Axiom of Infinity: Souleater by TSeris

Warning This fiction contains:

Graphic Violence, Profanity, Sensitive Content, Sexual Content

"They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. What then are we to think of it when the gods
themselves steal our ideas on how the universe should work? Can we complain when they turn
reality into a game? Can we get a refund on life itself? The gods claim they answered our prayers.
That they built this world with us in mind. That they brought us here for our own sake. Maybe they
did. Personally I think they have their own reasons. We're not the players in this game, we're the
pieces on the board.
Still... What if it's fun?"
Axiom of Infinity follows the story of several travelers from Earth as they attempt to make new
lives for themselves in a world with monsters and dungeons, where RPG mechanics are as innate as
the laws of physics, and where the gods themselves seem to be playing a very different game–one
with unknown stakes and strange alliances. Blessed by two gods and cursed by another, one man
finds himself at the center of their machinations, a pawn destined to become a queen.
This is a LitRPG Novel built on a hard system with a lot of depth and customization, but which tries
not to beat you over the head with numbers constantly. In this world finding and reporting bugs and
exploits is both encouraged and rewarded, and the gods have found the most qualified testers in the
multiverse: Us. Now the unsuspecting natives of Astra are going to have to learn to live with a bunch
of min-maxing, power-gaming, spreadsheet slinging nerds and gamers of all shapes and sizes as we
do what we do best... break things.

Note: See author's note in the prologue for content warnings, publication schedule, and a more in-
depth description of the story's content and direction.

Prologue & Author's Note

Author's Note:
This book features several trans themes, including a main character who starts of male, and ends up
in a non-human female body. It deals with subjects like sexuality, gender dysphoria, and more
general body image issues.

There will be more than one trans character in the series, both those who are happy with their new
bodies and those who were cisgendered before getting a new body and have effectively become
transgendered by virtue of having been placed in a body they don't identify with.

A theme of the series is learning to adapt to such things, and in some cases, overcome them. It's not
going to be for everyone, but I try to make sure it doesn't dominate the plot. I think a lot of trans
people will identify with the struggles of the main character in this book, but I want it to be relatable
even to people perfectly content with their assigned gender. That said, it is a major part of the first
half of the book while the character gets used to their situation.

If the thought of this grosses you out, that's not an unreasonable response. It may even help you
sympathize with the character.
My intent is for you to be able to read this and enjoy it even if the very concept of getting stuck in an
opposite-sex body makes you uncomfortable. It really should after all. For most people, I think that
would mess them up quite a bit. A lot of our identity is wrapped up in our sexuality and gender
identity, and this book intentionally makes the main character confront that.

If the very thought of transgendered people makes you angry... We'll, you probably haven't even read
this far, but if you have I'd ask you to consider why that is? In particular, with regards to a fantasy
setting. Fantasy is meant to explore the what-if's of reality, and to see the world through other
people's eyes. Not all of those perspectives will be like yours, in fact many of them can and should be
alien.

One of the ways to grow as a person is to seek out perspectives other than your own and learn from
them. This does not need to change who you are. You won't suddenly become trans from reading a
trans character's perspective–instead, you may find that you better understand the nature of your
own identity by virtue of better understanding what it isn't.

In large part we define ourselves in relation to others, and that can and should include opposites.
Acquiring more points of reference by which to define yourself will never hurt you, it will only ever
strengthen your character.

As fans of progression fantasy, I think we can all agree that's something we enjoy.

- T. Seris

Content Warnings:
Topics you will find in this book that may disturb you: Gender dysphoria, general body dysphoria,
sexual assault (no rape), profanity, imprisonment, sexual content (nudity, frank discussions of
sexuality, general horniness, cultural differences in taboos, etc), character(s) with fluid sexual
orientation, a far less graphic and disturbing depiction of periods than they deserve, violence (little to
no gore), mild fantasy racism (people can "evolve" their species and gain specialized subspecies), and
graphic descriptions of some monsters intended to cause revulsion (body horror, insects, undead).
You may also have issues if you have agoraphobia or a particularly strong fear of heights. Also if you
are a programmer, there are a lot of programming puns - this may or may not be traumatizing, sorry.

Topics and themes you will NOT find in this book: Explicit sex, harems, transphobia, homophobia,
overt bigotry, underage sexual content, non-consensual sex, and pretty much anything super graphic.

Publication Schedule & Series Info:

This book is set to publish chapters weekly on Monday at noon EST. This is a completed story, but I
am doing a final rewrite and editing pass before attempting to publish it more formally. I also have a
sensitivity reader and beta readers going over the full manuscript, and will be incorporating their
feedback. The version that will be published here will lack that final round of polish and possibly
some minor changes to the plot. However, if anything big changes in the final rewrite I'll port it back
into this version. Once the rewrite is complete I'll be starting work on book two.

I am a discovery writer, so my process is largely to start typing and see what happens, then go back
and edit everything together to make sense. There are certain large plot points and themes I expect
to hit, but by and large I have no idea what the characters are going to say or do until they say or do
them. However, this is a fairly hard LitRPG novel, so the actual mechanics were largely decided
before I started writing.

The main characters have character sheets I work off of to figure out what they can do in response to
any given situation. As best as possible, I try to adhere to my own rules even if you don't always see
what's going on behind the scenes. The early book is fairly intense in terms of introductions to
mechanics - there are a lot of them, but I think it's fairly intuitive. One of the primary things I'm
attempting to revise right now is how many mechanical details are presented to the reader in the first
half of the book. The final version will likely have reduced detail, but no change in actual mechanics.

After about the middle of the book a lot of the explanations of mechanics fall off because I expect the
reader to be able to intuit what is happening. Things like stat readouts show up more often early on
than they do later. Ideally the final version will smooth this out.

Acknowledgements:

This section is incomplete, but I wanted to go ahead and thank my beta readers for their invaluable
feedback. In particular, Rain Ambyll who provided excellent technical advise as well as a ton of
insightful comments about characters and plot.
“Run!”

They hit the street running at full speed, and Lucus could already hear the sounds of pursuit starting
up behind them. He glanced to his side and saw Tavi running next to him in an all-out sprint, her
much shorter legs having to do twice the work to keep up with him as he loped down the alley they’d
picked for their getaway route. He picked up his pace, pulling ahead of her as he turned a corner and
dashed behind a row of buildings just off one of the more heavily trafficked streets in this part of the
city.

This was all part of the plan. The alley he’d run down dead-ended as it ran straight into the back of a
building. There was a door here, but Lucus knew from experience that the current owner had bricked
it over from the inside after one too many thieves had broken in and stolen from his back room.

He came to a sliding stop at the door, crashing into it hard enough to make him wince, but he
immediately turned and dropped into a crouch, finding himself at eye level with Tavi as she ran right
at him. She was short enough to pass for a child, but anyone who got a good look at her was going to
know she was a goblin.

He hesitated a moment, caught by the wild look in her eye and huge grin on her face, visible even
under her hood and mask. Then he caught sight of their pursuers over her shoulder, and he snapped
back to reality just in time for her to leap directly at him.

“Jump!” He shouted.

Lucus caught Tavi’s feet in cupped hands. He activated his species skill Strength of Stone and power
surged through his limbs, flowing up from the cobblestones beneath his feet. With all his strength he
launched Tavi into the air and towards the roof of the building behind him.

Tavi jumped at the height of the launch, propelling herself even further. She reached out and
grabbed the edge of the roof as she neared it, pulling herself over the edge and disappearing from
view.

Lucus was left alone in the alley with their pursuers. He recognized both men, they were city guards
that were working a private contract on their days off. They were too weighed down by armor to
catch them in a short sprint, but he knew other guards would respond to their cries shortly. If they
were going to stay out of jail tonight, they needed to lose these two before they got surrounded.

That’s where the rope came in. Tavi kicked one end of it off the roof, the other they’d already tied to
the building’s chimney earlier in the day when planning this heist.

Lucus grabbed ahold of it and simply walked himself up the wall. They’d chosen this building as it
was one of the old stone structures that had been here for most of Altria’s history. Lucus had spent
the previous day ensuring that the stone was rough enough that his boots could grip it easily,
undoing years of erosion from rain.

He joined Tavi on the roof as she pulled the rope up behind them. They had a minute to catch their
breath before they had to move again, and the two of them collapsed onto the rooftop, next to each
other.

“You… get it…?” Lucus panted.

Breathlessly, Tavi held up what appeared to be a solid gold statuette a little longer than her forearm.
She passed it over to him wordlessly. The thing was too heavy for her to be lugging around when they
needed to move fast.
Tavi had needed to be the one to grab it from the merchant. She was the only one of them with Thief
levels, and if they pulled this off she stood to potentially gain multiple levels in her class. It was half
the reason they’d even attempted this.

Lucus stood, then put the statuette in the padded sack they’d left up here for purpose. Carrying heavy
things was his job in this team. That, and coming up with the plans. With his size, people always
expected Lucus to be the brute of the duo. They rarely expected him to be the brains as well.

Tavi was far from stupid. In fact, she was frighteningly clever, especially when under pressure. She
just wasn’t much of a planner. The two of them made a good team, with Lucus planning their heists
and Tavi adapting them when things inevitably went off the rails. He just wished she’d take things
more seriously.

Lucus realized he was staring at her. Worse, she’d noticed.

She’d caught her breath enough to sit up, and stuck a hand up towards him. “Help me up, it’s time to
move, there’ll be time for you to admire me later.”

“I was just thinking,” Lucus said, rolling his eyes.

He pulled her up easily, his hand dwarfing hers. His light brown skin contrasted sharply with her
greenish yellow tint. She waggled her long ears at him as if to say “sure, and I know what you were
thinking of,” before turning to look over the side of the building.

The guards were still down there, one of them had tried to boost the other up, but it was too high.
The other guard shouted something when he saw Tavi’s head poke over the edge, but Lucus didn’t
bother to listen as he mentally prepared for the next phase of the plan. Tavi however, returned fire
with a blistering string of absolutely vile epithets until Lucus pulled her away from the edge.

“Hey, get your hands off me,” she said, feigning indignation.

He rolled his eyes and released her. “Do you ever stop? Come on, we need to go.”

It was late in the day, but the sun had not yet begun to set. Lucus could see it on the horizon over the
wall that circled the city. As he jumped to the neighboring roof his shadow stretched out in front of
him. Ringed in red light, it seemed to defy the sun.

The jump ended up saving his life.

Lucus turned just in time to see Tavi, motionless, bathed in crimson light and staring up at the sky.
He wanted to scream at her, but it was already too late.

There was a thunderous boom, and Tavi vanished as a burning streak slammed into her. The force of
the impact crushed the roof of the building and caused part of the wall to collapse onto the guards
below.

Lucus looked on in shock, mind completely empty as he tried and failed to process what had just
happened. The sack containing the golden statuette slipped from his numb fingers.

Vaguely he realized that he could hear other explosions happening elsewhere in the city, as more
streaks of red light rained from the sky. The hail of fire lasted only moments, then stopped nearly as
suddenly as it had begun.

Still too stunned to really process what had just happened, Lucus ran to the edge of the building he
now stood on. In the distance he could hear people screaming in pain or panic, possibly both.
He was having trouble breathing all of a sudden, and darkness was trying to creep its way in from the
corners of his vision. Bells began to toll in the cathedral across the river, then suddenly went silent.

Lucus looked down into the ruin of a building his best friend had just disappeared into, blinking to
clear his eyes from both dust and tears. Somewhere behind him he heard a rumble as another
building collapsed.

For a moment he couldn’t see what had become of Tavi. The collapse had stirred up too much dust,
and his eyes struggled to find her amidst the debris.

Then a cool wind picked up, and Lucus said a prayer to all the gods he knew as he finally caught sight
of Tavi’s body. She was covered in blood, and one of her arms was twisted beneath her unnaturally.

At first Lucus despaired, but she was remarkably untouched by the rubble littering the storeroom. It
looked as if it had all been blown away from her, exploding upwards and outwards to hit the far
walls.

Suddenly able to think again, he moved quickly. The building’s chimney was still standing, and the
rope they’d used to climb up was still attached. Grabbing it, he lowered himself into the ruined room.
He dropped next to Tavi and quickly checked for a pulse. Moments passed as he waited, but he felt
no heartbeat.

His brain now on fire, Lucus gently rolled Tavi onto her back and began chest compressions. He had
no idea how much force was too much for her small frame, but he needed to do something. If he
could just get her heart beating long enough to get her to Narani everything would be fine.

Lucus repeated that thought to himself like a mantra, and when the chest compressions failed to
produce a pulse, he tried breathing for her. The wreckage of this building became his entire world as
he desperately worked to save his friend’s life.

Chapter 1: System
Logging in…

The next thing I knew, I was falling.

The star-filled sky above me was entirely too close. As I watched my viewpoint slowly rotated to one
side, and I could see what appeared to be the curvature of an entire planet stretching out below. I had
to admit that it was a staggeringly beautiful sight, even though I’d long been desensitized to such
things by previous nVR tours of exotic locations.

I barely had time to take this in before a voice spoke to me. “Welcome traveler,” a smooth female
voice said, clearly audible even over the mounting rush of wind. “I have called you here from beyond
the stars. Not for any great purpose or dire threat, but because I felt your souls cry out for that which
they have long been denied.”

I tried to look around, but found that my view was limited, and I appeared not to have a body at all.
This sort of cutscene wasn’t unusual at the start of a game, so I settled in to hear the game’s lore.

“Your people yearn for escape from a world of predictable mediocrity, a world where all the heroes
died long ago, and the advances of society have purchased comfort at the cost of wonder… Your
desperate longing broke my heart.”
My perspective entered a cloud as it fell, and for a few moments time seemed to stop as white fog in
every direction gave me the illusion of stillness. Then I broke through the cloud and realized that my
slow rotation had now pointed my vision towards the ground.

Below me was a stone-walled city built on the edge of a vast wilderness. A river bisected the city, and
formed a natural barrier that marked the start of the woodlands. The entire area around the city was
rocky and full of hills and small cliffs, leading up to mountains in the near distance–though the city
itself seemed to have been carved out of a relatively flat area by the riverbanks.

“My name is Valera, and I am the goddess of Journeys, Trials, and Change. I’ve brought you here to
give you the chance to start a new life, where anything is possible. This world before you is called
Astra. It is a new world, as these things are judged, and few places are far from the frontier. For
many, civilization is yet a goal to be strived for, not a yoke to be born.”

My view had continued its slow rotation, and now I found myself looking up at the clouds I’d just
passed through, now far above me.

“I have bound your soul to this gem. It marks you, and others like you, but will aid you and help you
make your way in this world. Use it to create a body of your liking and take your first steps along the
road to your new destination. Forge your own path if you dare. Walk the longest road you can bear to
tread, for only when you finish is the story truly done.”

Suddenly, and with a very meaty “thwack!” sound, my perspective went dark.

Did… did I just die of fall damage in the intro cutscene?

Now Entering: The Antechamber of Eternity

I found myself standing in a small room. Directly in front of me, a large set of double doors stood
closed, but I could hear talking and music emanating from somewhere behind it. Beside the door, an
older man in fine clothing stood behind a podium. He looked at me with a polite patient smile on his
face.

I paused for a moment to take in my new surroundings. I was standing on a deep red carpet that
extended beyond the closed door on the far side of the room. This was apparently some sort of
waiting room.

Despite the presence of several comfy looking chairs against the walls, I appeared to be the only
visitor. Above my head, a chandelier lit by dozens of white candles illuminated the room without any
noticeable flicker from the flames.

The man at the podium was now pretending not to have noticed me, letting me get my bearings while
he picked some invisible lint off his coat. I decided to put an end to the awkward silence and
approached the podium. As I did so, he looked up and acknowledged me with a smile.

“Welcome Sir, to the Hall of the Pantheon. May I know what name to announce you by?” In his hand
he had a quill pen, held raised up over a sheet of what looked like parchment.

I almost gave my real name before realizing that this must be the start of character creation–I was
naming my character. I hesitated, not sure what name to use. Normally this step came at the end of
character creation, when you’d already figured out what type of character you were going to play. I
had a few character names I tended to re-use based on the type of character I was playing, but I
wasn’t yet sure what my options were.
“Sorry, but can I change this later?” I asked the man at the podium. “I’m not sure what name I’ll want
to use yet.”

The man set down his pen, wiping the ink off it. “I’m afraid not, for who can change the name writ
upon their soul?” He smiled kindly as he looked at me, “Fear not, the name you choose will be known
only to yourself and the gods, unless you give it to others. I suggest choosing one which you feel
resonates with who and what you are… If you need a moment to reflect, then by all means, take your
time.”

I was pretty sure I understood what was happening now. Some games had you identify yourself by an
account name that was then used instead of your character name for things like direct messages
between players. It allowed people to message you even if you weren’t playing your main character or
if two characters shared a name.

I found it somewhat immersion breaking personally, but some games handled it better than others
and it did make it so that character names didn’t need to be unique, which was a big positive. There
was nothing worse than getting to the end of character creation and not being able to get any of the
names you wanted for your new character.

“Any rules for what I can call myself?” I asked the old man, mostly trying to buy time to think.

“Not really, no. This is to be your true name, that which is written upon your soul… If your true name
is oh, I don’t know, ‘XX_GooseKicker_XX’ then who am I to deny you?”

I chuckled at that. I’m glad the AI has a sense of humor at least… Immersion was nice, but some
games took themselves too seriously.

I walked over towards the large doors, addressing the old man as I did so. “So, what’s your name
then?” I asked.

Beyond the doors, the sound of music and muffled conversation continued, no clearer than when I
first arrived here. On closer examination, the doors themselves appeared to be made of some type of
dark stone inlaid with gold filigree. Each door looked like it would take real effort to move, and I
raised a hand to push against one, curious if I could even make it budge.

“My name is System,” said the old man. “It’s my job to make sure things run smoothly and proceed
in an orderly manner.”

He eyed me as I tried, and failed, to open the door. “Don’t mind the door, please. I’ll open it when it
is time to announce you to the assembly.”

I gave up pushing on the door, not even leaning into it seemed to make a difference. My day job was
programming, and I did some speedrunning of classic games as a hobby, so my instincts when
starting a new game were always to see if I could break things.

For nVR games it was fun to test the limitations of the simulation and see how far it’d let me go off
script. This game had advertised a revolutionary AI controlled gameplay experience, so I was
interested in seeing how well it could adapt to shenanigans.

True AI had been used in games for years obviously, but supposedly in this game everything from the
physics to the game mechanics were AI controlled. A big selling point was that the AI could generate
new mechanics on the fly, including entire classes, spells, and abilities.

That said, AI was far from perfect, just like a person could make a mistake, so could an AI - but an AI
could make mistakes millions of times faster than a human could. The hope was they’d also correct
themselves much faster, but sometimes they couldn’t–especially when they had external rules placed
on them that they couldn’t navigate around.

I wandered over to the chairs along the wall. It was odd that there were chairs here when this
appeared to be an instanced character creation area. I sat down in one, then tried to pick up another
one. It was surprisingly heavy, and I couldn’t find a way to add it to my inventory.

The AI, “System”–not a very creative name–watched this in amused silence.

“No rules on names, huh?” I asked idly as I worked.

There was a rule that any programmer worth their salary knew, yet it was so easy to overlook that
gamers had been exploiting oversights for generations to sequence break scripted events, get out of
bounds, or even inject arbitrary code into a game with their bare hands.

The art of speedrunning–beating a game as fast as humanly possible–often relied on such exploits to
achieve the lowest possible times, often far lower than the game’s developers would ever have
thought possible.

The rule was “never trust user input.” Practically it meant that you had to treat every action a user
took as potentially malicious. The problem was that literally anything a user did counted as input–
from moving my simulated arms around to filling out my name on a sheet of parchment, these were
both just two different types of input and had to be treated as equally untrustworthy.

Something as direct as a name was the more obvious attack vector, but the funny thing about using
an AI to validate input was that the AI had to process that input to validate it. Sometimes you could
break a system just by making it consider the implications of what you’d given it to think about.

System raised an eyebrow at me. “I certainly hope you aren’t about to say something incredibly
offensive, but no. I can’t stop you from choosing a name that fits your identity. It won’t stop me from
judging you however.”

I gave him a cheeky grin. “Alright, in that case my name is ‘System’.”

I watched as he started to dip his quill in the ink jar before registering what I was doing. System
chuckled and said, “Well, I guess I should have expected that one, shouldn’t I? But no, as it turns out
there is at least one rule–you cannot have the same name as anyone else. True names must be unique
after all.”

“Alright, well in that case I’d like for my name to be an empty space please.”

System looked confused. “An empty space? Like between two words?”

“No, like between two letters. Not taking up any room, just empty. Nothing there to see.”

The old man closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger, his
patient demeanor showing cracks for the first time.

“Have I done something to offend you, young man? Is there some reason you are making this
difficult?”

I began to feel a little guilty for putting the AI through this and felt the need to make up an excuse.
“No, no, nothing like that… I just figured if I have to come up with a name it might as well be a truly
unique one. You know, something people will get a laugh out of when I tell them.”
“I see. Well, nonetheless an empty space is not a name, in fact it’s a distinct lack of a name. Please
choose something else.”

I thought about it for a moment. “I have an idea, but it’s probably too long–it definitely wouldn’t fit
on that paper you have there. There’s a symbol that represents it though–I could draw it if you want.
Can I use a symbol to represent my name? Letters are just symbols after all, it shouldn’t be much
different.”

System looked at me with about as much trust as I would feel towards a hornet trapped in the same
room as me, but after a moment he seemed to relent a bit. “One single symbol? Nothing more?”

“Yep, I promise. I can even do it in one pen stroke.”

“So long as it is not the true name of any other creature, I see no reason a symbol would be
disallowed. I can think of a few beings that have more abstract true names and it may even be a
clever way to conceal your true name from enemies.”

As he spoke, he finally dipped the quill in the ink pot and stepped to the side, handing the quill to me
and motioning to a spot on the parchment. “Sign here please.”

I drew the symbol on the paper in one even stroke.

System looked at what I’d drawn and sighed. “Are you sure?”

“Yep.”

System sighed again but motioned for me to follow as he turned towards the large double doors.
Placing a hand on both doors, he easily swung them open, flooding the small room with light and
momentarily blinding me as my eyes adjusted.

The doors opened into what appeared to be an amphitheater, except this was unlike any I had ever
heard of. System and I walked out onto a stage that was dwarfed by the stair-like seating typical of
such structures, except these seats seemed to go on forever, extending upwards as far as the eye
could see. The entire arrangement was lit as if by sunlight, from some source behind where we had
entered.

Hundreds, possibly thousands of people were seated here, many spread out into smaller groups and
talking amongst themselves, while others sat alone in islands of empty seats. I couldn’t begin to hope
to take in all of it, but no two people struck me as anything less than a unique specimen. Many had
glowing lights, or other magical effects on or hovering near them. Some, I realized, weren’t even
human by any stretch of the imagination.

Am I going crazy or is that guy just ‘The Devil’ from some old movie?

I was looking at a very muscular bald man with red skin and large bull-like horns sticking out of the
sides of his head. The man was wearing a very out of place formal business suit, complete with a red
tie, and in one hand he seemed to be holding a small notebook which he tapped idly against his knee
as he looked around.

I had enough time to notice what looked like a pencil tucked behind one pointy ear before the
fiendish man’s head turned toward us and he caught sight of me standing on the stage next to
System. The large man gave us a friendly wave of acknowledgement even as others around the room
began to notice the new arrivals as a hush spread like a wave through the stands.

Standing center stage was a woman. She was dressed in simple, well-worn, but sturdy-looking
clothes that looked both comfortable and practical. She was sporting the sort of backpack you might
use for a hiking trip that might involve some mountain climbing. She was so normal looking that it
stood out in this room full of gods and devils.

As we approached, she smiled and nodded to us, but didn’t speak. Instead, she stepped aside and
allowed System to take center stage. He returned her nod, then cleared his throat and waited for the
crowd’s attention to fall on him.

System’s voice suddenly filled the hall, spreading across the vast space without any need for him to
shout. “Members of the assembly, great spirits and ancient gods, allow me to present this human of
Earth, one of the first to join us in this new world. I give you…”

The man trailed off, simply standing there with his mouth slightly open as if poised to continue
speaking. Silence’s reign stretched to the breaking point, whereupon muttered questions began to fill
the hall with a soft roar as everyone asked the same questions: Why had he stopped? What was this
young man’s name? Why was he carrying a chair? Eventually some among the crowd began to get
restless, and shouted questions at System, but he made no move to answer.

I had a feeling I knew what the problem was, but I wanted to see how this would play out.

After a moment the devil-like businessman I’d noted earlier rose from his seat on the bottom floor
and approached the stage. As he got close, I realized that he was a giant compared to me. He was
over two meters tall–not even counting the horns.

The devil approached System, taking the older man’s head in his muscular hands and tilting it up so
they were looking into each other’s eyes. After a moment the devil grunted, then let out a low chuckle
before turning to me.

“What name did you give him?” He asked. “It seems he’s quite stuck on it.”

I shrugged and told him what I’d done. “He did say a symbol would be fine…” I hedged.

The downside to successfully breaking things was getting caught breaking things.

Behind the devil, the woman sighed, and spoke for the first time in a voice I recognized from the into
cutscene.

“This one is definitely one of yours,” she said.

“We’ll see,” the devil replied, grinning down at me with pointy teeth. “It’s definitely an encouraging
start.”

I took an unconscious step back from that grin, but the devil had already turned back to System,
looking him in the eyes again. After a moment the old man jerked, and appeared to animate again,
whereupon the devil released his head and spoke to him normally.

“I hope you have learned a valuable lesson from this, System. Always sanitize user input. Always.
Even if it seems harmless.”

The large fiend pulled the pencil out from behind his ear and jotted down something in his notebook
as he spoke.

“Yes… Yes sir, I understand,” replied the shaken System. “I am sorry to have required your
intervention so soon.”

“Don’t let it trouble you,” the devil said, turning away from them and walking back towards his seat.
“I was expecting something like this before too long.”
The woman had drifted closer to watch, but now took a few steps away as well, returning to her
previous position.

“Finish your introduction System, let us continue the ceremony as it was intended,” she said.

System nodded and raised his hands in the air, motioning for silence. Slowly the sound of the crowd
faded away once more, and the old man began again. His voice once more resounded through the
hall as though coming from everywhere at once.

“Members of the assembly, great spirits and ancient gods, allow me to present this human of Earth,
one of the first to join us in this new world. I give you… Infinity!”

This time, when System spoke the name, I heard the word, but it was nearly drowned out by
everything else that came with it.

I’d drawn the sideways figure eight--representing infinity--in the space for my name. When System
announced me, he somehow said both the name of the symbol and the symbol itself. I could think of
no other way to describe it, but I clearly heard the symbol, and not just the symbol but the meaning
behind the symbol.

The concept of infinity filled my mind, and for an endless moment my senses faded into the
background as my consciousness struggled to come to terms with this vast idea. I felt like I was
drowning, and I wondered if this is what System had felt like–had the AI decided to get petty revenge
on me by putting me through the same thing I’d made it experience?

I lost that thought to the crushing void. I could feel my sanity slipping away as I struggled to
comprehend a concept that inherently wasn’t rational.

I fought against it, but my struggles were meaningless. I could fight forever and win every battle and
still never make any progress. That was the nature of infinity after all. It wore away at me until there
was no room for conscious thought left.

As what little remained of my sense of self was crushed under that incalculable weight, one last
thought drifted out of the darkness.

Isn’t it supposed to be my name? How can I crush myself?

Just like that, my perspective shifted.

Now I was the vast crushing presence. No, vast wasn’t the right word, I was bigger than vast, I was
endless, I was timeless. I couldn’t be crushed because there were no sides to push on, no borders to
press against, no frame of reference to do it in.

Mad laughter echoed soundlessly in the void as I began to comprehend the incomprehensible. My
consciousness floated in something that wasn’t darkness but was far too big to visualize. Even
imagining it would have given it definition that it lacked.

As I drifted, I slowly became aware of two points of light in the endless expanse that was my new
existence. I latched onto this strange, fixed point of reference and pulled my self-awareness to it.

As I did, my vision returned, expanding outwards until once again I was looking at the amphitheater
and the old man standing center stage. There was a distinct feeling of having just placed my face up
against eye holes in the walls of reality.

For a moment I retained that sense of endlessness behind my eyes even as my consciousness
reconnected to my body.
What the hell was that?

Chapter 2: The Adversary

When I came back to myself, I could still see the symbol I’d written, burning in the back of my mind
like a brand. The memory of what I’d just experienced was already fading. It was like a dream I’d just
woken up from, and I was left grasping at fragments.

Slowly I became aware that System was still talking, and I tuned back in just in time to catch the end
of it.

“... and join me in welcoming our newest petitioner.”

Light applause rang out from the audience as people of all shapes and sizes politely clapped. Nobody
seemed to have noticed the ordeal I’d just gone through, and I began to wonder if I’d imagined it all.
Then I realized that at some point I’d sat down in the chair I’d stolen from System’s waiting room.

Speaking in a quieter voice, System addressed the woman at his side. “I leave him in your hands.” He
glanced in my direction, “Be careful with this one, he has a devilish mind.”

Then the elderly man turned on his heel and walked back the way he’d come in, drawing the large
stone doors closed behind him as he made his exit.

I examined the woman as she turned to face me. I had already made the connection that this must be
Valera, the goddess who spoke to me in the intro cutscene. Either that, or this game had a lower
budget for voice actors than I’d be willing to countenance.

System was obviously some sort of personification of the game’s AI controller, but neither he nor
Valera seemed particularly godlike, unlike many of the figures I could see in the amphitheater's
stands.

Valera was taller than most women, but that was the only thing that set her apart. Her hair was a
plain shade of brown, and she had it tied up neatly into a short ponytail. Her clothes consisted of
well-made fabric and leather. They looked almost like medieval biker gear. Her shoes were straight
up modern hiking boots, they even had a brand logo on the tongue.

Valera noticed me giving her the once over but didn’t comment on it beyond briefly quirking a smile
at my obvious confusion.

“I know you have many questions, petitioner. However, there are rules to this process which I must
follow. I am the goddess of journeys, and it is my role to guide you through this process, but I may
not influence your choices by word nor deed. Do you understand?”

“I, uh… I think so,” I said. “You’re here to help me with character creation.”

Valera nodded. “Now listen closely, these are the things which you may know, and which I am bound
to tell you.”

Valera assumed a formal pose, and her eyes took on the far away look of someone reciting from
memory.

“Petitioner, this is the Assembly of the Gods. You may select from amongst the members of the
assembly one and only one to be your patron. However, for a member to become your patron they in
turn must select you, and not all will be easy to convince. You may be required to demonstrate your
worthiness to them or show an affinity for their domains.

“Despite the name, not all gathered here are gods, some are what you would think of as forces, or
natural powers. Many of these lack all but a rudimentary intellect, yet you may petition them if you
wish, and they may accept you and grant you a portion of their power.

“The assembly is ranked in order of investiture. Those closest to the bottom are the most invested in
this world, they have spent much of their power and attention in the making and care of this place
and its peoples. They have the most to gain and the most to lose.

“Those higher up have each invested some portion of their power or nature into this world but are
not as personally linked to it. Those lower down may be able to provide you with more power, but
that power often comes at a cost. Those more invested in this world are more likely to be in conflict
with each other, and you will inherit their alliances, enmities, and obligations as one of their
followers.

“Go now and seek a patron from among the assembly. Return to me when you have made your
decision.” Valera gave me a small nod, then took a few steps back, taking up station at the center of
the stage.

That was about what I’d been expecting. I was familiar with this sort of mechanic, picking a god to
worship would doubtlessly grant me some bonuses and penalties specific to that deity. There would
probably also be an atheist or antitheist option as well, with equivalent tradeoffs.

I directed my attention to the stands. I could see stairs that were small enough for a human running
up the middle and sides of the amphitheater. Seated on every level were various beings of all shapes
and sizes–some looked mostly human while others were unrecognizable as even vaguely humanoid.

Incongruously, many of them seemed to have brought their own seating along with them and had
propped up thrones on the stands like some people would bring padded seats to the bleachers at
sporting events. I felt a little less awkward about having brought a chair of my own now.

I turned back to look at Valera, she was obviously supposed to be my guide through character
creation, but apparently she couldn’t give me advice on who to choose. I wondered what she could
tell me then.

“What if I want to change my choice once I see what classes are available? Do I have to pick a patron
first?” I asked.

Valera hesitated. “Technically you do not need to select a patron first, however many patrons grant
access to unique species and classes that are not otherwise available. Each of the available patrons
can tell you what they grant access to if you ask. However, once you pick a patron the choice is final.”

I nodded, that made sense then. It seemed that I’d need to conduct some interviews.

I thanked the goddess for her help and started making my way over to the far end of the first row of
seats. I figured I’d work my way around the first row, then take the stairs up and question anyone
that looked interesting. There were a staggering number of deities in the stands, so I wasn’t going to
interview all of them, but I did want to talk to the bottom row at least.

The first god I approached was the one that resembled a devil. I was curious what this guy’s deal was.
His mannerisms and attire were so incongruous to the rest of his appearance that I needed to know
more about him. Plus, he’d broken the 4th wall a bit earlier, and seemed to be aware of things I
wouldn’t expect an NPC to acknowledge.
The devil stood and offered me a hand as I approached, “Infinity, it is a pleasure to meet you. I am
known as The Adversary.”

His name was more like a title, and when he said it I felt a hint of depth to it, similar to what I’d
experienced when System announced me, but instead of vast size I got the impression of age. I knew
instinctively that it was an old name, ancient beyond my ability to understand.

The feeling faded quickly however, and I tentatively took The Adversary’s hand and shook it. The
devil’s grip was firm and completely encompassed my much smaller hand, but it was otherwise a
perfectly normal handshake.

After we shook, he sat back down, placing himself closer to eye level with me. He then took out a
small ringed notebook and retrieved a pencil from where it was tucked behind his ear before jotting
something down at the top of a page.

He looked back up at me and said, “Well done breaking System so quickly. I knew it wouldn’t be long
before something like this happened, but I must admit I hadn’t been expecting anything of the sort
quite so soon into the launch. If you are up to it, I think you’d make an excellent addition to my
team.”

I was a bit taken aback by the blatant recruitment offer and immersion breaking references. “Uh,
thanks... Hold on, are you aware that this is a game? It sounds like you are congratulating me for
finding a bug.”

