In a pocket of space, thousands of miles away from the nearest planet, a tear had opened up and a skeleton wearing a black hooded robe had walked through. The skeleton that had walked through was Uwrath, the god of death. Uwrath looked around when he made his way through and noticed that he was the only one that was there at the moment.

“Where in our world is she,” Uwrath growled through exposed teeth, though the god was upset, he couldn’t say that he didn’t expect this of his sister. They were gods after all, though they all had responsibilities and did them perfectly, they all did things their way. If one of them told them that they wanted to meet with the other, there was nothing that they could do to force them to do something, not unless they wanted to cause a battle that would break planets apart and detonate surrounding stars.

To pass the time, he looked down at the world under him. Astera, It was a beautiful world to watch over. It was a world full of magic, classes, Humans, elves, monsters, dungeons, and so much more than even Uwrath had a little trouble keeping up with them. Everything he saw was so interesting and full of life that he felt sad to take it away. He wished that instead of being given the task to guide the dead, he was given the task of understanding life. He had been created in this world the moment life had sprung alongside his sister, who he was waiting for, and still had a hard time understanding it. When he and his sister discussed it, they had both concluded that since they were both gods, they didn’t think the same way that life on Astera did. That didn’t stop him from trying, though he hardly got any closer to his goal than when he started. Watching the world, he almost forgot the reason that he was here.

Uwrath paused in his musings when he heard a tear in the space above him, Sensing the magic that flowed from the portal, he waited for his sister to come through. When she did, she made sure to make a show of it. A woman that would put every woman on Astera to shame came through. Her blonde hair and white robes fluttered in a nonexistent wind. A small but bright light followed behind her, making her porcelain-like skin almost shine. Every little movement was exaggerated as she made her way to Uwrath, even the simple act of opening her bright green eyes was made a show of. If Uwrath had eyes of his own, he would have made a show of rolling his. When his sister finally descended to his level, the light disappeared, but her robes continued to flutter.

“Uwrath.” the goddess greeted, smiling toward him as though she didn’t just have her own theater performance right in front of him.

“Vernal.” Uwrath sighed, bringing a skeletal hand to his face and rubbing where his eyes should be. “Why must you do that every time?"

“Because Uwrath, life is so spectacular and magical and me being the goddess of life, I must exemplify that every time I meet with someone.” The goddess explained. Uwrath shook his head at the explanation, Once again trying to remain passive in the face of his Vernal's eccentricities. He was her brother for goodness sake, they were both born at the very same moment life came to earth. He didn’t need a performance every time he saw her. He loves her, he truly does, but there were some things about Vernal that he wouldn’t understand about her. “But enough about me Brother, tell me, what is it that you wanted to talk about?”

Uwrath brought his hand away from his face and looked at the goddess. “Vernal, What I’m about to say is very important, and I can’t have you lying to me.” She leaned forward, gesturing to him to continue. “I did a count of the souls that were in the afterlife, and I noticed that there were souls missing. Very important souls.”

“What do you mean that souls are missing?” Vernal asked, her turning serious, and Uwrath could understand why. Vernal is the god of life after all, and one of the responsibilities included with that title was the creation of souls. To her, all of the souls that resided in Aster were in some form her children. To steal children away from their mothers would cause anyone to feel angry.

“I mean exactly that Vernal, I wanted to talk to you in private to see if you were taking souls from my realm again and reusing them,” Uwrath explained. The last time that she had taken souls from him without saying was when a pair of lovers died a tragic death when they couldn’t be together and reincarnated them and pushed their fates to fall in love again. Though it didn’t cause problems in the world, it took years of work to find out where those two souls went. Judging from his sister's reaction, she had nothing to do with the current predicament.

“No! I didn’t take any souls brother, not this time,” she said, panic clear in her voice.

“Damn it, I was really hoping it was you Vernal.” Uwrath sighed

“You said that they were important souls,” she recalled, Uwrath nodded to her. “Who’s souls were they?”

“They were the champion souls Vernal,” Uwrath answered. There was a moment of silence as the goddess processed those words. One moment became two, and then three, right when it was going to hit four the goddess answered.

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“How can this happen, brother?” Vernal yell, their pocket of space rippling as her shout reached him. “Those souls were meant to be guarded with all of your magic. No one should be able to reach those souls unless they have the strength of a go-”

Vernal gasped as she came to the same realization as Uwrath. She looked at him, the shock of her unspoken statement clear in her eyes. In her eyes, there was a question that had yet to be asked, but Uwrath already knew what she wanted to ask.

