I grabbed the snow lion by one of its back feet and then bashed its head against the ice like a fish. I left it twitching on the ground.

Turning my attention back to Valorie I asked, “Are you going to be alright?”

Blood kept not-quite-fountaining blood, but maybe that was due to loss of volume. You know, like when the squirt gun’s tank is low.

Valorie gave me a thumbs up. “You don’t have to …worry… oh no.” she tipped over backwards. With a flash of red lights Valorie changed from an armored being with a faceless visor to a bloodsoaked woman lying motionless in the snow gazing at me with empty eyes.

Willpower check… Successful

Emotional state remains in control

Note: Repeated rolls will increase the difficulty.

Despite the skill check my blood ran cold. I was basically back to the second worst day of my life. It is fundamentally impossible to communicate how I felt that day, because even I can’t truly comprehend. The acid burn of dread in my stomach. The leaden weight in my limbs. The distant thud of my heart hammering and a ringing in my ears downing out other sounds. The taste of enamel on my tongue as my teeth ground together. The disturbing absence of warmth of Marnie's skin.

I felt the nail on my pinky finger. I am not the Titan, but I have his memories.

Deal with the real people now. I joke about avoidant behavior, and I could tell some sort of moment of reckoning was going to force me to face those memories. That said that time wasn’t this exact moment.

“Heal!” Brunhilda said, as she casually stepped out of the crowd.

Valorie sat up still still covered in blood but no longer leaking. She looked at her arm, it was still extra bendy. She turned to Brunhilda, “Not to impose, but…”

Brunhilda nodded, she stepped closer and in a lightning quick motion pulled the broken part of Valorie’s arm into place and said, “Mend.”

There was another, slightly less upsetting “Snap!” and her arm was whole again.

“Oh thank God,” I muttered

Valroie and Brunhilda both looked at me like I was being overdramatic.

“What?” I asked.

“Did you forget about how we are all protected by the Warrior’s Suraksha? Sure, you got a lucky crit in and that sucked, but we can’t kill each other in here.”

“That wasn’t a crit.”

Valorie and the other Mystic Troopers all gazed at me doubtfully.

“That would mean you have just been toying with us?” Gisele accused. She pointed at me dramatically.

“I mean, you guys weren’t pulling out the giant robots,” I quipped back without thinking.

“Who told you about the Mechana-Beasts?” Bob asked, more than a little concerned.

“How else are you going to fight the aliens when they grow giant?” I asked with a shrug. Truth be told I was just making jokes about Power Rangers. It looks like the Narrators had stolen more than just mythical creatures to weaponize against us. That would have been kinda funny, but then I had a sudden thought and was deeply worried that some Narrator read Junji Ito. Note to self: Stay the hell away from spirals.

“How do you know about the… not important. If you are saying you can just beat us at will, I am going to need to see you prove that,” Gisele said. She spun her spear around again, “Let’s go!”

“No. if you don’t believe me, that's your business,” I shook my head.

Notice check… Successful

Oh good, people had gathered around Brand and Spine. None of them looked happy. I walked from the fight and the crowd parted almost instantly. Folks seemed to be afraid of me.

“Let’s not escalate,” Brand said. He had that strangely nuanced tone that was polite but could be heard with the punctuation ‘or else’.

“I am not going to treat a mob like people!” a young guy, maybe twenty shouted back, “If it doesn’t behave I’ll…” he stopped when my shadow loomed over him.

“You’ll what?” I asked. I made it a point to keep my voice neutral. I read his name, Howard.

He looked at me. I didn’t like the look on his face. He was terrified… of me. Don’t get me wrong I had my guesses how this guy treated people he wasn’t afraid of, but at the same time I didn’t like the fear in his eyes. Not just his either. Most people in the crowd were hesitant to meet my gaze.

After a long moment I asked Spine, “What happened?”

“He’s a fucking monster!” Spine snarled.

When the little goblin moved toward Howard, I placed a hand on his shoulder. Mostly to hold him back. “Let’s focus on the details. Tell me what happened. Slow as you can.” I didn’t tell him to calm down. I learned long ago to never tell someone losing their shit to calm down. It will always be taken as confrontational, and honestly, it is a dick move. Upset is a state of being. If you don’t believe me, try telling someone to stop being tired sometime and see how reasonable you sound. To change things I needed to know the underlying reason Spine was angry. Otherwise I would just piss him off more. Which would be counterproductive to calming him down.

