Divinity Rescue Corps
70- Glorious Progress

The process began again. This time, I kept my brain off the only thing I couldn’t control, that Cinzy wasn’t coming back. This wasn’t easy, getting my anxious and overworking brain off the thing that wanted a better resolution and simply couldn’t get one.

I attempted meditating again, focusing on my breathing. In through the nose, hold breath, out through the mouth. Feel the air rushing in through the sinuses, focus on the feel of the chest expanding, deepen into the feel of the breath leaving the body.

No Cinzy.

No sickness, either the villagers or Tweedle Dee.

No nudity.

All was well. Mind blanked. Only breathing.

There was only so much I could change, and the things I couldn’t change or control were not part of my existence in the here and now. I could accomplish only what was possible for me, given the resources at my disposal.

My eyes shot open and I reached for my character sheet. Then I stopped.

Congratulations! You have gained the Meditation skill at level 1. This skill allows for a purity of thought. While in use, mana channeling and mana regeneration are increased.

I knew that with higher levels of Meditation I could eventually regain Tokens. I immediately put a skill point into it, but was stopped when the system informed me boosting it again wouldn’t be possible without a level up.

“Ugh, fine.” I would level up Healer soon enough. This much potion making and cure creation would make that happen, sure as the sun rising each morning.

With some clarity of thought, I got back to work. Common numphties ground. Cauldron suspended above Lanelle’s dozing Magmamander and heating the oil. Sundrinker petals and stalks separated for later. Mana at the ready. Vellenia collecting more of both ingredients in case I messed this up again.

I smiled. Vellenia might not be a pack animal like Muppin, or a golden snitch like Fairy Poppins, or an assistant in hiding or earth bending, but she was smart, kind, and dynamite in bed. I was lucky to have her.

With another ten minutes of meditation, I began the process again.

This time the hours passed with a quickness that made little sense. The sun dipped below the horizon and people filed in to get status reports, only to disappear again when Larelle told them I needed to focus. I sensed Tara’s eyes on me, but just kept feeding mana into the cure.

The temperature needed to be raised up to three hundred for the infusion of mana, the stirring, and the adding of the sundrinker stems. Then, after those were in, I had to bring it back down to two twenty.

I found a clarity of mind in the middle of this act, like I was watching the waves crash against the shore, or staring into a camp fire. Time passed but didn’t seem to matter. Not even my body or my needs mattered. Only the act before me and the final product I was creating had any significance. I was able to adjust the legs of the tripod holding up the cauldron while feeding more magic into the concoction. It was like I’d hypnotized myself.

More sundrinker petals went in, along with more mana. More stirring. More semi-conscious meditation while working. Finally, with a burst of mana, I tipped the tears of laughter into the mixture and hoped this wouldn’t break the whole thing.

The Develop Cure (Mental) check was more intense than the one for the eggs. It was a bigger issue than the eggs situation.

Develop Cure (Medium/Fairy) Check: This check is Extreme (9). You currently have 5 Likability, 0 levels in Medium Nakamamon, and 0 levels in Fairy aspect Nakamamon. Would you like to spend your 5 Tokens to automatically succeed at this check?

Total Tokens: 5 Likability and 7 Free Tokens.

*Hard At Work: Your Tokens are worth double given you are engaged in your class duties.

I didn’t say a lot more intense, but more intense. Luckily, not a lot more difficult.

However, I was able to get Vellenia to spend 3 of his Likability Tokens to lower the difficulty by 1, and that meant I would only need 4 Tokens to pass this check. Three Tokens to save me only one didn’t seem like a great tradeoff, but I was the one dealing with the nudity god… whenever that would happen.

Without Tokens this would otherwise be completely impossible, so I spent the four tokens.

Success! You have crafted a cure for a mental ailment, for medium creatures.

The morning of the third day following Cinzy’s departure found me scooping up a cooled cure into cupfuls with Vellenia, and ‘misting’ the whole village one raspberry at a time.

Where else can you spit in the face of a person like Drat and have them thank you for it?

The process of curing these people took hours. I hadn’t eaten dinner, and only scarfed down a hunk of bread after finishing the cure, but the singing, glowing cure washed all my troubles away, one mouthful at a time.

Once cured, the team was able to get their own doses of cure and go around spitting on the natives. Phhhhbbbbbttt! Over and over again, raspberry after raspberry, the morning stillness was interrupted by disgusted laughter and the sounds of people making silly spitting noises.

