Who am I?

For quite some time I wanted to get myself known to the world and the internet. Why? The simplest answer is I want to be a writer and I have a lot to learn. And therefore, the sooner I get people reading my stories, the more feedback I can get and improve. I despise poorly written literature - they're a waste of wood used to make books.

My name is Tomo Umer, I'm 26 years old, the nickname I've used across a wide variety of games is psiho333 and my life goal is to write more than Isaac Asimov did - he's said to be the most productive writer so far and I want to top that, with quality stories of my own (I have nothing but respect for him as a writer).

Exactly one year ago I quit my PhD in particle physics at Trieste - I was one of the physicist working in the CMS collaboration at CERN - in order to have the time to write. But life is never that simple. I needed to be sure, I needed the time to find out more about myself and I needed to think a lot about the first book I decided to start writing. And because of that, the last year was, for me, the most carefree in my whole life. I had some money left over from the PhD and I lived my life day by day, figuring out the details as I went.

I can finally happily and confidently say that I found out who I am. I'm not writing this lightly, because understanding oneself is, in today's world, one of the most difficult things to do. We live in a world where "overchoice" has grown exponentially from the year 1975 when the term was first coined, to 2015 the day I'm writing this. There's too much of everything, and too little of ourselves, of who we really are. In today's world searching for ourselves is at least equally challenging as searching for a needle in a haystack with nothing but bare hands to help you. And because of that, most people - even supposed adults - live with masks hiding their true selves, without even realizing it.

It's easy to be afraid and hide or to comfort to someone else's rules, because that way we don't have to think about ourselves, about taking on some responsibility. People are afraid of control, some think that Google, NSA (National Security Agency), Yahoo, Facebook and other sites know more about ourselves than we do. But it's that really the case?

Even for a single individual as myself, to understand me, you'd have to go through immense physical pain - I swam for 5km butterfly and always sought my physical limits in order to go beyond them. I know how it is to have every muscle, every cell in your body scream with pain and still go on. I've endured psychological traumas, with the death of two close friends, born in the same year as myself - one suicide (R.I.P. Elvis Sladić, you were one of the most prominent young physicists I've met) and one heart attack (R.I.P. Tomaž Veljak, you truly were unlucky that night).

I was in love again and again, each time with an unhappy ending, having whole weeks of depressed and mourning periods, without seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. There are so many stories that I could tell - is NSA really going to collect them all? What for? People need to realize that there is simply too much information around, and the only reason why NSA is so successful is because most people hide and only a few individuals get picked on. What if everyone would, like me, say: "Hey NSA (and other such companies), collect my data and see how much I care. I don't have anything left to fear, lose or hide. I know myself."

This is not the right place to tell all of my life's story. I might do it sometime in the future, but it's not relevant at the moment. What I do care is that I finally managed to figure myself out and I'll explain the 5 most important things I found out when looking for myself. This is the culmination of my life's worth and the "lazy" and "unproductive", even self destructive last year is what helped me put all the puzzle pieces together.

I'm writing this in hopes it will help someone else as well. The points are in no particular order.

5) Games (or Drink vodka, play Dotka. Cyka! Blyat.)

Games are at the center of our lives. From the early ages on, we play and by playing we learn. Some people associate play with kids and by doing so, they limit what they could achieve.

One of my favorite verses of lyrics comes from Megadeth:"I don't remember where I was, I realized life was a game. The more seriously I took things, the harder the rules became."

I don't think that you should turn everything into a game. That's not the point. The point of seeing life as a game is about how you engage with the world, how everything can be fun and interesting to learn. In the following I'll talk about  two different category of games and I'm going to talk about them separately. Not all games are the same.

5.a) Board games

Board games have existed for millenia. From the simple early games with dice (invented in ancient Greece or perhaps even before) to complex modern day games like Battlestar Galactica that require hours of learning before you get to know all the rules.

There are abstract games and games with a concrete theme. Not so long ago I learned of a game called Tafl, also known as "viking chess", which was similar to chess, but a lot more assymetrical between the two players. These kind of two player games have aided great leaders in the past in understanding their opponents, their strengths and weaknesses and their way of playing and leading their armies. The most able of leaders were unpredictable and through their games they realized who their opponent was, while it didn't happen the other way round.

If you're asking yourself why does that matter, look no further than the Sun Tzu's teachings from The Art of War: "If you know the enemy and yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself, but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle."

For someone like me, who played chess semiprofessionally for 9 years (and then dropped it, because I didn't see myself as a chess player in the long run), it's incredibly easy to understand how the kind of strategy your opponent adopts can be linked to his (or hers) personality. If you've never experienced it, try playing a board game with your friends. Once you understand the rules, start observing the behavior of your friends. In games that include negotiations, that's even better. You can see who relies heavily on feelings, who can be bribed, who's unsure of their own capabilities and who (if anyone) is the master puppeteer that talks everyone into doing their own bidding.

Now granted, abstract games might not be for everyone, but in today's world there's been an explosion of games of all kinds. A quick glance on boardgamegeek can show you how far we've come. So on top of being "fun" and "engaging", the board games can really tell you a lot about the people you're playing with.

You might argue that with conversation you've got a far better chance of understanding someone. Unfortunately, as I briefly mentioned before, we people tend to put on masks. So talking with people can tell you everything about them, if they're sincere - to themselves in the first place. In a board game, on the other hand, if it is engaging enough (if not, why would you play it? pick another game that suits you better), we forget that we're in a game and we can show our true selves.

Ask anyone who knew me and very likely they'll have a story where I got so mad I punched someone - boys only, I don't hit girls, and even when I lost my temper I hit them some place I knew it wouldn't hurt badly - shoulder. You know, me and my best friend throughout high school constantly punched each other in the shoulder, to see who will be the first to give up. In the past I couldn't control my rage and I've always told myself it was because of *insert a stupid excuse here*, always looking for reasons to explain myself.

In time, I realized anger was a part of me I had to let go. But for most part, I didn't even know it was there - it sure did surface when I sought victory in games.

5.2) Video games

Contrary to board games, these are more single-player oriented, or multi-player online. There are some games that can be played usually up to a maximum of 2 people on the same computer and some console games up to 4 (theoretically 8), but these are rare - too rare in my opinion.

So when playing a videogame, you're faced with a completely different beast than a board game. Not because of the fact that board games you can touch and on a PC everything is done with a mouse and a keyboard, but instead, they're inherently different in their social interactions. Meaning that in most videogames, you have none.

In a videogame, if it is multiplayer, you usually interact with avatars and nicknames and I know of a lot of people (me included) who used these nicknames in order to let off some steam. Trolling and such, yeah. I don't think trolls are bad people as some research seems to suggest. Trolls are simply people who forgot that even online, you are dealing with another human being. They think (and for quite some time, I thought the same) it's just another avatar - so let's have fun with that.

There's even more and more research that points out how social networks and online games contribute very little to our feelings of being alone in the world. In fact, they even provoke these feelings of loneliness, so one should be careful as for how much time he or she spends playing and interacting on social media.

Having said that, what are videogames good for?

Videogames can be infinitely more complex than board games. Advanced computations and physics to make the modern games look and feel as real as possible. They have become almost perfect simulations for certain aspects of our lives, a way to live a different life, to understand how it was to lead the Roman legions against an upcoming invasion or how the whole societies are created and destroyed. They can teach us about history, about politics, diplomacy, taking a life or saving one. Videogames even have (in my opinion) some of the best stories I have ever read or seen. The Longest Journey saga, The Sands of time trilogy, Bioshock trilogy, Half-Life duology and episode-ology and so on.

