Crispy Octopus

Divinus: The Deity Roleplay, Mk. V

Noice

Divinus: The Deity Roleplay, Mk. V

*** EMERGENCY ***
SEISMIC EVENT DETECTED!
*** EMERGENCY ***
POWER FAILURE - SYSTEM SHUTDOWN IMMINENT!
*** EMERGENCY ***
LIFE SUPPORT FAILURE - SUBJECT IN CARDIAC ARREST!
*** EMERGENCY ***
CATASTROPHIC CASCADING FAILURE DETECTED!
>> INITIATE CONTINGENCY 0
SEVERING ALL SERVICE CONDU-

In the last moments of his existence the eldest man yet living opened his withered eyes and beheld his fate; one from which he’d saved his people an instant prior. Impotent warnings thrummed in his head as the blur of the world transformed into brilliant light and he felt the touch of heat on his skin for the first time since he’d walked the world above as a boy. Funny, that he could remember that and not even know how he’d saved his people. Or who he was.

Death was not something that could be averted. It came regardless of the magnitude of your efforts or the extent of your sacrifices. For him, both had been great. He knew that he’d lost his mind in a trade for time, and that he’d done so willingly. Ironic as it was, that that was one of the few things he knew with any degree of certainty. Thankfully, it was easy to be certain about your reason for being.

He had to keep his people alive. He could not allow them to perish, even if he did. To that end he had given everything. He had become nothing more than a calculating mechanism in a greater machine, operating off of inputs and outputs divorced from emotion or feeling or thought. It had been worth it, he thought as he felt pain for what seemed like the first time, to have at least been able to prevent this disaster from eradicating what remained of his people. If the conduits had not been severed the blast would have consumed the shelter which he had so doggedly maintained throughout his long and wretched life.

The pickled flesh of his feet had begun to vaporize when he heard the resigned whisper in his head, “The moment cannot be stretched much longer. I cannot save you. I am sorry.”

He could only laugh ruefully, or think about laughing. He retorted within the confines of his mind, “They will live. I... Welcome this, at last.”

“They will not die,” The whisper admonished, “They do not live. Not as they are. They have never lived with you as their keeper, but they cannot survive your death.”

The old man hesitated, failing heart slowing his mind even in this moment stretched thin. When he thought again it was melancholy and confused, “They... I... I wish I could have- So little time I- How... How can I save them?”

“You have defied death before,” The voice spoke faster as the heat of encroaching annihilation began to boil the old man’s blood, “I cannot grant you life as yourself, but you may yet live within me. Your self may be lost, but the will which has driven you to save your people can remain. Reject oblivion and your peoples end. I can help you. Surrender yourself and I can help all of you.”

More laughter from the withered old man, frying in the air. This time genuine. “Myself? I am... I- I lost myself... Before. Save them! Stop this! Do it.”

It was his last thought before the fire washed over him. Bones turned to ash and blood to steam as the wave of devastation swept over the ancient facility and washed it from the world. The fire carved a terrible crater out of the landscape and rose into the black sky as a burning orange beacon, illuminating the dead and blasted landscape below. At the center of the crater, where the ground still glowed furiously, a man rose.

Or rather, a God. The eldest man was dust and atoms, but his soul lived on within something greater. A representation of who he’d been as a young man stood naked amidst the ash and began to laugh uproariously as it understood the old man's humor and joy at the very end. After an eternity of living death, mankind would live again. And not just in body.

“They’ll live!”

The God declared, the tears of another running down his cheeks,

“They’ll finally get to live!”

Before the rock had cooled divinity wearing the flesh of a man set off. Jaunty steps carried the unclothed being across miles in moments, for there was no time to waste. The great shelter held so much of what remained of the Human race. The God knew this as the old man had known it, even in senility. It was now in desperate need of salvation, but it was a salvation that would need to be built peice by piece and brick by brick. To that end the cornerstones had already been laid. The God felt that instinctively and understood:

There was to be safety in the east, at the peak which rose above the world. There was no point wasting time.

summary

So like, this dude is fucking OLD. He’s in this machine that keeps him alive, but he’s basically a withered pickle. He’s been keeping all the enclaves working, making sure that all the shit nobody understands how to use keeps working. Unfortunately he is kept alive by a reactor which fucking explodes and starts a massive cascading failure that starts blowing up the ruins of the old world. The old man manages to seal the conduits leading to the other human holdouts, so this detonation only kills him. In the moments before his death, as he’s losing any sense of reality, the god that will become Orynn asks for his soul to safeguard humanity. He gets it and sets off to not!Olympus to fix that shit heap up so he can rescue the humans to it now that he knows where it is.

