My estate’s meeting hall desperately needed a thorough mopping after all the swapping of bodily fluids we got up to. I left the Shrubber-Nee looking like a patch of ivy growing over the ground. The wooden face in the middle of the ivy had a dazed look etched onto it.

I left Azure the blue goop creature as nothing more than a puddle with two eyes floating atop it, very far apart. I left the Owlectric twitching in one corner, Yowl the cat girl splayed out in a chair in another corner, and the purple crystal girl named Amy staring at the ceiling, like she was contemplating her life choices.

I’d received three levels of Pleasure Seeker, taking it higher than my Healer level for the first time ever.

Level 31: +1 Likability, +3 skill points

Level 32: +7 skill points

Level 33: +Ability Upgrade: Post-Sharing Clarity, +4 skill points

A slew of abilities came in from Entwined Ecstasy. These ones were all from bare acquaintances, the lowest Relationship level, so they didn’t transfer over one to one on top of my existing abilities. The UI claimed that I was power leveling, but they did level up after several partners.

More importantly, I spread out my Healer abilities to these partners, and that was the full array of Healer abilities. This included Verdant Rejuvenation, Healer’s Resistance, Mending Aura, and Potioncraft. The split was almost exactly right, with three of them getting each of those abilities. They would, with some training and possibly higher levels, take on the jobs of healing by themselves.

The Nakamamon assisting the elders helped get these young women back to their homes for some rest. Luck depending, we might end up with a repeat performance.

In the meantime, I had also taken on a dozen companions using Entwined Ecstasy, leading to a slew of notifications like:

Entwined Ecstasy: You have brought Azure into the fold. She has gained the ability Curecraft. You have gained the ability Escape Artist from entwining with Azure. Entwine more deeply with Azure to advance this ability.

You have reached your maximum capacity for abilities gained through Entwined Ecstasy. You may choose to strengthen the associated ability (Bondsealer) or gain Escape Artist.

There was no way Bondsealer was going anywhere, but unfortunately a single time with Azure didn’t level my Meld ability from Regina up entirely. It took several more abilities trying to overwrite Bondsealer before it leveled up, but in the end it did. In the end, four of my shared abilities upgraded. I ended up with Psyspeech at level III, Mender’s Soothing Mental Balm at level III, Bondsealer at level III, and then the big question: to dump Stalwart and take an ability called Tree Spirit.

I only paused because I had Draconic Spirit

and it was so awesome. The new ability, according to Mana Affinity, gave me the ability to both disguise myself as a tree and ‘turn my outer layer into protective bark,’ which sounded a whole lot like I could have armor, and look like a Nakamamon. The problem of course was that Stalwart had served me well and probably would continue to do so. I had been forced to make a lot of contested social checks against people like Blake and his goons, but those times were over. It had been some time since that had happened. I was still a fugitive though, and Stalwart could help me talk my way out of a situation. It wasn’t the one-two punch combo of Stalwart with Fierce, and there was no chance it would be as flashy as turning myself into a tree, or hiding myself in a tree.

Ultimately I decided to upgrade Stalwart instead of turning into a tree. I wasn’t good at hiding and I wasn’t about to start doing so.

Stalwart III

(Special Ability, Common, passive)

I- You come from sturdier stuff. Whenever you are forced to make a contested social check, you are considered to have the skill for such a check at rank 7. If you are in physical danger, you are considered to have the skill at rank 3 instead.

II- Whenever you spend Durability Tokens, regain one at sunrise.

III- Your Durability is considered +3 when making checks.

Now I was glad I had. Although it didn’t give me any extra Tokens, which would’ve been lovely, the bonus to my Durability would be quite welcome, especially for resisting divine influence, staying up late to brew up cures, and of course in the bedroom.

The third level of Bondsealer didn’t give me anything I didn’t already know, but the notion that I could bond a third Nakamamon was incredible. Honestly, it didn’t need more than that. I would be getting free resistances and abilities for bonding a third Nakamamon.

 The third level of Psyspeech allowed for unlimited psychic conversation with anyone who had the ability, or I could spend 3 Tokens to allow for full psychic communication for up to 10 minutes, regardless of whether my target was psychic or not. The range was only 30 feet though. A completely arbitrary number cooked up by a tabletop RPG company, no doubt.

