Shara’s smile grew three sizes during dinner preparation and for the first time in a long time she felt truly at home in the world. She was not good at making friends, despite her overly friendly personality. Honestly, most people thought she was annoying or weird. Men generally wanted to get to know her better in this world, but she saw through their actions quite readily and none of them had ever interested her except for Scott. She had grown up with him to some extent in this life and gotten to know him in a way that she knew few other people.

Of course, there were reasons for her to even be part of his life in the first place. He was Scott. Obviously, she would like to be around him.

Thoughts of Scott always made her feel better. She wanted to do right by the people of this world, and that was a difficult prospect. The explanation about the changes to the world, and the coming times of darkness was handled by a different part of the project leadership. She had helped spread the word, but they had designated the targets of information dissemination. Beyond those targets, only the general broadcast messages could be made.

As things stood now, she could not tell Scott or Sonja anything specific information until Status One hit, or until her various authorization requests were properly processed. There was no reason to believe that they would deny her, but it was not high on the list of current priorities. She had some permission, but it wasn’t enough. Her NDA would prevent her, literally, from speaking too much about anything. She had a slight bit more leeway after Status One dropped, but even that was not much.

She still did not understand all of the secrecy. The excuse that they did not want to cause a panic was asinine. Panic had been caused simply by the program existing. There were many ways that this situation could have been handled, but somehow permission was given to turn this world into a project world. She would not have wanted to be involved with this mess at all if not for her community service requirement.

Shara briefly recalled the events that lead to her involvement in the project. Having accepted that her sister would not share her Scott, she had looked through time and space for a Scott of her own. She sought out many but found one that seemed perfect. He was overweight, which was a plus because that meant that there was more of him to love. He clearly thought family to be important, because he lived with his mother even though he was an adult. He adored games as he spent most of his time playing them in his basement bedroom.

Sadly, when she introduced herself she had not taken his mortality into account. After telling him that he could do anything he wanted with her body, he had seemed interested in taking her up on the offer. Sadly, the moment he put his hands to her rockin’ god-tier breasts, he had a heart attack and died. Sure, he was resurrected, and the timeline was repaired. She even had a short-lived musical career when she shared her pain by writing and performing her hit song, “The Ballad of Fat Scott.”

Yet, her emotional pain. The pain of killing a Scott. It was not considered to be enough of a punishment. She had faced a brief trial and been banned from going to that world again, further she had to perform a few decades of community service.

Thoughts of how she had committed Scottricide caused a wave of sadness to overcome her for a moment. In order to get her mind off of his stricken expression and the white foam that had spewed from his lips, she tried to consider the problems of the current administration. Honestly, there were a lot of things that could have made this a much better project for natives and alpha testers alike.

If they insisted on secrecy, it would make more sense to allow the alpha testers to choose people they trust so that they could inform them more properly. If nothing else, a fledgling champion system could be devised so that chosen Earth natives could be built up more quickly. There was a limited version of that for some of the administration members, but that was merely the creation of a champion. They could not share much system knowledge, even with their chosen.

Shara looked at Sonja then looked away. There was so much to tell. No matter how much she wanted to tell her, or anyone really, she physically could not. She could not speak it, write it, or lead them to it in any way. If she tried to tell them directly, her vocal chords would lock up and she would be unable to speak. If she tried to write it, her hands and arms would go numb. When she was a child, she had tried to tell Scott many times and after a few attempts she had been stricken with illness and numbness that left her weak for days.

The project committee leaders had a reason for limiting the information dissemination, or so they claimed. They wanted to prevent mass hysteria, more than there already was of it in the world, until the people of the world could actually do something about it. Until Status One had hit, their skills and combat potential was highly limited in this world with only a few exceptions. Now, though, she suspected that the reason they were not disseminating information was due to the project leader. Sax had something going on, and he seemed to relish the pain it caused the people of this world.

Powerless people who were told that hungry beasts would soon roam the land, many of which would be invulnerable to standard weapons; could do nothing but despair. They would live their lives in constant terror knowing that they had no hope. That was what the project committee claimed to believe.

Shara disagreed with that assessment entirely. Even if the common citizens of the world could do nothing, wouldn’t they have benefited from full disclosure. The last report that she read had informed her that roughly forty-three percent of the population had not even fought a single monster, even in the dream. Less than twenty-six percent of the people on the planet had even increased a single combat skill to level ten. It was going to be a bloodbath once the current patch ran its course and the monsters could attack freely day or night. As things stood, the effect was weakening. The monsters were starting to attack houses at night, and she could not do a damned thing about it but try to help through use of her avatar. Otherwise, all she could do was to help them pick up the pieces and to leave a few breadcrumbs for Scott and the others to follow toward better survival options.

She could not tell him anything directly, but she could hint at things since he officially belonged to her goddess avatar’s spectrum. He was a creature of darkness. She was the patron goddess of darkness in her other avatar form. That gave her a little leeway, but not nearly enough. All she could really do originally was whisper to him in the night while he slept. She had hoped that he might take her suggestions to heart.

Become stronger. Strength is what is important. She had her goddess avatar say such things to him repeatedly as he slept, while he trained in the dream world. It was not mind control, but it was reinforcement of something he already wanted and would hopefully help him to continue to be motivated.

“See how this brown stuff starts to rise to the surface as the meat boils?” asked Sonja.

Shara blinked then returned to the present. She set aside thoughts of the recent past and turned to check out the pot of stew that Sonja had prepared. “Yes, I see it.”

“You can either scoop it out, or let it stay. Either way works. Personally, I like to scoop it out because I feel like that makes the food cleaner, but that’s just my personality,” said Sonja.

Shara asked. “Does it cause it to taste different?”

“It’s not really going to affect the taste of stew either way. Though, if you’re making stock it will be cloudy if the scum remains. Either way, it’s just a personal choice, usually.” said Sonja.

Shara started to ask another question but the front door-knob rattled. “Ha, Ashton’s home.”

Sonja smiled then pointed at her with her soup spoon. “Well, go get her so she can get ready for dinner.”

“Yes, mom,” said Shara cutely.

The girls shared a brief laugh as Shara walked to the door. She turned the knob to unlock it since Ashton had apparently forgotten her key earlier. They were eating at Scott’s house that night.

Shara pulled open the door and called out, “Welcome home! We’ve been expec-”

She blinked then hopped back as Ashton leapt toward her. “Ashton?”

In her hand, Ashton clutched her phone like it was life itself. “Turn on the TV! The news!”

Shara blinked again, then rushed over to the remote. Sonja walked into the living room, soup spoon in hand, and asked what was happening.

In command of the remote, Shara quickly found a news broadcast that was a repeat of something they had reported earlier.

All eyes in the room were on the screen as the intrepid reporter pointed to a ground of people in makeshift armor. Muddy, bloodied, but in good cheer these people were spoken of as a local hunter’s group. Their target? Yes, it was the black dragon spotted in the forest.

“He…” said Sonja. “They’re talking about hunting Scott. Aren’t they?”

They looked to each other then back to the television screen. Apparently, people had been reporting sightings of Scott for a week, but it was finally news-worthy enough to make the nightly news. Finally, they had a clue where he had gone off to and it was not that far away.