Productive

The shower feels nice… until it goes cold, and then the water stops running entirely… then the lights go out.

I towel off, and work myself into my armor (which is annoying in the dark), radio everyone, “Taking a look…” and then get to work. I find systems are dead all across the ship, so I head to the power core… which is, apparently, running full tilt. Frowning, I summon my tools and start tracing where it's going… and then when I'm close to the outer hull, my tracing tool starts glitching… which tells me what's going on, more or less.

I get out of the zone, and radio the party, “Pretty sure we ran into some drift leeches. Who's up for joining me on an EVA extermination excursion?”

It's then that I notice my suit isn't responding at all… ah, dead battery. Which… okay, yes, Drift Leeches do that.

It's okay. I actually planned for something like this… swift action and spending a spell point on Greater Fey Link, and I'm a fey for an hour. More importantly, it lets me spend a free action and another spell point on a Grimalkin’s Shade from Feline Omens, which'll last an hour too. It's a cat-like creature that can make itself incorporeal (which means it requires magic to slay) and has a small at-will cold attack. It's not very durable, so if an opponent does have magic, it falls easily. Still: I can just resummon it freely for the duration as long as it never goes more than a hundred ten feet from me (if it's killed outside of that range, I need to pay for a new one).

“Go incorporeal, and follow me closely,” I order it as I head to the nearest airlock… which I have to cycle manually. I don't need the air, but everyone else does… assuming they haven't closed their helmets.

Which reminds me as I step into the void: I should do that. Now, while my armor comes with anchoring boots… they're not working. That doesn't bother me, however: It's why I have the Starwalk spell, which gets me around… if slowly. I inspect the outer hull of our dead ship until… yep, there: A giant red slug, about four feet long, attached to the hull. I direct my shadow cat to kill it while I stand back at a safe distance. The slug is completely helpless against the incorporeal not-cat, unable to harm it. Sure, it takes a good four hits for the shade to actually KO the beast, and another few to properly kill it, but there's no rush. Well, I do need to resummon the shade many, many times: It suffocates after a little bit. But hey, it's free, and it's not a real

[creature.

As](http://creature.As) my boots and the ship don't come back online, I keep looking, finding ten of the parasites feasting on the ship. And when I kill the last one, the world fades away, and I'm back in ****'s… office? Library? Realm? Eh, whatever.

And I'm naked. Well… at least the seat is cushioned? Although I think more than half of that is my seat….

“Ah, you're back… level up time I see.” The deity looks at me, and I freeze. He pauses, and gets those cheesy 70's cheap plastic mirrored sunglasses back out and on, “Better?”

I mean, he looks ridiculous: A solid black demonic entity in a nice suit and tie, plus cheesy mirrored sunglasses. It's completely ridiculous. Which… is possibly why it breaks the absolute terror I feel when gazing into those soul-sucking voids he has for eyes. That or because I can't see the void behind the glasses… “Yes, thank you. So level up, huh?”

“Indeed, I understand this is one of the nicer break points in the build,” he mentions.

“Yes…” I chuckle, “...far from the only one. Fourth is also insane… and then every time I get a new level of spells things get better.” Anyway… I have this mostly planned out already, so this should be quick enough. “A Young, Degenerate, Mythic Human Skeleton with the walking deity template would be CR 2, So it's in range.”

“Barely, but yes,” my ridiculous-looking, but quite serious, host agrees.

I nod, “So for my Monsterkin side, I'll take Mythic Outpouring, Powers of Faith, and Divine Providence.”

He tilts his head, “Odd choices, Mythic Outpouring doesn't do anything if you don't have anything to spend the Mythic power ON, and Divine Providence is unusable without Mythic ranks.”

“Ah, but I will have Mythic ranks,” I grin, “because Powers of Faith lets me assign a high priest, and treats me as a ten rank Mythic when I'm doing it.”

Oh, ****'s expression, “So… in the face of a deity, you're telling me you'll worship yourself, and grant yourself your high priest position.” He pauses. “Umm.”

I chuckle, “Hey, I don't make the rules, I just use them in combinations of ways that were never, ever, intended.”