“He’s killed goblins!” Spine yelled he put his hand on my and pulled as hard as he could, “He told me how he did it.”

I kept my grip on Spine. I am not certain what would happen if he actually got a shot in on Howard in this crowd. Most seemed to be watching me, and would likely respond to whatever I did. Not sure how many friends I had in the crowd.

I turned back to Howard, “You must not know Goblins are people,”

“Goblins are mobs,” Howard said belligerently.

“You’re the mob!,” Spine spat back

“We are all people,” I spoke over both of them. Both of them glared at me. Good, I had united them. “Think about it: do mobs have names over their heads?”

“No,” they both said.

“Do you see the name over each other’s head?” I pressed.

“Yeah,” Spine said.

“Yes… ” Howard. He wanted to say something else but paused.

“Then we are all people. Something set us up to fight amongst ourselves. Rather than do that we should be asking why?” I continued.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

A good portion of the crowd seemed to be listening to what I said. But Spine and Howard were obviously still fixing to beat the shit out of each other.

“I am not going to let you fight each other,” I said. Might as well just end this.

“You’re not my dad!” Spine growled, trying to break free of my grip.

“You don’t get to tell me what to do!” Howard said. He tried to bow up to me, but I was tremendous and upon realizing he looked like a petulant kid he stepped back.

“Let’s talk through it. I let you beat the hell out of each other, what good does that do?” I pressed both of them.

They both looked at me like I had two heads.

“What do you mean?” Spine asked.

“What will be accomplished if I let you two fight?” I asked both young men.

“I kill the little monster,” Howard explained.

“Nope, he’s not a monster, and he is under the protection of Warrior’s Suraksha just like you,” I explained.

“But mobs can’t get that,” Howard argued.

“He’s not a mob,” I explained again. The crowd was muttering at this point. A lot of folks looked deeply uncomfortable.

“Prove it,” Howard argued back.

“Prove you are a person first,” I flipped it around on him.

“I can think, feel, and speak,” Howard offered after a few moments.

“What exactly am I doing, dipshit?” Spine snapped.

“It has to be trick!” Howard argued again.

“Your mom does tricks,” Spine sneered.

“Spine,” I chastised. Technically that proved my point but not in a helpful way.

“Fuck you! You little…” Howard started, he stepped toward Spine but stopped when I held up my hand.

“I am not letting you fight,” I told the kid.

“If you are going to stand in my way then I challenge you to a duel!” Howard yelled.

“No,” I said flatly.

“What?” Howard asked, baffled.

“No, I am not dueling you,” I explained slowly.

“That means I win,” Howard declared.

“What do you win?” I asked, starting to lose patience with this.

“Um… the fight?” he offered somewhat lamely.

“What fight?” I pressed.

“The fight to fight?” Howard turned it into a question at the end.

“Let’s try this a different way. Can you duel a mob?” I asked.

“No, that’s stupid.” Howard answered.

“Then why are you trying to duel Spine?.” I asked.

Howard was quiet for a long time. “I am not going to lie. I feel like you put me in a box here.”

“All the more reason to walk away,” Brand advised.

“I’m not leaving because I am scared.” Howard said as he backed away.

“No one said you were,” I shook my head. “Come on Spine. Let’s get out of here.”

Once we got into Seth’s shed away from the others Spine exploded, “What the fuck Doug?” Yep, still angry. “You should have just let me handle him.”

“What would you have done?” I asked.

“Stabbed the son of a bitch!” Spine yelled. He showed me the knife. He held it in one hand and pointed with the other. It was a good knife, very sharp, probably quite stabby.

“Then what?”

Spine blinked at me, “What do you mean?”

“You think that kid, Howard, would just stand there letting you stab him?” I demanded.

Spine did hesitate for a second, “I could take him.”

“Even with his eight friends helping?”

Spine froze for a moment, “He had eight friends?”

“I don’t know Spine. How many more people were in the crowd?” I cooled my tone. I was pretty sure he was getting my point.

