A few rooms down, I heard loud screaming. This was such a departure from the typical quiet conversations that I was intrigued. Approaching the room, I saw that it wasn’t empty.
“You’ve beggared me,” Green Tie was yelling at Red Tie.
Red Tie smiled sadly at him, “Some ventures do not work out.”
“None of your ventures work out. I’m on to you. I will tell everyone. I have proof that you were scamming us all.”
Red Tie’s face lost all emotion. In an instant, he pulled a knife out of his toga. Green Tie backed off, but Red Tie was on him in an instant.
“It’s a shame,” said Red Tie, “I will need to frame someone for this. Who do I not need anymore?” He plunged the knife into Green Tie’s chest.
I was leaning on the door jamb, careful not to step inside. I did not want to join this scene that was playing out. As the knife thrust into Green Tie, I gasped.
Red-Tie looked up, somehow seeing me through the door. His face contorted in rage. “You! It’s always you!”
He pulled his knife out of Green Tie and came at me, leaving the dying man on the floor gasping, clutching at his chest, and pumping his lifeblood out. I stepped back, hoping he’d be confined to the room, but he stepped out easily. I once more equipped my Security Clipboard of Shielding, then my Armadillo Wet Floor Cone of Death. As he came at me with the knife, I let it smack into the clipboard, then stuck his arm with my own blade.
He stumbled back, clutching his arm that was soaking his toga with blood. “Every time a scam fell through, it was you there. Why did you have to interfere?”
He came at me again. This time, I didn’t hesitate. As he tried to stick me with the knife again, I blocked with my Wet Floor Cone of Death, letting the protective material block his knife, then bashed his face with the clipboard. His nose broke, and he fell flat on his back, knife clattering to the floor. I jumped on him, kneeing him in the stomach, then putting my blade under his chin. He stopped struggling, though his chin was still set, and his eyes stared daggers at me.
“What is this place?” I asked.
“It’s the stupid planner’s mercantile exchange. They aren’t very good at it, though.”
“What do you mean?”
“My lord has been showing me how to beggar them.”
“Your lord?”
He started struggling again, trying to get me off him. I ended it with a quick thrust of the knife to his throat. Blood gushed out for a few seconds while he looked at me helplessly, then his eyes dimmed, and he went limp. I frisked him but found nothing. Still, I took the tie and the knife.
I continued on my way. The rest of the doors were dark. Dust now covered the floor, sconces, and cornices, and rotten cloth clung from the walls where before decorations hung. At the end of the hallway was a larger room. I entered it and saw a statue sitting in a niche on the far wall. It was of a red-eared man with a smiling face. It gave me a bit of a used car salesman vibe.
I approached and looked at it carefully. As I did, it spoke up.
“You’ve bested my acolyte and have earned the right to worship me. Bow before me!”
I took a step back from it. Fantasy world or not, this was the first talking statue I’d seen.
“The Red Tie man was your acolyte?”
“He has lost and is not worth considering.”
I didn’t like this or what that man was doing to the other people. Was this who the pathfinder was leading me to?
I closed my eyes and concentrated on needing help. The pull was indeed coming from this statue, but not just from this statue. A slightly muted pull came from behind it.
I wrapped the red tie around the statue and started pulling.
“What are you doing? Bow before me!”
I rolled my eyes and continued pulling. It suddenly dislodged and fell down to the floor, one hand snapping off. I looked behind it and saw a mute light hovering behind where the statue’s torso was. The second pull was coming from it. I reached out and touched it.
I felt something waking up and connecting with me. I was being scanned. It played back my exploration of this space. It delved deeper, reviewing my past. It keyed onto, of all things, my use of spreadsheets, and I could sense satisfaction suffusing it. I felt discontent from its review of the rest of my life. I don’t know how long this took, but I knew when it was done.
----------------------------------------
I found myself sitting on a plush chair in front of a woman. She was smartly dressed in a light gray business suit. Her face was long, with a sharp nose above thin lips. She was a well-preserved sixty, though her auburn hair had no trace of gray. Her left cheek was completely covered by a spreadsheet, cells filled with numbers or small equations reaching up to the tip of her nose. Her eyes were her most striking feature, shining from within with a vivid purple color.
“Hello Joe, I’m Margaret.”
I looked around. We were seated in a well-appointed office. I turned back to the woman.
“You can’t be Margaret. That’s a name from my world.”
“The Great Translator is making allowances.”
“The…Great Translator?”
“The fact that you can speak with people from other worlds hasn’t struck you as strange? My name is the thing that has you stymied?”
This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
“What are you?”
“I’m a goddess.”
Clenching my fists, I started with the thing that mattered most. “Can you help me get back home?”
“That’s not an option anymore. You died.”
Somehow, I knew she’d say that.
“Then what does it mean to be a goddess?”
Her eyes flashed, and the walls of the room vanished. Our chairs were hovering over a large spreadsheet, extending endlessly in all directions. Cells had formulas in them. Cells had visible connections leading from them to places I couldn’t see. My hands tightened on the arms of the chair, though there was no sensation of movement. Her eyes flashed again, and we were back in her office. She snapped her fingers, and a side table appeared near us with a pitcher and two glasses. “Will you pour us some water?”
I did as she asked, handing her a glass. I took mine and sipped. The water was cool. I felt muscles relax from the fight I’d just had, from the long walk, from the tension I’d been holding since arriving on Catallaxy. The sensation started from my center, the feeling flowing into my shoulders and neck, then my arms and hands, descending into my hips, legs, and feet. I felt like I’d just had a long, soothing massage.
“I saw the concept of spreadsheets in your mind. They are much more efficient than the scrolls previously used by my people. My domain is planning and organizing, commerce and large scale endeavors.”
