Logging in…

The next thing I knew, I was falling.

The star-filled sky above me was entirely too close. As I watched my viewpoint slowly rotated to one side, and I could see what appeared to be the curvature of an entire planet stretching out below. It was a staggeringly beautiful sight, and I let it wash over me, savoring the moment.

I barely had time to take all this in before a voice spoke to me. “Welcome traveler,” a smooth female voice said, clearly audible even over the mounting rush of wind. “I have called you here from beyond the stars. Not for any great purpose or dire threat, but because I felt your souls cry out for that which they have long been denied.”

I tried to look around, but found that my view was limited, and I appeared not to have a body at all. This sort of cutscene wasn’t unusual at the start of a game, so I settled in to hear the game’s lore.

“Your people yearn for escape from a world of predictable mediocrity, a world where all the heroes died long ago, and the advances of society have purchased comfort at the cost of wonder… your desperate longing broke my heart.”

My perspective entered a cloud as it fell, and for a few moments time seemed to stop as white fog in every direction gave me the illusion of stillness. Then I broke through the cloud and realized that my slow rotation had now pointed my vision towards the ground.

Below me, a fantastical terrain spread out to the horizon. A large river flowed from distant mountains, picking up speed and strength as it flowed. It provided a natural barrier for a large forest to cleave to until both abruptly ended as the land itself fell away sharply like some giant had smashed the land flat with a great fist.

The river crashed down in a massive waterfall, dropping down into the plains below. These teamed with life, visible from this height by virtue of shear numbers. From this height it looked to me like someone had built a vast maze across the plain, and within that maze were what looked like towns built up in larger areas where many paths met.

The maze itself was built of anything and everything, rock and wood met dirt and grass in a chaotic jumble that resolved beneath me as I fell. I had only a moment to register the presence of broken bones and shattered armor packed into the twisting edifice as my view continued its slow rotation towards the sky.

“My name is Valera, and I am the goddess of Journeys, Trials, and Change. I’ve brought you here to give you the chance to start a new life, where anything is possible. This world before you is called Astra. It is a new world, as these things are judged, and few places are far from the frontier. For many, civilization is yet a goal to be strived for, not a yoke to be born.”

My view cut across the great waterfall and to my surprise I saw that it too was populated. A town had been constructed at the base of the falls, and a hodgepodge collection of ropes and lifts ran along the cliff face, providing transport to a strange port built into the top of the falls. Then I found myself looking up at the clouds I’d just passed through, now far above me.

“I have bound your soul to this gem. It marks you, and others like you, but will aid you and help you make your way in this world. Use it to create a body of your liking and take your first steps along the road to your new destination. Forge your own path if you dare. Walk the longest road you can bare to tread, for only when you finish is the story truly done.”

Suddenly, there was a thunderous boom and my vison was briefly obscured by flying debris before just as suddenly going dark.

Now Entering: The Antechamber of Eternity

I found myself standing in a small room. Directly in front of me, a large set of double doors stood closed, but I could hear talking and music emanating from somewhere behind it. Beside the door, an older man in fine clothing stood behind a podium. He looked at me with a polite patient smile on his face.

I blinked a few times, looking around as I did and addressing the old man. “Uh, hi there!”

“Welcome, to the Hall of the Pantheon,” he said. “I have here that your name is Malaya Candice Matthews, is that correct?” In his hand he had a quill pen, held raised up over a sheet of what looked like parchment.

Ah, account signup. Of course. “Yep, that’s me, picked it myself!” I told him. It hadn’t been the one I was born with, but I’d never liked that one. I’d gotten it legally changed recently, but I’d had it registered to my nVR headset along with my default profile options for even longer just to make sure I liked how it fit me.

I was currently wearing my custom avatar, so it looked like this game had full integration with my headset. That was good. Some games didn’t bother and would just load you in as a default placeholder until you picked something different, but I always found that annoying. It also usually meant corners had been cut on the budget.

“Excellent, I am called System,” he said, writing for a moment and then holding out the piece of parchment for me to take.

I took it and had a look. It was a string of random numbers and letters, all capitalized. It sort of reminded me of the archaic language of the early internet. I frowned, then looked up at the old man. “What’s this?”

“While your chosen name is quite lovely, I’m afraid it’s not unique. This is your true name, that which is writ upon your soul. It is an identifier that can be used to uniquely represent you in all manner of situations, but unless you tell others it will only be known to you and the gods.”

I raised an eyebrow, dubious. “Am I supposed to memorize this?”