My other Meld ability, Mender’s Soothing Mental Balm, got its third level as well. The exact text of level 3 said Spend 5 Affinity Tokens to ease the mental anguish of all beings within one mile of your location over the course of an hour. My brain processed the words instantly, but I stared at them for quite some time while my mind went through all the possible loopholes and extenuating circumstances that might allow it to wiggle out of the wording.

“All beings,” I said quietly. Sure 5 Affinity Tokens was a lot, but all my other abilities up til now had specifically mentioned all non-divine beings. It wasn’t a misprint either. I banished the window, wondering turning it off and back on again would expose some difference in the wording.

Nope. It remained the same.

“I’ll look at it again after I get some sleep.” The tried and true ‘turn it off and on again’ was deeply ingrained in my psyche. It had worked more times than I could easily count.

Skill points got spent on the usual suspects: Adaptability, Pheromones, and Group Play. No, two each! Now that I had figured out the usefulness of Seduction, I put 3 points there, along with Refractory Period, just in case I had to go serve another dozen young ladies at the same time. After that, a point to Girth and Load. That came to fourteen points, and I wiped my hands of it.

I was just about at the ‘proudly going over my character sheet’ part of the process when Shale and Khan appeared at my laboratory.

“Healer,” Shale said, “there are developments that have caused us to come to you in secret.”

I looked over each of them, which was foolish, because neither had expressive faces. One was a pile of rocks with eyes, and the other was a yellow-faced humanoid rat creature, but also a psychic. Maybe he could be expressive, but Khan had excellent control.

Emissaries from the human lands have entered the town, Fletcher, Khan told me mentally. They are many, and they are strong.

I responded using Psyspeech, after apologizing to Shale for doing so. It was far faster and included both emotions and mental images. The communication was absolutely better than words in all ways, and was now free thanks to my increased level in the ability.

Show me

, I urged him.

I had expected Jacoby’s team to be back. They hadn’t been gone long. It wouldn’t be impossible for Jacoby to go from ‘grateful and ready to bone’ all the way to ‘let’s boost my career by bringing in this wanted fugitive’. It also wasn’t outside the realm of possibility for one of her team members to take control and mutiny, but I was glad it wasn’t them. I’d helped a lot of their people and it was good that this counted in their eyes.

Instead, I got a mental images of the guy I’d glimpsed in Jacoby’s swamp camp, where I’d dealt with April and freed Azalea. I’d only seen a broad back, but the square face and the scowl told me this was the same guy. In all actuality didn’t matter if he was the same guy or not. It only mattered that he was here.

They have mentioned that you are wanted for crimes, including potentially something called murder. I am not certain what that word means, except it sounds unpleasant. More importantly I cannot really believe you, a person who has healed many and never raised a hand to anyone, could to crimes.

I explained the situation as quickly as possible, including the definition of the word murder. His naïveté was beautiful and I hated to break it.

Surely you did not do this thing? Khan asked, aghast.

I have never killed a person in my life. In fact I’ve never even killed a creature in order to eat it.

This person has over a dozen associates, Khan went on. They make all sorts of demands, but we met your Jocinda and your Claudius. We took the name offered to us, with joy in our hearts. We have the paper that binds your people to show decorum and deference to our ways. I will insist that ‘raise no hand’ means to raise no murder.

My mind wheeled at this revelation. Of course they had met the two people responsible for making the system here. This place was called Flunt-on-the-Rustle after all. Jocinda was behind that for sure. And they had a treaty.

Is this paper signed by my Jocind and my Claudius… magical in nature? Magically binding? By like a god of treaties or a god of contracts or something?

He looked at me in confusion, and I knew it wasn’t. Well sheep dip.

I switched over to spoken, so Shale could get in on what was going on. “Okay listen, if you can slow them down or keep them in one place, that would be great. I think… maybe… if I’m very lucky, I can fix your broken god situation. It might be enough to stop the eggs from going, but it might not. If it doesn’t, and there’s time left over, we’ll get the base cure infused with different materials specific to the aspect of the eggs in question. You’ll need to be prepared to help mothers care for babies that are a different species than their own.”

They shared a look, then nodded.

“I don’t think any of them will raise a hand to you, but that’s as long as you don’t do them any harm.”

Now that look they turned my way was incredulous. Do harm to another? That was… violence. It was a word they barely had in their vocabulary. Why would anyone do violence against anyone else? Also, they had written assurance from Jocinda and Claudius, the Agency founders? Whoever they were, they were the initial explorers into this world and the people who set up the system.

