NOVEL NEXT Chapter 34: Words of Gods
Ellie twiddled her thumbs nervously, glancing over at Tess and then at Fortune, who gave her a thumbs-up. “Um…what do you want with me, um…” She began, not quite sure how to address the two.
Death waved a hand dismissively. “Life and Death is fine. No need to stand on ceremony, really. You already know the broad strokes of what’s going on behind the scenes, so formalities are just going to get in the way.”
Life loudly cleared his throat, drawing attention back off of Death “Forgive our rudeness,” he said, motioning for Ellie to turn around, “please take a seat. As Death said, formalities really aren’t needed right now.”
Ellie turned around to find a set of comfortable-looking armchairs, so she nervously sat down in the one closest to her. “Um, thanks.”
Tess and Gramps sat down on either side of her, and Life and Death sat down in chairs of their own that Ellie had been too distracted to properly take note of. For her part, Fortune sat down a decent distance to the side, halfway between the two groups.
“So, how familiar are you with the circumstances of Mael?” Death asked, “Like, I know it’s only been a month or two since you were formally introduced to the other planes, but I think it’s good to get a feel for how much you know before we actually start talking here.”
“Umm…it’s like…Mael is still in the process of being introduced to the other planes, right? And…Grandpa’s in charge of that or something?”
“More or less.” Death said. “But there are a couple of complications. The first is that magic is next to non-existent on Mael. The Mana there is way less dense, so a bunch of the systems we have in place don’t really…work. That’s on purpose, Amy has a protégé who unwittingly found herself in a similar situation, so she wanted to work through it herself so she could help give advice.”
Fortune shot a glance at Tess. “She actually used to live here, by the way. You’ve met her relatives, the Sarlienne family. She’s Amara’s like…50 greats great aunt or something. It was a long time ago, she was working as a sub administrator when I was born if that gives you any idea. Her name’s Kali, I’ll have to introduce you next time she stops by, she likes to keep tabs on how her family’s doing.”
Life coughed, and Fortune jumped, blushing slightly. “Right, right, sorry. Got distracted. Carry on.”
“Anyway, that leaves kind of a huge power gap between Mael and…everyone else.” Death continued, “Especially since their tech advantage is minor at best. So, um, I’m pretty sure you see where this is going – history has been pretty clear about what happens when people discover a much weaker civilization with vast amounts of natural resources. Trust me, I would know better than most.”
Life nodded. “As you have probably gathered, Death and I are the resident gods of Mael. Amy likes to introduce one or two new ones with every plane, and that’s us. Of course, as said gods, it in large part falls to us to make sure that this transition goes smoothly.”
“We’re not leaving them out to dry or anything.” Fortune blurted out. “Like, we still help out and everything, it’s just an explicit part of their ‘godly duties’ until the introduction period ends. It’s sort of a rite of passage. And, now that I’ve chosen someone from Mael as my Appointed, it’s partially my responsibility too. Not as much, but, you know, it still is.”
Life gave another cough and Fortune stopped once again, face even redder. “Sorry, sorry. Can’t help it. I’ll try to be quiet.”
Death laughed. “It’s fine, Fortune. You’re just as much a part of this discussion as us. You know how Life gets, don’t worry about it too much.”
“As I was saying,” Life said, “that leaves us in something of a bind. Right now, the main thing keeping some of the more…ambitious planes from invading now is the presence of your grandfather and the rest of the Appointed who are keeping the Outlands from being used as a staging ground for a war. That and the fact that many of their war tactics simply wouldn’t…work right in the absence of magic, but that’s something they can work around if they have a secure bulkhead from which to launch an assault.”
“Like, eventually Mael’s going to get its background Mana levels up to par with everywhere else, but we can’t really…wait for that.” Death added, “It’ll take way too long, like, it’ll probably be another couple millennia before people start being able to cast basic spells. And given how Amy’s using Mael as a mirror to Kali’s situation and Kali’s probably going to be reintroducing her planes to each other in the next few decades, Amy would like to get a move on with introducing Mael to everywhere else.”
“We’ve got twenty more years to prepare, tops.” Life said. “And we have quite a few things we have to take care of in that time. Fortunately, we have the tools necessary to bring Mael up to par in that time.” He gave Ellie a careful look. “Do you get where we’re going with this?”
Ellie gave Tess a nervous glance, and in response Tess reached out and grabbed her hand, squeezing it gently.
And, suddenly, she didn’t feel quite so nervous. “You want us to help, right?”
“Broadly speaking, yes, but a bit more than that.” Death replied. “Think of this as a sort of…scouting meeting. We’re interested in having you as our Appointed, and we want to talk with you about things first. We’re doing things…differently. Life and I are pretty close as far as gods go, and our Appointed candidates are, um…really limited right now. So, we were hoping to do something new and make you the Appointed of both of us.
