“Where are we going?” The constable asked, riding alongside me slowly while looking at the rising sun.
“Constable Mark Rutherford, you do have the tendency to ask questions you shouldn’t … jokes on you, here is the map. You know how to read them, right? Hannah marked the place we need to go with a red X.” I said and handed him a map of the surrounding area over.
“Are we hunting treasures now?” He asked suspicious, but I merely turned my head towards him and smiled brightly.
“No? The treasure are the friends we made along the away!” I explained happily and pinched his side playfully.
“I doubt we can get friends.” And so did I. But I couldn’t say for sure we wouldn’t either.
“You never know what the future holds for you!” I thus exclaimed and pushed my heels into the horse’s flanks. “It’s only a hour or so away! Let’s go!”
And so, we galloped over the rather unused street eastwards towards a tall hill with a singular path going up it.
“Keep the horses entertained and if I’m not back until the sun sets … nah.” Laughing loudly I jumped off my horse and strolled away from the constable. Then, I ascended the hill quietly, always checking two times where I put my feet as the spider web on the right part of my vision hindered my ability to see properly.
Slowly but steadily, I ascended the hill until I stood in front of a small two storey temple, made out of pristine white stone which should have been maintained a bit more.
Knocking into the old wooden door, I listened to its creaking a little bit before pushing it open loudly.
Stepping inside the rather wide room, I stared at the white altar, or rather at the person sitting behind it. She was around forty, had blue hairs and a few scales all over her face and hands, resting on the altar.
As she was praying silently, I strolled to the front row and sat down on one of the many benches in the room.
“I have seen you coming …” The woman explained in a high pitched voice, resounding through the temple beautifully.
“From your visions, or rather from the window?” I asked and pointed behind me to the second floor which was lined with glass windows.
The woman cleared her throat loudly, probably a bit surprised about my attitude.
“Paula Fisch, a demi human which had lived her early childhood at the sea until she was forced to flee the area. Taken in by elves, she was quickly scouted by the elves for her abilities and taken in by the old king. You possibly are the oldest reincanator there is … and yet you hide yourself in a contested border region.” I said, playing with open cards right away. It would be hard to conceal anything in front of her considering her gift of bringing the truth to light.
“Lucinda Worcester, the daughter of the god of death … it is such a wonderful experience to see you personally.” She said, not even bothering to hide the fact she knew bits of my past which not many others on this world knew.
“Likewise. Is it true that you cannot lie?” I asked interested. There were rumours about this woman, but nobody could actually confirm if she was capable of lying.
“Since I unlocked the powers my god gave me, I am unable to utter a single lie.” She explained truthfully, which made me laugh madly.
“How cursed.” I joked around and clapped loudly as if I heard a great joke.
“I believe the restrictions I have are better then yours, miss goddess of death?” Freezing a little, I stopped applauding and stared at her for a little while.
“Fair enough. Is it fair to assume you are aware why I am here?” I asked, standing up slowly and stepping closer to her.
“Indeed.” She affirmed my question right away.
“So will you give me what I want?” I asked leaning into the altar without any regards for the parchment on it.
“It’s either doing as you say or death isn’t it?” I loved it when others were so understanding. It allowed us to skip so many steps in one go!
“You really are a splitting image of the old elves king. It’s nice to know his legacy lives on.” I said and looked at the fish girl in wonder. These two certainly had a lot in common, even though that woman in front of me didn’t have the power he possessed.
“It saddens me he is lost forever.” Blinking a few times, I frowned a little as I couldn’t see any signs of a lie. The old elves king really did die, even though I could never find his soul in purgatory. He must have been reincarnated early so that I couldn’t question him.
“ … tell me one thing though. Why should I let the guard around my soul down?” There were basically two different types of godly powers these reincarnators were gifted. One influenced the surrounding area like Sofie’s healing or Olivia’s illusion techniques did and another one influencing the soul of another person, like from the guy I dealt with in the very beginning. While the former had an effect on me, I could block the latter completely. And sadly, that fish girl in front of me was of the latter type.
“I cannot hurt you.” Not a lie. Smiling brightly, I jumped onto the altar, squatted down and stared into her eyes.
“Do we have a deal? You show me what I need to know and afterwards, you may leave this place and live the rest of your life in quiet place.” I proposed and extended my hand towards her.
“You will not hurt me?” I basically couldn’t. She knew how to discern lies, so I had to decide I would let her go before she gave me everything I needed.
