I could see Susan was less than impressed with my little town, but there had been improvements even in the week I had been gone. The inn was no longer our only wooden building, with the appearance of two that had replaced a couple of the old thatched roof versions. An archer and a swordsman stood at the post marking the start of the town and I got "Welcome Priest Loser" from both of them. We stabled the horses at the inn, but I didn't go in yet, deciding to get Susan's things sorted out first. The cup was now reading 25 feet, so I knew the effects were spreading. The other priest in Telinar had said something about that when I talked to him, so I guessed it wasn't dangerous. What was the saying 'one cup to rule them all and in the darkness bind them', or some such.

The captain and Mirabeth were strolling our way from the other side of town, so I waved them over to make introductions. "Captain, Mage Mirabeth, these are friends of mine, Maria and Susan" I pointed to each, then let the two groups eye each other, interested in seeing how they would react. I was rather pleased when the Captain led the way with "It pleases me to meet those that Loser calls friends. I give you welcome to our town, and ask that you give our people some small time to accustom themselves to your presence as eternals are hated by many"

"Rightly so" Mirabeth said sternly "as they view any who are not eternal as a lesser people and think little of stealing their lives and properties" she paused and gave me a chagrined look before saying "but that is not true with our priest and you, if you have gained his trust, and you must also have gained some respect from the goddess Telina if you are able to stand in her presence"

Maria and Susan looked a little confused by the words, and I was shocked when Andulin picked up on it and said "Telina's shrine damages those who work contrary to her teachings. Those such as the three eternals killed here some weeks ago would burn with Telina's holy flame were they to enter this market area now"

"Aah" Maria said to me "the protection you mentioned"

"Yep. The shrine can't be moved, and the eternal assholes will take damage just standing within 25 feet of it" I gave Susan a serious look as I said "so if you start working contrary to her will, you might find this to be an uncomfortable spawn point"

"You're her priest right?" Susan asked "So we would be basically be the good guys around here, and I can support that"

"Alright, let's do this then" I looked at Andulin and said "I would be pleased if we could speak this evening at the inn" he and Mirabeth nodded, getting close to a half bow before leaving.

"How come they act so normal?" Susan asked "the Mage even offered an opinion"

"They grow as you interact, and they are all normal, just not old reality normal" Maria chuckled at my words, but stepped out of the way as I turned to Susan and said "Ok, this is the first time for the spell, so I'm not sure if I choose what it does, or you do. So be flexible and when you choose a spawn point, make it about three feet to one side of the cup"

She nodded, so I pulled up the spell and began screwing with it to see what it took to make it work. I touched Telina's power, then thought of the spell and kind of pushed it at Susan. There was a huge flare of light around her that didn't fade as she said in a half yell like she was in a noisy room "Ok!, it's working. It's asking if I wish to be resurrected one time at the point of my next death" she spoke a little softer as she said "No" then louder again to say "Alright, now it's asking if I want to choose a new point of rebirth" the quieter "yes" followed. She didn't say anything for a few seconds, then took a couple steps to put herself a few feet from the cup before saying "At this location" The light flared to an intense level, causing everyone in the square to cover their eyes, and it stayed that way for a count of three before disappearing, taking Susan with it.

"Um..." I muttered just before Telina whispered "She will be reborn at this point in one hour" I sent a non-verbal thanks, then told Maria "Telina says she'll show up at her spawn point in an hour, so we have a little while"

"I hope so" Maria said with a grin "otherwise she's going to be really pissed at you" she waved that away and said "but it makes sense that you'd want to see it work before actually dying"

I took her over and introduced her to Seth again, and we began to wander the town, talking as we waited.

"You need to let her pay you for this or it'll eat at her that she owes you" Maria said "this is a huge, huge thing for her, and if you act like it's not important it's going to hurt"

"Like what?" I asked. She shrugged before saying "take the magic stuff from the dungeon. We all split the coin, but we give you the whole magic haul. It's not really great stuff, but there's probably an item or two you can use, and the rest should be worth a few dozen gold. We're not finished with the dungeon yet, so we can give you her share of normal magic items on the rest"

"Shit, that's a lot a money Maria" my words drawing a laugh from her as she said "That's the noob in you talking. This is one low level dungeon Jake. I've done a dozen just like it, and will probably do a thousand more in the future. We'll probably find one or two really good items, the rest'll be stat rings and low level armor and weapons"

Telina wasn't nagging me one way or the other, and I did have a possible use for the various types of magic beyond money, so I finally shrugged and said "Sure"

Susan showed up an hour later, stepping out of nothing with an apprehensive look on her face that transformed into a brilliant smile as she looked around the square. We let her get her bearings before Maria said "Welcome home traveler"

