“So, is this just a casual chat to catch up in person, a work chat to discuss either how overpowered my powers are, how intrusive you were when you tried to modify my [familiar] without telling me first… or is this about [Buddy]?”
I opted to completely skip pleasantries, since it seemed that [Luck] thought that it was a better use of our time to talk about the non-existence of my non-wall in this non-place, without even mentioning the real-portal to my [World Within] just a few scant paces away.
“Darwin, please”, she replied with mock hurt, sending me surprisingly good puppy eyes.
“The chance to see a [God] butter me up is probably worth a lot more than what I think it is, but I still won't bite”, I deadpanned while crossing my arms.
[Luck] dropped the façade and tsked, “I knew it wouldn’t work on you, but this approach won a majority vote among my peers and I was forced to at least try it”.
“Ugh, politics”, we both rolled our eyes.
“No, but seriously, you didn’t do anything personally to this place and it still changed so much in so little time solely due to the passive effects of your [Traits] being [Evolved]”, she repeated her initial statement, this time explaining why.
“I must admit that it looks neat, and the portcullis is theatrical enough to have been influenced by my preferences, but what actually is this place, and why is there a portal to my inner world out in the open?”
Though [Luck] could be considered any ally, the same couldn’t be said of others with similar powers; it freaked me out to have an open space, where other powerful entities could travel through, which led to direct access to the metaphysical insides of my [Core].
“Well… you’re right in describing it at first as a ‘non-place’-“she started explaining with a coy look.
“Stop reading my mind when I’m talking to you!” I interjected.
“-but it’s much more than that: You could consider it the ‘non-place’ where the minds of sentient beings can indirectly communicate and form ‘non-connections’ that mirror those in the outside world, both past and present”, she revealed without dropping the teasing smirk that seemed etched onto her face.
“So, what, is this the place where the treads of fate that connect people to each other come to collect, or something?” I asked after thinking about it, but coming out more confused than I originally was.
“You’re not wrong, again, and that which you described is a small part of it, but I guess that for all your intents and purposes that should suffice as an explanation. At least for now”, she cryptically confirmed, and the annoyed look I sent at her for being denied information once more simply slid off her.
“Then shouldn’t I be able to somewhat detect Sheeno’s place in here, since we are so closely linked?”
Which I thought was an apt question, since I could neither see these ‘threads of fate’ that should be around, nor could I feel as if there was anything else anywhere in this desolate place that I could see.
“Well, you see, one of the benefits that [Royals] get is that only those connected by blood can directly find them in this infinite and fictitious landscape, making them highly hard to track through [Divination] and similar tools.”
If being of [Roayl Blood] gave such an advantage, it seemed only natural that it did more, especially if these gifts were meant to help those in power to be as unassailable from their enemies as possible, which was what [Luck]’s wording left me to deduce on my own.
“Does being a [Royal] perhaps also gives them some defense to mental and spiritual attacks?” I asked.
“Yes. Actually, they are born with a fortress in this place fully built, but you are already on your way to reaching the same point, even though your peculiarities make it you’re actually already better off than them, even without the usual visual clues to match”, [Luck] reply actually made me aware at how shabby my place looked, since the constant mention of ‘palaces’ meant that I was probably meant to build a castle around the portal to my inner world.
Now, if that was simply how it was normally done out of tradition, or just another safeguard against interference, I didn’t know, but it definitely sounded like the smartest idea to adhere to right now.
“So how-“
“I know it sounds strange coming from me”, she interrupted me, but she seemed to be waiting for me to consent to her action before continuing, which I did with a nod, “but we really should go back to the topic for which I had originally summoned you”.
“Oh, yeah…”, I scratched the back of my head in embarrassment.
“No matter how much stronger and smarter I get, ADHD will always be able to raise its ugly head, it seems.”
“And before we truly begin, maybe it's best if we were to invite the involved third party to our discussion?” [Luck] kept going.
“Third party?” I asked.
