-------------------------------------------------

--- Orion ---

-------------------------------------------------

I nervously dug into my meal, poking the meat and vegetables floating inside the broth and tearing apart the bread to soak up the rich liquid. I kept on glancing at Sally, worried about how the witch tore him apart, denying him the lies I’d let him have. The system had already told me it was permanent, I didn’t tell him that though.

I was worried that he’d be… angry.

Angry at me for doing this to him, angry that he was stuck with it forever. At least it might not do what he thought it did, but I don’t think he’d appreciate me telling him that right now. He seemed like he was almost in shock from what he heard.

But luckily he had the something to eat, he looked like he was enjoying it, shoving his snout inside the roast chicken to tear out to meat from under the bones. Times like this confuse me a little, he seems so hesitant to act like his new form and holds onto his humanity desperately, but right now he is tearing into the food like the dragon he is.

I don’t understand it one bit. But it’s not my problem to worry about, it’s his. Sally finished his meal as I was wondering about his weirdness- no I’m the weird one, he’s normal.

But he had a bit of his food still around his snout so I passed him a rag to clean himself with before he forgot about it again.

“You both are new here, like the others?” she asked Sally, and he immediately nodded.

“As repayment for what you told me, how would you like to hear how this world began?” she continued, surprising me. I was so used to history being lost or obscured by time or by the malicious destruction of cultures that I’d forgotten that a living record of everything in this land sits right in front of me.

It reminded me of my Father, and not how he usually haunted me. When I was younger he’d recite tales of Nordic mythology, he’d sink into his retellings like he knew them so well he’d lived through them.

“Before this world existed, before Brekun had its name, I lived in Greece, the land with gods who had egos more inflated than their mights.

It was a turbulent time, Because of the sorcery me and my siblings use, none of us succumbed to ageing like the rest of the mortals around us. So I was privy to witness the downfall of the gods and the razing of our lands.

It started when Gaia had awoke from her slumber and raised her children, the giants to free their siblings, the titans, from Tartarus. For over a century the gods warred against their forefathers once again, with Cronos fighting Zeus in a final duel.

I watched from the sidelines, as I was completely uninterested in fighting for either of them, after their callous treatment of those they’d deemed lesser, which included myself. Especially apt after you told me of Poseidon's actions.” she explained as a waiter dropped off some cups, and her words left me wondering what Sally had informed Pasiphae of yesterday in their private meeting.

“The final result of the feud was the almost absolute genocide of all the gods, titans and giants. There was one peaceful giant and a couple of minor gods and titans who avoided the conflict and lived, along with a number of others like myself.

But the war left scars on Gaia’s surface and reality itself was damaged. I couldn’t even create a spark without something random and wild twisting my magic.

The world was damaged.

And another problem soon arose, the dead gods and titans had each promised their mortal allies something. Whether that was the blessed afterlife of the fields of Elysium, or kingdoms for them to rule in the new world.

But it wasn’t just Greece that’d suffered these problems. The cold lands to the north had an event so grand that they’d been prophesising it for centuries, Ragnarök. Across the seas, a god of scales and feathers fought a god of smoke and mirrors.

Dragons warred and raged in a land to the east, and scorched the land.

Across every kingdom and empire, the gods or their equals fell. And the few survivors were left with the aftermath.

So, magic would only make the world’s injuries worse, and there were a lot of angry people robbed of their promised land and afterlife. They knew most us who could use magic, or relied on the still living gods for survival wouldn’t stop. I wouldn't've stopped, I wouldn’t willingly give in to the ravages of time.

So they came up with the best alternative they could, they made a new world. They stitched together the places we’d come from and created a place for us to wait, quarantining magic in a place we could only hurt ourselves until the original world we came from recovered.

But it wasn’t perfect in the slightest. They didn’t really think about what’d happen if you shoved more than a few dozen different religions, cultures and peoples into an enclosed space.

It was another war, one that wiped out the stragglers from the previous one. Only a few survived to a degree that they could remain one coherent people.

But there was another problem, the sun god, he was born just as the war ended.

As a child of gods, he was owed godhood, but as magic was banished to protect the world, so no more new gods could be born. So he was compensated with management of this place, the sole entity with all the power.

