A woman with long red hair and piercing green eyes looked up at her enemies. The foolish gods who couldn't accept being inferior to her. The same fools who had warred with one another for so long to have what she had claimed. She had sacrificed everything to fulfill her desires. To achieve them and grant the desires of so many. Now she found herself desperately struggling against chains forged by the gods to restrain her. She could feel them breaking as she struggled while the desperately fought to restrain her.
Memories were an odd thing. As she struggled, she remembered how it all began. She was the goddess of infinite desires, Alushien. In a world filled with endless way, she watched as time and again people were forced to sacrifice their own desires for some foolish higher cause. Endlessly being conscripted into the war of the gods. They were called upon to give everything for the hypocritical desires of the gods.
They were the ones she hated the most. They didn't battle for simple desire. They fought one another just so they could uphold their station as unparalleled. They fought one another to prove themselves superior. They ignored their own desires that had been the core of their stations just to prove themselves better. They forced others into submission and created hierarchies they called pantheons. All the while, she spent her time trying to free the mortals so they could seek desire. She created a hidden cult dedicated to freeing the mortals from their servitude.
She felt one of the chains break as she screamed her fury at the ones who dare to stop her purpose. She recalled how her efforts were made fruitless time and again. How these very gods time and again crushed her efforts. Anything that distracted from their cause was considered sin and heresy. In the end she watched as even the gods of life and death abused their station. The cycle had been warped. It was meant that each soul may pass through life and death in cycles with each life a chance to succeed in some cause or purpose before finally being reborn anew with freedom to seek a new purpose. This purpose could be anything from a righteous cause to wondrous desires to be sated. Sadly, the gods saw this and changed it so that each cycle of life and death only granted one chance at a purpose before being purified. In life the mortals were forced to serve these gods and in death the same gods stole from them their very purpose.
More of the chains began to break as she roared in defiance. Her power lashing out. She had watched this disgusting cycle and saw an opportunity as life and death itself fell into discord as the godly war spread further. The passage between the world of life and death fell into discord and it was there she saw the signs. Their abuse of power was not total. It was flawed and a very few souls were able to retain their purpose. It was then she created her plan. She would give everything for this gambit. She will free everyone and let her desires run free. She created a ritual for this purpose and sacrificed all of her followers to flood the passage between life and death. In that moment she rooted her powers there and created her own personal domain. Those souls who still held powerful desires were drawn off the path and she used those desires to create a new existence. She created the hearts. Those filled with an all consuming desire and granted the power to pursue them. They were the rulers of desire that would liberate the world of other gods' foolishness.
The last of the chains shattered as she laughed in victory. Her wonderful hearts had grown in secret and taken the world by storm as the complex domains proved to hard for mortal armies to simply crush and their own servants, creatures born to serve their creator's desires without a will of their own. With their success, her power grew at an unbelievable rate. She began to butcher the fools who dared to stand against desire out of petty hate, over blown egos, or hypocritical desires. That was when it all changed. They finally saw reason in that moment and united. Just to oppose her. Now she battled against a varied host of gods. Even so, she could taste victory. The gambit seal her with these annoying chains had failed. Now that she was free she would-
It was at this moment pain wracked her very being as a god leapt forth from her shadow and severed something profound. She collapsed at that moment as the gods stood around her to decide her fate.
“Well done Dierko, it looks like that blade worked! I fear to think of what would have happened if it failed,” One of them commented. She didn't care enough to know his name. She barely managed to look behind herself to see this “Dierko”. He was a robed figure shrouded in darkness say for to white orbs where eyes should be. In his grasp was a farming tool. It was overly crafted and clearly meant for something more with runic inscriptions and gems. She looked at the scythe in confusion.
“I'm sorry it took so long, but it took some time for the powers of life and death to properly settle within this blade,” He answered in a whispering voice, or rather many voices, as he gestured to the scythe.
To this one of the gods gloated,” It was a stroke of genius to create a symbol of death and use it to sever her power like this. Now we can kill her and be done with it!”
The gloating god made to raise his war hammer only to be stopped by one of his compatriots,” We can't do that you fool. Her powers are to great to properly diffuse. Killing her could either free her to continue the war or simply destroy us all out of spite!”
Alushien sighed at the know it all. She had been looking forward to see their reactions when she slaughtered them with that detestable scythe.
“Fine, so what do we do with her? She killed my sister!” Yelled one of them.
“Oh really? After all the people you've killed, you'd think it only fair to know such loss yourself,” She taunted the furious god. Honestly, she couldn't remember any of their names. Probably because she never cared. She smiled as the vengeful god began to make another swing. Sadly the others were still willing to listen to reason as another god restrained him. He relented after a moment as they forced him to listen to said reason.
