“Is there a reason why you must harass me even in the peace of my dreams?”
“Huh...?” Tyr looked all around him. The night sky a wide dome of twinkling stars above him. It was dark above, yet the rolling green lands he walked on were not. No sun was needed to illuminate this place, it just was. A wild land of vibrant green meadows and forests. Flowers of all colors, mountains and vast waterfalls that led to nowhere. Pouring off into the void on a world dominated by the largest tree Tyr had ever seen. “Where am I?” He looked toward the stranger with his familiar voice. Abaddon was perched on a stone pillar with his legs crossed. Or at least it looked to be Abaddon, if he were young and pure without a single mark on his skin. If he were made of that which composed the cosmos itself.
“You're in the spira. See?” Abaddon thrust his thumb at the tree that dominated anything and everything. A tree beyond the size of any planet, with vast cities barely visible among its bark and boughs. A size that could not be quantified. Dizzying Tyr to look at it, though it appeared so large in his vision he knew almost instinctively that even at full pelt it would take him decades at best to reach even the roots turned up and arching over mountains. “Well... Sort of, there's no true plane of 'spira' anymore, it's all mashed together now. This great cosmic mistake of theirs, I suppose, not that I ever cared much though.”
“What the hell is that?” He asked, pointing at the same tree the professor had. “You're Abaddon... Right?”
“That is the world tree, obviously. Source of all spira throughout the universe? Common knowledge, kid. And yes, I am Abaddon.”
“You say that like I'm supposed to know these things? You never taught me this!” Tyr felt whole and human again. Capable of emotion, gifted corporeal form. Left dazed and confused as all that he'd seen prior to his arrival ran from his mind like water from a fowls feathers. Soon it would all be gone, but he could honestly say he wouldn't miss any of it in the slightest, a man shouldn't know those things.
“It's not my duty to teach nim regardless of your heritage. I've guided you as best I could, but the me you see here is not the me that you've been acquainted with on your world. Wherever that is. In fact...” Abaddon mused. “It's curious that I'm here at all, must be that era. I'm not a messenger... Anyways, does that all make sense?”
“No! Not at all!” Tyr cried. Abaddon shrugged, uncaring. Sipping at a golden viscous liquid that hummed with its own melody from the small bowl containing it. Like a soup made of metal coinage, but there was no heat coming from its surface. “Am I dead? Is this heaven?”
“Mmmm...” Abaddon pondered the question. “You are one of those that can't die, so in the literal sense – no. In the metaphorical sense, the you that existed previously might be dead. I don't know – I'm not omniscient and I don't care to look. I'm on vacation. Ever heard of it?”
“Is this heaven?” Tyr repeated.
“'Heaven' as you consider it does not exist. Every thing in the universe is its own unique brand of hell now, in my opinion. If you are asking me if this is the transit point that some souls arrive at after their mortal lives, then yes. There are an infinite number of celestials and an infinite number of planes they hold in domain and call all sorts of ridiculous things. This is one of them, but it's also not – your celestials are foreigners in this place, something akin to colonizers. This is the domain of the world tree and the primary artificial ordering on this sphere of the cosmos. All other planes in your corner of reality are but extensions of its roots or orbiting bodies that the tree protects. How do you not know this?”
“I just... Don't?”
“Mimir has been quiet these days.” Abaddon hummed, looking off into the distance with glazed eyes. A troubled expression creased his brow but it disappeared shortly thereafter. With a relaxed sigh, he returned to his previous self. “Again, not my problem.”
“Who's Mimir?”
“Exactly.” Abaddon nodded, finger raised and smirking, as if this question were less a question and instead some profound philosophizing. “And astutely said, not my job to round up celestials. You're on your own, kid. Is there something I can do for you otherwise? Or are you going to stand there all day?”
“Where else am I supposed to go!?” Tyr asked, incredulous. There was an almost imperceptible wafer of light that kept blinking into being in his face talking about a 'tutorial quest'. No matter how many times he swiped it away like an irritating gnat, it kept coming back until he chose to just bear with it and ignore the thing. “I have no idea where I am, and you're as unhelpful as usual, and I... I'm dead but not dead at the same time? Who writes this shit?”
