World Boss: Break the Narrative

"What's up Doug?" Angelica asked me. She could tell by the look on my face that something… suboptimal had occurred.

I cracked wise about her lack of poker face on more than one occasion. I was beginning to wonder if I had a similar issue. Maybe she was just getting really good at reading me.

Before I answered I looked at the prompt describing my Mystic well. The prompt had an update.

I had a Magic Attribute of 48, and apparently a God Level of 10. And while that totaled out to a truly hefty pool of 68,000 MP. That wasn't enough. The quiet dread realization of imminent suffering is really bad. Some naive folk might say something like it is worse than the injury itself. I wasn't going to because while this was a shit situation, the overt agony of Manableed was so much worse. Think having your soul dipped in acid. A constant existential burn that just got worse with time.

Like I said, it wasn't enough though. I was losing 1 MP a second. That meant I needed 86,400 MP a day. Which meant I was in for at least 5 hours of terrible pain from Manableed… depending on when I actually got the MP from my followers.

It was almost like a gaggle of blue fuckheads where trying to tell me to do more things with 'god' stuff… or they were torturing me.

"I may have made a mistake," I admitted as I watched the MP keep trickling down.

"Please elaborate," Angelica gently urged me to continue.

"The pacts have caused me to have the Manableed Condition. I am bleeding 1 MP a second. When I run out it is going to start hurting." I shrugged.

"Buddy do you know what Manableed is?" Brunhilda asked. She then made a judgement call that, no I did not, and kept talking. "It is arguably the worst pain condition possible. No physical or magical means will reduce the sensation. It also tends to kill people because of the health damage.

I nodded, "It sucks."

Brunhilda blinked, "Yeah, it sucks. What are you going to do when you start losing 1 HP a second?"

I shrugged again, "Rely on the other 45 HP a second I regen to carry the day?"

"Oh right you are a Titan Spawn," my drinking buddy remembered.

"So just to be clear, my dad hasn't killed a second god?" Spine asked.

"This isn't going to kill me. Demons maybe, this no," I told him.

"Good, I am tired of lagging so far behind," Spine sighed. After a beat he added, "And I care about you as a friend, Doug. Don't die."

"I'll try not to," I promised.

"We need to figure out a plan-" Angelica started.

"I have already done that," Toad announced. Something had changed with the little goblin. He seemed less pompous and strangely tired. "To address the mana bleed is a simple matter of rotating the times for when the followers offer up their daily mana. I have also spoken with Grimset. We will recruit everyone who is not completely opposed to the idea. That should put us above the daily needs."

"You just knew about that?" I asked him.

"It is a predictable outcome," Toad dismissed. He walked almost leadenly to a chair and sat at the table. After a deep breath he declared, "I have revised our plans."

The words sort of hung in the air. I checked my prompt again and saw that my MP was not quite holding steady but was declining slower than it should.

Nanny Shank poked me with her cane, "You alright Toad?"

"I… No," Toad answered. "We should focus on the plan."

"If you are not alright maybe we should hold off major changes to any plans," I said gently.

Toad's eyes met mine. He was haunted. Beyond that though was a complete ironclad resolve. He was absolutely certain when he said, "The plan is perfect. If we follow it: the tower will fall, Brand will rescue the remnants of his team, and Miss De Leon will have her duel with the Demon of Frost." He turned to her, "I cannot promise you an outcome beyond the clash itself."

Everyone exchanged a glance as Toad wrote down some notes.

Toad looked up from his note and pointed at Spine, "You and Pappy have will need to trust your instincts, except you will want to put the first line of defense roughly fifty feet further back than you think you should."

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

This was getting a bit… well concerning. Both from an emotional standing, because Toad was a fast friend. I mean we litigated together. I also liked the guy. He was a bit full of himself, but he was a good dude. Something had hurt him. There was also the issue that if he was going through a depressive state it raised some serious concerns about trusting him with everyone's lives in a war with demons.

I am not saying I didn't trust him, but I was going to double check his work. Okay I was going to have Brand and Angelica, and probably Brunhilda for that matter double check his work.

"What happened, Toad?" I asked.

Toad sighed, "I used Goblin Mode. In my temporary condition I was able to do so at Divine Scale." he closed his eyes and took another breath, "I was not prepared for it. I have ordered everyone in my command to refrain from using it."

"And you trust people to listen to you?" Spine asked, incredulous.

"Of course not," Toad snapped. "I know exactly who will not listen. I have been spending the majority of my time directly stopping them. Four individuals simply will not be stopped. They are currently serving as an example to others."

That was flat out ominous. I wasn't stupid enough to ask if he was okay again. He had already said no. That meant I needed to figure out a way to get him talking. "Hey Toad, how about we head out for a walk?"

"Right on time," Toad muttered. He slid the sheets of paper away. "I have delivered the notes." He pushed away from the table. "Are you coming?"

I stood and followed. We stepped out of the tent and into the crowd of the camp. The place was always busy. Right now though things were a bit crazy. Hundreds of goblins were carrying bulk material around to others who had set up work benches. Some were crafting arrows. Others crossbows. Another five goblin crew was near mass producing ammunition. Then there was the little old lady making guns.

