"Stop fucking running away from yourgoddamnhealer!"


    It wasn''t particularly like me to rage, but today wasn''t a good day. Down here in Florida it''s hot as balls all day and night, and riding a scooter with protective gear doesn''t help the heat at all. Sure, it''s five dollarseverytwo weeks to fill it up, and sure, it''s great that my college is so close that it''s only a fifteen minute ride, but when that shit has been sitting in the sun,baking, it sure as hell pushes all that out of your mind when you touchyourass to the seat and subsequently burn the hell out of it!


    All I wanted to do was get home, sit down, turn on my computer, and play some video games. After all this time, you''d think I''d remember that everyone is getting on past six on a Friday evening.


    Everyone.


    Includingidiotswho thinkrunning away from your healeranddyingis the smart thing to do. Thank God I habitually use push to talk, else they''d be hearing me swearing themsix ways to Sunday and tilt everyone else on my team. I can already feel it getting tomeas I died for the nth time.


    ''Patience.'' I deliberately thought to myself in a soothing manner. ''Patience is a support main''s biggest help. It doesn''t matter if we lose. It''s just a game.''


    In the dark of my room, doors closed, blackout curtains shut, dog snoring away at my side, I closed my eyes for just a moment.


    ''Youlearned this in High School. Going in with a bad perspective only makes youhave a horrible time of it. Even if it''s justambivalence, it''s better than negativity. This is de-stress time. After this game,let''sjust get off for a bit to relax and then start again. That''s it. That''s all you have to do.''


    That''s a pretty nice pep talk there.


    What... My body locked up, unable to comprehend what was going on, as my universe seemed to shrink into the one. Pinpoint. Moment.


    I like it. You know, I like support mains in general? If you treat ''emnice, they''ll treat you nice.


    Ifelta voice in my head. It was strong, rattling my spirit, something I didn''t even know existed until I felt itshudderfrom the sheer force of this being''s coreidentity. I could feel what it was, what it is, what it wanted to be. It was speaking to me in the most intimate way, and I had no doubt it knew me now as deeply and wholly as I knew it.


    Too bad I couldn’t contain it. I could feel myself slipping, parts of myself just starting to... go away. It was horrific in a way I couldn’t convey if I was given every means of communication, perfectly able to be understood.


    Hm. That''s bad.Perhapsyou''d like a fix?


    Desperation overwhelmed me, even as I felt the being pulling me back together, gently cradling me initspower. Information flooded through me, and I frantically tried to understand it all as this being knew it, grabbing snatches here and there, feeling it etch itself into my mind yet fade away simultaneously, while everything elsejust flew through me, unable to be accepted by my puny existence.


    I think I was a little too hasty... Well, hopefully we can put this past us? Imiiiiiiiighthave arequest for you.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.


    I was barely regainingmybearings, wildly trying to merge my new perspective of the world withwhat I thought I knew before. It didn''t help that my actual view seemed to have changed as well. My bedroom… It was blurry. Ethereal, incorporeal, I couldsee through it. Yet, even as I felt my eyes strain totake in my room, solid in my knowledge, in my innate biologicalunderstandingof my very physicalsurroundings, with my new - sense, maybe? - I could slowly begin to tell that what I was seeing was the essence of the world, only able to beperceivednow that I wasviscerallyintroduced to it viawhatevermy guest wasand our new shared grasp of each other.


    Maybe a little time before Itell her about it?


    Gradually this sense consolidated, no longer completely throwing me out of whack.


    "What the hell is going on?!"


    Or not.


    Well, you see, I have a little problem, andyouare the first result that came up on mysearch spell.


    Immediately, I was wary. See, I love fiction. I love the adventure, the action, the escapism. But you know what? Isure as hellwouldn’t actually want to go through whatthose characters do! Fuck no! Twenty one years of living has put me through enough experience to know that just a modern life is hard! Why would I want to deal withthatshit?


    I know you now like no one else does, so I know you like to read a little genre calledlitrpg.


    ''Ohfuckno.''


    Now. Not too long ago, I came acrossaninfant world system, and it made me a deal. I lend it some power to do as it does, and I get to choose a herald amongitsnew... population, so to speak,tospread my word to the masses.


    I could feel myself getting fainter and fainter as the being, no, the fuckingDeitycontinued to speak.


    I''ve been in need of worshipers for a quite awhilenow, as across the worlds I have inhabited, faith in me has weakened. And. Well. You''ve read your fair share of system novels! You know exactly how this goes. What better time to spread my religion than now?


    Panic began to overcome me. System?! The world''s fucked, the world''s fucked, the world''sfu-


    I''mfucked!


    I haveno ideahow to survive outside of my suburban life! There''s little reason to be had in a full blown panic, and I could tell I was beginning to devolve. So did the Deity.


    Calm.


    And I was. Such full and incredibly easy control over me should have terrified me beyond words, and I knew this, intellectually. Yet it did not, forcibly calmed as I was. Rationality and logic were my only tools now,tounderstand what was going on.


    "Why?" I asked. "Why me? Why this world?"


    My world was going to be completely and utterly overturned, probably as soon as this conversation ended. People were going to die, likely in the millions, and everything around me is going to go to complete and utter hell.Why?


    Because that''s what systems do.


    Underneath that forced calm, I could feel my emotions roiling from the sheer finality of that single sentence.


    "That''s it? That''s... really it?"


    They were raging, but detached as I was from them, I could only look at themclinically. I knew, as soon as this calm went away, I was more than likely going to have a full on breakdown. And I knew, at the same time, if my predictions on how this was going to go were correct, I''d die if I did.


    As for you... Well, as I said, you were the first result. I searched for a random person compatible with my domains,andyou were it. At my level of power these days.... I couldn''t afford a more specific search.Now, seeing as we''re going to be workingvery closelytogether from now on, let me introduce myself.


    I could feel it''s pleasure at speakingitsname into the world for the first time as if it were my own,andas Irealized that it doing so would seal my fate,consolidatingitspresence on Earth by letting just one person naturally of this world''s creation know it, I knew I could do nothing but let it happen.


    I amEriasson!Goddess of Healing, Protection, and Light! Andyou, dearLillianne, are going to be myHarbinger.