I felt a very strong Presence start to grow and then it appeared inside of me. That was a new sensation, let me tell you. An entirely separate consciousness formed around my own and suddenly I could see and hear everything within two miles. I had consciously blocked smelling, tasting, and touching everything, because I had been warned that all of my senses would be enhanced when I asked for help.

“It must be pretty bad if you're asking for help so soon.” My mouth said without me using it.

“I thought you said you couldn't take over my body without my permission?” I asked god.

“I have your permission.” He said and chuckled a very different chuckle than mine. “Your subconscious mind really doesn't want me to talk to you in your head.”

“Okay, that's true.” I said as I thought about the only times I had someone else in my head. They were both women that I had been very close with and it wasn't something that I would share with just anyone. That thought made god laugh with my mouth.

“That's really strange.” A woman's voice said from behind me and I turned my head to look at her.

“I warned you not to freak out about it.” I said to Diofra.

“It's not very often that people witness the Presence of a divine being.” My mouth said to her.

“We can actually hear the differences in your voices.” Imiryl said, surprised.

“We are two separate entities.” My mouth said. “Hunter is only letting me inhabit him for a short time.”

“Yeah.” I said and turned back to look at the crack. “Do you think you can do something about sealing this thing?” I didn't need the Truesight square to see it anymore and I could see the snakes still fighting over the dead snake's carcass.

“Let me borrow your arm.” My mouth said and I nodded. I lost all feeling in my arm and gained immense power and strength in it, then the sensations returned.

“Whoa.” I said as my arm lifted up and the hand flexed several times, then pointed towards the crack.

“All right, let's see... hmm... I think... wait, that can't be right.” My mouth said.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Hunter, I need the rest of your body for a few minutes.”

“I don't think so.” I said.

“You can cancel my permission at any time.”

“That's not the point.” I said. “I don't want to be a passenger in my own body.”

My mouth chuckled. “What if we compromise?”

“How?”

“Remember what you did with the telepath's arm?”

“Oh.” I said. “Well, I guess that could work.”

“As long as you remain passive.” My mouth said. “I need to use your mother's Light sword as well.”

“Hold on, what are you going to do?” I asked.

“Something you shouldn't do on your own.” My mouth said and I felt god's Presence cover me and seep into my skin just below the surface. I stood up and tapped the powered armor switch under my right armpit to turn it on, then drew my mother's Light sword with the arm god was using. “Here we go!” My mouth said and then my body jumped into the crack.

*

“HUNTER!” Maylia and Afyne yelled as the gaping maw swallowed me.

“Hold on!” Diofra exclaimed and took out the Truesight square and held it up for everyone to look through, and they saw me land on the other side.

*

I stood there and looked at the handful of giant snakes in the pit, and they didn't notice me at all. I looked up and saw that the sky was a dark red and everything seemed to be cast in a permanent reddish darkness. I could see other giant snakes on the top of the pit as they slithered around for no apparent reason, then one of them spotted me.

My mother's Light sword turned on and I took a fighting stance I had never used. I let my body remain passive, because I was going to be in serious trouble if I didn't. I was covered in god's Presence and the six foot energy blade of the Light sword glowed brightly.

“I am no one's prey!” My mouth said and then I jumped several hundred feet up into the air and drove the Light sword up through the giant snake's lower jaw, its brain, then the top of its head. In the next instant, it had been decapitated and the seventy foot long body was chopped into a hundred pieces. I only wondered for a moment what was happening, then all of the body pieces were picked up by Presence and tossed around to all of the giant snakes in the area.

With every one of the giant snakes being fed fresh and bloody food, they all stopped what they were doing and started to eat. With them distracted, god used my body like a puppet and my mother's Light sword to traverse the large pit and decapitated each and every giant snake that was around it and inside of it. When he was done, the only movement I could see were the writhing bodies of a hundred giant snakes.

“Okay, that was impressive.” I said, and my mouth laughed.

“I only used your body's own abilities.”

“Excuse me?”

“Levitation, Presence Hands, Presence Run, and body reinforcement.” My mouth said.

“I can't jump a couple hundred feet!” I exclaimed, and my mouth laughed again.

“Levitation, Hunter.”

“There's no way... my Presence is... I can't possibly...” I stammered.

“Not yet, anyway.” My mouth said. “Maybe in about fifty years when you've gained enough Presence that doing this won't exhaust and kill you.”

“That's good to know.” I said sarcastically. “Thanks for telling me before I tried it myself and died.”

My mouth laughed again.

“Now what?” I asked. “We're on... wait, where the hell are we?”

