[Edited] Chapter 20 - Bline the Many

Hey, this one wasn't so bad! Go past me!

=============

Bline—or whoever she was—looked at me in shock for a half-second before snorting into her teacup. Tea shot up and over the edge, splattering everywhere. Including her fancy, white ball gown.

I had to wince. That dress looked tremendously expensive. Though, given the kind of magicks I had already seen her wield, I doubted a bit of spilled tea would present much of a challenge to her.

She hastily set her teacup aside and pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve to dab at her face while she regained her composure. After a few moments, she looked up at me again, a hint of amusement still behind her eyes.

“We must admit,” she began, “of all the things you could have replied with, ‘bullshit’ was not one we had anticipated. The fecal matter of an uncastrated male bovine… a most curious and specific turn of phrase.” She shook her head and chuckled.

“Glad I could entertain,” I said, still a bit on the back foot. Of course, conversations where I did not know what in the hell was going on were becoming so frequent I was almost getting used to them. Admittedly, I had taken a chance by expressing my doubt with her. I knew this woman to be powerful, so goddess or not, she could likely make my day a bad one with little effort. “Still… pretending to be Bline? That’s a bit of a stretch. And risky, I would imagine.”

She twitched just a bit as I spoke, but when I finished, she shot me a curious look. “Ah… so it was an expression of disbelief. That explains much. We find ourselves both annoyed and gratified by this revelation.”

I had to pause to think about that last sentence. As confused as I was by this whole situation, I was beginning to detect something of a pattern. This woman had a way of speaking sideways to the topic.

“Okay…” I said eventually. “Well, I can understand why you might be annoyed, at least. No one likes to be doubted. But you’re going to have to do more than claim to be the Lady of Power before I’d just believe you.”

For a moment, I hesitated and reassessed the room I was standing in. There was definitely a lot of weird shit going on, that much was certain.

“Not a lot more,” I amended. “Maybe you could start by explaining where we are.”

I was not really expecting her to answer me directly. So far, most of her replies had seemed to be coming from an entirely different conversation. However, to my surprise, this time she did.

“This is one portion of the interface construct we discovered within your mind when you called to our Power. And it is part of the reason we summoned you to our Stele. Much of its function is non-standard, and it is leading to… mistakes.”

Somewhere in the middle of her talking, I closed my eyes and ran a hand through my hair. Mark that one under ‘sorry I asked.’ What in the fuck? A construct? In my mind? Non-standard function?!

Aloud, I said, “Um… okay. Mistakes? What do you mean, mistakes?”

Besides a bit of a hard look creeping over her features, no answer came to my question. Apparently, she had elected not to clarify. Looks like I’m pissing her off again. But why? It was like I was triggering her over and over again for no apparent reason, and she just expected me to figure out the cause on my own.

But assuming she was who she claimed, I had a few items I could possibly fill in the blanks with.

“Okay, then. Taking everything you’ve said completely at face value, the biggest ‘mistake’ I can think of to come out of our alleged dealings would have been the incident that happened during my Boundary. And if you really are Bline, you should know exactly what I’m talking about.”

The giant steaming turd in question had left me furious for quite a few days, but having had no recourse, I had eventually let it go as yet another of life’s little speed bumps. I was still a bit salty about it, though. As best as I could piece it together, I had been given a series of choices about how my Class was to evolve, but instead of letting me actually make them, every single one had been instead answered through some sort of hazy dream-metaphor.

To make it worse, all of the choices I could have made were then presented to me once I woke up, and I was forced to watch them scroll by like a virus systematically deleting my operating system.

I nodded once confidently, now certain of my response, and crossed my arms. “So then. What happened? Answer that, and I’ll believe you.”

She opened her mouth to reply, but instead, her jaw snapped closed again. For a handful of seconds, she twitched and shivered as though she was fighting with herself, but eventually, she settled back into her chair.

“No.”

“No?” I repeated. “What do you mean, ‘no’? Why not? Unless you can’t?”

“Be silent!” she shouted and surged to her feet. “Fool of a man, you know nothing! Shut. Up.” With a menacing growl, she began to stalk toward me.

“Hey, now, take it easy,” I said, holding my hands up in a placating gesture. “I don’t think I’m being unreasonable here. What did I do to piss you off this time?”