And then there are games who don't teach you anything about the real world. Games that are purely for fun and games that sharpen your reflexes and your brain activity. And here's where Dota 2 comes in. I love this game and have played it already 10 years ago when it was still a mod for Warcraft 3. This is a kind of game where you pick an avatar (hero) and try to work with 4 other teammates in defeating an enemy team of 5 heroes. Pretty much like quantum mechanics, no matter how good you think you are at understanding it, there are still layers of perception that evade you. There are around 110 total heroes and they vary from the simplest ones - 2 active spells and 2 passive (active spells are abilities you, as a player, need to activate, while passive are activated automatically), to heroes which have 4 complex active spells (Invoker even has 10, he truly is a beacon of knowledge blazing across a vast sea of ignorance) that require practice and learning to understand how to use them effectively. Dota 2 is not an easy game. In fact, game is hard as I like to joke, but that actually makes me more interested in it.

And for me personally that's a really beautiful thing: no matter how hard life gets, it simply cannot be harder than understanding Dota 2 in every little detail and function perfectly with 4 other players in real time. Hence the saying, ez game, ez life (if a game that's hard seems easy to you, then so can life). There was even a time I was addicted to Dota and I now find it a great thing, because I know there is nothing in this world that could be more addictive to me than games, and Dota in particular. And thanks to it, I learned how to control my addictions.

Of course, Dota 2 is not the only game in the MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) genre: there's the League of Legends and the Heroes of Newerth and now Blizzard tries to join in with the Heroes of the Storm. There are others and there will be even more in the future. It's a matter of personal taste which of them you prefer and I won't debate here the differences. If you ask me, Heroes of Newerth is the hardest to master, because it's like Dota on steroids - the base mechanics are the same, but everything happens faster. Dota 2 has the second place as far as difficulty goes, followed by League of Legends and somewhere far behind drag the Heroes of the Storm (it's really dumbed down, isn't it?). But bear in mind that complexity isn't always a good thing. And in fact, I've met people who said that Dota 2 is just too difficult and they'd rather stick to LoL.

There are of course a ton of other games that sharpen your reflexes and can consume all of your time if you allow them to - I can perfectly understand how someone can't stop playing yet another match of Halo, Enemy Territory (when you try to exit the game, a message appears stating "yeah, like you have anything better to do"), Counter Strike, Team Fortress 2, GTA 5, driving simulations, FIFA, arcade games and whatnot. Here it's really up to a personal taste, but interestingly enough, tell me what game you play and I'll tell you what kind of person you are.

Just as an example, it's no mystery that the favorite game of the USA's army is Halo. A first-person shooter and as such, it's been proven to reduce the effect of the post-traumatic stress disorder soldiers suffer after going to war. Games really do tell us a lot about ourselves. And it has been through discovering all the different types and kind of games that I learned, little by little, about my weaknesses and strengths. In my opinion, everyone should give them at least a few tries.

4) Freedom

Ah, freedom. A word that gets thrown around when USA invades another country. Freedom and democracy. Please note, however, I am not hateful towards them. In fact, so far all the Americans I met (either in real life or online) are great people and are against such policies - same way as most Slovenians are against our state policies, it's just that most people don't do anything about it.

Returning to the topic at hand, the ultimate freedom in my opinion is that each and everyone of us can take their life at any time. There's nobody that can prevent you from doing that. But dying is easy, it's living that's hard. Living with your choices and consequences and if you're an integral person, you have to live with responsibility (I wish more people accepted some).

An ideal free world would be such that every person could be independent from everyone they wished and depend only on people they chose to. This is something which doesn't happen in our world and perhaps never will. From the early age onward, we are subjugated to rules and convictions of previous generations. If someone is lucky, then people surrounding him (or her) will listen to what that person has to say. Most of the time, however, people won't listen to you until you come off age, become highly educated or have lots of money. Preferably all of them combined. In other words, we are free to express ourselves, but nobody will listen. Can this way of living even be called freedom?

Changing the world is something more and more people are thinking of and actually, during my life I've read about plenty of individuals who took their stand. If you ask an anthropologist, they'll likely tell you that if nothing changes, the Western Civilization is nearing it's end - the same way the Roman empire or the Aztecs did so long ago. We're following every step in their decline, without even realizing it. Since, however, the perception of certain individuals about this is changing, there is still some hope.

In the scenario that nothing changes, what about our personal freedom?

This question is tricky, exactly because it's personal and therefore doesn't have a unique answer. My idea of personal freedom might be completely different from yours. Keep this in mind when you read forward and ask yourself: what makes you feel free?

For me, to be truly free, I need only my brain, because for me to be free it simply means to be able to think about stories and to create them. About my past and future, about imaginary words, about anything. I thought what it would be like to land in a prison because of a stupid reason - like pirating stuff. Everyone does that, it's free publicity (this has actually been proven by researches and the reason Switzerland didn't pass an absurd law on piracy) and it shouldn't be illegal. Everyone who has at least a bit of a brain will realize in time that by paying for stuff you like, you support the authors. People pirate only when they don't have money or when they want to try something out - think of this as a trial version. In due time, I buy everything I can from the artists I wish to support, be it games, graphic novels, movies or music.

At any rate, if I landed in prison, I wouldn't feel like my freedom has been taken away from me. I'd still be able to think about things and write. Putting me in prison would actually be a pretty bad move, because in there I couldn't do many things, while thinking and writing would still be something I could. And I'd think about politics and how to change the current system. The same people who put me there would live to regret the day they did.  This is not a menace, it's a simple consequence of what I'm writing here. We've seen what desperate men did throughout history. If you unjustly imprison people for possession of drugs like marijuana (which will be legalized everywhere in a matter of few years), or because of piracy, then don't start crying when these same people will make you regret it: karma is a bitch.

Having said that, once you know what personally makes you feel most free, the next step is to join forces, stand together and fight for our collective freedom. Not in a violent way, mind you - violence and aggression never solve anything, they only invite vengeance and retribution in a never ending cycle of blood and death. Everyone should do what makes them feel free as long as it's not harmful towards others.

3) Mens sana in Corpore sano

This is something that already the Romans figured out:"Healthy mind in a healthy body." I realized you can't have one without the other. The problem is, as modern science teaches us, our willpower is limited. By doing too much sports, you'll very likely neglect your intellect and vice versa. I think the two should be considered equal and everyone of us owes to ourselves to take care of our minds and bodies.

For me at the present time, taking care of my body means doing Yoga (you might laugh, but only until you see the exercises I actually do. Then you'll either respect me or want me to teach you). I like it because it doesn't take a huge amount of time to practice and at the same time, I don't need anything to do it. The trouble with other sports is, I realized, is that I was always bound by money or the possibility to practice the sport where you currently are. And that's why in the past, I was always changing form being overweight, to being ripped with muscles and back again - it all depended on when and if I could do the sport I was currently practicing - swimming, gymnastics, running, cycling etc.

Another thing to be aware of is that we can actually become addicted to sports. If you've never been into sports it might sound impossible, but it's true. Once you get going and don't quit, you'll come to a phase where you will feel like shit for every day you skip practice. Addiction is never good, so bear in mind that this can happen and unless you want to be a professional athlete, you'll have to find your own balance between doing too little and too much for your body. There's not an easy way - only trial and error will teach you.

And then there's the mind. I think most people today realize that they have to take care of their bodies, but what about the mind?

I realized I have two different ways of engaging the brain - one to make it more active, the other to make it ordered and calm.

To keep my brain responsive and active, I like to play games (see pt. 5), play an instrument (I play the piano, clarinet and learning the violin) or do science (I love math in particular, and currently the research that intrigues me most is Neuroeconomics).

