Back then, he had held his breath just like he was right now.

Please Goddess, please, accept me. I need a little luck in my life, he had pleaded as he approached the priest with the large, swirled amethyst. To some it represented a flow to center, and others it represented the shape a hurricane or a tornado makes, bringing chaos and destruction. That is how luck is, right? The young man thought as he reached out and put both his hands onto it. Swirling you to new heights that you could not have planned for, or going bad and dropping you into the center of hell.

“Do you have permission from your family to be here?” the priest had asked, tilting his head forward in a polite acknowledgment of Dainin. He extended his hand politely, expecting a letter of recommendation.

“No. I came here on my own.” he looked up at the priest, trying to put his best bold face on. There were some titters from trainees to the side of him. He took deep, measured breaths to keep the flush out of his face.

“I see. Mysteera shall judge you then, you may make your offering.” The large purple stone rested on a marble pedestal with gold veins. He pressed his palms onto the shape, feeling the ridges, how smooth they were, how many people had done exactly this and been rejected? The Goddess of Luck was fickle, and his hands fit into groves worn on the stone by others. Please, he prayed with all his might. Please, I just need one thing in this world to want me, he pleaded. He offered his magic, pressing some of the water element, or imber magic, that he had been born with into the stone, though it resisted him. He held his breath.

Delight and relief filled him as the stone reacted and began to glow softly. More relief as he realized he had the divine vision bestowed upon him. The middle-aged man in front of him showed the most recent title granted the man, Blessed of Fortune. Several other colored icons and labels flowed into the air around the man’s eyes, as well as a orchid-purple aura, but a sound of laughter distracted him from exploring them.

“Mouse lion?” burst a high-level trainee.

Dainin looked down at his own hands, and he saw some of his own stats, but also, his title. Mouse Lion, Lucky to Be Blessed.

It brought color to his face, and he could not quite figure out whether he was more embarrassed or relieved. At least he belonged to the Goddess and did not have to go home. His first quest appeared; enroll in training at the temple of Ninanya. Congratulations, a female voice whispered in his ear, you are my first knight. As he looked at the quest, he saw beneath it: Fail and you shall be called Scrub by all worshippers of Mysteera for all time.

That had been a few years ago now, and his newest quest floated in front of his eyes. Evacuate the town.

His war horse snorted beneath him, and Dainin patted him. He had a good vantage point on the hill; he could see into the little farming village. His divine vision told him that there was mostly peasants and farmers, most of them inexperienced in life, at least based on the fact that very few of them had any kind of aura floating near them.

On the other hand, there was a big wolf-like beast, wreathed in yellow-green flame, slaughtering cattle that fled toward the town to get away from it. Maddened Forest-God Kevalin, his divine sight could inform him, even from this distance. The aura that swirled around it was so dark purple that it was just about indigo. Pale purples and pinks are weak; darker purples denote strength. He looked at his hands, at his own lilac aura. Many times stronger than I am.

He looked out at the town and back at the beast. He waved his hand through the air and rejected the Goddess’s quest. He kicked Oberon to signal they were galloping. If I fight it by the creek, I will have a chance to detain it. I do not believe that even if I tried to get that town evacuated, everyone would actually make it out.

It was the first time he was going to defy the Goddess since she had allowed him to join her service and escape his family. His training had deepened his aura and blessings with the goddess from paler than lavender to where he was today. I am brave, please support me, he pleaded.

However, there was no answer as he jumped Oberon over a farming fence. The riverbed… turned out to be more like a stream of water, a little creek. Too late now, he thought as the forest-god had stopped what it was doing and stared at him. He hopped off of Oberon to protect him and sent him running out of the area with a sharp whistle.

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“Chaos Bow,” he said, holding out his hand. The purple bow materialized in his hand from the gem on the center of his chest plate, and he drew back the string, summoning an arrow of magically reinforced ice, and he fired at the God.

It squealed with rage as the arrow struck it in the thickest part of its back leg. I have never seen anything personally infected with Madness, but I have heard it’s bad. The wolf-like beast snarled at him and began to charge. Dainin readied another arrow, striking it squarely in the body as he focused on the “Maddened” part of the title mentally.

It gave him information that he should have looked at before his impulsive decision. A female voice narrated to him as he began to run up the bank of the creek, A creature that has contracted Madness will show it in the unusual movements and uneven walking. As the disease progresses, the creature will become more anxious and active. Aggression follows, the creature will attack anything that moves and attracts its attention. The disease will have entwined with the creature’s life force, and it will not stop until it stops breathing, regardless of how battered its body becomes.