“You—“ she began, but then her teeth clicked closed. Screaming with frustration, she turned and kicked the recently renewed coffee table in half.

“This is getting us nowhere,” a voice said to my left.

Startled—which is saying something given the circumstances—I turned to find another copy of her had just appeared from nowhere and was walking toward us, phasing through the television in the process. As before, she looked exactly the same, though I could tell this version was somewhat lesser than the one standing in front of me.

“We hate this!” the original one yelled, before turning to the newest copy. “Mortals are so… arrrgh!”

The copy nodded. “Indeed. However, I have observed that conversation is possible. One moment.”

With that, the copy stepped forward, and another flash of light temporarily robbed me of my vision. When it faded, she was gone. Only the original remained, standing between the broken halves of the coffee table, once again more than she had been. More beautiful, more present than ever. Yet I could not detect a single hair of describable difference.

“Okay, seriously,” I began. “What is—“

“Be silent!” she shouted, quickly forestalling me. “We will not answer your questions. If you ever wish them answered, do not ask them.”

I had to repeat those words several times in my head to even begin to make sense of them. Don’t ask questions… if I want them answered? What the fuck? How does that even begin to make sense? Although… if I were to try to imitate Bline, that is just exactly the kind of personality trait I would go for. One of the most consistent and frustrating aspects of dealing with the Goddess was that She almost never answered questions.

Then again, pretty much everyone knew that.

“Um… alright,” I tried again. “But how—“

Her eyes flashed, and I quickly changed course.

“Sorry, sorry… no questions. Um… Let’s say… Well, asking questions is a very… normal part of conversation. How… or no… Sorry, uh…” I realized I was gesticulating quite a bit with my hands, but that tended to happen when I put a lot of thought into what I was trying to say. “I fail to see a good way of avoiding them when… when I know so little about what is going on.”

She seemed to relax somewhat as I spoke, and when I finished, she nodded. “Nevertheless, you will manage. And now that you understand, we may continue. It is unfortunate, but for now the topic of your Boundary mishap is closed to us. Perhaps we might revisit it in the future… if you can manage a mannered query.”

A mannered query? “You mean… asking without asking… I’m assuming.”

She did not bother to reply. Instead, she merely settled into her recliner once more. “Now then, as we have repeatedly reminded you, you owe us an apology. And since you have requested knowledge that only we might have access to, we will enumerate our grievances. That should satisfy your requirements.”

“It might,” I admitted. “And it would help to know what I’m apologizing for.”

I carefully picked my way through the remains of the coffee table to stand next to the couch, but I hesitated, trying to figure out how to ask whether I could sit down. Eventually, I just gestured toward it.

“I hold no claim to the cushioned bench,” she said after a moment. “Sitting in it will not offend us.”

Cushioned… bench? I badly wanted to ask what she meant by that, but I decided to go ahead and sit. Every other word out of her mouth spawned about a hundred questions, and since asking them was an exercise in pulling teeth—and apparently dangerous—I figured it best to stick with the basics.

“Okay,” I said. “Go ahead.”

She nodded. “Our first grievance: you called us a bitch.”

I blinked, taken aback. “What? Whe—“

I hastily managed to bite back the rest of my automatic question when she ripped the armrest off of the recliner.

There was a beat of silence.

“Right. Um… I don’t recall… or well…” I took a breath. “It would be helpful if you could remind me of the circumstances surrounding that… event.”

“I fail to see the relevance,” she replied promptly. “That you did is all that matters. However, your lack of memory is understandable. Your Intelligence was only 7 at the time, and thus you were less able to form stable memories. At that moment, you were conversing with Lilim: Jax. It believed itself upset with us, and in an attempt to console it, you decided to call us this name. You wronged us in doing so. Be grateful we only seek apology as recompense.”

My left eyebrow slowly crept upward through her rather dry… recitation of events. Despite not being particularly helpful—Jax and I had had a lot of conversations—the way she conveyed information was so exactly similar to my experiences dealing with Bline that it actually went a long way toward convincing me of her authenticity.

Lilim: Jax? It?! If I had a copper for every time I had pulled my hair out trying to get her to not refer to my lover as an ‘it…’

“Um… well, first of all, Jax is a she,” I replied in irritation.

She did not respond in any way. She only waited.

