God of Zero Cost

The trail didn't so much lead into the Yabboq gorge as it simply crumbled toward it.

Ethan slid down the loose limestone, as his boots crackling violently against the rock. raising a choking cloud of white powder that lingered in the air. It left a bitter taste of lime on the back of his teeth even though he was in a game.

He stood up, coughing once behind his fist as he slapped the fine dust from his Medjay tunic, and looked around.

He took ten paces forward, his eyes scanning the empty sun-baked expanse.

Nothing.

No system bells chimed. No flashing quest markers appeared. Where is the quest trigger... Ethan pondered. He opened his main character screen just in case, but still nothing.

Ethan walked for twenty minutes, his boots crunching methodically against the dry wadi stones as he followed the inner loop of the canyon east. He checked every distinct rock shelf, every dried-out reed bed and every hollow stalk. Still nothing.

"Meh..." he muttered, his voice swallowed instantly by the heavy, suffocating silence of the gorge.

Sighing, Ethan dropped down on his bum near the center of the dry river loop.

He kicked a loose piece of flint, watched it skid across the cracked mud plates, and dropped down heavily onto his bum near the center of the dry river loop. He leaned forward, resting his sweaty forearms on his knees, his jaw tight as he ran through his remaining options.

Absentmindedly, his right index finger dropped into the brittle top crust of the riverbed. He dragged the tip through the deep, powdery white sediment between his shins, carving random, jagged lines in the dirt out of pure, restless irritation. The brittle top crust of the riverbed scraped as he circled random, meaningless lines in the dirt.

A sharp, metallic chime vibrated straight up the bone of his hand, snapping his mind back to attention.

Ethan froze, his finger still touching the ground.

His eyes opened wide as he turn his gaze to the ground. In his thoughtless scribbling, the tip of his finger had traced two distinct characters into the white riverbed floor: the hard, sweeping hook of a Bet (ב) and the sharp, drop-tail line of a Qof (ק).

He didn't waste a second. He pulled open his hidden quest tab to float side by side the linguistic engine's interface.

Ethan looked from the panels back down to the dust. The letters were part of the keywords.

He dropped to his knees, his bare palms pressing against the parched earth. Moving slowly and steadily, he used his index finger like a iron stylus, deliberately writing the entire Hebrew text line straight into the ground, tracing the letters carefully from right to left until the final radical sank into the silt.

The moment his finger pulled away from the last stroke, the riverbed erupted with light.

A brilliant golden glow shot up from the depths of the earth, tracing the literal groove marks he had carved into the wadi. The sand itself began to stir. Five glowing, massive letters—י - א - ע - ק - ב (Y-A-O-B-Q)—detached themselves from the soil, lifting into the hot air above his knees and spiralling into a beautiful, rhythmic dance.

Ethan watched, his breath catching in his throat as the characters spun, shifted, and systematically rearranged their positions in the air:

Y-B-Q (יַבֹּק Yabboq - The Jabbok River)

A-B-Q (אָבָק Abaq — Dust)

Y-A-B-Q (יֵאָבֵק Ye'abeq - He Wrestled)

Y-O-Q-B (יַעֲקֹב Ya'aqob - The Heel Grabber)

The loose topsoil beginning to hum with a low, heavy vibration that rattled the loose gravel around Ethan.

The floating letters shattered into a cloud sparkling dust as the quest prompt reappeared in their place.