The monster was closing the distance pretty quickly as he sprinted. He hoped that if he could get further upstream, he would be able to find more water to work with for a bigger spell. It was a foolish hope, it was as big as his horse, if not bigger, and he was wearing his full armor. He spun, coming down on a knee to hopefully get a better shot at the lungs or belly. He fired his arrow, and he hit it, striking the creature near the center of its belly.

But it didn’t stop.

Dainin screamed as the massive forest god wolf chomped down on his pauldron, the force of the bite crushing the metal into his shoulder despite how sturdy it was. The beast snarled and death shook him by the shoulder, easily lifting him and shaking him as if he weighed almost nothing to it. It slapped him against the ground and rattled his helmet against his skull. Hot saliva tinged with the smell of copper splattered on his face and neck as the beast frothed at the mouth and tried to bite down yet harder, teeth puncturing through the metal and slicing up the monster’s gums. The scream it got out of Dainin when the teeth punctured the stripe-patterned skin of his shoulder was much more guttural, and he twisted in its grasp and punched at its face and eyes with his other gauntleted hand.

The massive five-tailed wolf yelped when his knuckle got it in the eye, and it whipped its head violently from the ground and flung him with the movement, its teeth unhooking from his armored shoulder, and he was sent flying through the air.

He landed face-first with a metal whump in the grass and brambles of an embankment that crumbled, tumbling him down into a creek bed with barely a meandering trickle of water in the very bottom of it. His helmet came off and bounced down the hill past his feet before he fully came to a stop. There was red sparking around his vision as the air was knocked out of him from the fall. Am I going to die? Will that make her happy?

Maybe it was because he was so close to getting killed, but he could practically envision his angry stepmother and impassive father in the air above him as he struggled to get his arms beneath him so he could get up.

The canine forest god landed on his back with another whump as it simply leaped into the river bed with him. It shoved his face down into the mud and water, and he was only just able to get his head out of the way of the first attempt the beast took to bite him. It won’t make me happy.

He took a deep breath, sucked muddy water into his mouth, and focused on his imber magic, focusing it in his mouth as he turned the filthy water all but molten, and when the beast came down to bite him again, he spat the hot fluidy mud on it. It recoiled instantly, and he wiggled out beneath it and rolled over his back. Goddess Mysteera, I belong to you, I know, but I am not going to die in this ditch.

He put his gauntleted hand in the mud around him - pouring his magic into it. The maddened forest god was shaking violently, trying to clear hot mud off its face with a paw, spraying saliva flecked with blood all about. I am sorry Lady Luck, he thought at the Goddess he had just defied. He regretted not listening. I will accept any blessing you will give me in these last minutes.

His blue magical aura poured into the earth and mud, and excitement and relief both pressed into his heart as he saw the magic was tinged with a rich purple. Thank you, he thought as he prepared to attack. He heard the female voice in his head again, New title: Mouse Lion, The Lucky Contrarian.

Its face cleaned of the mud, the rabid god lunged in again, and spikes of muddy earth surged upward all around Dainin and impaled it. Not enough at first to kill it; its blood poured everywhere as it screamed a feral sound of pain and rage. Dainin clenched the fist of his damaged arm and shoved his open palm upward from his chest while willing the spikes with his mind and magic and body to finish it quickly and not make all of this worse than it was. May the forest gods of your family forgive us, and may you find peace, he thought, sparks coming at the edge of his vision again as his magic strained him.

He breathed out relief as it perished. For a minute, he just laid there in the mud and thought about passing out. The feeling faded, and several things all happened at once.

Knight of the Goddess new blessings: Rag Doll, Indomitable Lion, Scurrying Mouse, Nature-God Slayer, Hero of the Farmer.

It was more than he had ever gotten at one time. He had trained under the brutal knighthood of the Goddess of Justice for actual months to get his first new feature, the use of the Chaos Bow, and now five all at once?

His shoulder was on fire, all this mud couldn’t be good for it. His mouth was filled with gritty mud and blood from biting his lip when he bounced into the creek. He didn’t know where his helmet was, and he felt somehow sassed by the skills he had just been bestowed. Scurrying Mouse? Hero of the Farmer?

At least his primary title wasn’t still Lucky to Be Blessed, he supposed. He didn’t have the energy to explore his new blessings; he had poured every last bit of magic in his body in that last desperate attack. He wobbled to his feet and spat mud out of his mouth as best as he could while he looked for his horse. A whistle would normally call him right back, but with his lip bleeding and grits in his mouth, he wasn’t sure it was worth the pain to even try. Hopefully, someone in the town could help him with his armor and the injuries.