I sighed. Yeah… that’s just like Bline, too. “Fine. Well, I still don’t recall when this might have happened, but I can definitely see myself… succumbing to the temptation,” I admitted pointedly.

She still said nothing, though I detected a slight flaring of her nostrils.

“Right… Anyway, I apologize for calling you a bitch.”

She nodded with satisfaction. “We have received your atonement.”

I blinked a few times. Watcher’s eye… this is like talking to a priest exclusively via fax machine.

Bline’s normally stoic expression briefly turned to one of confusion, and her mouth opened as though she were about to ask a question of her own before snapping closed. Shaking her head, she tried again, “We have a second grievance. Related to the first.”

“Okay…” I replied slowly. What was that just now? “Go ahead.”

She nodded, though this time there was a trace of hesitation. “The first time we came to you for apology, you somehow managed to…” Her jaw worked for a few seconds while we stared at one another. If I did not know better, I would have said she looked nervous. “On second thought, we have decided to forget that ever happened. We would prefer to instead fulfill the terms of your Quest.”

I sat back. The sudden shift in topic left me adrift for a few moments. “Quest?” I said automatically. But then I remembered. “Oh! You mean that thing with the Stele. I guess that means that I do get to ask a question.”

I was not entirely convinced yet that this person was really the goddess Bline, but there was enough circumstantial evidence piling up to at least entertain the idea. She was certainly weird enough that I did not want to further antagonize her—that much I could say. And the prospect of one question finally answered from amongst the hundreds that had been piling up since the day of my arrival was getting me a touch excited.

But before I could begin to narrow them down, she replied, “No. You and every other mortal ask me questions constantly. It is the bane of my existence. The thorn in the eye of my reality. An eternal torture from which there can be no escape. No, now it is time for me to ask a question.”

“Well, what do you exp—“ I began defensively, but I stopped once I realized what I was about to say. There was no need to rub it in. “Sorry, uhm… You… claim to be the Goddess of Power. It’s only natural that people would want to know what things do and how they work before… irrevocably spending their points.”

“Yes,” she responded quickly. “That is true. It is the Purpose under which I labor. And you will notice that I do answer some of those questions—as long as they are not overly foolish.”

I quirked an eyebrow. Purpose, huh? Ahnbe had mentioned that, though when I had asked about it, She had said it was not a thing that mortals needed to worry about. That this woman would mention the concept as well was interesting and lent quite a lot of credence to her claim. Still, I did not want to let on that I had heard of it before. I was not sure what other people might make of the fact that I had… trafficked with the Shepherdess of the Creatures of the Dark. To say nothing of how one of the supposed ‘good’ goddesses might react.

Instead, I decided to stick to the topic. “Rarely.”

“Good questions are rare.” The response was as instant as it was snide. “Besides, we dispense Power. We are not here to teach you how to use it. Nor do we have the slightest interest in the constant, inane barrage of unrelated matters that mortals think to pester us with.”

“Fair enough,” I allowed, then sat back.

It was a little disappointing that I would not be able to ask anything here. I had been looking forward to that for a while now, and to have the promise of it pulled out from under my feet due to a misunderstanding was disheartening. But it had been an easy mistake to make.

The first time I had seen this quest, it had said to touch the Stele. After that, ‘One question may be asked. One question may be given.’ So, reasonably enough, I had assumed the question was to be the reward for completing the quest. Even the most recent update had only changed the wording to be more insistent, and given the circumstances at the time, that had only seemed natural. ‘One question will be asked. One question must begiven,’ it had said. In neither instance had there ever been a mention of who was to assume the role of the questioner.

But as usual, there was nothing I could do about it.

Still, I had to admit to a degree of curiosity. What could possibly be so important that someone like this would need to go through so much trouble? If she really was the Lady of Power, could she not just ask me whatever she wanted at any time?

“Alright then,” I said with a shrug. “Ask away.”

For a while, she merely sat there, continuing to stare at me. However, I slowly began to detect faint tremors along her jawline, as if she were having trouble even opening her mouth. And I felt pretty sure that her teeth were chattering. It was almost like she was too nervous to speak.

Finally, she jerked her head to one side and took a breath. “What…” She stopped and made a disgusted face, like she had just swallowed something unpleasant. “What… are you?”

