by Charles Dean
“Oh, and also”—the priest whispered to him—“I’m doing this for your own good.” He switched from whispering to practically shouting as he belted out, “And make sure to tell that pretty girl you chased all the way to my church how you feel about her! Or else she’ll never get the message! Women can’t read minds, you know!”
All four of the girls who had come with him looked at Lee. He froze, unsure of what to do. In the end, he just waved to them and went back to work on the building project.
Lee spent the next half of the day thinking about what the priest said, mulling over goals and ambitions, and he let his body run on autopilot and carry out all the jobs asked of him.
Every time he tried to think about what he wanted to do and what goal he wanted to set for himself, he came up blank. He hadn’t realized exactly how void of ambition he was until he tried to follow through with the priest’s advice and pick something, anything, that would give him a sense of purpose. There was nothing he could think of that would give him back the same sense of security and comfort he had before was dragged into the other world, and the only thing he could think about in terms of a goal was wanting to stop more people from becoming victims. He couldn’t think of a single other aim aside from that. He didn’t want people to have to suffer like Amber or to go through what Henslee and David did. It wasn’t much of an ambition, but it was the only one he could honestly put his mind to.
A month. I’ll prepare for a month, Lee told himself. He had unlimited time as far as he knew—that had been what Augustus had told him anyway— but when he realized what his goal was and what he wanted to accomplish, he couldn’t wait. Once he had set his mind to it, he knew that a month would be plenty of time to prepare.
And, to kick things off, he’d start by making the one thing that his new religion desperately needed: a good bible. He spent most of that month reading everything he could on philosophy, taking notes on morals and copying down information on how to make food ‘fit for a god.’ He wasn’t sure what would await him when he went back, and he definitely wanted to be ready.
When his preparation month ended, and the first Monday of the next month rolled around, he called out for Augustus.
“So, you’re ready?” Augustus answered him, appearing before him this time as a snow-white fox.
“Yeah, but first things first,” Lee said, pointing to a stack of fifty printouts of his bible, A Guide to Being a Good Man. It wasn’t long—in fact, it was barely forty-five thousand words—but it encompassed everything he could think of that needed to be put there. He didn’t know if they’d be able to understand it since he wasn’t sure how translations worked for text, but he was pretty happy with his work. “Can you add those to my inventory on the other side?”
“I can, but are you sure? I had a thousand pounds of bacon ready to load up your inventory with, and those books are going to subtract from that quite heavily. You’ll only be left with a meager nine hundred and fifty pounds of bacon,” Augustus said.
“Yeah, it’s a sacrifice, I know, but I think I’ll be okay,” Lee replied.
“And you sure you’re ready to go back now? You don’t want to hook up with Masha? Not even one time? Just for the road?” The fox’s yipping cackle afterward was rather unnerving.
“Yeah. I’m definitely sure. I know exactly what I need to be doing,” Lee said, smiling for the first time in a month.
——-
Augustus sat unmoving as he watched the scenes unfold, his eyes intently glued to the several monitors in front of his desk that displayed his descendent from every angle possible. The occasional times he did move were short and quick grabs for the nectar that sustained his life force and held the base of his divinity.
Thump thump thump.
Augustus instantly shifted from his human form into that of a domesticated black cat when he heard the footsteps approaching the tiny cave of a room.
“A house cat again?” The voice alone was enough to fill the dark, quiet room with charismatic mirth and dispel the dank miasma that radiated from the center of the eight by eight cell of a bedroom.
Augustus’s dark, beady eyes, illuminated only by the reflections of the screen, turned to stare in the direction of the voice. “Mary of the Sanguine River, what brings you so far out here? Your realm, your dimension, is quite far away.”
“Some beast has tampered with one of the facets of the eternal war. I heard through the grapevine that the one who did it was a son of a—” Mary, a six-foot-two woman whose skin, hair and eyes were all varying shades of crimson, was quickly cut off by August.
“Mary, there’s no reason to use such biting words.” Augustus, now in a form no larger than half the size of his seat cushion, jumped off his chair and padded toward the woman.
“I thought animals like you were all about biting,” she said sweetly, smiling down at the kitty. “Isn’t that why everyone tries to muzzle you, so you don’t slip up and force us to call animal control on a bothersome pest?” Though her words were contextually filled with malice and threats, they were all spoken in such a happy and upbeat tone that one might think she was talking to her crush about her favorite movie.
“Now, now. I still don’t have any idea what you’re talking about,” Augustus replied, feigning innocence as he walked over and began to rub up against her leg, purring as he did so.
“Now, now, little snake, acting won’t help you here. You broke the rules of the game, and you’re going to have to pay for it,” she said, reaching down to pet Augustus’s head.
“Hypothetically . . .” Augustus changed into a snake, taking his cue from Mary’s suggestion and sprang onto Mary’s arm before she could withdraw it. He wrapped himself around her wrist, slithered up past her shoulder and up to her ear. “How would one break the rules without being punished?” he hissed.
“That’s why I’m saying it’s going to happen,” she repeated, seemingly unfazed as he slipped behind her head and over to her other shoulder, where he turned and approached her other ear.
