《For Justice! - A Tale Of Paladins And Hammers》 Perseverance - Prologue I was staring at the wall of a cell as I had been doing for the past 11 days, I had not been given any food and more importantly water for this entire period of time, My throat felt like a desert without a oasis and i¡¯m pretty sure a sponge didn¡¯t have shit on me when it came to absorbency. As for why I was slowly but surely transforming into a skeleton in a bedless, lightless, concrete cell I certainly was certainly not here by choice, As I didn''t lock myself in conrete cells because it was vacation day. I had been leading a peaceful protest against our government as they had instituted laws that censored free speech against the government and made indentured servitude to banks and corporate entities once again legal, I prided myself on doing what I believed to be right and being If not a saint, at least a kind man. I volunteered at animal shelters in my spare time, helped out at soup kitchens or homeless shelters and worked as a medic for Red Cross, so naturally when the good ole US of A started levying business practices and laws for itself and against the people I spoke out anyway I could. Apparently someone out their took exception to that. So here I was Gabriel Norris wasting away in a cell who knows where, I cringed as another wave of grief struck me as my body managed to make more chemicals for me to feel, I knew I should be crying, but after the 4th day without water no more tears would fall. The sadness passed quickly and the over pervading sense of apathy returned. I knew I was going to die soon, I hadn¡¯t been able to move for the past hour or so as my body didn¡¯t have enough fuel in it to even manage to crawl, I felt my body slowly going numb, my fingertips and toes not having blood flow quickly enough through them to actually keep the flesh alive anymore. I had no idea why I got the idea or urge to do so but I was suddenly struck with the urge to pray, which was unusual for me as I was completely indifferent to the concept of religion. I was incapable of speaking or clasping my hands at this point in time some I simply said the words in my head ¡°Dear God or Satan or whatever powers that be may be out there, all I ever wanted was to help people, to make a difference for other people in this world, to make people smile and laugh, to make sure they have the ability to do the same without my help, to have all the selfish, rotten, greedy assholes of the planet go live on the fucking moon for all I care, as long they don¡¯t hurt other people. All I ever wanted was to not just feed one mouth while a million others starve, to not just save only one life when 2 people die every second. Please whatever powers may be out there I have almost never asked for someone elses help ever, just allow me this small selfishness and give me just one chance to have the potential to change the world whether it be this one or another, all I ever wanted to do was help, amen or whatever your supposed to say at the end of these¡± By the time I had finished my small prayer my lower body and arms had both gone completely numb, in a clinical and detached way it was interesting to feel the hands of death slowly snake it¡¯s way up my body as my flesh turned cold, it wormed its way onto my heart and stopped my conscious dead in its tracks as I noticed the absence of my heart beating, concepts I once knew slowly become incomprehensible as my brain shut down piece by piece, the building blocks of knowledge and reason I used to understand the world being slowly but surely torn away. Minutes later I was looking over my body in a third person perspective unable to put what I currently felt into words as I lacked a brain, but If I could i would probably say I felt resigned. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road. I slowly began to fade, as I felt there was somewhere I was supposed to be going, but as I began to fade away to whatever the afterlife was, whether that be eternal buttfucking by horny demons, or the magical land of sugarplum fairies called heaven, that most of the people on earth beleived in, but as I felt what seemed to be the final seconds between my conscious fading from this world and into the next, I blinked and something pulled, I felt like I being stretched and pulled a ludicrous amount of distance,while simultaneously being pushed in a infinitely small container of some variety, suffice to say it felt extremely uncomfortable. when I opened my eyes I was hale and hearty, lying in a field of green grass with the wind in my hair and dirt on my back without the horrible all pervading thirst and hunger that had been my hellish companion throughout all that time in a cell, for a lack of a better word I was once again whole and no longer doing my best skeleton impersonation. This would all be very idyllic If not for the big blue screen blocking my vision of the place.
Welcome User Gabriel Norris
Hello User Gabriel Norris, Your plea to the universe has been heard and answered by the goddess Valencia of this world whose domain is justice and selflessness, in an effort to help the world that had been tearing apart at the seams because of the efforts of evil men and eviler monsters, she has used the last of her power to summon one of pure heart from another plane of existence to champion her cause, and to give this champion whatever advantages they can to once again bring her light to the world, good luck, you''ll need it.
You have been awarded 100,000 karma points to spend on advantages to help to survive and thrive in this world, choose wisely.
It would seem that i asked and I received, I was not one to look a gift horse in the mouth no matter how crazy the situation was, so I guess it was time to take a few deep breaths and figure how comparable my life was to a light novel now. Whatever the case, it was time to get to work. I took a few deep breaths in an attempt to stay calm despite the inherent madness of the situation, as panic would not benefit me at all in this situation, I looked toward the screen as it slowly faded away, and intoned to myself "alright let''s see what we have to work with here.¡± Spoiler: Spoiler Hey everyone, it''s your friendly neighbour hood amaturer writer here and just wanted to say that criticism that is aimed toward helping improve the story and my writing would be nice as my only reason for being here is to make sure the readers enjoy themselves, enjoy myself writing, and to improve my general writing skill, constructive criticism will be taken into account, people leaving mean comments on how much i suck and this book sucks without any info on how to make it not suck, but just to shit all over me like i''m there personal fucking toilet will be promptly ignored. Thank you all and happy reading! Chapter 1 - The Makings Of A Legend
Remember Chosen, there are many paths to power, too many to count in fact, that is why different types of advantages have been conveniently categorized for you to browse. Choose wisely, Champion, your future will be partially determined by what powers you choose in this moment.
Powers Of Self Possessions Allies Environment/Biome/World Changes (EXPENSIVE)
A God''s Favor (EXPENSIVE) (Only One Allowed) Artifacts Friendly Organizations Let The Universe Decide
While apparently having the ability to get literal superpowers was nice and all, I really would have liked more clarification on which each of these things were. Some of them were rather self evident in what they did, but let the universe decide was rather vague and didn''t really explain much besides that the universe would be making a choice for me, whatever the universe even was. It would been rather nice to have this explained to me.
(Powers Of Self) Powers of self are abilities, powers and advantages that are contained within you, such as superhuman strength or genius intellect would be a power of self. It would not be any type of power or influence that comes from outside. (Possessions) Possessions are things such as amulets, weapons, armor, magic items, food, or other magic and non magic items that are not noteworthy or powerful enough to be considered an artifact. (Allies) Allies are just that; singular people in the world that will help you on your journey throughout the land of Eo Aeternis, whether they be made by you from the ground up, or already be preexisting in the realm. Fate and destiny will bend to make sure you cross paths at least once. May your friends help you and be loyal in all your endeavors. (Environment/Biome/World Changes) These are changes you can add to the world that can bend reality itself to your advantage in some ways, such as making you a hero that has been prophesied to save the world throughout the land for hundreds of years therefore giving you a large advantage. People across the realms are more willing to give you aid. It could also be as simple as changing the oxygen content across the ishgaric swamps by 1%. Choose carefully, as these changes could potentially have world spanning effects.
(A God''s Favor) Exactly what it says on the label; you get the favor and begin to draw power from a extra god of your choosing. By default, as you are her last conduit and champion in this world, you are currently in Valencia''s Favor, as one of the Avenging Valkyries last gambits, she has managed to convince the pantheon to allow mortals to be a conduit to two gods at once. Beware Gabriel, channeling the power of a god can have unforeseen effects on a mortals mind, body and soul, so try to make sure you are not the conduit of a god of rape and slaughter of innocents, or something equally terrifying. (Artifacts) Artifacts are similar to possession in that they are items and that bring some measure of power, but that is where the similarities end. Artifacts are items of great power and importance, some of them being crafted by the gods themselves, most all of them are lost to time, and not a trace of their resting places remain, but for a not small amount of karma you can have some of these items teleported to your location. Remember to use these items responsibly, they can be used for horrible things in the wrong hands. (Friendly Organizations) Just like allies but instead of it being a singular person that is your eternal partner in crime, instead you can potentially have entire nations favor you to a much lesser degree, though getting a nation or race that generally despise humanity to favor you would cost multiplicatively more points than one that doesn''t have a thirst for the blood of humanity. (Let The Universe Decide) Too many options?, Unsure what to choose? Well, do not worry, brave one, you can let the gestalt worldsoul of Aeternia choose for you! As compensation for this option essentially being mostly random, you get a 50% discount on the cost of whatever powers you get from choosing this option. Don''t worry, it will always be something useful.
Well ask and you shall receive, I guess, at least whatever godly entity transported me here is helpful and not the overgod of bagels and being an annoying cunt. I would hate having to choose powers while being uninformed of their effects beforehand, looking through the descriptions of the different options. I was rather intrigued by the powers of self, I mean, who wouldn¡¯t want to have superpowers? Having a friendly organization helping you could potentially be way more useful than being able to lift trucks, and I understood that my reason for wanting them was honestly rather childish, but honestly... I didn''t care. If you had the options of being able to shoot laser out of your eyes and shitting magical rainbow cake or having the backing of the American government comparable to a diplomat or a politician, what would you choose? That''s what I thought. Thus, I mentally pressed on powers of self, and was presented by, surprise, yet another blue screen.
Powers Of The Mind Powers Of The Body Powers Of The Spirit Powers Of Magic
Before I started, I needed to consider what kind of build I wanted to have. In my free time when I was feeding orphans or saving puppies, I was an avid gamer and would normally play the best VR Rpgs that I could afford, and therefore was quite familiar with this rather gamelike interface, and therefore also knew the importance of knowing what kind of character you wanted to play before you started playing. I normally played something like a Sorcerer throwing around explosions willy nilly like highly volatile candy. For me nothing was more cathartic after a stressful day than dropping a meteor on Overlord McEvil Douchebags Castle of horrible, unrelenting torture and watching it crumble into ashes.... But this wasn''t a game world, as far as I knew this was a actually reality with men and women of flesh, blood, and bone, with thoughts and emotions all their own. I couldn''t go around casting spells with areas of effect the size of a city and expect no collateral damage to happen, and what if I was a rogue build? Do I sneak around waiting for a opportunity to deliver a fatal blow as men and women are being slaughtered by a pack of vicious monsters? No, I needed to be able to charge into battle at the drop of a hat and crush the opposition without mercy. To take hits meant for others, and protect those who could not protect themselves, I needed to heal the sick and injured, I needed to become a champion of justice incarnate. I needed to be a Paladin. Crusher of evil, Defender of the weak and an incorruptible Paragon of Virtue. With that in mind I clicked on powers of magic.
Energy Manipulation Conjuration Magic Magical Resistances Druidic Magic Restoration Magic
Alchemical Magic Abyssal/Demonic Magic Enchantment Magic Concept Magic Eldritch Magic
Transformation Magic Divine/Celestial Magic Necromancy Illusion Magic Divination
Just for funsies I decided to browse a bit through the giagantic list of spellsit seemed I was right about the part of their subactergories having subcategories, There were also spells for anything, from something to inccuous and innocent as summoning a ham sandwhich,specificallya ham based sandwhich,to horrible, disgusting, and proabably brutally effective spells such asMezodar the Sadist''s Power of Living Outside Organ Orientation, which I didn''t even bother clicking on the description of as I could inference the effects of the spell well enough from the title, and didn''t read the description to confirm my suspicions of the spells effects, because I didn''t feel like upchucking all my newly gained fluids I had in my body after just getting them. If I didn''t already know what I wanted, I would probably be completely overwhelmed by having at least 12 different broad categories of magic to choose from was rather distressing. I clicked restoration magic and was once again greeted with more subcategories. I mean, I appreciate options and freedom to choose and all, but Jesus, is there an end to these categories?
Physical Healing Mental And Spiritual Healing
I rummaged around the two categories through literal hundreds of spell and incantations for hours, it seemed I was right about the part of their subactergories having sub categories finally coming to pick several spells that satisfied my requirements.
Cleric Zahpon''s Legendary Cure All
This magic is a powerful and versatile spell created by the cleric Zahpon after traditional healing spells proven to not be enough for the refugees injured during the attack of a painbringer demon. The parasitic magic in their bodies would feed off of regular healing magic to create tumorous growths on their bodies. Faced with this problem, Cleric Zaphon created this spell, which was both powerful enough to heal mortal wounds and disease, subtle and precise enough to not be detected or interact with the curses left behind by the painbringer, and so versatile that it could be used for healing anything from a light scrape to crushed organs. With minimal mana inefficiency that plagues most variable mana input spells, this is truly a powerful spell.
Karma Cost 5,000
Panacea Of SelfIf you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
After an outbreak of wrath parasites in the city of Malad''Dur that caused 24% of the population to break out into a murderous rage before the district was sectioned off and quarantined, the royal court wizard and legendary priestess, Halla Vern, teamed of to create a solution to the conundrum of the mental and spiritual wrath parasites. The result was this spell. Not only can it expel and destroy hostile emotional parasites, it also has the power to cure mental disorders in humanoids with non alien physiology and minds. After its invention and before the spell was privatized by the Noble''s Court of Malad''Dur, it was widely used to help war veterans with PTSD get back into the workforce, treat depression and anxiety disorders. Among its more subtle effects, however, it also can be used to exorcise any unwanted spiritual tagalong s as long as you have enough mana to overcome the possessors natural resistances to being expelled. Never deal with depression or possession ever again.
Karma Cost 5,000
Considering the seemingly great power of these spells, I¡¯m guessing that 100,000 points of karma is significant in some manner. For ten thousand of those points I had gotten a spell that could CURE CANCER and another one that could AUTOMATICALLY FIX MENTAL DISORDERS, ethier my habitual humbleness had caused me to underestimate just how much I helped people in my past life or this Goddess Valencia was pulling all the stops to make me powerful. Actually, why not just ask the universe, since it seems so helpful? "Excuse me Mr, Blue Screens, what determines the amount of karma points I get?"
Karma point allotments are determined by three major factors: Firstly, how moral and kind your actions have been to others throughout your lives and reincarnations. Secondly, according to your mind and soul, what you are willing to do for others given the opportunity to do so, what are you willing to sacrifice and risk to give to help others?, Thirdly, how much of Valencia''s power she is willing to spend on her champion? In your case, this was everything she had left. Normally 25,000 karma points is the maximum allowed by anyone of Valencia''s champions, but She of Glorious Radicance and Kindness has become desperate, and has instead allowed you a allotment of 100,000 points. All other champions of Her Grace that have been called on have fallen, either due to corruption of evil powers or death, therefore The Goddess of Light and Life has given you the potential to be her most powerful champion. Sadly, though you have the capability to exceed the maximum of 100,000 points by a amount of 27,432 karma points, some of the more unsavoury gods have imposed some limits on you, thusly you have 100,000 points to spend.
Wow... that was in depth. Normally in the litrpg books I have read, whoever controls the blue screen is some kind of snarky, mocking bag of dicks. Nice to know that my personal life calculator is helpful and friendly.
I aim to please, sir
It also seemed it was sentient and read minds, but I can have a existential crisis on a extra-dimensional entity reading my innermost personal thoughts after I finished sifting through this veritable ocean of traits and spells I can choose from. I sighed from anxiety as I realized how many different categories, subcategories, and sub subcategories there were. I could potentially be here for days if I actually wanted to make sure that I was making a informed and intelligent choice, which I would have to. From the the limited information I had on this world, or Aeternis, as I should probably call it, now my planet for the foreseeable future, it was incredibly dangerous. So while I did have spells that could cure cancer and mental disorders at will, there were also probably things here that could cause immeasurably worse afflictions and pain at the drop of a hat. They would probably do so for no other reason than that they find it amusing. I centered myself back on the original screen and took a couple more deep breaths.
Powers Of Self Possessions Allies Environment/Biome/World Changes (EXPENSIVE)
A God''s Favor (EXPENSIVE) (Only One Allowed) Artifacts Friendly Organizations Let The Universe Decide
Well, I guessed there was nothing more to do than to get to work. Hopefully my choices wouldn¡¯t get me turned into a kabob by a stab happy monster later. Time Skip -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I hadn¡¯t slept for four days and four nights, relentlessly shifting through every option I could find. There were options for hyper quick regeneration of the body, being the king of a tribe of oompa loompa type creatures, having a railgun, and the power to represent entire concepts like kindness, pain, desire, generosity, greed or everything in between. I was lucky that something was teleporting meals and water in front of me every 6 hours otherwise I probably would have just given up and gone to sleep already. After days of deliberation, though I had narrowed my choices down, instead of taking a lot of small options, I had grabbed a few big ones. While they cost a whole helluva lot, damn, were they worth it.
The Unconquerable Soul (Power Of Self)(Power Of Spirit)
Out of the night that covers me, Black as the pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul. In the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of chance My head is bloody, but unbowed. Beyond this place of wrath and tears Looms but the Horror of the shade, And yet the menace of the years Finds and shall find me unafraid. It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.