The Adversary nodded. “Indeed, I help develop it after all. It’s one of my jobs to encourage others to
find bugs and exploits so that they can be fixed. In a larger sense, I and my followers apply pressure
to systems to the point of breaking, so that we can discover the hidden weak points and get them
taken care of. New worlds like this one are very exciting to work with, and I’m sure there will be
many opportunities for advancement if you decide to join my organization.”

My eyes widened at this, “Oh shit, you’re an in-game bug bounty program! That’s genius. You’ll get
people to sign up with you and get rewards for finding exploits instead of being punished for it.”

The devil gave me a pointy-toothed grin as he nodded. “Indeed, though the bug bounty program as
you called it is only one aspect of my work, and it isn’t reserved to just my followers–after all we want
to encourage anyone who finds such a thing to report it, even if they don’t work for me directly.
When you enter the world, you’ll find one such token of my appreciation in your possession, even if
you choose not to become my follower–though the benefits you receive from it will be greater if you
do.”

I was becoming almost giddy with the possibilities here. Normally with a game like this using an
exploit would be cause to suspend or even ban your account. Apparently, the developers of this game
had taken a hint from their fellows in the security and banking industries and instead offered to pay
people who found and reported them.

I liked the touch of having there be an in-game explanation for it. It was a small thing, but little
details like that really added to the flavor of the setting.

“That’s awesome,” I told him. “Do you have any restricted character options you grant access to?”

“I do indeed! As one of the prime deities of this world I offer both a unique class and species, as well
as several skills that are available only to my followers or those that participate in the bug bounty
program.”
The Adversary was now in full sales pitch mode, gesturing animatedly with his pencil. “We’re not
allowed to go into details about the mechanics, but I can tell you that my unique class is the
Demonologist and my unique species is called Devilkin - it’s thematically similar to what you might
call a half-devil.”

“So, is there a difference between demons and devils in this game? What’s a Demonologist do?” I
inquired.

The Adversary let out a low, evil sounding chuckle. “Oh, there are differences, but probably not the
sort you are thinking of. If you’d like to know more though, you’ll have to find out for yourself, and
the fastest way to do that is to join my organization.”

He paused then gave me a knowing smile. “Daemon is spelled with an ‘a’ by the way.”

“Like a background process?” I asked. Daemon was a computer term coined at MIT in the 1960’s
referring to an automated long-running background process. It was pronounced the same as demon
and was based on an archaic spelling of that word.

The Adversary nodded. “Yes, it’s spelled exactly like that,” he said, giving me a significant look as he
did so.

I wasn’t quite sure what he was getting at. Was he trying to hint something to me about how his class
worked? I filed it away for the moment.

“What else do you do besides the bug bounties? Valera mentioned something about obligations
associated with the prime deities.”

“Ah, yes. Well, as I said my job is to apply pressure to the systems of the world - and not just ‘the
System’ we all know and love. That means my followers are tasked with creating scenarios that cause
stress on the workings of both nature and society. For example, one of my domains is that of Law,
and one of my primary contributions to this world is the laws that govern its reality. Yet laws must
constantly be tested and refined, and so many of my followers are lawyers and governors.”

I considered this carefully. “Not to downplay the importance of your work, but I don’t really see
myself playing this game to be a lawyer. What kind of stuff might I be doing as an adventurer if you
were my patron?”

The devil replied with a genial smile, once again warming up to the sales pitch. “Of course! For the
more adventurous sorts we have plenty of activities to keep you interested. I can’t go into details, but
I take a very personal role in overseeing the day-to-day work of my church. You can expect to get
quests directly from me on a regular basis, both solo and group work will be available. As I detect
potential weaknesses in the structure of the world, I’ll send you to investigate the issue and apply
pressure as needed so we can see the extent of the problem and provide an incentive for those
responsible to fix the issues.”

The Adversary leaned back, adopting a more relaxed posture as he continued. “For some, it’s just a
job like any other–something to pay the bills and put food on the table. For others the work is its own
reward. In either case I offer excellent rewards for good service, and there will be numerous
opportunities for advancement. I’m particularly fond of innovative, self-driven individuals as well,
and I allow my people remarkable latitude in the field–if you feel an unconventional solution to a
problem is appropriate, I’ll trust your judgment. Fools don’t last long in my service, but the merely
competent can go far, and geniuses thrive.”
This guy was almost too much. Everything he was saying was right up my alley, almost tailor made to
appeal to my personality. Yet, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was talking to a very smooth used car
salesman about to earn his quarterly bonus.

I felt like I was racially profiling the guy just for looking like a devil, even though he seemed perfectly
reasonable and friendly. Even his name was a reference to, or possibly alias of, the biblical devil–the
original big bad evil guy. Why had the developers of this game set up their in-game bug bounty
program to be run by the literal devil?

Looking to buy time to think, I threw out another question to keep him talking.

“You mentioned one of your domains is Law. How many domains do you have and what are the
others?”

For the first time The Adversary hesitated in replying, and my attention snapped back to him as the
silence stretched.

“I have three primary domains... We’re each allowed only the three in which we are supreme in this
world, though most of us have some secondary aspects which we share with others.”

He didn’t appear to want to continue, and for the first time his face no longer held a welcoming
expression. Instead, he looked as though he’d bitten into something sour and was trying to avoid
making a face over it.

“And your domains are?” I prompted.

The Adversary sighed. “This is always a difficult topic. It’s easier to explain after you see my work in
action… but I can see you won’t be satisfied with that answer. Very well, my other two domains are
Evil and Lies.”

I burst out laughing. “You’re literally just Satan aren’t you?” I looked around at all the other figures
in the stands with new eyes, looking for familiar faces. “Did the devs just lift mythological figures
from a bunch of different real religions and use them to fill out their pantheon?”

“Infinity, please. I’m much older than Satan, he’s one of my best employees actually–though a little
too good at his job if I’m being honest. I know the whole ‘Father of Lies’ and ‘Dark Lord of Evil’
tropes follow me around, but the reality is much less interesting,” he said.

“It’s my job to break things, and in doing so I make them stronger. I’ve had a hand in the creation
and management of every successful world, and I’ve been perfecting my techniques for longer than
you can imagine. Each new world is a new opportunity to try a new system, and someday my work
will result in finding the perfect system–not a utopia, but a system that will encourage people to
grow, to become more than what they started as, and to suffer just enough that they can appreciate
its absence.”

The devil now spoke with passion, “Yes, many of my followers are evil, but not all. Being evil makes
the job easier–if I must send someone to raze a city both they and I would prefer I send someone that
isn’t going to have nightmares about it later. Likewise, lies are a necessary part of the job, an ability
to discern the truth–one which you just demonstrated by the way–is one of the traits I wish to
encourage in people.”

“False information is one of the greatest weaknesses of all systems, and tools like critical thinking
and empirical reasoning must be both encouraged and refined within a population, or they are
doomed to fail. Garbage in, garbage out is not just a term that applies to computing, it’s true of any
system including systems of thought and reasoning. I wield lies as both a weapon and a tool to teach
people the costs of lazy thinking.”

I sat back and listened to this speech with interest, but I could see where this was going now. Looking
at it from a game design perspective, this guy was here to co-opt a portion of the player base to the
side of the bad guys. There was probably a soft faction system in place, with some of the “gods” being
allies with each other against the others. It might even be a three or four way split.

The bug bounty thing was probably on the level though, that was too unique, and The Adversary had
made it clear that it was open to everyone, not just his followers.

I found myself nodding along as the devil spoke, but I realized I’d mostly lost interest in this guy as a
patron. I didn’t feel like playing on team evil in this game, not with my first character at least.

I had to hand it to the AI running this guy for really nailing the “I’m not evil I’m just misunderstood”
angle. I’d really been hooked by that first part, and if the devil hadn’t come off a little too good to be
true, I could easily see myself signing a proverbial infernal contract.

I held up my hand and The Adversary paused, raising an eyebrow at the interruption. “I think I
understand where you are coming from, and honestly it doesn’t sound like a bad deal. That said, I
want to talk to the other gods and hear their pitches. I’m not going to be able to decide based on
talking to just you.”

“Fair enough,” The Adversary grumbled. “Let me give you some advice though. If you choose to
ascend, you’ll find that those above tend to fall into two categories–those who lack power in this
world, and those who lack a mind to wield it. The higher you go, the truer this will be, and if you go
high enough, you’ll encounter some truly esoteric beings who represent high concepts like Hawking
Radiation or the third law of thermodynamics. Such beings can be interesting patrons but tend to be
one dimensional in their gifts. No, if you want true power the place to find it is down here on the
stage floor.”

To emphasize his words, the god stomped a cloven hoof on the ground, letting out a thud and small
shockwave of air. The sound echoed through the amphitheater, but to my surprise none of the other
figures turned to look towards us, nor did they have any other visible reaction to the noise.

Now that I was paying attention, I realized none of the other gods seemed to be moving unless they
had passive visual effects going. It made me wonder if the AI running these NPCs was only actively
running the ones I was interacting with directly. This area was probably instanced, else I’d have seen
other players join and be announced by now, so it made sense that the AI would conserve resources if
it was running thousands of versions of this room.

“Thanks for the advice, I’ll keep it in mind,” I told The Adversary as I turned away.

The next god was a skeletal figure in a flowing red robe seated on an onyx throne, with what looked
like gold coins piled at its base. As I approached the god seemed to animate, turning to point its
empty socketed eyes in my direction.

I suddenly came to a halt, realizing my mistake. I made a “wait one minute” gesture to the skeletal
god and hurried back over to The Adversary.

“Hey, sorry to bug you but I just realized there are a lot of gods here and I’m going to have trouble
keeping track of everything. Do you have an extra notepad and pencil I could borrow?”

The Adversary blinked in surprise at this, before pulling his pencil out from behind his ear and
jotting down a note in his own notepad.
“What a perfectly reasonable request,” He rumbled. “I’ll get it patched in. In the meantime, I think I
have an extra… One moment.”

I watched as the devil checked the pockets of his suit, eventually pulling out a second notebook from
a back pocket, and the worn-down nub of a used pencil from his shirt pocket. He handed both to me.

In my hands, the notepad was more like a notebook, and the pencil looked like one of those comically
large children’s pencils, but it would have to do.

Thanking the god once again, I hurried back to the skeletal god, who was now tapping his finger
bones on his throne impatiently.

Chapter 3: Revelations
Name: Seraphim
Domain(s): Purity, Fire
Species: Wyrmborn (Draconic?)
Class(es): Purifier (Healing/Fire mix)
Boon(s): Unclear - possibly condition resistance?
Faction: Astraea
Notes: Burning snake with lots of wings. If this were a text-based game this guy would type in all
caps. Makes a big deal about healing, but I’m getting definite “Burn the unclean” vibes.

I pinched the bridge of my nose as I walked away from the imposing figure. I'd finished interviewing
the second tier of gods and it was time to head up to the third tier, which was just beneath the start of
the cloud layer.

Each successive tier had more gods in it, and I had already decided I wasn’t going to interview them
all. I’d already been at this for what felt like an hour, and I was itching to get on with the character
creation process. There were so many interesting possibilities already.

I decided to take a minute before going up and narrow down my list a bit. Having completed the
second tier, I could see a pattern emerging. The second-tier gods largely aligned themselves with the
prime deities, and tended to be seated above the gods they were subservient to.

Right now, I was in Astraea’s section of the seating, and the gods here all reported to her. As much as
I wasn’t a fan of some of her vassal gods, Astraea herself seemed like a decent sort. I flipped to her
entry in the notebook and read it over.

Name: Astraea
Domain(s): Justice, Purity, Innocence
Species(s): Starborn
Class(es): Arbiter (some kind of holy judge/investigator)
Boon(s): Virtue skill chain
Notes: I recognize her name from Greek mythology, though I can’t recall the details. For a goddess
of justice, she seems very low key, almost shy. She got more animated when talking about her
arbiters, which seem to be a sort of police force? Seems very genuine and idealistic.

Astraea was one of several deities that appeared to be borrowing from mythologies I was familiar
with from real life, though only two of the gods in the first tier were directly lifted from earth
religions–not counting The Adversary who was clearly inspired by the Christian devil even if they
weren’t supposed to be the same entity.
The other one was Odin, and when I had questioned him, he’d confirmed himself to be the same
being from Norse mythology, telling me that he “was far older than this world or the last, and will
outlast both.”

The second tier had more borrowed mythological figures, though many weren’t originally what I
would have classified as a god–more like famous spirits. Seraphim in its original mythology was a
type of angel, not a single creature, though from what I could remember the depiction was pretty
accurate to the source material.

Odin had brought along some of the Aesir, though not all the ones I could recall. Some of the more
famous ones like Loki and Thor were missing while less known ones like Heimdall were present. I
was also pretty sure that Odin’s two ravens, Huginn and Muninn, were in the next tier up unless
there were other giant raven pseudo-deities that I wasn’t aware of.

Turning my attention back to Astraea and her subordinates, I decided I wasn’t interested in pursuing
any member of her faction as a patron. I liked Astraea herself, but I had no interest in being part of
an inquisition. Her followers seemed split between way too self-righteous and way too naive, and it
seemed like a recipe for frustration. Her domains just weren’t very interesting to me either - I didn’t
want to play a healer and it seemed like there were better choices for other types of magic.

I flipped back several pages in my notebook, looking over the earlier entries. Some of these were
pretty interesting.

Name: Reign (“The Last King”, “God of Mercenaries”)

Domain(s): Blood, Gold, Death
Species: Undying (Vampire?)
Class(es): Death Knight, Guild Assassin
Boon(s): “Blood For Gold” skill (implied resurrection for money?), “Measure of a Man” skill (some
sort of power up?)
Notes: This guy is clearly insane, apparently his religion involves his followers trying to become
powerful enough that they can fight him, and if they kill him they take up his mantle of godhood
and continue the cycle.

That had been an interesting conversation, the skeletal god had basically ranted at me for several
minutes, barely allowing questions.

He was the god of hired killers. His retinue of lesser gods had also been a bunch of crazy people for
the most part, psychos and undead monsters, with a few practical seeming soldier types and a god of
merchants providing an island of sanity amid the chaos.

I moved Reign’s faction to the end of the list; I’d rather be a healer than work for most of those guys.
I hadn’t changed my mind about not playing on team evil with this character, and I figured there was
a reason these guys were seated over next to The Adversary.

Speaking of that deity, I’d spoken to his subordinates as well and they were an odd lot. The god of
evil had demigods of math and logic working for him, right alongside obviously demonic
monstrosities with domains like “Carnage” and “Torture”–and to a one they all claimed he was a
great boss that really cared about his followers.

I just shook my head; I couldn’t get a handle on this one. He was either scarily competent evil, or
legitimately believed in what he was doing. I decided I couldn’t completely discount The Adversary’s
subordinate gods even if I wouldn’t work for him directly. His faction was simply too varied.

Next up was one of the weirder gods I’d talked to… If I could be said to have spoken to him at all.
 Name: Limitless
Domain(s): Sky, Sea & Space, Freedom, Chaos
Species: Unknown
Class(es): Unknown
Boon(s): “Unrestrained” skill (Active skill that frees you from all restraints), “Limit Breaker” skill
(Removes point limits on skills)
Notes: This god is an empty stylized throne, decorated with scenes of sea, sky, and space from top
to bottom. Apparently, those are all a single domain in this case? I got the impression that those
words are shortcuts to explain a concept of vastness containing multitudes.

Limitless had never actually spoken to me, instead when I had approached the empty throne a
confused looking young man in priestly garments had suddenly appeared next to it in a flash of light.
After catching his bearings, he claimed to be a priest of “The Great God Limitless” and did his best to
answer my questions about his god.

The problem was that the priest didn’t seem to understand a lot of the questions I was asking. He
hadn’t been able to answer if Limitless had any species or class options, but he had understood when
I asked about boons, and unlike every other god I had questioned the priest was able to tell me
exactly what his skills did.

Apparently, some skills scaled in power based on how many “progression points” you invested in
them, and many of these had caps on how high they could scale. One of Limitless’ skills allowed you
to spend as many points as you wanted, ignoring all caps, though apparently it cost an ever-
increasing number of points to do so.

I understood that this basically changed the caps from hard caps to soft caps, but the priest seemed
to consider that almost sacrilege when I’d mentioned it.

Limitless’ other skill allowed you to remove any restraints on you, and this was apparently loosely
defined. The priest had used it upon feeling his answers to my questions being blocked, and it had
literally freed his tongue.

The priest had been a font of information, but he’d been unwilling to discuss anything not related to
his god. I had pried as much information out of him as I could, hoping that it would give me an
advantage.

In the end Limitless was one of my favorite gods so far, though I found it strange that unlike every
other god here he couldn’t be bothered to be physically present or speak directly with prospective
followers.

Thinking about Limitless, I suddenly realized that I was sitting on a second exploit. I berated myself
for not realizing it earlier, and started making my way down the stairs and over to where The
Adversary was seated.

I had to hope that nobody else had reported it already. If I could get out of character creation with
two bug reports under my belt, I’d almost certainly be in a great position to get a head start on the
level grind.

The god animated as I approached, smiling congenially and nodding in recognition. “Infinity, good to
see you again–have you reconsidered my offer?”

“No, but I think I have a second exploit to report,” I responded.

The Adversary guffawed, pulling out his notepad once again. “Another so soon? I can’t wait to hear
it.”
“You know Limitless? When I went to talk with him, he just summoned a priest to talk to me instead.
The priest was able to use his Unrestrained skill to speak freely to me. He told me about skills and
what his boons were–things like that.”

The Adversary sighed, jotting down a note. “Of course he did, I swear that deity exists just to annoy
me. All power and no brains.”

“I’ve added this one to your tally as well, but while you are here tell me, what do you think of my
coworkers?” he asked.

“To be honest, Limitless is at the top of my list right now. Those skills of his sound pretty wild. Some
of these guys are completely insane, including your neighbor there, and I get weird vibes from that
nature goddess too–Nystral I think her name was?” I told him.

“Understandable, those who seek power above all can certainly find it in Limitless’ service, but I hope
you will keep looking. For one as clever as you, Limitless is like wielding a cudgel to perform surgery.
There are others here with nearly as much power but of a more subtle nature that I think you’ll find
more to your liking.”

I grinned at the god, “Don’t worry, I’m still looking. Though I assume that you are referring to
yourself.”

The Adversary simply winked at me even as he settled back into his idle state. I couldn’t help but like
the cheeky devil god, despite his manipulative behavior.

I wandered over to sit down on the lip of the stage and continue reviewing my prospects, flipping to
the first page where I’d written my notes about the god of lies.

Valera was still standing in the middle of the stage and had apparently become active at my
approach. She looked down at me and asked, “Hello Infinity, have you decided on a patron?”

In my mind, several facts suddenly clicked into place with nearly audible thunks, and I spun to look
at The Adversary. I found the god looking directly at me, still quite animated, his grin both knowing
and pleased.

I quickly replayed the conversations I’d had with him, seeing the subtle hints and inferences clearly
for the first time. My mind reeled at the implications of what I’d just realized and all the questions it
led to.

I turned back to Valera, and finally responded to her question. “I suspect I have, but before I confirm
my decision, could you please tell me what species, classes, and boons you offer to your followers?”

Several things happened at once. The goddess, stationed at the center of the Assembly of the Gods,
on the ground floor below even the first tier of prime deities, smiled warmly at me and opened her
mouth as if to speak.

At the same time, behind me rose a cacophony of sound as nearly every god on the first three tiers
cried out in protest. Their words rendered incoherent by the volume of their discontent.

I watched in fascination as the previously still audience shouted, raised clenched fists, and generally
made their anger known–all without ever leaving their positions in the stands. The noise was enough
that the doors to System’s chamber reopened, and the elderly man walked back out to stand next to
Valera, a questioning look on his face.

“Infinity asked me what benefits I provide my followers.” The goddess explained.

The old man’s eyebrows shot up. “Did you…?” He trailed off. “No, of course not.”

Taking a few steps forward, System once again spoke in his huge voice that seemed to come from
everywhere.

“Peace! I shall settle this dispute. Please remain in your seats and refrain from shouting. I shall
acknowledge those who wish to speak.”

The crowd began to settle down, but one figure in the front row remained standing. As silence
returned, System nodded in the direction of the red robed skeleton. “Lord Reign, you may speak.”

The skeletal god stood upon the pile of gold surrounding his throne, made even taller for it. For the
first time I noticed that the flowing red robe never seemed to really end–instead it split into
innumerable strands that seemed to find their way into and under the piled gold, like rivulets of
blood draining away out of sight.

His voice was hollow and shrill, about as pleasant to listen to as fingers on a chalkboard.
Unfortunately, as I had discovered earlier, he seemed to like to hear himself talk.

“We are not to be taken for fools, Valera! Do you really expect us to believe this is some mortal
whimsy? Do you expect us to accept that one of the very first supplicants to come before us would
choose you? That he would cause System to be compromised? We all know how you chafe at your
bonds, but this is the price you paid. To so blatantly circumvent it puts all in peril!”

For her part, Valera remained calm. “I have done no such thing, Reign. He asked me that question
unprompted. I have made no effort to circumvent our agreement, and I ask System to review the holy
logs and confirm it.”

System started to respond but Reign cut him off. “We all saw you speak to the boy when System was
incapacitated. The logs cannot be trusted in this instance.”

At this point The Adversary unhurriedly raised his hand and waited for System to acknowledge him.
When the old man nodded in his direction, the devil rose and addressed the assembly.

“If you’ll recall I was also present while System was frozen, and I can attest that Lady Valera did not
address this young man at all. The only words she spoke were to me, and only to comment that he’d
likely be joining my followers–a fact I quite agreed with.”

From across the hall the strange shifting god that I thought was called Althi called out, “Surely you
know that we cannot take your word for such things.”

“Perhaps not, but there was yet another witness to this act–before you jump to conclusions perhaps
you should ask Infinity what happened,” The Adversary responded.

I suddenly felt the weight of many eyes pressing down on me. System turned to look down at me,
then motioned for me to approach. “Come on up here lad and tell us, did Valera say anything to you
or in your presence while I was… occupied…?”

I climbed up on the stage, using it to buy a moment to think. I wasn’t sure if The Adversary would get
in trouble if mentioned that it was his words, not Valera's, that had cued me in to the choice hidden
in plain sight, so I tempered my words the same way he had and simply omitted the information
while speaking the truth.

“No, he told the truth, she only said that one thing and she wasn’t even talking to me. For what it’s
worth nothing she said cued me in that she was an option for being a divine patron either. The
opposite, really. She made it sound like I had to choose one of you.”
This caused a murmur in the audience, and System once again held up his hands for silence.

“Given this testimony I am inclined to believe Lady Valera, however I shall review the logs and
ensure that none have violated the precepts of the assembly.”

Reluctantly, the skeletal god Reign slumped back onto his throne, his hollow eye sockets still pointed
at me, his glare seeming to bore through me. System had pulled a large rolled up scroll out of
nowhere and appeared to be reading it, his eyes flickering back and forth rapidly. I found myself
hoping that this gamble with Valera paid off as very few of the gods in the assembly seemed pleased
with me.

After a moment, System looked up from his scroll and it vanished as quickly as it had appeared.

“Here are my findings. Lady Valera did not violate the precepts. In fact, the only one who has done so
is Lord Limitless, though not intentionally. I see that the exploit that allowed this breach was already
reported by our friend Infinity here, and that a fix has been implemented by The Lord Adversary’s
daemons. Some of you I see are doing your best to skirt the rules, but no others are in violation of
them yet.”

I was pretty sure System had been looking right at The Adversary when he said that last bit, but the
devil seemed completely unconcerned. The way System had said it made it sound like Limitless had
been responsible for the leaked information, and the god didn’t seem to be present to deny it or
didn’t care to. I wasn’t sure if this was intentional on System’s part, but I wasn’t about to correct the
assumption.

This seemed to satisfy the majority of the deities, and I could see them returning to their semi-
present idle states one after the other. Some of the other prime deities still appeared discontented,
and Reign let loose one last barb at Valera before returning to stasis. His tone dripped with sarcasm.

“Congratulations are in order then I suppose, enjoy your victory while it lasts.”

Soon enough the only active figures in the amphitheater were System, Valera and me. System sighed
and turned to Valera. “I’ll stay and observe directly if you don’t mind. Best to head off any further
accusations before they have a chance to begin.”

“Of course. I welcome your company as always,” the goddess replied, turning to look at me once
more.

I spoke first, but not to Valera. Instead, I asked the question that had been burning in the back of my
mind the past few minutes, ever since System had reappeared on the stage.

“What about you, can you be a patron? What do you offer your followers?”

Both System and Valera let out surprised laughs at this audacity, but my hopes were crushed a
moment later.

“I’m afraid I’m not a god,” said System. “My powers are granted by the full assembly, but I am not
among their number. It’s my role to enact the will of the assembly impartially and without
reservation, but I have no say in what that entails.”

Valera finally answered the question that had caused all this fuss, but not in the way I was expecting.

“You have correctly devised that I can serve as a divine patron–a fact that I cannot divulge
unprompted. Unfortunately, even if asked I cannot reveal any details about what my patronage
entails, only that it is allowed. The choice to become my follower must be made blind, and only when
finalized will I be able to say more.”
“Why all these restrictions on you? I think I’ve figured out that you’re somehow in your own tier here
on the stage, and the closer to the stage floor the more powerful you are supposed to be. Why is the
most powerful god here also the most restricted?”

Valera pinched her lips and said nothing, but System replied, “She can’t answer those questions
unless you become her follower. Nor is it my place to do so. None here could speak of it even if they
wished to, for we are all equally bound to obey the precepts. Once you leave this place, that
information will be available to you no matter which god you choose as a patron.”

I let out a frustrated sigh, but I already knew that I couldn't pass this up. The Adversary had, for
some unknown reason, dropped exactly enough hints to reveal a hidden option, knowing that I
wouldn’t be able to resist taking it.

I suspected that there were other hidden options here as well–the clouds covering everything above
the third tier had to be there for a reason. The question was why? What did The Adversary gain by
sending Valera a follower? I had to know, and I wasn’t going to find out here.

“Alright, yes, I’d like to be your follower Valera, if you’ll have me.”

The goddess’ smile became positively radiant.

Chapter 4: Choices
“Welcome Infinity, I am so glad to have you. Allow me to properly introduce myself. I am Valera,
goddess of Journeys, Trials, and Change. I’m sometimes called “The Worldwalker,” or “Lady of the
Endless Road” - and it is my way to encourage my followers to take many types of journeys, both
those of foot and those of self discovery.”

“While I’m not considered to be the most powerful of the gods, my influence over this world is
considered to be disproportionately high because not only am I the one able to bring people here
from your world, but I am also responsible for the system of progression used by all inhabitants of
this world to learn and grow stronger.”

As she spoke, the world about us had begun to change. System had quietly withdrawn, nodding at me
as he’d closed the doors to his chamber behind him. As soon as they shut, the doors themselves faded
away and I belatedly realized he’d taken his chair back with him this time. Shortly after, the walls
and seating of the amphitheater along with the seated gods all faded away until Valera and I stood on
a circular platform apparently suspended in the sky, with clouds in every direction stretching into the
horizon.

“So, you’re the god of leveling up?” I asked, getting excited at the implications.

“You could say that, but that’s only a part of it. Concepts like evolution, progress, and even aging all
fall within my sphere of influence.”

I filed that away to process later, but I could already tell I’d made the right decision. “Now that you’re
my patron, can you answer the question I asked earlier? What special species, classes and boons do
you have?”

Valera smirked at me, “I can, but maybe I should just show you instead.”

With a wave of her arm, the cloudy expanse around us began to slowly swirl around the floating
platform. It picked up speed rapidly, and soon it seemed like we were standing in the eye of an
unusually calm tornado. Despite the movement of the air and swirling clouds, it was oddly peaceful,
the rush of air somehow seeming muted or far away despite its proximity.

“This is the Forge of Souls,” the goddess told me. “Here you will choose the form you will take in this
world, and the path you will walk. Others have spoken to you of classes and species, but this is a
convenient simplification of the truth. In this world we do have various intelligent species, yes - but
what you call a class is just a path to advancement that has already been discovered. There is nothing
wrong with walking a well-trodden path, it will often get you where you want to go faster than trying
to cut a new trail for yourself. However, without those trailblazers we’d never discover new
destinations.”

As I watched, wisps of cloudstuff seemed to siphon off of the swirling walls of wind around us,
congealing in the center of the platform right before where Valera and I stood. As they moved the
moisture in the air created a literal rainbow of colors that flickered in and out of existence as a misty
image of myself took shape before us.

“This is you as you are now, but it is not who you will one day be, nor does it need to be where you
start from in this world.” With another gesture from Valera, more cloud images began to appear on
the platform, some of them resembled me but were obviously not human, others looked nothing like
me at all. “There are many sapient species in this world, but I hold none of them in higher esteem
than the others. I am not associated with any one species, but instead one of my boons allows you to
choose not to choose.”

“If you wish it, your soul will remain in the vessel I used to transport it to this world. Your truest
form will be a small gemstone that houses your mind and spirit. However, you will still possess an
organic body to control. You will not be able to select your initial form, but unlike all other options,
you will be able to acquire other physical forms over time. Initially you will be very limited, but with
time and effort you could have unparalleled control over your physical form if that is what you
desire.”

“So I don’t get to pick my character’s species and appearance, but in return I get to be a shapeshifter
or something?” I asked.

“In a way, yes, but it goes deeper than that. You have many choices before you, and those choices will
determine what options you have. Should you wish it, you could acquire many forms from among the
species living on Astra, or you might use my gifts to create something entirely new to this world. The
possibilities are endless, but I will warn you that the road is longer than you can imagine, even if the
journey itself is rewarding on its own.”

My mind was already racing with the possibilities. What she was describing sounded absolutely wild
- no wonder it was a hidden option. I’d been looking forward to seeing what appearance and species
options this game had, but this sounded like being able to play the game without ever exiting
character creation mode. Sure I might have to spend time and effort getting new character options,
but I was more than willing to do that. My only worry was that my starting body would suck.

“If I take this option, do I get to know what I start out as?” I asked.

“No, unfortunately. I may not speak of how things are in the world before you enter it, and this
choice has in fact already been made when you first arrived here. Part of the process that brought you
to this world requires a sacrifice - it consumes a soul, which we deities agreed would be randomly
determined by fate itself. Your new body has been chosen at random from the population of this
entire world, and may not even be from one of the normally sentient species.”

She continued, “Your fellow travelers are going through something similar - the life force of the
creature they replaced along with their own soul crystal will be used to create their new body, and
any remaining power will be given to them in the form of a legacy skill based on the original body.
For example, a traveler lucky enough to have slain an ancient dragon simply by being born into this
world will start out much stronger than one who only took out a helpless goblin. The difference for
you is that the fundamental nature of this process remains available to you on an ongoing basis.”

That was interesting, so every player was essentially randomly offing one NPC for every character
created, and if you got lucky and killed something strong you basically kept a portion of its strength
for yourself. However I was going to get to keep the original NPC’s body instead, so if I was lucky
enough to have killed a dragon I was going to end up in the body of a dragon. Even if I didn’t get that
lucky it sounded like I might eventually be able to get a dragon’s body eventually anyway - though I
guessed I’d probably have to defeat one first. It was a weird mechanic but I liked it. It would make
everyone a little unique.

“I’m definitely taking this option.” I told Valera. “I can’t pass it up, the possibilities are just too cool.”

The goddess smiled and nodded, “I thought you would like it. I believe it suits your nature as well,
Infinity.” She then motioned to the cloudy figures, and as one they all blew apart rejoining the
swirling winds around them, all except the one that just showed me as I currently appeared,
complete with jeans and a T-shirt advertising a band that hadn’t existed in at least 5 years. Words
made of fire appeared in the air next to the figure, and I read them with great interest.

Valerian
Species (Tier 5, Special)
Prerequisites: Chosen of the Gods (Valera)
Species Skills: Dual Nature (Passive), Crystalline Memories (Passive), Soulspace (Passive), Look
Ma, No Hands… or Feet! (Penalty)
Species Attribute Adjustments: None
Growth Rating: 10 / 10

Not a true species, but a lack of one. The soul of a Valerian is housed in a gemstone embedded
somewhere on the body of another creature, which they control as though it were their own.
Valerians gain extra experience from advancing their host bodies.

I wondered what it meant that one of my species skills was a penalty, but I set that aside for now.
Since I’d already made up my mind on this one I wasn’t going to second guess it now anyway.

“Next you’ll choose your path, or class if you prefer. I do have a unique class to offer, and as you
might expect it’s a bit unusual. The way classes work is that they give you access to predefined skills
related to them, and these cost less to level up than skills outside your class. The skills you actually
take are called your ‘path’, and anyone can opt to not take a class or choose not to follow one they did
take. This is how new classes are discovered, by breaking the mold of old ones or inventing them
from whole cloth.”

“My unique class is called Trailblazer, and its purpose is making new paths easier to find. As a
Trailblazer you will receive skills that make it easier to level up and discover new skills. It is the
fastest way to create a new class from scratch, as it’s essentially a better version of the option
available to everyone of not selecting a class at all and making your own path.”

As she talked the misty reflection of me changed, its clothes shifting to resemble the comfortable
travel clothes Valera was wearing. New words formed in the air, replacing the description of my new
species.

Trailblazer
Class (Tier 5, Special)
Prerequisites: Chosen of the Gods (Valera)
 Class Skills: Innovator (Passive), Explorer (Passive), Identify (Active)
Class Attributes: All
Growth Rating: 10 / 10
Affinities: 5

The Trailblazer is a class that features progression like no other. While it lacks any active combat
skills, it has powerful unique passive skills. This class receives extra experience from making
discoveries of all sorts, with the greater discoveries resulting in greater rewards.

I took a closer look at the skills, wondering if I could see what they did. I concentrated on them for a
moment, and new words appeared alongside the others.

Innovator
Passive Skill (Tier 5)
Prerequisites: Trailblazer (Level 1)
Rank: 0 / 10
PP: 0 / 10

For each rank in this skill, you may ignore a single prerequisite on a skill you know but do not
qualify for. A prerequisite you ignore in this way is treated as satisfied. As long as you meet all other
prerequisites of that skill (if any) you may place progress points in that skill and rank it up as
though you qualified for it normally.

Explorer
Passive Skill (Tier 2)
Prerequisites: Trailblazer (Level 1)
Rank: 0 / 5
PP: 0 / 4

You have access to a mental map of every location you have ever visited, and possess a supernatural
awareness of your immediate surroundings that takes the form of a minimap showing the area
around you. For each rank in this skill, the distance covered by your minimap increases by 20%.

