So I realized more or less as soon as I woke up that no matter how self-righteous I might have felt in the moment, what I did was still, also, assaulting active duty military and refusing a direct order and resisting arrest, and so on--basically, all the things she had accused me of doing up to that point, which I mostly hadn't actually done, at least by my own accounting. Afterwards... yeah, okay. Ill-advised.

Anyway, I woke up in a hospital, in handcuffs. Not a big surprise. I was also dizzy as hell, with a big fucking headache that didn't seem to want to go away, none of which was not a really good indication as far as my own health went.

Hey bro. Merry climbed up entirely into my field of view and sat cross-legged, which was fine considering I had nothing really to look at, except the ceiling. If anything was weird about it, it was her "sitting" in a way that made no physical sense. Also... I thought she looked bigger? But I didn't exactly have a measuring stick, and it didn't seem the right time to comment. So I looked over some of the stuff I stole from that Allison chick. Apparently she has, like, some kind of direct line to her god, but it's not any info that was really useful for us. She was told that she should come here, and that there would be an incident. But, uh, she was told that around the time I was... hatched? Born? Whatever. I'm not sure, but things lining up like that makes me feel like this was never about you, but about... me.

So I guess what I'm saying is, uh, sorry. She sat and curled into a fetal position, and I thought her normally-expressionless eyes were a little more depressed than usual. I know I didn't do nothing. In my head, I know it. But I feel like shit if all of this happened because I'm here. It makes no sense, right? I--

I'd been taking a moment to soak in what she told me, but when she started to ramble on, I kind of mentally leaned in and tried to give her a hug, which... was even weirder when she was physically (err, mentally) in a place I could see. There was kind of... a dim mental shadow of me, which I tried to ignore, that acted out the thing I was focusing on, which was putting her head against my cheek and pulling her into a hug, holding her shoulders to bring her in. It was... weird, in general, but I did everything I could to not focus on the weirdness because it was clear she needed that hug.

I would have needed it, too, if it turned out that the situation was really all my fault, somehow. And certainly, I contributed, and being able to offer her comfort helped me to feel like I wasn't really the bad guy in all of this. Which... again, is a weird thing for a murderer, parole-jumper, scofflaw who disobeyed the military to say, right? But I wasn't. If they weren't creeps about this, if I'd been properly informed and this had been approached diplomatically, a lot of things would have been different. Why would they even do this?

I think that there's some kind of game, mumbled Merry in return, clearly not fighting and appreciating the hug, being played by the guys at the top. Like, I think there's some kind of thing where the god this Priestess is working with, wants me to do something. Or wants YOU to do something, and me to help, whichever. I bet that's also why this other guy, Calamity or whatever--I know his name but I feel like I shouldn't say it, weird fairy thing maybe?--why he went out of his way to give us that quest right away, yeah? Maybe all gods need something from us? Man, I dunno.

I offered Merry a mental squeeze in return, relieved that she'd been thinking about this while I was out, because if I had to lay there puzzling it out, I would have been completely stressed and would definitely not have gotten to those conclusions, or not anytime soon. You don't have any idea what it is?

I mean, I can steal information--like that's what I'm for, yeah? At least in terms of why the Administrator chick gave the gem to you. So either they want us to steal information FOR them... or maybe they want us to steal information FROM them, that they're not allowed to give us?

I frowned, thinking about that. Who the hell would stop the gods from giving us information? To which, in reply, Merry, just kind of shrugged.

A little bit later, a few people walked in. I was feeling just a little bit better; there was an IV drip that was probably helping with that, which emptied in the time since I'd woke. I'd also discovered that the handcuffs were just normal metal handcuffs, that is to say, entirely superfluous and they had to know it, and proved it by picking them with telekinesis, then putting them back on, but at a different place on the bed's handrails. Other than that, though, I'd just kind of laid there. My inventory was untouched, though I'd lost some experience--either to heal whatever mental damage I did, or to maintain Merry, but she didn't do anything deliberately.

Anyway, room, walked, she. She being Louise, but also, this Allison Cream bitch, a nurse, and two military police, though they were not armed with anything heavier than pistols. Allison's eyes immediately went to the cuffs, and I thought she might have noticed I moved them, but she seemed to be willing to overlook it.

There was an awkward moment when the nurse busied herself replacing my IV drip, which according to the bag had some kind of additives that I didn't recognize. She checked my vitals, with the kind of quick passive glance that told me nothing there was out of the ordinary, and then nodded to the others and took a step back.