Naturally it went horribly. And in an act of spite, this world was named Brekun, ‘a land of broken promises’.” she finished, taking a long swig from a glass cup full of water. I also took a long drink from mine as I contemplated the possibilities of what I’d just heard.

Gods existed back home, or at least they used to. And magic used to exist.

Hmm, it doesn’t really change much about the present, does it? An interesting revelation to history, but no direct effect on my previous life on earth and interesting history lesson about Brekun.

“This changes everything!” Sally blurted out, he excitedly fiddled with his talons as he processed all the information, practically all of the confusion and anger from before had now been swamped with excitement.

“Did you all forget about the gods? I’m not too sure if I should say good riddance.” She chuckled, obviously finding pleasure in the fact the realism of the gods had faded.

“Mostly, the tales have survived, but the beliefs has not.” I added to the conversation, Sally nodding along to my words.

“Yeah, except for one, God.”

“A god? Which one” Pasiphae responded with a touch of confusion.

“God, with a capital G.”

“What are you saying?”

“The god is called ‘God’.” I chimed in, explaining Sally’s vague statement, I’m sure he thinks everyone understands first time he says anything.

“Most surviving religions are monotheist, and branch off of the worship of a single entity only referred to as ‘God’.” Sally elaborated.

“I’m not to sure if I should be surprised that there’s a god arrogant enough to name itself that. But don’t worry, that god probably doesn’t exist, they all died out for a reason.” Pasiphae chuckled as she put down her finished glass of water.

“But maybe we should discuss what we originally came here for.” Pasiphae said, a thin smile on her lips as she turned to me for some reason .

“Employment opportunities!” she smiled.

…

One week later

…

-------------------------------------------------

--- Sally ---

-------------------------------------------------

“Orion! Have you seen the purse?” I shouted at him, the wind at the top of the wall making it hard for Orion to hear me. The man lowered his bow and walked over, taking a break from shooting the increasingly maddened birds, the creatures luckily were still stuck outside wards created by the wards. The magic barrier luckily extended beyond the physical ten metre high wall and was high enough that birds couldn’t get in.

It made for the perfect XP farm!

“I last saw it in the bag” he calmly said, like I hadn’t already checked the bag. The money that Pasiphae had given us to kill the increasing swarm of birds. Unfortunately, when the Stymphalian birds get relied up, sometimes people are forced to kill them while fleeing to a safe place, like Splittan. But then the birds get more agitated and siege the safe place too long for supplies to last.

Pasiphae’s solution?

Kill enough of them, consistently enough, to use their corpses as food for a city, eventually the local flock thins enough that they can’t bother you any more. Then the birds from other regions populate the forest again, and rinse and repeat whenever someone stupidly-, accidentally kills one of them again.

“Well, it’s not in the bag!” I responded, frustration tingeing my words with the reminder that no money meant no food and no place to sleep tonight.

Orion gave me a rare frown as he picked up the bag, rifling through its pockets and finding the same thing I did, nothing.

“Do you think it might be in the room?” Orion asked, but I doubted it, I definitely put it in here this morning. I didn’t trust that someone wouldn’t take it while we were out, like that b!tchy receptionist. While Aylin was still in the room it didn’t mean the money was safe, and it was a pity Aylin got stuck in the room all day, its a bit too dangerous for her to be up on the wall and I wasn’t all that eager to be baby sitting all day.

“Rafa! We’re leaving early.” I shouted to the man in charge of the rest of the Archers on the wall, the middle-aged guard nodding in response to the request.

“Your pay will be reduced, that fine?” the grizzled and greying soldier replied.

“It’s good.” I answered, the money we’d loose wouldn’t be enough to survive until we found the rest of our money, which I’m too worried about to leave for later. Orion threw the bag over his shoulder as he began to descend from the ramparts on a ladder, while I flew down.

While I still tried to fly as much as possible, using and pushing the (flight (beginner)) to level nine, people had a habit of staring. It was like I an entertaining oddity to some, to laugh at or goggle from a distance, like an exhibit. Others just whispered from a distance like I’m somewhere I’m not supposed to be.

And people also did not like it when I called myself a dragon, and they weren’t as polite as Icaro about it. But the other world-walkers believed it, being in another world does help reset expectations, and appraisal confirming it gets rid of the doubt.

