“Deal.” Gregory had said, and, unfortunately, Faucet was delivering.

“Lady Minervica doesn’t want you to succeed in the task she has given you.” Faucet said, as if it were the simplest thing in the world.

“But she gave me this task. She’s the one who made me a hero.”

“Yes.”

“She transformed me into an elf with magical powers just so I could be a better hero!!”

“In a way, yes.”

“She said she would grant me any wish if I succeeded. Is that even true?!?!”

“Within reason, but yes.”

“But WHY?!?!” Gregory couldn’t help but shout in frustration.

“I can hardly explain like this, Falci. Please let me get through the Accords’ requirements first. I think you’ll understand better that way.” Faucet said.

“Eons ago, the divine beings that govern all of existence faced an impossible problem, one that the whole of the multiverse could not allow to continue. Demons and their corruption increasingly plagued the various worlds of creation. The greatest and most mighty gods sought to restore balance, that they might forever bring about harmony,” Faucet cited with a rehearsed tone, one that nonetheless held reverence for the subject.

“Harmony, they achieved, but not without cost. They bargained with the fabric of reality itself and came to an accord, The Interdimensional Accords of The Divine. Forevermore, the gods would need to protect the worlds of the multiverse from demons without direct intervention. Now gods must send and support champions to slay demons whenever they arise to prevent a second calamity,” Faucet finished.

“So,” Gregory continued when he realized Faucet was already finished, “the gods had a demon problem, and they made a deal with physics to stop it? And now they make heroes do the dirty work whenever demons begin gaining traction again?”

“If you don’t care about the majesty of it all, then yes, you could say that,” Faucet retorted in clear irritation.

“Is that all you needed to say to meet the Accords’ criteria? That seemed a little… brief?” Gregory wanted to say “underwhelming” or “disappointing” but Faucet seemed oddly invested in all of this. Maybe it was like religion for an angel?

“No, I still have to welcome you to this land and guide you through it as needed. However, as I said, I have a pact with Lady Minervica that restricts me in certain ways. I cannot guide you for more than a few stray hours a week, despite it being my only responsibility. I also can only guide you in certain ways, although the good Lady could not prevent me from explaining as much as possible about demons,” Faucet responded.

“I suppose that makes sense. I’m guessing the Accords directly prevent that? They were pretty much made to handle demons, it seems. What can you tell me about them?” Gregory asked.

“They do,” the angel answered, “and very little, I’m afraid. I know almost nothing about demons. Just that they’re twisted beasts who become increasingly distorted and virulent as they increase in power.”

“She couldn’t stop you from talking, so she picked someone who wouldn’t be able to give me any meaningful information, lovely… Can this get any better?” Gregory said with bitter sarcasm.

“You could have had no arms left if you’d died differently.” Faucet replied with a slight smirk returning to his face. Faucet was recovering enough to be normal rather quickly it seemed.

“Seriously?” Gregory replied.

“Yes, your left arm is missing purely because it was most similar to how your body was before death while still being healthy. Even gods have rules, Falci.” Faucet returned.

“Gregory. My friends call me Gregory,” he said as he extended his hand.

“Heh,” Faucet chortled, “and we’re friends now?” he continued with scathing sarcasm.

“Good point, Gregory is what my friends and you get to call me,” Gregory threw back. He doubted he and Faucet could ever really be friends, but at least he wasn’t under Faucet’s power like he so clearly was back in Limbo. He was underneath all the angels in the hierarchy there, not even close to an equal.

“Gregory it is,” Faucet said in mock subordination. His smirk regrew with a vengeance.

“What kind of rules did you mean then?” Gregory said.

Faucet took a moment to stand and dust himself off a bit first. He may or may not have been prostrating to get Gregory’s attention.

