Chapter 70: Fools for Tomorrow

I just witnessed an Archetype pick a mortal apart… The Fool in the flesh, however briefly…

Cheers rose from the crew of the Strip, even as an anguished cry came from Telekek, staring at the body of her husband with horror and disbelief. The pirates were utterly dismayed, and they began shrinking back from a surge that had already been stalling for the most part.

Fear came to Telekek’s face as she assessed the situation. She gestured and made a hand sign as she spoke a quick chant, which caused the great ghostly snake connecting the two ships to unfurl and loosen. This caused the Naugites to run to get back on their vessel in a mad dash and panic. The remaining marines and crewmen of the Strip cut down more of them as they did. Some of them looked inclined to try crossing over…

“Don’t board, men!” Orswyth commanded firmly. “We don’t have the means to hold them together. And the shaman likely has the means to counter it, besides.”

Inevitably, the Naugite remnants were on the other side, looking a bit lost and forlorn in addition to tired. Archers from the Strip continued firing a while, but when the snake completely detached and the ships lurched apart, the pirates were increasingly ducking for cover. Orswyth told them to save their ammo.

“Mark my words!” Telekek nearly screamed at them, teeth bared in a snarl. “I’ll avenge him! I’ll see you all dead!”

“He’ll be waitin’ for ya at the bottom of the sea, ya hag!” quipped a sailor.

More taunts resounded, as well as a few unlikely offers of marriage, then some choice insults came from Naugites hiding behind cover in response. Telekek meanwhile just glared at the likes of Tashome and Bast with simmering hatred. Bast waggled his fingers in a wave while smiling, winking. Tashome just sat down on his rear on a rare clean spot, utterly spent.

“Could she return with the other ship in pursuit?” Sammy asked Orswyth.

The quest “Trouble on the High Seas” is complete. 55 FE gained. Please distribute 10 FE between domains [Mirrors] and [Illusion] within the next 10 minutes. 6 exp gained in [Goddess], 3 exp gained in [Wizard] for supernatural ability use and clever problem-solving.

“Well I guess that answers that…” She split the FE half and half immediately.

“Unlikely, Your Majesty,” Orswyth answered. “They probably had some means to quench that dread fire or they’d not have slung it at us, but it was clearly not fast enough to save their sails. I’m sure they have a spare of some kind to limp back to shore, but that’s all they’ll be doing.”

The crew all had a pause and then more scattered cheering, evidently from quest rewards popping in their heads too.

Canmore rolled around on the deck, making frustrated noises beneath the chains. “I can’t believe I leveled like this. When the fuck is this spell gonna wear off?!”

Despite the horrors they’d just experienced, several men laughed at the absurd spectacle of the sergeant rolling around. Included among them was Tashome, who said, “Hey, it was about time I took the spotlight, wouldn’t you say? Don’t be such a glory hog.”

“Well, you have a point…” Canmore rolled himself over to his sitting friend, finally positioning himself with great effort to pat Tashome’s boot with a mostly-restricted hand. “There. Consider it a pat on the shoulder. Best I can offer. I know there was… ah, ‘magic’ involved… had to be. But still. Well done, chum.”

Laughing richly, Tashome reached over to pat Canmore’s breastplate with rough vigor. “You too. And I’m not yanking your chain.”

“Har. Har. Your wit has me floored.”

Sammy studied the man that had killed a legendary pirate menace. He seemed almost unchanged from before. She was hopeful he had the will to deal with the malus that would befall him. One that was both price and reward in one. Maybe.

Orswyth was moving around healing injuries, attempting to assess the worst of them first. Sammy gave him another recharge of his FE toward such acts. He and others went around making sure the unconscious were identified from the dead.

Though many sailors had become temporary marines for the fight and they were the ones to die the quickest, Orswyth had still lost around half of his men, and another one had lost an arm to Wraevaus, but still managed to pull through.

Luckily the first mate was alive and quickly took over as captain. He was younger than his predecessor by many years but seemed an able leader. He barked orders to the crew and helmsman and got them on course in short order. From what she overheard, he was keen to divert slightly from the optimal route, just in case the pirates decided to follow. As such, he busied himself charting a course.

Inevitably they were unceremoniously dumping Naugite bodies into the ocean, after removing anything valuable from them, including boots, jackets, belts, etc, leaving only their basic clothes on them before they were tossed. Bast stopped them from dumping Wraevas’s head. It still had the pentagram on his forehead…

This made Sammy remember her Mazed enemies… they were still trapped — without her release, their minds would be stuck there under her power for seven years. She really wasn’t interested, though. The pirates would absolutely just toss them overboard if they didn’t wake up in a reasonable amount of time. That was if they were generous.