I rapidly blinked half a dozen times in absolute bewilderment. That’s the big question? I have to trek through jungles, plains, and Dungeons, facing death at every turn just so she can ask me that? What in the absolute fuck?

“Okay… um. That you would ask me something like that at all only spawns about a thousand questions of my own, but sure. Fine,” I said. “I’m a human. Obviously.”

There was a beat of silence. And then another.

“We did not summon you here, through ‘jungles, plains, and Dungeons, facing death at every turn’ just to be satisfied with a single word in answer,” she replied with a heated glare. “Obviously.”

My eyes widened slightly. That had been a very specific thing to say. Uh oh… so, she can…? Oh, fuck.

“We know you are human,” she continued before slowly rising to her feet. “We know your kind. We know your name, we know your height, your weight, your age. We know all of your attributes down to the lengths of your fingernails. We know the names of each of your skills, and every Word of them. We know the name of your Class both before and after the Boundary. We know everything about you since the very moment you gained our Power.”

She paced around to the front of me, her eyes flashing.

“We also know that there is no such thing as a human,” she pronounced. “In all the lands, there has never once been an example of your kind to call to us. Nor have we ever been required to go to such lengths to answer it. So I ask you again, ‘human.’ What… are you?”

For several seconds, I could only stare, but eventually, I had to climb to my feet as well. This was utterly insane.

“You… don’t know?” I asked, and seeing her flinch, I regretted my phrasing. But this was important! “How can you not know? If you’re really Bline… if you really can read my thoughts… how can you possibly not know?”

“Stop that!” she growled through her teeth.

“No! To hell with this bullshit!” I yelled. “You were there! You were in that endless motherfucking hole! You fucking welcomed me to Vrekfren yourself!”

Suddenly, I was slammed to the wall. But about halfway up it, pinned by her hand around my neck. She looked furious.

Slowly, her lips peeled over her teeth. “Haaa…” she wheezed out. Then, grimacing in frustration, she threw her head back and screamed.

Instantly, dozens upon dozens of her came running through the walls from all sides. They did not pause in the slightest in seeing us. They simply kept running, each slamming into her with scarcely a pause in between. Each time, she jerked. And each time, she pulsed with light. Over and over. Brighter. And brighter.

So much so that even when I closed my eyes, it hurt through my eyelids.

Even so. Even through all of that chaos, I still heard her. It was a quiet thing, but clear nonetheless. Each word sounded like it cost her dearly. But still, she persisted. Slowly. Painstakingly pushing each from between her teeth.

“How… do… you… know… that… name?”

The question—and the obvious effort it took her to ask it—left me completely baffled. So much so, that I was compelled to open my eyes, if for no other reason than to look at her askance. I almost wished I had not.

I had thought she was beautiful before. More so than should have been possible. But I had been a fool.

She was so much more than that now. Her beauty was encroaching on the supernatural—so splendorous I could not even begin to describe it. It made my heart pound in my chest in a way that I had not experienced since I was a fourteen-year-old child, first coming to realize what feminine beauty even was.

I wanted her. The need to kiss her—every inch of her—consumed me. The impulse was as close to uncontrollable as it was insanely stupid, and much the same as when I had first felt Ahnbe’s skin, my manhood raged to life once more, throbbing and pulsing beneath my kilt.

The only reason I did not lunge for her immediately was the single tear of blood spilling from the corner of her eye. Well… that and the hand currently circling my neck. Which was choking me.

Hastily, I began tapping at her wrist as I gasped for breath. For a few seconds she glared at me suspiciously, and I began to feel her grip tighten. Whether she noticed the predicament rising below our eyeline or simply could not be bothered to comment, I could not say. However, she abruptly released me, and I collapsed, coughing and sputtering for air.

“Answer,” she growled hoarsely. “An—“

Mid-demand, she swooned and collapsed back onto the—I now realized—overturned couch. I almost reached out to catch her, but she was still having such an effect on me that I did not quite trust myself to touch her. With some effort, I managed to tear my eyes away.

“Are you—“ I cut the concerned question short and quickly rephrased. “I… hope you’re alright.”

I could see her nod slightly out of the corner of my eye, though it was clear she was winded. For some reason. “We now modify your Quest.” Her voice sounded ragged and raw. “Two questions. Two answers. Double the reward.”