“So what do we do!?” He growled out at last.
“Well, it's more what you have to do. Technically her soul is still one piece, we just managed to injury it. Now we need to shatter it. I think you know what to do?” That ever annoying voice spoke up once more. At the last words, she gasped as her view shifted. In her weakened state, she couldn't resist the powers that forced her form into a more vulnerable state,” We may not be able to kill her, but we can at least make sure her powers won't be a problem.”
She had been forced to shed her divine body and now hovered as a cracked crystal. She watched in horror as the now smiling god swung his hammer. She couldn't let this be the end. There had to be something she could do.
__________
The gods watched as Alushien's crystallized soul shattered into three pieces. One reentered her body. Another seemed to vanish into the passage of life and death. The last simply vanished.
“What is the meaning of this Tormund!?” Thron demanded.
“I'm not sure, obviously her power is now anchored in the Ephemeral Pass, as for the other two, I haven't a clue. Her soul was supposed to split into two parts. Her mind and power,” Tormund glanced to the now inert body,” Regardless, we need to seal her body away.”
“Why not simply kill her?” Thron demanded only to be answered by another.
“Because, her soul would make the same passage as mine. She would easily be able to reunite with her power there just as I. For our kind, life and death is rather odd,” Dierko commented in many whispering voices. His very presence was unnerving for the war god, Thron,” Anyways, I have a job to finish with the others. We don't want her powers running too wild without a will to control them.”
With that, the spectre of gods left to attend to the passage. Thron sighed in relief at this as he turned to look upon the body of the monster that dared to slaughter their brothers and sisters. Such a deicidal existence could not be permitted. Now all that remained was to clean up the mess of her dungeons across the mortal realms.
__________
Time would pass and the world would forever be changed by the events of the Death Wars. Alushien became known as the Great Demon of Sin, the progenitor of all demons. Her teachings more or less lost and her creations hunted down with extreme prejudice. More so, the gods entered into an alliance to prevent the rising of another existence that could threaten them as a whole. In time, the mortal realm gained it's own independence and kingdoms were born to lead them as the gods seemed to turn their attentions back to their own causes. In an odd way, you could almost say that the Goddess achieved her original purpose so long ago. As time moved forward, she would only become painted by history as being more evil and her sins expanded upon.
Despite the best efforts of the gods, her powers still had an effect on the Ephemeral Pass. Those souls too strongly filled with desire after purification would still be drawn away and reborn as “Demons” to create “Dungeons” within which to “Imprison mortals and force their service to Alushien”. Even more, the dungeons began to believe this and forget their true origins over time.
As for the lost shard of the Great Demon's soul, it remains a mystery. It is said that there have been sightings of the red haired demoness throughout the mortal realms. Some speak of her in dreams and others are tales of a mysterious traveler. Most seem to be the work of fiction, but a few tales seem to stick out. It is believed that somewhere out in the world the last fragment wanders. Despite their best efforts, the gods have yet to find this elusive shard.
__________
Within a cave a gentle rumbling echoed throughout. It wasn't a large cave by any means. It was more of an abandoned burrow made by a large creature. Regardless, stone rose and replaced the packed dirt. Soon the cave had a solid stone structure. At the center, more rumbling could be heard by any that were present as the floor shifted and formed a hole. The sounds of water flowing could be heard rushing forth from the whole. This water, however, was something else entirely as it glowed a gentle blue. It suddenly stopped as it left the well and began to condense upon itself. It formed into a Gentle blue crystal that hovered above the well. The well expanded into an empty bowl as the “water” receded back down the hole. Walls surrounded the well and a stone bridge formed that stopped just before the large crystal.
It was within this crystal that something began to take form as a consciousness awoken within. It held no memories say for a woman with red hair and green eyes saying something. Whatever it said had gone unheard. Now it found itself looking at the cave it knew would become its home. It felt questions surface within itself. The question of identity. Her mind answered her mother's daughter. Strangely she could not not understand who her mother was and why she thought this. She let the thought pass as the question of her desire came. She thought long and hard on it. She knew there was one, but somehow it remained out of her reach to comprehend. Again she found herself confused at this. Unlike before, she was certain this was true to her without question, but it seemed so hard to answer without memories. There was something there. Like a dream fading from memory. It was as if the very knowledge that allowed her to understand her desire had been robbed from her. In the end she moved on as she was asked several more simple questions. The seemed simple enough. They were about her likes and dislikes. Such as what looked more attractive, did she like to eat, or how much she liked to play around. Obviously she was a girl and she liked the form that she remembered more than the odd form of the man. Somehow she got the feeling she missed the point of the question. Of course she liked to eat! People starve without food! Somehow she felt she missed something again. She just ignored it and answered haphazardly. Well duh, playing around if fun! Who wouldn't want to have fun?
