Ruthless: Path of Conquest

Mina reached the bottom of the stairs.

The space around her was completely dark for a moment, and she turned her head automatically, looking, absurdly, for a light switch.

Then she felt a sudden whirlwind all around her, pulling at her clothes. Green flames sparked to life in the air above her head, then flew around the room lighting torches Mina hadn’t seen in the darkness. As the torches lit, Mina was able to make out the shape of the room. It was a small chamber, lined with columns carved in the shapes of animals in a repeating pattern of three: one column in the shape of a dog’s long body, one in the shape of a horse, and a third in the shape of a winding snake.

But her eye was drawn to a statue standing in the center of the room. A female figure with three bodies and heads, all connected from the back. The body closest to her held a stone torch in hand. She couldn’t see if the other two bodies held objects in their hands, since the bodies further away from her were each facing a different direction.

So that no one can ever sneak up on her, Mina thought. Hecate was a goddess who could never be surprised. Is that a metaphor for her role as a “gatekeeper”? Does it mean she can see the future maybe?

The sound of music filled the silence. There were both voices and stringed instruments, though the song the voices constructed was a wordless wailing. Mina recognized the music only as vaguely Greek. An intense pressure made Mina’s heart race, as the System’s voice filled her ears.

[A goddess has descended to Orientation 0284722.]

The statue’s eyes glowed green, and a female voice emanated from the area of the nearest head. It became apparent that the goddess had possessed the body of her statue, though it did not suddenly spring to life or move aside from the eyes beginning to emanate light.

“My dear child, it is such a pleasure to meet you at last.” The voice felt ethereal and unreal. Light, but piercing, almost stabbing Mina in the heart. “We have little time, yet knowing how way leads on to way, it is doubtful that we will ever cross paths again. We have much to accomplish together in this short span, you and I.” The tone felt simultaneously intimate and formal, affectionate and melancholy.

“Goddess, the pleasure at our meeting is all mine,” Mina said, bowing her head and curtsying awkwardly with her Mage robes. She hoped her slightly stilted effort at formality would meet the Gatekeeper’s expectations.

“Be assured, you are not more pleased than I am, child. Much power has been expended so that this encounter would come to pass. My dear Charon traveled from another universe to participate, and must return whence he came once our meeting is complete. I thought it necessary, to prevent the deaths of any humans who might be of value to you in the arena.”

“I appreciate the effort you exerted on our behalf, goddess,” Mina said. There were questions racing through her mind, but she didn’t feel entirely safe asking any of them of a divine entity. Would she be smited for impertinence?

Why hold the challenge at all, if you were committed to making sure there were no consequences? Why are you so interested in me? What are you the goddess of, besides gates?

“Congratulations on bringing your child across the threshold, into this world,” Hecate said. “I had intended that you would complete this challenge before he crossed that boundary, so that I could extend my blessing to the both of you, but fate is difficult to direct and often tragic. The strings of causality play themselves out according to many influences.”

Mina nodded her head, pretending she understood. Were all deities this cryptic? And did they often fail to accomplish desired goals, as Hecate seemed to be saying she had?

It made Mina uneasy to think that gods and goddesses existed, but were fallible. That wasn’t the religion she’d grown up with. Even though her lapsed Orthodox Christian faith hadn’t been much use to her in the pre-System times, she at least preferred the predictable world of a God who always had a plan and bent all things toward it, over deities who could fail.

And what happens if two deities’ goals are in conflict? Hecate seemed to be raising that possibility, with her comment about the influences on the strings of causality.

“Thank you for your kind words,” she made herself say. “Would it be too impertinent if I were to ask you questions, mighty and venerable goddess?”

Mina’s cringing words almost made her wince. But she wanted to show nothing but humility in front of a being who Mina suspected could erase her existence or help her a great deal, as the mood took her.

“Please be at ease, child. I will satisfy your curiosity as best I can within our limited time.”

Was it just Mina, or was Hecate putting a bit of emphasis on the word “limited”?