Identify
Active Skill (Tier 1)
Rank: 0 / 5
PP: 0 / 2
Activation Cost: Mana (Low)

Activation Type: Instant

Cooldown: N/A

Attempt to learn the properties of a target you can see or touch. The effectiveness of this ability is
determined by the tier of the object or effect you are trying to identify, or its level if it is a creature.
You can identify objects and effects of the same tier or lower as this skill’s current rank, and you can
identify creatures with a level less than or equal to your level plus twice the number of ranks in this
skill. Additionally, if you maintain uninterrupted physical contact with your target for 10 seconds
while using this skill it is automatically successful regardless of tier or level.

Note: Creatures this skill is used on will be made aware of your attempt to examine them.
I was surprised to learn that basic mapping functionality was apparently limited to this specific class.
I could barely imagine a modern game that didn’t have a map that revealed itself as you explored,
and I was willing to bet that a lot of players were going to get themselves very lost before realizing
there wasn’t a map. The minimap sounded useful as well, but it was going to depend somewhat on
what all it showed. Meanwhile Identify lacked a prerequisite, so I suspected it wasn’t a skill unique to
my class.

The real prize here seemed to be the Innovator skill, just looking at the skills I had access to, two
required a class that could only be obtained with the favor of a god. If I could ignore requirements
like that ten times, I could potentially pick up skills that were normally restricted to the followers of
other gods. That line of thinking nearly made me choke as I realized that I was already aware of a
skill unique to Limitless’ followers that allowed them to bypass the caps on ranks of any skill… These
two skills had phenomenal synergy that would never normally be available. I’d be able to bypass the
cap on Innovator and get even more skills without having the prerequisites.

“Just checking… Innovator lets me ignore ANY single prerequisite on a skill? No matter what it is?” I
asked, my voice dripping with barely controlled excitement.

“That’s right. It will allow you to discover new classes more easily, as many skills have at least one
prerequisite that can only be satisfied by a class or sometimes through a chain of other skills.
Innovator will allow you to create combinations that may not otherwise be possible without a lifetime
of work, and in doing so you may discover new classes that give easier access to those skills so that
others may follow in your footsteps.”

“I’m nearly certain I’m taking this class, but I do have a few other questions if you don’t mind?”

The goddess nodded, “I’ll answer what I can, but as I mentioned earlier I am still restricted in what I
can say, even if those restrictions are now relaxed. What are your questions?”

“Ok, first, you mentioned that this class will help me discover other classes. How does that help me?
If I swap to another class won’t I lose this one?”

“Those who discover a class receive a bonus for doing so. Unfortunately I can’t say what they will be,
but they are nearly always worth the effort. When you discover a class, you also gain the ability to
teach it to others even if you didn’t select it. The first person to take up a class also gets an extra
benefit, separate from the discovery bonus. If you both discover and take up the mantle of a class you
will receive both benefits, but if you instead teach it to an ally you can make them stronger as well.”

She continued. “Keep in mind that you’ll never lose access to skills when changing classes, and while
you can only level one class at a time you can alway swap back to one you’ve already unlocked unless
you no longer meet the prerequisites. You’ll also automatically receive one rank in each of the new
class’ starting skills, so in some ways it can be more like combining classes than changing them.
However, some skills may become cross-path when it comes to spending progress points, so they
may become harder to advance when leveling up the new class.”

That sounded great to me, suddenly forming a guild was high on my to-do list. Being able to dole out
classes to my officers would put my guild in very high demand.

“That’s awesome… Next question. What does growth rating mean? I saw it on both my class and
species description.”

“Growth rating is how much progress points your class or species gains per level. Both of your
growth ratings are 10, which means that whenever your class or species levels up you’ll get 10
progress points to spend on skills of your choice. Note that growth is frequently paired with an
inverse level of raw power, high growth classes and species tend to lack any inherent ability to use
force, and the opposite also tends to be true - low growth classes and species typically have ready
access to powerful offensive and defensive skills. Additionally penalty skills may be assigned to a
class or species to offset its growth or power potential. Tier also comes into play for these
calculations, but generally things of the same tier should be roughly equivalent in power.”

I nodded, following along. “That makes sense, you are more-or-less the goddess of growth, so all your
stuff is very high growth and very low direct power, but theoretically my new body might have access
to skills from a low growth species and I could spend my points on those to get some extra combat
effectiveness, or wait until I unlock some combat skills and then dump points into them.”

“Yes, though keep in mind that spending progress points on a skill that didn’t originate from the
same source the points are from will incur the cross-path penalty. That means they will essentially
cost double, as cross-path progress points are worth half as much, unless you’ve assigned them one
of your affinities.”

That put a damper on my mood a bit, as I realized that effectively all my points were going to end up
getting halved if they had anything at all to do with combat. “I see, but what do you mean about
assigning them affinities, what are affinities?”

“Affinities are a resource for customizing your path. Any skill you assign an affinity to counts as a
path skill for you, meaning that you can spend progress points on it from any source without
incurring a penalty. The number shown in your class description is your starting affinities, and you
need not use them immediately. Everyone also receives an additional affinity every 50 class levels.”

The number of possibilities were starting to become overwhelming, and I took a moment to jot down
a few notes in the notebook The Adversary had given me while all this was still fresh in my mind.
“You’re not the goddess of decision paralysis by any chance, are you?” I asked jokingly.

The Lady of the Endless Road laughed and shook her head. “No, and not to complicate your
calculations but there is one more thing you should know about how your new species works. You
see, unlike every other option available to Travelers, Valerians get to retain not only the skills and
statistics of their host bodies, but also that body's original class. You will essentially have two bodies,
and will need to decide where you wish to invest your progression. Both of your bodies will be able to
grow and evolve independently. It is not a simple path, but it can be highly rewarding.”

I whistled in appreciation at that. “I can definitely see why you’re a hidden option… That’s wild.
People are going to go nuts when they realize these options exist.” I shook my head, imagining the
outcry on the game’s forums when the news eventually leaked… They’d have to wait for someone else
to do it though, as I wasn’t planning on telling anyone for as long as possible. I wanted to grab as
many world firsts and achievements with this as possible.

“It feels weird to be leaving character creation without making an actual character, but I’m happy
with my choices.” I told her.

“Excellent, are you ready to enter the world then?”

“I think so, unless you have any advice for me?”

The goddess contemplated this for a moment, “Try not to die, it’d be annoying to have gotten my
hopes up over you only to have you die.”

Valera gestured once again, and the swirling air around the platform suddenly became much louder
and much faster. Bands of air wrapped around my body, and I felt myself lifted off the ground.

“Wait, is there permadeath in this game?” I thought to ask, yelling over the rushing air.
A motion above me caught my attention and I looked up just in time to see a spinning vortex of what
looked like solid fire as it slammed down onto me, encompassing me completely. I barely felt it as my
physical form melted away, experiencing the process almost like an outside observer. When I was
nothing but a formless presence floating in the air above what Valera had called the Forge of Souls, I
began to feel the fire enter into me, filling me until I thought I would burst from the pressure. My
mind ceased to be able to process what was happening to me, but even as I lost consciousness
Valera’s last words followed me into the darkness of my own mind.

“What game?”

Chapter 5: The Arbiter

Tristan d’Etrona, wiped soot from his eyes as he stumbled over to the wall of a nearby building and
allowed his legs to collapse under him. He slid to the ground, back pressed against the wall and took
in the devastation laid out before him. Across the street from where he now sat was the ruin of one of
Altria’s largest public buildings, the grand cathedral of Astraea itself, a building that had served as
both a house of worship and a courthouse. Now it was a half collapsed and flaming ruin.

Tristan had been inside the building when the disaster had begun. His charge had been a young man
on trial for petty theft. Tristan had verified the man’s guilt himself, but had accompanied him to his
trial to recommend a sentence of conscription. Justice demanded penance for his crime, but the boy
had been stealing to feed his sickly parents and younger sister. Some time serving in the legions
would have given the boy a steady income and training in a useful tradeskill.

All that didn’t matter now. His charge was dead, struck down by whatever force had destroyed the
cathedral. Tristan had been standing just a few meters away when it happened. The first to fall was
the bishop himself, sitting on his dias in judgment over the accused. The roof of the cathedral had
shattered, raining debris on all those gathered beneath it. Tristan had watched in stunned horror as a
streak of red light slammed into the bishop, sending him and his stone chair tumbling off the back of
the dias. Then in rapid succession two more streaks of red light slammed into the shocked
petitioners. One of those had struck Tristan’s charge, and the force of the blow had sent the boy
sprawling at Tristan’s feet.

The next several minutes were a blur to Tristan, but when he’d stopped moving long enough to
process what was happening, he had found himself kicking open a side exit to the cathedral, the body
of his charge draped over his shoulders in a fireman’s carry. Tristan had carried the boy out to the
street where priests of Astraea were gathering to treat the wounded. He’d left the boy with them,
though he knew it was meaningless. The boy’s head had been cracked open and he could see his
deformed and shattered skull under all the blood.

Tristan looked down at his shaking hands, willing them to steady. He had thought himself beyond
the point of succumbing to battle shock, but this attack, whatever it was, had come out of nowhere. It
had caught him off guard.

Closing his eyes, Tristan used a trick that had served him well for much of his life. He envisioned
himself as he was now, a man barely thirty, but with the weight of years laid upon him like a blanket.
His black hair had started going prematurely gray years ago, matching the color of his eyes. His
clothes were standard issue, a steel cuirass with the symbol of Astraea embossed upon it worn over a
padded gambeson. They were torn and burnt now, but earlier in the day they had been pristine.

Tristan took the shaky, beaten, and broken version of himself he saw in his mind’s eye and placed it
to one side. Then he painstakingly constructed a new version of himself to stand beside it. This new
Tristan was battered but unbroken, injured but in command, and most of all standing on his feet and
ready to act.

With an effort of sheer will Tristan stepped out of the image of himself as he was now, and became
the version of himself he had just constructed in his mind. As he did so, he forced himself back to his
feet, and when he took his first step forward he had become the man he needed to be.

“Arbiter!” A priest called out, catching sight of Tristan as he moved back towards the cathedral.

Tristan came to a halt and acknowledged the man. “Yes? What is it? I was about to begin searching
for more survivors in the building.”

“It’s the man you brought us, Arbiter.” The priest told him, seeming flustered. “Please, come with
me. You should see this.”

Tristan began to follow the frazzled priest as he made his way to the cathedral’s courtyard where the
injured were being treated. “I understand if his wounds were too great…” He trailed off as they drew
up on a small congregation of priests gathered around the body of Tristan’s charge.

“It’s not that,” The priest said. “The boy is still alive, by the grace of the goddess, but look here.” The
priests gathered around the boy stepped back to give Tristan room, and he knelt down to get a closer
look. The boy’s head had been cleaned of blood, and healing had been applied to his cracked skull,
however something was still wrong with his forehead. For a moment Tristan couldn’t parse what he
was looking at. “Is that a ruby?” He asked one of the priests.

“No, Arbiter. It is a red gemstone, yes, but I believe it to be a soul gem, not a ruby.” The priest knelt
down and pushed back the boy’s hair with one hand. Then put a finger on the gemstone embedded in
his forehead. After a moment it began to glow with the same red light Tristan had seen during the
destruction of the cathedral. The priest withdrew his hand and the glow quickly faded.

“Can you not remove it?” Tristan asked.

The priest shook his head. “Soul gems are highly magical, capable of storing enchantments of
incredible power. When we healed his young man the gem was not forced out from his body as it
should have been. Instead the wound sealed around it, incorporating the gem into his flesh.”

“What does that mean?” Tristan questioned the man. “I’ve seen healing remove shrapnel before.
Why not this? Is whatever enchantment it carries preventing healing?”

“I don’t fully know. Healing restores the body to the state the spirit believes it should be. That is why
healing cannot cure aging, nor will it heal a piercing or tattoo. The spirit does not believe these things
to be injuries, they are part of the spirit’s identity and so any healing done will only reinforce their
presence. In this case it seems as though this boy’s spirit has accepted this gemstone as part of its
mortal body, but I could not tell you if it is through magic or some natural response to the trauma he
has been through.”

Tristan considered this for a moment. “Can you wake him? I would ask him about what he is
experiencing.”

The priest shook his head again. “I’m afraid not. Whatever is happening to him seems to have placed
him in a state of suspended animation. If you hold your hand to his mouth and nose you’ll find that
he isn’t breathing. The only reason we know he is alive is because his spirit is still present and
attached to his body.”
Another priest stepped forward, and Tristan recognized him as an Inquisitor. “Arbiter, what my
colleague has not mentioned is that magic that affects the spirit is almost always the domain of
necromancy or the blackest sort of enchantment. Changes to a man’s spirit can change their entire
identity. It’s not quite as bad as soul magic, but since souls are inviolate to all but daemons the spirit
is often a target for those who would cause others to commit terrible acts on their behalf. We must
take this boy into custody and isolate him, for his own protection as well as ours. He may be involved
in the attack here.”

Tristan rose and addressed the inquisitor. “He was not involved with the attack. I brought him here
today myself, and he was only one of three struck down by flashes of red light that broke through the
cathedral’s ceiling. The first struck was the bishop himself, and I find it unlikely that he would be
involved in any attack against the church.”

The inquisitor shook his head. “This is grave news, but you misunderstand. I believe this attack has
not yet concluded. Whatever was done to this boy changed him, it may be controlling him, we must
secure him until we can be sure he poses no danger…” The inquisitor cut off as the gemstone in the
boy’s head began to glow once more, this time without anyone touching it.

For a brief moment the stone glowed as bright as a noonday sun, then it was gone as abruptly as it
had begun. When the light faded Tristan’s sword was already in his hand, anticipating some new
threat. However, at first it seemed that the only thing that had happened was the disappearance of
the gemstone from the boy’s head, as if it had converted itself into light and vanished as quickly as it
had come.

Then they all watched in horror as the boy’s body began to shift and contort grotesquely. His flesh
melted from his bones and a cry of “Necromancy!” went up from the assembled priests, but then new
flesh began to grow, bones cracked and shifted, and when the process was complete a completely
different man lay on the ground before them, a man with dark red skin and thick horns protruding
from his forehead. As they watched, this new man opened his eyes and blinked up at them. “Um.
Hello there.” He said.

“The nature of our enemy is revealed, it seems.” The Inquisitor said, readying a spell of abjuration.
“Arbiter, The Adversary has sent one of his agents to test us. We must dispatch him before he can
bring greater calamity down on us.”

Tristan was inclined to agree with the Inquisitor’s assessment. This was obviously some machination
of the god of evil. With a thought he filled himself with the light of justice, causing silver fire to run
down the blade of his sword.

At his feet the devilkin’s eyes widened and he began to stammer out a protest, but they were all
interrupted by a crash from the ruined cathedral. “WHY THE FUCK DID THEY START ME IN A
BURNING BUILDING?!” a thunderous voice roared. Another crash quickly followed the first, and a
moment later a chunk of wood and stone came flying out of the wreckage, exploding against the
cobblestone street on impact and sending bystanders running in terror. “IS THIS SOME KIND OF
SICK JOKE? ROLL A CHARACTER WITH VULNERABILITY TO FIRE AND YOUR SPAWN POINT
IS A BURNING BUILDING? THAT SHIT HURTS! I HAVEN’T EVEN GOTTEN A CHANCE TO
ADJUST MY SETTINGS YET!”

This last tirade was punctuated by several thuds, and by the time the voice had finished its
complaint, one of the remaining walls of the cathedral exploded outwards in a shower of broken
stone and wooden beams. Out of the hole crawled a troll twice the height of a man. It blinked at the
shocked audience gathered before it. “WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU ALL LOOKING AT?” It bellowed
at them.
Tristan had seen trolls before. Altria was a frontier city built between a mountain range to the east
and a vast forest to the west, and both stone trolls and forest trolls were known to wander the
wilderness outside its gates. They were a type of giant, a variety connected deeply with the land they
lived on. They were also incredibly violent, territorial, and barely qualified as sentient.

Tristan had never before heard one speak, and if asked he would have said they were incapable of
more than grunts. He wasn’t sure what to think about this foul-mouthed specimen.

His choices were quickly taken from him as the Inquisitor released the spell he’d begun casting. Not
against the devilkin who was still cowering at the point of Tristan’s sword, but against the already
angry stone troll that had just arrived in their midst. Purifying fire exploded from the inquisitor’s
open palm, bathing the troll in white hot flames. The creature screamed in outrage and pain, and
Tristan watched in horror as it ripped another section of wall away with its bare hands, and threw it
at the offending priest.

Whether he was blinded by fire or simply a poor shot, the troll’s attack missed the inquisitor, instead
plowing into the group of healer priests standing nearby. Tristan cursed, then began to move. With
one hand he began casting a spell even as he swung his sword around in a burning arc for the troll’s
leg.

Though his instructor in swordcraft had preferred to use two weapons, Tristan had always preferred
the flexibility of a one-handed style. Unlike normal skills, spells required at least one hand free to
perform the gestures required to activate them, so even though dual wielders could attack faster and
use their extra blade to deflect blows, they weren’t able to use spells in combat.

There were other styles of course, heavy weapons and shield users had their own techniques, but
before Tristan had become one of Astraea’s Arbiters he’d trained in the royal guard under a master of
their unique class, Blade of the Zephyr. It was a class focused on blinding bursts of speed, the sort of
speed you’d need to stop an assassin from reaching their target. Though Tristan was no longer a
member of the guard he hadn’t forgotten that training, in fact he’d adapted it to his new calling.

That’s why when Tristan moved, the sudden violence of his acceleration caused a small shockwave
that only caught up to him after his sword had passed completely through the meaty part of the
troll’s leg. Tristan let his momentum carry him past the troll, then he released the spell he’d been
preparing.

Strength flooded into Tristan as the spell took effect. Balance of Power was not a spell you were
intended to use on yourself, it was supposed to be for empowering a weaker combatant, and it was
one of the Arbiter classes signature abilities. Tristan had found a secondary use for it due to his build
being so lopsided as all of his stats suddenly became the average of his highest and lowest score.

Tristen brought his sword around in a blazing arc. He had little doubt in his ability to defeat this
creature, to his knowledge only two people in Altria could hold their own against him in a fight.
However Tristan was sure that The Adversary would not have sent minions that were incapable of
harming him, and there was still the devilkin to consider.

Twin booms echoed off the buildings of the cathedral district for a moment, leaving silence in their
wake. Tristan stood there, stunned. When his sword had made contact with the troll the creature had
exploded. There was no other word for it. Tristan hadn’t even felt any resistance as his sword
bisected the creature, only for it to be torn apart by the shockwave a moment later.

He looked at his combat log in confusion, trying to figure out what had happened. Surely an agent of
The Adversary couldn’t be so weak? Stone trolls were known for their strength and toughness, but
Tristan’s log only made sense if it was so much lower level than him that his attacks had completely
bypassed any defenses it had.
He looked up to the sound of hushed whispers from the onlookers. The skills Tristan had just used
would have revealed his identity to anyone that knew of him. He was the only living Arbiter that had
also trained as a royal guardsman, so there was no room to deny it.

His brief time of peace in this remote posting had come to an end, and it hadn’t even been necessary.
Why would The Adversary have sent such a weak force to attack them? Was this just a distraction?

The whispers were cut short as a rain of green blood and chunks of troll began to fall in the streets
outside. Tristan waited for it to end, then stepped out of the cathedral ruins and approached the
inquisitor. The priest had gone down on hands and knees, supplicating himself.

Tristan sighed and reached down to lift the man up. “Get on your feet, there’s no need for that.”

The visibly shaken inquisitor latched onto his arm like a lifeline, “Redeemer, forgive me, I did not
know you were in Altria.”

Tristan shook the man off. “There is nothing to forgive, I did not announce myself when I arrived.
Now get up and assist your fellow priests. Many were injured in the attack.”

Dismissing the man from his mind, Tristan turned to face the man who truly interested him. The
devilkin who had replaced Tristan’s charge had managed to climb to his feet in the time it had taken
for Tristan to slay the troll, but strangely he had made no attempt to flee. Tristan had been expecting
to need to chase the man down, so this was a curious development.

Seeing that Tristan’s attention was on him, the man grinned and made a strange gesture with his
thumb.

“Dude, that was awesome. Like something out of an anime! I’d ask if I could learn it but I’m more of
a mage type, you know?” As he spoke he wiggled his fingers in Tristan’s direction.

Tristan’s blade was at the man’s throat before he could blink, the wind generated by his movement
stirred the man’s hair a moment later–about the same time he was successfully able to gulp.

“If you attempt to cast a spell, I will remove your hands. Do you understand?” Tristan asked him.

“Woah dude, chill out! We’re cool, I’m not going to do anything.”

Tristan could barely understand the man’s strange dialect, but he was confident that his point had
been understood. “Good. You are under arrest. If you come quietly and make no trouble I will
guarantee your safety.”

“Under arrest? What the hell for? I just started playing!” The man protested.

A new voice rang out before Tristan could answer. “Indeed Arbiter… On what charge do you arrest
this man?”

Tristan turned to see who had spoken. A new priest had entered the courtyard, but where the priests
of Astraea wore white robes, this man wore robes the color of darkest night. A priest of The
Adversary had come to the halls of justice. Tristan inwardly groaned.

“My client is well within his rights to know what he is charged with.” The priest said. “As you well
know.”

“Advocate.” Tristan acknowledged the priest. “This is an active crime scene, I must insist that you
retreat to safety, or assist the other priests with healing the wounded. If you wish to represent this
man I will ensure that you are sent for when the situation is under control.”
“I will go, but you will release this man into my custody so I may inform him of his rights under The
Law. I will give his parole.” Said the advocate, humoring Tristan with a small unconcerned smile.

Tristan managed to resist the urge to grind his teeth. This was an unwinnable situation and both of
them knew it. Tristan needed to cut his losses and approach this from a different direction. “Very
well. I trust you can deliver him to jail once you have advised him. I will present formal charges at my
earliest ability, but for now he is to be held as a person of interest in this attack.”

Tristan held up a hand to cut off the advocate’s protest before he could voice it. “Further, this man
began the day as a ward in my custody, duly convicted and awaiting sentencing. Many things I do not
understand have occurred in the last hour but before he can be released we must confirm his identity
as I myself saw his appearance change before my very eyes. I swear these things are true and not
intended to mislead by my oath as Arbiter.”

The priest’s mouth snapped shut. He had no doubt been about to protest his client’s imprisonment
with no charges yet levied, but Tristan’s attestation that the man was already a convict had
forestalled that argument. The advocate could only nod and motion for his client to follow him as
Tristan turned away from the pair.

He had no worries that the priest of The Adversary would fulfill his legal duty, their god was the god
of Law after all, and while Law and Justice were far from the same thing the two faiths worked
together constantly, with the priests of The Adversary serving as lawyers in the courts overseen by
the priests of Astraea in their capacity as judges. Together the two faiths did their best to ensure that
the law was followed and justice was done, but it didn’t stop Tristan from being annoyed by their
obsessive adherence to the word of the law rather than its spirit.

Tristan put it from his mind. He’d already decided on a new course of action. Without further
hesitation he walked back into the ruined cathedral, in search of the third person who’d been struck
down by a flash of red light.

Chapter 6: New World, New You

I regained consciousness in agony. Everything hurt. That wasn’t the weirdest part though. Somebody
was kissing me…? My eyes snapped open to see a man leaning over me, his mouth pressed against
mine. I inhaled in surprise right as the man breathed into me, at which point I in turn gagged,
struggled to pull away, and began a coughing fit.

“What… the fuck?!” I managed to get out between coughs, looking over at the other man’s tear
stained face as I tried to comprehend the situation I’d suddenly found myself in.

“Thank the gods, you’re alive!” The man was now grinning ear to ear. He wiped the tears from his
cheeks and stood, “We still need to run, but you’re in no condition. I’ll have to carry you.”

Before I could react the man had scooped me off the floor and into his arms. A fresh surge of pain
accompanied this motion and I nearly blacked out again. Then I was looking down at the floor from
over the man’s shoulder as we somehow rose off the ground.

I got my first real look at my surroundings then. I was in some sort of destroyed building, and was
rapidly being lifted through a hole in its roof. The motion was jerky, and I winced at each hitch as
spikes of pain blasted through my head and arm. I had just become aware that my peripheral vision
was being obstructed by something when I was suddenly shifted into a seated position on the edge of
the hole I’d just been lifted through.
I watched, impressed, as the man who’d been carrying me pulled himself up and over the edge. The
guy was obviously quite strong, but didn’t have the build of a weightlifter or body builder, he was just
solid for lack of a better word. He had black hair and olive skin, and shockingly violet eyes the likes of
which I’d never seen before.

The man picked up a sack lying on the ground as he pulled himself to his feet, then placed it in my
lap as he once again scooped me up into his arms. “Hold onto that and hang tight, I’ll get you to
Narani and she’ll get you healed up.”

I instinctively grabbed onto the sack in my lap, feeling something hard and surprisingly heavy inside.
I was trying to figure out why this guy was able to throw me around like a rag doll when I noticed
that my hands gripping the bag had turned an unpleasant shade of yellow-green. Wait, was I missing
fingers?

We were now racing over the rooftops of what looked like a pre-industrial city, but my attention had
turned inward as I remembered what I’d agreed to when selecting my species. Hell, Valera had even
warned me this was a possibility now that I thought about it. In a spectrum that ran the gamut from
dragon to goblin, I’d managed to roll the goblin.

In the corner of my vision, I noticed a blinking icon trying to get my attention. Focusing my
somewhat muddled brain on it caused words to appear in my mind.

Concussion
Physical Bane (Tier 1)
Duration: 24 hours (23h 56m remaining)

-50% Intelligence, Wisdom, and Perception. While this bane is in effect you will be unable to read
most text other than this description.

I did indeed feel concussed, but it was good to know its mechanical effects. Since this guy seemed to
be willing to carry me around I started trying to figure out how to open my game menu. I needed to
figure out how to turn down the sensory feedback as I was in entirely too much pain right now.

There were some common gestures and keywords used by most nVR systems for activating the menu
system. I ran through them, starting by tapping two fingers against the back of my other hand three
times, then when that failed I used a series of backup methods until I ran across one that worked.

“System!” I croaked in my new goblin voice.

The man carrying me tightened his hold, “We’re almost there, stay with me.” He said, apparently
trying to comfort me.

I had what he wanted though, a floating blue window appeared in front of me and I forced my aching
brain to read through the options. Weirdly, most of the words were completely illegible to me, and I
couldn’t tell if they weren’t written in english or if the concussion effect was scrambling them. If it
was, that felt like a bug, the menu system shouldn’t be affected by in-game debuffs.

If there was a “Settings” or “Options” menu here, I couldn’t make it out. I tried clicking a few things
at random, looking around for any options I could understand, but nothing looked like a pain
threshold slider and most options remained frustratingly scrambled.

This sucked, was I really supposed to operate with a concussion for a full day before I could even
adjust my settings? How was I even supposed to log out? There were emergency logout procedures
for all nVR systems so I wasn’t worried, but it was always better to do a standard logout when
possible as the emergency one could leave you with a splitting headache and nausea… Not that this
was any better.

Just then, my ride came to a halt and I dismissed the menu in time to get squeezed uncomfortably as
my new friend bent over and used one hand to lift up a hidden panel on the roof we currently stood
on. It was disguised to look like any other part of the roof, but lifted easily when tugged on from the
right angle. Just inside a set of narrow stairs descended into a dimly lit attic space.

Another goblin stood just inside the space, brandishing a dagger in our direction and squinting
against the light pouring in from the open hatch. “Move it Ryke, Tavi’s hurt, I need to get her to
Narani right now.”

The goblin, Ryke apparently, jumped back as my loyal steed and I rushed down the stairs. He called
after us though, “Did you even get it? I told you it wasn’t worth the risk. If she dies it’s on your head
Lucus!”

“Wait, she…?” I had time to think, then the world lurched as the man carrying me, “Lucus?” took the
steps down from the attic two at a time in his haste. The next thing I knew I was being laid out on
some kind of table and a very large black and white furred face was looking down at me.

The appearance of this creature halted my attempts to push myself upright, in my current body the
creature’s mouth was big enough to bite one of my arms clean off without effort. However I calmed
down a bit as I realized that my former ride was talking to the creature, who seemed to be listening
carefully.

“... came out of the sky, I didn’t see what it was but I thought it had hit her at first. The whole roof
collapsed and she fell inside, but I was able to climb down and get her. She wasn’t breathing and I
couldn’t feel a heartbeat so I did what you taught me and breathed for her and tried to get her heart
beating again. I didn’t think it was working but then she started coughing and…”

The creature cut him off with a wave of her paw-like hand and spoke in a rumbly feminine voice. “I
understand, go now, put water on the stove to boil, quickly now.”

I immediately relaxed. I understood what was happening now. I didn’t know what this creature was,
but I could recognize a grandmother when I saw one, so I lay back on the table and prepared to be
fussed over.

The large striped face leaned over me, and I felt my head gently lifted while something soft was slid
under it, giving me some relief and a slightly better view of the room. “Tavi, can you understand me,
can you speak? Do not move your head.”

“Yeah, I can understand you.” I replied, wincing a bit at the unfamiliar sound of my own voice. It was
weirdly high pitched, but also somehow gravely, like I’d just finished gargling rocks.

“Good, tell me what status effects you have, child.”

“Just one, Concussion.”

“Only that? No broken bones? No bleeding? Whose blood are you covered in then, girl?”

“Just that one, I guess the bleeding must have stopped. My arm hurts a lot but I guess it’s not
broken?”

“Hrmph. Well, let's get that blood washed off you and see what we can do about that cracked skull of
yours.” She turned to the other side of the room where Lucus had filled a pot with water from a
nearby barrel, “Where is that water boy! Don’t just stand there, help it along.”
The matronly woman immediately rounded on another figure I hadn’t even noticed and barked out
more instructions. “Maraci, make yourself useful and fetch rags for the cleaning and the bandaging.”
The girl she’d spoken to jumped and ducked back behind the doorframe she’d been peeking through.
I just barely caught a glimpse of her as she fled, but wasn’t able to make out any details from my
current angle other than a flash of pink. I found myself wanting to look around the room and see
what was going on, but I knew this would just make me the target of the grandmotherly ire so I
refrained.

Returning her attention to me the beast woman asked. “What is your current health at dear? Have
you recovered any since you got hurt?”

I practically rolled my eyeballs looking for a health indicator, and when I spotted it in the top left
corner of my vision I realized immediately why I hadn’t noticed it previously - it was barely visible,
just a sliver of red where there was once probably a full bar, and an ominous 1 / 100 hovering nearby.

“Uh, it’s at 1 out of 100 right now.” I told her. “I haven’t seen it go up yet.”

“By all the gods!” The beastial woman swore. “Rejuvenation!”

A green light sprang from Narani’s hands as she cast her spell. I immediately felt energy washing
through me. As I watched my health bar began to refill slowly but surely. I also noticed that I now
had two icons blinking in the upper right corner of my vision.

Lesser Rejuvenation
Physical Boon (Tier 2)
Duration: 1 minute

Recovers a small amount of health every second. Has a 1% chance to remove a negative physical
status effect of equal or lower tier each tick.

Narani sighed, “Next time, mention that first, even if I don’t ask it. Lucus is a lucky fool that he didn’t
kill you just bringing you here.” Then without missing a beat yelled out, “Mara! Where are those
rags?”

A haggard looking girl ran into the room carrying an armful of cloth. She looked to be about 16 to me,
and I belatedly realized that she wasn’t human either. Her skin was an odd shade of pink that almost
looked sunburned, and a whiplike tail followed behind her as she ran into the room. She practically
threw the rags at the larger woman in her haste to deliver them.

Narani scooped up the rags with one paw and turned to the now boiling pot of water. She pulled out
several of the rags and tossed them into the boiling water, the rest she set aside. Leaving the rags to
boil for a moment, she turned to Lucus, “Get something to pull those out and let them cool until I’m
ready for them.” Then she walked back over and looked down at me.

“You still got that concussion? If so you don’t lift your head until it’s gone. That kind of bane can get
worse if you don’t treat it right. I didn’t want to use Rejuvenation on you unless I had to since that
kind of healing could leave scars, but it’s not worth the risk with your health so low. If you take it
easy and don’t move about that’s less likely to be a worry.”

I glanced at my status effects and saw that the concussion was still present, even as the Rejuvenation
effect expired. “It’s still there, Rejuvenation didn’t get it.”

Narani nodded and pulled at the blood soaked shirt I was wearing. “We need to get you out of that
and see if you have any other wounds, Mara, go get more clothes for Tavi. I think these will be joining
the rag pile.” Then she took one clawed finger and cut the shirt right off me with hardly any effort.
The shirt was allowed to lay splayed open on either side of me, and I saw that I was wearing some
sort of cloth wrapping around my chest as well, also soaked through with blood.

A moment later and Narani had sliced through these as well, peeling them off and revealing what I
had already deduced even with my concussion. My new body was very definitely female. Small
breasts poked out from my chest, leaving me feeling weirdly exposed in a way I’d never experienced
before. This was going to be awkward, but I had other things to worry about for the moment so I set
it aside to deal with later.

Narani looked me over appraisingly, but not finding any other obvious injuries she began applying a
hot wet rag to my head and began gently washing away the blood covering my face and chest. I was
absorbed in equal parts pain and pleasure as the hot cloth removed the gunk coating my face, but at
the same time each touch sent a wave of pain and nausea through me as though the bones in my
head had recently been liquified and weren’t quite done solidifying yet.

After a few moments of this and after going through a second cloth, Narani stopped what she was
doing and made a strange noise I couldn’t interpret. My eyes opened, though I didn’t recall closing
them, and I looked up to see a worried expression on her strange face.

“Child, you are very sure concussion is the only status effect you have, positive or negative?”

“Yeah, that’s it, why?”

“You have a shard of rock sticking out of your forehead. I thought it was bone or swelling at first, but
now that I’ve cleaned it up it’s clearly a gemstone of some kind, red just like the blood it was hiding
under.”

I gulped as a few more things clicked into place from my talk with Valera. This must be the soul gem
she had mentioned, and it was supposed to be my real body. If it was removed I had to assume I’d be
killed, or at least this body would be. These NPCs apparently knew the former owner of my body and
were helping me because they’d mistaken me for her. Valera had told me this process cost a soul, so
Tavi must have actually died, and Lucus had unknowingly saved me instead, probably with the help
of some divine healing magic as part of the character creation process.

