Divinity Rescue Corps
67- Not the Consequences We Were Expecting

67- Not the Consequences We Were Expecting

Vellenia welcomed me in and asked how mating with my human compatriots had gone.

On the one hand, amazingly. On the other hand, terribly. On the other other hand, it was so strange to talk with a gorgeous non-human who I was sexually involved with about matters pertaining to sex with humans I was sexually involved with.

Since I didn’t want to worry Vellenia and it wasn’t her problem to handle anyway, I left out the Fairy Poppins situation. There was no good way for me to get out ahead of this oncoming train. I’d try to deal with it in the morning.

Or it would come and deal with me.

“What about your divinely granted abilities?” she asked.

My relationship status with Ivy and Isabelle leveled up. Both their special abilities also leveled up, a definite bonus that put a smile on Vellenia’s cute face. She grinned and clapped several times, staring at me in the dimness of the moonlight filtering through the tent.

Stalwart II

(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 are forced to spend permanent Durability Tokens, regain one at sunrise.

Fierce II was just as impressive to me as Stalwart II. They felt like they belonged on opposite sides of the same coin. Isabelle for defense, and Ivy for offense.

Fierce II

(Special Ability, Common, passive)

I- You know you’re kind of scary when you want to be. Whenever you force a contested social check against an opponent, you are considered to have the skill for such a check at rank 7. When you enter a dangerous situation, you gain a temporary Token in Physicality and Durability. These Tokens disappear after an hour if unused.

II- Whenever someone attempts to use a special ability against you, the check is at +1 difficulty. If they spend Tokens against you, they must spend +1 Token.

On defense, I would regain Tokens unless I died. On offense, people would lose out if they came at me.

It was a lot to keep track of, but I was thrilled to have more cool special abilities.

“I like the passive ones better,” I said. “Sometimes I’m in the middle of things and I’m just trying my best, and I forget that I have active special abilities.”

Vellenia patted my arm in understanding.

“There will be a limit,” she said.

I stopped and looked at her. “I’m sorry what?”

“There is a limit to how many abilities you can comfortably handle. Your body can only grasp at so much power.” As it turned out, I could only have one special ability for each of my Attributes. Affinity, Durability, Ingenuity, Likability, Physicality. Five, tops.

Meaning right now, after Beastmaster from Regina, Eagle-eyed from Tara, Stalwart and Fierce from Isabelle and Ivy, there was only one more to gain before I was done.

“What about my classes?”

“Your class abilities will likewise conform to your Attributes.”

I blinked several times and tried to take all this in.

“So a maximum of five?” I had more than five abilities.

“From each of your classes. Dual classing is not unheard of, though it is rare. You will be blessed with fifteen special abilities, given time.” Holy mackerel. Vellenia smiled indulgently. “Five is a special number in Dorfialtos, Fletcher.”

I had Hard at Work, Healer’s Resistance, Healer’s Endurance, and Healer’s Breath so far. After that I would really only get one more? And for my other class, I had Blissense, and Post-Sharing Clarity. A radar for knowing how to grant my partners pleasure, and a bonus for getting my freak on.

“I uh… there are gifts from the gods. I have a complete understanding of flowers from the Goddess of the Meadows.“ Not to mention I had Entwined Ecstasy and Pleasure’s Bounty. “Are those—”

She shook her head and cut me off. “The divine is limitless.”

Finally, I settled in to my nightly snuggle fest with Vellenia. A guy could get used to having a gorgeous female draped over him every night for the rest of his life. As Nakamamon went, a snuggle bunny was the best of all possible outcomes.

***

The issue with Fairy Poppins came to a head on a perfect day. The sun rose bright and early, giving us a wonderful view of thick mist on the marsh. After getting my fill of Vellenia cuddles, I extracted myself from her arms and headed out to find bright rays of sunshine warming my face. Banks of fog sat on the marsh, turning the normal and mundane into the mysterious.

I started off the day by re-applying Healer’s Resistance to Tweedle Dee and enduring the disapproval radiating off Regina. I was getting used to this, in a way that disappointed me, but used to it regardless. That done, I gave Dee a couple of reassuring scritches and met Vellenia outside the girls’ dorm building.

Alan was now in the process of shrinking down the hundreds of large clay tablets we’d enlarged in our research. I felt like I now knew so much about the different cures developed by Healers in the short time this world had been available to humans… but still not enough. As for the others, Ivy and Isabelle were still in bed, Larelle and Chrysta never seemed to sleep, Tara was out with Airaconda, and Trent was slow in waking up.

Drat, as always, was nowhere to be found.

The tiny ball of light zipped up and got right in my face.