All of the above are great, but in order to keep calm, make sense of stuff and order my thoughts, I very much like meditation. Research has shown that by meditating (call it mindfulness if you will), we eliminate the so called "sunk-cost bias" i.e. the prejudices and thoughts that are affected by our feelings and not actual logical reasoning. By engaging in meditation on a daily basis I essentially try to become more and more objective and take good decisions. I like to think of myself and other people as rational beings. That's what differentiates us from other animals.

Another point in favor of meditation is that it's probably the best way towards achieving "the flow" - a state of mind in which our brains actually require less resources to function, but is far more productive and effective. It has probably happened to you that when you were so engaged in something the time flew by - that's the flow state. And it is possible to achieve it willingly.

At tis point you may rightfully ask: but what is meditation in its essence? I don't conceive of it as a sort of spiritual manifestation. I simply think of it as a way to clear my mind of all thoughts. The underlying principle is quite simple: set a timer on your mobile phone, sit in a pose that's comfortable but not relaxing (you don't want to fall asleep) and "simply" think of nothing. From everything I learned from around the web, the easiest way to get started is to focus on your breath and then count how many times you breathe in and exhale. Each time the mind drifts away to other thoughts you simply take note of it and resume counting (from the beginning if you don't know where you left off).

When I first started meditating I realized how many thoughts were on my mind. It was mind-blowing to say the least. Try it yourself, and you might be equally surprised to find out how easy it is to get distracted with thoughts you didn't even know you had.

2) Life & Friends

I'll say it again: living is hard. If we were born in a different era, it could have been much easier. Take the Vikings for example. They believed that if they die in battle, they will be escorted by Valkyries - warrior women - to Asgard, where they will feast with gods and heroes alike, while drinking beer and mead. For them, it was a pleasure to storm into battle, with war cries that echoed along the land, scaring their opponents to death. Life was simple.

Today it's much more complicated, due to the fact that our knowledge is completely different from that in the past and if you're an inteligent person, it's common to over-think, potentially leading to depression and even suicide.

I've arrived at the point when I didn't care about my life anymore. I smoked cigarettes as a means of proving it to myself and the world. In fact, at the time of writing this, I could easily smoke a whole pack in a single day. A dear friend of mine said:"It's really sad to hear you say that. To hear anyone say that.". Sad or not, that was my opinion on my own life. And then I realized something: I don't want to be self-destructive anymore. On a everyday basis there are enough things that could potentially kill me (just think of all the road accidents), and I know that. In our world, random "unjust" events can happen. C'est la vie (that's life).

I now have a clear goal and I want to be alive for as long as possible, to write as much as I can. And just like that I decided to stop smoking and doing other harmful things to myself. Even more than that, I started to realize that every person I met had a story of their own and should be respected as such. Nobody should have the power to take another person's life, for whatever reason. All the wars, the battles, bloodstained curtains and battlefields full of severed limbs of dead soldiers. It's all in vain.

I realize there are situations when you simply can't act otherwise. There can be moments in your life when you're forced to make a choice: kill (your enemy) or be killed first. But these are really, really extreme and rare cases. How can anybody know in the first place that their enemy wants to kill them? Far too many times, an enemy is placed before an exact same dilemma and might kill before the other person can manage to. But if noone shots first, nobody dies.

Why not come forward and refuse to kill other people? Why not be the first one to say:"You know what? Fuck that, let's grab a beer and talk it over." Words can be far more powerful than any weapon is. Words survive centuries and especially in today's world once something gets on the internet, it is there to stay. I was placed in a position where if I had been born a few centuries ago, I would have killed a guy to get a girl that's like a copy of myself from another universe - same in the way of thinking, but different enough that she could help me grow into a better person and I could do the same with her. And we could have done incredible things together, amplifying each other.

But even if that girl won't ever be mine, that's ok. Too many wars have been started throughout history because of women - and yet the ones to start them were always men. Men too stupid, prideful or simply hungry for power or for something they couldn't have. This particular situation made me stressed out and angry as I haven't been in a long time. But ultimately, I'm grateful, because it made me understand how it is possible to just leave the anger be. For too long it has plagued me, but not anymore.

Instead of looking for reasons to quarrel, find friends. Already Epicurus, philosopher from ancient Greece, said that friends are one of the 3 things you need for happiness - and he emphasized the point that friends should not be just some random people you meet over coffee. They have to be people you spend quite some time with. Friends can help you understand yourself and can teach you how not to make the same mistakes they did. One of the best things that I could allow myself in this one year of officially doing nothing (at least nothing that would give me some money) was spending quite some time with different groups of people, different friends, and because of that I have plenty of wonderful memories, as well as enormous personal growth - those who knew me before will confirm you that I have changed a lot. My friends took me in completely unexpected directions, making me think and realizing a lot about them and myself.

If you surround yourself with friends, you don't need enemies. You don't need someone to win against. Instead, you have people who are prepared to win together with you. And the more your circle of friends extends, more chances are you'll meet new circles of friends and so on and so forth, ultimately being friendlier with everyone - even people you haven't met yet. Sure, there are some people that might seem like complete bastards - but perhaps that's a natural evolution for someone who ultimately feels alone. You're not alone. We're not alone. All of us are living on a beautiful planet called Earth and if we won't manage to get along together, personal vendettas as well as large scale massacres are inevitable.

1) Myself

At the end of the day, there's only a single person you're obliged to live with: yourself. As I mentioned briefly before, that's something I couldn't stand. I even considered suicide more than once. What forever eliminated the idea of suicide was smoking weed. Yes, you read that right. A particularly bad trip made me realize suicide would be the worst idea I ever had, and I never looked back. Because of weed I won't ever consider suicide and I'm grateful for that. I currently don't smoke anymore (neither tobacco, cigarettes nor weed) and I don't know if I will in the future - though I am in favor of marijuana legalization.

After this whole year of thinking and searching for myself, I realized why I was unhappy and depressed and it's pathetically simple: I didn't know myself and therefore, on countless occasions I made choices that went against what I truly wanted. That's what made me miserable.

I realized that writing is the only thing that made sense in my life. All the different things I did in my life, all the ups and downs, they could be easily woven together by writing: the more various and interesting my life will be, the better the stories I will write. So now I smile in face of every adversary, every hard moment and doubt - I know what to do with them. The person who helped me realize I was a writer was Andrzej Sapkowski, in my opinion the best fantasy writer alive today, but with a horrible English translation of his books - I told him that and he said he heard it from other people as well. I wrote about this event already in the introduction to my book, so I'll skip the details here.

Finding out who you are is not the end, however. It's merely the beginning.  The next important step that comes just after learning about yourself, is understanding who do you want to be. This way you have a clear idea of where you are and who you are in the present moment, as well as a feeling of where you're headed - or, even better, a clear goal. At this point, life becomes easier. For every thing you do, you can simply ask yourself: "Am I nearer to who I want to be, or was this a step in the wrong direction?"

Sometimes the answer won't be immediate or perhaps there won't even be a clear answer. But it's enough to get a sense of "Yeah, I feel I'm getting closer to my goal" rather than "Why the hell did I do that?". If you're in doubt, here's what friends are for (see pt. 2). If you have a clear view of yourself, you can be sincere with people you know and care about, and they will listen and tell you their own opinion. If their opinion somehow matches what you wanted - then you're on the right path. If their opinion is in sharp contrast of what you thought, then it's time to ask some more people for advice, perhaps on the internet - reddit is the best place to start. I cannot even begin to describe with words how much reddit has helped me so far and how much I learned from it. Truly, it is the front page of the internet. Thank you strangers of reddit! Keep being awesome and spreading knowledge and fun!

