Chapter 2
Roden opened his eyes only to be blinded by a bright light. He threw up his hand to block some of it so he could squint enough to see. He saw he was laying on sand. He sat up and looked out over a vast ocean with no sight of land.
Looking around he saw he was on a wide beach, the ocean slowly lapping up against the sand just out of reach of him. He pushed himself to his feet and turned around. He saw a small stand of trees with a large tree in the center. He recognized it as his grove. The one he had always appeared in when he would level up, or undergo his advancement as Riakon had put it.
To Roden’s surprise he saw Miriana was lying on a lounge chair in the shade of his tree. She appeared to be reading something, but as he approached she closed her book and looked over her shoulder at him.
“Oh great! You are finally awake! Sorry about the rough landing, I haven’t done a swap like that in a very long time.”
Roden shook his head to clear some of the fog. “So wait, are we in my head?”
She rolled her eyes, “More like your soul dear, but sure. I hope you like what I have done with the place. I have always enjoyed the tropics.”
Roden shrugged, “I usually prefer cold weather, but this ain’t so bad. It’s peaceful.”
Miriana nodded, “I thought you would like that.” She clapped her hands, “Now that you are awake, what do you say we get started?”
“Uuhhhh…Sure?” He answer full of uncertainty
Her brows knit together, “What's wrong?”
“Oh I’m just…I’ve always been alone here. It’s a little strange to have someone else here.”
She smiled, “Well you don’t ever have to be alone here again if you so choose. As my champion and my Cleric, I can visit you here if you send for me. All you have to do is pray while here and I will hear it and join you.”
“Holy shit, that’s pretty awesome.”
Miriana cracked a wry smile, “That is in fact some holy shit.”
Roden groaned at his unintended pun. “Okay so what first?”
Miriana was as giddy as a school girl to show him around his own soul space. She introduced him to the entire island that made up his new space. As they walked the sun bore down on him and he started to sweat. He wiped the perspiration from his brow and stared up at the sun.
“Too hot for you? No problem.” She waved a hand and some fluffy white clouds appeared to, well, cloud the sun’s rays, just enough to cast the island in a soft shade. She looked into the sky with a smile of satisfaction on her face.
“Did you intentionally make it too hot here just so you could do that?”
Again Miriana looked aghast, “What?! Why I never!”
‘More godly melodrama’ he thought to himself
“Never mind that. C’mon now.”
She showed him the path that represented his Adventure domain that meandered all around the island. The wisps that represented his spells were still present along the path, which was comforting to him for some reason.
His tree was still the same with its bushy leaves and long branches. It stood the tallest among the palm trees that dotted the island. Then she walked him to the beach where he saw a slight glow in the water a few feet from the edge. She urged him to walk out and take it.
Figuring that was what he was there for he did just that. To his surprise the water parted as he stepped down. As he walked towards the light it was slowly carried up to meet him by a controlled wave. He saw the holy symbol of Zamira, the familiar symbol of a cloud with a lightning bolt striking into an abyss meant to represent the afterlife.
He reached out and grasped the glowing symbol and felt the divine magic course through him. He felt the waters wash away his powers over fire and cleanse him of his connection to Era. There was the briefest moment of emptiness that was immediately filled by a cool feeling of refreshing rain. He felt calmer after the exchange.
‘Had my fire domain been making me tense?’
The divine knowledge of his first Storm domain ability coursed into him. The ability was called Storm Strider. It was an interestingly complex ability that granted him an intense boost to his speed and reactions by recycling small amounts of lightning magic. It also gave him the option to channel some of that energy into his next melee attack by discharging the built up lightning. Roden was actually quite surprised with the versatility. He was happy to see it would fit the style he had cultivated as well.
Next came the ability, Mozzetta of Clouds. The name didn’t tell him much when it came to him, other than it was a word that was either Italian or Latin in origin.
‘What the fuck was a Mozzetta?!’
The knowledge of the ability revealed it to be a cloak made of clouds. Which he was actually really excited about. When active it would give his movements an ethereal cover that would make him harder to hit. The other aspect of it was a little surprising to him. When he moved the cloak would build up an electrical charge. Once the voltage reached a high enough level it generated an electromagnetic aura around him that he could use to direct the energy to damaging effect.
“Well? Do you like it?” Miriana’s voice cut through the sounds of the waves as he consolidated his magically infused knowledge.
