"I respectfully decline."

"..."

Aakgraak, the god of madness and partying, calmly drinks the wine he offers me and places the empty crystal glass on the table.

The god speaks in a hushed whisper, but his voice hasn't gotten quieter.

"Do you know what kind of parties and madness I embody? I have domain over every kind, but do you know what my titles entail?"

I'm scared.

"The madness I cause is the kind that causes mothers to kill their children and drink from their skulls, to force friends into foes and imaginary voices to become real. My parties are the kind where people eat each other's faces and cause wars to start in the aftermath."

My brain hurts. It feels like it's melting out of my eyes.

"I'm not the madness of a genius or the party of a bachelor. I'm something more primal that causes insanity and celebration. Even with my DECLINE, I can sell your eternal soul to my brother for half price and still make a profit."

My fingernails break against my flesh as I try to rip my skin off. It burns and itches, and it feels like something is crawling underneath it.

"You should wake up. I'll be watching, Ellis."

Sand, sand is everywhere. I'm face down, with a full mouth of coarse sand. I immediately feel the overbearing sun beating down on me.

I'm surrounded by stingerless scorpions trying to eat me.

[Desert Crab E lv 15]

I stand up, startling the crustaceans. I pulled the ones still gripped onto me off and tossed them aside.

*click click click*

They aren't happy that their 'free meal' is now resisting. I flash my [Prey on the Weak] title, and the crabs all scurry away.

The yellow rolling dunes of the desert stretch farther than the horizon, and the cloudless sky is so blue it almost hurts to look at.

The sun is large and imposing. I can almost hear it sizzling with heat.

I use shaky hands to touch my face.

"Why didn't he kill me?"

That was the closest I ever got to death, and it wasn't even a fight. The illogicalness of the situation is what really affected me.

I innately want to understand the things I come across, but understanding madness is a route that leads to madness. Maybe the god couldn't kill me, or it wasn't worth the effort.

That seems too rational, too simplistic. The god is declining already, so what's one more rule break, assuming he isn't allowed to randomly abduct mortals and kill them?

Maybe that's what makes it not worth it.

Fuck. I barely understand mortal politics, and now I'm thinking of godly ones. Maybe I can bribe a different god for protection.

I pat myself down and check what I have on me. Everything I wore for the spar and nothing else.

The realization filled me with dread. Flash Gordon was spectating the fight with the rest of my beasts. I wasn't fighting with him in hand, so there was no reason to have him on me.

I quickly whistle, hoping [Master's Whistle] would bring my emotional support rock back to me.

...

Nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

My hand was outreached, expecting Flash Gordon to apparate right in front of me, but nothing.

I use the ability over and over, but nothing happens each time. I even try using it for my other beasts but still. Nothing.

Flash Gordon hasn't left my side for over ten years, and now I'm stranded in a fracture with no discernable way out, with no Flash Gordon.

If I had to fist fight god, I'd do it only if I had Flash Gordon in hand. Maybe my dependency on him is unhealthy. Even my therapist, who told me, "I'm perfectly normal considering my history," questioned the necessity of Flash Gordon sitting with me during the sessions.

BUT, I didn't need to go back at some point. So obviously, any issues I would have should have been fixed. I double-check my trait.

[Trait: Insanity C has metamorphosized with the presence of divinity!]

[Trait: Insanity C has evolved to Mania C!]

[Warning! Mania is a purely negative trait!]

[Trait: Mania C is being modified by Lexicon??]

[Mania C > Rational Insanity D

Being perfectly rational makes you blind to reason. Instincts are irrational, and every creature evolved with them. Instincts allow people to cope with environmental contingencies and adapt to things that would deny our existence. Rationality is subjective. Rationality is overrated.

Insanity is the opposite. Insanity is to have no rationality, to act on foolishness and disorder. To comprehend falsely and have illness. Insanity isn't the natural state of man but the state of decline.

The user is not considered "normal." The user has skewed common sense with a case of mild neurosis. Increased mental defenses. Considerably increased pain tolerance. ]

"..."

I'm getting Deja Vu...

Why do there need to be lines of text for my trait? Please, it doesn't even explain what the name change brings!

The last paragraph is almost the same as the old trait, but it didn't mention neurosis.

I should stop fretting and keep moving. Staying still won't do anything but bring danger. Help isn't coming, so I might as well help myself.

I squint my eyes and start scanning the horizon for any discernable landmarks. If everything is desert with no breaks, I might as well head in a random direction.