“You, I suppose. Well... Her, technicality, or them to be more accurate. She manages, but doesn't write, He writes – but He is bound beneath her and he's not you but someone else entirely. It's all very confusing, even for me. We do not come from the place with no time, I am bound to time and therefore the higher dimensions are beyond my typical purview.” Abaddon shuddered in discomfort at the half reference to somebody Tyr had no knowledge of. “Do you want to return to your previous life? Would that ensure that you leave me the hells alone?”
“Well, sure.” Tyr replied. “I have business with my father and want to--”
“Fine.” Abaddon replied lazily, yawning and waving his hand.
POOF.
“I swear he gets worse every time...” Abaddon mused, returning to his well earned relaxation and praying another one of those freaks didn't show up here and bother him further. He sighed, sipped from his bowl. Nothing better than a vacation. Still quite strange to think that they were being sent to him lately... Not enough messengers around?
That was, until he saw another familiar figure appear before him.
“Again?” Abaddon groaned, clucking his tongue in annoyance. Some 'vacation' this turned out to be after the fourteenth one in a row! “Welcome to the center of all spira. Let's make this easy, and fast. Name, plane, and what you want?”
–
Tyr found himself in a tunnel. Well lit and far too white for his aesthetic taste. It looks liked the hospital in the academy, every surface reflective and sanitized. More worrying was the jostling. He was on a platform of perfect geometry, a chromatic metal chamber filled with creatures of all shapes and sizes. A handful of humanoids, but most of them were so wholly alien to him that he found it hard to consider the purpose of their various appendages. Even what appeared to be an eggplant with arms, carrying a greataxe on his back, a leash in his hands terminating in its connection to a completely normal human that had been painted purple and his hair dyed green. Walking the man like some kind of pet...
“Oh, shit!” Someone cried, materializing from the crowd to drag him into a one armed hug, slapping his free hand into Tyr's own and doing something strange with it. The man pulled back to snap his fingers and smile widely. He had almost artificially white teeth, with a strong jaw and handsome but mature features. A single spec of facial hair sat below his bottom lip, but otherwise he was clean shaven. Fairly normal in appearance for a human, with the odd choice of a red white and blue jumpsuit of stars and stripes... “Haven't seen you in a hot minute, kid! What's good with it!?”
“...Who the hell are you?” They were both of a similar height and build, but the man standing in front of him was older, and certainly stranger. The way in which he carried himself bled outward friendliness in a way that Tyr did not. Some kind of familiarity...
“Oh, word? You're one of those then. Cold world, no mittens, you feel me? Forgetting your old buddy Six... Come on, buddy.” The man dragged him forward. Tyr resisted for the briefest moment until he realized that this 'Six' was incredibly strong. Strong enough to drag him bodily if necessary, so he relented and allowed himself to be pulled. If anything, the man was amicable enough, it was worth hearing him out or perhaps using him for what help he could provide. “Quick rundown, right? Inter-dimensional customs is where you are. It's not real, the people are but to everyone it'll take a different and more familiar form. If that form were to be removed we'd all just be sort of floating through space while the system scans people for contraband and stuff like that. I'm the arbiter, 6RMVW, obviously.”
“Arbiter?” Tyr asked. “Like a law keeper or constable? Couldn't you come up with your own name for this sort of thing? I get that it's hard to come up with cool names at times, but come on...”
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“Don't you think your people might have gotten it from us? We were here first man, but yeah, that is exactly what I am – only on a grander scale... Think about it like someone who upholds and defends inter-dimensional law. It's complicated, just trust me. We've been boys since like... Forever, man! Earth 1989 ring a bell?”
Tyr shook his head.
Wait a second, was that really an eggplant walking an eggplant painted man or... Nope. I'm just going to stay focused. This is completely out of the theme of this story and I have no idea where the Author is going with this.
“Shaedus IX 493?”
Another shake of the head.
“Shit... Mimir's lacking. 'Deadly, when I play a dope melody'?” This 'Six' hoped back and crossed his arms in an exaggerated fashion, winking at Tyr with a lopsided smile. Tyr squinted at the bizarre display and scratched the back of his head with a plain grimace on his face. The odd dress, odd speech, odd... Everything. There was an eggplant walking a man on a leash!
