She looks down at me, somehow towering over me while barely reaching my chest when sitting down. "We've been waiting for ages," she reprimands, "how did you never contact us?"

"Uhmm," I hesitate. Fidgeting with my hands, I realise that my equipment is missing.

"Vona," Stan says, voice low, "we talked about this."

Siro removes the sickle from their tendril, dragging a pillow into the middle of the seat and sitting on it."I hate to admit it but she's got a point, he should have been here before hitting level three!"

"No one told me how to do this," I argue. Seriously, the System shluld come with a manual.

Stan smiles warmly, conjuring up three mugs of tea on the table with a wave of his hand. "What do you know of the System, Grant?"

"I know that it appeared ten years ago and multiplied natural magics," I explain. I don't know much about it, accepting it for what it was.

A means to grow stronger.

Siro raises a hand to their forehead, complaining "Why did we have to get him? Couldn't we have gotten someone like the Life girl?"

Merah?

“Stop whining,” Vona snaps at them, raising her sickle, “this is your job, be professional.”

Siros sole eye glares at Vona, narrowing dangerously. “You’ve been whining about him for 7 years.”

“I’ve been criticising him,” she argues, “not comparing him to all the other chosen!”

“I didn’t-” Siro starts.

“Yes, you are right,” Stan talks over the other two, completely ignoring their bickering, “the System multiplies Magic, allowing you to survive in an increasingly dangerous world and take over our duties.”

I take a sip of the tea, seeing Siro and Vona slowly exhaust their bickering.

"When we got cast down from the heavens by the Elderwyrm, we managed to seal a sliver of our power into a construct, the heart of the system," Stan continues.

Siro snaps away from their bickering with Vona, yelling at Stan "You're butchering it! You have to start at the beginning!"

"He doesn't have the time for the entire conversation, " Vona says, grabbing her own mug, " he barely has the Magic Power or Capacity to use the Skill for anything useful."

"Alright," Siro says, raising their hands to catch our attention, "I'll tell you the story of how the gods got torn down from heaven.

We were minding our own business, governing our respective domains, when suddenly the former God of Wine died."

"Talk about butchering it," Vona takes over, "The Elderwyrm started killing gods and we got scared shitless so we made the System to take down the Elderwyrm. We succeeded in killing it but it infested the system, creating Cursed Classes to plague us until eternity, kill us."

How are these three deities? They are bickering like children.

"What exactly are Cursed Classes?"

Siro dunks a tendril into their mug, somehow not spilling a drop. "They force the wielder to kill and destroy with wanton abandon for any progress. A curse on the world and our followers. We managed to take care of most but there was one that dwarfed all others in power."

"Idanu," Vona clarifies.

"We brought him low but we lost almost everyone, leaving the remaining few to a slow and painful death, " Siro adds.

"Wait," I interrupt, mind somewhat reeling from that revelation, "you mean to tell me that the old gods are real and got killed by the same person that tortured me throughout my entire childhood? Your timeline doesn't add up, the old gods are stories from ages ago, not ten years."

Vona finishes her drink and sets the mug down. "Idanu is a title, a cursed class that got lost with the system. One of your kind reactivated the system in his search for power after we…"

"Lost it," Siro finishes for her.

"We didn't lose it," Stan says, "something shut it down."

"So what do you want me to do?" I ask.

"As the new Death your goal is to-"

A piercing headache fills my head, tearing me away from the conversation, -

----------------------------------------

Cogwheels, gems and pipes fill my vision. Dozens of cogwheels put together in impossible angles, turning and phasing through each other to make a neverending machine work.

Gems of different colours, no two the same, are dotted around the place, inlays connecting them to each other and shifting in multiple dimensions, connecting moving parts without moving themselves.

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Steam gets pumped throughout the pipes, clattering, whooshing. A pipe rattles, bulging outward.

Thunk

Something hits against the pipe from the inside, quickly gathering steam as the frequency of the hits increases.

The pipe bursts open, a red light pouring out and swallowing me whole as-

----------------------------------------

"What the fuck did you do to him?" Kara yells, possessively standing in front of my bedroll with my rifle aimed at someone.

What the fuck happened?

Merah yells back, standing behind the rest of her party,"I only told him to listen to his class!"

I dryly chuckle. She'd need to go behind a lot more cover to have an effect, unless one of them has a reinforcement Skill. I could probably punch through all of their reinforcement skills with [Reap Shot] and a lightning bullet.

