AN: I love this story for everything that it is, especially since it is a rough draft. However, I have been a bit disingenuous to myself. I convinced myself that I wanted to write this as a long couple hundred chapter spanning story, but I already had a clear and absolutely beautiful ending in mind for it before I typed the first word.

I put that ending aside for the sake of trying to get more out of the premise of this world, but that was just wrong. To continue to write lengthy chapters beyond the end-point I had envisioned would really be a disservice for this story.

So, with that being said. I am going to end this story at the point I originally wanted when I first thought of the ending then needed to work backwards to reach it. We still have something like 10-15 chapters left before that point is reached and some of those chapters will be a hell of a ride. The important plot threads will be tied up nicely, and I think more people will like it than hate it. Which is really all a storyteller can hope for. :)

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Chapter 29.2: The Marvelous Mega Moo

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It had taken several hours of trekking back and forth to town before they had sold off all of the items that had been collected. Blackthorne was a little concerned that the meat might have gone bad in that amount of time, but Sonja had allayed his fears. Apparently, meat takes at least one full day before it would even start to spoil. As ridiculous as it sounded, you could leave a chunk of raw steak out for two or three days and never have to worry about eating it. Even then, a simple poison cleansing tonic would cure you if it was particularly bad; though cooking it often removed such things if you had a decent cooking skill level.

Now they were back in the mines playing Blackthorne’s new favorite game. Death from above.

Sonja leapt off of a rafter in one of the open areas of the mine and dive-bombed a scorpion. She kept her legs together and neatly slammed both feet into its back. The combination of her powerful strike and her bodyweight caused many large cracks to form along the area of impact. The creature shrieked in pain then started to flail its tail around.

While the Powergirl attired Sonja dodged the lashing tail and beat down upon the monster with swift strikes of her sword, Blackthorne prepped his Shadow Flare spell.

“Ready!” shouted Blackthorne.

Sonja performed an artful somersault from the back of the beast and then immediately hopped back to avoid the lash of the monster’s tail. Blackthorne unleashed his fiery attack. Darkness and flame washed over the monster and it shrieked in agony as it burned. It was another one down, another monster well-done in more ways than one.

Blackthorne winced then clutched his head. He had been using that spell far too frequently since his return to the dream world.

“Master, are you alright?” asked Sonja, concern in her voice.

Blackthorne glanced at his companion then slowly nodded. “I think so. It’s just a headache.”

“You’ve had a lot of those recently...” she said softly. Whenever he used magic a lot, it seemed that he ended up developing a severe headache.

“Just overdoing it, I guess. How about you? Is fighting these scorpions doing anything for you?” asked Blackthorne.

“I’m a bit beyond these monsters, honestly.” she said gently.

They were a decent fight for him, but it was clear to Blackthorne that Sonja needed a bigger challenge. “Do you know of anything within a few days’ travel for us to hunt?”

She tilted her head to the side then pressed her eyebrows together. Her thoughtful expression continued for a moment before she smacked her fist into her palm. The movement generated a jiggling effect that Blackthorne did his absolute best to ignore. It was quite difficult actually.

“There is the forest a half day’s walk from here. Further in there are old ruins that are often filled with monsters.” said Sonja.

Blackthorne walked over to her and asked her, “Do you know how to get there?” Immediately afterward he winced then clutched at his head.

“Yes...” she said softly.

“Great...” said Blackthorne, before he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. The headache was quite harsh this time.

“Maybe we should rest, for a while, first?” asked Sonja.

“I’m alright, I just...” began Blackthorne before his vision flickered in and out briefly. He lost his balance and started to fall backwards.

Slender, but powerful arms reached out to grasp him. Sonja called out, “Master!”

Blackthorne started to breath heavily then felt something warm, something wet, trickling down the edge of his nose. He lifted his fingers and checked. “Blood?”

“You’re bleeding! Were you struck in the head?” asked Sonja, before she pulled him close, removed his helmet, and stroked his hair.