“No.” I admitted and was kind of glad she took my hand and shook it weakly. “So how are we doing this? How do you want to discern the truth in my head?” I needed her to open that godforsaken book in my head. And if she could tell me what this door was, then I would be even more glad.
“We’ll use narcotics.” She admitted made me whistle quietly. That an apostle of truth would use drugs was unexpected to say the least.
“You need a whole lot of them.” I grinned warily and jumped off the altar on her side.
“These don’t work on the body, but rather on the soul. As long as you let them do their thing, we are going to be fine.” She explained carefully and turned around to walk into a nearby chamber nonchalantly. Following her straight away, I looked through the whole room before I sat down on the opposite side of a small fire.
“Are you ready?” She asked and lifted up a little teapot.
“No … now I am.” I said and watched her placing the teapot onto fire. At first, nothing happened as the liquid wasn’t warm enough yet, but it quickly started to bubble inside and pink steam exited the pot, filling the room rather quickly. I observed Paula the whole time until she fell unconscious and fell over to her side. And then, I lowered the barriers around my soul as well and allowed the toxin to take effect.
It didn’t look like there was any though. For minutes, I just sat there and watched the ceiling until I had enough and stood up annoyed.
“Hey, it’s not working.” I said and pressed my shoes into her side lightly. The feedback was indeed kind of weird though. It felt like she was made out of jelly which was quite odd.
Abruptly, the door to the room opened and Luna stumbled inside, emitting the all to familiar feeling of death from her body. Worms were eating through her skin, and flies we bussing around her while I looked at her in shock, and then started to realise that this wasn’t real.
“I take everything back.” I mumbled, extended my hand and imagined a sword in it while closing my eyes. Suddenly, I felt it’s weigh in my hands and opened my eyes again, looking at my own sword which was linked to my soul.
Quickly, I brandished it and cut he fake Luna apart, splitting her worm infested body in two.
“Help … me.” She whimpered helplessly, her lower body turning into a pile of worms while the cut on her upper body didn’t bleed at all.
“That version of you is dead, Luna. You aren’t real.” I whispered quietly and stabbed her in the mouth as she wanted to say something. “My dear subconsciousness, please try something better.” I said, just as someone was hugging me from behind and the scene in front of me changed abruptly. I was on the archipelago world, Aska right behind me playfully kissing my nape.
“Why are you working against me Lucinda?” He asked, suddenly a lot more forceful in his approaches until I forced myself to turn around and pushed him away from me.
“You … you aren’t real.” I muttered in a panic. I couldn’t separate the real one from this illusion at all, if it even was one.
“You left your soul wide open for a second. And her defences are a sham. Through the connection you two made, I can easily slip into your soul realm as well.” He said, snipped his fingers and let Paula appear out of thin air. She was bound and gagged and threw herself against her restraints in panic, but there was nothing I could do for the time being.
“What do you want Aska? I won’t let you onto this planet.” I stated and drew my sword, pointing it at his chin from below.
“Think about it …” He said, snipped his fingers once more and changed the scene again. Paula was nowhere in sight and I sat on a comfortable sofa, a cute little baby in my arm. Jerking up, I wanted to throw that thing away … but I couldn’t. With its red eyes, she looked at me happily and grabbed onto my thumb while my lower lip trembled.
“We could have that, Lucinda. I know a way in which we can have a family together. What do you say?” I hesitated a lot. For once, he was the worst father I could have ever imagined, but I wasn’t a hint better in that regard. And in all actuality, his proposal couldn’t come at a better time.
“I … I would … I would love to.” I said, looking at my little girl full of affection. She was giggling cutely as I pinched her left foot and played with my fingers happily.
“That makes me the happiest man alive.” He admitted and sat down beside me, caressing my shoulder affectionately.
“I … I know.” I muttered and started to get headaches right away.
“What’s her name?” Why … why would I need to give her a name? Was … I was her mother, so I had to give her one, didn’t I?
“Luna.” I said and smiled happily as soon as these words left my lips.
“That’s a wonderful name. We should go outside with her.” Aska said, and pointed at the magazine which stated that too little sunlight was bad for the development of my baby.
“N…now?” I asked confused, my nose bleeding for whatever reason. I didn’t want to go out. I wanted to stay with these two forever.
“Yeah? It’s better now than never.” He said and pointed out of the window, showing me a beautiful sunset on the horizon.
“I … I think I had to do something.” I admitted and stood up as someone banged onto the door from the outside.
“Huh? What’s more important than our daughter?” Nothing. She was my sunshine. My everything. But there was still something weighing on my mind.