“Wouldn’t someone who cheated have already been punished? I know you like to think yourself a moderator to this little game of ours, but this contest already has one, and his rules are inescapable, are they not?” Augustus’s tongue kissed her ear several times as it flicked back and forth between pauses in the sentences, tasting the air as was a snake’s habit.
“But you, you . . .” Mary bit her own tongue, not daring to voice her objection.
“Can’t say it, can you?” Augustus’s hissing laugh turned into a deep and full-bellied chuckle as he shifted once more, this time into something heavy enough to force her onto her back and pin her against the floor. “You can’t accuse me of anything because it would imply that the true moderator of our existence had failed to catch and punish a deity's crime, would it not?” His chuckle turned into an almost maniacal laugh as his face, now that of the very same gorilla he had turned into to save Lee, moved so close to hers that he could feel her warm breath.
“You must really hate your human face,” Mary said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a human god avoid his humanity to walk in the skin of some mindless beast.”
“The truth of instinct outweighs the justice of humanity,” Augustus said. “Although, we’ve already had this conversation.”
“Show me,” Mary demanded as she extricated herself and stood up, pinching and pulling her wrinkled dress smooth.
“Why? Has curiosity killed me?” Augustus asked, morphing back into a black cat and jumping back into his seat.
Mary moved her hand, causing the lights to illuminate the bedroom and drawing a hiss from Augustus as he acted like a vampire seeing sunlight for the first time. “For all the trouble your antics have caused me, you owe me. So, show me. Show me the shifter’s true face,” she pressed.
“I didn’t cause you trouble, and you didn’t come here to moderate.” Augustus turned into a sloth, leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms over his stomach and shrugged his small shoulders.
“Not one of our kind has ever tried to enforce rules or punish another since the original war, remember? When the true one declared a winner, he restored order to everything and told us the nature of existence. But, the rules demand that we who know everything do not blaspheme the creator, moderator, and observer of the wars. Which means . . . the only reason you would come down here and talk of blasphemy . . . is because you wanted to use it as leverage, didn’t you? You wanted to know what the others have been asking about for millennia.”
“Can you blame me?” Her perpetually peppy voice dulled his senses. “You show it to mortals and to women, but why not gods? Can you blame me for trying to leverage that incident to see it?”
“Hmm . . . you have a Herald in my server, right?” Augustus pried.
“Yes.”
My kid needs a new toy for his sandbox.” Augustus turned into a monkey and said, “But the rules are so tiresome. Perhaps . . . Well, perhaps you can talk your Herald into lending him a hand?”
“That I can do . . . Something minor, maybe. Are a few gold coins for that beggar brat of yours all that it will take to see past your facade?” Mary’s smile became even brighter, her voice even happier and sugar-laden.
“I’ll let you figure out what to give the boy.” Augustus hopped onto the floor, a foot from Mary. “I’m sure you’ll treat him fairly.”
“Deal,” Mary said, extending her hand down to the monkey in front of her.
“Deal.” The monkey took her hand, and just as soon as he did, he started changing back into his human form until he stood over the woman
“You . . . You . . . You’re . . . You’re him!” Mary’s voice lost the enchanting spell that caused it to tickle across the senses as its pitch lowered, and she found herself stuttering and stammering at the sight of Augustus. “No, that can’t be. That can't be . . . He’s . . . You’re . . . This . . . This is—”
“The new toy,” Augustus’s human voice shattered across her in a way that shook everything from her heart to her knees. “And you will keep your word on the silence.”
“Yes, yes, I will. I’m sorry for bothering you. I . . .” Mary didn’t even finish her sentence before bowing her head and quickly darting out of the room.
“Now, what were you up to, son?” Augustus just chuckled to himself as he sat back down in his chair, once more staring at the screens in front of him that played out the scenes of Lee’s life.
Game Manual
The War Aeternus Tutorial:
Only read before actually playing the game if you absolutely must, as all tutorials to true gamers are considered spoilers, and as such, caution is advised.
Character Stats:
Accuracy: Allows one to land projectiles. This stat impacts archery and bow related skills in a multiplicative fashion.
Charisma: Each point of charisma increases the user’s likability by 1%, and reduces market prices when buying or selling by .25% where applicable. Note, shopkeepers will not take a loss when trading no matter how high a user’s Charisma is.
Concentration: Allows one to better cast spells in combat without being interrupted.
Coordination: The game designers lack this attribute in real life, but we felt the need to include it because people say it is important for combat.
Courage: Each point of Courage improves pain tolerance by 1% and reduces the likelihood of being influenced by a fear-based attack by 1%. (Chapter 2)
Deceit: Deceit improves the likelihood of successfully lying to others.
Faith: Each point of Faith the user has increases the ability of their deity to affect the world and increases the chance of their deity interfering on their behalf. As the Faith stat increases, physical characteristics and appearance may change. Faith also increases the chance for the user to resist curses.
Intelligence: So, Intelligence isn’t just for learning skills faster. It seems you can’t even learn or use certain skills without it. (C3)
Reflex: This is a hidden stat, that allows one to be better at reacting to things. Like ping pong.
