Chapter 12: Divine Message

Tess struggled with her pants, trying to put them on in a way that both wouldn’t cover the yellow-blond wolf tail she currently had and would cover the rest of her sufficiently. It…wasn’t going well, and she was glad she had anticipated something like this happening and made Ellie leave her room.

Eventually, she took one of her old pairs of pants and put it on backwards, unzipping the zipper just enough to let her tail out. Then, she got one of her belts and fastened it as tight as it would go, preventing the pants from falling off so long as she didn’t move too much and was cautious when she did.

Finally, she opened the door and let Ellie in.

“No. Way.” Ellie whispered, “It’s even more adorable than I ever would have thought.”

Tess fidgeted uncomfortably. “Really? It seems like the kind of thing that wouldn’t be as nice in reality as it is in pictures.”

Ellie hesitated for a long moment before replying. “Well, it probably a personal thing, then, because I disagree.” She looked to the side embarrassedly, “Um, can I…touch them?”

“Um…sure, I guess. Just be gentle.”

Tess flinched as Ellie began to gently stroke her tail.

“Are you OK? Does it feel bad?” Ellie asked, withdrawing her hand.

“No, it was just…unexpected. It felt different than anything I’ve felt before, I can’t really describe it aside from that. Not bad, though.”

Ellie hesitantly returned to stroking the tail.

“What?” Tess said, taken aback enough by the sudden question window that she spoke aloud.

“Huh?” Ellie asked, stopping. “Actually, I’ve been meaning to ask. You’ve been getting all spaced out suddenly all day. Is there something going on?”

Tess wasn’t sure that was the best policy when it came to potentially world-shakingly important topics, but she wasn’t going to question it too much now. “So, um, one thing sort of led to another and now Fortune’s job is kind of to just watch me all day? I was probably reading a message from her if I was spaced out.”

“Uh, she says hi. And that she’s rooting for you, whatever that means. She told me that earlier too, so…take that as you will?” Tess turned her head to get a better look at Ellie but was only fast enough to catch a hint of red on Ellie’s face as she turned away, resuming her petting.

“Don’t worry about it. Tell her I say hi too, I guess?”

“Can’t you just tell her yourself?” Tess asked, exasperated, “You’re a god, you don’t need me to pass your notes for you.”

“Paid what, to who?! How does that even work?”

Tess rolled her eyes. “Fortune says that she can hear you fine, but apparently her god-phone plan doesn’t cover talking to you so she’s passing messages through me like I’m some kind of prophet or something.”

“That’s what a prophet is, doofus.” Ellie replied.

Tess groaned, but didn’t pass on the message.

“What?” Ellie asked curiously, “What did she say?”

“Something dumb.”

Didn’t you want to keep your sociability a secret? Tess asked privately.

Tess groaned again. “Fine. Ellie, Fortune says jinx and that you owe her a soda.”

Ellie stopped again, before bursting out laughing. “I really am going to have to convert. Where do I sign up?”

“She says to just do whatever, it’ll make its way to her.”

“Well, she’s got herself a follower in me.” Ellie chuckled, stopping her ministrations on the tail and moving to Tess’s fluffy ears, “I would love to be put on that god-phone plan, though.”

“She says she’s too broke to do that right now, sorry.”

The door opened, and Gramps poked his head in. “Is everything alright in here? I’ve caught bits and pieces of the conversation and I was getting a little concerned that someone else was in the house or something.”

Ellie froze mid-pet, and a knowing grin spread across Gramps’s face. “Should I just leave you two to it then?”

“No, it’s fine!” Tess said hurriedly, “Um, might as well tell you now, if that’s fine.”

Gramps raised an eyebrow, walking into the room and shutting the door behind him. “Sure, that’s fine.”

“Well, um, after what happened this morning, Fortune’s decided to keep a closer eye on me. She can only really contact me freely because of the blessing and stuff, so we were talking to her through me. So, uh, yeah.” Tess explained lamely. “It’s kind of a secret, though. Only the three of us are supposed to know.”

