New Achievement!

God Killer!*

I bet you feel big!

You have Killed a God! That hasn’t happened in… okay it was 5 days ago, but Nadia did it so it doesn’t count. The last non-Nadia player to do that was Kate, 187 years ago.

Reward: you have the mantle of the God of Beasts (Snow Lion). You can not equip this because your Scale is too high. You will also suffer consequences for this. You are now the enemy of Grond. You have been marked as a God Killer.

*Please note that the being Grond is not dead. This is just an appropriate name for destroying an aspect that will no longer be available to the player using it at this time of ‘death’. Having access to a Divine Aspect does not necessarily mean the user will be able to access the Divine Scale and/or Realms.

I tried to clear it but it kept popping up. After the third time, I just ignored it. Brand was closer; he was somehow still breathing, but unconscious. His stomach and most of his other organs were outside of him, in an ever-growing pool of blood. At some point during the fight, he tried packing snow into the wound. There was nothing I could do for him. I tried but a prompt saying:

Emergency Medicine Check… Failed!

You require Medical Equipment to succeed on this check.

I found Angelica next. She was actually awake… well kinda. Her arms and legs were in tatters, but she was still trying to staunch the bleeding at her neck with a piece of cloth. As I walked into her field of view my heart dropped. Her Health was flashing critical. Her entire throat had been ripped out. Even with her hand and the cloth in the way, I could see part of her spine. Anyone with a lower Body attribute would have already died.

A lot of things flashed in her eyes when she saw me. She held out one of her hands. I took it unsure of what she wanted. She immediately pulled me down toward her. Even like this, she was stronger than me. She tried to speak, but couldn’t make any words.

Realizing I was an idiot I activated my skills.

Empathy skill check… Successful!

Angelica wishes you use the mantle to heal Celeste.

Angelica slumped as I dug into the menu.

Use Mantle of the God of Beasts (snow Lion) to restore Celeste of Truth? Yes/No

Warning: target is already Divine Scale and cannot have Scale increased in this way. This action will also deplete the mantle into a lesser variant.

I selected yes.

I felt the Mantle of the God of Beasts (Snow Lion) leave my inventory to be replaced by Mantle of the God of Beasts(Snow Lion) Lesser Variant.

Nothing happened to Angelica that I could see. Her health kept trickling down.

Oh God! “Empowered Critical” had turned off Narrator intervention. Sure, it let me punch Grond’s face apart and hurt the bastard… inconvenience the bastard, but it also kicked the Narrators out for an hour. Maybe the Mantle would have been the excuse for Celeste to revive. Maybe they would have fixed the experience so that Brand and Angelica would have leveled.

I killed them…

“Do you need help?” a woman asked from behind me.

I turned to find… a short, stout woman with long red hair. She was clad in heavy metal armor and had both a large axe and a hammer strapped to her back. Based on the weapons, the armor, the shortness, and the…thiccness, I was pretty sure she was a dwarf, maybe. She didn’t have a beard, so I could be wrong.

“I am gonna heal these people. So, if they are actually marauders or something I need you to tell me,” she explained using that tone people use when they are trying to be comforting but a lot of time sensitive shit is happening so people need to move. It is a very specific tone. You’ll know it when you hear. When I said nothing for about a second, she slammed her steel-shod hands together. A chime, clear as any bell rang out. “Stall!” the woman said calmly. Her voice was quiet, but it resounded with power. Both Angelica and Brand’s Health stopped depleting. A sphere, a faint crystalline light radiated from her hands. It expanded until it engulfed all of us. As the light surrounded us it revealed two dark shadowy beings reaching for Brand and Angelica. The sphere of light pushed them away. They fought against the barrier but could not find purchase against it. The small-yet-sturdy woman nodded. “They would be here.” Pointing from Angelica to Brand she said. “Bring her towards him.”

Gently as I could I lifted Angelica off the ground and carried her toward Brand. It was strange. The wounds were still there, but they no longer bled. Again, as gently as I possibly could, I set Angelica down next to Brand. Her eyes were open but glassy. She looked….

The short woman nodded. “Good.” She slammed her fists together and spoke over the ensuing clamor. Something old, and… kind empowered her voice.. “In the name of Mendus, Rise and Reforge these two warriors.” As the ringing faded, a second chime from far away responded. Then a third, closer one. Then more chimes. The wind stirred and suddenly a dozen spectral beings clad in similar armor to the woman appeared around Angelica and Brand. “Reforge!” the woman and the specters called in unison.

There was a deafening thunder as the specters struck out at Angelica and Brand with ethereal hammers. I would have panicked if the aura of this hadn’t been completely antithetical to violence, and I couldn’t blatantly see their health-restoring and wounds healing.

Holy shit! Wilson did this. The crazy fucker probably plotted for most of this to happen. He could play-act at the slimy agent, or distracted bully all he wanted. I could see he was a manipulator. The truly upsetting thing was he was competent. The disturbing thing was if he wasn’t, my friends would be dead.

