System Administration Realm, Age of Eclipse.
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Wyxnos, god of Logic and the one in charge of keeping the System afloat and updated, was strained. Even days after the Asgardian's visit, he was still shocked. Loki should not be able to come and go as he pleased in this world, much less enter this most secluded Realm uninvited and unannounced. He'd queried the System to exhaustion and now stared at the answer in a glowing projected screen hovering in front of him.
> Deity [LOKI, ASGARD] is part of the current Pantheon. Domains: Trickery, Change.
He'd wormed himself into the Pantheon. With the Trickery domain, infiltrating the Administrative Realm wasn't impossible. Add that to the fact he was a major deity in another pantheon and could sustain himself without an active worship base and you had a disaster in the making. Should Loki wish for, he could take over the World below, their Realms, and the System from them.
For a brief moment, he longed for the easy days of a college teacher in the mid-west. Before he and his friends took the gamble and transcended their humanity. Such moment was disturbed by a visitor, an official one.
"Wyxnos, I demand an audience!" The female but guttural voice growled and rang in the featureless white Realm.
He dismissed the screen before information that should not be yet disclosed leaked to the wrong person... entity. In his blunder, he reverted to abandoned denominations.
"Tany... Broodmother. Welcome," the impeccably clad gentlemen bowed slightly, to indicate both hospitality and that they were equals.
The massive dragon goddess slithered more than walked - scratch that, clambered - into full sight of both core and god. Wyxnos noted she was growing some respectable energy stores underneath that scaly hide. He'd not dare to even think she was growing fat even though it was the truth.
The dragon goddess hissed, clearly annoyed, "Wyxnos, Bundeus contacted me. What are you scheming behind our backs?"
Bundeus is dead, Wyxnos thought.
"Nothing. I only extended an olive branch to our former friend," your former lover, he mused suppressing a smirk.
"His core!" She bellowed, hissing on the 'his'. Flames flared from the massive dragon's nostrils, painting the white Realm yellow and orange from a moment. "How in tarnation did you obtain his core, Wyxnos! Are you conspiring with our enemy?"
A clawed paw moved forward, stomping the ground. Wyxnos flinched instinctively, a burst of anger making him consider banishing the "Broodmother" from that Realm. He maintained his composure, nonetheless.
"Nonsense," the god replied curtly and flippantly, at least in his evaluation. "If anyone here is conspiring, it is you. You were the one that reincarnated an entity without the Pantheon's approval, Tanya!" This time his use of her abandoned Earth appellation was intentional. Wyxnos too set his foot down. "One is an anomaly, two is a coincidence, three is a pattern. Keep it up and I won't be able to rein in the System to avoid more. You cheated!"
"And so did Loki!" She hollered in her defense, clearly offended. "I would not let my beloved perish at the hands of that travesty."
Bundeus and the Broodmother interfered with the soul recollection matrix more than once. They diverted a few and kept them from being reclaimed by the System. One, in particular, could prove very troublesome in the future. The last drop was the clumsy removal of Bundeus' soul from the loop by the Broodmother. Without finesse, she took it before the memories were erased but fortunately after the Status was removed. Bundi the human adventurer started from scratch, that much was true. Blessings the Broodmother gave him notwithstanding.
That loophole was patched. Wyxnos wouldn't interfere with their absconded trophy as thanks for "filing a bug report". It also was a fight he didn't want to pick on top of his curiousity to see how they'd use her against the Anomaly.
"What's done is done," Wyxnos sighed. "I bestowed Bundi his previous incarnation's core and allowed him to pick a handful of unique Perks in lieu of those I deemed unfit for the System as my Admin purview. I offered him a deal. One I intend to honor."
"You best," she spitefully spat a gout of flame.
With a soft and well-articulated voice, Wyxnos counseled, "I'll give you one piece of advice, Tanya. Do not interfere in their fight. Whichever the outcome, let it come to pass."
The dragoness trembled, her mood unfathomable.
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Without any more words, she vanished.
That olive branch will come back to bite me in the butt, Wyxnos prophetized. He couldn't take back what was done, however. Just wait for the outcome.
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He sealed the Realm and summoned the screen again.
> Deity [LOKI, ASGARD] is part of the current Pantheon. Domains: Trickery, Change.
"System, reassign denomination for Deity Loki. Remove the mentions to another pantheon. Isolate the flow of divinity."
> ACKNOWLEDGED. [LOKI, ASGARD] is henceforth regarded as Loki, god of Trickery and Change. All Divinity flows from direct worship isolated to the current pantheon. One indirect flow remains open. Impossible to isolate.
One thought crossed Wyxnos' mind. "Show divinity flows for Loki."