“I was trying to figure that out.” My mouth said. “I can't tell if it's daytime or nighttime.”

“Look for the star.” I said and we both concentrated on the Presence that a star should give off. After a few moments, we didn't find any. “Uh oh.”

“Yes, the local star is gone.” My mouth said. “Several things could explain that... except that most of them would have destroyed the planets around them.”

“Yeah, that was my thought, too.” I said. “Which means that the star's Presence was consumed while leaving it intact.” Just like that super gas giant where my parent's ship was. “It also means something is maintaining the heat on this planet, because it should be frozen over without a sun to warm it.”

“This is very troubling.” My mouth said and my head looked up through the red sky to observe the stars. “I'll need to talk to... her.”

“Thanks for not saying her name.” I said.

“About that...” My mouth said, and I sighed. “She designed the group of emissaries to work together.”

“I know.” I said. “I had a nice long talk with Queen Celestina and she told me about adventuring parties being balanced for survival. However, she also told me that none of the other summoned parties survived.”

He didn't have any comments about that.

“Yeah, I know I'm being stubborn.” I said. “I can't ignore years of how I was treated, or how they treated others, and still work with them. They can call themselves emissaries; but, I know what they really are. Members of The Order.”

“Jessica and the others haven't been initiated yet, so will you at least consider meeting with them?”

It was a request from god, so after asking him for help in dealing with this mess, I couldn't rightly refuse his request.

“Give me a couple of weeks.” I said. “If they aren't as corrupted as I believe they are by then, I'll meet them at the capital to talk.”

My head nodded. “I've memorized the local stars, so we should go back.” My mouth said and then my body jumped down into the pit and I fell. Just before we hit the ground, god used Levitation to catch us and cushion the impact to reduce it to almost nothing.

Just like in zero gravity. I thought, surprised.

We landed right in front of the crack and stepped through it.

“HUNTER!” Afyne exclaimed.

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“I'm all right.” I said as my body turned and god held a hand out to the crack and surprisingly physically pulled it closed. Once it was, he held it closed with my hand and I felt his immense Presence flow out and it literally knit the fabric of space together like I had sewn the thick leather pieces to my uniform, then he used Presence Heal to remove the 'scar' that was left.

Maylia ran over to me and stopped a foot away. “I thought... you were gone.”

“Technically, I was.” I said. “On another planet I mean.”

Maylia looked at my body and saw that god was still using me like a puppet.

“Give me a second.” I said, and she nodded. “Dear god, thank you for your help.”

“I don't remember the last time I got to fight so many giant creatures.” My mouth said with a laugh. “I look forward to the next time.”

“Hey, we can't just keep jumping into cracks like that.” I said. “We could jump into an acid pit or airlessness, or into something equally horrible.”

“I wasn't worried.” My mouth said as I felt the Presence under my skin recede and it left me tingling all over. “I will respect your wishes, however. We can observe and decide together the next time.”

“It would have been nice to do that this time.” I said.

My mouth laughed. “You wanted to go inside as much as I did.”

I didn't respond and my mouth laughed again.

“We needed to see what the situation was like and try to figure out what is going on, so we were going to have to send someone in eventually.” My mouth said.

“So, I ended up helping them anyway.” I said, and my mouth chuckled.

“You saved them from going into a situation like that.” My mouth said. “Like a hero, you were going to take the responsibility for yourself.”

I opened my mouth to say no, then sighed. “You need to go before I change my mind about this whole thing.”

My mouth laughed. “You enjoyed it just as much as I did.” He said. “I'll spread the word about what we discovered.”

“Amen.” I said, then god's immense Presence and his consciousness faded from my awareness and I dropped to my knees.

“Hunter!” Maylia exclaimed and knelt to hug me.

“Whew.” I said. “That was... tiring. I guess... he really did use... only my own body's abilities.”

“You look exhausted.” Diofra said and held a hand out to me. I took it and she started to chant, then I felt energy flow through me. The tiredness faded and I felt much better. I wasn't back to a hundred percent, though.

“Thanks.” I said and let her hand go. “Let's head back to town and let them know that they don't have to worry about the giant snake anymore.”

I asked Imiryl to remove the ice and snow from around us so we could leave, and we all took our time and walked back to town. We met with the mayor and he was still reluctant to admit that they had a monster problem. I walked over to the middle of town and told everyone with me to cover their ears, then I used Presence to enhance my voice to epic proportions.

“HEY! EVERYONE! WE KILLED IT! IT'S DEAD! COME TO THE MIDDLE OF TOWN TO SEE!”

“Owowowowow!” Afyne said in a steady stream with her hands over her ears, so I reached up and plucked her off of my horse and took her into my arms.

