Locking in and Levelling up

When John had gotten over his annoyance at being laughed at - or pitied - by two separate deities, he settled down to the important business of his newly gained Level. Five Stat Points to allocate wasn’t a lot to work with; it’d be enough to round both Strength and Endurance up to ten, or let him push his terrible Charisma up to an eight or nine with a couple of points to spend elsewhere, but he discounted both options out of hand. He was a Cleric now, and that meant that while he was currently just fighting with a staff, in the future he would hopefully be working with others rather than needing to rely on his own Strength. And anyway, working on what he was good at should help him Level faster in the long term.

Explaining his thinking to Malal, the idol merely nodded. “Stick to your strong suit, kid. Sure, ya might wanna do something about that terrible charm you got goin’ on at some point, be able to preach to a whole congregation and all, but right now? Ya need more firepower. Which for you means Mana.” Having a god’s opinion match your own was rather reassuring, and that left John with two options.

“Intellect’s my strongest Stat currently. Boosting that would let me maybe get another Guiding Bolt in before my Mana runs dry - but my Regen is currently terrible. I’m getting… 0.8 Mana back a minute, and I was getting 0.5 when I had only ten Wisdom. If it keeps going the same way and I bump my Wisdom up to eighteen, that should go up to about 1.2 or 1.3, around one and a quarter points a minute. Which is still pretty bad, but means I can refill my Mana from empty in under an hour, rather than an hour and a quarter,” John mused to himself, drumming his fingers on his kneecap as he did so. “What do you think, Mal? Wisdom or Intellect?”

The god looked up from where he’d gone back to finish the rest of the alcoholic offering and shrugged. “Ya ask me, I’m gonna say Wisdom. Ya ain’t finished studying that book ya got given yet, kid, and it doesn’t take a god to guess there’s gonna be some active ritual spells in there. Those things drain power constantly - the more Wisdom ya got, the more of ‘em you can manage to keep going at the same time and still keep flinging other spells around. Sure, a Chicago typewriter’s better than a pistol for straight up damage, but ya can use a pistol one handed while drivin’ ya buddies all over the place, ya kno?”

John frowned. He really hoped it was the **** and not his own worship, such as it was, that was increasing the gangsterization of Malal’s speech patterns. “It does make the most sense, I guess…” Opting to just go for it and hope for the best, he allocated all his available points to Wisdom, then frowned. “I don’t… feel more wise. I’m almost double what I was yesterday, shouldn’t it have some sort of effect?”

Malal gave a non-committal shrug. “You’ve got enough smarts ya don’t need Wisdom all that much. I mean, it’s wise not to borrow money from a guy called Slick Vinnie in an alleyway, but it’s also smart not to do it too. You got ya Mana going up faster? I’d live with that for the time being, ya gonna get more noticeable advantages from Wisdom when it out-paces your Intellect.”

With a grimace, John closed his status. “Fair enough. Alright, so next steps. Flyx… Please stop laughing, Mal. Flyx said there’s a couple of places I could look for metal, and I’ve got a chunk of both the wood and the foliage sorted. I can get the rest… pretty much anytime, actually. Since I don’t need magical cloth, I can probably swipe some old sheets or something. Candles I can get at the weekend from a dollar store. So really, finding a good source of the enchanted metal is on the top of my priorities right now, don’t you think?”

The chaplain took a final sip on his drink before the straw vanished. Glancing up at John, he shook his head. “Ya got business to take care of before that, kid. Ya already fumbled one broad, try not to make it two in one day.” He gestured meaningfully towards John’s phone. “Call the lady, or send her a telegram or whatever, but don’t go zero for two on ya first day as my priest, yea? The boss ain’t ever gonna let me live it down if that happens.”

John blinked, then realization dawned and he scrabbled for his phone. “Shit! Matilda!” His fingers flickered across the screen then froze. “What do I say? She just asked me to text her later to arrange to meet up. On Friday that is. To do… an… activity.” His breathing slowed as he tried to think, before he nodded. “I should apologize for not texting sooner, and suggest we meet up in the park at about four. It’s easy to get to for both of us, and we can go to loads of places from there if she’s not an outdoorsy type. Plenty of nearby bus routes too.”

Malal watched with an amused expression as John muttered to himself while typing a message, deleted it, and then retyped it before finally hitting send and tossing the phone onto the bed as if it were on fire.

“Fingers crossed,” John half managed to say, before his phone chimed loudly. Scrabbling to pick it back up, slightly in shock that he’d gotten a reply so soon, he grinned. “She says that sounds great, and that four will give her time to change into something other than her work uniform.” Staring up at the ceiling, he grimaced. “Should I change into something nice too? I could bring a different jacket in my inventory, and swap clothes after the last class…”

“Kid, did ya notice your Wisdom kicking in there? About how to actually talk to the lady?” Malal’s voice cut across John’s deliberations. “Ya gotta keep an eye out for stuff like that, if you’re gonna worry if the boost’s having any impact.” Staring at the idol, John thought back over his actions and had to admit Malal was right. He had been more clear and wiser in handling the situation than his reaction to needing to text an attractive woman would have been previously. Before now, that would have included a lot of scribbling ideas on notepaper and then chucking them in the bin, before chickening out of messaging her at all.

