《The Crystal Ring.》Chapter 3: These are the days of our lives...Well mine anyway.
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'Man what happened, and why do I feel so cold the last thing I remember is confronting that asshole, and then everything went black.' I interrupt my own inner monologue, mostly to convince myself I'm not crazy, and two so I can begin to understand where the hell I am. Opening my eyes felt like a monumental feat, it felt like I hadn't moved in decades eventually I managed through some built up reservoir of inner strength to pry the two sides of my personal eclipse apart to reveal the Sun. 'Wait that actually is the Sun, what the...what the hell is going on! Where am I?' Turning my head slowly from left to right I could see stars, passing comets, and of course the Earth, well at least it looks like the Earth.
I have no frame of reference for this considering I had never been to space, and only had pictures on the internet to rely on. I went to go stand up, but it was at this point that I realised that I did not have any arms, or legs, or wait. "WHERE THE HECK IS MY BODY!!! AM I some kind of ghost? Did I die?" Not realising that I had somehow said all of this out loud I began to hyperventilate at my untimely demise. Mid existential crisis I head the most angelic, and velvety voice I had ever heard. It was comforting and seemed to carress my ears, as well as soothe my growing panic attack.
"Worry not young one, for it is not your time yet, it seems that my siblings bit off more than they could when they were told they would be sharing the fruits of their labors with all. Not only did they ignore the rules that we had already set up to prevent unnecessary death, they took to corruption, and coercion to bring their plans to fruition much faster than should have been necessary." The beautiful voice seemed to perforate my entire being, and fill me with confidence i began to look for the source of my newfound happiness.
Learning to move in this form was tedious, and seemed to take a lifetime in itself. 'Who knew being incorporeal would have such a downside, oh wait probably every ghost ever if the could speak, wait are ghosts real? Stop stop I'm gettin sidetracked here. I was supposed to focus on something what was it, it's on the tip of my tongue." I sigh and resign myself to the fact that I could not for the life of me remember what I was trying to accomplish, until the voice came back. "Worry not young one learning new things is always hard, but worry not you have plenty of time to figure it out, after all not many have the chance to rationalize being dead as well as you have. Well at least not as fast as you have, you seem to have adapted quite well even I am surprised." Even though I loved this voice with every fiber of my being I was beginning to get irritaed being talked down to like a child, I am 25 years old dammit, well at least I was now I don't know what I am, or how long I have existed since my death.
I began to speak to help figure some things out, and release some pent up agression. "Listen voice lady I will have you know I am 25 years old, and I refuse to be treated like a child. I don't know who or what you are, but you could at least use my damn name when talking to me, its a little condescending to be referred to ike a child." Ok that may have been a little excessive, for all I know this voice could make me disappear altogether, and I had the gall to yell at it, her, whatever it is! I began to panic again when a soft booming laughter seemed to permeate the air around me like a slowly moving warm fog of contentment.
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I just realized I had not even given the voice my name, I should probably apologize for my rudeness. "I am sorry mam I just realized that I yelled at you about using my name, and then didn't even give you my name in return, and now I feel like a moron. You can call me Eric; Eric Kenwood." "Worry not Mr Kenwood all will be revealed in time, for now just focus on what makes you, you so your being doesn't cease to exist. I will be here waiting for you to finish." I breathed a sigh of relief until my brain processed what was just said to me. ' What, wait I could just cease to exist if I don't figure this out? I better focus and redouble my efforts so I can get out of this sticky situation.
For overcoming you existential crisis you will be awarded for your perseverance. INT +1 END +1
Awards will be updated to user after their consultation.
'Wait what the hell is that?! Oh wait yeah, the weird screens are back. I had almost thought those were some kind of hallucination I witnessed from loss of blood. Hold on a second how come I can't remember how I died, but I can remember seeing these blue screens while dying? That is something I am going to have to ask this being when I am done learning how to walk again, or at least stand up.' Three whole days passed as I struggled to figure out how to stand up without a body to support me. Its alot harder than you think!
I was about to give up again, when during one of my weird mental soliloquies I ran along a different line of thought than use legs move forward. I was taking my mental frustrations out on imaginary balloons, popping them and what not, when a thought came to me. "What if I am like a balloon filled with Helium in that I require some semblance of shape to contain myself and lift myself to new heights." 'New heights? That was a lame ass line even for me, wait I am getting sidetracked again think Eric think.' I began to imagine what it was like to be the gas trapped in a balloon, slowly filling it up, too much too fast and it would burst so slow and steady became the goal.
Inflating myself took way long than I had ever hoped that it would, when my body finally gained some sense of self, I began to rise up to my old height of 5'10". Learning to move this new construct body was the hard part. It took me what I learned later to be the equivelant of 6 Earth weeks to fully gain control of my sense of self to turn around, and finally address the voice that has kept me company this whole time. Slowly but surely with the grace of the Hindenburg I managed to finally see my nurturing guardian. She was the most beautiful creature in all of existence, at least by my mortal eyes' standards. 'Wait I don't have eyes, how does any of this work. Im confusing myself again I just need to shut up and listen to what she has to say.