“Yes, I do believe that a god is tampering with the souls of previous champions,” Uwrath answered, in Vernal’s eyes, Uwrath could see that she had so many questions that were running through her head. Who would do such a thing? Why do such a thing? Could they truly gain something from taking their souls? Where could they possibly hide something so precious? “Vernal, I think that we both know who would have to gain from taking the Champions’ souls.”

There was confusion in the goddess’s eyes before it was replaced with realization, and then replaced again with anger. “Seth wouldn’t dare,” Vernal growled. “She knows that if she so much as got near those souls, all of us would do whatever we can to go against her.”

The woman that they were referring to was the goddess of beasts and chaos, Seth. Among all of the gods, she was the one that was most likely to gain from this. Like Vernal, it was her job to make life, but instead of that life being sentient, like a human, it would live its life as a beast. A being that lived in a constant state of hunger with no true way to end it other than death. She makes these creatures sew chaos in Asteria and gain power. She is who Uwrath would send the souls of those who lived a life filled with sin and evil. It was seen as a punishment in Asteria, to keep those from living bad lives. To live as a beast was to live without purpose besides to eat and run away from those hunting you. A life deserving to the souls who go to her.

“Do you know what will happen if she has those souls Uwrath?” Uwraith nodded, if she did have them then that would mean that she could make beasts that could never be beaten in Astera. Beasts that could bring the whole world to ruin.

Champion souls are the souls that have the potential to save the world with their classes and magic. They were only brought out when Seth used her own Champion beast, but that got too strong and couldn’t be stopped by regular adventurers. a council of gods got together and agreed that they would release a certain amount of champions. The only reason that they didn’t release them all was that they needed the beasts to have a chance of winning as well. That was a part of the rules that were agreed upon when approached by him. But if she were to use the soul of a champion for any of her beasts, the people would have no chance of winning.

“We have to stop her!” Vernal demanded, opening up a pocket of space, and was about to take a step through before it suddenly shut on her. She looked back at her brother, shocked that he would do that to her. “What do you think you’re doing?” she asked, her tone demanding an answer.

“You know that we can’t just go right up to her and demand that she give back something that she might not have.” The fire in Vernal’s eyes said that that explanation wasn’t enough to calm her. “If we go up to her right now, we will only be attracting ‘his’ attention.” that seemed to calm her down, only enough for her to not leap through a portal and try to strangle Seth.

“What else can we do then? She took the champion souls Uwrath, and she probably already sent them down to Astera.”

“You’re right, she might have already sent them down to the world, it has been a long time since the last time I checked the Champion Vault. But, you can not lose hope, we still have time to fix this, I might have a plan.”

“But she stole All of our Champions Uwrath.” She wailed, all traces of the previous anger gone. She threw herself at Uwrath, hugging him tightly. The skeleton was surprised at first, but quickly composed himself and hugged back. “If those souls are turned into beasts, there will be no chance for life.”

"Well, one silver lining is that she can't send all of the beasts at once. To create one champion beast takes her one year."

"I know that, but that doesn't help us Uwrath." She sobbed, probably thinking of all her creations dying horrible deaths at the hands of the beast.

“I know Vernal, that is why you have to let me finish explaining." She looked like she wanted to say more, but that bought him a few more seconds. "Now, to fight against the champions will certainly be a challenge, but as I said, I do have a plan.” She looked up to the empty socket of her brother, silently begging for an answer. “As we both know, the only one who can fight a champion is another champion, yes.” She nodded her head. “Well Vernal, I still have yet to make a champion class of my own.” Once again, she nodded her head, before her eyes widened.

“T-That’s right.” She gasped, hope once again filling her voice. “I’ve been pestering you to make a champion of your own for centuries. But you kept telling me that you had no need to make a champion, as you were just fine on your own” she was starting to sound hysterical the more she spoke.

Uwrath chuckled. “I suppose it’s a good thing that I didn’t listen to you all this time. As much as I want to continue working on it, you know that I can't just send a champion down there.” Uwrath said, and Vernal nodded.

“Yes, yes I know.” She said, waving her hand and opening another portal. “I will gather all of the gods and try to convince them to agree to send down whatever champion class that you make for the Ceremony.” She looked back at Uwrath. “Please Uwrath, I know that you don’t like it, but you must make a class that befits a warrior.” Uwrath didn’t answer at first, he only looked at his sister, before nodding to her. She nodded back to him and went through her portal, Uwrath waved his hand and opened a portal of his own that went directly to his realm, he would have a lot of work to do before the Ceremony.