Forward Is The Day
Part One: Flux
Prologue - The God Of Chaos
“My name is: God” The soul didn’t know what to say. It just sat there legs crossed, its form vaguely human radiating an orange light, something that bespoke warmth and kindness. It looked to the creature before it, the one claiming to be a god. They were alone.
The world around them stretched on, some form of cruel limbo, a construct built from an infinite oblivion of white. To look upon this plain of existence with a mortal mind would drive one mad, the world undulated, moved twisted, it shattered any pre-conceptions of time and space the soul had once held for here time and space were irrelevant. In the world beyond not a second had passed and yet all the worlds, the lights in the heavens that he had once known, dictating the passage of eons, they could have been dust. And to this place they were both.
“You seem distracted, tell me what’s on your mind.” Its voice was gentle nearly child like in its innocence.
Time… Is fleeting, is constant, is annoying
There were no words only vague concepts that the soul could display. “Very insightful; I myself never really bothered with time, atleast not like this, it’s far easier to just stay in a liminal form. Localising ones consciousness beyond time can get rather confusing no?’ The God laughed squatting down before the Soul so they were eye to eye. Well that wasn’t quite true the God had no eyes, only circles, rings within its head where the eyes should have been. This being named God was strange as if comprised of darkness, an animated shadow, to one viewing it, it would appear two-dimensional all light absorbed by its body, preventing depth. “You may be curious why I brought you here, why you are not enjoying some happy afterlife. It’s simple in your life you did nothing, nothing good nothing bad and what little you did to sway the scales you immediately tipped back into place, you were neutral in all things. Even your final actions were pointless.” The God grinned.
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Jacob Stoker sat within a heavy leather armchair a book in his hands. He was at that age where people were unsure whether to treat him as a child or an adult. He was roughly shaven not yet accustomed to the habit due to his own lack of work ethic never bothering to build a routine. For the same reason his hair was ragged and hung about his face nearly obscuring his eyes. He held a book in his hand three more in the back sitting at the foot of the chair.
“I’ll be done in a moment sir!” The woman in the counter leaned over and waved at me. Jacob nodded silently yawning.
“What a pain.” He whispered rubbing his face trying to fight off tiredness that clung to him like a gauze. “Ugh, damn Murphy’s law.” He groaned slamming his head into the cover of the book clutched in his hands. The old woman sitting opposite him, a magazine in hand chuckled flipping through the pages, refusing to settle on one article for more than a moment. Her gnarled hands shaking as she did.
A fan set in the wall whirred and that same smell that denoted anything of age still seemed to hang about the room. He was sitting in a bank and due to his own to his own misfortune, he was going to have make a large withdrawal. It would have been fine if the ATM outside had been working but no, it had to be broken some idiotic kid had jammed what appeared to be a jam sandwich into the machine.
Who ate jam sandwiches anyway?
He shook my head. The only reason he was in this town in the first place was because his car had broken down, that was what he got for letting his Dad pick on out. His parents had asked him to house sit for them while they took a weekend long holiday to Iceland. They had planned the whole thing in advance setting up their trip around one of his brakes from school, yet they had only told him about it yesterday. He had spent the first day of his break driving through the English countryside, after getting lost on some side road. He’d eventually stopped in this town whose name he didn’t know and took a quick brake for an ice cream cone. When he returned the Car wouldn’t restart. To cut an already long story short, the nearest garage said that it would cost eighty pounds and take a little over a day. He’d paid them strait off and then decided to pick up some extra funds at the local bank, which luckily (or so he thought) was the same branch as he used.
Well with the ATM broken he’d considered just lying on a bench in the sun for a couple of hours but had decided to go inside anyway. It was a bad decision.
The door leading into the waiting room burst open. The young woman who had called to him to wait earlier came flying in. Her body slid across the floor as she cried out in pain. Small droplets of blood span through the air and before he knew it Jacob was faced with a quartet of masked men. Each lugged a pistol in one hand, white, theatrical, masks covered their faces the letters; A, B, C, and D were printed on each. A was clearly the leader carrying a rifle instead of a small pistol. B and C pointed their pistols at the Old woman and Jacob. The deaf old lady hadn’t even realised what was going on, her hearing aids must have been broken.
“Alright you bastards, hand over anything of value!” The leader yelled swinging the rifle around so the but smashed into the table, the wood splintering. His mind went blank, rushing he undid his watch and handed it over before reaching around in the pockets of his coats and pulling forth anything of worth. D marched forward with a duffle bag, the only one lacking a pistol. Jacob tossed in the watch, his ‘ancient’ mobile and all the change he had in his pockets which for some reason was limited to one and two p coins.