It was then that I was made aware of the familiar presence seemingly coming out of my portal.
I turned to look, and where the presence felt as if it were coming into contact with the outside non-air, a purple square started materializing, which kept on floating even when it made it completely through.
I have come.
I looked at [Buddy] with an expression of utter befuddlement: Its window was different, less see-through and more physical, if I had to try and explain it, and its newly created body was apparently visible also to others, clearly shown by the [Goddess] nodding at its appearance.
“Welcome, now that-“, [Luck] tried to keep the conversation going, but I was too incensed to let this matter go.
“Since when the fuck could you appear to others!?” I half shouted to my perennial companion.
Since I have been recognized as a [famili-
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
“GO FUCK YOURSELF!
HA!!!” I fully shouted while I pointed at the window in a clear sign of mockery
My exclamation was sudden, unexpected, and loud, all factors that contributed to stunning both of the spectators of my outburst to silence.
…I knew that was the part you would focus on.
Yes, I can become material, now get it out of your system and let the Goddess do her job.
I turned to look at [Luck] and… yeah, she didn’t look pleased with being both interrupted and then ignored, while being forced to spectate our shenanigans. If the raised eyebrow and the crossed arms weren’t enough, the tapping foot on the non-floor was a clear enough sign to show that she was waiting for us to be done.
“As I was saying, before someone decided to rudely interrupt me-“
“Sorry.” I quietly apologized, but it only earned me another small glare.
“-we are here to talk about the responsibilities of power, and where you land with all your exceptionalities”, [Luck] finally finished explaining.
Which includes how I will be helping you from now on and where my limitations exactly lay.
“Wait, you already knew about all of this?” I asked the floating screen.
Just because I cannot tell you about it does not mean that we had not discussed it beforehand.
“Uh… I guess?” I shrugged, not really sure how relevant it was for me to know that.
“Going back to more important things: The other [Gods] are worried that your connection to the new and unprecedented entity you called [Buddy] will enable you to interact with the [System] onto a deeper level than even we can, so they rushed to limit its authority as soon as they were made aware of its existence. In their haste they ended up making it even less reliable than a normal [System instance] would be, so we changed back some things that would make the situation fairer”, the [Goddess] reined us further in, steel-bent on keeping the discussion going.
“Wait, didn’t you use whatever back-access that [Truth] left in the [Sysstem] to limit [Buddy]? How could I have even become a problem if it was that easy to limit me?” I asked, confused by the inconsistencies once again.
“That is another matter entirely: You shouldn’t know about the [Goddess of Truth] to begin with, while instead knowing about the [God of Conflict] and his ilk. Let’s just call it a bug where you got an old version of the [Introduction] not meant for this [Nexus]”, [Luck] clarified.
“Ok- wait, not okay! What do you mean that I got the wrong [Introduction]!?” Her clarification just ended up opening another whole can of worms.
“I thought you would have focused more on the fact that I hinted at there being more than one [Nexus]”, she idly commented.
“To be fair, that was pretty obvious, at least to me, it’s one of the reasons why I stopped calling it ‘the [Nexus]’, after all, it’s in the name: A nexus is a meeting point of connections; connections to what? Probably other similar places, ergo my deduction that there was more than one place being managed by [Gods] to nurture refugees from destroyed worlds”, I explained my reasoning, and to be fair it wasn’t something that I had thought of at first, but a conclusion that I reached after spending more than a month examining the inconsistencies that I had been forced to live with.
“True… well, to keep things short, there are multiple [Systems] applied to different [Nexuses]. [Truth] is the [Goddess] that has made the majority of them, but not the sole creator. This [Nexus] is in a very precarious position at the moment, since it is at the edges of the area of reality under the influence of [Destruction’s Madness], which is what we call the ripples of the [Goddess of Destruction] through time, meaning that this world is unfortunately under the constant assault of [Demons]. As an ‘edge territory’, we [Gods] are extremely present here, since the last thing we’d want to see is the place that we created as a refuge for worldless beings become a grinding machine against the [Demons].”
