“Hail, and welcome, human. I am Malphas, 39th Harbinger of the One Who Knocks, and I will accept your gift on behalf of the Dark Lord." The voice was annoying, scratchy and uneven.

Otto dragged me off the back of the horse and dropped me on the grass at Godwod's feet. No one was holding me down, but with the way they had tied me, the best position I could hope for was rolling half onto my side so I could get a look at the demon. There were two of them, and a troll.

Malphas was wearing dark robes, full on wizard stuff. The bone structure of his face was a mixture of avian and human, with a bone-white beak and small, deep-set eyes. More feathers than skin. But not totally a bird. A crow demon.

"It isn't a gift," Godwod said, "we had an agreement."

The other demon was wearing a toga and sandals, and what I could see of his body was covered in short, brown fur. His head was full horse, and when he spoke, all I could think of was the Bojack Horseman cartoon.

"Of course. You have fulfilled your oath. If he is what we believe, then your future is assured." It even sounded like Will Arnett. Wild. That was enough of this. I stopped breathing.

The demons had met my captors halfway between their force and Godwod's. Though the sun was still out, they didn't seem to suffer for it. The troll behind them was tarred from head to toe in the monstrous equivalent of sunscreen. It was one of the largest examples of the species I had ever seen, and it was carrying a box.

Were they going to put me in a box?

It didn't look big enough to hold a person, unless they were planning on chopping me up and stacking my pieces inside. A two-by-two obsidian cube, banded with gold, and etched with softly glowing runes. Crimson like the gem in the pommel of my sword.

Malphas came forward and knelt beside me. His hands were the most human thing about him, clean and petite. They didn't go with the rest. He grabbed my shoulder and rolled me on my face so he could get a look at my elder sign.

"You nearly cut it off," he said. "That would have been unfortunate."

"I would have brought you the hand if he lost it," Godwod said. "Are you convinced he is the one?"

"I am," the demon I was thinking of as Bojack said, "his essence has a flavor like that of the Dark Lord. They are of the same class."

Nice to have the confirmation. Could he taste my essence? That was a line of questioning we didn't need to go down. My chest was already aching as my lungs fought me. They wanted to breathe. My whole body did, but I wouldn't let it. Losing Kevin's sword was a setback, but I could make more armor. Knowing Godwod had switched sides, I could run to Williamsburg as soon as I woke up and have the lillits evacuate.

Henterfell might belong to Godwod, but there were other cities in Drom. When the war started, my people needed to be out of the way. I could reveal myself to the king. Egard was against magic, but when Dargoth invaded, how could he refuse the help of a hero? If he killed or imprisoned me, then I would just try something else.

My last heart flashed, and my chest spasmed for the last time.

"What are you doing?" The crow demon crouched over me. "Do you weep for yourself? You should. There is nothing but sorrow ahead of you."

image [https://i.imgur.com/t40EtZO.png[/img]

I died.

***

It was cold, and I was a ghost. Being a ghost was cold. That made little sense. Wait, had I been here before?

A stone outcrop stretched ahead of me, thrusting into the vastness of space. Nebula bloomed like so many liquid flowers, pink and green and white. It was a lovely, and frightening, and reminded me I was small.

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Beside me, a centaur stood. He only had one eye, so I guess that made him a cyclops as well. It was too big, and set in the center of his face above his nose. It was also hard to look at, as his iris swirled with the same bright forces that dominated the void.

"Do you remember me?" He asked.

The name came to me. "Limnos?"

His broad face relaxed a fraction. "Good, your soul is more intact than it appears. Are you ready to leave?"

An anachronism floated in the void among the swirling stars, a gray bar inscribed with simple white letters.

Quit Game.

I was mildly offended. My life was not a game. The stakes I'd left behind me were real. Other lives than my own hung in the balance. But I suspected the scenery had more to do with my imagination than the state of spiritual reality. Whatever this place was, it was being presented to me in a manner I could understand. I'd been reincarnated with Minecraft in mind, and now I was getting a version of the death screen.

