After about twenty minutes — half of that time taken up by Eurymedon apologizing profusely to Aolyn — the room’s four inhabitants were more-or-less on the same page, but Morgan Dragonsbane still had some questions.
“Allow me to confirm a few things first,” she began, turning to Melpomene. “If you were under a curse that would thwart your heart’s greatest desire, how did you succeed?”
“Easy!” The happy-go-lucky Daemon replied. “It makes sense that all my predecessors failed because most desires would be aided by the backing of a god. As for me, I realized I’d never win, and so I simply desired an epic death.”
“And to prevent your death, the curse sped up Aolyn’s resurrection?” Morgan shook her head. “Sol should have made the curse more straightforward, or just guarded the shards himself. Roundabout plans bring nothing but trouble. I am impressed, though, that you know yourself well enough to figure out how the curse failed.”
“Pfft! It’s written in The Tactics of Thanatos. Chapter two, advice one, ‘Seek first to know theyself!’ How could I call myself a [Liege] if I couldn’t do something so basic?”
Morgan glanced pointedly at the charred, armless, headless remnants of a corpse still laying on the floor. “You’d be surprised. Anyway, here’s my second question.” She turned to Aolyn who had an expectant smile on his face. “My contract was torn up, but I’m still getting paid, right?”
“Of course.”
Morgan nodded. “Alright then. If there’s nothing else, I’ll be on my way. Thanks again for the stimulation, Melpomene. After I become a [Liege], I’ll raise an army worthy of your expectations.”
“No problem! I’m down for a spar or a skirmish whenever you are. I’ve never faced a [Wicked Coven] army before, so I’d love the chance.”
Morgan smiled warmly. “It’s the least I could do.”
“Wait,” Aolyn interrupted, a confused look on his face. “That’s all you want to know? You don’t want to ask why I’ve scheduled an inter-council meeting? Or who TK is? Or anything about the alternate universe I spent a decade in? Or anything at all about the greater cosmology of the multiverse?”
“That all sounds like a load of ‘not-my-business.’ I’ve read the stories, Aolyn. Nothing good ever happens to the curious mortals who involve themselves with gods.”
The god winced. “I’m assuming that’s a no for dinner then?”
“Correct.” She gave the admittedly handsome specimen before her a once-over, then shook her head. “Don’t take it personally. I thank you for releasing me from my contractual obligation to perform suicide-by-deity, but I’ll take my leave now.” She tipped the brim of her hat to the room in farewell and began flying out of the room through the hole in the wall.
Morgan had quite the journey ahead of her, but long flights always gave her time to think. Even without delving into the ruinous curiosities of divinity, she still had many questions to answer about what she’d just learned.
First and formost, however, she needed to sort out the answers she already had.
For lack of a better analogy, what Melpomene had done for Morgan was like stimulating a muscle she didn’t know she had. It was as if she’d lived her whole life with an invisible limb she’d never even felt, but now that Melpomene had pointed it out, its presence was glaringly obvious. Being able to feel the limb, she could now exercise it until she was a [Tier V] [Liege] herself.
Except, of course, that the ‘extra limb’ was her entire soul, and that ‘exercising’ her soul would entail raising a small soulbound warband — perhaps only a unit or two — and leading them into battle after battle after battle, nourishing her soul with victory until it grew strong enough to accommodate new forces. With her army thus enhanced, she’d send them into battle anew, but this time to face greater foes to further strengthen her soul. Then she’d once again gather new forces, and so on and so forth. Rinse and repeat until she reached the apex of mortal power.
Simple.
She wasn’t a [Liege] quite yet, but at least she now knew how to start, and that was more than most could claim.
She’d always been led to believe that there was no secret to [Liegeship] — one either became a [Liege], or one didn’t. After all, if there were a secret to it, the distribution of who awakened the ability wouldn’t be so even.
Sure, noble families and aristocrats from the [Solarian Courts] tended to produce [Lieges] at about twice the normal rate, but twice a near-zero number was still near-zero. The upper-crust used this disparity as evidence of their inherent superiority, but Morgan liked to point out that only ‘twice the average rate’ was actually rather lacking considering the gap in resources.
While every noble brat received multiple opportunities to become a [Liege], far less than half of their common-born peers ever even got a chance. This fact had led Morgan to conclude that each newborn Solarian noble was actually less likely to be born capable of [Liegeship], probably due to all the ‘pure bloodline’ nonsense.
Still, that was assuming that everyone was either born with the potential or not. Now, however, Morgan had a different theory.
Anyone could become a [Liege], but almost no one knew how — not even the [Lieges] themselves.
As things were, because [Lieges] relied on instinct rather than practice, their quality was scattershot. A few became [Tier V] [Lieges], but most capped out at an earlier tier, or, in some traumatic cases, lost the ability altogether. Only a lucky few were ever able to manipulate their souls well enough to perform soul magic, probably numbering no more than a hundred in the entirety of the world.
