Divinity Rescue Corps
53- Naked Coworkers

In the immediate aftermath of the situation in Slinktrickle, a decision had to be made: should we abandon the town and try to head back to our original intended location of Glumpdumpkin, or should we continue to aid the Slinktrickle-ians in their wardrobe malfunction situation?

Because one thing was clear: we were doing work we hadn’t been asked to do. Presumably the people of Glumpdumpkin, a word I will never tire of writing, needed us. The people of Slinktrickle, another word I will have difficulty growing tired of, could function well enough even with the god of clothing sick or absent.

I didn’t love the idea of leaving a god under the influence of whatever ailment had taken them. On the other hand, these people didn’t seem to need clothing to live.

“We’re having this meeting to discuss the pros and cons of staying, versus trying to get back on track,” I said, before adding,“among other points of order.”

The room wasn’t a large one, and we were all fully nude. It was uncomfortable, to say the least. The Marshins of this village had built their domiciles well, but they were small and cozy, and we were ten people.

Drat sat on the dresser, while all four of the human girls sat cross-legged on the bed, with Chrysta hovering next to Larelle, towering in the corner with arms crossed, like a statue to ward off evil. The table had been taken by Trent and Alan, who used the meager cover to not have their junk on full display.

I was, and this fact boggled my mind, getting used to letting it all hang out. Leaning against the door as I was, the cover I’d been afforded came from Tweedle Dee, the vulpetunia Nakamamon sitting rigid before me. Sure everybody who wanted to could just lean to one side and stare at my twig and berries, but I was getting over the openness.

“We ought to wait until Tara returns,” Cinzy said. A lot of nodding and ‘hear hear’ erupted around the room.

“She could return as early as tonight,” I said. “If we start the situation with this god, it could end up being days or longer before it’s resolved to anyone’s satisfaction. We’re cool being naked in Slinktrickle until that happens?”

“The weather’s been getting colder,” Regina said. “I’ve been here long enough to know that the seasons aren’t what we know back on earth. You could have a week-long fall, a two-week winter, and then a couple of weeks of spring. Or fall could go on for a month.”

“Alan or Trent, do you have any way of predicting that kind of thing?”

“No,” Trent said. “I do have a note here from Alan that I’m supposed to read.”

“S-s-s-s-s-sorry,” Alan muttered.

Everybody reassured him his stutter wasn’t a problem, he had nothing to worry about, and he was a great Wizard, regardless of his stutter. The attention caused him to blush furiously, and he scratched the back of his neck.

“Read away,” Drat said, in his customary wry Drat manner.

Trent read, “I’ve leveled up enough that I can cast the spell to contact the HQ. That’s something I can do daily, so we should prepare reports.”

“That’s awesome news! Congratulations, Alan,” Cinzy bubbled, and Alan went tomato red, having the supermodel gorgeous Cinzy not only pay him attention, not only talk to him directly, but actually praise him. I wouldn’t doubt steam would’ve boiled out of his ears if it could’ve.

“We should probably ask whether we should stick around Slinktrickle or move on,” Drat said.

“This is Fletcher’s expedition,” Chrysta said. The ghostly Nakamamon rarely ever spoke, but when she did, it was like you could feel the chill of winter creeping up your spine. “He will make the ultimate decision regarding our course of action.”

Several of us humans shivered.

“I meant,” Drat said, “that we should ask HQ for information on Glum… on our original destination in case the situation there is quite serious.”

“More information is better,” Trent added.

“That’s fine,” I said. “We’ll definitely do that, and I’ll decide based on that info, and your recommendations. Not that it’s a democracy right now, but I’ll take a show of hands for stay and help out.”

I was curious at who would choose to stay in the naked village. All three of my fellow males raised their hands right away.

***

“Yeah, no duh,” Sarah said, still rubbing her very pregnant belly. “Of course they chose to stay where they could stare at their naked coworkers all day long.”

“And the naked villagers,” my mother said, smirking at the idea. “Don’t forget the hundreds of nude fish people.”

***

The actual reason my family didn’t know that made the decision obvious; all three of the boys had just gotten laid at the big celebration the night before. Perhaps they’d guessed. I had too, and with a good dozen of the native Marshins.

Marshins… yet another word I’m definitely not going to get tired of writing down.

Of the ladies, Chrysta raised her hands, several of them. I had too stop myself from snorting a laugh at the idea that the many-armed Chrysta deserved multiple votes. After frowning, Larelle slowly raised her thickly muscled hand.

None of the girls on the bed raised their hands. That also made sense, if I figured everything was about me. If they didn’t want the Marshins to have their females come onto me, it made sense that Regina, Isabelle, Ivy and Cinzy might not want to stick around Slinktrickle.

“It’s five to four in favor of staying,” I announced, for no good reason, “unless any of the girls who didn’t raise their hands have another course of action in mind.”

They did not.