“Thank you, goddess.” Mina smiled brightly. “You mentioned that you would have preferred that I complete the challenge while I was still pregnant, so that you could bless me and my child. Is there something that prevents you from blessing both of us now?”

“Before, your two strands of fate were inextricably linked. Now, they run independently. Either may fray and fracture without destroying each other.”

Mina swallowed. That felt like a negative prediction about either her or her child’s future. She reminded herself that Hecate had framed it as a possibility, not a certainty.

“It is possible, of course, that James, Junior may earn his own blessings in the future, should that interest him,” Hecate went on. “For the moment, it is you who has earned my blessing, and it brings me great joy to offer it.”

And she did seem to speak the words with genuine pleasure.

[You have been offered the Title of Blessed One of Hecate. Accept? Y/N]

“Goddess, I am unworthy of this favor,” Mina said, trying to stall while she parsed the meaning of becoming a “Blessed One of Hecate.”

Will I have to fight for Hecate in the event of a religious war? She already knew Cara’s god had a Chosen One in their Orientation, from the proctor’s statement to that effect.

“You have richly earned it. But is there some other concern that troubles you, child?”

“There is,” Mina admitted. “I am concerned that I may not live up to the obligations that accepting such a gift would incur. For instance, if my family or friends were to receive a blessing that was in some form of conflict with yours.” Her voice trailed off lamely, but the goddess seemed to take her words in stride.

“Between the god who has blessed your husband and myself, there is no conflict at present,” Hecate said. “Nor do I anticipate that a future clash is likely during your lifetime. I would not expect you to betray your own family for the favor of your distant patroness.”

There it was, then. James had already accepted a blessing, and it wasn’t a god who Hecate hated. The goddess’s reassurance was a relief. Not that she’d imagined for a moment that James could have died in his Orientation. Of course he’s already received a blessing. I always knew he was capable of great things. It’s nice to hear someone else recognized it.

Then she processed what Hecate’s statement meant for her present situation. Given this information, if I turned her down, I would just be rejecting help and insulting her.

She selected ‘Y.’

A green light flickered around Mina’s body, and the sound of the music from earlier began to play again, albeit much softer this time.

[Required conditions met. Title obtained: Blessed One of Hecate!]

[Patron deity Hecate has granted additional Titles: Elementalist, Spellweaver, and Necromancer.]

Mina felt somehow more solid. A pleasant but confusing sensation. Her body wasn’t in any perceptible way heavier or more muscular than it had been. Her Mana reserves weren’t any greater. But she felt strong in some indefinable way that she hadn’t before.

“With that decision, we must move a little more quickly, dear child.” Hecate’s voice was soft but firm, pulling Mina back out of her head. “We have burned through much of Charon’s Mana, while he holds the space outside of here still. Once the challenge unfreezes, your Orientation will begin counting down to its end. When the timer for the end expires, you will be pulled away from this plane, and back to your Earth.”

“I understand goddess. What should we do next?”

“I am honored primarily as a goddess of magic,” Hecate replied. “We should discuss your future development in that sphere.”

There followed a discussion in which Hecate attempted to quickly explain the basic elements of multiple different forms of magic and types of magic users. She covered the differences between Witches, Archmages, Sorceresses, Summoners, and Spiritualists.

Basically, Witches learned magic from books to replicate and innovate on uses of Mana developed by magic-wielders from ages past. Archmages were just like Mages, manipulating elemental magic, but operating on an ever-growing scale. Sorceresses relied on intuition and experimentation to achieve similar results to Witches; they were parallel types of magic users, with one emphasizing intuition and creativity and the other emphasizing book-learning and intelligence. Summoners brought forth entities from other realms to fight on their behalves. And Spiritualists harnessed the powers of spirits, as the name implied.

With the lecture done, Hecate dropped leaves from one of the hands of the statue. It was outside of Mina’s field of view, but there was nowhere else the leaves could have been hidden. For the next part of her instruction, she told Mina to pick one of the leaves up.

“Now infuse the leaf with your Mana, without attempting to use a particular element,” Hecate ordered.