“What could’ve happened?” Orion muttered at the bottom, to which I shrugged.

“Might’ve fallen out the bag? On the way out Somehow?” I hopefully suggested, holding onto the idea that it was still in the room and that it hadn’t been stolen or it’d landed on the streets and taken by a lucky bystander.

We rushed back to the inn, not stopping for anything as we pushed opened the doors, and climbed the stairs to our room. Aylin was lying down on the bed, just facing the wall listlessly, she’d lost a lot of weight recently, her old set of clothes becoming looser by the day.

She just didn’t want to eat that much any more, barely eating anything at meals. I did try and encourage her to eat more earlier, but she mumbled something about what happened in the village and I stopped bothering her about it.

Aylin immediately perked up and looked at us, her face, which I could only describe as desolate turned into an excited yet tired smile. Like sunshine breaking through clouds on a dreary day.

“Hi Aylin!” I quickly greeted her before I started to rummage around, looking for the little pouch desperately. She watched me excitedly as I rummaged around the floor, pushing over and looking through discard clothing and other items. Unfortunately the little closet wasn’t enough for three people, well two peoples new sets of clothes and all of our camping gear.

“It’s not on the floor…” Orion said to no-one in particular and I grunted in response, I even went and started stretching my head under the bed, but all I saw were dust bunnies.

“I know where it is!” Aylin slightly shouted, the girl was frothing with excitement as she reached underneath the blanket she was on and pulled out the purse. It was almost like she knew it was there the entire time, but let me search anyways.

I quickly snatched it out of her hands and opened it, counting every single coin carefully. I let out a sigh of relief as it was the exact same amount as I remembered.

“I found it!” Aylin excitedly said, she seemed almost nervous about it. I jumped up onto the bed and tried to put a reassuring arm, no it’s a front leg, around her shoulder, but it didn’t really work with my body so I wrapped my neck around hers instead.

“Yes, you did, thank you.” I quietly said with my head beside her ear, she giggled and grabbed onto me tightly.

“A-are you going to stay now?” She quickly followed up, anxiously holding me as she shook a little bit.

“Well I mean…” I non-committally answered as I turned to look at Orion, silently begging him to chime in and tell her the bad news. But he just gave me a blank stare and then turned away, he walked to the closest and started sorting items that I knew he’d already sorted them this morning.

“… We could go get some lunch?” I hesitantly suggested, Aylin letting out a little squeal as she tried to stand while holding me, but I wasn’t quite that small any more and she fell over on top of me, squishing me into the mattress. Luckily she wasn’t as heavy as before, sparing me from the fate of being winded.

When Aylin got off I reluctantly followed, feeling equal parts guilty and annoyed. Guilty because I’d left Aylin alone in this room for most of the days this week while Orion and I went to go hunt birds for money and XP. Annoyed because… I didn’t want to have to deal with it.

I didn’t want to have to deal with a little traumatised kid because everyone else who could take care of her died, and children are so needy. I’m just so tired of dealing with it, reassuring her whenever she woke up at night, cleaning up her messes and the constant begging for attention was the worst.

I know it’s not her fault, because she’s a literal child, but it’s exhausting. And Orion in all honesty was just as mentally taxing, especially the bond business.

“Should we go to the usual spot?” Orion suggested, the restaurant that Pasiphae introduced to us was one of the best restaurants here, and the view of the forest was beautiful and the pissed off Stymphalian birds in the distance struggling to get in was the cherry on top.

I nodded and joined the two as we let the tiny room with the newly recovered wallet, quickly popping out onto the busier than usual streets. With the bird epidemic outside, everyone was stuck inside the city.

As we climbed our way through the city’s streets I enviously looked at Aylin’s and Orion’s new clothes that we’d gotten a couple days ago. It was a weird problem for me, because it’s not like anyone around here made clothes for four legged… people. But on the other hand, did I need clothes?

I’d spent so long without them I didn’t really feel awkward without them, and nobody had pointed and said ‘look! A naked dragon’. At least I still had my necklace, even if it was a weird magic item that refused to let me take it off, it’d grown on me a little, in a literal way too. When I turned into a cloud dragon I noticed a while after that it’d become bigger, the band around my neck growing longer with my neck and the single feather and stone teardrop had changed too. There were a couple more feathers threaded into its increased length and the stone was still the same shape but a touch bigger with a few simple carvings on its face.