“Screw this!” D yelled kicking him in the stomach before moving over to the old lady.
Jacob coughed holding his stomach bent over onto his knees. The old woman threw down all her valuables gathered in her hands. “ring too.” A grunted levelling his rifle at her, a low chuckle racking his body, the old woman who stared up in fear.
“Please no, it’s all I have left of…” She was cut off as D swung out striking her across the face with the back of his hand.
In that instant his body moved as if it possessed its own will. Jacob barrelled into the robber, knocking him forwards before grabbing him by the back of his shirts and throwing him into his comrades.
It was then that the sirens had the fortuitous luck to sound out; the police had arrived. But for him it was a tolling bell.
“Cut and run!” A yelled: swinging his rifle around at Jacob a thunderous blast sounding in his ears. Before he had a chance to react, he was dead. Jacob didn’t feel a thing, his death was too fast, one moment he was standing there, and the next he had entered a realm of darkness before being spewed into the bizarre limbo he currently inhabited.
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“Now it’s time for you to make a choice: will you stay dead or will you go on living?” God questioned. The soul tried to make reply but was stopped as the God raised a hand to silence him, finger to nonexistent lips. “Of course you will not live within your old world.” His words shocked the soul to no small degree.
Live
It was a simple urge that compelled the soul to his decision, his former life had been unfulfilled and cut short, perhaps through his own fault. He regretted only one thing though – he never had a real friend. For that reason alone he decided.
“Excellent” God clapped his hands but no sound was made. God marched forward standing tall and placed a hand on the soul’s shoulder. “The world you will be going to is called Alfiel, and you’ll find yourself in the country of yagore.” The soul did not respond, it saw no reason to; still it was elated by this change its appearance reflecting that its shade turned from orange to gold. “Of course having a chance at a new life comes at a price!” The God laughed, a pure white grin, like a crescent moon in an inky sky grew across its face. Its gripped tightened to the point the fingers dug through the body of the soul. “For a soul you are remarkably well put together, able to maintain a form like its nothing, you truly had no fear of death! I’m interested in seeing what you will do. I want to see you do something great, but it’d be no fun if it weren’t a challenge. From you I will be taking, your vitality, your strength, your speed and your endurance! After all even a God has to play to equilibrium; Reincarnation isn’t free, this’ll be the price for your survival, not being purged in the ebonfire.” The god laughed placing a hand on the souls other shoulder preventing it from struggling out of his grasp. About the souls body lines began to form, veins of dark power bulging out, running to the centre of its being. The God removed its hands. The dark power being expelled leaving the soul a pale grey unable to move
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
Why?
The soul wailed its form jumping and shaking unnaturally, warping out of its previous state as if unstable. The God sneered leaning forwards placing a hand over what had been its head and now was a slanting mass of grey.
“You manage to survive until level thirty and I’ll tell you.” He grinned pushing the soul backwards to stumble through the white realm.
Behind the Soul a dark portal opened rimmed with red light, an infinite abyss waiting beyond. He plunged in. His ethereal form put through a hell unlike anything a mortal mind can imagine, beyond the limitations of flesh he was bathed in flames that engulfed all, creeping into his mind and dragging out all he was…
It was then that the newborn babe opened his eyes, without a word, without a cry.
The Soul knew it was alive, its memories of its former world hazy but still there; a single fragment of its former self gleaming brightly: attacked by a god, woe, pain, death… Chaos. Filling him with dread. Yet he made not sound, just lay there looking at the ceiling in shock, he was alive, he was really alive. But his breathing was hard, his body hurt immeasurably, it felt like a spiders thread was holding him together; an inch above oblivion
“I’m sorry, the baby didn’t make it.” an old yet gentle voice whispered, a woman’s voice. There was a choked cry of pain and sadness from another. “Should I take the body to the church?” the woman questioned.
“No.” a haggard one replied, He could hear it in the rasping tone the weakness and the pain. He could just barely see something move past him. He was small, weak, helpless, just lying there.
As the woman left, the remaining voice was wracked with weeping, sorrowful cries that echoed about the room, cries of mourning and loss. The woman was young her hair auburn, her eyes a light brown, She had her hands clenched over her chest as she lay within the bed swathed deep in blankets. She had just given birth to her son, yet he was dead, lying in the cot they had picked out for him… Dead.