“I’ll take this under consideration, but for right now, I’m thinking we’ll hunt down the malfunctioning god, and get it set right. Without a strong recommend from HQ, that’s what we’ll do. Drat and Regina, I’ll need to speak with you, but the rest of us have jobs to do.”

“Me?” Trent asked.

“Priority one is reinforcing the redoubt. I don’t think we’ll have a repeat of what just happened, but I’d like that option if some god of psychopathic fury pops up and turns everyone into berserkers. Afterwards, I’d like for you to join a pair of Guardians,” I said, “or pair up with Cinzy on the god hunt. You are all strictly forbidden from going anywhere near it. If I’m not there, you’re dead if you touch it. Please do not.”

Trent gulped but nodded, while I goggled at myself and what I’d just said. The charisma I’d just displayed is not something I’m used to. Immediately on the end of this thought is the next one: I hope I didn’t piss anyone off.

But then, peering around at all the acceptance on the faces of my teammates, or rather subordinates, it’s clear that this warning needed to be given. I hold up my hand, where the shape of a flower is somehow inscribed deep inside my flesh, and it can only be seen under a certain light. “I’m serious. It nearly killed me on my first day because I didn’t know what I was doing. Almost everyone here has more experience in this world than I do… but we need reminders.”

More nods, along with a light in Regina’s eyes I take to be admiration… or horniness. She is an awfully horny Ranger.

“The second order of business that I was hoping to do is getting a read on everyone’s stats and special abilities. I’d prefer for all of us to know everyone else’s capabilities, in order for us to coordinate on tactics and defense strategies if things go sideways.” We were a group bent on surviving and helping to heal what made the people of this world sick. The people of this world had largely no idea what violence was in the first place, so there was no reason to hold cards close to our chests. We should never have been at odds in the first place.

Drat’s feet slapped against the floor. “Uh, no thank you?” He went to stride out, but I called after him.

“I have an ability called Healer’s Resistance, so if you ever end up poisoned or under the influence of a status effect, especially if you’ve touched a god, I can make it so the affliction is easier to resist and leaves quicker.”

Drat paused on his way to shut the door. He turned, pursing his lips. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

I’d hoped that this would convince him that sharing was caring and he needed to grow a pair and trust us, but apparently not. He left without another word.

You can order him to stay, Larelle said, directly into my mind. He is your subordinate on your expedition. You are the leader.

I shrugged this off. The moment I stopped being a good and friendly part of the team and brought down my iron fist, I’d start getting back shoddy work. They’d cooperate only as much as they had to in order to satisfy the orders. Right now, Drat was searching for the cause of the egg sickness, and he was convinced it had something to do with an incredible surge of anger, but the townsfolk Nakamamon hadn’t wanted to talk about it.

If I forced him to play nice, I doubted he’d be doing this job so willingly.

“Rogues,” Ivy muttered. “I’m sure you had a reason to bring one along, but I tell ya, they’re all like that. Every single sneaky one of them.”

I nodded. With that done, I went through my list of special abilities, including the new one.

The non-sex abilities, of course. I wasn’t about to tell them all I could get a deep view of their kinks and deepest desires by touching them.

“I’ve got an ability that doubles my Token expenditure for class-related tasks,” I said. It was something I thought everyone had, but I’d been wrong. “After that, I can spend Durability to resist the need for sleep. This I’ll be using when I craft the next cure. The one I told Drat about is called Healer’s Resistance. High resistance to all damage types, and reduces durations of long term damage. I can pass it on by spending a Token. Then there’s Healer’s Breath.”

Ivy sat up straight.

“I just got this one after administering the cure, and you’re going to like it.” Maybe they wouldn’t. After all, I basically had to kiss them to make it work.

Healer’s Breath

(Special Ability, Uncommon, active)

Make a Treatment check with Affinity (or spend an Affinity Token) and breathe on the target in order to administer a temporary treatment for any damaging ailment. The target is healed by 3-18 hit points over 6 seconds. Symptoms of the ailment are reduced in intensity by 50% for a day. May only be used on a target once per day.

This one was big. First, it didn’t require a Token to be spent, which was good. Right now I didn’t have any left. Second, it didn’t require me to collect, prepare, and mix ingredients into a salve, unguent, potion, or anything else. The treatments didn’t take forever to make, but this was much faster.

“Nice,” Cinzy said.

Also, Ivy had gained this ability after we’d had sex just two days ago.

Last, I added in a dash of my highest attributes as well, though they were all fairly even.

Attributes:

Affinity 5 (0/5)

Durability 6 (1/6)

Ingenuity 6 (1/6)

Likability 5 (0/5)

Physicality 4 (3/4)

The new class was ramping up my Likability and Durability, while Healer mainly gave me Ingenuity. The result was a pretty even spread.

Next to each statistic was how many tokens I had remaining… not many. I’d spent them all on the latest cure, and resisting an ability Cinzy used to get me to abandon the cure.

