The Forgotten Faithful: A LitRPG Adventure (UnderVerse Book 2)

by Jez Cajiao

  I watched as he slowly rose back up, stretching himself out and doing a quick lap of the pool before he returned to the side closest to me. He half lifted himself out, leaning on the grass and faced me fully.

  “I’ve given you the time you asked for, Jax, and I enjoyed the feel of cool water again, but I must know…were you being truthful about your access to the Goddess?” Flux asked me, his tendrils raised and fixated on me.

  “I really wish I understood your body language better, mate…” I muttered, before shaking myself and going on. “Yes; I’m the Chosen of Jenae, and if you’d like, I could arrange an introduction.”

  Flux considered me silently before slowly pulling himself out of the water and facing me.

  “You are an enigma at times, Jax. I hear the words you speak, but it’s as though the meaning of them escapes you. We are talking about one of the Greater Gods, one of the creators of the Infinite Realms, and yet you talk about introducing me as though She is a particularly attractive cousin. I ask again, and I need you to understand how important this is: do you really have the ear of a Goddess?”

  I frowned, looking at him, as I thought through what he’d said. I’d found the altar and just as I always did, I had taken a gamble. Somehow, I had contacted a being that apparently helped to create reality as I knew it. I dug my nails into the grass I sat on and felt the soil beneath it. The thought of the countless billions of sentients that had lived across what little I understood of the Realms spun through my mind’s eye, and I stiffened, unconsciously pulling some of the grass free with a jerk that brought me back to reality.

  Yes, she was a Goddess, no she was not all powerful, and I had to wake her up. She was weak at present, and it was thanks to me that she was getting stronger. She was my ally, and maybe my friend? Either way, she was just another being, as far as I was concerned; a powerful one, even, but I was from Newcastle, and we didn’t back down for anyone.

  I’d had our people compared to the Nac Mac Feegles of Sir Terry Pratchett’s creation by a friend, and fuck if that weren’t accurate. We loved to fight, drink, and shag anything we could.

  I’d be respectful to Jenae, but that was all she was getting, and fuck it if she couldn’t take a joke. I straightened up and grinned at Flux.

  “Yeah, good point; means she’s almost as important as the Queen. I’ll be polite when I introduce you, mate,” I said, and I shifted around, going to one knee, and looking at Flux. I closed my eyes and concentrated, drawing in the mana and focusing on Jenae, building up until I felt I had enough ready before I opened my eyes, facing Flux across the glowing ball of mana I’d called into being between us. I gave him a wink and called out in the silence of my mind, the mana infusing the call as the glowing ball burst into a thousand motes of light that slowly settled to the ground, winking out.

  “Jenae!” I called, and I felt a shift as she connected to me, like the opening of a door into a vastly larger room. I stood on my side of the doorway, but I could feel the space beyond, and the presence that lived there, the heat of the fire, and the far hotter desire to know that defined her.

  “Hello, Eternal,” she said into the silence of my mind, and I smiled involuntarily.

  “You always call me that,” I said to her. “Why?”

  “You are blessed by Amon, the first Emperor; as such, some of him is within you. He is Eternal, and so are you. You’ll know more when the time is right; don’t worry.”

  “Okay, mysterious much? Anyway, that’s not why I reached out to you; I have a friend here who’d like to meet you…”

  “Really? You called out across the immeasurable distances of space and time to say ‘Hi, want to meet my friend?’?”

  “Okay, when you say it like that, maybe it’s a little weird, but hey, you’re here now. Want to meet Flux?”

  “We really need to talk about realities and the gulfs between them at some point, Jax, but at this stage, yes. I’d like to meet any prospective follower; thank you.” Jenae sighed in my mind, and I opened my eyes to check on Flux, seeing him suddenly jerk and drop to his knees, all four hands pressed to the ground as he let out an unconscious subsonic ‘thrum’ of awe.

  I straightened up and grinned at my prostrate friend, knowing that Jenae was talking to him. A thought I’d had at the back of my mind since this conversation with Flux had started gave a wiggle, and I spoke to Jenae without thinking about it.

  “So, wasn’t one of your siblings all about water?” I asked, flinching when I felt the displeasure in Jenae’s mental voice.

  “Yes.”