"You seem to have a problem with insubordination, Mr. Applebee," said the High Priestess, into the chilly silence that none of us had seen fit to break. "A fact I knew from reading your file, but it's something very different when someone with barely any levels to his name upends an entire military base in what seems to be a paranoia-inspired hissy fit.

"Allison..." Louise's voice was hurt, and her posture showed that she was upset, but Allison crossed her arms over her chest and took a deep breath, without responding to her at all.

"As far as I'm concerned, your only redeeming virtue is honesty, Mr. Applebee, and we all know you have sins to balance out that virtue, including wrath. So don't even bother getting snippy with me when I tell you I was told, in advance, that there would be a violent incident. Given only limited knowledge, you can't say that there was no reason to doubt you, or Harold. And frankly, I doubt you both still. You both proved combative in the face of authority, and willing to use your abilities for personal gain."

I clenched my jaw to stop myself from responding violently to that. Personal gain? Because I got mad at people for pointing guns at me? For pointing tanks at me?

"Since then," Allison emphasized, "I've heard from Harold and from Louise, both, about your exploits, and your intention to stop this... Heretic Knight or whatever the term is. A laudable goal, but pretentious. Meanwhile, I have a mandate from my god to bring you to him--why, he won't say. For all I know he intends to execute you for heresy." She sniffed, as though indignant. "And unfortunately for you, Mr. Applebee, I have a very specific mandate to do whatever I must to remain in my god's good graces."

I let the hatred show on my face. "Oh, well," I sniped back at her, "if it's to keep you in your god's good graces, of course I'll gladly march off to my execution, whether I deserve it or not."

She didn't look at all impressed. "You don't know who I am, Mr. Applebee. I know you said as much, so I'll go ahead and make things official. My name is Allison Cream, High Priestess of Lord Zalm. That position means that unlike your friend here," and she didn't even bother to gesture towards Louise as she said it, "I don't merely get obtuse quests from my god; he occasionally sees fit to speak to me directly. And as I am one of only four people who have advanced to being a High Priestess on the planet Earth, and am the only one in all of North America, I hold two other very important positions. I am the duly elected leader of the United States Dungeoneer's Association, and I am also the USDA's official liaison to the United States Military, where I have been given temporary authority equal to that of of Brigadier General in all events regarding Dungoneers." She frowned at me, even as I was very successfully looking somewhat impressed and chagrined. "That's the one with two stars, if you aren't familiar."

I wasn't, but frankly, the fact that she wasn't wearing stars, which were used to tell other people what your rank and not just to show off, also told me that the 'temporary authority' was probably also a bit.. unofficial. But then, she also wasn't wearing the silk clothes that Priestesses otherwise seemed to be obliged to. I, for one, had never seen a Priestess wear anything else, which was kind of upsetting in principle. Did she just think the rules didn't apply to her? In all, I just didn't understand, but I also didn't frankly care that much about her reasons, not when she still hadn't explained anything.

"The short version is that as far as you or anyone else needs be concerned, I am the person in charge of handling Dungoneers in this nation. That means if my god whispers in my ear that he needs you to jump, I have a lot of people at my beck and call who will make damn sure you jump high enough. Given all the trouble we have in this nation and around the world, we need answers, and if I had to slice your neck open into a bowl to get them, I would."

I shivered at that, but I also wasn't sure that she had explained the situation in a way that made sense. I backtracked through the conversation, my hurting head making some pieces that probably fit seem not to, and tried to collect what she'd said into a cohesive whole.

"So you had me arrested because..." I frowned. There was something odd about the statement that she was expecting violence, but for some reason, I couldn't . Was I missing something? Oh, right, the assassin. "Because your god predicted there would be an assassin, and you assumed that meant I would be violent if you came to ask politely?"

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"If I didn't force you into custody, Harold would have removed you from the country," she answered, with a bite in her voice that I didn't understand. "That was also among the predictions. And I don't know if you're aware, Mr. Applebee, but the USDA and the International Dungeoneer's Association are not, actually, the same organization, with the same leadership or the same goals. Frankly, you should trust them a lot less than you trust me."

I... decided that she and I would have to agree to disagree on that point.

"However, I admit that the use of force was excessive, and apparently my orders were not handed down correctly. Even so, I stand by my decision. The prediction that there would be violence came only after the decision to detain you. I won't apologize for taking aggressive action to control the situation."

Aggressive action to control-- "You ordered them to shoot me with tanks when I did nothing wrong."

"I ordered them to arrest you. They keep the tanks there for dealing with violent Dungoneers, and that's how they understood the orders that came to them."

"You ordered them to arrest me with tanks when I did nothing wrong."

