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Prologue
For millennia, creation has been debated. Some say creation happens by blind chance, two atoms in the right place at the right time causes a massive explosion, which then causes a planet to be born. Others believe that everything is created by a single God, who spoke and it was so according to some great Design. This would be plausible, except for the fact that gods as a whole are a disreputable bunch and are not to be trusted with a Design of any type, as they would probably fart in it and call it a universe. Unfortunately, this is what usually happens.
In fact, the multi-verse is run by thousands, if not millions of gods. Each of these gods are a little different, there is a god for the sea, a god for the sun, and a god for the chunky bit you always seem to get in your chili. You see, gods are powered by belief. It can be belief in anything, belief in tomorrow, belief in ducks, or even belief in ornamental china, but most of those are small gods, none of them powerful enough to change lives or create whole worlds.
This brings us to Destiny, which is perhaps the greatest belief of all. Destiny is a cruel god, he is neither kind nor caring, and believes that the end justifies the means. Destiny is uncreative, always using the least likely vessels to do great things. Once Destiny has his hold on you, there is no escape, you are forced to do his will until you are dead, which usually happens sooner rather than later. Destiny has the power to create whole universes, and does.
There are few gods the equal of Destiny, the most prominent of whom is Inspiration. Inspiration is a kind god, causing millions of sentient beings to go, “Oh my god it all makes sense,” and, “I have an idea!” Inspiration is change, which is why she is in an eternal struggle with Destiny for dominance over people’s hearts and minds.
Enter Lore, a place where Destiny rules. Lore is an unoriginal universe, combining the ideas of thousands of other planets into one endless cycle of good vs. evil, the living vs. the dead. The Destiny of young impressionable farmers who make a decent living and don’t want to be a part of any sort of grand Design is always the same. Lore is home to no original thoughts, no creativity, no Inspiration. In this world, Destiny always wins.
Until now.
Chapter 1
Picture a village. The inhabitants bustling about, blissfully unaware of their future. The village is surrounded by mountains, causing a seemingly impenetrable barrier to the outside world. There is only one way into the village, a steep path on the north side of the village, surrounded by clifftops. The village is called Saint Craw#, and is seemingly unimportant. This is why Destiny used it.
A man sat on top of one of the cliffs overlooking the small village, with his legs dangling over the ledge. If you had passed by him in the streets, the first thing you would have noticed would be his hair. His hair was half black and half white, which in itself was remarkably uninteresting in Lore, as this sort of thing happened quite often.
The next thing you would notice were his eyes; one was black and the other white. This was an obvious sign that he was a child of Destiny, who would bring about a reign of terror or peace, depending on whom you asked.
The man, who appeared to be about 21 years of age, sighed. He knew what was coming next; it always happened. It was his Destiny.
His full name was Fatalin Secundum Aliisor, but everyone called him Aliis, and he had a great Destiny. Of course, he already knew that, and did not like it at all. Aliis hated Destiny; he hated not being in control of his life, and he hated his entire life being predestined; but most of all he hated Lore. This is why he sat on the cliff, wondering how to escape his excruciatingly predictable life before it all began. He knew it would happen; it always does, and always will.
This particular ‘it’ that is being referred to is a dragon, which was Destined to attack the town at any moment. Dragons are a particularly intriguing species, as they are the one race in the multi-verse whose sole purpose is to serve Destiny. Wherever a young man with different color eyes and a pitchfork was walking by a town in hopes of a better future for his family or to save a princess from a tower, there would be a dragon. This is why so many people fear dragons; it isn’t the dragons themselves that are terrifying; it is what they stand for. Destiny- a world without change, a world of repetition, a world in which nothing happens that was not previously meant to happen. That is what Aliis fears most.
Many people are misinformed when they think the gods control people’s lives in fact it is quite the opposite. People create gods who then create people; it is a never-ending cycle, and one that the gods seek to protect at all costs. The gods do not care for the people; they care for their worship, which is why most gods do not interfere in people’s lives except in an extreme crisis of faith in which the god’s life is at risk. Of course, then there is Destiny. Destiny seeks control, and as a whole, humans love control, which is why Destiny is such a powerful god.
In the village, the sun shone through the mountains behind the village; and the townspeople went through their boring lives, not knowing that their lives would become incredibly interesting and very short in a matter of moments.
There was a great roar, and Destiny came in the form of a dragon. It was massive, to put it mildly. Its body was 20 feet in length, and its wingspan 15 feet across in both directions, it was truly a sight to be feared. And fear the villagers did.
