Elia found herself walking down the temple’s halls, very certain that people of the pact didn’t care one lick about worshiping the gods. The artistically carved shrines were unkempt, buried under mountains of clutter while others were worn down and covered in a blanket of dust. She arrived at one in particular that was just a torso with every limb missing, and graffitied all over.
Left behind.
Liar.
Smite this, kidnappers.
Normally, she would have been inclined to cheer them on. But seeing the discarded bottles and paint cans scattered about the hundreds of years old art pricked her heart with an unseen needle. She touched one statue, just to see what [Psychometry] would give her.
Statue of Rhû, the kindness
The statue had a swirly mustache and an eyepatch drawn over it.
“They just didn’t care and defaced every god they could find.” The result of an undirected, violent tantrum. Neither thorough, nor exact. Not her kind of revenge. “It’s kinda rude. Don’t you think so too, Quibbles?”
Quibbles agreed. He would never be found with spray-paint in half-empty bottles.
And yet, this was fitting for the pact. It was a godless place, of those who were pulled from their normal lives, and lashed out in a justifiable revolt against the powers that be. Or that were, rather.
“Here’s to hoping they aren’t insulted if I call them from here. Of course, assuming I get a bad boon to reroll.”
Elia sighed.
She had promised to be better, and she was trying not to fault every god simply for existing with power beyond measure. But with so many different gods all responsible for different things, it wasn’t hard to believe that they had to share the absolute, and that therefore ‘not all gods’ applied. There was so much personality in the altars, so much life in the statues, Elia couldn’t but think of them as people. At the very least, it would have been good to know which were the gods to revere, and which the ones to fear.
“I wish Rye were here. She knows this stuff. Also, she always had better luck than me. What about you, Quibbles, do you want to roll?”
“Ribbit.”
“Yeah, you’re right. Personal responsibility and all that.”
You have fused: Bone shard [Rare] x8 into Bones of Boons [Rare] x1
Elia marveled at her dice. It felt heavier than the others. Maybe she was just imagining things.
“Here goes nothing.”
Darkness fell, time stopped, and the dice flipped, skipped, and bounced, putting on a convincing show of randomness. There was of course not a single chance in hell that bones of boons played fair. A system based on gambling couldn’t run a profit otherwise. But still, it had to pay off big every once in a while, or the illusion of the chance at winning the jackpot would be broken.
For the day, Elia would be happy if she got something helpful for her inevitable encounter with Rhuna’s birdie.
The die eventually had the grace of landing on a blue, depicting a scroll dripping with a dark substance.
[Body/Spirit] Xandrian insurance policy [Rare]
The old Xandrians were known for their frequent heroic feats before their kingdom was censured and razed. One less well-known practice was the frequent revival or reincarnation of their greatest kings and heroes. For you, instead of requiring a great ritual, one ton of gold, and most of your body mass, the practitioner attempting to revive you only needs a vial of blood or one of your close possessions, and your true name. Congratulations, you are now immortal*, but your soul is forever withheld from the cycle of reincarnation.
*The gods do not look lightly upon immortality when it is not given by them.
Elia’s left eye twitched. If this had been given to anyone when the world was still alright, they would be jumping with joy. Heck, if any other undead had it, they would never have to worry about the undead curse taking boons as long as a friend had the ingredients at the ready. But for Elia, there was no state of ‘being dead’. If she died the world simply reset that instant.
“It’s like giving a fish the ability to survive in outer space,” Elia grumbled. She had to admit, if this was the best way the gods had for giving mortals boons, then maybe people had a point in lumping them all in together.
Either way, if she wanted another one, she’d have to make an offering to one of their altars.
“Not at all an exploitative system,” Elia groaned.
Then again, at least she got her money’s worth. To her this boon was a useless lump of magic, but it was still a rare ingredient. With dozens of altars to choose from, she could at least choose whom to give control over her fate.
Settling her simmering displeasure, Elia slapped one altar after the next to get an idea for what they were offering. First, she walked up to a statue of a tall woman with big-sister vibes, sitting on a throne and holding a scepter in one hand while cradling a child in the other.
Filia, the gentle watcher
A god of mothers, most likely, but also rulers. There was no sign that conveniently explained what kind of boons one could expect from her.
Elia remembered how Rye accidentally donated a shard to a god, resulting in a snippet of paper falling from the skies. On a whim, she flicked a common shard onto the altar, which disappeared in a puff of smoke.
“What can you offer me?” Elia asked.
She waited not half a minute before a small scrap of paper floated down onto the altar. ‘Family and patience. Shelter and loyalty’ it read.
Elia blinked. “I’m surprised that works. Thanks, Filia.”
She didn’t gain an answer to that, but that there was any reaction at all left her feeling a bit better. It was like sending an SMS, and her shards were the quarters she needed to pay for every message.