  • Invictus, by William Ernest Henley
You are possessed with a soul of adamantium. Your soul shines like a beacon of light on a pitch black night. No force, no matter the size or power may sway you from your righteous path. You can never be possessed or mind controlled, and any illusion or enchantment spells that are cast on you fizzle out and break against the unbreakable mountain that is the power of your soul. Any spiritual attacks attempting to damage your soul will also be as threatening as splashing a cup of water against a stone wall. Let all evildoers know that you cannot be tricked or swayed, that their only options when faced against you... is redemption or death
Karma Cost -50% for pre existing trait (Ancient Soul) New Karma Cost is 12500
The Determinator (Power Of Self)(Power Of Mind)
Though my world is troubled My confidence is high Though I may have struggled My will, will never die Though I may be mocked I''m still a determined man And never will I stop I insist to journey on My eager feet may tire And obstacles may rise But my passion won''t retire It''s the vision of the wise Strength has never left me Endurance is true and deep Victory must someday be For the truth is always free
  • Ralph N. Staples
Your motivation is a force as unstoppable as nature itself. No matter the setbacks, or obstacles in your way, you will carry onwards towards your goals like a man possessed. No matter how long you have to wait to achieve what you want to achieve, whether it be minutes.... or aeons, If the gods decide to obstruct your path then you will kill the gods; if fate is written that this possibility is not allowed, you will spit in destiny¡¯s face, kick it in its balls and tell it to fuck off somewhere else and tell someone weaker what they can and can not do. Your willpower and motivation stats are pushed to the hard cap of 1500. The threads and chains of the Weave Of Destiny no longer affect you as do any other negative probability altering items. Finally, God Curses are no longer able to affect you, as they are the only things things that could possibly cause pain enough to sway you from your path. Good luck in all your endeavors, Champion, though I don''t think you need luck anymore.
Karma Cost -20% for pre existing trait (Determined) New Karma Cost is 20,000
Lightning Bruiser (Power Of Self)(Power Of the Body)
"He was a big guy, so my first thought was that he should be slow, right? Kid probably put all his points into strength and constitution and then just forgot about agility, right? Boy, was I fucking wrong. I went up and tried to use my agility and dexterity to just circle strafe around the big guy and the next thing I knew I was lying on the damn floor with less teeth than I had before" - Berloth Cult Assassin describing his run in with Legendary Pugilist Marcus "Lights Out" Jerome Not only are you strong as a troll and able to take a immense beating, but you are also faster than Mocari Speedrunner on Pixie Dust. For every point you put into strength or constitution, you also get a single point in agility, turning you from dangerous, to a full blown killing machine
Karma Cost - 15,000
When I played games, I was always one of the best player I¡¯d encountered, but not through mainly superior skill, though I was generally very good a videogames. But instead through my ability to stack the deck in my favor. This is why, when I found a certain special item, I couldn''t help but laugh hysterically at what I was about to do. I always found it hilarious when I found a way to break a game and the mechanics within it so thoroughly.
Soul Weapon (Possessions)(Handheld)(Magical)(Weapons)
A soul weapon is a physical manifestation of your soul in the form of a tool of combat. Its power and durability and special traits all depend on the structure and power of your own soul, combined with your own personal willpower. For a person who''s meek and weak willed and never been reincarnated even once, it might as well just be a really durable but otherwise utterly mundane weapon. For those of strong will and old souls, however, these weapons are a force to be reckoned with on the same of high level rare weapons able to destroy plate armor and stone walls with ease. Another unique property is that soul weapons grow stronger as their wielder rises in level with their power. It¡¯s potentially limitless as long as the owner keeps leveling, so come, Champion¡­ All shall fear the power of your soul.
Karma Cost - 5,000
But I was still not done. I still had 37,500 karma points left in my repertoire. The total power I could have could be potentially greater than usual if I chose the ¡°Let the Universe Decide¡± option, but I didn''t want to have a hodgepodge of traits that didn''t actually mesh coherently. Like being a jack of all trades in most situations was not helpful, I also still had a few traits that I had my eye on.
Knight In Shining Armor (Power Of Self)(Power Of Spirit/Mind)(Gestalt Trait)
You are the prodigal knight in shining armor to other, brave, honorable, and kind folks. Most people find you extremely attractive and of persuasive personality because of it. As long as you act with honor, loyalty, bravery, and kindness, your effective charisma score is doubled. Oddly enough, you also find yourself unable to ever avoid helping damsels in distress. You just can''t stand the sight of a fair maiden in danger positively, though relationship boosts from saving women in danger is multiplied by 3x. So, remember, Brave Knight, walk forward on your path with as much courage and kindness as you can muster, and others will follow, especially the ladies.
Karma Cost - 7,500
WARNING, this trait can cause personality changes.
The Paladin (Power Of Self)(Power Of Mind/Soul)(Gestalt Trait)
My good blade carves the casques of men, My tough lance thrusteth sure, My strength is as the strength of ten, Because my heart is pure. Paladins are warriors dedicated to furthering the cause of all that is good. Holy crusaders, they combat the forces of evil wherever they are found, and defending the helpless as much a possible. Above all else, Paladins are good. An evil Paladin is a literal contradiction of terms; a Paladin that turns evil ceases to be a paladin. As long as you fight for the cause of justice and good, you will be able to learn and use divine magic of a positive alignment significantly easier. People of good and neutral alignments will also trust and come to like you vastly easier as your goodness radiates off you like a physical aura. This aura also makes those of evil alignment nervous and fearful of you, as well as weakens them. Beings of evil alignment will have their stat alignments reduced by 15% when within 60 feet of you. This is even worse for personifications or representations of evil, such as blackguards, abyssals, demons, or eldritch, for which the debuff is doubled to 30%. This trait can however be lost if you act in a manner heavily unbefitting a Paladin, so always act with only justice your goal. All those with evil in their black shriveled hearts will learn to fear the light that is your radiance. You will be their Judge, Jury, And Executioner.
Karma Cost - 50% for pre existing trait (Paragon Of Kindness)(Variant)(Evolving Trait) New Karma Cost is 12,500
WARNING, this trait can cause personality changes.
I believe that my build was starting to shape up to look like a proper paragon of virtue, truth and justice, while the personality change warning were a little disconcerting. I wasn¡¯t really all that broken up about being possibly changed into a nicer person. I had all the traits that I had already decided that i needed for my build, so i guess now it''s time to press the big scary random superpowers button and hope for the best.
(Let The Universe Decide) Too many options?, Unsure what to choose? Well, do not worry, brave one, you can let the gestalt worldsoul of Aeternia choose for you! As compensation for this option essentially being mostly random, you get a 50% discount on the cost of whatever powers you get from choosing this option. Don''t worry, it will always be something useful, so don''t worry about spending 10,000 karma for a spoon that summons milk and cereal.
Well I never really had excellent luck, but nothing is more entcing then a 50% discount on all purchases. It was time to nut up or shut up, and to bite the proverbial bullet, "Please for the love of Valencia don''t make me regret this", And then with nervous anticipation, the button was slammed like a victim of domestic violence, and I waited in horrible anixety for the rest of the traits that would affect the entirety of the rest of my life. Chapter 2 - When A Man Has Nothing Left To Lose... I had been waiting in this grassy field for about an hour as a blue screen was sitting on the same page with the same message for quite awhile and not really giving any indication of when it was going to change
We are sorry for the inconvenience Please wait as the Worldsoul communes with itself and considers options, Estimated Time To Completion : Unknown
While the fact that Valencia, the being that had apparently transported me to this world had teleported a bed to me right as i fell unconscious after my 4 day marathon of looking through my options to power, was extremely nice of her, as well as providing food and water. It also gave me the time and headspace needed to do the last thing I wanted to do at this particular moment... To think about the situation I was in, and what my actual reasonable courses of action are. Sure I could live out my childhood dreams of beating up the bad guys and saving the day from horrible, cupcake stealing evil, but that wasn''t how reality actually worked, Not every criminal wasnecessarily a "bad guy", plus I didn''t want to actually hurt a fellow human being no matter how rude, selfish, or evil they were, hell from the information that I was getting from the blue screens it seemed this place is basically a fantasy world. So i think it would be more accurate to say I didn''t want to hurt my fellow Humanoids. Yet i was terrified it might be necessary at some point, I don''t think a goddess would use her, from what I knew limited power pool to summon what is akin to a honest to god''s superhero. Because the sugarplum fairys had run out of choclate frosting for the pasrtry festival and they needed a brave hero to go find more. that gave me the indication that the world was currently not all sunshine, cupcakes, and rainbows. This train of thought was also just barely holding back the worst part of all this, the thing I was trying to think positively about my situation so I could stay away from that train of thought, I had died. my soul had been evicted from it''s meat puppet and for a singular blip in time there I somehow psychically knew that I was about to go to the whatever constitutes a afterlife in my universe. I had now left behind everything that I knew and cared about, with the possibility of never seeing my family, friends, wife, children, or any of them ever again, my daughter Hope would be growing up without her father. I was struggling to hold in tears, i had cried for myself enough in the cell that i died in, but i just felt like such a fucking failure right now, i had a habit of blaming myself for everything bad that happens to me or the ones i cared about. Somewhere along the line i had convinced myself that if everything wasn''t perfect that i needed to do more, that if life was not completely idyllic, then there''s was something i could do to make it better. My wife told me that i had a Hero complex, i knew that it wasn''t healthy and probably not true, that sometimes the situation is out of your control and there''s really sometimes nothing you can do besides take the bad times with grace, But logic did nothing to wash away irrational guilt. A cynical part of my mind asked the question of, what if this Goddess, this Valencia isn''t all she''s cracked up to be? What if she forces me to kill people she considers evil but i don''t without my consent? was i even free to do what i pleased in this world? did taking these powers and this deal make me some kind of slave to a greater power? however well intentioned it might be. They do say that the path to hell is paved to good intentions after all. As i was ruminating over these questions i was suddenly very startled as i suddenly heard a person clearing their throat behind me, which made me jump a little bit as i had been alone on this hill for days, as i whipped around i saw what seemed to be the stereotypical charicture of a suave gentleman, a tall, dark, and handsome man with black hair and beard that was a little too perfectly trimmed and styled. there was also three more things that were very off about him, most noticeable was that instead of having pupils and white around those pupils, he quite literally had stars in his eyes. It was like when i looked into his eyes i was seeing a galaxy through a telescope, all the majesty and enormity of an entire star system contained within one being''s eyes. While that was the most eye catching feature no pun intended, the fact that he was about 8 feet tall, built like a brick shithouse and had a United States postal service outfit on was no less eye catching. "Well if your nice and finished with staring at me, i would first say that i have no intention of harming you, i am a friend of a friend so to speak, and i come bearing a message" "And Who might you be? My mom always told me to not talk to strangers, especially ones that are 8 feet tall and probably have supernatural powers" The man smirked and snorted at my joking, despite that it was delivered in a rather heated and annoyed tone, raising a eyebrow at me in an Oh really? Kind of motion and then began speaking once again. "Well if you would give me the honor of getting acquainted with Her Grace''s latest champion, my name is Acquazel''teliss Modaliaris but to mortals the Language of the divine is overly complicated even when butchered so mortals can comprehend, so you may just call me Quaz, if that''s alright with you of course." "Alright Quaz, i''m not really in the mood to drink tea and eat crumpets right now, so could you tell me what Divine Magigger What''s Her Face sent you to me for? because i''m currently very busy having a mental breakdown as my life falls apart." The slight smile on his face fell away, but not because of the jab at his Goddess, as he actually a bit chuckled at that, but his smile fell as i offhandedly mentioned that i was partially losing my mind currently. "Yes, well your current mental state is actually one of the things i was sent for by the great Divine Magiggier What''s Her Face as you called her, would like to assuage some of your concerns and help you transition into this world as smoothly as possible, sadly she could not reach you personally because of some of the rather unfortunate circumstance and dire straits The Queen of Stars is in currently, she has decided that i am the next best thing she can manage in a reasonable time period." "So what? are you here to pat me on the back on tell me it''s all gonna be alright? That i should go whack some serial killer to death with and big stick to make myself feel better? Well i''ll tell you when thing, if you expect me to be Her champion and make me do things i don''t want to, y''all will have a hell of a time trying to get me to do anything more then bite the hand that feeds me" I was angry, no that''s an understatement, I was pissed, I was on the verge of tears early and then this british accent sounding motherfucker comes out of nowhere to give me a pat on the back and kiss my fucking boo''s boo''s goodbye? hell no, all that happened was that i had died and come back to life and then been asked by someone i''ve never met before to save the world, what the hell did they expect besides me being angry? "Actually sir i did not come here to console you and tell you that everything is going to be fine, because that my good man would be a lie, and a servant of Valencia never lies" I was momentarily thrown off by my rant by the startling amount of intensity and conviction put into those words, you can say the words that you never lie, but i have never met a good enough lier to hear someone put that amount of belief into their words and not actually mean it. The man seemed to take my pausing as permission to continue and pressed on. "I will not tell you your situation is all fine sir because it is not alright, you have died unfairly before your time at the age of 27, right about the prime of your life. You are no longer in even the same universe as your family, friends, wife, and child and on top of that you have no idea what my Boss even expects from you when you were transported here with no further explanation. I would say that you have every right to be upset and angry, there are few situations were being upset would be a more appropriate reaction. I am simply here to deliver a handwritten note from Her Grace, that hopefully will assuage some of the hardship you are going through right now. and please before you break into another rant just take the note." I looked at the mans face for any sign of duplicity or deceit, and found none, the last words of that sentence sounded rather pleading instead of frustrated and angry like i had expected. Maybe i was letting paranoia and stress get to me, letting it cloud my judgement and rationality, so i swallowed my anger and pride for now "alright, you said you have a message from God for for me, well then let''s have it"If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. "*sigh*.. thank you sir, i promise you won''t regret this" he reached into the postman''s bag at his side, reaching into it and having his arm go into it to about mid bicep, before he rectracted it and pulled out an honest to god letter from a goddess in a mundane white envelope. "yes i know it''s rather mundane for a goddess to deliver a message in a white envelope, but Her Grace isn''t really one for theatrics, anyways here you are sir."he pushed the white envelope into my hands and then stepped back, staring at me expectantly waiting for me to read it. With tentative hands i unsealed the envelope pulling out a sheet of standard lined paper, in big blocky letters was written.
