Rather than delve into the memory, Dei chose to watch from the outside, his mind providing something of a “Prediction” for what his death looked like. It was something he’d done before, but the image felt more complete now, as he’d relied only on his soul and weak mind. Now, with his improved memory and copious ways of parsing through subconscious knowledge, it was trivially easy to move around outside his body.
Staring in, Dei saw how his arm exploded, a chunk of his soul and memories disappearing into the air. As a Reaper himself, the scent of loose soul fragments was rather… alluring. It didn’t smell ‘Delicious’ like a food, but it brought attention to his more unusual senses and needs; he should probably start eating more than just physical foods.
Disregarding his unusual reaction to the smell of his own arm, now in tatters at his shoulder, Dei watched as his Time Beast self appeared next to his past self, shoving its arm into his wound and deep into his soul. Already, it glowed with the light of Empower Self, and there was a very high chance of it winning if it’d ever succeeded in possessing him.
That is, until it encountered the minefield of Null mana inside him. Without the full weight of his Rights, the Time Beast was utterly unprepared. He remembered how mana, especially Null, was given something of an HP bar depending on how many Rights a person had. Not only were Time Beasts mana, but Unions were as well. The only part resistant to the Null was his Duplication part, but, Dei found, even that was rooted in a spiritual concept.
Knowing the chance to possess him might not come again, Dei saw the Time Beast rush in unthinkingly, using spells to even accelerate himself forward.
Dead on contact.
Its body snapped into place in Dei’s soul, each part reaching out for the other yet finding itself cut off; all that remained after the pieces of its soul settled in were slivers spewing gore, a grotesque vision especially with how it manifested visibly in Dei.
Two souls in his body, Dei watched his body expand unevenly, turning a disgusting red hue as he was covered in lumps, everything playing out in slow motion to give him time to assess it all; Dei didn’t even remember this happening, as the reaction the alternate Dei had to his Null mana, and thus Personal affinity, was almost instantly violent.
The mana interacted with the two beings unnaturally similar to one another and tried to take the best of both. Unlike what Dei expected, that it knew he’d come back from the dead, it had no such intentions. His Personal affinity was but a concept, and held no loyalty, only purpose. It wanted to create a version of Dei composed of the best of both parts. His affinity hadn’t tried to save either of them, it wanted to create a third Dei that would surpass them both, and had actually almost succeeded.
While the process was violent, it wasn’t explosive; was entirely contained, except for how Dei held many pieces of Void within him, and Time aspect of his opponent couldn’t reconcile with that. Void and Time clashed, digging their heels and refusing to cooperate. His Warforged affinity chose a middle-ground, merging them into some concept between- but the concept was unstable. There was no affinity there, and no entity thrown into the mix with the proper domain to help his Warforged affinity control the process. Warforged attempted to create the concept between Void and Time, but without the proper domain’s assistance, it came up inadequate.
The results were… gory. Dei watched with a calculated detachment as everything fell apart because of one missing puzzle piece. Void and Time thrashed harder, Time finding multiple routes Dei could move and jumping down them while Void took the space between these and either pushed them together, consumed them, or forbade them from ever interacting with a wall between. Stuck between it all, Dei’s body.
He flickered and changed, limbs and heads growing in odd directions, bones cracking and exploding outwards as Time pushed itself to physically move outward and Void pushed harder against it all.
Time lost its integrity, its calculations running amok as Void threw a wrench in its gears. Thousands of timelines converged on Dei, but the implosion hit a solid wall as Void reacted like oil, rejecting the impossibilities.
The body fell inwards, a black hole forming that notably pulled the forgotten bits of his broken arm inwards. His soul made complete, right before everything disappeared. Rather than explode like he’d expected, his soul simply gave up on trying to fix itself, and decided the agony was too great, moving on to the afterlife as practically a cry for help, begging Grim to sort out his pieces.
His vision changed, and Dei found his corpse floating in his middle school principal's office for barely a flash.
Strangely, Grim was already there, reaching out and halting the detonation, giving himself time to stabilize Dei.
Something spoke instead, black smoke emanating from Dei, Ashvorn speaking in a manner he didn’t know it even could.