The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.
She just kept answering strange questions like this for an hour.
Eventually a light shown from the crystal and a body came into being upon the bridge. It was a young girl's body with long, chestnut hair draped across and concealing it. She was confused as she saw it come into being. Was that supposed to be her? As she wondered at this, she was alarmed to watch the body fall prone before everything went black.
Sometime later, she awoke with a groan. Her body ached and she was certain her head had a bruise. She pouted as her eyes watered from the pain. She shivered as she found it cold. She kept her eyes shut as she focused on something. She was aware of a connection of sorts. Strangely she was getting no response. She wanted something to warm up with. She opened her eyes in annoyance to find something hovering in front of her face. She jumped up and nearly rolled off the bridge. She was barely holding onto the side as she looked at the hole below. Somehow she knew it was a bad idea to fall down there. After a minute or two of struggling to get onto the bridge proper, she looked for what had startled her in the first place. She saw nothing as she crossed her arms and pouted angrily. It was then that she felt the chill air once more. She wanted something to-
Again something flashed into existence before her face. In her surprise, she nearly fell off of the bridge again. After struggling back onto it, she decided to get off of it first and foremost. She plopped down against the stone wall as she thought once more about being warm. AGAIN the thing flashed into existence. This time, however, she had nowhere to jump or fall back to. All the same, her head still slammed into the wall and hurt. It was with tearful eyes that she looked upon it. It was a transparent surface with something all across it. Though it glowed to her, it seemed to not shed light in the dimly lit cave.
As she wondered what the strange flat thing in front of her was, a tingling sensation overcame the pain. Soon she understood she was looking at words.
Welcome new Heart!
You are the newest heart of
Alushien!
Your purpose is to pursue
your desires!
This system was created
to enable better interaction
between heart and core!
Now, please complete initialization.
Say your name.
Here are some suggestions.
The girl looked at the list and just grabbed one of the longer ones as she was cold, starting to feel hungry, and thirsty,”OooooH! Fine then, I'm Tatiana!”
Tatiana has been registered.
Initialization complete.
Opening status.
Realm of Tatiana, Heart of [̷̢̢̮͌̄|̷̧̙̣̮̊̿͂̈́̐͜_̴̳̭̉̀̄ͅ]̶̢͔͙̽͆̽|̸̖͠_̵̫̓̿̉̕-̸̼̹͊̽̽ͅ|̷̫̭̖̼̠̓́̃̽͂-̸̖͉̏̓̅̂|̸͚̺͇̌̌̃͛͝_̷̛͈̩̼̝̬̔̋̈́͝]̶̠͒̚/̶̭̯̮̄̅̋̽̓ͅ~̶̨̻͎̮̹̀̿̑͒̚ɛ̵̣̞̭͙̲͒͐̀
Tatiana
Race:Heart
Lvl 1
HP 18/18
PP 2/2
str 10
dex 16
agi 10
con 8
int 14
wis 10
wil 22
cha 22
Abilities:
Heart Knowledge(corrupted)
Dominion(corrupted)
Rule of Heart(corrupted)
Affinities: CORRUPTED
Tatiana's Realm
RP 100/200
RR 1/hour
Flrs 1
Rms 1
----- -
Ukp 0
Rank 0
Tatiana read the information with a bit of confusion. Something was clearly wrong with her. The first thing she did was ignore the obvious problems. She could worry after she warm, fed, and had something to drink. That being the case she quickly found a menu that allowed her to summon things. She noted there was a blacked out area on it. Another problem to answer later. She ignored it and soon found herself in a simple one piece dress with sleeves. The fabric was a little rough, but she didn't have much choice. It was the best option available on the menu. She did opt for pants since it was drafty below. She didn't want to be cold. It cost six RP(Reservoir Power) for the clothes. Next, she got her food and drink. The water only cost 1, but the meal was a bit more costly at six RP. After the meal, she though about the situation. She currently should have 87 points. She checked to find it was 88.
She was confused at first until she realized an hour must have passed. Her RR(Replenish Rate) was 1 RP every hour. Considering she wanted 3 meals a day and each one would cost a total of 7 minimum, she had a current net gain of 3rp per day. She'd have to wait and see how much other things cost to grasp how good or bad that was.