There is another possible scenario to the answers you might get. The worst of the three. Namely, the things you learn from others might only confuse you further. If this happens, then it's time to face yourself again. Do what you must to isolate yourself, or give yourself some time to think things through. Why are you confused? Is it something that your friends or other people said and it doesn't have to do with you at all? Or is it, in fact, that you yourself were not honest enough with them and with yourself?

Whatever the answer to those questions might be, you owe it to yourself to find a way to communicate with your inner self, to be completely truthful - what brings that part of you out? Is it writing, music (listening or playing to an instrument), is it drawing, perhaps photographing, hiking, doing sports, doing science, playing games, something else entirely?

I cannot emphasize this hard enough: there's nobody who'll give you all the answers except for yourself. I can give advice, but I don't even know who I'm specifically addressing, so take these as guidelines or suggestions. This is something me, you and everyone else needs to figure out for themselves - understand what kind of activity allows us to be ourselves. But don't worry, once you find it, you'll know for sure. Be prepared to search far and wide and not be afraid to try new things. Again, here friends can be incredibly helpful by showing you what it's out there, because friends (as opposed to acquaintances, whom you can equally befriend) have at least something in common with you. Who's to say that they won't introduce you to some more interesting new things that you both like?

To finish this off, let me point out one last time how important is to think about yourself, to scrutinize your doubts and understand your fears. Along the way it will be hard, but I can promise you that in the end, it's worth it. I can finally say I'm happy to live my life, writing my own story a moment at a time. I wish for you, my dear reader, and for everyone else, to do the same. Person by person, this will improve humanity as a whole and we'll be able to stand together for a better tomorrow.

Lambda - Chapter 3

Chapter 3 - The Divide

Location: Duskrise

Tania Dimagi was awakened by a loud explosion. When she came to her senses she was already sitting on her bed and breathing heavily. She pressed a switch on the side of the bed and, when the room was alight, she immediately checked that her son Biros was unharmed. A sigh of relief could be heard in her otherwise silent room when she found him sleeping peacefully in his crib.

Tania then neared the window, passing under the ceiling lamp which was made out of molten lava inside a magically enhanced transparent glass. These lamps had enormous lifespans, and were used commonly throughout all of the Duskrise - in the town of Stundale in particular.

The window was made with the same material than the lamp, but it had different magical properties. At first, the glass was completely black and only when Tania pressed her hand on its surface it became possible for her to see through.

With the outside gradually revealing, Tania's face became the grimace of horror. Through all the fog that was exiting the city vents, almost like it were a living breathing organism, Tania could see the fiery show of her life. And it was happening in the sky in the direction of the Stundale Magma tower. Her thoughts were completely shaken by fear:"Is this it? Is this the end of our existence?"

Her ominous thoughts were shaken by the image of a bird flying towards her window. When it was near enough, it simply flew through as if there were no obstacles in its way. This made ripples extend around the window, the same effect a stone would have when thrown into a still lake.

Tania looked at what could be seen as a creature from the distance but was, in fact, a mechanical construct. It puffed smoke out, under its wings and tail, and it made almost screeching noises when moving. The bird was of a dark-greyish color that could be easily missed in the evening fog, and its eyes were dark at first, transforming into piercing red ones when it spoke:"Tania Dimagi, you are invited to immediately join the emergency meeting of the Stundale council of 9 in response to the catastrophe of the magma tower."

With that said, the mechanical bird flew out in the same fashion it came to Tania's place.

Tania stood still for a few seconds, deciding between following orders and taking Biros some place safe:"Was this a natural disaster? Or did someone deliberately attack the tower?" There was too little information in order for her to make a proper decision. She stood silent a few minutes, pondering on what to do next. When she was completely sure that Biros would be sleeping for some time still, she kissed him lightly on the forehead and then went straight to her wooden closet, putting on the first formal wear she found.

Before dressing up, she looked almost like a spectral apparition, fragile in her night robe and messy purple hair. In her formal vest, her looks were those of a menacing authority. The perfect darkness of the dress was broken by lines of a similar color than her hair. These lines started at the collar and extended towards the arms and legs. Two on the front, two on back and two to finish off on her arms.

Tania was quite methodical and so she grabbed a quick snack, washed her face and was already on her way to the council chambers. She went up the stairs from her third floor apartment in a building whose insides had majestic ornaments all around. Houses like this one were once inhabited by the aristocracy. Due to all the smoke that was especially dense in the middle of the city, these houses were left to rot or be used as apartments by poorer people.

Upon exiting on the roof, she was immediately greeted by a hot puff of smoke making her think:"Good, at least the ventilation system is still working. The damage might not be that grave."

From the outside, the building she inhabited was falling to pieces. It has been several centuries since the center of the town was built and no adequate effort was put to protect the outsides from the constant hot streams of air that gradually destroyed the facade. In the evening light, prevailed by the exhaust fumes, it was almost impossible to distinguish the details unless you became an expert in recognizing the different shades of dark. And yet on this very night, as Tania looked towards the magma tower, she could clearly see the chaos happening in the distance: streams of lava burst high into the night and explosions from the tower itself illuminated the sky. She saw flying rectangular-like objects buzzing near the tower and even if she couldn't hear them above the explosions, reassuring thoughts flooded her head:"Those are zappers! This means our emergency team is already at the site. Nice work."

Tania then neared her own zapper, a vehicle that had wings similar to those of mosquito-like insects. It was smaller than those the emergency team used in trying to control the wild lava. Hers was simply big enough to hold two people and the engine. Like most of their technology, the zappers relied on captured sources of lava inside of a magically enhanced bubble. When the magic was inactive, the lava heated up the stored water and the pressurized vapors then exited at the wings, making them flutter wildly. The water in the tank  was supplied by condensing and recycling the exhaust fumes from the buildings, giving the zappers a potentially unlimited flight time in the city.

As Tania seated herself and closed the door, she started hearing the all-too familiar buzzing sound of the zapper. And soon she took off into the night, towards the glowing tower. She knew that halfway there lay the council's tower, which was only slightly less visible than the magma one.

A few minutes of flight later she approached the council's tower perimeters. On the ground there was an electric fence set-up all around for unwanted visitors. Even though most of the time the people who were electrocuted to death were simply lost and extended their hand a bit too far into the fog. As she flew above the fence, she could hear a metallic voice welcoming her. Truth be told, she never felt welcome hearing it.

Soon, she landed the zapper on the top of the circular platform above the tower. It had air vents on top and enough space for exactly nine zappers and all were already there. Tania exited her zapper and was soon greeted by two metallic constructs, resembling humans with an expressionless face. The two constructs wore black and red guard uniforms and their skin was of a silver color. Tania always found them too impersonal, yet she still replied a simple:"Hello."

She went to the door at the roof, which was held open by one of the two constructs and down the stairs, a floor lower, to the main chambers of the council. Before she entered the room, she was greeted by another two automatons, who then closed the heavy wooden doors after her. Arriving at the circular chamber, all of the remaining 8 councilors were already seated. She quickly nodded and greeted back, making her way to her usual place. While doing so, she realized that each of her fellow councilors with longer hair looked like a mess, leaving her perfectly in tone with them.

As soon as she got seated, Doras, a serious-looking man sitting at the opposite side of the table spoke:"With all of us present, the meeting can commence."

When he spoke, he addressed all the present and looked at each one separately:"Tania, Lars, Seraph, Kevin, Morena, Leia, Terry,  and Gilian, the magma tower of Stundale exploded." and almost instantly all heads with exception of Doras looked through the windows, towards the tower, which was still sprouting lava out uncontrollably.

