The sky crackled and popped, the storm tearing at the firmament. Joren felt the sting of the rain in his wounds, toxic droplets poisoning his blood.
It didn’t matter. He was dead anyway.
And now, thanks to his failure, so was the world. His army lay dead and scattered across the foothills, forty thousand bodies mangled by steel and magic, the last of the Isandros Liberation Forces. The alliance of a dozen nations was not enough to stop the White Mage from executing his grand experiment.
Jagged white lines veined the black sky like frozen lightning. They fired from the White Mage’s silver tower perched atop the highest peak, an arm reached forth to ensnare the heavens. The sorcerer’s hubris seduced half the nations of Isandros, while the wary dissenters coalesced around Joren’s war effort.
But the White Mage’s alchemical genius equipped his battalions with unmatched weaponry, magic beyond what was ever thought possible.
That same magic consumed him.
On the eve of Joren’s assault, the White Mage ascended his tower to engage his unholy device, a machine meant to transmute man into god. Instead, it ripped the mage apart into pieces smaller than dust specks, then launched its tendrils into the sky.
Darkness enveloped the world.
Then fissures threatened to break it apart.
Despite the White Mage’s failure, his devout hordes, mind’s long since corrupted, fought to the last soul. Their dead intermingled with those of the liberation forces. After years of enmity, a grim peace had finally come to Isandros, mortal enemies now lying together in a vast, open grave. In death, there could be no disputes. Nothing but silence.
“Goddamn silence.” The words tumbled from Joren’s lips and it occurred to him they would perhaps be the last ever spoken in Isandros. A fitting elegy for a planet doomed by its need of a god, who could not settle for its terrestrial largesse, who needed to install a tyrannical ruler so that they might taste the eternal.
Joren felt shame, for he had at one time desired the same.
Mortality’s abysmal promise haunted him ever since he’d lost his wife and daughter to a bandit raid on his village. The resulting vengeance secured his reputation as an impressive warrior and strategist, fame that catapulted him onto the world stage when the White Mage rose to power.
To the people of Isandros, he was their great defender. In his own heart, it was terror that compelled him. Every swing of his blade kept death at a three-foot distance. He fought against apocalypse, against death that stole his family, against the cold eternity that awaited him. No, even cold lives. The cessation of life took with it cold, warm, numb — all.
Isandros bled dry. War left behind a desiccated corpse, devoid of color, painted gray by the horrific instruments of destruction devised by the White Mage. As Joren lay dying, he tried to remember, to recreate the countryside of his youth, the setting for his years of blissful marriage, when death was as far from his thoughts as the lesser of Isandros’s two moons. He did this with open eyes, afraid that if he closed them they would never reopen.
He wasn’t ready.
He wasn’t ready to die.
He could feel his limbs growing cold, sensation shrinking away from his extremities. No, not yet. His fingers curled into the sodden earth, but the soil had no texture. Not yet.
A bright red ball of light flashed behind the clouds. Joren watched as it burned through them, a celestial rock screaming out of the sky with a trailing ribbon of fire. It arched towards the foothills and for one terrifying moment Joren believed it would crush him.
But then it crashed into the earth a hundred feet from where Joren lay. Mud sprayed against the mountainside, formed a crater around the embedded boulder. He struggled to lift himself off the ground so that he could investigate, but the weakness of his legs collapsed him again.
Shortly, however, Joren didn’t need to rise in order to see what the heavens delivered.
Tongues of flame rose up from the crater, thirty feet high, and Joren watched in amazement as they seemed to conjure something behind them. Through this red-orange curtain emerged an enormous, black skull. Fire raged within its empty orbits, traced its sutures, burned behind its teeth. Two mighty horns curled away from the skull, each wreathed in black smoke.
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Its bottom jaw hung loose and in the air a terrible voice spoke to Joren, “Rise, my son.”
Suddenly, Joren found that he could stand. He pushed himself off the ground and stood before the skull. Then the visitor acted in kind, rising out of the crater until its towering form dwarfed Joren far below. The body beneath the skull was naked thews, bleeding muscle stripped of its skin.
“You wish to live?” thundered the giant.
