Delilah stared at the statue before her. It’s dichotomy of delicate facial features, kind eyes, and long flowing hair coupled with it’s sharp broad shoulders, muscular physique and huge jagged wings extending from its back was so captivating that she felt unable to look away. So captivated by the beautiful yet domineering presence standing before her she did not notice the passage of time nor her body slowly changing from an incorporeal shadow to the figure of a white woman with Eurocentric features wearing jeans and a hoodie. Once she finished transitioning into reality a gravelly yet strangely feminine voice reverberated throughout her body.
‘In most cultures it is considered rude to stare at someone for so long’ the voice intoned.
‘whe-wa who, what’ She shrieked while falling and subsequently scrambling backwards. Mind reeling she looked desperately round her to find who had spoken, only to realize that there seemed to be nothing in existence apart from her and the statue.
‘We generally prefer the term gargoyle, there is no way you could know this but calling a cyclotine a statue is considered objectifying.’ The voice, the gargoyle stated in the same reverberating tone however now there was a slight frown on its face making it look even more terrifying.
Delilah shaken but trying to not show that appearing in a dimension of white nothingness and being confronted by a what must be eight-foot-tall mind reading statue, no gargoyle she reminded herself whilst glancing at the huge figure in front of her to check whether it had noticed her slip. It seemed to be mollified that she was at least trying to not be offensive. Anyway she was trying not to show well fuck it so what if she was shaken she had no idea what was going on and the thing in front of her was terrifying. Wait would the gargoyle get offended of her thinking of it as an it.
‘Referring to me as an it will suffice, Cyclotine culture has a very different view on gender compared to you humans, but I stray from the topic at hand. You wish to know who I am and why you are here.’
Delilah simply nodded as she rose to her feet, she gathered that it was probably best to not get ahead of herself and simply let the gargoyle say its piece. The gargoyle had a slight smile on its face now. Absently Delilah noted how it was strange that she had not seen the thing move once. ‘Shit’ she thought as her thoughts spiraled into blind panic. Is this thing a freaking weeping angel.
The gargoyle either unaware or ignoring Delilah’s horror began to speak. ‘I apologize for not making this a smooth transition it has been a long time since I have spoken directly to a mortal so let us restart and allow me to start from the beginning. My name is Garoth and while not technically accurate you can think of me as a god of sorts and you Delilah, you are dead.’
Garoth’s words hit Delilah like a sledgehammer dislodging anything else she was thinking or feeling to the far recesses of her mind. Several emotions and thoughts flooded her mind simultaneously, fear, despair, confusion, distrust and anger. How could she be dead? Was it lying? How was she here? Where even was here? Her thoughts raced faster and faster while Daroth droned on seemingly oblivious to the existential crisis that the woman standing in front of it was having.
After an indeterminate amount of time Garoth stopped talking and listened to Delilah’s thoughts again to see how she was reacting to its words, only to realize that she hadn’t listened to anything past the fact that she was dead. It sighed, it hated having to deal with humans they took several times longer to do anything and always ended up with worse results than the cyclotine. Unfortunately, it had a duty to do and the human in front of it was necessary and unfortunately, she needed to understand the full gravity of her task. Sighing again it resolved to wait for the human’s breakdown to subside.
After more time than she would comfortably admit Delilah got a hold of herself enough to ask a question ‘will I ever see my loved ones again?’ she asked in a shaky voice.
‘That depends, it is possible however realistically your chances are very low.’ Garoth stated.
Anchoring herself with Garoth’s words and steeling herself for whatever was to come she spoke ‘tell me what I have to do.’
Garoth looked at her appraisingly before mentally shrugging and speaking again. ‘As I was saying you are dead. As you will needless know your world is manaless or devoid of magic as you will. Normally in worlds such as yours unless claimed by a god then souls slowly dissipate for ten to fifty years before re-entering the soul wheel and being reincarnated with no memories of their prior life. However, you somehow managed to fall through a dimensional crack near instantaneously after dying this allowed me to catch your soul and bring you here. In doing so your soul is fully intact meaning we have more options than is usually the case. Your first option which I advise against is that I can send you right back to earth where you will stay until your soul dissolves and you re-enter the soul wheel as normal. Your second option is I can take you to my personal afterlife where you can spend eternity in a cyclotine paradise however I must warn you that my afterlife is not designed for beings of flesh. Finally, and the option which I would advise you take is I can re-incarnate you as a god seeded being on a new world. An opportunity which if you possess the right blend of skill, perseverance and luck could end up making you a god in your own right.’ Garoth stopped there inferring that the human in front of it would probably need an excessively long time to process this new information.
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Surprisingly however Delilah seemed to have a change of pace and simply taking what the weird gargoyle god thing was saying in stride. ‘So I am guessing that when I become a god I will be able to create my own afterlife on earth.’ She paused for a second ‘and that is what you meant when you told me that it is possible for me to see my loved ones again.’ With another pause, Delilah looked Garoth dead in its marbled eyes and asked ‘what do I need to do to become a god’.