“I'm sorry.” I whispered to her and kissed her cheek as I used Presence Heal on her ringing ears. I propped her on my hip like Emari used to hold me when I was a child, and I held her close while we waited for the townspeople to gather. “You know, I didn't ask how old you were.”

“I'm eleven.” Afyne said.

“That means I can baby you and care for you for another five years before you're of age.” I said and smiled. “Would you like that?”

Afyne's face flushed to a deep red. “N-no.”

I felt the Presence waver a lot and held in my laugh, then I leaned in close and whispered in her ear. “I guess I'll only do it in private from now on.”

Afyne looked into my eyes when I leaned back and she nodded slightly.

“What's all the yelling about?” A man asked.

“You'll see in a minute.” I said and saw the trickle of townspeople stop and no one else approached. “Behold!” I said and reached into my bag of holding with one hand and pulled out the sheet-wrapped head of the giant snake to put it on the ground. I untied the sheet and held the giant snake's head up over my head with one hand.

Quite a few women screamed at the sight.

“Don't be afraid!” I exclaimed. “Thanks to Allirynn and his superb unarmed combat skills as he held it steady, and Imiryl's fantastic control of her ice powers to contain it, we were able to subdue the creature and behead it!”

The crowd gasped and some gave appreciative oos and ahhs, and Allirynn and Imiryl stared at me with surprise on their faces, because I had given them all of the glory for killing the creature.

“This town will no longer be plagued by this menace!” I nearly yelled, and they all cheered.

Now that they didn't have to hide the creature's existence, they were all extremely happy that no one else would go missing. I put the severed head back on the sheet and Maylia tied it up for me, then I put it back into my bag of holding. When several people approached to ask about loved ones that had been taken, I had to tell them that the snake wasn't something that took prisoners. They sighed and in some cases cried, because they understood what that meant, and Afyne put a reassuring hand on their shoulder when it was necessary.

The whole town started to celebrate and we avoided being invited to join in. We needed supplies, so we went to the general store while Maylia took the reins of both horses and stayed outside to wait. I bought bedrolls, tents, lanterns, fire starters, oil skins, and food rations for everyone to last a week, and I carried Afyne on my hip the whole time. After that, I asked the others if they had spare clothing. They did, so we didn't need to stop at the small tailor shop. We went back to the stable and the young man was there waiting for us.

“You wouldn't happen to know where we can buy some horses, do you?” I asked.

“No.” The young man said, sadly. “The... ah... well... a lot of them went missing.”

“What about a carriage?” Evus the guard asked. “We have two strong horses.”

“Can you drive a carriage?” I asked, and he shook his head. I looked at the other people's faces and they all shook their heads. “Then we need to find out how far it is to the next town.”

“It's about three days by horse that way.” The young man said and pointed to the west.

I glanced at Maylia. “Do you think we can double up on the horses long enough to get that far?”

“If we boost them, I think so.” Maylia said. “If those that can run travel beside them and we let the others ride on them.”

“We'll have to stop more often to feed and water them, especially with the extra weight.” I said.

Afyne nodded. “I'll take Imiryl.”

“I can ride a horse, so I can take Diofra.” Evus the guard said.

“Will we find something to do in the next town?” Imiryl asked as Allirynn helped her climb up behind Afyne. “This is a big saddle.” She whispered as she touched the solid Presence she partially sat on.

“There's nothing official on any of the lists we have.” I said with a smile, and she nodded her understanding that I meant there might be something, if we asked around and investigated a little.

Once we had Afyne and Imiryl on my horse and the guard and the mage on Maylia's horse, it left Maylia, Allirynn, and myself on the ground to run. I took Maylia's hand and she cast the boost spells on the horses with my mana flowing through her, and both horses glowed green and stayed that way.

“Afyne, keep them to a regular pace so we can keep up.” I said, and she nodded. I took Maylia off to the side and we activated Mana Presence Run together. The energy flowed over us and we glowed as well. I saw Allirynn do something similar to what Maylia did to the horses and he boosted himself. A group of townspeople had gathered near us to see us off.

“Thank you!” A young woman said, and I turned to see the innkeeper's daughter. She waved to us and I waved back.

“Everyone ready?” I asked, and everyone nodded. “Then let's go.”

*

The innkeeper's daughter was touched that the tall and handsome angel had waved back to her, unlike all of the other adventurers she had met. Then suddenly, he took off running as fast as a horse, as did the woman with him. The tanned man was next and then both horses ran after them. It left the innkeeper's daughter completely stunned, because she had never heard of anyone running as fast as a horse before.

