes, “I am not a seller of information, dwarf.”

“Thamnerlum. Thamnerlum Metalgrapple. Not dwarf.”

The slave merchant quickly paused at his name, obviously recognizing it before bowing deeply.

“Forgive me, Master Metalgrapple. How may I be of service?”

Thamnerlum grunted, then waved at his brother before speaking bluntly, “Him.”

As before, his blunt succinct speech left her a bit nonplussed and she turned to his brother. He smoothly began.

“Forgive my brother, Madam. It is an honor to meet you once again. Could I have the name of such a lovely creature as you? It would seem I have forgot…

“Hmmhmmm…” a deep gravely clearing of a throat interrupted his brother and his brother quickly paused and focused on the task.

“Apologies… my brother is rather insistent. We seek a young base woman with a fae friend. She was hear approximately a month ago… possibly more? My memory is foggy and I cannot remember.”

The matron frowned, “You were here about… a month ago, yes?”

“Ahh, yes. Then you remember. Do you know her? Please, could we speak with her?”

The matron’s frown deepened, “She is no longer with my establishment.”

Thamnerlum’s eyebrows knotted together deeply, “Slave?”

The matron turned towards him and bowed once more, “Yes. My slave.”

“Now?”

“No longer, Master Thamnerlum.”

“Where?”

The matron’s eyes narrowed, “Revealing my customers is not usually… a hobby of mine, even to the great master Thamnerlum”

“Life debt.”

The matron’s eyes widened rapidly and she took a deep step back before just as rapidly bowing once again, “I… see. That… is acceptable. She was taken to Coushar. I know little to nothing of the city. My man attended her transfer.”

“Guide?”

The matron paused at that, then nodded, “I am willing.”

The matron then quickly shouted out for her man who came into the room with a rapid subservience to his master’s side, “Yes, matron. How may I help you?”

“Three weeks ago, Xylarnae and the fae, Kalia. Do you remember where you sent them?”

“Quite, matron, but they are likely with the Patriarch even now.”

“Patriarch?”

“The Patriarch of clan Galgandar, clanner of Coushar.”

“My gratitude,” Thamnerlum bowed his head and then turned, leaving the room with a heavy stumping stride and complete confidence he would find his way. His daughter and brother scrambled immediately after him, although his brother stopped to kindly speak for him.

“Much thanks, matron. I am amazed by your beauty and the wise words you have offered. Please accept this…”

Thamnerlum cared little for his brother’s antics, passing through the door and turning to the great gate plaza. One more step closer to his life debt.

* * *

Allanar woke with a grumbling despair, his head pounding and his mind scattered, unable to understand why his head was pounding nor why his heart ached. He staggered to his feet in the dim light of his room and stared around. He found the curtains to his room closed and staggered to them, ripping them open before lurching backwards like a shadow beast fleeing its primary antagonistic element, light. Allanar cursed, stumbling back from the light even as he flinched and closed his eyes. When his eyes found shadow again, he allowed them to open, barely a slit to allow him to find his position in the room before he closed them and he stumbled to his wash basin. He hit his toes twice and slammed a shin once and while he cursed the pain of it, it seemed all muted before his heavy heart. He came to the basin and cleansed himself, starting to feel a bit more himself than before. He stood, swaying, then groaned and sighed. This is…

Allanar stumbled back to his bed and sat, staring around his room until he finally forced himself to stand and begin his day. His head still pounded, but his strength was enough to largely ignore it as he quickly prepared his room so that it was at least presentable for visitors. Once that was complete, he spent some time calming himself, even as his heart roiled, rage tamped down, but growing ever more. Soon, his face was a placid mask and he was able to finish opening all the curtains on the various windows. Wouldn’t do to show… wouldn’t do…

All the curtains were opened but the last, and he moved to the front of his house where he pulled open the curtains. All his efforts to calm himself almost exploded, rage shredding his control as it leapt wildly throughout his body. His legs cramped, tensing to leap, core joining it for action, his hands clenched on the sill of his window even as his jaw did as well. Only his face was kept blank, barely restrained to hide his emotions. His breath came in quick ragged pants, exactly twice, before he was able to take a deep breath and returned it to normal.

