With The System having taken its leave, I took a closer look at the land around me. I realized fairly quickly that if I looked at an object with enough intent, a small tooltip popped up just above it with information on the item. If I zoomed out and focused on the land itself, it too provided a tooltip with helpful information.
With The System having taken its leave, I took a closer look at the land around me. I realized fairly quickly that if I looked at an object with enough intent, a small tooltip popped up just above it with information on the item. If I zoomed out and focused on the land itself, it too provided a tooltip with helpful information.
I frowned. What the heck was a patron deity? Using context clues, I assumed mine was named Seredh, but why did I have one already? Were they automatically assigned upon resurrection or what? Also, why was the deity not mentioned anywhere on my menu screens? I shrugged. Apparently, I had no current choice in the matter. I was fairly used to that, by now, so I opted to just open the package rather than dwell on it. A flurry of notifications flooded my screen and my eyes went wide.
New Item Acquired: Divine Pheromone Set
New Item Acquired: Divine Prayer Beads of Seredh
New Item Acquired: Supreme Vial of Healing (5)
New Item Acquired: Legendary Blade of Seredh
New Item Acquired: Rare Ration Crates (5)
New Item Acquired: Common Tent
New Item Acquired: Common Bedroll
New Item Acquired: Common Canteen
I let out a long, trembling breath. I was worried the starter pack would be more borderline junk from The System, like my handgun. This? This was an absolute windfall. I couldn’t be sure, but I highly doubted that most newcomers received this sort of embarrassment of riches. A legendary weapon right off the bat was completely insane, plus five vials of high-tier healing potions and enough food to get me by until I got my situation under control – those were amazing gifts, and those were just the ones I understood. Who knew what the prayer beads or the pheromones would do for me. I’d have to check the descriptions for those, later.
“Thank GOD,” I murmured, reveling in my haul.
“You’re welcome,” came a voice from my right.
I yelped, startled so hard I felt like I must have jumped five feet in the air. My skin was pins and needles. I jerked around to the side to look at the figure next to me. It was the light-being from orientation, or whatever that little meeting with The System was supposed to be. And just like in that meeting with The System, when I looked upon this being, all my fright, all my worry, the weight of everything I carried emotionally just…slid away.
“Come,” he said, “sit with me, and let’s have a chat, shall we?”
I nodded enthusiastically.
“Sorry,” I said after taking a sip of coffee from the most elegant teacup I had ever seen, “it’s just hard to accept that this whole isekai reincarnation thing is real – that this is how the universe works, you know?”
“I can see the confusion. The afterlife, in general, does not follow this particular path. We reserve this specific scenario for worlds in great need of…outside assistance. While karma eventually comes to all worlds, some societies benefit greatly from a nudge in the right direction from a soul particularly suited to give said push.”
“Boy. You guys must not have looked at Earth too closely. We need more than just a nudge.”
The god gave a gentle smile.
“You’ve had your share of outside assistance, Rockland.”
“Wait…you don’t mean…”
“I DO mean. Jesus. Siddhartha. Even the likes of Odin and Shiva and their respective pantheons. We sent them all.”
“You sent Jesus. AND Buddha,” I said, somewhat skeptically.
The god’s smile grew wry.
“Among others. What was the phrase in your world? Not all heroes wear capes, I believe? Well, similarly, not all of our champions fight sprites in fields of wildflowers with a hand cannon.”
“Fair enough.”
I took another slow sip of coffee as I considered the implications of what he’d just said. This is a god who sees the gods of my old world as subordinates. People he sends to accomplish tasks. Emissaries. I very quickly decided to STOP considering the implications and lowered the cup.
“This is very good coffee, by the way.”
I decided to inspect it, and the tooltip popped up immediately:
I almost choked on the blasphemous text, but Seredh simply nodded. If he knew what The System had said about his coffee, he either didn’t care or he simply didn’t show it.
“So,” I said, getting back on topic, “all of this is…a lot. To be perfectly honest, I don’t really know what I’m supposed to be doing here. I’ve never spoken to a god. Well, not one who spoke back, anyway. But more than that, what am I supposed to do in this world? It’s gotta be more than just survive against all odds, right?”
“Yes, I am afraid you will need to do much more than that, Rockland. I am going to give you a divine quest. You can accept it or reject it. Should you accept it, you will receive a divine reward box for every quest step you complete. However, you should know that this comes with a rather large amount of responsibility.”
“And that responsibility would be…what, exactly?”
“The same task I charge to all my champions. Save the world.”
I laughed. Hard. I laughed until I realized he wasn’t laughing along with me. He was just sitting there across from me at a picnic table made of what appeared to be swirling star systems. With no seat, mind you. He just kind of floated there, one leg draped over the other as if the idea of a chair were enough to support him. He stared at me, awaiting an answer.