"I'm free" Susan said softly "only you two know about this, so it will take a long time for them to find me again"

"Us" I said "they'll have to deal with both of us if they plan to camp out around here"

"Us" Susan said with a grin

Susan immediately offered to give me all of her gold, but Maria eased her into the idea of the magic by saying "Don't let the name and dumb expression fool you, Jake's a nice guy and wanted to do what was right. You give him too much and he'll start feeling like he took advantage of you, and you wouldn't want that" she mock whispered "Cries like a little girl, it's really pathetic. Don't make me suffer through it"

"That's what I like about you Maria, you really know how to make a guy feel important" I said with a laugh as we entered the Inn. Mary ran over to give me a hard hug and kiss before whispering a couple suggestions in my ear. Susan looked a little suspicious about that, but Maria broke into her infectious giggles as she said "did you know elves have really good hearing" I was pleased to see Mary blush, the response more than I had expected at this point, as I said "No l did not know that, but I had heard that they were a pain in the fundament and can verify that rumor is true"

Andulin smiled at our teasing, and even Mirabeth gave her tight lipped grin as we sat down with them. Mary supplied ales all around before I raised my mug at Susan and said "Welcome to Mudtown, home to really good people, and blessed of Telina" The others offered their own welcomes, then I passed over the magic items to Andulin as everyone looked surprised. Smiling, I told the table "The captain, Mirabeth, and the other guards keep us safe. Susan and I will draw unwelcome attention from other eternals just by our existence, so anything we can do to strengthen them or make their lives easier is a benefit to everyone" The most useful of the items were:

"Ring of Recovery

+15% mana recovery rate (does not stack)

+2 Sword of Strength

+2 to Strength

Chain mail of Defense

+1 Dexterity

+5% chance to dodge attack

+10% Magic resistance

Ring of the Magi

+20% mana recovery rate (does not stack)

-15% mana requirement for AOE spells

+10 armor

Boots of Agility

+2 Dexterity

+20% armor against ranged weapons

The boots were left overs from a while back, but the rest was from the gnolls. Every damn item said not usable by priests. Discrimination is what it was. I let Andulin sort out who got what, told him to sell anything he couldn't use, and I was super shocked to learn that other than mages, the locals didn't have magic weapons and armor. Guess I wasn't the only one with discrimination complaints.

"Only time will tell whether your presence harms the people of Mudtown" Mirabeth said in her stern voice "but lamenting the existence of the eternals is a fools game. They are as much a part of this world as the dragons and the orcs, and it is by their actions they will be judged. Word has reached us of the eternal named BigBob..." She paused at my sudden laugh, then continued with a scowl for my interruption "and the lesson for those who are willing to learn, is that being eternal can also be a curse in itself"

"Loser is of Mudtown, as is Susan now" Andulin said "to the guard there is little else by which we will judge"

"BigBob?" Susan asked

"Asshole" Maria said "Three mages killed him, then dug a pit below his spawn point. He falls in, the guards finish him off, rinse and repeat. He had been abusing the villagers, so they have a lot of reasons for seeing him dead" she shrugged and added "or as dead as he will get?"

"Three mages?"

Maria put on a pious expression and said "I hear they were led by an elf maiden whose beauty caused awe in all who saw her, and her two compatriots, while very ugly in comparison, were devoted to her and would have gladly sacrificed themselves for a simple kiss from her radiant lips"

"Radiant lips?" I asked with a laugh "her lips were glowing? I heard the elven Mage had been touched by the goddess and it caused her to continually laugh like a hyena while in battle"

Maria gave me a glare and said "and I heard..." "that the two of you are full of bullshit" Susan said dryly "So you killed him and set a trap at his spawn point"

"That's why you need friends in this world" I said "and these guys need to remember that they're not gods"

Susan took a room at the inn. She split the coin from our crawl, giving each of us 46 gold, 37 silver, 113 copper, then stopped at Telina's cup and dropped in 20 silver, saying "No one in this world offers generosity like this, and the fact you are judged when you get close is just to great for words for keeping people from stealing"

We headed back out the next day , with none of us having anything important we needed to do. Susan was a lot more talkative now that she wasn't worried every moment that she might die and find herself fighting for her life. The thought made me ask "These two guys that are preying on people, is that something you would be interested in stopping?"

Maria sighed and turned to sit sideways in her saddle to face me as she said "Well, that took longer than I thought it would. Jess and Gram have been here as long as Dalmar, and both are straight up warriors. They both were 200 health, and are wearing max magic shit. The biggest issue is that they're not total morons like Boob was, just sick fucks"

"They always together? At her shrug and head shake, I asked "do you know their spawn point?"