My eyes adjust to the new brightness, and I think I see something. The horizon shimmers with the heat, and maybe there's something in that direction.

I'm on a relatively high dune, but I might as well start traveling in that direction and see If I can get on top of a larger one.

~

I found what I noticed. It was a random patch of hardened sand with vegetation that made me realize something. I don't know how long I'll be here, so food and water should be a priority.

[Kantarr Grass.]

If something can grow here, that means that there should be an underground source of water.

But I don't think digging a well would be worth it. Maybe some of these plants are edible.

[Dune Cactus]

It's the shape and size of a grapefruit with a single white flower on top. It's prickly with spines that are over an inch long. There are multiple of them bunched together in clusters.

I take a bite, and it's disgusting. I can carry some with me, but I don't have anything to store cactus. Toting a cactus around on the off chance it's useful seems silly.

I've never sweated this hard before. It's almost like I'm standing on a stove before getting my resistances.

I need better solid ground if I want to carve a door and enter my mansion. Maybe I can find something elsewhere. I need to find some high ground.

The desert isn't a flat plain but rolling dunes of sand that leave blindspots as long as I'm not above them. I wonder what creatures make their home in this place.

I take another bite from the cactus, and I regret it again. There isn't much water here, and the spines are annoying, even if they don't hurt.

While deep in thought, I notice something off in the distance.

A massive rolling sandstorm blots out the horizon, heading towards my direction.

I smack my lips as I contemplate trekking inside or running away from it. I don't know if this storm is persistent and will make its rounds through the fracture of it is a freak incident.

If it persists indefinitely, I'll eventually be chased to the edge and have to go through the storm anyways.

Maybe the sandstorm will bring enough shade from the sun. I swear I could cook a steak in the open air here. My boots are wilting, for gods' sake.

I don't have eye protection or any respirators, so I have to withstand mother nature without the assistance of gear.

I guess my clothes can count, but I wouldn't strip to make a point.

The storm is approaching faster than I expected, but it's still a few minutes away. I'll just eat the damn cactus since it's better than nothing. If I'm hungry, I can fill myself with sand, I won't get many nutrients, but I could do it.

Maybe I can get more nutrients by activating my [Broken Liver]. I haven't tested that yet, and I just finished eating. Maybe next time.

I start walking towards the storm, but once it's a minute away, my eyes widen in horror.

A wall of sand isn't approaching me as tall as the clouds and as wide as the horizon, but molten glass.

Beads of fucking molten glass dusted with sand that it must have picked up on its way over. I felt the heat before noticing what was wrong.

I start running in the other direction. Fuck that fuck that fuck that.

I sprint for my life. For the first time with these stats, I go full out with my speed.

With my stats, my top speed should be 312 mph without the passive speed buff from my [Dash] skill and 390 mph with it. I can spend mana to go even faster at 468 mph!

However, the loose sand and my poor shoes are causing me to slow down considerably.

I run straight through everything in my way, cactus, the wayward crustation, the heatstroke.

My shoes almost disintegrate from the force I'm putting into them. I can feel the heat on the back of my neck. I don't look back in case the momentary act causes my doom.

I decide to activate my skill [Dash], but the sudden increase in speed causes me to trip over my feet and skip against the sand like a stone against water.

[Dash D lv1 > Dash D lv2

The user's passive speed and stamina have been increased from constant training. The user can boost their speed further using mana. The speed boost lasts for two minutes⬆. 1-hour cooldown.

Speed & Stamina: +25%

New Boost: +50%

Mana Cost: 55 ⬆]

"FUCK."

I didn't have [Scientific Insight+] running, so I didn't see the exact number, but my crash caused my ankle to snap like dry pasta. It limply hangs as I cradle my leg in the fetal position.

I disregard my pain, as the feeling of an uncountable number of 3000°F liquid death raining down on me will feel much worse. I'm all for training my resistances, but if I might straight up die instead.

I turn and look, and the sandstorm still approaches. Luckily, I still made some significant distance.

The horizon is around ten miles away, give or take, and the sandstorm can cross that distance in five minutes. That means the death storm is approaching me at 120 mph.

*crunch*

I set the bone and heal it the best I can before continuing to run in the opposite direction.

The soft ground makes me spend around 50% more energy going at the same speed. This means that my top speed has lowered since I can't physically put more power to go as fast as usual. Luckily, the [Dash] skill can help offset that.

If I keep running for my life, I can gain distance. It's a test of endurance, and I'm facing mother nature.