"What the fuck kind of advice is that?!" Kara yells, completely missing my chuckling.

"It worked for me," Merah says, "it's all I had to go off! Why should I kill him?"

Kara yells back "Don't talk like he is already dead!"

"Oh, by the gods," I complain, clutching my pounding head, "could you shut the fuck up?"

I can swear by the old gods, right? Siro probably wouldn't mind and Vona wouldn't care either way.

Kara snaps around and looks down at me. She instantly puts my rifle down and kicks my leg. "You bastard! Tell me when you are about to do shit like that!"

Merah puts a hand on Vikram's shoulder as I clutch my leg, addressing me "So how did it go?"

"Is your patron as annoying as mine?" I ask, reaching for my canteen, "They keep bickering with each other."

[Siro: No, we don't!]

"They," Merah asks, "do you have multiple Patrons?"

Are you fucking kidding me? How?

[Vona: Don't you check your notifications, Grant?]

I quickly do as she says, doing my best to ward off the headache.

[You've gained Unique Skill: Commune]

[Commune: Use this skill to contact your patrons or they might contact you, uses Mana depending on the message length.]

[Stan: As I was saying before your mana ran out, your goal should be-]

The usually blue box from the System turns a crimson red where his message cuts off, cracking at the edges like it's about to break.

"Yeah, three, " I say, remembering Merahs question.

Merah looks at me doubtfully "and they are really just bickering? That doesn't really sound like gods."

[Siro: Tell her about my introduction!]

"Siro is telling me to tell you about their introduction, " I relay.

Darryl and Vikram shake their heads and go back to their bedrolls, writing this off as another eccentric from Merah or me.

Kara starts chuckling as Merah looks at me confused, asking "Aren't you going to tell me?"

"Nope," I reply with a huge grin, causing Kara and I to burst out laughing.

Kara sits down next to me in her own bedroll, shaking her head with a smile on her face.

It's good to know that we have a similar sense of humour, we didn't have many funny moments while travelling.

[Vona: Although I agree with the sentiment to not let Siro share their theatrics, I would appreciate it if you didn't downplay us. We are gods, we can and will punish you for disrespecting us.]

I take another sip from my canteen as Merah sits down opposite from me and Kara.

"They are still gods, Grant," Merah says, "do not disrespect them lightly."

[Siro: Yeah, listen to her!]

[Grant: Maybe I would if you took this seriously!]

"So we are the successors of the old gods?" I ask Merah, not bothering to hide it.

Everyone looks at me like I've grown another head, while Merah is flustering profusely. So they accepted us being [Warlock]s but that's going to far?

Kara looks at me incredulously. "So you're the God of Death?"

[Vona: God of Death in training.]

"Kind of," I explain, choosing to ignore Vona's correction. I do not have to downplay myself, that would make them look bad as well.

Vikram sits up in his bedroll, looking at Merah, "So that's why you always heal everyone we come across, levels!"

"Excuse me," she yells, "I heal people because they're hurt!"

I zone the two out, pulling Kara closer to whisper in her ear "I asked them about cursed Classes but you aren't going to like it."

Fleur clears her throat, standing behind us with her rapier drawn. "Cursed Class?"

Kara blushes profusely, turning to hide her face from Fleur. "Can we talk about this later, Grant?"

"Fine," I comply. Keeping it a secret is understandable and Fleur is giving me the creeps.

Kara stands up and leaves the camp with Fleur, leaving me with the rest of the party. Curious.

"Why didn't you tell us?" Darryl asks Merah.

"I was anxious at the beginning and it just got more awkward the longer I didn't say it," she explains.

Vikram shakes his head, laughing, "That's just typical, alright."

"That's all?"

He shrugs, laying back down, "I am more worried about [Death] over there, that's why Fleur is going to be standing watch."

I grab my rifle that Kara dropped earlier and check it over.

It wasn't even loaded. She tried to protect me with an unloaded rifle.

I ignore the vague insult from Vikram and settle back down, fiddling with my System.

[Grant: What do you guys want me to do then?]

[Siro: You've got to become stronger, strong enough to kill Idanu for good.]

[Vona: Spread Death.]

[Grant: How do I kill Idanu for good?]

…

[Grant: Hello?]

[Vona: We aren't sure.]

Great.

I've got a somewhat divine mission to kill a Godslayer with no hints on how to do it.

[Siro: That's not entirely true.]

[Siro: I think you should look for an artefact I used back when, it is just north of here.]