“Are you alright?” Asked Sabrina, off to my right.

Noticing me looking up at her questioningly, she clarified.

“You’ve seemed more distracted than usual. Like something’s weighing on your mind.”

“’S nothing.”

“Doesn’t seem that way. Has something happened?”

“No. I’m fine.”

Sabrina shrugged, as if to say ‘suit yourself’.

I hadn’t realized things were that obvious. Sighing, thoughts of Jvorg’s message bubbled up again. It was kind of him to send along such vital information—however unwelcome said information is. Especially information about the Pantheons. Of course, just letting me know that there’s a month to prepare isn’t enough. There’s so much more that needs to be known in order to make my plans. This is why another meeting with Jvorg has been scheduled. Supposedly, a driver will be coming by the school to pick me up.

For now though, it seems necessary to attempt a modicum of normalcy. Seeing my friends worried tugs at me somewhat. After all, my life is the messed up and complicated one, and having them dragged into all my problems is the absolute last thing I’d want for them. Ant’s tend to get squashed when people start fighting.

They simply aren’t yet strong enough to stand on their own. Maybe someday, but not in the next month. No, I cannot let them get involved, in any way.

“…You listening, Revy?” Asked Godard, breaking me out of my reverie.

“Hm? Listening to what?”

“Oh come on, are you sure you’re fine?”

“Yes, completely. Just thinking.” I said, waving aside my friends worries.

“If you say so…” said Sabrina uncertainly

“Bah, if you say you’re fine, then I’ll believe it for now. Anyway, Godard was talking about the things happening in Ashenload right now.”

“Yeah! There was a sighting of the Sword Mage Deus in one of the cities, and she was able to beat five other Red Robes! It’s unheard of! I wonder how strong Deus really is?”

“Does it matter?” I asked; feeling slightly embarrassed by the topic. Attention really isn’t my thing—and while combat is quite enjoyable, the aftereffects and fame that comes from being good at it isn’t. Being left alone is nice, and preferable.

“Of course it does!” Continued Godard. “This means that Deus is likely one of the absolute strongest players in Ashenload! I’ve heard that people are even considering bumping her up on the Ashenload power listings—maybe even up to the top ten. And this is just the start of the interesting news!”

“Why? What else is there?” If this conversation could move on, please? Talk about something else, anything but this…

“Apparently, Deus was in the middle of a quest when she was attacked by the other Red Robes. This of course drew attention to the quest itself, which turned out to be very vital.”

“Go ahead…” Feigning curiosity seems the right choice in this case, is it’ll likely draw the conversation away from Deus.

“Inside the room where the battle between Deus and the Red Robe took place, people found a large stone pillar with a bunch of writing and clues on it.”

“Clues to what?”

“That’s the thing! Nobody knows where the clues will lead them, though the writing on the pillar promises great power to those who reach the end or something like that. Reading the words yourself with activate a quest called “To fell a giant”, and you’ll be tasked with searching for clues. Also, a record keeping track of everyone participating is added to the menu, and you immediately get a new title for joining in! What do you guys think? Wanna go see this pillar, join the quest?”

“Sure. This sounds fun to me.” Smiled Sabrina.

“I’m down for it.” Said Kormic, quickly followed by nods and affirmations from Haven and Ussen as well. Everyone then looked at me, waiting on my own thoughts.

“Well? What do you want to do, Revy?”

I shrugged.

“Sure. Will join you guys.”

Godard cheered, followed by smiles and laughs from everyone else. Well, at least until the teacher returned and break ended. Then the lessens started again, and I was drawn back into my own thoughts for the reminder of the day.

----------------------------------------

School ended for Revy soon afterwards. As she is so fond of pointing out, nothing important happened during the time spent in class.

And once classes ended for her, she bid goodbye to her friends and exited the school campus. A quick walk down the street and around to the side of the school brought her into sight of a simple looking black car parked on the side of the road. She knew that this would be the car sent by Jvorg, since it matched his description of his vehicle perfectly.

Of course, it helped that once she got close enough to the car, Jvorg himself climbed out of the drivers seat, and assisted her with the door.

“Thought we’d meet at building?” Asked Revy, who had not expected Jvorg to come pick her up himself.

“What—and let a stranger not known to you take you there? I am more hospitable than that, no? Besides, this makes for better conversation.”