Dear Gabriel Norris I want to start this letter off with a simply saying how immeasurably sorry i am for taking advantage of the prayer you sent to bring you here, and once again apologize for not bringing you to me personally to bring you up to speed first on the why''s and how''s of you being in this place, in this time. I hope to be able to make it up to you someday, I brought you here because to be honest, the state of Aeternis is in shambles, entire empires being comsumed from within by petty greed and politics, demons and monsters so horrible that flaying the skin of entire villages of people is just another walk in the park, and the virulent disease that is the followers of the gods of evil spreading unchecked through the land as my power and influence wanes. I won''t lie to you champion, most all of my other followers have either been swayed by the corrupting powers of the dark gods or been slain by their insidious power. But the reason why i believe you can do what my other champions could not is simply because you Gabriel Norris, have 4x more potential for power than even my strongest champions before you, I was simply blown away by the amount of potential karmic power that you have in that soul of yours, if you would give the honor of gushing over how amazing you are, I would estimate that by the durability and resilience of your soul you have lived at least a couple million lives and been reincarnated into a few dozen different universes. and to collect the amount of karmic potential you have, you would have to have been at least as kind as you were in your last life for all of them, every single one. So when the world and the people i so love and cherish are being torn apart by the grasp of horrible beings like Ko''Mek-Tar God of Hate, and you have the potential power to save all that I hold dear, i could not let the opportunity pass. I have pulled all aces up my sleeve that i had left to bring you here and get that karma point max allowance to 100,000 Gabriel. Make no mistake you are a special kind of person, but even with all that i have riding on you, and how much I need to rely on you now, I want to let you know that i will not force you to do anything for me or anyone else, you are free to do whatever you please in this world without my interference. But I beg of you to help this world become a better place, You have asked for an opportunity and potential to help those around you and I have given it to you, so please don''t let it pass you by. While you are off galavanting through my world, i will make sure to do right by you as well, I will do all i can within the divine power invested in me to protect all those of the Norris family line back on earth, as well as protecting any close friends you had. Though the more good and love, happiness, and life you spread throughout the land the stronger i become, and therefore the better i can protect your family, remember Norris, whatever happens, i''m rooting for you. Love, Valencia XOXO
My hands shook as i slowly folded the letter and put it in the pockets of my jeans that had come with me to this world, The thought that i had a literal god playing guardian angel to my friends and family was a mountainous weight lifted off my back. The idea that Hope and my wife Yennefer could be in danger back in a country that was slowly becoming more and more like a tyrannical dictatorship made me feel like Atlas carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. to know that they were in good hands, i nearly burst into tears right then and there, I restrained myself as i realized that Quaz was still standing about 6 feet away from me waiting patiently, when i looked toward him he simply nodded towards me and spoke with his semi british accent "I hope that My Lady has managed to at least take away some of your doubts and worries" he said with a sad, knowing smile crossing his face. "So my good sir, before i leave i want to ask you a question of my own... that is if you don''t mind of course?" "Yeah i guess it''s only fair since i was so hostile to you at first, having your life ruined tends to have that effect on people" While i still wasn''t exactly feeling like i was riding a unicorn down candy mountain, the letter had calmed my turbulent emotions from a raging hurricane into some minor flooding. So i looked toward Qauz, and nodded at him to continue. "Thank you sir, it''s a question that i wanted to ask after you read the letter as i hoped it would make you more acimable. After the Worldsoul finishes communing, and you are released out to the world at large, what do you plan to do? i mean i know Her Grace practically begged you in that letter to help her, but you are still under no obligation to do so, and it is not our place to force you to do anything. So what are your plans?" I paused as i seriously considered his question, in a moment of desperation i might have prayed to the universe for the ability to help others but was that really what i wanted? when i wasn''t delirious from dehydration and hunger? when i wasn''t about to die? "I.. I don''t honestly know yet, while i do want to help people still, i really don''t know this whole hero business, while i can''t stand the thought of other people being harmed by the actions of greedy and selfish men, and having honest to god monsters running around. I also never really was one for fighting outside of VR games, causing people actual pain is anathema to me and i even avoided VR worlds where causing pain to other players was a thing you could do like the plague. But if this world is really that grimdark and horrible as Valencia said it is right now, i''m not sure i have much of a choice. I guess for now i''ll have to see for myself just how bad it is, and if i decide that it is bad enough that the happiness of innocents outweighs the lives of evil men and women, then so be it." Quaz looked back at me grinning like he was thinking of a joke no one else knew, and then began laughing uncontrollably, it was a rather beautiful noise that sounds like there was musical instruments playing along to the beat of his laugh as it came out "That is an excellent answer, that was spoken like a true paladin, i remember i met an acolyte that gave me a very similar answer to a very similar question and he went on to become the head paladin of a entire order of them, If that''s any indication i think you''ll do just fine here my friend.... Oh! i nearly forgot, I swear sometimes i think the goddess spends all her power in creating us as tall, extremely muscular, and handsome men and just completely ignores our brains on purpose, the deviant. Ah here you are sir, a gift from the goddess as a extra bit of apology for stranding you from your homeland, i believe that was the last of the things i needed to give you. I thank you for your patronage and hope you enjoyed your time with Her Grace''s postal service, good day to you sir" He shoved a large pink hand mirror into my hand''s without further explanation and just like that he took a letter opener out of one of his pockets and it''s blade seemingly disappeared as he thrust it forward he then moved the handle downwards in a practiced motion while starting the cut slightly above his head height, A cut in reality opened up and expanded into a cerulean blue portal which the large british sounding man stepped through and the portal shut closed behind him as the ethereal cerulean shimmered around him. And just like that i was alone on the hilltop once again, with a letter and a pink hand mirror both from a goddess, to show for it. I looked towards the hand mirror, i sincerely doubted it was normal in any fashion, I couldn''t fathom why Valencia, a literal goddess would go out of there way to give me a pink hand mirror for shits and giggles. After a short inspection of the object I found a red button on the back with arrows pointing to it, despite my natural inclination to avoid pressing big red buttons I was at this point out of fucks to give. I tapped the thing and turned the mirror back over to the reflective side trying to discern any special properties. I nearly dropped the goddamn mirror in shock and awe, there inside the mirror as if i was looking at someone through a high resolution camera in real time, was my daughter hope sleeping soundly in bed exactly how i remembered her. 5 years old, pale skin like her mother, light freckles and black hair, with a heart shaped face, big puppy dog eyes, and delicate features. I could no longer hold back the overwhelming flood of emotions that the letter had pushed back, I fell down on my knees and began to sob quietly, and as the tears ripped their way from my eyes, and trickled down my face into the grass, I thanked whoever the hell this goddess was, and promised myself that i would do whatever i could to help her. "Thank you with all my heart, for letting me see my child again, Thank you." Chapter 3 - To Know Thine Self Time seemed to blur as I stared into the big blue sky above of me, the fact that I had sobbed like a small child wasn¡¯t a bad thing necessarily, as bottling up emotions inside of you was akin to bottling up poison within yourself. Sure it was painful at first to allow the overhwelming flood of sadness to get to me, but after I finally stopped I felt positively relieved, like the world was clear and focused again and earlier I was looking through a foggy filter of pain and anguish. But now the lenses were once again clear, and now that I had sight, had vision, I knew what i needed to do next..... I needed to find a goal, something to focus on in this new and confusing world, even back on earth I was a extremely goal oriented person. If I didn¡¯t have something to focus on in life I tended to become a bit lost, not having something I was supposed to be doing for me was like being a fish out of water, breathless and dying. My general life goal back on earth was to just help people, whether that be helping out Old Woman McWrinkles across the street, or in my most recent act of bravery and kindness, becoming a martyr while protesting against a tyrannical government after being branded a domestic terrorist for staging a peaceful protest against governmental policies and then promptly imprisoned, after that what happened is self explanatory. So in short the question I wanted to pose to myself is what did I want to do here? I was basically the same person that I was before I was thrown and prison and died, and I still had every intention to help people however I could, I mean with those two spells I choose I was literally going to have the ability to cure any disease and heal anyone who wasn¡¯t already impaled like a fucking kabob back to full health. Not to mention the possibilities that being able to cure depression or aniexty disorders brings. ,But I didn¡¯t think being a healer was going to cut it, I knew from experience that a small amount of preventative measure meant that no one would have to be healed in the first place, that one bad man put in jail would mean 5 more innocents hale and hearthy. Also what about the people that could die before I could heal them? Not to mention the fact that God herself or at least one of them, had straight up told me that everything around her was fucked six ways from sunday and practically begged me to help fix it, I could potentially do way more to help by putting people down before they could hurt others in the first place. But even with all my rationalizations for why ethunizing people like rabid dogs was the best option to help people, I still couldn¡¯t to bring myself to entertain the idea of killing another humanoid, maybe I could do it if they were so monstrous as to be redeemable or were a literal monster in appearance, as something that looked like it laughed while eating puppies probably didn¡¯t look that way because they jumped in the way of a curse spell meant for their best friend Bubbles the friendly clown. I think for now at the most I would just knock someone out and turn them into law enforcement, I did not look forward to the day when that was not an option, but I would cross that road when I came to it, hopefully on that day, i would choose correctly. A metaphorical light bulb popped into my head as I remembered I the discounts I had gotten for having pre existing traits in the karma rewards screen, I should probably do the first thing all the MC¡¯s do when they first get transported to a game world in the light novels, it was time to check my status page, distractions from troubling and disheartining thoughst ahoy!
Gabriel Norris Race: Human Physical Integrity : 100% Sanity/Emotional Wellness : 76% Spiritual Wellbeing: 100% (Spirit damage can result in a fate worse than death, avoid at all costs) Alignment: Neutral (1) Good (9) Class : None Level : 1 Stat Points: 0 Skill Points: 0
Strength:14 Constitution:14 Dexterity:11 Agility:12 Willpower:18 Charisma:14 Intelligence:16 Wisdom:24 Perception:10 Luck:7
Strength is a descriptor of your physical power and ability and a good indicator of how much force output you can muster, This affects both the amount of damage you can do with physical weapons and things such as your running speed in a straight line, your capacity to lift heavy objects, how far you can leap, etc ---- Strengths sub stats are Muscle Density and Muscle Size Constitution is a measure of your physical resilience to damage and how much general punishment you can take physically, It also affects your resistance to diseases and physically harmful magic transmutation spells ------- Constitutions substats are Endurance, Healing Speed, Body Density, and Pain Negation, Dexterity affects how precisely you are able to move your body around and your body''s flexibility, while a high strength and agility will make you very fast in a straight line, turning sharp corners will be very difficult with a comparatively low dexterity, as would running a obstacle course, it also affects how well you can execute subtle and complex movements, dexterity can help you achieve things such as silencing your steps to sneak past guards and pick locks, very useful for rogues -------- Dexterity substats are Balance, Flexibility, and Precision Agility is a indicator of how fast and quick reflexed you are, this affects your movement speed and ability to dodge attacks on your person with a high enough agility you could dodge through a rain of arrows, or even catch them and throw them back or you could use it to PARKOUR. --------- Agility substats are Reflexes, Speed, Kinetic Sense While constitution is a measure of how much physical damage you can take, your willpower is a measure of mental resilience, a person with a strong willpower take setbacks headon and finds opportunity in failures, willpower also increases the amount of mana that is allowed to be put into a single spell before becoming unstable and your general motivation to complete your goals as well as resistance to spells that affect the mind----Willpower substats are Motivation, Mental Resistance, Spellpower, Pain Resilience, Traumatic Stress Healing Speed, Belief/Faith, Self Control, And Courage Charisma is a measure of your physical attractiveness, your ability to persuade others to your to your viewpoint, and how entertaining and magnetic your personality is, a person with high charisma can convince even a unruly mob to stand down with words alone, the ability to say the right thing at the right time is sometimes better than any amount of pure physical might ----- Charisma substats are Attractiveness, Persuasiveness, Charm, Leadership, and Deceit Intelligence is a measure of your speed of thought, mental clarity, and creativity, even those with the highest willpower will not find it any easier to solve math problems, they will just stick at it longer, intelligence is useful for math, puzzles, pattern recognition, it also affects the maximum size of your personal mana pool and your general ability to learn spells and much, much more. -------- intelligence substats are Cognition Speed, Creativity, Spell Formation Learning Speed, Pattern Recognition, General Learning Speed, and Clarity Of Thought/Memory Wisdom indicates how well you learn from experience, and how well you use that experience to make decisions in the future, it can also be used to figure out what''s going to happen before it happens even when you don''t have enough information to recognize a pattern, colloquially called "sixth sense" people with high wisdom can better make decisions on the fly making plans that would take most people half an hour to make in seconds, as well as having gut sense for whether and not someone is lying, finally it also affects personal mana pool regen speed able to turn you from a one shot wonder into a true spell caster --------- Wisdom substats are Sixth Sense, Common Sense, Decision Making, Insight, and Mana Regen Speed Perception is a measure of the sensitivity of your 5 senses as well as more esoteric things like you general spatial awareness a person with high enough perception you could track down a trained ranger through the jungle after 7 days of rain, or smell a pastry from halfway across town, a must for hunters and trackers -------- Perception substats are Visual Acuity, Smell Sensitivity, Taste Accuracy, Vibration Sense, Spacial Awareness, and Hearing SensitivityUnauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. Luck is a very nebulous thing that can potentially affect the entire world in small ways, the strings of probability and destiny being rearranged based on your luck score to benefit you, or screw you over, a person with high luck might often find bags of lost coin randomly just when they needed they needed it, or some kind samaritans that will let them live in their house after theirs burned down (which is unlikely for a person with high luck in the first place) ------ Luck has no substats
Character Traits Determined (Derived From Ancient Soul) Ancient Soul Paragon Of Kindness (Variant) (Evolving Trait) Innate Wisdom (Derived From Ancient Soul) Knight In Shining Armor (Not Yet Redeemed) The Determinator (Not Yet Redeemed The Unconquerable Soul (Not Yet Redeemed) The Paladin (Not Yet Redeemed) Lighting Bruiser (Not Yet Redeemed
The not yet redeemed sub text certainly explained why I don''t feel any more motivated, fast, or brimming with righteous fury than usual, it seemed I would have to wait for the Worldsoul to finally make up it''s goddamn mind already and choose whether it used my karma to buy me the mystical fart spoon or the Umorgrosh The Sword Of Unmaking. I was starting to regret asking the Worldsoul to choose just because of the fact that I had been waiting for it to make up it''s mind for about 2 days and at this point I felt like I had a fire lit under my ass commanding me to do something, anything really, whatever that something was. But I guess that on the bright side that because it was taking so long I had been given the time to work through my emotions and put myself mentally back together, otherwise I might have just ran off to go play hero and done something I would regret later. Which would probably would have been just me redirecting my anger at my situation at the first "evil" person i saw, as I was nowhere near emotionally stable at the time. I was honestly acting like I was in a dream or a game at first instead of reality at first, which is generally unhealthy for you and everyone around you as people should not just be looked at like bags pf experience points, I guess despite my low luck score, I was lucky enough to be summoned by a God kind enough to actually explain what was going on to me instead of dropping me in the middle of the woods somewhere with whatever magical beasties exist in this reality, as they would probably with my luck immediately find me and eat my fucking face. Anyways it seemed that my statline was actually pretty damn good, the high willpower i could understand as my family had fallen on hard times when I was born, I had to live in what was commonly considered a slum in america and it took a lot of effort to drag myself from being in a poor neighbourhood to becoming financially self sufficient and then helping my parents get out of there too spot so they no longer had to live in a neighbourhood where they had to fear going to the store late at night, or been concerned about not being able to feed themselves. It took alot of will and effort to not resort to selling drugs or joining a gang and finding one of the few steady jobs left and then working myself to the bone from ages 15-21 saving up money. until I could make a down payment on a new house in a better neighbourhood. My physical attributes also made a lot of sense to me as I had worked out for about 2 days each week for the past 3 years of my life, which made me reasonably stronger than most other people. Intelligence I couldn''t really say whether or not made sense to me as I had never really considered myself really smart, sure my parents and friends sometimes told me that I was smart but i always thought that it was just favoritism. Wisdom though, I had no idea how in the world my wisdom was 24, I had never been a zen philosopher, or made poems with hidden meanings within hidden meanings, the only ways I could possibly consider myself wise was that I always had a sixth senses for whether people were good or not. My wife affectionately called it "The Douche Radar" but other than that and being able to get a gut sense for the truth, I had never considered myself all that wise. But I guess if reality itself was telling me what I am and am not good at, I really had no place, or desire to argue with it, arguing with a omniscient being i imagine is like stabbing yourself in the face, pointless and painful. I did not currently own anything so i didn''t bother looking for an inventory screen, and I already knew the two spells I had, so i guess all the was left to do was look at the descriptions of the traits that I already had.
Ancient Soul
You have seen the eons past by over the course of your many lives and reincarnations, the rise and fall of empires, utopia¡¯s and dystopia''s, you have seen hero''s lead worlds to prosperity and villains watch them burn. From empires spanning entire galaxies to small tribes of a few dozen, You have witnessed the last stars of entire universe dying and winking out of existence as entropy took its course. With this great age of soul and body of experience, however disjointed, it has given your soul incredible resilience, and given you a measure of innate wisdom and willpower for each of your lives, lastly the eons of experience you have seeing the passage of history from hundreds of millions of varying viewpoints has given you a boost to the ease of learning and power of predictive and divination powers and spells. The age of your soul even surpass the age of gods.
Requirements- Have a soul, Live over the course of your lifetimes for at least 5 Eons, Have at least 10 Million Incarnations
Wow I didn''t even pretend to have any idea how I should react to the implications of that one, the idea that I had once upon a time in my life had the chance to see Entropy Itself work it''s course and to see the last gasp dying gasp of an entire Universe.... that was some heavy stuff. In the interest of not wasting the next 3 hours thinking about this I mentally pressed the paragon of kindness trait.
Paragon Of Kindness (Variant)(Evolving Trait)
There is something special inside of you, something so immeasurably beautiful that it cannot be properly described with words. You have contained within your soul a concept itself, a piece of the multiversal concept birth of all that is good, even if it is an infinitesimally small piece of this good it is still capable of giving immense power even after Eons of gestating and waiting for any of the conceptual essence of the many virtues to help it grow into something greater than just a aleph zero piece of the original concept of kindness, know that the potential within you is more immense than than your puny mortal brain can currently fathom, feed this potential, and you join the gods on their holy thrones, or even surpass them. right now though it just allows you to better resist things that would alter your soul or force you to act against you good nature, you also get faster relationship boosts with good aligned beings.
Requirements- Have a piece of the primordial origin of good implanted in your soul
Wait, what?..... I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS, first of all I find out that I have literally seen the heat death of the universe once upon a time, and then I find out that I have some kind of multi universal reality concept construct fuckery going on inside of me? I mean sure I could be all excited about how much potential I apparently have and do my best emperor palpatine impression and scream UNLIMITED POWAH!!! into the sky like some mentally unhinged cosplayer, BUT HOLY CHRIST this day just kept getting more and more surreal, I felt like I was on the God''s version of the reality television show Punked. Eithier that or i''m some mary sue bullshit character in some shitty author''s poorly written litrpg novel on some crappy web serial website. right as I was about to go and just take a nap and think about all this crazy reality fuckery later, I hear the sound of trumpets blast through the air like the world''s most obnoxious air horns, I twisted to where it was coming from, and then promptly seeing that the text on the Worldsoul bullshit loading screen page had changed, I sprinted over, excited at the possiblility that I could finally stop being trapped in a field of damn grass with invisible walls surrounding the perimeter, what I was greeted with made me made me so excited that after i made sure no one was watching, i did a little happy dance.
GOOD NEWS MORTAL, The Worldsoul has reached a verdict on your new abilities, and prepared the teleportation spells to take you out of this extradimensional space to the real world, would you like to finalize your choices and be tranported to Eo Aternis or change some of your choices and finalize later? YES NO
My instinctual reaction would be to just press the yes button and get this waiting in a sunny field business over with already, but my mind whirred back to a warning I had ignored before. Something that if i wasn''t acting like i was playing a videogame, i would have payed more importance and thought to.
WARNING THIS TRAIT MAY CAUSE PERSONALITY CHANGES
Was I really willing to possibly change who I was so drastically that i might not even be the same person anymore at a fundemental level for some perceived greater good? Was such a risk even worth being slightly better at fighting the ills and evils of the world? I felt like I could argue with myself for day over this one question, not to mention that there wasn''t really an objective awnser to such a open ended phisosphical question, so instead i asked myself a simpler one that I already knew the answer to 100%. Something that i had asked myself and been asked by others over the course of my life hundreds of times. What means more to you? The happiness and wellbeing of yourself? Or the happiness and wellbeing of others?...... I had never been more sure of pressing a button with a warning label slapped near it all my life, I punched the button once, twice, and 3 times to confirm and a cerulean blue portal like the one Quaz has torn open in reality opened up below me and swallowed me up as blue screen after blue screen flashed before my eyes as I felt my mind, body, and soul inexplicably changing itself forever. Chapter 4 - Big, Mean, Willpowered Machine I found myself feeling rather annoyed as i had been basically dropped like a sack of potatoes by the teleportation circle into what seemed to be a poorly lit cave, not only that but the teleportation circle had opened about 5 feet above the ground and i had landed on my ass, which was now rather sore because of that small annoyance, through the notifications i was getting on my status upped my mood considerably despite the current state of my ass.