“Alright,” John said, grinning at his friend. “So I’ve got a clear plan locked in with Matilda, and thanks to Flyx I’ve got an idea of where to go for the other resources I need for my shrine, I guess. Bar the idol, but you’ll do for that, right Mal?”

To his surprise, the chaplain shook his head. “No dice, kid. Ya gotta have an idol appropriate to the god ya want to dedicate the altar to, and trust me, ya don’t want to dedicate it to me just yet. Things get… messy around me.” The tiny figure scratched his head for a moment, then shrugged. “Ya got a few options, since I suspect that’s gonna be your next question. The boss is the obvious one, Big G’s idols should be easy to find - or make. Ya can find any old trash to make an idol for the rat, but please, please don’t get involved with that guy this early - I like my priests to not smell like bad cheese and worse decisions.”

John leaned forward as Malal stared up at the ceiling for a moment. “Ya could try getting one for Leshy, or Zee-Zee. Those two are pretty scatterbrained right now, but it should be possible for ya to call them up. Cornflakes is a no go, ya don’t got the spirit for all the bleedin’ making an altar to him would take, and ditto for Gela - ya just ain’t got the stomach for those two yet, kid, trust me. ‘Course, that’s if you want to stick with the family - if youse are planning on branching out, I can’t help ya as much.”

The list of names struck John as rather odd. “Leshy? Zee-zee? And family… Wait, you don’t mean Slaanesh, do you, Mal? And Zee-zee… Tzeentch?!” The names of the chaos gods had always been fun to say, but now knowing that Malal actually existed, the idea of the embodiment of excess or the changer of ways showing up in his bedroom didn’t exactly fill John with confidence.

Malal shrugged. “Ya, that’s them. My sister and brother, but don’t youse be worrying. They ain’t anything like their depictions on account of not having enough real worship. Heh, half of Leshy’s hold on lesbian decadence is getting siphoned over to Artemis courtesy of mundanes reading them Percy Jackson books. You ever read one of those? Good shit.” The god shook his head. “I’m getting off track. You remember how I got molded by what ya think of me? Same deal would happen with them, once they get hold of some Abyssal worship. Khorne’s already managed it, as has Nurgle, although both of them got followings that are small enough that they could still be brought back to something less disturbing if ya can get hold of a big enough group of people.”

John sucked in air as his immediate panic over the possibility of chaotic entities crawling out of the walls sank into regular dread about violent gangs and disease ripping through the town. “Alright. Honestly, I don’t think I want any of the four of them just yet - although…” He drummed his fingers nervously on his knee. “If what you’re telling me is true, maybe I should try and bring them around? The last thing I need is adding the ruinous powers next to Frank on my list of people that actively want to make my life hell.”

Standing and pacing, he shook his head a moment later. “No, that’s an idea for later… I need to focus on dedicating the altar for now, right? That’d probably mean some debauchery for Slaanesh, and I’m struggling to organize one date. And as for what Tzeentch might need… No, the best options are you or Gaia. What’s the pros and cons of each?”

Malal winced. “Ya sure ya wanna know, kid?” before raising his hands when he saw John’s expression. “Fine, fine! Ya got me. Well, here’s the rub. Ya shouldn’t dedicate it to me, like I already tried to tell ya. Not sayin’ I don’t want a shrine, but there’s two reasons why I shouldn’t be involved this time. First, ya got to think about what the shrine says to the neighbours. ‘I worship a god of chaos’ ain’t exactly mom’s apple pie to a lot of folks, even in the Abyss. And second… my domain is order, or anti-chaos if it’s easier to understand, see? Which means I don’t play nice with magic in general, and that is gonna be a problem if ya start putting up altars to me without serious planning - it’ll stick out like a sore thumb. The boss on the other hand - well, her worship’s pretty common, ain’t gonna attract much attention. And ya already got her powers kicking through ya, can’t hurt to give them a bit of a boost and her a bit of a thank you, capiche?”

John sighed. It was a lot to figure out; while he felt Malal was probably right about all the reasons for dedicating a shrine to Gaia, the fact was that the chaos god had helped him immensely so far in figuring out what was going on in his life, while Gaia had just given him his Status and stuff and let him get on with it. Eventually John figured he’d build them both a shrine as the best option - but the question remained of which one first for the Quest. Fortunately, he had some time to think things over - he still had a lot of material to gather for the Quest before he got around to dedicating his shrine, so in the meantime he opted to just sleep on it and see what the new day would bring.