Escape

Mind you, the King's basic plan still makes sense. We should go and kill minor monsters to level up and strengthen ourselves… especially as the rat bastard who summoned us here is still out there somewhere, and was expecting that we'd oppose him… oh, and I'm absolutely going to need to research these **** tattoos.

So after we finish breakfast, the king gives us a slightly nervous send-off, and out we go from the city. We talk along the way, using a Message spell and an obscure monster language we all picked up for the purpose: Shae.

“So… now that we're free… what's keeping us here, exactly?” Charles points out.

I consider that one carefully while Adam speaks in a whisper, which we all hear clearly thanks to the spell, “For anyone who hasn't figured it out yet, I'm Adam, I used Alice just to throw folks off the scent, so to speak. Wasn't meant to confuse you guys.”

“Inertia,” Brian shrugs, which does wonderful things to his bosom under his Eidolon meat suit: It prevents the use of armor, so he's just wearing clothes provided by the king.

“We'd be paying for meals and lodging without him,” Adam points out.

“I have Dream Feast,” now, “and we all have tents,” I consider, “but he does have money, and seems willing to part with it when it benefits him… it's where we got our starting gear.” And I don't need the wand anymore… I can spam the spell without it, now.

“Is it worth it, though?” Charles counters, “He's a molesting, **** bastard.”

“As far as we know, we weren't summoned by his order,” Brian considers, “and the guy who did is still out there.”

I pause a bit, “My summoner indicated my host had an addiction… my build laughs that kind of thing off, but are any of you Jonesing for something?”

Adam stops dead, and we all follow suit, “No. But the guy who had my mind controlled caller under his thumb said something similar when I got him ranting.” Realizing he stopped, he resumes walking.

“Which means either it was a lie, or something about our trip here fixed that,” Brian waves a hand dismissively.

“Unless he knows, and is dosing us with our daily meals,” Charles rubs his chin, “Breakfast is out and ready when we arrive…”

“That oatmeal was far too tasty…” Adam shakes his head, “...but we don't need to guess. Diagnose Disease is a first level spell. Dan?”

I nod and spam the spell… “Okay, that's too regular to be a coincidence,” I frown, not that anyone can see, “All four of us are addicted to Golden Keif. Low ability damage, high addiction, makes the user more susceptible to enchantments… a single dose a day would barely be noticed.”

“All four…” Brian begins, frowning.

“Gaining immunity doesn't delete things already in place, it suppresses them,” Adam shakes his head, “so Dan's disease denial will keep it from hurting him in any way, and keep him from developing new addictions, but the one he started with is still THERE until he gets rid of it by whatever means, so the magic detects it.”

“Wanna bet the King's NOT really behind our summoning?” Charles sighs.

“No bet,” I chuckle, “you wanna bet he doesn't have any more control methods prepared?”

“Money aside - which I am NOT betting, thank you,” Charles retorts, “We have to make that bet.”

“Because he's just going to keep dosing us,” Adam nods, “given that we shucked his other control method.”

“I propose a bug out, then,” I take a slow breath, “...but it's you guys who are going to suffer, so I probably should sit this vote out.”

“Oh, bug out, absolutely,” Adam cringes, “...this is SO going to suck.”

“Hardcore…” Brian takes a breath, “...I'm not sure I can take going through it again.” He takes another breath, very slowly, “but it needs to be done. I vote yes.”

“Yeah… bug out…” Charles purses his lips, “I need to summon the cats anyway. So we walk away, hole up somewhere until the cravings burn out, then plan ****?”

“The best **** is living well,” Adam shakes his head, “just leave him in the dust, that King's schemes will catch up with him eventually.”

“I can speed things up…” I consider, “give me a minute…” as we walk, I use Borrowed Power to grab Mythic Sphere Knowledge, Mythic Sphere Knowledge to grab the Life sphere and several talents, and Borrowed Power again to grab Mythic Sphere Mastery: Life… which then let's me make a DC 20 check with a thirteen point bonus (on which I use a Mythic Surge - which is Maximized and Powerful, meaning due to being Tier 9 (11 for numbers related things) I'm rolling at 1d20+24 vs. that DC 20: Automatic success. The result? I spend some of my infinite Mythic power and infinite spell points to automatically remove a condition that I know about from Adam. I then repeat the process on Brian, Charles, and myself.

“There…” I smile invisibly as I finish up, “No more addiction. Let's move out.”

We head out of town as expected, fight a few monsters… and simply keep going, picking a road and following it in a general cardinal direction (East, specifically). The priority is ‘get away from the evil man’, we don't currently have a destination in mind, we'll do some planning after we're not quite so close to his power center. Of course, I do use the Mount spell a couple times for some horses for the others. There's little reason for them to walk. For me, the horse would give away my location.

On the way, I frown, and ask Adam, "So what's your build?”

“Oh, just a little thought experiment I made with our house rules, I was never planning on actually playing it…”