Far beyond the Milky Way, under a planet with three suns, stood a robed woman. Her white and gold attire clung to her body, emphasizing her shape in all the right ways. Her stark white hair was tied in a low ponytail that reached to the small of her back, and her eyes were blindfolded by a runic cloth that sealed her vision of the outside world. Though she may look blind to the casual observer, she was more than capable of seeing through magic. The woman stepped towards an shining, immaculate altar with six marble pedestals surrounding a larger pedestal upon which a shining orb of flickering light hovered in the air. Each of the taller pedestals held a divine treasure worth its weight and then some in gold coin, the product of many raids and crafts.
The woman knelt before the altar, and waited for the words of her goddess. A few seconds later, the treasures were absorbed into the orb which flared briefly with holy power before it subsided and changed in a metaphysical sense as a god descended to the mortal realm. Soon after, the woman heard the divine words like a melody of bells and chimes.
“The time is nigh for our crusade to begin. But first you must access Lambda’s Pride, a repository of lost knowledge which we can use to bolster our soldiers even further.”
The mortal woman tilted her head as she recalled what she knew of the repository. A slight frown on her visage forming.
“Is that not the one that requires a Transmigrator to open? I apologize if I speak out of turn, but we do not possess the necessary magic to summon one.”
The orb upon the altar pulsed with an angry red light and if you squinted, one could see part of the light squint like a narrowed eye. Renara braced for an attack as reprimand, as was per the usual when interacting with her goddess’ avatar. Instead, the orb of light calmed down.
“I will give you the spell needed, although it will be a one time use. Bring a Transmigrator here and use one of the slave rings. Then once he has opened the door to that place, put an end to him.”
A thin beam of light shot out from the pulsing orb and entered Renara’s head, flooding her mind with the information needed. Then, as if nothing had changed in the past minute or so they had been speaking, the light winked out as the goddess retreated back to the heavens, lest her presence bring more attention than necessary.
The woman raised her staff to the sky, pulling on the threads of the spellform that would activate the spell to summon a Transmigrator to their world. A string for foreign words escaped her lips as she recited the fleeting spell. As she cast the minute-long spell needed to pull a being from another plane, runes of various sizes and shapes swirled across her entire body, and a strong wind whipped about her as the ambient mana helped fuel this ability.
“Come, champion of another realm. Heed my call, come to us in our time of need.”
She spoke the final words, pushing every ounce of her will and mana into the working.There was no doubt that this spell would work, it was of a divine level, and although brief and fleeting, there was no way that the spell would fail her. All for the cause. . With the last of her mana drained, she panted and heaved, her head becoming woozy and brain fuddled as she struggled to regain her bearings. The human body was not built to channel the divine, after all.
The energy of the spell rushed out of the chamber and into the sky where it swirled intangible throughout the cosmos to seek a target. What neither she, nor her patron, Yavera, could account for, was the wandering god that stood on an empty moon.
This god looked like a man made of stars and nebulae. As he saw the beam of divine energy, he frowned. Or would have, had he mortal features anymore. This would not do, purposefully summoning a Transmigrator was a heinous act against Order itself, not that he, a god of Chaos, would care. But this was no fun at all, it was all so…boring. Getting an idea, he giggled and started to ascend into the air. While he could not stop the spell, for it was already cast, he could alter it. With a flick of power, he split the invisible beam into multiple ones, so rather than summon one to the church, several would be summoned to the world of Aurelia. Now that was much more fun. He couldn’t wait to see the chaos that would happen.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
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‘Man, I really fucked up my life, huh?’
These dreary mental words accompanied the steady, monotone beeping of a life support machine that droned on in a hospital room, the morning sun coming through the upper windows doing little to lighten up the somber mood. Three people stood surrounding a hospital bed. The first was a tall, broad-shouldered man with a full brown beard and a baseball cap on his head. He looked to be struggling to contain his emotions as he watched. The second was an older frumpy woman, most of her hair having turned gray, considering her advanced age. Unlike her son next to her, she wasn’t trying to hold her emotions back and was openly crying. The second was a woman that looked like a younger version of the old woman, her tears streaming down her face as she spoke.
“You stupid, stupid idiot, Tyler. Why did you have to go and get cancer?!” She said between sobs as she glared down at the final member, the occupant of the bed.