“First of all, I need to fulfill the Accords’ requirements, but to answer your question briefly, your consent, dubious though it was, gave Minervica authorized control over your decisions before coming here. However, she still needed a non-zero amount of subconscious approval for every outcome or they wouldn’t go through. That’s how you end up with a body that’s missing an arm but is otherwise perfectly healthy. If you came from a culture that was more critical of missing limbs as some kind of flaw, your subconscious may have rebelled enough to prevent the decision. As it is, it was probably only permitted because of how much you wanted to leave Limbo. Above zero in approval is not exactly a high threshold to meet, after all,” Faucet explained.

“That’s an awful lot to process,” Gregory admitted. If that were true…

“Doesn’t that mean… anything could have worked as long as it’s technically a benefit or has the appearance of one?” Gregory asked, hoping to be wrong.

The sheepish grimace Faucet gave was answer enough.

“Well shit,” Gregory said; he had to cradle his chin with his right arm instead of his left to assume something resembling his normal pensive expression. There were plenty of options he hadn’t even had the time to read, let alone examine properly. Out of the one’s the he could remember there was “Body” whose selection failure was obvious by now, but there were plenty he hadn’t even seen evidence of yet. Worse yet…

“Why would she want me to fail? Why select anyone at all if success isn’t the goal?” Gregory asked. He didn’t have the barest hint of a framework necessary for deciphering what motivated a god, but this obviously made no sense in isolation.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

“I don’t know,” Faucet admitted, the embarrassment and distress from his last grimace sinking deeper into his face. “I’ve never heard anything but praise for the Accords and the gods that are tasked with upholding them. This is a first for me.”

“No ideas?” Gregory pressed.

“A few,” Faucet said, “Either this is part of some kind of plan we cannot see to secretly help along the Accords…”

“Looking less and less likely by the second, Faucet,” Gregory chimed in. He flicked the bare stump of his left shoulder for emphasis.

“Or there’s some kind of divine directive going against the Accords, whether from Minervica herself or one of her superiors…” Faucet finished.

Gregory took stock of the situation: he was a stranger in a strange land, had a new, less effective body, magic and demons were real, and the closest thing he had to a friend out here was an unhelpfully restricted angel with some resentment going on between the two of them.

Things were not looking good, to say the least. For now, he needed to figure out just how bad his circumstances were.

“I think it’s time we rip the band-aid off, so to speak,” Gregory said.

Faucet raised his eyebrow in a silent question.

“Tell me or show me each of the things I don’t understand, starting with the stuff I picked out myself,” Gregory elaborated, trying to sound bolder than he was feeling.

“If you insist, we can. I need to explain a couple things first,” Faucet said.

Before Gregory could inquire further, Faucet had walked away to grab a blackened, fallen branch, and he began drawing a large circle in the dirt with it, filling it with various shapes afterwards.

“This is designated as world Ξ.Γ.149 version b. That’s only for the bureaucrats though. Most everyone calls this world ‘Corsica,’ including the natives,” Faucet lectured.

“Like the island? The one where Napoleon was born?” Gregory couldn’t help but ask.

“What? They have a place named Corsica where you’re from? That’s odd. Must be one hell of a coincidence; either that or human language capacity is even more limited than I’d realized and all of your names start overlapping eventually. No matter. Regardless of that little oddity, the name has no relation to your world whatsoever. It means ‘land of many spirits’ in one of the most common languages here,” Faucet continued.

“And here,” Faucet said while circling the uppermost group of shapes, “is the northernmost, habitable continent. It consists of two opposing land formations: a temperate archipelago on the southern end and a more frigid main landmass to the northern end. We, however, are located here.”

As he finished speaking, Faucet pointed his stick towards one of the islands. It was more or less in the middle of the archipelago by latitude, but its longitude was the furthest west of all the islands. Since it was an archipelago, there were a number of islands that seemed, from a map view at least, close by enough for island hopping. However…

“There’s no civilization here, is there?” Gregory prompted Faucet.

“No, not so much as a small village,” Faucet responded.

Gregory had suspected as much when he’d seen the map. Two great rivers spread through the northern landmass of this continent, which was much further east than his own puny island. Rivers of fresh water were foundations of low technology civilizations. Gregory still wasn’t sure how low exactly this world’s technology level was, but it couldn’t be much compared to Earth’s level based on Faucet’s plumbing comment a while back. If people here even had continent crossing capabilities, however, that would do him little good immediately.