Doras continued:"That's not all. I've received a message from Keo, the engineer who was in shift this night at the magma tower." Almost in unison, the 8 other members of the council started gasping and whispering to each other. Doras coughed and put a hand in the air, holding a piece of paper that did not look at all serious or official. It was as if Keo quickly wrote some notes on a page of his diary and strapped it out, sending it to the council with a bird-messenger.

The leader of the council then proceeded to read:"It all started innocently enough. I felt some tremors in the ground and proceeded with the established checks for the security and stability of the tower. I tested the intensity of the magical field from samples I extracted. Extrapolating what I've found on a larger scale, I can conclude that in 25 years the magical properties of our materials will vanish completely."

Everyone in the room now started talking loudly, some of them panicking and even screaming.

To this Doras raised his clenched fist, which was the symbol their leader could use to signal matters of uttermost importance. It had precedence over any other aspects of the session. Soon enough, the people calmed and Doras could continue:"It gets worse. I've sampled different variants of our materials and it seems that the magical properties started fluctuating wildly. So even before the time runs out and magic vanishes completely, we have no guarantee that it will work for us the way it did up until now. Dear members of the council, I have no idea what's happening, but I'm sure not sticking around to find out. Signed, Keo."

The first to comment was Lars, a scary mess with his brown curly hair all around his head. And when he spoke it was almost as if watching a scarecrow addressing the public:"What bullshit is this? It's a joke right? Or has Keo gone insane?"

"Lars, thank you for your insightful commentary, helpful as ever," the cynical response belonged to Seraph, who was a woman with neatly short cut green hair. She was usually the quiet type, speaking only on two occasions: either she had something important to say, or she wanted to point out how stupid someone else was.

Doras raised his fist again before the session turned into a dispute between the members. After he got the other's attention, Doras spoke with a deep and troubled voice:"I have no reason to believe that Keo is playing mind games on us. If he were, this would mean he sabotaged the tower and this doesn't make any sense. I don't think anyone in Stundale would profit from destroying our main source of energy. And I think we can eliminate the possibility of someone attacking us. We've been at peace for well over a century now and our spies didn't notify us of any impending gathering of forces." He paused briefly, to look at each of the members in the eyes before continuing:"I think we can assume what Keo said to be true. The question is: where do we go from here?"

Tania spoke next:"It makes sense from an architectural point of view. The tower seems to be still standing and therefore, only parts of it were destroyed. If our magically enhanced items are indeed receiving some sort of turbulence, then it's quite logical that parts of our most sophisticated building would be affected first."

Lars jumped in, trying to make a better impression this time round:"All right, for the sake of the argument, I'll believe what was just said. But if that's the case, it means that we can't trust our zappers anymore, we can't rely on our lava lamps, our ventilation systems, anything! We should start thinking of alternatives fast!"

This time Kevin spoke. He appeared deadly serious with his trimmed black beard and similarly short hair. But the tone of his voice was delicate and high, that it could almost belong to a woman:"Alternatives? We abandoned them about three hundred years ago. When our ancestors decided that it's immoral and dangerous to eat the Duskers and we should instead use the dust they dissolve to when dead. All of our technology has relied on that magical dust ever since! Are you suggesting we take s step back in our evolution?"

Lars stuttered in response:"I didn't mean tha-"

Doras quickly took the lead again:"Perhaps that's exactly what we have to do. It seems to me that relying on Duskers's dust wasn't such a great idea in the first place."

Tania almost screamed in response:"Doras! How can you judge so quickly? We don't yet fully understand what's happening. What if there are some bigger forces at work and the magical dust is simply reacting to them? It could be that we are being warned about something!"

Gilian joined in:"That's right!" When Gilian spoke, he used one of his arms as support for his chin, which he was constantly stroking as if he had a beard. The fact that he couldn't grow a half-decent one only amplified his behavior. He continued:"I've been thinking about it ever since you red Keo's letter to us. What if the key to understanding all of this lies in the 25 years? Sure, Keo put the emphasis on how our magic will be failing us. But somehow that doesn't convince me. If it has worked for hundreds of years, why would it start behaving wildly now? What has changed so much? I'm thinking more and more of an external power, perhaps yet invisible to us."  

The next to join in was Leia:"Nonsense! What kind of power are you talking about? I've always said that we knew too little about the magical properties of the Duskers. Perhaps only now they show us their true face. Something that remained hidden under our noses for so long! Gilian and Tania, stop defending the magic just because of our past!"

Morena replied before Gilian had time to. They've been married for five years now and nobody was particularly surprised to hear Morena defending Gilian: "Do you even listen to what you're saying Leia? Are you acting stupid on purpose? Blaming magic might be the most idiotic thing we can do, since perhaps there's something else at work here! We can't decide our future in a single meeting! What if there truly is something beyond magic that's hidden from view? If that's the case, then we should prepare for what's coming in 25 years."

Lars:"From my point of view, 25 years is quite some time, while on the other hand the magma tower is failing us as we speak."

Seraph and Terry were twin brother and sister with the most bizarre dresses of all present in the room. Instead of drawn lines, their robes had red dots of different sizes splattered all over. The pair functioned almost as a single being, either speaking simultaneously or finishing each other's words. This time they both spoke:"Time is treacherous. 25 years might seem like a long time for a mortal, but it's only a blink of an eye for our planet, Duskrise. If we'll keep chasing demons and false ideas, you can be sure it will run out."

That sentence produced an uncontrollable arguing between the councilors. Each of them turned to his or her neighbor arguing about what should be done next. So much were they invested in their discussions that when Doras raised his fist for the third time nobody would notice it.

Suddenly a roaring scream was heard in the room, as darkness descended and all turned to Doras. To their horror and surprise they saw Doras standing, with a trembling left arm and only scorched meat where his right arm used to be. "My arm! How could this happen? No, I'm dreaming! This is not possible!" Doras was flailing his left arm around incredulously, while trying to move the other hand which was not there anymore. It all happened within seconds: the lamp on the ceiling dissolved and the lava fell down burning Doras's arm. Together with his arm, the light in the room retreated. The lava was slowly eating at the floor and didn't shed as much light as before when suspended to the ceiling.

He looked at the present with malicious intent, speaking really loudly:"Is this what we are waiting for?" he gestured at his scorched right shoulder:"Are we waiting for our technology to kill us off one by one? There has been enough chit chat already, we need to act. We must start experimenting on the Duskers again!"

Most were still in shock, each of them thinking that it could have been them who were left single-handed or worse. Tania tried to talk reason to Doras:"Let's call a medic to see to your wound, we can discu-"

"SHUT UP!" Doras was now screaming angrily. "Shut the fuck up, all of you! We're going to put it to a vote as we always do in such situations. All of you in favor of approving Duskers experimentation raise your hands now."

Lars nervously raised his hand seconds after Doras and was soon followed by Leia and lastly by a somehow reluctant Kevin.

Doras waited with anticipation, but received only concerned and dubious glances from the remaining five councilors  that kept their hands to themselves.

Terry and Seraph spoke again:"Now it's not the right time to make any discussions. We should start dispensing emergency teams throughout the city, warning civilians and assessing the conditions of our magical equipment. We need to make sure everyone's all right before planning our next actions. Including you Doras, you should get healed. And then we should take a rest before deciding on an issue as important as Duskers experimentation."

"Oh, so now you two are leading our council?" Doras was furious like Tania never saw him before. His eyes seemed to radiate hate all around, and it got worse by the second.

Gilian spoke next:"They are making a whole lot more of sense than you currently are Doras. Get some rest and a proper treatment and then we can-"

"Treatment? I can only get a miserable mechanical arm as a replacement! If we acted quickly and disbanded this session, the lava would have found only an empty room to fall to!" Doras was so mad now that he started spitting out as he spoke:"I'm giving you one last chance to raise up your hands in favor of Duskers experimentation. If you won't do it, then I'll have to assume you're against me and this city."