Caramel skin draped in an ocean of black silk seemed to ebb and flow across her entire body. Long flowing turqoise locks of hair drape across her face like the leaves on an ancient willow tree, protecting two softly glowing Amethysts from the harsh elements in the universe. A soft giggle escaped the lips of this angel like a welcome home party after being lost in the woods for months. She smiled and began to speak. " Congratulations Mr Kenwood, I knew you could do it. You just needed to believe in yourself." I couldn't believe someone could have enough faith in me to sit here, and encourage me for some indeterminate amount of time.
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"Wait how did you not get bored sitting here watching me struggle for God knows how long, and not decide to put me out of my misery." I tried to seem as confident as possible when making my point, mostly because if I started to lose myself in her being like a meteorite being pulled into Earth by gravity. This brought another smile to her sultry lips smooth as polished granite. "The six weeks that have passed were no more than a mere blink of the eye in the grand scheme of things, but I also had your amusing inner monologues to keep me entertained as well. You truly are a fascinating human."
I smiled at her compliment of my ingenious humor noone else seemed to acknowledge before I realized most of the things I had said were only said in my mind. Jaw dropping faster than a bowling ball from a cliff I start to stammer out whats on my mind. "W.WW....WHAT! You can read minds?" ' Yes Eric that was so damn eloquent, you are master of your own domain, dumbass.' She starts a long harmonious chuckle as a single tear forms in the corner of her eye, but instead of careening down the side of her face the tear began to float into space gaining new life as a shooting star. After her laughter began to fade she made an effort to speak without continuing to laugh.
"My dear child I cannout read minds, I can hear prayers from my worshippers, but not read minds."
I tried to process this because I had not prayed to anyone, I didn't even know her name so how could I have prayed to her? 'Wait why would I pray to someone I just met, does this mean she is God? That can't be right God is supposed to be a chiseled old man with a huge white beard, and a stricking white as snow mullet.' I can't help but chuckle at my own inner jokes. After realising I let myself be sidetracked again I realised she was waiting for me to finish my thought process before contininuing to speak.
"Eric you may believe that I have been reading minds to some degree, and I have no Idea where you Humans get this idea of God from he looks nothing like us, and that being said there is more than one of us." She smiled as my jaw once again broke itself on the floor, and I was trying to reel it back in before I began to look too much like a Boa Constrictor trying to inhale a small boar. "Dear child when you are incorporeal, you dont have inner thoughts, you have been projecting everything out into surrounding space. That is neither here nor there though I really should explain why you are here, since we have wasted time getting you a new body for long enough.
This is going to sound weird to you but since I stole your soul from my elder brother to keep him from destroying you to feed his champion power, I have had to supress myself to some degree to keep my brother from finding me, and trying to take you back." I nod along with the purple eyed goddess as if this is just a normal everyday thing that happens to me. 'I think my brain shortcircuted a while back, but I'll be ok, because she promised me a new body!' She once again has trouble hiding her humor of the situation, and my lack of mental self control. "Eric you were an innocent soul stolen from your own path of life to further the goals of a twisted, and corrupted soul bent on taking over the known multiverse."
"Fear not however, because I have a plan that I hope will prevent the more villainous portion of my family from finding you right away, and if all goes according to plan you will have a better life thant you ever had before. I wish to ask you to be my champion in the upcoming Apacolypse games. These games are held by us higher beings in order to establish rank, as well as area of influence. Normally we would just influence from both sides to fight each other, but a more ingenious system developed by you Humans has decidedly made the games more fair, as well as interesting."
" You will have a chance to rebuild your old body or try for something new, you never know what you may desire until it is right in front of you. The only downside is I will have to throw you back in the timeline far enough that my family doesn't notice you appearing, but we'll talk about that later. I am sure you have lots of questions, but we have alot to get through, and not much time left to do so. Please take a read through this list of beings you wish for a chance to reincarnate as."
An immense list of creatures, and races appeared most of which I had never even heard of before. I had a feeling I was going to be stuck her for a long time, so I might as well hunker down and get to reading. After spending the next 4 hours reading through names, and statistics about the races involved in this giant video game, for lack of a better term.
I think I may have finally narrowed it down to 2 Possibilities.
Demi-Godling A mix of elfling races that descend from the bloodline of an elfling that had won the favor of a God or Goddess long ago, and ascended to Godhood themselves. This race permeates all subspecies of elflings on the planet as his descendants began to filter into other clans and subspecies. Koresians A race of dwarves that began to learn how to shape metal from metorites that had fallen to the face of the planet. Bursting at the seems with magic these metals began to form and shapes the dwarves as they had done with the metal. Taking on a semi translucent obsidian color these dwarves learned they could make magical weapons better than any other dwarf.
'Yuuuup this was going to take a long time.'
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