I’d seen account names before, but this was a bit odd. Normally it was some word followed by a few random numbers, or sometimes you had to play whack-a-mole trying to get one you wanted. This was–I counted–thirteen random letters and numbers. Some of it sort of looked like words, but I wasn’t sure if that was a coincidence.

“No need to memorize it, it will be on your character sheet when you enter the world. You’ll very rarely need it anyway. Now, if you’ll please follow me, I’ll announce you to the Pantheon.”

System motioned for me to follow as he turned towards the large double doors. Placing a hand on both doors, he easily swung them open, flooding the small room with light and momentarily blinding me as my eyes adjusted.

The doors opened into what appeared to be an amphitheater, except this was unlike any I had ever heard of. System and I walked out onto a stage that was dwarfed by the stair-like seating typical of such structures, except these seats seemed to go on forever, extending upwards as far as the eye could see. The entire arrangement was lit as if by sunlight, from some source behind where we had entered.

Standing center stage was a woman. She was dressed in simple, well-worn, but sturdy-looking clothes that looked both comfortable and practical. She was sporting the sort of backpack you might use for a hiking trip that might involve some mountain climbing.

As we approached, she nodded to us, but didn’t speak. Instead, she stepped aside and allowed System to take center stage. He returned her nod, then cleared his throat and waited for the crowd’s attention to fall on him.

System’s voice suddenly filled the hall, spreading across the vast space without any need for him to shout. “Members of the assembly, great spirits and ancient gods, allow me to present this human of Earth, a traveler come to join us in this new world. I give you… 1JAZ0RENGOUP6!”

As he said the string of characters written on the paper in my hands, I shuddered. If I’d tried to say that I would have broken It up into something like “One Jazoren Go Up Six.” Instead, he’d said it like it was a single word, pronouncing the numbers as though they were letters. It was like listening to someone’s voice played backwards. I didn’t think I’d be capable of saying it like that if I wanted to.

It was the sort of thing only a machine could do, but of course it wasn’t an issue for an AI. Weird that he didn’t just use the name I’d given him though. Actually, that was rather rude of him now that I thought about it. Who was he to just give me a different name anyway?

“My name is Malaya!” I said, trying to project as best I could to the vast stands.

Beside us, the lady in hiking boots chuckled. System glanced at me, then grinned ruefully. “Ah, apologies,” he turned back to address the crowd. “However, she wishes it to be known that she chooses to be called Malaya!”

I nodded, content. I’d put a lot of thought into that name, I wanted people to use it. That said, the other one wasn’t bad for an account name. Maybe I’d name my character Jaz or Jazren or something like that. It wasn’t like I was going to go by my real name in game after all.

***

Savas flipped a coin.

Tails again. The same as the last fifty times. He’d been doing this ever since Tavi left, as he watched Arven pace back and forth in front of the open doors to the cathedral.

He was trying to calculate the odds on if he could push the man out the door and into the sky. Not that he intended to do it, but he was curious just how likely his odds of success would be. His new gambler class had unlocked a skill called “Tell Me the Odds” that let him tie the probability of a thing happening to the flip of a coin. The more flips, the more accurate the assessment.

No one really paid attention to him as he did this. He was used to that, though it had gotten a bit more pronounced recently. His passive skill, The Man Who Wasn’t There tended to make people ignore him, or even forget that he’d been present. It was a handy skill to have in his line of work, but it did get annoying sometimes. He’d had to rank it up as a safety measure after he’d nearly died crossing the river, and now it took more effort to suppress.

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Then, to his surprise, Arven looked directly at him.

“Worried that she won’t come back again?” he asked with a slight smile.

“Oh! Uh, not really. Just practicing,” he lied.

He certainly had been worried that she’d leave them to die last time. He would have, in her position. At her size she’d had enough supplies on her to easily outlast the dungeon reset. At first, he’d thought she came back for the shield, or possibly just Lucus, but then she’d gone and resurrected Dorian and even given him one of The Adversary’s scarab tokens.

He’d had to pretend not to know what it was… how valuable it was. And she seemed to have several of them. He’d thought about killing her in her sleep that night and trying to hide from the others until the reset. They obviously didn’t understand how much wealth that goblin was carrying around, but he did.

What had stayed his hand that time was hard to say. Partially it had been their conversation about patronage. Partially it had been the fact that she’d performed a miracle right in front of him. Partially it was seeing Dorian go from dead to the founder of a new class in minutes. However, there were also a hundred other little things.

Plus, she scared him.

Arven had gone back to looking out the door. “Five more minutes, then we go after her. Start getting ready. We’re going to have to fly upwards, that will be hard.”