“Just give me a couple of hours,” I said.

Sneaking around the town was not going to be easy. They were a freaking search party. On the one hand I was glad not to have taken the tree spirit power, but on the other hand, I imagined their look of incredulity when they saw a tree merrily making its way across town.

Leaving me with sneaking, or…

I had a dragon spirit that gave me the power of flight. So, sneaky, or glaringly obvious?

I spent the single Token to allow for ten minutes of Draconic Spirit, from Muscularity. Instantly the cool medical blue green scales sprang to life around me, and the dragon roared out.

“Well,” I told myself, “this was a genius plan.”

Liftoff. I sprang off the ground and with several powerful wingbeats, got above the town’s buildings. With the town being a sphere, and with the divine sickness area growing, it took me no time and all to reach the edge and then inside. I definitely heard a shout, but that didn’t matter.

Only The Lovers mattered now.

Landing in the divinely influenced zone, I let the aspect of the dragon drop and staggered on landing.

“This will work,” I told myself. “It’ll work.”

Healer’s Resistance IV

(Special Ability, Uncommon, active)

I- You may spend a Durability Token to resist damage from any source. Long term effects are reduced by 90%. Onsets of all diseases, venoms, poisons, or other afflictions are quadrupled, as are intervals. Lasts one day.

The ability didn’t specify divine damage like the other three levels did, so I put on my Durability Token, prepared to spend another one as soon as I got the one God hefted up, and for shirt and giggles, put on Mender’s Soothing Balm with 5 Affinity Tokens. With only 3 left, I had to dip into my Free Tokens, but it still flared to life around me in a soothing minty green color. The burst of magic, 5 Tokens’ worth, gave me a heady rush of confidence. Yeah! I could do this! How hard could it be? All I had to do was have prolonged contact with a divine being.

Summoning Prismatic Apparel, I put on a simple zip up hoodie. For the first time in a while, I’d need the five levels of Divine Resistance.

It was right as I reached the first of The Lovers that something spun me around and put me on my butt. Above, on a griffin Nakamamon I’d never seen before, a Ranger was already nocking another arrow.

Grypherial

Second Stage Nakamamon

This fearsome creature preys on large mammals from above, using the element of surprise to descend without being noticed.

Typical length: 12-20 foot wingspan (large)

Typical weight: 500-750 pounds

Gender: unknown

Aspect: divine/creature (beast)

Transformations: unknown - unknown - Grypherial

Grypherial has been added to your Nakamadex.

I gave him a disbelieving look, and lowered my gaze to where several Agency humans were rushing over toward me. It was a mixture of classes: Guardians, a Ranger, a Rogue, and the worrisome one, a Bard.

“Let them come,” I said quietly, then reached out to Azalea with Psyspeech. I turned my back on the team. They could have me after I was done with the job at hand.

The griffin might be able to get in here and not be affected as much as all the others… I grimaced. The Ranger who’d bonded the creature would get divine resistance as a consequence of the bonding. That wasn’t ideal.

Dashing into the alleyway, I immediately got cover from the Ranger’s arrow and hopefully got away from the remainder of the team as well. I could hear them shouting demands and orders, which I dutifully ignored. Jocinda’s Nakamamon might have caused this, and it might not have. It might have caused even more chaos than this. What I knew was that people needed me to make this problem go away, so they could live happy and healthy lives. I wasn’t about to stop doing something because it was hard, or because other people said I shouldn’t. To heck with them.

Another arrow whapped into my shoulder and sent me sprawling a moment later, but my physical damage resistance had come up with a good result and I took no real damage. I got up and pelted toward The Lover.

“Hey, you stop right there!”

I didn’t, nor did I stop when another arrow whizzed by, bounced off a house, and got me straight in the guts. I stopped, getting my breath and my feet under me again.

Well, I can say this for Rangers, they get good archery abilities as they leveled. This guy could do cool trick shots.

“Y’all are hereby ordered to stop! By the order of SNORC central command—”

“Nobody’s going to listen to you if you use that name,” I called back.

I reached the god, curled up on itself in the fetal position as it was, and stared down at it.

“Whoa!” The figure called. “This ain’t a situation that warrants suicide, ya idjit!”

This is Christopher just shaking his head and scooping up a sick god.