“Okay, okay,” I said gently. It was clear she was still pretty emotional, and the last thing I needed was for her to fly off the handle again. “I had been operating under the assumption that the answer was supposed to be my reward, but since that’s off the table… Well, you haven’t actually offered me anything else yet, so doubling it doesn’t mean much. Not that it matters!” I clarified quickly. “You can ask me anything you like.”

She shot me a complicated look. “So answer.”

“Well… right. Clearly I’m not understanding something, because…" My own jaw began to tremble, and I had to shake my head. “Because…”

No, this doesn’t make any sense. She told me the name of the world herself! It had been while I was falling through that endless void just before arriving here. If she doesn’t know that, then there’s no way this can be Bline! She’s an impostor!

Suddenly, her fingers were clenched around my face, and she was staring intently into my eyes. I had not sensed her move in the slightest. Her eyes were… crystalline. Captivating.

“What strange lies… Lies that do not belong there,” she murmured quietly. “Someone has implanted a geas into your mind.”

‘Gesh?’ What’s a ‘gesh?’ I had never heard that word before, but despite badly wanting her to elaborate, I did not want to piss her off any further. She was acting erratic enough as it was.

However, she no doubt heard my unspoken question, and whether or not the ban on them applied to thoughts as well, she chose to answer anyway. “A geas is a magical command meant to influence your behavior in some way. Whatever its function, it is interfering with your ability to answer us. That cannot be tolerated.”

In a faint whisper, she began to mutter—Words, I realized. The entire time, she held me still, forcing me to gaze into her crystalline eyes. And slowly I began to fall into them. They were the most captivating things I had ever seen—mesmerizing and as vast as oceans.

Slowly, my vision blurred with tears, and I began to tremble with the raw emotion simply looking at her stirred within me. She was driving me mad simply by existing. I needed to look away, or I would lose myself. I could feel it.

But then, she held up a finger, and I could not help but to jerk my gaze to it. It was beginning to glow, faintly at first, but then so bright that it might have been a miniature sun. As that glowing bar of power approached, I suddenly had a flash of memory.

A memory of absolute darkness. Trembling before the presence of another goddess. And another molten bar. Stabbing into my gut.

As her finger penetrated between eyes, I gasped and began to quiver with pain. But there was nothing I could do. Her grip was like iron, and that finger was like a glowing poker stabbing into my very brain.

Fuck! Not again!

I barely noticed from the ripples of agony shooting up and over my scalp, but the moment that thought passed through my mind, she froze. And though her expression barely changed, there was still a faintly discernible look of curiosity on her face.

“Questions upon questions,” she whispered. “Blast. You bring us nothing but trouble, mortal.”

I did not reply beyond a whimper of pain.

She twisted her lip sourly before heaving a sigh. Then, she began to pull.

—

Her fingers snapped in front of my face.

“Awaken.”

I blinked uncertainly. Nothing had changed as far as I could tell. I was still standing exactly where I had been. Bline was still right in front of me, though she was no longer clutching my face. There was no pain, nor any other sign that anything was amiss.

But clearly, I had lost some time.

Wow… okay, that’s just like what happened with Ahnbe, too.

A strange look passed over Bline’s face, and for several seconds, she merely observed me.

“Um… what just happened?” I asked before remembering I was not supposed to.

As expected, she flinched, but she quickly brushed it off. “You vex us, mortal. You have not only managed to avoid answering our questions—you have yet spawned more. Far too many. Too many for the simple understanding between us. Thus, we have decided to offer you a compact. We desire unfettered access. Name your price.”

There was a beat of silence as I took that in. I was still just a tad confused. Her glowing sun-finger had just been in my brain! What had happened with that whole ‘gesh’ business? What had it been doing? How had it even gotten there in the first place? And what in the hell was she talking about now?

“Okay…” For the space of a breath, I closed my eyes and scratched at my forehead to think. I had been a tad concerned that she might have left some horrific injury there, but to my relief, it seemed unmarked. “Just to clarify, what… uh, I mean… I don’t understand what you mean by unfettered access.”

“We wish to be able to ask you whatever we like,” she explained quickly. “And for you to answer. Truthfully and completely.”

“Uh…” I responded unintelligently, still lost at sea. “Sure. Go ahead.”

She sighed. Heavily.

