Arc 1: Preparing Chapter 1, Part 2: The Goddess Bareen (V2)
Pain
Darkness
Darkness
Suddenly a flash and everything is white.
The white haze vanishes after a few seconds, and the general is somewhere else. He sees a beautiful young woman in a white scholar robe standing a few meters before him. The robe has large pouches like a medical doctor’s lab coat, with a mix of tools visible in them – from an ancient abacus to a modern stethoscope, from a strangely glowing screwdriver to a rather ancient looking syringe.
When trying to speak or stand, he suddenly realizes that he has no body – he is a floating light in a black room with a number of unknown golden symbols scattered on walls and floor.
“Greetings, General. I’m a bit sorry about this mess here, but we are on a time limit and I have an offer for you.”
“You have died, and I have snatched you out of your worlds afterlife or reincarnation circle or whatever you have there – I didn’t take time to look and wouldn’t be allowed to tell you even if I had looked for details on your form of afterlife.”
“I am the goddess Bareen and I need the help of someone with your expertise to prevent a war inside the Sphere, a world that we created. Oh, sorry – here, with this energy you should be able to ask questions.”
A strange sensation and flickering goes over the general. “So you want me to work for you? And you basically kidnapped my soul to do that?”
“No, I can send you back to your afterlife if you want – forced labor never ends well with a problem this complex, even if some of my associates believe otherwise. You’ll get a reward if you agree.”
“What happened to my world and my mission? Have my men survived or died?”
“Of course your mission succeeded – do you think I want failures to work for me? As for your men and your world – some of them died of course, and your world is still a bad place – only a month or so has passed since your death there.”
“What would be my task, and what do you offer as a reward?”
“A vital part of the life cycle we created in the sphere is about to break down. We created special dungeons that are separate from the regular sphere for two purposes: First to lure away excess fighters and provide a common target to distract the power-hungry so that there is less random fighting. Second to convert power into materials and other advancements that are needed to keep the sphere stable.”
“Unfortunately our original controller cores – think of them as something like your computers – were not up to the challenge of defending their treasure nodes correctly. A lot of the original dungeons have already been conquered and are controlled to become pure treasure mines for the countries that hold them. And that redirected a lot of ambitious people into fighting wars over controlling the dungeons entry places instead of entering them for advancements.”
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“Several attempted changes to the cycle only resulted in different forms of devastation, like barren countries where the materials gained in the dungeons were too few, or wastelands when the dungeons went out of control and conquered the population instead.”
“The main problem is that the wars fought over them create too much collateral damage on people that were never meant to be harmed, and at the same time prevent the power from being collected in the places where it is needed. You – and some other souls selected by us – are each to take control of one new dungeon and try to find a way to redirect the war efforts outside to take place inside the dungeons, while at the same time preventing them from being completely conquered.”
“If you succeed in this task, you’ll be reincarnated in a world and body of your choice, with a bonus for your next life – as long as the world and the bonus you choose are within our reach.”
…
“Would it be possible for me to be reincarnated back into my own world with a solution to end the plague there?”
“Yes and no – yes, I can reincarnate you there but you would be a baby again. That might cause problems on its own. And the help I would be able to give you would help in stopping the infestations, but it would not be an instant cure. After all, if we had the solution for everything we would not need some input into our own problems.”
“Additionally I can’t even guess on how your world would be by the time you complete this task in the Sphere, so I can’t promise that the help and reward would be enough by then. But the reward would be a substantial boost to whatever you would plan to do next.”
“However, one moment please – I almost forgot something” Bareen gestures at the general’s soul, and suddenly there is a timer floating at the edge of his view.
[69:41:27 hours counting]
“Currently you are a soul without any anchor – and that is the time that remains to get an anchor before your soul disperses. And I strongly suggest not to wait for the last minutes – the first damages can probably happen with 10 or 15 hours left on the countdown.”
“Additionally, I need some time for transferring your soul which would also count against that limit. You can take several hours to decide if you want, or use them to prepare anything – but don’t waste them.”
“How are my chances of succeeding this task, and will I get the resources I need for it?”
“If we had a solution I wouldn’t be talking to you – so no, I can’t give you a probability of succeeding. It is not good because everything we tried in the past has failed. But the fact that your life was different also gives you the option that you might see a solution where we failed, and we had some limits placed on the past cores that you would remove simply by being a soul of an intelligent being instead of an automated core.”
“As for your resources – you’ll have a choice between two very different options. Unfortunately most of the souls we have asked previously decided to go with the safe option. I hope that I have finally found someone who is up for the risky main task as you were very well known in your previous world and country for your skills and knowledge.”
“The safe option would be to take control of a regular dungeon, and try to make it succeed better than the automated previous cores. In this case you’ll have only minor advantages compared to other cores, and only get a limited reward on your reincarnation if you succeed.”
“The risky option would be to try to calm down or distract a group of countries that is in a situation short of a full war, and in that case you get three times the resources of a high-quality core instead of a single average set. But you will also have to work much harder and be responsible for much more.”
“In both cases we can only send more additional help after you’ve succeeded in bigger parts of your tasks – we can’t waste resources on cases that fail. But if you succeed in finding a solution for the risky challenge, then we will be able to spare quite a bit of our power for your reward.”
…
“So I either take control of this Dungeon with a low chance to win the prize, or go back without help into the afterlife of a world that is under a zombie apocalypse?”
“Looks like you have your man, I always enjoyed a challenge…”
“Well decided. Please concentrate on [Quests] or [Help] after your transfer into the Sphere.” the goddess smiles and the soul is suddenly drawn into one of the golden symbols on the floor.
Xenotic Conversion
Phase one started
Processing 01% … 100%complete
Initiating Transfer – Phase two
Transfer complete
Xenotic conversion complete