A banshee shrieked in his ears. A hammer drove nails into his skull. And what’s rotting in my mouth? He could see nothing but blackness. And putrid muck clogged his throat, the taste a mix of old fish and stale blood. His stomach heaved violently. He gagged.
MOVE TWO STEPS BACKWARD.
The command punched through his skull. His body obeyed before his mind caught up. Then—he doubled over, retching. Bile burned up his throat, scalding, but better than the filth. I thought this miserable shit was over when I stopped partying.
CEASE STUBBORNNESS. LIMBS AND TORSO ARE FUNCTIONAL.
Pain laced through every nerve, an electrified marathon of agony. Then—warmth. A numbing softness. Smells strange. The agony dulled, and the noise faded. Aaron’s vision narrowed into a tunnel. A light. Faces within.
My family. My sister’s laugh. The last time I heard it, we were arguing.
My friends. All the times I bailed. Always running. Always too late.
I’ll go out carrying all that.
Tears stung his eyes. If this is it... no. Not without trying. But the sadness faded like the pain. The kaleidoscope of his vision darkened.
UNACCEPTABLE.
RELEASE ADRENALINE.
Fire ripped through him. His body convulsed, shivering and burning. He screamed, forcing the last of the sludge from his lungs. Sticky filth clung to his face. Get out. Won’t drown in this mud. I have to…
He tensed, dragging himself onto his forearms. Pain lanced through him, but then—Air. Fresh, sweet air. He gasped—deep, greedy breaths. Relief flooded his lungs. Air. Is. Good.
His mind steadied. A little. What the hell is going on? I was studying for my psychology exam… then I went to bed. Now…? He wiped the slime from his burning eyes, smearing it away in greasy clumps. He cracked his eyelids open—
A wave of vertigo slammed into him. The world twisted into a chaotic, shifting mess. Why can’t I see? Then the overwhelming stench of vanilla made him nauseous. He gagged and tried to vomit again, but only dry-heaved painfully. His body sagged, but he clenched his fists. Not again. No. I will not pass out.
CEASE UNNECESSARY ACTIONS.
PROCEED TWO STEPS BACKWARD.
The voice droned like an automated announcement. Feels like my old drill sergeants, just without the sadism. Aaron crawled backward. Rough stone scraped his knees. Then his elbows. Dry. Solid. Better. Shaking, he tried to think. Failed. This is wrong. Where am I? Why is there a voice in my head?
He inhaled slowly. Fear is the mind-killer. Panic gets people killed. Or a sniper. Or an IED. His brain supplied the thought helpfully. Shut up, brain. He cracked his eyes open again—instant vertigo. Step by step. You know how this works. Have I blacked out? No. Been drugged? No.
RESPIRATION ISSUE RESOLVED.
MOTOR FUNCTIONS NOMINAL.
SENSORY FUNCTIONS NOMINAL.
INITIATING ATTRIBUTE ENHANCEMENT.
RESTART REQUIRED.
The bass vibrated through his skull, deeper than sound. It hooked into him, pulling him under. Muscles all over his body tore and tensed. As if they were being remade. The scent pulsed—vanilla, thickening into cinnamon. A wave of nausea surged, but he forced it down. His eyelids sagged. He shuddered under the force of a splitting headache.
Despite the pain, tiredness overwhelmed him. Yeah, perfectly nominal… He collapsed. The last thing he saw was a whirlpool of browns and yellows spiraling into the void. Nice colors…
Darkness.
Aaron woke, cheek pressed against rough stone. Progress. No mud. Better than boot camp. He opened his eyes. Then slammed them shut. Oh fuck. No, no, no.
Hesitantly, he peeked through his eyelids. Maybe—maybe it's just the drugs wearing off— Let the hallucinations fade, let the— The walls breathed. Shuddering, irregular breaths, moved his body. What. The. Hell.
Shimmering tentacles uncoiled from the stone, shifting like oily rainbows. Strange geometric shapes flickered in and out of existence—mandalas, cogwheels, fractals with vast, lazy wings. A deeper pattern lurked beneath them, like a puzzle just beyond understanding. It made him dizzy.
