Neophyte World Builder

CROWN

The way I’d set up the afterlife layer made it significantly cheaper to project a proxy avatar into there rather than the fully physical realm. I really wanted to check up on how things had turned out there, especially since I’d had to cede some administration of it to the gods themselves. Since it was so much cheaper, I made that my first stop in the post-torpor world.

I’d chosen the old Tastka shape, because the oldest gods were my old friends… and now they could remember me and interact with me. It wasn’t the physical world, but the souls could interact with one another as if it were. The rest of the terrain was a little more ephemeral, but would seem real enough to those souls that were lingering here.

This meant that the moment I materialized my avatar in the gathering spot, I was pounced by two energetic elves on either side.

“Oof! A little warning, next time?” I grumbled without any real dissatisfaction.

“It’s been nine thousand years, sister! You can handle a long-delayed hug!” Eyssa laughed, giving me a squeeze before releasing to let Solen give her affectionate hug. I didn’t actually mind at all. I’d missed these two more than I wanted to admit.

I didn’t just let them hug me. I gave each a light nuzzle, then flicked my ears up at Kelas, who was watching in amusement.

“Elves then? Fine…” Another voice said from nearby. I looked aside just in time to see a tall vaskan’s shape twist into a much more compact rooken. They stretched and clacked their beak before speaking again. “I am much more fond of this shape than the elves, I hope you do not mind, my lord?”

“Don’t call me that,” I sighed. “Crown is fine, or Tastka if you want to use my elf name. I’m just here to see how things are working, or if you need any adjustments.”

The rooken god clicked his beak again. “Are you sure we don’t have a god of judgement to spare? Having everyone meet to decide if someone should have a reprieve is tiresome.”

“Muerve, can you stop complaining for once? It’s not that bad.” Kassara finally joined in, emerging from the crystalline undergrowth. I chuckled and just took in the scenery.

The brilliant crystal forest was part of the “abode of the gods” I’d been told about. A mix of gardens, cities, and various pieces of architecture from different times and cultures, it served as the place for the gods to relax and talk amongst themselves with something resembling bodies. Since it needed a physical location to map onto, it was on the moon, overlooking the world and the normal afterlife below.

The afterlife itself was equivalent to the idea of heaven in my old world. Amusing, in some ways, considering what I remembered about theology from Earth. Of course, even my afterlife was just a temporary stop in the cycle. Souls who performed actions the gods deemed worthy would be taken to the afterlife, where they could have a peaceful and pleasant existence for some time before returning to the cycle.

I hadn’t specified the exact time, but I hoped the gods would have figured that out by now.

Akasha appeared without fanfare, as this was one of the few places she felt comfortable showing herself. At least, she’d said as much, and the others didn’t look surprised, so I assumed she’d been here before. I made a mental note to get her a few more bodies to work with.

“Hello, father,” the petite elf stated with a lift of her ears. She stepped in close, gave me a quick clasp of hands, and then retreated again after that moment of affection. “I’m glad you could finally join us. It’s been hard keeping this place working as intended without you.”

“Sorry about that,” I sighed. “I pushed myself too hard getting this ready for you all. Anything I should know before we start the tour?”

Kassara stepped forward. “Thank you for giving me my mortal memories. I didn’t realize I was so scared when it all happened. The others made it sound like I was so… heroic.”

A few of the gods chuckled, and I tapped her nose. “Very few are as confident as they look. Even I made it look easy when I was Tastka, I’m told. Half the time I remember being very, very confused about what was going on or what I should do next.”

Muerve stretched their wings. “Unlike myself, who was always sure of themselves.” The dry tone caught me off-guard… but I’d created the rooken and could read their mannerisms now, so the slight tilt of his tailfeathers and head told me a moment later that he was showing humor in his own way.

“Have we met?” I had to ask that, given his familiarity.

“No,” the rooken chirped. “I am told that you elevated me to this position. I suppose I should thank you, but being the god of death for multiple species has proven to keep me busy. I do not suppose there is a retirement process? I don’t need it now, but it is something to consider.”

One of my ears twitched at that. “I hadn’t considered it, but I suppose it should be possible. I’ll look into that if anyone wants to step down from godhood. Akasha, you’ve been working in this field while I was gone, do you know?”

With a little flick of her tail, Akasha dismissed the question. “I can’t do it, but you could. The subterminal only needs a soul to operate it, so there’s no reason you can’t place in a new one for most of these. A few like Eyssa, Kelas, and Solen are attached to their identities, so that may be more complicated. I’m not sure you could replace me either, at least not without a lot more work.”

I didn’t pursue the conversation there. Akasha, last I had checked, wanted to leave her position someday… but she didn’t seem in a hurry. Time was a little weird for me, and I knew it was strange in a different way for the gods and her. If it weren’t, I’d worry about their sanity after a few thousand years.