He laughed at her obvious anticipation, “Yeah, it’s pretty cool actually…Although...” He trailed off.
She put her hands on her hips, “Although what?”
“Did you make it a cloak out of spite because I had the fire cloak from Era.”
She turned her nose up at him, “I do not know what you are talking about. Now come on, take the next one!”
Roden had forgotten he already had so many advancements into his domains. Again the glowing symbol rose up in a controlled wave of water. He reached out with his hand and pulled it into himself. The ability that revealed itself to him made him laugh hysterically.
By the time he stopped laughing he saw that Miriana was barely containing her rage. Small dark clouds had even started forming in the sky over her head.
Roden quickly threw his hands up to placate her before he even said anything. “No no, its not the ability. In fact, I love it more than you probably know.”
The clouds above her dissipated a little. She tilted her head in a sign for him to continue explaining himself.
“It's what it does.”
“I thought you would want the ability to fly.” She pouted.
“Oh make no mistake, I'm bursting at the seams to try it.”
“Then what is so funny?”
Roden got a big grin on his face, “Riakon,” was all he said, banking on her knowledge of what was to come.
At first, her face didn’t change. As the implications built up in her mind her face shuttered and she burst into a fit of laughter. “Oh me! I hadn’t even thought of that!”
They both laughed as they walked back to the center of the island and made their way over to the wisps.
Miriana gestured around at the wisps, “ Okay so fun thing here, now that I am your only object of worship. All of your domain spells will appear here.” She spread her arms out towards the field of wisps.
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“Wait the wisps were you?”
“Actually, the wisps are you. Everyone who becomes a Cleric has their own interpretation of what spells should look like in their inert form. Your domain spells, however, are me.”
As she spoke she swirled both hands on either side of her and up rose two distinct shapes. On her left was a small cloud that crackled with lightning. On the other was the familiar floating lantern like light that hung in the air like a street lamp.
Roden reached out for his new domain cloud when Miriana stopped him.
“You should start with the one you know already.”
Roden looked confused for a brief moment, “Oh I got a level up!” Then he remembered, “I mean I got an advancement.” He said glaring at her.
“Yes, you got an advancement. Your body has absorbed enough magic at rest to be able to contain more of my gifts.”
“Would you mind clarifying that whole thing so I don’t sound like a fucking idiot the next time it comes up?”
Miriana winced, “Okay I will take the blame for that one, but Riakon did a surprisingly good job. Essentially, this space in your soul is a byproduct of the Spark inside of your body. Everyone has a Spark, but not everyone’s Spark draws in the ambient magic from the Magisphere of Mir. Adventurer’s have Sparks that have Advanced beyond the ordinary. As a Cleric anything you acquire here is a result of a direct connection to your God, in your case me.” When she said the last bit, a wide smile crossed her face.
“What about everyone else?”
“Everyone else is a bit more complicated. Most have to actually practice the abilities they want to develop and don’t really have a space like this in their soul. Errrkkkk for example, meditates to gauge his magic levels. He has trained his Spark to convert magic into chi. He trains to develop abilities to use that chi. No training, no more abilities.”
Roden pondered her words for a few minutes trying to gather up all of the implications.
“So wait, how come I can have two domains? Do I have more magic than others?”
Miriana looked hesitant, “Oh that well ummmm…Yes you do have more magic than others like you.”
Roden motioned for her to continue knowing she was leaving things unsaid.
“Oh fine, you have more reserves because you are the son of a Goddess. You might say you are a Demi-god.”
Roden went slack jawed and no words came to him. He had his suspicions, but never truly believed that Zamira was Roden’s mother. He had assumed it was Miriana and then Zamira had just swooped in at some point.
“Wow okay ummm I suppose I should have seen that coming, but wow just wow!”
Miriana rolled her eyes, “Yes yes, but don’t go spouting that to random people you meet. Even in a world of Gods people will still think you are crazy”
“What about Errrkkkk and Riakon?”
“We will have to talk about what exactly you can and can’t tell them. Errrkkkk saw us on the roof last night so he may have some questions and it is imperative you give the right answers.”