Spirit: This stat’s effects are not allowed to be discussed with users, for fear that we will be unable to create deus-ex-machina mechanics in future game editions.
Power: Each point of Power increases damage by 1 point.
Toughness: Each point of Toughness increases hit points by 10. The fact this stat is here is silly, since it’s redundant and hit point alone should be included, but then the status messages in War of Eternity would have to include a separate line from hit points and primary stats, and that is more effort than we, the game designers, wanted to put in. We’re that lazy.
These Stats can be impacted by status effects. Some of the effects are vague and vary more than others.
Here are some example effects that could negatively impact one’s character sheet.
Inebriation (Penalty) - Inebriation causes the player to lose 50% of their intelligence, 30% of their coordination and 30% of their reflex stats.
Fatigue (Penalty) - Running all day can have its downsides.
Known Characters:
Augustus: The antagonistic old male figure of the game who is supposed to connect with the main character over time, build a budding relationship and assure the main character’s success in karate tournaments even if the main character has to completely cheat to win. Head kicks are disqualifying! However, this particular shapeshifting alcoholic god lost his memo about the caring and connecting part. Instead, he spends most of the book, besides warping Lee to and fro different worlds, making bacon, turning into very small animals, and getting drunk. He even showed up to chapter one so drunk that he was unable to properly indoctrinate Lee into the new world, and instead insulted and pranked him.
Brian the Undead Zombie: The life of Brian was rather long and difficult, but in the end, he was able to look on the bright side. Then he got turned into a zombie and used as a tutorial combat instruction side for the game.
David: The Chef. Never trust a chef who cannot cook fried chicken. But, this one has an excuse for it.
Donovan Miller: Justice heavy Firbolg found out he has to pay more on taxes than his boss, even though his boss makes five times as much as him, so now he’s out killing and murdering everything in sight in the name of justice. No one has told him what exactly qualifies as justice because of his temper though.
Geoffrey: The town’s local tailor. Does some suspicious stuff that gets him into trouble?
Grimalkin: We thought we were being creative. It’s just a cat.
Herald of the God of Books and Stories: This Herald’s gift with words was second to none, not in that he was clever, but that in his words literally manifested themselves as tangible and deadly opponents for whatever victim fell prey.
Herbert the Green Hat: An unfortunate man who should keep a better eye on his wife.
Jian Fu: The wife of Herbert.
Lee Originally, he was nothing more than a Data Engineer, but after being pulled into another world, he can’t even contribute anything. As the main character of the game, he comes equipped with all of one’s token expectations: girls that like him for just being there, bland and over-caring attitude, hypocritical morals that he changes based on circumstance, lack of self-awareness, and that annoying, ever-present power of ‘feelings.’
Ling: Ying’s Daughter. Because every book or story needs a hot, attractive woman who at first has trouble thinking for herself.
Miller: see Donovan Miller
Mr. Ying: Because Ling wouldn’t be right if
Ramon: This is the bartender character. While information dump characters have been nearly made irrelevant by the introduction of game walkthroughs, tutorials, and side books that have to hold the impatient reader’s attention, it’s still helpful to have a good old bartender type character to fill in the player on lore and helpful events. This particular one just so happens to not only be the bartender, but the owner of a very practical bar, with great ale, good food, and beds to crash on so there won’t be any drun
k horse riders.
Wolfe: Everyone needs a good and charismatic wingman. The type that tells your most annoying, morally bankrupt architect, or rather software architect, that he’s not the bad guy in the story even as he does incredibly questionable things. Wolfe, is just that guy. He’ll pat you on the back, and tell you that you’re legendary, if you have the weight for it that is. He is by far Lee’s most loyal friend, even if Lee ends up hanging out with the murder tall guy.
Races:
Human: You’re one, so this shouldn’t need explaining, but the average base stats for humans are 10 Power, 10 Toughness, 10 Spirit.
Firbolg: This race of giant large browed beasts of men comes, more often than not, with orange and red coloring on either skin or head. Their fore-arms are much larger proportionately to their body than with humans. They also have boosts, which vary based on purity of blood, to their power at a cost of their Reflex, Coordination and Accuracy.
Leprechaun: While not significantly shorter than humans, Leprechaun are noticeably smaller than Firbolgs. They suffer a penalty to power but have boosts to Coordination, Reflex, and Accuracy.
Items:
Sword of Slight Stabbing: Just another name for the awful starting sword Lee gets. The name changes based on how much he hates it at any given moment.
Blade of Failure: Just another name for the awful starting sword Lee gets. The name changes based on how much he hates it at any given moment.
Every Noob’s Starting Sword: Just another name for the awful starting sword Lee gets. The name changes based on how much he hates it at any given moment.
Adventurer’s Starting Sword: Just another name for the awful starting sword Lee gets. The name changes based on how much he hates it at any given moment.
Book of Augustus, holy text of the God of Alcohol and Crafts: The magical bible of Augustus. Unlike other bibles, this particular book is more craft and brewing related. If one knows how to ask the right question, the book will always have the right answer, but knowing the right question is much harder than it looks.