"You know, I wasn't going to press you on it, but I can throw you back in prison for the rest of your sentence, since you violated your parole," The look on Allison's face was dangerously close to being full-on bitchy, but she wasn't quite there yet.

I just threw up my hands in defeat, as much as the handcuffs allowed. "Fine. Okay. So you were ordered by a dungeon god to bring me to him, and you say you don't even know why, though I bet that's a lie." I watched her face, but she didn't react very strongly to that accusation. I thought that meant she wasn't caught being dishonest, but I had no way of knowing what her tells were, or weren't. "This is about my Bound Fairy. You got your quest around the same time I did my thing, and hell, shortly after that, I got a quest from another god telling me to meet with him. And that quest, which I accepted, was on pain of death if I failed."

"So tell me, miss High Priestess, if you even know the answer." I felt chafed by the handcuffs, and given the mood I was in, and the fact that she seemed to be clearly saying this wasn't really about a crime I'd committed, I just unlocked them again and threw them off, which the military police with her didn't like. "Why are the gods so interested in meeting with Merry?"

Her eyes dropped to my handcuffs the moment I focused on them, and I saw the disapproval on her face, but she also didn't seem surprised. She focused back on my face after only a moment. "You'll get your answers, but not now. If I can't get you to my god--and it may be that it's about who gets to you first--at the very least we need to know what you know. We already know that your class is responsible for letting you ..bind Fairies, and that's useful information. But it isn't nearly enough information. For all we know, we need to avoid that instead of encouraging it. Fairies are... no friends of humankind."

I mentally glanced at Merry, but she took the accusation in stride, as well as I would have, and for the same reason. We'd been told that Fairies were going to attack us eventually, by Fairies themselves. But for her, as for me, it didn't seem real, not yet.

Allison hadn't paused. "That's why I need you to come to a meeting of high level officials to tell us what you know. Of the government, of the military, and of the Association. Unless you have a very good objection, we will schedule it and let you know. You should expect to be called in less than a week." She narrowed her eyes at me. "I hope there won't be need for another display of force to compel you to show up."

"You sure do seem to like threatening to kidnap people," I sniped back at her. "You do know that's--"

"This is for the safety of the nation, and the world, Mr. Applebee." High Priestess Cream genuinely seemed to have no reaction to that accusation. "You'd be astonished how many rules I have to bend or break to keep things going right now. I would have been given a lot more official power if the politicians in power didn't distrust Dungoneers, and specifically hate Priestesses." An obviously cynical sneer crossed her face. "I wonder why."

I chose not to comment on that, instead switching topics before I said anything else combative, which I was entirely too eager to do. "What happened to Harry?"

"He's being detained and questioned, and he will remain in custody for the near future at least. Something about, oh, I don't know, attacking a military compound, and letting an assassin escape." The sarcasm in her voice was thick. "Something like that. Somehow, the details escape me. Perhaps someone who was there would remember better all the things he did wrong."

God, what a bitch. I blinked, though, after a moment. "...She got away?"

"Amazing what can happen when a military base tries to capture a target with no bullets."

Anyway, we went on like that for a little bit longer, each taking little snide cuts at each other with words but accomplishing nothing else meaningful. And then, with an overdramatic flair, she left, and good riddance, the military police posting themselves outside the door rather than either following her off or standing by inside.

Which left the nurse as the one who was, de facto, in charge of the room.

Apparently a number of medical tests had been run on me while I was unconscious, the vast majority of which (according to the nurse, at least) showed nothing except that I was a Dungeoneer. According to her (and I'd read the same before), part of the Dungeoneer's suite of body-modifying whatever-it-is regulated blood chemistry in ways that made blood tests useless, and kept most critical internal organs in a state of health that the rest of the population could only envy. She did, however, take seriously the reports that I still had serious headaches, and a Dungoneer falling unconscious from exertion was rare, even in cases of mana exhaustion, which was still their chief guess as to what was wrong with me.

A doctor came in a little afterwards to look at that same information I'd just given the nurse on a clipboard while he asked me the same questions and heard my answers again from my own mouth. He suggested CT scans and X-rays and a various other diagnostics, but something about his attitude put me off, and I declined. Frankly, I didn't think that they would be able to do much to help, not compared to whatever mojo the Dungeoneer stuff was using to make us virtually immortal. Perhaps in twenty years when we'd learned more, but today I suspected they would be using me as a guinea pig as much as a patient.