“We went ahead and checked with Amy, and it’s safe so long as we’re careful about it. Your…body…soul…uh, it’s not really either so…vessel, I guess? Whatever we want to call it, you’re able to hold a fair bit more Worship than most people, probably in no small part due to your stats and the fact that your grandfather is an Appointed, so you’ll be able to take the strain of it under a few conditions.”
“Essentially, if you choose to accept our offer, you’ll get both our strongest Blessings, but only have access to one set of our abilities at once, except under extreme conditions.” Life explained. “In addition, only one of us will be able to Descend at any given time. That being said, you should be able to pull out both of our Blessings at once if it becomes truly necessary, though that runs many of the same risks Descents do. Anyway, what are your thoughts so far? If you’re opposed to the idea, we’ll stop with this talk here and look at other potential ways to go about this.”
Ellie frowned. “I’m honestly not really sure how I feel right now, I want to know more about what being an Appointed means. Like, I know that it involves helping out the gods, but I don’t know what I’d be doing.”
To her surprise, Life turned to Gramps. “Do you mind doing the explaining, Evan?” He asked. “You’ve got the most experience of anyone here.”
“Of course.” Gramps said, standing up and facing Ellie. “It changes from god to god, but generally speaking Appointed are in charge of being the link between their god and the church of that god, as well as one or two duties unique to the god. Furthermore, there are a couple of general management things all Appointed share responsibility for that help keep the world growing, and some…rather intense fighting that the exact nature of is confidential until you’re actually an Appointed, but that’s only once every few decades at the most frequent. Life and Death will have to tell you what their particular duties are, though.”
“I got this.” Death said. “So, basically, you would have to deal with people who are really messing with the cycle of life and death or are going to. So, like…people who are going do really damaging terrorist attacks, or necromancers who make undead like ghosts or things that trap the soul after death. Nothing too out there but it’s an important job to help keep people feeling safe in their homes and in their afterlife.”
“That…doesn’t seem too bad.” Ellie said hesitantly. “But I don’t think I can accept just yet. I have to get to know you two better, like…I dunno, could we do something kind of like what Fortune did with Tess, where we chatted and stuff for a few months beforehand? I don’t want to tie the rest of my life to people I’m only just meeting now, you know?”
“That’s perfectly understandable.” Life said smoothly. “We were expecting something like this anyway. We’ll keep in touch with you, and we’ll talk more about where you want to go with things around the time you get out of school. Sound good?”
“Yeah, I think that’s a good idea.” Death agreed. “This is a two way street. So, we’ll go ahead with that, but…do you want to chat for a bit now? We freed up a bunch of time just in case, and it would be a shame not to have some more in-person time.”
Ellie blinked. “Sure, I guess. Well, as long as Grandpa and Tess are OK with it.”
“It’s fine by me.” Gramps said.
“Take your time.” Tess said. “I’m not in a rush to be anywhere.”
“Right, that settles it.” Death said, clapping her hands. “Come over here, it’ll be easier to talk informally.”
Ellie glanced over to find Gramps and Tess already walking over to Fortune, so she stood up and moved over to where Life and Death were, a third chair popping up next to them as Ellie moved. She tentatively sat down in it, giving the two gods a somewhat nervous look. Fortune had been one thing – Ellie had never heard of her before learning about the Outlands, and she was a goofball, so interacting with her had never seemed too hard, but Life and Death were another.
She had grown up going to the Church of Life and Death, well, going on special occasions, anyway, and while she had never personally had any strong feelings about their existence one way or the other, she knew quite a lot of people who did. So, it was kind of surreal and a little scary to be sitting in front of them and talking with them.
“Right, um…I guess, before we begin…” She began, not quite sure where to start. “Uh…sorry for immediately converting to Fortune’s religion as soon as I found out about her, I guess?”
There was a half second of silence and then Death burst out laughing. “It’s fine, it’s fine. That sort of thing really isn’t important to us, and we didn’t expect anyone in your family to really go all-in on worshipping us. And, for the record, if you do choose to become an Appointed, that generally means stopping worship of any god, outside of that needed to maintain your identity as an Appointed a secret.”
Ellie blinked. “What? Even you two? Why?”
“It’s for ease of…well, everything. Being an Appointed means that, in general, you are treated as another god, at least among the gods. It’s to prevent us gods from even thinking about abusing our Appointed, and there are dire consequences if we do anyway. So, it’s kind of weird to be worshipping people who are in a very real way your equals. They don’t even get anything out of it like they would from normal worship. Appointed are just too closely tied to the gods for that.”
“Oh. Right, that makes sense, I guess.” Ellie replied. “So…what do you want to talk about?”
Death shrugged. “Dunno, just things, I guess? Like…getting to know you kind of questions? Not sure, I’m sorta winging it.”
“I…see. Then, if you don’t mind my asking…isn’t the scythe kinda your thing? Why does Life have it?”
Life frowned. “She borrowed it from me for one appearance, and it just so happened to be a high-profile one, and now everyone associates it with her. It’s supposed to represent farming and bountiful harvests and now everyone thinks it’s for harvesting souls.”
