Chapter 1547 – Spiritual Invasion

For an hour, I flip between managing my body in the ‘real’ world, while ducking back into the Nave to see how the Templars are doing, holding off the… spirit… mites?

Spirit mites sounds good.

By the time it settles down and they can’t find any more of the damn things, they must have caught and destroyed hundreds. Hundreds! I pull back from the very front of the platform so we can talk, though I still use my sub-brains and acid to bombard the endless hordes with acid and magic.

Thankfully, the Templar begin to stir as they return to their physical forms, and I call them over to me. They seem a little disconcerted by the events. Well, the kids don’t, they never seem to have much of an expression at all. The adults, though, they look somewhat disturbed, as if they don’t understand what just happened.

Which is a shame, since I sure don’t.

“What the heck went on there?” I ask them all. “I was minding my own business fighting, and you guys all collapsed! And I want to emphasise that it wasn’t my fault for thinking that nothing bad was going to happen. Why would I think that? It’s impossible that I would be that naive!”

Smooth.

They look at each other, Jern reaching up with one hand to scratch the back of his head.

“I was fighting and then I had the sense I was really needed somewhere. So I went. Then I was inside that other place and there were those things all over the place, so I tried attacking them.”

This description is… pretty basic, delivered in the straightforward, no-nonsense pheromone language I’ve come to expect from Jern. I look at the others and they just shrug and nod.

“So you sensed that I was under attack?”

“I… sort of?” Alis hedges. “I could feel that something was… wrong.”

“It was like I’d left the house and then remembered I hadn’t properly doused the fire,” Bertran mused. “A real panic set in as I raced to get to the problem and fix it. I was so desperate, I jumped right out of my body without even knowing how I did it.”

“Was it the same for you three?” I ask the youngin’s.

Allison speaks up on behalf of the three this time. Looking at me directly, she says exactly what’s on her mind.

“When did you last rest?” she asks.

“Never mind that! We have more important things to be working out right this second. Sheesh!”

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

“More important?” she demands, her eyes narrowing.

“Oi! I’m out here saving lives, and unlike the others, my combat performance doesn’t dip that much when I don’t sleep. Up to a certain point, at any rate.”

I do need to rest eventually. Emotional fatigue is a real thing, and I can end up feeling incredibly drained, even if my body and brains are fresh as daisies.