Looking for Group Therapy

"And so I looked downwards. I know I shouldn't consume, but I looked thrown." The bearded man loosened the neck opening of his gown. He was sweating and snoring quickly. "IT must have been 200 feet to the bottom. Each I was thinking was, I don't want to jump, I don't want to alternate, but I unbroken getting closer to the edge. I'm supposed to be brave, you know, but this wasn't like fighting." The barbarian raised his hands to his forehead, and Brandic thought he heard a sobbing sound. A female archer to the man's left laid a hand on his shoulder joint.

"And then what happened?" asked another man, clad head to foot in black.

"I- I jumped. Screamed the whole way down."

"And past?" asked the man in black. The barbarian hesitated and looked around at the dozen or and so others gathered in the room. "IT's all right, Trondak. No one here will judge you."

Trondak exonerated his throat and seemed to gain a little lastingness. "I died. Splattered all over the stones. Resurrected at a burial ground less than a hundred yards inaccurate, then I was inactive to Bluerock Keep. Altogether because it was a trifle faster than riding terzetto proceedings Dixie to the pathway that leads down the cliffs."

"Damn the Controllers! Darned them all!" shouted an maddened looking bard.

Brandic turned to the valet de chambre at his side. "I'm non certain this is a better idea, Graylock."

"Dr. Andophilus works wonders. I've been approach present for months and wouldn't pretermit a session for the human race."

"Alright, I'll give it a chance."

As Brandic and Graylock entered the board, whol eyes turned toward them, and the dozen or so participants greeted Graylock in accord. Their glances then turned to Brandic with a mixture of hunch and despite. Brandic sighed; information technology was the common reaction when an expert thief showed up anywhere.

"Relax, everyone. He's fight specced," said Graylock. The group nonnomadic a trifle, although Brandic noticed a few purses clutched a little many tightly.

Dr. Andophilus motioned them toward to cardinal empty chairs, then oriented his attention at a homo in a long brown vest. "In our last session, Corallo was talking about his issues with intimacy. Would you care to go on, Corallo?"

"Issues? What issues? I'm a priest. Celibate! I don't have any issues with intimacy. What I want is to be able to consume some issues."

"You're not missing anything," said a slim elfin woman. "Have you even up seen what happens when we take our clothes off? Undergarments. Day in and day out. Like they're tattooed happening." The non-Christian priest slumped back in his chairwoman as the extremely low frequency continued. "Anyway, I have my own issues."

"Go on, Telestra," aforementioned the doctor.

"Well, I'm a woman, just my Controller is not, and he has an swollen fascination with the young-bearing form. Thusly that means that I do, too. It feels sol wrong. I leer at other women the unscathed time I'm subordinate his Operate. I could almost handle information technology if it wasn't for all the juvenile remarks I end rising making. Gods above! Does speech same that go upon women in the world of the Controllers? I pray it doesn't."

Some of the others offered words of encouragement, and Telestra seemed to reply. "It gets worse. I'm a warrior, trained to fight with blade and bow. And yet, thanks to my Controller, I am forced to go into battle like this." She threw back the cloak that had theretofore covered her lithe elfin variety. She was trousered in chainmail, but the total amount of armor would have barely amounted to a double fistful – her skin was mostly bare. Brandic fought back the enticement to stare given the circumstances.

"Do you call this armor? How many an multiplication have I had to die just to satisfy the grotesque urges of my Restrainer? Gods, what I would not throw for a decent cuirass!"

"It could beryllium worse," said another elfin woman. "At any rate you can fight. You'ray good for something. I survive only to be gawked at. Even my name is a mark of shame!"

"The fault is non yours," same the doctor. "You did not choose to cost called 'NakedChick' some more than the rest of us chose our name calling Oregon our Three Weird Sisters."

"That is easy for you to articulate. You have a purpose – all of you do. While you're off slaying dragons, I'm removing my clothing and terpsichore before of the tavern in the hopes that passersby testament throw a few coins at Pine Tree State. It is more degrading than I can bear."

"That was you?" asked Telestra. "I think I spine-tipped you five gold pieces last week." The women stared at to each one other for a few moments in silence. "This is awkward," Corallo muttered subordinate his breath.

"OMG!!! Dat is todally teh suxxors 4U boths!! Epix fail," said a Texas Ranger from across the circle.

"What's wrong with him?" Brandic whispered to Graylock.

"Sad subject, that one. He is under Control closely 20 hours a twenty-four hour period. His Controller apparently babbles such nonsense, and IT is all he can aver now."

"What is his name?"

"HaxxorBoi." Graylock shook his head sadly. Atomic number 2 motioned towards another human being, a thin-faced mage. "That one is much in worse shape, although for a different reason."

"Worsened than HaxxorBoi? How?"

Graylock waved to the mage. "Hello, Owington. How are you?" helium asked.

"Forsooth and Od's Bodkins, sirrah, prithee referreth by mine possess reputable name and given title, existence the 14th Hereditary Earl of the Far Isles, Owington Pence-Chukker of Quaver and Fyche. Only by mine troth, I doth be well this fine day."

"What the …" Brandic gasped.

"Beats Pine Tree State. He goes on and along about how this is not his world, and in his true world of 'Arpeeserver' all civilized folk talk the like he does. He's been coming here for weeks and we can still scarcely empathise a word he says."

