NOVEL WEB Chapter 3: Stretching Those New, Deific Mind Muscles
Sammy immediately shot up onto her feet with a yelp from the shattering of the mirror/portal, though no physical harm came to her. Inwardly, it was somehow like a slap in the face to her extended senses. Like someone had broken something that was hers.
“Why did she do that? How dare she!?” The words just blurted out and felt off after she said them. “Wait, why do I care? Not like I only have one or something.”
She gazed curiously at a network of little broken shards of various sizes and shapes, all floating in front of her. They showed many different angles that had become blurry and unfocused. Like the snap of a finger, though, she brought them all to clarity.
She could see a small, dimly lit bedroom through all the little visual windows, some pieces on the washbasin, some on the floor. She also could see the woman, in distress looking down, hands up on her head. Her attire looked something like a more worn, dressed-down Renaissance fair costume.
“I’m not crazy, I’m not crazy,” the woman was saying to herself. “I didn’t see that, there’s no mirror demon, mirror demons aren’t real…”
“Hey!” Sammy called out as she focused on the piece of mirror that caught just the face of the woman, from the floor. It came fully into clarity. “Can you hear me? What gives?”
With another cry the woman brought a boot down to smash the shard, squeaking out, “Don’t eat me!”
Despite herself, Sammy still jumped when the ‘portal’ shattered, this time much of it into tiny pieces that disappeared from her perception entirely. She shifted her focus to the other pieces, but it appeared that the woman had fled the scene.
“Why did she think I’d eat her?” Sammy asked the System.
The System cannot provide this information.
Sammy blew air out of the side of her mouth. “Can I go through these portals? Affect things? I don’t feel like I can.”
Your intuition is correct: you do not yet have the ability.
“Yet? So it’s possible. But probably dangerous. Still, what else am I going to do?”
Avatar Construct: Any deity can conduct investiture into a physical avatar construct at a minimum of 1500 Faith Energy, or FE. Once created, it persists in-world under the perspective and control of the user until dematerialized or destroyed, which sends the deity’s perspective back to their demiplane domain.
New Quest unlocked: “Walk Amongst Them” — Create an avatar in-world.
● Notice! Requires Quest: “Gather the Faithful” complete.
● Rewards: 10% FE investiture rebate; free minor [Bound] magical weapon.
New Quest unlocked: “Gather the Faithful” — Reach 1000 Current FE.
● Notice! Requires all quests in the “Fledgling Deity” chain complete.
● Rewards: +1000 maximum FE; obtain Goddess level 2.
New Quest unlocked: “Fledgling Deity: The First Believer” — Obtain your first Follower.
● Rewards: +25 FE.
Sammy stood there blinking upward under the assault of mental text notices, a sour frown on her face.
“Quests? I’m in a fucking MMO!” But the System had nothing to say to this.
Sighing, she found herself going back through the quest details in her head as if they were a concrete menu she could summon and scroll through.
“Okay, what happens if I just, like, don’t bother at all? Lay around and sleep indefinitely, hope I wake up out of this?”
You do not require sleep.
If you do not participate, nothing will happen during the [New Deity Grace Period] of 7 days. Then normal deterioration begins.
Faith Energy Deterioration: Daily deterioration of FE and equivalent Max FE is at a rate of 10 - Follower count per day. If your Current FE is 0, Max FE is instead reduced by x5. It cannot go into negatives.
As Max FE is reduced, the overall percentage of your deific interface with reality is as well, dulling perception, senses, and the psyche as a whole as you are detached. When Max FE reaches 200, you are disconnected entirely from any world and will begin to fade from existence at a slow rate of -1 Max FE per 100 years.
If a deity left artifacts or hidden knowledge, it is possible for them to be resurrected by new believers, though the deity’s state of consciousness can be questionable by that time.
When eventually Max FE reaches 0, the deity is reincarnated elsewhere within System reality, assigned a random class and likely having no memory.
Sammy read/listened rather numbly to it all, turning back to her ledge spot and sitting down to ponder everything. She deliberately cast away the shard pieces of the broken mirror viewpoints, though she was certain she could pull them up at any time.
The information about consequences wasn’t that surprising, though the idea of slowly going mad in isolation was perhaps more terrifying than just dying in a snap moment.
“Will I ever see my family again? Is that possible?”
No.
“Then it’s really like I’m dead, then. This is my afterlife.” She waited, but the System made no comment as usual, so she asked, “Why can’t I ever see my family again?”
This limited interface does not have access to information pertaining to your recruitment or universe.
“But that just means you don’t know whether I’ll see my family again, right? There’s still a chance.”
No.
Sammy closed her eyes and shook her head in frustration. She was getting a form letter response and a clipped, personalized one for the same question. She certainly didn’t trust the System’s determinations, motives, or anything else. It could be lying or too limited to accurately determine her question.
No matter what, she had to play the System’s little game or suffer the consequences. Perhaps if she did well she’d schmooze with ‘greater gods’ or something down the road who’d provide her with more lively and nuanced information.
She rose and walked over to the throne, staring at and inspecting it, her reflection caught and distorted in the facets of the mirrored crystals at the back every which way. The ivory portion encased the bottom and the inner arms with the seat a plush, white cushion.
