Seru woke up to her phone chirping. She took a deep breath and pulled the covers off herself. Her room was nice and toasty, despite a coating of frost on the window. The cold floor betrayed that it was winter, and her feet had to quest for pink fuzzy slippers. She took a moment to put on a robe and then looked outside, frigid air filling her nose as she put it near the glass. She could see there had been a dusting of snow, coating both the pine trees and piles of leaves. It was still dark out, but she could make out light in the sky past the trees and over the hills. She went to one of the stacked boxes that still held her clothes and pulled out workout leggings, a red bra, and a black t-shirt. She held them on her arm and opened her portable hole.

She specifically picked it for most storage over her ring because it was easier to build a wardrobe in the hole. The faint smell of cedar mixed with a bit of perfume she had sprayed inside. Gygax would probably prefer if she had a proper bag of holding, but he was mighty pleased with how she had catapulted his faith to sit with the big boys. She pulled out baggy looking red pants and a vest that would fit over her shirt. Not too modest, but not too flashy. She was planning on doing a video on tower features, mostly cribbed from research Dot had done and from buttering up her gold spray-painted rival for Nyxion.

She turned the shower on and once again noticed that while her viewers called her young and hip, her face looked more like an adult these days. When she wasn't 'on' for the camera, she thought a lot about Nyx and Corvayne. Combined, she suspected they didn't think about her half as much as she did. It was hard to compete with princesses and super slimes and whatever Nyxion got up to in the Tower. Two 'casual' relationships and she fell for both them, and had neither.

At least she was rich now. Not Tripic noble rich, but she was dealing in billions and billions of hits on her quick and dirty run through of the system and basically just doing pulling lessons from Corvayne and Nyxion and Mister I and LBC and filtering it through online video lingo.

If she had a half a million views after a month for one of her stupid previous videos it was solid success. She was several thousand times bigger. All because she had tried to screw Corvayne and Wick in a previous lifetime. She had enough money to buy a couple houses on her own, and her parents were proud of boosting Gygax, but there was a weird feeling of being hollow as she watched her count go up. Maybe she'd see if one of the engineers could figure out a way to stream a dungeon run. The trick being they'd need to slow everything down because she'd be creating video at 7x the speed. You couldn't just run a network cable across dimensions, could you? She would also need a radio or something. It was probably hard to keep a signal since she'd have to drop relays every stairway. Since leveling up she got a sense she was getting smarter, and that might be why she got less and less happy.

She washed her hair and watched soap spiral the drain. Her fans would be happy with a long dungeon run, maybe she'd tap Hari to do a duo and use the waypoint to cut to a floor 20 town they had been considering as their public staging ground. Wick was paranoid about appearing on any of them and was pushing Hari to scout out a smaller, more quiet place that had a waypoint.

Record the lesson she had, then do a deep dive with Hari. That would take care of content for a month if it was interesting. The viewers she had also liked when she talked to Tower Folk or Babs or Dot about 'lore' which she was starting to warm up on. It was more interesting then tabletop games.

Before she noticed she had finished her shower she was getting breakfast ready in her bra.

“Shit!” She stepped back from the pan, and checked to make sure she didn't get oil on it. It was still newish! Safe.

She had five eggs and six pieces of bacon because, as far as she could tell, high level bodies saved calories in ways that made it fiendishly hard to gain weight, and per Lady Blood Claw higher level bodies also were better at storing vitamins. Her high school level understanding of chemistry and biology was enough to tell her there was something very wrong with it, but there was also something wrong with the physics of [Springwind] letting her phase through a monster charging her.

In no time at all she was fed, had finished dressing in her standard public appearance gear, and was hopping into her new jeep. Video today. Traps, getting new classes, and tier up advice. Gary had been telling her he had been theory crafting with the 'boys' about how what powers to gun for if people were specializing or rounding out their class. That the formerly pudgy kid was starting to buff up into a shorter Corvayne with a bad haircut made her kick herself for writing him off before.

She could drive and text due to her improved dexterity, perception, attention span, and general reaction time, so she sent off a message to Shallee. 'I want to do a makeover stream for you two.'