“Oh… hey… Fairy Poppins.” A fairy of her stature shouldn’t have made me nervous. I wasn’t nervous of Fairy Poppins herself. She had a fairy dust ability I could shrug off more easily now that I had Stalward and Healer’s Resistance, and now that Vellenia was my companion. My resistance to fairy aspect magic was high… Larelle was practically immune to the fire coming off her Magmamander, so I should be immune to fairy effects.

Still, her aggressive posture was disconcerting. The flitting up and down and chirping indignantly in front of my face also gave me a bad vibe. I was supposed to be enjoying the fog this morning. Of all the weather phenomena, fog was by far my favorite. What was over in that direction? Surely not the same thing that had been there the day before! Now it could have a ring of mushrooms in it, or a wise old sage, or a sleeping dragon. Anything could be right over in that boring old spot, now that it was obscured by dense fog.

Also, I didn’t get to hang out inside a cloud every day. Fog was just cool, like you could get lost in your own neighborhood.

The tiny Tinkerbell stabbed an accusing finger at me, pointed down at the ground, and followed this up by pointing back behind her. I didn’t see anything back there. Teensy chirps of anger came out at me.

“I don’t know what you’re doing here, and I can’t understand what you’re saying, unfortunately. I’m sorry you’re upset, if that helps.”

It did not. Fairy Poppins was furious. She got so close to my face that I felt the pinprick of her finger against the tip of my nose, and actually saw her facial expression for once. The minuscule human was enraged, her eyes filled with fury.

“Is there anything I can do—”

I wasn’t able to finish that question, because Cinzy was there.

“That’s enough,” the Bard told her Nakamamon.

Fairy Poppins wasn’t having this, and went right up into Cinzy’s face at once. A hushed conversation followed, with both of them muttering and hissing almost-discernible whispers a good fifteen feet away from me. Cinzy pointed off several times, but the Nakamamon didn’t go anywhere. It was only when Cinzy stomped her foot on the platform’s wooden planks that Fairy Poppins got the hint, and sped away.

Something was going badly wrong here.

And wouldn’t you know it, but it was this very moment when Drat chose to appear before me.

The hatchet-faced Rogue still somehow looked like a goth, even though he was tall, thin, and saw practically no sunlight. It was the lanky black hair obscuring his dark eyes, and the blade of a nose protruding from beneath.

“We need to talk,” he said, in that sort of tone you’d reserve for conspiracies.

“Yeah! Yeah we do,” Cinzy said, stomping over to get in my personal space. “Why don’t you go first, Drat?”

“I think this is between Fletcher and I—”

“Oh no,” she spat. “I insist.”

I noted the brief appearance of a Token, but it disappeared before I could register what kind of Token it was. She’d just used a special ability, probably the same one she’d used on me when it was time to administer the cure on the eggs. Where I had Stalwart to counteract the persuasion ability, Drat had nothing.

Drat’s brow furrowed briefly, before the concerned left his face and he smiled. Weird. I didn’t think I’d seen Drat smile once during this whole trip. If he had, it had been at someone else’s expense. He had a dry sense of humor and wouldn’t do much more than tease the others.

“I found… what I was looking for,” he said.

“And what were you looking for?” Cinzy asked, with extra saccharine coating her tone.

“I told Fletcher I would tell him alone,” he said, still sounding confused but pleasantly so. Like he had just entered this room but wasn’t entirely sure why.

“That’s perfectly okay,” she said. “Fletcher won’t mind.”

Fletcher would mind, but the force of her personality rolled into me.

“Cinzy, you don’t need to do this.”

“Don’t I?” The way she turned her head to lock eyes on me reminded me of a creepy doll movie. The contrast between the sweetness in her voice and the eerie expression couldn’t have been more stark. “Don’t I want to hear about whatever other secrets you have stored up, Fletcher?”

It was at this moment that Fairy Poppins dropped down onto Drat’s head and bathed him in a shower of fairy dust. I know firsthand that stuff would cause a pleasant euphoria and a truth-telling effect would roll over him. Fairy Poppins then perched herself on Cinzy’s shoulder and stared daggers in my direction.

Cinzy rolled her hand and told Drat to go on.

“Cinzy—“

“It’s Cinzia,” she growled.

“I found out who was responsible for the egg situation,” Drat said. Maybe, in his dazed state and under the effect of Cinzy’s ability, he wanted to stop us fighting, and this news was the way to do that.

“And who’s that?”

“Blake,” he said.

“Blake?” both Cinzy and I blurted.

“He had several others with him, but I asked Regina to describe him, and this confirmed it. He was with a small expedition of Guardians and magic-users to catalogue this village and the surroundings.”