The dragon landed in the middle of the village, crushing the town hall like paper bag, and sent villagers running and screaming with a mighty roar. It swept its spiked tail, knocking down several buildings and impaled hapless victims. It snapped its head forward and consumed what Aliis presumed to be the town mayor. The city militia ran from across the town with spears and swords and formed a circle around the dragon. The dragon inhaled then exhaled, and everyone burned. Fire streamed out of its gullet with the sound of a hundred cackling devils, and incinerated half of the militia. There seemed little hope for the village.
“You should help them; they need a hero,” a voice noted. It seemed to come from both far away and right next to him, and had a cold arrogance to it.
Aliis’ eyes narrowed, he knew that voice. It was the voice inside his head since he was child, working for the slavers. It was the voice that had always told him that he had a great future. He was quite comfortable with that voice, and it made him sick.
Aliis pushed himself to his feet with an exasperated sigh. “Shut up Destiny, you have no control over me.” Aliis said, and turned to leave the cliff, heading the away from the village.
“But you are wrong my boy, you are so very wrong.” Destiny said with wry amusement.
There was a trembling of the earth, as the dragon leaped into the air, and with a flap of its wings, streaked towards the cliff where Aliis was.
“Now that’s just cheating!” he yelled to no one in particular, and he sprinted as fast as he could away from the charging dragon. He was too slow; the dragon landed twenty feet in front of him causing a gust of wind that knocked Aliis off his feet. He scrambled up and dove towards a tree just as a stream of fire flew past him.
“Look, there seems to be a sword and shield near this tree. I wonder how that got there.”
Aliis looked, and sure enough there was a sword and shield, both marked with archaic symbols he could not decipher, not that he would ever want to.
“You have no idea how much I hate you right now!” Aliis shouted, and made a grab for the weapons just as another burst of fire streamed towards him. He grabbed the shield just in time and pulled it up in a defensive stance, protecting himself from the fire. As the fire slammed into the shield, Aliis was unsurprised to find that the shield was able to perfectly withstand it. As the torrent of fire died away, the dragon managed to looks puzzled. The puzzlement turned to rage as Aliis grasped the sword and strung at the dragon’s face. It sliced clean through and gouged out one of the monster’s eyes. Black blood flowed freely from the gash where the eye had previously been.
The dragon reared back its head and was about to spew fire from its mouth to consume Aliis completely when time stopped.
“You don’t have to do this, Aliis.” a woman’s said. It was a soothing voice that reminded him of a sunny day.
“Stay out of this Inspiration, you have no right to be here. This is my world,” Destiny said angrily.
“He has every right to listen to what I have to say, because from what I’ve seen he isn’t too fond of what you have to say either,” Inspiration said calmly, Listen Aliis, you do not have to blindly follow Destiny, you have a choice.
“You fool, do not listen to her! You are mine, free will is an illusion, and you would know this better than anyone Aliis.” Destiny spat out.
“Destiny is an arrogant fool, you always have a choice Aliis, there is always a way out. Remember that well, for it will lead you down your own path, free from Destiny, free to make your own choices.”
“No! Do not listen to her! Take your sword and slay the dragon! Do it and I will make you great!”
“Do not listen Aliis, do whatever you want to, for without free will, mankind is nothing. Destiny, you make them less than human.” Inspiration said with tightly controlled rage.
“Choose Aliis, knowing that what you do brings consequences to everyone in this world.” Destiny and Inspiration intoned.
Aliis nodded; he knew what he must do.
Time started, and Aliis leaped backwards narrowly avoiding the dragon’s flame.
“Here goes everything.” He turned and ran towards the cliff. When he got to the edge, he turned to see the dragon bounding towards him. Grinning manically, he spread out his arms. He would be free.
Aliis jumped.
Aliis fell.
Aliis died.
Chapter 2
The first thing Aliis realised was that he was dead. He was pretty sure of that for several reasons- first of all he had just fallen off of a 30 foot cliff. The second tip off, and this was perhaps the most crucial, was that he was floating in what could best be described as sub-space. Well, it wasn’t exactly floating, it was more like there was no ground to stand on, so his body had to do something. The sub-space was filled with unsettling shifting colors that ranged from black to grey to white, never seeming to decide what form they were. It seemed to ooze almost, as if space was trying on new clothing and couldn’t quite decide what fitted right.
Not that this really disturbed Aliis; being dead was the whole plan. He just never thought that being dead would be so... so... he couldn’t quite put words to it. It was the feeling you get when you were being watched, it was the moment when someone tells you that you have a spider on your shoulder, and you are just turning around to take a peek.
Besides that, Aliis was quite enjoying death. It was peaceful, calm, and above all there would be no dragons to slay. He was finally free from a life of servitude, from Destiny. Aliis couldn’t help but feel just a bit smug about the fact that he was probably the only person who had ever escaped Destiny’s grasp.