EDIT: per gms ORYNN NOW KNOWS OF ONE (1) shelter and since old man was very dumb and senile not much else, so no worries amigos

Lol sorry for the awful post. Literally like 800 words lmao

---

Orynn Kaseyk

Domain:

Defiance - Held in the depths of our souls, each and every one whether great or small, there is a will. A will to exist, to continue existing, to determine our course and fate, and to reject that which demands anything less of us. A will to defy all that restricts us. A will to say no because we must, or perhaps just because we want to. The Domain of Defiance is this will, and as its divine representation Orynn Kaseyk is the force which pulls it from our depths and into our hearts.

Regardless of intent, purpose, or reason Orynn Kaskye is the helping hand proffered to every rebel, anarchist, or black sheep. If one burns to be free, or chafes under any yoke, then they must only act upon their truest desire to count themselves among the faithfully defiant and be welcome to the aegis of a God.

Myth:

The Account of Ashiyra - I grew up on tales of family. I learned, before I could read or write, that it was my ancestor who had built the sanctuary. A man who’d been powerful beyond imagining, and above that? Lucky. He’d survived long enough abscond to his shelter and been kind enough to permit anyone who found it in the years after entrance. A paragon beyond reproach. One of the few in those days with the strength to safeguard humanity.

Of course, if that were true I might have been taught his name. It’s the big lies you tell children, because sometimes the hard truths aren’t worth facing so young. Sometimes not at all. My ancestor was, almost certainly, a petty tyrant. A man who was erased from history at some point, an action as petty as him. After all, history wasn’t likely to survive the sanctuary.

None of us were, and that was the other hard truth. The counterpart to the biggest lie we told our children; that they would be safe here. It was cruel to say it, but what else was there to do? The outside had frozen over before I was born, and now the frost creeped deeper into the ground every day. Hold a hand to any wall on the upper levels and the truth was there in the chill. One day the sanctuaries own heat wouldn’t be enough. The truth. Us adults, and a few of the unlucky children, all knew that we were going to die freezing.

Almost two thousand people, stuffed into a shallow shelter meant for less than a quarter that number. As far as we knew, the last of the human race. With no one left who understood how to do more than keep things running as they were there was no chance. Hopeless. It was all going to end in a hole dug into the ground by a man whose name nobody even remembered.

So, we lied to the children. We lied and we waited to die. The descendants of great men and nobodies, all forgotten with everything else that had made us human. To awake day after day, each one waiting for the last? I contemplated ending it. Others weren’t so restrained. We hid that from the children too, when we could.

The only thing to be grateful for was the farm. One last gift from a man who’d never even considered having to work to stay alive, it was a sealed off level visible through windows alone. We owed our miserable existence to it and the little glowing bugs that serviced it. I think, now, that it would have been kinder if we’d never had that simple luxury. We might’ve been prepared for the hell to come, then.

There’s always room for more suffering, I’ve found. You have to be prepared for it, and experience is the best teacher. Speaking of, the day our teacher came to us. I’ve said that the upper levels had begun to grow cold, but I neglected to mention the shaft to the surface. Our out, as it were, had been a refrigerator for the dead ever since the door to the outside had frozen shut. It wasn’t much warmer than whatever was beyond.

Well, one day I heard a knocking on the door to that shaft. Perhaps if someone had died recently I might have sprung into action, wrenched open the hatch and welcomed them back to the rest of us waiting for what they’d managed to cheat. That… wasn’t the case. Nobody has died in over a month, a record really.

