Me Myself & I

I finished the meal in a much better mood than when I started. I had used most of my magical power to get mobile and heal Amy. Because of that, I had been relying on my passive regeneration to continue healing until my energy was restored. Marge's cooking had changed all that. Not only did it taste great, but also each dish had special effects. Her cooking skill, coupled with her use of some rare ingredients, made these dishes' effects even more potent than they should have been. By the time we were finished eating, I was in a lot less pain.

Neither Amy nor I could show our faces in town at the moment so Marge suggested that we stay the night and let things settle down. Her suggestions were really more of a 'do it' or 'regret it' since she was a priestess of Brigit. She continuously got visions throughout the day and would give "advice" to those she deemed worthy. She didn't say what would happen if we left her home, but my imagination filled in the blanks beautifully.

We ended up in separate rooms and I spent hours fixing the 'Masquerade' spell. I tore it apart and put it back together with the new information that was downloaded into my head from using the "upgrade any skill" reward. And while it took me hours to improve, I managed to reduce how much power consumption it used and, like the 'Animalistic' spell it was based off of, I could now pick one ability that the beastman I was mimicking would have. I knew, if I spent a week or two redoing it, I could make it better but I didn't feel I had that kind of time.

What I really wanted to do was make new holy spells. I still didn't really understand how this Goddess thing was supposed to work. Every God seemed to have their own magical style so I began to wonder if I could make unique spells for my followers. I didn't think it would be too hard since I came from a different time and had a different educational background. Add in the countless hours on the computer and my head was filled with ideas for them. With my 'Spell Crafting' at "talented", it wouldn't be hard to cobble some basic spells together. I imagined that creating spells was very similar to programing, not that I could program. A basic spell was like making your computer screen say "hello world" while the more you advanced, the more it could do but it took a lot more effort to make. My 'Blind' spell was a "basic". It was useful and very simple to create.

I made my way to the guild building in the morning. We had decided to go into the dungeon near here but before I took Amy into something so dangerous, I needed to get myself registered, find information about the dungeon and get materials for the enchantment for Amy. I shifted the big brown wings that now rested on my back. They weren't as comfortable as my angelic wings. I had decided to become a Hawk-kin for my disguise. Having wings would give me the excuse of why guards hadn't noticed my arrival. I had also settled on pretending to be a priestess. The idea of being my own priestess to spread the word of "Goddess Alice" was amusing to me. The issue I had was that I didn't know a lot about being one and Marge wasn't all that forthcoming.

Trying to sort out my thoughts, I was almost hit by a man that was being thrown out of the guild hall door like a sack of potatoes, as I walked in. I dodged out of the way and he landed hard on the street. He got up but didn't leave. He also didn't try to enter again. Instead he cursed and screamed at those still inside. He would scream things like, "It's not a D class dungeon.", "There is no way my party would have been killed by such a low level dungeon" and "Your information is wrong. WRONG!" all the while I was inside. The few people in the building just ignored him like he didn't exist.

The smaller of the two employees started talking to the man that was walking back to the desk, "he knew the rules, took the risk and now he wants to blame us for his parties fuck up. We have evaluated the dungeon and our equipment isn't malfunctioning so I am logging this in his file."

"Do that. We don't need no crybabies in the guild."

I listened as I looked around. Not that there was much to take in. Unlike the guild in the capital, this hall was only a small, one story building. Inside there were a few adventurers looking at the job postings on the far wall and two employees. The desk that the employees worked at was to the left of me. The man, that had tossed out the guy, was slowly walking back to it. I was pretty sure that was where I needed to register so I followed him. The process was very similar to when I registered in the capital. They also had one of those simulators where they placed the crystal. The only real difference was the scenario. I had to keep my current guild crystal inside my space ring so it would not be detected but other than that it went fairly smoothly.

I was asked what was my profession and when I answered priestess, I was asked which God. My answer of "Goddess of Life" got me a strange look and an "Oh, another pagan God" before I had to clarify the type of goddess I served since they didn't have her on record. Because I served a healing god, the scenario was to keep a group alive while they were continuously attacked. Wave after wave crashed into my imaginary party. In the beginning it wasn't so bad. I would hold up my newly made holy symbol every time I cast. It was just some brass wire to form a hollow yellow circle and a line dividing it in halve while some copper wire was twisted to form a U near the bottom of it. I kept my symbol very basic and it really just looked like an upside down umbrela in a circle.

The weird part was the feelings I would get with every spell. I was not sure if it was because of how I was casting but I felt both energetic and exhausted. It was truly strange; like something was sucking away my magical energy from deep inside of me while I was standing inside a never ending supply of it. By the end I had to use 'An Angel's Sorrow' to keep them up. It was a spell I had been learning for a while that allowed me to amplify every holy spell I cast while everybody under my aura was receiving it . The down side was the cost of the spell also increased and by the end I simply collapsed under the waves of the never ending army.

***

"Sir, the report sent was discovered to be fraudulent. The perpetrators have been locked up and will be publicly flogged in the morning." the guard nervously wiped away the sweat and finished in a firmer voice than he felt. Who knew that a prince would show up to escort the prisoner only to discover that it wasn't the girl named Alice and just somebody similar. The people that turned her in, beat her and left her face swollen enough that at first glance it appeared to be her. He hesitated seeing that the third prince was still angry but continued to announce, "There is a report that she was spotted in the town of Smelt." He paused and then added, "…but I cannot confirm it."

"Thank you for your time," Gideon replied formally and turned back to his griffin mount. "Let's go James. We need to find her before she gets into even more trouble. I swear that girl is a trouble magnet."