Liam stopped and looked around, trying to make sense of where he was. Had he lost his train of thought while moving around? The jungle felt strangely hostile in a way that should’ve raised alarms earlier, the trees had darker bark, there was a lingering scent of smoke and blood in the air, and a rumbling overhead.
Every instinct told him to head back to camp, but for the life of him, he couldn’t figure out what direction would lead him to safety. The threat lingered in the air like a sword, something was terribly wrong.
A shrill scream pierced the silence.
It was a very person-like sound.
Liam froze for a heartbeat, momentarily debating internally the chances that this was a monster or predator mimicking a cry for help. When the second scream rang out, he flinched and began to carefully make his way toward the source. A hand on his hip confirmed…
The circlet wasn’t there, nor was the knife.
That couldn’t be right.
“Is this a dr-”
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The second scream rang out, Liam flinched, quickly confirming he had the rope-circlet and knife, and moved carefully. The closer he got, the more clearly he could make out the sounds of someone running, and something else chasing them. Something big enough that Liam was starting to reconsider his earlier decision.
The thick jungle was thinning the further he moved, the ground under his feet becoming more solid and firm, until he could feel stone under his boots. The trees had become just sparse enough that, though they still blotted out the sun overhead, Liam could see further than before. And further ahead there was a half-crumbled structure covered in thick moss, vines, and other vegetation.
Not wanting to expose himself, Liam carefully looked around for the source of the earlier screams. More importantly, he was trying to locate the source of the large thing that had been making the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.
Another scream came from inside the structure. The roar that followed sent birds flying out from the shrubbery, every animal in the area trying to leave.
Liam knew enough about his own chances of survival that he wasn’t about to find out what could make a whole jungle run for its life like that. Giving a silent prayer to whatever unfortunate soul had stumbled into what was undoubtedly about to be a gruesome end, he turned right around and-
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Another scream rang out as the walls of the ancient structure shuddered around him. Liam peered into the darkness further ahead, the moss-covered tunnels becoming pitch black, impossible to peer through. The fickle light of his torch was barely enough to illuminate his next step, everything further in swallowing up the light.
The moss was slowly replaced by cracked stone and dirt, the walls broadening as he moved closer to the source of the sound. He needed to help Umira; he’d seen her running into the structure to get to safety. The ruins were too old to tell their original purpose, clearly the area they’d once covered had been far greater, loose strands of gold on the walls hinting at a long-lost magnificence.
Perhaps this had even been a temple, once.
“Wait, temple?”
Liam blinked at that thought, pausing to look more closely at the walls. The drawings were faded, but he could roughly make out carvings of turbulent golden swirls. Water had eroded away at the shapes, smoothing a lot of it out until it was barely recognizable.
Twilight Jungle.
Swirls.
An unnatural darkness that swallowed the light of his torch.
“Shit!” His brows rose, eyes widening in panic. “This is a sanct-”
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Gasping for breath, Liam rounded the corner. A wave of dizziness hit him like a wagon; his footing nearly gave out until he found purchase against the cold stone wall. His head spun for a moment, trying to regain his balance as much as he fought to regain his bearings. He was inside some ruins. Umira had shown up looking for him in the jungle, then the monster chased them into here. And the monster had given them chase, swallowing the light, causing them to split.
Now the creature was hunting Umira, and Liam’s torch struggled to keep him from going completely blind in this hole of a place.
Liam tried to remember the nature of the monster but kept drawing blanks; it was just a monster, one that controlled darkness in some manner. He needed to figure out a way to get them out of there, save Umira.
Save Umira.
The draxani was important for something. Liam had to make sure they made it out safe, no matter what; it was more important than even their friendship.
Friendship? The term wasn’t entirely wrong, but... “Something’s not-”
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Sweaty, shaking, clammy, Liam entered the large chamber, one hand holding a satchel, the other a torch. There was movement inside, a great large something hammering away at a wall where there was a tiny gap, the only other source of light beside Liam’s torch coming from that crack in the wall.
“Liam!” Umira screamed the moment he’d come into view. “The aether!”
The satchel slung over his shoulder weighed him down, loaded with aether? He needed to get it to Umira; with this much aether, she’d be able to blast the monster and half of this place to smithereens. It was the only way out.
