I could feel as the high priest’s ritual began by the thrum of power and mana that filled the space. While normally, I thought I might feel a touch nervous at being hooked into something of this scale, in this case, I had no reservations.

So much easier than all the other stuff I’ve had to do. I get to just stand here!

I was so relieved by this fortunate turn of events, in fact, that I didn’t even really mind when a thin blade of light suddenly appeared, cutting into my finger. It was a minor wound, and I barely felt the pain.

I watched with interest as a small trickle of blood escaped the cut, dripping onto the ground below. It connected with the spell diagram beneath me, and the brilliant golden light darkened around it, turning into a dusky amber.

Weird, but neat, I decided.

Another cut appeared a moment later on a finger of the opposite hand, and the process repeated itself. Should I be worried? Ephesis did say something about this hurting, but it’d be bad if I started bleeding too much, right?

I eyed the other four of my companions, noting that they were all receiving a similar treatment to me. They didn’t seem to mind it, so I was probably just overreacting.

My current line of thought was interrupted as Ephesis called out to us, still seated on the ground with his eyes closed. “Very good. You’re all doing marvelously. Now, I suppose I don’t really have to explain it all, but you’ll have to humor me a touch. It’s been some time since I’ve had a chance to talk with others, hmm?” Under his breath he muttered out some more. “... and perhaps it will help you all take your mind off the spell.”

It was strange watching the man speak, his eyes shut and none of the muscles on his face making a twitch save for around his mouth. Given that he was channeling the bindings and controlling the ritual, I was frankly surprised he had the capacity to even speak at the moment, but speak he did.

“You may be curious as to the nature of this ritual, yes? Many rituals that involve multiple people often work by draining each participant’s mana, however you’ll note that this one does not. Mana is all well and good for your everyday summoning or what have you, but when you’d like to cast a spell that affects the gods, mana… well, it’s not quite enough.”

This was great, actually! I still had very little idea about how magic actually worked here. I could cast it, but the inner workings of it all escaped me. Getting a mini lecture from someone as knowledgeable as the high priest was a rare chance for me. A host of new cuts had appeared across my body, but I ignored them, opting to focus on the high priest’s words instead. It was surprisingly easy to do so — perhaps it was because the cuts were so impossibly thin, some of them didn’t even hurt.

“None of you seem to have enough for this to come into play, so you may not know this, but when it reaches a serious level, Prestige isn’t just some arbitrary number. After a certain amount, it starts to exert an actual force on the surrounding world. You’ve never heard of a grand hero dying from a simple flu or an army commander slayed by some lucky goblin’s arrow going straight through his visor, no? It’s not a coincidence — it’s closer to providence. A stray, lucky shot doesn’t have the right to kill someone of that stature.”

Weird. How did that work exactly? If I got a lot more Prestige, could I just walk into a rain of arrows and escape unscathed? Or would I be seriously wounded, but just not die? I considered asking some followup questions, but I suddenly realized that my mouth wasn’t working. I mentally berated myself on realizing why: It was probably that silence effect from the shackles. It was a good thing they had that feature, or I might have accidentally disturbed Ephesis’s concentration.

“Indeed, if you want to kill something that has a truly monstrous level of Prestige — or in this case, even if you want to affect it in any serious way — you, yourself, must be important enough to do so. Or in many cases, your group must be collectively important enough. An emperor is far too Prestigious to truly die from a single commoner, but an army of commoners may suffice to do him in.”

I wondered how Ephesis factored into all of this. He had to have even more Prestige than I did, right? After all, he was also a Protagonist, and presumably being a high priest was a pretty big deal too. Did he have enough for this phenomenon to start working for him? If we got into a fight with him, would that mean we physically wouldn’t be able to kill him, or would he magically resurrect himself even if we managed?

Then again, it wouldn’t really matter. I think we already decided that we’d have no chance. And besides! There was no need for something like that. He’d turned out to be a really nice guy.

“This, you may be curious to here, is where you all come in. It’s possible that I may have been able to do such a ritual without you, but with you here, the effects will be much greater. In this sense, your arrival is rather serendipitous.”

Neat! In this case, my very presence was all that was needed to help him out! A small part of me objected to that thought: If all he needed was our presence, what was with all the bleeding?

I was distracted from the thought by a notification popping up. Given how important everything currently was, I felt a strong urge to save it for later, but that didn’t make sense, did it? Looks like he’s done talking, and there’s not much else to do. It can’t really hurt, can it? I decided to check it despite my urge to the contrary.

You have learned a new skill: Mental Resistance

Aids in resisting all foreign mental effects, such as mind control, suggestion, or emotional manipulation.

