“Yes.” She said simply, before vanishing again, chittering at her spiders. They flowed away from her as a group, only one staying with her. “They will watch for anything coming,” she said, and I had a momentary thought, wondering how they’d communicate it, before I remembered they were fucking spiders, and had webs they could shake or some such shit.
I was too tired to care and just nodded acceptance.
We broke out some rations, I conjured a fountain for Bane, and we all rested for a bit. While we recovered, I pulled up the notifications I’d received, starting with the one that’d popped up when I was wondering about the Fenris…
Congratulations on your purchase of Model 017 of the ‘Fenris Heavy Automaton’!
Please note that the Fenris, while limited in scope compared to our premium models, has been created with a large number of additional features. These include voice command and…
I winced as a high-pitched noise tore through my mind and the prompt disappeared in a wash of pain, before a second prompt appeared.
Warning!
Cranial damage detected. This manual cannot be deployed, due to physiological and mental restrictions. Please seek immediate healing and request a new manual from your dealer… ceasing installation…
I fell onto my back from where I’d been sitting, clutching at my head, and gritting my teeth as pain rippled through me, it seemed to build, then retreat, like the tide coming in and out. I curled into a ball, clutching my skull, and tried to master the pain, feeling it as it built. It was like before, when Oracle had given me the Airblade spell, only worse. This time, it wasn’t esoteric magical knowledge. No, this time it was a full-on goddamn instruction manual for a god-damn horse that ran on mana crystals, which meant the manual was heavy engineering details and how to polish out scratches in the damn paint.
There were details on command structures, trees of how to link together command words for maximum efficiency, and how to adjust the color of its eyes so that it matched your outfit.
I thrashed as the pain continued to build, feeling something hot and wet running from my nose, my ears, my eyes…I tasted blood and I felt hands grabbing at me, holding me down and frantically forcing potions into my mouth again.
I coughed and choked on them, starting to shake as the pain began to build past my ability to take it…
“Jax!”
I heard the voice, it echoed around inside my skull like a fart in an empty bathtub, making me wince as the sound added to the pain.
“I’m sorry…here…”
The voice came back, much softer this time, and I felt something change, a burrowing feeling as something changed in my brain, a shift that was both horrifically painful, and…calming…
I felt like the pain was building on my side of a door, like there was a physical blockage in a line suddenly, rather than a pressure cooker that was building, closing on self-destruction.
“That’s it…just a little more…”
As the seconds passed, I felt the blockage change. I could suddenly visualize it, and I was somewhere else, the world around me that had been so shut out by my pain, suddenly was replaced by the place I’d met Jenae before.
I was curled up on the floor, shivering with pain, but She was there. I could feel Jenae crouching beside me, lifting my head. She held out a hand, and a glass appeared in it, filled with crystal clear, cool water, which she lifted to my parched lips.
I drank greedily, and she smiled down at me, little more than my own height. She helped me to my feet, holding me under my arms and supporting me as my legs almost gave out.
“Where am I?” I asked her, and she snorted, shaking her head.
“Somewhere you have no right to be, yet still, you’re here…again.”
“Well…” I sniffed, tasting blood, and feeling it coating my face. “That’s a spectacularly unhelpful answer, you know that?” I said, then grimaced as I saw the blood that stained the front of her clothes. She was dressed in a robe that crossed over the front and ran down to open at her knees, with creamy leggings underneath. The beautiful patterning of runic symbols that ran across it, marred only by the straps of her backpack…and the garish smears of my blood. “Shit, sorry about…”
“It’s all right… and yes, I know it’s not helpful. This reflects the Realm of the Gods. You’ve been here before, remember? When we had our… falling out?”
“Dangerous…” I muttered, looking around.
“Yes, it’s very dangerous, especially for you, as weak as you are, but this place is also the best place I can think of to reach a threshold, as you have.”
“What’s a threshold?” I asked numbly, pain still buffeting my mind. I blinked and forced myself to focus in on her face. I saw her lips quirk up as she watched me.
“It’s the first step toward growth to real power, and not something you should be experiencing for a long time yet, but it was that or let you die, and I don’t want that. You’re my Chosen, after all, so it’s only a short step to make you my Champion as well…”
“Champion?” I asked, confused, forcing myself to look around. I studied the cracked desolate earth of this realm, and the foothills in the distance that were the base of the Gods’ thrones.
“No!” Jenae snapped, gripping my jaw, and turning me back to look at her. “Don’t pay attention to anything else here; you will only force it to become aware of you, and that’s not something we can risk right now. Look only at me… and listen.” I nodded and she went on. “I’ve opened up a pathway for you, but it’s one you’re not ready to use yet. When I return you to your realm, you need to focus on breaking through it,