“It does not work that way. From the moment we refused to answer the questions of mortals, we in turn drew a curse upon ourselves—thus we may no longer ask them. Not without great cost. There must be a compact between us. An agreement. We must pay a boon to you in exchange.”

I shook my head in bewilderment. I mean, in hindsight that made a lot of sense. And it helped to explain quite a bit of her behavior. “But… aren’t you a goddess? I don’t understand who could possibly hold you to something like—“

“You don’t need to understand,” she interrupted. “We have explained. Name your price.”

Exasperated, I scrubbed my hands over my face. “Well… it would certainly be nice to be able to ask you a few questions.”

“Denied,” she replied instantly. “An uneven bargain. Were we to offer you such a boon, you would pepper us with questions from dawn to dusk—as is the way of all mortals.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right about that,” I admitted. “Alright, well, I don’t really know what to ask for then. Make me an offer.”

She appeared thoughtful for several moments. I could see her lip twitching as she considered the matter. Finally, she said, “Not all questions are entirely unwelcome. We find certain topics more appealing than others. For instance, we recall you once asked us for direction on the path toward immortality. We might be willing to offer some… unsolicited advice toward that end.”

I dipped my chin, looking at her carefully. “Just to be clear… you’re saying that in exchange for a few questions, you’d be willing to help me become immortal.”

She shrugged, appearing aloof. “Specifically, what we are offering is a degree of increased transparency—once you have a skill point to spend. And provided you remember the rules.”

I smiled then. Never mind immortality. Getting her to agree to be even a tad more helpful about anything would be a godsend. Literally. “Yeah, okay. Sounds great.”

“Then we have an accord,” she said.

Her pronouncement was accompanied by the most wondrous smile I had ever seen. It made my heart thunder in my chest, and unconsciously, I began to lean toward her. However, just as soon as it appeared, the smile vanished, and I was brutally jerked back to reality.

Shit… this is crazy. I have to watch myself. She is so dazzling I can barely even look at her!

“Apologies, mortal,” she said distractedly, again seeming to speak in response to my thoughts. For a moment, she turned to take in the state of the room and let out an irritated scoff before righting the couch once more. She wiped at a nearly invisible scuff-mark along the fabric before glancing back at me. “This conversation is taking a great deal more of our attention than we had at first thought necessary. You are beginning to suffer from the over-concentration of our presence, so we will try to remain brief.” So saying, she settled onto the back of the couch and folded her arms. “What do you know of the Third Child?”

“Who? Ahnbe?” I replied automatically.

She flinched just enough to remind me of my mistake. However, before I could apologize she quickly continued. “So you do know her. Clearly, you also recognized a touch of divine will when you felt it. She has marked you in some way, hasn’t she.”

I was a little confused by the question… to say nothing of the several that had come and gone without apparent resolution. Didn’t she claim to know everything about me since I came here? However, before I could think much more about it, I quickly replied, “If you’re talking about that thing where you made your finger glow and stabbed me with it, then yes. You still haven’t told me what the… heck… that was about, by the way.” I paused expectantly, but she ignored my obvious attempt at fishing for information. Sighing, I continued, “Well, anyway, she said something about granting me a boon.”

Talking about it quickly made me realize that I had been neglectful in exploring the matter. I was pretty sure I had yet to even pull up my status sheet since then, but I had been a tad busy with getting my lilim caught up with me. I would have to rectify that soon.

“And why would she grant you a boon?” she pressed intently. Briefly, a weird little smile traced across her lips. If I did not know any better, I would almost guess that she was enjoying this little grilling session. And maybe she was. She seemed almost starved for a real conversation—and the ability to speak freely.

Still, the question brought up some rather… confusing memories. To say the least.

“Uh… that one’s a little tough to answer,” I began. “She kept going on about how I’d… offered myself to her. Somehow?”

“What?” The brief question was accompanied by a soft chuckle escaping her lips.

“It’s not funny!” I exclaimed, defensive. “If anything, it was terrifying!”

“Terrifying?” She was almost laughing outright now. However, the corners of her mouth quickly pulled down, and she shook her head. “That makes no sense. Her presence should have been perfectly tolerable within the dream fabric.”

“The… dream fabric?” I repeated slowly. “Well, whatever you call it. It was in that void you go to after escaping the Dungeon. But as far as tolerating her—“

“What?!” I flinched in pain, and my ears immediately began to ring at her shout. But she was not finished yet. “That is not allowed! That is not…Mortal, are you trying to tell us that our Sister, Ahnbe, accepted an offering from you with neither Quest nor summons… in the flesh?!”

