Novels2Search

Chapter 20

Rajesh was remembering his trip to Earth. He had visited Ireland about twenty five years earlier for the turn of the millennium. He had enjoyed a visit to a sweet shop as part of a coach trip. He had been the target of a pickpocket who had tried to grab something from the inside pocket of his jacket, though that had been empty, allegedly to pay for eye surgery. He had celebrated the new year in Dublin. He had ended up staying for over a year, leaving just after the events on the eleventh of September two thousand and one.

It had only been cut off from his worlds five years ago when the first pandemic since the demons came hit the Earth, Rajesh didn't want to find out what effect the common cold's latest cousin Covid-19 would have on them. It was later temporarily connected to the one that people had migrated from but that had only lasted as long as needed to transport all the incoming souls. Now no worlds falling outside his jurisdiction were accessible by inter-universal travel.

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Thalia had found a new thing to watch. An octopus slime building enrichment toys for its fellows. She had spotted what seemed like an out of place brick bridge spanning a river and searched underneath where she had found the slime colony. They were expanding the brick structure so that it would, when completed, provide shade. The slime she was focused on was currently carving a boat out of a small piece of wood. The intent appeared to be that a hollow would be put in the centre which would form a maze with a small reward at the end. Based on her observations the customer would have to twist its limbs in a way that was natural only for slimes to reach a token that would give a discount on the next purchase, though Thalia had yet to see the slimes using currency. It would make sense though, the magic that ensured humans were paid was generalised enough, being based solely on profession, so those slimes which had jobs that could be described using that method would get paid too.

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These flashbacks and premonitions were getting increasingly more unpredictable. Thalia was getting essentially random details from random lives at random times. At least there was a brief respite whilst she experienced herself, here and now. Long term this couldn't be sustainable, she had some twenty other people so far but that wasn't the full list. She wasn't even certain any of them existed, someone probably fulfilled the role she'd seen Rajesh having but no guarantees it was him. She was more certain that Asvar existed given she should have created him, as well as the core of that undead dungeon but that was really it. Actually, the thing with everyone being destined to be a general was a point against Astria though Thalia wasn't confident enough to dispute it. The only visions that were verifiably false were those concerning Ricotta as they had two contradictory scenes occurring simultaneously. Still she'd have to admit this made her an unreliable narrator and she seemed to be the one doing so for the story that had started with Astria and James.

Rajesh sent Thalia one of his memories, a friend he'd made who was discussing how a number of relatives had disappeared as if jumping from world to world. The friend in question went on to assert they had tied their power to Rajesh. Rajesh showed Thalia where the friend was now, they had jumped in as the demon town core was forming and been transformed into a citizen of the town as a side effect.

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Rajesh then proceeded to send over assorted rule books that he had drawn inspiration from while setting the rules. He finally sent over what passed for the rulebook of their world, one of the things Thalia noted was towards the beginning - custom skills - saying if you tried to do something and it wasn't covered by a Skill or Attribute or explicitly listed as not requiring a skill such as most biological functions then you'd still have to roll, though you should check the dedicated skill supplement first which had most of the magic and psionics.