“Nothing but … gosh, why does my head hurt so much? And do you hear that?” I asked, opening the door to look at a garden full of poisonous plants, but not a single other person in sight.
“What do you mean?” Aska asked worried and held my shoulders to south me a little.
“It’s like someone is banging on a door.” I mumbled, looking at every other door in the room, even though all were opened. Did we have a cellar? I honestly wasn’t sure at this point, and scratched my head in confusion. I was certain I had lived in this house together with Aska for years at this point, but I still didn’t know if we had a cellar? Something was weird. Very weird.
“Hmm. I’m not hearing anything.” He said while blood dripped down my nose onto my screaming baby. Luna wanted attention right away and panicking, I tried to soo her but kept on noticing irregularities rapidly. I hated the sun, so why would I go out during sunset? And I wasn’t so crazy to keep poisonous plants while I had a kid in the house.
“That’s … no …” Something was very wrong. Closing my eyes, I was directly assaulted with a wave of pain washing over me and I shook my head as giggling erupted from my throat.
“Lucinda … focus on my voice. Stay with me. I need you.” Need … me? Letting go of the baby in my hands, I stared into his eyes while listening to the sounds of glass hitting the floor.
“Who the fuck are you and why are you so friendly? Aska would never beg for my help.” I growled and punched his face right away. “I don’t know from what deep pit you crawled out, but you will go back there.” And suddenly, my memories cleared up completely and I snipped my fingers, letting my sword appear out of thin air. “You may be a god, but down here, I rule.” And then, I beheaded him straight away, looking at the bleeding stump satisfied and snipped my fingers once more, teleporting Paula back to me from wherever my subconscious had locked her away.
Undoing the gag around her mouth quickly, I stared down on her for a little while before I freed her from the rest of her constraints.
“That was … scary.” She said, pushing all the ropes away from her in a hurry.
“You better get accustomed to it. There is a long way in between this place and the library of memories.” I admitted and directly hammered against a nearby wall with the knob of my sword.
“The subconsciousness is usually less large and … simpler.” She said, looking at the little hole I already made. Behind it, there was only an all consuming darkness.
“I had four hundred years to put all my shit down here, so don’t expect it to be simple.” I growled unhappy she wasn’t impressed.
“Where are we going?” The constable asked, riding alongside me slowly while looking at the rising sun.
“Constable Mark Rutherford, you do have the tendency to ask questions you shouldn’t … jokes on you, here is the map. You know how to read them, right? Hannah marked the place we need to go with a red X.” I said and handed him a map of the surrounding area over.
“Are we hunting treasures now?” He asked suspicious, but I merely turned my head towards him and smiled brightly.
“No? The treasure are the friends we made along the away!” I explained happily and pinched his side playfully.
“I doubt we can get friends.” And so did I. But I couldn’t say for sure we wouldn’t either.
“You never know what the future holds for you!” I thus exclaimed and pushed my heels into the horse’s flanks. “It’s only a hour or so away! Let’s go!”
And so, we galloped over the rather unused street eastwards towards a tall hill with a singular path going up it.
“Keep the horses entertained and if I’m not back until the sun sets … nah.” Laughing loudly I jumped off my horse and strolled away from the constable. Then, I ascended the hill quietly, always checking two times where I put my feet as the spider web on the right part of my vision hindered my ability to see properly.
Slowly but steadily, I ascended the hill until I stood in front of a small two storey temple, made out of pristine white stone which should have been maintained a bit more.
Knocking into the old wooden door, I listened to its creaking a little bit before pushing it open loudly.
Stepping inside the rather wide room, I stared at the white altar, or rather at the person sitting behind it. She was around forty, had blue hairs and a few scales all over her face and hands, resting on the altar.
As she was praying silently, I strolled to the front row and sat down on one of the many benches in the room.
“I have seen you coming …” The woman explained in a high pitched voice, resounding through the temple beautifully.
“From your visions, or rather from the window?” I asked and pointed behind me to the second floor which was lined with glass windows.
The woman cleared her throat loudly, probably a bit surprised about my attitude.
“Paula Fisch, a demi human which had lived her early childhood at the sea until she was forced to flee the area. Taken in by elves, she was quickly scouted by the elves for her abilities and taken in by the old king. You possibly are the oldest reincanator there is … and yet you hide yourself in a contested border region.” I said, playing with open cards right away. It would be hard to conceal anything in front of her considering her gift of bringing the truth to light.