This wide variability of ‘potential’ from [Liege] to [Liege] could be excused. After all, it was impossible to improve consistently without being able to sense what was going on. It would be like a spellcaster practicing spells without the ability to sense mana, or a runner running without feeling their legs. Sure, most people could vaguely sense a soul connection once it was already in place, but placing it there was another matter entirely. Without widespread soul-sense, it was impressive anyone became a [Liege] at all.
But if what Melpomene had done for Morgan was replicable — which Morgan suspected it was, considering Eurymedon’s abilities — then [Liegeship] would go from an instinctual ability to a teachable and trainable skill, no different from any other.
Up until now, Morgan had never heard of anyone ‘teaching’ the ability, but there were always new rumors of esoteric trials, rituals, or drugs designed to awaken the ability. Now that she had a better hypothesis of how it all really worked, she was certain that the venn diagram of ‘utter bullshit’ and ‘every rumor of how to awaken [Liegeship] she’d ever heard’ would be a perfect circle.
…Technically speaking the latter would be a subset contained entirely within the former, but that was besides the point.
At this point in her musings, Morgan paused to reset her thoughts and double check her direction of flight. She was hovering over the craggy mountains at the heart of the [Despoiled Legion]’s territory, a notoriously difficult area to navigate, but she could use the stars and her magical perception to get her bearings.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
She needed to stop by the [Solarian Courts] to pick up her payment before returning home, but the whole journey would only take just over a day at the speed of her air form. She could double invoke fire to take her lightning form, completing the journey in a fraction of the time, but she didn’t have the mana to make the whole trip that way. Besides, she wanted more time to think.
She floated there a moment longer, regarding the night sky and letting her thoughts wander before she resumed her journey.
If everyone awoke their soul-sense… If anyone could become a [Liege]…
“Excuse me.”
Morgan’s adrenaline spiked. She wheeled around to face the source of the voice, a freshly conjured blade of flame already in hand.
Then she recognized the speaker and aborted the second and third spells she’d already begun casting. She let out a shuddering breath, dismissing her blade and forcibly calming her battle-ready heart.
“Aolyn the Deathless,” she greeted, more than a little annoyed that she’d been caught unawares. “In the future, please don’t appear out of nowhere.”
The god winced. “Sorry about that. I’ll be sure not to.”
“Why are you here?”
“I came to ask you another question, if you’ll allow it,” he said.
Morgan waited for him to go on, but it seemed he was actually waiting for her permission. “What would you like to ask?”
He gathered himself and looked her in the eyes with a complicated, perhaps even vulnerable gaze. “If I weren’t a god, would you—“
“Let me stop you right there,” Morgan interrupted. “Nothing good ever comes from changing yourself for another, especially for someone you just met. If you want to change, don’t do it for anyone but yourself. Trust me.”
Morgan prepared herself for a few different reactions. Perhaps a derisive snort at her unsolicited advice. Perhaps some face-saving excuse that’d he’d been joking the whole time about wanting to take her to dinner. Perhaps even a dull, logical acknowledgement of her wisdom.
What she hadn’t been expecting was a laugh. Not the cruel, snide chuckle of an aristocrat who thought themself above her, but a full-bodied, genuine laugh. A laugh that came from the stomach. The laugh of someone who enjoyed laughing at themself.
“No, no, sorry,” he wheezed out as he got a hold of himself. “That’s good advice, but trust me, I know. I only wanted to ask because… well… Actually, I’m not entirely sure why. Too many reasons to narrow down.”
“You don’t want to be a god?”
“Would you?”
Morgan’s knee-jerk reaction was to reply that of course she’d prefer godhood over mortality, but then she stopped to consider if that were actually true.
If she were a god, she could live for eons, but she would also have to live for eons. She would be without mortal peer, but she would also be without mortal peer. Obviously the immeasurable power would be a huge plus, but then she’d have to deal with the other gods with equally — or even greater — immeasurable power.
Every pro came with a con, but she still couldn’t say definitively one way or the other whether or not she would accept godhood if presented with the choice.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “Why did you become a god?”
Aolyn shrugged. “I once feared death, but now I don’t.”
“You don’t fear death,” Morgan repeated. “There are two very different ways I could interpret that.”
“That there are.”
A beat of silence passed between the two. Even this high up within the Daemonic realm, the wind smelled of ash, though Morgan saw no fires in the mountains below. The air was abyss-cold, but the sky was beginning to brighten, heralding the dawn.
“If tomorrow you awoke as a mortal,” Morgan began, “what would you do?”
He smiled. “Funnily enough, I did wake up as a mortal — in that other world, at least. First thing I did was look up at a skyscraper and feel small. Second thing I did was get drunk. Third, I got punched in the face by a priest’s son.”
Morgan chortled. “‘Cultural atheist’ and all that?”
“That might be where it started, I suppose.”
“And what of this world?”
“Hm?”
Morgan gestured around them. “This world. If you became a mortal here, what would you do?”
