Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4

You have been offered a Quest: Ruined Temple

Quest Rank: Not   Gradable (Special)

The Cosmic Forces that have given you a new life   have arranged for you to have this quest. It is always your choice whether to accept it or not. There are many hidden locations of great   power in your new world of Telos. One   of the most important to a god is a temple. Follow the directions that will be provided to find a ruined   temple. Once there, remove any   threats.

If this Quest is accepted, you shall be shown the   way.

Success Conditions: Find the remains of a specific   ruined temple and remove any threats.

Rewards:

A home for your new tribe.

Penalty for   failure or refusal of Quest: The generation of this Quest was not strictly within the guidelines agreed upon by the various Cosmic   Forces that conspired to Seed this new Labyrinth world. If this Quest is rejected, claimed and   failed, or completed by another, this flexible   interpretation of the rules could lead to serious consequences for your   sponsor.

Also, your soul would be torn into 100,000 ragged   pieces and cast to drift in the formless expanse for all eternity.

There is also a possibility that if this Quest is   not accepted, the Quest Orb will be discovered and you will immediately be torn into 100,000,000,000   ragged pieces, each possessing enough consciousness to scream.

Do you   accept? Yes or No

Back on Earth, there had been a few quests picked up by people he’d met. They had usually offered experience or maybe a clue toward finding more survivors of the Forsaking. Failing those quests had also had a corresponding consequence. He had never, in his worst nightmares, imagined that there would be a consequence as bad as “torn into 100,000,000,000 ragged pieces and cast to drift in the formless expanse for all eternity.” What did that even mean?

Remy obviously understood the words, but was that a literal possibility? As many difficult things as he had been through in his life, including his death, he just couldn’t wrap his head around what that would actually be like. All he knew for certain was that he didn’t want any part of it.

As he read it again, he was struck with another certainty. Whoever had made this Quest Orb was a dick. The prompt made a big deal about how it was his choice to accept or not, but then it said that the “soul tearing” would happen if he failed or said no. Not really an actual choice, now was it? That wasn’t even mentioning the mind splitting pain he’d gone through when the quest had been shoved inside his head.

He also didn’t like how the penalty had been worded. The real concern seemed to be with his sponsor getting in trouble. Remy was sure that a cosmic yellow card for unsportsmanlike conduct would probably be troublesome, but not compared to his own soul being shredded.

Remy gritted his teeth. He didn’t doubt that there would be advantages to having a sponsor. That didn’t change a fundamental fact about his nature. If there was one thing he hated above all others, it was being forced to do something.

Whether he hated being pigeonholed or not, he wasn’t a child. Of all the options of life after death, he was also 100% sure that being soul-shredded in the “formless expanse” didn’t sound like a good time. That was why, still hating the fact that he’d been manipulated, he chose “Yes” on the quest prompt.

The orb in his hands flared with an intense orange light. The script began to flow from the sphere into his arm. There was no pain this time, thank god, just a strange tingling. After it had flowed up his arm, it crossed over to the center of his chest and sank into his skin.  A sense of weight and obligation settled into him. It was similar to the one time he had accepted a quest on Earth, but thousands of times more profound. The orb itself crumpled to dust. Even that disappeared as it fell from his hand.

Shaking his head, Remy turned to the third and fourth items in the box. They were small leather books. The cover of the first was embossed with a picture he’d seen before on Earth. It was a man in the lotus position with a string of circles going up the middle. He wasn’t fully familiar with it, Eastern philosophy having never really been his strong suit, but he was pretty sure the circles were supposed to be meridians. When he picked it up, a notification window appeared.

You have found:  Basic Cultivation Technique of Gods and Clergy

Technique Rank: Common

Requirements: Divine Core or Clergy Class

This book will impart the basic Cultivation   technique for Gods and their disciples. Practicing this technique will improve your State of Being. This will only aid you until you reach Tier   1. To progress beyond Tier 1, you will   need to find another cultivation technique.

Special Benefit: This technique imparts is ubiquitous among deities   of the Labyrinth. As with all faith   based cultivation techniques, it has no bottleneck.

Do you wish to absorb this knowledge? Yes or No?