Respect your elders, kids, especially if they are packing heat.

Toad navigated the crowd with near preternatural grace. We quickly made our way to the down wind side of the convoy. The place stank of diesel and smoke. The air wasn't quite acrid but it wasn't the ideal spot to be. We looked back down the hard packed road. It was a gray line etched in the rolling ice covered hills.

Clouds were beginning to block the sky. Everything around us was darkening. That took things down from near blinding to just extremely bright. It was counter intuitive. Despite the force of the sun's light it was profoundly cold. The thing is it felt less cold than they had been. That didn't seem right. Shouldn't things get colder as we got closer to the tower?

I crafted a bench from the ice.

Toad sat down and after checking to make sure no one was watching slump a little.

I sat down next to him. "What happened?"

"After the pact, I decided to try and pull information about the tower," Toad explained. "I miscalculated. I didn't realize when I was using Goblin Mode to see it would show me so much."

I waited for him to continue. After a moment I spoke, "I take it, bandwidth wasn't the issue."

"It was not. I freely admit the sheer scope of information was painful at first. Now it is merely heavy." Toad cleared his throat. "I shouldn't be surprised. Goblin Mode is a shared network of our collective knowledge. Of course those poor souls in captivity would know the most about the tower."

He was quiet for a very long time.

"It is different when you have to see other people suffer, isn't it." I said.

"Correct," Toad nodded. He then let out a harsh bark of laughter with absolutely no humor to it. "I thought I could handle anything. The horrors of the battlefield aren't trifling, but this is it,,, I am so sorry to say I was right before. We have an obligation to free them."

I could read between the lines, "You don't have to talk about this."

"I need to speak," Toad said. He then immediately clammed up.

I understood… well I comprehended what he was saying. Somethings you just can't keep to yourself. Not because you want to talk about it, but if you don't it is going to fester inside of you. Keep it bottled up long enough and it will eat a hole in you.

I stayed quiet. I was going to let this happen at Toads pace.

Eventually he spoke, "The tower isn't a simple place of physical torment. That happens, but only rarely. That isn't to say what happens is less terrible. The entire tower is a complex machine of suffering. Food is purposely scarce. If you want to eat you in the tower, you will have to take it from someone else. The air is either blazing hot, or bitingly cold. The noises… they are the worst at night. Everyone there has done something profoundly terrible in a moment of desperation. They can't kill each other, but there are worse fates then death, and the greatest horrors aren't inflicted by demons."

"You can't judge people by the worst moments of their lives," I said. In the world that was when I -The Titan- had his back against a wall, he killed people twice. Self defense sure, but that was in a peaceful part of the world that was. I can only speculate what I could be capable of in this world in such a place.

"I don't," Toad spoke up immediately. He shook his head ruefully, "what I am about to say is going to sound so self important."

"That would be out of character for you. Are you sure you could manage it?" I asked him.

Toad didn't laugh. Ah shit.

"You have a point," Toad admitted. "What I mean if I am still going to use everything that I know. While I may personally regret having used Goblin Mode in this regard, it is for the best that I did. That clarity is like a knife in my soul. It isn't correct for someone to be able to see through the eyes of another and feel their every sensation and know their every thought."

He was describing what it was like to a so-called god in the system. He was right, it isn't correct.

"You said it was for the best." I wanted to keep him talking.

Toad hesitated. "Yes. I can use the information. I tightened our plans. I am certain tomorrow the tower will fall." He sighed, and went quiet for a long time. Finally he spoke, "As a child I dreamed of being a great man. I wanted to be in charge. It seemed heroic, glorious even. Now though after living tens of thousands of lives I am chilled to the soul because I have to be a great man." He almost spat the last two words.

That was a big ole red flag statement. "Toad, we have options."

He cut me off, "I am not cracked. Nor am I incapable. I simply know better than I did before." he scoffed, "When we first met, I told you 'together we could take the tower. It would be bloody but we could do it.' Now though after using Goblin Mode at Divine Scale and living other people's lives I truly understand the cost we will pay."

That sounded a lot more stable.

"What did you all pull with Goblin Mode? I asked.

"I drew upon everything I could related to the tower. In the space of an instant I live the lives of every living goblin at the tower. It was too much. I will carry that for the rest of my life." He paused, "The mistake was then pulling all of the information I could for my soldiers…" Tears filled his eyes, "They trust me. So many know that tomorrow they or their friends will die, and trust me."

"It's humbling isn't it?" I will admit having Toad effectively voice the anxiety that I'd been desperately trying to ignore hit hard. It punched through every layer of armor I had. The hard bit was I had nothing to offer for comfort.

"How do you stand it?" He asked.

God Dammit! I was really hoping for awkward silence that dragged way too long. That is a great opportunity to figure out what to say. That said if Toad was going to ask me a question I needed to at least try and answer.

"I swear a lot. It helps manage stress," That joke didn't land, "At the end of day though we need to recognize that leadership is a privilege. Together we have to rise to the occasion."

Toad looked up at me and said, "Fuck!"