Making Plans

Moira had offered to arrange a driver to take John home, but he’d declined. With the friendship bracelet back in his Inventory and the bus slowly heading back through the late evening traffic, he finally allowed himself to relax. He did have to reckon with further discussions with the stern-seeming Paladin the next day, but for the time being he’d escaped any real confrontation with the Order. Whatever it had been that she’d been mumbling about, huddled masses seemed to have tipped the scales in his favour, and he was glad of that.

As the bus stopped to let someone get off, John’s thoughts returned to his next moves - and in particular, to the Quest hovering in front of him. He had to pick one of Malal’s siblings to help first, but apparently whatever choice he made would have an impact on the others. Reading between the lines, it made sense to assume that “impact on the others” probably meant that it’d be harder to… what, ‘rescue’ them later? “So, whoever I don’t pick gets more cultists, or more entrenched cults most likely. That would probably count as an impact, right? Unless it’s something even worse…”

That meant this was an important decision - possibly the most important one he’d made since waking up in the Abyss. Get this one wrong and he’d be looking at much harder fights in the future, not to mention the possibility of actively putting Springfield itself at risk... Assuming of course that the cultists were in the local area. He shuddered at the thought of trying to explain to his mom that he’d need to fly to another country to fight against an evil group of demon worshipping madmen. Malal had mentioned that Abyssal worshippers were worth more though, so he could only hope that the majority of Abyssal worshippers of the chaotic gods were nearby.

The choices though? He already had an icon for Slaanesh (Leshy, as Malal called them), so that would be the obvious option except… in the long term, the god of excess getting a stronger cult didn’t seem that bad, comparatively. After all, the more different forms of excess that were demonstrated, the easier it should be to hunt them down or push them out with a unified front of worshippers. At least, if John’s understanding of everything he’d been told so far and the meaning of “overwhelm” in Malal’s quest held up.

That left three options. Zee-zee… Tzeentch struck him as being the one with the most potential to cause significant long term problems and challenges if not swiftly dealt with - but on the other hand, John suspected he’d also be the most volatile and susceptible to negotiation. The god of change surely couldn’t get too fixed in his ways, even if left to his own devices for a time. Besides, any damage he did would be through manipulation - which, again, took time to set up. Unlike the other two.

Cornflakes and Gela, as Malal had called them. Khorne and Nurgle. Gods of blood and disease. It had to be one of those two, if John was concerned about the safety of the town and his friends over everything else. One was a bloodthirsty god of battle, the other the god of decay. When you put it like that, one was an obvious choice over the other - battles could be fought, blood-crazed cultists were a staple of RPG games, but John was no doctor. An Abyssal pandemic could cause horrific suffering, even without the snowball effect it might cause by providing new worshippers for Malal’s sibling.

Tapping the option to enter his choice on the Quest before he could second-guess himself, John gazed out the window at the streetlights, wondering how long it would be before the chance encounter came along. At least the experience reward came immediately - his Status jumped to show him at 764/800, almost up to Level five. Mostly, that’d come from Quest rewards, which made his thoughts drift briefly to the harem-building Quest. He’d need to talk that over with Matilda, and soon, but… there was just so much to do.

The remainder of the bus ride was uneventful, an unsurprising fact given how late in the day it was. Pushing the front door closed behind him and walking through to the kitchen, John winced when he saw a note on the dining table propped up against a plate of food under a cover. “John - I’ve got a super important meeting tomorrow so have turned in early. Knock on my door if you need me, but otherwise I hope your studying went well. Can we make time to eat together tomorrow night? I’ll be back late, so text me what kind of takeout you fancy - Mom.” He read the words and sighed internally. Taking the food up to his room - something Brenda disliked him doing, but he was going to do anyway given she’d already gone to bed - he added ‘dinner with mom’ to the mental list of important people and events demanding his time the following day.

Speaking of important people… the instant the door closed, the icon of Malal moved. “Kid! Buddy! Pal! Ya took my Quest! I saw the boss gave ya a follow-up, but she blocked me from seein’ ya decision makin’, so who’d ya pick? Which of my idiot family are we gonna fix up first?” The chaplain practically vibrated as John set his food down and sank into his computer chair.

“Nurg…. Gela, Mal. And, I’ve been thinking - we should probably call them by different names the way you keep doing to help distinguish our efforts from the believers they’ve already got, right? So, Leshy, Zee-zee, Gela and… we can’t call your last brother cornflakes, that’d be rude. Any ideas?” John asked, opting to at least start their discussion with what the god was clearly the most interested in, even if he did want to pick Mal’s brains about the temple, the harem Quest and a few other things.

Malal shrugged in reply. “I don’t know, kid, ya ain’t met my brother. Big K’s a bit of a meat-head, like that Frank goon ya keep having run-ins with. Ya want to give him a name that don’t insult but ain’t similar? Your ideas are as good as mine.”