This had to be one of the ways to advance his Tier that Sariel had mentioned. Of course, this whole scenario seemed like a bad acid trip. That didn’t mean he didn’t want more information. Any knowledge vs none was always an easy choice.. He chose “Yes.”

The book slowly faded from view. Left in its place was a constellation of glowing motes of light. These twinkling stars flew into his eyes. Remy’s pupils dilated as the information flew into his mind. He knew!

Not only did he fully understand what “cultivation” was now, he also knew how to do it. Basically, he could use the faith people had in him to grow stronger. In a very real way, the more people worshipped him, the stronger he would get. At least, until he reached Tier 1.

He also now knew just what a major milestone tiers were. The warning Sariel had given him about growing as fast as possible made more sense now. He didn’t know exactly how it would manifest, but he knew in his bones that gods who cultivated faster would gain major boosts in power. A Tier 1 deity would experience a qualitative and quantitative increase. If he had to fight a god with a higher tier than his own… it wouldn’t be good.

As fascinating as the new knowledge was, it was useless at the moment. He didn’t have any worshippers. No worshippers meant no Faith for him to use, which made the cultivation technique a nonissue for the time being.

Still, after having gained so much from the first book, he couldn’t wait to gain the knowledge of the second. This one was bound in black leather as opposed to brown. It had a stylized eye on the cover.

You have found:  Soul Consumption Cultivation Technique

Technique Rank: Scarce

Requirements: Divine Core and Soul Art

This book will teach deities who follow the Art of   the Soul how to cultivate using captured souls. Souls used in this manner will be   completely consumed.

This technique will currently only progress you to   Tier 1, but has the potential to be improved.

This technique has a small chance to impart special   benefits depending on the souls absorbed. Do you wish to absorb this knowledge? Yes or No?

Note from your   Sponsor: This technique is not exactly what you would call “street legal” so   SGS protocol.

Remy shook his head again. The “note” at the end was in the same handwriting as the word “Jump” on the star picture. He chose “Yes” again and knowledge flowed into his eyes. After a short bit, he was able to fully understand the difference between the two cultivation techniques. In many ways Soul Consumption was superior. Unfortunately, just like Basic Cultivation, he didn’t have the raw materials, this time captured souls, to put it into practice.

The last item was just a handwritten message in a style he was becoming familiar with.

We had to destroy a solar system to give you seven gifts, so pay   attention. There is more at stake than   you can possibly realize. We cannot   directly affect events on your new world, we can only give you a head start   on the others. For your own safety, you cannot know who   “we” are. You were chosen for many   reasons, not least of which is your mental aegis, though most people in your   life would have called it your stubborn streak. You called it giving zero fucks. Because of this I am sure that the   vagueness of this note is infuriating as hell to you. Let me just say…

Suck it up!

You died, we brought you back, and now you get to be a god. We even blew up a star to help you. Stop complaining! Appreciate the fact that we took the time   to write the above words to you. We   had to grind a reasonably nice moon into dust just to gather the power   required to write that part of the letter. The cost per word on this type of communication is insane.

Suffice it to say, the objects in this chest were determined to   be innocuous enough to raise no flags among the other Cosmic Forces yet   strong enough to give you a chance to rise above the pack. You can only take knowledge with you, not   resources or currency. I am sure a   small part of you realizes that we are cheating by giving you this   advantage.

I am equally sure that a larger part of you does not care. What you need to know is that we are   definitely not the only sponsor bending the rules. Other new gods will be given their own advantages. Some of these gods will be old gods from   other worlds with alliances and pantheons to call upon. Do not piss off a pantheon member until you   are strong enough to fight the entire group! Use the knowledge and power of these gifts well.

Our powers are vast, but we cannot influence what happens to you   from this moment on. No cosmic power   has that ability, so we cannot save you if you fuck up.

Finally, we cannot specifically tell you to break the rules of   your new existence, or even bend them, but good gods, read between the   lines! Do not discuss the contents of   this chest with anyone. If you were to   be caught cheating, ack, gwack, gak, soul dissolution, endless expanse for   eternity… you get the idea.

When you are done reading this note, do what we did not tell you   to do and put everything else into the chest and close the lid.

Never forget, S.G.S.

- Your Sponsor

The contents of the letter might be the craziest part of everything that was happening to him. The tone of it was even nuttier. Despite all that, whoever had penned it knew personal information about him. They knew exactly what to write to get him to fall in line. And that pissed him off more than anything. He hated being manipulated. Still, he wasn’t the type to hem and haw either.