And the eyes. They bubbled up like boiling water—hundreds of them, blinking, shifting colors, watching. His blood ran cold. The ground beneath him was stone. Not a padded cell. Not a hallucination.
Then—he saw the corpse. A man, clutching a spear impaled through his gut.
Aaron yelped, scrambling back—sharp stone sliced his palms. No. No no no. This isn’t real. It can’t be real. Dream? Fever? Drugs? His mind flailed for an answer, but nothing stuck. He looked at his hands. Normal. Too normal. Not a lucid dream. His breathing turned shallow. If this is real…
He glanced around. Corpses. Too many. Aaron froze as a dry, jagged laugh bubbled up in his throat. I'm surrounded by corpses. Well, that’s inconvenient.
The laughter cracked and twisted in his chest until he ran out of air. He forced himself to breathe. Oh, I’m panicking. And rationalizing the panic. Stop it.
INTEGRATION COMPLETE.
ENHANCEMENT COMPLETE.
Stolen story; please report.
The voice. Again. At least I’m not alone. What am I thinking? An atavistic horror crept up his spine. Oh God. I’m not alone.
The bass reverberated through his bones. The vanilla scent crept over him like a thousand skittering legs. I can feel the smell? Merged senses. Induced synesthesia? How?
His attention snapped to the words. They sank into him like gravity.
CHAMPION.
SERVE THE WEAVER.
YOU ARE BLESSED.
Aaron sat up slowly and looked around. I’m still trapped in Cthulhu’s imagination. Oh well.
He tried speaking. His throat was raw, still burning from the acid. “Hrr…” He coughed, hacking up green slime. I don’t want to know what I just coughed up. A miracle I haven’t drowned in my own vomit.
He tried again. “What… are you?” The world stopped. Tentacles froze. The geometry pulsed. The eyes stared. The scent thickened—cinnamon, suffocating. Three heartbeats passed.
WATCHER.
Aaron fell.
A burning city. A pair of chained women.
A mountain. A spire. Angels guarding a dagger.
A golden dragon circling a cylinder of glass and metal. A snowball trapped inside.
A mountain pass. A glass wall. A wasteland beyond.
An army. A jungle of skyscraper like trees.
The visions shattered, and he slammed back into his body. Trembling. What the hell did I just see?
His breath came fast, shallow. His head pounded like a festering wound. Catastrophes. All with me at the center. Except for the dragon. It wanted the snowball. Why? That feels important. Is it? Aaron shook himself. I feel… unclean.
The voice returned.
YOU ARE BLESSED.
BOONS:
ALL STATS +1
NO LIMIT ON REVIVALS
LEARNING SPEED TRIPLED
WATCHER’S GUIDANCE
DIVINE QUESTS
DIVINE SKILL GUIDES:
LANGUAGE
HAND–TO–HAND COMBAT
POLEARMS
Aaron exhaled. That’s curious. The booming in his skull paused. The headaches were gone in an instant. Then both returned.
QUESTIONS.
A million questions flooded his head. Aaron asked the first thing on his mind. “Does triple learning speed mean I’ll get free time when doing a PhD?”
A bunch of eldritch room decorations managed to look incredulous. Good to know. Somehow, the animated geometry, tentacles, and eyes managed to convey disbelief without speaking. The silence stretched alongside a stale cinnamon smell. Aaron cleared his throat. What the fuck am I doing?
“Not your kind of humor, I take it?” If bad jokes fail, double down. It’s the only option. Annoying the eldritch horror might not be wise, but screw this. His laughter hovered on the edge of sanity. But this is madness. I am a normal student, what the fuck is going on?
QUEST.
INTEGRATE IN POLIS.
GAIN NEXT AUDIENCE.
EXCEL IN TRIAL.
From one moment to the next, the thing was gone. As if a video had been fast-forwarded and skipped its exit. Only the speared corpse and his friends remained to keep him company.
Aaron rose to his feet. He was in a small canyon. A creek flowed behind him. The walls rose up to a cloudy sky. The ground was rough sandstone.
Around him lay half a dozen corpses. Several older men. Two younger men—maybe nineteen-year-old boys and a girl of indeterminate age. Her head was smashed to a pulp. The others had died in similarly gruesome ways. The worst part? This is definitely an improvement.