It was an idea she had brewing, since there was a side to adventuring that everyone else seemed to ignore: making and modding your armor to actually look good. It was something Nyxion got, and she noticed that the serpent whip, for example, now was keyed to match gold trim on his outfits, that matched his hair. All his armor was tailored to look flashy and ceremonial, but he ALSO had built into this emotion-tank build that could seamlessly turn into a pure control build at whim. He had a pair of earrings that converted spent mana to passive regeneration and one that let him use pain to restore mana, and specifically passed over ones until he had a pair that looked nearly identical that Mosh could change to red. Mana he spent went into his shield too, then when it broke it empowered all his other items. He also had charisma and vitality boosting gear, which improved all the debuffs he had. Most importantly, he had found things with close enough shades to his red black and gold color themes that he could tweak them to match.

At a stop light Seru looked down at her monk outfit, which looked great but was really some greens that were sewn together. Her real gear sadly was pretty 'strawberry' when not covered in clothing. The most outstanding case was her radioactive green glowing bikini bottom that made her bare tummy and legs nearly indestructible (she drew the line at asking Corvayne to use [Mass Driver] on it) but without pants over it, that gear would require her to wax and would likely be a strike against her channel if she fought in it. Her vest was gray and had glowing 'lava' tubes in it, her head piece was a colorful jade circlet with greens and reds, and she wished she had more gear like it. It was why she got the gear she was wearing as it matched the kung-fu outfit. Instead of a cool looking frozen weapon like Bearer, the loot gods had rolled her what looked like brown foam novelty fists.

They looked stupid.

They made her hands sweat if it was anything but freezing.

They smelled like burnt coffee when she wore them.

They made squeeky sounds when she hit things.

Whatever got hit would then have something like an earthquake hit them, and thus she had the most lethal weapon they had pulled from a dungeon.

She was looking between her phone and the currently red light when the sun came up way too fast.

A moment later, it was like someone pushed the car over, and all the windows burst. Instinct kicked in and the drills that Corvayne suggested kicked in, her armor swapping into her ring for her real gear. She tucked her head into her legs as the car went flying into a building and started to crumple like a can, then stopped after a moment of sharp pain in her shoulder. It was dark all the sudden.

[Sanctuary: 99% damage mitigated]

She felt her phone start buzzing in her hand, cracked she could feel. Her hand sadly was currently trapped by part of the warped frame of her car and what looked like brick. She used her free hand to twist and pull metal, giant novelty fists somehow able to do gentle dexterous tasks then reverting to what looked like a static foam toy when she wasn't thinking about them.

They had saved her phone at least. She looked at the buzzing. It was a number she didn't know, just 'Cascadia Caller'

“Hello? Did you just fire a fucking rocket launcher at me?” She asked. Though what didn't make sense is there wasn't a follow up.

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[Ritual of the Craftsman: Sharing Dex. Total: +17,458,623]

A womans voice came from the phone. She didn't know who it was, but even through her phone she guessed the woman could do voice work. She sounded divine. “Seru. I need you to get out of the car and throw one of Gygax's blessings at the ground.”

“Who is this?” She gave up and tucked her ear, head, and phone close to her glowing green undies then punched upwards until her fist had pulverized what was left of her new car, the store it had been rammed into, the roof of the next building, some traffic lights thrown on her, ect.

“The city is in danger. Throw a natural 20 at the street. Quickly.”

[Ritual of the Ritualist: Sharing Int. Total: +20,684,435]

“If I throw it at the ground, it's a waste.”

“You have 20 seconds or everyone in Cascadia is going to die.”

[Ritual of the Dancer: Sharing Perception, Reaction, Poise. Average: 10,015,453]

[Ritual of the Cuffed Duet: Unarmed skill pooled]

There was a lurching feeling, and even as a level 60 Seru felt ill, like she had been going really fast the braked really hard. A weird feeling of fear and worry passed over her. Like she had felt the moment the spines from that monster had burst through her guts. She looked at the DM screen. As a Gygaxian high priestess or whatever she was, she could look over the screen. It was never a sure thing, but she felt the shapeless form nod at her. Or wiggle it's eyebrows. She wasn't sure if it was Gygax himself, or the god of everything, or the system. It was the smallest hint of approval.

