Neophyte World Builder

SARA (NETHYS)

The wind patterns and clouds were subtly different in this world, but a lot of things were similar enough for Nethys to grasp. Unfortunately, one of those was rain… and another was how rain made her feel. It hadn’t changed with her change in body.

In short, she was watching a wobbling droplet of water bead in front of her eyes, hanging from the hood of her cloak. It was still water, but it had a brackish smell to it that worried her, since she hadn’t seen any real signs of air pollution in this world. Water pollution from mine runoff and such things, yes. But air pollution was limited to kilns and smithies, for the most part, which didn’t output enough to really be a problem.

She hoped.

The worst part was how it made everything chilly. Even with her warm cloak over her and her abilities to endure the elements, it just felt cold and clammy. Nethys was sure she’d be miserable and shivering on Earth, but here she mostly just felt grumpy. That and nervous.

It had been over two years since she’d snapped at Cayla and stormed out of the dragon’s lair. She felt a little guilty about that… Cayla herself had seemed nice enough, and the woman was ancient and patient. She’d vented her feelings to the wrong target, and even if it hadn’t been an explosion, it was still something that bothered her now and then.

This was particularly the case on the day when she’d finally come around to familiar territory, and Nethys was afraid of what she’d find.

She drew her hood tighter about her, avoiding the curious stare of a sheep-like man rushing by. Her Totem was extremely rare, but the cloak hid most of her minor stigmata from sight, and the one blessing of the steady downpour was that nobody wanted to linger out in the streets. The city was relatively quiet, at least in this section, and she could hurry along without much worry of being recognized.

Being famous could be a problem, sometimes. Too bad it didn’t bring the expected wealth. Her cloak was patched and worn in some places, and while her equipment was in good condition and most of it was high-quality, it was only in such a state because that’s what she spent most of her money on. It had been a frustrating time keeping everything together.

“I miss the days of having ninety nine potions sitting around in my inventory,” she grumbled under her breath. This place had a video game system running everything, why couldn’t it have inventory and loot drops like a video game? Then again, Nethys hadn’t played a game in decades even on Earth, so maybe modern games didn’t do that sort of thing. She’d never know, most likely.

Thunder rumbled from high above, and she wondered briefly how that worked. This wasn’t a spinning planet, so it had no magnetic field… wouldn’t that make lightning impossible? Or was it from some other mechanism she didn’t understand? Her thoughts drifted again, the topic one she’d considered a few times before in her late teens. She wasn’t sure why it hit her thoughts again.

Memories and nostalgia, she thought to herself. That had to be it.

Nethys ducked under an awning with a few others to clear her head, taking a few breaths. She’d nearly died multiple times, fought numerous dangerous beasts and even a few vaskan, met a dragon, and planned a trip to cross the barrier to the next world. She shouldn’t be this nervous.

“Not a pleasant day to be running about, is it?” a voice asked from beside her. Two others had taken shelter under the awning, so that wasn’t surprising. The voice sounded oddly familiar, though. Nethys couldn’t quite place it, so had to glance to the side… and stiffened.

Sena was a distinctive vaskan. In all her travels, Nethys had never met someone like her. She’d described the appearance a few times and never got anyone to admit they knew what Totem it was, which was pretty strange… though she hadn’t asked any sages or done a ton of research into it yet. It didn’t seem important, because Sena was dead.

Yet she was standing right there, with a wry smile on her face.

Beside Sena, the hooded figure stepped forward to reveal Crown, tugging his hood down. He held up both hands, clearly anticipating the unhappy response Nethys felt bubbling up within her. “Relax, we aren’t here to ask you to do anything. I just have some questions.”

Nethys scowled, but starting a fight with a god in the middle of the city seemed like a bad idea anyway. Not to mention Sena looked like she could take care of herself, and Nethys still wasn’t sure what she was aside from a mortal. The woman carried a sword now, so that was something, but the bigger worry was if she was god’s girlfriend or something.

“I thought you were dead,” Nethys replied honestly. “Sena, I mean. Did you uh… you look about my age, so did you pop in when I did?” She looked at Crown. “I’m assuming you can just pop in looking like whatever you want.”

The man chuckled, “Something like that. There are some limitations, but if I really put my mind to it I could make a new body. It’s much easier and simpler to use one that I already had. This is Kenta, and he was actually a young man who died young in a small tribe not far from the Domain of Chall, a nation back in the Bronze Age of this region. It’s complicated.”