We went over the abilities of the Guardians first. All of them had Stalwart, which allowed them to resist being influenced by social rolls and psychic powers. Several had Fierce, the opposite version, which gave them incredible skill bonuses for intimidating others. An ashhole named Blake used this on me when I first arrived at the HQ. Christa and Isabelle also had Quick, which made them extremely fast for a short time. Larelle and Ivy had Sturdy, a buff that gave them a bunch of bonus HP and strength for a short time. All four of them had Interpose, the power Isabelle had used to generate a magical blue tower shield once upon a time. It was largely what they’d used to keep the Marshins from dealing them violence.

“We’re given the choice of offense or defense,” Isabelle explained, “but the HQ people strictly regulate the choice of abilities to the defensive. Anyone who manifests a flaming sword or a purple magic staff is out of the program.”

Larelle’s magmamander did basically nothing, though it could be coaxed into starting the cook fire each night, or be the cook fire… it looked a lot like one of those huge Japanese river salamanders, except it was patterned with black and red.

I liked that all the names of the Guardian abilities had short, simple names that made sense. It certainly wasn’t that way with Cinzy and her Bard abilities.

She had Viltrayeen’s Patented Entrancing Vocalization, a very fancy way of saying she could be extra persuasive. While Fierce worked very well on a single target, Cinzy’s special ability worked pretty well against anyone who could hear her voice. Atateeren’s Superb Ventriloquism was what she used to put her voice wherever she wanted it, and was the most basic thing she’d received at level 1. After that she had Courage Of The Allies Supremely Bolstered and Energizing and Refreshing Rhythms From The Soul.

All of these were a mouthful, and roughly what I’d expected: she used her voice or music, and her presence to buff allies or debuff enemies. The last one could provide a stamina or mana recovery rate boost, and she claimed to have just received it from a recent level up.

The contrast, just in the names between Guardian and Bard special abilities, was delightful to me. I had a good laugh over it. You could’ve just as easily called them Entrance, Ventriloquism, Bolster Morale and Stamina/Mana Boost, but Bards didn’t work like that, apparently.

Regina had powers to enhance her senses, which was a revelation to me. No wonder she’d been able to find me so easily in the anti-gravity HQ castle. She also had powers to travel more easily, faster, and more stealthily.

“I can speak with animals,” she said.

“Pffff,” Ivy said. “Anybody can speak with animals. You just use baby talk and pet them.” She scratched at Muppin’s gigantic stone crown extending off the back of his gigantic head. “Iddn’t that right you widdle cutie patootie? Who’s the best widdle pack mule? That’s right, you are!”

Muppin leaned into scratches, as he always did, his rocky eyelids grinding closed and a placid smile appearing on his face.

Regina folded her arms and cocked out a hip. “They talk back.”

“Mmm-hmm,” Ivy replied, and tipped her an exaggerated wink.

After that, she had several arrow shooting abilities, which she didn’t typically use. These included an arrow that could split into many, an arrow that was guided directly to its target, and an arrow that exploded on impact.

“We could use the exploding arrow as a signal flare though,” Ivy suggested.

“That’s a good idea,” Trent said.

We’d seen Trent at work a lot already. Trent had the ability to sense through rock, and he had a lot more mana for rock manipulation and shaping than Alan did. Alan could do everything but just a little. Trent could do one thing, and a whole lot. We’d seen him create tunnels, float rocks, shift the earth to push our huge and heavy raft into the lake, and create an entire igloo out of stone in mere minutes.

Garnet, his crystalline football of a Nakamamon, apparently boosted his mana for earth manipulation even further. Perhaps the most unknown power Garnet had was rapid movement through any kind of earth and stone, and its ability to communicate with Trent over a distance. That made the orange gemstone creature a potentially powerful scout.

“We’ll need that ability, I think,” I said.

It wouldn’t be long.

As for Alan, his abilities ran the gamut. They were essentially limitless in scope, on the condition that Alan could perform the complicated spell. He could teleport himself a short distance, if he ever got the spell to work. He’d already cooled things down, given them water breathing capabilities, and he claimed that now he could make gravity half as effective for a short time. They were calling it feather fall, but once he demonstrated, we called it moonwalk.

“We could’ve jumped off the cliff with this,” Cinzy said, as we all leapt high in the air and bounced around like we were astronauts. Only Chrysta didn’t need it, since she floated a few feet off the ground.

It was discovered, however, that she could float much higher off the ground when Moonwalk was used on her. She seemed to find this disconcerting at first, but she got used to it like the rest of us.

Alan’s other abilities were only limited by our imaginations. He manifested a ball of light that floated around his head. He made a message on a piece of paper vanish, until one of us touched it and spoke a magic word. Disappearing, reappearing ink. He had a spell for comprehending different languages, a spell to make a disc that floated three feet in the air, a spell to coat the area in sticky stuff, a spell to coat the area in slippery stuff, a spell to coat the area in flammable stuff.

This is Christopher being seriously impressed.