"All the first wave people got put in the Romar empire, though Dalmar got the dwarf city since he chose to be a dwarf of all things. The douche brothers are from one of the Romarian cities on the southern side of the empire where it curves around the west side of the Abandoned Lands. They don't come this far east much, mostly doing crawls to the south along the Orc border, or on the western border of the Abandoned Lands, which is where Averdeen is. They do the whole village terrorizing thing for a week or two, then move on" she shook her head in doubt as she added "Riverbend, the city they spawn in, is an empire border city, so it's a walled fortress with a local governor and large guard force. I think twenty or thirty people spawn there, and they use the back alley layout that was the norm at first. They didn't start setting spawn points right in the town square until later, and even then it was hit or miss" she shrugged and added "wonder what they do now"

"Nothing, Telina said they've stopped sending people"

Maria gave a grin and said "She whisper that in your ear?"

"A dream actually, but I would put your money on it being true" I said "but back to the douche boys, we need to be thinking about how we plan to deal with people like them in the long term" I held up a hand and added quickly "I'm not saying right now, but if we don't deal with them, they'll deal with us as we start interfering in their fun"

The gnoll caverns were right where we left them, and no one had respawned, something Maria chalked up to the fact we were in the middle of a quest. We weren't thrilled to find the trapped floor waiting for us, but mapped out a strategy to get through. Susan would be the sacrificial lamb, Maria's term, one Susan wasn't thrilled with, and Susan would step out and wait. I and Maria would move up the stairs a ways to avoid missile weapons, but close enough I could see and heal Susan if necessary. We were four days from my next resurrect spell, so if she croaked, Maria and I would wait at the cavern entrance.

I cast a blessing on the group, something that really buffed the hell out of people (not me though damn it), then did a restore and told Susan "Good luck"

When Susan stepped down onto the hall floor, she was hunched behind her shield, ready to be blasted. She wasn't ready for a soft green mist to form at her feet, so it took a yell from Maria for her to look down. It was fast acting, because Susan suddenly collapsed, and we could see her health start dropping. As I cast my first heal spell, Maria muttered "Shit, why didn't I tie a rope to her". I watched Susan's health get restored for a second before dropping again. Gauging the amount of loss I decided it would take more than thirty seconds to kill her. Casting another heal spell, I told Maria "I think we're good. Even if I have to restore mana, it shouldn't kill her before I'm done"

"Well good" Maria said with a grin "because she would have been pissed to lose the experience"

Whatever it was, it was long lasting because I did have to do a restore before going back to healing Susan. With the low mana cost for my healing now, that meant this stuff would have killed her many times over. When it finally dissipated, we joined Susan, who wasn't any worse for wear, having been out the whole time.

"I wonder if dispel magic would have worked on it?" I muttered as we moved on, getting a muttered "Doubtful. Gases aren't usually dispellable. Is that a word, dispellable?" from Maria. Drawing a quiet laugh from Susan.

Instead of the doors lining the hallway like the other levels, this one came to a four way intersection with hallways going about forty feet before ending at doors. There were two gnolls at each door, and since we were just moseying along without a care in the world, we drew aggro from all of them. We backed down our hallway a few feet, then posted Susan at the front as we went into our standard fight configuration. A buffed up Susan was pretty darn tough, and she held the line while dealing out a lot of damage in between being hit by a bunch of halberds. The gnolls were so bunched up I finally said the hell with it and called holy flame down on them. It killed the one it hit, and did beaucoup damage to the others. Enough that Maria started killing them one at a time with her arrows. I restored my mana, healed Susan again, and cast my armor spell, embarrassed that I had totally spaced it out. The spell pushed my armor rating up to the fifty level, which was good by anyone's numbers.

"Nice not having to worry about splash damage when someone uses fire" Susan said "got killed early on from friendly fire from a Mage, Sauron if you can believe the gall. Guy was an absolute idiot. I think he might have actually been mentally handicapped"

"Met him. Complete brain fart" Maria said as she worked on the door in the hallway to our right. She stepped back after a moment and said "Ok, it's clear" looking around with a pensive expression she added "Setups like this usually mean two tough fights and one really tough fight before finding a way onward"

"Stab, then stab some more" Susan said as she set herself in front of the door "always works for me" and that's what she did. I opened the door and Susan stepped forward to block it. The door opened into a twenty by twenty room that seemed small compared to everything else, but it had two shamans and something that looked like a gnoll on steroids.