[He will recover], his System said, effectively telling Grim to buzz off, speaking with… familiarity to Grim.
Did Ashvorn converse with Grim before he’d even died? Shortly before his battle with the Time Beast, Ashvorn said “...even now I already have three contracts with different affinities to limit how much I can share with others…”
He’d brushed it off as Ashvorn getting the jump on its contract career, but he supposed if there was knowledge a System would be born with that affinities wanted no-one to know, Death would be at the top of the list.
“The soul has lost its integrity. The soul has accepted its demise” Grim informed it.
[Naturally. It has taken significant damage, seeking peace as a kneejerk reaction. Leave him]
Grim didn’t look annoyed, but resigned. “As you wish.”
Dei paused the memory, locating where Ashvorn’s Identity was. Even if its body spread everywhere across him, it could narrow its attention.
He found it hiding under a hazy memory- shortly after he’d been abandoned and was asleep. He hadn’t thought about something like that before, so it was rather undefined.
“Ashvorn,” Dei said to the System, trying to keep his emotions out of his voice, “Why did you stop Grim from helping me?”
He really, really would’ve appreciated it. Even if it brought him closer to death, he wasn’t sure if the results were worth what he’d gone through. Now that it was over, he could see this as exclusively a good thing as it granted him more chances to die before fading away, but Ashvorn’s decision at the time was wrong. It had no right to decide whether he would receive help or not, to say he should suffer for an “Optimal” result.
It hiding in a memory proved it knew its own guilt. Looking back, the moment he thought to check his death, it had subtly faded into the background, hoping he wouldn’t notice it.
[I am sorry,] it said, taking some of the fire from his eyes. Still, that was no explanation.
“Why? Why would you do that?” he said almost pleadingly.
[I… thought I would be able to provide more help. Please, finish looking through the memory]
He sighed, turning around and arriving back next to his past self, this time with Perumah and Ashvorn, the System appearing as a vaguely humanoid blurry shadow next to him.
Grim stepped away, and he knew that this was the moment he felt the cold peace of death become more distant, the moment Ashvorn nudged him to kickstart the process. Without Grim holding him in stasis, the bulging mass of flesh that was Dei’s body at this point exploded into wet gore, coating the room in chunks.
Here, Dei saw a strange smoke emanate from the pieces, over fifty tendrils reaching out to the different parts.
It started with two seemingly random pieces, and Dei felt that this was the moment Ashvorn linked his Identity with his survival instinct, his will to live.
The different pieces it was previously holding fell to the ground, and Dei sensed surprise.
“That is all the help he is allowed,” the disembodied voice of Grim said, and Dei saw the twitching of Ashcorn's smoke body become frantic, desperately trying to connect the pieces yet always phasing through.
“It’s panicking,” Perumah said at his side, and Dei quirked an eyebrow at her. “Ashvorn. I can feel the terror.”
Dei could read that from the body language, but Perumah lived emotions, and he saw through Perumah’s eyes how deeply the issue went.
Two sets of emotions provided two thought processes.
[Nothing can be done. Cease movement. Energy expenditure unnecessary] the logical emotions said.
‘I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry,’ the more humanoid half spoke, overriding the logic as it flailed in place.
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Dei instinctually reached out to comfort the Ashvorn as they shook in place. He wanted to sigh, as there was no way he could chastise it now.
‘Is this what it’s like being a parent? My kid makes some horrific mistake that could’ve turned out a LOT worse, but they’re so regretful I can’t reasonably yell at them or I’ll feel terrible?
‘Yea, probably. I shouldn’t be yelling at Ashvorn anyway, now that I think about it… I need to communicate properly. No matter how mature they act, they’re still a kid.
‘But what the hell do I say?’ he wondered, looking at the humanoid smoke shape.
‘Okay, I feel like any child-rearing advice I’ve ever heard isn’t gonna apply here.’
“Ashvorn,” he started, going with what he felt best. “Do you know why I’m upset?” he tried the classic, something his first mom had done.
Looking back, it might’ve been because she was also confused about how to discipline a supersoldier child.
[I made a mistake?]
