Level One God

I woke up in my rare bed, which took up almost all my closet-sized personal space. I felt more rested than I could ever remember, but still had a twinge of confusion when I took in my surroundings. I wondered how long it would be before this started feeling normal, and my old life would be the part that felt like a strange dream.

At least I didn’t have a headache.

Thanks, rare bed. For about the hundredth time, I wondered what kind of benefits the higher rarities of beds would grant me. Most of all, I wondered what kind of curse would make sense on a bed. Maybe a fitted sheet that constantly popped off one corner in the night, forever forcing me to get up and angrily fix it?

Doubtful. It was more likely the bed would have teeth and bite off limbs or something horrible, so I’d be forced to delete it. Thinking of that, I made a note to ask Circa if she could help me learn to use the ability during our training.

I got out of bed and slipped on my helmet. I was still wearing my common plate bracers, and everything else I needed was in my slip space. If Circa hadn’t healed me at the guild, I wondered how effectively my rare bed would’ve healed my wounds.

I headed down the stairs to the common room and glimpsed the dark streets outside. I was rested enough that it must have been early morning, but I seemed to be awake before most of Riverwell. A lone man was behind the bar, and the faint smell of warm food was in the air. Two men I hadn’t seen before were by the hearth, playing Vice. A woman backed in the inn's front door with a tray of freshly butchered meat. She set it on the counter, collected a few coins from the innkeeper, and headed back outside.

“Silly question…” I said, getting the innkeeper’s attention. “What would a guy need to do for a toothbrush? Maybe a comb and some soap? And what about a shower and maybe a razor?” He couldn’t see it, but I was going on a few days without a shave.

The man got a look in his eye I thought I recognized from my world. It was the look of somebody who knows they can exploit somebody’s ignorance. He reached beneath the counter and produced a key. “Fifty copper, and you can use the washroom.”

I sucked my teeth like I was disappointed. “Damn. All I have is ten.” I pushed off the bar and took one step before he cleared his throat.

“Suppose ten will do.” He looked hesitant.

Got you. Slimy Bastard.

“Great!” I produced the ten coins, slapped them on the table with a click, and took the key from him. I spun it once on my finger, then paused.

He gave another sigh when he sensed my question. “You use it just like your personal space key.”

Sure enough, I used his key to open the door to the personal spaces, and I was led to a nicely-kept bathroom. When I walked in, there was an old man standing completely naked. He propped one foot on a bench, proudly scratching his knee as he maintained full eye contact with me. “Morning,” he said.

“Uh-huh,” I said, trying not to look him or it in the eye. The urge to expose yourself in locker rooms was apparently an old-guy thing that transcended worlds and dimensions. Good to know.

I found a private stall that was boxed in by wood boards. Everything I needed was inside. Soon, I’d showered, shaved, and brushed my teeth with a little wooden brush that was almost certainly a “communal toothbrush.”

After getting cleaned up, I won twenty copper betting on myself in a Vice game against a pair of Wood ranked townspeople while I waited for my breakfast.

I lifted my helmet to expose my mouth to eat the stew I’d purchased with five copper coins. All in all, my spirits felt pretty high. I’d realized I was reaping the benefits of my reduced need for sleep and imagined how much something so seemingly small would add up over time. After all, I’d come out five copper ahead this morning, even after paying for the washroom and breakfast.

Lyria came down the stairs of the inn before Circa. It was a little odd to think so many people were staying in the same building by using their personal space. I’d been watching countless people stream down those stairs all morning. Only a few of them stopped to order food and linger. Others rushed out the door or grabbed the key to the washroom. I noticed the innkeeper was just handing the key to everybody else. Maybe there was a membership you could purchase?

Lyria sat across from me at the large wooden table, which was gradually filling up with more and more bleary adventurers and townspeople as the early morning hours wore on.

Lyria sniffed at the air and frowned in my direction. “Is that soap? Did you bathe again?”

“I like to be clean,” I said with a shrug. “Washroom was only ten coppers. He tried to scam me, but I saw through it and negotiated a better price.”

“You paid ten coppers to use the washroom? Those are free…”

I sighed. Damn it.

“Good,” Circa said as she came down the stairs. She looked as pristine and put together as I’d seen her the last time. “You’re both awake already.”

“Awake,” Lyria said. “But hungry and grumpy. I need to eat.”

“Then get busy,” Circa suggested.

Lyria pushed off from the table and went to order from the innkeeper.

“I want to start your training as soon as possible,” she said. She watched my helmet-tipping technique to eat with disapproval.

I slurped a little self-consciously. “You suggested keeping the helmet on. But it makes eating pretty awkward. Sorry.”

Circa looked uncomfortable. “I am still trying to get accustomed to this situation. As I said yesterday, my mother trained me as a Watcher, and we were taught to be ready for any situation, but…”

I slowly lowered the spoon and sniffed. “You didn’t expect a clueless boy in the body of your god?”