Joren squinted against the stinging rain to view the flaming skull. “You offer life?”
“In another world where you will do the bidding of the gods. I am Morrii, God of Death. You have been scouted for your martial talents. We are in need of warriors of your caliber.”
Joren hung his head. “More fighting.” Death’s silent counteroffer touted an end to war. The dilemma was that it came inextricably linked to an end of everything. Which was no dilemma at all really, not for Joren, whose terror in the face of nothingness outweighed his distaste for war.
Morrii, having read Joren’s heart, received his answer. As the sky cracked open and flooded Isandros with an obliteration of white light, Joren was plucked, body and soul, from the only world he’d ever known. Hurtling through a seemingly endless darkness streaked with bright colors, he heard Morrii speak to him. “Your task will be made known to you upon your arrival in Eldaviir. You will be one of six Morriim, agents serving the God of Death.”
Struggling to balance himself as he fell — ascended? — Joren replied, “What do we receive in return?”
“Life,” Morrii boomed.
An awful bargain, thought Joren, but one his fear gave him no choice on.
Suddenly, the vibrant colors that had been streaming past spiraled into his vision like fulgent parasites worming through his eyes. The pain was excruciating, but transient. As soon as it passed, Joren read elegant calligraphy superimposed over the light-striped darkness. One by one, figures appeared, accompanied by Morrii’s explanation.
Blood: 3 Cups
“Our world is governed by an apparatus constructed by Demmii, God of Creation. It dictates the rules of combat, the progression of your ability. We have translated your constitution into applicable terms. Blood determines your health, warrior. Lose it all and you shall perish. After battle, you may refill your Blood count with sleep and sustenance.”
Muscle: 4 Sinews
“You will immobilize yourself if you exhaust your Sinews before they replenish.”
“How quickly do they replenish?” Joren asked, making himself a student of his adoptive world.
“One every ten seconds, a speed which you may improve as you progress.”
Soul: 1 Mote
“When you obtain additional Motes, they will permit you to wield magic.”
Magic. Joren had seen enough magic for multiple lifetimes, would sooner eliminate all magic from all worlds than use it himself.
“Don’t be too hasty, warrior,” Morrii cautioned. “Magic is a crucial element of Eldaviir. Your first Mote powers your soul. When you improve your sorcery, you gain the capacity to carry additional Motes, which may then power your magic.”
Spirit: 11
“This,” Morrii continued, “quantifies your magical capability. Use magic to increase this score. For every ten, you increase your Mote carrying capacity by one.”
Body: 42
“Strength. You are a mighty warrior, Joren, which we have reflected in this score. But in our world, you will have room yet to improve. I suspect you will become one of the strongest Eldaviir has ever seen. Every ten increases your Muscle by one Sinew.”
Mind: 34
“The capacity of your intelligence quantified. As you strengthen your Mind, you become more efficient. Your body makes better use of its systems, and thus for every ten you increase your Blood by one Cup. Now, summon your Constitution.”
Joren, initially bemused, quickly felt the mental reflex that returned each figure, gathered together in a list, alongside other as yet unexplained information.
Level: 0
Blood max: 3 cups
Muscle max: 4 sinews
Soul max: 1 mote
Spirit: 11
Body: 42
Mind: 30
Abilities: none
Coin: 0
“Very good,” Morrii praised. “Now you may begin.”
The bands of color widened, overlapped, bled into one another until they erased the darkness, replacing it with luminescence. It reached out and swallowed Joren.
The sensation of movement ceased.
Joren was still, crouched in the underbrush of a lush forest. He stood in a new world, full of life humming all around him. Birds, insects, squirrels bounding along tree branches, a deer loping into the distance, a curious rabbit hopping towards him, nose twitching as it sniffed at the air. This place teemed with life and for one fleeting moment Joren felt overcome by joy.
Welcome to Eldaviir - Virii Forest
The greeting looped across his vision in gold letters.
Then his Constitution replaced it. At the bottom of the list, a new number appeared.
Time: 30 seconds
Joren wondered at the figure and an explanation wrote itself underneath.
Kill or die. You have thirty seconds to extend your life.