In that bed was a frail man in his late thirties, pushing forty. But given his state he looked more like he was in his fifties. Wrinkles adorned his gaunt face, and his hair had long fallen out due to failed chemotherapy. The patient let out a small laugh which soon turned into a cough.
“Well Kim, I guess being toxic online finally took its toll.” He joked, trying his best to smile but even that took too much energy and he soon closed his eyes as he struggled to stay awake.
The now-named Kim just sobbed and looked away. The older woman pushed past her and gripped Tyler’s hand. “You have to keep holding on, you can’t die before your weak old mother, now can you?”
Tyler just snorted but gripped his mother’s hand the best he could. “Well...guess I got the worst part of genetics, eh Ma? Least I can kick Dad’s ass in Hell for you.” He said, wincing as his lungs worked against him.
“Fucking dumbass, I told you that those cigarettes would kill you.” Said the large man, eyes watering in an attempt to stave off tears and keep the dam of emotions from bursting.
Tyler fought the urge to snort again like one of his friends, Zachary, and instead just chose to cough and sigh. “Please Adam, it wasn’t the smoking that gave me cancer. Not that they helped but well, it is what it is.”
And it was true, that was one of the first things Tyler had asked the doctors. But they had said it wasn’t the cancer sticks that gave him cancer, just a shitty luck of the draw. Though smoking had just aggravated his condition.
A knock came at the door and the three healthy members in the room turned to see a doctor come in. The old man said something about experimental treatments and pills but...Tyler couldn’t hear it. His eyes were drooping even more now and finally they fully shut close. He was just so damn tired. Maybe he could take a small nap. As his body became weaker and weaker, he eventually felt nothing as he exhaled his last breath. The last thing he heard before he faded from consciousness was the loud droning sound of the heart monitor flat lining.
When someone dies, what do they imagine? Pearly gates or a lake of lava where they are eternally burning inside of perhaps. That was not the case for Tyler, who entered a stream of what one could only call souls. This was the River of Samsara, where all souls across all worlds, no matter the religion, were recycled to be reincarnated. Not that Tyler would know what, as he was but a formless soul with little though. Then, something changed. A beam of…something impacted his form and he was wrenched free of the river. And with him being ripped free, he knew again. He stirred in the void as he was pulled somewhere far, far away. He had no sense of self, not really, and no physical body. As he got further away from the ethereal river, his mind slowly returned to him.
At first, he was disoriented, and he tried to make sense of what he was seeing, if he could call it that. All around him were stars as he zipped by, some small and some large, but each with a bright, shining aura as one would expect. There were also dozens if not hundreds of planets around him.
‘Just what the hell kind of afterlife is this?’ He spoke, only to realize he was speaking in his head.
Well, he had no mouth after all. So it only made sense he supposed. Suddenly, he halted as he was hit by a wall of force, or something similar. He was now a soul floating in what he could only call a battlefield. As he looked at each planet in awe, he had a sense of foreboding hit him. It was weird, but he could almost see...things, inside the planets. One planet seemed to explode as a single person contained the mass of astral dust and debris of the planet in a cloud of pink and purple light. Yet another planet was swallowed by tendrils of vantablack darkness that withered away all life.
Then there was a pressure of sorts, as if something, no, someone, appeared. It was a woman with egg-shell white armor that looked more like a weaponized one-piece bathing suit than anything else. She seemed to be floating in mid air with wings made from water. Her skin was a light shade of blue and her hair was similarly colored but in a darker shade. She tilted her head, pressing a button on a headset she seemed to be wearing, talking in a strange alien language before nodding to herself as she received orders. Then, she reached forward and...booped Tyler’s nose, much to his confusion. He had no nose!
“You shouldn’t be here. How fascinating. I’ve never seen a transmigration in process… No wait, I'm getting distracted. Oh well, not like you’ll remember this meeting. Though if you ever do, look up what an Arbiter is. Run along now, transmigrator!” She said with a wave, before reality lurched and he was somewhere else.
Stars and planets sped by him once again in a dizzying tunnel of a multitude of colors. Then he heard a voice, a woman was speaking in some odd language he couldn’t recognize. His body...or was it his soul, suddenly jerked to a halt before a portal opened up in front of him and he was shoved right into it, the entrance to the Other Side closing as soon as he left.