Gnoll Captain

Level 9

165 health

My first attempt to call holy fire got interrupted by something from one of the shamans. A dark light flared around us and I got

Gnorgish soul poison

Drains 30% stamina

Reduces hit chance 45%

I was gratified to see a sudden flare around one of the shamans, but ignored it to cast a dispel on my party. Maria was peppering the shamans with arrows, cycling between them to disrupt their castings. I didn't have the mana to cast holy flame now, so healed Susan, and followed that with one for Maria when she got hit by magic missiles (hate those things, why couldn't I have gotten some?), then stepped back and did a restore. When I was done, I did another heal on Susan, who had the captain down to about 30 health, and was about to cast the damn holy flame spell on the shaman Maria hadn't killed, when someone stabbed me right in the kidney.

Wow! That really, really, really hurt. It took off 180 points, and left me stunned for three seconds. I might have picked up my first death if Maria hadn't swiveled around to shoot the gnoll assassin that had snuck up and stabbed me. My first act was to drink a potion, then I pulled out my mace and started swinging. Three on three meant the odds were in our favor. Maria was just too good for the shaman to manage anything more than a couple magic missile spells. They hurt, but not enough to stop someone at Maria's level. Susan had already tenderized her opponent, so she finished him off pretty quick. My guy had a wicked back stab, but was weak on his facing game. I mace bitch slapped him with Fist twice, and once without, and that was all she wrote. I was standing there finally feeling like a bit of a badass when Maria said "Assassins, if that first stab don't kill you, it's like fighting a kitten. A three legged kitten with only one eye. And no teeth. And..." "Alright!" I yelled grumpily "We all get it. Kittens, got it already!"

No one said anything for a moment as Maria let out a couple of soft giggles as she worked on a locked chest, then we heard Maria say quietly "And has seizures"

Susan started laughing as I flipped Maria off and stomped over to the door to glare at the two of them. They exchanged weak cat ideas, giggling like children until they got the chest opened.

Maria made a Hmmm noise before saying "Must be your birthday Jake" I walked over to look, expecting some kind of kitten joke, but instead I saw my greatest dream come true.

Mace of Holy Lightning

18-32 damage

+10% hit chance

10 points electrical damage

60/60 durability

Usable by:Priests

I almost wept from happiness. With this and the Fist, I could finally do ass kicking damage. I picked it up reverently, running my hand up the leather wrapped, steel handle that ended in the classic steel ball with triangular spikes scattered densely around it. Little arcs of electricity jumped from spike to spike, making it seem to shimmer with power. I held it in one hand, gauging the weight and finding it perfect. Slowly raising it to the sky I proclaimed loudly "I name you...Bruce!"

We all broke down laughing for a while, with Maria explaining to Susan the dearth of magic items for priests and how I had been using my mace of major inadequacy for a while now. Not that I was discarding my original mace, it still had a rune on it, and I planned to use that against someone first.

Speaking of which, I went ahead and blessed the mace, did a restore, and put a clobberin rune on Bruce. Susan was a fascinated observer, and was even more interested when Maria told her I had given her (Maria) two exploding arrows. I was very pleased when Susan didn't start importuning me for her own rune. With Bruce the Mighty in my hand we headed out to try our luck on the door directly across from this one. Doing the center door last just seemed appropriate.

This room brought a new creature to my attention

Stone Golem

Level 12

400 health

WTF? It looked like an eight foot man carved out of a solid piece of rock. Maria led us off with "Stone golem. Arrows don't do shit. Sword is half damage. A lot of magic doesn't work, so Hit and run, he's slow as hell, but does major damage"

Alrighty then. We started a dance where one after another we dashed in, swung for whatever damage we could, then dashed away. My mace did the most damage per hit, the maximum actually, but Susan's and Maria's swords were doing maybe 10 or 15. Maria was way to fast for it, but both Susan and I took hits from the things fists, and they always did 75 points of damage. I was tempted to have Maria back away, but she was smart enough to know her own abilities. We ended up having one of us hide and eating something to restore endurance because we wore down from the running and fighting. When the darn thing finally collapsed into a pile of rubble, Susan yelled "Level up!"