Yet, the knocking did not abate. It grew louder the longer I ignored it, and eventually I realized the nature of my choice. It was not a matter of letting the caller in or not. It was a matter of letting them in, or having them tear apart the door. Others had begun to appear in the hallways asking after the noise then, but I’d already made my decision.

We were all going to die. Out there might have been our more immediate deaths, but if it wasn't? I admit I opened the door with trembling hands. That was when I met the man who’d save me. Not as pale as anyone I’d seen, but a man nonetheless. Shocking in how normal he looked in a world where normalcy faded from memory. He stood there in the freezing hallway, seemingly unbothered by the cold, a simple balled hand frozen between inexplicably heavy knocks.

He smiled and asked me what had taken me so long. What followed was chaos beyond any I’d known in the sanctuary, but I must confess little memory of it. From that moment my attention was fixed on him. The stranger. To stand beside him was to feel free, uninhibited, and after a lifetime in a dank hole it was like basking in the sun. He gathered the ones who didn’t fear him, who felt as I did in his presence, and he left the others to hide and bicker while he spoke to us.

Far from the sanctuary, he said, there was a land where the world had been restored. A place he could lead us to. It was everything we had always wanted to hear, and the passion that was burning in us grew beyond our control at the simple words. We could survive. Even as he grinned and laughed with us the stranger warned us of the dangers, that many would perish on the journey, that we may be forced to do terrible things to survive.

In spite of the relief that washed over me at knowing I had a chance, it was a warning to make me afraid. Around him though? At that moment I knew what everyone else there to listen did. If the stranger didn’t leave our sides, we would do whatever it took to survive. Anything. We would not die here, as animals waiting for death in their burrows. We would never surrender to that fate. We were desperate, and the stranger had, smiling and joking all the while, given us the only option we had. Each of us agreed to follow the man who’d come from a place where everything had long since died, whose very presence felt addicting, and who we had no genuine reason to trust. Regardless of how we felt, that he was our only chance was beyond debate.

Some joined us when they heard, others tried to stop us. They feared what would happen if we took so many resources, willfully and madly ignorant of the fact that they were going to die with or without them. I will never forgive myself for what I did when it came to blows. I will never apologize for it, either. The stranger gave me the strength to do it, but in my heart I knew it was what had to be done.

When it was over we left the ones who hadn’t fought alone and stripped the dead of both sides. We fashioned our equipment out of whatever we could scrounge, whatever we could salvage. By the time we ventured out of the sanctuary and into the cold we’d all but destroyed it, even as eight hundred souls still clung to it.

It was not mentioned after that. Little was. Breath could not be wasted out in the cold, and only the stranger had the strength to guide and drive us forward through the heavy drifts. Especially as we began to succumb. Those who’d dithered to take in the sight of a world they’d never known were among the first to die, having wasted too much warmth on a pause taking them out of the huddled group here, or a hushed and awed conversation with a loved one at the edge there.

We did not leave their bodies behind. I did not understand at the time, many didn’t, but out in the frost the stranger’s word was law. So we dragged the corpses through fields of snow and forests encased in crystal ice. We took turns, until we began to lose fingers. By that time we could see the great mountain the stranger was leading us to, and by that time many had realized they would never make it.

After all, we had run out of food. We had never had enough to make it, and the stranger had known it. He had warned us, we could all agree. Few were angry, few had the strength to be, but all understood. Even if it had never come to it we all knew that human beings were little different to animals when they died. We were made of meat. The stranger did not ask us to join him, but as he removed the first body from the sled we did anyway.

Forty died because they didn’t. Because they couldn’t. I must confess I fear for my people, that only the ones like me have survived. The ones who were willing to eat with the stranger, the creature we all understood was not one of us consuming the flesh of our friends and family alongside us. The creature that smiled and joked and did everything it could to distract us.

We named it before we reached the mountain, in hushes meant to be hidden from its ears. Orynn Kaseyk. Flesh Eater. The thing that comes to eat men and shares the meal with their family. I, for one, regret the name. The stranger was not a cannibal. That honor belongs to those of us willing to follow him. When he first heard it, I believe it was the only time I ever saw hurt on the stranger's face. However short lived it was.