> Loki, god of Trickery and Change. Current worshippers: none. Current temples, none. Current GP / day: zero. One private indirect flow, report blocked.
He felt relief. Whatever reason brought Loki to self-register as a member of the Pantheon, he wasn't taking any divinity for himself. Now that he thought of that, the Anomaly never directly spoke of her patron to other creatures. Barring a direct advent, Loki wouldn't get any worshippers.
Loki's personal appearances betrayed that this was more than just a whim to him. From handing over Thor to jump-start their world to sending the Anomaly, every single move the Asgardian took was a carefully laid-out game plan. To what purpose, Wyxnos couldn't fathom.
The important bit was, the Anomaly didn't worship Loki. Wyxnos could work with that, but it proved useless to spend more time in such musings.
He dismissed the screen and brought up the next step in the System's evolution. The Skill and Skill Point system proved inefficient and confusing. The people suffered from choice paralysis, inefficient point allocation. The Proficiency setup for Professions, on the other hand, streamlined and focused the people's builds. Even though almost everyone burned a slot in Appraise. Maybe it should be a universal ability... Anyway, he shelved that idea for later.
Wyxnos designed a conversion for the remaining general and combat Skills to translate them into Proficiencies. Along with the Perks to specialize and differentiate one man-at-arms from the next. It was a lot of work, but it would bring their System one step closer to perfection.
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Water Goblin Lake, underneath Fulgen
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"Doris" the fairy idly patrolled her lake. The aquatic goblins bowed to their Lady and protector as she went around, offering her their treasures to show their appreciation. Under her, the creatures flourished and developed what could be called a primitive civilization. Or a kingdom, if one wanted to stretch such definitions to an extent.
Her mind wandered to her daughter. She was the only one of the five elder elemental fairies that had offspring and even centuries after the fact, the idea of motherhood still hadn't settled within her heart.
She loved "Nenandil" to the bottom of her heart. And by extent, the foreign soul she bonded to. Doris chuckled, causing some goblins to mistake her reaction and exult as they thought their gifts were well-received. Doris liked the act of gifting, even though these crude trinkets were best used in the hands of their makers.
Foreign souls. Their world was plagued by them. In the inescapable grips of the System Core the first batch of foreigners brought upon the planet, every sentient creature had to bow to and be bound in their arcane and metaphysical gears.
Even the previous lords of the primal forces, she admitted with the beginning of a frown. She immediately put on a business smile, least the goblins currently making offerings to their Lady create a bad misunderstanding.
Gods, they called themselves, full of hubris. They forced upon the sentient races a covenant, where they drained the living people's souls of "belief" or "faith" in exchange for trinkets worth less than what the blue-gilled goblins freely extended toward her.
The world was fine before the System and people experienced an equivalent amount of suffering and joy. Doris had hints that they had more of the former nowadays. But what really mattered was the fate of their souls after they left their mortal shell. Before, they peacefully entered the natural cycle and were eventually reborn a bit stronger. Not anymore.
As they aged, and more importantly, leveled, people were infused with power by the System. This power was, after the advent of the ubiquous System, mechanically harvested and taken away by the so-called Gods before the soul, bereft of their evolutionary potential, was cast back into the wheel of rebirth only to go through the process again from scratch.
That's why she was so shocked and decided to honor the ancient traditions. One day, before the ancient fairy, lied a soul that shone like in the ancient times - no, even brighter - a foreigner like the Gods but with all the qualities and defects of a mortal. Far from the whitewashed souls, she saw on the sentient mortals crawling on all places of the world both above and below the surface, that small girl's soul bore enough potential to rival the dragons. That day saw "Nenandil's" birth when she was captured the cat-child.
Both visitor and newborn fairy only grew. When they met for the second time, she was Queen of the elves. That she alone had enough power to pay her kin's late tithes was astonishing. "Nephele" even went as far as to engorge herself on the elf's vitality and blood. Eventually, the visitor even cast one of the self-proclaimed Gods down from their heavenly dais.
Such feat filled the water fae with both hope and dread. Hope she could be the cornerstone of the world's liberation, or dread she'd become the chink in the armor that would cause its downfall. She couldn't know, for the foreigner had an elusive and inscrutable patron. A true Deity from the same Realm the foreigners came from, and the hardest kind to deal with. A trickster. What motivated Him to send the "Old Soul" into their world? It was beyond her ability to discern.
Her heart stirred like a whirlpool. It wasn't good, she reckoned.
Before her altered emotional state could cause trouble in her own domain, "Doris" returned to her abode, now a temple to herself courtesy of the lake's inhabitants, and connected herself to the essence of the Water around her. She forced her spirit to be calm and cool like a serene pond. The elder fairies had their pieces in place. They could only hope it would be enough to sway the inevitable and unfathomable fate.
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