So I declined most of his suggestions and received a couple prescriptions I knew I'd probably never fill, and he moved on, and a nurse told me that I was free to check out anytime. And I did, with the requisite paperwork, payments, etc. It did pain me that I hadn't gotten the money from Harry, especially since I was uninsured, but I had a credit card. It was very odd, still, to think that at least in theory, I was (or would be) rich enough to buy the hospital, let alone pay my bill. In practice, I really needed to put some things up on eBay just to make sure I'd be okay, and I should split what I got from this dungeon with Louise when I did. I honestly had no idea what her financial situation was, but I didn't feel it the right time to ask.

Anyway, we were finally released, and Louise and I took a cab back to the Dungeon entrance to get our cars. I... somehow wasn't imagining Louise had a little white minivan, but there you go. We stood there together in a little bit of misting rain for a long minute, her white silk priestess outfit quite politely refusing to hug her curves or become transparent when it got wet. The moment dragged on awkwardly for a bit, as though somehow us parting was some kind of serious thing instead of just, you know, going home for a little bit.

"I enjoyed our time together," I finally said, feeling silly but not really having a better thing to say or do under the circumstances. "And I'd like to spend more time with you when we can, but... I still need to rest a bunch more, and I have no idea when they're going to call me in for that meeting. We'll definitely go together when I go to--" I stopped, realizing that my quest to go to Galveston Wharf was level restricted--it was a fifty-to-eighty dungeon, and I was level forty. With, I realized after a moment, a Dungeon Pass that would let me in at my current level, but Louise didn't have that. "--oh."

"Jerry..." Louise stood in the rain outside her car and looked down at her purse clasped in her hands, which she'd only just taken out of her inventory. A fragment of my mind had a brief fit with the concept of carrying around a storage bag when you had an inventory, but I didn't pay it any mind.

"...if I can, I'll bring you when I go to meet the Dungeon God in Galveston's Wharf, but it's... I don't know." I paused and rubbed my neck, feeling like I was missing something obvious. "And I'd like to just... spend more time with you. When we can." That seemed like most of what I was trying to say.

Louise looked up at me and smiled, and leaned in to give me a kiss on the cheek. "I'd like that," she said, and stepped back. "But now I have to go. I'm pretty sure Anne and Tommy are wondering what happened to me, by now."

"Anne and Tommy?" She'd never mentioned the names.

"My daughter, and her son." Louise looked sad, for a moment, but forced a smile. "It's not like they can't get along without me, but Anne gets depressed. After... all that's happened, I can't blame her. I'll send you a message once I see what my schedule looks like. Okay?"

"Sure." I put a smile on my face, and it didn't even feel fake, and she closed the door and started her engine, taking out a phone and starting to place a call. She did say that becoming a Dungeoneer made her thirty years younger. Still... a grandkid?

Well, who was I kidding, I realized as I got into my own car. I adored her, and if she was my age and had a previous relationship, I wouldn't even care. Why should it change because she was older, and had a relationship longer ago than I thought? Her daughter having a kid had nothing to do with her, it just meant that time moved on, and it did.

If anything, it just made my empty apartment feel even emptier, knowing that wherever she was, she was surrounded by others, probably busy with everyday life. And me, I thought glumly as I let myself into my apartment and crashed on my couch, letting the ongoing headache beat me into submission, I was alone.

Gee, thanks. Merry popped her head back into my field of thought. I was giving you room to be yourself, but uh, you really don't care that I'm here? 'Cos I'm not cute enough, or am I just too young for you? Heh.

I rolled my eyes. Okay, fine, I'm not a lone. I've got a brand new bratty kid sister to deal with.

Heh. I guess I can deal with 'Sister.' Merry turned to look "forward", at all the things I was seeing; it was the first time she'd done that since the "walls of my mind" had been repaired. Instead, she usually focused on me, whenever she was in here. So this is the human world, huh? Couch, television, Netflix, laptop. Little table, rolling chair. Cozy place.

I looked around the room as she commented. Years ago I'd had more--an exercise machine and some bookshelves full of old favorites--but I sold off a lot of it when I moved into a smaller apartment, and some of it had disappeared while I was in jail, mysteriously. I wasn't all that tied to my past, anymore, so I didn't care that much, but... some of the furniture had come from my folk's place, and it stung when that had to go. Not so much because I missed them, but because... well... because it was my childhood, I guess, and now it was gone.

You gotta build your own life, Merry urged, doing some combination of looking at what I saw and looking back at me. I mean, not right now, but when you're better, you'll have an easier time rearranging furniture than anyone else you'll ever know. I bet we could take apart the whole place and rebuild it, nail by nail, and all it'd need to hide what we did is a coat of paint. And, uh, did you know this place had ants? Because there are ants in the kitchen. That's kind of gross.

I just switched off my telekinetic sense and let my headache lull me off to sleep.