The second reason that Gregory had been sure he was alone was simple. For a makeshift map drawn in dirt, Faucet had done an excellent job. Gregory could easily tell that the two other major continents were closer than a trip across the Atlantic Ocean on Earth while still being much longer and more inconvenient than a trip across the Mediterranean Sea. They were, however, to the south and east of this continent. Depending on where people originated from in this world, this little island of his would be one of the furthest reaches from the original point people emerged from.

Neither of those two, however, were the best reason for assuming the two of them were utterly alone here.

Gregory hadn’t had a lot of time here in this new world to devote to his surroundings, and he’d had even less mental capacity for it with the rollercoaster of emotions and information. He’d begun to realize, however, that he couldn't see a body of water in sight, let alone the ocean. Instead, the horizon was dominated by steep hills on all sides. The hills were tall enough that Gregory’s mind kept being tempted to label them mountains. Boxing the land he could see in on all sides, the hilly terrain was responsible for what had to be an early sunset settling into place. He was running out of time. Time with faucet and time with light out were both precious resources now.

“I hate to rush you but…” Gregory began.

“I’ll hurry up,” Faucet assented. “This land is known as Vesselia, the Continent of Chalices. It is occupied by a nation of the same name. Thankfully, it’s ruled by a demon king with four demon lieutenants,” the angel finished.

Gregory slowly turned from facing the map to facing his guide, a look of quiet, horrified bewilderment dawning on his face.

Gregory wasn’t sure how much time passed before the oppressive silence was broken.

“Did you get all of that, Gregory?” Faucet asked with all the empathy of a brick.

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN?!” Gregory couldn’t help but shout at the angel. “The whole continent is ruled by the demon king I need to kill, AND they have a whole FOUR demon lieutenants presumably with a fittingly demonic level of power?!”

“And serving at the demon king’s every command, yes, of course,” Faucet replied placidly.

“What the hell did I sign up for?” Gregory asked himself for what would surely be the first of many times.

“Well, do you understand what I’ve told you at least?” Faucet asked with a hint of concern.

“Unfortunately,” Gregory replied, “I think I do.” He held his head in his hand. He didn’t think he could appreciate in full that he’d been asked not just to kill a powerful demon, by the sound of things, but also one who ruled a whole continent. If he was right, he had essentially signed up to assassinate a king who was also a powerful warrior and a freak of nature. He’d have to ask Faucet about demons before he let his mind get away from him, though.

“Splendid. It’s about time for me to go, anyway, and that was the last of what I needed to impart on you to meet the Accords’ requirements,” Faucet said with obvious and oblivious relief.

The sun was nearly set behind the hills entirely now, and Gregory had been far too occupied with Faucet and shock to seriously consider his plans for shelter that night. Before he could consider the issue in earnest, however, his thoughts were cut off by howls.

Perhaps shouting at Faucet hadn’t been the wisest idea. Worse yet, Faucet, his one and only ally present, was slowly disappearing.

He’d always thought wolves howling was more for dramatic effect than realism. Why not value stealth over cheap intimidation?

As he was quickly and completely surrounded by a large ring of wolves, however, he became brutally aware of how much he’d undervalued simple communication and cooperation.

Suddenly, Faucet was shouting at Gregory, barely arresting his attention from the enclosing circle of wolves.

“DO YOU TRUST ME?!” the increasingly transparent angel yelled.

“OF FUCKING COURSE NOT!!!!” Gregory screeched back.

His heartbeat had gotten faster so suddenly that it was caught in his ears, bringing with it a surge of panic that he’d been suppressing all day. As his body prepared itself for fight or flight, Gregory turned his back on Faucet to take better stock of the wolves.

As if he’d been anticipating it, Faucet struck in that exact moment. He lunged and shoved Gregory towards the tall, blackened tree that his drawing stick had fallen from.

The last thing Gregory Falci remembered was his head colliding with the tree’s ashen bark before everything went dark.