Luka dragged his feet during the walk back to the park. The moonlight reflected against Leo’s white fur, the little wolf leading the way back to civilization. Behind the pair, the gods disappeared in a plume of silence—fading through reality as if they were never there.

There was a lot to unpack from tonight’s divine conversation, and as much as Luka wanted to curl up and digest everything, he had a log flume to construct. Leo yipped and trotted around him, keeping an eye out for the nighttime sounds. A branch scraping against another here, a garden snake cutting through the brush there. Leo was both protector and guardian, dire-wolf and friend.

Cute little guy, Luka thought, once again glad he met the little beast.

At some point along the way, Leo, however, decided he didn’t want to walk anymore. He jumped up on his back legs, pawing his way onto Luka’s chest. The human picked up the little wolf and slid him between his arms.

“Spoiled,” Luka said, giving the pup a smirk. Leo, in turn, gave Luka a lick to the face.

Whether due to carrying Leo or the cool night air, Luka picked up his pace. The bench Eve, Franky, and Sol sat on was the furthest bench in the park from the entrance. In other words, it was the closest bench to the lake, but not exactly close to the lake. The park diverted around the left side of the courthouse, yet the kids’ slides and pizza oven were off toward the right.

Luka created the park this way so that the villagers had a place to retreat to. They wouldn’t be living in the park with the guests, the rides, and the loudness of everything. The village would eventually be isolated—a forest and countless gift shops and vendor huts acting as a barrier.

As Luka walked, he couldn’t help but think about his estranged—and dead—daughter, Annie. The last he saw her was after he left the war machine, but still worked in the industry. From building jets to an administrative role. It was that role that caused him to eventually break down and fall from the graces of society. Drugs, drinking, guilt… by then, he wasn’t a father any longer.

He hadn’t really been a father since Annie was a toddler. Work was too straining, too busy, too needy. Annie had her mom—and Luka thought that was okay.

How could I ever have thought that? he asked himself, Leo shifting in his arms. I was a terrible person on Earth, but was I always that bad? He could only shake his head. His past was… what it was. That was hard to admit, but here—in this new world he still didn’t know the name of—Luka had to live in the present. Everyone told him that: gods, friends, himself. Maybe it was finally time to listen.

But Annie.

Luka rolled his ring around his finger.

Requirements for a Potion of Reincarnation:

30,000 motes of life.

30,000 motes of death.

1 phoenix heart.

1 drop of liquid undeath.

1 meaningful possession of the deceased.

1/1,000 divine teardrop.

Ignoring the fact he didn’t have any meaningful possessions of Annie’s, Luka hesitated on if he should reincarnate her. She hated him, likely had lived a fulfilling life of her own, and, importantly, was dead. Luka didn’t like to think about it, but the bliss of oblivion floated into his mind on occasion. The peace, the quietness, the lack of worries.

Goddess Tippy ripped Luka from oblivion for her own selfishness—even if that selfishness was shrouded in pragmatism. But could Luka do the same for Annie?

No… he didn’t think so.

He couldn’t reincarnate her. It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t right… no matter how much he wanted to right his wrongs of the past.

Luka stepped from the darkness and around the edge of the bench. Under the light of a rod of wood with a light glyph on it—a poor man’s streetlight—he sat beside Franky and Eve, with Aunt Sol cross-legged in the grass beside them.

“Are you okay?”

Luka wasn’t sure who asked the question, if he was being honest. He shook out his thoughts, focusing on the here and now.

“No,” he answered honestly. Leo tilted his head at the declaration. “But I think I needed tonight to happen. Better in the long run, I’d say.”

Eve chewed on her lip, mulling over an appropriate reply. Franky had no such qualm and said, “What happened tonight? We’ve been arguing since we left the flume. Obviously, Eve’s—”

Luka raised his hand, silencing the orc. “I think the final piece of my past finally surfaced. Something had been hovering in the back of my mind since I came back from Tippy’s church. I thought it was a remnant of her magic on my memory, but it turned out it was all me.”

Sol quirked an eyebrow. She held a dozen pieces of scrawled-on paper, each filled to the brim with notes on illusionary glyphs. “What does that mean?” she asked.

“It means I locked some of my memories away. Painful ones, maybe even worse than all of the deaths.”

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

“The what?” Sol demanded.

Luka blinked at the woman. “Oh, I thought you knew. Back on Earth, I was an engineer of destruction. I created bombs and weapons that were used to slaughter hundreds of thousands, maybe more.”

Sol stared.

“Anyways.” Luka took a deep breath. “I pushed away the memories of my daughter. But Tippy and Neb helped me remember.”

Eve was the first to react, but only after a string of palpably long seconds. Hardly louder than a distant whisper, she corrected, “Goddess Tippy and God Neb.”

Orcs were green or red, depending on their bloodline tribe. Yet right now, Eve’s skin was more akin to a ghostly orc. She was pale, haunted even. Franky wasn’t much better, his muscles seemed to have deflated. He looked weak, as if, for the first time in his life, strength wouldn’t solve his problems. Only Sol seemed to take the news well, but even then, not very—the raven on her head hunkered down like it was weathering a hailstorm.