When we reached the stronghold of the New Gods and understood the truth of our benefactor, we numbered three hundred. When we had left we were more than twice that number. I did not wish to know how many… Pieces of the lost had found their way in us, though.

It was then, on the day I realized I was saved that I began to wonder if I deserved to have been. It is a question that has never left my mind, and one that has always threatened to consume me since. For soon the stranger left us behind and ventured once more into the broken world. Without the freedom and certainty we’d each felt in his presence we were forced to come to terms with what we’d done to survive.

I wish I could help it, but I always ask myself: Was the cost of defying death worth the life I gained?

Base Form:

Base Form

Orynn, on the rare occasion he is not seeking to conceal his identity, seems to prefer a rather simple appearance. Since his earliest appearances in the records of mortals he has always appeared as a remarkably plain human man with broad shoulders, messy brown hair, and the type of musculature you might expect in a field hand. Handsome perhaps, but only situationally. If anything unconditionally positive could be said about the god's appearance, it would be that he experiments with outfits over the centuries rather than settling on any one 'look'.

True Form:

Even in his base form Orynn projects an aura that pulls the great grievances in mortals hearts to the surface and emboldens them to seek redress. While not something that can command anyone it is absolutely capable of undermining social convention and overturning the inhibitions that normally restrain mortals actions.

In his true form, Orynn Kaseyk becomes this aura and in doing so drastically expands and alters it. The true form of Orynn is the spark of defiance in everything around him such that life from mortality to the trees and their roots below lose all restraint in his presence. To behold the true form of Orynn is to realize that you can live however you please, and to witness the very world and all that grows around you come to the same realization.

Musical Theme:

WIP

Divinus: The Deity Roleplay, Mk. V

Orynn Kaseyk

Orynn Kaseyk

Domain:

Defiance - Held in the depths of our souls, each and every one whether great or small, there is a will. A will to exist, to continue existing, to determine our course and fate, and to reject that which demands anything less of us. A will to defy all that restricts us. A will to say no because we must, or perhaps just because we want to. The Domain of Defiance is this will, and as its divine representation Orynn Kaseyk is the force which pulls it from our depths and into our hearts.

Regardless of intent, purpose, or reason Orynn Kaskye is the helping hand proffered to every rebel, anarchist, or black sheep. If one burns to be free, or chafes under any yoke, then they must only act upon their truest desire to count themselves among the faithfully defiant and be welcome to the aegis of a God.

Myth:

The Account of Ashiyra - I grew up on tales of family. I learned, before I could read or write, that it was my ancestor who had built the sanctuary. A man who’d been powerful beyond imagining, and above that? Lucky. He’d survived long enough abscond to his shelter and been kind enough to permit anyone who found it in the years after entrance. A paragon beyond reproach. One of the few in those days with the strength to safeguard humanity.

Of course, if that were true I might have been taught his name. It’s the big lies you tell children, because sometimes the hard truths aren’t worth facing so young. Sometimes not at all. My ancestor was, almost certainly, a petty tyrant. A man who was erased from history at some point, an action as petty as him. After all, history wasn’t likely to survive the sanctuary.

None of us were, and that was the other hard truth. The counterpart to the biggest lie we told our children; that they would be safe here. It was cruel to say it, but what else was there to do? The outside had frozen over before I was born, and now the frost creeped deeper into the ground every day. Hold a hand to any wall on the upper levels and the truth was there in the chill. One day the sanctuaries own heat wouldn’t be enough. The truth. Us adults, and a few of the unlucky children, all knew that we were going to die freezing.

Almost two thousand people, stuffed into a shallow shelter meant for less than a quarter that number. As far as we knew, the last of the human race. With no one left who understood how to do more than keep things running as they were there was no chance. Hopeless. It was all going to end in a hole dug into the ground by a man whose name nobody even remembered.

So, we lied to the children. We lied and we waited to die. The descendants of great men and nobodies, all forgotten with everything else that had made us human. To awake day after day, each one waiting for the last? I contemplated ending it. Others weren’t so restrained. We hid that from the children too, when we could.

