Anima: A Divine Dungeon Series (Artorian's Archives Book 6)

by Dennis Vanderkerken

  Cale rolled his wrist. “That being?”

  Artorian wondered how to explain. “As an Incarnate, one is effectively immortal. There is a big problem with that supposed boon. The reality behind immortality is everybody else dying. I’m not sure if you remember, my friend. I never joined up with you for my sake. I was never interested in power for power’s gain. All of this cultivation, all of this janitorial mess, all of this handling your soul world. It’s all for the single purpose of making sure my family had a place to be. To grow, and be happy. I know this sounds odd coming from a twelve-year-old, but as you can surely understand, that’s just the body. How old am I even, Cal? Do you know? I don’t. I have no idea. I am completely unable to tally the decades, centuries, or more that I’ve been around. Even if your world wasn’t clocking in at hypervelocity through the Law of Time. I’m clueless.”

  Cale bit his thumb. Right. There was some importance to all those Cores on the wall. Just not particularly to him. He didn’t speak as the youth continued. Wise beyond his appearance. “My chosen decided that they would brave the frontier of eternity, and stick around. I haven’t spoken to them yet, but even without doing so I can close my eyes and see the threads of connection. They are all well. They wait for me, for when I have time. Yet, my original family, the one I brought in here with me. They deserve more than a long, dreamless slumber on my wall.”

  Artorian drained his cup, and made his point. “Some of my adopted children from the Fringe were cultivators. I want them to have the option to continue, or delay. I want to ask them if they want to just… call their life a good life. After they have gotten to actually live it. Or, if like my chosen, they want to throw a natural end to the curb. To come along to see the end of it all. They are my links to the past. My tethers to promises ancient. Eventually, I am going to outlive them. Then what do I do, Cal? What does one do when they have lost the last pillars of their original self? I have you all, and Dawn, and my chosen.”

  He motioned his small hand to the wall. “Yet they are a special pillar. They are my impetus for all of cultivation. It was for them. It was all for them. Now here they are. Safe and stored. All these people who make up a part of my heart. I expect a piece of me to die when they do. I made a place for them in Midgard. I’m sure you’ve found it. Let’s not pretend that got past you when you found all my beacons. They are pieces of our past, complete with cultures and social values that are nothing like whatever the people in your world have become. Cultures I grew to love, and want to experience again. Can you honestly tell me that can happen in your Eternium? Are there any other people you haven’t recycled to Hel and back?”

  Cale just shook his head and sighed. “Artorian… I… Look. No. I don’t have available souls that I haven’t used and reused to the point where I can guess their actions regardless of what situation I put them in. That’s why I intend to slate them as natural inhabitants of the world in Eternium, because of some unpleasant side-effects that I actually wanted to talk to you about today.”

  Artorian sat back in his chair, and ceded the floor. Cale nodded appreciatively. “I don’t have a good explanation. So I’m just going to talk, and you let me know when it starts sounding familiar to what you just told me. In short, the souls of the people stored in the moon Cores are spent. Not that they have lessened, or are any less strong. The repeated recycling does in fact take a toll, and I don’t have a single person left, save for the ones kept safe on walls, that will truly be something we used to consider ‘an adventurer.’ It doesn’t matter if the recycled souls were Mages, less, or more. They just stopped trying after a certain point.”

  Cale pulled up a diagram, showing something akin to ‘enthusiasm’ measurements. “They choose mundane lives and are happy with mundane actions. They no longer strive for change. They’re not dead. That’s why I said spent. Minya has it too. You saw it during the meeting. She’s done. She’s done too much, and seen too much. Eternity has gotten to her. Seed Core or not, it didn’t matter in the end. She reached a point of experiences where anything more is ‘too much.’ She can still do the jobs I give her, but it’s no longer with that fire she once had. I think you remember, from those early days, where she lived to make a cult for me? Those days are over, that fire has simmered. She’s tired, and I don’t mean physically.”

  Artorian was clearly concerned. “Why… why just Minya? What about the rest of us?”