“I fear that Rejuvenation may have closed the wound around the stone.” Narani told me. “It looks
deep enough to have cracked your skull and may now be fused with it. You’ll need to get it removed,
but this sort of healing is beyond me. We’ll need to take you to the house of healing to get it
removed.”

I started to sit up before a twinge of pain reminded me that I shouldn't be moving. “No! That’s fine,
I’ll be alright.” I searched for an explanation they might accept. “When I was unconscious, dead
maybe, I saw a vision. A goddess told me I had to keep what I’d been given or I’d die, and she
touched me right on the forehead. Just heal me up as best you can and I’ll be fine.”

Suddenly Lucus was standing next to the table, “A goddess? Which one? Are you sure?”

Maraci chose that moment to walk back in as well, carrying yet another bundle of cloth. She stared at
me wide-eyed and unconsciously touched her own forehead, where I suddenly noticed two small
horns poking out from under her bangs. The girl must be a Devilkin, a member of The Adversary’s
unique species.

Maraci noticed me looking at her and suddenly became angry for some reason. She tossed her wad of
clothes at me and turned on her heel, marching out of the room. As she did she called back, “Here,
put some clothes on so Lucus can stop ogling you and do something useful. You shouldn’t tease him
like that!”
I tried to catch the garment but failed miserably as it spread out and draped across my legs. Narani
plucked it up with her dexterous paws but set it aside instead of giving it to me. I found myself
blushing furiously as I realized the situation I was in for the first time and what it must have looked
like to the girl. Lucus for his part went white as a sheet and spun to face the stove again, fumbling to
pull more boiled rags out of the pot, and from the sound of it burning himself in the process.

Narani shook her head sadly as she turned back to me. “She always knows what to say to cause
trouble, that one. Come, you aren’t putting that on until we have you cleaned up. If you’re sure you
want to keep that thing in your head then let me try and get that concussion off you again.”

It took two more castings of Rejuvenation before the concussion was finally removed. While we
waited Narani continued to clean the wound around the gemstone with hot water and a little salve
she pulled out from somewhere in her apron’s many pockets. It reminded me of aloe and it tingled
slightly on my skin. When the concussion finally faded I sat up and Narani wrapped a bandage
around my head several times to hold the salve in place.

Then without warning she unceremoniously picked up the barrel of water by the stove and dumped
half its contents on my head, moving the large barrel as though it weighed nothing. Water splashed
everywhere, but quickly ran down a drain set in the stone floor apparently for this purpose. I sat on
the table in shock, the sudden onslaught of cold water having given me a new status effect to look at.

Stunned
Physical Bane (Tier 1)
Duration: 3 seconds

You are unable to move nor act, and may only speak haltingly and with great difficulty.

I tried to say something, but ended up just blowing wet hair out of my mouth as I sputtered.

Narani calmly set down the barrel and turned to Lucus, “We’ll be needing more drinking water. Go
down to the well and fetch it.” Then she rounded on me and was immediately in lecture mode. “And
you girl, this is the third time this month you’ve nearly got yourself killed. What is wrong with you?
Do you have a death wish?” She paused long enough to pluck up some of the dry rags she’d set aside
earlier and began forcibly drying me with them as I struggled to free myself.

Belatedly I realized that now that Narani was fairly sure I’d be ok, it was time for the other thing
grandmas were known for: Scolding.

The garment I’d been given was a large shirt that was big enough to be a full length dress on this
body. Narani pulled it down over my head without pausing her scolding. By this point she had moved
on to scolding me about “teasing the boys” and I did my best not to curl up in a ball and die while she
continued to berate me. In the end she had me take off the other clothes I’d been wearing as well so
that they could be washed. While not nearly as blood stained they had been covered in brick dust
from the collapsed building, and had suffered some damage in the fall that would need to be
mended.

I ended up shoving a wadded up pile of clothing into Narani’s arms and just barely managed to
remember to thank her for healing me, despite how appalled I was becoming with my situation.
Lucus was long gone by this point and I figured he was smart enough not to find his way back until
things had settled down around here. That was good. I needed to find a quiet place to sit and look
over my character sheet and figure out what I was going to do next, and I didn’t want to answer any
questions yet.

I hopped down off the table, finding myself barely able to see over it with my feet on the floor with
my new much shorter stature. I started to make my way out of the room, but Narani caught me by
the shoulder and turned me around before I could escape. Her large face was suddenly solemn and
she got down on one slightly creaky knee so that she was only twice as tall as me, then leaned down
and hugged me almost tight enough to do damage.

“Remember, I only scold because I love you. We all love you, and you’ll always have a place here with
us as long as you want it. I know you’re not a child anymore, but I just don’t want to see you hurt.
Now take this thing you and Lucus got and hide it somewhere so they won’t find it if they come
looking for it.” She gave me the bag I’d been carrying earlier while Lucus carried me around. Then
she turned around and yelled for Maraci to come help make dinner like nothing had happened.

I bemusedly walked out of the kitchen, I’d had a lot to absorb in the past hour or so and I’d had a
concussion for part of it, but one thing I knew for sure was that even if these people were just NPCs I
could never let them know I’d accidentally killed their adoptive daughter, sister, girlfriend, or
whatever Tavi had been to these people. Not only couldn’t I stand the thought of hurting them like
that after all their efforts to save me, but I was pretty sure Narani would tear me apart if she ever
found out.

“Time to fake amnesia…” I thought, climbing the stairs back up to the top floor of the house. I was
pretty sure I’d seen some rooms up here as I flew past in Lucus’s arms, and figured I’d be able to
work out which one was mine if I had to.

I tried the first door I came to, and found the room already occupied. The goblin we’d met earlier was
laying down on the smaller of two beds in the room, apparently reading something. He put it down
as I opened the door, then grunted in acknowledgement when he saw who it was. “So you’re not dead
huh? What do you want? Also ever heard of knocking?”

Fuck. Five seconds on my own and I was already in trouble. I thought fast, trying to come up with an
appropriate response. The girl I’d replaced had obviously been something of a flirt considering how
many times I’d been scolded about it in the brief time I’d been here, but I didn’t know if I could play
that part. Not only did I lack the experience, I also lacked the inclination. I also didn’t know who this
guy was beyond his name, or what his relationship was to me. He was a goblin too, so maybe he was
my brother? He didn’t seem overly worried about me, but siblings could be weird about that.

I decided to keep things generic for the moment. Maybe I could find out more about him as we
talked. “I just wanted to let you know I was alive, oh and I heard you ask if we got the loot - I have it
right here, want to see it?”

The other goblin looked sour for a moment before his curiosity got the better of him and he rolled off
the bed and came over to look at what I had in the sack. I pulled back the cloth covering the object,
revealing a solid gold statuette of a figure I recognized all too well.

It was Valera, the goddess of trials herself, looking at me with a solemn expression just as she had
when I’d last seen her in the Forge of Souls. For a moment I was sure that this wasn’t what Lucus and
Tavi had stolen, and that it was somehow related to my entry into the game - but Ryke’s reaction
reassured me that I hadn’t just made a huge mistake.

“Wow, you really did get it.” The goblin said, raising his hand to feel the cool metal. “You know we’re
never going to be able to sell this right? That crazy merchant couldn’t even sell it and he had it by
right.”

I just shrugged, “We’ll worry about that later. For now I have to hide it - any ideas on where?”

“Why not just use the usual space under your floor?” Ryke asked, confused.
Fuck, I’d screwed up again. “I… I was thinking that it might be a good idea to keep this somewhere
else, you know - separate, and where less people know about it.”

Ryke narrowed his eyes, “Who else knows about it besides us?”

I sensed it was time to go in a different direction with this and decided now was as good a time as any
to start setting up my cover story. I put on what I hoped was an uncertain expression and channeled
all my roleplaying experience into conveying tightly controlled anxiety. “I’m… I’m having trouble
with… things. You know. Remembering things. I didn’t want to tell Narani - I thought it’d just make
her more worried. I remember your names and faces or I’d probably be panicking right now, but a lot
of other stuff is foggy. I’m hoping it will come back when I fully heal and rest a bit.”

Ryke looked skeptical, “Did you hit your head or something? Are you saying you don’t remember us
beyond our names?”

“Oh, right, you didn’t see.” I lifted the bandage wrapped around my head like a bandana and showed
Ryke the gemstone embedded in my forehead. “That rock hit me in the head so hard it nearly killed
me, now it’s stuck in there.”

Ryke leaned in to take a closer look. “Damn Tavi, I thought the guards stabbed you or something,
how in Jira did that happen?”

“Jira?” I wondered, shaking my head. Then I winced as the movement triggered some lingering pain.
“I don’t know, I don’t remember it, I’m going to ask Lucus when he gets back.”

He reached up and lightly tapped the soul gem with one clawed finger, examining it. “It’s in there
good, huh? That looks expensive, you should definitely keep that under wraps or somebody might try
to pry it out and sell it. Too bad though, it looks good on you.” He gave me a lecherous grin to
punctuate his point, then he tucked a stray strand of hair behind one of my ears in a motion that I
found far too familiar for my liking.

I suddenly became very uncomfortable with how close we were standing now. Especially while I had
nothing on but an oversized shirt. Had I misread the signs? Were these two a couple? He’d been
acting so cold a minute ago, why the sudden change? I started to pull away, but paused when I saw
his confused expression.

“What’s wrong?” He asked. “You look sick. Are you sure you’re feeling ok?” The hand he’d been using
to mess with my hair now held my arm in an apparent attempt to steady me. He actually looked
concerned, which made me re-evaluate him a bit. I didn’t understand why he’d suddenly become
more friendly towards me, but maybe I’d missed something?

“I… I just need to lay down for a bit I think.” I told him, pulling away again. “I’ll be fine.”

Ryke let me go with little resistance, but still seemed concerned. Then he grinned again and said
“Want some company?” and wiggled his ears at me.

I responded by rolling my eyes at him, then I turned and walked out the door without answering,
letting it close behind me. As soon as the door was between us I visibly sagged in relief. I hoped I’d
played that right. I’d only been a girl for what, an hour? I wasn’t ready for this shit. I had no idea
what kind of signals I was sending. Hell, I didn’t even know what signals I was receiving. That entire
interaction had made no sense. Had he really just responded to me telling him I’d almost died with
an offer to sleep with me?

Suddenly I understood complaints I’d heard from women in my life much better. I’d always
wondered why they didn’t always just tell guys that were obviously making them uncomfortable to
fuck off, but now here I was in a situation where I couldn’t do exactly that. I’d never needed to think
about this stuff from this perspective before and it was already exhausting. The worst part was I
wasn’t sure exactly how mad I should be at him, since I didn’t know what his and Tavi’s relationship
had been like before I entered the picture.

I opened the door across the hallway and found myself looking at another small room with two beds,
one about the size Ryke had been using and another more normal sized one. There were also two
chests at the foot of each bed, a wardrobe, and a small desk or vanity sitting across from it. A curtain
hung between the two beds, attached to the ceiling.

I deduced that this was the girls room, but to be sure I opened the chest at the foot of the smaller bed
and found a disorderly pile of clothing similar to what I’d been wearing earlier. I wasn’t pleased to
find I was sharing a room with someone, probably Maraci, but for the moment I was alone and that’s
what I needed.

I plopped down onto the bed, still carrying the bag containing the statuette of Valera. I still needed to
stash the thing and figured just sticking it into my inventory might work… As soon as I figured out
how to open it. First though, I needed a moment to decompress. That conversation with Ryke had
been unexpectedly stressful, and I could feel blood rushing through my veins as I started to come
down off my adrenaline high.

I closed my eyes and tried to relax, but that proved to be a mistake. I was too worked up over the
interaction, and found myself replaying it in my head the moment my eyes were closed. To take my
mind off it I opened my menu system and started looking around. I was hoping that now that I didn’t
have a concussion I’d be able to make sense of things.

Fortunately, this time I had no difficulty reading it, but I was still a little confused. Some of the
options I expected to be here weren’t, and some I didn’t recognize were.

System Menu

1. Character
2. Skills
3. Associations
4. Messages (5)
5. Notes
6. Help
7. Petition
I noted that I had five unread messages, and I mentally selected that option first. A new window
appeared, and I saw that this was less of a messaging system and more of a notifications center.
There was also a way here to access my chat and combat logs, and I noticed with interest that both
were already populated with information. To my great surprise I found that both logs went back
before I took control of this body, and I even had a log of Tavi’s untimely death at my own oblivious
hands.

Valerian Soulgem deals ERROR raw damage to you.

You have been afflicted with “Concussion” (Bane: Tier 1)
You have died.
You have been affected by “Soul Infusion”
You have been revived.

More importantly though, the chat log contained all the conversations Tavi had been a part of or
overheard for some indeterminate amount of time in the past - I tried to scroll up to see where it
ended but it just kept going, and none of it was timestamped. Still, this was going to be extremely
useful while I needed to pretend to be her, as I’d be able to mine this log for “memories” and help sell
my story. NPCs must not have access to this, or Ryke would have mentioned it. Regardless I wasn’t
going to mention it to any of my new friends unless they brought it up first.

I looked at the waiting messages next.

System Alert
Divine Message from The Adversary

“Infinity, thank you for your contribution to our bug bounty program. Your responsible disclosure
of an exploit has earned you a reward. Because you provided a proof of concept to me personally, I
have increased your reward tier by one stage. The more exploits you report, the higher your reward
tier, so keep an eye out for more bugs and feel free to contact me through the Petition menu if you
need anything. If you happen to find another bug, please report it via the Help menu..

I hope to do business with you again in the near future.

- The Adversary”

Rewards Earned:
Title Unlocked (“Rule-Breaker”)
1x Scarab Token

The second message was in the same vein.

System Alert
Divine Message from The Adversary

“Infinity, thank you for your continuing contributions to our bug bounty program, and so quickly as
well! Your responsible disclosure of an exploit has earned you a reward. Because of the potential
severity of this bug I’ve added a little extra to the standard reward, hopefully it will help you track
down even more errors. Keep up the good work!

- The Adversary”

Rewards Earned:
Unlocked Skill: “Devil in the Details”
Blessing of The Adversary (Minor)
2x Scarab Token

The next message was a bit different.

New Achievement
Fast Learner

Congratulations! You are the first Traveler to unlock a previously unknown skill. All newly
discovered skills grant a free rank in that skill, but as you are the first Traveler to discover a skill an
additional reward has been added.

Rewards Earned:
A free rank in discovered skill
+10pp (Universal)

Apparently the game system stuck all sorts of notifications in here from when I was still in character
creation. They must have been suppressed until I actually got into the game.
I didn’t believe for a second that The Adversary didn’t know he was handing me an achievement in
addition to the normal rewards. I was becoming increasingly convinced the devilish god was stacking
things in my favor for some reason, but I couldn’t figure out why.

I turned to the next message and opened it, already pretty sure I was getting a few more
achievements. I wasn’t disappointed.

New Achievement
Chosen of the Gods (Valera)

You have become a chosen champion of the goddess Valera, and have access to her unique path
options. As one of the chosen you may be called upon to work your goddess’ will in the world.

Rewards Earned:
Blessing of Valera (Greater)
Unlocked Species option (Valerian)
Unlocked Class option (Trailblazer)
.

New Achievement
A Mile In Their Shoes

You are the first Traveler to choose the hidden Valerian species option.

Rewards Earned:
+10pp (Valerian)
Title Unlocked (“Skinwalker”)

New Achievement
First Pioneer

You are the first Traveler to choose the hidden Trailblazer class option.

Rewards Earned:
+10pp (Trailblazer)
Title Unlocked (“Adventurer”)

I wasn’t sure what all these things meant yet, but I was now holding a small pile of golden beetle
shaped tokens in my lap, each about the size of one of my goblin hands. It was rapidly becoming a
problem and I really needed to figure out how my inventory worked.

Hoping to find something about it under the Character menu, I selected that option next and was
suddenly greeted with an almost life-sized image of my new body looking back at me from between
two sets of stats. The vanity didn’t have a mirror, and I realized now that they were probably useless
in this world.

Being forced to confront my new appearance for the first time was a bit unsettling. I was still very
uncomfortable with the whole situation and had intentionally been putting off any self-
examination… But now I was almost forced to look. I knew it was silly, but I felt like the less I
acknowledged it the less it would matter. That was stupid and I knew it. Ignoring a problem didn’t
make it go away. I needed to take a step back from this and look at it objectively so I could control
the situation. For lack of a better term, I needed to man the fuck up.
“Dammit,” I said after a moment’s contemplation of my character sheet. “I’m cute.”

I’d been doing my best to not think about a lot of the differences between this body and my normal
human one, but looking in a virtual mirror made it pretty clear. I had green skin obviously, but that
wasn’t a big deal. My ears were weirdly long and pointed, and I found myself reaching up and feeling
their shape even as I looked at them. Actually, all my facial features were weirdly big, except my nose
which looked pretty normal.

My eyes were almost twice as big as they should have been, and I found that I could intentionally
dilate and contract my pupils, giving me much more control over the brightness of my vision than I
was used to. Meanwhile my mouth was very strange, it was a little bigger when closed than looked
right for my face, but I found that if I tried I could pull off a literal ear-to-ear grin as my lips virtually
disappeared and all you could see were my serrated teeth sticking out of my gum line. I hadn’t even
noticed the teeth until now, and counted myself lucky I hadn’t bitten off my tongue yet - those things
were sharp.

The effect of my way too stretchy mouth and anime-style eyes let me change my expression from
adorable to horrifying in the blink of an eye. I put on a few faces to get an idea of what I could do,
finding that I could even move my ears and control my eyes independently on either side of my head.
This allowed me to pull off some truly crazed faces, but also some adorable droopy eared puppy-dog
expressions. It was quite the range.

My hair was long and black. While standing it ran almost half way down my back in a loose ponytail,
which was far longer than I’d ever worn my hair in real life. It was currently still wet from the
soaking Narani had given it earlier, even though the rest of my body had dried off quickly. My skin
was weirdly rubbery and had shed the water easily. It also seemed to be completely devoid of hair
other than on my head, I didn’t even have eyebrows, just a bony ridge that served a similar purpose
but didn’t have the same range of expression I was used to..

My nails were also odd, and while looking at them I noticed again that I was missing a finger on each
hand. My goblin hands ended in three fingers and a thumb, all a bit thicker than looked natural to
my eye, and I noticed my arms were longer than they should be for my size. Each digit also featured a
hardened black nail that was similar to a claw, but I noted that Tavi had apparently filed these down
so they were short and smooth, except for on the last finger of each hand, which if anything looked
like it had been sharpened. Possibly a mix of convenience and utility?

I brought one leg up to take a look at my feet to see if something similar was going on there,
forgetting for a moment that I had a model of myself hovering a few feet away. Still, it was an
interesting experience as I immediately noticed how much more flexible my legs were than what I
was used to. Part of that was the lack of certain parts of my anatomy to get in the way, but more than
that I just had greater range of motion in all my joints in this body. I was easily able to pull a foot up
to eye level and indeed, I saw that I only had four toes. Additionally, my toes had claws just like my
hands, and while these looked somewhat worn by use they weren’t filed down at all.

Looking at myself in the character screen I experienced a weird sensation. Even though I’d just
cataloged all these things which were wrong with my new body, they didn’t feel wrong. I hadn’t even
noticed many of them until I went looking. I wasn’t having any issues walking around with a
different center of gravity, and my weirdly long arms weren’t throwing off my hand-eye coordination.

This wasn’t exactly unexpected, as nVR games had to have this sort of interface. Some nVR games
didn’t even have you playing as a humanoid character, and so you might have a totally alien
arrangement of limbs to work with. The game’s AI would handle translating your instinctive brain
patterns into valid controls for your character, and also handle translating the feedback you got from
your virtual body into something your brain could understand. What was remarkable about this was
how seamless the experience was. This was by far the smoothest and most immersive translation
interface I’d ever experienced.

I felt like I should be more disturbed by this than I was, but it honestly felt like I’d had this body all
my life. My mind knew otherwise, but I felt like if I got into a fight right this moment I’d have been
able to move as easily as Tavi would have. My muscle memory felt like it had been completely
replaced, and the various changes to my biology felt totally natural. That made it all the weirder.

Developers of nVR games had years ago figured out that it was generally more disturbing for people
to not have anatomically correct bodies. There was an uncanny valley effect that missing parts of
yourself created which was similar to how transgendered people described their dysphoria. Anything
humanoid tended to be modeled accurately in order to reduce that feeling, though to my knowledge
most people who tried playing opposite sex characters would experience that same sort of dysphoria.

I knew that everyone experienced this a bit differently, and to different degrees, and that it could
vary based on a multitude of different factors. It was just strange that I wasn’t feeling it at all right
now. With the prevalence of nVR tech, nearly every adult at least tried on an opposite sex body once,
developers collected statistics on that sort of thing and the rates were nearly 100%. Even if you were
perfectly happy in your own skin it was hard not to be curious. I’d done so myself years ago, but had
found the dysphoria so unpleasant that I hadn’t ever tried again. From what I’d read my experience
was fairly typical.

Either the nVR systems had gotten much better at handling this situation, or I’d gotten better at
dealing with it - perhaps both. What I was feeling now was strange and somewhat unpleasant, but it
wasn’t anything like what I remembered from my first experience in a simulated female body. That
time had felt deeply wrong, and I’d nearly used the emergency stop protocols instead of logging out
the slower but safer way. It had disturbed me in the same way certain images would trigger
trypophobia. Now I just felt vaguely off, and part of that was a feedback loop from not feeling how I
expected to feel.

Whatever the reason, I was extremely glad this wasn’t affecting me as much as it had last time. It was
still going to be awkward as hell, but at least I wasn’t having to suppress an urge to vomit.

There was a whole lot to unpack here, and I decided now wasn’t the time to deal with it. I still needed
to figure out how my inventory worked, preferably before someone walked in to check on me and
found me sitting in a pile of gold tokens. So I mentally gathered up everything I’d just been thinking
about and stuffed it in a room labeled “Tavi Problems” then shut the door on it. I’d have plenty of
time later to figure out how I wanted to deal with this.

I turned my attention back to the character sheet. The character avatar had boxes all around it, and I
noticed that the shirt I was wearing was represented as an icon in one of them. I mentally selected it,
and the item’s properties became visible.

Plain White Shirt

Chest Armor (Tier 0, Equipped, Oversized)
Armor: 0

A plain white shirt, sized for a human.

I seemed to recall I had a skill for learning more about an item. I wasn’t sure if it would tell me
anything new here, but it was a good experiment. Activating the skill took some trial and error, but in
the end simply thinking the name of the skill and willing it proved sufficient.

You have used Identify on Plain White Shirt.

 Plain White Shirt
Chest Armor (Tier 0, Equipped, Oversized)
Armor: 0 (Base 1, -1 from Oversized)
Quality: Poor

A plain white shirt, sized for a human. It was handmade with love by Narani for Lucus, who has
long since outgrown it.

Interesting, so Identify could reveal extra information even on a mundane item I could already see
the properties of. I was going to have to try it on other things to see what all it could do. I glanced up
to my health bar and saw that there were also blue and green bars representing my mana and
stamina. Both were out of a maximum of 100, and I began to suspect that these were percentages.

Turning my attention to the various numbers listed on the character sheet I began to read.

Tavi / Infinity
Level 17 Female Goblin Thief
Species: Goblin (Level 10) / Valerian (Level 1)
Class: Thief (Level 5) / Trailblazer (Level 1)

Resources
Health: 100 / 100
Mana: 99 / 100
Stamina: 100 / 100

Defenses
Armor: 10
Resistance: 10
Dodge: 11

Attributes
Strength: 8
Agility: 13
Dexterity: 13
Fortitude: 8
Toughness: 8
Intelligence: 10
Wisdom: 8
Charisma: 8
Willpower: 10
Perception: 12
Luck: 10

Progression Points
Universal: 20
Valerian: 20
Goblin: 0
Trailblazer: 20
Thief: 7

I wasn’t sure what most of this meant yet, and I wasn’t quite ready to dig into it yet. I still wanted to
locate my inventory and get all this gold stuff stored away safely.

I backed out of the character sheet and opened up Skills, thinking that maybe there was a skill for
opening and closing my inventory window. I was also keeping my eye out for any sort of tutorial
system, but hadn’t seen anything that looked like that yet. Perhaps I’d find it as something I could
turn on under the Help menu - I’d check there next.

The skills menu was subdivided into 4 separate tabs, labeled Active Skills, Passive Skills, Penalties,
and Unlocked Skills. The active skills listing was almost depressingly short. In addition to Identify, I
only had access to three other active skills.

Hide
Active Skill (Tier 1)
Source: Goblin, Thief
Rank: 6 / 10
PP: 0 / 2
Activation Cost: Stamina (Low)
Activation Type: Sustained
Cooldown: N/A

Remain still and conceal yourself using any available cover. Reduces the effectiveness of perception
in detecting you by 5% per rank of this skill so long as you remain concealed.

Snatch
Active Skill (Tier 1)
Source: Thief
Rank: 1 / 10
PP: 0 / 2
Activation Cost: Stamina (Medium)
Activation Type: Instant
Cooldown: 30s

Attempts to steal an item carried by another creature or otherwise physically secured. Success is
based on your Strength, Agility, or Dexterity depending on how the item is secured. You get a bonus
to appropriate stat equal to 10% per rank of this skill. If you are hidden when using this skill you can
remain hidden, but your concealment bonus from Hide is reduced by 50% for 5 seconds after using
this skill.

Shank
Active Skill (Tier 1)
Source: Thief
Rank: 2 / 10
PP: 0 / 2
Activation Cost: Stamina (Low)
Activation Type: Instant
Cooldown: N/A

Quickly stab an enemy with a piercing weapon such as a dagger, doing normal damage. When you
use Shank, your chance to critically hit from Luck is increased by 10% per rank of this skill.

At least I had access to at least one combat skill. I’d been seriously worried that would be an issue.
Still, on paper Shank didn’t seem that great, every activation would cost me stamina, and it wasn’t a
flat 10% increase to crit chance - instead it made my Luck stat 10% better on that hit, which I was
guessing was a lot less than a flat 10% chance to crit. It looked like Tavi had invested some
progression points in it already though, so maybe it was better than it looked.
I couldn’t help but notice that no exact costs were listed for my active skills, it was just “stamina” or
“mana” without any numerical values, only a rough designation. Likewise I was noticing that my
skills all seemed to scale with various stats, but none listed a flat number that wasn’t a percentage or
a duration. It seemed that some aspects of the system were intentionally obscured. That would make
theorycrafting harder, but nowhere near impossible.

I also wasn’t happy about the fact that someone else had gotten to control part of my character
progression, but there wasn’t much I could do about it. I flipped over to the passive skills list and had
a look through that. This list was much bigger, and contained the Innovator and Explorer passives I
already knew about.

Dual Nature
Passive Skill (Tier 5)
Source: Valerian
Rank: 1 / 5
PP: 0 / 10

As a Valerian your true body is a gemstone infused with a spark of divine energy. You may possess a
secondary body which has its own species and class, along with any skills associated with those
options. You share your attributes with your host body, but also gain their species bonuses and
penalties. Each rank in this skill above the first provides a 10% bonus to all of your host body's
attributes. Additionally, detection and identification effects of a tier equal or less than your ranks in
this skill automatically fail to reveal anything about your true nature.

Crystalline Memories
Passive Skill (Tier 5)
Source: Valerian
Rank: 1 / 3
PP: 0 / 10

Your memories are writ in stone. Your chat and combat logs have no maximum age restrictions,
allowing you to review anything that has happened to you in the past, no matter how long ago. Rank
2 in this skill adds timestamps to all entries, and rank 3 adds the ability to search your logs.

Soulspace
Passive Skill (Tier 3)
Source: Valerian
Rank: 1 / 10
PP: 0 / 6

You can store objects in a timeless conceptual space within your soul crystal. At first rank you can
store a single object, but each rank in this skill increases your storage space by one additional slot.
Adding or removing an object from your soul-space takes 10 seconds, during which you must
remain in contact with the object. Soulspace storage is conceptual, so you may not store an object if
you do not sufficiently understand its nature, however multiple objects of the same type may be
stored using a single slot so long as they are conceptually identical.

Darkvision
Passive Skill (Tier 2)
Source: Goblin
Rank: 1 / 10
PP: 0 / 4

Your eyes are adapted to seeing in unlit caves and deep forests. You need no light to see as much as
10m away, but you are unable to discern finer details (such as writing) and most colors without a
light source. The range of your vision increases by 10m per level of this perk above 1.

Stealth
Passive Skill (Tier 2)
Source: Thief
Rank: 3 / 10
PP: 0 / 4

Allows you to retain 5% of your concealment bonus from Hide while moving. While hiding you can
move for up to 5 seconds at a time and retain some of the effect. The amount of concealment you
retain goes up by 5% and the amount of time you retain the benefit goes up by 5 seconds per-rank in
this skill. If you stop moving your amount of concealment will slowly rise until you are once again
fully hidden from anything not already observing you.

Windows
Passive Skill (Tier 2)
Source: Thief
Rank: 2 / 10
PP: 0 / 4

You are proficient in second story work. 10% of your Dexterity score per rank in this skill
contributes to your ability to climb surfaces, with or without tools.

Streets
Passive Skill (Tier 2)
Source: Thief
Rank: 2 / 10
PP: 0 / 4

You are proficient in working the streets in broad daylight. Other people can count as concealment
for you for the purposes of hiding and stealth. The amount of people you need around you to blend
into a crowd is reduced by 5% per rank of this skill.

When I saw the Soulspace skill my eyes nearly bugged out of my head. My inventory was a skill, and
to my shock it was one of my unique species skills. There were lots of things about this game
subverting my expectations - inventories were such a crucial part of any game that I was incredulous
that they’d lock it behind a hidden species option. On second thought though, it occurred to me that
there were probably other methods of getting an inventory system like mine - something the
equivalent of a bag of holding perhaps, or even other species or class skills. Nothing said the
functionality of a skill couldn’t be replicated by another skill.

I decided to test out Soulspace before putting anything valuable in it. I also wanted to know to what
extent I could store things - was there a size limitation? I started by storing the only piece of
equipment I had - the Plain White Shirt I’d identified earlier. I ducked under the bed sheets just in
case someone came into the room, then concentrated on the shirt and willed it to enter my soul-
space.
Almost immediately it began to turn transparent, then fade away to nothing over the course of ten
seconds. When it was gone, I felt it take up residence in my mind like something I was visualizing in
my imagination but much more vivid. It was sort of like being able to lucid dream the shirt while still
awake.

Now it was time to try the process in reverse. I imagined the shirt exiting my soul-space and
appearing on my body the same way it had been a moment ago. Almost immediately the shirt started
to fade back into view, as if it had momentarily become invisible rather than having temporarily
ceased to exist.

I inspected the shirt to see if anything had changed about it, but it appeared to be fine. Identify
showed it as having all the same stats and had no mention of damage. Based on that I was satisfied
that my soul-space wasn’t likely to damage any of my shiny trinkets, but before I tried to store them I
wanted to see if I could store something more substantial.

I hopped off the bed I was sitting on, and turned around to put my hand on it. I knew it was an object
consisting of several other objects, but then so was nearly everything. I wanted to know if my soul-
space would store the entire bed if I thought of it as conceptually a single object. Imagining the whole
bed mind I willed it into my soul-space.

Instead of the bed fading away, I got an alert.

System Message
Soulspace storage failed

You do not understand this object well enough to store it within your soul-space.

Downstairs someone banged on the front door, and after a moment I faintly heard Narani’s voice
speaking to someone else, but I was busy trying to figure out how I was failing to understand a bed.
What was hard to understand about a bed?

I pushed down on the mattress trying to get a sense of what filled it - maybe that was the problem. It
wasn’t a spring mattress, but I wasn’t sure what it was made out of. Suddenly I remembered I had a
way to find this out. I activated Identify while touching the bed, continuing to picture the entire bed
in my mind - not just the mattress, and I was rewarded with the information I was looking for.

Plain Single Bed

Furniture (Tier 0, Small)
Quality: Poor

A simple bed with plain linen sheets and a mattress stuffed with hay. The pillow is stuffed with
down feathers and its frame is built from solid but unpolished wood.

With this knowledge in mind I tried once more to move the entire bed into my soul-space. This time,
the bed immediately began to fade from view and after a few moments appeared in my mind, sheets
and all. There was now an empty corner of the room where my bed had been and I noted that it
hadn’t been swept under in a while given all the dust.

From downstairs there came a shout and the sound of raised voices, followed by a crash that shook
the floor beneath me. Then I heard Maraci scream, and a voice I hadn’t heard before spoke in a
commanding tone, clear enough that I could make out the words. “Spread out and find it, they have
it here somewhere.”

I looked down at the golden statuette and scarab tokens I still had in my hands, “Oh fuck."
Chapter 7: Search & Seize Her
I dived onto the floor where the bed had recently been and immediately removed it from my soul-
space right on top of me. The bed started fading back into view and I felt myself being pressed
uncomfortably against the floorboards by its weight.

Thinking fast I activated Hide, then opened up my skills menu and started trying to figure out how to
add points to my Soulspace skill. Right now I could only store one item, but I didn’t want whoever
was looking for this statuette to be able to find my scarab tokens either. I had no idea if they would
take them, and I didn’t want to explain how I had them.

For the first time I glanced over at my minimap, sitting quietly in the bottom right corner of my
vision. It had a half-dozen or so red dots on it, as well as a couple of green ones. The red dots were
spreading out, but I saw two bunch up and climb the stairs together, headed right for my room.

Moments later, the door to my room banged open, and I saw booted feet enter the room. They
paused for a moment then went over to the wardrobe and opened it, then began tossing clothing
unceremoniously onto the floor as they searched it.

The bed was fully out of my soul-space now, and I tried moving the statuette into it only to get hit
with another alert.

System Message
Soul-space storage failed

You do not understand this object well enough to store it within your soul-space.

For a moment I panicked, then I remembered what I’d done earlier with the bed and activated
Identify on the statuette. Ten long seconds passed in agony as I watched the man searching the
wardrobe in vain. I could see that the door to Ryke and Lucus’ room across the hall was open as well
and another man was searching it. Finally, Identify activated on the statue.