“I suppose so.” Responded Revy.

“You suppose so? Oh, well, I would guess that your little speaking problem would make conversations a little less interesting. Hmm—but you may still listen, no?”

“Yes?” Answered Revy questioningly.

“Good. Then, let me talk, to occupy your time as we go to my building.”

Jvorg paused for a moment, composing himself slightly.

“I have already said that you are interesting to me, no? Bah, if I have not, then now you know. You are an odd one. Full of contradicting natures, and yet they work together almost seamlessly. I have seen plenty of strong people, and judged them. But none were quite as intriguing or full of potential futures as you are.”

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

“Potential futures?” Asked Revy.

“Ah, sorry. Allow me to clarify—Part of my power’s nature is in seeing all the various possibilities for the future. Clairvoyance does not automatically give answers; instead it shows you all the possible paths that may be walked. For a normal person, I might see four, five, six paths. And it is easy to divine which path they will end up taking. For a more powerful person—say, a person at the 10th Divide or so—the possible paths multiply. They might have ten or twenty possible futures, and it is more difficult to see the path that they take. And then you get to those standing at the 12th or 13th divide.

“Hundreds of paths open up! It becomes very exhausting to determine the correct heading of these people. This is part of the reason I like information so much. Knowing about a person will make their future path clearer. Though, it must be mentioned that this is a broad generalization on my part. The paths are tied to influence and depth of interactions with the universe. It is just that the more powerful members of humanity tend to have more influence as well.”

“What paths are for me?” Asked Revy, quickly catching on to where Jvorg was taking the conversation.

Jvorg smile, and paused for a moment while paying attention to the traffic in front of him.

“Well—that is the thing. I look into your future, and I see paths so thick that it seems a tapestry of choices and options. I see so many possible futures—all of them as likely as the last. It is almost as if the smallest encounters, the most chance meetings snowball from you, causing cascade effects outside our understandings. While in normal cases I would avoid telling anyone about their future since such a thing could adversely effect things—in your own case, I cannot tell you the future. It is all too unclear, with thousands of distinct end points.    

“You are an important person. Intriguing, as well. I am wondering how it is that the universe seems to conflux around you. Bah, all I know is that you should not underestimate the impact of your own choices. You have a weight few others do.”

“…Calling me fat?” Said Revy. Jvorg laughed.

“Not at all! You know what I mean. Ah, come—We have arrived.”

They got out of the car, and Jvorg lead Revy up to his office—the same place they had met last time. There were a few papers neatly arranged inside a folder on Jvorg’s desk, labeled with a single red word—PANTHEON.

He sat down behind the desk, and Revy took her seat across from him. Jvorg motioned at the folder.

“That is information on the Pantheon’s recent movements, as well as some extra details on the members who are approaching Jor within the next month. I also included my own hypotheses on how they were able to find you.”

Revy opened the folder, and started looking through it’s contents.

The very first thing that stood out to her was that only three members of the Pantheon were coming, and their bios.

Athena: Greek goddess of wisdom and war.

Power level: 12th Divide, 3rd step.

Can use magic.

Abilities: Enhanced reasoning, Combat edge, and Increased perception.

Primary armaments: Spear and shield.

Personality: Calculating, decisive, ‘ends justify the means’, warm to friends. Gives good advice. Fun when drunk.     

Isis: Egyptian goddess of magic.

Power level: 12th Divide, 5th step.

Can use magic.

Abilities: Insane Mana levels, Parallel invocation, Tribalism magics.

Primary armaments: Making everything go badly.

Personality: …Clumsy.  

Heimdal: Norse god of the gates.

Power level: Unknown.

Cannot use magic.

Abilities: Teleport, proficient in various weapons and combat styles.

Primary armaments: Anything pointy. Pencils included…. unfortunately.

Personality: Lawful good. Never misbehave around him. Ever.

Revy continued reading, making note of various important bits of information. For instance, the three of them are approaching Jor through a planet hopping strategy—using Heimdal as a transport vehicle of sorts and covering space much faster than can be done through conventional means. That being said, the starting point for the three of them had been in one of the far-flung reaches of the galaxy in the first place, meaning that it’s taking them quite some time to make it to Jor even with their incredible speed.

Also inside the folder was a theory by Jvorg on how the Pantheon had figured out where Revy was—after all, they shouldn’t have any idea who she is, what with how low-key she’s been.