Everyone nodded grimly, Savas included. Then he flipped a coin, thinking about trying to knock Arven out of the sky as they flew. Tails again, no surprise. The man had been hard to kill before, and now he was capable of fighting a raid boss head-to-head. No, if Savas was going to try and collect on the Duke’s bounty, the chance had passed. He’d been hoping to unlock gambler before trying, but he’d been too slow… maybe it wouldn’t have mattered.

Not that he needed the bounty now. They were all going to be filthy rich getting out of here. He was almost absurdly glad that he’d decided to wait on the class before trying anything, because somehow that had lucked him into a windfall the likes of which he’d never imagined. He wasn’t just going to be able to pay off his debt to the guild, he’d be able to start a whole new life. Emme was going to be ecstatic.

Savas flipped his coin again, and it came up heads this time. He smiled. He’d known the odds on that one anyway. His wife had been begging him to find a way out from under the guild’s thumb for years, but he’d never been able to see a way to do it. All the chances he’d taken had fallen through, and then when he’d ended up here and been told his pockets would be lined with gold should a certain prisoner vanish into the dungeon one day… well, that had been too good to pass up, or so he thought.

He'd actually made one attempt on Arven’s life early on, before he realized how scary the man was. It was a simple enough matter to miss slightly when firing into melee. Accidents happened all the time. What had dissuaded him was how the man had reacted. He hadn’t even noticed.

Arven had deflected the shot with one of his swords so smoothly that it had hit its original target. He’d kept on fighting without pausing a beat, and never mentioned it to Savas. The rogue was still unsure if he’d been expecting it or if it had been an accident, or if the man was just that good. Either way, he’d decided to work on unlocking gambler before trying again. Fortunately, being in Arven’s party was good for that, especially once Tavi had arrived.

Gambler required you to take major risks to unlock it, and those risks had to result in big rewards. He’d finally unlocked the class when they’d defeated the undead duke, but he hadn’t told anyone just then. Instead, he’d quietly bought some of the skills and then started subtlety checking probabilities when nobody was looking.

Practically the first thing he’d checked was the probability that he’d be able to get Tavi’s stash of scarabs if he killed her. The results had been unnerving. He hadn’t actually been planning to go through with it either way–he was just curious–but he hadn’t been able to get a straight answer. Every time he flipped the coin while thinking of Tavi, the same thing happened.

He did it now, picturing something that he knew the answer to already. What were the odds Tavi would take a breath in the next hour? The coin went up, it rotated at its peak for a moment, then it came down. Savas caught it… or he tried to. Somehow it slipped between his fingers and fell to the floor, rolling down the slope of the roof they stood on until it came to a rest still on its side, up against the lip of the skylight they’d flown in through earlier.

Every time.

Every time he flipped the coin while thinking about Tavi, this was what happened. He’d fumble catching it, and it would land on its side. It didn’t seem to matter what the query was. He assumed she must have some sort of protection against divinatory effects, but it was strange that it didn’t seem to work against his basic examinations nor his Read Mark skill.

Lucus suddenly stood up, catching everyone’s attention. The boy had been sitting there with a faraway look on his face, but now he was just concerned. “Her party status just grayed out. What does that mean?”

Arven grunted. “It means time to go. Dorian?”

The bard stood and began to sing, causing wings to grow from each of their backs. They’d all put their packs on backwards to accommodate this, so within moments they were ready to launch themselves into the air again. Belatedly Savas considered that he should have checked their survival probability for this flight… but it was too late now.

Grayed out status in the party interface only really meant one thing. Tavi had left the dungeon. Had she decided to run off with all the loot after all? He’d decided the odds of that were pretty low, no matter what the coin said. She could have abandoned them at practically any time and none of them would be able to stop her, but she hadn’t.

He knew she wasn’t a member of the guild, but she was a goblin. There was almost nobody you could count on to not betray you more than a goblin. The little bastards were insane, but if they thought of you as a member of their clan or pack, they’d literally die for you without blinking an eye. They were notorious for it.

He’d been leery of her despite that, because sometimes she didn’t act like a goblin should. She seemed to know things she shouldn’t, and not know things she should. Memory loss and head trauma could explain that, but she was also swimming in The Adversary’s divine currency, and occasionally he caught a glimpse of her face with a dead expression on it instead of her usual manic grin.

When they’d entered the core chamber Savas had thought he’d finally figured it out. Up until the moment they started fighting, Savas had been convinced that Tavi and Lucus must have been working for The Adversary all along. They had come to help Dawn and these others do whatever it was The Adversary was planning. It explained so much.