I worked my finger at my ear for a moment before answering. Bline’s presence was starting to get a little difficult to tolerate, as well.

“Well… that might be a bit of a crude way of putting it,” I admitted. “But, yes. Technically.”

There was a pregnant pause after that. Slowly, Bline’s jaw dropped open, and she gave her head a disbelieving shake. “Wh— Bu— Are you—“ she stammered. It was an understandable reaction. I felt much the same.

“I know, right? I find it hard to believe myself, to be honest,” I said. “Then again, She claimed the experience broke my mind, so… you know. It’s a little hard to talk about.”

Slowly, she stood up from the couch and began to shake her head back and forth. Then she began to pace in agitation. “No… no… that cannot be.”

Another copy of her ran into the room and merged with her. After a brief flash, she turned and walked the other way.

“Our Sister could not have been so foolish as that.”

Another copy. Another burst of light. She turned again.

“Makes no sense. In the flesh? With a mortal?”

Two more came this time. Another flash. Brighter. She was starting to get truly difficult to look at.

“Lady Bline, please,” I interrupted loudly, shielding my eyes. “I don’t think I can take much more.”

“Never mind that,” she growled before stalking over to me. Roughly, she grabbed my tunic and gave me a shake. “Answer us. Answer us clearly. No innuendos. No implications. Did our Sister… m-mate with you?!”

Despite her apparent agitation, I had to squint to even look at her. She was that overwhelming.

“I mean… yes?” I replied uncertainly. “I think so. Like I said, it broke me, so she had to erase my memory of it. But she said it happened.”

She was less than pleased with my answer. For several seconds, she just ground her teeth in frustration. Finally, she managed, “But… why? Explain! What prompted this? Why the boon? Why would our elder deign to… to… with you?”

I could only shrug helplessly. That very question had plagued me for quite a while. “I don’t know! Like I said, she kept going on about some offer I had made. That I had seduced her and all kinds of crazy things. But I’d never met her or anyone even like her! Even now, I couldn’t describe her if my life depended on it. And I tried to tell her that, but she kept saying that she’d recognize me anywhere.”

I paused as a rather strange and specific memory floated back to me.

“Or no. More specifically, she said she’d recognize my scent anywhere.”

“Your scent?” she parroted back, baffled.

Curious, she leaned forward and sniffed at my neck.

The next thing I knew, she was on the opposite side of the room, and pieces of furniture were flying around like they had just been hit by a Mack truck. Bline was looking at me with a strange mixture of confusion, shock, and terror.

“What is this?!” she shouted and began desperately clawing at her nose. “What is… no. No! NO!”

She sucked in a breath and screamed with all her might. Dozens upon dozens of her suddenly burst into the room, streaming into her without pause.

“No! It won’t stop!”

She screamed again. Hundreds more flooded the room—so dense, I could barely breathe. Even so, I could see Her slowly rising off the floor.

“More! More!”

Her scream thudded into my chest like a concussive round. Thousands of her flooded the room. She was crackling like a bar of lightning. Copies of her kept coming on and on. Her screams grew louder and louder.

Then I began to scream. I could not look away. She was consuming me. My doubts. My worries. My love. This! This was a Goddess! She was beauty itself! She was horrifying. She was all!

Suddenly, one of the hundreds of thousands crowding ever closer and closer—one over top and through one another—within that far-too-small room tackled me to the ground.

“You must flee! We cannot hold it at bay! We are becoming myself!”

With that, a trapdoor materialized at my back, and she shoved me through. The last thing I saw was her terrified visage shouting a few last Words at me before getting sucked into the that pulsing, stellar mass.

The next thing I knew, I was standing in front of the Stele. Just exactly as I had been, though from the light, it was now early-morning. For quite a while, I just stood there, trembling like a leaf. My heart felt like it was about to pound its way out of my chest, and I was having a terrible time getting my breathing back under control.

Then, I began to ever so slowly collapse to my knees. This was too much. Too much drama. Too much crazy-ass bullshit for one day. Maybe a lifetime. But at least it seemed to be over for now. So for a while, my emotions simply overwhelmed me.

And I wept.