It wasn’t cold anymore. It took Ricard a few moments to realize that. Feeling the lack of water and bindings came far quicker after that. He opened his eyes and began to wheeze, collapsing onto the ground and coughing up water. After several attempts he gave up on opening his eyes, the harsh light proving too much to bear. Instead he tried to focus on his environment, cautiously touching the ground with his finger tips.
“Sand..”
Ricard stated with confusion. There were no sandy beaches In Vertas, All the river banks were rocky and unpleasant, not like this sand. It was soft and fine. The individual grains must have been tiny. He never felt sand this fine before, it didn’t seem real. An idea of rich people making their own special sand came to him and he couldn’t help but give a single tired chuckle. He didn’t know if it was because the idea was ridiculous or something that he could absolutely see some aristocrat doing. A mixture of both most likely.
Did he manage to be pulled downstream and ended up at some far off beach? Wouldn’t be the least likely thing that happened in the world, and Ricard was pretty sure he deserved at least one miracle for all the suffering he went through. He laid still for a few more minutes, his thoughts occupied by thoughts of survival and fear of the unknown.
Once he managed to catch his breath, Ricard slowly opened his eyes. Fluttering his eyelids for a few seconds to get used to the light. Then quickly closing them again. Then slowly opening them up again. And so on for a few more times as they tried desperately to come back to reality, since what he was seeing couldn’t be real.
An unending plane of pure blinding white sand. A sea of porcelain with waves frozen in place, spanning as far as the eye could see. The sky looked normal, well it was unusual to see no clouds in the sky but he lived in Vertas, any sky not completely covered in clouds looked strange to Ricard. It took a moment for Ricard to stand up due to his sore legs. Panic started to creep towards the front of his mind as he turned around trying to see anything apart from the empty expanse. But there was nothing.
No structures, roads, tracks, rivers or anything else that could serve even as a vague waypoint. A sudden realization came forth, one which he didn't want to consider but the only thing that made sense to him at this moment.
“The gates..”
Whispering the words he looked around even more desperately, trying to remember the fraction of text he knew of the scriptures. But this place didn’t look like any of the afterlives he knew. There were no sprawling greenfields, no river of spikes or everlasting orgies. He also distinctly remembered that all dead souls are judged by the heralds before they arrive and thankfully he had no memory of that either.
“Where in the balls of Ver am I?”
He mumbled to himself when he noticed something. A distant silhouette of something. Ricard considered his options. He could sit around here and wait to see what happens, pick a random direction and go or go towards the shape in the distance. Knowing his recent luck he would probably be eaten alive by a centaur if he stayed or died of thirst because he wandered in the wrong direction. At least there was something by the mysterious shadow.
He took a few more deep breaths, after his experience he knew what a luxury that truly was. Though the experience was weird in a way that he couldn’t explain. It felt like the air passed through him to somewhere else. His injuries were unusual too, while standing up he noticed that the pain was more dull than before. Ricard had full control of his limbs so they couldn’t have simply gone numb. His injuries were still physically there and to the same extent as before and they still hurt more acutely when he poked them.
After a few moments Ricard decided that it was best to survive and then make medical theories. It took roughly an hour to get to his destination and while the shape became more detailed it proved to be quite square like and seemingly made of actual marble. It was tall enough to reach the base of his neck. The side in front of him was completely blank but also remarkably reflective, the reflection on it was almost mirror quality. Ricard took the opportunity to examine himself and to what extent he was injured.
His suit even under the dried blood splatter and sand looked elegant, though not elaborate, clearly made for serving staff to look presentable but not out-stage whatever rich sycophant they were serving this week. Still Ricard was attached to his style and was rather disappointed in the state of his outfit. Yes his sleeveless vest and red bowtie marked him out as a bartender but he enjoyed the look he got from the various people looking down on him in the club. He knew he had more of a taste in fashion by lightly changing his uniform than the various rich babies copying whatever this week’s hit fashionista’s advice was.
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The black and grey striped pants he wore had some minor tears in it, though all in noticeable places, Ricard made a mental note of getting a new pair after saving himself, though by some miracle his plain white shirt managed remain speckles while the rest of his outfit was covered in dirt, dried blood and sand. Still it required a thorough ironing.
Next he leaned closer towards the marble cube, checking his face. His short black hair was a mess, with no visible style apart from possibly “fresh corpse”. His face was swollen in various places but luckily he wasn’t damaged beyond recognition. His face was soft with androgynous qualities. Something he felt very insecure about even today, trying to look more masculine by growing a goatee that did not match his face at all.
Both his real and prosthetic eyes looked good. His right eye was the real one, and managed to remain undamaged. Still as brown and charming as he remembered (or well imagined) it. In place of his left one was a spherical cloudy red crystal that worked just like a regular eye. It was so visually loud and striking that Ricard was forced to style his entire look after it, either making his outfits match it or making it look out of place and intimidating. His uniform managed to do the latter, at least the out of place part.