“Blake, Regina’s-once-upon-a-time-admirer Blake?” Cinzy asked.

Drat nodded cheerfully.

“The guy she rejected out of hand, that Blake?”

Drat continued bobbing his head.

“Blake the guy who used his intimidation ability on me?” I had hoped to have zero contact with that guy. In all honesty, forgetting him after getting here had been an easy task.

“That’s the guy. From what I gather, he came here and attempted to have sex with several of the natives.”

“That sounds like Blake,” Cinzy murmured.

“They weren’t comfortable with his presence,” Drat went on. “Which made Vellenia’s conduct toward Fletcher more confusing. But the elders sent her to figure out if he could be trusted, and whether Blake’s actions constituted an attack or not. Vellenia reported back that it had not.”

Meaning… having sex with Vellenia had been a test? And that test was for whether they were going to defend themselves against my group? The implications swirled through my brain. If the Marshins had had a less than stellar experience with Blake, causing the eggs serious distress, I was amazed they’d let us into the village at all.

“They wouldn’t have let us in at all if Fletcher hadn’t been a Healer.”

“You are dismissed, Drat,” Cinzy said.

“Okay!”

Drat turned on his heel and walked off. He had a blithe look on his face. If it were me I’d be seriously relieved at fleeing the powder keg set up between the Bard and myself.

For a good little while, there was no speaking. I regarded Cinzy and tried to figure out what to say. She seemed volatile, barely contained, like if I said the wrong thing she would go off like the Fourth of July.

This wasn’t what I’d signed up for.

“Cinzy—“

She held up a hand, again the forceful personality seemed to smother me emotionally. One Token appeared and puffed out of existence, followed by another one. The UI informed me that Fierce had just caused her to spend an additional Token. I could spend 6 Tokens to break out of this effect, and that my Stalwart special ability would assist me in the check if I decided against Tokens.

I had a very limited Token budget for the time being. The check, even at +7 skill ranks, still only netted me 4 successes. Not enough.

Cinzy walked up to me. “I gave you my body, Fletcher. I was even stupid enough to believe you when you said you weren’t going to be faithful and stay with me alone. Well that was an understatement to say the least!” She barked out a bitter laugh. “Ivy and Isabelle! Really? Not only are you banging others on the team, but you’re banging the lesbian couple? I can’t wait to find out who else you’ve stuck your cock into… Regina? Oh, probably. Tara? She’s way out of your league, but who knows. What about Larelle? You got yourself a muscle mommy fetish there, eh Fletcher?” She laughed again, two quick mocking jabs. “Chrysta? I wouldn’t doubt it, I guess. I don’t know how you’d get your dick wet on a literal ghost, but I bet you would if you could.”

I wanted to roll my eyes, but the suffocating pressure of Cinzy’s Bard special ability or special abilities meant I could only stand there and vibrate indignantly, and a bit of shame. Yes, I should have told her I wasn’t going to limit myself to only her.

Suddenly Cinzy’s face crumpled miserably. “I thought I knew who you were, Fletcher. I thought we had something special.”

She was crying. Tears welled up in her eyes and one spilled down her cheek. The last words came out in a betrayed hiss, almost inaudible. “I let you fuck my ass.”

Her words, like her mental state, seemed to warp the air around her. The gorgeous misty morning suddenly felt chilly. A breeze blew over my still-nude body. The villagers who were making their way here or there suddenly looked at the two of us and gave us wide berth. All the while, tears slipped down Cinzy’s cheeks.

Fairy Poppins had stood and made her way over to Cinzy’s neck, where she hugged against her companion. Cinzy flinched, and like she was swatting at a mosquito, catapulted the fairy Nakamamon out away from her. Then her eyes widened at the realization of what she’d just done.

“Fairy...” she muttered, looking lost and hurt and like a cornered animal. When she reached out, the glowing tiny fairy shied away from her.

Fairy Poppins fluttered over to me and settled on my shoulder.

“I didn’t mean… I’m s…” Cinzy started, but couldn’t bring herself to say she was sorry in my presence. Her mouth hardened into a tight, flat line, and for the first time ever, the anger in her made her ugly. “It’s them or me, Fletcher. You want me? You get only me. I’m the best you’ve ever had, so go ahead and choose, right now.”

I sighed. She apparently took this as confirmation that I wanted to have sex with everyone before her. Her snarl grew even worse.

“Well, you can screw anybody you want, now. I’m leaving. I quit.”

Silence wasn’t the only thing between us right now. It was, however, the main thing right at this moment. It spun out awkwardly.

This is Christopher losing a member of his team after only two weeks.