Before him, in the common area where all clanner eyes could see, the matriarch toiled as a simple mortal, pulling weeds. She had been crippled then returned to be mocked before all the clan. Allanar stood in the window and struggled for quite some time to regain control of his rage. The fool! What does he accomplish with …

Allanar turned back to his bed and half empty bottle there. It’s not going to be enough… His shout to the servants was inappropriate, too laced with anger, but he’d lost what little control he’d regained. The wine began to flow once more.

* * *

Once again, the library of the capital city of Aelthron was the source of a massive surge of rumors and excitement. Some two hundred new job crystals came clattering down upon the tray to catch jobs as they formed. The assistant cursed softly, quietly so as to not offend the boss, and stood to head to the tray. The assistant began to quickly classify the jobs, all of them the generic combat jobs but as the crystals continued to pour onto the tray, the assistant grew a bit more frantic.

“Uh… Boss? I think I’m going to need help?”

The boss grunted but did not look up, “Can’t handle a couple of new jobs?”

“You’ve never had a new job in your life until this year.”

“Yeah… rub it in… there goes my nice comfy simple job.”

“And it’s going to go much faster, boss. I … I really need the help.”

The boss grumbled and looked up then cursed loudly and came scrambling around his desk to his side, “Don’t let them drop! It’ll be our hides if any of these crystals damage! Catch them, quickly!

“What do you think I’m doing? There’s no more space!”

“This… Loki’s pestilent bunghole this is a lot.”

The assistant didn’t have any more time to respond, now frantically catching memory crystals and dropping them cautiously on any close and safe surface found.

“Give me a second?”

“Don’t have a second, boss!”

“Fast as I can!”

The boss scrambled across the room and ripped open a drawer from a desk before dumping its contents out all across the floor. It as fast, only seconds, but it was still almost too late.

“Here! Here!” the boss scrambled back across the room in a mad scramble before bringing the deep drawer to rest right against the memory crystal formation lattice. The assistant grunted thanks and began rapidly dropping crystals down into the drawer cautiously. It was still too deep for the memory crystals to drop into the drawer, but it was better than the floor and the two soon had a system down, the boss holding the drawer up against table by pressing it into the table, both scrambling to use four hands to put as many crystals into the drawer as possible.

This went on for almost a great bell, crystal after crystal forming, caught, and dropped down into the drawer. After a bell, they’d caught up to the flood of crystals and even had moved the excess from earlier into the drawer. About half way through their time, the assistant had to run back to grab another drawer, doing the same as the boss and simply, quickly, dumping its contents onto the floor before rapidly bringing the drawer back.

When they were done, the two collapsed on their chairs and simply stared at the two large drawers stacked to overflowing with cores, of dark peach color of generic combat jobs with the hint of a glow. They’d noticed it before, of course, but hadn’t remarked on it, the shear amount taking their breath away more than the subtle glow of gold which encapsulated each and every one of the job memory crystals. It was a curiosity at first, but then an awful epiphany quickly took hold, and their panting exhaustion changed to panting awe laced with terrible fear.

“It’s… that means it’s approved, right?”

The boss looked at the assistant, “I … I don’t know… the rumors…”

“I’ve never seen one before.”

The boss scoffed, “The last one was… millennia upon millennia ago…”

They fell silent and the assistant then turned to the boss, a bit fearfully, “What… what does that mean?”

There was no answer. Only silence.

* * *

Neurlan was the greatest scholar of the system the Aelthron Cradle had ever seen, and he felt lost, the certainty of his research shattered by massive changes that made a mockery of all his certain evaluations. Decades of research and knowledge had to be crushed, the memory crystals good for little more than core dust enchantments or alchemy. He huffed in anger even as he struggled to waddle home as quickly as possible.