“10 Seconds!! Seru PLEASE!”

She drew her gift into a d20 and forced a crit, then slammed it into the street where it dissipated. For good measure she threw a charge of Impetus in the mix, to give the manhole cover a perfected motion.

“There, happy? Wasted.”

[Custom Unarmed Skill: People Mover] [CRITCAL SUCCESS][PERFECTED]

The phone call ended. A moment later the ground heaved, and Seru was picked up by what looked like little fingers formed from concrete, rock, debris. They had colors that suggested something turning them liquid. More formed a line, what to seru looked like a racetrack of gentle curves over the wreckage from whatever the blast was. She also saw that there was something dark on the horizon, and as it grew she saw it catch the sun. Water, forming a wall.

There was only a moment of mounting horror, seeing a multi mile high wave, then she was flying at something like a few hundred miles an hour along a finger conveyor, screaming as she met up with other screaming people and flew down streets and around bends and sometimes flipped her around as more people joined something like a conveyor, freezing air and suburbs passing by. She had a second on a hill to see veins converging on, places, then her own line rammed her down Corvayne's street as well as hundreds of other people as well as what looked like foam, and started shoving them into his dungeon, the portal's door widening to accept a spigot of people. Seru was one of the last, all of it happening within twenty seconds, and she could see as the sun rose and feel the rumble for a moment as the wave began drowning Cascadia, then she was shoved into the Tower entrance with a blast of the foam those fingers wove into a sort of hose.

Seru recovered in a tangle of people and covered in whatever the foam was, a slimy substance that had helped slide people out of the way. There was coughing, moaning, people yelling they had broken bones... Seru stood up.

The Tower in Corvayne's home was a sort of slime-water park made of bone. Dark ceilings and bleached white walls had rivers of sort of squishy orbs. There was actual water too, but the orbs didn't need water to flow or carry things off. It had very little in the way of dangerous monsters, with non-corrosive slimes being less likely to injure someone then they were to suicide into a person's knee. The biggest issues would be food and getting them to water that wouldn't be tainted by the overwhelming flavor of lime. People could drink it in a pinch but it tended to make people feel like they were going to be sick.

The exit door, usually open, had an orange barrier with a skull over it, and what looked like a carwash spinner made of mud. Going near it, she felt dampness in the air and increasing movement, so she stepped back and took a natural 20 on... intuition? Intuition.

Twenty seconds of thinking and she felt the info slot into place.

1. A powerful force had tried to save a lot of people. It was likely doing something that resulted in those buff messages and those buffs probably helped it to trigger [People Mover]

2. She had seen a wall of water, likely a few miles tall which was the disaster. Given that the portal, which through the arch should be showing Corvayne's living room in slow motion, instead was showing her a dark rapid moving swirl of debris in water, the big wave was probably moving very, very fast.

3. It was connected to the blast that had taken her truck out, as she had seen people who looked burnt or dazed.

4. She saw people from all walks of life and guessed some were too young for levels, so it likely tried to get everyone.

This left some important questions, that intution summed up.

1. What she had seen was a god-like display of using a skill. Something that knew her name used it, and needed her help, but tried to save thousands if not more people. She didn't know the exact scope of the finger array.

2. The thing that used it knew her ability would help it. But only Gygax's skill, it didn't know what Impetus did or didn't know she could bestow it.

3. What exactly caused the wave?

4. What was her next step?

First, secure the landing area. She used some more divine favor and rule bending to Crit her passive detection roll. No hostiles in the room, though there was she guessed a slime in the next room. Nothing to worry about.

Second, triage.

Seru saw someone who looked like a nurse and tapped her on the shoulder, then thrust a high grade healing potion into her hands with a dress she didn't like.

“That will help triage anyone who has injuries. Ration it out.”

She grabbed her own potion. “Look around you! Anyone who's near someone in critical condition or unconscious that you can't wake, raise your hand!”