"Are you threatening us?" Terry and Seraph asked in unison, without so much as a blink of an eye. They remained calmly seated at their place.

"You're the one threatening the prosperity of Stundale and potentially even Duskrise!" Doras retorted.

Morena:"Doras, stop it. It was an unfortunate accident we all wish didn't happen. But your right arm is not worth the undoing of the work of our ancestors. You're thinking too selfishly! Please, go get healed and the rest of us will disperse the news and try to contain the situation in our city."

To her surprise, Doras suddenly calmed down and continued with a reassuring voice:"An unfortunate accident you say? Yes, this is exactly what the people will think when you'll be gone missing." He slid two fingers across the side of one of the lines on his robe and the doors of the chamber burst open. Six automatons quickly entered and approached the table when Doras issued an order:"Dispose of Tania, Morena, Gilian, Terry and Seraph."

The eyes of the automatons started shining a red color and their hands retracted to give space to two half-meter long blades. In the dim light that was now in the room, they looked genuinely scary and Morena was the first to scream in panic.

As everyone in the room started realizing what was happening, Tania had only one thing, or rather, one person on her mind:"I must get to Biros and get him some place safe!"

Morena and Gilian were too slow and two of the automatons were already at their place, slashing their heads off. Clean cut and quick death. Tania was in luck to be seated more away from the exit so that she pushed herself off the table and when the chair fell backwards to the ground, she immediately put her hands behind her head and made a back roll away from the table. She was just in time, as the blades cut the air where she sat a moment ago.

Lars, Kevin and Leia had their eyes open in shock, unable or unwilling to say anything, knowing they'd share the same fate if they opposed Doras.

Terry and Seraph spoke in unison again:"We can't decide what is more pathetic: you or your actions." And then the automatons slashed them. To everyone's surprise, the pair of twins simply dissolved in air.

"Decoy detected" said one of the two automatons standing in their place.

"You don't say?? Well then, hurry, find them!" Doras was sounding hysterical again.

"Impossible. They could be meters away or kilometers. The range of this decoying illusions cannot be determined with precision and therefore we are unable to find them in such short numbers."

Meanwhile, Tania was on her feet, running to one of the windows. And right behind her, two automatons sprinted, catching up even in such a small space. Before she could think any longer, she brushed two fingers on her robe and jumped elbows first towards the surface of the window. As at her home, she simply went through, making ripples appear on the surface of the window. She felt a searing pain in her leg as a blade pierced her skin - and then it was over.

She was looking at the precipice below her, high from atop the council tower. Her vest inflated, making her able to glide through the air. All the while her mind was repeating:"Please magic, don't fail me now!" She was gliding through the night sky mixed with the dense fog, but could still see the fence below her as she passed on.

And then a terrifying thought crossed her mind:"Biros! Damn it, Doras will indubitably be sending henchmen to my home and taking him hostage in return for me, or worse, kill him straight away!" She felt a grim sensation in her mouth and gritted her teeth to forget about the pain in her leg or the fact that the automatons will reach her home way faster than she ever could. But she could try at least. She glided into a small narrow street and upon landing her leg immediately reminded her of the injury.

Tania closed her eyes and imagined the pain to go away.

"You did the right thing," she heard a familiar voice that still made her shudder. She opened her eyes and saw - Terry! And he was holding Biros in his hands. She started sobbing, both due to the injury and the fact that her son was besides her again:"What are you doing with him?"

"We've taken the liberty of removing him from your home, before Doras's minions could reach him," Terry looked down and then took a few steps towards Tania, handling the baby to her:"He's beautiful. Take good care of him."

"Thank you," she whispered, while trying to control her weeping and holding Biros to her body. Somehow he was still asleep, breathing peacefully as if nothing changed.

"There are troubling times ahead of us. Duskers experimentation seems all but imminent and besides me and Seraph you were the only one that opposed - and survived. We'll have to wait and see which cities join this crazy path and which refuse." Only now did Tania realize how weird it was to hear one of the twins alone. Still, she listened to what he had to tell:"Get away from here. Tend to your baby and then if you wish to set things right, return to Stundale. Though I cannot promise you it will be a walk in the park. The next time we see each other, it might well be in a full-blown war to recapture the council."

Tania wanted to open her mouth, but Terry silenced her:"Listen Tania, go now. Escape the city and to go your relatives or friends, lay low for a while. Rest. We'll keep in touch."

"How will you know where I'll be?"

"We have our ways," Terry winked in response and extended a hand to greet her. Tania instead pushed Biros on one side and with the free arm flung herself at Terry, hugging him:"Thank you. Thank you for saving my son. You don't know how much this means to me." Terry hugged her back and then slowly pushed her away:"Tania, now you really must go, the automatons might already be scouting for survivors."

Tania uttered another:"Thank you," before looking a last time at Terry who simply nodded and watched her leave. The pain in her leg would make for a painful journey, but she knew all the small passageways between the streets and tubes and even in her injured state, her determination lead her on, towards the outskirts of Stundale.

Lambda - Chapter 2

Chapter 2 - The Banishment of Gods

Location: Auroria

"You're a liar Krielis!" cried Aurelia Powerglade, standing alone in the middle of a great hall that had no details or ornaments whatsoever. The floor, walls and ceiling were made of polished black stones that would allow for an impermeable darkness. The room had no windows, and at first sight neither doors. The light was supplied by a floating glowing white ball, a perfect sphere that pulsated with a regular rhythm. At the beginning of each pulse, the middle of the ball stopped emitting light and it spread outwards, until the whole light was gone. And the next moment, the ball was there again, shining and binding the all-present darkness. This was the god Krielis.

Aurelia's high pitched scream echoed the long corridors of the fortress. It was a surreal scream gushing through the long halls and if someone stood there, it could hear the voice coming like a distant echo and if quick enough, cover its ears. No ordinary person would be heard outside the room Aurelia was in. Yet she was one of a kind, quite literally. In fact, Aurelia was the only female descendant in the matriarch Queendom called Telaria. When she was born, she had seven older brothers alongside. Five grew to love and protect her, while the two who opposed disappeared in mysterious circumstances. Her influence spread all over the civilized parts of Auroria and its inhabitants mockingly called her the princess of Auroria.

[Why are you screaming? You know it doesn't affect me. Still, you've grown quite insubordinate.]
the voice of Krielis didn't seem to have a precise origin in the room, it could be heard all around. And the sound of its voice was devoid of emotions, sounding almost artificial.

There was nobody else in the room, and when Krielis faded out, the room seemed infinite. Only when there was at least a glimpse of light emanating from the god, a person standing in the room could get a feeling of space and geometry.

"I refuse to believe that in 25 years Auroria will be gone!" she cried at the top of her lungs, without caring if she could be heard or not. Aurelia was usually a very pale girl to such extent that many of her servants would compare her to the likes of the moon. The emotions that could bring some color to her face were hate, shame, joy and happiness, and she rarely had any use for the latter two. And when the light was present, she looked even more pale than in the outside world. She wore a white dress, elegant, though adding very little towards her already bright appearance.  Her hair were of a fiery red tone, elegant and long. She wore them around her head, falling on the back of her neck, leaving her bright face and strikingly deep blue eyes in full view.

[I won't be discussing with you on such terms. Why are you still screaming?]

Aurelia tried to calm herself, shaking visibly when there was enough light to reach her. She took a deep breath and responded with a voice cold enough, to match the coldness in her eyes:"Emotions. I'm suffering and I enjoy knowing my servants throughout my fortress share the same fate. I feel powerless and they should too."