Your Mind and Spirit have been successfully primed to to accept massive changes from a trait without tearing itself apart!, would you like activate the trait The Determinator, now? YES NO
It seemed that the shifting i felt in myself was not exactly me changing yet, but apparently just the universe shifting things around to make sure that my mind and soul didn''t explode into meat paste from taking such massive changes all at once, It seemed such massives changes to the self if not done properly could have rather undesirable results. I had already deliberated on whether no i was willing to change myself into a different person or not and decided the answer was a resounding yes, so in an effort to avoid stalling, I took a deep breath, steeled myself, and took the plunge.
You gained a new trait! Congratulations! You are now a proud owner of the trait, The Determinator, May you once again find such good fortune.
I felt the building blocks that made up my mind shifting and churning, the emotions that had been bouncing around in my head like a bunch of rubber bullets shooting themselves at my brain lately began receding, no less intense, but I just felt better able to carry on whether they were there or not.
Congratulations! your willpower stat has reached 100! You Have an Iron Will, you are man who could have tragedy after tragedy befall them and still keep going, not happily necessarily but would keep on keeping on without being broken nonetheless, all willpower substats will now be increased by 15% of your willpower passively instead of the standard 10%
The persistent want and need to do something also seemed to be steadily rising, but not in the way of the usual ant''s in my pants feeling that was normally what motivated me to do something, more like a forming of clearer purpose, A persistent goal that would keep me centered and focused.
Congratulations! your substat motivation has reached 100! you have found a Life Purpose, you know what you want to do in life and will strive for it consistently, few people manage to find a something to fully dedicate their lives to, most even when they find a goal only give half effort to the completion of this goal, never commiting themselves fully, you are one of those few exceptions that does not do things halfway, you will gain a bonus of 15% to Willpower and it''s substats when pursuing something that directly furthers that purpose. Your LIfe Purpose is The Wellbeing and Happiness Of Those Around You.
I felt centered and clear, more so then i had in my entire life, like a mental block that had kept me from pursuing and fully understanding my goals had been lifted, It is hard to explain but it just felt.... Right.
Eureka! your willpower stat has reached 250! You have a BlackSteel Will, You could be tortured relentlessly for years on end nonstop and still hold your head high and spit in your tormentors face, Never Compromising, Never Bowing, Never Broken. all willpower substats will now be increased by 25% of your willpower passively Instead of your old 15%
I felt harder, more confident, and just generally more badass, like i could walk through a field of salted razor blades for miles and keep on going. Hell i could probably do exactly that at this point.
Eureka! your substat motivation has reached 250! You have found True Purpose, While anyone can find something to dedicate their lives to, even fully and utterly, you have found the one, singular, exact perfect purpose in all the realms of infinity that is perfect for you, not many are capable of achieving this kind of unrelenting and unwavering dedication, and you will be awarded for it properly. You will gain a percentage bonus of 30% to willpower and it''s substats and a percentage bonus of 10% to constitution and it''s substats when pursuing something that directly furthers your true purpose, Your True Purpose is The Wellbeing and Happiness Of Those Around You. (Your bonuses to stats from doing actions that fulfill your purpose will not earn capstone abilities)
Forget walking through a field of goddamn razorblades to help some random passerby in trouble, the razorblades would have to walk through me, I was what razorblades FEARED.
BY THE GODS! YOU HAVE REACHED A WILLPOWER OF 750! YOU HAVE A WILL OF WHITE ADAMANT!, If you desired it and could survive it, you could sit criss cross applesauce and meditate until the heatdeath of a universe and it would not bother you in the slightest, the eons and passage of time do not wear and tear on your mind, despite being a normal mortal in terms of your physical body still being able to die of old age, the passage of time bothers your mind about as much as any immortal being, and you do not have the disadvantage of there mind having no grasp on the concept of time and missing about 100 years of stuff hapenning after sitting on a park bench for a quick nap, The God of Suffering and Torture Ulukar Itself could not break you if it had all the time in the world, all willpower substats will now be increased by 40% of your willpower passively, you have reached the willpower soft cap, increasing willpower will now become exponentially more difficult. (You have received the title of Man Of Impeccable Strength for reaching the willpower softcap)
BY THE GODS! YOU HAVE REACHED A MOTIVATION OF 750! YOU HAVE FOUND YOUR SOUL PURPOSE!, You have achieved a feat even the gods themselves have struggled to achieve in the past, you have found your Soul Purpose, every being since the beginning of creation and the multiverse itself with a soul was created with a Soul Purpose, this purpose would not only influence their lives throughout one life, but all of them throughout eternity, a man who takes over countries or at least attempts to throughout many lifetimes might have a Soul Purpose of personal power and domination, A woman who creates beautiful works of art for the world to see might have a Soul Purpose of creation and making beauty, And even then they do not know there soul purpose, it simply influences them subtly, the same man might turn the world he dominates into a dystopia or utopia depending on his life in that world, And the same women''s art might be serene and calming, or macabre and morbid depending on what inspires her. But you know your Purpose, what you were made to do, it was written into your very core since your soul''s birth Eons ago, Your soul Purpose is E%rr*#oR
An error has been encountered, a shard of the multiversal origin of good from the Paragon Of Kindness (Variant)(Evolving Trait) trait has interacted with the meaning your soul purpose! The Shard has requested to have you change it from "The Wellbeing and Happiness Of Those Around You." to "To Bring Justice And Light To Every Last Darkened Corner Of The Multiverse" would you like to accept this change? accepting this change will evolve the trait Paragon Of Kindness and will grow this shard of good, possibly giving greater power and potential then before. YES NO
My first reaction to this interruption of the growth of my burgeoning unstoppable will was a great annoyance, I didn''t care how damn holier than thou this fucking macguffin crystal in my soul was, It still annoyed me that it was asking to have me change a decision that had been made literal Eons ago. I was about to click no, but then a thought struck me, This purpose was not the one i had chosen, some kind of originator, impossibly powerful, bullshit creator god or similar force had created this purpose for me. I had not chosen this purpose, sure i thought it was a great thing to devote yourself to, but it was so... small, if i had the opportunity, the potential to give myself a higher calling, to possibly make a decision that would better enable me to help other people, wasn''t it my responsibility to make that decision? Not to mention the unsubtle wink wink nudge nudge of it telling me that accepting the change could make me more powerful, and any more power that i currently had was a good thing, so i asked myself, did i want to just be the man who did right by the people around them and made them happy, but only them? Or did i want to be the man who changed the entire world, hell the entire Multiverse for the better, who had brought justice to the entirety of creation, who brought low all those arrogant pricks on high who stomped on the faces of the weak with metal clad boots for shits and giggles. To be the avenging angel who brought light to the pits of hell itself, Hell Yeah, this deal practically sold itself. The yes button was pressed, and the train of blue screens that had been monetarily stopped by this decision once again chugged along once again like the little engine that could.
BY THE GODS! YOU HAVE REACHED A MOTIVATION OF 750! YOU HAVE FOUND YOUR SOUL PURPOSE!, You have achieved a feat even the gods themselves have struggled to achieve in the past, you have found your Soul Purpose, every being since the beginning of creation and the multiverse itself with a soul was created with a Soul Purpose, this purpose would not only influence their lives throughout one life, but all of them throughout eternity, a man who takes over countries or at least attempts to throughout many lifetimes might have a Soul Purpose of personal power and domination, A woman who creates beautiful works of art for the world to see might have a Soul Purpose of creation and making beauty, And even then they do not know there soul purpose it simply influences them subtly, the same man might turn the world he dominates into a dystopia or utopia depending on his life in that world, And the same women''s art might be serene and calming, or macabre and morbid depending on what inspires her. But you know your Purpose, what you were made to do, it was written into your very core since your soul''s birth Eons ago, Your soul Purpose is "To Bring Justice And Light To Every Last Darkened Corner Of The Multiverse". You will now know this purpose in all your lives for all eternity until your soul is destroyed and always receive the benefits of this trait, even if reincarnated to a universe with different physical laws, Your drive to complete your goals is awe inspiring, Charisma and the substats Persuasiveness, Charm, and Leadership are increased by 25, When in pursuit of your Soul Purpose you gain a percentage bonus of 60% to willpower and it''s substats, a percentage bonus of 25% to constitution and it''s substats and a percentage bonus of 10% to Strength. (You have been awarded the title Soul Of Justice for finding your unique soul purpose and reaching the softcap of motivation) (Your bonuses to stats from doing actions that fulfill your purpose will not earn capstone abilities)
YOU HAVE A MYTHICAL SOUL PURPOSE, The harder a purpose is to accomplish, the higher tier the purpose is, moving forward on the path of your purpose and furthering this goal can give rewards depending on it''s rarity, while every soul purpose is at least RARE as a person finding the purpose embedded in their soul is not a common happening, but your purpose is the highest rarity of MYTHICAL and will have effects that will change the entire cosmo''s at a core level if completed, so while obtaining the rewards that furthering your purpose gives you will be great and powerful in nature thanks to it''s MYTHICAL rarity, it will also have difficulty to obtain these rewards similar to the benefit it gives, know that your path will fraught with peril beyond''s most imagining, and it''s completion won''t even be possible for a mortal. But as you follow your path, you may not find yourself mortal for long. To take the first step of your path, slay at least 5 beings of a alignment of at least Evil (7) of level 250 or greater, Current Beings of Great Evil and Power slain 0/5
I was almost laughing in hysterically at this point as a grin split across my face, it was like for all the universe had decided to unfairly whoop my ass earlier, it was now balancing the scales for once, while i would much rather be making sweet, sweet love to my wife back home, or reading a bedtime story to my daughter, this currently wasn''t all horrible. I mean the chance to become something akin to a immortal being. With along with my willpower made sure that i would suffer from none none of the horrible repercussions of that immortality would normally bring in story books, i was pretty sure i was incapable of apathy anymore, and pain no longer bothered me, it was still there just as strong, but now i was able to make it so it was just background noise, present but not something i was paying attention to. i never believed that a life of eternal ennui and apathy was a life at all, and therefore wasn''t actual immortality to me, but it seemed true immortality in my own definition of it, was a possibility for me. I definitely wouldn''t be able to complete even the first objective anytime soon if i was being honest with myself, but to even know that such a thing was a possibility made me ecstatic.
UNBELIEVABLE, UNTHINKABLE, IMPOSSIBLE, YOU HAVE REACHED REALMS UNDREAMED OF BY EVEN THE LESSER GODS, YOUR WILLPOWER IS 1500, You have reached the highest possible level of will for all beings in the entire multiverse, you have reached the hard cap, for obtaining a will of metaphysical hardness like that of a Condensed Multiverse Ingot, Your willpower substats are increased equal to 60% of your willpower stat, even if you were trapped for all of Multiversal eternity till the end of all things within the absolute center of the Multiversal Originator Conceptual Construct of Pain and Suffering you would be able to bear it, for you will is infinite, and nothing, not man, beast, monster, demon, eldritch, abyssal, or God no matter how depraved and horrible could ever even hope to break you, YOU ARE PINNACLE, YOU ARE WILL. (You have obtained the title of Champion Of The Unbreakable Will for reaching willpowers hardcap)
The pure ecstasy of unlimited potential of strength within, the fact that i knew that pain and suffering would never hold sway over me or my actions over again, NOW THAT was incredible, not to mention that this current overwhelming feeling of strength probably meant that the changes within me were releasing amounts of dopamine into my brain comparable to snorting cocaine, with a similar feeling of invincibility.
UNBELIEVABLE, UNTHINKABLE, IMPOSSIBLE, YOU HAVE REACHED REALMS UNDREAMED OF BY EVEN THE LESSER GODS, and even greater gods rarley reach this level of self propulsion without great personal sacrifice, YOUR MOTIVATION IS 1500, To call you determined is an insult to your motivation, akin to calling a dwarf a beardless flower picking pansy that survives by pure luck, You have the kind of drive required to change the multiverse on a fundamental level, Your Purpose is Immutable and Eternal, and has been written into the multiversal memory banks of reality, so that if anyone ever does the impossible and sways you from your path or changes your soul to pursue a different purpose, this new directive will be overwritten by your Eternal Purpose, Woe be to all who stand in your way, for even if they defeat you once, you come back in every life you experience to face them again for the true path to victory and your goal is always known to you. Your drive to complete your goals can bring people to to tears and change their entire lives to follow you example, Charisma and the substats Persuasiveness, Charm, and Leadership are increased by 50, When in pursuit of your Eternal Purpose you gain a bonus of 300 to willpower and it''s substats, You also gain a bonus of 100 to constitution and it''s substats plus a bonus of 50 to when in pursuit of your goals, If you are ever lost on how to move forward on your Eternal Purpose you will be able to get a feeling of what to do next to further your goals (You have been awarded the title Eternal Champion Of Good for obtaining your eternal purpose and reaching the hardcap of motivation)
I didn''t even know how to describe the impossible amount of want i had for JUSTICE at this moment, it was fading to background noise quickly but right now it was still screaming aggressively like a angry drill sergeant to just go do some kind of good deed, ANY kind of good deed, i wanted to pet all the puppies, bake all the cupcakes, and kick all the dictators and tyrants in their evil shriveled ball sacks, and then i would feed their impoverished citizens all the cupcakes i had made, and of course those cupcake sales would revitalize the economy so people could start adopting all those stray dogs.
You have reached the Hardcap for not just one but two different stats, a feat not often replicated within even the world of Eo Aeternis, Which is beyond impressive considering that this world is one of the most inundated with the Original Powers and one of the epicenter for powerful beings in the Multiverse, This has been noticed by higher powers and they will be moving to find you, either to ally with you because of your possible future power, or to destroy you before you become a threat, be careful they do not do so too soon.
Ya know what? I didn''t even care, I was too hyped up to care, I wasn''t just riding the hype train right now, I WAS THE HYPE. But I guess having willpower and motivation beyond the gods themselves will have that effect on a person, so while I would probably have literal gods of evil searching for me now to crush me like a roach.... I say fucking BRING IT BITCH, I would bet one of my testicles that by the time they managed to find me, considering the interference of my patron god Valencia keeping them from finding me, I would already enough of a virtue bearing, justice serving, divine mandate bringing paladin by then that they wouldn''t have enough cultists, knaves, minions, and blackguard in the whole world to bring me down, so just let them try and fucking stop me. I''ll take on every last one of the evil pricks, non lethally of course, even despite the changes in my mind and soul I still wasn''t comfortable with making other humanoids take a dirt nap. In any case I was wasting time as I had more traits to activate and more notifications were stacking in the right hand corner of my vision, from what i guessed was willpowers other substats increasing, I was starting to come down from the high of what I thought was the power of gaining so many points of willpower and motivation being increased all at once. The feeling of burning motivation was more permanent i think though, but instead of it''s earlier raging JUSTICE inferno, it was more a controlled fireplace kind of burning now. Which was probably a good thing as I imagine it would be rather hard to get sleep or make any friends in this world if my mind was thinking about punching bad guys in the face 24/7 and absolutely nothing else, I mentally dragged another notification from the right hand corner of my vision and watched it expand into my vision.
Your Spirit has been successfully primed to to accept massive changes from a trait without tearing itself apart!, would you like activate the trait The Unconquerable Soul? YES NO
You gained a new trait! Congratulations! You are now a proud owner of the trait, The Unconquerable Soul, May you once again find such good fortune.
Where accepting The Determinator trait was a rush of feeling of ecstatic euphoria and being an unstoppable force like a raging meteor crashing towards the earth, this trait gave me the sense of firmness and being and unmovable wall, like if the school yard bullies that had pushed me around when i was young, come back again to torment the current me, but in the body I had when I was younger, then all they would manage to do would be breaking their hands by punching me. It seemed that i didn''t need to choose between being a unmovable wall or a unstoppable force, I WAS BOTH, Eternally moving forward and now unbreakably firm in my sense of self.
Your Body has been successfully primed to to accept massive changes from a trait without tearing itself apart! would you like activate the trait Lightning Bruiser? YES NO
You gained a new trait! Congratulations! You are now a proud owner of the trait, Lighting Bruiser, May you once again find such good fortune.
I felt my muscles twitch and spasm uncontrollably and i was filled to the brim with uncontrolled energy, like I chugged 5 red bulls in a minute, another thing i noticed is that while the feeling of energy was great and I felt like i could sprint a whole mile without stopping. The feeling of my muscles rapidly tearing themselves apart and then rebuilding themselves over and over again at extremely rapid speed was less than pleasant, I was rather glad i had chosen to accept the will power based trait before this, as I imagined this would be more absolutely horrific than slightly annoying if not for my newfound ability to simply ignore all pain. After my body slowly but surely stopped randomly spasming all at once, and I could actually move without jerking around like I was being shot by 11 tazers all at once. I decided to go for a quick run around the large cavern I was in, the visibility wasn''t exactly fantastic, not even good really, but the torches lining the walls still did the job well enough. I looked towards what looked like a mine shaft that was long and straight enough to suit my purposes, I crouched down in a classic sprinters position at the start of hall and then in my head counted, 1.... 2... 3.... GO!, I then proceeded to Zoom down the hall at a approximate speed comparable to Usain Bolt''s crack addicted cousin, Insane Bolt. Which is to say that i was going, at least by my old worlds standards, pretty fucking fast. In all seriousness though i had ran down what i believed to be a hallway of about 50 meters in about 3 seconds from what i counted, which I was certain broke world records back home. I didn''t really have any way to test my reaction time right now and it wasn''t important enough for me to stop accepting more traits to find a way to do so, therefore i pulled another trait into my vision and continued on.
your Mind and Spirit has been successfully primed to to accept massive changes from a trait without tearing itself apart!, would you like activate the trait Knight In Shining Armor? YES NO
You gained a new trait! Congratulations! You are now a proud owner of the trait, Knight In Shining Armor, May you once again find such good fortune.