Gramps sighed. “I suppose that’s just another one for the list. Anything else?”

“Um, no.” Tess said, “That’s all.”

Gramps’s knowing grin returned, and he gave them a wink. “Alright, you two have fun, then.” And, before either of them could recover from their embarrassment to say anything, he slipped out of the door, leaving the two beet-red teenagers alone.

“Ummmm…” Ellie began uncertainly. “Now that I think about it, this is kind of…”

“Weird?” Tess finished for her. “Yeah, but, honestly, when it comes to things you do, I stopped worrying about what was weird a long time ago. So…just get it out of your system, it’s not like things can get more embarrassing.”

Ellie shot Tess a grateful look. “Thanks for putting up with me.” And with that, she resumed her ministrations.

Jin watched his party carefully as they prepared for their meeting. He had called it due to the rather tumultuous couple of days they had had and the building friction he was sensing between Ker and Alice, and he could already tell it wasn’t going to be a comfortable meeting for any of them.

Alice was pacing back and forth restlessly, a conflicted expression on her face. In contrast, Ker was sitting on his favorite chair, studiously going through a couple of documents on his phone. After another couple of minutes, he finally looked up. “I’m ready now, sorry.”

“Finally!” Alice burst out, “Jin, why call us here for this? I thought we had the situation handled!”

Jin sighed, crossing his legs, and leaning forward. “Yes and no.” He replied, “What we’re doing is working, but I don’t think it’s working well.”

Alice frowned, but Ker nodded. “I agree. After watching them today, I don’t think it’s good to leave the two of them alone like that. In fact, I think we should split them up temporarily.”

“Elaborate.” Jin requested, arching his brow. Ker was usually on-point when it came to interpersonal judgement, but Jin liked to hear the reasoning behind his assessments.

“The first big problem is that Ellie is too protective of Tess. As I’m sure you’ve noticed, Ellie’s crushing hard on Tess, and with the stat difference I believe she’s operating under the assumption that Tess is, comparatively, incapable. As a result, she’s trying to protect Tess more than is necessary.

“I think if we let their party dynamic develop naturally, it’s going to become bad extremely quickly. The issue with Ellie’s assumption is that, for the time being, she’s right. Tess is, way, way overleveled for this dungeon, and she’s still not consistently oneshotting some of the tougher stuff.”

Ker sighed. “But that’s only for now. She’s got the potential to snowball in power really fast, and with Heroes and War personally overseeing her growth, I don’t think it’s an overstatement to say that she could end up as one of the most dangerous people alive in a few years. If she isn’t by then, then she certainly will be in a few decades.

“Which leads us to problem number two. Tess seems to have some sort of complex, and I don’t know if it’s something preexisting that was exacerbated by the whole stat thing, or is new, but she’s got no self-confidence. Watching Ellie breeze through things she struggles with is only going to make that worse. So, while we train them, I think they should mostly be separated, even put on different regimens so that it’s hard to compare their progress.”

Jin nodded. “Alice?”

Alice gnawed on one of her knuckles, thinking that over. “He’s right. I…should have noticed.” She said regretfully. “I just…see so much potential in her, and it frustrates me that she doesn’t see it herself.”

“It’s fine.” Jin soothed. “But that brings me to the other topic of this meeting. I couldn’t help but notice you two were disagreeing over how we should treat Tess, and I wanted to clear the air before things got more heated. So, let’s just let everything out now. Alice, you seemed to be taking exception the most, what’s your opinion?”

“I just thought we were being too soft on her. That we shouldn’t just let her wallow in self-pity while she’s getting all these amazing things. I dunno…I just thought if she would step back and look at things objectively, she’d realize there wasn’t actually that many things to be down about. I was…jealous, I guess. I know it’s immature when I have so much, but…”

Ker nodded. “We’re all people here. As annoying as it can be, emotions often aren’t logical. I think that, in this situation, that applies to both you and Tess. Logically, she’s got a lot going for her, but I think it’s not easy for her to realize that. With her transformation and that complex I mentioned, I doubt she’s in the best place right now.