Spine was quiet for a very long time. “What are you trying to do, Doug?”

“Protect you,” said honestly.

“No! You are trying to teach me something. What and why?” Spine insisted.

I sighed, “I am trying to teach you to be deliberate. The world is full of people who will try to provoke you. If you let them, they will have control. In your current situation something terrible could happen.”

“You mean a gang of assholes would murder me,” Spine insisted.

“Yeah, basically that,” I admitted.

Spine thought for a moment, “So, you're saying I should wait until nightfall, sneak up on him while he is alone, and shoot him in the neck?”

I facepalmed, “No. Why do you want to hurt him, Spine?”

“He killed goblins!” Spine yelled.

“Have you killed humans?” I asked, keeping my tone calm. I didn’t want it to sound like an accusation. Hell, there was blood on my hands.

Spine stopped short, “Well no, but it wasn’t because I didn’t want to. I just never had the opportunity.” He didn’t seem to like what he said.

I nodded, “Forgot they were people, didn’t you?”

Spine chewed on the idea for a while, “Is it wrong that even knowing they are people I want to kill some of them?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. That was a difficult question. Sure the easy answer is hatred is a damaging emotion that should be let go. The trouble with easy answers is they tend to not apply to reality.

“How can you not know?” Spine demanded.

I shrugged.

“You’re supposed to know!” Spine yelled, exasperated.

“Sorry, I don’t. Life is complicated. I am guessing most people didn’t know they were killing other players. At the same time someone recently told me at some point outcome trumps intention.” I said, more or less stalling for time.

“I like that, who said that?” Spine said.

“Brunhilda,” I answered.

The goblins face twisted in disgust, “You did that on purpose.”

“I am not that smart. I don’t know how food works, man,” I pointed out.

“I thought you were just trolling Seth,” Spine said, looking stunned.

“Nope, I am actually brand new to this world. It both confuses and enrages me,” I told him.

“But, every other thing you say sounds like my dad,” Spine said. He seemed to be having an existential crisis.

“Thanks?” I tried.

“That wasn’t a compliment,” Spine sighed.

“I am not really sure how to respond to that,” I said flatly.

Spine did one of those teenage groans that sort of became a growl, “Gah! It’s like you are trying to make me feel like a dumb little kid.”

“Spine, I would have stopped you from picking that fight if you were twenty years older than me. Again, I can’t speak for your dad, but would you have let your sister pick that fight?”

“Absolutely not,” Spine scoffed.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because there was a hundred of them! It would be stupid!” Spine stopped cold. “This is the shit I am talking about! Stop it! You’re like the worst dad ever.”

Like i hadn’t heard that before.

I just gazed at Spine. Yes it was a dad look, but he needed it.

“Fine!” Spine said rolling his eyes so hard his head lolled.

“This is temporary. Soon we will get you back to your family… actually how are we supposed to return you to your family?” I began to worry I may have done a forced adoption.

Spine did the ole shifty eyes, “We have ways to communicate.”

“Cool,” I said, relieved “Is there a time frame?”

“Like, two days,” Spine said noncommittally.

Then it hit me.

Spine saw the look on my face, “What?”

“How far away can they get after they pick you up?” I asked.

Spine hesitated, “Like twenty miles. Why?”

“Because in…”

TIme until Gore Soaked Condition advances to Blood For the Blood God!

3 days 7 hours 12 minutes 32 seconds.

“In just over three days I am going to trigger the Blood for the Blood God condition.” I explained.

“Okay,” Said clearly not knowing what that meant.

“That will cause every mob on the continent to head my way,” I explained.

Spine paled, “Oh shit!”

Instead of panicking about the impending mass death of Spine’s family, my brain had one of those headaches with pictures, an idea. “Here’s a thought: they stay here! Ride out the mob rush, then we go our separate ways.”

This could be logistically tricky. Spine caused one dumb kid to try and start shit. 108 goblins may cause some people to do something silly.

“I like that idea,” Spine smiled.

“How many people are coming?” I asked. Better get ahead of this.

“At least five thousand,” Spine said.

Well… shoot. No, wait… shit! “Okay, that is what it is. If you can tell them to have everyone get here, I am going to need to figure out a way to get folks to not panic.”