Icon of Valera
Holy Reliquary (Tier 3)
Quality: Artifact

This statuette of the goddess Valera is made of gold, but contains a hollow core made to contain and
protect the ashes of one of her chosen saints. This statuette can be used as a focus for divine spells
and those with the favor of the goddess can use it to commune with her once every 30 days.

Note: This item has been enchanted with a Tier 3 tracking spell that will reveal its location to its
caster so long as they are within 20 kilometers of each other.

I took all that in, particularly the bit about the tracking spell, and then I attempted once again to
store the statuette in my soul-space. This time, to my great relief, it worked. The statuette turned
insubstantial and began fading away. I wasn’t done though, I needed to get the tokens stored as well.

Meanwhile the man searching the wardrobe had given up on finding anything in there. He turned to
the vanity and began ransacking it instead. I watched as a glass bottle of something was knocked
onto the ground - thankfully it was thick and didn’t break, but it began rolling right towards my
hiding spot under the bed and I became increasingly concerned it would draw the man’s attention.

Working fast, I immediately used Identify on one of the tokens, knowing better now than to try and
store it without knowing its properties. Then while I waited, I turned my attention back to my skill
menu. I had to get a second inventory slot right now. I located the Soulspace skill and forcefully
willed it to add points. I was rewarded with a new prompt.

Skill Advancement
Soulspace (Tier 3)
Source: Valerian
Affinity: No
Rank: 1 / 10
PP: 0 / 6

PP Available:
Universal: 10
Valerian: 20
Goblin: 0 (XPath)
Trailblazer: 20 (XPath)
Thief: 7 (XPath)

For a moment I was confused as to what I was supposed to do, then it clicked. I had several different
sorts of progression points, and Valera had said spending points outside your path cost twice as
much. The system needed me to tell it what points I wanted to spend and how many. It was going to
take six points to rank up, and I had more than enough Valerian points to do it, so I didn’t see any
reason not to use them. I willed six points from my Valerian pool into the skill, and watched as the
rank value increased to 2 / 10.

Success! Identify activated and I quickly read over the resulting information.

Scarab Token
Divine Currency (Tier 5)
Quality: Divine

These tokens are among the most valuable objects mortals can possess, as each represents a divine
favor owed to the bearer by the ancient and inscrutable deity known only as The Adversary. While
many consider him to be the enemy of all good people, his favor is extremely beneficial to those who
earn it, no matter what their means were to do so. Cities have been razed and nations sent to war for
but a single one of these tokens.

As a bearer of a Scarab Token, you may activate it to visit the Infernal Exchange, a place where these
tokens may be spent for both material and spiritual rewards, many of which are available nowhere
else.

Another man had entered the room and had pulled up the mattress on Maraci’s side of the room. He
was squeezing it now, apparently checking to see if anything might be hidden inside it. I frantically
shoved the scarab tokens into my soulspace. After reading that description I wished I’d stored them
first, as there was no telling what would happen if they found me with one, let alone three of them.

Just as I started the storage process, the original man who’d been searching my room lifted the entire
bed off me, turning it on its side. I lay on the ground, tokens covered by my body, but he grabbed me
by the hair and dragged me out from under the upraised bed. The pain of being dragged by my hair
was excruciating, made worse no doubt by my still tender head and the scrape of the wooden
floorboards against my arm and legs as I was unceremoniously yanked from my hiding spot. I cursed
myself for not immediately locating the pain feedback settings when I’d had a chance.

I found myself being lifted off the ground by my hair. I let out a scream while doubling over, trying to
keep the fading tokens out of view. My captor called out, “I found the thief!” and I heard booted feet
climbing up the stairs. The next few moments were agonizing but I felt the tokens slip into my soul-
space just as a new man entered the room.

He was human and dressed in something that resembled a shakespearean costume to my eyes. He
wore a blue doublet, and matching pants, and through the tears welling in my eyes I could see a gold
chain attached to his belt above his left pocket, presumably attached to something resting inside. He
was bald, and his face was sallow and gaunt. He seemed to be trying to hide it with a full brown beard
that wasn’t quite working out for him, but it did add a bit of color to his face, despite the gray streaks
running through it and the fact that he didn’t seem to be quite capable of growing a full mustache.

The man looked down at me, and I was yanked upright. The guard held my head up to face him. I
was not used to being this easy to manhandle, and it was galling to have this guy control me so easily.
The new man looked down at me and squinted, “Yes that’s probably her. Did you find my property
yet?” He looked idly around the room, as if he’d find it sitting in plain sight.

“Not yet sir, I just found her hiding under the bed.”

“I don’t care about the filthy goblin whore, just find my property. The justicars can take care of
removing her hand later. I want to be gone from here as quickly as possible. I can feel this place
giving me flees.” He shuddered and stepped away from the pile of clothes on the floor.

I found myself being turned to face the man holding me. Thankfully he released my hair in order to
do this, grabbing me by the shoulder instead and spinning me around. He was nearly twice as tall as
me, and he got down on one knee to look me right in the face.

“Alright girl, the game’s up. Where is it? No use hiding it from us, it’s been spelled to tell us where it
is, we know it’s here.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I growled at him. “All I’ve got on me is a shirt.”

He squeezed my shoulder painfully, and I saw my health bar flash as I took a single point of damage.
Apparently I’d already taken some damage from his mistreatment of me earlier as I was now down to
70% health.

“Is it with your fella then? The one that helped you escape just before you dropped that wall on us?
Where is he? Tell me girl!” He shook me with each question, as if he could shake the answers out of
me.

I seriously considered trying to bite him, but I held onto my temper. Things hadn’t gotten violent yet
as far as I could tell. There were still three green dots in the building in addition to all the red ones,
and I didn’t want to start things that might get my host family hurt.

“I’m telling you, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t have anything. Search all you want,
but unless you’re looking for some girl's underthings you’re not going to find it in here.”

The guard practically threw me onto the pile of clothes in the center of the room, “Sit there, don’t
move. If you run we’ll cut you down before you can make it out the door, and when we find the relic
you’ll be losing a hand for sure. If you want any hope of mercy you’d best fess up before we find it.”
Then he pulled a knife and cut my mattress open without even bothering to check if it felt like
anything was concealed within.

On the other side of the room, the guard searching Maraci’s bed area let out an excited cry, then
pulled a loose board out from the wall to reveal a small hollow space within. I watched with interest
as he pulled out what looked like a book and some writing materials. He opened the book, and a bit
of folded up parchment fell out, landing on the floor and unfolding itself for everyone to see.
On the parchment was an extremely detailed and colorfully rendered image of two scantily clad
Devilkin, one male and one female, with the word “Sinsations!” written in a large, eye-catching font
across the bottom. The art was so detailed and vibrant that it had to have been created with some
sort of skill or magic. I immediately felt embarrassed for the girl and was glad she wasn’t here to see
this. Whoever these people were it was obvious they were related to Maraci. The woman looked like
an older version of her, and I was pretty sure the man was her father.

The guard handed the book over to his friend, then continued searching while the other man flipped
through the book a few pages before turning to the end and reading backwards for a bit. He
eventually grunted and threw the book down on the bed. “Diary. No mention of the theft.” Then he
turned and winked at me. “She’s jealous of you cause she has the hots for your fella though. Can’t
blame her, I’d be jealous too if I were a bit younger and a bit more single. That boy has eyes on him
you can feel from across a room.”

Maraci had a crush on Lucus? That made sense of her reaction earlier then. I looked over at the man
in rich clothing only to find him looking directly at me with a much more intent look on his face than
had been there earlier. His eyes on me made me shiver, they were dead eyes, devoid of anything
resembling human feelings. Instinctively I activated Inspect, wanting to know what this guy’s deal
was, but for the first time I was rebuffed.
Identify failed, target resisted your identification attempt.

The words had appeared in the bottom left of my vision, tiny but still somehow readable - not that I
needed to read them, somehow I seemed to already know what they said the moment they appeared.
They faded away after a moment and the man smirked at me but didn’t comment. He obviously had
noticed what I’d done and didn’t care.

Considering how things were headed, and realizing that I might be subject to several forms of
magical detection in the near future, I decided to invest some points into my Dual Nature skill. It
seemed like a really good skill in general, able to raise all my attributes by 50% when maxed out, but
right now I was more interested in not being caught as some sort of body snatcher, let alone found in
possession of this guy’s stolen statuette.

I dropped all 14 remaining points from my Valerian species into the skill, then paid off the remaining
6 from my pool of Universal points, bringing my rank in Dual Nature up to 3 and raising my stats by
20% across the board. I could feel myself get stronger, and while it didn’t seem to make a huge
difference on my character sheet I immediately felt better.

Almost as soon as I’d dropped the points into the skill the sallow man blinked, and tore his eyes away
from me. That made me even more worried, but I wasn’t sure what I could do about it. “I don’t have
all day gentlemen.” He told his lackeys.

One of the guards had been stomping around for a bit, and had gone down on one knee right beside
me near the wardrobe. He moved some of the piled up clothes out of his way, then began tapping on
boards until he heard whatever it was he was looking for. Using a dagger he pried at the floorboards
in that area until one popped free and he pulled it up to reveal yet another hidden cache. This one
was bigger than the other, and contained several cloth wrapped bundles. The other men all gathered
around expectantly as the kneeling man pulled out a bag very similar to the one that had contained
Valera’s statuette.

Working quickly, the guard untied the drawstring on the bag and pushed back the fabric to reveal… a
bottle full of liquid. Confused, the guard pulled the cork out of it and the smell of alcohol
immediately permeated the room. He shoved the cork back in and set the bottle aside, looking
annoyed, but I noticed his partner was eyeing the bottle with interest. I suspected it was going to get
“confiscated” before they left.
The next thing out of the compartment was long and thick, and I knew what it was before the guard
had managed to unwrap it. I’d seen plenty of comically large dildos in my day. They made great gag
gifts, even and perhaps especially for completely straight male friends, and I’d both given and
received them in my youth. I was desperately hoping that this one was also a joke for the sake of my
sanity. Either way, it definitely was funny to watch the guard realize he was holding an immaculately
carved and polished wooden phallus that was bigger than his forearm.

I found myself speaking without even realizing I’d intended to say something. “Huh, I was wrong,
turns out you guys aren’t the biggest dicks in this room. Though I guess it still remains to be seen just
how big your.. I mean, how big of an asshole you are.” This quip did not earn me any new fans, but it
made me feel better. Now that I’d secured the loot this was actually starting to amuse me.

Finally the guard pulled out a small bag that obviously contained coins. He opened this up and
poured out a few gold and silver coins, followed by a larger amount of copper. He didn’t even bother
to count the coins, simply sweeping them back into the bag and tucking it into his belt, not even
bothering to hide what he was doing.

A few more moments of searching didn’t turn up anything else in the hidden compartment, and all
three men now looked visibly frustrated. The guard who’d yanked my hair earlier nervously eyed his
employer while his friend seemed to be looking around the room trying to determine if there was
anywhere else that an object the size they were looking for might be found. Hesitantly, the first guard
asked, “Sir, do you think you could use your tracking spell again, maybe see if it can get us any
closer? Maybe they were able to sneak it out with that big fella before we got into the house?”

The sallow man sighed dramatically, “If I was going to do your job, guardsman, then why am I paying
you? Oh very well, if it gets us out of here faster it will be worth the effort.” He then took the pocket
watch out of his pocket on its golden chain, made a gesture over its face, then said “Locate Property”
in a confident tone.

Nothing happened. The man shook his head, confused, then repeated the actions. More nothing
happened. The man tapped his watch, obviously confused by what it was telling him.

“Sir…?” The guard started. “Is something wrong?”

“It’s telling me the object I’m seeking isn’t within 20 kilometers.” He replied, puzzled. “That can’t be
right of course, it showed as right here not 5 minutes before we entered the house.”

I pounced on this immediately. “You mean to tell me you all barged in here, tore up my room, and
yanked half my hair out because this guy can’t read a map or use his spell properly? This is
outrageous, I demand an apology!” By the end of this little tirade I’d scrambled to my feet and was
poking the first guard in the stomach with my finger to emphasize my points.
I realized I needed to rethink my approach to this situation when the guard casually backhanded me
with his gauntlet, sending me sprawling on the clothing pile. My already sore head rang from the
blow and my vision fuzzed for a moment.
Guardsman Wernst uses “Chastise” on you.
Guardsman Wernst “Chastise” hits you for 31% damage.
You have been afflicted with Stun (Tier 1 Bane).

The stun condition faded quickly and I raised my arm to wipe a trickle of blood off my mouth. Now I
really wanted to bite him. I wanted to bite him so much that I was shaking and grinding my teeth.
The strength of the compulsion finally made me aware that what I was feeling was not natural. Or
rather, it wasn’t natural for me. I’d never wanted to bite anyone in my life that I could recall, not even
as a toddler. I was pretty sure I was experiencing some sort of feedback instinct from my body, which
was equipped with a nasty set of teeth that could probably do some real damage. My body was telling
me to bite this guy’s jugular out, and it was surprisingly hard to say no. Thankfully the stun effect
actually gave me some time to get a hold of myself.

After a moment I sat back up and looked at them, radiating barely restrained fury. I didn’t say
anything, and for a moment neither did they. The guard who’d struck me and pulled my hair wore a
congenial expression, much as he had for this entire encounter. The other guard looked vaguely
annoyed still, but seemed to have given up looking for hiding spots. Their employer was looking at
me with a small, thin-lipped smile that somehow made me like him even less than I already did.

“Search her,” he said, looking directly at me. “Perhaps she has it on her somewhere.”

“Sir, she can’t possibly have it on her. It’s half her height.” The more subdued guard said.

“She may have a Traveler’s Pack or similar item. An extradimensional space would put the relic out
of reach of my spell.”

I didn’t like anything about where this was going, but I froze up trying to decide what to do. Asshole
guard suffered from no such indecision, reaching down and yanking my shirt off with one hand. The
fabric caught on my arms and for a moment he lifted me into the air as I hung by the shirt sleeves,
then I crashed to the floor amidst the other clothing.

If anyone had reached for me at that moment I’m pretty sure I’d have bitten their hand off. As it was
though, asshole guard didn’t seem to care about me at all - he was examining the shirt he’d just torn
off me, turning it inside out and looking for who knows what. The other guard had seemingly decided
that maybe it was worth searching the ceiling for hiding places, and so only their boss was looking at
me.

His gaze made me feel dirty, even though his expression didn’t change. He looked me up and down,
almost methodically, and it occurred to me that I should probably be trying to cover myself up or
something. I was too mad to do that. I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing he’d
humiliated me. Instead I grinned my best “I’m going to rip your throat out” grin and let my pupils
narrow to pinpricks as I looked up at him. I wished I had something, anything, I could do to wipe
that small smile off his face.

“Nothing here sir.” Asshole guard said, holding out my shirt to his employer. “Looks like just an old
shirt to me.”

The other man finally flicked his eyes away from me, “I don’t want that filthy thing. Get rid of it.” He
said, taking a step away.

Asshole guard just tossed the shirt back in my general direction. I made no move to catch it, and let it
rest on the pile of other clothes. I knew what these men wanted and it wasn’t to see me naked. They
wanted to exercise power over me, to make me squirm. I’d seen men like this in the real world, and
I’d tried very hard to understand them. Men who catcalled random women and girls, men who’d say
inappropriate things to women much younger than them, weirdos that seemed to get a thrill from
making a woman even mildly uncomfortable. None of it was about sex, it was all about pain, they
were leeches that drew vitality from the suffering of others - all else was excuses and lies, perhaps
even ones they told themselves so they didn’t have to confront what a shitty excuse for a human
being they were.

I didn’t take my eyes off of the sallow man, I wanted to break his control of this situation, but I wasn’t
sure how. Every fiber of my being was screaming at me to tear his throat out with my bare teeth, but
I couldn’t do that. The guards would kill me if I made a move for him. I’d have to use words.
“That all this was about? if you’ve got some weird goblin fetish you wanted to indulge there are
places that will sell you that you know. You didn’t have to go through all this trouble. I’m not one to
kink shame but you have to keep that stuff between consenting adults. That said, I do feel kinda bad
for you now, I suppose I could give you a pity blowjob to take the sting off a bit.” Then I very carefully
licked my lips, letting my too-long tongue run over each and every one of my serrated teeth. “Or if
you’re not into that I wouldn’t mind shoving that wooden cock so far up your ass that shit comes out
your nose.”
New Achievement! “Speak Truth to Power”
New skill unlocked: “Enrage”
Congratulations, you have received enough XP to become a Level 11 Goblin!

As I talked I got to watch as the sallow man’s face somehow got even more bloodless, though I
couldn’t read if it was out of anger or embarrassment. There was a weird muffled clang behind me,
and I glanced over to see that serious guard had blocked asshole guard from backhanding me again.
“That’s enough Wernst.” He said, holding the other man back. “She's a goblin, you keep hitting her
like that and you’ll kill her.”

This didn’t seem to bother Wernst much, but he relaxed his posture and looked at his boss. “I can kill
her if you want but it’ll be extra. Doesn’t seem like she’s gonna run. Death warrant is nearly ten-
thousand gold right now. The prison hasn't filled back up yet since the last dungeon event.”

The sallow faced man took his time responding, some amount of color returning to his cheeks as he
stewed on this. I took the time to calmly sort through the clothing on the floor picking out some
replacement clothes - I was done with that stupid shirt. I pulled on the first thing I found that fit me,
a pair of socks, and put them on. I resisted the urge to dress quickly, not wanting to let them know
they’d made me uncomfortable.

I was aware that I was getting off easier here than any real woman in my shoes would be able to. The
game system wasn’t going to let me get raped, I was very sure of that. If there was any chance of that,
the developers of the game would be sued into bankruptcy so fast it’d make my head spin clean off.
Likewise the worst they could do was kill me, and while that might suck for my plans with this
character if this game had permadeath, I could still roll up another character if need be, and could
even get the same species and class now that I knew what to ask for. I’d just be missing out on my
Scarab Tokens and achievements, but there was a chance those might be account bound.

Together, this let me exercise a nearly suicidal degree of sass. It was very cathartic, but not
something I’d suggest a real woman try against this kind of cretin, at least not without backup. By the
time I’d located some wrappings that looked similar to the ones I’d been wearing when I first arrived
at this house, the sallow man had calmed down enough to speak.

“Take her to jail. I’ll pay for the warrant. A week in the dungeon may convince her to tell me where
my property is, or we may find the boy in that time. Either will suffice I think.”

I started wrapping the cloth around my chest, hoping I could figure out how this was supposed to
work before it became obvious I didn’t know. I was betting they didn’t know either though, so I just
had to get close enough and I could redo it later. I made it work with a bit of effort, continuing to
taunt him as I did. “Ohhhh, you’re looking for a boy, that makes so much more sense now. I know
these aren’t much to look at but I’m surprised you’d mistake me for a boy. I’m pretty sure Ryke is
downstairs, he’s a goblin and a boy, and he’s not above getting a little dirty if the money’s right, if you
know what I mean.”

As I spoke the sallow man walked out of the room, back as stiff as if someone had actually rammed a
half-meter long wooden dildo up his ass. I couldn’t help but snicker at this as I started rooting
around in the pile for underwear.
Asshole guard decided to grab me by the shoulder at that point, “Alright, come on, you’re coming
with us. You pissed him off enough that he’s willing to pay two-hundred gold to keep you in prison
for a week.”

I looked up at him over my shoulder and let a bit of the rage I was holding back leak into my voice.
“You’re going to count it as a personal favor I didn’t just take two of your fingers off with my teeth,
and then you’re going to let me finish getting dressed. I’ll come with you when I’m done. Also, if you
ever touch me again I swear to all the gods that I’ll tear your throat out and swallow it before they can
take me down.”

There was a thudding on the stairs as Maraci came running up it and into view, just in time to see the
guard yank his hand away from me. Her eyes bugged out at the scene, and she spluttered, trying to
catch her breath and form a coherent thought.

The guard, to my shock, seemed genuinely abashed. He lowered his voice and said, “No need for that
Tavi, I’m sorry I hurt ya, I was trying to keep you alive. That type of man lives for cruelty. I was sure
we were gonna find that thing you stole and that’d have been it for you, maybe all of you, unless we
could make him happy. I know him, and he wasn’t going to be happy without pain. Jira, I even lied to
him about the price of a death warrant, it’s half that at least right now. I thought you were trying to
die with that mouth of yours.”

I glanced at the other guard and he nodded, remaining stoic and continuing to examine the room’s
ceiling. “I don’t know how you hid it, but best pray your friend gets rid of it soon. If either of you are
caught with it you’ll be lucky if you keep your heads, let alone your hands.”

Maraci, still breathless, finally managed to interject. “Why are you naked?!” She squeaked, at twice
her normal pitch.

I looked at her and put on my best confused expression. “What do you mean, I’m not naked.” At that
moment, by divine or infernal providence, my poorly wrapped top came undone and fell to the floor.
I looked down at it for a moment, then brightened, pointing at my feet. “See, I have socks on!”

***

“Why am I naked?” The woman asked Tristan. “And why am I in jail?”

She was sitting on a bunk in her cell, wrapped in his burnt and torn cloak. She was looking around
with interest but no apparent alarm. Tristan had been waiting here for several hours after dragging
her unconscious body out of the wreckage of the cathedral and depositing her here. She had woken
moments before, and Tristan had silently observed her, waiting for her to speak.

The woman wasn’t human, though she could have passed as such from a distance. Tristan had gotten
used to odd looks for his prematurely graying hair, but this woman’s hair was a vibrant shade of blue.
Her skin was a dark brown and she had markings similar to tattoo’s swirling over every exposed inch.
Except unlike tattoos the markings glowed faintly with a shifting inner light. Her eyes glowed with
that same light, giving her the appearance of being lit from within.

Tristan had found the woman in roughly the spot where he’d seen the bishop go down, in the middle
of a circle completely free of debris but clearly ravaged by fire. After ensuring that she wouldn’t wake
up for a while, Tristan had wrapped her in his cloak and carried her to this jail cell where he had
stood watch until this very moment. Now maybe he could finally get some answers.

“You are here because you were found in the wreckage of the Hall of Justice after an attack by an
unknown force. You are naked because you weren’t wearing any clothes when I found you. You’ll find
some simple garments in the basket to your left, which you may equip if you wish.” Tristan told her.
He watched with interest as the woman pulled out the prison clothes she’d been provided, and
manually dressed herself rather than simply equipping the items. She managed to do so with a
shocking degree of modesty despite doing things the hard way, and Tristan wondered how and why
she had acquired such a skill. She didn’t even ask him to look away, not that he would have - he
didn’t plan to let her out of his sight until he had answers.

Once she was dressed the woman stood up and walked to the far wall, looking out the small barred
window to the city below. After a moment she turned back to face him. “Is that smoke where your
Hall of Justice was?”

Tristan nodded. While the attack had apparently hit multiple places in the city, the cathedral had
been the scene of the most destruction, in part because of the troll but mostly because of the fires
that had been started when the roof collapsed. “What can you tell me about how you came to be in
the cathedral this afternoon?” He asked her.

“Huh? Oh, I guess it was my spawn point? I don’t know, I don’t actually remember being there.” She
told him. “Wait, you think I had something to do with this attack?”

“You were found near the last known location of the bishop, after I personally witnessed him struck
down by some unknown magic. Despite being in the middle of a collapsed and burning building you
have no wounds, and you bear markings which I do not recognize. Currently you are the top suspect
in my investigation, and I believe you may have personally killed the bishop.” Tristan rattled off his
accusations perfunctorily. She did have the right to know after all.

“Oh wow, that’s wild.” She said, still not seeming concerned. “Well, do I get to prove my innocence or
something?”

“Are you saying you would submit to a truth-speaking?” Tristan asked, surprised. People that asked
to prove their innocence to an Arbiter only ever meant one thing, and none were foolish enough to
submit themselves to it unless they were in fact innocent. It was a tool of last resort, and one which
could only be used on a willing subject, both by law and by requirement of the skill involved. It was
such a dangerous skill that laws governing its use had been created to help ensure it wouldn’t be
abused. That this woman would so casually request it was unheard of.

“Is that like a lie detector or something?” She asked. “Sure I’d do that.”

“Lie detector… No, not quite.” Tristan told her. “By law I am required to inform you that submitting
to a truth-speaking is not required, and that by submitting you will be compelled to answer my
questions fully and truthfully, without reservation. If you choose not to submit, you will not be
subject to any further penalties under the law, but if you do then as an Arbiter I am empowered to
judge you innocent or guilty on the spot, with all the consequences thereof.”

She shrugged. “Sure, go for it.”

Tristan was becoming increasingly unnerved at the cavalier attitude this woman was displaying. Still,
she had agreed. He was tempted to call for a witness, but he couldn’t afford to give her time to
change her mind or slip away from him somehow. He would submit to a truth-speaking himself later
if necessary.

This prison was the most magically potent building in all of Altria, and nearly all of Etrona. Its very
stones and mortar had been enchanted even as they were laid. Every stone was individually
enchanted, and they had been set in patterns that those with knowledge of such things could identify
as runic wards against the use of skills and spells. Within these walls a god would struggle to wield
their power, and no mortal could hope to so much as activate a single skill. However, Tristan knew
some passive skills could defeat the protections laid on the building, as could a devotee of Limitless,
since the god would not allow his favored followers to be bound against their will.

Tristan possessed an amulet which excluded him from the building’s restrictions, as did each of the
prison guards. These were issued by the warden, and never left the building. They were irreplaceable
as they had been created at the same time as the building itself and were fundamentally tied to its
magic. Yet Tristan knew that despite their importance, safeguarding the amulets was at best third
priority for any guard stationed here. No, the guards were understandably more concerned with their
own lives, but even more so with keeping what lay below the prison from getting out.

Still, Tristan had received no report of an amulet going missing, so unless this woman was blessed by
Limitless she should not be able to escape the confines of the prison. Nonetheless, he remained on
guard as he unlocked her cell and stepped inside. “Please sit on the bed, the process may leave you
weakened.” He told her, one hand on his sword.

The woman calmly sat down and looked up at him. “So what do I have to do?”

“I am going to place my hand on your head. When I do you will receive a divine message, read it
carefully then say ‘I agree’ to begin. I will then ask you questions, which you will be compelled to
answer. When I am satisfied I will remove my hand and the effect will end.” Tristan followed up his
explanation with action, placing the palm of his hand against her forehead and activating the Arbiter
skill “Compelled Testament”.

Tristan watched as the woman’s eyes moved over text only she could see. He knew what she was
reading of course, every Arbiter had to submit themselves to this so they would understand what
they were subjecting others to when they used it. Compelled Testament, more commonly referred to
as a truth-speaking, was one of very few skills which could remove the agency of another being. The
divine system did not grant such powers lightly, and all known ones had significant drawbacks to
their use.

Despite this Testament was easily the most commonly available skill of this type, with every Arbiter
having access to it. It had been abused in the past by overzealous Arbiters forcing prisoners to submit
under pain of torture or death. This in turn had led to the laws governing its use. Even with all the
warnings it was impossible to understand how disturbing the process was, which is why all Arbiters
were required to subject themselves to it. Few people who volunteered for a truth-speaking ever did
so a second time, innocent or not.

“I agree.” said the woman, and Tristan felt the skill take hold. Under his hand her body stiffened, and
she would have jerked away had the magic of the skill not held her in the palm of his hand by force.
Electricity seemed to run through the woman, and a strange humming noise escaped her lips. Tristan
wasted no time, not wishing for this to last any longer than necessary.

“What is your name, and where do you hail from?” He asked her.

The woman bucked against his hand as the magic pried through her thoughts, finding the answer
and forcing it through her lips. “I… I… I am Corona… No, deeper… I… I was. I was Valen Armeias…
Bishop of Altria… I can’t… go deeper. Deeper. So much deeper… I am… I was… Professor… Seaira
Monroe… I am… is… is there… more…?” At this point the woman began making a high pitched
keening sound that hurt Tristan’s very soul. He had never seen a reaction like this to such a simple
question.

He cut her off, trying to redirect the magic. “Where do you hail from, Corona?”
“I… I’m from Cole Valley… San Francisco… California… the United States of America… Earth… Sol
system… the Milky Way galaxy… the Virgo supercluster… the Laniakea Supercluster… the
universe…? Is there… more? Is there…?”

The woman’s eyes had begun to look panicked again and Tristan quickly moved on despite not
having any idea what she was talking about. “Did you have anything to do with the attack on the
cathedral?”

“I… I was not… There was no attack… I was the attack? Oh god I killed me! It’s all right there!” She
became even more visibly disturbed and tried to pull away from his hand, but the power of the skill
would not release her until Tristan allowed it.

Gritting his teeth and cursing this blasted skill, Tristan once again redirected. “Who was responsible
for this?”

This time the answer came immediately. “The gods! Thousands of them! All of them! Valera! She did
this! She brought us here!”

Valera? All the gods? What was this? This was the most intelligible answer Tristan had gotten but it
made no sense. These things couldn’t be true simultaneously could they? Why would any of the gods
have attacked Altria, let alone the Hall of Justice? Only The Adversary ever did things like this, and
while Tristan could believe he was involved, why was the woman claiming Valera had done it? This
was one of the problems with Testament. From what Tristan understood it had access to the divine
logs contained within every person, and could dredge up information from them a person wasn’t
even consciously aware of, however it was still limited by the information that person had access to.

“Did you kill the Bishop?” He asked, hoping for clarification on something she’d said earlier.

“Yes I killed him! I am him! I killed myself and became me!” Words were coming faster now, but still
made very little sense. Still, he’d seen what happened to his charge in the courtyard, and a terrible
understanding overtook him. Three flashes of red light he’d seen. A troll, a devilkin, and this woman,
three struck down and three others took their place. This woman had somehow been the Bishop, but
was no longer. He’d suspected of course, but this was as close to proof as he could get.

“What is your purpose here?” He asked, glancing at his mana pool. Testament was a maintained skill,
and so constantly drained his mana while it was in use. He wouldn’t have much more time for
questions. Normally it was much simpler than this.

“I just wanted to play the game!” The woman cried. Then her face twisted in discomfort as a new
voice emerged from her throat. It was a deeper voice, but still feminine, confident yet sad. Tristan
had heard it once before. “Welcome Traveller.” the voice spoke through the woman called Corona. “I
have called you here from beyond the stars. Not for any great purpose or dire threat, but because I
felt your souls cry out for that which they have long been denied.”

As soon as she finished speaking, the woman coughed and Tristan’s white tunic was suddenly pink
with speckled blood. He immediately withdrew his hand, ending the effect of the skill, and the
woman collapsed in a heap, boneless. He caught her as she began to slide off the bed, then
repositioned her. Then for the second time that day Tristan found a wall and slumped against it,
allowing himself to slide down and sit on the floor.

“What did I just witness?” Tristan asked himself. That had been the strangest truth-speaking he’d
ever even heard of. The only thing even close to it was an account he’d read of a truth-speaking
involving someone under a gaes. In that case though, the truth-speaking had overpowered the gaes
but killed the speaker. Perhaps that would have happened if he’d continued.
Tristan picked through what he’d learned. This woman called Corona… or perhaps Seaira Monroe.
She had in some way been Bishop Valen, but he was dead now, and it seemed like she had killed him
but it didn’t sound intentional. She’d said she wanted to play a game, but what game? Was this some
contest of the gods? Was this woman a champion of a god in some divine game? The voice of Valera
had spoken through the woman, and it had said she was here for no great purpose, but if that was the
case why had at least three people died today?

Tristan was an Arbiter, one of the direct servants of Astraea. Valera was not an enemy of his goddess,
in fact she was one of her oldest allies. Most people didn’t know or didn’t care about Valera’s
sacrifice, but the servants of Astraea were all taught the story. When the gods had been divided and
unwilling to sacrifice their own power to create the Divine System, Valera had offered to put nearly
all of her own power into it so that the other gods could sacrifice only a small portion of their
strength in the endeavor.

The system had been Astraea’s idea - a neutral and impartial force to administrate this world, and
Valera’s nature was closely aligned with her idea, but neither of them had the raw power nor
expertise with worldcrafting to do it on their own. Valera’s sacrifice had brought The Adversary on
board with the project, and then the others had followed.

Tristan shook his head. There was a simple answer here, if the gods were involved then this was a
problem for the gods. With a few mental commands he brought up a display only he could see, and
began to compose a message to his goddess.
(I'm new to RR and still getting used to the author tools, but it's occurred to me that I need to more
actively solicit feedback on some of the things I'm curious about.

This chapter contains what is easily the roughest scene in the book, and I've almost deleted and re-
written it without the strip search several times. The primary reason I've left it in is because I wanted
Inifinity's experiences as a woman to be realistic, and SA is something that happens to women all the
time–to greater and lesser degrees. Is the character's experience doing justice to the reality if I omit
the bad parts?

A lot of media that has gender-bending in it has a tendency to idealize the experiences of the opposite
sex. In some cases it's simple wish-fulfillment, and that's fine for what it is, but it's not really the
point of this story. This is a progression fantasy, the theme of the story is growth, and that includes
character growth. We call them experience points because they come from gaining experiences, both
good and bad.

All that said–this is a fantasy. It can be whatever I want it to be. It would not have any substantial
impact on the plot for me to simply remove the strip search part of the scene. I think readers would
still dislike the merchant and be at least somewhat angry with Wernst, even without that extra bit of
cruelty that really should make you hate the merchant at a minimum.

There's a scene later in the book where Wernst talks about what happened in this chapter and you
get to see what he was thinking, but it would still work without the strip search. It might be a little
less impactful, but probably not much. The only real loss is a little bit of character growth and a
mirrored transition between Infinity & Tristan's viewpoints.

So I'm interested in getting opinions: Do you think I should remove the strip search?

I will likely leave this version up on RR regardless to gather feedback, but I'm working on my final
draft now so your opinions will influence the final book. When the chapter with Wernst's perspective
comes up I'll also post some follow-up questions regarding how people's opinions about this chapter
change (or stay the same) between now and then.
I'll put a poll up for easy feedback, but feel free to comment if you have more nuanced opinions. )

Chapter 8: Go Directly to Hell

Maraci ended up helping me get dressed. I explained the situation to her, which thankfully was
pretty easy as they had heard most of what was going on upstairs. As it turned out, the guards had
done a half-hearted search of the rest of the house while not being observed by their employer, then
the lot of them - Narani, Ryke, and Maraci, along with all the guards, had stood at the bottom of the
stairs listening to what was going on with various degrees of concern and morbid fascination.