We settled in while Susan waved her arms and mumbled to herself. Maria sat next to me and leaned sideways to bump shoulders before saying softly "Thanks for Susan. I know you aren't in it for the recognition, but...thanks" I shrugged and said "She's good people, like you are"

Susan came out of her trance about ten minutes later, making me wonder what she was doing that took so long. She drew a deep breath and grinned down at us sitting on the floor and said "Telina said to tell you your welcome for the mace"

"Get outta town" Maria said "Paladin of Telina?,

The grin stretched Susan's cheeks as she nodded. Maria took pity on my confused look and said "The choice doesn't even appear for most people, and we don't know the how's or whys of who gets a choice. They're rare, or at least Dalmar and I have never met one. Dalmar was so pissed when he only got the holy warrior choice. Each goddess is different, and I bet she's the first one that chose Telina"

"I am" she said, smiling at me as I stood up "with no more eternals coming in, only the ones like me who are below level 8 can give the goddesses a chance at gaining one"

I had had the same thought the other day concerning priests, and had spent time considering the role the goddesses would be playing in the lives of everyone on Tarinath. If they relied on faith for power, having an active priest or paladin would be a huge benefit. There were layers of power in play on this world, and I had no doubt those layers would impinge at some point. I needed to make a note to ask her about the cup and whether there might be more.

My level was at 21%, so I had seen a serious slow down since I reached 8. Of course I probably only had a bunch of new healing type spells to look forward to. Shrugging it off I followed the girls to door number three, then watched until Maria said "No traps"

I raised my mace and said "Well, Some one knock and tell them Avons calling"

We'd just spent like two hours beating on a golem, so what do you think was inside? You called it (or not) a shaman and a golem. What a freaking mess. Susan got to test out her new Paladin shit (which I really didn't hate her for. Healer? Who the hell picks healer???) Anyway, she was kind of badass, with a boost to health and a weird flame on her sword (I know it was Telina's flame, but if that two timing goddess didn't give me mace flame, she wasn't getting credit for the other thing) that put a hurting on big stony. Maria and I dealt with the shaman, a level 15, which seemed way over powered, and I ate his spells of fire, poison, and magic missiles, continuously healing the damage while Maria filled him full of arrows. After he died we ended up helping Susan since those golems were serious health monsters. Susan used a potion at one point since I was busy healing myself.

"Holy shit" Maria said after it was over, looking around in amazement "They gave this quest to a level 7?"

"I think the system is adapting" I said as I gave Susan a nod and muttered "You kick ass" as she picked up the loot. Two chests this time, which kept Maria busy for a few minutes. There was a nice sword that Susan swapped hers for, telling me "my old one is pretty nice, so the captain or one of his men can use it"

The door downward was hidden, and Maria did some weird eye glowing thing that revealed it actually being a section of the floor. She pushed a series of points, which caused it to sink down to reveal more stairs.

We ran into a couple level 8 guards that we polished off pretty easily, and found ourselves in a large cavern full of holding pens. Bars that ran from floor to ceiling and caged in sections throughout the whole cavern, leaving a walkway down the middle. The cages held a variety of animals and people, with the people running the gamut of races, but humans being in the majority.

"Food" Maria muttered

"Let's see if we can get the cages open" I said distractedly, eyeing a few children huddled amongst the different groups. I raised my voice so everyone could hear and said "We'll have you out in a few minutes" I was surprised at the lack of excitement at our killing of the guards, but Maria made me understand why when she said "Um...they're part of the dungeon Jake. They just respawn here if you let them out"

I turned to look at her in surprise before saying "So? You don't just leave people to get eaten do you?" Her face told me she had, and I had to hold back a sharp word as I walked over to where a middle aged man in rags was standing in a cell and asked him "Can you find your way back out when we free you?"

He seemed surprised I was talking to him and he just stared for a moment, but finally said "You're an eternal. What do you care what happens to us?"

"What difference does that make?" I asked in return "I'm going to open the cells, so you either stay and be dinner, or walk out of this place and go home"

"No home left" a young woman said softly from the cell behind me. I turned toward her as another person said "Gnolls destroyed it and took us all" The attitude of apathy regarding possible escape confused the hell out of me, so my tone was a little impatient as I said "So, go to a different town and start over. Pick up any weapons or armor you can use or sell on the way out and you should have enough to at least get situated"

"No one will take in strangers" an old woman said, sounding as if I was an idiot for not knowing that.

I threw my hands up in disgust as I said "Oh for Telina's sake, then wait outside the cavern and I'll take you to my town. By the time we get there we won't be strangers anymore and you can build a place there"

The prisoners all stood still, blinking in confusion for a second, then started whispering and arguing amongst themselves. I rolled my eyes and gave Maria an impatient wave to tell her to get the cages open. She shook her head in bemusement as she chuckled and muttered "Always gotta be different"

Susan walked over to stand next to me, watching as the locals continued their whispered discussions. She finally said softly "I've always left them behind"

"Priest" the guy I first talked to said, getting me to step back over "How can you speak for this town? Do you rule it? None here will follow you to become slaves to an eternal"

"At least you wouldn't be dinner" I said with a grin before waving that away and saying "but no, I don't rule the town. I live there and can say that I believe the people will accept you. If they don't, then I'll help you start your own village close by"

"It is an unusual thought that we might begin anew somewhere else, but we have agreed to follow you to this town and see what comes of it"

"Whatever works" I said with a shrug "pick up everything you can on the way out, then make camp outside the cavern. We'll join you after we finish"

It looked to be about fifty people of assorted ages, with a couple of half elves mixed in. They filed past, all of them giving us doubtful looks but not arguing anymore. Maria joined me and Susan after she opened the last cage and said "So...refugees"

"Doesn't this mess up...things?" Susan asked, looking around the cavern like she was wondering if it would disappear.