“What?” I asked, trying to understand what just happened.

“I’m Brunhilda, Shieldmaiden of Mendus, and Dwarf of the Shattered Mountain.” She said. The way she said it, it was clear that I was expected to know who she was.

Upon seeing the complete lack of recognition on my face she shrugged. “Eh, I am a big deal to anyone who isn’t a Titan Spawn.”

“Wait, I don’t show up as a rare Scale to you?” I asked, feeling oddly exposed.

“I just watched you beat a god to death with your bare hands. If you’re Rare Scale, I’ma wilting flower.’ She slammed her gauntleted fist into her breastplate. The force of the impact shook the cave and made her point.

“That’s fair,” I admitted. “So how did you end up here?”

“I was after The Mother of All Snow Lions. I need her blood for a component.” She said conversationally.

“Take it,” I said with a nod. After a moment I said, “Please leave the heart. Brand needs that for a McGuffin.”

“Yeah, sure,” she said. Instead of pulling the corpse of the boss into her inventory. She produced a strange container. It looked to be a large hip flask, but it also had a large sharp tap attached to a tube. She stabbed the tap into the neck of the body, and I could see blood flow up the tube. She saw I was trying to watch her and the ghost dwarves reforging Angelica and Brand at the same time. “You seem tense.”

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“I am worried about my friends,” I admitted. “This clash turned what was a straightforward fight into a near-total party wipe. It happened out of nowhere. I was just beginning to think I knew how things worked, but this is… I don’t even know how we aren’t dead.”

She walked over to me. Our differences in heights became shockingly apparent. I was more than twice as tall as her. That said she carried herself with that same effortless confidence Celeste, and to a lesser extent Angelica did. “Yeah… hold onto that feeling. As soon as you forget it something like this will happen again. I have lost a lot of friends that way.” After a long pause, she asked, “Not to ask an awkward question, but are you and Zach, the Storm King, at war?”

“I honestly don’t know,” I admitted. “He clearly wants me to help him fight Nadia. I don’t want to do that. Also, the first time we talked ended poorly. Although that seemed to be true of all the conversations, I have had with the other Titan Spawn.”

“Ah, well then there is only one logical thing to do then.”

Ritual of Fellowship triggered

Dwarven Exchange of Drinks.

Except? Yes/No

I hit yes. Drinks, fellowship, rituals, dwarves. None of this sounded bad.

Brunhilda produced a bottle of dark red liquor from her inventory. “I offer Red Dragon Rum, in exchange for fellowship.

Select offering:

Titanic Brew

Water

Snow lion Blood

I selected the first,since water and blood sounded like the obvious wrong choices, and I found myself handing over the mug of Titanic Brew as Brunhilda handed me the bottle of Red Dragon Rum.

“Like our ancestors before. Those who drink together, fight together. Those who fight together, die together. Those that die together should live together. And if we are gonna live together, we may as well be friends.”

“Hang together or hang separately,” I added.

We clanked our drinks together and both took long pulls. The red dragon rum was … interesting. Between the alcohol and spices in the drink, this stuff could bite. That said it also had a kind of glow to it. The warmth spread down my throat to my stomach and then to my fingers and toes.

Brunhilda was now flushed in the face, and her eyes were cloudy. “Fuck me, that is good!” she gasps. “Oh shit, I haven’t gotten this drunk in years.” She bumped me with her shoulder. “I’m on mana cooldown. We’re friends now. Since drinking makes me horny, I feel I should go for the full-frontal approach. I always liked them tall, and you’re a two-day trip. The fact is I could use a long weekend. You wanna go on holiday with me?” She then grabbed my ass. She had quite the grip. The best comparison I have is a pneumatic press or the jaws of life.

“I am flattered…” I started; my voice really high up there.

“Sup bro,” Zack cut in.

“Ah shit,” I muttered.

Zach being here heavily implied I was now level seven. He shook his head. “Look at you power-leveling by killing a god. That’s actually pretty hard core.”

“Oh Lord Storm King!” Brunhilda said. She dropped to her knee. Despite being blatantly drunk she never even tipped the drink. After a slight bow. She proceeded to sort of hide behind the mug by drinking more.

“Hello Brunhilda,” Zach said with a slight nod, tone somewhere between regal acknowledgement and dudebro trying to audition in an attempt to get laid.

“You two know each other?” I asked. Ice hit my veins, driving the warmth from the rum from me.

“I make it a point to know all of the demigod Scale beings in my kingdom,” Zach said. He took a deep breath, then just sort of stood there awkwardly for a moment, at a loss. “Have you… heard anything else from the Progenitor?”

“I don’t know if I should say. He had something to say to Cole. But I don’t think that was for you.” I admitted.

