Jessie had been counting the times the mage left food for him, and estimated that it was closing on the month that blasted matriarch had given him to complete the trial. It felt more like he was being punished than undergoing a trial to obtain the items he needed for his quest. He looked up as a furious looking mage blasted the door of his cell open and stormed inside.
“RELINQUISH THE BLESSING YOU BASTARD!” the mage yelled spit flying from his mouth.
“Or what” Jessie managed to get out, the residual pain from the near month of torture prevented him from speaking properly.
“I WILL RIP YOUR SOUL FROM YOUR BODY AND BIND IT TO AN ARTEFACT TO BE TORTURED FOR ETERNITY!” the mage screamed before turning around and looking the man who had been torturing Jessie dead in the eye. “If you cannot break him today, I will have you executed.” he said in a cold voice before leaving the cell.
The man looked a bit rattled, but soon his resolve over took his nerves and he walked into the cell.
“Your resolve is strong.” he said as he walked right up to Jessie. ‘But today it will break.’ as he said this he grabbed Jessie by his left arm and bent the elbow back with enough force to break it. Jessie cried in pain as his arm fell limp and his body slumped to the left as his arm could no longer hold his weight. The man looked over Jessie's naked body, the clothes he had first worn had been torn to shreds weeks ago and lay in a blood soaked pile below him. The man took out a pill and forced it down Jessie's throat, after which Jessie's nervous system seemed to burn as if he had been submerged in acid, the man simply laughed at Jessie's cries of pain as he began to slowly cut open Jessie's abdomen so as to inflict as much pain as he could. After cutting through Jesse's abdominal muscles the man began to heal Jessie again. The man's healing spells didn't dispel any of the pain that Jessie felt, only mend to wounds and restore the blood that he lost. Looking into Jessie's eyes the man only saw pain and nothing else, with a snort he grabbed Jessie's right wrist and with a quick twist snapped it before tearing the hand off his body to the pained groans of Jessie who could hardly draw breath enough to scream. Grabbing hold of the exposed bone in Jesse's arm the man twisted it until it broke from the elbow and he pulled it out through the broken wrist. The pained groans that came from Jessie turned into screams again as the man tied the boneless forearm into a knot before twisting Jessie's shoulder enough times to cause the skin to tear and the bone to dislocate and the arm to come away from the body, shoving his hand into the wound the man ripped out one of Jesse's ribs along with the muscle that was still attached to it and without pausing plunged the rib into Jessie's abdomen and yanked it upwards to the base of his diaphragm before pulling it out and casting his healing spells over Jessie. The day continued on the fashion till the mage returned, at that point the cell was coated in blood and discarded limbs, bones, muscles and organs lay scattered around the cell making it look like a human blender, with a wave of his hand the mage cleared a path from the cell door to Jessie and rammed a knife with a purple glow into his stomach. The skin around the knife began to lose colour and turn black before slowly falling off.
“have you decided whether to relinquish the blessing?” The mage's voice was calm, but there was an underlying coldness to it.
“I have.” Jessie choked out
“And?” The mage said getting more impatient
“Go to hell.” he choked out as his flesh began to rot at a faster speed. “And take that depraved bastard with you.”
The mage simply stepped back and watched as the knife spread the necrosis throughout Jessie's body, causing flesh to turn black and fall off revealing tainted black blood that seeped from the rotted flesh, as the necrosis spread Jessie's internal organs began to rot and turn into a paste the seeped out of the hole in his stomach. All of this was accompanied by the screams of pain from Jessie as his nervous system was also turned to mush. The pain didn’t seem to lessen even as Jessie’s legs fell off to rot on the floor, the necrosis spread until Jessie could taste the rotten flesh in his mouth, it made him want to vomit but at this point the only thing that remained was his neck and head. Watching this the mage simply smiled before picking up a white orb walking over the Jessies head and crushing it to pieces under his boot.
As darkness engulfed Jessie the last thing he saw was the fury on the mages face as the orb suddenly vanished. the pain he had been feeling for the past month seemed to go away, when light finally returned he noticed he was lying in a bed. Looking around Jessie saw that while the room wasn’t that large, it was still well furnished with items one would easily find in a royal palace. Jessie went to sit up but found himself unable to move, it hurt to even breathe let alone tense any of his muscles so he simply lay there and looked at the roof while thinking about all that happened. It was then that the realisation of him being in game for a month hit and he tried to log off, but when he tried to select the button nothing happened. Panicked and tried again but to the same result, it simply wouldn’t let him log out and because he couldn’t take the headset off without logging out he was stuck in game.
Lying back in resignation Jessie lost himself to thought. The most recent memory he had was of being a head on the ground as necrosis slowly dissolved his body, he remembered the mage holding a white orb on his hand before his expression turned to rage as the orb had vanished from his grasp.
‘What was that orb?’ Jessie thought ‘the mage did say something about tearing out my soul to suffer eternal torture, but this isn’t so bad if that’s the case.’
His thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the door which caused him to jerk his head to look which caused him immense pain at the sudden movement.
