Mark settled down into the Pantheonic Garden, beside Freyala’s nook.

  He felt okay, so now was the time to talk to her again—

  Freyala sat down beside him, all gold and glittery and ghostly, saying, “That was a rough meeting.”

  Mark sighed just a little, and then he asked, “What’s the goal here, Freyala?”

  “There are many goals. First, I need to tell you a small secret. It’s one that is easy enough to learn, if you go looking or if you ask the Inquisitors, and it is this: We gods are rather weak. Think of us more as guiding lights in an organization, rather than gods.”

  Mark had no idea what he expected from his question, which is why he had asked that question. He needed to know more so that he knew enough to know what the next questions should be. Stuff like ‘what kind of Body can you help me get’ paled in comparison to ‘why are you helping me?’, and that second one didn’t matter if Mark didn’t know what Freyala’s real goals were.

  So far, she was the goddess who helped Mark.

  But she was also the goddess who helped Addavein switch with Mark for the Battle For Memphi, all so that Addavein could go ‘undercover’ at the Battle. She had gone in for human experimentation when Addashield was looking for help for his Tutorial obligation, too. Freyala was many things, and most of them were good.

  But she was also a goddess.

  Mark thought he had known her goals… in the way one could generally assume that a parent wanted to help their kids. That’s something someone could ‘know’ about a parent.

  But what if the parent was a goblin who wanted to adopt the child in some convoluted plot of the Betrayer God and his Lucky backup? And what if the goddess you trusted said ‘this is a good thing, actually’.

  “… I’m not sure what that means, Freyala.”

  “You’ve learned a lot about Worship and the mechanics of it all. How godhood works. None of the truly big secrets, but you know the general idea of it all.”

  It was not really a question, but it almost sounded like one.

  “… I guess,” Mark said, “There’s a divine part of the dreamlands that is yours? That’s where everyone goes when they die, and the vector upon which the people in the Chosen System get their capability to use Union.”

  “Yes. Those are our heavens. We connect everywhere, to everyone, though the dreamlands. I’m forbidden from telling you exactly how it works, but you know enough. You know that we gain power from worshipers, from believers. But we’re also all dead. Ascended, if you’d prefer that term. ‘Dead’ is still correct. I am more like a living ghost, than a real being. Thrashtalon, Drakarok, all of us are like this. The only places where we can act, fully, are inside our own divine realms, like the one you went to the other day, when we all had that meeting. That particular divine realm was Malaqua’s.

  “What this means is manifold.

  “It means we need people to implement our will upon the world, if we wish to enact our will upon the world, and we very much do wish to enact our will upon the world, Mark. We give people power though the Chosen System to enable such actions, and through the Chosen System, through the actions of our paladins, priests, inquisitors, and more, through our communications with the living, we grow the System through acts of Worship, we secure ourselves, we secure the futures for a lot of people, and we secure our heavens.

  “Think about that for a bit, please.”

  Mark instantly said, “You want me to think because there’s a secret on the surface that you can’t tell me about.”

  Freyala said nothing.

  Mark took that as a ‘yes’.

  … Well, if the gods were using the Chosen System, which was a subset of the System, as a way to gather Worship and thus power… What was power? Mana, right? That’s what Nobody Important offered to Andria, and by extension Pluta, if it worked out some nebulous time in the future. So the gods were gathering mana. They were using mana to secure the futures of a lot of people and also themselves.

  Because they couldn’t influence the world anymore. Not directly.

  They had Ascended beyond mortality.

  All of them had Ascended, including…

  Including Thrashtalon.

  All of them had Ascended into the System, as the New Pantheon.

  Mark breathed in a little, as something was there. Something very close to the surface, to being understood.

  Freyala watched Mark.

  “If Thrashtalon is a part of the Chosen System… then he gets mana from the System, too. He’s a part of it all. The War for Life is a civil war, and… And you can only act through your intermediaries, through the people, because… because you can’t go against the System? So you need people outside of the System in order to fight Thrashtalon. And elves can fight the gods a lot easier than humans can.”

  Freyala watched, radiantly gold.