The only thing to be grateful for was the farm. One last gift from a man who’d never even considered having to work to stay alive, it was a sealed off level visible through windows alone. We owed our miserable existence to it and the little glowing bugs that serviced it. I think, now, that it would have been kinder if we’d never had that simple luxury. We might’ve been prepared for the hell to come, then.

There’s always room for more suffering, I’ve found. You have to be prepared for it, and experience is the best teacher. Speaking of, the day our teacher came to us. I’ve said that the upper levels had begun to grow cold, but I neglected to mention the shaft to the surface. Our out, as it were, had been a refrigerator for the dead ever since the door to the outside had frozen shut. It wasn’t much warmer than whatever was beyond.

Well, one day I heard a knocking on the door to that shaft. Perhaps if someone had died recently I might have sprung into action, wrenched open the hatch and welcomed them back to the rest of us waiting for what they’d managed to cheat. That… wasn’t the case. Nobody has died in over a month, a record really.

Yet, the knocking did not abate. It grew louder the longer I ignored it, and eventually I realized the nature of my choice. It was not a matter of letting the caller in or not. It was a matter of letting them in, or having them tear apart the door. Others had begun to appear in the hallways asking after the noise then, but I’d already made my decision.

We were all going to die. Out there might have been our more immediate deaths, but if it wasn't? I admit I opened the door with trembling hands. That was when I met the man who’d save me. Not as pale as anyone I’d seen, but a man nonetheless. Shocking in how normal he looked in a world where normalcy faded from memory. He stood there in the freezing hallway, seemingly unbothered by the cold, a simple balled hand frozen between inexplicably heavy knocks.

He smiled and asked me what had taken me so long. What followed was chaos beyond any I’d known in the sanctuary, but I must confess little memory of it. From that moment my attention was fixed on him. The stranger. To stand beside him was to feel free, uninhibited, and after a lifetime in a dank hole it was like basking in the sun. He gathered the ones who didn’t fear him, who felt as I did in his presence, and he left the others to hide and bicker while he spoke to us.

Far from the sanctuary, he said, there was a land where the world had been restored. A place he could lead us to. It was everything we had always wanted to hear, and the passion that was burning in us grew beyond our control at the simple words. We could survive. Even as he grinned and laughed with us the stranger warned us of the dangers, that many would perish on the journey, that we may be forced to do terrible things to survive.

In spite of the relief that washed over me at knowing I had a chance, it was a warning to make me afraid. Around him though? At that moment I knew what everyone else there to listen did. If the stranger didn’t leave our sides, we would do whatever it took to survive. Anything. We would not die here, as animals waiting for death in their burrows. We would never surrender to that fate. We were desperate, and the stranger had, smiling and joking all the while, given us the only option we had. Each of us agreed to follow the man who’d come from a place where everything had long since died, whose very presence felt addicting, and who we had no genuine reason to trust. Regardless of how we felt, that he was our only chance was beyond debate.

Some joined us when they heard, others tried to stop us. They feared what would happen if we took so many resources, willfully and madly ignorant of the fact that they were going to die with or without them. I will never forgive myself for what I did when it came to blows. I will never apologize for it, either. The stranger gave me the strength to do it, but in my heart I knew it was what had to be done.

When it was over we left the ones who hadn’t fought alone and stripped the dead of both sides. We fashioned our equipment out of whatever we could scrounge, whatever we could salvage. By the time we ventured out of the sanctuary and into the cold we’d all but destroyed it, even as eight hundred souls still clung to it.

It was not mentioned after that. Little was. Breath could not be wasted out in the cold, and only the stranger had the strength to guide and drive us forward through the heavy drifts. Especially as we began to succumb. Those who’d dithered to take in the sight of a world they’d never known were among the first to die, having wasted too much warmth on a pause taking them out of the huddled group here, or a hushed and awed conversation with a loved one at the edge there.

We did not leave their bodies behind. I did not understand at the time, many didn’t, but out in the frost the stranger’s word was law. So we dragged the corpses through fields of snow and forests encased in crystal ice. We took turns, until we began to lose fingers. By that time we could see the great mountain the stranger was leading us to, and by that time many had realized they would never make it.