A gust of wind sent him slowly spinning. Aliis felt a thought nagging at the back of his mind. Something was very very wrong; he just couldn’t figure out what it was. Slowly spinning through nothing, Aliis tried to grab at the thought hidden in the recesses of his mind.
Then he had it: he was feeling nauseous. This wasn’t right, he was dead, dead people didn’t feel nauseous. Then he had another thought, where had the gust of wind come from? This was wrong, something else was happening. He focused on the subspace, where unsettling shapes flickered around him, never staying in one shape. He stared at them until his eyes watered, until he saw it. The ‘it’ that is being referred to this time is a village, all around him. The shapes coalesced into a quaint little village, the same village the dragon had decimated, except that now there was no sign that any monster had ever visited that area.
“About time.” A voice said behind him. The voice seemed to resonate inside his skull, bouncing to and fro, bringing up forgotten memories and old wounds.
Aliis flew around, or at least attempted to; all he really managed was a gentle tumble. After about a minute of desperate scrabbling in the air he finally turned around and faced Death.
Looking back on it, Aliis thought his expectations were a bit silly. He expected a skeleton in a billowing black cloak holding a scythe decorated with skulls. What he saw was a middle aged man dressed in an expensive looking suit, a black tie with a white t-shirt underneath. He had a skull mask on that managed to look both comical and terrifying, and he was holding a black cane with a silver knob on top. He did have a scythe, but it was strapped to his back and did not appear to have any skulls on it. On his belt buckles was an hourglass, where the sands of one end slowly poured into the other end. What was most noticeable however, were his eyes. They were completely black, and not the black assassins wear#, but the black of night, like the fear of what is in the dark. In fact, Death looked a lot like Aliis. Probably just a coincidence.
“There is no such thing as coincidence,” Death said calmly.
“You can... read my mind?” Aliis asked incredulously.
“No, I just know you very well.”
“Who are you?” Aliis asked, his voice slightly constricted due to fear.
“I thought that would be obvious by now. I am Death,” Death intoned with the certainty of the grave.
“I thought you would be more scary.”
“I used to be, but we must move with the times. No one really wants to be ushered into the spiritual world by the most terrifying thing they have ever seen; it sets a bad example.”
After considering this thought Aliis nodded to himself, it made sense he supposed. “So, why am I not dead? I did jump off a rather high cliff after all. Dying tends to be the side effect of something like that.”
“Ah yes, that. I am going to send you back into the world of the living.”
“I’m going to be alive again?” Aliis said with a hint of disparity.
“Yes, but you were never dead to begin with, I saw to that.”
“I’m not dead?!?” Aliis was obviously quite bewildered at this point.
“You really are quite slow on the uptake.” Death said disapprovingly.
“Yes, dying tends to confuse a person.”
“I agree, it seems to happen a lot. I never quite got why.”
Aliis sighed and said “What do you want with me? Why are you doing this?”
Death walked around him, stepping on what appeared to be nothing. Aliis’ body seemed to spin around, always managing to face Death.
“You see Aliis, Lore has grown boring. The same people die over and over again, the same villages get destroyed, their inhabitants burnt to a crisp, and why? Because Destiny needs control. He kills people on a pointless obsession with order. Believe me Aliis, there is no such thing as order. Order is an illusion created by those that are afraid of chaos. Destiny sends people to slaughter each other, and that sickens me.”
“Don’t gods send people to slaughter each other all the time, though?” Alice said pointedly.
“Yes, but they are inconsistent, random. Destiny slaughters people methodically causing this planet to be overflowing with the souls of the faultless, and with nowhere to go they roam Lore endlessly trapped. This must stop. I need you to root out the source of the problem and eliminate it. Oh, and take this, you will need it.”
At this, Death reached behind him and grabbed his scythe. He tossed it to Aliis, who caught it. As soon as he did so, the subspace around him started sliding away little by little, leaving only darkness.
“As a side note,” Death said, “you will awake four years from when you fell in the same village that you refused to save. You must go to Riseguard, the castle of the righteous, to witness the beginning of the end.”
“I won’t wake up in a coffin or anything like that will I? That would be very uncomfortable, and would probably cause me to die from suffocation.”
By now he was entirely covered in darkness, with Death the only other person in view. Death then began to fade away, seeming to melt into the darkness.
“Oh no, I’m not that cruel, usually. I have someone taking care of your body, keeping it safe.”
“For four years?” Aliis asked incredulously.
“He is very patient,” Death said seriously. By this point only his mask was showing in the darkness.
“Wait, what exactly do you want me to do?” Aliis called.
Death stared at him for a moment, “It is really quite simple, I want you to kill a god.”
Chapter 3
As Aliis slowly drifted into consciousness, he realized he was in a room. It wasn’t a very furnished room, all it had was wooden table, two chairs, a drawer and a bed, which he was currently lying on. There were no windows, and the only visible light source in the room was a lit candle on the table, its flickering flame causing shadows to dance across the walls. Aliis sat up and immediately slumped down again, gasping as pain shot up his side.