He was standing in a pile of dead people and felt relieved. Fuck. This is so wrong. I should feel sorry for them. But what am I supposed to do? Collapse? Cry? That wouldn’t change anything. Aaron took another deep breath. None of this was sane, never mind normal. But the corpses seem real enough. So, avoiding joining them seemed prudent.
He walked over to the one skewered by a spear. As he got closer, the smell of fresh blood and feces made him gag. No matter. In an environment where people get stabbed with spears, the first rule of survival is to be armed. An unarmed person is useless on a battlefield. And this is certainly a battlefield.
He grabbed the spear and yanked on it. The body only slid a bit toward him. “Why do you have to make this awkward?” he murmured. Is talking to a corpse a good idea? No, but it stops me from thinking about what I am doing. Which is important. Very important.
He needed leverage. He raised his foot and paused. Am I about to step on a corpse? To steal the murder weapon? He closed his eyes for a moment as his breath quickened. Yes. The fucker is dead. Aaron forced a strained smile onto his face. He doesn’t need the spear. Had never needed it in his guts.
He planted his foot on the corpse’s chest. The metal hobnails in his sandal dug into the flesh—Roman-style footwear, his brain supplied helpfully. He yanked hard. The spear tore free with a wet pop. The corpse sagged, blood oozing out like syrup. Aaron stumbled backward but caught himself.
He swallowed hard and looked away. No need to dwell on that. He examined his prize. A straight wooden shaft, about his height. The tip had been hardened in fire. And tempered in blood—a voice in the back of his mind added.
Checking over the rest of the bodies, he took stock. Everyone, including him, was dressed in sandals and a tunic spun from rough cloth, held in place with a rope. Apart from wooden spears and clubs, he found nothing.
He grabbed a club and swung it experimentally. I’ve done Historical European Martial Arts. I know the very basics of wielding a sword. But here? I’m probably worse than a child. The bodies were fresh. No looters. That means either the killers are still nearby—or people just don’t care.
Aaron tipped his chin. Charging into the first battle like some wannabe weeb swept into a fantasy world will only get me killed. The first rule of warfare is to know when to fight. Aaron closed his eyes. I’m taking this entire mess way too well–no. He shook himself. I can’t afford to feel anything right now–have to do what needs doing. Yes. He nodded. Yes.
He frowned. But Cthulhu’s secretary told me I have unlimited revivals. So I’d come back from dying? Yeah, but that’s the kind of hypothesis where experimental verification is slightly unappealing.
Next, he thrust his spear experimentally. Instantly it felt wrong. Unnatural. He paused in thought. As a kid, I played with spears, running free in the fields. It never felt like this.
The voice had said he would get divine skill guides. Language, unarmed, and polearms. Was a spear a polearm? He rolled his eyes. Was he really about to ruminate on definitions in a survival situation? Nope. Again, he lowered himself into a fighting stance. Left foot forward. Right foot back, angled. He held the spear with both hands, pointing it at the guts of an imaginary opponent. It still feels wrong.
So I am getting mysterious abilities after all. Yay? Closing his eyes, he let his body shift and followed the wrongness. It guided him until his stance felt right. Calm. Serene. He thrust the spear forward. The wrongness screamed at him again. Okay, slow is smooth, smooth is fast, fast is alive.
Closing his eyes again, he thrust in slow motion. Only when he fully rotated his body in time with the left step did the thrust feel right. Aaron practiced for a few minutes. By the end, he danced back and forth, jabbing between face and gut height like a sewing machine.
Hopefully, this is enough to not die if–no, when any trouble comes my way.
Then the screams began echoing upriver.
“Three are the Prophets, their warnings ignored.”
“Two are the Champions, laid low by the sword.”
“One is the Angel, its vengeance adored.”
“And he world twists by the Edict’s accord.”
– Children’s Rhyme
As always, this chapter was edited using the mighty Infomancy Analyst Spell called ChatGPT.
Upload schedule: Mon/Tue/Wed/Thu/Fri 4:47 PM EST / 10:47 PM CET → Each chapter is 1500 +/- 500 words long.
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