"Do you think I'd make it through?"

"You always ask me that. I cannot answer you."

Always? How many times had I been here? Limnos was patient. I knew he would not rush me. We'd had conversations before, possibly a lot of them, and though I couldn't recall the details, impressions remained. Life was a test. The afterlife was a test. It was tests all the way down. All to see if you were worthy of being inducted into something called the Hierarchy.

"What are the bad guys named again?"

"Discord."

"And the good ones?"

"Harmony."

He wasn't annoyed with the simple questions. He got those all the time. My body was translucent, ragged. I looked like a moth-eaten jacket, fraying around the edges, spotted with holes.

"I'm getting weaker."

"Yes," the guardian was utterly still. Even his mouth barely moved when he spoke. "Your lives are brief, without the opportunity to gather enough essence to develop your soul into a proper core. Each time you return here, you are less capable of braving the celestial forge. But it does not seem that your situation in Plana is improving. You may never be stronger than you are now."

"I think I've got diamond hands."

"You…" he glanced down, "what?"

"Sorry, it's a crypto thing. Guys hold on to bad investments hoping that they'll swing back up. They don’t swing though, so they lose everything instead of selling at a loss. But if they happen to get lucky and it pops back up, they can say they had diamond hands like it's a good thing, instead of an excuse for a gambling addiction."

My monologue won me a frown from the space centaur.

"I don't understand what you are saying. What is crypto?"

"It's fake money. Doesn't matter. The point is, I can't let go."

"Why?"

"Esmelda, can you tell me if she's alive?"

"She is."

"What about our child?"

Limnos looked past me into nothing. He looked for a long time, then focused back on me.

"He will soon be born."

"He? I'm going to have a son?" Something about being a dis-incorporated spirit made it hard to get excited. The notion was a bright point in the space where my heart was supposed to be. It felt far away because it was.

"It is, as always, your choice to return."

"Why did Mizu do this? Send me alone? The other heroes had help, didn't they, mentors, or a team?"

The centaur was a long time in answering. "There was a mentor assigned to you," he said, slowly, "but Discord intervened. My vision of the matter is clouded."

"Have we talked about this before?"

"We have."

"Do I get some kind of compensation for the screw-up?"

"You do."

It felt like the guardian was messing with me. Did he draw out conversations out of spite, or was he just lonely out here? He was waiting for me to ask. The jerk.

"Please explain it to me."

"Mizu made an alteration to your mind. Your profile contains a note that you requested the alteration, though I assume you were not fully aware of the implications."

"I have a profile?"

"Of course. You are in the System." Limnos trotted further down the outcrop, which distorted his silhouette. There was some odd space twisting effect going on the further down the platform you went. "You do not remember your deaths. Even apart from the pieces of yourself that you lose when you die with insufficient essence to sustain your coherence, those moments are taken from you."

"And that's a good thing?"

"The psychological damage that would normally accompany the repeated traumas you have endured is absent. It is relevant to your current predicament. Without the alteration, you would have broken many iterations ago."

The trap. The egg. The demon. It was all waiting for me if I pressed the "continue" button. Again and again and again. Godwod, if I ever got out, had some trouble coming for him.

"That still doesn't seem very fair," I said, "considering the disadvantage I'm at without a mentor."

Limnos came back around to face me, clopping up close enough so that my head was at a few inches from his hairy chest.

"I have already granted you additional essence. Full System access will not come until the preconditions are met." He placed a heavy hand on my shoulder. "A complaint has been filed on your behalf. The Hierarchy is slow to act, as they are closer to the Center."

"It sounds like you said "center" with a capital C."

"You are merely delaying the decision. Nothing you learn from me will be carried back with you into Plana."

He had me there.

"Hey, I thought we were friends. I'm not going to see you for a while after this."

His hand slipped off my shoulder. The void wheeled. A tiny piece of my soul flaked off and evaporated.

"You have said that before."

"I think I've got him this time, I've been leaving myself notes."

Continue.