I laughed and shook my head in amazement before saying "Mess up what? The gnolls dinner? This is a whole new universe, and it'll change and adapt. Maybe the gnolls respawn with new people here, or maybe they have to find a new food source. Or maybe none of them come back and we turn this into an underground theme park. If the system really couldn't handle it I doubt we would be able to make these choices, so I plan to live like my decisions mean something, and leaving children behind to be eaten isn't going to be one of them"

Maria laughed and headed toward the back of the cave, saying over her shoulder to Susan "Looks like that Paladin of Telina thing is going to keep you busy, doesn't it?"

The cavern ended with another door, that when opened, revealed the ubiquitous stairs going down. They were wide and shallow, and followed a gentle curve that led to a door with two guards. The guards were level 11 senior guards, and both had a kind of chain mail on that told us things were going to get tougher.

Susan stepped forward to pull aggro, and she exchanged a couple swings with the two until Maria started hitting them with arrows, then one peeled off to go for her. I stepped in front of that one and did my own version of a tank, finding the armor spell upgrade made a huge difference in the damage I would take. In base damage numbers the gnoll had me beat, but adding in the electrical damage from the mace, and the periodic Fist I called up, I was beating him down pretty quickly. Maria actually killed both of them after their health dropped enough for her 25 points of damage to finish them off. I healed Susan and I as Maria said "looks like tough work ahead if the door guards are 11's"

She was right of course, as we found when I pulled the door open and Susan stepped forward. Two shamans, two more guards, and another steroid captain were standing in the large room beyond. We were hit with a fireball and some kind of debuff curse, that set Susan on her ass, damaged Maria and I, and meant I did two quick heals before doing a dispel. The shamans suffered some reflected damage that slowed them for a moment, but not long enough for me to get the dispel done and do a restore. Maria concentrated on the shamans, but they began peppering me with magic missiles and those damn ice spikes that hit me and slowed me for a second. I focused on healing Susan as she took a constant series of stabs and slices from the three warrior types. The door helped keep all three from hitting together, but they still could thrust those halberds past the one in front. I eventually drank a potion, saving my mana for the quick heals to Susan. Maria made out great since the shamans focused on me, accepting the reflected 10% damage in return in an attempt to keep me suppressed. Her arrows took the first one down after she got four in him, about the same time Susan killed the captain, leaving a wounded shaman and two untouched guards. I used the last of my mana to bring Susan to full health, then raised Bruce and waded into the scrum at the door. This shit still hurts, no doubt about it, but the longer you live in this world the more the pain becomes just another sensation, sort of like being hot or cold. I took a few good hits, and that damn shaman kept hitting me with ice spikes, but our opponents all fell pretty close to the same time, leaving us standing over a pile of armor and coins, sort of stunned by the abrupt ending.

"You are da bomb!" Susan said, grinning at me "having those healing spells makes this shit fun"

"Yeah, ole Jakes the man" Maria said as she slipped into the room "I love, love, love, how these things don't take days and days to complete" she began working on a chest as she continued saying "I bet Dalmar is somewhere right now sitting on a dungeon floor waiting for his health to restore, envying the hell out of me" she giggled and added "I'll send a note later to make sure"

I did a mana restore, then healed us back up while they were talking. Susan policed up the loot, and Maria eventually gave me a ring from the chest that I was able to use

Ring of Wisdom

+1 to player's Wisdom attribute

Usable by: Priests

Neat. The additional wisdom point gave me twenty more mana points, which translated into a couple extra healing spells if I needed it. The girls seemed to have decent magic equipment, but I didn't ask about the particulars. It did make me think about how many of these crawls Susan had to have done in her short time to have accumulated it all. Did everyone just leap into doing quests?

In response to me voicing that question, Maria said "Most of us started in places with more than one player spawning there. You and Bigboobs are kind of the exception, so you didn't have the threat other players offered hanging over you. Most of us are here because we're criminals, so yeah, you start leveling up to survive" That made sense, when you considered the eternals as the apex predators here.