“You’re serious? Me. You want ME to save the world? From what? I couldn’t even save myself from tripping and killing myself in the middle of the street.”
As if in response, a quest appeared before me.
“I’m not The System, Rockland. I do not joke about these sorts of things. I brought you here for this very purpose.”
I took another sip of the coffee and thought for a while. Seredh did not rush me to respond. He simply sat there patiently waiting as I tried and failed to wrap my head around the enormity of what he was asking.
“I’m just some dope from New York. You probably have infinite options to choose from. So…why me?”
“You might be surprised on that front. There aren’t many people in the entirety of the universe who offer what you offer, Rockland. You may not see it yet, but I do. The potential. There are infinite paths before you at this moment in your life, and I can but glimpse them. However, from all that I have seen thus far, I have faith in you.”
“Isn’t that supposed to work the opposite way around?” I asked, grinning.
“I like to think it’s more of a two-way street, myself.”
“I guess I’m still a little confused by why you need me, though. You could probably fix this world with a snap of your fingers, couldn’t you?”
“It’s a little more complicated than that, I’m afraid. I am not the only deity with his eyes on this planet. If I act, so will they, which would force us into direct conflict. Believe me when I say that no one who lives on this planet should ever want a confrontation between gods to happen here.”
“I do believe you,” I said, trying my very best not to imagine the devastation that would ensue from a fight of that magnitude.
“So, it’s in everyone’s interest for you mortals to sort things out for yourselves. I can give you guidance and the occasional assist in the form of gifts and boons, but that’s as much as the accord allows.”
I set the teacup down upon the starstuff table and leaned forward in my chair. So far, everything he’d said made sense to me. If he and rival gods were competing for the heart of this place but were so strong that fighting over it would destroy the entire planet, then having champions do the fighting would be the next best thing. What worried me was that I had no idea what the other gods or their champions were like. I was getting myself embroiled in a holy war where the gods actually showed up to fight – and I wasn’t sure I liked the prospect of making enemies of alien gods.
“If it makes you feel any better,” Seredh said, “you will not be alone in your quest. You will gain allies along the way. I have brought other champions to aid in this endeavor. Plus, you may find natives who are receptive to you.”
“I’m not the only champion?”
He smiled that wry smile again, indicated only by a line of light curving upward where his mouth would be, if he were human.
“You know what they say about eggs and baskets, Rockland. This does not diminish my faith in your potential. For one thing, I could not be sure you would accept the quest. Which, you still have not, by the way.”
I blinked and looked back at the quest notification. I’d forgotten it was even there. I hesitated for a moment, considering my options.
“If I say no, what happens?”
“You would be free to remain here to build your new life in this world as you see fit, however you would have to do so without the boons and guidance I mentioned a moment ago. You would be left to your own devices here. I wish I could say that returning you to your home world were a possibility, but it is not.”
I nodded and pressed “Accept” on the notification screen. A popup appeared, informing me of my next quest step, but I didn’t bother to read it, yet. I looked up at Seredh.
“Fair enough, I guess. If I’m stuck here, I might as well see if I can make some sort of difference in the world. I definitely didn’t in my last go ‘round.”
I hesitated and then added, “Hey, can I ask you an unrelated question?”
“Certainly,” he said, warmly.
“My cat, Boots. How is she doing? Is she going to be alright without me?”
“The inimitable Ms. Boots is fine. Time works differently there than it does here. You’ve experienced merely one day, here. There, nearly three months have passed. Your landlord has released your apartment, and your cat is living with one Miss Judy Ramirez. She is both safe and well cared for.”
He stood and turned to leave, but paused for a moment, looking back at me from over his shoulder.
“You asked me before why I picked you, specifically. And now at the end of a day where you experienced life, death, rebirth, and stood in the presence of unfathomable cosmic powers…you ask about the well-being of a pet you will never see again. THAT is why I picked you, Rockland.”
I blushed and scratched the back of my head.
“Thanks. I – wait, did you just refer to yourself as an unfathomable cosmic power?”
Seredh huffed in what I suspected to be a godly chuckle.
“I did, indeed.”
And then both he and his galactic tea set were gone. The silence that followed was like a sensual afterglow. I reveled in it for a moment as I watched the last lingering bit of sun slip behind the horizon. The sky was awash with colors that faded into a twinkling night sky as I moved my gaze from one horizon to the other.
I considered taking out my tent and setting up camp but decided I’d rather lie beneath the stars of my new world. So, I built a small fire and laid out my sleeping bag next to it. I squirmed into the bag and watched as the world turned, the unfamiliar constellations of this place spinning slowly above me. Then I drifted off to sleep, smiling and dreaming of adventure.