The only way out.
The monster was affecting his mind; the longer he stalled, the likelier it’d be that it would turn its focus to him. Liam bolted towards the crack as fast as his wobbly legs would let him, single-mindedly pushing himself to reach that flicker of light ahead.
The room shuddered when a swirling mass of gold and blackness smashed against the wall, a monster larger than a house, yet one whose presence in the physical realm was questionable at best. As Liam prayed the monster wouldn’t notice him, he sensed the ceiling crack, a large piece of debris nearly crushing him if not because he’d jumped out of the way. It still scraped his shoulder, knocking him down to the floor.
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His groan of pain drew the creature’s focus towards him. From within the mass of swirls appeared two fiery eyes, locking on him with unrelenting ferocity, the weight of eternity hidden behind the light.
“Quickly! Liam, we need to kill it!” Umira shouted from the crack in the wall, the room trembling as more debris began to fall all around them. “Just throw the satchel!”
Yet he couldn’t look away from the creature.
“This isn’t real,” he declared. “Even if it were, I’m not hurting Maridah.”
As soon as he spoke the name, a wave of agony swept over him.
He clutched at his head, feeling a searing headache that was trying to pierce through his skull. A thousand hooks digging into him and trying to pull something out of his brain. He was unraveling one strip at a time, simmering thoughts breaking apart. A cold unfeeling touch within his mind was picking him apart, pulling out the individual pieces, its purpose to isolate what had gone wrong and use the insight for the next-
With a gasp, he choked on cold water.
The world lurched, the darkness gone, replaced by the familiarity of the campfire.
Head whipping around, Liam was immediately shoved back to the ground as something furred and equally drenched thrust itself against his chest.
“I’m sorry,” Maridah’s voice called out between gasps. “The spell didn’t-” Her voice wavered, cracking with the barest hint of emotion. "You kept breaking its parameters, it pushed harder to compensate. I should've-"
Lying on the ground, trying to put everything together, his hands pressed against the fur of the… feline? Yeah, she was still in the cougar form he’d remembered before going to sleep. She'd put him into a test of some sort, judging by her words, she'd used a spell to do so, one that couldn't properly handle the victim figuring out something was out of place to begin with. The spell had torn his mind and manipulated his memories and thoughts for the sake of fulfilling its parameters. Closing his eyes, he fought off the wave of nausea that had washed over him, like a gut-punch that had nearly threatened to make him bow over.
This was exactly the sort of situation he'd been terrified to face. An over-zealous or determined deity could've taken things further, pushed his mind past the breaking point.
The tempest of emotions pushed a singular course of action into focus.
“I… am not from this world.”
He spoke the words, and it was like a spring breeze that was followed by a weight settling onto his shoulders. The return of his memories felt less like a flood and more like as if a veil had been lifted, revealing a part of himself he’d been skirting around for weeks.
It had also caused Maridah to tense.
Gritting his teeth, Liam put his thoughts in order and pushed forward.
“My first real relationship was with a girl named Matilda, way back when I was too young to realize how big of an asshole I was.” There was a half-rueful chuckle there. “We met during some writing workshop, I can’t even remember the details, just that I’d talked about the world I’d been writing about, Crystal Skylights. She showed interest, and we sort of hit it off. It was around that time when I wrote about the Goddess Maridah, holder and discoverer of secrets.” Liam’s jaw set, eyes closing. “And when my own insecurity got the better of me and things… failed, I took my anger out the only way I knew how: on Maridah.”
“I don’t know where you-”
“The Maridah I wrote was born in a well, a shy little spirit formed out of the strands of divinity from one of the slain Gods. This Maridah was born up trapped, unable to escape from the well for it was enchanted, and the magic suckled on ambient mana, making the stone dangerous for her to touch. This spirit grew up with only the children of the village for company, children that shared their secrets with the voice in the well. She didn’t know anything else, so she was happy. That is, until one of the children spoke a terrible secret, one the Maridah in the well couldn’t let slide.” The creature upon his chest stirred, but he pressed on. “The reason why this Maridah was written that way was because Matilda had a verbally abusive parent, and the stories of Maridah slaughtering the adults of the village had brought that know-it-all bookworm a cute vindictive smile.”