She got up slowly moving across the room wiping the tears from her eyes. She approached the cot, with shaky movements, the floorboards creaking beneath her, a shaft of sunlight falling through window catching particles of dust within its wake. She looked down on the silent face cast within the radiance of the sun as dark eyes; nearly black stared back at her. She scrunched up her face looking at those eyes, they were his eyes, she reached out to touch his skin cold as ice and then noticed. His eyes followed her hand. The baby blinked impassive looking up at her. The Mother pulled her hands to her mouth tears pouring from her eyes. He was alive. He was alive!
Those were his first memories of the world of Alfiel, He could not understand the woman not a word she said but she kept repeating something over and over again “Arth” He could feel her body warm against his, the sunlight pouring through the window and her pure ecstatic joy. The hows whys and wherefores seemed lost within that simple embrace. So he did what he could, he slept hopping the dream would not end.
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Anna Felcite
At first she had thought it a miracle that her Son was alive; their child lived and breathed, could live a happy life in his fathers stead. But she quickly realised that something was very wrong with the boy.
He had already fallen asleep by the time she realised; even now his body was cold like a corpse. For a brief moment she thought he was an undead. With this panic spinning through her mind she looked down at him, looked into his eyes. No he was alive he was human; she could sense mana leaking from his body. A surprisingly high amount enough for a level two or three Mage. Worried she muttered a small chant beneath her breath. In an instant a status screen popped up in front of her. Usually it was only possible to view ones status screen and make amendments through a prayer to the god a person owes allegiance to. But certain spells could reveal the stats of another person in an equal measure.
Name: Arth Felcite Age: 0 Level: Lv1 Race: Human Vitality: 1 Endurance: 1 Strength: 1 Speed: 1 Dexterity: 18 Wisdom: 22 Intelligence: 26 Allegiance: (none) Fame: 0 Alignment: (positive) +22
She took in a deep breath unable to believe what she was seeing. Both his wisdom and intelligence were high, abnormally so but his physical abilities were all low, he was weak fragile. The lightest tap could shatter him. Anna had a horrid vision of dropping her newborn son and him fracturing into many fragments like a pane of glass. She looked out of the window. The setting noon sun had already begun to dip into the horizon. She reached about her hand and grabbed a series of blankets swaddling the newborn among their folds.
She left the house in a hurry, travelling barefoot only a single cast iron lantern, the oil burning low, to guide her through the approaching gloom of the evening. The wind was harsh and cold, whipping and lashing as she rushed past through the country roads. The Yagore kingdom was weak sitting on the borders between the greater kingdom of Jundore to the northwest and the Xinder Empire to the east. They were constantly being attacked and invaded; the royal family was weak constantly changing hands between the two nations, and their two ideologies constantly being switched. It led to a bizarre religion praising both sets of gods half the populace capable of using the status screens and levelling system of Jundore (a holy gift from their gods) the other half possessing longer life spans as well as heightened physical abilities derived from the Xinder Empire. The sides were known as the adventurers and the cultivators respectively.
The village of Gunmar lay directly on the border of Xinder, but was protected by the Andell Mountains and had never suffered occupation by the foreign power so still held a firm adventurer culture. Anna was a mage; level eighty-two; she specialised in healing magic so was well cared for by the little village of roughly thirty households the general area having just over a hundred people the local lord settled into the village itself due to the protection of the mountains. But here healing magic would be of no use, there was nothing wrong with the child but his body was weak, so weak it shouldn’t even have been possible. Some children were born with a weak constitution true, but that usually meant a three or four in one of their stats never bellow. a creature with stats as low as these could be compared to the strength of a mouse. Anna cried as she ran. Only the grace of the gods would aid her now.
The church stood at the end of the lane just off of the main square of the little village. She hurtled across the stone flags to the curious gazes of all those around her as they saw the swaying lantern flicker and her tear stained face.
With a pulse of magic the doors of the church flew open. The tall building of grey stone echoed with the sound of her footsteps. The priest, Father Ottoban, was lighting candles at the altar of each of the minor gods the offerings at the feet of the statues of the greater gods were already cinders. A young acolytes flame magic having quickly immolated the offerings.
“My child I’m sorry for your loss” the father spoke his voice tired and rambling his eyes tinged red from the smoke given off by the tributes and incense. “Mrs Zerile, told me about the tragedy, have you come to have him cremated or buried?” The father questioned.