“Shit, sorry sorry.” The woman hurriedly said as she rushed to his side and began to cast healing magic. The pain that Jessie felt from jerking his head towards the door faded but still returned if he tried to move. After removing the pain the woman stood up and bolted from the room leaving Jessie slightly confused. A moment later she returned, leading a familiar figure behind her.
“He’s awake?” Death asked as he followed the woman in.
“He is, but he is in serious pain.”
“And his soul?”
“I reintegrated it as much as i could, but it needs to integrate naturally now.”
“Thank you Osi.” death said
“It's nothing.” she said. “I shall leave you two to talk for a bit, for now I have to figure out why abyssal magic was involved.” She left the room after checking Jessie's condition again.
“Can I have help sitting up?” Jessie asked after a moment of silence
Death helped Jesse into a sitting position that didn't apply much weight to any part of his body, his touch was delicate and caring despite being a skeleton, after helping him into a sitting position Death didn't say anything for a while.
“I would like to apologise.” Death said after a minute of silence
“For what?” Jessie asked
“For what happened to you.”
“What do you mean?” Jessie asked hesitantly
Death paused for a moment, considering what to say.
“As much as I hate to admit it, I am not omnipotent. I had assumed that you would be safe on Alecious due to how new and safe it was.” Death paused again. “The Matriarch is obsessed with becoming divine and would do anything necessary to achieve it.”
“Ok, but why are you apologising?”
“Because I wasn't watching you, you walked into her trap, and nearly lost both your soul and the blessing.” Seeing Jessie's confused look Death began to explain in more detail. “Souls can be harvested, however that type of magic is outlawed by basically every god due to its ties with abyssal magic, it is through this magic that the blessings of gods can be forcefully moved from one soul to another. The process is insanely tricky as the god in question can revoke the blessing from either the soul or the new bearer, but the change has to take place outside the purview of gods.”
“But, I was killed, turned to paste with my head crushed, how am I even here?” Jessie asked, a bit of panic entering his voice as he voiced these thoughts.
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“As long as your soul is recovered and is untainted, as you thankfully was, the power of Osioglen, the Ancient goddess of creation, can restore you.”
“But, why me?” Jessie asked. “I know the Matriarch said something about people sensing my blessing. Was that all a lie?”
“She didn't lie about that part.” Death said. “If you are indeed powerful enough you can sense the blessings of others, it won't tell you who the blessing is from or what it does, but you can tell the power of it. She was also telling the truth about the item she had being able to hide the blessing, what she did lie about was having been given it by Nature's Servant.”
“But if she just needed to tear my soul out, why did she trick me into undergoing a trial?”
“The trial was a backup plan. For a soul to be taken from a living person they must either be relaxed enough to not resist, or too exhausted to resist.” Death thought for a bit. “It seems your preference for, smaller assets let's say, helped you in the first regard but did result in arguably the worst way happening.”
“Jessie thought for a bit. “Would the first option have been any worse? How would she have even done that?”
“I am unsure, ways that people have done it before include hyper enhancing the victims stamina for a short time, resulting in more exertion which in turn results in a massive crash once the effects run out, or simply draining the body of life through touch. The divines try to prevent souls from being taken in such manners, but at times it still happenes.”
“That's kind of depressing way to go, being fucked to death.” Jessie muttered. The two of them sat in silence for a few minutes before Jessie spoke again. “Could I ask you some questions?”
“Ask away.” Death said. “I am a veritable fount of knowledge and shall answer all your questions.”
Jessie couldn’t help but let out a small chuckle at that, not that he didn't doubt the god but just the way he said it made Jessie chuckle.
“Very well, why do all NPC’s act so realistically?”
The flames in death's eyes flickered for a moment as he contemplated what Jessie was asking him before they seemed to enlarge to twice the size, the comedic effect was somewhat ruined by his lower jaw falling open slightly.
“I shall answer almost every question you have.” he said
Jessie gave the god a sceptical look before asking his next question.
“Huh, very well then, I was told that if I was slain by an NPC 15 levels above me I would need to create a new account, why didn't that happen?”
“Oh.” Death said as he let out a laugh. “You died to a monster not an NPC, there might be a slight difference there but a difference there is none the less.”
“And how many of these loopholes and grey areas do I have to look out for?”
“Enough.”
“You're not going to tell me are you?”
“Nope.”
“Go to hell.”
“I rule it.”
Jessie threw his arms up with a sound of annoyance, which immediately turned to pain as he remembered he was still recovering from having his soul ripped from his body. Death simply shook his head and cast a spell that relieved Jessie of the pain. With a muttered thanks Jessie collected his thoughts to ask his next question.
“Why did I drop to level -50 after I was killed?”
“So, the way it works is that the level of the monster is taken and then you lose experience equal to half that monster's level, due to you having no levels and being level 0, you lost experience equal to half the monster's level and thus went to level -50.”
“How do you know so much about the game?”
“Huh?”
“How do you, an NPC, know so much about the technical aspects of the game?”
“The 10 ancient gods were programed with all knowledge necessary to, uh, be the ancient gods.”
“10 ancient gods? You told me there were 8.”