The way she pressed her lips together said enough.

“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry it worked out this way. On the bright side, I will probably make a much better student than some self-important god. I’m your ball of clay to mold. Think of it that way.”

She didn’t exactly smile, but one corner of her mouth twitched, and I’d take what I could get from the stern woman.

“And I want you to consider this an order,” I said suddenly. “Stop treating me like I’m your superior. Just focus on whatever training methods will be most effective. Okay? I don’t want to be coddled. I want to get strong.”

This time, Circa did smile, and I wondered if I’d spoken with too much haste.

#

I stood across from Lyria in a dirt arena. Several similar fighting rings were penned in by circular wooden bleachers nearby. It was still in the dark early morning hours, so most of the arenas were empty except for one other. I saw a group of five with a woman at the center using a quarterstaff to fend off four men with training weapons. The clack of wood on wood rang out with a percussive rhythm as I stood, waiting.

Lyria was on the other end of the dirt ring with her shield in one hand and a sword in the other.

“So,” I said, raising my voice so Circa could hear me. She stood a few feet to the side of us with her hands behind her back like an instructor. “Do we use training weapons like them? Because Lyria’s sword looks kind of real.”

“It’s real,” Lyria confirmed. “And sharp.”

“I can protect you from death,” Circa said in a tone that suggested we weren’t supposed to ask questions about that.

Great. Just trust that she’s going to somehow, magically keep me from dying.

“I could lecture you on the basic principles of mana manipulation and skill activation,” Circa said.

“Perfect,” I said. “I’ve always been an auditory learner, so spare no detail. I was also hoping you could help me figure out how to use my… special ability.” Nobody was close enough to hear except Lyria and Circa, but I figured it would be unwise to go announcing I had a divine ability.

“But,” she said, the word cutting through the air like a gunshot. “There are two problems with the idea of teaching you how to use your abilities. One,” she said, pacing like an instructor, hands clasped behind her back. “Corestones grow with the user. The first attempts you make to use yours will help shape it and guide it. I could force you into using yours the way I use mine, but you would never be as powerful as if you found your own method. Understand?”

“No,” I said.

“That’s fine. You don’t need to understand,” she said. “Two. Combat is not a calm environment. If you learn under duress, you’ll be better equipped to call upon your skills when the stakes are real. Lyria, attack him.”

“Attack him?” I asked, taking two steps back. “Can he fight back?”

“Do what you will,” she said.

It felt like I was fumbling my thoughts as I tried to call up my Alchemist’s Kit from my slip space. By the time it appeared above my hands, Lyria was passing her palm over the front of her shield. A path of growing frost spread in the wake of her hand. The whole shield was encased in glistening pale blue within seconds. There was a crunching and grinding sound as razor-sharp ice shards grew out in every direction, turning her shield into a frozen pincushion.

I thought about throwing my poison bottle at her, but a vivid image of Glitterbang’s body dissolving under the liquid rose up in my mind. Despite Circa’s assurances, I didn’t want to hurt Lyria, and—’

Oh, shit.

She was sprinting toward me, shield held out like a battering ram.

I turned and ran. As I was about to break out of the arena, white light flared in a ring, and I smacked face-first into an invisible wall.

I’m trapped in here with–

I spun just in time to catch an icy shield in the chest.

I blinked a few times as the pure black retreated from my vision. I was outside the arena now, and Circa was kneeling over me, platinum blonde hair dangling in front of her face. Lyria was behind her with a somewhat worried look on her face.

It felt like I’d been hit by a truck.

“Be still,” Circa said.

I saw her palm on my chest and noticed an odd sensation where she was touching me. It felt like her hand was stuck to me. And there was a concerning sensation of having something pumped into me from her hand. “What are you doing?”

“First, I healed you. Now, I’m reinforcing you. Lyria was a little more eager to defeat you than I anticipated. I should have perhaps reinforced you before the fight.”

“Is that my blood?” I asked, lifting my head to see several bloody stains on the robe I’d been given. Each one had a hole at the center. “What the hell, Lyria?”

“This will protect you from the worst of it next time,” Circa said. She pulled her hand away, and I saw purple tendrils, like bulging veins, retract into her palm. The veins all over my body were bulging and pulsing. I felt like a bladder that had been overstuffed, but it was an oddly powerful feeling. I pressed a finger to my skin and found it had no give to it. It was like pressing against wood.

“Sorry,” Lyria said. “She said I couldn’t hurt you.”

“No permanent damage,” I said. “I think…”

“You’re fine,” Circa assured me.