“A bit pricy, don’t’cha think, Quibbles?”
Quibbles chose not to comment. Elia went on to the next. She recognized it as Kao-joo, but since she already knew he was the god of travel, and that he was supposedly dead, she skipped him. The next one was a familiar alluring figure. Rokokoko, goddess of love, sex-appeal, et cetera.
She skipped that one too.
The one after that was considerably smaller, a young girl depicted imperiously with her chin held high. And yet, that smirk on her lips sparked the idea that her grace was just an illusion, a façade to make the barely hidden truth stand out more.
Puroroka, the shunned child
“Who the heck would shun a child?” Another point against the gods. Elia flicked another shard and asked again. “What can you offer me?”
Her answer came within moments.
‘Who knows?’ it read.
It had a smug-looking crab doodled on the edge of it.
“You took my shard,” Elia said, slightly shocked. “How dare you be smug at me about it!”
A second slip of paper fell to the ground. It had a crab on it too. The crab was dancing. Somehow, it looked even more smug than the first.
“Goddang godchildren using their omnipotence for pranks.” Elia shook a fist at the sky. She swore she could hear a kid laughing in the distance. She would rather not entrust a child to choose three nice boons for her to choose from, and so she moved on.
The common shards flowed like water. Some gods answered. Most of them did not. The temple was definitely tiered, the two great gods Ruthe and Worga sitting above their ten children who in turn were placed above the lesser gods.
Elia was not about to choose a lesser god unless she had to. Hierarchy implied power, and she needed someone serious and strong. Sadly, both of the great gods did not answer. Maybe they were indisposed. Maybe they were dead.
“Maybe they suffered a stroke and now we’re just wading through their rotting corpse of a world,” Elia muttered to no one in particular. “Gods, I hate how accurate that feels.”
Eventually, Elia returned to one of the first statues she had touched, the altar of Filia. Filia stood in a central trinity with two of her sisters right in front of Ruthe and Worga,. One of the sisters was clad shoulder to toe in fine fitting plate armor, while the other looked awfully familiar.
Aurana, radiance of sand
Elia looked between the altar and the little notification confirming that yes, she was still potentially being spied on.
“It’s you!” she declared accusingly. “Any chance you can forward the bill for this?”
Predictably, the gods were not the generous sort, or at least this one wasn’t. Elia sighed as she flicked another common shard on the altar. At least Aurana deigned her with an answer.
‘Empire, wealth, protection, fealty.”
As she stood before it, a pressure alighted on her back. She whirled around to Filia’s statue. It wasn’t moving, but the longer she stood here the more she was certain that it was radiating disapproval.
Elia held up her hands defensively. “Alright. You’ve got beef with your sister. Don’t get me mixed up in it.”
She flicked a shard to the last of the three sisters and watched it disappear too.
Wroti, Our red sun
There was no scrap of paper, but instead an impression forced into her mind. She could feel what it meant to be Wroti, she could taste the burning ash and smell the cinders of an endless, sun-scorched plain, all standing so far beneath her. She was up here, and for her eternal service, all whom she loved were made ants, and she their protector from… something. It was anguish, it was exhilaration, it was shame and anger between loyalty and despair and death. War. Wrath. Vengeance. Vengeance.
This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Vengeance
Elia snapped out of it as her haze spelled out that one word again and again and again. Her breath was hitching as she backed away, but the tension in the room had already grown from awkward to full on hostile. The air smelled of ozone and her hair stood on end and the crick-crack of unbound energy suffused it all. It was time to leave and find a god who was both more civil, and also could possibly offer a good set of boons.
As she zipped around the corner, she almost bumped into the altar of a small god hidden in an alcove. Her hair was a crown of bay leaves and the bow in her hand looked as if it had just been plucked from a tree. Critically, she was not making the air hum with violence, and so Elia gave her a chance.
Valti, the distant lady of the hunt
“What can you offer me?”
“Not much,” was the answer, short and prompt.. And after a moment, in a second note, “What do you need?”
What a considerate god. Worried about the needs of the puny ants below, and not stingy with their divine messaging powers at all. Elia was feeling generous, so she plonked down an uncommon shard as well. This could be the start of a wonderful business relationship.
“I’m going to fight an enemy who is much stronger than me. My good stats are body and spirit, so maybe get me something for that. In exchange, I offer [Xandrian insurance policy] and [Watercolor touch].”
An aura of subdued satisfaction radiated from the statue. Her boons disappeared, leaving her feeling hollow, but the anticipation of a new boon that fit her better outweighed that ten to one.
The distant lady of the hunt notes your sacrifice
[Body/Spirit] Wicked Barbs [Uncommon] [Socket x1]
You can infuse your strikes with this boon. Wicked barbs grow from wounds you create, latching onto objects within reach while burrowing deeper until they are too painful to tear out. A single nick may be lethal, but depending on the tenacity of your enemy, it might take a long time to develop.