Sometimes spitting in the face of mental illness is what works.

***

Sarah lamented that I didn’t give her any of the spicy tidbits on the way back to meet up with my folks later in the morning. My dad was off at work, and we spent some time playing with Brayden in the yard. It was getting to be late fall, and that meant raking up leaves into huge piles and flinging the boy at them. Either he was flinging himself or I was flinging him.

Then he had a cranky period, followed by a hefty nap.

“It’s time,” my mother said, smiling.

“Time to continue the story?” I asked with an easy smile.

“That and end the weird no-clothes situation that’s been dragging on forever,” Sarah added.

“He’s going to get there eventually,” my mother said. “Patience.”

“I actually did take steps basically the day after Cinzy quit the team,” I said. ‘Quit the team’ wasn’t the right term for it, since HQ hadn’t processed any HR documents, but she sure as heck didn’t take a leave of absence or paid time off. Though thinking about it later, I would reflect that she essentially abandoned her duties but was still drawing a salary here on earth.

There was no further need to dwell on the Cinzy situation, though. We had actual problems to deal with.

Everyone else took a well-deserved day off. We had been working around this problem for over a week now, and the whole village had not only suffered from a mental attack and ailment, but they’d had to work through the ailment to treat the hundreds of villagers while I got my cure on. They had also ‘dispersed’ the cure.

My sister made a face at the mental image of me spitting in people’s faces.

“We also ended up receiving Achievements.”

Achievement: cure a whole village

You’ve really outdone yourself this time, haven’t you! Cured an entire village of the sick. What a lovely thing you’ve gone and done. You should be proud of yourself.

Reward: +1 Free Attribute point

I wasn’t sure about that last line, since triggering Cinzy was in a way my fault. I tried to rationalize it away; it was just as much Fairy Poppins’s fault, just as much Ivy’s fault. Still, the feeling that the responsibility lay with me remained, heavy for now. 

The free Attribute point gave the team reason to perk up. We all discussed how they would be spent, but I could pretty easily see them going in their main stats. Mine? I wasn’t so sure. It seemed like I needed Affinity to work on this god situation… but I wanted more Physicality. My growth plate injuries and scoliosis were giving me very little problems nowadays, but I wanted more power and more stamina for my bedroom activities.

Sighing, I sank the point into Affinity after a short internal debate. We needed this nudity god situation dealt with, and it had already been over a week.

The remainder of the team enjoyed some R&R.

I made my way to the laboratory, where the body of the fallen god lay in its glowing clothes. Even now, the god had no distinct features, but was instead a hazy and faceless representation of a person. The hands had no fingernails, but looked to be condensed out of shifting smoke or mist.

Also it was floating. It was only three to five inches off the floor, slowly rising and falling like the respiration of some gigantic beast. A blue whale.

It continually leaked a kind of blood or ichor that slowly dissolved into the floorboards. The color was odd, shifting an iridescent oily pattern, but the smell was almost impossible to handle. I wrinkled my nose but passed the simple Durability check for resisting.

“All right,” I told the prone god. I had taken the rest of the day off and really given Vellenia a serious pounding just minutes ago. She lay in our bed right now, woozy and getting some extra sleep.

That meant I could utilize my Pleasure Seeker ability, Post-Sharing Clarity.

Post-Sharing Clarity

(Special Ability, Rare, Passive)

After having intimate relations with a partner, both partners gain +2 temporary bonus to all attributes for the next 10 minutes. This bonus does not grant additional Tokens.

The duration increases by 10 minutes for each relationship level above base acquaintances.

Right now, because my relationship with Vellenia was tier 3, all my Attributes were temporarily boosted by +2 for a good thirty minutes. I could get on board with having sex before undertaking any important task.

“Yes please,” I muttered to myself.

In my parents’ living room, I waited until my mom had headed to the bathroom to tell her about Post-Sharing Clarity, but made her promise not to laugh and make Mom suspicious. She showed confusion at first, but once she heard a description of the ability she snorted and burst out laughing.

Settling down to meditate next to the body of the fallen god, I attempted to identify him… her… it. It was essential that I get the god’s identity known, so I could try to help it overcome its magically malady. I could only surmise the system had a reason for it.

With my Affinity temporarily boosted to 8, and my Identify skill finally up to level 5, I had 13  levels total. I could probably see 4, maybe a lucky 5 successes out of this check.