“...What?” The man was speaking gibberish, a language that clearly was not common, but Tyr understood his words well enough. He thought... If the translation was close to accurate, this man was cracked bad in the skull.
Six shook his head in disappointment. “It's not your fault, kid. For real, a bit scuffed but honestly it's kind of dope to meet new pieces of shards I'm familiar with and seeing what they've all been up to. Which world are you from?”
“...Hjemland? I think? That's what they call the wider world beyond my continent.” Tyr was surprisingly calm give the, uh... Situation. It all felt so familiar, in a deja vu sort of way. The man himself even seemed familiar, bedecked in that striped jumpsuit of reds, whites, and a field of blue patterned with stars on his right shoulder. Tyr wanted one for himself, if he was being honest, it was very pleasing in the aesthetics.
“Cool beans. Okay. Let's see....” Six pulled him to a console set into one of the white walls, rapidly pressing keys until Tyr was staring down at an overhead map of his world. At least he thought it was his world. There were eight continents instead of just the three, leaving him wondering how ignorant humans were to the wider scope of all that was out there. “Look familiar?”
“Yes, actually.” Tyr nodded astonished at the melding of magic and technology. Maybe here they were one in the same. Many great minds in Hjemland proposed a 'singularity point' when there would be no distinction between the two. The divine engineering theory or something like that. The ultimate peak of all things arcane and science combined into one, seamless form. Where magic would cease to look like magic and they'd literally become it, everything would, but Tyr doubted that very highly. He was a bit daft but it went against all laws of equivalent exchange for the whole world to be magic and all objects in it artifacts.
“Okay, now we just have to figure which one.” Six pondered for a moment, taking a pensive stance and scrolling through a variety of depictions of the world. Subtle differences abounding between all the displays of a vaguely familiar planet. “Technological level?”
“I don't know how to answer that.” Tyr replied honestly. All around him was a flurry of moment. A creature with eight legs and a bulbous single thorax sighed at them in impatience. A race he'd never seen nor heard of, but that wasn't so odd here apparently. Some possessed no physical body at all, simply floating balls of etheric energy. Hundreds of different species. Six appeared to be a human, but he was by far in the minority in this place, although nearly all of those who looked to be employees were also human.
“You got smartphones? Computers? Atomic theory? Porn?”
“What's porn?” Tyr tilted his head in confusion.
“Like... Skin flicks, uh... Hentai, stuff like that?”
Tyr shook his head. He'd never heard of anything like that in his life, trust him.
“Blessed are the pure and untainted, my brother.” Six made a fist and held it out to him, while Tyr squinted again. “Alright... The other things?”
“Well atomic theory certainly exists but it's not taken very seriously from what I've heard, physics is sort of a joke where I come from. I don't know what the rest of that is...”
“No worries bro.” Six smiled and patted him on the shoulder, looking at the spider-like creature behind them. “Better check yourself before I wreck yourself, you heard?” It bobbed its thorax anxiously, clattering backwards on its stilted legs. “Ole daddy long legs lookin' ass, I can't stand arachnids man. What year is it where you're from?”
“892 F.E.” Tyr answered, some panic rising in his gut. Cursing at himself for never keeping to a proper chronology. “Or... Shit... 893? I'm pretty sure its 892 but I've never kept a calendar. Does this mean I can't get back!?”
“Naw, man. Let's see... What celestials watch over your world?” Six asked.
“Celestials?” Tyr asked, but he knew that this must mean 'gods'. “Astarte, Agni, Indura, Nyx, Veles, Tormund, Bumi, Freyja, Thanatos, Vestia... There are a lot of them... At least two hundred that are commonly worshiped, and more besides.”
“Word. Okay... That leaves eleven options. Let's see... What's your fathers name?”
“Jartor.” Tyr replied. “I... Think...”
“Name of your childhood pet?”
“Okami. He's not really a pet, but... I've never had any other animals except for horses and I don't keep them very long.”