She tapped into the first Maze: the guy that was shoved into a budget horror flick, more or less. But he had bought it completely and it had broken him… he was huddled and sobbing in a dark corner, muttering strange prayers of superstition, his cloak up over his head and face.

Sammy felt a bit regretful about it… but made a god-like, exaggeratedly masculine voice speak from above. “You. Filthy pirate.”

Eyes vaguely like she had seen Zadkiel fashion — but more angelic — appeared in the dark, cloudy sky.

The Naugite screamed, but pulled the cloak off to look, seeing the eyes and sitting there, stunned and awed.

“I have punished you for your dastardly, naughty deeds. Turn from your vile ways of murder and piracy and I will release you… for another chance. Will you or not?”

Taking a begging position on his knees, he cried, “Yes! Please, please release me, spirit- ah, god, ah-ah, whatever you are! Please, I’ll do anything! I-I swear I’ll never kill or steal or-or plunder booty ever again! Forgive me!”

“See that you plunder absolutely no booty.”

“None! I swear it!”

“Very well, naughty pirate. Unless of course said booty’s owner is fine with you-... actually, let’s just drop that subject, two different things- Now then! That you have cast away your naughtiness and swear to be a good, good boy from here on out… I shall forgive you and give you this chance. But if you turn back to your indecent ways…”

Many sets of eyes appeared in the shadows. And teeth. And slithering things slithering around just out of sight. Finally, there was a clown’s distant laughter.

The Naugite whimpered as his eyes fluttered around, but he shook his head. “Never, never! I swear I’ll be good! A saint!”

“So be it.”

Sammy released him back to his body and that was the end of it.

She popped in on the other, the Naugite woman archer who was marooned in the ocean, drifting and holding onto a piece of wood. She did the same thing in the sky, forming apparent storm clouds, to which the woman said ‘Oh great’ in sarcasm.

“Filthy pirate, I have punished you for your dastardly, naughty deeds. Turn from your vile ways of murder and piracy and I will release you… for another chance. Will you or not?”

Initially, the woman was startled. But she got irate quickly, looking away and muttering. A feeling of her ‘kicking herself’ perhaps. “Bugger off, fuckhead.”

In her throne realm, Sammy frowned and crossed her arms.

“Do you realize I’m a god, mortal?”

“Sure you are. You didn’t trick me or anything.”

“Are you really going to pass on my generous offer? Do you want to be here?”

“I was just making myself comfortable,” she said, adjusting herself on the wood to lay her head down as if taking a nap, making a blatantly fake ‘ahhhh’ sound.

Sammy made a face and shook her head. What a character. Well, whatever. I guess she’ll just do what she wants then…

But when Sammy went to release her, she froze. She could sense it: there was no body. It was dead! She had a disconnected psyche trapped, that would logically be bound for reincarnation if she released her.

She sat leaning forward, wringing her hands and puzzling over it.

Fuck! She must’ve been tossed already — that or she took a fatal wound unseen while laid out. I guess it doesn’t matter… what the fuck do I do now?

Sighing, Sammy rearranged the world for the woman. Put her on a small ship out on the sea. Added supplies in a hold, a bed, added other layers to make it interesting. Potential for fishing. Good sailing winds. Then she left the bewildered woman to her own devices.

I’m not going to tell her yet. Everyone should have a little peace first. But she can make the choice herself. Soon.

Back on the ship, Orswyth had used the last of his healing, and men had gathered all the dead of the ship’s crew and marines. Evidently, there was more work to be done for their ‘burial’ at sea than simply tossing them. Bed sheets were being sewn around the corpses, with stones placed in as weight to sink them.

And she noticed that into each, a little painted flat stone was put, which had a pentagram in a circle, and in the very center was an eye.

“What is the purpose of the tokens?” Sammy asked Orswyth.

“Some ancient custom… warding against spirits who might pester a body in the water, or forces that might cause ghostly lingering in this plane. The eye scares them away.”

“But whose eye is it?”

“I’m afraid there’s no answer to that, Your Majesty. If there ever was, such names were blotted out by the Dominion. It’s just an eye, now.”

These sailors hold to a lot of superstitions, tangible gods or no.

A blue flag had been raised up high on the ship’s mast, and the captain’s remains also had been put in and wrapped by blue cloth with gold-colored cord sewing the ends.

Every hand on the ship was helping and gathered around. The new captain walked up to Orswyth and called loudly, “Ho now, so-called wizard lord! I think the men here are owed some explanation for the insane things we just saw transpire, hmm?”

Some of the sailors called out agreement. One said, “What spell sends back a firepot from some little dart tossed at it — by someone else?! And nobody spellcasted a thing!”

“Someone threw something?! I thought it was a sea spirit what kicked it back across!”