He opened his mouth as if the answer would come in no time at all, but said nothing. Morgan couldn’t tell what thoughts ran through his head, but a few seconds later he shut his mouth ruefully.
“I don’t know,” he said finally. “If that happens, could I come find you?”
“We just met.”
“And out of every living mortal on Terra, you’re one of the two I’ve known the longest.”
“Then why not Melpomene?”
“Hypothetically, I would have once been her god. Same for every Daemon on the continent. It’s hard to go back from that. I’d prefer to go further afield, you know? Get a fresh start.”
“Melpomene just revived you. Wouldn’t it be a bit ungrateful to leave so soon? She’ll be at the mercy of foreign gods all over again.”
“Oh, I don’t think she’ll need to worry about that,” he replied with a mischievous grin.
Morgan quirked an eyebrow. “Hypothetically, of course?”
“Yes, of course,” he said, but Morgan couldn’t tell if he was serious.
She rolled her eyes, but took a moment to consider his request. If she were being honest, the god intrigued her. If there weren’t such a great disparity of power between them, she might want to know him better.
“Fine then,” she said. “If you one day find yourself mortal, seek me out at the Onyx Cauldron within the Ogre Swamp of the [Wicked Coven]’s lands. If you aren’t too incompetent, I might offer you a place in my army. No guarantees.”
The god smiled a perfect look of relief, and it looked genuine, bare of the subtle sarcasm with which he usually emoted.
“Thank you,” he said. “Next time I appear, I’ll endeavor not to do so from nowhere.”
“I’d appreciate that. Now, if you’ll excuse me…” Morgan suddenly felt like letting loose. Changing her mind about the trade-offs between mana-efficiency and speed, she took her form of lightning. “I wish you the best of luck, your deathlessness.”
And with that, she bolted toward the horizon, into the dawn.
----------------------------------------
The next night, Aolyn found himself standing in the wide pit of an ancient, abandoned colosseum.
Hundreds of gods filtered into the stands. Some flew in, others appeared in flashes of light or fire or gold or a dozen other ostentatious displays, and some even walked in using their feet. They came in all shapes, sizes, and species, hailing from more councils than Aolyn cared to remember. The [Century Council], the [Fae Courts], the [Primordial Abyss], the [Heavenly Hosts], the [Headless Hells], even the [League of Evil™] he was still technically the leader of… all their members and more barely registered in his mind as they assembled.
Instead, his awareness was on the city around them all, or more accurately, the lack thereof.
They were all within the Daemonic realm of Terra, the same realm mostly ruled by the [Despoiled Legion], only a few weeks of mortal travel away from where Aolyn was born. Back then, long before he became a god, he’d known there was a city here. He’d even known the city’s name. He’d heard tales of this place, of its bustling streets and its titanic colosseum.
He’d never visited as a mortal — he’d never had the chance — and once he became a god, a place like this fell beneath his immediate notice. He was the deathless god, after all. He’d have infinite time to visit later… but it seemed that time had run out.
The city was gone now. Perhaps maliciously destroyed, perhaps just neglected in the six millennia since his shattering. Either way, he would now never get the chance to visit the place he once had all of eternity to appreciate.
He was snapped out of his morose reminiscing when the mental tally he’d been keeping in the back of his head hit the correct number.
“We’re all here,” he said simply, and the hundreds of chattering gods slowly quieted as he blanketed the ruined structure with his divinity. There was a reason he was called ‘the deathless’ even among gods, and his recent ‘stint abroad’ had only strengthened him, oddly enough. He noted with some satisfaction that even Sol and Luna paused at the subtly deeper quality to his presence.
“Becoming one with the void changes you, I suppose,” he muttered under his breath, though he didn’t doubt every other deity heard him.
With a wave of his hand, a giant round mirror appeared on the ground, dominating the center of the colosseum’s pit. Another wave summoned one hundred lit candles to ring the mirror, and the entire area became illuminated in the flames’ flickering amber light.
“We all know why we’re here, so without further ado, let us begin. We speak that one’s name thrice, and don’t dare to look away.”
For what Aolyn hoped to accomplish, the authority of the [Century Council] wouldn’t be enough. As powerful as it was, the [Century Council] was just a loose alliance of the various heavenly factions that represented a majority of Terra’s divinity. It had the power to govern and tweak the world, but it couldn’t fundamentally change it.
To alter the very fabric of reality itself, however, Aolyn needed those who were now gathered around him — the [Inter-Council Assembly], a gathering of every single one of Terra’s deities, all five hundred and fourty-seven of them. Together, they had half of the required authority to rewrite the [Inter-Council Accord], the divine document that gave order to the world.
The being that held the other half of the required authority, they would now summon.
Wearing a reproduction of his previously incinerated outfit, Aolyn raised his bare tattooed arms to the sky. With a burst of intention, he gave the signal to begin chanting the archdeity’s invitation.
The world’s pantheon would emerge from this meeting changed, or not at all.
“““““Truck-kun!”””””
“““““Truck-kun!”””””
“““““TRUCK-KUN!!”””””