After he was done looking at himself he looked around the marble structure finding a strange purple symbol carved into one side. A star within a hexagon, within another star, inside another hexagon and surrounded by a circle. Ricard never saw this symbol before, he tried to connect it to any of the deities he knew. Maybe it was related to Cilla? All the stars would fit the goddess of the night sky after all. But she was very much against static places of worship. Maybe it was magical in nature? Well Ricard knew less about magic than theology. The symbol was fascinating. Ricard couldn’t decipher why but this spoke to him. It made him feel..
Empty.
Incomplete, like if someone sucked the color out of a painting only leaving the outlines behind. A sudden thought came to his mind. One that he didn’t know the origin of. The urge to touch it. Every fiber of his being told him to hold back, messing with a symbol you didn't know about was a sure fire way to get yourself blown up. Maybe if he wasn’t completely exhausted he might have been able to follow that instinct over the strange urge.
His left hand was gently placed on the edge of the symbol as if it had a mind of its own. It began tracing the lines with his fingers. Slowly spiraling closer towards the center star as Ricard couldn’t help but stare in a mixture of shock and overwhelming curiosity. He pressed his palm against the center of the sigil and curled up his fingers as if trying to grab something through the marble.
This is when Ricard managed to come back to his senses, the foolishness of it all became far more obvious to him and with a panicked motion pulled his hand away. He pulled something with his hand, he couldn’t see anything but there was a strange texture along his fingers that started to travel down towards his wrist. A feeling that was a mixture of ice cubes being dragged along the skin while an army of spiders slowly marched down after them.
“What the fuck!?”
He stared at his hand in confusion while instinctively pulling his sleeve down and shaking his hand. Finding nothing that could have caused the strange sensation.
Ricard pulled his sleeve down to his elbow, still finding nothing as the strange sensation spread across his body. And then he stopped feeling the tips of his fingers on his left hand. He looked at them and saw his fingertips slowly turning black and then collapsing into a dirty sooth filled smoke which quickly elaborated. He screamed while the rest of his fingers started to turn black.
“HELP! PLEASE! ANYONE!?”
His head turned around rapidly, desperately screaming on the top of his lungs while trying to locate anything or anyone that could help. But there was nothing but the marble structure and the silent alabaster plain. The only response to the cries for mercy was pain being dulled and muscles slowing. All proof of his existence began to dwindle along his voice as it echoed throughout the empty expanse.
No one answered his pleas for help as his entire body began to evaporate.
His arms went first, then his legs. Then his abdomen. He didn’t know or even think about how he was able to still be alive with most of his body gone.
“IN THE NAME OF THE GODS PLEASE.. FUCK! I-I DIDN’T MEANT TO TOUCH YOUR FUCKING ROCK! I WILL GIVE YOU ANYTHING! JUST STOP THIS.. please..”
The utter terror that filled him slowly faded alongside his eyes. He couldn’t feel anything. He felt nothing. He wasn’t anything. He was nothing.
And then it was cold.
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The room didn’t allow any light to enter. It would have been nothing but utter darkness for mortals and even most of the gods but that was the price to pay for privacy. She didn’t want to be part of games, even after she threw her name away they still tried to drag her in. So every precaution needed to be taken. She never took notes but it’s not like she would have used them even if she wasn’t concerned. Her webs stored so much more information than mere words ever could. Each tiny vibration contained a more detailed description than what a thousand poems could describe.
Spreading her web was a tremendous effort and one she had to repeat each cycle, but her many spindly arms made it light work. She never regretted growing them, even though it caused her long luscious hair to fall out and her body to become gaunt and frail. It was so long since she talked to anyone or even seen light that she forgot how her face looked. But it didn’t matter to her. Only the web mattered, the information, the world and its fate.
While most of her kin would have used her powers for petty power struggles she merely wished to observe and witness. After a while she started to notice the rhythm of things, while things didn’t repeat, per se, there were patterns they usually followed. It would have been boring to most but she grew to appreciate it, it was familiar and calming. And the few times something unexpected happened it was truly refreshing.
But this was different. At first she even doubted herself, something she hasn’t done in eons. But the more closely she listened to the vibrations the more certain she became, something new was born. It was both divine and mortal, but not in the way heralds or even demigods were. Its nature was not divided. Not one part god and the other mortal, it was both and yet somehow neither.
It was impossible, there were no more mantles and no deity died recently. Yet there was something even more concerning about it. It managed to leave the proving grounds without an audience. Without a trial, without the oath. She herself made some of the seals surrounding it. She knew that no mortal or god could have left that plane the way it did. Nothing could have.
Yet it did. Straight back to the mortal plane.