Turning away from the stream of Guerisseuse’s flight towards Little Falls, I reread the dispatch that had arrived from Arroch earlier in the day.

Overseer Brigdaine,

Valen is moving forward with her quest as expected, and the Queenslayer is being remembered. Increase oversight on Instance 4,578 Alpha Path, particularly seeds WFR490 Grix, PLD978 Sasha Redroot, ANB631 Mavrich Guerisseuse, GRM005 Andune Roke and QLP483 Valen Lumiere. Update Companion directives to protocol Omega 16 and initiate RGN cycle TRFS5000. Suppress Queenslayer memory fragments for at least two decades until EJU535 Vinlou Treebane completes her 5s. This instance is now your priority and all side activities should cease for the foreseeable future. Resource allocation is authorized and success is not optional.

Victory of Mirin and may the Age of Skills grace your instances,

Overseer Arroch

It was all well and good for Arroch to pass along the directives, but over half of that instance was already in shambles. Upon receiving the missive I had delegated my other instances and pathing duties to focus on I4578AP, and Mirin’s hairless balls, what a shit show I just got handed. Treebane wasn’t even in the instance yet since she was still completing her current one, with pizazz I might add.

Plus, the only way there was to suppress memory fragments was to destroy them - so that was going to be a bloody, traumatic mess for everyone involved or nearby - which pretty much would have me walking the knife's edge not to create a destroyer of worlds, never mind a queen slayer.

As if that wasn’t enough, both Lumiere and Guerissuse had either outright rejected their companions or managed to avoid the bond synergy completely, Redroot was not engaged with the Sentient but was instead power leveling through her Goddess while her companion was benched, and the Queenslayer path was complete chaos - possibly literally with the capitol C of Chaos - even before I turned my attention to destroying a single memory fragment.

I wasn’t sure who that companion thought she was helping and maybe it was no one but herself - but it did look like she was fucking herself over too. I had noted to the logs earlier that 17 was at least one too many instances without a purge before recycling. And I couldn’t even get started on Grix without throwing my hands in the air. He may be going for his most outrageous instance yet and I couldn’t initiate his companion at all. So, sure, Age of Skills blah blah fuck this noise.

I looked over to my desk and saw that I did still have the booze unopened. That was something at least - though I felt mixed about it - uncertain if there would be any relief in the next couple of decades and not wanting to start that as my sole road to coping when I had enough funds and sense to mix it up. Fortunately it was such a brief time in the overall scope of things. I would just have to up my ‘everything good and fun’ quotient which meant Brask would be quite pleased with my upcoming tavern bill.

I knew I would be successful in all of this, so Arroch was correct in that at least. There was a reason I was an overseer and residing within the inner circle of the Sentient Council. I had achieved the Sentient Overseer title more than three millennia ago and had most of the skills associated with it evolved, merged or maxed out at Pinnacle Mythic. Only three other beings were more capable than me in clusterfucks like this, not counting the Pantheons of course, and it was my turn after the dung heap Madrisella had to sort last era.

Getting my shit together while mentally scrolling through my applicable skills, I mentally reached out to Llonri, “Gather all of the sub-administrators to the Sighted Garden in two glasses. They all have new assignments and opportunities to update their Quests. Have them download and sync all HUD monitoring, including companions, for the seeds listed in log I4578AP.2.v206 to include complete pathing options, skills trees, and creative mode editing for fast response times. Leave Roke and Treebane out of that directive as only you or I should be mucking about with those. Any personnel that can’t complete their current Quests by the meeting need to be assigned to a new Overseer and we need replacements immediately. Arroch approved funding. Confirm receipt.”

Having a hunch that I had just blown his fur back I braced myself for the scathing response I was sure to get. Like clockwork I received images of headless chickens darting around a courtyard fruitlessly and a very tall ursine being kicked in the balls by an undersized sprite. Llonri was extremely adept at conveying imagery via his telepathy and he always liked poking at my height. Four feet is not short and he isn’t really that tall but whatever he needed I guess.

I knew Llorni would make sure the people we had short-listed cleared their Quests so they would have a chance at the achievement. Contrary to popular belief, it wasn’t every day we actually took a shot at creating an instance with a true pathing for Age of Skills. Most of the overseers were too complacent - gathering or wasting their wealth and amusing themselves with their power.

Ever since Oniuk fell to the Queenslayer it was just a few of us oldies keeping vigil to get this shit back on track. We were the shepherds of an amazing system, and the Sentient was worth preserving. While most of the Sentient Guides had the ability to quickly assess this, most weren’t worth the eyeball space that title took on their Title screen.

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It was another reason it was a good thing Redroot was part of the convergence - she was the only Guide in that instance that would make sure the players stayed synced with the Sentient, and unless she had a crisis of faith her Goddess would make damn sure of it or She’d be sleeping on the fucking couch. Unlike Lumiere and that Freelance Pathing bullshit - what the actual fuck was that about!

Assessing I still had a glass to go I started pulling up the summary stats for everyone I had to assign oversight for.

Grix

Catkin Rogue

Rogue Skills - Journeyman Rare

Profession Skills - Expert Uncommon

General Skills - Expert Rare

Path - Adventurer Noble - Journeyman Rare

Level - 5+

Sasha Redroot

Dwarf Paladin

Paladin Skills - Expert Legendary

Profession Skills - Journeyman Legendary

General Skills - Apprentice Mythic

Path: Guide Acolyte - Expert Legendary

Level - 10

Valen Lumiere

Gnome Sentient Guide

Sentient Guide Skills - Expert Mythic

Professions Skills: Pinnacle Rare

General Skills: Expert Mythic

Path: Sentient Guide Sub-Administrator - Apprentice Mythic

Level - 50

Mavich Guerisseuse

Draken Alchemist

Alchemist Skills - Journeyman Uncommon

Professions Skills - Novice Rare

General Skills - Journeyman Common

Path: Merchant Crafter - Journeyman Common

Level: 0

Adune Roke

Elven Ranger

Ranger Skills - Apprentice Common

Profession Skills - Novice Common

General Skills - Novice Common

Path: Freelance Adventure - Novice Common

Level: 0

Vinlou Treebane

Cross referencing instances….

Human Mage

Mage Skills - Expert Mythic

Professions Skills - Expert Mythic

General Skills - Journeyman Legendary

Path: Ascendant Conqueror - Journeyman Mythic

Level: 50

I took my time and dove into sub-menus, skill trees and ability points to make sure I had a firm grasp of everyone’s progression - or lack thereof. Mentally assigning sub-administrators to each person, I would be looking forward to who thought they would be a good match for whom. Arroch could call them seeds all he wanted, but time and experience said that they were fully fleshed-out people who had no kidding actual experiences and treating them as any less would result in critical failure of a seed.

Having reviewed the people, I turned my attention to the overall instance itself and its statistics. I was very quickly surprised that it had so many Mythics, dungeons and Major Quest lines available. The Legendary items in the random gen alone would make most administrators jockey for oversight privileges. Shit show. I didn’t need to see anymore right now to assess it - Absolute Shit Show.

Closing out all my interface screens, I rolled my eyes and rolled down my sleeves. It was time to meet with the team and get a plan together for this instance to be harnessed.