Its response helped him narrow what to say. “No, no, not that. You’re very young, and you’re going to make mistakes. I’m upset you made a very important decision without proper knowledge, and without considering what I’d want. You put my life in significant danger on a whim without doing any research.”
[It was my belief that you would wish to preserve your connection with life. You’ve perished once, this was your second time. If Grim assisted you, it would’ve counted as a third death. I felt it was… optimal to forgo Grim, and that you would see it as such if you were in a state of mind to do so. Even if you’d failed, it would’ve simply counted as another death to receive Grim’s assistance, rather than just fade away… though I am unsure as to whether you would be capable of withstanding the weight of four deaths…]
“Maybe,” he conceded, ignoring the ‘Four deaths’ part for a moment, “But did you consider how much… pain I was in? That was a terrible thing to subject me to.”
[I treated the situation as if you were capable of acting exclusively with logic, as I am. I believe this was wrong?]
‘Ah, an egocentric perspective, unbelievably common in children. They struggle to understand things from someone else's point of view.’
“Rather than think of what you would do in my situation, you need to consider what I would do. I don’t have a robotic set of emotions, just the mortal ones. Pain is something we try to avoid. If you were forced to endure pain for power, what do you think your regular Sapient set of emotions would say?”
[That they do not wish to?]
“Yes.”
[But logic would overrule]
“Yes, but I only have the Sapient emotions. I don’t have those logical ones. I can still use logic, but there’s no solid wall keeping me in line. Sometimes, you have to think about what the other person wants, not what you’d want in their situation. Do you understand?”
It stood calculating for a second. [Yes]
He raised an eyebrow, “Are you lying to me?” though he knew the answer.
…[Yes]
He let out an exasperated chuckle, “I guess it’ll take more than one conversation to understand things like this. You apologized for the mistake and regret what ended up happening, so I’ll let you off the hook this time, but please be more mindful.
[Understood], Ashvorn said, then scampered away, leaving him with Perumah.
Perumah adopted a thoughtful expression as she stared at him, and he could tell she was trying to decide whether that was a good or lazy way to parent by simply letting Ashvorn walk away without punishment.
“We can talk about it later,” he said, turning back to the memory.
Perumah followed suit, and he pressed play.
Ignoring Ashvorn’s frantic attempts at helping, Dei observed his soul, and felt the will to live.
Connection ensured his Identity was firmly attached, and the little kickstart Ashvorn provided was enough that his mind knew sleeping would mean to destabilize.
Something about the Plane of Death ensured he was kept “Together,” but if he stopped fighting, protections on him would lower. His soul knew that if it went to sleep, it may not wake up, but if it didn’t have a way to stay awake.
“A solution has to be found,” he heard the weak echo of his mind think, attempting to find a state somewhere between life and death that would allow him to remain “Within existence” so to speak.
The Identity reached out for “Survival at any cost,” and Dei saw it begin forming a spell- yet one was already in the place it would have put it. Convergent evolution took place in his soul, as his Identity created a second version of Disconnect, though one more specialized to recovering from horrific bodily injuries.
Instead of merging like he thought the two Skills would, the new Disconnect built upon the previous one, giving it new functions and raising its complexity, forming Eldritch Self.
This is where things became… weird.
There wasn’t enough of his mind to understand what he was, so Dei’s soul couldn’t be sure if he was human, union, spirit, or anything else. Rather than grow randomly, it tapped into his True Name to reach out towards what constituted as “Dei.”
His SP, or Stamina Points, encompassed the Skill, and it acted… or he acted, through SP? It used him as an avatar, but… it was him using himself as an avatar? As in, he was his idea of Stamina?
The interaction did not even remotely clear up what SP was or where it came from, but the gist of it was that SP was Dei himself, except it was also everywhere.
Eldritch Self clawed into the deepest recesses of his soul, delving into his SP node, and a portion of himself went with it. Dei’s flesh became four dimensional, a tesseract of sorts pulling everything into one place, and he saw his flesh travel through SP’s “Domain” to link back up with his flesh.
Very, very slowly, Dei saw the pieces of himself around the room begin leaking out of the world, a lump in the middle starting to grow into what he knew it would, his healed body.