[Luck] deliberately paused, allowing me to ask whatever I needed to erase whatever doubts I might have had.
“Question: Why is [Destruction] such a bitch, who decides how the worlds are arranged in the infinity of reality, and what’s [Creation]’s role in all of this?”
And I did have some questions that were really burning at me.
“Well now, it’s not nice to call another [Goddess] rude names, but I understand where you’re coming from. [Destruction] gained a terrible reputation after her first act once she came to power, an act that was simply born as a response to all the scorn that she had been subjected for all of her mortal life.”
“So the [Gods] were mortal at some point!”
“Darwin, Darwin”, [Luck] sang while shaking her head, “what was one of the pillars of science in your world? ‘Nothing is created or destroyed, but only changed’? [Gods] didn’t pop up as fully fledged powerful beings right from the start, but worked their way up like everyone else. The only exception you could make is [Creation], but he was simply born in a place so saturated with [Aether] that he had been capable of divine feats since achieving sentience.”
“I guess… that makes sense?” I said after considering her words for a while, while scratching my chin in thought, “I must say that it does align more with what I had been thinking for a while. But you still haven’t answered why [Destruction] is doing what she’s doing, why this [Nexus] is a ‘fringe realm’, and what exactly [Creation] does”.
“All will be answered in due time”, she sagely stated.
I sent the goddess possibly my most withering glare ever.
“Which is now, I guess”, she quickly amended with an awkward chuckle. “[Destruction] is full of hate because she was like you once, what your [System] calls as [Anomalous] and [Aberrant], but at the beginning of time there were no such fancy labels: She was simply considered cursed and disallowed to own anything or belong anywhere. And yet she persevered, under the most brutal of environments she grew, and out of it a deadly but beautiful flower bloomed. Now, she is as much of a wrathful [Goddess] as she is a caring one, unfortunately in your [Nexus] a [Demi-God of Purity] popped up, who just ended up attracting her ire. This explains both why she is portrayed that badly there, and why your realm is on the fringes of safe space: She moved the fringes closer to the [Nexus] in the hope of annihilating [Purity] and his followers.”
“Did she seriously endanger the population of an entire world just to dispose of a small number of assholes?
…
What did they do to her to make her so bitter and cynical?”
I wanted to shout at the heavens that it wasn’t fair that a [Goddess] could risk that many to punish so few. But I understood: I never endured a level of scorn so high to make me think along her lines, I did not have the power to force my will upon reality, but I still understood.
I was not happy about it, but I got it.
“You don’t need to know. Just understand that people can be horrible to each other when given whatever excuse makes it acceptable in their mind”, [Luck] answered with a sad look, brimming with pity.
After all, if someone became a [God] and then felt that it was only right for her to use her newfound powers to bring misery and [Destruction] onto others, it really would make them pitiful.
“Ok, fine. But we got sidetracked again.”
“Not really: You see, this will tie in nicely with what I wanted to originally talk about”
“And that is?”
Thankfully the dark-haired divinity simply got to the point, but her response was not what I was expecting.
* * *
I opened my eyes to the real world, back in control of my body.
My face was adorned by a frown and pursed lips, since I was still feeling troubled by what I had learned.
The [Divine Quest] I had been saddled with only further complicated things.
I stood up and distanced myself from the pew, hellbent on getting away from it, if even for just a moment.
“What’s gotten your face all scrunched up?” A voice that was music to my ears snapped me out of my funk as soon as I was nearing the doors to the [Temple].
Sheeno had naturally finished before me, and had been waiting for me by resting against one of the columns nearest the doors.
“Let’s cross-reference what you know first, and then I’ll see what I’m allowed to tell you”, I sighed, remembering that I was made to swear secrecy to those that weren’t already in the know.
I was really looking forward to the following period to both grow stronger and stop thinking about this future mess.
All through the direct application of some therapeutic violence.