“That’s a nice ability,” I said to Circa as I got to my feet, feeling slightly traumatized, but otherwise healthy. I considered telling Circa to disregard what I’d said at the inn about telling her to stop treating me like a superior. But I meant what I said about wanting to grow more powerful. I’d already glimpsed the danger in this world. I’d also seen hints of what being stronger here would mean and had to admit I was hungry for it.

I also had to admit I was deeply curious about who I had been and why I’d put myself in this situation. I wasn’t sure if strength would lead me to answers, but I suspected being weak and hiding my head in the sand would either lead to me winding up dead, clueless, or both.

So, I needed to grow. If a little trauma was the cost, I could deal with it.

“Round two?” I asked.

Circa’s magic helped me not black out and nearly die from Lyria’s attacks, but it was more like wearing armor than being invincible. I still felt rattled by the impacts of Lyria’s constant shield bashes and occasional sword blows. I tried lobbing a few questions about her class between rounds of healing and touch-ups from Circa, but Lyria never answered.

All I gathered was that she had some kind of ability to infuse her shield with magic. I was rammed by ice, fire, shadow, and light. Surprisingly, the light attack was my least favorite. A burst of blinding light seemed to spear itself straight into my eyeballs when she slammed the light-infused shield against me. I’d only been able to see properly again with Circa’s help. The shadow magic had crawled across my skin like a thousand insects, seeming to sink into me and weigh me down until I just wanted to collapse.

So far, I couldn’t say I understood how any of this was supposed to help me learn to use my abilities. I finally tried throwing my potion at Lyria, who had been reinforced by the same vein-bulging magic from Circa. I’d missed, and we were resetting the match so regularly that I was quickly left with a potion on cooldown and nothing but my impotent leather whip. Since I was trying to learn how to use my abilities and not how to irritate Lyria, I decided to focus on my elemental projection skill.

Once my potion was off cooldown, I kept it in one hand and began a mental trial-and-error process. Considering I usually had about fifteen seconds before Lyria knocked me on my ass and some new flavor of pain or discomfort took over, it was difficult.

I tried thinking prompt-like commands to “use elemental projection.”

Knocked on my ass.

I shouted out the ability's name like a character from an anime.

Shield to the face.

I moved my hands around in fancy patterns and pushed them out as if I expected a fireball to burst from my palms.

None of it worked, and I was getting increasingly frustrated. It felt like… well, it felt like trying to figure out how to learn a new skill while Lyria repeatedly knocked me off my feet with magical shield slams.

“Any other training methods?” I asked breathlessly as Circa ran her strange, purple-veined magic through me and washed away the soreness from Lyria’s last hit. “Because I’m not even getting close.”

Circa straightened and stepped back, hands clasped behind her back again. “This is only the first day of your training. I wouldn’t expect you to be able to produce so much as a drop for quite some time. Maybe months.”

“I don’t have months,” I said, fists clenching. “You said it yourself. A god wants me dead, right? I may not know much about this world yet, but I assume that puts a bit of a clock over my head.”

“With proper precautions, you should be able to stay out of Ithariel’s notice. I doubt he’ll sense your rise for some time. However, you would be wise to disguise your helmet. Somebody with the proper skill in illusionary magic should be able to enchant it to look more mundane. Of course, the spell will need refreshing from time to time.”

I added that to my list of reasons to find a bigger city. Chief of those reasons was still using my epic, legendary, and cursed bed tokens. Lyria had told me that each token upgraded my existing bed. That meant using my divine ability to delete a cursed bed would delete every upgrade I’d earned up to that point. Deciding if I wanted to apply the final token would be tough.

To her credit, Lyria didn’t seem to be taking much pleasure in pummeling me again and again. She looked to Circa, who nodded, then met my eyes.

I sighed. If Circa believed getting my ass kicked again and again was the fastest way to learn, I supposed I should embrace the pain.

I endured it because I knew the end goal. If this was the smartest way to learn to harness my new abilities, then so be it. I knew one thing for certain: I was about to head into an "infestation," and I wanted to make sure I could use some damn magic before I got there.

More than that, I had spent my whole life in the relatively dull reality of life on Earth. People woke up, went to work, tried to get money, and went to bed. They squeezed a little bit of “life” in when they could, and they got older. The only magic we could hope for was the rare good moments when the stars aligned—the perfect sunset on your drive home or a chance encounter with an old friend, or that brief rush of excitement from discovering something new.

It was a fleeting, cruel kind of magic that never seemed to come often enough.

Here on Eros, I would be able to summon actual magic to my fingertips. Any time I wanted.

I’d be able to shape it and form it, binding it to my will.

The thought was intoxicating, and I couldn’t fucking wait. I wanted to learn, grow, practice, and get stronger. For the first time I could remember, it felt like I had been handed the keys—like my life was my own to shape.

I rolled out my neck, nodded, and watched Lyria charge toward me again, elementally infused shield raised high.