“Alright, Mr. System,” Sammy began, then sat on the throne, settling into the contours and her hands at the arms like they were made just for her. “I’ll play your game. But I don’t fuck around. Just ask anyone who’s played Monopoly with me. I play to win.”
Dad was a ruthless bastard at games, and he’d taught her to be by crushing her over and over until she quit or got even. Crying didn’t help. Eventually, she started getting even, and in her early teens, the battles were the stuff of unforgettable, epic memories.
I may not have a choice, but I can still pour my all into making something out of it. And, of course, shit talk.
She felt the flood of info from the throne’s greater connection: thousands of mirrors like windows, some in the dark, some in the light, and so many of them converging into a mass of motion and sound.
One immediate thing she found was that she could rearrange them however she liked. She experimented: turned them all into a big ring with the largest facing her like pristine silvery doors slowly turning around the whole of the platform, the rest behind them. It gave her the best view of the stars, though it wasn’t as effective for sifting through them.
An excellent default for the aesthetic quality…
When she returned them to the clockwork network of multiple spinning rings, she began to study them and feel it out for something interesting.
“Help me out, here, System — Sys, I think I’ll call you Sys, actually — how do I get a follower, exactly?”
The means are your province. Tangible admittance of belief in you as a deity is 1 FE, a Follower that worships and prays to you another 1 FE upon conversion, then 1 FE every day they remain a true believer.
“So they don’t have to be a fanatic.”
A Fanatic provides 3 daily FE, and a Devout 2. This is an ‘intensity’ grade. There is also a bonus for ‘dedication’ but this is not yet available to you.
“Like a priest.”
Correct.
The thought made her feel strange. What would a priest of Sammy do, exactly?
Doesn’t matter, we’ll cross that bridge when we get there, if ever…
She became aware of someone speaking directly into a mirror again, drawing her attention randomly, so she plucked the portal out of the mass and drew it to her — a rectangle.
“What do you think, Margaret?” A mature man was seated before what seemed to be a body mirror, in colorful clothes and a large feathered hat. He was speaking directly into the mirror. What she could see of a bedroom seemed large and resplendent, like the guy was of late medieval nobility.
The image came into perfect clarity much faster even than the last time, and that look of shock was there again. She was seen!
Thinking quickly, Sammy pointed her finger at the man and tried her best to look queenly. “Y-you! Supplicant! Uh… kneel and worship a-a- Sammy! The Quee- Goddess of-of Mirrors!”
The man, mouth wide open, croaked out something throaty, then his eyes rolled back and he passed out, falling off the chair to the floor.
Fuck me! I should’ve rehearsed…
“Hey! Hey, dude, wake up! Shit… uh… Someone! Help!” She raised her voice to a shout. “Hey! Old guy fallen and can’t get up! Is there a butler named Jeeves out there, maybe!?”
She heard a door open, and a quite spooked woman’s voice call, “Hello? Mr. Taemon… are you-” A gasp, a sound of rushing feet on carpet, and more exclamations.
Sammy, not wanting to start a comical pile of fainting bodies, pushed subtly the portal just ‘behind’ its full resolution, to where it was showing mostly the same details but through a silvery sheen.
A woman came into view, in servant’s garb, flashing a perturbed look at the mirror but apparently not seeing enough to worry about it more than the fallen man. She began frantically trying to help and calling out for further assistance.
“You can’t hear me, either, can you?” Sammy queried, and certainly there seemed no reaction to show she did.
Sammy’s senses, her control ‘gripping’ the portal gave her a contrast of when they couldn’t hear and when they could: a vibration seemed to ripple it when she had spoken to the man and yelled for help, and then it was still as she had pushed the portal away.
The woman kept glancing back at the mirror as she was trying to resuscitate the old guy, as if she sensed a little of something off.
“You’re wondering whose voice you heard before, calling from his room. Suspicious, isn’t it?”
Sammy decided to try something. She gripped the mirror utilizing her control of it, then began to whisper, letting that control absorb the whisper’s vibrations as if synching up with it.
“If you want to speak,” she said as faintly as she could. “Come.”
The woman’s eyes shot up in fear, flitting around, showing it to have worked. “Hello? Who’s there?”
Sammy sat back, not responding to the confused servant girl’s plea. But she did drum her fingers on the chair arm audibly, which was subtle but clearly creepy enough based on the way the woman visibly swallowed.
Letting the scene play out, Sammy watched as a man came in, perhaps a butler, and they helped the dazed and confused old guy from the room. It was silent for a while. Still, she waited, just to see.
The servant girl returned a bit later, looking at the mirror while straightening up a room that didn’t really need it. Finally, hesitantly, she approached the mirror. She had her blonde hair up in a ponytail and was maybe sixteen. She opened and closed her mouth a few times, almost turning to go. But she didn’t.
Finally, the servant looked through that portal that Sammy thinly restrained from two-way communication. The girl somehow had found the exact point to look right into Sammy’s eyes. She whispered, “I-... is someone there? Are you a ghost?”
Sammy smiled. Perhaps she had finally found someone to talk to without freaking out, and maybe could conspire to make into more.