  Mark looked at Freyala, and knew he was on the right track. “Elves can interact with divine realms. They can interact with the System in a real, tangible way. And you want me to be an elf so I can act upon Thrashtalon’s divine realm, to seek him out and kill him.”

  Freyala grinned; like daybreak, like the sun rising on a new reality.

  Mark asked, “Then why? Why… why would Thrashtalon risk this? Allow this? Why elevate me into the thing that can hurt him?”

  Freyala’s golden radiance flickered bright, and the world seemed like a rolling mirage of heat all around her as she gazed into Mark’s soul and said, “He thinks that by participating in this ritual you have created, you are now bound to him in a small way, which allows him to ‘betray’ you a great deal more. He thinks this because it is true. He has become a fulcrum upon which your future power springs forth. A small fulcrum. A large fulcrum, too, because of Kardi’s personal attachment, and now Grax’s false parentage as well.

  “He thinks that by granting you power, he’ll be able to use you and then destroy you when it is most convenient for him. Possibly after you kill Godking Dominant of Okuana. Most of the Betrayer’s aims are directed that way, and this one is likely no different, especially with him pulling an elf into his plans. It could be a feint and his goals could lay elsewhere, but it is likely not a feint, and anything that destabilizes the Two Worlds is ultimately fine by him.

  “He thinks this way, he acts like this, gifts you these boons, because he imagines that giving you power now will not bite him in the ass later.”

  That was a lot.

  Mark asked, “Is he just fucking crazy?”

  “He’d be easier to accept if that were the case, but no. He is not insane. Thrashtalon is many things, but insane is not one of them.”

  “… So what’s your goal here, Freyala?”

  “I have plans for a great many things. I have plans for you to be strong enough to resist him and all of his goals. It is likely not going to work. One of my backup plans is if you die, then you come to my heaven, and you leave behind all of the troubles of the world. It is the backup plan for everyone; to cherish them forever in a land of paradise. At the other end of that sort of backup… if I should die, then I want to prepare you to take over the mantle of ‘Freyala’, though Isoko is likely a better match than you.” Freyala said, “But I want you to live, Mark. To struggle and succeed as far, as wide, and as brilliantly as you can. I don’t care what you choose to do with your life, because I know that whatever you choose will be brilliant and good. So do whatever you want, and do it well.”

  It was a non-answer. Oh sure, it felt great to hear, and Mark still deeply appreciated everything about Freyala, but she was giving non-answers because she didn’t want to tell the truth. What could she talk about? Maybe...

  Mark began, “I know you spoke up for Addavein, allowing him to become part of the world on Earth… as much as the nations of Earth would allow. You specifically helped me and him switch for the Battle for Memphi. At the time, you said it was because ‘I could use the experience’. What did you mean by that?”

  Freyala grinned a little. She did not answer the question, but she did say, “Your ignorance allows me to move how I need to move, Mark. I cannot answer that question directly, but I can say that it was truly wonderful seeing you create that metal kaiju that took down Goblinhome.”

  … Those two events were connected, huh.

  Mark supposed he was able to Union with the death metal elemental kaiju and make it feel more dragonlike thanks to his experience with Addavein’s dragon body… he supposed.

  Mark asked, “Is there an actual magical connection there?”

  “Magic is possibility, Mark, and you were enlightened to possibilities far beyond those of most mortals when you got to live inside of a kaiju’s body for that little while.”

  “Huh. Okay…” Mark asked, “When I was at Goblinhome, when Wongod tried to corrupt me with all of the goblins around him, I went into myself and I turned a bit of Union into a waterwheel and replicating adamantine cells that took in outside mana and intrusions, turning them into power and more waterwheels. I thought Addavein had been there, helping me in my soul to make that magic, because of how he had been there in Memphi. I thought you were there, too. A glitter of gold beside the dark dragon. But Addavein said that the dragon-thing was a figment of my mind… maybe something like an imagination of my talzarki idea of Addavein in there? But that doesn’t explain the golden glow. Was that you?”

  Freyala smiled softly as she said, “That was not me, Mark. That was your own nascent divinity, doing things far beyond what mortals are capable of doing. Everyone has it. It is your immortal soul. The grains of your purest self. Very few could ever see it, except there, at the very edge of death. Then most people see it all the time.”