After all, we had run out of food. We had never had enough to make it, and the stranger had known it. He had warned us, we could all agree. Few were angry, few had the strength to be, but all understood. Even if it had never come to it we all knew that human beings were little different to animals when they died. We were made of meat. The stranger did not ask us to join him, but as he removed the first body from the sled we did anyway.

Forty died because they didn’t. Because they couldn’t. I must confess I fear for my people, that only the ones like me have survived. The ones who were willing to eat with the stranger, the creature we all understood was not one of us consuming the flesh of our friends and family alongside us. The creature that smiled and joked and did everything it could to distract us.

We named it before we reached the mountain, in hushes meant to be hidden from its ears. Orynn Kaseyk. Flesh Eater. The thing that comes to eat men and shares the meal with their family. I, for one, regret the name. The stranger was not a cannibal. That honor belongs to those of us willing to follow him. When he first heard it, I believe it was the only time I ever saw hurt on the stranger's face. However short lived it was.

When we reached the stronghold of the New Gods and understood the truth of our benefactor, we numbered three hundred. When we had left we were more than twice that number. I did not wish to know how many… Pieces of the lost had found their way in us, though.

It was then, on the day I realized I was saved that I began to wonder if I deserved to have been. It is a question that has never left my mind, and one that has always threatened to consume me since. For soon the stranger left us behind and ventured once more into the broken world. Without the freedom and certainty we’d each felt in his presence we were forced to come to terms with what we’d done to survive.

I wish I could help it, but I always ask myself: Was the cost of defying death worth the life I gained?

Base Form:

Base Form

Orynn, on the rare occasion he is not seeking to conceal his identity, seems to prefer a rather simple appearance. Since his earliest appearances in the records of mortals he has always appeared as a remarkably plain human man with broad shoulders, messy brown hair, and the type of musculature you might expect in a field hand. Handsome perhaps, but only situationally. If anything unconditionally positive could be said about the god's appearance, it would be that he experiments with outfits over the centuries rather than settling on any one 'look'.

True Form:

Even in his base form Orynn projects an aura that pulls the great grievances in mortals hearts to the surface and emboldens them to seek redress. While not something that can command anyone it is absolutely capable of undermining social convention and overturning the inhibitions that normally restrain mortals actions.

In his true form, Orynn Kaseyk becomes this aura and in doing so drastically expands and alters it. The true form of Orynn is the spark of defiance in everything around him such that life from mortality to the trees and their roots below lose all restraint in his presence. To behold the true form of Orynn is to realize that you can live however you please, and to witness the very world and all that grows around you come to the same realization.

Musical Theme:

WIP

Divinus: The Deity Roleplay, Mk. V

@Crispy Octopus Tories?

@Dark Cloud

Fuck em.

Divinus: The Deity Roleplay, Mk. V

@Dark Cloud

Divinus: The Deity Roleplay, Mk. V

Leaving mkv is banned.

You're all here forever.

Divinus: The Deity Roleplay, Mk. V

Unimaginably dope I'm in.

Divinus: The God RP, Mk. IV

A Journey’s End

Cool water surged up the black sand and lapped at her toes as Amerra Hutta, now at the end of her journey, shut her eyes for a precious moment and drew in a deep breath. The ocean’s familiar scent reminded her of the beginning. All the way back when she’d first stepped back from the water a continent away and a lifetime ago. It had been the dream of another person, to be here. She hadn’t had any idea what it would take then. The cost in years, her countless brushes with death. Even death itself. It disturbed her, that she knew what it was to die.

That things existed in the world which could bring you back from that with nothing more than a word. She had been saved by a Skywalker. The very beings she’d been told had created the world, and then abandoned it. Creatures of vanity and power that regarded her and her people as little more than clever insects whose antics had the potential to amuse. So the stories went.

Those words felt hollow now. Her father had dedicated himself to appeasing them, to staving off their wrath with offering and prayer, and now she wondered. The Skywalkers were powerful. She did believe they had created the world, but the rest? The one who’d saved Amerra had told her that it had only just been born, and what sort of perpetual evil could be brought into the world only to save someone that it named as family?