  Cale altered the diagram to show a list of supervisors. “As usual, Dawn and Tatum are immune. There’s something… unique, that happens when you become an Incarnate. You live to strive for the ideal of your Law with a far deeper directness. Nothing else is needed to sustain you on this odd front I’m talking about, save for that concept. So long as you can further your bit of truth in the universe, you can keep going indefinitely. I know for sure. I feel it with certainty. A-rankers and below? Not so lucky.”

  Artorian sighed. He couldn’t say he didn’t understand. “No, no I get it, Cal. Even with a perfect memory, having your heart broken too many times makes you very jaded to similar events in the future. The act of living is no different. Eventually, it will be too much. For some people that point can come very early. For others it may seem to never come at all. When I think of what Minya has been through, that alone is obtrusive and a burden. When I consider that the last person she truly was latched to is essentially unavailable… I can’t say I don’t understand why she would sit down and feel unable to get back up. Even as a very potent Mage. Dawn was like that too, in the early Ember days. Unlike Ember, I can’t be there for Minya the same way. She would need Dale.”

  Cale raised his hands in defeat. “Well, I don’t think that’s possible. It’s not like I can make more b…”

  His hands dropped, and his vision was elsewhere. Artorian reached over, prodding the dungeon in his human arm. “Buddy?”

  Cale returned as the light blinked on behind his eyes. “I’m very stupid. Incarnates can have as many bodies as they abyss well like, and parsing the thought pattern of Dale into a spare Core for that body to use isn’t even difficult. I’m… I need some advice on love.”

  Artorian calmly smiled. “My friend, as odd as this is to say, you have come to the right person. Take us to Minya. I think I have an idea how this is going to go. We can talk about the deity shop after.”

  They both vanished from the sun, appearing in thick bushes at the edge of Marie’s kingdom. Or this oddball version of it anyway. Awfully much thatched straw. Cale nudged him in the ribs. “There’s Minya.”

  Artorian followed Cale’s pointing motion, and nodded when he saw. She was sitting on a slightly raised hill, facing the farms. Cale was nudged in the ribs back. “Let me help. You want to plunk him ri~i~ight there.”

  Minya watched the field being tilled in Eternium’s version of Midgard. Her eyes felt heavy, and she should get up and consider finding what goods she wanted to peddle when eventually there was a store. It was a pleasant day, but every day was a pleasant day. It would be until the weather systems stopped being a cycle of utterly predictable patterns. A strange scream caught her attention. Something fell from the sky and splattered face-first into the nearby mud.

  The figure extricated himself from the mess, and groaned at his continued misfortune. Dale whined loudly. “Oh, come on. Now what? How did I…? Where even…? Cal! Cal! What happened? I remember merging temporarily and needing to break into our own dungeon, and then it all gets horribly fuzzy. Cal! Are you there?”

  Dale was booming his B-ranked voice at the sky. Or his Eternium equivalent of it. The actions may have felt the same, but life here was all numbers now. Dale looked around, and spotted the down-in-the-dumps person he recognized. He threw his arms up, celestially elated. “Minya!”

  Minya’s senses took some time to catch up. That voice was just a loud memory. It wasn’t real. At least, it wasn’t real until Dale dropped to a knee in front of her, arms outstretched in joy. He was hoping for a hug, but even Dale could tell she wasn’t feeling like fres
h peaches. Her voice was weak. “Cal? That isn’t funny.”

  “Cal isn’t here. Unless you can get that self-serving Core’s attention somehow?” Dale frowned, his hands pushing to his knees. He shook his fist at the sky. “No matter how loudly I call for him! Honestly, all this static is terrible. Where is it even coming from?”

  Minya looked Dale over, her eyes slowly gaining luminance. “Wait. Dale? Dale, Dale?”

  The man in question rolled his eyes. “No, Mountain-Dale. Of course, it’s me! Who else would it be? Do you have any idea what’s going on? What happened to Mountaindale? Why are we in a random field? Wh… why are you crying? Minya? Hey. Come on, now. Can I hold you? Is that okay?”

  Artorian pulled on Cale’s shoulder as Minya’s weeping became loud enough for them to hear without cheating. “That’s our cue to skedaddle. No more interference from us. Let them talk. Spend time. Figure it out between themselves.”