Prerequisites: 20 Intelligence, 20 Wisdom, 15 Endurance

Note! Due to your skills and thresholds, you appear to already have existing mental resistance. Existing resistances will be applied atop this skill.

God’s Mind: +20%

First Intelligence Threshold: +10%

Current total mental resistance: +31%

Nice. I was always a fan of getting new skills, especially Rare ones. Where had this one come from though? I didn’t think anyone here would be trying to mind control me, after all.

The chandelier, I belatedly realized. It has a calming effect, right? That’s probably considered “emotional manipulation.”

In that sense, it was actually kind of a bummer that I was getting more mental resistance. I liked being calm. Plus, I had the sense that the soothing effects of the spell were helping me handle the ritual with far more poise than I might have otherwise. I had no desire to start wincing and crying throughout the entire thing.

Although, I kind of wished that I could at least ask for a cup of coffee or something. I was getting remarkably tired all of a sudden. A little lightheaded too.

I glanced down at the spell diagram beneath me, finding it had transitioned from amber to radiant crimson at some point. My own blood surrounded me in a small pool.

Oh. That feels like a lot. Should… Should I be worried?

Then again, why worry? Ephesis had to know what he was doing, right? And none of the others looked particularly worried. I would have called out to ask them how they were doing, but I was silenced. Ah well.

As I continued to bleed, however, a terrible thought struck me. I have the lowest Constitution here, don’t I? I wasn’t entirely sure how the ins and outs of the stat worked, but it would probably take me less time to bleed out than the others, wouldn’t it?

Did Ephesis know that? What if he’d assumed I was a higher level? That would be bad, right?

Just in case, I tried to cast a healing spell on myself, only to discover that I couldn’t. I could feel myself start to worry, giving the amber light from the chandelier a workout in trying to get my emotions back under control. My thoughts started to grow sluggish.

What if I lose all my blood? Then I won’t have any more to give to the ritual! Maybe the ritual would fail then!

That would be a disaster. This was a really important ritual! But what could I even do?

Water! Blood is mostly water, right? Water would help me make more blood. I grinned at my own genius, casting Conjure Water… only for it to also fail. Oop. Yup. No spells. That’s a bummer.

Did I have any water in my pouch? Considering that I was usually my own water producer, I didn’t think so, but it wouldn’t hurt to check, right?

I tried to wiggle my fingers over to my dimensional pouch, but ultimately failed. The chains had absolutely no slack to them, and even the small arm movement needed to access my inventory was too much for them.

Well shucks. Guess I should just bleed out then? Trust that Ephesis will be okay?

That seemed like the best option. After all, if I couldn’t move, speak, or use mana, what else could I do? I certainly didn’t see how I could possibly get any wat-

Oh.

I did have something that could help me, didn’t I? I had an item that kept me hydrated — the Cleansing Shower Gem Pendant. It was supposed to clean me up and fully hydrate me whenever I used it.

That’ll be nice, actually. I could use a shower. I looked down at myself, finding nothing but torn up clothing and a mess of blood. That would clean me up nicely.

There was some other use for the pendant, right? A weird part of me thought that it was important for me to remember what it was, but thoughts were starting to get harder. Ah well. Maybe the water would help me remember. Water was good for headaches, right?

I focused on the pendant at my neck, willing it to activate, only to receive an unfortunate prompt.

Cleansing Shower Gem Pendant is on cooldown. Time remaining: 1 minute, 7 seconds.

Drats. I guess I had used it back while I was sparring with Cal and Hartha. Had that really only been an hour ago? It already felt like a lifetime ago.

In retrospect, though, all I’d done since then was walk to the dungeon. Have a short fight. Walk through the dungeon. Guess that made sense.

I activated it again, idly watching the timer tick down.

59 seconds

It felt like a long time. I was so… tired. Dizzy.

51 seconds

Maybe I could just lie down? Nope. Chains. No go. No can do.

43 seconds

The cavern was kind of chilly, wasn’t it? They needed… to plug in a space heater.

37 seconds

Ha! Space heater. Forgot where I was for a second. Probably a big magic fire gem with fire mana that makes… fire. Yeah. Way cooler than a space heater. No, that wasn’t right. Way hotter than a space heater?

28 seconds

Was it actually cold though? If it was, why was I sweating? Weird, strange, odd.

21 seconds

What exactly was I doing anyway? I couldn’t… remember. Maybe I was playing a game? I thought I kept activating the silly little timer I had on my neck. What was it at now?

16 seconds

That was nice. Good number, sixteen.

7 seconds

I was just so tired though. Was a shame I couldn’t lie down. What if I just… closed my eyes?

It was fine. That was the whole point of the countdown, right? I had an alarm set… I could just… take a nap. Nice and easy.

Ready to let sleep claim me, I shut my eyes tight.

Nighty night, T.