Congratulations! your charisma stat has reached 100! your a real charmer aren''t you? You have a Silver Tongue And Gorgeous Face, you posses an amount of charm and physical attractiveness that inspires envy in the same gender and make those of the opposite gender gender attracted to you, maybe even some of those of the same gender.... in any case you will find it easier to boost your relationships with people and convince them of the righteousness of your viewpoints by a percentage of 15%, remember to not use it for evil!
Feeling my facial structure rearrange itself to be more attractive was kind of disconcerting, similar to having my body rapidly tear itself apart and rebuild itself to be faster and have better reflexes, but luckily i don''t think i would have to deal with it constantly as i don''t imagine it was often that stats double instantaneously. While the pain was at this point just an annoyance it was still a rather unpleasant feeling that brought tears to my eyes through my bodies natural response to physical stimuli. Nevertheless i had only two major traits to deal with and only one of them actually dealt with changing myself, unless one of the random things I got from letting the universe decide was a power of self trait, But hopefully i would be lucky and it would be a item or ally instead as I think I had already given myself plenty of personal power.
your Mind and Spirit has been successfully primed to to accept massive changes from a trait without tearing itself apart!, would you like activate the trait The Paladin? YES NO
You gained a new trait! Congratulations! You are now a proud owner of the trait, The Paladin, May you once again find such good fortune.
For the last trait that, I found that when it said that itm would make my goodness radiatie off of me like a physical aura in the traits description, it meant it, I now had a subtle aura of golden light radiating off of me like a wave, I think it was also right about the evil learning to fear me part, I was feeling pretty badass right now, despite the fact that I was currently only wearing a filthy t-shirt and jeans. Anyways I had save the best for last, what happens when you take a soul weapon, that grows more powerful depending on the strength of the users soul and give it to a person whose soul is apparently Eons old and a descriptor word for it is unconquerable? Well I was about to find out.
You have bought a metaphysical certificate for a soul weapon 1x would you like to redeem your certificate now? YES NO
You''re damn right i did, the yes button was pressed and I trembled from palpable excitement as I felt the strange sensation of tugging in my navel and stomach, it flowed it''s way from my stomach and up my body up to my eyes, I reminded of the quote "the eyes are the windows to the soul", Iguess it was opening those windows to take some of that soul stuff out, it started to form a condensed ball of golden light hovering in front of me, like a miniature supernova in intensity, but strangely enough it was actually rather gentle on my eyes, it also gave off heat and while it was rather hot it was not scorchingly so, it was a gentle warmth, the oddest part was that this soulstuff, my soulstuff, gave a feeling off of it, the golden ball gave me a feeling i was very personally familiar with, a feeling of want for happiness for myself and those around me, and a feeling of dedication to certain beliefs, I also saw small mixtures of other colors swirling in the golden ball, mostly those of a bright fierce motivating red and forest green''s that felt like calm purpose and steadfastness to me, There was however one color that was rather concerning to me, there were occasional blips of purest black it gave off a feeling of dissatisfaction, of pure self righteous rage and honestly felt rather pretentious i would say,It would seem that somewhere in there I had an inner edgelord.Iwas reminded of my advice to myself at not bottling up emotions, I guess I really should follow my own advice more often, I could probably also guess where those swirls of edgelord black stemmed from, I often found myself simply thinking, Why? Whenever people did things bad things, I mean wouldn''t true friends and fantastic experiences with them make you more happy than any amount of monetary wealth, no matter how massive?, Wouldn''t you rather befriend Old Woman McWrinkles and have her bake you a cake later than stealing the 20$ she had out of her purse for some cheap bottle of booze and cigarretes? plus the chance of jail time? And was money and even power really worth so many people hating you?, It just didn''t make any SENSE to me.Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
Soul Weapon Interface Version 3.21
Congratulations Brave Warrior! you will soon be the proud owner of a all new soul weapon, but first you are required to insert certain parameters for the special abilities of your weapon, the Strength/Duration/AOE/Range of these abilities and the more general parameters of your weapon, as well as it''s type will decided by the strength and structure of your soul, this will also determines its power scaling ability as you pass through the levels, though it''s starting strength will be based on the strength of your soul and current character level which is currently a factor of 1, you are alloted 4 special abilities for your soul weapon, choose wisely warrior.
1. Increased Attack power when used to attack beings of evil alignment, the greater the evil the greater the damage increase. 2. Largely increased Accuracy when used to defend a ally or home/village/town/city 3. Increased Attack power when user is certifiably pissed off at their enemy 4. When special effects 1-3 are met all at once weapon gains massive damage and accuracy boost FINALIZE?
I had already decided in advance what kind of weapon I wanted to have, so I was able to skip all the gut wrenching decision making that would affect the rest of my life for once, I had chosen a bunch of rather simple but powerful effects and while I would have to forgo any fancy status affects, i honestly was never that into status effects or damage over time in the VR games i played, even when i played my quite loved sorcerer characters I had never bothered with status effect or area control spells, I had just carpet bombed entire areas with overwhelming amounts of cataclysmic magical force in an attempt to kill everything dead, the only two utility spells I really had was a blink spell to keep me out melee range, and a high tier shield spell to help my squishy character tank damage. So i was sticking to my old formula of simple but effective and simply stacking damage to absurd levels to turn anyone that forces me to pull it out into a meaty paste, and the best part was that the stringent requirements for activation of its special properties meant it would only and i mean only, be used when it was truly needed. So if i was forced to pull this weapon out on someone, they probably deserved it. I pressed the finalize button and waited with excited anticipation, the ball of hyper bright swirling colors in my hand began stretching it self out wards into a hazy shape, it elongated into a large haft, seeming to partly solidify into a 5 foot long pole of solid light and colors, but it was not yet done. There was still a rather large mass of light in the center of the haft which began to make it''s way up the length of the shaft, it started to form a rough rectangular shape on the end of the pole. Then the light seemed to suck something out of the air, some kind of glowing blue motes began to fade in and out of existence rushing towards and swirling around the mass of soulstuff like a vortex. As these blue motes of light become more numerous in number, and the mass of golden, red, green, and black light started to gain some kind of mass and actual weight instead of being a mostly weightless incorporeal ball of pure floating light. By this point in time the blue motes of light were less scattered flashes and more a veritable wave of massless blue light, the light around my weapon seemed to be pushing itself into a corporal mass at it''s center as the light from the soulstuff faded away. As the light faded away and the waves of what i guessed was whatever constituted mana, chi, chakra, life force or whatever the bullshit substance that powered magic and allowed it to break the laws of physics in this reality, the tides of mana slowly flickered out. Until when all was said and done I was left with a pole of solid chrome colored metal in my hands that had 3 sigils on it, somehow these sigils gave me an image of some kind in my brain whenever i looked at them, one gave me an image of a massive 2 handed hammer, the second a one handed war hammer and kite shield, and the last a singular titanic slab of material known as the tower shield except with a large spike and on front. As I was perusing my new all in one swiss army knife of weapon, another notification annoyingly popped up right in front of my vision.
BY ALL THAT IS HOLY, YOU HAVE CREATED A NEW ARTIFACT, Whether by feat of skill, luck, or cleverness you have brought a new Artifact into the world of Eo Aeternis, Artifacts are items of monumental importance and power, there have been times when every kingdom in the world of Eo has fought wars lasting centuries over the right to possess a singular artifact, and even gods jealously guard and hoard these items, all items are capable are helping a adventurer along in their travels, but artifacts are objects that have turned adventurers that are simply noteworthy in LEGENDS, for being the sole creator and possessor of a Mythical quality artifact, you have gained the titles (Legendary Crafter) And (Artifact Wielder) take care that this item is not taken from your hands, because many will inevitably try to steal it from you.
Another massive childish grin run rampant across my face as I looked upon the tool that would help me crush my enemies and protect my friends, and lucky for me it seemed there was no better tool for the job. An idea wormed its way into my brain, could people inspect objects in this universe like the light novels? I concentrated as hard as I could on the weapon, which with my massive willpower meant it might as well have been just me and the metal pole in the entirety of the universe, and then, voila just like that notification.
Peacebringer - The Soul Of Justice Incarnate (Durability - Utterly Indestructible) (Quality - Mythical) (Rarity - Artifact) Force Quotient/Damage - 3.5x Normal Of A Weapon Of The Same Mass And Shape (Mass - 60 LBS/27 KG) (Ego Alignment - Good (10) Chaotic (3)) (Weapon Level - 1)
Requirements for effective use of weapon Requiremnts for effective use overidden by weapon trait "Soulweapon" Strength - 35 Constitution - 30 Weapon Special Effects 1. Final Force Quotient increased by 15% for every (1) point of Evil on the alignment scale (Effect evolves at level 5) 2. Weapon Force, Momentum, And Inertia alter course towards opponents by 30% when in the act of fighting on the defensive with an ally or defending a place of living (Accuracy bonus increases at a rate of 1% per level) 3. When user is at a anger level of (4) or more against a opponent, Force Quotient is increased by 25% (Effect Evolves at level 5) 4. When effects 1-3 are activated simultaneously Force Quotient is increased by 50% and Weapon Force, Momentum, And Inertia alter course towards opponents by 50% (Effect Evolves at level 10) Weapon Special Abilities 1. Transforming 2. Soul Weapon 3. Ward Against Evil 4. Ego Weapon Ability Instructions 1A. Can Transform into three different variations by touching the sigils and speaking Judgment for a 2 Handed Hammer, Protect And Serve for 1 Handed Hammer and Round Shield, and Guardian for a Tower Shield 2A. Even if the owner does not meet standard wielding requirements for using their soul weapon, it will still function as if they had the minimum stats required to do so. 2B. Soul weapons will only accept their original creators as wielders and will rebel against anyone else attempting to wield them, this is especially strong for soul weapons with Ego''s 2C. The owners of soul weapon will instinctually learn how to use their chosen weapon over time, even a complete novice can become a grandmaster wielder of their soul weapon over the course of many battles, This is a vastly faster process with Ego weapons to mentor their wielders. 2D. Soul weapons have the ability to teleport back to their owners by intent and thought alone, this method of transportation can not be blocked by anyone or means on Eo Aeternis or the Divine Realms themselves 3A. This weapon has powerful wards against evil on it, anyone with a evil alignment of (1) or greater will feel pain and fear from touching the weapon, which becomes greater the further into evil this being is aligned, evils beings within 5 feet of the weapon also feel general itchiness of the skin and nervous tension (This effect scales with level) 3B. Beings with an alignment of evil (3) or greater who attempt to wield this weapon will ignite in divine flames, these flames ignore resistances 4A. This weapon has an Ego/Mind of its own which may or may not get along with it''s owner, more powerful items are more intelligent and have stronger Ego''s, Ego''s may also have moralities and goals not based on mortal thinking. 4B. This Ego is capable of simple telepathic messages with its owner, these messages will gain the ability to be more complex as the weapon grows in level and increases in intelligence. 4C. This Ego has a humanoid personality, is capable of emotions and is capable of setting short and long term goals.
You have gained the inspection skill level 1, congrats
I giggled manically to myself as observed my weapons stats, I had gotten everything i asked for out my weapon and more. Another thing i found rather interesting was the fact that while this world did seem to have gamelike mechanics in it, it was still mostly similar to my original reality, HP points were not an actual thing in this world and while you could level up and improve practically every part of your entire being to make yourself some kind of crazy transhuman killing machine, all the laws of physics beyond the magic and game mechanics layer seemed to work in exactly the same capacity so far. So while yes, one day I could possibly run faster than even the fastest cybernetically augmented person on Earth, yes I would probably be able to bench press 2000 LBS/907 KG at some point in the near future, and yes I was wielding a thing that reality itself dubbed utterly indestructible. But gravity was still gravity, the damage output of a weapon still relied on the total force exerted by the weapon and not on some arbitrary and vague damage number, And as long as magic didn''t get involved thermodynamics and inertia still seemed to work just fine. I ran my hand over the three smoothly carved sigils on the chrome colored metal pole, the sigils themselves were very artistically carved depictions of the different weapons being wielded by various warriors in plate armor, I pressed my thumb against the one of a gigantic behemoth of a man holding a hammer with a similar pole length to mine upside down with the enormous head of the hammer touching the ground. If the illustration was anything to go by then the block of metal on the end of this hammer would be bigger than my head, and easily able to crush it. I bellowed the word "Judgement" out into the air and watched in fascination as the same soulstuff that had turned into this long metal pole earlier, poured out of the end of the haft, solidifying into a white marble looking substance in the shape of a egg that had a about 1 foot length and what i guessed was a width of about 7.5 inches at its widest point. The egg shaped mass of white marble also had some of the same chrome metal that was the hammer haft wrapped around it in three studded metal rings that came from the a metal underhang at the bottom of the head of the hammer. I mentally shook myself to stop staring in slack jawed amazement at how cool this was and started to attempt to figure out the weight and heft of the my new hammer. I started to swing it around experimentally getting a feel for it''s weight and momentum, despite being heavier than even the mightiest sledgehammer back home, it handled more like i was carrying a big stick. It still wasn''t light exactly, but I wasn''t going to have it fly out of my hands or throw my back out when swinging it. As i was swinging the weapon, I was suddenly getting feelings of wrongness when i swung the weapon wrong and images in my head of how to correct them, and I was reminded of the Ego trait of my weapon. I realized that it was trying to teach me how to use itself, I was immensely curious about the extent of its current ability to communicate as I had not talked to anyone but a semi-british sounding celestial postman in about a week. I tried to project asking the thing it''s name towards my hammer, because while it was technically an object, it was also alive, sentient and according to my inspection on it, capable of emotions. The instructions on weapon swinging were interrupted by the singular image on the word MELVIN being shunted into my mind in big blocky letters, I asked the thing if that was really a name fit for a legendary artifact of the highest quality, It responded with the letters JOKE, I laughed to myself at the ridiculousness of the situation and my current situation in general. Here I was talking to a sentient hammer in a cave in Goddess who knows where, right after my soul had been shanghaied from my reality and roped into trying to save the world for a desperate goddess of justice. I eventually calmed down after 1 minute uncontrollable laughter.... or 2, I think it was time for me to look through the rest of my less important status updates, the ones I got from having the Worldsoul, whatever the hell a worldsoul was decide some karma boons for me in exchange for a limited time only super duper 50% off all purchases of random shit. it seemed that those status notifications piled up quickly, and they certainly weren''t going to get rid of themselves. TIME SKIP I had gone over every last of the of the 21 extra capstone traits that I had gotten from having willpower at the hardcap, I had also realized that having 60% of my willpower added to my substats instead of the regular 10% as my hard cap willpower trait, meant that something had gone amazingly right somewhere along the line. As I felt that having 7 different softcap stone abilities was much more powerful than one hardcap ability, I also realized that the traits I got seemed to be rather personalized, many of them I could tie to a different belief, action I had taken, trait of myself, habit, or emotion that I commonly felt. They were all based off of a part of me that had been exaggerated to a large degree, I had never really physically fought many people and my entire life, and even when bullies at school when i was younger physically attacked me, I for the most part held my head up high and laughed at them like it didn''t hurt when they punched me, and it didn''t hurt that bad because I told myself it didn''t, funny how that works, and then eventually they would get scared of me for laughing at their attempts to hurt me and go away. Which connected to the trait Embrace The Pain that I got, it was just a small part of me that was already there that had been turned up to 11. I decided that I had been sitting around looking over status screen long enough, But sadly I didn''t really have much idea on what to do next, I mean I could start on my path to my Eternal Purpose and I was more certain that I would get to it at some point than I that down was down and up was up, But i didn''t believe that even with the ridiculous amount of traits and special abilities that I had that were basically akin to cheating, I still didn''t think i was anywhere near ready to start a quest to change the entire multiverse. Yes I was brave, even foolishly so at this point, but dying right now would only hinder me, sure I would still have the same goal as before and keep on keeping on, but I would lose a massive amount of personal power from possibly losing all my stats and traits, not to mention that I would be failing to save the world of the very goddess who had gifted me all this power, and that was unacceptable. Thusly I did the only thing that I really could right now, I picked up my hammer from off the ground, rested on my shoulder and began walking down one of the mine shafts I saw. I was lucky that the caves were at least dimly lit by the torch sconces lining the walls, on the downside though there was the possibility that whoever placed them there was hostile, but I wasn''t going to get anywhere by pissing myself in a corner afraid of every shadow that came my way. So I walked and walked and walked and WALKED, for what felt like hours, the twists and turns of the mining shaft practically endless, turn after turn, constantly feeling like I was ending up in the same place as before, By this point I was extremely agiatated, as I had been wandering down endless coridors for hours of time, I began looking more obsessively for any signs of things that could lead to civilizations or other lifesforms of some kind, when finally after another half hour of fervently eyefucking every nook and cranny of the mineshafts that