The god now smiling at this unexpected twist, which was disturbing as Delilah still had not seen it move, continued. ‘Etherella, the world you will be sent to is very, different, to your world of Earth. The main difference which has a cascade of effects is that Etherella is a very mana saturated world. Luckily for you though, the world has very strict rules as to how the mana is utilized by both sentient and non-sentient life as well as the environment. Precisely, and rather unusually the world is structured remarkably similarly to some of your earth’s role playing games’
Garoth paused which gave Delilah a chance to jump in ‘so like with classes and levels and stuff?’
‘yes’ the god interjected, ‘as you complete certain tasks you will be awarded experience points and when you gather enough xp you will level up in your class. You can think of classes as a specialized job which as they level make you better at the classes function. For example if you were a baker as you leveled you would gain perks which allow you to bake better bread or use fewer ingredients or bake faster or if you were an archer you would gain perks to allow you to shoot more accurately or do more damage with each arrow or even shoot an extra strong arrow every few minutes. Is this making any sense?’
‘I think so’ Delilah stated uncertainly ‘ however what does classes and levels have to do with me becoming a god?’
‘Ah yes I was getting to that. The easiest way to become a God on Etherella is to gain enough experience to reach level eighty-three at which point you would can ascend to Godhood.’
Delilah processed for a minute before responding ‘Okay so I need to figure out how to get experience points so I can level up to eighty three. Right, okay is there anything else I need to do or is that it?’
‘Well you also have to be a good person or else I will unmake you so you do not become an evil god however Etherella should give you the tools to manage this so really I wouldn’t worry about it.’
Not trusting that it would be so easy however really wanting out of this weird void of whiteness and away from Garoth, Delilah chose to ignore the mention of being ‘unmade’ and simply said ‘okay let’s do this, what do we need to do before I can get started’
Somehow the god’s smile widened, again still disturbingly ‘Now we get to the fun part, Its time to roll your character.’
Out of nowhere a ten feet tall golden slots machine appeared in mid air to Delilah’s left. It had the words Fties written in what looked like diamonds at the top and several different spinning sections below. The leftmost spinning cylinder began to gradually slow down until Delilah could make out that there were numbers from zero to nine written on it the numbers rapidly rolled from 3 to 7 before slowing at 0, crawling through 1, 2 and three before teetering on the edge and landing on four.
Garoth internally sighed, four abilities did not give the odd human great chances however it did not give up hope for her as the strength of the abilities not the number of them was what really mattered. Before both of their eyes half of the slot machine vanished so that there were only four spinning sections left. Each of these sections began to slow until there were four distinct ability names facing the human and the god. ‘beastborn’ ‘Lucky bastard’ ‘experienced’ and ‘world breaker’.
Garoth intoned while giving none of its feelings away ‘surprisingly I only know about two of these abilities and they should synergize very well.’ Garoth took a long pause before finally speaking ‘I know about lucky bastard and experienced and while not overpowered they are much sought after abilities however I have never even heard of either beastborn or world breaker.’ Garoth took yet another long pause before continuing. ‘I have lived a very long life Delilah and it is very rare for me to see new things let alone multiple new things at once. The chances are that these abilities are extremely rare and powerful meaning that against all odds you may actually stand a chance.’
Delilah was so caught up listening to Garoth’s words and Garoth was so caught up contemplating the meaning of Delilah’s abilities that neither of them noticed a small slots machine appear with a single section spinning. At the top of the machine was emblazoned the word ‘species’. As the wheel slowed down if either the human or the god were looking they would have seen all kinds of animals both mythical and mundane flicker past. The animals ranged from frost dragons to dire wolves to eldritch abomination lions until it finally landed on ‘common rabbit’ with a ding which caused both Delilah and Garoth to turn and look in confusion at the machine.
‘Well shit I guess we now know what beastborn means’ Garoth intoned as Delilah started to lose corporeality.
‘Wait what, what’s happening’ Delilah stated in confusion while staring at her hand which was becoming more and more translucent by the second.
Garoth Who now held a frown on its beautiful yet harsh face stated ‘Your character’s important starting characteristics have been rolled, however I have never seen this before. For some reason Etherella has not bestowed a class on you and has also seemed to royaly fucked you over by making you a rabbit who will almost undoubtedly be eaten by creatures who would normally be a laugh for most god seeded individuals.’ Garoth turned silent for a moment and Delilah got the sense that the god was doing something that she could not perceive. ‘don’t take any risks for a couple of days, I may be able to send you some aid however there is a high chance that I will not be able to follow through, in which case you will be on your own and will probably die horrifically.’
With its not so reassuring words reverberating in her mind Delilah fully discorporated from the white nothingness which was all she knew since her death. Garoth was still for long moments, it had been decades since Garoth had been given the opportunity to seed a mortal with godhood, it simply hoped that this earthling would survive and more importantly avoid the corruption of mortality. Sighing it wished her well and put her out of mind after all whether she succeeded or failed mattered little in the grand scheme of things, if she against all odds ascended then the divine power created by the act would empower him slightly and prevent Etherella from dying for a few millennia and if she failed then what was one planet.