  “Okay; clearly this isn’t going to be a fun part of the conversation, but didn’t you say you wanted me to help bring the other Gods and Goddesses back?” There was a long silence, during which the others began to filter in, looking embarrassed as they found Flux on his knees with me standing over him.

  “Don’t worry; we’re just talking to Jenae, that’s all. Take a seat, and I’ll be with you in a few minutes, okay?” I said, and Jenae’s mental shout nearly drove me to my knees.

  “You’re ‘JUST’ talking to me… ‘that’s all’?” She snapped, “Just talking to the GODDESS THAT’S SAVED YOUR LIFE?”

  I felt pain blooming in my mind even further, a hot, wet feeling on my upper lip making me reach up instinctively, and when I pulled my hand back, it was covered in blood. I could feel my ears and eyes joining my nose as blood began to trickle out, and the pain grew horrific.

  I turned, struggling as I tried to face away from the others, and I bit the inside of my cheek, my rage roaring to life over the pain that filled my mind. I felt Him wake with it as well, our twin angers feeding one another, even as I sensed Oracle blast out through a lower floor window and hurtle up toward me.

  The pain vanished as suddenly as it had appeared, and I staggered, blinking as I straightened again, I wiped at my face and held my hand up before my eyes, seeing the blood smeared there.

  “That’s twice you’ve done that, bitch. Want to try for a hat-trick?” I whispered, knowing she could hear me.

  “I…I…”

  “You attacked me, again! All because I tried to follow your requests!” I roared at her in the silence of my mind, and I felt a presence filling the mental room behind me. It was disjointed, confused, and angry, made of a thousand memories more than a mind, but it was powerful, and it was filled with rage.

  I mentally faced her, feeling the rage behind me swelling, growing like a cloud of smoky fury, rising to surround me.

  ***

  In a second, the world had changed, and we stood elsewhere, a new place.

  The sky way dark overhead, with heavy purplish-grey clouds that roiled and flashed with hidden lightning. The land all around us was dead and barren, soil and sand intermixed across the scrublands, broken only by the howling winds that filled this place. All around us in the distance were huge mountains; they towered higher than I could see, disappearing into the clouds, and before me stood a single figure.

  She was older than I, but not past her prime. Dark red hair fell in waves down a face that would never be called stunning; her jaw was too strong, and her cheeks too wide, but her eyes blazed with the Fire of Knowledge, and she was outlined in flickering, crackling flames.

  This was Jenae, I realized, the Goddess as she was now, and I glanced behind me, looking up at the growing wall of rage that had my back.

  It was filled with darkness and light, roiling clouds and brilliant sunshine burst through, screams of fighting and death, and cries of laughter, cheers of celebration, and the sweet giggle of children. I saw the cloud of righteous fury growing, spreading around me and enveloping me. I felt it clothe me in armor of madness, and I knew what it was.

  This was the remnant of Amon, First Emperor, Eternal. This was all that was left of him. Hundreds of years had passed, his mind and soul being shattered anew with each generation that was born of his genetics. The crazed and tangled web grew, taking more and more of him, spreading his consciousness out until it broke, and all
that was left were impulses, memories...

  He’d never live again and couldn’t die; the torture of seeing his descendants committing the very crimes he’d created his Empire to defend against drove him deeper into insanity, until at the last, he’d found us.

  The remains of Amon had flared to life in Tommy and myself, some twisted fate of genetics pulling more than the usual amount of himself together. He’d found more than kin when he’d found our twin rages; he’d found enough to regain some of his mind again, but it was still broken and could never be rebuilt properly.

  All of this blazed through my mind in a second, leaving understanding behind.

  I reached out, curling my right hand into a fist as I looked at it. A glowing gauntlet pulled itself together from the void and covered my fingers, joining to me seamlessly.

  I looked up at Jenae, a shiver of pleasure running through my body as the armor flowed up to cover my head, my vision restricted momentarily as the metal flowed over my face, and then it cleared. I could see through the protective cover of metal, felt it encompassing me everywhere, yet it flexed and moved with me.

  It felt as though I had donned stiff silk, yet I knew it would provide protection better than the finest steel could ever hope to.

  “No!” Jenae cried out, taking a step back, and I glared at her, knowing she could see me even though my armor.

  “You did this. You started this!” I growled at her, the heat of righteous anger filling me.

  “No, please, Eternal!” She repeated, taking a step back. In her right hand, a sword suddenly appeared, and she gripped it instinctively.