“How did that crazy bastard there best The Wraith when he was killin’ everybody all at once? And I saw it, I saw his eyes behind the mask were closed! He chopped his head plum-clean-off with his own back turned!”

Men started asking so many questions they were piling on top of one another. The captain shouted them all down, then said, “The gist is that we ain’t buying it, Lord Orswyth. What the hell is going on and who or what was helping us? Do you have the aid of spirits? We deserve the truth.”

Numerous curious — eager — faces were turned to Samanth’s hierophant, who bore the attention with stoic poise, leaning on his staff. He opened his mouth calmly and-

“That’s alright, Lord Orswyth,” Samantha sent to him as she rose from her throne. “I’ve got this one.”

I’m tired of the endless caution. If not here and now, it might as well be nowhere and never.

The staff’s illusion around it burst in a shower of glittering sparkles as the full majesty of the Staff of Visions went on display. From the great crystalline top prismatic light shined down 360 degrees around in the nighttime sea air, to amazed gasps.

An eye appeared suspended in that crystal, an eye that seemed to piece every other looking on, that saw deeper, that held one spellbound and fascinated by the swirling colors within. And a voice spoke, resounding and echoing with power, with all majesty, with the strength of a goddess and something perhaps even more. What she carried with her. The soul of the Fortuneteller.

“It was a goddess that saved you, man of steel and resolve. A goddess and your own mettle reinforced through her. I am the eye that watches over you, I am the one that cloaks you in darkness, that stupefies your enemies with light… I am the mirage of your horizons now attained and made into providence. All who sail for the dawn will know me.”

By their eyes, she knew she had them. It was the sort of thing they already believed in, nameless, unrealized, unfocused. Until now.

“Every man that desires it: place your hand upon this crystal to swear to the herald of a new age… a goddess rising up in the gray wastes to bleed the color back in. To restore life and liberty! To break the shackles of yesterday and throw open the doors of tomorrow! To seize the reins of fate! Swear and follow me and know my name, sailor and soldier. Open your heart to the wonders out across your bow. The choice is yours.”

Orswyth held the staff out forward.

Men began looking at each other, closing agape mouths or swallowing lumps in their throats. The captain stared at the eye soberly for a few moments, nodded to himself… and was the first to approach and lay his hand on the staff head. The mirror. The rest followed, one by one, and then in a mass, all touching a hand to it as one.

She sent the touch of the mind to them all, and they spoke the words of their new fellowship.

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1 FE gained due to user belief/acknowledgment. Note: not yet a Follower.

Follower conversion successful. 1 FE gained. 1 Daily FE gained (total: 24).

… 16 FE gained due to user belief/acknowledgment. Follower conversions successful. 16 FE gained. 16 Daily FE gained (total: 40).

The quest “Minor Deity: Building the Flock” is complete. +385 FE, +500 Maximum FE, +3 exp in [Goddess], Create Servitor unlocked, 1 free Create Servitor use granted.

New Quest unlocked: “Minor Deity: A Clan of Souls” — Reach 50 total Followers.

● Rewards: +500 FE, +500 Maximum FE, +3 exp in [Goddess], 1 free Priestly Ordination use granted, 1 free Create Servitor use granted.

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As it was happening, and even when it was through, Sammy was laughing in glee and spinning around a bit foolishly, watching the stars spawn in her sky, feeling the power surge into her realm. Faith beyond reason, belief that seized heaven in humanity’s grasp… the clarion call of longing for divinity that actually helped, that solved, that inspired. So she believed, in optimism.

The world was ripe for an Age of Wonder and she’d lead them to it.

And how will the fair goddess do this?

“System! I’ve finally figured it out,” she called, grinning with her hands out wide, staring upward with eyes glinting in the light. “I’m the Fortuneteller. Fate is mine… because of this epiphany… Fate was mine… because again and again, I’ve twisted, altered, and foreseen it… Fate will be mine, well, obviously because of the first two!”

The System naturally said nothing to this, which made her laugh.

“Sys, reveal and unlock the Fate domain I already have, by my authority as the Fortuneteller and my ownership of the System Deck.”

Acknowledged, Fortuneteller. [Fate] domain revealed. Grant-

She absorbed nothing else after, right then, because her mind was cast into some timeless state, some continuous, unknowable eternity mere ‘Sammy’ could never fully absorb. But some shadow of a shadow cast on that limited persona, of the greater whole and her interconnected state with it… enough to be a real, cosmic trip, to say the least.

Oh-so-limited Sammy had one final thought before getting lost in it all, one definitively her no doubt.

This is like when Gandalf fucking tripped out into space, holy shiiii-...

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END OF VOLUME 1
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