He remembered how painful this part was though. Eldritch Self tried to put his Identity to sleep so it wouldn’t affect him, but the moment his soul dove into the sub-Realm that linked him with all his missing pieces, Connection ensured every part of his soul went. Some of it tried to split off, but Connection would not be denied, and Dei saw parts of him that weren’t meant to step out of existence fail to resist the pull of the rest of him.
Perumah leaned forward now, and he felt curiosity emanating from her, with very little concern. She sensed that he was stable, and there were no “Flashbacks” coming on so to speak. Though he doubtlessly had PTSD, this wasn’t the first horrible pain he’d gone through, and his experience with terrible soul wounds made it less… shocking to his system.
“The Plane of Death is responding to you,” Perumah informed him, and when she sensed his confusion, she said “Your memories, they’re coming to life in a way. I can feel the echoes of certain people from your past wriggling free, trying to escape your soul. Not everyone, but a select few… and I think it’s everyone you remember that has ever perished.”
“What does that mean?” he wondered, “That my memories of them are bringing their souls back to life through me?”
“No,” Perumah shook her head, “Their souls are gone, long-since dead, but Death remembers, and your soul crying out is making it… reminisce on those that are already gone.”
Dei shivered, “My pain gives Death nostalgia?”
“In a way. What do you know of Grim?”
“Almost nothing?”
She clicked her tongue, “Me either… Do you know how he became tied to the Plane of Death?”
“No?”
“Hmm… I think it might be some kind of… merging of beings. Grim has become more Deathly, while Death has become more like Grim. Death, more person, while Grim becomes more Ascendant. That’s why Death as a plane is responding differently, and perhaps why everything in Death is more visible, rather than just existing as loose concepts. Death is more than just a plane where the Death affinity converges, it’s Grim's own body, and right now, Death is remembering all the times people wailed in agony as they died, some to different degrees. While I cannot prove it, I believe the more painful their deaths or more remorseful the soul, the more lively they become when manifesting themselves within you.”
“And this does…?”
“Nothing right now, but it might be an early mechanism for forming your Hollow Cry spell.”
He hummed in agreement, and they continued watching the procession for a bit before Perumah abruptly said “Why middle school?”
“I’m sorry?”
“The building. I heard you thinking about how this is your middle school principal’s office. Why? Why here? I think your soul naturally constructed the place it would appear in, so why not somewhere you want to be safe, like your parent’s bedroom or, say, even the middle school infirmary? Why here?”
He searched himself, looking for a reason with both Knowledge and Overmind, finding nothing concrete. All he knew was that his soul chose to be here because it “Felt right,” so much so that he hadn’t even questioned it until now. This was just… the first place he thought about when he imagined death.
It became somewhat monotonous from then on out so Dei accelerated how quickly everything went, days going by as he slowly healed, Perumah taking in the sight and feel of Death, until Grim’s meeting.
He muted the words and blurred what they were going to say, Perumah looking at him in irritation.
“Grim said some things that he didn’t want known,” he told her, hiding the memories. “You can look at the rest of it, but you can’t know what he said.”
She continued to glare at him, so he said “You wouldn’t find it interesting anyway. It wasn’t anything bloody or dangerous, just a history lesson. Trust me, it’s not something you’d even want to know considering how angry it would make Grim if you did.”
She huffed, but he felt her irritation abate as she studied the rest of the room, as well as Grim himself. She looked into his memories and Presence, gleaning what she could to understand what Grim was.
Near the end of it all, Perumah’s attention snapped to somewhere in the distance and, now that he was paying attention, Dei felt the subtle emanations of a distant soul, traveling rapidly towards them.
Weak vibrations told him it was smashing through walls to reach his past-self faster, and right as he heard it scream “DON’T LE-” he paused everything, the world stilling so Dei could read everything at his own pace.
First, Grim’s expression was tinged with sorrow and amusement, neither directed at Dei. Whatever shot towards them, Grim knew well.
Perumah moved to the closed door so she could find the soul’s location, as well as what Dei’s mind constructed for its prediction of the entity.
Dei followed along after her, but this was his soul and his memories, he frowned as he already saw the general shape of what he assumed to be some kind of unfulfilled spirit, barred from becoming undead yet unwilling to pass on.