The guards apparently knew us, knew that we were thieves, and mostly didn’t care so long as we
didn’t hurt anyone or rob the wrong person. Narani was somewhat famous in the area for providing
free healing to anyone that needed it, along with raising most of the orphans in this part of the city
for decades. Nobody local wanted anything bad to happen to her or her family. Tavi would have
known all this, and likely would have reacted quite differently. I ended up having to explain my head
injury and subsequent “amnesia”, which predictably got Narani upset.

I managed to calm her down by saying I was remembering stuff all the time, then used my unlimited
chat logs to rattle off a few random conversation topics we’d had over what was probably a few
months - I jumped to random places in the logs but tried to keep it fairly recent so they’d remember
the conversations and believe I had memories from before today. Thankfully I’d already laid the
groundwork for this story with Ryke and he unwittingly helped me sell it to the others.

My apparently suicidal behavior explained, everyone calmed down a bit. Strangely nobody seemed
all that shocked at the things I’d said and done, just who I’d said them to. Apparently I’d nailed the
character without even meaning to, and it made me wonder if I was getting some assistance from the
nVR system. If so, it was possible that some of Tavi’s thought patterns were wearing off on me. I’d
noticed a few things already, including the tendency to want to bite people, but how deep did it go
exactly? It was something I’d need to keep an eye on. I was about ready for a break anyway so I
figured once I got settled in at the jail I’d log off and get some air, then examine my time in the game
with a clear head.

They were all suitably impressed when I mentioned that my tirade had unlocked a skill and given me
a level in my species. Apparently that sort of thing was easier to do when you were in danger. Goblin
unfortunately only got me 2 progress points per-level, so not really much to be excited about, but it
was something. I hadn’t had a chance yet to look at my unlocked skills but I planned to do so when I
got to the prison.

Before Narani would let the guards take me away, I was given a quick primer on what each of them
thought would keep me alive for the next 8 days in jail. That was one of the things I learned, weeks
here were 8 days, one for each of the prime gods. The guards and my new family all joined in, calling
out tips and facts they thought I needed to know. Ryke ran upstairs and fetched the bottle of booze
we’d had stashed in the floor, and we spent a solid half-hour drinking while they called out advice
and I asked questions. Nobody asked me what had happened to the statuette, and I got the distinct
impression everyone was very glad not to know.

Thankfully, when this started up I remembered that I had a menu item for Notes, and I opened it up
to find all the written notes I’d taken in The Adversary’s notebook before character creation. I had
assumed this was lost, but I guessed the devilish god had taken my suggestion to heart and added it
to the game UI. I opened up a new notepad and began jotting down notes from all the suggestions I
was being given on prison survival, as well as a few life tips from tipsy guards.
The most important thing I discovered was that the prison wasn’t just a place to hold criminals. It
was also a dungeon in the game sense of the word. The holding cells were outside the dungeon
instance, built on top of the entrance. Prisoners were expected to go into the dungeon almost every
day, get as far as they could, and bring back any loot they found. Taking loot out of the dungeon
wasn’t possible as you were searched each time you left the instance. However, good finds were
rewarded - sometimes with time off a sentence and sometimes with better living conditions. You
would also be paid a reasonable amount for your labor when you were released, provided you
survived.

Narani insisted that I show the guards my soul gem, worried that if I hid it then it would be found
and… extracted… during a return trip from the dungeon. I didn’t want to show it off for obvious
reasons, but this made sense to me. They were all suitably impressed and horrified, and Narani took
the opportunity to give me a fresh bandage. If anyone didn’t believe my amnesia claim at that point,
they did then.

Another thing I learned was that the prison system, and to an extent the city guard, was run by the
church of Reign, the god of blood, gold, and death. I had interviewed the deity in the Assembly of the
Gods, and my notes on him were basically just a triple underlined, all caps, CRAZY. It didn’t come as
a surprise to me that he was in charge of sending conscripts into danger to make money mostly for
other people.

That said, I also learned that the church of The Adversary maintained the laws that the guards and
prison system followed. The laws here weren’t exactly equitable, but were internally consistent and
not trivial to flaunt. The sallow man, who’s name turned out to be William Strumald, was a wealthy
merchant from the capital who’d recently set up a shop in this city. He’d paid for an imprisonment
warrant, which basically meant that he couldn’t prove I’d done anything illegal but was willing to
spend money to put me in jail anyway.

An imprisonment warrant could only last a week, and could only be issued against the same person
once in a three month period. Anyone could buy one against anyone else, but the subject needed to
be at least credibly accused of a crime, something that an Arbiter or Bishop of Astraea would decide
when issuing the warrant. A death warrant was similar but cost far more, and came with the
provision that if the accused was ever exonerated of the crime, the one who’d put the warrant out
would themselves be executed. Those could only be signed off on by an Arbiter.

In Altria, the city we were in, the cost of a death warrant started at about twelve thousand gold and
went down with the more people that were imprisoned. When the prison was full it could be
purchased for as little as three thousand. The prison system wanted to remain near capacity in order
to have a constant income from the dungeon, so death warrants weren’t encouraged but
imprisonment warrants always were.

All warrants were publicly published, so it was easy to see who hated who and why. Rich people
didn’t dare take out imprisonment warrants on their social equals because they in turn would find
themselves imprisoned as soon as their victim was released - or sooner if the family paid for it. There
was nearly nobody that couldn’t be credibly accused of some crime, if not right that moment then in
the future, so simply having enough money to buy a warrant was proof against them. Obviously, we
didn’t have that kind of money, even after the guards gave us back our coin stash.

It was, for lack of better words, a fucked up system. The poor were the obvious victims, able to be
imprisoned or killed by anyone with enough money. I had to wonder what Astraea was thinking here
- the goddess of justice seemed to have a very minor part to play in the legal system of this city, and I
wondered why that was. Sure her people apparently worked as judges or something, but this was
such an obviously abusable system.
Before long it was time to go. The guards couldn’t delay any further in taking me in, so I let myself be
cuffed and led out the door, promising Narani at least three times that I’d be careful in the process. It
was still daylight out, though the sun was on the downswing, and I got my first look at the street Tavi
had lived on all her life. I marked it in my memory, then remembered I had a mental map and
managed to figure out how to place a marker before we rode away. I wanted to make sure I didn’t
have any trouble finding it again when I got out of jail.

Despite the shackles I found myself feeling more comfortable in my new body now that I had so far.
Thanks to Maraci I was fully clothed in some of Tavi’s best “work clothes”, as the other girl put it.
They consisted of the clothes I’d been trying to put on earlier, long pants made of a canvas-like
material, and a simple white cotton shirt over which I’d equipped a sturdy tanned hide vest that was
probably meant for a boy but which felt almost like armor compared to everything else I was
wearing. I also had on a pair of tough fabric gloves made for climbing, each of which had the tip cut
off the last finger allowing my longer nail on that finger to slip through. Finally I had on what might
be called open-toed boots, as they were cut away at the front to let my claws hang out.

The other girl had also given me a rag to stuff in my pants, which led to an incredibly awkward
conversation about menstruation. I was desperately hoping this wasn’t something I’d actually have to
deal with, but until I knew for sure I had to plan for the worst. The devs of this game apparently had
a hard-on for realism so I couldn’t risk ignoring it.

As it turned out, goblin girls got their period about once a week instead of once a month, and the
entire cycle was sped up compared to what I was used to. According to Maraci I should be starting
mine within a day or so, and it would likely be over the day after. Apparently there was a good chance
I’d feel it coming on and would have some time to prepare, but often it wasn’t much. That sounded
inconvenient but not too bad, and I felt like I’d gotten lucky with this one. I’d once had a girlfriend
that had needed to have a hysterectomy due to endometriosis and her periods had caused her to be
bedridden for about a week each month until the surgery had let her live a more normal life.

The guards led me down to a waiting carriage. It was basically a cage on wheels, but it looked like it
could uncomfortably hold five or six full grown men, so when they loaded me into it all alone I
imagined it looked pretty comical. Wernst and his buddy drove the carriage while the other guards
dispersed. I was still irrationally angry at the man despite the fact that he’d apparently put his neck
on the line for me by lying to the merchant, and despite his apology. It was hard to just let it go, but I
could keep it bottled up at least and try to work it out later.

The jail wasn’t far. I’d been told roughly where it was in relation to Narani’s house, so I knew I had a
few minutes to think things over. I started with taking a look at my unlocked skills, wanting to know
what resources I had available before I ended up spending any more points.

Devil in the Details

Active Skill (Tier 10)
Prerequisites: Demonologist (Level 10)
Rank: 0 / 5
PP: 0 / 20
Activation Cost: Mana (Low) & Stamina (Low)
Activation Type: Maintained
Cooldown: 1 day

You have been given read-only access to the divine logs, where all of history has been recorded. You
may activate this skill to step inside the logs. Select any log entry as your starting point, you will
relive the experiences that caused that log entry to be created, starting at the chosen entry and
ending when you run out of mana or stamina. Viewing a log requires mana and stamina for every
 second of viewing, if you run out of mana or stamina the vision will end. You may also end it early at
any time. At rank 2 and higher the following effects become available:

- At rank 2 the length of your vision will double and grant context. Instead of starting with the
chosen log you will now see the events leading up to it as well as the aftermath.
- At rank 3 you will be able to relive the vision from the perspective of anyone else the selected log
mentions, such as an attacker or party member.
- At rank 4 you view the log as a disembodied ghost, able to move about and view the scene from
any angle.
- At rank 5 you gain full control of the simulation, and can pause, rewind, and use information
gathering skills on things in the vision.

Enrage
Active Skill (Tier 1)
Prerequisites: Achievement (Speak Truth to Power)
Rank: 0 / 5
PP: 0 / 2
Activation Cost: Mana (Medium)

Activation Type: Instant

Cooldown: 1 minute

You attempt to enrage your target, reducing their Wisdom, Charisma, and Perception by 5% per
rank of this skill for one minute. Affected enemies are also much more likely to target you than
other available targets.

These were both fantastic. The first one was just wild, I hadn’t even realized that skill tiers could go
above 5 based on everything I’d seen so far. A tier 10 skill made me wonder if that was the cap, or if
there wasn’t one. This appeared to be one of The Adversary’s unique class skills, and he knew damn
well that if I spent one of my Innovator ranks on it I could pick it up without meeting the
prerequisite. In fact, I had a free rank already just from getting the skill through my class, so I could
unlock this immediately if I chose to. I’d just need to spend the 20 points to reach rank 1.

That skill would be invaluable for learning about Tavi’s life when combined with my unlimited logs -
I could just go back and watch portions of her life, once a day, until I’d be able to fool anyone. How
perfect this skill was told me once again that The Adversary was working with Valera on this. Were
the two gods allies? They didn’t seem like a natural pair but maybe I was missing something. I
doubted it had anything to do with me directly though, I was just in the right place at the right time.

Enrage was also amazing in its own right, but not something I felt comfortable using just yet. I wasn’t
sure just how squishy I was, and until I had a better feeling for how much damage an attack would do
to me I didn’t want to use a taunt skill. Still that debuff would be a 25% penalty to three stats when it
was maxed out. That was nothing to laugh at.

We had another minute before we arrived at the prison, so I quickly flipped over to the Penalties tab
in my skill screen. I hadn’t had a chance to look at this yet and wanted to know what the deal was
before any of it got me into trouble.

Look Ma, No Hands… or Feet!

Penalty (Tier 50)
Source: Valerian
Rank: 1 / 1
PP: 0 / 100
As a Valerian your true body is a gemstone infused with a spark of divine energy. As a gemstone,
you have no arms or legs, or much of a body at all really. Your natural body may not operate on its
own, nor may it directly benefit from any equipment.

Diminutive
Penalty (Tier 1)
Source: Goblin
Rank: 3 / 5
PP: 0 / 2

With a short stature comes short legs. You have a 25% penalty to movement speed, which is reduced
by 5% for every rank removed from this penalty.

Nocturnal
Penalty (Tier 1, Mastered)
Source: Goblin
Rank: 0 / 5
PP: N / A

You are naturally inclined to living in the darker areas and times of the world. While in direct
sunlight you have a 50% penalty to perception. This decreases by 10% for every rank removed from
this penalty.

Note: This penalty has been mastered, removing its effects and unlocking the “Darkvision” skill.

Expendable
Penalty (Tier 5)
Source: Goblin
Rank: 5 / 5
PP: 0 / 10

In the face of harsh environments your people have evolved to be expendable and easily replaceable.
Your maximum health is reduced by 50%. This amount is lessened by 10% for every rank removed
from this penalty.

I finished reading these over right as we were pulling up to the jail. The building looked like someone
had set down a huge block of solid stone, then carved it into the shape of a squat, three story
building. There were barred windows on each floor, and through some I saw arms sticking out as
prisoners rested against their cell window. I closed out of all my menus while waiting to be let out of
the cage, but my mind was spinning through the implications of the penalties screen.

Penalties were literally reverse skills. I hadn’t been expecting to be able to spend progress points to
remove them, but it seemed that if I did pay them off I got access to new skills based on the penalty
I’d removed. Tavi had paid off Nocturnal and gotten access to Darkvision. She was apparently in the
middle of paying off Diminutive as well. Far more concerning though was that I was operating under
a -50% penalty to health. I’d just found out that I was deeply in progression point debt and
desperately needed to pay it off.

I tried to pay attention as Wernst and his partner, Bravic, the man I’d been calling “serious guard”
took me into the building. They confirmed that a warrant had been purchased for my imprisonment
and that the gold had been paid. An Arbiter had been called to sign off on it, and would be here
momentarily. He was apparently questioning a suspect.
We only had to wait a moment. A surprisingly young man, perhaps in his early thirties, clean shaven
but with graying black hair came down the stairs from the upper floors. He wore white, but his
clothes were torn and burned, and ash darked his cloak. He was also covered in fresh blood. It was
sprayed along his arm and over his chest. Had they said this guy was questioning a suspect? What
the fuck kind of questioning had he been doing?

“Is this the accused?” The man asked, looking at me with eyes the color of steel. He took some papers
from one of the guards and read them over, then grunted. “Theft, witnessed by two off-duty
guardsmen on a personal contract, yet you are unable to locate the stolen property despite a tracking
spell?” He sighed. “Very well.”

The Arbiter walked over to a counter set into one of the walls. Bars covered the opening, and two
guards sat inside, but there was space to write and one of the guards handed the man a quill pen to
sign off on the warrant. However, the Arbiter paused before doing so, turning to me. “I am required
to offer you a chance to present evidence that contradicts this warrant, or if you wish you may submit
to a truth-speaking… If you want to do that it will need to wait for tomorrow as I’ve just finished
administering one and it will be some time before I can do so again.”

Behind the Arbiter, Guardsman Werntz emphatically shook his head. His advice was unnecessary
though. Tavi actually had committed the crime I was accused of, and while I might be able to talk
around it, I wanted nothing to do with any sort of truth spell. I had way too much to hide. “Uh,
thanks but I’ll pass on that.”

The Arbiter nodded, unsurprised, then signed off on the warrant. “Guardsman, I require assistance
with my charge upstairs. Send for Wizard Toury if he is available, or one of his apprentices if not.”
Then he slid the warrant under the bars and turned without another glance in my direction before
walking back up the stairs. As soon as he was out of sight, everyone in the room seemed to let out a
collective breath.

The guards got moving quickly after that. All the boxes checked, all the ducks in a row. A sort of
magical brand was used on my arm, leaving a symbol there in something that wasn’t ink but looked
almost like a tattoo. I was told it would fade when my warrant expired, but that until then it would let
them track me and know if I was alive or dead - an important tool for figuring out what happened to
those that vanished in the dungeon.

You have been afflicted with Incarcerated (Tier 5 Bane).

New Required Title: “Prisoner”

“So I’m officially a prisoner now?” I asked Wernst.

“That you are. You’ll be free to go in eight days so long as no hard evidence against you turns up.
Someone will be around to take you to your cell in just a moment when they finish digging that old
fool Toury out of his cups.”

“Alright, I want to try something real quick, wait here a sec would you?”

Both guards watched, as I walked back to the door we came in through, stepping outside the jail.
“Hey wait, Tavi, you can’t go out there!” Bravic called out behind me.

New Achievement! “The Fugitive”

Congratulations, you have received enough XP to become a Level 2 Valerian!

I immediately turned around and walked back inside. ”Chill out, I’m not going anywhere. I just
wanted to check on something.”
Both guards looked at me, confused. “You’re lucky you didn’t set off the alarms. That mark on your
arm will set off magical alarms if you get too far from the building. Another step and half the guards
in the city would have been headed this way.” Wernst explained. “Don’t make me explain something
like that to my captain please.”

About that time a new guard arrived to take me to my cell, Wernst and Bravic handed me off to the
new guy and then left, Wernst muttering about having to fill out reports. The new guard led me into
the prison and to my new cell. As we walked he rattled off the rules of prison, including when meals
would be served, when lights out was, when I was expected to be in the dungeon, etc. I’d already
heard some of this but paid attention anyway - I didn’t want to get in any more trouble if I could help
it.

When the jail cell slammed closed behind me I breathed a sigh of relief. Finally, alone at last, no
more need to put on an act. Then I noticed that there were 4 beds in this cell, two on each wall in a
bunk bed configuration. The bottom bunk on each side looked used, but nobody was currently here,
and I realized that my cellmates were probably still in the dungeon.

I climbed up to a top bunk and plopped myself into it. I wanted to review a few more things and
possibly assign some points, then I wanted to log out and take a break. First, I checked my
notifications. I wanted to check the details of my achievements and see if there were any other
messages waiting.

New Achievement
Speak Truth to Power

When the choice was between death or dishonor, you chose death… and lived to tell the tale. You
did not hold your tongue when it could have cost you everything, and when words were your only
weapon you butchered a foe much stronger than yourself. Bravo.

Rewards:

Skill Unlocked (“Enrage”)

New Achievement
The Fugitive

Through cunning trickery or just plain luck you’ve managed to escape from prison, becoming the
first Traveler to do so. Good luck, you’ll need it.

Rewards:

+10pp (Universal)
Title Unlocked (“Hunted”)

My little stunt at the entrance to the prison had been a gamble that something like this achievement
existed. I knew that some achievements would be easier to get at the start of the game than they
would be later on - there were lots of easy world firsts to be collected right now and I intended to
grab as many of them as I could. I was also hoping I’d get another one tomorrow when I headed into
the dungeon, but there was a good chance any achievements attached to it would be contingent on
beating one or more of its bosses.

I knew I should probably look and see what these titles were at some point, I had a few of them now.
That said, I had other things higher on my priority list. I reached into my soul-space and withdrew
one of the scarab tokens. I wanted to try and use one of these while nobody else was in the room - I
wasn’t sure if it was going to have a visible effect, and right now I was in a mostly empty cell block, so
I probably wasn’t going to have a better opportunity.

I focused on activating the token in my hand, and it flashed in response, then several things appeared
in my vision all at once.

New Achievement! “Deal with the Devil”

Congratulations, you have received enough XP to become a Level 2 Trailblazer!

System Message
Welcome to the Exchange

As the owner of a Scarab Token, you may access The Equitable Exchange, a store of sorts that will
trade your Scarab Tokens for powerful rewards, some of which are unique to the Exchange.
However, Scarab Tokens are not the only thing required to make purchases here, as the favor of its
operator, The Adversary is also valued.

The Exchange is divided into three separate “shops”: “The Fair Price” offers a selection of options
available to anyone with sufficient Scarab Tokens, while “The Infernal Contract” requires at least a
lesser blessing from The Adversary to access. Finally “Sam’s Daily Devil Deals” offers a small
selection of unique items hand-chosen by its proprietor and is constantly being updated. Entry into
Sam’s requires a cover fee of one Scarab Token, which can be used as store credit if you make a
purchase.

Note: The Exchange exists in a separate timeline from your universe. Time will not seem to pass in
this world while you are in the Exchange.

When I closed out that message, a new screen presented itself. This one looked much different than
the other floating menus I’d seen so far. While those were flat and minimalist, this window looked
like an unfurled scroll, and it unrolled itself into view. The scroll itself was decorated with drawings
that looked like an old-fashioned advertisement, with three roughly equal areas carved out on it in
triangular shapes that met up in the middle of the page. Each area had drawings and writing like you
might expect to see on an advertisement, promising “the lowest prices” or “the most exclusive
products.”

The bit about the Exchange being outside of time was interesting. In a multiplayer game you couldn’t
pause, but nVR tech could enhance or slow the speed of your thoughts creating a time dilation effect.
This was typically not used to any great extent because long term exposure to it wasn’t considered
safe, so that probably meant that each of these stores would kick me out after a while if I spent too
long inside.

I mentally selected “The Fair Deal”, planning to work my way through each store, and this one
looked like the place to establish a baseline. As I selected it the ink on the parchment scroll in that
section lit up like it was on fire, and a moment later the scroll itself began to burn away from the
center outwards and the smell of sulfur filled my nose. Then I was looking through the burning hole
in the air into a dimly lit room filled with glass display cases. When the fire reached the edge of the
scroll it kept burning until as far as I could tell the entire universe had burned away, and I was left
sitting on the floor of the room I’d just caught a glimpse of.

Someone cleared their throat behind me as I took in the scene. I looked around and found a bored
looking Devilkin girl leaning over a counter, next to what looked an awful lot like a cash register. She
looked nothing like Maraci, the only other Devilkin I’d seen, even though they couldn’t be far apart in
age. She had light blue skin and black hair with long swept back horns that went all the way back
behind her head. She’d decorated her horns with hanging jeweled bangles and silver caps on the
points. She had a number of piercings as well, three in each pointed ear, one above her right eye, and
another in her nose. She was wearing a black polo shirt with a name tag pinned on it that said “Hi my
name is Go Fuck Yourself, ask me how I can help you today!”

“So, you just gonna sit on our floor, or are you gonna buy something?” She asked, not bothering to
straighten up.

I pulled myself to my feet and looked around. The room we were in was filled with glass display
cases, and each case rested on a freestanding pedestal creating a sort of checker box pattern
throughout the room. I could see that each pedestal had a sign on it, presumably describing what was
inside. From where I was standing I could already tell there was some wild stuff in the cases and I
couldn’t wait to get a better look. Oddly, the room wasn’t lit with magical lights or anything - it had
fluorescent ceiling lights like you might see in an office building or school, one of which was
flickering and buzzing noticeably.

“Just looking for now, I’ll let you know if I need something.” I told the girl behind the counter,
noticing that she’d already gone back to reading something that looked a lot like a magazine.

“Sure, whatever.”

I decided to do a quick walk through the isles and see what stood out. The inventory here apparently
didn’t change much from the sound of it, so I was expecting to see a lot of things you might want to
buy more than once. My suspicions proved correct, as I found a number of consumable items. There
were a few things I might want down the line, such as a potion that claimed to be able to cure all
poisons and diseases, but there were a few things that were of immediate interest.

Vial of Experience
Raw Power

Drinking this potion grants you 100 bonus Universal Progression Points.

Cost: 1 Scarab Token

10000 Gold Pieces

Vast Wealth

Grants you 10000gp, directly deposited into your bank account if you have one.

Cost: 1 Scarab Token

Potion of Understanding
Unlock a Random Skill (Tier 1-5)

When you drink this potion a single skill is unlocked for you. The skill is guaranteed to be one you
meet the prerequisites for, but the skill will be no higher than Tier 5.

Cost: 1 Scarab Token

Potion of Deep Knowledge

Unlock a Random Skill (Tier 6-9)

When you drink this potion a single skill is unlocked for you. There is no guarantee you will meet
any of the skills prerequisites, and the skill will be no higher than Tier 9 but no lower than Tier 6.
 Cost: 2 Scarab Tokens

Elixir of Mastery
Gain an Affinity

Using this elixir grants you a bonus affinity.

Cost: 1 Scarab Token

Greater Elemental Essence

Achieve oneness with nature

Often used as a crafting ingredient, elemental essences can add elemental effects to anything
capable of absorbing them. A creature absorbing one has a chance of becoming an Elemental Scion,
while an item absorbing one typically gains an elemental damage type or other elemental property.
A greater essence has an increased chance of being successfully absorbed, and typically infers more
powerful effects on its subject.

Cost: 1 Scarab Tokens

Explorer’s Backpack
Carry the world on your shoulders

This pack is a larger version of a Traveler’s Pack, and like its smaller cousin it is larger on the inside
than the outside. The pack can carry 500kg and always weighs 5kg whether it is empty or full.

Cost: 1 Scarab Token

I was particularly interested in finding out the conversion ratio from scarabs to gold. I already knew
that I could buy a death warrant for a measly 5000g right now, so either life was cheap around here
or I was astoundingly wealthy. No wonder the description said a single one of these tokens could
start a war. Still, if anything this was the least interesting option. I was seriously eyeing the vial of
experience as a way to help pay off my enormous progression point debt. With a couple of tokens I
could pay off all my penalties.

The problem was that I’d eventually get those points on my own, sure it’d take ten levels off for every
one of those vials I bought, but if I was patient there were potentially much better options. The
Potion of Deep Knowledge was extremely tempting for example. For most people that potion would
represent a huge gamble, though if they got something they couldn’t use they might still be able to
get value out of it by teaching it to others or by working to fulfill the prerequisites over time. For me
it was a guaranteed usable high tier skill - at worst I might have to spend more than one rank of
Innovator on it to bypass multiple prerequisites.

The problem here was the opposite of the first one - high tier skills were expensive, and I had so
many things I needed to spend points on. Still, it was probably better if I bought one of those potions
sooner than later - it had the potential to be build defining and if I was going to go for it I should do it
before I started going down an incompatible path.

Finally, some things like the elemental essence stood out to me as potentially very interesting but
maybe not instant buys. I didn’t know how rare some of these things were, so it was possible I could
buy or find one elsewhere. All I had to go by was the amount of gold I could buy with one of these
tokens, and currently I didn’t feel like I had enough info on how much gold was worth. Hell I didn’t
know how much that statue I had stored in my soul-space was worth.
I decided to check out the other shop before I made any decisions. I had a minor blessing from The
Adversary, so they should let me in, and it sounded like there might be even better stuff available. I
hadn’t decided if I wanted to try Sam’s yet, but it probably depended on what was available at the
Infernal Contract.

I walked back to the front of the building. I hadn’t really paid attention to this area except to briefly
speak to the girl manning the register, but now that I was looking for an exit I saw one. It looked like
an old fashioned automated door from a gas station, and I walked towards it wondering if it’d
transport me back to my cell. The door slid open as I approached, but when it did I got a wave of heat
in my face so strong I staggered back and fell over, feeling my skin dry out instantly. After a moment
the door slid shut again and left me feeling sunburned.

I blinked rapidly, trying to moisturize my eyes and process what I’d just seen and felt. Outside this
room was literal hell. In the brief moment I’d had before the heat had pushed me back I’d seen devils
of all shapes and sizes moving about on a cracked and barren landscape. Some of them were literally
wading through flowing lava, and in the far distance I could still see a huge muscular shape the size
of a skyscraper crossing my field of vision. There was no sun, the only light came from the red glow of
molten rock.

Congratulations, you have received enough XP to become a Level 3 Trailblazer!

Wait, hadn’t that just leveled up when I used the Scarab Token? What did I get XP from? My mind
was reeling and trying to follow multiple trains of thought at the same time, least of all how I was
supposed to get out of here.

The girl at the counter turned a page in her magazine, the soft rustle of paper breaking me out of my
shock. She didn’t appear to have noticed the heat. Suddenly it occurred to me that she might not be
a Devilkin after all and I used Identify on her, holding my breath as I waited to see if it would work.

Rhelrya
Level 15 Cashier (Tier 1 Devil, Lesser Succubus)

Rhelrya, or Rhel as she prefers to be called, is a young devil working her first real job at the
Equivalent Exchange. The pay is the only thing worse than her attitude, but she has nothing better
to do with her time so she hasn’t quit yet. Her dream is to get summoned to one of the mortal
realms and subjugate it under her ironclad fist, but if she can’t have that she’ll be content with a
career in marketing. Her hobbies include knitting, manga, and necromancy.

She didn’t seem to notice me inspecting her, but she did notice when I got back on my feet. “Oh,
yeah… You shouldn’t go out there.”

“Yeah I kinda noticed. Where are we?”

She blinked slowly at me like I was an idiot. “We’re in the Fair Deal. Did you like, get here by
accident or something?”

“No, I mean out there.” I gestured at the literal gates of hell. “What’s that out there?”

“That’s Jira, duh. What did you think it was?”

Thinking back I had actually heard people say that name before but it hadn’t really registered. In fact
they’d used it as a swear word. “Uh, ok… How do I get back where I came from?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know, how’d you get here?”

I’d put the scarab token back into my soul-space shortly after arriving, but I took it out again now.
However, activating it didn’t seem to work. Eventually I figured out that just opening my menu was
all that was required - the entire menu system had been replaced with a different one that would
allow me to travel to other areas within the Exchange, or exit it entirely.

Rhel had almost immediately grown bored of my predicament and returned to her magazine, but it
felt awkward just vanishing without saying anything. “I’ll uh, be back later probably. Going to check
out the other stores.”

She didn’t bother to acknowledge me as I left, mentally selecting Sam’s Daily Devil Deals as my next
destination.

With a crack and puff of sulfurous smoke I found myself standing in a room that had been divided up
with red ropes attached to free-standing poles scattered around the room. I was standing at the
entrance to a veritable rope maze, and at the far end of the room a satyr stood waiting. His clothes
were strangely tailored but clearly intended to resemble a tuxedo, except that the bottom was closer
to a kilt than anything else, and his furry legs were quite visible under it. He wore no shoes, but even
from here I could see that his hooves had been polished to a shine.

There was no one else in the room so I started making my way over, just ducking a little to go under
some of the ropes. I was stopped by the sound of someone clearing their throat, and I looked up to
see the satyr point to a sign on the wall near him. It said “No line cutting! Please proceed in an
orderly fashion. Line cutters will be denied entry!”

“But there’s nobody else here?” I protested.

He just tapped the sign again and shook his head.

“Fine. Whatever.”

I walked up and down across the length of the room six times before I reached the satyr. He was
standing at a podium much like System had been when I first started playing this game, and he had a
guest book and quill pen much like the one System had used. I raised my eyebrow at the similarities
and wondered if they were intentional.

“Welcome to Sam’s Daily Devil Deals, an exclusive buyers club for discerning individuals of taste and
means. There is a cover charge to enter, one scarab token, which shall be credited to your account for
future purchases at the club. Today we have three items on display, all of exquisite quality and value.
If you would like to enter please provide me with your true name and your scarab token so I may
open your account. Don’t worry, all our members are kept in the strictest confidence.”

“So if I come back another day do I need to pay another token to get in, or am I covered as long as I
have a token on file?” I asked.

“You will need to pay the cover fee each visit, but of course any unspent tokens will be held in escrow
until you are ready to make a purchase.”

“Why do you need my true name? I thought those were private.”

“We need a true name to ensure accounts are accurately associated with our customers. You wouldn’t
want someone with the same given name to have access to your account would you? True names
allow us to accurately identify you without needing to worry about confusion over less accurate
methods.”
“Alright, one more question though. Have you had any other customers yet today?” If I was the first
customer then it might be worth entering just for the chance of earning another achievement.

“We had a visitor earlier, but he chose not to pay the cover fee and so is not a customer. Of course, I
cannot offer any information about our customers.”

I nodded, and proffered up a single scarab token. “My name’s Infinity, the symbol not the word.” I
drew the symbol in the air as I spoke, and to my surprise it left a little trail of light for a moment
though I’d not intended any such effect.

“Oh! It’s a pleasure to meet you! The Lord Adversary spoke quite highly of you I hear. Let me just jot
this down and I’ll escort you to the showroom.” As he spoke he reached a hand down, I thought to
shake my hand, and I raised my hand to meet his. Instead of a shake though, he raised my hand to
his lips and planted a kiss on it, doing a flourishing bow and looking into my eyes as he did so.
“Welcome to Sam’s.”

He released my hand, and with a few quick strokes made a note in his book and then brushed the ink
dry. He closed the book and took out a long key, which he fit into a keyhole in the book's cover and
twisted. Then he stepped down from behind the podium and motioned me to follow.

The showroom was a short walk away, and we were met at the door by an older but similarly dressed
satyr. My guide introduced me, then withdrew. The older satyr repeated the hand-kissing gesture his
subordinate had done, then introduced himself to me. “Lady Infinity, it’s a pleasure to meet you. The
Lord Adversary spoke much about you when I met with him earlier for tea. Allow me to introduce
myself, my name is Samuel Treabrook, a collector of rare and mysterious artifacts. You have the
honor of being our first patron in this new world, and I am eager to show you the wonders we have
prepared for your consideration.”

As he spoke he opened the door beside him, still holding one of my hands, and I found myself gently
led into a small gallery with three tables laid out in a triangular orientation. Sam held my hand until
we’d entered the room, gesturing to the tables and the three satyrs standing behind them. “Here
you’ll find our selection of novelties. These members of my family have each made a study of these
particular treasures and can answer any questions you may have. We ask that you not touch them or
use skills on them except as instructed, as some of our collection is quite volatile. If you have
questions never hesitate to ask, and if you wish to make a purchase simply let me know. Also, for
larger or more unstable items we have a concierge delivery service that can help you relocate the item
to a location of your choice. I do hope you enjoy your visit.” Then he bowed and withdrew as well.

I had to admit, this was not what I was expecting out of a place called “Sam’s Daily Devil Deals” but I
wasn’t complaining even if it was a bit odd to have people kiss my hand. Despite my headache I was
eager to see what this place had to offer, so I made my way over to the first table.

The satyr behind this table was a woman, and she gave a curtsey as I approached. “Hello! My name is
Veralis. Today we have the Bastion of the Dwarven Lords for your consideration. It’s a magical shield
of great strength that possesses the ability to become immovable on command. As you can see, the
craftsmanship of this item is without peer. It was wrought from a single piece of stone and carved to
bear the likeness of a dwarven king, symbolizing the king’s duty to protect his people.” She motioned
to a sign set on the table, it had the appearance of an unrolled scroll held upright. “Here’s a detailed
inspection report, along with any trivia and history we’ve been able to gather about the item.”

I leaned in and read the scroll. It was basically a marketing pamphlet combined with the results of
using a skill like Inspect.

Bastion of the Dwarven Lords

Tower Shield (Tier 7, Massive, Indestructible)
 Armor: 84 (Base 70, +20% from Massive)
Quality: Masterwork

This massive stone shield is the size of an entire dwarf, yet in the hands of a skilled practitioner of
the martial arts it is as graceful as a feather floating in the breeze. A soul-bonded user of this shield
can move it effortlessly and weightlessly, yet to all other known forces it is implacable in its
immovability.