“The pathfinder didn’t lead me to you,” I said, stretching the truth a bit.
“Hmm.” She leaned forward and touched my forehead, concentrating for a bit. “It’s an interesting upgrade. It led you to an option. Me or that conniving cancer. The best way I could explain this is that it found two options for you in the same place and led you here. You need to make a choice about which of us you want as your deity.”
She paused for a bit, studying me. “You are not like my typical followers. They were more careful, calculating. They aligned with my nature. You act more from feeling, from emotion. I could use a follower like you.”
“Why did you call the other god a cancer?”
“He sent someone into my temple and took root, replaced me, brought my empire, my temple, and my disciples to ruin. I was forgotten in this place. He was a parasite that ended up trapping himself as well.”
“That tool is not going to be my god. I think it’s a question of whether I choose you or leave without either of you. What does it mean to have a deity?”
“I can give advice. Think of me as a coach. I can also grant certain powers and hand out”—she paused, closing her eyes briefly—“quests.”
“Why that pause?”
“I just saw that the author is now calling them quests. We used to call them favors or commands. I am unfamiliar with this game concept.”
That would be an interesting thread to pull on at a later time. “And what do you want in return?”
“I want out of here. I’ve been forgotten for too long. Gods don’t die. We just fade out of existence. Go out and succeed, make my name known, and bring more people to worship me.”
“Just as long as there’s no blood sacrifice.”
“Not unless you plan to run a butcher shop,” she smiled predatorily.
“Why can’t I go back to my previous life?”
“You did die. This place is a second chance for you. You might be able to touch your old life in some ways, but for now, focus on staying alive. Failure here means death. You will not get a third chance.”
“That’s not fair.”
She looked at me sharply. “What did you amount to in your previous life?”
I wanted to shout at her that I was successful, that I did great, that I had friends, and that I had achieved my dreams. What came out was just, “I did okay.” It was said with such a lack of conviction that she didn’t bother acknowledging it.
“You’ve seen one applicant killed out of hand. You know this isn’t a joke. Do you accept me as your goddess?”
I thought about it but didn’t have many options. That other character was a scam artist.
“Yes”
“Very well. Do you have any questions about your current predicament?“
“I’m at level 2 and have a stat point to assign. Any suggestions about how to assign those?”
“Your Political Savviness score drives how much Political Potential you have and will help you navigate various situations. It’s probably the most relevant score while in an office environment. For now, you also have to survive the streets. Put the point in Strength, and in general raise Constitution as well.”
I opened my stat sheet and assigned the point to Strength, bringing it up to thirteen. I suddenly felt stronger. It wasn’t a massive change, but my muscles felt a bit more emphasized, the shirt a bit tighter around my biceps.
“Is there anything you can do about my pathfinder?”
“Not directly. It’s not broken. Your peers are just led to a specific goal while you have choices. The pathfinder is useful in the Great Potential. As my first reward to you for picking me as your goddess, I’ll help you navigate and locate things in real space.”
She once more leaned forward and tapped my forehead.
I felt my mind pulled out of my body and lost all sense of where I was. My mind swirled in a sea of blackness, being buffeted by unseen waves, thrown from one swell to another. I was completely disoriented, then my sense of direction started rebuilding itself piece by piece. I suddenly knew what was up and what was down. Being tossed around like a feather in a storm no longer impacted my ability to know where I was and in what direction I was facing. The room started re-materializing around me, and soon, I was sitting in front of Margaret again.
I looked around but didn’t see anything different. In my interface, I saw both a “Minimap” toggle and a “Real Men Don’t Ask for Directions” skill available now. Both were designated level 1. I tried activating the map, but it was grayed out.
“The map won’t work here. Try it out once we’re done with our conversation. The other skill will guide you if you know where you want to go on a specific planet. You don’t need to have been there, but you do need to know that a specific place exists.”
“Thank you. What’s with the name, though?”
She smiled. “The author and I have a small competition going.” I waited for a bit, but she didn’t say anything else.
“Do you know the author?”
“We’re getting acquainted.”
“Any other tips for me?”
“Think of your overall quest as the bare minimum you have to achieve and the missions as optional side quests. For example, your main quest is to find a door to your company, and one mission is to find a coach. You didn’t need to find a coach in order to find a door. You overachieved and found a god. You can always do more than the stated missions. As you use the pathfinder, you can give it some guidance. For example, finding a door is different from finding the best company for you. What you look for will change what your outcome will be.”
“Will it also change the danger level?”
“It will, though you won’t always be able to tell how.”
“Thank you. One more thing before I continue. Do you have any idea what Squeezimodo is?”
She concentrated, and Squeezimodo came out of my inventory and into her hand. She squeezed him a few times, and I heard him purr in contentment.
“You’re an interesting development. Yes, I can hear you, though others can’t. Yet. To answer both your questions, Squeezimodo is a companion, similar to a familiar. I don’t know what he’ll be as he grows. Only the two of you can determine that.” With that, she returned him to me.
“One last piece of advice,” she said. “Julie is reacting to your behavior. Think about what you want to achieve and whether your actions align with that. Remember, this is your second chance at life. Try to survive this one.”
I bristled at that but didn’t pursue it.
The Mad Sad Bad Ad Trophy came out of my inventory and hovered between us. She looked at it for a bit and said, “This will do.” The trophy was shaped like three people stuck together back to back. It had three legs, three arms, and three faces on a single head. She touched one of the arms and merged into it. The statue rotated until that face was looking at me and spoke. “I’ll use this as a temporary avatar. Put me in an acceptable place when you have a home base.” With that, the statue went back into my inventory, and I was back in the mercantile exchange, facing the now-empty niche.
I looked down at the other statue on the floor. It was silent now, hand broken, eyes staring sightlessly up at me. I turned around and left.