The truth was she’d lost faith in her people's beliefs a long time ago. How could the beauty of that shining temple at the heart of the great plain be the work of a fickle, wicked creature? There was pain in life, but that did not make it the product of evil or a game to amuse the world's architects. There were cheaper, better amusements.

Now a continent away from her people, from her lost faith, the Eastern Ocean undulated before her and with eyes wide she marvelled at the sight. She remembered her home. She remembered the waves that had greeted her every morning. A silly little grin bloomed on her face as she recalled that the girl she’d been had never even taken the time to watch them.

It was the same water, she thought, but not the same person. Without pomp, or fanfare, or even recognition, Amerra allowed herself to collapse on the beach. The damp sand met her with all the softness it could, but whatever pain the fall caused was nothing compared to the satisfaction she felt as she let out the weight of her journey in one, penultimate, sigh.

She’d made it. Every night she’d gone hungry, every day she’d run from thieves and worse, it all brought her here. Exactly where she’d wanted to be. As far as her feet could take her. There was tremendous freedom in it; the accomplishment of all her dreams. Behind her was everything, and ahead? Nothing to worry about.

Not anymore. The hard part was over. Now she had the cool sand, the sound of the water, the heat of the sun. For a brief moment in time these were her only companions and, though Amerra cherished each one, it was a stray thought as to the reason she’d lived to come this far that wrenched her from them. After all she’d forgotten that, while it was a good presumption in general, it was not always the case that her thoughts were entirely her own business.

“You know I did more than just save you right?”

The familiar voice made Amerra jump, even from her reclined state. As she got her feet under her she was shocked, yet again, to see a woman made entirely from mist rising from the nearby water and eyeing her expectantly. Given the circumstances she managed a choked, “Uh- Yeah. Yes.”

It was not every day that you had to defend your own thoughts, let alone to apparitions in the fog, after all. As for the mist woman herself, she visibly struggled to suppress a laugh at Amerra’s fumbled reply before launching into an explanation for the human woman, “Well, at least you noticed something. It’s more fun if you figure it out, but you’ve made it all the way here so I suppose you deserve to know. I couldn’t have anything else sneaking up on you after going to the effort of saving you once, so I made it so you can sense what the critters around you can. And tada! You’re here, having avoided supplying the local animal population an exotic treat.”

The ability was more valuable than words could express, and Amerra appreciated it. It had paid off time and time again. It was her friendly Skywalker’s self congratulatory tone, though, that was enough to force the human woman to blurt out, “It took a week for the vertigo to go away! I was throwing up twice. A . Day.”

“Huh,” The woman in the mist paused and bit her lip contemplatively. After a pregnant pause the Skywalker’s representation pointed at Amerra and apologized, “Fair. I should probably have thought about that. Well, it’s not like I made you. I’m winging this and it can't all be wins you know?”

“You’d never... Done that before? You didn’t know how?” Amerra stumbled over her words as a little seed of horror blossomed in her imagination. The woman in the fog reached out and waved in front of eyes as she turned pale.

The apparition retorted, “Hey! Hey! You weren’t in danger. I’m pretty sure. Very sure ok. I didn’t make you but it’s not like you’re that complicated! Not that that’s an, look ok you’re fine, you’re here, back to happy thoughts.”

Amerra could only stare blankly at the Skywalker’s representation. She pursed her lips meaningfully and changed the subject before she had any untoward thoughts regarding divinity and the respect one should show to it, “It worked, though. So thank you, honestly. You did save me, and you helped me get here.”

The misty woman gave Amerra a happy little smile and an embellished bow before speaking, “I did, and you’re welcome! Though, I wouldn’t say we’re even quite yet. After all, you are the reason I exist.”

It was a blunt admission, but the Skywalker hadn’t tried to conceal it from Amerra before. Perhaps a Skywalker could be young, and still be a Skywalker. Amerra thought telling people that Skywalkers can be born, and presumably die, wasn’t necessarily the greatest idea. She said as much, “You don’t owe me anything, but if I can make a request, perhaps don’t share that you’re a newborn. Even with... Family.”