**** takes a breath, “That's a considerable jump point, power wise… and yes, it's valid, it's just…” he pauses, “...you can't just…” he has trouble phrasing things.

I throw the poor guy a bone, “You're trying to say it's completely against common sense and the spirit of the rules?”

“Yes,” he nods, still looking at me a little slantwise.

“‘Old Racoonian saying: ‘If it's stupid, but it works, then it isn't stupid.’” I quote an old web comic with a dead author, “but seriously, I'm going to eventually need to face off against a max level, deity-backed man with literally any spell in the world on tap. I need to optimize, and heavily. Is it going to cut off our connection or anything?”

“You're right and…” he pauses, “...no, because you don't worship me now. Yeah. You can do that.”

I smile, “Great. And for the regular Freelancer side, I'll take… Divine Grace from the Paladin for the big boost to my saving throws…”

“...because Divine Providence doesn't count as a natural twenty, so you still need to make the DC, makes sense…” **** is nodding along.

I continue, “Lineage Domain(Time(Past)) for the rerolls now and eventually the ability to turn back the clock a touch, and Attuned Mysticism from the Eldritch Godling so I can apply type-specific effects to Fey instead.”

The demonic looking entity tilts his head the other way, “Why Fey?”

I grin, “because with the Fallen Fey sphere, I can make any ally count as fey, letting me apply any spell to any ally.”

He nods, and we go through the complexity of having nine Mythic ranks - and what I do with them - plus the simple numbers changes, and then he does his final review, “Okay, yeah… I only need to pay for the actual level stuff, you're technically providing the rest with what we buy… so you're good to go.”

I pause, “That's the second time you've mentioned payment on this stuff… what am I costing you?”

**** simply pulls out a parchment and quill, and puts a check mark next to an entry, “Yep, in order. I'm not supposed to tell you.”

“How many things are on that list?”

“‘**** writes another check mark, which is answer enough that he's not going to tell me.

I think about that, “Is your Dad always like that?”

“He doesn't waste words, he's never wrong, he knows literally everything, and sometimes that can get exasperating,” **** sucks some air out of the room, “but he always has everyone's best interests at heart, and not every answer is good for me. He has never steered me wrong. As a simple example, you are going through the questions he told me not to answer, in order, verbatim. This list contains very specific information about the future. At some point, I can be quite assured that you will ask every single question here. But that doesn't mean that reading ahead to the next question tells me what's coming: A question means very little without the proper context. I know in a general sense that more listed questions means we're going to talk more… but theoretically you could burn through the rest of the list in ten minutes, or hold off and take a million years at it.” **** pauses, “And yes, he's pretty much always ‘like that’.”

I nod slowly, “which means it's a set of tiny little nudges to point us where we need to go…” huh.

“I presume so,” **** agrees, “...but I figured out long ago that I will never be capable of actually understanding Dad. Anyway… all done?” I nod, and **** finishes the conversation, “Be seeing you…”

****'s surprisingly cozy realm fades away, and I find myself back on the ship's hull. Of course, while I have it all planned out, there's something I need to commit….

I turn on my suits environmental protections so I have enough air to talk, and start singing:

“Dan! You're so great!”

“Dan! You'll circulate!”

“Dan! You're wonderful!”

“Dan! You're like a bull!”

It doesn't have to be good for the next thing to work… “Dan! Thou hast pleased me! That is the best worship song in my name to date.” Which is true. Also the worst, which happens when it's a sample size of one. “I anoint you as my high priest!”

I feel a rush of power, and suddenly my armor feels constricting. Ah, I get it: I'm using charisma in place of dexterity, boosted that up to twenty-six thanks to Mythic, and the armor has a lower maximum dexterity rating. And… as cheap as this armor is, it means it's dragging me down. Well… I can take it off easily enough, but I'll need to get a com unit and maybe some magic boots.

…also some actual clothes. In the meanwhile, I should have my Astral Suit now from my Mythic Tradition. I take a moment to summon it in the Astral Skin form, and because I can design it however I like (and redesign it with eight hours of work), I make it look like a simple business suit (with pants). I'll switch to a skin-tone body stocking after I get clothes to wear outside of it.

In the meanwhile, I finish inspecting the hull, and there don't seem to be any further parasites, so I head back inside….