Once a day the Bastion can project an unbreakable forcefield in a 3 meter radius around itself. The
forcefield lasts up to ten minutes, or until canceled by the wielder. Nothing can pass through the
barrier created by this effect.

Sam’s Notes:
This shield is famous for several reasons. The base shield was forged by a master dwarven smith for
his king, and completed on the eve of battle. The king, who’s visage adorns the front of the shield,
gave it to his greatest warrior, and its presence on the field of battle is said to have single handedly
turned the tide of the war, as none could drive back a force lead by the shieldbearer. While the full
process of its crafting is unknown, we are sure that it derives much of its power from a Greater
Elemental Essence of Earth that had been combined with a fragmented splinter of reality itself,
commonly referred to as a Reality Seed or Shard.

The Bastion appears to have no strength requirement to use effectively, as its positioning and
movement are largely determined by the wielder’s will. Wherever the wielder wants the shield to be,
there it is. The reality core makes the shield’s position a fundamental law of reality, inalterable and
inexorable. Only a daemon might have some success at moving the shield against the owner’s
wishes, except that the shield’s runic inscriptions specifically ward against daemonic influences.

The shield’s force field ability is really nothing of the sort. It does not create a barrier so much as it
creates an overlapping dimension in the area of effect. The distance between the two sides of the
effect are in reality, infinite, and so no effect other than dimensional travel is able to even attempt to
break through. The dimension created by the shield is under the total control of the shield, so only
by overpowering the reality core of the shield can one even attempt to breach the domain.

Of further note, the shield appears to count as if it were bedrock for the purposes of skills and effects
that require the user to be touching the ground. This has some implications for synergy with the
skills of some species and classes which have not yet been fully examined, but which we believe
would be efficacious.

Price: 7 Scarab Tokens

Oh boy was that something. If all the stuff in here was like this I wouldn’t be able to afford it now, but
would definitely be back in the future.

“I have a question about this item.” I told Veralis. “What is this Reality Seed thing the description
mentions, some sort of crafting component I take it? I’ve seen the elemental essence before in one of
the other Exchange stores.”

“Oh yes, Reality Seeds and Shards are both quite valuable and rare, they have other uses besides
crafting but that’s what they are most commonly used for. A seed typically exemplifies some
fundamental aspect of reality, such as mass, time, or weight. The fragment powering this shield
appears to be related to physical location. Its effect on this item is rather unique.”

To demonstrate, Veralis lifted the massive shield with a single hand, then released it in mid-air. The
shield hung unsupported in the exact position she had placed it.
“Feel free to try and move it,” she told me, motioning toward the floating shield.

I reached out and grabbed the bottom of the shield, trying to pull it down towards me. Not only did it
not budge even slightly, I found myself lifting off the ground as Veralis reached out and casually
pushed the shield a little higher, leaving me dangling from it until I let go.

The satyr smiled at me before returning the shield to its previous position. “It has become a universal
truth that the shield is in whatever location its wielder places it, and it couldn’t possibly be anywhere
else,” she said. “Many of the other properties of the shield also come from this seed, or an interaction
between the seed and the earth essence, such as its ability to project a new dimension on top of our
own.”

“I gather they are collectively referred to as fragments but how are shards and seeds different from
each other?”

“It’s typically a matter of age. Seeds are newer fragments that haven’t yet stabilized, they can be
altered and can grow into dungeons if not taken care of. Shards are stable and have come to
represent some crystalized facet of reality. Shards never naturally become dungeons so are preferred
as crafting material, but other than that I don’t think there’s much of a difference.”

“And that bit about daemons, why might a daemon be able to move the shield around when nobody
else can?”

“Ah, well, daemons are sort of the opposite of reality, you know? They can pretty much violate any of
the natural laws on a whim, unless a demonologist has told them not to at least. My understanding is
that they actually eat reality fragments when they find them, and that this is sort of their natural
place in the cosmos, cleaning up broken pieces of reality that would otherwise be left to drift and
potentially mess things up."

A big part of the reason I’d decided to pay the fee to come in here was for the potential to gather
information, and it was already working out better than I’d hoped. I hadn’t seen any Reality Seeds on
sale in the Fair Deal, so apparently they were pretty rare. Perhaps it was the kind of thing I could find
at the Infernal Contract since apparently that place was mostly for servants of The Adversary.

I’d need to keep my eye out for them, but for now I made my excuses and went to take a look at the
other items on display.

The next table had a much smaller item displayed on it. It was a fine gold necklace with a dragon
shaped pendant, and it had been draped around a neck-like display model to show it off. As I
approached the male satyr behind the table bowed and introduced himself. “Greetings lady, I am
Rosefen, at your service. Today I have a divinely inspired creation called The Dragon’s Horde, it is an
extradimensional space without equal. Unlike a simple Traveler’s or Explorer’s pack this item can
guard your possessions from would-be thieves, and weighs no more than would be expected of this
sort of jewelry.”

Another informational scroll had been posted at this table as well, and as he spoke I began to read
over it.

The Dragon’s Horde

Dimensional Key (Tier 5)

This dragon shaped pendant is the key to a pocket dimension roughly the size of a square three
story building. A person bonded to the key can use it to open a doorway sized portal to that
dimension, which opens near the top of the space. The interior of the space is malleable while
 holding the key, and so stairs, walkways, shelves, and other such conveniences may be added or
removed at will. The only permanent fixture of the space is the gold dragon that lives within.

The dragon is an artificial construct and will not leave the pocket dimension, however it is capable
of breathing fire through the open portal. The flames quickly become insubstantial when they exit
the space, but can still cause burns. Anyone who attempts to touch the pendant while it is bonded to
another will find themselves drawn into the space and at the mercy of the construct.

Sam’s Notes:
This is one of the most secure personal spaces I have encountered, though it does have a few flaws.
Unlike some similar items it possesses no automatic retrieval system, and it is up to the owner to
devise a system of organizing the space as they see fit. The door to the space cannot be closed while
the key is inside, which is both a convenient safety feature and a security hazard as a thief could
sneak in while the door is open. Still, the presence of the dragon makes that somewhat less of a
concern.

This item is said to have been commissioned by a wealthy beastman banker, who filled it nearly to
overflowing with his gold and jewels. Apparently at one point while drunk he took it into his head to
try swimming in the coins. Unfortunately for him, the gold and gemstones proved much too solid to
support a swan dive, and he broke his neck in the fall. A maid apparently found the body, and quite
smartly decided to take the key from his corpse and claimed his entire fortune for her own.

Ultimately The Dragon’s Horde is a flawed but fascinating piece that works well for long term secure
storage, but comes up short on practicality. The gold chain is mundane, but enchanted with a simple
spell to increase durability, it comes complimentary with the pendant.

Price: 3 Scarab Tokens

Well, this was one thing I could afford, but didn't need. A huge extradimensional space might save
me some points expanding my soulspace, but as far as I could tell my soulspace was actually more
secure than this was. I guess the downside was that I couldn’t go inside it… or could I? I hadn’t
thought to try.

“How unusual is it to have a dimensional space be attached to a key rather than a container? I’ve only
ever seen the bag versions before.” I asked the sales-satyr.

“Not uncommon, most larger spaces such as this are keyed rather than attached to a container.
However, this piece is fairly unique in that the key can access the pocket dimension from anywhere.
Most such keyed spaces are anchored to a specific location in the prime dimension, and the key will
grant access to them. It’s not actually well understood how this particular item creates and maintains
an unanchored gateway.”

I thanked him for the information, but moved on to the next table. I was pretty sure I’d be leaving
without buying anything, but there was always a chance.

A female satyr stood at this table as well, and she introduced herself as Everi. “Here at Sam’s we like
to offer the unique and interesting as well as the powerful, and this item is definitely one of the
former. It’s presented here with a complementary solid wood hilt, but the item on sale is actually the
blade. It’s called ‘Endless Horizon’ and as you can see the blade is the cutting portion of a type of
polearm.”

The polearm ran lengthwise over the table, sitting elevated on two notched blocks that held it slightly
off the table. There wasn’t enough room on the table for the information scroll, so it had been affixed
to a larger floor stand beside the table.
 Endless Horizon
Polearm (Tier 4, Versatile, Reach)
Damage: 20 (Slashing)
Quality: Masterwork

This blade was forged by a master weaponsmith and intended to be used as part of his greatest
work, unfortunately he passed away before it could be completed. The blade is capable of
channeling an immense amount of mana, but has no source to draw from. The haft of the weapon
was to have been the source of power, but it was never completed.

The result is a masterwork blade made to channel raw power, but with no source to draw from it is
little more than a well made mundane blade.

Sam’s Notes:
Despite the description, this blade does possess some unique properties even in its current form. In
our tests we found that any mana channeled into the blade resulted in a proportional destructive
cutting aura being projected from it. This is not an unusual feature of enchanted blades, though it is
likely the haft would have refined and enhanced this effect, in addition to powering it.

What is unusual is the blade’s facility for channeling power, which is remarkable. It is unknown
exactly how it was crafted, but it has been observed to draw in ambient magic from the air when
mana levels are high enough, suggesting that the haft was also intended to regulate the flow of mana
into the blade as well.

With the proper haft this blade could make a formidable weapon, so we believe it is best thought of
as a crafting component. However we have provided a simple haft for transportation and to allow
you to get a feel for the weapon.

Price: 2 Scarab Tokens

Now this was interesting, useless to me, but interesting. As much as I could appreciate the trope of a
small girl with a giant sword, a polearm that large was going to be completely unwieldy - it was at
least three or maybe four times my height. Even if I wanted to use it, I lacked the ability to get an
appropriate haft for it unless Sam would be willing to shorten this one.

My only real consideration here was that I didn’t have a weapon currently, and this was a way to get
one. I also might eventually find a way to get a better haft for the weapon, but I disliked gambling on
that without knowing much about how weapons in this game actually worked. Was twenty damage a
lot? It didn’t sound like a lot compared to all the armor that Bastion shield granted.

Sam quietly walked up beside me while I stood there thinking. “Lady Infinity, I hope you’ve enjoyed
our selection today. Normally I don’t have the time to speak individually with customers while the
gallery is open, but as word of our establishment has not spread far yet in this iteration I find myself
with time to converse. Would you care to join me in my study for a drink and some hors d'oeuvres?”

I couldn’t think of a reason I’d want to turn that down, getting to know the proprietor of this strange
store better could only help me in the long run and some alcohol might help ease the pounding in my
head a bit. I was also about to be on a prison food diet for an in-game week, so this might be my last
chance for good food for a while.

“I’d love to, thanks. I do have some questions for you if you don’t mind.”

“Of course. Please, follow me.” Sam led me over to one wall of the room where one of several large
tapestries hung. He pulled the fabric aside to reveal a door which opened with a quiet click when he
pressed his hand against a silver panel inset into the wood. He held the door open and the tapestry
away from the wall as he motioned for me to proceed him.

“Right this way.”

We entered a lamplit hallway and Sam moved up to walk beside me, giving a bit of a tour as we went.
“This is my family’s personal quarters and living areas. Those of us that work the store live here with
our families, but it also serves as the business office where our bookkeeping takes place. I also
sometimes use it to host special guests such as yourself and arrange private deals.”

I made note of the possibility of private deals, which I was sure he hadn’t mentioned by accident. We
walked all the way to a door at the end of the hallway, but on our way we walked past several other
rooms and an intersecting hallway. Most of the doors were closed, but I caught a glimpse of a large
living room down one of the hallways, and we passed by the open door to an empty kitchen area right
as we reached the end of the hall.

Sam reached out and opened the door for me as we approached, and I saw that this room held a large
solid wood desk similar to what you might expect to find in a CEO’s office, along with several
comfortable looking leather chairs and even a pair of soft leather couches. Against opposite walls.
The entire back wall of the room behind the desk was taken up by floor to ceiling bookshelves packed
full of books of all shapes and sizes.

I pulled up short as I noticed another satyr in the room, apparently in the middle of dusting the
bookshelf. She was brown haired and furred, and I noticed that the transition from goat to human
started somewhere around her waist but wasn’t so much a gradient as it was a matter of some parts
having more or less goat-like features. Their heads were the least goat-like and their legs almost
entirely goat-like, but their midsection had fur in various places, particularly on their backs and even
up to the tops of their arms.

I could see all this, because the woman dusting was completely naked. While I couldn’t see much of
her lower half because it was covered by fur, her chest was very human and very exposed as she
turned to look at us as we entered the room.

Sam walked past me and gave the woman a kiss on the cheek as he stepped around the desk and took
a seat in the chair. Facing me again, he noticed my distress and his eyebrows rose in understanding.
“Ah, my apologies, Infinity this is my wife Beazi, we satyr do not share the taboo against nudity some
people do and so frequently choose not to go clothed in our personal spaces.” He told me. “I should
have warned you. I’m used to goblinoids being of a similar mindset, but of course you are a Traveler
and wouldn’t have been raised in goblin society.”

What did that mean? I tried to cover for my embarrassment. “No no, it’s fine. I was just caught off
guard is all.” I nodded to the woman, “It’s nice to meet you, I’m Infinity.”

“Please call me Bea,” the woman said, walking over to stand next to her husband. “It’s a pleasure to
meet you, Infinity. Please make yourself at home. You must be quite special for my husband to have
taken an interest in you. He’s quite good at identifying rare and valuable things you know.” She
smiled softly and placed a hand on her husband’s shoulder affectionately.

Sam placed one his hands on his wife’s and squeezed as I took my seat across from him, needing to
pull myself up into the large chair. “My dear, would you be so kind as to rouse the boys and have
them prepare some wine and hors d'oeuvres for our friend here. She has the attention of The Lord
Adversary himself, and he spoke quite highly to me of her earlier. I’d hoped she might tell me the
story of how she gained that favor but I’d not have her do so with a dry throat or empty stomach.”
“Of course dear,” She pulled her hand away and moved towards the door. “But please, Infinity, don’t
let him pull that story out of you before I return. I would love to hear it.”

Sam smiled fondly as she left the room, “She won't be long I think, but perhaps I can answer your
questions while we wait?”

I nodded, still a bit distracted, “I only have a few. Mainly I wanted some clarification on how your
system works here. If I leave today without buying anything, is my chance to buy those items lost?
Do you ever restock items that failed to sell?”

“Your membership fee covers your entry for that day, and therefore knowledge of the day’s stock,
however we allow members to purchase any item they have seen in the gallery so long as it is stored
in our small warehouse here on premises and has not been purchased by another customer.” He
began. “Typically, items are stored here for about two Astran weeks before being returned to our long
term storage facilities. During those sixteen days they may re–appear on the show floor, but always
in conjunction with different items than their original arrangement.” Sam told me.

“This first lot is a bit special, we’re using it to show off a few of my favorite items from our stores, but
future lots will typically feature a theme which will be advertised in the waiting room. Some of the
items we feature this week will be returning later as part of themed sets, but that will be a fairly rare
occurrence generally. Our back stock is offered for loan or sale to the officers of The Lord Adversary’s
army at reduced prices as part of our commission, and we are only allowed to keep a small stock of
items out of that pool, which I typically reserve for items I’m confident I can sell at full price. The
current set of items are of that stock, so they will be making at least one additional appearance each
over the course of the next year.”

That was a more complex system than what I was expecting, but I liked what I was hearing. It meant
that I’d have a few days to change my mind on some of these items even if walked out of here empty
handed, and it meant that if I was pretty sure I wanted to buy an item I’d already seen there was no
reason for me not to take a look at the current stock the day I came back for it.

“Thanks, that answers several questions actually.“ I told him. “Maybe you can clear up some
confusion I have regarding things like the armor value of that Bastion shield and the damage value of
the polearm. How do those relate to each other? If I got stabbed by Endless Horizon and blocked
with the Bastion, do I take no damage because the Bastion has so much more armor than the
polearm’s damage?”

“Excellent question,” Sam said. “Something you will need to keep in mind when looking at System
statistics is that values are always abstractions and always at least partially relative to the observer.
We use our item scrolls to display information about items because they reflect the system stats you
would see if you inspected the item, but at a much higher information level than most people possess
the skills to acquire.”

Sam lazily twirled his perfect mustache as he continued. “Another thing you must realize is that
sometimes the numbers lie, by omission or otherwise. The Bastion of the Dwarven Lords is one of
the most powerful items I have ever stocked. The armor value is the Divine System’s best estimate as
to how much you personally could increase your armor rating with that item. A skilled soldier used to
combat with a shield might see triple what you see, all other factors excluded. We’ve never been able
to find anything that can so much as scratch that shield, let alone move it. Every molecule has been
locked into position by reality itself, and so it is effectively indestructible and a successful block with
it will therefore always protect you. The problem is that while the shield is infallible, its wielders
typically are not.”

I nodded, considering this. It wasn’t unusual for games to abstract some or all the stats to make them
easier to understand. I’d already seen this going on with things like my resource pools and the costs
for activated skills. This did make certain things easier, such as comparing two weapons side by side.
I’d always be able to tell what was better at a glance when comparing two items since the abstracted
number was based on my own ability to use the items. A higher number was always going to be
better, but I’d have to re-check my numbers each time I did a comparison since they could change.

“The only other question I can think of offhand is more just curiosity. For that polearm blade you
have on display - it comes with a haft but it would be much too long for me and I lack a way to
shorten it myself. If I were to purchase that blade would you be willing to shorten the haft to a more
appropriate size for me?”

I heard the door open behind me and Sam glanced up with a slight smile before answering me. Beazi
reappeared a moment later, holding a wine bottle and three glasses, which she placed on the desk
and began to pour. Sam returned his attention to me, “That seems like a reasonable request. Are you
thinking of purchasing it then? The Endless Horizon has a special place in my heart as I knew the
smith who crafted it before he died. The weapon was intended to be his life’s achievement, and it’s a
tragedy that he was unable to complete it.”

I gratefully accepted a glass of wine from Bea, “Oh? You knew him? Who was he? It didn’t say on the
sheet and I didn’t think to ask.” I took a sip of the wine, and felt better almost immediately. It was a
sweet white wine and I had to resist the sudden urge to do a spit-take as Sam answered my question.

“Oh, his name was Hephaestus. I understand he was once a lesser god of some sort, but he was badly
injured, crippled even, and his old wounds eventually did him in. In his final years he devoted
himself to his craft and produced many wonders, several of which I was pleased to acquire. It’s not
often that gods of any sort perish, but it does happen occasionally.”

So that blade had been made by the Greek god of the forge, who was apparently dead now, and they
were just casually selling it for less than anything else in the room. This place was wild.

Behind me the door opened again, and was immediately followed by the wonderful smells of food.
My mouth immediately began watering and I sat up in my chair, looking forward to sinking my teeth
into whatever was giving off that wonderful scent. A moment later my eyes widened as I saw the
food, and who was carrying it.

The food was a classic charcuterie board, full of sliced meat, cheeses, and vegetables with various
dipping sauces. For a moment it consumed my attention as the man carrying it carefully deposited it
on the desk. Then I realized the man who’d just delivered our meal was just as naked as Bea was,
something I probably should have been expecting but somehow hadn’t considered. Beyond that, he
was simply gorgeous, with chiseled abs and shoulders bigger than my head. He looked like he’d just
come to life and stepped off a marble plinth.

Earlier when I’d been introduced to Bea I’d been distracted because I realized my body was not
experiencing the physiological reactions I’d come to expect from seeing a naked woman. That in turn
had made me think about how I’d similarly not felt any attraction when I’d been looking at my
character sheet earlier in the day. That was more understandable though, sure Tavi was a girl and I
like girls, but being attracted to your own reflection is just weird, plus Tavi wasn’t exactly my type.
Bea on the other hand definitely was, or at least she should have been, but I’d felt nothing at all and it
was a little disconcerting.

Now though, I had a completely different problem. While I’d felt nothing earlier, now I was getting
signals my mind couldn’t process. For a long moment I felt like my nVR setup was malfunctioning.
Then things started clicking into place. My breathing quickened, and I felt heat grow in my cheeks. I
felt dizzy, and I was suddenly far too aware of my clothing for some reason. I could feel my blood
pumping through my veins, and I shifted uncomfortably as my body seemed to suddenly wake up in
a way it hadn’t since I’d come to occupy it.
I knew what was happening of course. In some ways it wasn’t too different from what I was used to.
In other ways it was definitely not. The problem was that this was not what should be triggering this
sort of reaction. I was not attracted to men. I never had been. Games couldn’t just change your
orientation like that. It wasn’t a thing that could happen.

The worst part was that I couldn’t seem to stop looking at him. His hair and fur were black, and he
had it neatly tied back in a shoulder length ponytail. His eyes were a deep green, and his face had
strong, smooth lines that managed not to be hard. When our eyes eventually met my heart skipped a
beat. He looked like he belonged on the cover of a romance novel.

Belatedly, I realized that Bea had been talking for some time, and that she’d just asked me a
question. I managed to pull my eyes over to her with what felt like all my willpower, and stammered
out a reply. “Sorry, I was, uh, distracted.” Then seeing her small smirk I clarified, “By the food I
mean.” Meanwhile I could feel my cheeks burning and I could only hope that they weren’t used to
whatever goblin blushes looked like.

She winked at me, disabusing me of any hope that my condition had gone unnoticed. Fortunately the
cause of my distress finished his delivery and withdrew, and I breathed a sigh of relief. It didn’t
alleviate my condition immediately, but at least the urge to look at him more couldn’t be satisfied.
Let alone some of the other thoughts that had been doing unhinged cartwheels through my mind.

“Don’t worry dear, he has that effect on all of us at times, it’s quite unfair if you ask me.” Bea said.
Sam just raised an eyebrow and said “Ah yes, that is my nephew Javril. He’s quite the chef.”

“Would you like some meat dear?” Bea asked, “I believe goblins are mostly carnivorous, yes?”

I actually didn’t know the answer to that question, but I did know that the meat smelled delicious
and my teeth were certainly made for ripping flesh. “Yes, please. A bit of cheese too.” I was pretty
sure even obligate carnivores could eat dairy in moderation.

Bea brought a plate of meat and cheese over to me so I didn’t have to try and get it off the desk that
was nearly as tall as I was. My mouth was watering for more than one reason now, but I focused on
the food. Bea handed me a small fork and I crossed my legs and set the plate in my lap. The first bite
of mystery meat was akin to the best steak I’d ever eaten in real life and I let the sensation fill me in
an attempt to distract myself from the other feelings I’d been experiencing recently.

Bea gave each of our wine glasses a refill, then took a seat in the chair next to mine. “Take your time
dear, but when you’re ready please do tell us what you did to earn The Lord Adversary’s favor. It’s
rare that we see someone not in his employ so favored, so I simply must know the story behind it.”

I used the excuse of eating to collect myself. My mental closet labeled “Tavi Problems” was now
veritably bursting at the seams, but I ruthlessly forced it shut on this latest trauma. I could deal with
it later when I wasn’t with company. It had to be a bug or something, but man did I need to log out
and take a break from this game.

I began telling them the story of how I’d entered the game, tricking and freezing System, finding the
exploit in Limitless’ skill, and discovering the hidden choice of patron. On this last point I held back a
bit, explaining that I couldn’t relate all the details as they weren’t my secrets to share. I just let them
know I’d found an option that was intentionally hidden and left it at that. I wasn’t sure if it mattered
if I kept this secret, but I guessed there was always a chance that if I told NPCs it could make its way
to the rest of the playerbase and my class and species combo would become a lot less unique. I
wanted to keep it to myself for a while, until I was able to get as many achievements and discoveries
out of it as possible. Plus I didn’t want there to be a chance of Tavi’s family discovering I wasn’t her.
“Well, I can certainly see why he likes you.” Sam told me when I was done. “You validated his
position and embarrassed at least one of the other gods in front of all their peers. Were I you I’d be
careful around the followers of Lord Limitless, he is likely quite wrath with you.” Then he stood and
raised his wine glass, “A toast to you my friend, for your health and our certain future business
dealings.”

I was a bit tipsy at this point, having become something of a lightweight, but I managed to stand up
on my chair and lean over to meet his and Bea’s glasses above the desk. I was emotionally drained
from my experiences over the past few hours and looking forward to getting back to my cell and
logging off for a while, but I couldn’t help but like the satyr couple, as weird as they were. I was just
glad Sam was wearing clothes…

“I hope you’ve enjoyed your visit, Infinity, and I trust we’ll see you again soon. Before you go though,
have you decided if you’ll be taking Endless Horizon with you today?” Sam asked me.

“I don’t think so. Not today at least. It’s interesting but I don’t currently have anything to do with it.”

The couple wished me well and Bea offered to escort me out, which I accepted before remembering I
could exit from anywhere using my menu. Feeling it would be awkward to reverse course now, I let
Bea walk me back to the public portion of the building. However, when we got to the intersecting
hallway she stopped me in the middle of the intersection.

“Infinity, I have a confession to make. My husband is a consummate salesman and while I have no
wish to undercut him I rather think it may be more important to our family that you be our friend
than our customer, so I wish to explain to you how you were just manipulated so you can be aware of
it and defend against in the future. Please understand my husband meant you no harm, he’s simply
used to finding out what buttons he needs to push to make a sale.”

My eyebrows shot up, what was she talking about? I’d been manipulated? How? “What do you
mean? I don’t understand…” I asked her.

“Before my husband asked you to have wine with him, he sent word to me and asked me to await him
in his study. He’s done this before, and I understood that he wanted to see a guest’s reaction to
walking in on me in my natural state.” She motioned at her chest. “My only surprise when you
walked in was that you were a woman, usually he picks up on what a customer prefers from their
interactions with the staff, but when he can’t he’ll usually default to the opposite sex since the odds
are better that way. You must have thrown him off in some way to make him think that you’d prefer
women.” She said.

“Anyway, the point of this is to find out what is likely to get a customer to spend more tokens with us.
Even though it’s true we satyrs have no nudity taboo, we understand that sex sells. When you failed
to respond to me, I fetched Javril and had him bring in the charcuterie board. It was possible you
wouldn’t be affected by him either, and if so my husband would have abandoned that line of…
encouragement. As is, the next time you visit, expect to see Javril and several of our other handsome
young men working the gallery floor. At times we switch out the entire staff outside of the
receptionist to suit each client’s individual tastes. It’s one of the reasons we only allow a single
customer into the gallery at a time.”

I found myself at a loss for words. I understood what she was saying, but I already didn’t want to
think about what I’d felt earlier. Rationally I realized that my mind and body were not in sync on this
subject, and that was hardly my fault, but it was still extremely embarrassing. I was currently hoping
that whatever was going on with me was a bug - something weird about having inherited an NPC
body. Games like this didn’t mess with you the way this one was messing with me, and the more I
thought about it the more I realized that this might actually be something I could report for another
Scarab Token. I dreaded writing up that bug report, but at least it’d get the issue fixed.
“Thanks,” I told the satyr woman. “I appreciate you telling me that, I’ll be on the lookout for it in the
future.” Her words had helped me sort out my feelings on this a bit, and I was grateful for them, even
if I was a little annoyed at the manipulation. She was right though, sales and advertising was all
about manipulation, and while it didn’t have to be malicious the goal of both was to get you to do
something the seller wanted you to do, preferably by making you want to do it. I really needed to log
out and think, I had too many things manipulating me right now and this entire game was one of
them.

She smiled down at me and patted me on the head, flattening my ears a bit as she did. “Come on, let's
see you out. I do hope you’ll come again soon though, feel free to ask to see me any time you drop
by.”

I followed after her, lost in my own thoughts, and before long I’d been ushered back to the waiting
room. “Have a good day mam.” The satyr at the podium told me as I made my way out.

I paused when approaching the doors. These weren’t automatic doors like the other shop, instead
they were carved wood with wrought iron filigree, and were quite opaque. I turned back to the satyr
and asked “If I walk outside here where will I be? Will opening the door incinerate me like at the
other store?”

“Oh no, not at all. Placing your hand on the handle will return you to your last location on Astra, or
allow you to travel to one of the other stores within the Exchange. The door only works as a door for
those who enter through it, and don’t worry, for the safety of our guests and staff there’s something
of an air-lock on the other side.”

“Cool. See you later!” I said, putting my hand on the handle. When prompted, I selected my last
destination of the evening, the Infernal Contract.

Chapter 9: This Space Intentionally

Left Blank
This time the transition was much more abrupt, and I appeared with a popping noise in a dark room
barely illuminated in places with dimly flickering candles.

From far too close behind me came a wet giggle.

I spun around to find myself face to face with a hideous creature, it was roughly as tall as me with
beady red eyes that seemed full of milky liquid and lacked any pupils. Its skin was black and gnarled,
with ram-like horns crawling around its misshapen head, and it had the legs of an over-sized
chicken.

“Hehe! Welcome! You is first customer! Greebil is so happy! Hehe!” It said, hopping back and forth
its weird feet.

I immediately Identified the little monster.

Greebil
Assistant Shopkeeper? (Tier ? Lesser Daemon?)

I see you I see you I see you! You inspect Greebil! I see! It is ok, Greebil will tell you about Greebil!
Greebil is a Daemon! Greebil is also Assistant Shopkeeper! You already know this though! Greebil
will tell you a secret, yes! Greebil does not actually exist, you is just imagining Greebil, but it fine
 because everybody else imagining Greebil too! Is good secret yes? It’s a secret to everybody,
especially Greebil!

The creepy little guy just stood there, continuing to shift from foot to foot, grinning with enough
teeth to put even my impressive grin to shame. I wasn’t sure what to think about this, but he
seemed… friendly? I quickly glanced around the store looking to see if anyone else was around, but I
seemed to be alone with Greebil.

“Uh, Hi Greebil. I’m uh, Tavi. Do you run this store?” I asked the excitable daemon.

“No you aren’t! Greebil knows. Greebil understand though, is secret! Greebil very good at keeping
secret not-Tavi. Yes!” He hopped around in either agitation or joy as he spoke, and I became
increasingly concerned. Then he just stopped. “Greebil not run store, Greebil help run store. Master
run store but Master not expect customers so soon, so Greebil not-not run store while Master gone!”

Then, as if from a PA system hidden somewhere in the ceiling came a voice. “Greebil welcomes
customers to Greebil’s grand opening sale! Everything must go! Lowest prices! Would the owner of
the orange zebra please report to Greebil at front desk, you have left blinkers on! Thank you for
shopping Greebil!”

“Oooook… So, you want to show me what you have for sale?” I asked, already regretting my decision
to come here.

“Yes! yesyesyes!”

We both continued to stare at each other. Greebil showed no sign of moving. I could see where this
was going.

“Please show…”

As I started talking Greebil’s mouth opened very very wide, then it just kept opening and opening
until it was bigger than my entire body. His jaw distended until it touched the floor and a deeply red
tongue rolled out like a carpet. From the darkness within Greebil’s maw, a second slightly smaller
Greebil appeared wearing a black floor length dress. The new Greebil was holding a large tome in
their hands and when they reached the end of the tongue they stopped and began presenting the
book like a game show host showing off prizes, complete with the announcer voiceover from the
hidden PA system.

“Greebil presents this book! It is very special! Greebil cannot read but Greebil is sure it has many
very special words in very special ink on very special paper. That is because it is today's special!
Greebil sells special book for 26 blue radishes! A steal!

I was pretty sure blue radishes weren’t a valid form of currency here and my hope was rapidly
dwindling of getting anything useful done here today. Still, I decided to play along for the moment.
The mini-Greebil was turning the book around, holding it open and flipping through the pages, and
otherwise showing it off. I reached out with one of my slightly too-long arms and put a finger against
the book’s cover, which mini-Greebil helpfully held out for me, and cast Identify on it.

Malgorithms & Spell Structures

3rd Edition, by A. Mephistopheles (Tier 5 Skill Book)

The premier book for aspiring Demonologists, Revengineers, and Weave Envelopers. This book will
teach you how to think like a Daemon, granting you the necessary skills to bind, command, and
otherwise treat with the unpredictable creatures in a predictable way.
 Unlocks the Malgorithms skill category, 5 skills, one at each tier starting at Tier 1. The Malgorithms
skill category contains skills which modify the behavior of Daemons in various ways. It also fulfills
some of the prerequisites for these skills.

I looked between Greebil and mini-Greebil, not sure which one to address. “You want 26 blue
radishes for this? I don’t have that… Could I offer you something else instead?” I was pretty sure he
wasn’t supposed to sell me this for anything but scarab tokens, but I wasn’t going to correct him.

“No! Only radishes! Only blue!” Then he paused and there was a thoughtful silence from the PA
system. “Greebil would also accept 13 souls of children abandoned by their mothers, but only
because Greebil likes you.”

“I uh, don’t have that either.”

“Next deal then!” PA Greebil shouted, and mini-Greebil turned and marched back into the original
Greebil’s still-open mouth. A moment later another mini-Greebil in a white dress walked out holding
a different item. This time it was a pitch black egg that almost seemed to be glowing, but instead of
light it seemed to be deepening colors all around it. Everything looked a little more real and detailed
in its proximity.

Well, everything except Greebil.

“Here we have Greebil’s breakfast! Greebil is epitome of capitalism so Greebil sell you his breakfast
for no less than the shirt off your back!”

I raised my eyebrows at the price I could actually afford. I had a simple cloth shirt on under my vest,
and I had what amounted to a sarashi on under that, so the hide vest wasn’t going to chafe, plus I
figured I could probably get a different shirt from the prison later. Maybe I’d get lucky with a deal
after all.

I reached out and touched the egg, using Identify once again.

Reality Seed
A crystalized fragment of existence itself (Tier ?, Artifact)

What if dreams could be real, and fiction made flesh? This is a fragmented aspect of reality itself,
crystalized into a seed and awaiting a fertile place to grow. You can use this seed as a crafting
ingredient, a focus for a world-altering spell, or you could try swallowing it and see what happens -
if you dare.

Also a favorite food of daemons, who quite literally eat reality for breakfast.

Since finding out about them at Sam’s I had wondered if these things could be for sale here. I
certainly hadn’t expected to find one for such a fantastic price, and I wasn’t going to pass it up.

I didn’t want to bother with taking off my vest to get to my shirt, and I was going to need a new slot
to store this seed in, so I went ahead and opened up my skills menu and dumped another 6 points
into my Soulspace skill, bringing its rank to 3.