  I held out my right hand, parallel to my chest, and I closed my fingers around a naginata that hadn’t existed before now. It glowed an unearthly silver, and I felt a second presence appear beside the madness, a huge yet confused mind reaching out. It recognized Amon, and it touched him, tasting his madness and recoiling, even as it also took up a protective guard at my back.

  “AMON?” It questioned, fear and sadness filling its mental sending. There was a burst of communication from the madness, a disjointed pulse that carried the taste of hundreds of years of terror and fury, the knowledge of a world being destroyed, and a soul being unraveled. I was hit with it, and it left a series of memories, but I couldn’t take it all. The second presence, though, took it easily, absorbing everything.

  “NO. THIS MUST NOT BE. WE AGREED TO AID YOU. DESPITE ALL THAT HAPPENED, OUR BOND HOLDS. WE WILL INTERCEDE…” The huge presence behind me moved forward, and I felt an enormous claw-tipped foot, longer than I was tall, crush the earth beside me, as a fathomless voice echoed through my mind.

  “HEAR ME, ETERNAL. THIS MUST NOT BE. AMON MUST BE PROTECTED. HE CANNOT BE LOST, WASTED LIKE THIS. PULL BACK HIS RAGE, BURY HIS MADNESS, AND LET HIM SLEEP ONCE AGAIN. I, INSTEAD SHALL AID YOU.”

  I glared up, looking into an eye that I could comfortably stand inside, which regarded me from a scaly head the size of a truck. It was a dragon, one that I recognized dimly from Amon’s memories. I struggled for a second, and a name sprang to mind…

  “Amon’Tuthic?” I whispered, and He nodded slowly, the memory I’d seen him in flaring to life and dying as he rumbled acknowledgement.

  “THAT MEMORY SHOULD NOT BE KNOWN TO YOUR KIND. I ACKNOWLEDGE THE DEBT AND THE OATH, REGARDLESS. STAND DOWN, AND PULL BACK WHAT REMAINS OF AMON. I WILL AID YOU IN THIS FIGHT.”

  I scowled at him for a moment longer, then turned my furious glare onto Jenae.

  “You see what you’ve done… you see what you’ve started!” I growled at her, even as I tried to control the anger flooding me.

  “Please, Eternal! Jenae begged. She looked down at the sword in her hands and cast it aside, the blade vanishing as soon as it left her fingers. “Please, let me try to fix this!”

  “JENAE? MISTRESS, YOU HAVE DONE THIS? YOU ATTACKED THE ETERNAL?” Amon’Tuthic asked in confusion, each syllable echoing like lead blocks dropped in a cave.

  “I lashed out in anger, and now I cannot fix this. Please, Tuthic, aid me!” She cried, and the ground shook below us, the mountains in the distance seeming to shift. “We must get him out of here. He cannot be found, we cannot be found! If Nimon senses us…”

  The enormous dragon looked upward, as though his eyes could pierce the skies, and he growled in anger, before ducking his head down to be level with me.

  “ETERNAL, THIS CANNOT BE. SEARCH YOUR FEELINGS; EVEN IN YOUR RAGE, YOU KNOW ME. TRUST IN WHAT I SAY; YOU CANNOT BE HERE, AND NEITHER CAN I. YOU ENDANGER US ALL FOR YOUR RAGE, AND MY CHILDREN MOST OF ALL. I TASTE YOUR ANCESTOR’S OATH UPON YOU. WILL YOU HONOR IT, AND STEP BACK? I WILL GUARD YOUR MIND FROM ALL. JENAE WILL NOT HARM YOU AGAIN; I WILL SWEAR IT ON MY SOUL IF NEED BE, BUT YOU MUST STEP BACK!”

  I glared at him, then at Jenae, but I remembered the oath we (HE) had sworn, and I took a single step backwards. My mind remained filled with anger, even as my body shook with the need to fight.

  ***

  I blinked, back in the world. The vision I’d seen had gone, and seemingly not a second had passed. I glanced down at my hand and saw a glimmer of ghostly armor that vanished like fog in the heat of sun even as I looked closer.

  I could feel him in my mind; I could feel them all. Amon, the Eternal Emperor, Amon’Tuthic, the enormous silver dragon that had been Amon’s bondmate’s mate, and Jenae. The relief from the last two was palpable, even as I felt the confusion in what was left of Amon’s mind.