Her next order of business was to check what else she could do with her realm. After a bit of looking around, she found out just how bad 3 RP a day was. Just to expand the domain alone would cost 100 points. What was annoying about this is that meant she was struck with her passive 3 RP a day. She currently only had the Heart room. Even worse was if something happened to her body, she'd need 100 times her level to regain a body minimum. If she had more that the minimum, then ALL of it goes into restoring her immediately. It seemed that the only way to die was for the crystal to break. That being said, she still bought a bed and blankets for 20 RP. Stone floors were hard, cold, and rough. She then dropped 5 more on boots as an afterthought. Now that she was properly furnished, she jumped onto the bed to think more on the matter. It was then that she realized she made her points problem worse.
“Hmm, Oh well. I just have to wait until I get more points. At least I won't be uncomfortable while I wait!” She declared with a laugh. It was then that a thought occurred to her. She forgot about checking her problems. Taking some time, she checked out the corrupted messages.
Corrupted Element: Abilities with this status have been affected in an anomalous manner.
Common causes are interference during creation process, divine intervention, or a desire with affinities that fall beyond standard parameters or are incompatible with one or more systems.
The result is limited access or removal of certain abilities.
Heart Knowledge(Corrupted): Full knowledge base for Heart. All Hearts intuitively understand the system and their abilities. Due to corruption, this interface has been enabled. You must manually use interface to access knowledge beyond basic information required to utilize the interface. Also, some information is inaccessible.
Dominion(Corrupted): Access to reservoir and the ability to create and expand your domain. Due to corruption, power access has been limited. Heart can only us PP(Personal Pool) daily. Further, connection of Heart and Crystal Core has been altered. Re-spawn system disabled.
Rule of Heart: Authority over the realm and all things created by the Heart or fall under Heart's rule. Due to corruption, Heart cannot create a living thing without free will. Also unable to override freewill.
Affinities(Corruption): Affinities define a Hearts connections to certain things and allows the heart to create certain things more easily than other. Due to corruption, unable to create minions. Once living matter costs extra. Finally, unable to create undead or automatons.
Tatiana was quiet as she finished read this. She sat perfectly still for a moment before flinging herself back into her bed with a scream,” Are you kidding me! WHY AM I BROKEN!”
She threw her pillow. Afterwords, she sulked as she hugged her legs. The entire situation was unfair. She just wanted find the one responsible for this teach them a lesson for utterly breaking her. She didn't have the power to create her realm and protect it. She could expand and make traps, but that was it! She couldn't even create playmates or someone to protect her. In fact, she might as well be human at this point. She couldn't even revive!
That was when a thought occurred to her. Why was she able to access the revival menu options?
She checked the menus again. She saw options for for expansion, creation, and systems. Under creation she saw the blacked out section that was likely for minion. Checking under system settings, she found the re-spawn options available. She growled in anger. I seemed her corruption meant the system was lying! She jabbed the option and saw everything as it was before. It was then that she noticed something she missed. There was a button at the bottom with a by it. The button read “create clone”. It was what the costs were for. As for the message.
Re-spawn N/A
Nope, she'd been wrong. It didn't lie. It tricked her. She could still make spare lives ahead of time, just not after last body died. She sighed at this. At least she did have something to work with. She eyed her points again. She had 65 points still. She had to think on a way to get more point in a day if she wanted to get anything done.
“Screw it! I'm gonna just have to do things myself!” Tatiana declared furiously. She opened up the menu to see what she could make. Interestingly, she found 2 interesting section on the main selection menu. Under system was an ability option while she found a book option under creation.
The Abilities section seemed promising at first. She could learn some magic or pick up certain skills like sword fighting and such. There was just one problem. They were too expensive! The cheapest ones cost 50 alone and at best could only HELP with solving a problem. They didn't have the solutions, just a means to better achieve them. For instance, sure, she could learn to fight in order to hunt, but she would have no idea how to go about hunting, processing or cooking! On top of that, there was the matter of her needing to have certain facilities. Just getting a free source of water alone would double her current daily RP.
With the abilities being a bust until she had more RP to work with, she opened the book section under creation. Books were still pricey, but she was thankful thankful find four books that she could afford. There was a basic book on hunting and survival, a book on pottery, a book on construction, and a book on cooking. They were 10 rp per book. She sighed as she paid for them. It would seem that knowledge was valuable. It annoyed her to know she was going to have to read through them and work hard to get results.
She spent some time scanning through the books to get an idea on what she needed. A knife was prominent as well as a bag to carry things in. One last time, she checked throw her menus. Sure enough there was a hunting knife and travel bag. The knife cost 5 RP and the pack cost her 8 RP. She was now down to 15 RP.
She decided to start her operations tomorrow. She was hungry and she had a lot of reading to do. She retrieved her pillow from earlier and plopped down on her bed with her books. After summoning another meal, she began to read the books. She spent the rest of the day pouring over the books. She was certain she had the gist of it before she fell asleep. It shouldn't be too much trouble to do these things.