Lust was shocked at the resulting explosive chaos. Still airborne, Dix hadn’t made it completely out of the blast range, and was sent flying into the wall. When he crashed to the ground, it was obvious that he was unconscious. By chance, miracle, or intent he had held the Healer wrapped up in his arms and sheltered from the blast, and resulting crash. Seeing its summoner hurt and unconscious, it began healing him with full intensity. Lust knew it wasn’t really necessary, as the human couldn’t die during the tests, but it could keep him from hitting one of the failing conditions. As for the rest of the test, it was over.

She had been watching these tests for ages, and hardly anyone ever had a troll show up. Even then it was normally the last fight. But Dix got a Flame Tortoise for a finale. It wasn’t the most difficult of fights on Mantra, but there they could play for space to keep out of its Fire Breath and Rage Aura, and slowly whittle it down. This lunatic had charged the damn thing. Admittedly he had no idea what it even was, but he had been so meticulous throughout the rest of the tests that she was quite surprised to see how he reacted to the thing. The best strategy she could devise for killing it in this arena style match up would be to keep moving and pepper it with ranged attacks until it died. This of course didn’t account for its aura filling the entire room, but such a thing would have no effect on her, so she had forgotten how devastating it could be.

As for the rest of the test, she was astounded how things had worked out for him. She had been quite amused to see that he took the random spell option, particularly for attack spells. Having only six of the fifteen spells might be a little difficult, but good spell choices could get you through. Dix had specifically used the random spells to his benefit. Sure there were a few times he didn’t get the most useful spells, but rarely did he need to cycle them with zero benefit. He also combined them with his Overload skill to great effect, even learning Channeling mid fight. That he thought Overload was called Overpowered still caused her fits of spontaneous laughter. The fact that his name for it worked just as well as what the system named it was what did her in. She couldn’t wait until he could rename his skills, the things he could come up with would surely entertain her.

The first couple sections of the test were predictably pointless against Dix, but the test had scaled itself up in fine fashion. A troll, different types of elementals, mirage cats, and a Flame Tortoise. She couldn’t decide which of them had been her favorite to watch. Each of the harder fights had really pushed Dix to his limits, and showed exactly how well he performed under pressure. Even with each of the creatures essentially at level zero, but with skills attained at higher levels, it was still incredible. Most of those fights would have been party encounters of equivalently leveled adventurers on Mantra.

Lust, in her Jessica Rabbit form, was still contemplating Dix’s run through the test when her partners showed up in the viewing room, along with a guest. She felt the familiar presences, and another that she failed to recognize. Turning to greet them, she almost stumbled when she realized the guest was none other than Crossroads. Barely managing to stay calm, she smiled and gave her greetings. “Welcome, my friends. Crossroads. What brings you all here?”

Chance spoke up before anyone else could, “Don’t look at me. He brought us all here.” Their other partner just smiled and nodded.

With his usual stoic expression, Crossroads waved an arm to summon up a big recliner, table, and drink. One of his other arms waved as well, calling the girls seats to them, and pulling Beauty over to join them. Chance had a petty big bean bag chair with a couple of blankets attached. When asked why she had such a thing her answer was always the same, “The odds of me falling out of that and hurting myself are precisely zero. Never going to happen.” The third member of their little group actually had a smaller, periwinkle version of Crossroads recliner. When they were all seated, he also created tables and drinks for all of them. The girls were shocked to find he knew exactly what they liked.

“We need to have a chat. Before that though, Beauty,” who squeaked a little at being singled out by him, “would you mind taking Dix to the Waiting Room. He needs to get his race sorted. He already has it picked out, but he still needs to work through the rest of the alterations as well.” Nodding rapidly, she hopped off her chair and vanished. When the rest of the women in the room looked to protest, Crossroads just held up a finger to ask them to wait. Once she was gone, he continued.

“We’ll get into why I’m here in a minute. For now, I need you to answer some questions.” This statement was obviously directed at Lust, who was almost as perturbed as Beauty. She had her allies nearby, but this was still Crossroads. “Tell me, have you noticed anything odd recently?”