“Oh shit…”
“Yeah no kidding, that wouldn’t have happened if I was at full strength, but my intervention cost me a lot of my reserves. I didn’t have enough to comfortably hide us from him, but that is for later. Let’s get back to your spells. You have a new Adventure domain spell and your shiny new Storm domain spells and then you can pick a new spell.” She clapped her hands together in excitement.
Roden just shook his head in amazement. This was not the Zamira he wrote so long ago. The woman before his eyes was borderline flamboyant and girlish. The Goddess of Passion he wrote was serious and cunning. He wondered what had happened to make her like this.
‘Did it have anything to do with why she brought me here?” He tucked that thought away for a later date.
“Okay let's do this.” He reached out and grasped the light of his Adventure domain and absorbed the gifted spell. To his surprise he received an offensive spell. For the first time he had received an actual damaging domain spell from his Adventure domain.
He let out an involuntary, “Woooooo” like he was Rick Flair.
“Oh so you like that one?”
“Who the fuck wouldn’t want a spell called Hero’s Strike?!”
“Well perhaps someone who intended to be a ranged specialist.”
Roden looked up and away, “Point taken.”
“Okay okay now do the Storm ones.”
Roden raised an eyebrow, “You seem really excited about this.”
She huffed, “It’s not everyday your son takes on one of your primary domains. Now stop stalling.”
At her urging he plunged his hand into the glowing cloud. The sheer volume of magic that flooded his mind was overwhelming. He nearly fainted and had to sit down.
“Wow okay ummm… that was…a lot.” He said through strained gasps.
“Sorry, I was excited. I should’ve held back the flow a bit more, but you’re fine. What do you think of your new spells?”
Roden blinked a few times to steady his swimming vision. Then pursue the spells he knew. First was the lowest tier spell Cloud Bank. Pretty basic, cover an area in a cloud…Roden felt like he must be missing something, but figured it wasn’t important at that moment.
Next came Winter's Blast, an ice spell… “Well I’ll be….”
“What?!”
“I get to be Sub-zero!”
Miriana just rolled her eyes, “If you're excited about that one just wait…”
“Lightning Bolt too!”
Okay he was less upset about losing his Fire domain now.
“Well it's Lightning Burst, not bolt, but close enough.”
“Awe shit, wait I took that Augmentation for my fire spells. I don’t have any of those now.”
Miriana thought for a moment, “Oh right…Don’t worry about that. You actually don’t have that anymore. That one came from your other patroness… You’re not much of an elemental specialist anymore. So you might want to choose a different Augmentation,”
“Oh crap I hadn’t even noticed it missing. Any suggestions?”
“Well it would be a mother’s dream if you took the Augmentation for your fortitude. What would you call it?” She tapped her chin in thought, “Oh yeah, the one that gave you extra hit points.” She made air quotes with her fingers around the last words.
“Oh I hadn’t really thought about it like that. I guess this not being a game meant those are really a thing huh?”
She nodded, “You would be correct, I manipulated some things to make this place feel more game-like to you, but the reality is, no, there are no hit points or levels, or anything of the sort. Just people and a world with a naturally occurring phenomenon that produces what you would consider magic-like effects.”
‘Did she just say naturally occurring?’
“I think I know which one you are talking about, but I’d rather have the boost to Constitution… Wait there aren’t stats either are there?”
“That one’s tricky. Technically, the people of Mir have set up a way to measure an adventurer’s physical abilities. They don’t use the numbers you are familiar with though. It's a zero and up scale. Non-adventurer’s very rarely rank anything beyond a zero and never more than a 1. It’s relatively consistent among those who have similar training, but the numbers are a little subjective across different areas of training.”
“For example?”
“For example, your mostly untrained dexterity of two is not the same as was Errrkkkk’s rigorously trained two back when he had a ranking of two. Just like how your divinely enhanced Wisdom of three is beyond Errrkkkk’s Wisdom of the same score. People mostly use the scores for themselves to know how to allocate their magical reserves.”
It all made perfect sense to Roden, he always wondered how the flat math of Adventures and Antics translated to real life. He wasn’t surprised to find it didn’t translate well at all.
“Works for me, so if I understand correctly. What I am suggesting is I allocate my magic into my body’s Constitution?”
“Yep, and that will have the effect you are looking for.”
“How do I?”
Miriana just waved her hand over him and he felt a warm sensation ripple through his entire body. When it was gone he actually felt…sturdier.