“Ah… damn,” Zach said. “After what he said… I had hoped to hear more.”

“What do you want?” I asked. I just couldn’t tiptoe around things.

“It is tradition for the shadows of Titan Spawn to visit each other to celebrate each level. You joining the group makes it once every five levels. It’s meant to build comradery, Dougie. It also was for the most part a relatively rare occurrence. Now that you are here,I suspect I am going to have to adjust my schedule. Which is going to be a bit of pain since I just avoided a coup.”

“Wait what?” Brunhilda and I said at the same time.

“Yeah. It was just like the progenitor said. Things had broken down. Turns out the gnomes started holding out on the elves and the border-landers once they heard about the blight. Between that and the encroaching winter. They were running out of food. That said if we can’t fix the blight in the next two weeks everyone is going to be starving.” Zach said. He shook his head. “Things were so much easier when I just had to kill dragons.”

“I have the blood of the Mother of All Snow Lions,” Brunhilda said. “I should be able to get back in two weeks if I never stop.”

“That’s gonna be tight,” Zach muttered. He started pacing.

“Why not just take it with you now?” I asked.

Zach sort of froze for a moment “…holy shit, Dougie!” Zach grabbed me in a rib-cracking hug. He rubbed my head after letting me go. “Toss it here, Babe.”

Brunhilda stood and collected the large flask from the herald. She lobbed it to Zach regardless of her drunken state and stumbling nature. The flask flew straight to Zach. He tossed it into his inventory. He let me go, “I have 3 gods working for me, and you break the blight while less than a month old. Look at you, killing gods and shit. Not that Grond is exactly a heavyweight, but still I was like level 30 before I managed that.”

“What’s Wrath of the Titan?” I asked, finding a window for prying information I cared about from Zach.

He went still. “You… managed to keep your memories during that?”

“Yeah, what the hell is that?” I pressed.

Zach paused. He just stood there so long I thought he wasn’t going to answer, “It is an ability of the Progenitor’s. It lets him assume direct control of one of us and wreck the shit out of things. He doesn’t seem to like using it, which is good.” He hesitated, “I’m sorry you had to go through that, bro.”

Not wanting to lose momentum I asked the next pressing question “What about Kate?”

“…I, I gotta go,” Zach said, staring at his feet. “If you want answers about… about her… you will need to ask Nadia.”

“Wait! What happened?” I was shouting. I was running toward where Zach had been.

Willpower Check …failed

Emotions will no longer be suppressed.

Memories will not be suppressed

Difficulty of checks reset due to failure

The prompt of the failed willpower check resetting the difficulty flashed in my vision. The stress hit me like a train. My knees buckled. My vision blurred. I was having a complete meltdown. I couldn’t breathe, but I was getting dizzy. Looking back, it is more upsetting to me at least, because I physically did not need to breathe.

I don’t know how long I stayed that way, probably a few minutes, but eventually, I realized I could roll willpower to suppress emotions.

Willpower Check …Successful

Emotions brought to controllable levels

And suddenly I was calm and collected. I wiped the tears from my face and stood up.

Brunhilda was politely ignoring my… moment and watching the spirits reforge Angelica and Brand. When I walked up to stand next to her, she gave me the mug of Titanic Brew, “I recommend you take a few minutes every day to let yourself feel. It hurts but… you gotta bend at some point or you break.”

“Thank you,” I said with a nod.

“I am just glad we didn’t have to fight or anything. The Storm King is not normally hospitable to other Titan Spawn. Not since…” she trailed off and stayed silent.

“Yeah, that went way better than I expected,” I agreed. “What are you going to do now?”

“I will heal your friends up, and then I’ll probably tag along until the next safe point. After that, I will head back to the Shattered Mountain. We found a new great vault, just before I left. It was the deepest ever found.”

Brand sat up and gazed around wild-eyed. Eventually, he saw Brunhilda and me standing around day drinking. “You Idiot!” He roared and charged. I legitimately thought he was going to attack me. Instead, he charged right past us to the body of Grond. After touching the corpse he paused, clearly reading prompts. “Get over here and loot the corpse, damn you!”

Angelica shot past us like a lightning bolt. Brunhilda lobbed me at the body: I face-planted into the snow and looked up at the message

Loot corpse of Grond: God of Beast’s (Aspect of the Snow Lion)

Yes/No?

Time remaining 00:00:07

Time remaining 00:00:06

I hit ‘Yes’ as fast as I could.

I got a lot of stuff. I tossed the body into my inventory. I did the same with the Mother of Snow Lions, found the Heart. I pulled it out of my inventory and tossed it to Brand. He caught it casually and it disappeared into his inventory. The looting pulled the body into my inventory and triggered several more prompts.

I closed them all without looking. It’s not that I didn’t care. I had other priorities. Like how Angelica was watching me. Well, shit. That was the ‘we need to talk’ look.