“Hey, I thought it looked cool and it did!” Death protested. “It’s not my fault everyone thinks it’s mine now. You hold it every time we talk to someone and they still haven’t gotten the message, so I don’t know to tell you.”
Life coughed. “I suppose, but we can talk about this later, when we don’t have company.” He turned to Ellie, the faintest hint of a blush on his face. “If you don’t mind my asking, though, what are your opinions on us? From before meeting us, that is. I’d like to know where we’re starting from, so to speak.”
Ellie scratched the back of her neck. “Honestly, it’s strange to talk about it with the people in question, but I guess it’s just…standard religious stuff for Mael? Like, I never really thought about it too much or anything. I went to church when it was an important day and I didn’t really…believe or disbelieve, I guess?
“As for my impressions of you…it’s really just what the church taught. Omnipotent, omniscient beings who created the world and everything in it, though…from what I understand that isn’t really the case, right?”
Death made a face. “Yes and no, I guess. To an extent it’s right? Like, we helped Amy do some of the fine-tuning of the plane, but that’s about the limit of ‘creating the world’. And yeah, we’re nowhere near omnipotent or omniscient. Amy’s not omnipotent or omniscient, nor are any of her sub-administrators, so there’s no way we are.”
Ellie nodded. “Yeah, I thought so. Um…otherwise, I dunno, I hadn’t really thought of you as people before, if that makes sense. It was more like you were forces of nature than anything. There’s scripture and all, but I always felt it was more about…people than it was about you two.”
Life grimaced. “Thank you for reminding me. Much of that scripture is incorrect after all this time. Sometimes it was poor copying, sometimes it was intentional manipulation, but if you do become our Appointed then you’ll have to help fix that.”
“How much of it…actually happened?” Ellie asked hesitantly. “I’m kind of afraid to ask, to tell you the truth, given how many people I know who treat it all as perfect truth.”
“A lot of it.” Life replied. “Most of the creation story is false, but that’s on purpose. As far as the general public is concerned, the gods did make the planes they’re in charge of, or at least arrived with those planes. Amy wishes to keep her existence secret, so we tell those lies to everyone who’s not an Appointed or so closely tied to them that it’s harder not to.”
“You’re that second one, by the way.” Death added. “Not including us you have two or three gods who would love to make someone like you their Appointed. At the very least chances are you’ll come out with someone’s strongest Blessing, and if not that then, well, you’ll be working with Tess and the two of you are close enough that it’d be rough on her and Fortune to keep things secret. So, really, no pressure to accept our offer because you know secrets or anything.”
“As I was saying,” Life continued, “much of the scripture has roots in truth. Most stories have been changed in some way from what originally happened, and many have been removed entirely, but generally speaking, our scriptures are based on events that happened.”
“I get it, I think. So…what’s your opinion on the church, then?”
“They try their hardest, and they’re a lot better than they were.” Death said, shrugging. “It’s helped a lot to have Evan as someone we can pretty easily get ahold of to give announcements, though I think our current prophet is a little confused as to why we tend to go through Evan more than him. We’ll sit down and have ‘the talk’ with him once we introduce Mael to other planes, or perhaps a bit earlier if you end up accepting the position.”
They ended up conversing a bit more on the subject of religion before the topic shifted to more personal things, such as more about Ellie’s life, as well Life and Death’s lives. Life and Death were both highly accomplished souls that Amy chose to reincarnate as gods. That apparently wasn’t always the case with the gods, as some, like Fortune, were directly made as gods and had never been mortal.
After around half an hour or so the conversation petered out, and Death stood up. “Well, we still have time…do you want to play some video games? We have a few consoles in our living area.”
Ellie blinked, standing up as well. “Um, yeah, sure. Do you want to do just the three of us or…” She trailed off, letting the sentence hang.
“Life probably won’t play, he never really liked games.” Death said, prompting a nod from Life. “But go ahead and invite Tess and Fortune, then we’ll have four.”
Ellie glanced over only to find that Gramps was gone, Tess had her wolf parts out, and Fortune happily rubbing them. She began walking over, causing Fortune to look up, turn bright red, and cease her ministrations. For her part, Tess gave Ellie a rather embarrassed look as well. “So…we going home?” She asked.
“No, Death invited me to play some video games and wanted to know if you two wanted to play.” Ellie replied.
“Oh, yeah, um…sure, I’m game.” Tess said.
“Uh, me too.” Fortune mumbled.
Life bade goodbye to the rest of them, and soon Ellie found herself in a rather cozy area that featured some pretty high-end electronics. Death walked over to an end table near one of the couches and motioning for the others to sit down. As they did, Death booted up the TV and a console, tossing each of the other three a controller, then settling back in while she loaded a game.
Fortune took one of the ends of the couch and Tess sat next to her, so Ellie sat down next to Tess and Death ended on the other end next to Ellie. There was some small talk as the game finished loading, and then it was go time, and Ellie settled in for what was likely to be the strangest gaming session of her life.