“Eight, then... Sheesh. Sorry kid. I know it's not your fault, but I'm telling you – sometimes this job just ain't worth it.” Six chuckled. “No pension for immortals, you get me?”
“Sure...” Tyr frowned, clearly missing some kind of context here.
“Name of your firstborn son?”
“I don't have any children. I am a virgin.” Tyr replied with a nervous twitch in his eye. But Six didn't seem to mind, if anything he was pleased by the revelation for some reason.
“And I repeat myself!” Six suddenly shouted, arms spread and violently startling those other being around him. For whatever reason, everyone seemed so terrified of the man. “Blessed in purity, guided by REDACTED, my brother! So that leaves three. Let's see... How old are you in this timeline?”
“Nineteen or so.” Tyr responded. “I think... Or I was, before I died but didn't... Die.”
Wait... Am I twenty? Let's just uh... I'll be twenty soon, the second term hasn't ended and I just turned 18 before that. Right? So I should still be 19. What months is it? No, the summer definitely hasn't started yet.
“Yikes. Sorry to hear about that. It's best not to think about the continuity of these things, because there isn't much of that between you and I – best to just have fun with it.” Six leaned close, whispering in his ear. “Technically I'm not supposed to do this. Something went wrong... You're not supposed to be here, but that does narrow it down to only one option. I'll send you back, but tell nobody. I'm serious. You'll be removed from the world permanently if another arbiter finds out I did this. Understood?”
“Understood.” Tyr replied with a calm nod. Hopefully he'd never meet any of these people again, hoping even more that he was never sent back to this insane place where a flatulent flying octopus was trying to sell some sort of newspaper to that same... Is still an eggplant if it's sapient? Could I eat it?
“Word up to your mother, kid. One more thing. This can only happen once. There are no do-overs, once you have a passage in the registry the system won't allow you to pass again. I'm not sure how you died but its because some kind of mistake took place. The order will sense this anomaly eventually and prevent it from happening again. Call it deus ex machina, not a plot device, alright? After all, plot devices only exist when there is an actual plot. Not many of those in the real world, something you'll learn eventually.”
“Yeah...” Tyr grimaced, lost for words. “Uh... Alright.”
“And listen, man... It was nice seeing you again, seriously, its been way too long since I've met a real one. If you ever run across a celestial named Bellen on your world, tell him I'm coming for that ass one way or another.”
“Alright...” Tyr repeated. Six winked at him and placed his hand flat on the panel. And with that, Tyr was gone. Thrust through a twirling tunnel of starlight that seemed so familiar to him again. Planets and suns blurred by with incredible speed, the layout of the celestial sky changing rapidly until settling on one and announcing in a shrill voice...
“Calculating... Classification: Tyr-Ti'waz / Lesser Aesir Nephilim, other component bodies detected. Calculating... REDACTED bloodline, restricted information. Category nine Godfall protocol initiated.”
[BE ADVISED THAT UPLIFTING OF PRIMITIVE QUARANTINED SPECIES IS ILLEGAL AND PUNISHABLE BY DISINCORPORATION OR IMPRISONMENT NO LESS THAN 3.1 EONS. DO NOT INTRODUCE TECHNOLOGY TO THIS WORLD BEYOND THE ACHIEVABLE POINT OF INDIGENOUS RACES. YOU WILL NOT BE WARNED AGAIN.]
“Welcome to Hjemland-XII!” The voice was bright and energetic, though tinny and inhuman. Too artificial, the emotion in no more than a mimicry of what a person might actually sound like. “Categories: Pseudo Medieval / Fantasy / Sword and Sorcery / Restricted / Quarantined / Tap Anomaly / Order Maintained Stagnation. Arbiter approved temporal and dimensional override confirmed. Class seven protective deterrent initializing, please note that this initiative is not permanent and we advise you to relocate to a safe location as soon as possible. Please note that mana levels on this world are beyond allowance, source unclear – likely related to the indigenous population. Transit gateways and arks restricted due to quarantine. The order requests immediate purge. Time remaining: Nineteen minutes and fifty four seconds. Prime Operative: Curb mana pollution and eliminate outlier lifeforms. Enjoy your stay!”
“What the actual fu--”