“No, I don’t think so...” he said. He stared at the blood on his fingers for quite some time. There was something decidedly wrong about its presence that disturbed him greatly.

***

In a place outside of either the dream world, or the Earth that it was attached to, a man in dark robes sat in a professional and austere office. His jade green eyes gazed stoically at the screen before him. He had born witness to things both ridiculous and profound in recent days, most of them centering on two particular young goddesses and their odd desire to court the same mortal soul.

He gestured at the screen before him and the events began to race forward at an incredible pace. He reversed that course with another flick of his finger then willed a change in the current day. He flicked his finger again, and once again the people on screen before him began to move at incredible speeds. The hours turned to days, the days to weeks, weeks became a full year.

Once again, he rewound the possibility before him then made another change. He repeated his forward command gesture and time moved forward. He eventually unleashed a slow, tired, breath. “Again and again... It always ends the same... Different day, same result.”

“Oh child...” said the man softly. What an unfortunate daughter he had, why could she not see what it was that she really had to do?

He glanced over to a small disk on his desk then made a gesture. A three-dimensional image appeared above in the air above the device. It was Shara wearing a low cut wedding dress. The man replayed the message that she had sent to him over twenty years ago in the reckoning of time in the divine city, long before her current community service project.

“Father! I have found a wonderful man! Well, my sister did, but we’ve always shared everything so one day I believe that she’ll share him too! I can’t wait for you to meet him! He’s kind and considerate, and brave... and well... OK, so he’s sort of an Earth Human, but I think that we can make it work!” said the tiny little Shara.

The Mini-Shara continued to gush about the young man that she had fallen for, and how she just knew that he would love her forever once she introduced herself.

The elder arbiter smiled softly at her enthusiasm. She was convinced that the mortal soul that she had fallen for would be the one who would show her what it meant to love, would end her loneliness.

“Child, if only you knew what it truly was to love...” said the divine arbiter. He watched her innocent and enthusiastic face for a moment longer then sighed.

After the moment of indulgence passed he sat there and thought deeply about the situation. He truly wished for his daughter to be happy. He could see the ending of the path that she had taken, and the suffering that it would bring.

Absent-mindedly, he turned back to his temporal view screen and made another change. He fast forwarded time then reversed it and discovered the same outcome. He repeated his actions with a different change. The end result was the same.

He had done this during his free time ever since she had first sent him that message. He had not seen his precious child so happy in a very long time. As a concerned father he had obviously been interested in viewing the ultimate end of her relationship. He had not been well-pleased.

As an elder arbiter, his word was law in a very literal sense. He could abuse his power to make things right for her, but even then he knew it would still not be right. As a god of loyalty and justice it would be against everything he stood for, and make his entire existence into a lie.

For decades he had been withdrawn from even his own family in the hopes of saving that soft and innocent joy that his daughter’s image had shown him. He had always been a bit distant, a bit cold, but he wanted to the best for her and all of his family.

“There has to be a way....” he said. He had spent decades trying to find it. He had long known that she would be likely to try and find a version of that mortal soul to love all her own, and the disturbing and hilarious end to that first attempt.

He had even purchased the song she had written commemorating her fleeting love prior to her current attempt. The arbiter glanced over to his copy of The Ballad of Fat Scott. A brief smile crossed his features and he quietly sang a line “His love was a love bigger than the ocean, half the size of his pants in motion... Why couldn’t his big fat heart handle me...”

“Silly child...” he said, before a small chuckle escaped his lips.

This second attempt, however... Even he could not see a way to make it work out properly for her, not with her personality.

He sighed and restructured time once more. If only he were a smarter deity, he could help her. Yet, there was no way around the end result. It was as though there was no way for her to make things right.

The arbiter frowned at the screen. His hands were tied. There was nothing that he could do. In all of his searching through time and space there had only been one path out of countless billions that had turned out alright for her. No matter what, she never took that path on her own in any of his simulated timelines.

“I suppose she takes too much after her mother... so obsessive.” said the arbiter before he returned to his decades long attempt to try and figure out the best path for his youngest daughter’s love life.

***