  They fuffed out back to the sun, and Cale felt speechless as he forcibly pulled his attention away from the scene of Minya crushing Dale in her arms. Trying his best not to sneak a peek and pay attention. Artorian helped by tapping him on the shoulder. Bringing him to the present. “If it goes well, that’s lovely. If it doesn’t… then that’s their choice to make. Now. I see you’re having trouble. Let’s talk about deities.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  More than one tap was required to keep Cale on task. He just really wanted to see how the initial events between Dale and Minya played out. Artorian wasn’t having it. “Cale, they can sense your perspective. If you keep poking your nose in then you will be responsible for mucking it all up. What did you just say you would do in the meeting?”

  Cale grumbled, begrudgingly removing his last tethers. “Fine. Fine. Also, Let’s stick to ‘Cal’. Cale was an amusing joke, but the welcome on it has worn out. Don’t worry, I won’t be forgetting that humanity lesson you punched in. What were we talking about? Right, deities.”

  The youth in front of him laced his fingers and leaned back in the oversized chair. “More supervising doesn’t sound difficult. I have it on the nose that the difficulty of the concept has more to do with why such things or entities are necessary in the first place.”

  Cal scratched the top of his head. Why always so direct with the philosophy stick? Did he think these questions were easy? “I wasn’t thinking about necessary until just now. Just that we had supervisors in my soul world, and that Eternium would benefit from a chain of command.”

  Artorian shook his head no. “I heard what you said, but you used the wrong words. What you actually just said was: I need a chain of janitorial staff to solve problems before they can get to me. That was never the query, or the part that was confusing. The question is why do they need to be termed, known, or classed as deities? That is specific language you’re using. Why that concept?”

  The dungeon made a face that convinced Artorian he was trying to process some difficulties. The lack of light in his eyes even told the youth he’d also rolled back his personal frames of reference to give himself more time to do so. When Cal came back, he did so with a plethora of three-dimensional visuals. Each showing events of past cycles they had gone through in soul world development. “Found it. Let me walk you through this.”

  The diagrams lined up in chronological order, and Artorian made a noise of concern when he could see it himself. Still, he let Cal get the matter off his chest. “In each iteration, and I do mean each single one, faith and religion of some kind popped up. I don’t know how and I definitely don’t know why. I just know it does. Here: iteration fifty. All worlds had shrines, and all shrines had their own little mini-divines. Grass, trees, flowers, bees. Each individual thing had something dedicated to it.”

  He rolled through the diagrams with a wave of his hand. “Iteration one hundred. Multiple big pantheons, each with divines that have lumped smaller concepts under specific ideals. Those ideals were then latched to stories. Those stories took on a life of their own, and the ideas perpetuated.”

  Making the same motion as before, Cal again rolled through diagrams. “Iteration one-fifty, monotheism. One divine for abyss everything.”

  A third, rougher wave of the hand forcibly scrolled the diagram shown to some at the end of the line. “Iteration four-thirty, specific individuals were uplifted and taken as more than what they were. Because of deeds committed and acts performed. Even if the tales are outlandish and wildly exaggerated, the same pattern from iteration one hundred happened. The people all passed, but the shrines and temples lived on. Now look at this.”

  Cal scrolled all the way back to the beginning. Iteration two. Artorian paled at the sight. “During the second run, Incarnates considered themselves the peak of being. Before we really had the system in place, they destroyed wantonly, and claimed superiority because they were so objectively stronger than their non-Incarnate counterparts. There was rampant desolation. Because they were effectively immortal, they ruled and reigned as tyrants. The power corrupted every last one; it all went to their heads.”

  Artorian said nothing as Cal shifted to iteration one. His tone bordered agitation now, and the youth understood why. “Then there’s number one. That was you lot. Can you honestly tell me that went well?”

  The Administrator sighed, kneading his temples. “I… see the problem. In other words, if you don’t add it in, people will make up their own. Because the topic is so volatile and wildly problematic, you would rather that factor remain a control group. Rather than some other test bed. You picked deities as the word and function, specifically because that is one of the things you no longer want to see randomized. Even if it’s not the best way things could be, it is better to install people you trust that can help janitor the impending mess than have another possibility for iteration two to come about.”