Luka carefully studied each of their reactions and came to the same conclusion Leo did: confusion. The little wolf tilted his head back and forth before propping himself up from Luka’s arms and sniffing everyone.

“Uh, I was expecting a reaction, but not this one…”

Eve answered, albeit slowly, “There’s a common issue with World Walkers—an issue with reincarnation, really. Only the World Walker gets reincarnated. Not their family.”

Franky swallowed before adding, “When you first arrived here, you never mentioned your family. So, we figured you didn’t have any. But now that you remember your daughter…”

Luka read through the lines. “You expect me to become more depressed than I already am because I won’t ever get to see her again.”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

Sol recoiled. “That’s why you two are acting like that?”

Eve furrowed her brow. “You’re not?”

“I thought he was telling us he and his death engineering killed his daughter!”

The siblings slowly turned from their aunt; their expressions reverted to haunted.

“I didn’t kill her,” Luka said plainly.

“Oh, thank the gods.”

“Really had us going there, Aunty.”

Sol rolled her eyes. “People really need to speak more clearly. I’m old, remember?”

“With your skin, I’d never have guessed,” Luka said. Sol really, really was smooth. Magically smooth, even.

The woman was not impressed. “Moving on. Are their worries founded? Are you going to become more depressed? I’ve been trying to solve illusion nausea, but so far, no luck.”

Eve groaned. “We’ve talked about this—you’re not just going to ‘solve’ illusion nausea.”

Before anyone else could speak, Luka relayed God Neb’s advice. “Check the basic glyph for too much magical power in the functionality script. It’s causing a negative feedback loop.”

Before, the orcs were shades lighter. Now, their pigment returned with force. Franky’s muscles reformed as he stared at Luka. Eve’s expression shifted through confusion, wonder, and more confusion. Sol, at first, gave the novice magic user a glare… but then thought about his advice. She quickly sifted through her papers, finding the illusion glyph in its most basic form.

She stared at the paper as if it was a puzzle, then set it down. “Who told you that?”

“Neb.”

“God Neb,” Eve quietly corrected.

Sol extended and curled her fingers, tension building as the seconds ticked on. “There are some implications here. If what God Neb said is true, then the magical community will have to reevaluate all basic glyphs for mistakes.”

“Yeah,” Luka said. “That’s what Neb said as well. Maybe you can use all of that as leverage with the Guilds or something. I’m not sure, but you may as well profit from it.”

Sol silently gathered her notes, stood, then started walking away. Mid step, she exploded into a bundle of raven feathers and ash, flying away as a raven herself… or something. Luka wasn’t sure how her magic worked.

“Guess she wanted to get a head start on that,” he said, stretching himself. Then, with a yawn, he added, “I think I’m going to skip tonight’s meeting and finish the log flume.”

Eve took a second to keep up. “But what about the illusion nausea? It will take some time for Sol to solve the problem even with God Neb’s hint.”

Luka waved her off. “Tippy said her blessing will cover nausea from now on.”

Franky blinked slowly. “That’s convenient.”

“Yeah, apparently, there’s some sort of cost fallacy with World Walkers, and the gods all try to keep them happy and on the right path.”

“Cost fallacy?”

He shrugged. “Fancy term for saying the gods want me to succeed.”

Franky then uttered three words that, under a microscope, wouldn’t draw too much attention. But with the context of Luka, his ring, and Goddess Tippy’s blessing, someone noticed.

“All of them?” he asked, the question reaching the ears of all of divinity.

***

A nameless god stirred at the question. Long thought dead, this god raised from his tomb and listened. Fate, destiny, and karma all sang a harbinger hymn. Silent to all but those who knew how to listen. What did the song say? It announced the nameless god’s return.

God Neb appeared in Goddess Tippy’s heavenly domain. His eyes scanned the infinite area for only a moment before zeroing in on the goddess and teleporting himself to her side.

“Good, you both are already here,” he said, announcing himself to Tippy and her brother, Rion.

“Neb? How did you get in here?” Tippy asked with a frown.

Ignoring the child’s question, Neb said, “We don’t have much time. It seems our conversation with Luka tonight had unintended consequences. Something woke up.”

“Something?” Rion asked.

Tippy’s eyes glazed over as she looked across past, present, and future. “Uh oh.”

“’Uh oh’ indeed,” Neb said. “We need to prepare.”

“Prepare?” she asked. “We need to warn Luka!”

The old god shook his head. “Remember to fully look through the future. Don’t just stop when you see something you like or don’t like.”

Tippy returned to her magic, viewing events like a sped-up movie. After viewing as far forward as she could, she returned to the present and looked to Neb for answers. The old man, however, was silent.

“What did you see?” asked Rion.

“Nothing,” Tippy said. “The future just… stopped being.”

Neb gave her a pat on the shoulder, a kindred one, one with more meaning than she could ever have known. “You, my dear young goddess, just witnessed a calamity.”

“H-how do we stop it?”

“That’s the thing; you don’t. Only the people who are directly involved can.”

“And who’s that?” Rion asked.

Neb summoned an illusion of a familiar bench at a familiar amusement park. There, two orcs and a World Walker sat with a dire-wolf like shiny beacons amongst the dark.