“That’s why I’ve been going about things as I have. I think it’s important that we put her in an environment where her strengths can shine and boost her confidence that way. I’ve also been considering having her absorb a strong core to help her feel stronger and more in control, but I’m on the fence about it. It’s entirely possible that she’ll feel like she’s just using a crutch and that it’s not really her strength or something she earned. But, if we do decide to give her a strong core, we have to be really careful about it.”

The three of them started as an ethereal voice filled the room. With it came a hallmark of an official, capital M Message from the Gods – an instinctual, undeniable knowledge of who was speaking. Not every god went about things the same way, some liked telepathy, some liked message windows, but a physical voice was common for public statements.

Do it. The God of Fate told them. It will be for the better.

With those succinct words, the presence faded. There was a long silence as The Rumors processed what had just happened, and once again realized just what they had got themselves into.

“I’ve been doing some thinking and some research.” Ker said slowly, tapping his phone, “It’s got to be something with mostly passive Skills, so she doesn’t get anything that would be too big a crutch for her. I’m thinking something like one of the tougher feline or canine monsters, which’ll give her enhancements to her claws and other things. Still, I’m not sure how we’d go about giving one to her in a natural way. Can’t just…walk up and say “here, we want you to feel tougher, use this”, that’ll defeat the point.”

“Actually, I got this.” Alice said, working her way back into her normal exuberance, “I’m taking her out dungeon diving on Friday as an apology for being rude, I’ll give it to her as a sort of…additional apology. I’m sure she’ll take it without thinking too much about ulterior motives. I was thinking of doing something similar anyway, so it works out.”

“Alright, I’ll get back to you tomorrow with ideas for what we can use, and once we decide we can go shopping.” Ker looked at Jin. “How should we pay for it, though? Do we want to take it out of our equipment fund, or…?” He trailed off, waiting for Jin’s reply.

While Jin was thinking about it, Alice spoke up. “I’ll just buy it myself. I’m not doing much with my extra money anyway, and this isn’t something we should budget ourselves for. So, don’t hold back on any ideas because they’re expensive, provided they’re not so expensive they’re going to bankrupt me. So, just…no Calamity level cores, although I doubt you were thinking about using them anyway.”

“Sounds good.” Jin said. “Heading back to splitting the two of them up, how do we want to divide our attention? Specifically, curriculum and who will be with them when. Ker, you’ve spent the most time with Tess of any of us, what are your thoughts on her?”

“We’ve got a lot more time with her than we do with Ellie, so we’ve got room to work with taking her to more exotic dungeons once she’s out of the beginner ones. That being said, while she’s in a dungeon and not just sparring or something, I think she should only be with one of us at once. And we should let her do most of the work herself unless we need to teach her something, just to show her she can do it.” Ker replied.

“I don’t know where we’re going to find someone who can teach her to use claws properly, though.”  He continued thoughtfully, “We’ll need to ask the guildmaster about finding some trustworthy beastkin martial artist or something.”

“I’ll do that, since you two are taking care of the core thing.” Jin offered. “I’m sure the guildmaster will be more than happy to find someone who’ll fit the bill.”

“That sounds good. If they come on as a permanent tutor, we’ll have them accompany Tess along with whichever one of us is her guide for the day. And, of us, I would recommend it’s either me or Alice. I think we should put her in a similar situation to what her situation with Ellie will be, so we need someone capable of being a tank. We can teach her about protecting others later, right now I just want to get her used to her role.”

“And I’m guessing the other two will be with Ellie?” Alice asked, “Sounds good to me.”

“Fine with me as well.” Jin added. “Ker, you be in charge of Tess’s curriculum, and if Alice is fine with it, I’ll be in charge of Ellie’s.”

“I’m not good with that stuff anyway.” Alice said, “Just let me know what you need me to do.”

Jin nodded. “Alright, if no one else has anything to say, then I think we can call the meeting here.”

The other two agreed, so everyone split, ready to prepare for the next day’s activities.

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