“Thank god it's over.” A woman's voice said, and the innkeeper's daughter turned to look at her, and she recognized her as the waitress in the restaurant.

“It's too bad that the queen's personal vassal took the head with him.” The mayor said. “We could have made a big display and...”

“I'm glad he did!” Another woman exclaimed. “I don't want to think about that damn snake ever again, let alone want to see it every time I come into town!”

“Same here.” A man said. “We can get back to our lives and not have to worry about it anymore.”

“We can't forget what happened here.” A man said.

“I'm never going to forget it.” The innkeeper's daughter said. “The queen has angels working for her and they saved us.”

“It only took them a few days to do what other adventures failed to do for years.” The young man from the stable said. “I'm never going to forget that, either.”

Everyone fell silent and then started to drift away to go back to their lives, with the words of two young people floating through their heads.

*

“So, that concludes today's morning lesson on proper procedure and behaviour inside the castle.” The stern woman with the haughty voice said. “You are required to appear here again tomorrow morning so we can continue your education.”

Jessica had learned early on how to get permission to speak and raised her hand.

“Archmage, you may speak.” The woman said.

“Thank you.” Jessica said. “May I ask why we are being educated?”

“Congratulations on being the first to ask such an important question.” The woman praised her, and Jessica felt a nice tingle run down her spine. “It has come to the queen's attention that none of you know what you are doing.” She saw the surprise on the girl's face and smiled. “Yes, she knows that you only just learned that you had powers and abilities, and that you are unfamiliar with what that means for both you and the people you are trying to save.”

Josh put his hand up and she looked at him.

“Sorcerer Priest, you may speak.”

“You don't know anything about our powers, either.” Josh said. “Why will learning things about the castle help us?”

“Not as important of a question; but a fair one.” The woman said. “It's discipline.”

“Excuse me?” Josh asked, slightly incredulous.

“I won't mention how completely unprepared you were to head across the countryside to retrieve your missing party member. What I will mention is your lack of compassion and understanding of the people you met along the way.”

Josh frowned and Jessica sighed, and Kara didn't react at all.

“Swordsman, you may speak.” The woman said. “Tell me what you think.”

“This is a waste of time.” Kara said. “I'm not required to understand the people in order to save them from the creatures killing them.”

“What if you violate one of their religious beliefs while doing that?”

“According to the people I've talked to, there are so many religions that it would be impossible not to violate at least one of them.” Kara said. “People here don't wear religious identification, so even if we somehow memorized all of the rules and regulations of those religions, we still couldn't safely navigate through them all. We would have to apply all of the rules and regulations for each and every religion to each and every citizen.” She said. “You would be better served by converting everyone to one religion and you would only have to apply one set of rules to everyone.”

“That would be a dictatorship.” The woman said. “Not to mention that enforcing religious rules on a populace that doesn't want them is tantamount to religious genocide.”

“That's your personal point of view.” Kara said, to the woman's surprise. “If you were the ruler of a kingdom that had several dozen religions fighting each other for followers, sometimes inciting conflict over their beliefs, wouldn't it be so much easier if there was only one church? Only one religious authority that was in charge of the entire population's religious welfare?”

The woman couldn't argue that it wasn't a good solution for a country to unify itself, despite the removal of the people's rights to choose who they wanted to worship.

“I'm glad I'm not a ruler and I don't need to make that kind of decision.” The woman said instead. “You are dismissed until tomorrow morning.”

Kara, Josh, and Jessica stood up and left the classroom.

“Are you going back tomorrow?” Josh asked Kara when they were far enough down the hallway.

“You heard her. The queen said we are required to attend.” Kara responded.

“Even though you think it's a waste of time?” Jessica asked.

“We're wasting our time here anyway.” Kara said. “Plus, we can't leave the castle until the church is finished and our rooms are ready.”

“We could stay at an inn or even at the head acolyte's house.” Josh suggested.

“No, we need to stay.” Jessica said. “The Goddess said so.”

“Steven is still in the dungeon as well.” Kara said.

“I doubt we can convince him to abandon what he thinks is his duty.” Josh said. “He's kind of stubborn when it comes to things like that.”

They fell quiet and went back to the room that the castle staff served food in, and a buffet was waiting for them, as well as Evangeline and Aimee. Josh took Evangeline into his arms and kissed her, because he had missed her last night while she stayed at her mother's place.

“You're not going to believe what happened!” Aimee exclaimed and took out the sack of gold and silver coins the captain of the guard had given her the night before. Jessica, Kara and Josh took out identical sacks to show her and she laughed. “I guess you will!” She said happily.