[Spirit/Mind] Don’t touch me [Uncommon] [Socket x2]
For when you need a time out from everything. Suspend your body inside a protective cocoon, either willingly, or upon taking a lethal hit. While inside this cocoon, you are soothed by pleasant dreams and memories and heal at a rapid pace. The strength of the cocoon depends on how many wounds you have taken recently, be they physical, mental, or spiritual. You may only exit the cocoon when you are in a considerably better state than entering it.
[Body] Frog leap [Uncommon] [Socket x5]
Through heritage or affinity, you have gained the ability to jump like a frog. Your legs transform upon command into ones akin to these majestic critters, allowing you to leap great distances. Too great, sometimes. Overconfidence is a fast and insidious killer.
Distance scales with strength, accuracy with finesse, recharge rate with constitution. Repeated use within a short timeframe damages your legs and leads to cramps.
Those were… interesting choices. The second boon was completely useless to her. She didn’t need to survive a lethal strike in a cocoon, and Rye was already taking care of pleasant dreams. But that it was offered at all was very telling. This god didn’t know everything, not that Rye had a greater shard, nor that Elia returned upon death. Who was to say any of the others would?
“Neat,” she said, trying hard not to think about how this would make her eventual revenge against them much easier. But no, it was boon time.
The choice was between [Wicked barbs] and [Frog leap] leap then.
The first one was sadly the only offensive boon, but it offered everything she was looking for. All she needed to do was nick somebody with a thrown piece of tableware and boom, the boon started doing its work. It was damage and debuff, and she could already see some creative applications. Maybe she could make caltrops from shattered china or twisted fork heads.
On the other hand, Frog leap was mobility, and it had five entire essence slots for her to mess around with. With the credit she still had with Camille, she could surely liberate Mahdi of quite a few nice essences. And in all honesty, why would she wait for her enemy to die of parasitic vines when she could just jump in and slash them again and again?
Yes, the choice was made, and not at all because Elia was entranced by the higher socket number. She chose Frog leap, and Quibbles croaked happily.
“See, even Quibbles approves.” She wanted to try her boon out right away, but she figured she could jump around outside. “Pleasure doing business with you.”
Shard count: [Common] x34, [Uncommon] x27, [Rare] x1, [Epic] x1
She moved to leave the temple when she heard voices echoing in the distance. A peek into the main chamber revealed Jerry accompanied by an entire squad of the nastiest looking dregs, all spikes and wicked knives. The way he was yelling at attendant Varus implied he was not here on a friendly visit.
“Shit, I think he might have had a magical burglar alarm.” Or he could remember between loops and was simply obsessed with Elia’s beauty. Which, arguably, was even worse.
Elia snuck around, but found dregs guarding the entrance, the only safe way down the hill, too.
She looked to Quibbles for support. Quibbles croaked.
“What? I am not seducing him again, I barely succeeded last time and I had major help.”
A sudden crash of light and sound got all their attention. Smoke was coming from the room with all the altars. It seemed the three divine sisters had settled their little proxy-catfight.
More dregs were now rushing through the temple, and Elia had seconds before they found her. She peeked over the edge of the hill, where a rocky cliff-face stretched thirty feet to the ground. If she hit the house with the little belltower, it would only be about twenty feet. With her new stats, she should be able to survive the fall and then stitch herself back together, right?
“This is such a stupid idea.”
She steadied herself, breathed in, then activated her [Frog leap]. An unfamiliar tension ran through her legs as they bulged, tearing her pants. As the potent power of a thousand amphibians was released in one moment, she didn’t realize how she hadn’t aligned the rest of her body correctly, and was sent careening across the sky in a vomit-inducing flat-spin.
Only after thirty feet did gravity reassert itself and by then, Elia had already way overshot her target. She crashed straight through the window front of a mansion, bounced off the ground and furniture before finally hitting a wall.
Every bone in her body felt like it was broken. She knew from experience that that meant most of them likely were, but hopefully not the important ones.
“Ribs grow back, you baby,” she mumbled.
With a shaky hand she reached for her plastic water bottle and emptied the last of it. Flesh reknit, bones fused, and within seconds she was alright enough to stand up and check on Quibbles, who was predictably unscathed. How that little bugger managed she had no idea, but everyone was entitled to their secrets.
With dull senses she started to recognize the stone puppets scattered around her. It was Kasimir’s workshop. His creations had cushioned her fall, and she had missed the big copy of Rhuna statue by mere feet.
Time to find him and apologize. Every victory came with its price.
“Hello?” she called as she walked through the dusty, dark corridors. “Mister Kasimir sir? I’m sorry about breaking the ears off of your collection of cat-people puppets! Can I pay you back somehow?”
