It’s later, once emotions are wrung dry and the little family has headed home with the sheep still perfectly okay and alive. I can finally pay attention to the various floating boxes. I clear away a number of messages about Worship Points and Worshippers, because I can see everything more clearly in the single summary. That summary leaves me breathless. Except, I have no need to breathe, but in this case it doesn’t make a whole lot of difference.
[SANDY THE COMPASSIONATE
MINOR ROCK NUMEN LEVEL 11*
Beloved of a small and isolated farming community of the Eborth Plateau.
POWERS
Inconsequential Miracle (WP 1)
Minor Miracle (WP 2)
Miracle (WP 10)
Bless (Max WP L)
Heal (Max WP L)
Curse (Max WP L) ERROR: VERBAL COMMUNICATION REQUIRED
Sacrifice (*)
Vituperation (*) ERROR: VERBAL COMMUNICATION NORMALLY REQUIRED
WORSHIPPERS: 3
DEVOTEES: 2
FAVOURED DEVOTEES: 1
WORSHIP POINTS: 108
ACHEIVEMENTS
*Creation
INFLUENCES
Life
Oblivion
Invective
DOMAINS
Invective ERROR: VERBAL COMMUNICATION REQUIRED. DOMAIN SUSPENDED
Livestock]
I recall what the Voice told me. “To attain Level Ten, you require one Domain, ten Worshippers and the successful performance of a Miracle witnessed by at least three Mundanes.” Voice also said that if I met the requirements, I could get more than one Level at once. More than two, it looks like. I’ve jumped all the way from five to eleven.
Level Ten needed three Mundanes to see me perform a Miracle. I didn’t use a Miracle on the baby. Although, Voice also told me that Influence could do anything that could be done with any level of Miracle. Including meeting the requirements for levelling? I used Sacrifice, not Influence, but Bless was linked to my Influences once I had them, maybe Sacrifice was too? If I used Sacrifice, I was using my Life Influence as well?
I supposedly needed ten Worshippers for Level Ten, and I don’t know how many for Eleven, and yet I’ve only got three. I’ve got Devotees instead. Still less than ten in total. Was a Devotee worth more? Did I think the idea of assigning some sort of numerical value to living, thinking beings was abhorrent? Why yes, yes I did. Was I going to have to get used to it? If I wanted that Devine Miracle, maybe I was.
The thought makes me feel dirty.
I finally have questions that the Voice would be perfectly able to answer, and there’s no Voice to ask. I’m alone, more alone than I’ve ever been in my life.
My own family is who-knows-where and who-knows-when. I have very little sense of how long I’ve been here. They might have stopped mourning me and moved on. To the little shepherd family and the handful of others I’ve met in this new world, I am not a someone. I am a something, an Other. I am a tiny deity, to be petitioned and worshipped in return for favours. Of all of them, DeeDee probably comes closest to treating me as a living being like herself, and the friendship of a young child is not enough to fill the void left by the removal of my whole life.
Maybe I could Miracle my rock to somewhere else entirely and throw every remaining Worship Point into Blessing my Worshippers and Devotees. A Bless like that would probably set them up for years to come. If I send myself far enough they won’t find me, and without Worship Points I’ll just slide into oblivion. Maybe I’ll wake up back home at last.
Or maybe I’ll just disappear into nothingness, without even my proper name. Is a name really that important anyway? There isn’t anyone who cares.
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“Sandy!” DeeDee’s happy shriek rouses me.
“Sandy?! What sort of a name is that?”
I’ve been… asleep? Again. And I quite agree with the second speaker. I already like them, even though I don’t recognise their voice. My vision emerges from the darkness to reveal a bit of a crowd accompanying my youngest Devotee. I’m used to their style of dress by now, enough to notice a few variations. One of the men has the usual long coat or tunic, baggy leggings and pointed-toe boots, but they are of plain greys and browns rather than brightly woven, and his hat is of leather encircled by a flat brim. There’s an elderly woman mostly dressed exactly like Namuna or DeeDee, but her hat is black and looks a bit like a bucket perched on top of her head. I’m sure the differences mean something, but I have no idea what. I spot Ganzor at the back, a step away from the others, carefully watching over the proceedings.
“This is Sandy,” DeeDee says, suddenly solemn and proud. She bows carefully in my direction. “My Lord of the Land, Sandy, who has been so generous to us, these people bring offerings. Please consider their requests.”
The change in formality puzzles me. Thinking over the words themselves, rather than my understanding of them, I realise that the language Dee was using is different to the language she usually speaks.
Are they making Dee into some sort of priest?