“I did it for you this time for brevity, but next time you will actually have to consolidate your magic yourself.”
Roden got up off the ground, the vertigo from the influx of his domain spells having subsided.
“Okay well all that is left is for me to choose my last spell, right?”
“Yeah, sort of?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well you have those spells that were tainted by your fire domain. You will have to relearn them with your new domain option.”
Roden groaned he had forgotten all about that.
“Honestly I’d rather start fresh. Can we just wipe the slate clean?”
Miriana nodded and waved her hand through the air in the directions of the wisps. More wisps winked into existence among their fellows. Roden walked among the wisps and studied each spell
Without even thinking he scooped up his tried and true healing spell. It was pulled once again toward his Adventure domain becoming Triage.
Next he located what was his Wounding Touch. This time instead of being pulled into his Adventure Domain it was absorbed into his Storm domain and became Storming Smash. Besides the overly dramatic name, Roden loved what the spell became. It was reminiscent of Riakon’s thundering blow, but it wasn’t built up around a weapon. Not much had actually changed from when it was his Wounding Touch other than it did require a strike of some kind in place of a touch.
When he ran across his old Hero’s Armament he actually kicked himself for having removed that one. He loved it in its previous form. To his horror, he felt the spell drift away from his Adventure domain and settle in his Elven magic.
“Booooooo!” came from Miriana behind him.
The resulting spell was Sylvan Weaponry, it significantly reduced his options for conjurable weapons. He could only call forth a sword or to his surprise, a bow. The sword had to be held, but he knew it came with a significant speed boost compared to his previous version which seemed to make up for its reduced power. The bow could only be directed remotely, but could be placed in a single location and be used as long as he was within sight of his target and within the bow's range. Overall not the worst trade off. He was still bummed he couldn’t have his Leonidas moment with shield and spear.
After that he ran across his bread and butter fire spell. He will miss his Ignition Bolt. It served him well from the moment he got to this fucking world. He was hoping for it to slide over to his Storm domain so he could hopefully throw around more lightning, but it was almost instantly absorbed into his Adventure domain. Luminary Lance was the spell that flooded his mind.
‘Huh…I guess I’ll get my Leonidas moment after all.’
He passed over the lower tier wisps in search of his Divine Gambit. He reached out for it, but paused before he touched it. He turned to look back at Miriana.
“Was this spell your doing?”
She giggled, “Yeah that one was me. I was worried about you so I crafted it and made it available to you.”
“Crafted it?”
“Yes I am a God and you are my Cleric. I can craft spells for my clergy. It just requires some effort of will on my part.”
“So I should probably take it then?”
“If you are asking me then I insist.”
For once he wasn’t surprised when the spell remained the same as it was before nestled firmly in his Adventure domain as Divine Gambit.
His library of spells had grown quite extensive in the time since he chose them for the first time. He had access to ten non-domain cleric spells on top of the eight domain and three elven spells, not including any of his Common spells.
He had to take his two go to buff spells, one of which was drawn into his Elven magic much to Miriana’s displeasure. Who grew all the more frustrated when his two healing spells were also drawn into it as well.
He could only choose one more spell and he selected the one that had been just out of his grasp since he first saw it. The spell landed in his Storm domain much to his excitement. He had hoped it would gain the elemental side of his power set. The spell became Storm Guard. When cast it would create a slowly swirling fog around him that would blast whomever was within it that he chose with an obnoxious amount of lightning.
When he was all done choosing spells he was exhausted.
“Is that it?” He said from his seated position on the ground.
“Yeah that's it…”
Roden looked up at her, “Why do you sound so sad?”
“Well this is goodbye for now. I won’t be in the room when you return.”
“Oh I just assumed…but you’ll be in Port Sept when we get back right?”
She smiled, “Yeah I’ll be there when you get back. Until then take care of yourself, and don’t get into too much trouble. You can tell Errrkkkk and Riakon about Zamira as you won’t have much choice when it comes to your abilities.but do not tell them I am also Miriana. Just say she pulled you away because she has big plans for you.”
Roden thought over the cover story, “ Okay so I’m supposed to say I just swapped Gods?”
Miriana had a smug grin touch the edges of her mouth, “Precisely.”
“Well considering what just happened to Riakon. I guess that’ll be an easier pill to swallow than, I did a ritual to a dragon god and lost my powers.”