“Lucinda Worcester, the daughter of the god of death … it is such a wonderful experience to see you personally.” She said, not even bothering to hide the fact she knew bits of my past which not many others on this world knew.
“Likewise. Is it true that you cannot lie?” I asked interested. There were rumours about this woman, but nobody could actually confirm if she was capable of lying.
“Since I unlocked the powers my god gave me, I am unable to utter a single lie.” She explained truthfully, which made me laugh madly.
“How cursed.” I joked around and clapped loudly as if I heard a great joke.
“I believe the restrictions I have are better then yours, miss goddess of death?” Freezing a little, I stopped applauding and stared at her for a little while.
“Fair enough. Is it fair to assume you are aware why I am here?” I asked, standing up slowly and stepping closer to her.
“Indeed.” She affirmed my question right away.
“So will you give me what I want?” I asked leaning into the altar without any regards for the parchment on it.
“It’s either doing as you say or death isn’t it?” I loved it when others were so understanding. It allowed us to skip so many steps in one go!
“You really are a splitting image of the old elves king. It’s nice to know his legacy lives on.” I said and looked at the fish girl in wonder. These two certainly had a lot in common, even though that woman in front of me didn’t have the power he possessed.
“It saddens me he is lost forever.” Blinking a few times, I frowned a little as I couldn’t see any signs of a lie. The old elves king really did die, even though I could never find his soul in purgatory. He must have been reincarnated early so that I couldn’t question him.
“ … tell me one thing though. Why should I let the guard around my soul down?” There were basically two different types of godly powers these reincarnators were gifted. One influenced the surrounding area like Sofie’s healing or Olivia’s illusion techniques did and another one influencing the soul of another person, like from the guy I dealt with in the very beginning. While the former had an effect on me, I could block the latter completely. And sadly, that fish girl in front of me was of the latter type.
“I cannot hurt you.” Not a lie. Smiling brightly, I jumped onto the altar, squatted down and stared into her eyes.
“Do we have a deal? You show me what I need to know and afterwards, you may leave this place and live the rest of your life in quiet place.” I proposed and extended my hand towards her.
“You will not hurt me?” I basically couldn’t. She knew how to discern lies, so I had to decide I would let her go before she gave me everything I needed.
“No.” I admitted and was kind of glad she took my hand and shook it weakly. “So how are we doing this? How do you want to discern the truth in my head?” I needed her to open that godforsaken book in my head. And if she could tell me what this door was, then I would be even more glad.
“We’ll use narcotics.” She admitted made me whistle quietly. That an apostle of truth would use drugs was unexpected to say the least.
“You need a whole lot of them.” I grinned warily and jumped off the altar on her side.
“These don’t work on the body, but rather on the soul. As long as you let them do their thing, we are going to be fine.” She explained carefully and turned around to walk into a nearby chamber nonchalantly. Following her straight away, I looked through the whole room before I sat down on the opposite side of a small fire.
“Are you ready?” She asked and lifted up a little teapot.
“No … now I am.” I said and watched her placing the teapot onto fire. At first, nothing happened as the liquid wasn’t warm enough yet, but it quickly started to bubble inside and pink steam exited the pot, filling the room rather quickly. I observed Paula the whole time until she fell unconscious and fell over to her side. And then, I lowered the barriers around my soul as well and allowed the toxin to take effect.
It didn’t look like there was any though. For minutes, I just sat there and watched the ceiling until I had enough and stood up annoyed.
“Hey, it’s not working.” I said and pressed my shoes into her side lightly. The feedback was indeed kind of weird though. It felt like she was made out of jelly which was quite odd.
Abruptly, the door to the room opened and Luna stumbled inside, emitting the all to familiar feeling of death from her body. Worms were eating through her skin, and flies we bussing around her while I looked at her in shock, and then started to realise that this wasn’t real.
“I take everything back.” I mumbled, extended my hand and imagined a sword in it while closing my eyes. Suddenly, I felt it’s weigh in my hands and opened my eyes again, looking at my own sword which was linked to my soul.
Quickly, I brandished it and cut he fake Luna apart, splitting her worm infested body in two.
“Help … me.” She whimpered helplessly, her lower body turning into a pile of worms while the cut on her upper body didn’t bleed at all.
“That version of you is dead, Luna. You aren’t real.” I whispered quietly and stabbed her in the mouth as she wanted to say something. “My dear subconsciousness, please try something better.” I said, just as someone was hugging me from behind and the scene in front of me changed abruptly. I was on the archipelago world, Aska right behind me playfully kissing my nape.