I was aimlessly wandering through, I found a clue, I stopped in place like a deer in headlights, or a redneck seeing their sister naked, whichever works. I spotted among the powdered remains of what seemed to be powderized rocks on the floor, the outline of a footprint from a very large and wide for it''s length foot. Big but wide footprints?, Endless mining shaft?, I felt like my brain was trying to put a puzzle together but I was just missing one last piece, like I knew how to put it together but I had bought a shitty puzzle on Ebay and they gypped me with a puzzle box with only half the pieces. Whatever the case I followed the first sign of other lifeforms down the endless corridors of the mining shaft, as I followed the first set of footprints signs of activity became more and more numerous, the amount of mining tools and sets of footprints increased, as well as the amount of rock powder near the walls. Spruned on ahead by what would possibly my first contact with another reasonable sentient being in weeks, "ASSHOLE" my hammer shouted into my braincase, completely interupting my thinking and derailing my train of thought to a screaching halt. "Okay then i''ll rephrase that, the first reasonable sentient being i''ve met in weeks that can speak more than one word at a time. There, happy now?" "ALMOST" I guess I had to get used to the fact that peacemaker was basically a sentient being in it''s own right with thoughts and emotions, it just couldn''t communicate the thoughts part very well right now. If I was interpreting the signals I was getting correctly He/She/It actually felt kind of... hurt by my comment?, "Look i''m sorry okay? I haven''t seen another flesh and blood being besides the Celestial Postal Servicemen, or had anyone else speak more than couple sentences to me for an entire week, i''m lost, want some food besides rice and chicken, and i''m generally annoyed now that i''m done feeling like i''m invincible from power ups. *Sigh* But I guess no matter how many reasons I have none of them are really good enough to be rude to someone who''s probably going to be with me for the rest of my life, so i''m sorry for insulting you, even if it was accidental, are you okay with me now?" The thing seemed to be struggling to push a message through, like while before it was easy to send the singular words through now it was walking through a foot of tar on the ground, until with a final push and heave it popped through the haziness and I received a new message. "THANK YOU" "Well thank you for accepting my apology, *sigh* I would make a joke about you being up to two words now but this is too nice of a moment to ruin with even friendly jabs" "SAYS YOU" I froze in a place, slowly swiveled ny sight on Peacemaker and then laughed uproariously as i realized I had just gotten a comeback from a being that could say a maximum of 2 words a sentence, my mood steadily improved as I talked to it in whatever ways I could manage, as time went on it seemed to struggle less with 2 words but still could not count to 3, just like a certain person who had a similar first name to me. About an hour of constant walking and talking later I saw a clearing up that transitioned from mineshafts to a much larger and more open section of cave, from their I could hear the telltale signs of running water, a stream perhaps. I was invariably excited as I had not bathed in a week and smelled like armpit and ball sweat from hours of walking in the overly warm mine shafts, which I think explained why they didn''t put down more or bigger torches to light the place better, as it was much better to have slightly poor visibility than it is to have heat stroke in the middle of your mining. I steadily advanced towards the opening as I fantasized about the possibility of being partially clean again. I entered out the exit of the mineshaft into the larger cave complex and was baffled by the sheer size of it, the ceiling was somehow far enough up that I couldn''t even see the top through the darkness that grew ever stronger as it got higher and higher up, and father away from the torches lining the ceiling and a trail with torch stands every few feet on the sides of it that I saw. I didn''t think that a cave complex this large could be natural, and I felt that I might have found the last piece of the puzzle to what lives here, but I wasn''t going to get my hopes up yet by thinking that I was right about my guess, that could only lead to disappointment if I was wrong. I walked along the lit trail towards the stream in the distance, idly kicking a rock along the way. I stopped dead in my tracks after walking about 200 feet along the trail, squinting my eyes at something in the distance, hoping that I was not just hallucinating from mineshaft fumes. There about 400 feet from me was a short yet solidly built fisherman that had his back to me idly whistling as he held a very strange looking contraption pointed stilly at the water, I made sure to consciously moderate my speed as not to startle the man. I would hate for the first mortal being I met in this world to hate me cause I caused him to jump and fall over into the water. I calmly and surely walked toward to the man, unsure about how to start the conversation, but I suppose a "excuses me" would suffice. Once I was within about 45ft of the short but abnormally wide man, who at this point I was almost certain of the race of, and very excited about him being what I thought he was, I stepped towards him I simply intoned "Umm excuse me Sir?" at which point all hell broke loose. "YE WILL NEVA GET ME ALIVE YE PUKE SKINNED, POINTY EARED, KOBOLD FUCKERS!!" the dwarven man said as he swiveled around towards me with what i realized what was a harpoon gun, and fired. the spear from said harpoon gun going supernaturally fast passed my head and embedding itself two feet deep into one of the stalagmites behind me, what was the worst part about this though was that the dwarf has altered the aiming of his weapon at the last second to avoided hitting me, if he hadn''t meant to miss I might be dead, and the then things got worse, much worse. What felt like an underground explosion rippled through the ground between me and the dwarf oddly seeming to because by the air outside of the stalagmite going through the hole made by the magically rock piercing harpoon and interacting with some kind of chemically unstable material vein of material inside of the stalagmite. that somehow ran all the way from behind me to the middle of the stream the dwarf was harpoon fishing in, as I watched the upcoming disaster, as the ground between me and the dwarf, cracked and split, bellowed and moaned from the underground explosions that traveled toward the stream in seconds. just as the dwarf was beginning to run away from what he apparently knew as well would be a horrible end if he was caught near. The ground under his left foot buckled beneath him as he ran crumbling and swallowing his left leg up to mid thigh before encasing his leg in the ground. Right before the stream exploded into tiny pieces I saw a large vague shadowy shape under the water swimming right above the location I saw the underground explosive ore vein making its way towards. Then beyond all logic and circumstance the explosion KRACKOON under the water, directly below the large hazy shape spraying giant plumes of water and mist in the air. I watched in fascination and abject horror as the explosion launched a 7 foot probably 300 hundred pound carp which should by all means be dead launched through the air at high velocity, directly towards the dwarfs stuck, immobile form. A look of confusion had found its way across my face at this seemingly impossible lineup of circumstances that had happened to be able to cause this event. By this point I was pinching myself to make sure i wasn''t dreaming and I hadn''t slipped, fell and hit my head back in the mineshaft and I wasn''t dreaming up this whole ridiculous situation, but alas I felt a small twinge of pain from the pinching, and there was in fact a giant monstrous and angry looking carp flying through the air towards a harpoon fishing dwarf that had it''s leg stuck thigh deep in the ground and was looking at the approaching carp with wistful regret. "OH NO NOT AGAIN!" I felt my brain twitch and spasm in confused rage, and untamed curiosity at the dwarfs utterance at this point I was simply too dazed and confused by whatever the hell was going on to have much more reaction than watch the arc of the megalithic fish through the air as it sailed towards the dwarf. Finally the monster carp landed and somehow managed to do so directly on top of the now very sad looking dwarf, the fish apparently decided that it was very angry to be out of the water and out of it''s home environment, it also decided at that moment that the dwarf was a excellent target for it''s untamed wrath. I watched as dwarf and giant wish duke it out and a battle to the death, as the dwarf rapidly slapped his meaty hands against the fishes side, and the fish attempted to use it''s superior weight and ironically mobility to crush the dwarf. All as the very depressed looking rambled and ranted and raved at his current fate. "OH AYE ALWAYS KNEW IT WOUDA END THIS WAY, KILLED IN THE LINE OF DUTY BYA GIANT CARP, LIKE EVERY FISHERDWARF BEFORE ME" "WAITA MINUTE! STOPA STANDING THERE JERKIN YERE POLE YA SOFT, DAISY PICKIN, MUFFIN EATER! ISA THAT HAMMER FOR FIGHTIN, OR JUST YERE ASSPLUG THAT YE USE TO PLEASURE YERSELF ON LONELY NIGHTS!?!? HELP ME YA DAFT CUNT!" This was of course all screamed in a drunken scottish accent over the sounds of wet fish slapping and flopping against angry soggy dwarf, But despite the rathercoarse and rude way the dwarf had asked me for help, I agreed that I should stop lollygagging, plus I would be upset too if I was stuck inside the ground with a 600 pounds of fish laying on me while on top of all that some bumfuck what''s his face nobody wanders out of nowhere and causes me to waste my only weapon of self defense that I had that could reasonably use to resolve the problem of 600 pounds of angry carp angrily flailing against me. So i snapped out of my confusion induced daze and started sprinting hammer in hand to what would probably be the first of the many battles I would have in this land, hopefully the ones in the future had less carp though. I dashed forward with all the enhanced speed that i had, eating up the distance in less than a second, I lined up for a strike against the fishes head posing like a baseball player as i slid across the ground kicking up dust and I stop moving my feet in an attempt to get a solid swinging stance, and then with all my might unleashed the full brunt of my two handed hammers attack against the carp''s skull. I grimaced as fish shrapnel splattered all over me, the cavern, and the dwarf.. especially the dwarf. This first victory in what i hope would be a long career of heroing was accompanied by a cheery pop up message.
You have killed Giant Dwarf Hating Explosion Resistant Carp, You gain 237 EXP
You have gained a level 2x
You relationship with Logrom Grumblespine has increased from Irritated (-100 to -250) to Begrudging Friendship Don''t worry it''s a dwarf thing(+1500 to +3000) For the act of saving his life
The fish sauce covered dwarf looked up at me, a look of general gruff annoyance in his eyes, but grudging respect and gratefulness accompanying it. "Well ar ye going to help get this damned pig of the sea offa me, or do ya just want to gaze upon me beatiful counteance just a bit longer?" I snapped to attention and stopped fantasizing about my first level ups and helped the dwarf push what was left of the fish off of him. I helped the dwarf to his feet, where then we then began the first step of the ritual of the male bonding processes that was as old as it was completely unnecessary, and began sizing each other up. He looked at me seemingly attempting to place me or categorize me in his head as a threat, benign, or a ally, before he simply snorted and said "So Whata is a human doing, runnin around in the last mountainhold of the long forgotten dwarves? Didnt yere kind abandon the dwarves a long time ago and yere spines with it? I''a thought there wasn''t ah human left that wasn''t a lilly livered pansie, shitting their wee little panties over contracting the "dwarven curse", Yet here you are saving me beautiful beard from death bya a overly dwarflovin carp, now why is that?" "Well to be honest, some asshole teleported me into this mountain completely on a whim and i got dropped into a crossroads of a couple mineshafts a few hours back, Coming across you and killing Finley the Aerodynamic over there was a complete accident all things considered. Though not one that I wouldn''t do again really." The dwarf seemed to stare a hole into my forehead trying to detect any sign of deceit on my part or ulterior motive, being that dwarves being blunt seems to be a universal thing, he then simply asked the question he was thinking. So yere not another merchant hopin to swindle honest dwarf blacksmiths out of priceless dwarven armor and weapons with a bunch of fake adamant? Or a hired mercanary carrying a foladable portal that you''ll puta down in the middle of tha Forge that will spew goblins, ogres, and little fuckin gremlins from it''s black gaping asshole? AND DON''T LIE TA ME, DWARVES CAN SMELL LIES AS WELL AS A ELF LOVES TREES. I had to restrain a chuckle at the last part when I realized he was being completely serious and that it was not a joke in the slightest. "Nope and nope sir, I was teleported here without my consent just as I said I was, I didn''t even know where i was going to be shunted out to when I was teleported, I could''ve been teleported into a giant monsters colon for all I knew where I was going" The dwarf then quite liberally sniffed the air as I finished my sentence, stroking his beard and pondering on the smell of my words apparently." "And now that yere here you still don''t hava any intention to kill, maim, steal from, burn to smoke, eat, have sex with, horribly torture or do anthing else generally nasty and harmful to a member of the dwarven race?" "None whatsoever sir dwarf, I am simply a very lost adventurer trying to find my way through a very confusing world, nothing more nothing less, dwarves from what know are a honorable, honest, and loyal people, and I have no desire to cause harm to people of that variety." he inhaled air through his nose as hard the dwarf could manage, sniffing the air for lies like a bloodhound. He looked towards me sizing me up and down, and then for one reason or another, he seemed to find me satisfactory as a pleased expression appeared on his face. "Well yere words smell honest, and ya did save me from being Fishsticks next lover, hhmmmm..... alright then, Mah name is Logrom Grumblespine, FisherDwarf by trade, what did yere mam name you when she pumped you out?" I finally released one of the many laughs i''ve been holding back since I met the dwarf, as the choking tension in the air release and I could finally relax. "My name is Gabriel Norris, I guess right now i''m a adventurer by trade, though right now i''m just looking for some civilization of some kind and no adventures right now. I don''t want to impose but do you think you could lead me back to whatever town you live in? A warm bath and a hot meal would be fantastic right now." "Of course i''ll lead ya back to The Dwarf Fortress, ya saved mah life and more importantly passed the truth test to see if you were going to harm any dwarves, a dwarf who doesn''t pay his debts is no dwarf at all, just another elf wearing the skin of a dwarf, in some cases wearing the skin of a dwarf in the literal sense insteada the metaphorical one" I was honestly kind of horrified internally by that comment but I could roll with the punches, even if that punch was that elves in this universe wore other sentient humanoids skin to disguise themelves as other races apparently. "Thank you Logrom, Oh before we head off I have one more thing to ask, Are dwarves actually able to smell the truth?" "Nae of course not ya daft fool, I was justa yanking ye chain, though ever since that mercenary came into the Forgehall with that foldable portal saying that it connected to a supply of rare metals that he would be willing to trade us, and instead it released a bunch of gobbos, orges, and hundreds of little shit flinging gremlins, every dwarf in The Hold is now required to carry around a truth amulet wherever we go. Twas a good call i think, we still find one of those little fuckin gremlins every week or so, sometimes as just a corpses just lyin in a random safe, we haven''t even a clue how they die or get in there in tha first place." I looked quizzically at the dwarf, morbidly curious as to if this story was actually true or he was just bullshitting me again. "Nah! i''m completely serious one day you''ll go to put some of your hard earned coin from an ale drinking competition in yere safe so you can drink more booze when times get rough, and then as you open your safe and the stench hits ya. POW! dead gremlin sittin right there in yere safe, when there was no gremlin corpse there yesterday, and now all yere life savings smell like rotting meat and gremlin asshole, iz terrible I tell ya." "Wow that''s uhhh.... odd i guess.... do you have any more interesting factoids about dwarven daily life? Ones unrelated to gremlin corpses of course" We continued making conversation as we made our way down the trail, Logrom of course putting out most of the conversation material as dwarven life was fucking crazy, as I was about to find out personally better than any other non dwarf on the planet. "Well I know most humans can''t really tell the difference between a male and a female dwarf with their clothes on, as they we all have beards no matter the gender. But ye see it''s all about the silkiness and thickness of the beard." Not A Chapter - POLLS FOR THE POLL GOD, LORE FOR THE LORE THRONE I wanted to ask the readers about any ideas they might have for factions in the differentt parts of the world, As I realized compared to savage caniibalistic, skin walker elves, or the hyper unlucky god cursed dwarven race. That the factions of the Norsemen in the roaring exspanse just being regular norsemen, and orcs just being proud warrior types was a bit boring, so I wanted to ask my wonderful readers if they had any ideas for that. Leave your thoughts in the comments section, and don''t forget to vote on the poll, as I had an idea for the norsemen culture and I would like a vote on it.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it. Not A Chapter 2 - Would You Like To Know More? Took a break from actually writing chapters yesterday because my brain still felt like goop and I felt it might detract from the quality of my writing. But i¡¯m good now after a 1 days break and i¡¯m eager to start a new chapter, stay tuned for an actual chapter, hopefully the next one won¡¯t take 15 hours of writing and editing straight to get out with semi decent polish and grammar. Maybe one day i¡¯ll be able to pump out 14k words like that in a single day with a reasonable amount of quality with 8 hours of work, make myself more efficient ya know? anyways this is also sadly not a chapter but another poll, I was thinking that the amount you guys know about the lore of the world is rather miniscule, so I wanted to find a way to have some exposition/lore put before you without having the MC read a history book for 5 chapters, which would neitheir be entertaining, nor in character. So I had the though of basically having a single chapter every 3 chapters or so be a lore chapter where I explain important going on''s of the world or just general facts about it''s history, races, technology, magic and events that shaped it, so this chapter is a poll to figure out if you guys are intrested in learning the lore of the world, or if I just shouldn''t even bother because everyones a uncultured philistine. Vote in the poll above.You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. Chapter 5 - Glimblors Law I had been walking with Logrom for the better part of 2 hours and during this time period learned many things about dwarven culture and biology, some would even say an uncomfortable amount, as most people did not want to know that dwarven genitalia was not just girthy, but long and girthy.... very girthy. This was of course when I asked Logrom for a change of subject and he just wiggled his eyebrows at me and then proceeded to get even more in depth about dwarven mating rituals, and then proceeded to tell me that beard hair ripping was the dwarven to human equivalent of hardocre sadism and emasculation during sex. As usual I could not tell for the life of me whether he was completely serious or just fucking with me, but I took it all with rapt interest just the same, also during this period I had managed to bump up my relationship with the dwarf to higher levels, most likely thanks to the traits that made it easier to bump my relationship scores with people as long as I was a good samaritan and volunteered at soup kitchens or whatever.
Your relationship with Logrom Grumblespine has improved to Drinking Buddy, Also a dwarf thing (+3000 to +7500) for the act of him getting to know and better trust you, don''t break this trust, there are not many forces more spiteful on Eo than a disappointed dwarf.