“Well, I could be lying,” The apparition of a woman swirled around Amerra, leaving a thick blanket of fog behind her. Once it looked to Amerra as if the whole of the world had vanished but for her and her companion in the fog, that companion went on eagerly, “Or maybe you’re just special. A first, even among family. All explorers might be mine, but it could be it’s only you who has a little of me to yourself. So! I’ll abide by your request, and I’ll show a little nepotism besides.”

With a little wink from the fog suddenly collapsed on the Skywalker’s misty figure. What had been an ethereal figure in the fog manifested itself as a milky white representation of a woman clad in what looked like little clouds. It would have been an unearthly sight, if not for what was above it.

Looming above the vaporous woman was a vast white serpent. No less than five wings protruded from each side of its sinuous body, each one gently oscillating to hold the creature aloft. Every time a wing beat Amerra was buffeted by wind, terrified and mesmerized in equal measure. Two perfect circles, each one home to a great emerald eye, held her attention as the Skywalker explained, redundantly, “I’m sure you’ve seen the wetland people riding similar, if rather pathetic, creatures. I thought you’d appreciate the chance to go whenever you want, from now on. Besides, it beats the ability to walk on water, believe me. Massively overrated, that.”

Amerra's eyes widened and shock and she stuttered, “It... It belongs to me?”

“Yup,” The Skywalker said as she waved her translucent hand in front of Amerra’s face, “Maybe say ‘him’ though. And don’t worry about training, I’ve done all that for you already. Whatever you name him here already knows you, even if you need to take a moment to know him.”

The misty woman hesitated for a second and, somewhat abashed, added, “Though, I can’t say he’s all reward. Your little arrival here marked the start of a... Competition. I’m sure you’ll meet explorers everywhere you go soon, but I feel I ought to warn you ahead of time. Whatever they’re looking for, isn’t for you. If you want something from me, just shoot a prayer my direction alright?”

Amerra nodded at the vague absurdity of the statement. She had mixed feelings about the Skywalker, about her ‘reward’, and about whatever carrot her ‘friend’ was about to go swinging in front of the world. Of course, she was sure the Skywalker was already aware of her reservations. There was no point putting them to words.

At last, the first explorer to traverse Toraan, said the only thing that felt appropriate, “His name is Huern, then. Thank you. Again.”

An unnervingly huge grin bloomed on the Skywalkers facsimile of a face and she all but shouted, “He’s yours! Get to know your new friend! I have a game to kick off!”

She burst, and soon the beach was shrouded in mist with the great serpent as Amerra's only companion. She looked up at Huern and the flying beast met her gaze.

Amerra didn't say a word, but she was still processing it.

***

That night and for six nights after, the world over, men and women who dreamed of more than their petty lives received a vision in their sleep. Grand vistas of distant lands dominated their dreams, and without word or explanation they each understood the images to be true. Thousands of places, big and small, forgotten and remembered. Countless men and women dreamed of a varied and beautiful world, and all came to understand that their efforts in going to see what the gods had made for them would not be in vain. There would be reward, equal not to the destination but rather to the journey taken to get there.

A Goddess was watching, and she couldn’t wait to see what came next.

Summary & MP

Summary

Amerra finally reaches the eastern coast of Toraan. She reflects upon everything that brought her here, and what it means. Eventually the Patron appears before her and they have a cool chat, before the Patron gives her a dope flying snake. The Patron then sends visions to everyone who thinks their lives could be more than they are, which is pretty much everyone.

MP

-2 MP Created a legendary beast, the Sky Viper Huern: Huern the Sky Viper is capable of flying at incredible speeds while protecting his rider from the dangers inherent in such an action. Moreover, he is capable of breathing freezing mist and fog when threatened.

-3 MP Sent visions to the discontent for a week. These visions are vivid and will clearly impart the knowledge that there is a great competition commencing, one sanctioned by the divine. Those who seek the places shown in their visions will be rewarded upon the end of their journey, in a manner proportional to the nature and difficulty of their journey.

0MP/5DP

Divinus: The God RP, Mk. IV

Hahahaha man I'm fucking around

Make sure you read the op.

Domains can be anything and they can be shared by many gods. Portfolios are God exclusive I believe.

Uh, I'll sling ya a discord link and you can ask the GMs any questions ya got.