[Your mother's fortress. Princess. Tell your people what I prophesized instead.]

The god made sure to emphasize her place in the succession of power. On the planet Auroria, all the organization of the thinking creatures, mostly people, obeyed a simple unspoken and unwritten law. Food chain. Whoever's on top is the most powerful and dangerous, for reasons perhaps better let unknown.

With her seventeen years she was hardly in a position to oppose. And yet, she stood there and didn't as much as blink when she faced the supreme being in the middle of the room:"Before my family came to power, with my grandmother the first of the line of Powerglade to conquer the throne, you prophesized a thousand years of flourishing empire - perhaps one day to conquer the whole word, depending on the leadership." Aurelia gritted her teeth and continued with a very sharp tone:"You prophesized a thousand years and that's what I'm going to tell my people."

[You humans are annoying at certain stages of your lives. You're not even a grown up yet, so remember your place and obey.]

"You were never wrong with your prophecies. Never. Thousand years." Aurelia was shaking her head in denial.

[I'm going to punish you for your insolence.]

"Punish me? Why don't you tell me instead, what kind of a god delivers a false prophecy? Isn't it only human to make mistakes?"

[The future is complicated and can contain variables outside my reach and jurisdiction. If this were of any meaning to your ignorant species, I would say there's a margin for error from randomly induced causes.]

"Wait. Let me get this straight. You are telling me that you're useless." At the sound of her words, the sphere began pulsating faster, like a beating heart pumping blood through a human body during physical exercise. Aurelia suddenly felt weak and dizzy. She fell to her knees and barely managed to put her hands on the ground, to prevent her upper body to share the same fate as her legs. Krielis started to intimidate her by using its powers against her.

[Remember who you are Aurelia, soon to be queen of Telaria. You're nothing more than an ordinary human, same as every inhabitant of Telaria. I am your leader, you are merely pawns under my control.]

"I know! The pact! You gave our family magical powers and in turn we serve you."

[Will you?]

The increased feeling of pain, as if a heavier gravity pulled her towards the ground  reminded her she was literally under Krielis's control. And yet current words were meaningless to Aurelia. She could only remember what it previously said:"Auroria will fall and every inhabitant is doomed." She remembered asking it if there was a plan in motion, something to prevent or avoid the catastrophe. And the response she received from Krielis stuck to her like glue:"There is nothing you, nor anyone else on this planet can do. Not even myself or other gods. Nobody wields a power that could change the course of events."

She shook her head trying to clear it, but the words just kept returning to her. And in a moment of madness, she forgot about her trembling body and stood up, defying the god before her, drawing on the magical powers she wielded. Krielis started pulsating even faster, and Aurelia was on her hands and knees again.

[Why are you so stubborn? I like you for your cruelty, but you are truly nothing more than an asset for me. There will be others. Stay on your knees and ask me for forgiveness.]

Aurelia resisted the tears coming up to her eyes. In her mind, a battle was taking place, between her aggressive impulses and logical reasoning.  Her impulsive brain was saying:"What are gods truly made of? This is your chance, Krielis has shown a weakness!" And her logical part was quick to respond and keep her immobilized:"Krielis Is a god and therefore has powers beyond human imagination. Using your magic powers against the god who granted them in the first place, what do you think the outcome will be?"

[Ten.]

Aurelia responded with a confused:"What?"

[Nine seconds left until you do as I bid you and ask for forgiveness, or I will get rid of you. Four now.]

With an idea only half formed by her impulsive-self, she mustered all her strength and stood up. She felt an even greater surge of pain through her body, together with a

[Three]

Aurelia resisted the pull this time with powers of her own.

[Two] and the pain intensified even further.

She gritted her teeth some more, and all the pain was suddenly transformed into hatred, mixed together with an illusion of hope - or was it more than that? She dashed forward, jumped in the air and extended an open hand to Krielis, in an attempt to grab it.

[Zero]

The god skipped two beats and stopped pulsating. Soon after, black liquid-like blob formed inside Krielis, dancing wildly.

[B-]

Krielis didn't have the time to finish another word. Aurelia was too fast and resisted its deadly attack, while her hand disappeared in the glowing ball. Aurelia's hand went cold in an instant. An outside spectator could see her hand inside the glowing sphere, as if it was a shadow play.

And when the impulse from the jump made her stretch her hand enough to reach the inner part where the dark blob was, she gripped her fingers together in a fist and pulled outwards.

When Aurelia landed on her feet, she immediately opened her fist and realized there was nothing there:"I failed!" was her first thought, and she mentally surrendered to dying.

And then nothing happened.

Not only that. Aurelia didn't feel any pain whatsoever, nor hear the voice of Krielis ever again. She looked up to see the glowing ball that seemed perfectly intact. And yet there was something peculiar about it. It didn't pulsate anymore and the darkness in the middle was not shifting around, only standing there like a fluid in a bowl, completely still. After a few seconds the fluid started to shift to the borders of the sphere. Aurelia took a few careful steps backwards, ready to leave the room at any instant.

What happened next surprised her beyond her wildest dreams and hopes. A blood-like liquid started pouring out of the sphere. At first only a small stream which in time evolved in a full torrent. When Aurelia saw it falling on the floor and spreading all around, she gasped: "You bleed like a human too?"

Upon receiving no response, she started laughing. This was not a forced laugh however, it was a wholehearted joyful laugh. The end.

The blood continued to flow from the dead god more and more, filling the floor of the room. The sphere deflated a little and fell to the ground with a loud splash, smearing blood in all directions.

Aurelia started walking towards it, while hearing the sound of her shoes muffled in the liquid underneath. She approached the dead god and without any hesitation grabbed it. Now, Krielis was more like a dried out fruit, and Aurelia's fingers were wrapped around the wrinkly exterior. She held it at her eye's sight to examine it properly. She curiously flipped it around and all the while, the blood-like liquid was still pouring out, yet less intensely than before. "Krielis, where did you store all of this liquid, hm?" she thought.

Aurelia knew what should be done next and yet at this very moment, she was lost in amazement and perhaps awe:"Is this the accumulated blood of all the killing on Krielis's behalf? And what do we ultimately know about our leaders, about our gods? Mordagon told me once that not only positive effects link humans and their gods, but negative ones as well."

Dread started slowly creeping over her body as her thoughts progressed:"Until today this was a ridiculous thought! Gods don't have weaknesses! If Mordagon is to be believed, then how much blood will I spill, perhaps on a single scratch, since my magic knowledge derives from Krielis's powers? I could drown in my own blood whenever I'm harmed in a room too small to be fit for a princess! I don't even remember the last time I got hurt!"

She quickly brushed it off as paranoia and changed her attitude completely.  She also didn't want to remember how many lives she's destroyed, and didn't want to acknowledge a question forming somewhere in her subconscious: If the powers that Krielis gave to her had the downside of somehow storing the blood of all the victims, does this negative effect extend to the blood of Krielis itself? Will all of the blood she was standing in somehow become part of her?

She was already nearing the exit of the chamber before she realized that above the door there was another source of white light. Small, yet spreading enough light on the wall behind. There, written in blood letters was, undoubtedly  the last message from Krielis:

Bad move.

"We'll see," she said, and with new determination she pressed her hand to the wall, which slid away, allowing for a passage in a corridor lit by white circular stones. The floor, ceiling and walls were made of the same black stones than the room Aurelia just left. She continued walking and casually glancing at the sphere which was drying out yet still inesorably leaving a trace behind. She stopped in her tracks when a towering figure came to her sight. Aurelia blinked several times, as the light and shadow play of the room she barely left still messed with her eyesight.