Nethys didn’t really care, but Crown seemed to like to hear himself talk about the peculiarities of running a universe. She wasn’t sure which she disliked more, of the two options. Maybe she liked the whole “mysterious god” angle more, now that she’d encountered this. A chatty god with ADHD was a lot harder to follow.

Sena’s smile didn’t falter as she gave a small nod. “This is a temporary return. I didn’t know he could do it, but I suppose the rules are flexible for him. This is how I looked back in Chall, when he first met me. I’m pretty certain my Totem is from an extinct beast… I have no idea how it will sound through his translation, but we called it a kiltok.”

The word wasn’t familiar to Nethys, but this world had less access to universities and scholars, plus far fewer working on the study of extinct species. Perhaps that would change in time… though many places in this region had public schooling of some sort at least. Strangely, the simple reply calmed her nerves slightly.

“I’ve heard of Chall, at least… they were a big deal,” Nethys admitted. “My old world had a few places like that. It’s basically like our old Roman Empire. No idea how that will translate for you, but trust me it’s probably a compliment to this guy.”

She pointed to Crown accusingly. “Speaking of, what is so important that you need to jump down to talk to a mere mortal and bring the dead back to life? I have some important business to handle here, you know. If you aren’t going to complain that I didn’t jump on discovering a new world, get to the point.”

Crown waved a hand, and Nethys felt a moment of disorientation. Abruptly she was in a nice, rustic, primitive house. She didn’t recognize the architecture—either from this world or Earth—but it was clean and solidly built, with a round table next to the fireplace. Akasha, in her elf form, waited nearby and gestured lazily, drawing the water from everyone’s cloaks and into a basin.

“I’ll drop you off back in the city once we’re finished here, where we can talk in private,” Crown explained. He dropped into a chair, gesturing for her to have a seat. “A lot of this will be new to Sena as well. She knows some of it, but I haven’t fully explained what’s going on.”

“Things must be dire if you’re directly asking for my help again,” Sena muttered. She looked around the room with a heavy but pleased sigh. “You kept this space for fifteen hundred years? It looks brand new. Or did you just recreate it?”

Akasha dropped into a chair, swinging her legs that now didn’t touch the floor. “Hi, Sara! Or Nethys, whatever you go by now,” she greeted. To Sena, she flicked her ears upward. “I kept it in good condition while father was asleep. I have good memories of this place… it’s where I got my name, remember?”

Sena propped her head up on one hand. “I remember. It’s where my child was conceived, remember?”

Crown just looked at her with a twitch of his eyebrow, then back to Nethys. “She’s not normally this playful, I think she’s really getting into living again. Maybe I should leave her this way…OW!”

Nethys heard the kick to Crown’s shin and stifled a laugh. She shouldn’t be this relaxed around such powerful beings! “Could have done without the whole knowledge about child, but I’m betting this isn’t what it sounds like. What did you sweep me away into who knows where to ask me? And what do I get out of it?”

The request made Sena frown, but Crown shook his head and waved away the woman’s scowl. He turned to face both of them, while Akasha leaned forward to listen.

“I don’t have anything to offer you right now,” Crown admitted. “I can figure out something later… I’m not picky. So long as it doesn’t break the world or isn’t something ridiculous, I can hook you up with whatever. Piles of money, even, though I’d suggest not doing that. I can’t send you back to Earth right now if that’s what you want, but I could look into trying after your death here.”

With a smug smile, Nethys folded her hands on the table and looked between the other three. “A future favor works for me. I wouldn’t ask for something careless, but I’ll hold you to not be too literal about my wish. If you promise to try to give me what I want and clarify if you’re confused, that’s good enough for me. What’s your issue?”

Crown scratched the back of his head as he looked at all three of those present. “Akasha already knows this, but I suppose it’s a long story. Sena knows a little bit of this, as well. I’m just trying to figure out how best to explain it.”

It was Akasha that drummed fingers on the table and frowned at Crown. “You shouldn’t try to explain everything, father… but maybe it’d be easier if you started at the beginning? You’re going to be asking them an important question, maybe they should know why you have to ask it in the first place.”

The older-looking vaskan looked at his daughter, then nodded slightly before turning back to Nethys and Sena. His eyes flicked from one to the other, causing Nethys to wonder if she should have just refused instead of asking a favor from a god. What sort of service did he need that was worth that?

“All right, I’ll try to explain things,” he relented. “I’ll skip the boring parts, but I suppose it started right after I died. I found myself in a strange hall, with a woman in front of me…”

Nethys settled back to listen… it was going to be a long night.