Confused at the strange question, Lust struggled to figure out what exactly he was looking for. Assuming he was asking about that which brought them all here in the first place she replied, “Dix is nothing but odd. He-”

Her explanation was cut off by Crossroad's booming laughter. With a pair of hands clapping in joy, and the other banging the arms of his recliner, the god had his head thrown back as laughter poured forth. Chance and Lust were shocked, they’d never seen him anyway other than stoic, dour, or cranky. The third woman was actually laughing at the looks on her friends' faces. She was closer to Crossroads than anyone else, so she was quite used to the sight of him laughing.

When he calmed down, he explained. “Wow, you sure got that one right. He is a very strange man, and I’m glad you three like him. But that wasn’t what I was asking about. Look around you. Dix just finished the third test. Do you see something odd now?”

Still confused, Lust looked around at the Viewing Room. It was just as it always was, other than the four of them clustered off to one side. The room never had anyone in it, except when a transfer was… “Where is everyone? They might not care much when we actually get transfers, but missing out on any information that might help for a Bid is not something any of the others would miss. Just the chance to see the bargaining and arguments brings everyone around.”

Crossroads tapped his nose. “Exactly. Do you want to know why no one is here? I’ll tell you. It’s because I locked the four of us, Dix, Beauty, and Roanoak outside of the timestream.” Smug was another new look for Chance and Lust, but they were too shocked at his revelation to even notice the finer points of his expression.

There were hundreds of gods and goddesses, and they all liked to gather for the Bid. The Bid was when they would try and bargain to see who would be allowed to claim the newest transfer. While they weren’t normally all that impressive, a fair number of them showed promise. If properly nurtured, they could do great things in the name of their patron deity, bringing wealth, faith, and power to whoever employed them. Or at least be a decent errand boy. It wasn’t exactly slavery, as they couldn’t order them around to that extent, but they could provide them with certain conditions to convince them to help. These usually took the form of quests providing skills, abilities, or powerful gear.

Each god used their acquisitions differently, and looked for different things. Some preferred to buy in bulk. They looked for the mediocre, the broken, buying up as many as they could on the cheap. With enough of these mostly useless transfers, they could hope that at least one could grow into someone capable. Failing that, they had enough bodies to get some tasks done.

Others were looking for a Champion. That one transfer that embodied whatever aspect the god was supposed to personify. Or at least someone strong enough to grow into a powerhouse, bringing glory through their deeds. Those that embodied certain aspects could become clergy, or paragons of whatever virtue or vice that god needed. These prospects never traded cheaply. Because all the gods spied on and bickered with one another, they were constantly jockeying for position to be better than all of the others in any way.

Whatever they wanted from a transfer, the method of acquiring them was the Bid. Each of the gods took a turn receiving transfers. The only exception was Crossroads, as his transfers were of a specific type and there were rules in place to guard his take. The other gods didn’t really mind this, as he was outside the normal power games, and he got far fewer transfers than they did. As far as most of the gods were concerned, he had received exactly one. The women in the room realized that that number could be a complete lie. If he had isolated them from all the others, that meant no one knew about Dix.

When a transfer came through, they were assigned into the domain of the god who received them. From that point, that god was responsible for providing the power to get them into the system. For the most part they didn’t resent this, as each transfer was a source for lucrative trades from their fellow gods. Because that was how they were acquired. A god couldn’t keep the transfer they received, only trade them away for something of value. So it became a bit of a game.

The gods would induct the transfer into the system, and oversee their training and testing. The game was to make the transfer look useful enough to be worth a good Bid, but not so powerful that they were a risk to their own machinations. Figuring out how to balance this correctly depended a lot on knowing what others wanted in their acquisitions. If the transfer was possibly worthwhile to someone who had no entanglements in your own field of focus, then make them as valuable as you possibly can. But, if they were of use to a grave enemy, then they needed to figure out how to make the transfer look good, without actually being so. That way you could have the excitement and joy of screwing over an enemy twice.

The bartering was what all of the gods came for. They knew not all transfers would be something they wanted, but they all craved entertainment. And there was no better show on Mantra than watching the gods bicker like The Real Housewives of Deities who had all just discovered they got the same venereal disease from fucking the same pool boy. There was also an incredible betting pool, run by Chance of course, where entire fortunes could be made or lost on a single transfer. This same betting pool was how the three females were intending to win the Bid for Dix. Its income was staggering.