The elderly woman shuffles forwards, bowing as DeeDee had and placing a gorgeously embroidered cloth on my surface. Her lips barely move, and her whisper is no more than a ghost of air from her lips, but I understand her all the same. The village has suffered for some years. Animals have sickened and died. Their few crops have often failed. Too few children have been born, and those that are do not grow well. Bandits come raiding. If they have somehow angered me and brought these misfortunes on themselves then so be it, they will accept whatever punishment is fitting, but if the source of the curse lies elsewhere then she begs my aid.
What sort of self-flagellating culture just says “Our bad, go ahead and punish us?” I’d love to help, really I would, and there’s Tribute here I can accept to, presumably, expand my triple-digit reservoir, but I have no idea where their village is. Except, I find that I do. I have a sense of the home of DeeDee, Ganzor, Namuna and the new baby. I can tell where the scattered village dwellings lie across the plain. I can dimly sense many of the people in this little group, like faint lights through fog: warm yellow for hope and fading blue for sorrow, red for greed and dirty brown for anger, bilious green for fatigue or sickness and pure white for selflessness.
I accept the old woman’s Tribute. I touch each green light with a single Point of Heal, my Worship Points dropping quickly. Then I picture a Blessed rainfall, almost light as mist, gently bathing the area with just a few more Points.
A collective sigh ripples through the small crowd, and more begin to step forward, offering Tribute of humble but carefully-made items, food, flowers, and from the plainly-dressed man an incredibly ornate metal bowl. The requests reach me as well. Requests for healing, for sick animals to get well, crops to grow. One young woman wants to be liked by her mother-in-law to be, and suggests that it would help if she was better at weaving. A teenager wants to succeed in his first hunt so that he will be considered a man.
Is this what’s going to happen now? A constant queue of people wanting… well, of wanting their prayers answered? Should I really be granting all these requests, when I can? It’s gained me Worshippers and Worship Points before, but the expenditure is very quickly exceeding the supply. Anyway, humans work very well on hope and faith. If they think they MIGHT have their prayers answered, they’ll happily ascribe good things happening to them as a gift from their deity rather than coincidence.
Shoving down the guilty sensation of cheating, I take the Tribute but don’t hand out any more Heals or generalised Blessings. For specific requests like that of the would-be weaver and hunter, I focus on the outcome and use Minor Miracles, which are more or less covered by the new Tribute and occasional additional Worship Point.
DeeDee bows to each person in turn. I gain a number of new Worshippers, who I guess are the ones already helped by the earlier Heals. Ganzor stays back, probably only here to make sure that DeeDee is okay. Or maybe to make sure that everyone behaves themselves. A few of the visitors also bow to the fox, which has withdrawn to a greater distance than usual but is watching the proceedings with curiosity.
I feel tired when the group are finally done and move off, most of them heading for the village. I’m not so tired that I don’t have the energy to pull up my summary sheet.
[SANDY THE COMPASSIONATE
MINOR ROCK NUMEN LEVEL 12*
Beloved of a small and isolated farming community of the Eborth Plateau.
POWERS
Inconsequential Miracle (WP 1)
Minor Miracle (WP 2)
Miracle (WP 10)
Bless (Max WP L)
Heal (Max WP L)
Curse (Max WP L) ERROR: VERBAL COMMUNICATION REQUIRED
Sacrifice (*)
Vituperation (*) ERROR: VERBAL COMMUNICATION NORMALLY REQUIRED
WORSHIPPERS: 8
DEVOTEES: 2
FAVOURED DEVOTEES: 1
WORSHIP POINTS: 53
ACHEIVEMENTS
*Creation
INFLUENCES
Life
Oblivion
Invective
DOMAINS
Invective ERROR: VERBAL COMMUNICATION REQUIRED. DOMAIN SUSPENDED
Livestock]
Another Level. Another Level of fumbling around with very little idea of what is going on and what I should be doing. A Level that took me fifty or so Worship Points to gain. At this rate it will take me… I don;t know how long it will take me. I keep losing time. I don’t know if that will change as I get more powerful. I need a way to get my questions answered!
I need a proper name too. I’ve reached Level Ten, I’m supposed to get a new name! Why hasn’t an option come up to change it? Why can I still not remember what my name is supposed to be? Why?
A new idea strikes me, one that brushes aside my weariness. Can I use my Powers for myself? Can I Miracle myself a new Voice, the way I Miracled a flower for Dee to take to Namuna? How will I know if I don’t try? I want something that will… someONE that will be genuinely helpful, that knows the world but also knows how to filter the information so I get the most important stuff, that will be able to figure out what I’m really asking and tell me what I need to know. Someone with unobtrusive authority of knowledge. Someone I can trust. I’m picturing my old junior school teacher, Mrs Anderson. She had a well-tuned bullshit detector, a seemingly miraculous ability to offer comfort without making the recipiant the target of bullying, and a remarkable way of making even the most complex subjects seem understandable and memorable.
Ah, there you are, Devan. What HAVE you been up to?