Another hour, another intrusive thought detailing exactly how Alice could torture the idiots in front of her in excruciating detail. She would never act on those thoughts though; not yet at least.
Just because she was an orphan, they all seemed to think she was some quack who couldn’t possibly know what their future held. Not that she could say for a fact she did. Her clients really seemed to lose trust in her when she tried telling them about nonsense like their own free will, or Rey forbid: actions having consequences that changed her predictions!
The worst part was that all of this slander was being used as proof that she didn’t know what she was doing. At the absolute worst time for this to be happening!
Today was the Caldreath’s last day on this planet. Why? Who knew. Except Alice of course, not that anyone believed her.
But she’d made peace with her coming death. Not like a borderline homeless orphaned child could leave anyway. Not to understate how hard she’d tried to avoid disaster while she was in the city. She had saved the last few months of income so she’d have an escape fund, only for the orphanage to burn! When she tried begging merchants and adventurers they kept asking to “talk to her parents”.
The orphanage was especially set on keeping her in their sight. Better dead than on the streets right?
Even when she checked fate vision to see if there was even the faintest chance of Alice leaving, it seemed she was fated to be in the city when whatever disaster struck.
But enough of the doom and gloom.
There was probably a way out. Maybe she was just going about it the wrong way.
Alice opened up her status to see if there was something she was missing.
Name:
Alice Crystal
Level:
10
Race:
Human(age:10)
Class:
Rey’s Fortune(Rare)
Vitality:
23
Endurance:
22
Speed:
48
Strength:
25
Wisdom:
93
Passive Skills:
[Navigation:Lvl 2], [Survival Skills (Forest): Lvl 4, [General Magic Proficiency: Lvl 3], [Advanced Mathematics: lvl 1]
Active Skills:
[Basic Identification: Lvl 2], [Future Sight: Lvl 4], [Truth telling: lvl 2]
Divine Skills:
[Protection of Fate], [Fate Vision (Minor)], [Deus Ex Machina], [Flames of Vengeance], [Blessing of The System]
Achievements:
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
[Mixed opinions], [Defiler]
Looking at her skills really hammered home the point, the best she could do was pray. Something that she was probably already doing.
Then the city bells rang longer and harder than they were ever supposed to. Alerting everyone to the current state of emergency. Like most people, Alice started running. Frantically at first before she realised there was protocol for this kinda stuff.
Alice’s chosen “area of safety” was the temple of fate and light, where she discovered a lot of her doubt-filled clients there. Most were either extremely frightened or angry at the priests, but a few were sat there in a numb acceptance. Probably because they disregarded perfectly good warnings. Well, that’s what Alice hoped for anyway.
“Oh Alice! Great. Please could you go lead any injured people to the council booths. Thank you!”
Before she could even see who was speaking to her the rushed priest walked at a speed barely visible to her. Thankfully her speed was high enough that she could hear the words, if not see the person who said them.
Alice immediately began ushering the injured to the place they were meant to go, while using her [Truth telling] to find any injuries. It might seem like the skill should have been useless, but a skill that lets you know if what you’re hearing is true, has almost unlimited potential. Whispering accusations of I’ll health at people while dashing around allowed her to quickly herd the people sitting by the entrance, so the next thing was to herd the crowd streaming through the entrance.
Before she could get there though, a loud crash and clang rang out as the city walls fell.
That only served to increase the flow rate of people and made it nearly impossible to enter anywhere within 10 metres of the doors.
The amount of people getting trampled in the chaos really made Alice’s job a lot harder, especially given that her wards were almost definitely dead or disabled now. Fortunately, the stampede ended quickly… but was replaced by the sight of giant ants tearing apart the stragglers. In a variety of colours ranging through the entire rainbow, they swarmed the fields of mangled victims and took them back to whatever hell hole they spawned from.
Then the dragon showed up. Suddenly the ants stopped swarming with direction, and scattered into a chitin soup. Alice turned around to continue her work but she could clearly hear the destruction of everything that wasn’t divinely protected. Thankfully, whenever a gout of flame or an alarmingly giant claw got close to the temple, it splashed harmlessly away.
Once everything that could be done had been done, everyone took it upon themselves to pray. Whether or not it helped it gave them hope that they could do something other than wait for death.
It took five days.
The dragon left after the first, replaced by more ants and a seemingly never ending supply of wolves. (Presumably)Sentient shadows fought bears made of pure flame and all the while trees marched alongside them before planting their roots in the ground, wreckage be damned.
Obviously no one in their right mind would go out there for even the faintest hope of a meal, meaning from the second day on they survived off water and prayer.
After it was over, Alice vowed she would become powerful enough to kill all the monsters of the demonic forest. And that is how “The destined flame” was born.
“Huh. That was an odd one wasn’t it?”
“What do you mean by was Jedro?! That’s happening right now!”
“You definitely seem confused…. There is no ‘time’ for us here. But for ‘them’ this is —“
“Simultaneously the past, present and future. Yeah I know. It’s just always good to hide what you know.”
“Ah. But there’s no avoiding that you know the truth. They exist everywhere always, so they should know it all by now.”
“And that’s where I get to correct you! I’m pretty sure only some of them are omnipresent. The rest seem beholden to some strange rules.”
“Interesting. But that’s enough of that. Want to see a different one?”
“Sure. Seems like there’s enough time.”
Aaron “Almighty” the greatest being of our realm, has vanished. Some say he’s finally ascended to divinity, while others are saying he has abandoned his followers. After a century long ploy to destroy Eidri herself.
-a news M.BLEP following the disappearance of Eidri’s largest idol.
———
Aaron couldn’t believe there was a wall he could not break.
The white void around him was place devoid of any sensation, though he could faintly see a corner of starry sky with a wood cabin floating within it. In the ‘center’ of the white void was a machine that somehow radiated… motivation?
Regardless, his only option of escape was to destroy the boundaries that held him in this clearly metaphysical space. He drew back his fist, and immediately punched at the wall. Instead of entirely shattering like he thought they would, instead a spiderweb of cracks formed before immediately closing back up.
Aaron tried again but charged up his punch for long enough that Eidri would have collapsed from the mere shockwave. This time, a crater formed in the white wall. But this time it stayed open for longer. Despite the apparent ease with which he destroyed the space, he knew something that frightened him.
His power came from his souls belief warping reality. He believed he was the supreme being, and so he was. But if this ‘supreme’ being could not break through this place, then that meant an even higher entity controlled it.
A being like that would only ever have him here for two reasons: Either it needed him, or it needed entertainment.
Either way, he could only win by destroying the wall in front of him. Another charged punch deepened the crater until he could feel the fragility of the space ahead of him. Before he could even think of throwing the next punch however, he was stopped by the gaze of three creatures.
A griffin, named ‘Tofu’, a giant sea serpent named ‘Cookie’, and finally, a living storm. The same way he knew their names, he understood that they would gain strength the more of them there were, becoming immortal at 4 of them.
“Only three quarters invincible are you! Not even close to what’s needed to beat me.”
And so, Aaron ‘Almighty’, fought the founders hounds for the next 5 centuries, only let out because they needed feeding.
“Wait… That’s not how it’s meant to go! The ‘Almighty’ was meant to be ironic.”
“And in a way, it was. Clearly not almighty if he could neither escape or win.”
“But still. That means Aaron is at least on the level of there quarter omnipotence. Probably more since he’s that powerful in a higher domain!”
“Impressive, but less so once you consider all of us together would likely defeat “The founders hounds”.”
“Sure, but that implies this Aaron guy is worth six of us on his own! How did he even manage that?”
“Pyramid schemes and indoctrination. Trivial once you know the trick to it.”