There was no answer. She rounded the corner and stood in front of the Rhuna statue again, despite only having taken a single right turn. Time slowed down by the briefest margin as something among the statues moved.
A sextet of blades came to meet her, and only her newly increased processing plus a [Frog leap] saw her flipping away in the nick of time.
You have challenged–
She batted the notification away, because she already knew that Rhuna’s little murder bird had found her. But how? The pact’s territory wasn’t that small, it should have been impossible to find her unless it was specifically looking for…
Elia stepped in a puddle and found that it was red. There was a body nearby too, and not one made of stone. It wasn’t Kasimir’s body either, but Zane’s. Of course, he was its target! It was taking out the secret service, and since she had been at the thieves guild–
The murder bird didn’t give her enough time to finish that thought, as it was on her in seconds, hacking, slashing, and stabbing sixfold. Her increased strength came in clutch as with a two-handed grip she was just about stronger than any of its single limbs. Even though the increase to finesse was minor, combined with faster processing she was just about able to hold her ground.
For a time, at least.
She parried a strike, sucker-punched the bird, then used that opening to run. She couldn’t run far, but another [Frog leap] sent her tumbling towards the ceiling. She got caught in a candelabra, almost slipping from the layer of dust and grime. Her legs twitched and shook and she was out of breath, nicks sewn across her face. She was definitely overtaxing herself just to keep up, and not just that. The blade in her hand already had so many nicks someone might have mistaken it for a poorly kept saw.
‘Prized among mortals. But not good enough for a fight between immortals,’ she mused.
The bird was letting her catch her breath, instead choosing to enact some sort of odd, swerving, swirling dance. It was entrancing, and Elia found all her focus fixed on trying to decipher what it was trying to accomplish.
“Conjure person!” the creature crowed.
Elia felt a tug on her everything and had seconds to realize that she was now standing right in front of the bird. She blocked the incoming flurry out of instinct, metal screeching across metal. Then the next one, and then the next. But she was at her limit. Rhuna’s slaves were just too juiced up for one girl to defeat on her own. But that was what she had friends for.
You have died
Divine grace protects thee, loyal undead
You have lost: Ring of grace x1
----------------------------------------
Karla was having a difficult time choosing what to wear for the upcoming party. It was supposedly to be held in her name, which certainly implied that she was invited, though she had not gotten an invitation of any sort. No matter, because when it arrived, she would be dressed and geared for a swell time.
She held up the golden-rimmed toga next to the one with red and black flourishes.
Too short. Her princess-sense told her. Indecent. Forbidden.
“Shut up, you,” she said, trying to color-coordinate them with her sandals and jewelry.
Foul language. Indecent.
“My mother and her friends killed your god, you’re just an annoying echo of his power.” She harrumphed, as was right for a princess and lo and behold, it didn’t bother her further.
The stories of the raids against evil beasts and traitor gods were the stuff of legend. Dozens, sometimes a hundred outsiders standing side by side, employing the greatest of tactics such as ‘tanking’, ‘kiting’, and the ever infamous ‘I AM healing, you’re just taking too much damage’-ing. Usually they succeeded in slaying their targets, frequently dragons. It was sad that the great age of raiding was over, due to lack of targets, the peace treaty, and other banal worries. Karla wasn’t sad that she was too young to join, but she would have liked to fight a dragon at least once.
She would have to contend herself with what she did have. And Yolon had been birthed from a dead dragon, though he was a bit too… sluggy.
But back to important business. The shorter one was definitely cuter, and if anything, Elia preferred dark colors, mysterious colors, and a little bit of–
There was a knock on her window. Karla opened the fourth-story window in a daze as Elia stepped on through.
“Karla, get your good gear, we’re going on a hunt.”
“Bwuh?” She stared at Elia, who was wearing half armor, half torn toga and her pants, which were also torn.
Indecent exposure.
A warning for both of them. Elia had caught her unprepared, she was only covered in two layers of clothing instead of the prerequisite three or four. And besides, one didn’t order a princess through a window unless it was an emergency.
“What are you waiting for?” Elia asked, barreling through every social barrier with aplomb. “Chop chop, put your Ferrini’s on and get your stuff. Also, if you have a chain hauberk or something for me, that would be great.”
“Y-yes ma’am! Of course!” Her heart skipped at the blatant disregard for hierarchy, station, and all the other annoying princess stuff. Vindication was all she felt as the princess sense annoyed her all the way into her walk-in closet, the second one with her collection of armor and gear.
“What are we hunting?” she asked. “A-and h-how many allies are we going with?”
“A little tweetie bird,” came Elia’s response. “And, uh, however many we can get. The dregs do listen to your authority, do they?”
“Yup!” Karla smiled, flinging vambraces and undergarments and sharp knives everywhere.
‘A raid. I’m going on a raid!’