Wait. If Crossroads was keeping Dix from going into the normal Bid process, why were they there? Could they even get Dix from Crossroads at all? And how much was this going to cost them? These questions and more were circling around in the heads of Chance and Lust. Their third partner had already heard what Crossroads was going to be asking for, and was merely waiting for the discussion to decide what they would do.

When their attention came back to him Crossroads got started again. “I can still let the others in, and they can all see how Dix performs. I would make a tremendous amount with him in the Bid.” He saw them tense up. “But that’s not what I want. And I don’t believe it is what you want either.” The tension wasn’t lessening at all, but he knew it would soon enough. “Before I tell you my offer, let me explain a few things about Dix you should be aware of prior to you making your final decision. First, you should watch this.” He flicked his finger, and the screen of the viewing room changed to the last part of the discussion between Crossroads and Dix before he got his valves.

All three of the women watched in rapt attention. Even the third goddess hadn’t known what all the two had discussed during this time, other than his racial choice. Crossroads greatly enjoyed the shock on all their faces when Dix revealed he had separated the thought streams in his head. He remembered his own stunned amazement at the off handed comment, and was glad to see he wasn’t alone in being shocked at that revelation. He had of course done a little poking around since then, and had a very good idea of what was going on in Dix’s brain.

When it was over the three goddesses just blinked for a bit. “Who does that?” was the thought in all their minds. Eventually they looked at Crossroads, still a little stunned, for any sort of explanation on this insane variable to their plans, and he just smiled slightly. “I know you are freaking out a little about this, but it’s actually a far better situation than you realize. He didn’t really cut anything out of his mind, it’s all still there. From what I have seen while trying to figure all of this out, there are actually four parts to his mind, although he only seems to be aware of two. The two he’s aware of are his active mind and his subconscious. The other two are his emotions, which he knows exists but doesn’t understand, and the decision making section. There is a bit of a hierarchy between the parts of his mind, but they all work together to keep him going.

“The main portion, what he calls his subconscious, is purely logic based. There are no emotional considerations in that portion of him at all. When we first met, he gifted me with his rather interesting view on morals. The short version is that this portion of his brain has none. Zero. There is nothing that keeps it from considering any and all options in the search for a solution. It is also frighteningly brilliant for a human. That part of his mentality is a genius.

“Now, that’s the good and the bad done. The next part will explain some of the odd things about the man that you have probably noticed. His emotions are very low scale.” Lust immediately nodded, remembering the strange feeling of his emotions being either far away, or stifled. “Don’t for a moment think he doesn’t have emotions anymore. They are still there, but act more as a supervisory council to his actual decisions. As far as I can tell, the reason they seem so far away or muted is because they are not in direct connection with the active portion of his mind, just like his subconscious, mostly.

“The emotional parts get to check over whatever the subconscious puts forth, with partial veto power. This is why the logical solutions that break down to ‘kill everything’ mostly don’t show up in his active mind. Strangely, even the logical portions of his mind seem to make plans like this with caveats and notes about consequences. Either way, the emotional parts veto a fair bit of stuff. They can also make plans as well, with the logical portion doing the same veto process for their plans.

“The final part is the decision making matrix. This is where the majority of the thinking power that makes up his active mind is focused. It has the simple job of making a decision on basically everything, but there are very few things that actually get stopped or denied here. This strange process in his mind has been going on since he was a child, and has become very streamlined, with all three portions learning how to deal with the others to maximum efficiency. It should also be noted that what few morals he has are actually things he decided to have, not the normal societal indoctrination. As such, he holds to them with an iron grip, but only the decision matrix holds to this.

“Which is where the last few parts come into play. His subconscious has absolute override available to it. If it decides something needs to happen immediately, with no debate or delay, it takes over and gets it done. This is most noticeable during his fighting. Once he decides to fight, the plan gets made and decided on, and then the subconscious takes over and sees it through. It’s the only portion of his brain that can keep him fighting like that. But it has zero emotional capacity. No fear, no hesitation, no mercy, no remorse. It will still attempt to follow the plan, and even work with other people, but only to a certain point. After that, it all goes out the window, and all that’s left is pure logic dedicated to the death of the enemy and survival of the host. If he gets to this point, do not get in his way.”