It involved a resonance with her inherent nature, and complex metaphysical involving Mana waves and the unique qualities emitted by Revy when she uses her illusory powers. Of course, there was more about the theory, but that was the short of it. 

After reading through the whole folder, Revy stood up.

“Leaving already?” Asked Jvorg.

“Might as well.” She responded. “Done here.”

“Respectable. Here, I will drive you back to your apartment. No need to worry about transport that way, no?”

“Sure.”

Revy and Jvorg talk a while longer on the way back—rather, Jvorg did most of the talking, just bringing up small and entertaining things to amuse Revy with. Eventully they made it to her apartment, and they went their seperate ways. 

Revy had learned quite a bit from the meeting, and needed some time to think it all over. A few of the thing's brought up had also given her a couple of ideas, which might be fruitful to look into. 

----------------------------------------

On another planet, far, far from Jor, a spacial distortion happened in the middle of an empty warehouse. It almost seemed as if something folded in the air, opening up an unseen pocket—from which stepped three people.

One of them, a big and burly man stumbled a little on exiting, and grew noticeably paler.

“Are you okay, Heimdal? This wasn’t too long of a jump, was it?” Asked one of the two women accompanying him.

The man—Heimdal, waved off her concerns.

“It is fine, Athena. This is nothing new to me. As long as we make it in the end, it will have been worth it to push myself so hard. How much longer do we have, anyway?”

“About three more weeks. We’ve quite a bit of space left to cover.”

“Hmm. Well then. Let us find lodgings for the night, so that I may recover for the morrow. Isis, if you might?”

Heimdal turned at his last word, addressing the last member of the group—a mousy looking woman who yelped slightly at his voice.

“Ah—right! Just…uh, give me a second.” She said. Fumbling with a compasses taken from a jacket pocket. She opened it, and pointed off to the left.

“Um, there should be a hotel that way…”

“Many thanks, Isis. Well, let us be on our way then. It is time to rest these weary bones a while.”

“Mhh. And Isis and I can hit up a bar or two.” Said Athena, the tall and glamorous looking woman seeming slightly dangerous when voicing her intentions to drink.

“Athena, I…I don’t think that’s a good idea!”

“Isis is right. I do not want to have to pay for another bar fight, Athena. Please behave yourself for the rest of the trip, else I will have to inform Zeus that you have been causing problems with your vile drink.”

Athena somehow managed to look proud while pouting, as if she were not at all sorry for what she’s done, but instead enjoyed it immensely.

“Fine fine. I shall keep it quiet for now.”

As they were walking to the hotel, guided by the compass, Isis voiced a question.

“Umm…So, who are we going to get this time, again?”

Athena looked at Isis, slightly taken aback.

“You mean to say that you’ve forgotten already?”

Isis nodded meekly, causing a sigh from the other two.

“I swear, there’s something odd about how freakishly good you are at remembering the oddest, oldest, and most powerful magics, and how abysmally bad you are at remembering anything else.”

Isis seemed to shrink in on herself a little.

“I’m sorry…” She said.

Athena sighed again.

“It is no problem. I am just slightly baffled by you, is all. But I suppose you are fairly normal compared to some other members of the Pantheon. At least you can behave like a normal person in crowded settings, unlike that idiot Ares, or that buffoon Hephaestus.”

“Speak for your own lesser pantheon. Mine own has Loki and that insufferable gossip Mímir. I wish at points that Odin would do something about them, but thus far, he has let them be. Anyway, to answer you, Isis, the person we are looking for could be one of three goddesses. She will either end up being Freyja, Aphrodite, or Frigg.”

“With the last one being the most possible. From what we know, this one being associated with love is a fair bit unlikely.”

“O-oh. Thank you.” Said Isis.

“It is no issue! You are the one leading us to a nice warm place to rest, and can map the rest of our journey with your magic. I would say that you get a few free passes for forgetfulness.”

The group soon reached the hotel, and Heimdal bedded down for the night. Teleporting across long distances took quite a bit out of him, especially with the precision required to do so.

As for the two women, Isis pulled a book out from somewhere and started reading. Soon, she was totally absorbed in its contents.

Athena excused herself, and went downstairs before leaving the hotel. Neither Heimdal nor Isis seemed concerned about it.

Well, until the explosions started happening.