“So we’ve had a lot of fluctuation in big events happening,” I said, looking up into the sky to see a portion of the land stretched out beneath me. The surface was in a constant state of flux due to the unstable nature of the afterlife, with the souls held there shaping the land to their subconscious desires.

“Do you want big events to happen?” Another voice spoke from nearby. I tilted an ear down, but after a moment I remembered this god. It was harder keeping track now that there were two dozen or so, even if I’d compressed the number by using the “aspects” function to allow one subterminal to cater to multiple gods of similar domain.

“Right, you’re the sea god,” I muttered. “Haptus, wasn’t it?”

The god nodded, as he remained in a vaskan form… albeit a diminutive one. He was barely taller than an elf, and the sleek scales across his face and arms told me he was one of the aquatic variants that had split off from the main vaskan line a few thousand years ago. He also had four extra limbs, octopus arms that writhed to either side.

“I do want events to happen, but they don’t have to be violent. Exploration, technological development… anything that changes the world through mortal means is fine.” I looked up at the world again, contemplating who I was talking to.

Haptus was a “powerful” god, in terms of influence. Unlike my old friends who were specific to elven myth, Haptus covered the aspect of any ocean god… and since the haptix had a nigh-monotheistic belief in the sea as a deity and protector, he had a good third of that species in his domain directly. The other two-thirds were entirely rationalist beings, which amused me to no end. In a world with actual gods, most of the species chose to categorize the gods as a phenomenon to be studied.

“The haptix actually became the first species to cross the barrier between Upside and Downside, you realize.” Akasha spoke up to give me a better idea of what had happened. “They did it a different way than expected. They managed to use the Dream to manifest eggs in a few places Downside, then guided their children through the Dream. Really very clever.”

I blinked. That was clever. It had probably generated a massive spike of energy when it happened, as well.

“Fisk got carried away, but his empire has already split and reformed twice,” Kelas noted. “I suspect it won’t survive a third split. It’s also smaller, and there have been some former Imperial nations that have given it some trouble.”

“I suspect the thing that will really surprise the Empire is the Scourge. They’ve organized and look to be forming their own nation,” Akasha added.

Muerve sighed, “That is definitely going to be more work for me.” He tucked his head under a wing, curled up, then unrolled as one of the pillbug-creatures I’d created. “Most of them have become less violent over time, but that’s going to be a messy war. Excuse my distraction, a mana flood hit one of the regions, my attention is divided more than usual.”

The casual comment made me flinch. Muerve handled every aspect that mapped to a god of death, something almost every religion on the planet had a belief in… plus he also handled sorting the dead of unbelievers, as his subterminal function. Catastrophes like that would leave him busy for a while.

That was why I wasn’t bothered by his attitude. I’d reviewed his case more thoroughly than most, and I knew that through the last dozen lives he’d managed to find great pleasure in a job well done, and had a strong psyche. His comments toward me weren’t personal, just genuine interest in helping things run more smoothly.

“Are you going to be doing work the entire time you’re here, sister?” Solen asked suddenly, stepping up beside me.

I curled my tail around her side, just like in the old days. She had been my closest friend. “No, I just want to get something out of the way before I relax a little,” I admitted.

I needed a lot more energy, and fast. Anything I could find to do in my world would help with that. Though I had noticed that as High Administrator, I no longer had to tithe half my earnings. That was good, because I needed as much personal Soul Energy as I could get for my plans.

“I am not sure why you need more activity,” Muerve said in a bored tone. “But if you do want some, I have a suggestion. The Wanderer is between reincarnations right now, you could always ask if they want to inhabit something more unique. They always cause a bit of chaos whenever they appear.”

I lifted an ear. “The Wanderer?”

“A legend among many different people, I was not aware that he was real,” Haptus murmured. “Or they, though I have never heard of a female Wanderer.”

“They’ve been female a few times, but have requested to be male from now on,” Muerve noted, almost dismissively. It was odd to see this little bug-like creature—even if the pillbug wasn’t technically a bug—chatting this way. I’d never actually encountered them after creating them.

I waved my hands, “I’m your boss, you know. The one who decides whether or not you get to be a god. Who or what is the Wanderer?”

“Settle down,” Akasha laughed. “It’s um… the unexpected side effect of granting Culling Hive’s requests. He’s not a bad guy, but he does tend to make a mess anywhere he goes. We let him remember previous lives when he’s here in the afterlife, but he always gets bored and reincarnates in a few years when he’s here.”

The name was familiar… then I remembered. “Ah, the dungeon. I remember that one. But we’re already talking about the Empire fragmenting and Downside has a literal war going on under the ocean. I’m not sure he could contribute that much.”

Akasha’s ears lifted in amusement. “Oh… we’ll see about that.”