“Wha-”
“The Maridah I envisioned loved sunshine because Matilda loved the beach.” The words were spilling out now, unable to stop. “Maridah loved apples because Matilda liked to argue too much about the theology about Adam and Eve and the apple of knowledge.” His eyes shut tightly. “Maridah created cults of secret-seekers because Matilda wanted to become a reporter. It was why so many loathed Maridah when their conspiracies were brought to light.”
“Liam!”
“And when everything went to shit, I was so full of anger I went out of my way to ruin it the only way I knew how. I wrote Maridah to outlast the friends and siblings she’d formed. I wrote her to survive two Ages cowering in a jungle slowly going insane, creating clones just to cope with the overbearing solitude until eventually she-”
“LIAM!” The cougar pressed down on his chest with enough force to drive the breath out of his lungs, the Goddess was shaking slightly, yet her eyes remained firm. “I’ve heard enough.”
His breath came out in a shudder. “If I’d known-”
“I don’t like apples.”
The words took a moment to sink in. His eyes widened slightly. “What?”
“I said that I don’t like apples,” she reiterated. “Though granted, the knowledge you hold is not entirely incorrect, which makes this situation an extremely odd one, to say the least.” The feline let out a huff, shaking her head. “This explains... a great deal of things, actually.”
“I’m… sor-”
She placed a paw on his mouth.
“Just so we are clear, you did not make me, nor did you make my choices for me,” she glared. “Even if you somehow had, it appears to me you had no intention for it to be real, and that matters.”
He hesitated. “It does?”
“It does, yes. I am a Goddess; I have some experience in these kinds of things. Half the animals in this jungle were by my design, after all,” she fixed him with a glare. “And as I said earlier, I do not like apples. It has never been the case. It shouldn’t be possible for a creator that could make deities to make such a glaring oversight.”
With a shuddering nod, Liam felt himself relax a little. “This is a weight off my shoulders, though I guess it won’t make this next part any less awkward.” Carefully, slowly, he pushed Maridah off of him. “I’ve overstayed my welcome, and it’s time for me to leave.”
The cougar did a double-take. “What? No, you’re not ready.”
“Unless you plan on restraining me and further breaking hospitality, then it’s my call to make,” he answered, dusting off as he stood up.
"Further?... I didn’t attack—the spell… it didn’t act as it should have!" She stumbled over her own words, taking half a step towards him but freezing in place when he shot her a glare.
"Even if it had worked perfectly, you invaded my dreams, my privacy, when I trusted you." He gave her a half-apologetic smile, if just to keep from needless escalation. "This was a wakeup call."
"You’re not ready," Maridah declared harshly, her form growing abruptly, the feline suddenly occupying the whole clearing. "The monsters outside my domain will rip you to shreds in a heartbeat." She bared her fangs, each one larger than he was tall, snarling at him with an earth-shaking growl.
"If they do, then I guess that’ll be that," Liam shook his head as he began to pick and gather what he could for the road. "I allowed things to slip because it was comfortable to do so. It was more comfortable to keep my memories tucked away." Turning to face her, Liam reached up to press his hand against her snout. "I’m really thankful for all you’ve done for me. I don’t begrudge your actions, but I need some time to process things. And I think that you do too."
The anger faltered, and she deflated (metaphorically speaking, she still retained her massive size). Maridah let out an indignant huff. "In this I will agree with you. Very well, let it not be said I was an ungracious host."
With a blink of her massive fiery eyes, a black leather backpack appeared at his feet, loaded with the things Liam had been gathering up, and a handful of small simple tools he'd probably need, like a waterskin.
"This is goodbye but not a farewell," she added with a warning in her voice.
"Wouldn't dream of it." Liam's smile was brittle.
She’d been right that she was not the Maridah he’d written, he’d created her when he’d been barely a teenager. At that time it had been impossible to imagine she would’ve taken the actions she had today. The act itself alongside the new uncertainty had shaken his trust not just in the Goddess but also in himself. His approach had relied too strongly on the knowledge from before coming to this world, if he wasn’t careful, it could become a crutch.
Considering the sort of opponent he might end up having to go up against, the next time he slipped or something didn't align as he imagined it should have... it just might also end up being the last mistake he ever made.