Mina did as instructed, and the leaf suddenly burst into flames. She felt an instinctive urge to drop it, but the fire didn’t seem to be burning her hands at all. Only the leaf. So Mina just stared, fascinated, until the leaf burnt to a crisp and the flames died out in her hands.

“Most impressive,” Hecate cooed. “This only makes your performance in the challenge all the more remarkable! To be so skillful at such a young age with the element of water, when your most natural affinity is actually for fire, is quite something, my child.”

Mina stood a little more proudly at the praise from this goddess of magic.

Hecate seemed to be about to say something else, when Mina felt the air shift slightly. It was barely perceptible, but it took her out of the moment and made her turn to see if someone had entered the room. There was no one.

[Hidden victory conditions met! Orientation participant “Mina Danailova” has conquered the final challenge remaining within this Orientation! Due to above-normal performance, the remaining Orientation population is permitted to survive. Prepare to be returned to Earth.]

[00:03:00]

[00:02:59]

[00:02:58]

“It seems that Charon reached the limits of his body,” Hecate said. She sounded neither displeased nor surprised.

“I hope you feel that the time you invested was worthwhile, goddess,” Mina said, inclining her head respectfully again.

“I only wish we could spend more,” Hecate replied. “The last thing I wanted to tell you about your magic is that you may wish to focus on developing your abilities with fire. If that is your most natural affinity, then it will always be a particular strength of yours, no matter how much else you learn.

Mina hesitated, then decided to raise one final question.

“If you could give me any further advice, for the benefit of myself and my family, what would you recommend I do going forward?” she asked.

“A broad question,” Hecate remarked. “Just broad enough that I hope I may answer it usefully. Keep your family together. As a unified whole, you are strong. Isolated, even the strongest stick is easily broken. You will also want to seek out magical artifacts, regardless of which Class path you choose. Although your world is newly integrated into the System, there will be some ancient artifacts available, in part because monsters often possess unique, one-of-a-kind items. And one last thing. If you believe that your baby may one day be interested in following in your footsteps, I have a gift for you to pass on.”

She directed Mina’s attention to an object the statue held in one of its pairs of hands. Tentatively, Mina reached up and took it. A small, ivory-white key. She wanted to Identify it, but she thought that doing so in front of the statue of Hecate would be blasphemous in some way.

Instead, she bowed her head, and the two women said their farewells.

Mina heard the vaguely Greek music playing again, and saw the green flames go out, first in the torches that lined the room, and then in the eyes of the goddess. Finally, she felt the pressure that Hecate’s presence generated dissipate.

Then Mina turned and ran up the stairs, back out to the field. Her mind was still racing with the new knowledge she’d gained, and she worked to commit it to memory.

Finally, as she stepped out from the underground, Mina stopped focusing on her conversation with the goddess. She instantly received an alert.

[Conditions met! New Title obtained: Savior!]

I guess I really helped a lot of people, she thought, allowing herself a smile. Maybe I changed the way this Orientation was meant to go for the better. What was it that the proctor said at the beginning? The expected survival rate was something less than fifty percent for this type of Orientation, right?

She could see the crowd looking at her from the stands, and people were beginning to shout kind words. The people who had competed in the previous challenge before her were all revived and fully healed, and they were saying their piece too.

“Thank you!”

“You saved us!”

“You did it!”

Charon, sitting in his perch atop the stadium, looked down at the scene, seemingly rather pleased. Mina guessed that he had already explained to everyone else where Mina was and exactly what had happened. If he was like his mistress, he thought highly of her, for reasons she did not yet fully understand.

She shook her head. That didn’t matter right now. Something to figure out later.

Mina glanced at the timer, ever-present in the corner of her vision.

[00:01:08]

Then she picked up speed and began running toward where Yulia and Leo waited, walking down from the stands to meet her with cautious smiles on their faces. She wanted to finish Orientation beside them.

I need to ask the proctor for my baby back, she thought.

Everything was finally safe. For now.

Soon they would be home. The Earth might not be safe anymore either, considering that the goddess had mentioned that there would be monsters she could obtain magic items from. But she would face that with her husband.

Mina thought that she and James could accomplish just about anything together.