Eric chose Emissary as his new class.

It was the only choice that made sense. Taking a new tier 1 class would make him weaker, even if it did give him new options. Increasing Traveler would make sense, but Emissary was a better fit to what he was now doing. He jokingly wondered if Bureaucrat was a class he could get-probably the upgrade to Clerk now that he thought about it.

Ability gained: Sweeten the deal, gain an instinctive idea of what would best improve a negotiation-this does not mean that you are willing to give the concession.

Eric frowned, would it be very useful for office politics? Yes. But he was hoping for the ability that would protect others.

Choose ability 'Diplomatic Immunity?' Self and identified 'bodyguards' cannot be targeted by spells without indicating understanding that it could cause a 'diplomatic incident.' Creatures with low intelligence will automatically indicate acceptance after a 2 second pause.

Eric thought about it. 2 seconds in a battle was a long time, and add Alicia's ability and the two of them could spam pauses, making any foes attack super-slowly, if at all. He also thought the frustration of any intelligent creature having to click 'ok' over and over would be hilarious, so he took the ability.

“Hey Alicia, I got an ability just like your Permission!”

She quietly answered “Oh, ok.”

Confused, Eric asked “Er, are you ok? Did I do something wrong?”

“No, I get it, I'm just holding you guys back, taking some of your XP, duplicating my best ability so you can leave me at home makes sense.” She said, shoulders slumped.

“Alicia, I don't want to replace it, I want to stack the abilities! Think about how much we can slow people down while the folks with guns fill them with holes.”

Alicia's face lit up. “Really?”

“Yeah, of course. You are part of the team now. I can't wait until you hit level 10 and we see what your next class is.” Alicia rushed Eric and hugged him, and Eric looked at Kendra for help, his arms carefully dangling away from his subordinate.

After he was released, Eric asked “So do we want to find actual coltroraptors, or try the coltrex meat?”

“Inventory full, dun feel right ta waste.” Guidry pointed out, so the group agreed to head out. Eric used Travel and they were outside the rift instantly. “Dis ability I like.”

As they went to Eric's place for the regular cookout, Tilly asked “What is a mountie?”

It took a while but Kendra suddenly said “A Canadian mountie?”

“What is a Canadian mountie?” Tilly asked.

“Um, a roving, very independent law-keeper,” Kendra explained.

“Oh good, that was what it looked like when I took the prestige class.”

“Wait, you are a mountie now?” Eric asked.

“Yes, it looked better than law-keeper 2 or ranger.” Tilly explained, and the group congratulated her for reaching tier 2.

The group agreed that while coltrex meat was OK, it wasn't coltroraptor. They took a quick stop at the orc rift to sell off the body parts, and went back for more. The quest gods were good to them, giving them a quest to hunt 8 of the tasty monsters, and soon they went home with plenty of meat.

The next day Eric checked on his trade and diplomatic efforts. Not only had the skeleton rift rulers paid gold for much of the bones US slaughterhouses would otherwise discard, they had purchased live rabbits, squirrels, and goats, among other animals. Eric took a quick jaunt to the still tense meeting ground on the skeleton side of the rift, meeting with, as far as he could tell, the same purple robed undead.

“You may want to import foxes as well. Otherwise the other animals population will explode.”

“That is a good thing, isn't it?” Eric was still surprised that he could see expressions like surprise and unhappiness on a skull face.

“No, they will expand, eat too much of the plants, then starve and die. Foxes will help keep the population steady.”

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“How do we know you are not just trying to get more gold from us?” The skull frowned.

Eric sighed, “Honestly, you don't. Just...if it happens, don't get mad at me, I gave you fair warning.”

Then he went through the orc rift to meet the emissary of the goblins, taking his usual group with him. When he arrived at the neutral meeting ground, LT Peterson was with the goblin party, smirking at Eric. Eric couldn't stop himself from a snarky “So you switched your loyalty from the Russians to the goblins?”

The traitorous human shrugged, “Better pay. Plus I'm serving the Russian cause too. Weakening the US.”

“Not really helping the goblins though, giving them the AK-74 design means the peace deal is probably dead. US troops will be fighting goblins.”

The goblin emissary's eyes opened wide, “Wait, why?”

Eric explained, “A human changed the power balance. Now we have to restore it. Our original plan was to use the trade city to try to get both sides to realize that trade was better than war. But if we followed the old plan, your people would push back the orcs everywhere else.”

“Yes, we will push the orcs out of traditional goblin lands. But that is just, not a reason for your people to interfere!”