  “… Oh.” Mark stared off into thought.

  He had a nascent divinity, huh?

  And everyone did?

  Freyala brought him back, asking, “Take out that fragment of mirrored divinity that Drakarok gave you.”

  … What?

  ‘Fragment of mirrored divinity’—

  Oh.

  Wait.

  Mark floated the little black fragment of not-adamantium out of the nest of the rest of the stuff. It was easy to find, even when he mixed it up with his adamantium; it was always separate. And it also looked weird. Like a window into a completely black night sky, with something like glints, or stars in the distance.

  Mark floated the fragment forward, asking, “This?”

  “Yes.” Freyala held out a hand, asking, “May I borrow it?”

  Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

  … Mark put the fragment of black into Freyala’s hand—

  The fragment expanded greatly, becoming a radiant golden shield that defended all who viewed it. It floated as Freyala willed it to float, and when Mark looked at it directly it was like looking at the best sunrise he had ever seen. It made him warm. It made the rest of reality seem easier to handle.

  “This,” Freyala said, “is a fragment of a divine mirror. If there is an original ‘Divine Mirror’, we do not know what it is, or where it could be. Skillers, soul workers of all kinds, can make them. They are akin to Swords of Empire, but vastly different in use and effect.

  “They are usually a tool; not a weapon.

  “It only looks like a shield right now because I am wielding it. Drakarok has a spear. Hearthswell has a castle, of course. Verdago has a staff that is also a tree. Pluta has a pen. Thrashtalon has a talon. Malaqua has the golden gazebo whereupon we all met the other day.” Freyala moved the shield, and it became a sword in her grip. “I’m also a sword, sometimes.” She moved the sword back onto her arm and it became a shield. “I was so used to using shields back when I was on the front lines in Europe during the Reveal, that shields are easy for me.” She handed it back to Mark.

  Mark took the golden shield and the shield became a fragment of darkness, edged and glinting light, and looking like a spear head.

  “When you hold the fragment of a divine mirror, it’s the head of a spear. Free floating, and deadly. The head of the spear is what you imagine yourself to be, so that is what the fragment reflects.” Freyala said, “The mirror of divinity does not reflect our world. It reflects our divine selves. Your divine self is about 18 to 29 tiny glints in the absolute dark that is your adamantine soul, and it is shaped like a spearhead. More golden glitters than most, because a lot of people believe in you. But maybe only 20% more than most. You have not tapped into your Worship at all, and that is likely a good thing.

  “Gods are what people believe them to be.

  “Mortals who tap into their divinity become greater, in a lot of strange and wonderful ways.

  “But anyway: the fragment. The fragment is a soul weapon, using one’s own soul as an attack vector. It is capable of severing souls apart. It is, technically, a weapon of necromancy. It is also a weapon of a Skiller, and in all ways it is much more useful as a tool. Thrashtalon made a lot of these in the Reveal. Most all of them have been captured, because each and every one of them turned into a weapon that corrupted and devoured the wielder when Thrashtalon needed them to devour their wielder.

  “When I hold it, you are seeing a window into my heaven.

  “When Drakarok wielded it against Thrashtalon, he threw the collective weight of his entire divine soul into that spear thrust.

  “The System itself denied him from hitting, just as it denied Verdago from hitting at all. But it almost worked. Kardi’s edge of Luck prevented it from working.

  “They still tried.

  “And now you wield this tool, Mark. It cannot be stolen. It cannot be lost. It can be given away. I suggest you keep it, and if you should ever tap into the Worship granted to you by the Hero/Villain Program, then the increasing gold of the fragment will be your first sign that you are growing in power.

  “Never use it against someone stronger than you. It will splash off of them, achieving nothing. But if you should strike at someone weaker than yourself, then you will cut them utterly.” Freyala added, “Monsters are nothing before this weapon. Drakarok’s hope was that his power was enough against Thrashtalon, because we once used one of these against him, and it worked a great deal back then.

  “It did not work this time at all.”