She found someone else who was a doctor (or could play one on TV) which was good enough to hand over another potion.

She felt a tug on her sleeve and saw a girl she recognized. One of Preshe's friends, the one who was actually an apostate of Gygax. Seru nodded at her and abused a fragment of her divine power to peek at the name. “Bree, right? I need you to help mend people who are unconscious or have internal injuries. Anyone we can't wake up or who is too hurt to move.”

“Auntie Seru!” A squaking voice called out. She saw Hylal run up to her. “Oh Bree is safe too! Beth! Gee!”

The girls in question looked fine if shaken and hugged each other. Experience killing things she guessed, since they all were all at near her level.

“I need you guys to help me. We will eventually need to move. You are familiar with this Tower, right? Hylal?”

The bird girl jumped up and down. “We have some good helpers! Mr Squidgglesworth too! … do you think mom and dad are okay?”

Seru looked around for someone to take charge as she answered. “Corvayne is the most likely to survive, and he's always protected your mom before.”

Bree started healing, and Seru saw her parents coming her way and decided to run interference. She'd happily knock them both out if they tried to stop her only magical healer from fixing people.

“What should we do?”

“Here's another potion, look for people who are badly injured, burned... apply a little. Do you know first aid?”

The adults looked at each other and Seru had to not roll her eyes. “Request Gygax spend a proficiency point on it. Take these, and try to make some splints for anyone with broken legs. Anything with bones sticking out, get your daughter.”

“Why?”

“Because she's a cleric and can heal. DOCTORS! I'm going to make wrist bands, call out, pass these to them. Everyone who's not injured and has a weapon on them and a fighting class, I want you to start forming groups. Grab people who don't have combat classes, especially parents with kids.

“Seru, what else do you need?” A stranger asked.

She stopped and saw recognition, and... fuck. She was just a stupid kid. Was this what Corvayne felt every time she and a bunch of newbies looked at her?

“I have some food and water saved up. Hylal, Gee, Beth. You know this tower entrance pretty well, right?”

Hylal nodded and Seru nodded back, handing her a bright blue and pink piece of chalk. “Good. Blaze a trail for us to follow to the nearest Tower Folk settlement, or is there a waypoint closer?”

“We already painted the way to the nearest town in magic paint Seru! I'll clear it and come back! Cmon guys!”

They pushed through the mass of people, and Seru had more people coming up to ask her what to do or do next, only interrupted when a figure put a hand on her shoulder. She spun pulled Argyle into an arm bar. He tried to stop time and found he was still stuck.

“Ow! Let go!”

“What the fuck do you think you are doing Time-boy?”

“I was going to try to help you bitch!”

Seru didn't need a dice roll to see that Argyle was plotting how to turn this disaster into opportunity, nor did Gygax need to tell her that she couldn't trust him to not try test her.

She let go and smiled. “Well then pal, I guess we are a team.” She noticed there was at least one cloth clone of the monk with them, hood not hiding the same robe type. She hoped her stupid fucking underwear could take a staff to the guts while protecting her feet from bamboo. It was a game of who hit who first, as she certainly would kill him with one quake punch. His power could let him dog pile her, she didn't have a good way to deal with a helicopter, he had potentially thousands of hostages...

Trying to spot other Argyles, she saw a pair of alien looking eyes gazing up at her. Mr Squidgglesworth, LBC's pet who had recently begun clinging to Preshe. The creature raised a tentacle in a question mark shape, then drew another under it's neck. She decided to shake her head no. She didn't want to explain to Preshe how she let her dog die. She didn't want to explain that the LBC even more.

At the same time, more people were asking her what the plan was, and she handed out cloth to get people splinted up so they could start marching, people asking her what they could eat, could they eat a slime, was now a bad time for an autograph or selfie, help my baby was in the river, nevermind someone pulled them out, what was going on? Who was in charge? You are in charge, right? Right? RIGHT?

She saw a thousand people starting to turn to her, more of them spilling into the room from the halls... What the FUCK had she gotten herself into?