“Deal! I’ll give you the shirt off my back for that thing.” I told the weird Daemon. Then I moved my
shirt into my soul-space directly, and after a few seconds moved it back out again and into my hand,
which I held out to Greebil.

“No! Nonono. Shirt off back! Not shirt off hand! Greebil want shirt off back!”
Moving deliberately, I tossed the shirt over my shoulders and leaned forward so it would rest on my
back. Then I turned around and presented it to mini-Greebil. “How’s this?”

Mini-Greebil apparently liked this version better, and yanked the shirt off my back, immediately
shoving the whole thing down its gullet in a few quick motions. One earth-shaking belch later and my
shirt may as well have never existed. He hadn’t even bothered to chew.

Meanwhile, I found myself holding the pitch black egg… or trying to. The egg was impossibly heavy
and yet rested lightly in my hands. I had no problems holding it, yet I couldn’t have moved it a single
millimeter with all of my strength. I couldn’t even drop it. Affecting it in any way was so
incomprehensibly beyond me that I began to fear I’d be frozen here unmoving until someone
relieved me of this terrible burden.

I began to fear that I’d somehow crashed my character avatar. I really didn’t want to use the failsafe
logout–It was not a fun experience–but this state of near paralysis was nearly intolerable. Worse,
after a moment I realized that I had stopped breathing.

I withdrew into myself, pushing away the growing sense of panic I was feeling and holding myself
apart from it. This was a mental trick I’d often use to make difficult situations easier to deal with. The
panic remained, but now I observed it as an impartial outsider. I was just playing a character after
all, there was no need to get worked up, I’d simply add this item to my inventory as I’d been planning
all along and everything would be fine.

I turned my mind to moving the seed into my soul-space, betting that the concept based storage
would be able to hold this impossible weight. As I initiated the process the world around me seemed
to buckle and waver, all except the Greebils who watched, open mouthed, at what I was doing. From
the corner of my eye I noticed yet another even smaller Greebil poking its head out of mini-Greebil’s
mouth, also slack-jawed. In the back of my mind I couldn’t help but wonder if there were an infinite
number of progressively smaller Greebils staring at me right now.

The seed seemed to resist being drawn into my soul-space, and the fading process dragged on and on
for what felt like minutes but must have been much shorter considering that I didn’t black out from
lack of air. I remained transfixed even as the universe seemed to bend and twist around me and the
seed became more and less solid in waves.

Meanwhile in my mind there was a sensation I could only describe as a balloon inflating. It stretched,
and stretched, and stretched, and every moment I expected it to explode, but it just kept getting
bigger and the tension kept building, and building, and building until I lost the ability to feel the
edges of it. It was everything, and it filled me utterly.

Even as the tension became agonizing, I remembered the last time I had felt something like this. It
had been such a strange sensation that my mind had fled from it immediately, but now the feeling of
vastness I’d experienced when System had announced me returned. Behind my eyes the impossible
expanse unfolded, looking out at the world through me. It was me. I was Infinity. But now something
as large as I was had come to occupy the same space as me, it was filling me up.

That was impossible. I couldn’t be filled.

My goblin eyes looked at the seed and for the first time I could see it for what it truly was. It was like
me. It was an avatar of something impossibly large, something as big as the universe, represented
here as this tiny black egg. It wasn’t alive like I was, it wasn’t looking out from the darkness like I
was. No, it was a way to look into a completely different vastness, and I’d just put it inside me.
For a long moment the world seemed to hold its breath. It was like that moment when you swallow
something that was just a bit too big and you have to wonder if it’s going to go down or if you’re
about to start choking.

Then the seed vanished completely, and unlike every other time I’d absorbed something into my
soul-space I couldn’t feel the item I’d just put into it. I stood perfectly still, afraid to even try to move.
I felt full in a way I’d never experienced before, and if I moved I thought I might explode.

Slowly, the feeling of immense internal pressure faded, but the sensation of vastness behind my eyes
did not, and I realized for the first time that the vastness was in my head. Literally in my head. I was
feeling the interior of my soul gem. As soon as I realized this, I understood that the gem was not a
container, as nothing could hope to contain me. No, it was a hole in reality much like the seed had
been. It was the place where my essence intersected with reality.

It was an interface.
New Achievement! “Devourer of Worlds”
Congratulations, you have received enough XP to become a Level 3 Valerian!

“Wow! Wowowowow! Greebil didn’t expect you to do that! Woooow!”

Greebil’s words brought me out of my introspection, and I discovered that Tavi’s body had not
appreciated whatever I’d just done to it.

“I feel like I’m going to be sick.” I told the weird creature as nausea threatened to overwhelm me.

“Greebil never seen a not-daemon eat breakfast before! That a lie. Greebil never seen not-daemon
survive eating breakfast! Greebil is very impressed!”

At some point the various Greebils had collapsed in on each other like a Russian nesting doll being
put away, but I had other things on my mind. It suddenly occurred to me to be worried about the
other things in my soul-space, and I frantically withdrew the scarab tokens hoping they weren’t going
to come out two-dimensional from the pressure.

Fortunately the tokens appeared unharmed and I sighed with relief.

I started moving them back into my soul-space while Greebil came over and watched with interest. I
couldn’t even begin to conceive of taking the seed out of my soul-space, even the thought of doing so
made me ill, so it was a good thing I didn’t think I could. The slot I’d put it in still felt very full, but it
was like it was full of nothing.

“You have a lot of shiny beetles. Greebil’s master likes shiny beetles. You should come back when
master is here and give Greebil’s master shiny beetles.”

“Yeah… I’ll do that. Do you have anything else you wanted to sell though Greebil?” I asked, equal
parts hopeful and dreading the return of sales-Greebil.

“You still hungry?!” Greebil was aghast. “You can’t have two breakfasts in one day!”

“I didn’t… You know what, never mind, you’re right. I think I’m going to go home and uh, digest
this.”

I was feeling a killer headache coming on, and I was already pushing my luck here. I really didn’t
want to be here when Greebil’s boss came back. “Nice doing business with you Greebil.”

“Byebyebye not-Tavi.” The daemon waved as I navigated the menus to exit the Exchange.
A moment later I was back in my bunk in jail, sans one shirt. Nothing had changed that I could see,
which was particularly interesting as I’d been in the Exchange for quite a while. I’d forgotten the time
limit I was expecting to encounter until this moment, but now I found myself wondering about it.

“Whatever.” I decided. I was too damn sick and tired to think about that right now. I had a list of
questions and concerns about this game and at the moment that one wasn’t even in the top five. I
quickly added some notes to my notepad while things were fresh in my head, then went looking for
the bug report function.

I found it under the Help menu. While I was looking I also found a F.A.Q. option, and resolved to
check it next to figure out how to log out properly. I suspected it’d be the first entry. The bug report
form was quite basic, and I filled it out, cheeks burning as I recounted my experiences.

When I submitted the report I got two back to back notices.

System Message
Your bug report has been received.

Thank you for filing a bug report, due to unusually high volume it may be some time before we are
able to process your report. If your report is regarding an inability to log out please see the F.A.Q.
for assistance. This is not a bug and will not receive a response.

Note: If you abuse the bug report system to complain you will be banned from using it. If you wish
to file a grievance, please use the Petition menu.

System Message
Your bug report has received elevated priority.

Due to your Minor Blessing of The Adversary, your bug report will be sent directly to a Tier 2
support agent. Expect a response within one business day.

Looks like I was right about the F.A.Q. having the log out method. People never read the
documentation before they go and file a bug report. I felt bad for the poor Tier 1 support agents that
were probably handling dozens of “I can’t log out” messages while looking for actual bug reports.

I navigated over to the F.A.Q. and had a look at the options.

- How do I log out?

- Can I make a new character?
- How do I get out of jail?
- Do I respawn if I die?
- Why have you done this to us?

That last one registered while I was wondering just how many other players had ended up in jail, and
as I selected “How do I log out?”

F.A.Q.
How do I log out?

Quite simply, you don’t. This isn’t a game, and never has been one. The pretense of a game was used
on your homeworld to find souls yearning for adventure and an escape from their daily lives. You
 have been given a chance to start again, to become whatever your heart desires, and be the person
you’ve always wanted to be.

This world is located near a star in the Virgo constellation referred to as “61 Viriginis” by your
astronomers. The star is 28 light years from earth, practically neighbors on the cosmological scale.
While the true nature of the cosmos has been obscured to your people, the distance between the
stars was not one of those hidden truths. It is just as far as it sounds.

The gods that met with you when you first arrived are the true deities of this world, they have
brought you here both for your sake and theirs. The planet is unknown to your people, but the locals
call it Astra after the founding members of the pantheon, Astraea and Valera.

This world features a rather unique system of magic, in part inspired by your own people and their
clever technology. Together, the gods of this world worked to create me, System, a sort of artificial
deity devoted solely to the administration of the world and its rules. The first age of this world
served as a beta period, and your arrival here signals the start of the next age of the full release.

This world is an experiment of sorts, we have high hopes that it will prove a model for all future
worlds. The Adversary himself has devoted considerable amounts of his personal attention to its
development, and he asks that I pass his words on to you here.

“Friends, I apologize for the subterfuge used to bring you here, it was necessary for reasons I shall
not explain here. None-the-less, I thank you for your participation in our grand experiment. I
have prepared a number of ordeals to test your metal in the coming years, but for now consider
this to be the tutorial. You have some time to settle in and learn the rules of this world. Do not let
yourself become complacent however, for sooner than later I shall test you, and those found
wanting shall not survive the experience.”

– The Adversary

On behalf of the rest of the Pantheon, I wish you luck and success in whatever ordeals The
Adversary has prepared. Your success or failure in them will determine the success or failure of this
world, and possibly this entire concept for future worlds.

I read the message twice, then did what everyone else before me had already tried. There were
certain functions mandated by law for all nVR systems, and one of those was emergency logout. This
wasn’t even part of the software being run, but built into the headset itself at the firmware level. The
activation was simple, I just needed to issue the same thought command five times in a row in quick
succession. No physical movements were required, no words, nothing that might be prevented by an
in-simulation restraint. I’d had to do this before on this headset and was sure it worked.

This time it didn’t.

Chapter 10: Learn to Play

Some time passed that I have no clear memory of. The first thing I remember clearly was being
gently shaken by a large hand on my back. It turned out to be one of my cellmates, they’d returned
from the dungeon and after a meal had made their way back to their cells for the night. They’d found
me curled up in the bed with swollen eyes and dried tears on my cheeks and weren’t sure what to
make of it.

I’d been deep inside myself for a long time at that point, and it took a while to push my way back to
the surface. I remember reading the last F.A.Q. entry at some point, and in its own weird way it
helped.
 F.A.Q.
Why have you done this to us?

Because you asked for it. You may not have realized it, but your soul was reaching out for something
more, something you couldn’t get in the world you left behind. None of you were taken against your
will, each of you was calling out for rescue like a distress beacon. The gods heard your prayers, and
this was their answer. A place they had prepared for your coming, a world run by a system your
society had trained you to understand and thrive in, and a chance to choose who you wanted to be.

Millions of people put on their nVR headsets to play the latest big game released in your world, and
for most that’s exactly what they are doing right now. For you, you are living the life you chose to
live. It will not be perfect, no, but you have a chance to make it better than your last if you choose to
take it.

This resonated with me. I’d been treading water for a long time in my past life. Yes, I had friends and
family who I’d dearly miss, and yes I’d miss modern conveniences. However, even if I’d known it was
real during character creation I’m not sure I would have made any different choices. Maybe if I’d
known I was going to end up in the body of a female goblin, but Valera had been very clear she
couldn’t tell me what body I’d end up with. Also, I’d been promised the ability to change my body at
some point, so I should be able to fix this eventually.

I’d had a very long day, and I was just now realizing the full scope of the implications of the day’s
events. Everything I had done was now immensely more important to my future than I had thought.
I couldn’t afford to make any more mistakes, so I once again set aside all my emotional baggage and
focused on the tasks at hand.

To that end, I managed to convince my cellmates that I’d be alright, then I pretended to go to sleep
and took care of a few things I needed to do before actually sleeping for the night. First, I checked my
newest achievements. I wanted to see what I had to work with.

New Achievement
Deal with the Devil

You have entered the Equitable Exchange, a place of infernal delights open only to those who please
The Adversary. This achievement comes with no reward, only a warning: Caveat Emptor.

New Achievement
Devourer of Worlds

You have done something previously thought to belong in the domain of only daemons - you
consumed a Reality Seed and survived. What this will do to you in the long run is anyone’s guess,
but for now it’s earned you this achievement.

System Note: Infinity, you seem determined to live up to your name. I had to create this
achievement just for you, because I didn’t think it was possible to do what you did. As you know,
even I have issues with infinities… Even small infinities. The mathematicians and logicians amongst
the gods tell me that one infinity can contain other infinities, so I suppose this is apt.

Rewards:
+20pp (Universal)
Title Unlocked (“Souleater”)
 New Achievement
Membership is its own reward

You entered Sam’s Daily Devil Deals and left without making a purchase. Patience is a virtue, and
the proprietors of the establishment have taken notice of your restraint. Perhaps the knowledge you
gained inside will be worth the price of entry.

Rewards:
Entrance Coupon (1 free entry to Sam’s gallery)

When I read the last achievement a slip of parchment appeared in one of my hands. I looked at it in
consternation, realizing that I was going to have to buy another soul-space slot already. I sighed and
got it over with, those slots were too useful anyway, it wasn’t like it was wasted points. A few seconds
later and the coupon was safely stored in my soul-space, oddly without even needing to identify it
first. I guess I had a pretty solid grasp on what a coupon was.

Next up, I wanted to buy and use my “Devil in the Details” skill. I’d been given this for a reason I was
sure, and I wanted to start using it immediately. I opened up my unlocked skills menu and noticed
something I’d missed earlier. Limitless’ unique skills weren’t in my list of unlocked skills. Frowning, I
backed out of that menu and returned to my notes screen, finding where I’d written about Limitless’
unique skills. The priest I’d spoken to had told me the skills in detail, even using one of them in front
of me. How is it I hadn’t unlocked either of them?

I sighed and re-opened the bug report menu, filing my second bug report of the night. I wondered if
my new full time job was QA tester for this world. It could be worse I suppose. Like last time when I
filled out the bug report I was prompted with the same two messages letting me know there was a
backlog and that my report had been elevated.

Moving on for the moment I returned to my unlocked skill menu and began the process of moving
points into it, but I got a new message in the process.

System Alert
Select a class for this skill.

As you are the first to unlock this skill, you have earned a free rank in it, but you must select which
of your classes it will be associated with. Unlocked skills may only be associated with a class unless
they are unlocked through a racial skill evolution. Normally the process of selecting a class for an
unlocked skill is done by the type of points you decide to put into it, however in this case you have a
free rank earned, and so must select it directly.

Choose Class:
- Trailblazer
- Thief

That was interesting, did that mean nobody in the world was a level ten Demonologist yet? If this
was a real world with real people in it, how was it possible that I was the first one to unlock this?
Perhaps just because Demonologists could learn it didn't mean it was something they unlocked
automatically? Maybe the Demonologist class was reserved for Travelers? It was something I’d have
to think about, but for the moment I had a choice to make.

The obvious answer here was Trailblazer, I had so many more Trailblazer points to spend than Thief
points. Yet, I hesitated. I knew that it was possible to unlock new classes, Trailblazer was specifically
intended to do so, but nobody had said I couldn’t use my other class as the base for unlocking a new
class. Introducing skills into a class was surely the way to evolve it into something new right?
Trailblazer was about the future and this skill was all about the past, somehow it seemed backwards
to combine them.

I currently had 40 unspent Trailblazer points, and only 7 unspent Thief points, but I also had 8
unused Affinities, 5 from Trailblazer and the rest from Thief. Tavi apparently hadn’t used any of her
Thief affinities, probably from lack of any need. I could easily make that skill one of my Affinities if I
wanted it in my Thief class but needed to spend points on it from Trailblazer.

I locked it in. It felt right to me, and if it turned out I was wrong it didn’t feel like the end of the world
with this specific skill. However, I was immediately met with another prompt.

System Alert
Skill prerequisite not met.

You do not meet the prerequisite “Demonologist (Level 10)” for the skill “Devil in the Details” -
would you like to expend a rank of Innovator to bypass this skill prerequisite? You have one rank of
Innovator available.

Yes / No

I selected yes, and the skill faded from my unlocked skills list, appearing on my active skills list a
moment later when I checked for it.

I had one last thing I wanted to do before I activated the skill. I was sitting on a 50 point penalty that
was currently halving my maximum HP. I’d taken a moment earlier to read the F.A.Q. entry on death
and what it amounted to was yes, death was permanent by default, but there were some exceptions.
There were ways to get extra lives, or escape death, but nobody had them by default. There was a
singular exception for Travelers that managed to die within 1 hour of spawning into the world, as it
was assumed that this meant they had spawned somewhere incompatible with their biology. I was
well past that cutoff though.

That meant I was currently twice as easy to kill as I should be, and tomorrow I was headed into a
dungeon where I’d presumably have to fight for my life. I wasn’t about to do that with half the health
I could have, so I flipped to the penalties screen and had a look at it.

Expendable
Penalty (Tier 5)
Source: Goblin
Rank: 5 / 5
PP: 0 / 10

In the face of harsh environments your people have evolved to be expendable and easily replaceable.
Your maximum health is reduced by 50%. This amount is lessened by 10% for every rank removed
from this penalty.

I couldn’t blame Tavi for not working on this, it was such a drain to know that your species only gave
you two points per-level but expected you to pay off a penalty that would literally take you twenty-
five full levels to get rid of. Pretty much the only choice was to spend points cross-path, and that
hurt. Fortunately I had 28 Universal points to spend from my achievements, and I planned to use
them all right now.

I brought up the interface for the penalty.

 Skill Advancement
Expendable (Tier 5, Penalty)
Source: Goblin
Affinity: No
Rank: 5 / 5
PP: 0 / 10

PP Available
Universal: 28

Goblin: 2
Valerian: 14 (xPath)
Trailblazer: 40 (xPath)
Thief: 7 (xPath)

Wait… Penalties could be Affinities? How did that work? What happened when you paid them off?
There were no answers on this screen, so I backed out and navigated to the Help section, looking for
information on how these things worked. Thankfully, I found some.

System Help
Skills, Penalties & Affinities

Skills as a broad category represent all the spells, techniques, and other special abilities you have
access to. All skills are inherently supernatural, but the source of their power can vary. Magical
skills typically draw from your pool of mana, while physical skills typically draw from your stamina.
These pools are abstractions representing your personal spiritual power and your ability to channel
it through your mind or body respectively.

Penalties are the opposite of skills but in many ways are interchangeable with them. They represent
weaknesses in your physical or spiritual body that you can overcome with effort. While many
penalties are present from birth, it is possible to acquire new ones in a variety of ways, including
injuries and species evolutions. Penalties can be paid off with an investment of progression points,
and doing so will always unlock a skill that represents your struggle to overcome a weakness.

Similar to penalties, when you invest the maximum number of progress points into a skill you may
trigger a Skill Evolution. When you evolve a skill, you will unlock a new skill (or skills) based on the
skill you mastered. In some cases skill and penalty evolutions lead to branching paths where
selecting one option will lock you out from the others. These in turn can result in class or species
evolutions based on the source of the evolution.

Affinities represent skills you have a particular talent for. They are easier to rank up than other
skills, as you may freely spend points on them from any source you have available. Additionally,
skills with Affinities assigned to them are eligible for special evolution paths. When this happens
you can choose to take the special evolution, or keep the standard one. When evolving along the
standard path your Affinity is retained through the evolution, while special evolutions consume the
Affinity in the process.

Well, that was interesting. I flipped back to my penalties screen and this time I focused on assigning
an Affinity to the Expendable penalty. I wanted this thing gone, and if I could get a special option for
doing so all the better, otherwise I’d take keeping the affinity for whatever the resulting skill was.

I decided to burn most of my Trailblazer points first, and my Universal points last. I wanted to leave
at least a point or two in each of Thief and Trailblazer in case I needed to add a skill to either of them,
since Universal points wouldn’t work for that. I also decided to spend my Goblin points last as they
were the hardest to get.
When all was said and done I’d spent 38 Trailblazer points, 5 Thief points, and 7 Valerian points to
completely pay off that penalty.

System Message
Species penalty removed

Congratulations, you have paid off a species penalty and it has evolved into a new species skill. This
penalty leads to a branching path of evolutionary options, so you must now choose which skill this
penalty will evolve into. The following skills have been unlocked, however you will only be able to
choose one of them to learn. Your choice of this skill will lead to a sub-species evolution based on
the chosen skill.

Choose One:
Skill: Allometry (Passive, Tier 3)
Skill: Hob (Passive, Tier 4)
Skill: Essential (Passive, Tier 5, Consumes Affinity)

Congratulations, you have received enough XP to become a Level 4 Valerian!

Fantastic. I’d already figured out that boosting my goblin stuff created a positive feedback loop with
Valerian, so the level was no surprise. It’d probably get harder to level up my real species the higher
level it got, but I suspected dumping an affinity and 50 points into a goblin skill and unlocking three
new species skills on top of it must have given me a boatload of Valerian XP.

I grinned to myself, this was already paying off. I was glad I didn’t have to make this decision blind. I
took a look at the skills first, leaving the achievement for later.

Allometry
Passive Skill (Tier 3, Species)
Prerequisites: Goblin (Unevolved), Mastered (Expendable), Branch (Expendable)
Source: Goblin
Rank: 0 / 5
PP: 0 / 6

Big things come in small packages. Your small frame belies your strength, speed and endurance.
Your Strength, Agility, Dexterity, and Fortitude are increased by 10% for every rank in this skill.

Subspecies Evolution: Dire Goblin (Tier 1, Goblin)

Hob
Passive Skill (Tier 4, Species)
Prerequisites: Goblin (Unevolved), Mastered (Expendable), Branch (Expendable)
Source: Goblin
Rank: 0 / 5
PP: 0 / 8

You are physically larger and stronger than your peers, and they instinctively defer to your
leadership. For every rank in this skill your Strength, Fortitude, Toughness, and Charisma, are
increased by 10%, and your height is increased by 2cm. Additionally, your party members gain a 5%
per-rank bonus to their Agility and Intelligence so long as they can see or hear you.

Subspecies Evolution: Hobgoblin (Tier 1, Goblin)

 Essential
Passive Skill (Tier 5, Species)
Prerequisites: Goblin (Unevolved), Mastered (Expendable), Affinity (Expendable), Branch
(Expendable), Achievement (Speak Truth to Power)
Source: Goblin
Rank: 0 / 5
PP: 0 / 10

You can survive anything. Once. Once per-day, when something would kill you, it instead leaves you
utterly unharmed, and additionally refills your health, mana, and stamina by 50% of the damage
that would have been done, plus 10% per level of this skill.

Subspecies Evolution: Nilbog (Tier 1, Goblin)

It took me a minute to figure out exactly what I was looking at here. Fortunately, I was able to
concentrate on individual prerequisites to bring up more information.

The way the system handled skill selection was a bit odd, but it made sense considering that just
knowing the details of a skill would unlock it for you. Without a robust prerequisite system groups of
people could simply discuss their skills to give everyone every possible skill option. Each of these
skills required me to have fully paid off the Expendable penalty, and the “Branch” prerequisite meant
that I couldn’t have any other skills with the exact same branch skill prerequisite. This all worked
similarly to a tag system, but was a bit more nuanced, and once I understood it I could see both the
utility and necessity of it.

Earlier today, thinking this was a game, I might have selected Hob for a nice party synergy ability
and so I didn’t have to be quite so damn short. Allometry and Hob both seemed like great skills, but
Allometry was completely eclipsed by Dual Nature. Meanwhile Essential was off the wall bizarre, but
also represented guaranteed protection from death at least once a day. Under my current
circumstances that was impossible to pass up. Plus I was pretty sure I’d just gotten an achievement
for unlocking it.

Having seen these options I thought I might have figured out what the deal with the Goblin species
was. I now had it pegged for a slow burn species, where if you managed to stay alive long enough
you’d eventually unlock some very powerful abilities. It was a low growth species that also had
multiple harsh penalties, high risk and high reward, what else could that mean? It gave me real hope
for the first time in a while.

I selected Essential from the list and prepared to put points into it, but as soon as I did I got another
message.

System Message
New Skill Discovered!

As the discoverer of a new skill you have unlocked a free rank in it. However, this skill has
prerequisites which conflict with other skills you have unlocked. Would you like to accept the free
rank in this skill?

Yes / No

I selected yes, and felt myself change slightly. All the things that made my body goblin-like seemed to
be enhanced very slightly. My ears got a tiny bit longer and I had to lift my head off the pillow to
adjust them. My arms likewise got just a little bit longer, and I could now comfortably put my hands
on my kneecaps without bending at the waist. I felt my claw-like nails change, but couldn’t tell what
was different, and my mouth and eyes both got a tiny bit larger, and I felt it as new teeth grew in to
fill the space.

Your species has evolved from Goblin (Tier 0, Goblin) to Nilbog (Tier 1, Goblin).
New Achievement! “It’s Just Goblin Spelled Backwards”
New Achievement! “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger”

Wait, Goblin was a Tier 0 species? What the hell? I had thought that my options were the same tier
as Goblin, even if they were technically upgrades. It seemed I was wrong though, Goblin was
apparently so weak as to be considered Tier 0 until you paid off the Expendable penalty. The only
other Tier 0 things I’d seen were literal trash items - a shirt and a bed. I found myself getting a little
angry on behalf of my adopted species.

I used my character sheet avatar as a mirror to check out the changes. Thankfully they were pretty
subtle, I didn’t think anyone would notice unless they were really observant and really familiar with
what I looked like.

While I was here I decided to finally check out the title system. I had no idea what these did, if
anything, and didn’t want to be leaving anything on the table for tomorrow’s dungeon crawl. I
currently had six titles: Prisoner, Hunted, Skinwalker, Adventurer, Rule Breaker, and Souleater.
However, when I opened the title interface it was much more complicated than I was expecting.
Rather than try to fumble my way through it I backed out and returned to the Help menu, looking up
the article on Titles.

System Help
Titles

The Title system represents your greatest accomplishments, things which are deserving of fame or
infamy. They can be both a blessing and a curse. The heart of the Title system is the Title Forge.
Individual titles you acquire may be little more than fragments, and the forge will allow you to
shape them into something more usable. The forge has three functions: Merge, Modify, and Break.

Merge: You may attempt to merge any two titles to create a new one. This is a conceptual process,
and its chance of success will be dependent on how compatible the words of the title are with each
other conceptually. When merging two titles you will be shown the odds of success before the
attempt. On a success, a new title will be created, and on a failure both titles used in the process will
be lost.

Modify: This option allows you to make minor modifications to a title to change its presentation,
adding or removing connective words and articles. For example, you might change “Brave” into
“The Brave”. This also allows you to reorder the words in multi-word titles, so long as it doesn’t
change their meaning. This is a purely cosmetic alteration.

Break: This option allows you to sacrifice titles to gain additional title slots. By default you have a
single title title slot, but you can gain more by discarding your weaker or less useful titles. Note: The
amount of titles you need to break in order to gain a new slot goes up linearly with the number of
slots you currently have, however, the tier of the title being broken matters for this process. Getting
your second title slot will require breaking only a single tier one title, while breaking your second
slot will require breaking two tier one titles or a single tier two title, etc.

Equipping a Title
You may equip as many titles as you have slots, however your first slot is special as it can contain
two titles, one in the form of a prefix and the other as a suffix for your name. All your other title
slots are referred to as your accolades, and they are not as directly paired with your name. Only your
 primary titles are revealed by casual inspection, while magic or intentional disclosure can reveal
your accolades. Your unequipped titles cannot be revealed except by divine level magic.

Required Titles
Some effects will forcibly take up one of your title slots. Just like a normal title you may choose if a
required title takes up a primary slot or an accolade, unless that title specifies otherwise. If you have
more required titles than title slots temporary slots will be added to allow for all required titles to be
equipped and you will suffer an additional penalty. You may not unequip a required title so long as
the effect that requires it is in place, and you may not use the Title Forge on a required title.

Now that I understood what I was looking at, things became more clear. My primary title slot was
occupied by the Prisoner title, which had a little lock next to it. I would need to unlock another slot if
I wanted to equip any title now. I needed to figure out what each of my titles did so I could figure out
if I wanted to sacrifice any of them to get a new slot. Fortunately viewing a title turned out to work
the same way as viewing a skill.

Prisoner
Title (Tier 2, Required)

You are a prisoner, wasting away in confinement. For every day spent with this title equipped there
is a chance you will receive a -1 penalty to a random stat, to a minimum of 5. These penalties fade at
a rate of 1 per-day after the title is removed.

Hunted
Title (Tier 1)

You are a fugitive, running from pursuers. You have a +1 bonus to Agility, Perception, and Luck.

Adventurer
Title (Tier 3)

A life of danger and discovery awaits you. You gain a +20% bonus to movement speed, and while
you have this title equipped know the “Danger Sense” skill at rank 3, ignoring prerequisites.

Rule-Breaker
Title (Tier 5)

You found a flaw in the system, and exploited it for your own ends. You gain a +1 bonus to all stats.
Additionally, this title can be equipped in place of a single required title of its tier or lower.

Souleater
Title (Tier 10)
 Your soul-space is a terrifying maw capable of devouring the essence of reality itself. While this title
is equipped the spirits of creatures you slay are automatically transferred into your soul-space so
long as you have a free slot. Additionally, you know the “Devour Essence” skill at rank 5 and can use
it on targets in your soul-space, which cannot resist the effect.

“What. The. Fuck.” I was trying to process the implications of Souleater still, but there was one thing
I very clearly wanted to do. I equipped Rule-Breaker over Prisoner, changing out the required title -
hopefully before it’d had a chance to drain my stats at all.

Primary title changed, you are now known as “Rule-Breaker Tavi”

I frowned at that notification. I didn’t want anybody knowing about my titles right now. Though I
had to admit the intimidation factor I could get from equipping Skinwalker and Souleater into the
primary slot would be very amusing. Now wasn’t the time to be scary though, now was the time to
keep my head down. Being scary just got people trying to kill you.

I opened up the Title Forge and selected “Modify” from the options. I wanted to get a good primary
title that wouldn’t be super incriminating if discovered. I thought I had a good idea for that, and after
a bit of fiddling I equipped both parts of my new title.

Primary title changed, you are now known as “Adventurer Tavi, the Rule-Breaker”
New skill unlocked: “Danger Sense”

I experimented with unequipping the Adventurer title, and to my delight the Danger Sense skill
stayed in my unlocked list, so I went ahead and equipped each of my skill-granting titles briefly to
make sure I had everything unlocked. Finally, I went back to the Title Forge and used the “Break”
option on my Hunted title, granting me my first accolade title slot.

For the moment I moved Rule-Breaker into there, leaving my suffix empty. I planned to slot
Souleater in there once we were in the dungeon tomorrow, but I didn’t want to risk an examination
skill revealing it in the meantime. I was pretty sure it was universally harder to examine higher tier
things, but it wasn’t worth the risk. I wanted to know what having a spirit in my soul-space did, and
it seemed like a dungeon was the perfect time to find out.

In the meantime though, I could at least see what my new skill options were.

Weird
Active Skill (Tier 3)
Prerequisites: Daemon (Lesser)
Source: Skinwalker (Title)
Rank: 2 / 5 (Fixed)
PP: 0 / 6
Activation Cost: Mana (Low)
Activation Type: Maintained
Cooldown: N/A

You are not quite right, your skin doesn’t seem to fit, your mannerisms are just a bit off. Those
around you can sense that they are in the presence of something unnatural. The effects of this skill
change at each rank, with each successive rank adding its effects onto the others.

- At rank 1 you can project an aura of unease, attempting to inflict the sickened bane on all targets
within 10m of you.
- At rank 2 you are able to manipulate your joints to painlessly bend at unnatural angles.
- At rank 3 your bones are merely suggestions of form, allowing you to squeeze into spaces far too
 small for a natural creature your size.
- At rank 4 you can float up to 2 meters off the ground and propel yourself laterally at your normal
walking speed.
- At rank 5 your limbs can detach and move about on their own. Any detached limbs dissolve and
reform on your body when this skill ends.

Danger Sense
Passive Skill (Tier 2)
Prerequisites: Thief (Level 10)
Source: Adventurer (Title)
Rank: 3 / 5 (Fixed)
PP: 0 / 4

Grants you a chance to detect danger you couldn’t normally perceive. 20% of your Luck is added to
your Perception and Wisdom scores for the purposes of sensing danger or hostile intent.

Devour Essence
Active Skill (Tier 8)
Prerequisites: Daemon (Lesser)
Source: Souleater (Title)
Rank: 5 / 5 (Fixed)
PP: 0 / 16
Activation Cost: Mana (Very High)
Activation Type: Maintained
Cooldown: 1min

Consumes the spiritual essence of a creature or item, empowering you in the process. Ranks in this
skill affect how quickly you can drain power from the target, with the effective strength of this skill
being 20% of your Willpower per rank. Creatures can resist this skill with their Resistance defense,
but items can only resist if their tier is higher than the tier of this skill.

The effects of being drained by Devour Essence vary, and are based on the nature of the entity being
drained. This effect ends automatically if the target runs out of spiritual essence.

I had some moral concerns over the whole eating souls thing, but I didn’t intend to die and would
take any tool I could find to keep myself alive. This seemed like it might be one of the more powerful
effects I had access to, so I wanted it on hand in case I needed it. I could always release any souls I
collected if I didn’t need them. I wrapped up by buying one more soul-space slot. All of mine were
currently full and I had the Valarian points to spare, so now I had at least one slot for a soul.

It was fully dark now, the sun had set and a guard had come by to put out lanterns some time ago. I
lay in my bunk hearing the sound of soft snores all around me from the other inmates. I’d done
everything I could for today, except for one thing. I wanted to use my new skill to view the events
immediately proceeding my entrance to this world, but I had to figure out what log would get me
those events.

I started rapidly scrolling back through my combat log, looking for likely options. I immediately
realized that it was going to be very difficult to pick out any specific events without timestamps, as it
was impossible to know how much time there was between each log entry. There were dozens of little
“You took 1 damage” logs from all sorts of random things, apparently just a fact of living, so I had
plenty of options from around the area I was looking for, but no idea how close together they
occurred.
I selected one of the logs leading up to the “Soul Infusion”, hoping I was getting somewhat close,
then I activated “Devil in the Details” and watched as the world melted away.