Being deleveled would put BigBob in a world of hurt if he ever got free since he would be at the mercy of the other eternals until he got the levels back. It might be worth talking with him about swearing an oath to Telina in exchange for my help and protection. Thoughts for later though.

We started through a series of rooms, all connected by doors, all holding fairly high level gnolls, and in one case, a goblin wizard. He looked a lot like Betty, but this guy was level 13, and had a staff that seemed to shoot an endless stream of magic missiles, disproving Mirabeth's statement about staves not holding spells. The reflection thing didn't seem to work against them, which meant Susan fought the two gnoll lieutenants, while Maria shot at the goblin. He had something that seemed to make her miss about half the time, which shocked the hell out of me since I had decided the elf woman never missed. I finally put the little bastard down with a flame spell, then did a healing on Susan and Maria as they finished off the two gnolls.

We took a break after that fight, eating some food and just decompressing for a little while. "I'll give this staff to Mirabeth" Susan said as Maria cooked "it seemed pretty useful if she wants to try it"

I nodded agreement, but didn't offer an opinion, not knowing anything about how the mages stuff worked. Did their mana count for the staff, or was it like a gun with endless bullets? Like everything else, it didn't work for priests, so it wasn't something I was too interested in.

"I'm thinking the final boss is going to be one mean mofo" Maria said as we got ready to move on "at least I hope it's just one. Fighting more than one really strong boss would be a problem" I laughed and said "Understatement of the month"

It turned out that Maria was a bit of a prophet since the door we thought would lead to just another room like the rest, opened into a large throne room. It was a hundred feet long and thirty feet wide, with a throne sitting on a raised platform at the opposite end from us. Maria groaned and said "Shit. You just know this is going to suck"

She sighed and moved forward, signaling for us to wait. She hadn't taken three steps when a huge gnoll appeared on the throne, and a cage with a young woman appeared beside his pedestal. The gnoll stood up, quite a ways actually, as he had to be 8 or 9 foot tall, and he picked up a huge halberd that had fire flickering along its blade. I was surprised when he said

"Telina's champions, come to steal my little morsel from me" he leered at Maria and said "and you ranger, did you enjoy hunting my people? I believe you will find your cowardly bow will not help you here"

"Whatever" Maria said in a bored tone as she held up a hand, palm facing the gnoll "talk to the hand"

The words got the gnoll to pause and look confused as I barked out a laugh. He finally gave a doggy sneer and said "I will do more than talk to it, in fact I plan to enjoy the taste of it when this is over"

"Good come back" Susan said, getting a nod of agreement from me. Maria chuckled before moving forward with Susan and I following her. As soon as we all cleared the door it swung shut, not really surprising any of us. What did surprise us was the big stone golem that appeared standing next to the big gnoll.

Gnoll Prince

Level 18

150 health

Stone Golem

Level 18

500 health

"Man, I hate being right all the time" Maria said as we eyed the golem. It was a good fifteen feet tall and had a long stone club in one hand. She rolled her shoulders as our two groups eyed each other, well not the golem since he didn't have eyes, but you get what I mean. I nodded to myself and started handing two extra potions to the girls as I said "Susan and I on the gnoll. You keep the golem occupied until we finish?"

Maria took the potions with a nod before giving our opponents a hard look. She finally said "do it quick and don't forget the golem. That club means he won't have to get to close to hit you"

We started forward as the gnoll waved the golem toward us. Maria shot an arrow that chipped the golems face and got it to orient on her. Unfortunately that was when Susan decided to try out a new ability and called down a weaker version of my holy flame, on the wrong target. It hit the golem, doing 40 points of damage while totally causing it to orient on her.

"Oh crap!" Maria yelled "New plan, Susan runs away from Goliath, Jake kills the dog, while I try to distract Goliath enough to keep Sue alive"

I didn't waste time talking, just running around the golem while yelling "By Telina's bouncy bosom, it's Clobberin Time!!"

Maria's high pitched giggles followed me as I charged the gnoll, with me managing to get a face full of fire as the gnoll stepped toward me and raised a hand. Great, he uses magic too.

Fire Bolt

35 damage (-55% faith)

It did a bounce for a few points on the gnoll and didn't do much more than distract me. His halberd hit hard for another 50 points, and I could see him curse when he got slapped with 5 points.

When I hit him a second later, those first couple of splash back hits ended up costing him. My mace connected with a side swing to his middle, with the subsequent explosion from the rune throwing him sideways against the wall, where he sagged for an instant, giving me a shocked look, before falling down into a pile of armor. Healer my ass.