  Mark gazed at the spearhead’s depths. A normal question came to him. “How will I know if someone is stronger of soul than me or not?”

  “There is a neat trick. Hold it up, and look at me through the spearhead.”

  Mark looked at the spearhead, peering into its depths, and then he held it up and ‘looked through it’ at Freyala. He did not expect anything to happen. It was solid black. But then the black cleared, like looking through murky waters, and Mark saw Freyala like a solid golden glow in the world.

  A lot of gold touched everywhere here, in the Pantheonic Garden.

  Mark saw the edge of Eliot’s Castellan shield through the spearhead, and a bit of glitter on the ground, but nothing else. The gold was more… flamey, actually. Mark looked back to Freyala, and saw a soft, thready-golden glow. Not flames at all.

  The gods were everywhere, here in this space. They were also different everywhere in this space. Mark looked at the gazebo, and saw 7 different shades and types of gold. Drakarok’s entryway was sparking. Freyala’s was a delineation that looked thready, almost. Mark would need to study the rest to understand them as different from Freyala’s, but at first glance… Verdago’s was leafy? Maybe. Castellan and Solidification from Hearthswell and Malaqua both looked like stony flames… Maybe. Pluta was a bunch of numbers.

  Thrashtalon hurt to look at, and Mark got the impression that something was looking back at him when he looked at that portal; like Mark was standing at the city wall, and looking at the Wilds, and something was looking back at him from some hidden location.

  Mark set the fragment of a divine mirror to the side, saying, “Thrashtalon has always been here, hasn’t he.”

  “Yes. Everywhere the System touches, the gods touch as well. You have seen the different types of divinity in the area, yes? With practice, you can determine if someone is in the Chosen System through the use of that fragment.”

  Mark gasped a little… and then he frowned a little. “I can see Cultists, but Kardi Second-Awakened’ out of the Chosen System, didn’t she.”

  “Thrashtalon devotes most of his power toward keeping his people invisible, so you’d have less luck with this than you think. But sometimes you can catch a Cultist with one of these. It’s best to keep tabs on that Cultist and follow them to the other ones, though, and then you can try peering through Thrashtalon’s obscurity magics. You might succeed.”

  Mark went, “Ahh.”

  “Eventually, if you learn how to use it right, you can do some amazing things with that. A fragment of a divine mirror is what keeps Wongod injured.” Freyala added, “I do not know how it happened, but I do know that is what happened to him. We discovered that thanks to you, by the way, sending out a whole bunch of ripples out into the world, into the prayers of many different paladins. You had a lot of people praying for your success there, Mark.”

  Mark felt warm again.

  He recalled Wongod and the black shard of horror stuck into the Green, inside of the goblin god. It filled Wongod with wrongness, putrefying him, keeping him small and injured. And even if it was removed, Mark had heard, then it would go back. The only ones capable of truly removing the shard were the Pantheon or Godking Dominant.

  Mark moved on.

  “How can you help me gain power through a Second Awakening and not have it be a problem for the power dynamics of the System? How were any of you able to help with the people here, at all?”

  Freyala intoned, “Because helping you and yours isn’t doing anything directly against Thrashtalon. Helping you when you actually get your Second Awakening is something that Thrashtalon has already implicitly agreed to, as well, by pulling all that shit he pulled. If he tries to naysay our helping you in a quorum then I will crush him utterly. For the crime of trying to elevate your Second Awakening to something that it was never intended to be, to then try to deny what he himself put into action, and to deny my intended help for you with your Binding, set in motion at the beginning of this whole journey, I would crush him.”

  Mark felt better by the moment. But he said, “Thrashtalon seems like the kind of shit who tries to have his cake and eat it, too.”

  “Oh yes he is. He is exactly the type to use the goodness inherent in any system against that system. Now you’re getting it.”

  “Could I ever meaningfully hurt him?”

  Freyala’s righteous fury loomed right under her golden surface, as she said, “Now is the time to talk about the outcomes for your Second Awakening, set in motion by Thrashtalon, and capitalized upon by us.”

  Mark was hatefully curious. “It’s some elf thing? ‘Elf Body’?”