Identify check:You possess the Identify skill at level 5, and Affinity presently at 8. This check is Difficult. Would you like to spend 2 Tokens for an automatic success?

Total Tokens: 6 Affinity and 7 Free Tokens.

*Hard At Work: Your Tokens are worth double given you are engaged in your class duties.

Sweating bullets, I suppressed the fear of failure and went with it. I could spend a single Token to retry the check. Turned out I scored an unbelievable 6 successes.

Success! You have Identified the god.

I breathed out a sigh of pure relief. Things were once again starting to go the way I wanted them to.

God of Apparel

(Medium/Unique)

Description: This god governs the covering of the body through artificial means, the wearing of clothing.

History: You have diagnosed this god with a magical sickness, which is in an advanced state. The sickness completed its course, killing it. Dying then discorporated this being into component parts. These were flung and scattered to nearby locations.

By bringing these parts together and giving the god items of clothing in offering, you have successfully reconstituted it. The god has been brought back to life. If enough time passes without intervention, the sickness will take it once more. It will die and discorporate yet again. The consequences of this will be more severe than the original death.

Progress. Glorious progress!

I leapt to my feet and pumped a fist in the air, then experienced the dizziness of getting to my feet too quickly and steadied myself against a workbench. It wouldn’t do to slump over and make full contact with a divine being… again. Not when I was the only one who could whip up treatments and slowly brew up a cure.

Also… the god was dead? Holy crap… I had resurrected a god.

Achievement: resurrect a dead god

Not a sentence you ever thought you’d see written, did you? Nor is it a sentence you ever thought you would see written… about you. But you did it! Not only have you brought a dead god back to life, but now that you’ve successfully identified it, you gain this achievement.

Reward: the favor of the god

Holy crap. The description of the achievement wasn’t wrong. I never imagined that sentence would exist, let alone be pointed in my direction. Although I knew what ‘favor of the god’ meant in vague terms, it had been different in every instance.

The Goddess of the Meadows gave me the innate ability to know all flowers ever. The God of Footfalls gave me divine footwear that made it so I’d never get tired. The Lovers gifted me with a second class. These were so wide ranging and bizarre that I could only wildly speculate as to the gift I might end up with from the God of Apparel.

The ability to become instantly nude if I thought about it? That one made me chuckle. The ability to wear nothing but have other people believe I was wearing clothes, like the Emperor’s New Clothes? An item like the shoes from the God of Footfalls, where I could make it fly off my body with a thought? It would be great if I could make it fly onto me like the wizard’s cape from those superhero films, and tangle people’s limbs up and such.

Each idea I had was funnier and dumber than the last.

After this, I created a treatment for the magical illness, an elixir I spent a couple of Tokens on. This put me over the edge of not one, but two level ups.

Level 14: Ability upgrades: Hard At Work and Healer’s Endurance

Level 15: +2 skill points

“Awwww yisssss,” I said. I wasn’t about to start thanking Cinzy for putting me through so much business for these level ups, but I was grateful for being closer to level 25.

The special ability Hard at Work had upgraded to level 3, and I was secretly excited to see what happened after level 4. Wild Lore had offered to go up to level 5, or switch over to a higher tier ability, so I was already looking forward to a more powerful healing ability. Then I remembered this was only level 3, and would take some serious time to upgrade it not once, but twice more.

“Let’s get a look at you, then,” I said.

Hard At Work III

(Special Ability, Common, passive)

I- When engaged in checks that pertain to your class, your Tokens are worth double.

II- When you assist someone in their job, and seek to reduce the difficulty of a check, 2 Tokens will reduce the difficulty by 1, instead of 3 Tokens for 1 reduced difficulty. When you reduce the difficulty of your own checks, 2 Tokens

 III- When you engage in a check that pertains to your class and don’t spend Tokens, you gain one free retry. You may spend Tokens on the subsequent retry.

I wasn’t expecting much from this first ever ability, but I was pleasantly surprised. A free retry was worth a Token. This would help me push my luck a bit, use the check system without automatically spending myself dry like before. Nice.

“And a second ability upgrade as well. Let’s check you out.”

Healer’s Endurance II

(Special Ability, Common, active)

You may spend a Durability Token to resist the need for sleep for 24 hours. Penalties for sleeplessness are suppressed during this time, but take effect afterwards.

This is Christopher, pleased as punch.