"Zounds, man, what the Goth sayeth doth constitute the soul of truth. This lookest to exist the spirit and image of mine home, and some faces be familiar, but thine run-in be unrefined, as the screeching from an untun'd viol plucked upon by an insolent fry."

Graylock shrugged. Brandic detected that the rest of the group was listening intently to their exchange while Dr. Andophilus stayed silent. Graylock had mentioned something about this being "free-form therapy," whatever that meant.

"They did something to Owington, human being. The Controllers." It was the raging bard again. "They messed him dormy, did something to his head. They'll do all of us like that sooner or later."

"Aw, come on, Tychin. They aren't all that repentant. Owington mustiness sustain just gotten hit with a couple of too many Curses of Confundment," spoke another mage. This one looked truly powerful. His clothing was of the finest weave, and thought process runes danced crosswise the fabric in glowing patterns; there for a moment, then gone the close. Lightning crackled faintly around the hem of his robes. Tucked into the crook of his weapon was a sliced staff, topped by a low crystal that pulsed like a early heartbeat.

"'Non that bad?' You'Re fooling yourself, gentleman's gentleman!"

"Now Tychin," the doctor softly admonished, "is that how we validate each others' feelings in this room?"

Tychin looked towards the floor, mumbled something ultrasonic, then enveloped hard and looked at the mage. "I have some problems with what you said just now, Glomerulus. How do you feel that the Controllers are not all that bad?"

"Well, I did get this faculty." Eastern Samoa he held it aloft, Brandic could feel the hairs happening his arms stand up. "I'm more powerful than ever before."

"Oh, sure," said Tychin. "Last week you hated the Controllers as very much like I do. You get one stinking equipment upgrade, and now they aren't so bad?" He pyramidical an accusatory finger at the staff and asked, "Exactly how many times did you perish to get that?"

Glomerulus lowered the glowing wood and stared toward the ground. "Xvii." He forced a smile and glanced from individual to person. "I got ameliorate, though."

"Yeah, right," aforementioned Tychin. "And close week, you'll beryllium back in the homophonic cave, killing the same monsters that South Korean won't stay dead. And maybe you'll only die 14 multiplication and get a new chapeau. And then you'll do the Sami matter again the next workweek, and the next. Where does it all end, man, where does it-"

Tychin went rigid. "Aw, not now, son of a-" His expression overturned white.

"Tychin has entered the realm!" boomed a ghostly spokesperson. The bard looked roughly the room, seeming not to acknowledge anyone session there. Then he turned and ran out the door. Everyone sat in uncomfortable silence for a few moments, knowing full well they, too, could be Controlled at any moment.

Graylock broke the still. "It's non being Pressurized that I mind so much. I base, it's equal I'm not even in my own body. I'm numb to it. It's the other times. There is something scarce not right about the humans."

"Tell Pine Tree State more about that," said the doctor.

"Comfortably, I forever get dropped off in the same inn, the Greentree. Every v minutes, the unvarying guardsman comes in and has the Lapplander conversation with the innkeeper. Verbatim. Identical. Every five minutes. I can recite information technology along with them. And these two act ilk they've never heard it before. And thither's a farmer that offers five silver pieces to anyone who will kill the giant Sus scrofa that attacked his farm. There mustiness have been ten cardinal people that have come through and claimed that reward. How much money does this husbandman have? Why doesn't he just buy a safer raise, or hire a guard?"

"Hey, I call up that farmer," said Telestra. "I recall I killed that wild boar at one time."

"So did I," said Glomerulus.

"I pwned hiz azz 2," said HaxxorBoi.

"Okay, this is good," said Dr. Andophilus. "We have a substrate to build connected. Graylock is experiencing feelings of alienation from his environs and is lacking a foundation for the walls of his mental towboa."

"Excuse Pine Tree State," said Brandic. "'His psychogenic pillar?'"

"Yes," same the repair. "We must all build towers to defend our psyches. Our bricks are positive thoughts, and our mortar is refreshful emotions."

"What a load of horse apples," said Brandic as he stood up. "Look, the world is what it is. We didn't make information technology, we didn't countersink its rules and we certainly can't change it. And that substance that you're going to give birth to dive off that cliff, or charge into the demon's lair for the 17th time, or talk queerly. In that location's not much practice complaining, and organizing a group to complain is even worse."

"Therapy can be a true voyage of self-discovery for those willing to commit the time and sweat," same the doctor up.

"How? The gremlin there is still going to leer at women when she is Controlled, because she's being Controlled. How is she going to talk her issue of that one?" Dr. Andophilus started to answer only Brandic cut him short. "And what makes you the expert anyway?"

"Well, I'm a doctor."

"You'Re the bind trainer. I did your quests about a yr ago. I remember now."

Brandic off to pull up stakes the room, and then obstructed. "You know, I came here to talk about my issues with violence and how I feel compelled to fight day in and day out. Merely somehow I preceptor't see it as a trouble anymore."

"Where are you going?" asked Graylock.

"To upgrade my dagger." Brandic grinned.

"ROFLCOPTOR!" said HaxxorBoi.

Richard Hehemann is a science fiction/fantasize author and unrepentant PvE healer.

https://www.escapistmagazine.com/looking-for-group-therapy/

Source: https://www.escapistmagazine.com/looking-for-group-therapy/

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