He’d first seen the change to stats almost a half year ago and with the second occurrence, he’d run back home to calibrate a location once again. He’d been late, and the calibration had produced nothing of use, but a profound coincidence had struck him. The second occurrence had also happened on Balden, and he’d now spent the last few months uncertain of what to do. He’d been driven to return to Balden plane once again, but the certainty of another such occurrence had him dithering at his home, almost addicted to his machinery as he calibrated and recalibrated his machinery over and over. Please… again… just one more…

He’d not wasted his time, however, and had an accountant report of the Balden plane, including any odd occurrences and a general layout of the socio-political landscape of the plane. That had cost a pretty penny and the listing of the clans and their cities proved worthless, in his mind, but he did study them carefully. The report on odd occurrences proved more valuable, and he considered the list of fifteen cities he felt he must personally visit. Aldalar, Bunarl, Coushar, Mushta…

* * *

Kainaro stalked through the capital city, seeking out the main guildhall of the slave masters. He had little standing amongst the slave masters of Aelthron Cradle but to have a slave flaunting freedom against a master, let alone against a slave master, deeply troubled Kainaro and would likely be of great interest to the guild.

He entered the hall with some veneration before walking forward to the single well-kept and luxurious desk tended by a stunningly gorgeous ulvan slave. He stepped before her and offered respect, not for her, but for the guild beyond her. After he did so, he turned to her and spoke brusquely.

“A significant matter to be brought to the masters. Please inform me of when I may approach.”

“The matter, noted one?” asked the slave demurely.

“A resistant one.”

The slave paused at that, looking up with some shock, “A resistant one?”

“Listen carefully, slave, or we will find another for this seat.”

“Apologies, noted one. If there is a resistant one, you are to report immediately.”

Kainaro raised an eyebrow at that, but nodded, “To whom?”

“Imminent affairs. Second floor, third door on the left, noted one.”

Kainaro quirked an eyebrow at that before quickly heading in deeper, a quivering anticipation of how this may offer excellent advancement opportunities. His excitement dampened considerably when he found himself waiting in a waiting room for almost two great bells and he almost stood to leave when he was called in to report. It wasn’t the exceptional experience he was hoping for.

“Name?”

“Uh… Joe McConnell?”

“You are a clanner?” he looked up in surprise.

“Oh, no… My name is Kainaro.”

The individual recording the information snorted, not looking up at all, “Resistant’s name?”

“Joe McConnell.”

“Oh… he’s the clanner,” the man asked with a subtle interest, “Event.”

“Event?”

The man sighed and looked up at Kainaro in frustration, “Describe the event.”

“Ah… apologies, sir. I was called by a clanner who’d gained Joe McConnell as a slave to come and…”

“The event of resistance you experienced, not a lifetime history of your existence.”

Kainaro paused at that, took a deep breath, and began again, “I met Joe McConnell at an inn in Coushar where I commanded him to follow me. He immediately resisted my command and then I attempted…”

“Did you reveal your status or position as his slave master?”

“I… uh… no?”

The man snorted again, then sighed deeply, “A slaver inhibitor, greater power, and you are relegated to remedial training. You will learn and he will be brought under control quickly enough.”

Kainaro shivered, remembering the clanner’s strength and attempted to remedy what he felt was a disastrous, “Sir, the master camp is likely…”

“You did not even reveal your status or position to him. How could the magic appropriately take hold and guide the man to proper obeisance. This is more your fault than any of the slave’s! Take your greater inhibitor and bring him under control to the slave camp.”

Kainaro shuddered, taking a deep breath as he stared down upon the recorder and considered. He knew deep within that this was a mistake, but there was little he could do. What had begun as an opportunity would likely become a disaster for him. He considered pushing the issue with the recorder then paused. In the end, he was royally screwed regardless of what happened except in the extremely unlikely case that Joe was a weakling. Finally, he shuddered and decided he would rather take the chance.

“I seek elevation.”

The recorder looked up at him in shock, eyes boggling, “What?!”

“I seek elevation.”

The man grinned, the chuckled, laughing uproariously before he finally turned and yelled towards another door at the back of the room.

“You hear that, boss? Elevation!”

“Heard it all. Elevation accepted. Decision made. Decisions stand. Original instructions stand! Get out!”

Kainaro shuddered, shivering as he stared to the back room and struggled against the Presence that washed in from that room. He took two deep breaths before bowing deeply and quickly fleeing the guild hall. He could only hope the report would be buried and forgotten, although he … that was… at least it won’t be my fault if… when it all goes to the tanner’s pot! Kainaro cursed himself out even as he sped back to the gate plaza with the greater slave inhibitor.