John set down his fork and chewed thoughtfully. Swallowing, he nodded. “Big Kay would work, actually. Plus, I never really got the distinction between Khorne and Khaine. Always thought the Eldar were swinging a little close to the sun on that one, both being blood-soaked warrior gods and all. We’ll get to him later though, for now… Gela. What can you tell me about them?”

The icon managed to make its plastic features look somewhat abashed. “Not much, kid, not really. Gela… is an interesting case. Ya get how they’re the god of plague and decay, right? Well, that’s not all they are. Bacteria and fungi are sorta alive, ya know? And if you apply them right, ya get… hell, ya get bread, cheese, beer, wine, then a bit more tinkering and, blammo, ya got the good stuff. That’s the whole deal to the flip-side of Gela’s personality versus ol’ Nerg’s. The lady of decay as a route to endurance, to new life, to makin’ space for things, rather than the lord of disease as destruction and death. Without decay, all the dead things would pile up all over the shop. Dunno about you, kid, but I don’t want to have to wade through a sea of dead mooks to get to my breakfast in the morning.”

Describing the god of pestilence in terms of endurance and growth rather than rotting and disease gave John pause for thought. He’d heard it before - enough time spent on forums reading fanfic and the minutiae of canon lore would give you a million viewpoints on pretty much any aspect of the forty-first millennium, but applying it in practice to an actual functioning god (or goddess as it sounded in this case) was something else.

Taking a moment to let the thought settle, not to mention the whole thing with ‘Lady Gela’ as opposed to the ‘Grandfather Nurgle’ he’d expected Malal to talk about, John eventually nodded. “So, my options to save them are purge - and I assume by that you mean kill - all their worshippers, convince their worshippers that our interpretation of Gela is the correct one, or get enough of our own worshippers that it doesn’t matter?”

Malal nodded, glancing up at the ceiling for a moment before he replied. “That’s about the size of it. Ya got any idea which of ‘em you’re gonna go with?”

John had already decided the answer to that question, in as far as he was going to put it off for the night. “Right now, I don’t know,” he began, adding, “but Gaia’s reward for choosing which of your siblings to help on my own included a ‘helpful chance meeting’. I think it’ll be best I wait until that happens before I make any big decisions? Like, if the person I meet is the current high priest or whatever and I can talk them around, it’ll save a lot of fighting. On the other hand, if they’re like a junior cultist or something and I figure out there’s no saving them, then I… I dunno, I’ll ask the Order for help? It’s not like I can exactly purge an entire cult at Level four myself, Mal.”

With that, discussion of Malal’s siblings more or less concluded. There wasn’t really much John could do either way until he actually got an idea of what was going on with Gela’s followers, and all Malal could offer in that regard was that (thankfully) all the ones he could sense were at least in Springfield, even if he couldn’t exactly pinpoint them on a map. The need for international travel set aside for the time being, John turned the discussion to his other issues.

“What’s the problem? Ya dame told ya she’s down for other ladies as long as you’re sharing, and the Quest is only about introducing her. Just figure out ladies that ya think would be good for the two of ya to do the horizontal tango with, and let Matilda figure out who makes the cut. Or introduce them as a fait accompli if it’s someone ya really want to bang, I doubt she’d say no to your taste.” Malal sipped on the half a shot glass of liquor that John had poured him before gesturing vaguely into space. “Just roll with the luck ya got, kid. When the cards are fallin’ for ya, ya don’t demand the dealer reshuffles the deck.”

The god’s words made sense, and John knew from the discussions he’d had with Matilda that she’d probably think he was daft for even hesitating - but him knowing that was fighting with years of society telling him to be monogamous, coupled with a complete lack of any real prior relationships. Coughing, he decided to change the subject, opting to leave the entire business until he’d spoken with his girlfriend - and until he’d actually met someone that could be considered a ‘harem candidate’.

“So, the other Quest. What do you reckon counts as a ‘registered faithful’?” John asked, leaning back in his chair. “I thought it might be worshippers of Gaia, but the number would be higher than one out of ten if that was the case - the Order alone would make sure of that.”

Malal shrugged, dragging his glass with him back to his usual seat on John’s spacebar. “Best I got for ya is this, kid. Ya know how there’s lots of different churches around the world? Well, just cos someone goes to one church, don’t mean they’re down for every church, ya get me? Like, they had that whole scrap with the king who wanted to have more than one dame back in England, so just there alone ya got two major different groups of people. Registered faithful… I guess that’d mean folk who agree ta worship whatever gods ya get in your pantheon with you as their priest. Least ways, that’s what I’d guess, hard to make out what the boss is thinkin’ sometimes.”