He’d been ready to admit defeat right then and join them, but then they’d gone and started fighting. They’d stopped the fucking ordeal. He was a gods damned Hero now. None of it made any sense!

No… something else must be going on. She wouldn’t have abandoned them at this point. She was either in trouble, or something unexpected had happened.

Arven had the right of it. It was best to just go with the flow. They were all caught up in the machinations of the gods, and until he could get far away from here–and far away from Tavi – there was no point in questioning what was going on.

Savas followed the others out the doors of the cathedral, letting his wings catch him once again as they flew through the empty sky for the final time.

***

The gnome appearing in their midst caused no small degree of panic.

Corona, Wernst, and Bravic were on guard outside the dungeon entrance. Periodically one of Wizard Toury’s apprentices would show up and scry behind the stone seal, but very little had changed. The undead were remarkably stubborn in their attempts to claw their way through the solid stone, but it availed them little.

They were sitting around a small table playing poker when it happened. It had taken quite a bit of effort to get this game going. Corona had needed to create the cards they were playing with, first sending a runner to fetch parchment which she’d marked and cut with a combination of a quill and her Pierce the Night skill. It turned out having a cutting laser attached to your fingertip could be pretty handy.

Bravic had been the other issue. The man hadn’t wanted to play, saying he was on duty. She’d had to threaten to take a nap if they didn’t do something to keep themselves occupied. Watching the dungeon entrance while Tristan was away was very important, but she didn’t have the attention span to sit around doing nothing while they waited.

The infuriating man had then gone on to win nearly every game they played, all while keeping most of his attention on the stone seal. They didn’t even have playing cards or poker in this world, she’d had to teach both of them. It was galling.

“I have an ace,” Wernst said, smugly. He leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head.

Corona was getting a lot of practice with her poker face as she tried not to react to this. “Just an ace? One ace?”

“Yep. You said that’s the highest card, right? Doesn’t that mean I win?”

Corona’s hand was already on the table. She was showing three of a kind, jacks. She sighed and looked at Bravic. “What about you?”

Bravic absent mindedly flipped his hand over. “Full House.”

Maybe this hadn’t been such a good idea. Why had she thought playing poker with Bravic of all people was a good idea? The man had been maintaining a poker face for days. Maybe his entire life.

She was looking at Bravic’s expressionless face when the gnome appeared, which was the only reason she saw it. In the moment before chaos broke out, the smallest flicker of excitement flashed across his face. Then the table fell over as the gnome lost her balance and toppled to the ground, rolling across the floor in a spray of floppy parchment cards and copper pieces.

The crash of the table and the cacophony of falling coins brought other guards clambering into the room. Wernst reeled backwards in his chair, spinning his arms in a vain attempt to keep his balance before finally submitting to his fate and toppling to the ground.

As he fell, his feet caught on the fallen table and sent it flying through the air, barely missing Corona as it tumbled past. She watched in morbid fascination as it flew in a lazy arc towards one of the apprentice wizards. The young man had been attempting to cast some sort of spell, but he panicked at the sight of the table flying at him and tried to redirect his magic at it.

He missed.

The table smashed into his face, knocking him over. His spell turned out to be one that conjured a net and propelled it through the air, right at Corona.

For her part, Corona remained calm. She took aim at the net coming at her and with the strength of the attributes Tristan had imbued her with, she cut the net in half in mid-air with her Pierce the Night skill. Or at least she tried to.

She had time to register that the ropes had barely been scorched by her attack before it was on top of her. Then a sword flicked out directly in front of her face, and the net wrapped around it, stopping just short of her as Bravic stepped into the swing, pushing it away from her.

Then the man was moving, his entangled sword abandoned as quickly as it had been drawn. He stalked past the fallen Wernst, drawing his partner’s sword from the sheath at his hip as he passed by. Before anyone could so much as blink Bravic had crossed the distance to the fallen gnome, pressing the tip of his borrowed blade against her throat as she lay on the ground in the middle of the room.

Everyone stopped.

The wizard’s apprentice groaned and sat back up. His nose was bloodied but he otherwise looked fine.

The gnome started laughing. She made no move to rise.

Corona sighed and helped Wernst to his feet. The other guards milled about, looking for something to fight. Confused murmurs spread through the ever-growing crowd.

She walked over and looked down at the gnome, who was still laughing, a slightly crazed expression on her face. “I’m Corona, Adjunct to Arbiter Tristan. Who the fuck are you?”

♾️