  “Do you know much about elves?”

  “Not really.”

  “We don’t, either. I only know what my people bring me, and none of them know anything about elves beyond the stories. We barely knew what it meant to help someone with a Second Awakening until you came along and did this trip out here to Endless Daihoon. We’ve learned more about elves and other things out here in Endless Daihoon in the last few months than we’ve supposedly ‘known’ for the last 80 years. Derek, in particular, has been truly helpful.” Freyala continued, “The short version is that we believe that by classifying you as an elf, you might be able to achieve a ‘shifting body’ and a self-resurrecting capability like the goblins. If your physical body dies, you might be able to come back through the dreamlands. Through the darklight, through the dreams.”

  Mark’s eyebrows went up. “… Oh.”

  “The downside is that you’d give up about half of your power to live in both realms.”

  “… Oh. Shit,” Mark said. He asked, “Really?”

  “Possibly. Everyone only has so much astral body, after all, and yours would necessarily need to be halfway stuck in the dreamlands.”

  “... Ohhhhhh.”

  “On the plus side, you’d be as Wongod, with very little of yourself in the living realm, but also able to fight in both realms at the same time. You would be, technically, a witch. If someone managed to kill you in this realm, then you would remanifest from your immortal body or from your divine soul. Whichever happened first.

  “You could go for something else, of course. Some power more straightforward-useful. Bathing in the prismatic mana of your target kaiju will start the process, and I’ll be there to help guide you. So let us discuss what you want, and see what happens from there.”

  Mark thought for a moment, then began with, “I want a normal body at least half of the time and TT and endless adamantium and whatever this weird elemental body is, and…” Mark thought of Isoko in that moment, and in her talk of a softer world of fantasy and cultural changes through showing the people better ways, in the ideals of the HVP program. Memories of watching Glorious Man talk about people helping other people caught on his mind, and then Mark thought about Addavein, wanting to be in the HVP, too. In the full truth of it all, Mark did not want to live in a world where people hurt other people all the time. If people wanted to hurt other people, then… then they could hurt him. And Mark would save them all. But… But that was going to hurt a lot. Mark did not want to hurt that much. Not like that… But maybe… maybe it would be okay to be more like Kardi —god, that felt terrible to think about— and how she resurrected and would continue to resurrect, until she finally ‘won’; whatever that meant. But in a better way, if Mark could do the same, like Goofy Goblin... Mark said, “I want to be able to laugh in the face of their assassination attempts.”

  Freyala said, “We don’t know much about immortal elves, because all we have to go on are stories and the corrupted goblins, and stories about the corrupted goblins, but it sounds like you have a good idea of what you truly want, Mark. And it sounds like this ‘Elf Body’ might be what you want, but it is a lessening of total power. Are you okay with that?”

  Mark took a moment, just to make sure about himself. About his goals. About his decisions.

  He honestly did love killing monsters, which was perhaps too bloody of him. People didn’t like to talk about monster killing in polite society. They really didn’t like it when you said that you enjoyed cutting the monsters apart, because there was a sort of beauty in all of that, in what it meant, as well as the actual action. Monster killing meant safety for others and for the homes you built.

  Mark could kill monsters very well right now.

  If he had to give up… what? Range? In order to become ‘assassination proof’?

  Was that a good change?

  Mark asked, “What’s the drawback?”

  “I have no idea, but giving up some range seems like the most predictable loss of ‘power’,” Freyala said. “This is the first time Drakarok, Verdago, Pluta, Hearthswell, and I, have ever gone down this path. I have the combined memories and history and culture of my people to draw upon, but I only have what they have given me. We have never been given this knowledge before. Whatever this option is, it is a risk.”

  Mark took a breath.

  Mark asked, “Where do I start?”

  Freyala began, “Recall how you theorized that Sally’s Size Manipulation and Titan’s Strength was pushing and pulling mass, size, and power from elsewhere to here and back again? That is the basis for what we think Elf Body can do. They are likely half-existent in the dreamlands, and half here in reality, so by the very nature of the Power it requires a lessening of total strength most of the time…”

  Freyala spoke.

  Mark listened.