“That probably wasn’t a good idea, you need more time to heal.”
It was only then that he noticed the man standing in the corner, half hidden by shadows. He wore nondescript clothing, and seemed to somehow blend in with the shadows, making him hard to notice unless Aliis was really looking. He wore a hood, much like a monk, and his face was indiscernible. The man seemed to be holding a red balloon with a smiley face inked on. Aliis made a mental note to ask him about that later.
Aliis sighed, everyone seemed to be sneaking up on him recently. “Okay, who are you?”
“I am a servant of Death, my name is Dorian. Death has commissioned me to take care of your body while you were gone,” Dorian stated.
“Wait, you’ve been waiting here for four years?!” Aliis asked incredulously.
“As Death said, I am very patient,” Dorian said seriously. “You need some more rest, you have been out of your body for quite a while, it will take time to get used to it again.”
Aliis’ vision was fuzzy, and he ached all over, as if he was just waking up after a long nap. Which, technically, he was.
“I... think I might have a bit of a lie down,” Aliis agreed.
As he sank slowly into blackness, something caught his eye, and he saw the scythe sitting next to his bed. He reached for it, not quite knowing why, but Dorian caught his arm and said, “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
Aliis’ arm went completely limp from exhaustion, and the world went dark.
Chapter 4
Aliis drifted. He knew he was unconscious, but he had absolutely no idea where he was beyond that#. It seemed as if he was floating in between dreams and reality, the two melding together to create subtly disturbing images.
Inspiration appeared before him, although Aliis had a suspicion that she was there to begin with, but she just didn’t let Aliis notice her until that point. She was dressed in a simple white dress, and her eyes were pure white. Inspiration had an unearthly beauty about her that made people think of what they could have done, long lost ideas, and broken ideals.
“It’s you again. Thanks for giving me the idea to jump off a cliff; it was smashing good fun.” Aliis said sarcastically.
“I did not give you that idea, I merely gave you the willpower to make the decision you knew you had to make.” Inspiration noted.
Aliis was suddenly very angry. He wasn’t sure why, but it probably had something to do with him dying and then living again; that sort of thing tends to set a person off.
“Look, I don’t care. I really don’t. Whatever you have to say, go find someone else to say it to. I do not want any part in an insane plan that will probably get me killed all over again. Dying once was bad enough.”
Inspiration appeared not to care. “Aliis, I need you to defeat Destiny and release his grip on Lore. If you do not, this cycle of madness will continue for eternity.”
“Well gee, eternity is quite a long time. Why don’t you just kill him yourself?” he yelled.
Inspiration sighed; he was one of those types of people.# “Listen, gods have only one rule-”
“Gods have rules? This day just keeps getting better and better!” Aliis interrupted with false cheeriness.
“Shut up.”
Aliis shut up.
“Gods have only one rule, and that is that we can not harm another living thing. This rules counts for both gods and humans alike.”
“Gods never seemed to have any trouble mass slaughtering before.”
“Gods can not kill, but people can. We use people to do our will. Ordering them to kill in the name of one of us is quite an honor. That is why I need you.”
“No thanks, I’m already Death’s errand boy. I don’t need to be yours,” Aliis said bitterly.
“But is this not the same mission that Death has tasked you with?” Inspiration observed, “This way you will have both my power and Death’s. It might even give you a chance in beating him.”
“Yes, but it’s the principle of the thing. If I start letting gods control me, then where will it stop? Soon I’ll become the servant of women’s fashion, and then there would be no hope left for me.”
“You do not seem to understand the way gods work, we can not control you.”
Aliis looked up, “But doesn’t Destiny control everyone in this world?”
“In a way he does, but it is the illusion of control, and that illusion is collapsing. Destiny can not make you do things, he can only make you think you have to do something. This is why you were able to break free of his grasp. You were never in it to begin with,” said Inspiration.
He thought about this. It made sense he supposed. If gods could directly control human lives, then why wasn’t everyone worshiping one god or another? Why did the gods allow atheists to exist?
“People are turning away from Destiny and finding new ways of worship because of what you did, this gives me an opportunity.” Inspiration continued.
“What did I do that is so important, die? That can’t possibly be it, can it?” Aliis questioned.
“Yes.”
“Of course,” he said wearily. “How does that even work?”
Inspiration smiled, and suddenly they were in a white room. There didn’t seem to be any walls, and if there was they were indistinguishable from the floor. Aliis was sitting in a chair across from Inspiration, a table was situated in between them.
“Real nice, all white. Shows creativity,” he said sarcastically. “Anyway, you were telling me why my death matters?”
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