“But it is. If you didn't have machine guns, you would still be in a stalemate. Which lets orc war-parties protect our lands elsewhere. But once your people move forward, those orcs have to return home, we lose important land. Which means we have to send our troops to counter yours. If a peace can be reached, then we don't need to do this.”

The goblin smiled, “You want your traitor human back, for trial, punishment, yes?”

Lt Peterson yelled “What, how can you offer that! I helped you!”

The goblin looked at him mildly, “No, you provided something you knew would cause problems. If you are truly loyal, you will trade yourself for our people.” The goblin gave an evil grin as the loyalty mark faded from the Lieutenant's left hand.

“No, wait, I can give you other plans, weapons, mortars, artillery, tanks!”

The goblin shook his head. “So human, can we have peace in exchange for this one?”

Eric shook his head. He was gaining respect for this goblin, and even kind of liked him. But the political reality was that the war couldn't be stopped. “I would like that, but I don't see how it could happen. The only way to have peace between humans and goblins is if there is peace between goblins and orcs.”

“Get them to return our land and we can have peace.” The goblin offered. Eric shook his head again.

“To the extent that Peterson's toys have helped you demand more land, we have betrayed our allies, and have to fight for the orcs.”

The goblin frowned. “Why come if only to tell us this?”

“Among our people, it is considered dishonorable to start fighting a war without telling the other side in advance. We can't just send an army into your land without telling you why. Once we return the balance of power, we will stop. At that point it may be too late for peace, I know. But your people won't agree to stop their raids.”

“True,” the goblin sighed. “Well, I appreciate your honor. Now I will show you goblin honor. Now!”

“Hobs!” Tilly shouted in rage, the first indication the group had of the forces that had surrounded Eric and his team. Kendra used Shield as LT Peterson drew his pistol. There were a dozen hobs and twice as many goblins in a rough circle around the parley.

In rage Eric used Elemental Blast, the two sunbolts that hit the goblin scorched his chest and left arm, but the goblin just raised his staff. On the other hand, the single sunbolt Eric sent to the Lieutenant hit the man in the head. As his face was turned to ruin, he collapsed backwards, the gun falling from his limp hand. Eric had at least made sure the man would not help the goblins further against Americans.

Alicia used Permission, buying the group time, and Guidry and King focused their fire, killing two hobgoblins and making a small gap for the group to escape. Tilly used a furious flurry of spears to widen that hole, killing two more in moments. But spears and gunshots poured into the group, Kendra's shield was quickly overwhelmed and shattered, a bullet hit Eric's arm, Kendra's leg, and Alicia took a spear to her gut.

Eric smiled, “You forgot one thing Emissary, I was a traveler before I became an Emissary. Escape.”

An instant later, the group was back on the Earth side of the orc rift, and a medic quickly helped Eric with Heal abilities.

“What happened?” Major Abdullah asked.

Tilly scoffed, “Goblins gain honor by capturing slaves. When it became clear there would not be peace, they tried to take us as slaves. Eric didn't let them.”

“It wasn't just me, you all helped.” Eric protested.

Tilly gave a short, bitter laugh. “If you weren't there, maybe we could have broken out, fought and run, maybe someone would get back to tell the tale. But there were far more of them than us. Without you, most of us would be dead.”

Eric shrugged, embarrassed, “Maybe. Still, we are a team, you have saved my life more than once.”

The Major interrupted, “OK, so what does that mean to us?”

Eric sighed, “We need to buy time, two weeks before the big red one goes through the rift and makes the goblins agree to orc terms. I think we need to have all troops spend their quest days on Ba'ruq. My team too.”

The Major frowned, “So no coltroraptor meat for a few weeks?”

“Yeah, sorry.”

Integration of planet 528142 complete. Off planet casualties of planet population: 42,862. Casualties of planet population caused by invasion: 1,724,121. Invader casualties: 14,862 sentient, 85,124 non-sentient. Off planet casualties caused by planet population: 6,420 sentient, 376,573 non-sentient. Levels gained by planet population: 42,867,159. Mana collection 30,487,658,125 less 12,875,981,681 used by population for net of 17,611,676,444. Current estimated mana income 630,000,000 mana per day. 68% below pre-interference estimate for this size population, 18% below post-interference estimate. Conclusion, anomaly present.

Set-urna scowled, his system was still expanding, taking over his father's work, but his children continued to interfere. The anomaly had to be an agent of theirs, or maybe more than one, no doubt not even knowing how they were being influenced. He had out sent his own agents, equally ignorant, but compelled to seek out and kill those others. But such a brute force method was bound to fail most of the time.

No, the solution was clear, much cheaper than a full reset, he just had to add one more rift. For this world...he paused to think...the cult would work well.