I swapped weapons and turned to see Susan running very quickly away from the golem, only to get swatted when the club came around to catch her on her shield. I healed her twice as I was running toward them, afraid the golem would finish her before she could drink a potion. My "By Telina's luscious lips...Its Clobberin Time!!!" Blended with Maria's "Hey rock head, Special Delivery"

Our explosions occurred so close together they sounded like one. It knocked the golem on its ass and he hit me with an arm as he fell.

I rolled up and changed weapons, before calling Fist. Susan was chopping at the things head while it was down, distracting it enough to allow me to get in a quick blow. It got back to its feet, still showing 197 health, making me decide running away was the better part of valor. All of us met at the throne, turning back to watch the golem start toward us.

"I have another arrow" Maria said, getting me to shake my head no and say "Save it. I'll call down holy fire which should allow Susan to finish it"

And we did. That emptied my mana tank, and Susan had to use a potion, but she killed it before I finished restoring my mana. We all flopped down on the steps at the base of the throne, exhausted and all at the bottom of our endurance. None of us had the energy to deal with the captive right now.

"It's Clobberin time?" Susan asked, looking at me out of the side of her eyes. Maria was on my other side and she said "Bouncy bosom?"

The questions got a shrug from me and I gave them a superior look as I said "Hey, she's really hot, and you can have a worse role model than the Thing"

Susan looked up at the same time I heard Telina giggle in my ear. Her eyes widened in surprise before she said "Holy shit, I heard that. Does she do that a lot?" I gave a sort of yes-no shake of the head as Maria asked who she was.

"Freaking goddess" Susan said with a grin "she laughed at what he said. I heard it"

Maria waved a hand in disdain as she said "Of course, you hang around Jake long enough you'll figure out she keeps him around for the laughs" she squinted at me thoughtfully before adding "more at, than with, I'm thinking"

Darn goddess laughed again, probably reinforcing Maria's slander in Susan's mind. I rolled my eyes and held up my hand to say "to the hand, as a silly person I know once said"

The treasure was in a huge chest behind the throne, and Susan came up with a helmet that had a bird molded onto it with the wings coming down against her cheeks, that sort of looked like something from LOTR, but did look cool on her. It added a strength point and some armor buffs, so a nice addition. Four other generic pieces (no priests allowed), and a nice pile of coins. It also had another ruby and a big emerald which the girls gave to me.

Susan's rescue was an early twenties girl who spoke like she was a princess, which she might have been, though I didn't pay enough attention to figure it out. She seemed locked in the quest persona so I didn't spend much time trying to expand her programming any. Nicely enough we didn't have to escort her home, just free her from the dungeon. There was a horse waiting at the entrance of the cavern, and she gave Susan some magical widget before hopping on the horse and riding away.

"That's what I'm used to from locals" Susan said "the ones in Mudtown are so different"

"Jakes corrupting influence" Maria said absently as we watched the crowd of prisoners wander over. The spokes guy from the jail was leading them and he stopped in front of me and said "All have decided to accept your offer of a new home. The children and elderly will be slow if it is very far"

"Probably six days walking" Maria said helpfully, but grinned and followed it with "I'll ride ahead to Telinor and hire some wagons. Six should manage everyone. Probably only save a couple of days but it will be easier on everyone" I thought that was a great idea and suggested she buy some food since most of the people looked pretty thin.

The cash haul turned out to be 186 gold, 54 silver, and only 21 copper each. I offered Maria some for the wagons but she waved it away with a laugh, saying "It won't be more than a few gold for everything" I wondered where she learned she could hire wagons, and what other nifty crap I wasn't aware of.

I had time to get to know the guy, and Tomas Swifthand turned out to be a retired soldier. He had made enough to buy a farm and marry, but the gnolls had destroyed everything, including his wife. His story was interesting as hell, and I could see where he might be a fount of information if he stayed in Mudtown. Susan stayed close to me, listening as I interacted with the people, but not offering much herself.

Maria met us the next day as our gaggle was walking north. The wagons were a god send since we had been walking so slowly I thought we were going backwards sometimes. Maria stayed with us, which I had not expected, but she was fun to have around so it wasn't a hardship. Captain Andulin and four of his men met us outside of town, holding a hand up to stop the lead wagon. I stopped beside it and hopped down to say "Captain, I have people seeking refuge. They were captured and their town destroyed by gnolls, so I have said our town would show them mercy in their time of need.

The Captain considered things, walking down the wagon train, peeking into the backs, finally stopping at the back to say quietly "You seem to draw such things to you Priest Loser, and I think that the goddess Telina would not be pleased were I to turn away those in need after you have offered them refuge" he grinned before adding "Not that I would consider doing so anyway"