(8) Anything Else?

Nephthys sat with her back straight, her face featureless, impassive, the contrast with her chaotic mind stark. For once, she was grateful for the dissociative disconnect between her mind and this body. This felt like an inopportune moment to reveal her panic.

She studied all fifteen of her guild members as they knelt, heads bowed, and eyes closed. The scene made her violently uncomfortable in a way that was difficult to describe. Was it the attention from so many people at once? Probably. The reverence? Definitely. Imposter syndrome? Absolutely. It was not even a syndrome; she was an imposter.

It was probably a mixture of all these complicated emotions and more.

“Thank you all for gathering. Please, rise,” she said, holding her voice steady and attempting grace.

The members rose to parade rest. They stood tall, heads high, feet shoulder-width apart, hands clasped behind their backs. This was not exactly what she meant.

“At ease,” she tried, hoping the words she knew from military movies would translate to this world.

They all seemed to get the message, relaxing into several different postures. Some stood with their hands relaxed at their sides, others with arms crossed, and still others had their hands on their hips, as if waiting patiently to be dismissed.

With no help being offered by either the members themselves or any deities she hoped might suddenly appear and relieve her of this burden, she plowed ahead.

“It has been…quite some time since last we spoke. I hope the wait was not too hard on any of you?” she prompted, hoping to toss the ball to someone—anyone—else.

“Any of us would wait until the end of time were it required, my lady,” Ramose responded, his hand over his chest.

The rest nodded their agreement, and a silence descended.

Great, thanks, Ramose, she thought, annoyed.

“I would like to hear what the scouts have found, what we have learned about where we and the world stand, having been absent for two centuries. However, I will answer any and all questions you might have before that. Ask if you desire,” she declared; another excellent handoff, if she said so herself.

The guild members glanced at each other, obviously confused by the request. A few seemed to have questions on the tip of their tongues, but none spoke. Perhaps they needed someone to be the first to speak? Well, she could help them with that.

“Neferet, you seem to have something. Please ask, unless it is something you would rather speak privately about?” Nephthys questioned.

At the suggestion that they might speak privately, eyebrows rose around the crowd, though she did not understand why that might be unexpected.

“No, no need for that, ma’am—uh, my lady,” Neferet said, hastily bowing.

Neferet was an unusual summon, even among her eclectic bunch. Some fusion of necromancy and summoning, she was the departed spirit of a dwarven weaponsmith, summoned from the ether and bound to the flesh of a fresh corpse.

Such summons were generally used in Prelude for crafting bonuses. One could call upon the departed spirit of a skilled craftsman to provide a temporary bonus to one’s own crafting prowess. This act was common, as every small bonus gifted by gear was significant in PvP.

These summons were meant to last only minutes, but thanks to the summon glitch Nephthys was so fond of, not only was Neferet a permanent summon, but also assigned to a role within Nemesis, a function normally reserved for NPCs captured in the Ashreach wilderness.

She had always found it strange how many easily-exploited bugs there were in Prelude. The devs just…never fixed them. The only thing they seemed to do was release expansions, yet these expansions contained only new content—no fixes for legacy content.

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

“No need for such formality, Neferet. We are at ease, yes? Please, call me Nephthys,” she said, attempting a gentle smile.