It’s nice enough for me.

After some exhausting climbing in a city unfortunately before the age of elevators we arrived at the restaurant. After waiting a few minutes for a table we were sitting down and ordering our usual meals, though many of them seemed to have more bird alternatives.

While we waited for the food to come an awkward silence filled the space, I wasn’t exactly eager to say anything. Didn’t have anything worth saying with all of the things I still have to deal with the bond.

I couldn’t get rid of it apparently, and it also didn’t control me in the way I thought it did. But the suggestion annoyed me, that all those times around Orion when I acted weird was supposed to be me being ‘emotionally honest’, was meant to be normal?

I didn’t want to be that person that came out whenever I relaxed around Orion, that person was somebody that people laughed at when they tried to be normal, somebody that no-one wanted to talk to. But I stopped being that person a long time ago, I didn’t like that person.

“Uhm…” Aylin tried to say something, but all she could manage to squeeze out were a awkward noises.

“Is there something you want to say?” Orion innocently prompted her the girl squirming before she answered him.

“A-are you leaving?” she quietly asked, her words giving me a bit of a fright. I had thought about it, flying off and leaving the both of them behind and all of the problems they bring with them. But I couldn’t right now, not with the birds swarming.

“No? I wasn’t planning on it.” I reassured her, even though I had been planning on asking Pasiphae if there was an orphanage that’d take her.

“That’s g-good!” she over-enthusiastically responded, she anxiously began tapping the table again, like she was going to explode if something didn’t happen soon.

“So Orion, what level are you now” I decided to bring up, in lieu of more of this awkwardness. While the job was necessary for money, it’d been a boon for levelling, especially for Orion’s archery. There was also the an added bonus for me, if I set the tips of Orion’s arrows alight with my fire, I get some credit. Even though setting the arrows on fire did little to nothing, I got the credit. But it was strange how it allocated the experience.

When killing something, it seemed like most of it went into my level rather than any skill levels, but some skill got more experience than others on kill. My (spark) skill got a lot from killing, while using (mana reinforcement) to fight something would get nothing as far as I could tell.

My current theory was that killing things developed more… unlearnable skills. For me it’d be racial skills and my level, which were both parts of me just developing age-wise. While things like magic-based skills and other learnt things like flying seemed to revolve around me putting effort into following the skills instructions to learn it. Those skills looked to be entirely demonstrational for me to learn, while the others were just showing my ‘inbuilt’ abilities.

“It’s at nineteen now.” Orion answered, while it was a bit of an improvement from the last time I asked, it didn’t look like Orion got much for killing things that were so far beneath him.

“What’s a level?” Aylin chimed in, interrupting my thoughts with an interesting question, how should I explain it to Aylin?

“Do you remember when you panicked about me staring off and lying about doing nothing?” I asked, the little girl becoming a little bit confused and nodding.

“Well, that is related to this. The system allows Orion and I to do special things, like looking at people and objects and understanding what they are or get better at whatever we choose.” I listed off, the little girl becoming more and more excited as I described it too her.

“How did you get it?” she quickly followed up.

“Oh, I think you had to say something, what was it… ‘Find your fate, Ask for your path under the moon’s grace.’?” I said uncertainly, looking to Orion to confirm my uncertain memory of what Icaro said. After a moment of him looking inbetween Aylin and me he gave me a curt nod.

Aylin soaked it all up like she was listening to one of Orion’s retellings of Lord Of The Rings. But before I could relax after somehow managing to steer the conversation away from getting rid of Aylin, Orion leant over.

“Are you sure you should’ve done that?” he whispered, making frown.

“What do you mean?” I whispered back.

“What if she does something?”

“…”

Okay maybe in hindsight telling Aylin how to access a something that turned a kid into a cannibal wasn’t my best idea in hindsight.

“Okay, but you don’t have to tell me that.” I grumbled.

“Did you want me to lie?”

“Whatever works for you, sometimes people don’t want to hear it.” I explained.

“Hm!” Orion hummed in understanding as the food got here, distracting all of us from this chaotic day.