Luckily we had managed to move on into conversations that involved less euphemisms about the dwarven penis, and by less I meant a large amount instead of every other word, one thing was for sure, ethier dwarves one and all had the mouths of a drunken sailor, or Lorgrom was just a very gifted and talented dwarf. "Ah human drinking Dwarven Ale is kinda like making love to ah dwarven women, Sure at first it''s ah overpowering and horrifying experience, but once you get past the fact that it''s stronger than you are, has hair in places yere pretty sure it shouldn''t, and makes yah feel like a wee pansie and you just get drunk on the sensations of it, it''s an absolute blast. Right up until yah pass tha out from overexertion, it''s ah experience tha all dwarven men canna remember and cherish I tell yah." Talking to Logrom was also kind of like riding a rollercoaster, sure sometimes it was horrifying and made you wanna hurl, but it also was a shitton of fun if you had the courage and stomach for it. The perpetual honesty and upfrontness of the man was also a extremely refreshing experience, after having to deal with people all my life that just skirted around issues and problems they had with you to avoid upsetting you, which for me was extremely annoying as I preferred that if you had a problem with me to just talk about it so we could come up with a resolution. I also now knew how to tell apart dwarven men and women, though Logrom insisted that all dwarves had beards I had the sneaking suscipion that he was once again playing a practical joke, luckily telling them apart from appearance of beard alone was just Logrom fucking with me. According to Logrom it was pretty apparent when a dwarf spoke from their voice what gender they were, and even if they had a rather confusing voice for their gender, you could probably tell from their name and stature what their gender was, he doing a pretty good job of mixing truth with fact, I also really hoped that female dwarves didn''t have beards, As Logrom very eloquently put it. "Male and Female dwarves are very similar in height and weight normally, What''a sets them apart is tha distribution of that''a weight, Male dwarves ara top haevy, bigger chests and biceps for carryin things and puttin axes in goblin faces, While''a female dwarves are bottom haevy, witha big birthin hips, and thighs for carryin forge equipment, Dwarves are wide at birth too ya know. Though if imma honest with maself I like this evolutionary trait for more reasons thana just the fact that me mum is less likely to get hurt while pushin me out." The dwarf of course said that last sentence while wiggling his rather large caterpillar like orange eyebrows, as he knew it made me slightly uncomfortable and therefore found it hilarious. Logrom was a rather boisterous person as was true for the rest of the race, he was short but very wide and muscular especially around the back and chest areas as were most all dwarfs. What set Logrom apart was that he was especially proud of his beard, which was heavily ornamented with artistic silver clasps and intricately braided, he also insisted before we set off to the Dwarf Fortress of Last Stand that he clean the fish guts off of it in the stream because as he put it "Mah wife will kill me if I come home with mah beard smelling like ah fishes taint, and than how will I get some sweet lovin from mah wife after ah hard day''s work? I nearly got killed, and some alone time with me lass would be glorious for relieving some of mah stress." I felt like the last part was added just to fuck with me, but then again " too much information" was not a thing in dwarven culture. As we were walking I remembered something that I was curious about but that had faded to the back ground that I wanted to ask, I remembered that Logrom has offhandedly mentioned a dwarven curse of some variety and it was what I hoped would be a conversation topic that could get him to stop making euphemisms about how dwarven smithing is similar to dwarven marriage and child care, both of which were rather hardcore in dwarven culture thought of more as a form of art than a job, as dwarven teenagers were some of the most stubborn, obstinate, and pigheaded people on the planet, and arguments between dwarven husbands and wives were like a sport to the dwarves, and legendary between the other races who had the honor to witness one. whoever could say the angriest, most disgusting, and loudest insults without actually getting angry, while still intertwining your insult and your reasoning in the same sentence, won the argument. "Hey Logrom, forgive my ignorance but you mentioned something about a dwarven curse earlier and i''m afraid i''ve never actually heard anything about such a thing. Do you think you can explain what this curse is if you don''t find?" "Nice try friend, but yere going to learn the similarities between holy matrimony and creating a masterwork dwarven weapon whether you like it or not!. AS I WAS SAYIN BEFORE I WAS RUDELY INTERRUPTED!" "No Logrom really, while it''s true that your culture is rather strange to me and I would like to save more talk about dwarven culture for later as my head hurts from the info dump you''ve already given me. I really do know nothing about the dwarven curse, I''m not exactly from around the local human kingdoms." Logrom raised his eyebrows in a incredulous "Oh Really?" motion, while crossing his arms and turning to face me. This look dropped off his face as he looked towards his truth amulet with a confused and aggrieved expression on his face." "Yere serious aren''t you?, Have you been livin under ah rock in tha ground all yere life! or are the humans so ashamed of not helpin us in out in our time ah need! that they just tore us from tha history books!, AND FORGOT ABOUT US ALL TOGETHER!! THE DISGRACEFUL, DISHONORABLE, GOBLIN FUCKERS!" "Hey Lorgom! if it''s that sensitive of a subject you don''t have to talk about it you know, i''m not going to force you to tell me about something that''s so very sensitive, even if I am admittedly very curious." The little man looked up at me with a fuming expression on his face, But he didn''t look angry at me but just at the fact that he thought the entirety of humanity had cast off the dwarves like dirty laundry out of the history books." "No i''m going to tell you the history of the dwarven curse, and yere going to sit down, shut up, and listen witha rapt attention! It''s my duty as one''a the dwarven race to pass on the legacy of the dwarves in anyway I can, for as long as I can. Right up until every last dwarf is once again one with the stone. So let''s sit down for now and let me tell you the story of the enacting of the curse of Glimblor''s Law. It all starts with Armok, Leader of tha Dwarven Pantheon an God of Smithing An Honor, Armok wasa up in tha Celestial Realms gambling with his ah recent addition to the Elven Pantheon, Glimblor A Elven Trickster God, Armok was especially hammered on divine ale taday and Glimblor had on their first meeting convinced the inebriated Armok to bet the Artifact crossbow Impaler The Ever Crippling, that Armok had made a few years back in a game of gambling, after some haggling the treacherous elven god convinced Armok to bet the crossbow in a game that was completely luck based, where the first person to reach a total of 100 on rolling 2 six sided dice would win. If the elf won he would get the crossbow, if Armok won the elf would have to wear a pink sparklin tutu to the next meeting that at least 10 Gods attended. But alas, a elven god wearing a pink tutu was not to be, Glimblor won bya one point with Armok getting 99 to Glimblor''s 100. Armok was understandably disappointed by this, but he was a honorable dwarf and fair was fair, or at least he thought."The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. "A few hours later as Armok was workin on buildin his next Artifact, when Grilgrun Dwarven God of Insight, Hindsight, an only some Foresight went over to Armok and asked if he could borrow the Ever Crippler as some nambie pambie Demon Lord named Xanolluur had insulted him for the fact that a god of truth seeing could see the truth of the past and present, but not the future while the Demon Lord could. Grilgrun was going to go over there and show that Demon what for, but as Grilgrun was ranting about all the things he would do to the Demon Lord, Armok informed him that he had lost the Ever Crippler in a gambling game with Glimblor, but it was one of pure luck so he hadn''t been tricked. This was when Grilgrun informed Armok that Glimblor was not only a trickster God, but also a God of Luck and that he was a fucking idiot when he was drunk. He then told Armok with his limited foresight that he should go kick that elfs ass, Armok in his drunken and furious state agreed, Then in a fury burst out of his workshop gates for dramatic effect and then teleported to Glimblor''s divine domain. Glimblor simply looked at the aggrieved dwarf with ah smug an knowing expression on his face, daring to tell the dwarf that he had made a deal an that he should honor as a real dwarf should. they say that the expression on Armoks face as his Honor and Fury warred for dominance enough to make Demons shit their breaches in terror, normally Armok, being the great and powerful divinity that he is, would have been able to do something that was impossible for most mortal dwarfs and resist his rage no matter if he was drunk or not. But Armok was not just any kind of drunk, smashed, pissed, or hammered, Armok was an absolute trainwreck, and they say that for the first time in the millenia that had taken place Armok since Armok had ascended to divinity, Armok blacked out, the combination of 15 barrels Divine Dwarven Moonshine, and horrible furious anger at being tricked and insulted by a no good dishonorable elf was simply too much for any dwarf to handle." "When Armok awakened he was lying with the Ever Crippler in his hands sitting on the partially destroyed golden throne of Glimblor The Gambler, it appeared to be half turned to slag and horribly deformed from it''s once admittedly wonderful craftsmanship, still a bit elfy though. Even through Armok''s godly hangover he noticed that the forest realm where Glimblor lived was very much on fire and still burning. He then had his anger flare as he looked for that bastard Glimblor that he still had to get some kind of recompense from, until he noticed a shape floating in what seemed to be a pool of dwarven feces that he think he had at some point teleported to Glimblor''s realm. This shape was the craven form of Glimblor, floating in a pool of dwarven shite with an arrow from the Ever Crippler in his groin, dwarven vengeance seemed to have already been exacted in a drunken dwarven blackout, it was actually common for the first thing blackout drunk dwarves did is to try and exact vengeance on their enemies. But i¡¯m getting off topic, anyways justice had been exacted, and Armok simply nodded in satisfaction, as Glimblor seemed to be still alive despite the arrow in his crotch and the pool of dwarven shite he was floating in. But this fair and honorable vengeance was not without price, for no honorable deed will go unpunished, after a few years of everything going on as normal, besides having Glimblor trying to trick Armok into doing things which would hurt him or the dwarven race, which always failed as whenever Glimblor was around Armok just called up Grilgrun for his great insight on avoiding being tricked. Until eventually Glimblor stopped coming to try and trick Armok, it is said that he in fact stopped coming out of his now fortified against teleportation divine realm at all. He stayed in his divine realms, acting like the scared, underhanded little pansie he was. Until one day as Armok was finishing up another Artifact armor set for one of his greatest champions, he noticed that the amount of dwarves transitioning to the afterlife has multiplied exponentially in seconds, in a panic he shifted his attention to tha mortal realms, watchin in horror as more complicated dwarven machinery failed catastrophically and Kabboomed outwards destroying entire dwarven settlements in seconds, dwarves outside across the realm were struck by lighting reapeatedly, an monster hordes an tribes redirected their warpaths towards dwarven settlements and towns, seemingly at random. the amount of rockslides and avalanches happenin in dwarven mines multiplied by 200 times in just ah week, forge spills, machinery failures, and other seemingly random an increasingly improbable failures seemed to happen as if they were ordained by fate to do so by any means necessary, an the great dwarven race started to slowly but surely, despite it''s empire and banner spanning half tha continent, shrinked an died like a dwarven erection after seeing a elf shave a dwarf''s beard." "An finally after centriues weh find ourselves here, in tha last surviving dwarven mountain hold in Eo, slowly dyin out from rock slides, water contamination, and goblin raids, the great dwarven race brought low by tha curse of a cowardly an deceitful elfish deity because they wouldn''t own up to being tricking the Allfather, an the worst part is that the bastard god can''t undo the curse because casting it cost him so much power it went up an killed him before tha council of gods could force him to undo it for interfering directly in mortal affairs. Now every dwarf is born with a curse embedded in their status sheet, something that will hound them throughout their entire lives, that my friend is tha curse of Glimblor''s Law, what can go wrong will, an small mistakes are punished with tha death of the offending dwarf. Make no mistake Gabriel, the world is quite literally out to get tha dwarves. I don''t know how ya don''t know about somethin that at least used ta be common knowledge from what I know. *Sigh*.... All this talk abouta The Curse has gotten me all bitter, and it''s no use for ah dwarf to be sour at our lot, I''d personally much rather spend mah final days gettin shit faced with mah fellow dwarves and mah newest friend, and when we do you''re going to tell me what rock ya buried yereself under to not know about tha dwarven curse. Now let''s get going again, were close to tha first wall of tha Fortress and i''m parched fere ale, also could you pull tha fish cart? I already smell like fish, an you can consider it repayment for gettin me worked up an for me answering yere question." I couldn''t argue with that logic, and he did look rather tired from pulling the wheelbarrow with a 600 pound fish all this way, he also hadn''t complained about having to carry it all this way at all. "Of course Logrom and thank you for informing me about the curse, even if it upset you, if I knew it was so personal to all the dwarves I wouldn''t have asked at all." "Nonsense lad, if dwarves shied away from things that were painful that we would have already offed ourselves already, and you dinna mean any harm by it so it''s no problem. And if yere still sore abouta making me get mah britches in ah twist about The Curse when we get there, then yah can apologize by buying me a round of ale at the tavern. Now where was I about marriage and dwarven masterworks? Ah! as I was saying both marriage an making masterwork weapons are a lifelong endeavor." Chapter 6 - Smashed On Dwarven Ale Logrom and I had been walking and talking for about 20 minutes after his outburst about the dwarvish curse, but luckily dwarves seemed to be a very resilient people and Logrom was back to his ole cheery, boisterous, sailor mounted self in no time. The fact that the man was not some bleak shell of a person after the tragedy that had befallen him and his race was actually rather astounding. In just about 20 minutes he was already blustering on about dwarven culture and its glory, while dwarven culture did have its little eccentricities that were odd yet funny, like the husband and wife shouting matches being a sport to the dwarves. Dwarven culture was not defined by these strange behaviours. Dwarf culture was actually founded on the worship of the 10 ancestor kings and queens that had risen the dwarven city state of Last Stand to a country that had occupied half the continent. These kings and queens of legend were Armok The First Smith, Gimli The Reclaimer, Nismora The Valkyrie, Ignora The Adamant, Gyrkyl The Ever Loyal, Urist The Clown Slayer, Gymsora The Untier, Armnir The Builder, Magmar The Honorable, and, finally, the last and actual current ancestor king. He had allowed the dwarves to survive to the point they did under his supervision, which by itself had earned him the title of ancestor king. They called him Eldest, for he was the only living dwarf who had survived the cataclysm hundreds of years ago to this day. His full title was Eldest The Wise, for only through this ancient crusty dwarf''s wisdom had the dwarves survived till now. He was also, according to Logrom, quite possibly the most badass dwarf that wasn''t a God who ever lived, maybe even stronger than Urist Clown Slayer. Hundreds of years of hardship, along with the fact that dwarves got tougher and stronger with age, meant that Eldest had been forged into a absolute terror in combat. Not only was Eldest tough as a Adamant brick at this point, but also quite literally able to crush enchanted plate armor with his bare hands. Though I think Logrom explained it better, "Eldest is one of tha few dwarves I would not even fight blackout drunk, not only have I seen him stop tha charge of ah Rocarz Juggernaut dead in its tracks with ah greatshield, which if ya have never seen or heard''ve ah Rocarz Juggernaut before, I''ve personally seen that same Juggernaut charge through fortifications of heavily enchanted steel battlements. They are tha nightmare of dwarf artitechs everywhere, but not only did Eldest stop its charge, tha crazy bastard knocked it over, if you''ve never seen ah four foot dwarf jump kick over ah monster that''s 20 feet tall, while yellin at his fellow dwarves to make sure tha feastin hall is ready for a surplus of Rocarz meat, you''re missin out me friend. Not just because Rocarz meat is magically delicious. So listen to ma advice when I say to listen when eldest speaks, not only is he terrifyin when he wants to be, but he isn''t wise for nothin, dwarf has ah sixth sense for good and bad decisions, no matter how tough a dwarf ya are you don''t survive witha luck score of -100 for long makin big mistakes all tha time." The point seemed to be that the ancestor kings and queens were all very important for a reason, as each king was named an eternal ancestor king for merit and not out of flights of fancy or any amount of political maneuvering. Each ancestor, when they were named, also had a tradition that was established based on their deeds that was established when they were named an ancestor that every dwarf was expected to follow. Each time these traditions were established they changed dwarven culture drastically. For instance, the first ancestor king Armok The Smith and now God of the Dwarven Pantheon after his ascension from crafting the Axe Of Ascension, had established the Tradition Of Smithing, which made it so any proper dwarf was required to be taught at least novice smithing in school. Which by the standards of other races was smithing skills of at least a journeymen smith, they also made many other small changes which made smithing a very attractive job to have in dwarven lands. Dwarves had very high quality standards and took craftsmanship very seriously. The tradition that Eldest had established was the tradition of Temperance And Wisdom, all dwarves throughout the land were required to go through The Gauntlet at the age of 30 after which they were considered adults, I had asked Logrom what is in the Gauntlet and he simply chuckled and shook his head before telling me. "Sorry friend but that''s a dwarven secret that I don''t want to and am not allowed to divulge, unless the current Ruler of dwarvenkind names you a Honorary Dwarf, which unless you do something more foolish heroic is impossible. Nothing against you ma friend, your even the kind of person I would drink ale with, but some dwarven secrets are closely guarded for good reason." There were ten Traditions that defined dwarven culture at differing levels, each making large changes to the way dwarven society functioned, and the through the power of the dwarven gods, changed the dwarves themselves. I wanted to ask Logrom about Urist The Clown Slayers Tradition Of Clown Slaying, as I was pretty sure that dwarves had no reason to hate clowns that much, but as I was about to