As soon as she saw the majestic crimson-red cape trailing behind the person, she had no doubt it was none other than Mordagon Vonneghaut Junior, the leader of the neighboring realm of Demearia. "Why did you want to alert everyone in this fortress by screaming so loudly?" he asked in his deep and calm voice.

Aurelia smiled and readjusted her pose, trying to emphasize her  breasts knowing full well Mordagon would notice. She looked up to face him:"Perhaps I wanted to attract your attention?"

"Aurelia, you have no power over my charm," he winked at her, and then continued with a casual tone:"You're holding Krielis in your hand. Why?"

Aurelia started talking, wanting to explain it all. She was quite proud of her achievement:"Oh, well, I realized that I could perhaps defea-"

"Shush. I asked you why, not how or when or whatever. Why are you holding something that's spilling blood around?"

"I have a plan," Aurelia was surprised by the sudden question. She expected at least some kind of awe or amazement, yet Mordagon remained still, standing ready as a soldier prepared for war. She quickly added:"Why, does it bother you?"

"Me?" Mordagon laughed and his whole body resounded with laughter: "No, but you're going to leave a trail through the whole fortress. You are making a terrible mess out of this place."

Aurelia didn't understand what Mordagon was getting at, so she skipped straight to the point:"Krielis told me that this planet, Auroria, has 25 years left, and I'm not wasting any minute of it."

"When will you depart?"

"How did you know, are you psychic?"

Mordagon had a know-it-all smile accompanying his words:"It was actually a lucky guess based on what I just heard from you and well, knowing you in and out. It would seem all of the gods of the seven civilized realms of Auroria are sensing an impending doom. Krielis, the god of Telaria is," he looked down at what Aurelia was holding in her hands and corrected himself: "Perhaps I should say that Krielis WAS the only fortune teller in this world. I was planning to see it today to understand if at least your god had an answer. Since that doesn't seem to be the case, I think we both know what's the only region of this planet where we could hope to gain some valuable knowledge. When?"

"In four days time, early morning. Meeting place the port called Strentos, at the western end of Telaria. I'll have three ships waiting for us. See you soon," this time Aurelia winked and blew him a kiss, before striding right past him. Her spirits were higher than ever - with this powerful new ally, she could hope to survive the journey.

Mordagon brought his hand up to his chin, where he had a fully grown and neatly trimmed black beard. He inadvertently started stroking his beard whenever he was in deep thoughts:"Aurelia just started a course of events that cannot be changed. I wonder if perhaps she spent too much time with me. I didn't expect her to be acting of her own impulse this soon." Mordagon stopped his thoughts before he would be carried too far away with guesses as to what the princess might do next:" At any rate, there are more important matters to attend to, and only three full days to do it." With that thought, he began walking the fortress corridors towards the teleporter room, that would bring him to his land, Demearia, which was Telaria's only neighboring realm, further up North. Demearia and Telaria formed a continent that was surrounded by treacherous seas and oceans, that would have to be tamed in order to reach their destination.

Aurelia was nearing a hollow tower, that was without any stairs or other means for humans to travel on. She knew that the walls of the tower were impregnated with a magic field that contrasted gravity and powerful sorceress could harness this power in order to levitate up or down, reaching different levels of the fortress. While levitating upwards, she thought:"What a lucky coincidence to have stumbled upon Mordagon. That saved me the time of having to search for him and arrange a private meeting. That could have been troublesome. Or did luck have nothing to do with it, and he anticipated all of this?"

She arrived on an open triangular space on the top of the fortress. The dying afternoon light was fading out, yet it was still enough to see the fortress in its full glory, with a perfect symmetrical shape, the form of a 20-sided dice. She walked to the middle of the topmost surface, where there was seemingly nothing at all. Arriving at her destination, Aurelia stood upright, cleared her voice and began talking. As soon as she opened her mouth, a holographic image appeared several meters above her head, a perfect copy - except it was four times bigger - of herself holding Krielis, that could be seen for kilometers around. The whole fortress started to vibrate and amplify her voice to be heard throughout whole of Telaria.

"My people," she began saying and then raised Krielis above her head, just a little on the side to avoid getting her hair soaked in the blood. The image above her instantly repeated her movements:"Krielis died by my hand today. It promised us a thousand years of prosperity and that's a promise I intend to keep. As you can see, gods are not some supreme beings like we were led to believe." She shook her hand a little, shaking the ever-shrinking Krielis, which in turn made the blood fall down in erratic patterns:"I hereby declare that every god entering our queendom of Telaria must be immediately captured for interrogation. As of today, the era of gods has ended, and Telaria is governed solely by our line of the Powerglade."

She opened her fingers, and Krielis fell to the ground with a loud crashing noise. Suddenly, the liquid that was pouring out of Krielis changed its color to white, and started slowly advancing to the three corners of the surface. The hologram then changed to show the liquid spreading, and Aurelia was already on her way. She knew that her mother would be furious - she did just defy what her mother held as most sacred. And for that reason alone she didn't want to see her come home.

Now only the preparations for the journey remained. She already knew who to contact to arrange for the needed equipment, food and a small army for escort. And yet, with every step she made towards her chambers, which were two floors beneath Krielis's ex room, she felt more and more insecure. There were two thoughts in particular that scared her beyond reason.

The first fear was that Krielis was likely still bleeding, and should the same thing happen to her, she didn't have any means of stopping it.

And the second thought, that was even more worrying, was that the only place where she could hope to get some answers and perhaps even a solution for her beloved planet (she was constantly reminding herself that one day it will be hers completely), was a continent at the south-east of Telaria, separated by dangerous waters. And that continent was the realm of chaos and disorder. Raw magic that produced incredibly powerful creatures, at the cost of their minds and bodies. Uncontrolled gods were ravaging those lands and any attempt so far at conquering those lands resulted in complete and utter extermination of the conqueror's army.

What gave Aurelia some hope at least was that she didn't intend to capture those lands (not yet at least). Instead, she saw her role more as one of an ambassador. She planned to make as many deals as needed in order to see her plan succeed. She levitated downwards in the tower she had used before, yet this time she descended two levels lower, towards her chambers. All the architecture of the fortress was the same, so for a newly arrived person it would be easy to get lost. And in fact, that was probably the reason Aurelia didn't encounter anyone else until she arrived at her room.  She waved her hand and the door, which opened to reveal a magnificent room, with a triumphant double-bed in the middle. The room was, similarly to the outside corridors, in black marble, with white lights. The bed in the middle was of a white color so clean it almost seemed as a castle made out of clouds.

Apart from the bed, there was only a single object in the room: a mirror on the wall, with sharp white borders to counter the blackness of the surroundings. Aurelia went straight to the mirror, seeing her body all tainted with blood. This made her smile and grab her hair with a hand, to clear them at least a little. And then reality hit her.

The color of her hair changed several shades from her past fiery red one. Her hair was tainted with blood, and yet she could clearly see that even the untouched hair became dark-brown, with just a hint of red. She immediately understood that all of her fears were there for a reason. And her hair were very likely an indication of how much blood she already had on her hands. "What will happen to me the day my hair turn completely black? Like the inner parts of Krielis?"

Aurelia went to her bed and let her body fall on it. She pretended to be interested in the curtains above the bed, and yet in reality she only wanted to calm down. She wanted to have a second chance to think things through. Perhaps killing Krielis was a mistake, a bad move, as the last message she received from it said. She felt warm tears starting to form at the edge of her eyes and a great sadness overwhelmed her. She never felt more insecure in her life.

There was only one certainty on her mind: this will be the last time she spent in her room for quite some time.