“Why are you working against me Lucinda?” He asked, suddenly a lot more forceful in his approaches until I forced myself to turn around and pushed him away from me.
“You … you aren’t real.” I muttered in a panic. I couldn’t separate the real one from this illusion at all, if it even was one.
“You left your soul wide open for a second. And her defences are a sham. Through the connection you two made, I can easily slip into your soul realm as well.” He said, snipped his fingers and let Paula appear out of thin air. She was bound and gagged and threw herself against her restraints in panic, but there was nothing I could do for the time being.
“What do you want Aska? I won’t let you onto this planet.” I stated and drew my sword, pointing it at his chin from below.
“Think about it …” He said, snipped his fingers once more and changed the scene again. Paula was nowhere in sight and I sat on a comfortable sofa, a cute little baby in my arm. Jerking up, I wanted to throw that thing away … but I couldn’t. With its red eyes, she looked at me happily and grabbed onto my thumb while my lower lip trembled.
“We could have that, Lucinda. I know a way in which we can have a family together. What do you say?” I hesitated a lot. For once, he was the worst father I could have ever imagined, but I wasn’t a hint better in that regard. And in all actuality, his proposal couldn’t come at a better time.
“I … I would … I would love to.” I said, looking at my little girl full of affection. She was giggling cutely as I pinched her left foot and played with my fingers happily.
“That makes me the happiest man alive.” He admitted and sat down beside me, caressing my shoulder affectionately.
“I … I know.” I muttered and started to get headaches right away.
“What’s her name?” Why … why would I need to give her a name? Was … I was her mother, so I had to give her one, didn’t I?
“Luna.” I said and smiled happily as soon as these words left my lips.
“That’s a wonderful name. We should go outside with her.” Aska said, and pointed at the magazine which stated that too little sunlight was bad for the development of my baby.
“N…now?” I asked confused, my nose bleeding for whatever reason. I didn’t want to go out. I wanted to stay with these two forever.
“Yeah? It’s better now than never.” He said and pointed out of the window, showing me a beautiful sunset on the horizon.
“I … I think I had to do something.” I admitted and stood up as someone banged onto the door from the outside.
“Huh? What’s more important than our daughter?” Nothing. She was my sunshine. My everything. But there was still something weighing on my mind.
“Nothing but … gosh, why does my head hurt so much? And do you hear that?” I asked, opening the door to look at a garden full of poisonous plants, but not a single other person in sight.
“What do you mean?” Aska asked worried and held my shoulders to south me a little.
“It’s like someone is banging on a door.” I mumbled, looking at every other door in the room, even though all were opened. Did we have a cellar? I honestly wasn’t sure at this point, and scratched my head in confusion. I was certain I had lived in this house together with Aska for years at this point, but I still didn’t know if we had a cellar? Something was weird. Very weird.
“Hmm. I’m not hearing anything.” He said while blood dripped down my nose onto my screaming baby. Luna wanted attention right away and panicking, I tried to soo her but kept on noticing irregularities rapidly. I hated the sun, so why would I go out during sunset? And I wasn’t so crazy to keep poisonous plants while I had a kid in the house.
“That’s … no …” Something was very wrong. Closing my eyes, I was directly assaulted with a wave of pain washing over me and I shook my head as giggling erupted from my throat.
“Lucinda … focus on my voice. Stay with me. I need you.” Need … me? Letting go of the baby in my hands, I stared into his eyes while listening to the sounds of glass hitting the floor.
“Who the fuck are you and why are you so friendly? Aska would never beg for my help.” I growled and punched his face right away. “I don’t know from what deep pit you crawled out, but you will go back there.” And suddenly, my memories cleared up completely and I snipped my fingers, letting my sword appear out of thin air. “You may be a god, but down here, I rule.” And then, I beheaded him straight away, looking at the bleeding stump satisfied and snipped my fingers once more, teleporting Paula back to me from wherever my subconscious had locked her away.
Undoing the gag around her mouth quickly, I stared down on her for a little while before I freed her from the rest of her constraints.
“That was … scary.” She said, pushing all the ropes away from her in a hurry.
“You better get accustomed to it. There is a long way in between this place and the library of memories.” I admitted and directly hammered against a nearby wall with the knob of my sword.
“The subconsciousness is usually less large and … simpler.” She said, looking at the little hole I already made. Behind it, there was only an all consuming darkness.
“I had four hundred years to put all my shit down here, so don’t expect it to be simple.” I growled unhappy she wasn’t impressed.