ask why part of dwarven culture was based around killing jesters in heavy makeup Logrom shushed me and pointed to a rocky outcropping on the horizon. "See that thing that looks like a rock outcroppin on tha horizon, just focus on it really hard for a second." And so I did, putting the most intense scrutiny I could into staring at this piece of rock, and then slowly the image of a rocky outcropping started to fade away like a after image and it behind that illusion was the image of a gigantic wall of jet black metal with lines of another silvery metal going through it, it also had glowing runic markings of various colors adding to the impression it had of a unassailable fortress, not to mention that the walls seemed to even from here to be mind bogglingly tall. "Well never let it be said that the dwarves can''t build some badass fortresses." "Ah broke through tha illusion already huh?, you must have some good willpower in that noggin of yours, I was just gonna let yah struggle for a bit before I showed you how ta break through tha illusion. But here you are ruinin all me fun, what''s a dwarf to do if he can''t play some jokes on his friends?" Logrom of course did the trademark eyebrow waggle that usually came along with his attempts at practical jokes. I rolled my eyes with a slight smile on my face at his antics, though he did try to mess with me in some way every 5 minutes, it was the good kind of jabbing that friends did to eachother, and had no chance of getting me hurt so I really didn''t mind. "So that''s the Last Stand huh? I would call it impressive but that would practically be a insult to whatever dwarf built the thing, that thing isn''t a Fortress, it''s like a kingdom all it''s own!" "Ah, if ya think that tha outer walls are that impressive, ya might have trouble hidin yere manly tears of amazement at tha inner walls. Ah piece of livin history tha Last Stand is, originally commanded to be built by Armok himself to be tha first great dwarven city and fortress in our history. Then upgraded by Armnir Tha Builder and the building that got him named an Ancestor, ya see, tha last stand while already impressive built by some of the best dwarven architects of old out of enchanted steel multiple feet thick. Didn''t hold a candle to what Armnir made it into, Armnir tore down every defensive fortification there and rebuilt it stronger than ever out of pure Blacksteel, with Adamant veins runnin through it and then on topa that had the best abujuration casters he could find, dwarven or not, drown the walls in defensive magics and trap spells for any poor soul dumb enough to try and attack the dwarves in it. Now we have The Last Stand, a pure Blacksteel Fortress with walls 80 feet tall and 6 feet thick, that is so steeped in defensive magic, that in tha battle after it was named tha World Eater horde of about 5.7 million beasties of many different species, tha one that had near consumed tha entire Kingdom of Arcadia. was defeated in ah siege that lasted 1 week of time, with only casualties comparatively small to the enemy force of about four thousand five hundred dwarves, with tha enemy being near wiped out by tha combined forces of one thousand dwarven siege weapons, Mastercrafted Flamespitter weaponry, Dwarven Aegis Guards on tha walls, and tha Artifact cannon Titan Breaker, it was one for tha history books mah friend. And no force on Eo has dared to try ta take on tha dwarves of Last Stand since, and no amount of bad luck could ever nullify the advantage that tha Fortress brings us. We have owned this city as the cradle of dwarven civilization since the beginning when we were just ah small city state thousands of years ago, back when the first dwarves crawled out of the stone from the heart of these very mountains. It is out cradle and birthplace, and I if it must be so, I will also be proud to call it our grave, let it be ah monument to tha dwarves so we may never be forgotten, even if that rememberance is just that dwarves once built this great bastion. But whatever our first and last home may become in tha future, I will always be proud to say that I lived here as one of tha dwarven people. Welcome Gabriel Norris to tha last great Dwarven Fortress of The Last Stand, I hope ya enjoy yere stay, though were sadly lacking in tourist spots compared to say tha mage tower of Pinnacle, but Think you¡¯ll still like us better after some high quality Dwarven Mead and Cuisine. You humans know how to make Cheese, Mushrooms, or Barbecue about as well as a dwarf can write elvish poetry. If ya buy tha first round i¡¯ll see if I can manage to get some Glowing Riscot cheese for ya so you can finally have true faith in tha dwarven God of Cooking, Ale and Beauty Brunhilda Meadborn, you¡¯ll find for dwarves that those 3 go hand and hand. To ah dwarf there¡¯s nothin more beautiful then comin home from a long and hard, yet successful day at tha forge and findin yere lass at tha door witha meat, cheese, and mushroom kabob and cold mead in hand askin ya how yere day was. Anyways we only have about 30 minutes of walkin left ta go and then I can show ya true beauty in tha liquid gold form of Dwarf Ale, now pick up tha pace ma girl Gelri is probably missin me and thinkin about datin another dwarf cause I might be dead. And then I would have ta fight another dwarf to restore ma honor, and I¡¯ve had enough fightin for today after gettin covered in Finley¡¯s brains. And so we set off to the Fortress on the horizon, and as the fortress grew larger in my vision it only became more impressive. Every inch of the dwarven walls were not only covered in glowing runes which I guessed to be the warding magic that Logrom was talking about, it was also covered in murals and carvings of different scenes into the walls themselves, not only that but all of them beautifully flowed into the next like pieces of history and victories, hardships, losses, and events that seemed vitally important in some fashion, every piece of the wall was given detail and artistry that a single person could spend a lifetime on and call it a masterpiece like that of mona lisa, but there were thousands of them. ¡°Ah interested in tha artistry are ya? When I said that Last Stand was a piece ah livin history I meant it in more ways than one, one of tha last acts of Armnir Tha Builder was to pray to tha dwarven Gods to make sure this fortress and tha dwarves would always be remembered throughout time. So they say tha dwarven gods for tha first time in hundreds of years left their respective divine realms and got in ah room together to make an enchantment that would last forever, since that day every time ah important event that happens that involves ah dwarf takes place, ah depiction of that event embeddeds itself into tha walls of Last Stand forever. Fascinating isn¡¯t it?, tha entire history of tha dwarves or at least every piece of it that matters to tha dwarves is somewhere on these walls, from when the dwarves first made alcohol, to about 3 hours later when ah dwarf first got into ah the first drunken brawl. This is all of dwarven history in tha form of art, and no amount of pansie elven artists could ever top it, if you would allow a dwarf his pride.¡± ¡°Of course you can be proud of such a fantastic monument of your people, it would be insane not to be. If my country had anything like this I probably wouldn¡¯t be as bitter as I am about it, also remind me when we have a long time to talk to tell you where I come from, it¡¯s a rather long story.¡±This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. ¡°Aye, I¡¯ve been wondering about that meself, I have my suspicions about yere origins but I don¡¯t want ta jump ta any conclusions and be called crazy by you or ma brethren. Wouldn¡¯t want ta scare off the first human with any spine I meet in ma lifetime, I gotta show you off ta ma friends like ah rare jewel or magic item. Maybe if i¡¯m lucky you¡¯ll get enough attention for me to pawn you of to a noble or rich merchant and then i¡¯ll never have to fish and risk gettin killed by fish ever again.¡± ¡°Yes Logrom save your drunken fantasies for when were actually drunk, plus without me to show off how would you impress the dwarven ladies with your incredibly rare brave human? I honestly thought you had more foresight then that.¡± ¡°First off, who ever said I wasn¡¯t drunk, and secondly ya might have ah point if not for tha fact that ah love me lass to much to even think about other women, and also she¡¯d kill me, so it¡¯s you with tha lack of foresight ma friend, cheatin on ah dwarven woman is tha fastest way to lose yere manhood ya know.¡± We stared fiercely into eachothers eyes challenging each others viewpoints in a battle of sheer wit and scholarly acumen¡­ and then we laughed as we walked getting closer to the dwarven city and by extension to some more quality provisions than just dried mushrooms and Mullae jerky. After about 20 more minutes of walking and talking we found ourselves at the gates of the mighty dwarven settlement were two tired and bored looking guards looked me over suspiciously. ¡°Oi Logrom where ya been and who¡¯s tha tag along, you seem to still be alive and in one piece despite going so far outside of town, but bad luck still seems to have brought something nasty back with ya.¡± ¡°Oh pull tha stick out of yere arse Bromull and just truth see ma friend over here, he saved mah life ya fuckin taint licker, and if you insult him yere gonna have words with ma wife and me, and you know she¡¯ll snap ya in half with her bare hands like ah goblin sword to ah dwarven mace.¡± The guard looked at Logrom with angry eyes but otherwise complied, and proceeded to ask me a bunch of questions that became increasingly more personal, it started with do you intend to harm the dwarves in this fort and eventually became how many times have I shit myself as an adult, after which his partner punched him in the back of the head and knocked him unconscious. ¡°Sorry about Bromull lad, but he doesn¡¯t like humans on tha best of days, especially after one of them sneaked into his house and stole all of his mead, he¡¯s also kinda an arsehole when he¡¯s tired, like a big cranky baby. Anyways ya passed tha test to come in, wait a bit while I mission control to teleport you in, just stand in that circle over there and we''ll get you right inside.¡± He then talked to someone or another on what seemed to be a glowing blue and yellow marble while me and Logrom walked onto a circular platform on the ground made of a dark greenish metal that after about 25 minutes of hearing the guard talk to someone on the other end, mostly it was them confirming that a human had passed the truth test and making sure I wasn¡¯t jailed for suspicion by other dwarves in the city. After those 25 minutes the go ahead was given and the platform began glowing a soft green light and in a flash of that green light I found myself transported to what seemed to be a marketplace that was fairly empty. ¡°Tha streets are fairly empty at this timea night, If ya want to find some other dwarves you¡¯d have to go ta ah tavern, which luckily for us is exactly where we''re going. Follow me companion, were going to get you pissed on dwarven ale or mah name isn¡¯t Logrom Grumblespine!¡± And so Logrom led me to a tavern dubbed ¡°The Raging Cock¡± which had the image of a very angry looking chicken on its front. This tavern was also surrounded by what Logrom said was called the Ale Guard that was responsible for basically babysitting dwarves while they were drunken so they couldn¡¯t do anything that would hurt themselves or those around them, as a dwarf was more prone to suffer the bad effects of the curse and make some really bad decisions while drunk. The idea of dwarves giving up alcohol was unthinkable for them, so the Ale Guard was born so dwarves could get shitfaced and have rowdy parties as safely as you could as a dwarf. While the city streets were mostly deserted, the tavern was still very much filled with dwarves, that is also when I finally and happily confirmed my suspicion that female dwarves didn¡¯t have beards, though from their figures everything else I had been told by Logrom about dwarven biology was completely true, as every barmen had arms and chest like a bodybuilder and while the dwarves were about 4 feet 6 inches tall including the males, with the female barmaids it was rather hard not to notice their ahem, assets that they had for their lower body, if I wasn¡¯t already taken I might¡¯ve been actually a bit embarrassed about Logrom¡¯s comments about me being enamoured by true dwarven beauty. A thing that I found awesome about dwarven culture was that while it was very macho, both the dudes and dudettes acted the same way, and it seemed they had a rather even amount of barmen and barmaids for both male and female audiences to ogle. And the workers didn¡¯t really seem to mind a bicep or crotch squeezed here or a ass slapped there, and in fact some seemed to enjoy the attention, which was a big departure from the rather puritan culture of earth were sexuallity was a sacred thing that should be closely guarded. Which I honestly me or my wife never really understood, the only reason I wasn¡¯t really interested in the rather short but beautiful women was that at this point in time I really missed my wife and didn¡¯t really have eyes for anyone but her right now. Maybe that would change in time but right now even if I was getting eyes from the more curious and more drunk dwarven women I currently wasn¡¯t interested in anything but trying food from a completely different world, getting completely pissed drunk and partying with a new friend until I work up in the morning with a headache that would make even a dwarf cry. Which was exactly what I was about to do, Logrom seemed to recognize one table of people and led me over towards them. ¡°Hey you rowdy bastards how ya been!¡± Logrom shouted out to them. ¡°Oi Logrom ya still alive after takin another ill advised trip to tha outer edges of dwarven territory? You just might be tha luckiest dwarf in existence, but that¡¯s not sayin much honestly¡± ¡°Ah shut yere trap Hulmyr, if we wanted to hear another of yere speeches we would¡¯ve already tied ye to ah steel pole, stabbed it in tha table, and poked ya with sticks until ya blathered on about the survival of the dwarven race some more. Gabriel these are me mates and matettes, Hulmyr, Morgrim, Torigg, Redbelle, and Brilldess, you fuckin crazy lot have the honor of meetin ma new best friend Gabriel Norris, he both passed tha truth test, saved me from a 600 pound flyin fish and more importantly doesn¡¯t seem like ah total prick thus far, unlike tha rest of ya.¡± The redheaded girl dwarf named Redbelle spoke up ¡°What Logrom, Gelri not enough for ya anymore, need ta spice up tha relationship with some manly affection? Or is your hammer just no longer enough for Gelri¡¯s anvil on it¡¯s own?¡± It looked like Logrom was about to bring a comeback to Redbelle, but I held up my hand in a I got this motion then centered my gaze on Redbelle as the entire table held their breath and waited for what would be my introduction to the group. ¡°No Logrom¡¯s hammer works just fine from the uncomfortable amount he¡¯s told me, i¡¯m just here because he told me about his desperate friend Redbelle who is down on her luck because no dwarf in the city will bed her. As they say that she has warts as ugly as her personality in strange places, and has journeyed far and wide to find a human who doesn¡¯t how foul the nether regions or heart may be, because Logrom is the best friend a dwarf could have. I say that you should buy Logrom a round of ale for his kindness, isn¡¯t that right Logrom?¡± The table of dwarves look towards each other and then towards me as I looked at them with baited breath as I hoped I hadn¡¯t botched my introduction¡­. And then released that breath when the dwarves started laughing uncontrollably and hysterically, with hands slapping the table, and spittle flying from how hard they were laughing. (Morgrim) ¡°Ya hear that Redbelle? be ah dear and buy us all ah round for Logrom¡¯s generosity maybe if you get tha human drunk enough he¡¯ll actually even sleep with ya! Despite ya ugly personality and tha genital warts!¡± ¡°Ah fuck you Morgrim, if anyone has bad enough hygiene here for genital warts it¡¯s you, every time ya come to tha tavern I can smell ya comin before ya enter and if ya touched any cookin equipment ya would never be able to make it clean again. In fact ma guess is that they throw out all the utensils you use here so ya don¡¯t poison tha other patrons. Also new blood, Gabriel yere name was, you¡¯ve proved you have teeth enough to keep up with ah dwarf in insults, but let¡¯s see if ya can keep it up after a few pints of dwarven ale. If ya have any spare status points I recommend you put them all into constitution right now, lest ya drop after tha first pint like most humans i¡¯ve seen drink. Yere a cute one for ah human if ah bit gangly, so if ya prove yereself and last 3 pints I might let you put yere money were yere mouth is and take ya home with me. But ah human like yereself obviously doesn¡¯t have enough endurance to keep up with ah dwarf so don¡¯t even disappoint yereself by fallin after tha first pint.¡± I realized that I still had about 10 unspent status points, which I immediately put all of them into constitution, which brought me to a constitution of 24 and I felt my body shift and change as my Con nearly doubled, instead of it hurting like with agility it was actually a rather pleasant sensation, I was also filled to the brim with new energy it was time to outdrink some dwarves. ¡°In fact I did have some spare points, get ready to swallow those words, i¡¯m about to drink you under the table and your pride along with it!¡± ¡°Oh them¡¯s fightin words boy!, If ya can manage ta back them up ma words might not be tha only thing ya make me swallow tonight pretty boy!¡± she said with a teasing grin on her face, as I consider how attracted I actually was to the 5 foot 2 inch girl, which was actually rather tall for a dwarf. (Brilldess) ¡°Didn¡¯t knew you were in ta humans ya deviant, what were the rumors of loneliness more than just rumors?, or are ya just too curious than is good for ya?¡± ¡°Shut yere damn trap Brilldess, i¡¯m an adventurer in more than just mah job ya know, If ya want to take dicks so wide it feels like yere havin ah iron ingot shoved inside ya every time, then you go ahead, I however like enjoying maself. And I wasn¡¯t kiddin when I said you were a cute one pretty boy.¡± I looked toward the redheaded women and simply shrugged, while right now I couldn¡¯t really get my mind off of Yenefer and how much it aches inside my heart to think about how much I missed her and how no one could ever replace her. Maybe that would change after a few drinks so I could get rid of this pain just for a little bit, while I didn¡¯t want to drink my sorrows away and make any other similarly bad decisions. Maybe loosening up a little with some alcohol and having some female companionship to distract me from my sorrows wouldn¡¯t be so bad. Like I said before me and Yennefer never really understood the sacredness of monogamy or sex, we were all just pieces of meat that felt things in the end anyways, we just had so much love for eachother that other people weren¡¯t even a thought in our minds, sex with other people would have just been dull in comparison. It was really that kind of fairy tale romance, except I hadn¡¯t gotten my happily ever after¡­ But maybe that didn¡¯t have to be so bad, maybe instead of this being a destruction of my old life, I could consider it a beginning to a new life instead, and with that in mind I steeled myself as the first round of ale was passed around by Logrom as the Elite Ale Guard was prepared for a long night of wrangling drunken dwarves. ¡°Alright this dwarven ale better live up to all the expectations you¡¯ve all given me of it, so if i¡¯m not spooning with a dead gremlin in a very large locked safe by morning I will be sorely disappointed¡± (Torrig) ¡°Don¡¯t worry Gabriel if you aren¡¯t surrounded with at least 5 of those little fuckers after you wake up from passing out than I will have failed as a dwarf, and a dwarf always does his best to act like ah dwarf.¡± (Logrom) ¡°I can drink ta that, now time ta shut and drink ya bunch of delicate flowers! LET¡¯S GET DRUNK!!¡± (Everyone) ¡°DAMN STRAIGHT!!¡± Tonight, without a doubt, was the best night since I had spent here since I had gotten here and judging by the look that Redbelle was giving me and the inhibitions that the ale was prying off, it might get better just yet.