“He’s not dead!” Anna cried clutching at her chest tears streaking down her face. The Father looked sadly on the woman, it was clear she was stressed; She had just recently lost her husband and now her son. Delusions were expected. He shook his head placing a hand on her shoulder “He’s dying!” she continued. The father perked up his head in confusion and saw what lay within her arms. He peeled back the blankets and saw the form of an infant within.
It was pale, its skin cold as ice, he could not sense a heartbeat. For a second he was worried the woman had gone mad, lost in her grief and woe.
Then he saw it.
The child’s eyes rolled in its head hands clenching and unclenching.
“How is this possible?” The father muttered stepping back “Is it some disease?” if the child carried a contagious disease that they could not cure it would have to be destroyed, no matter how callous the action might seem.
“No, I checked his stats” Anna cried clutching the child. The Father flinched slightly. It was taboo to check another’s stats unless in a life or death situation it was considered akin to peering into their soul. “His strength, Vitality, speed and endurance are all one, a single point” She stated tears streaming down her face. The Father stood in shock.
That was impossible such a creature shouldn’t have been able to survive. Yet drawing close to the child, with just a look he could sense it, the frailty behind the being.
“Nammia!” the father yelled at the young acolyte maybe four or five years old. “Bring me holy water and inscription devices.” The father moved to the end of the church pushing aside the altars and moving the statues with a strength that fitted a former level ninety-two paladin. He began to set up the alters of the minor gods around between the statues until they formed a circle at the centre of the church.
After an incident with a rogue orc roughly twelve years ago his wife dying in the attack he’d developed this technique for just such an occasion. But a few requirements had to be met: One the subject had to be willing, two they could not hold an allegiance to any God and three their luck would have to be outstanding.
The young girl came stumbling back panicked, the equipment in her hand
“Not that holy water the powerful stuff, every element we have in stock!” He barked. His wiry frame seeming to exude strength and command. The acolyte nodded dropping the items to the floor and brushing back her ragged red hair as she ran. Father Ottoban grabbed the inscription device, a long iron rod with a sharp end blessed by the greater god Iluross: god of light.
Anna looked on with a sense of confusion and hope, but the child’s hands were starting to curl, even the cool temperature of the room was starting to kill him. He was too weak. Time was running out.
Nimmia returned with roughly eight jugs of holy water. The father had already finished his inscription on the churches floor: a gigantic circle, one that would need ten men to link arms to come close to recreating the circumference. The father had been frantic etching curving lines through the circle into an array leading from one statuette to another denoting the flow of power between each of the gods the symbols on the floor glowing white. The difference here was the introduction of the statues. And what appeared to be a strengthening ward and healing spell combined in runic forms. It was something only a paladin (masters of many forms of light and healing magic, as well as arms) could perform. Ottoban poured the holy water onto the ground forming a layer over the circle and focusing the medium.
Soon the liquid neared the end of the circle and risked pouring out. But before this could happen it appeared to hit a wall at the edge of the barrier. The father reached out asking for the child. Anna handed him over gently the father removing the blankets exposing a skinny body, the bones jutting out to the empty air. The Father laid the child down in the centre of the circle.
The light about them seemed to grow becoming more and more powerful until eventually it reached a climax. And spluttered out the torches in the church dying low, strange arcs of flame rising and falling to and from the ground running over the engravings within the circle.
It contained all the colours of the rainbow the patterns on the floor seeming so vibrant they were alive and removing themselves from the stone. Then it happened. The world was shattered as an unearthly presence appeared before them. She was cloaked and hidden, disguised by a black hood. Anna tried to move forward frightened beyond belief.
“No.” The father growled looking on “It is the only chance he has.”
“Ah my little one.” The voice was feminine the woman plucking him from the floor the holy water mixing beneath her feet as she absorbed it all within her cloak. “So weak and so frail, yet with so much potential: I can see Chaos’ hand in this… No matter, he probably planned this all out, never can fight that fool.” She reached out placing a finger on the child’s head “I name you Cruor and give you my blessing, in exchange I take your magic”
She approached the edge of the barrier laying the child down before looking up strait at Anna. The woman saw something few ever saw and fell to her knees hands covering her mouth fear instilled in her heart, a deep pang flowing through her blood and keeping her locked within place. She wanted to protect her child from the monstrosity but could not move an inch.
“Congratulations, you have given birth to a wonderful son.” The figure declared standing strait “Just remember as much as he is yours, now he is also mine. You gave him his body, I gave him his life; it’s a promise” She winked those eyes of hers and vanished into mist.
It was then that Anna decided to protect her son no matter what the cost…