  Artorian pulled himself up from his slump, working on solutions. “We have access to the system of numbers, and we can change things to make sure that things don’t get too out of hand. Such as, say, someone cheats. Or finds a way to break the game. Which, given I exist, is certain to happen.”

  Cal snorted, his unpleasant mood lifting. “Well, you’re not wrong. Are we good on the why, now?”

  Artorian conceded the point. He wanted more, of course, though he could pattern the rest with what had been stated. “Onto the how. You mentioned a different track, or system for progression. That makes for… what. Three? I need to keep track of? Personal cultivation, Eternium, and deity. That first one is by far the most important, though there are complications.”

  Cal nodded, downing another gulp of strawberry goodness. “Dawn filled me in. She’s on top of your well-being. I’m aware, and I know I can’t stop the sudden energy conversions when you tick a rank. Since I promised that you would have the energy if you went through one. So while the others are doing their best to play nice with their cultivation, yours once again goose-bites me in the butt. Honestly, I should just connect Eternium gains to cultivation gains.”

  Artorian was up from his chair and on the table. “You mean to say you could have done that from the start? Cal! You fool! Why didn’t you? Do you have any idea how much that would have helped!”

  Cal’s gears turned slow, but the Nixie Tube lit itself up in the end. “Oh. Yeah. Now that you… mentioned it. That would have helped, huh? I’ll, uh… do that. I’ll tell the others that’s being implemented and pretend I meant to do that from the start. Yeah… That should add to the enthusiasm. Don’t, uh… don’t tell anyone.”

  The youth leered daggers. “Make all three systems interconnect. Don’t make us do triple work. You heard Henry’s lamentations already. He’s distraught and has convinced himself he’ll never be able to unfield his Aura. It keeps just sloughing off of him. That is exactly the kind of thought pattern that prevents you from controlling your Aura properly. Don’t do that to him. Make gains for one count as gains for the others. Even if we have eternity, it’s not like time isn’t a commodity.”

  Ide
as burdened Cal. “Oh. That’s a great idea! That solved my not-scared-by-deaths problem! I can just use the same solution as before, and institute time penalties if you die in Eternium!”

  Cal quieted as the dagger-leer didn’t let up. “Yes, yes, making an effort for one counting for the others does sound good too.”

  That eased Artorian, who manifested his soul pillow in the chair before flopping back down. “Excellent. Now I guess I’ll ask the question that you will like, and I will not. Tell me about the numbers.”

  *Eeeee*! Cal wiggled his arms close to his chest, giddy with a beaming smile. “Okay! So! Deities are going to function off of something called Divine Energy. Or ‘DE’ for short. I’m thinking DE can be traded for additional cultivation progress. Since I can already trade personal cultivation energy into currency for our fun little shop. I don’t really need another direct transfer system. So you can use the game shop to make buildings, items, mobs, add blessings or titles, and the like. Actually, I should let deities have the ability to give one blessing for free. Incentive to join and all that.”

  The Administrator nodded. “How is it gained? You’re only talking about spending.”

  Cal happily pulled up twelve diagrams. “Structures! I have long been puzzling over that same question. At first, I thought ‘amount of people doing x for a deity,’ but that got odd. Then I considered ‘the amount of people in active worship’ over a deity. That didn’t fare any better. So while not exactly great, currently it’s: ‘If there is a structure plunked down that has directly to do with the deity’ then you get DE points.”

  Artorian pointed at one of the floating diagrams. “Does that say ‘per diem’? Am I reading that right?”

  Cal checked. “Spelling error. That should have said ‘per day,’ but it looks pretty so I’m leaving it.”

  They both shrugged, and got on with it. Cal made the DE-based information source larger. “If the structure ideas don’t hold up, then I am going to add benefits to followers. Just having them, I mean. One follower adds twenty-five DE per day. Altars give fifty. Shrines give a hundred. Then there’s temples, which I have divided up based on size and splendor. Honestly, in some of the prior iterations whole wars broke out over ‘who had the better temple.’ What a mess. That scuffle still had nothing over the world war in iteration seventeen, which started over a dumb disagreement of what condiment should go on toast first. People are strange.”