  The anger was still there, bouncing around in my head, but now it was only my own, and Oracle’s rage as she arrived by my side and observed the blood that covered my face. I trembled slightly, and Oracle landed on my shoulder.

  Pressing her hand to my temple, she caught up on everything in my mind. I could feel her anger reinforcing my own, each feeding off each other, but as before, I contained it, compressing it down, forcing it into submission.

  The rage that the pair of us felt was a candle beside the sun compared to Amon’s rage, and I knew that I had done the right thing in stepping back. I needed Jenae, but damn, I wanted to gut her right now.

  “THAT IS UNDERSTANDABLE, ETERNAL.” The voice that echoed in my mind made me wince, and Oracle curled her tiny hands into fists as she whimpered at the ancient dragon’s mind touching ours. “I apologize. I have not spoken to one of your kind in long ages,” Tuthic said, clearly trying to modulate his tone. “I have spoken with Jenae, and while I think there is a need to explain this… it is best to come from her. Will you speak with her?” I drew a deep breath and nodded, replying to him.

  “I will, Amon’Tuthic. I…thank you. It is an honor to speak with you.” I said, the knowledge that I was speaking mind to mind with a dragon that flew through the skies when my own people were still exploring our world’s oceans in tiny wooden ships was helping me to be respectful.

  “And yet you brave the lion in his den in facing Mistress Jenae? How strange. Still, I appreciate the honor you show me, Eternal. Your ancestor was different to most of your race; I liked him, even though our final words to one another were said in anger.”

  “Jax… I am sorry.” Jenae’s voice came through. “I lashed out when I felt your seeming dismissal of me. I regretted it as soon as I did it, but still, my shame is my own.”

  “Yeah, you’re good at that,” I said to her, my anger ticking over once more.

  “She is a Goddess, Jax the Eternal. She deserves your respect.” Tuthic admonished, and I shrugged, feeling like a petulant child.

  “This was my fault, though, and I accept that. Jax was attempting to help me, to carry out an earlier request, and I let my fear and greed feed my anger. I lashed out. I should not have. Will you let me explain, Jax?” Janae asked, and I drew in a deep breath before letting it out with a sigh.

  “I will, and I’m sorry as well. I didn’t show you much respect there, did I?” I directed the thought to her, a feeling of shame blooming within me.

  “No, you didn’t. But we had agreed to be allies, not mistress and servant, an
d despite our relative experiences, the realities of our situation mean that we are far closer matched than we would otherwise be. We are allies.” There was a pause as Jenae gathered her courage, and I felt Tuthic watching and waiting. “For a God or Goddess, there is no greater shame than to fail your people, and I and my brothers and sisters did this. When we were ripped from the realms and cast out, we wasted much of our power raging and trying to return. Nimon grew stronger on the devastation that his cataclysm brought about, and we became… lesser. When his curse eventually expired, and we returned, none who worshipped us still lived. Any temples and altars that could be found had been scoured from the realms, and we were alone and weakened."

  "The last of our altars, like the ones you found, were hidden away in only the most dangerous of locations. We slept the ages away, too weak to fight him without our champions and our faithful. Then you awoke me, and I saw the slimmest of chances to return to what we were. I took it, and I asked you to return my family as well. I asked it, believing it would be easy to give up potential followers, as it’s easy to give up future wealth, when you have it not. When you bought me another potential group of converts, then casually asked about giving them to my sister…my jealousy raised its head, and I was filled with greed. Then you so casually dismissed talking to ‘just’ me, and my fear and anger over my weakened state…I’m sorry, Jax. I should not have lashed out.”

  “Jax, do you wish to speak?” Tuthic asked calmly, and I had a mental image of a headmaster standing over a quarrelling pair of pupils and making them behave and shake hands. I couldn’t help it, and I started to laugh, the last of my anger passing as I did. There was a startled silence in my mind, until they both understood the imagery that I shared mentally with them, and the feeling of gentle amusement and relief filled my mind from both of them.

  “Yes. I am sorry, Jenae, and I’m sorry you were pulled into this, Amon’Tuthic.” I said. “It was my casual disrespect that caused this. Please understand, it’s not intentional; in my…land…it was the way we generally spoke to each other. I’m sorry.”