“Uh, um.” Death stammered as he tried to come up with an answer.
While Death was trying to come up with an answer another voice came from the doorway, the laughter seemed to break death out of his stammering as he sent a glare at the door.
“He’s got you there, Fulor.” the voice laughed. “Behold, young Ghost, One of two secretive Ancients.” the man said as he performed an exaggerated bow.
“Really Thys?” Death said the disappointment in his voice very clear. “I know there are very few other gods here, but can you not overdo it with the dramatics?
“The theatrics, my dear Fulor, keep everything interesting.”
“Of course they do.” Death muttered. “Why are you even here?”
“I happened to be passing by an overheard you let slip about the other two.”
“Passing by my arse.” Death said.
“Indeed, while I'm here though I might as well tell him about me and Destiny.”
“Might as well.” Death said. “I might paint you in a very bad light if i did it.”
After giving Death a flat look the new god walked in and sat in the chair at the base of Jessie's bed. He looked surprisingly young, then again Jessie guessed he could change his appearance, his build wasn't small, but it also wasn't too large, his hair grew out not too long, but also not too short, it seemed like everything about his appearance was perfect.
“Are you like the god of perfection or something?” Jessie asked before the god could say anything. As Death burst out laughing the new god seemed to take the question in stride.
“The god of perfection?” he said as he acted hurt. “Dear me, no. I am nothing like that absolutely perfect god. No, young ghost, I am Thysonare the Ancient god of fate.” he pronounced himself like he was announcing the name of a gladiator entering the arena. Jessie just looked at him in confusion.
“Why don't you have a statue in the courtyard then?”
“Courtyard?” Thysonare asked. “Oh, you mean the one in the divine bazaar?” after waiting for Jessie to confirm he continued. “I just don’t want a statue there.”
“It's because as the ancient gods of fate and destiny he and the other one want to be as anonymous as possible.” Death chimed in.
“Fine, Fine I’ll hurry this up you ancient grump.” Thysonare said as he looked at death. “It’s as he says, me and Destiny are so sought after that we have tried to make ourselves anonymous, the amount of people wanting us to change their fates or destinies got so out of hand that wars were fought over our temples at one point.”
“You have temples?” Jessie asked.
“Had. We both destroyed them to prevent more wars of that sort.”
“What about the clergy.”
“Oh, they lived, we just asked them to be wandering priests and priestesses and not to build any temples, shrines are fine, but temples seemed to cause people to wage wars, they seemed to think there are portals that would take them straight to us.”
“So what do you do then? Just read and watch the threads of fate?”
“The threads of fate are fickle things. I mainly look for worthy souls for rebirth and inform the many thousands of reincarnation gods and goddesses about them. I do also watch the breach to make sure the abyssal horrors don't come through again.”
A quick look between the gods of fate and death led Jessie to drop any questions he might have had concerning the breach. It was a strange sight he thought, sitting in the company of death and fate, anyone else would have been confused but Jessie seemed entirely at ease.
“About the wolf pelts.” Jessie started but Death interrupted him.
“So I may have taken the liberty of interfering directly and reducing their weight to something you could carry.” At this the god of fate looked at him sternly.
“You what?” he asked as he stared Death straight in the eyes. Death seemed to shrink back at the look, when Jessie looked back at the god of Fate he noticed the air shimmering and Thysonare’s head flickering back and forth with speed, when his head stopped moving and the air stilled he spoke.
“You are lucky that the threads of fate have not been altered.”
“What would you have done?” Death challenged
“I would have cut off your ability to view your blessed.” Thysonare looked at Jessie then back to Death. “But I realise that would be stupid, and so I would have done nothing.” he let out a small laugh. “But that would have also required me to call the ancient council, and I can't be bothered to do that. Anyway I shall leave if you have nothing more to ask me.”
“One last thing.” Jessie said. “Was my meeting with the dragon fated or just pure luck?”
“It was fated.” Thysonare said before leaving the room
“How long will it take before my soul has reintegrated?” Jessie asked after a moments silence
“A couple days I would say.” Looking at Jessie's resigned face Death added. “Instead of lying in bed for the next few days, I think you should learn to fight. I do also recognise my incompetence in not giving you a basic skill.” as Death said this a notification popped up in front of Jessie
‘You have learnt the skill Identify’
‘Identify: lvl 1
Allows the user to appraise an item or creature to glean information about it
Only basic information is shown. If the creature or item is too high levelled only the name will be shown.’
“Huh, thanks.” Jessie muttered
“Think nothing of it.” Death said. “Now, I shall take you to the training grounds and teach you some of the basics. What weapon would you like to learn?”
“I can learn to basic weapons from people in Alecious, so, why not the scythe.” Jessie said as he looked at the scythe Death had left near the door when he entered. Death's eyes seemed to smile at Jessie as he said this. And before he could blink Jessie found himself standing in an arena holding a scythe similar to the one Death held.
“Shall we begin?” he asked as Jessie realised he couldn't feel any of the pain he had when he was lying down. Before he could properly respond to the god, Death leapt at Jessie while swinging the scythe.