No matter what else, it seemed that his “sponsor” had done him a solid by giving him another chance at life. He was a big enough person to admit that. It didn’t mean he would always dance to their tune if he didn’t like the beat. And it didn’t mean that he’d been given this chance out of the goodness of their little cosmic hearts. For now though, and for as long as their interests aligned, he would heed their advice.

Only two things gave him pause. One, there were only five items, so he had no idea where they were counting seven. Was the time with Sariel a gift? That would only be six though. He couldn’t figure it out, so he put it at the back of his mind.

The other thing that gave him pause was just how personal the letter was. Even the threat at the end was custom-tailored for him. Almost no one else would understand it. If nothing else, that level of familiarity made him take their words seriously. As he set the note aside, he noticed a faint mark in the bottom right hand corner. It was invisible looking right at the page, but it caught the light as he was putting it down. It was only a small sigil, looking like seven shining jewels. He didn’t understand what it meant, but he filed it away for later.

That done, Remy put the note and the picture of the starscape back in the chest. The cultivation technique books and the Quest Orb had turned to dust, and even those small particles had disappeared. After closing the lid, the chest started vibrating wildly, shaking fast enough to leave an afterimage. A moment later, it shrank to the side of a pinpoint and disappeared. Along with it went any evidence that his sponsors had broken the rules.

Not seeing anything useful he could be doing, he summoned his shiatsu chair again. Wondering what would happen, this time he summoned Alysson Hannigan circa Buffy years. He wasn’t disappointed.

Time passed. Remy had fallen asleep, but woke when the ever-present lights began to flash. A soft chime accompanied them. Standing up, he saw that there was a disturbance in the floor. It looked like a section was bubbling. At first he thought it might have become superheated somehow.

It turned out the floor wasn’t actually boiling, it was just changing color, from milky white to crystal clear. The process picked up speed, the change occurring faster and faster until the entire surface became completely transparent. Remy felt a presence and looked up. While he’d been distracted, Sariel had reappeared and was sitting in her seat.

Remy looked askance at the Ethereal, but she remained calmly in her chair, regarding him with her voluminous eyes. After a moment, he just decided to accept that he was not in control and summoned a chair next to her.

Soon the entire room had turned transparent. All he saw was blackness beyond it, but then a point of light appeared. Then another, and another. He realized the lights were torches set in sconces. They not only illuminated the blackness, they also revealed a massive structure.

Remy saw what looked like an ancient coliseum. Torches of white flame dotted the circular top. In the center there was a deep dark that seemed to undulate. Remy leaned forward to get a better look.

Then he was falling.

The transparent room plunged toward the coliseum, the building growing huge in his eyes. If he didn’t have such a strong mental reserve, he would have fallen out of his chair. He still cursed for good measure. The room slowed again, neither the acceleration nor the deceleration detectable. It alighted into one of the arched alcoves of the coliseum.

Remy looked around, and saw that the structure was bigger than he’d initially thought. Thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands, of other alcoves mirrored his enclosed room. He couldn’t be sure, because the structure his room rested in was so large that either end curved into darkness.

In every archway sat a sphere with a mirrored surface, at least on the lower levels of the coliseum. As he looked up, he saw that the upper levels had increasingly larger archways, all of which were empty. The ones approaching the top were so large he could not see their apexes. He could only see that there were seven of them.

Throughout the rapid descent, Sariel had stayed in her seat. Her body displayed perfect poise and her expression was one of absolute calm. Her eyes danced merrily, however, betraying her amusement. She knew that Remy wasn’t quite as composed as he appeared. The new god noticed her staring at his clenched fists. He relaxed his death grip and stared at her, daring her to make fun of him.

The amusement remained in her eyes, but she didn’t rise to the bait. Instead, the Ethereal turned in her chair and gestured with a delicate hand toward the dark center of the coliseum. A light began to flicker, quickly growing into a swirling sphere containing every color imaginable.

She spoke in a prophetic voice, “The time of Choosing has come.”

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What up wonderful Mist Villagers!

I hope you're enjoying these early chapters lol

I plan on getting them to you every couple of days.

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