by Logan Jacobs
“That is a very positive outlook,” she commented just barely above a whisper. “I wish I felt the same.”
“That sounds ominous,” I said.
The black-haired beauty let out a deep sigh that must have started somewhere deep in her soul. “I am the only remaining member of a group called the Golden Sword Mercenaries. Without them, I am nothing, I have no purpose or reason to live. I was going to my death when you appeared and defeated the horde.”
I already knew better than to suggest she was lucky to be alive because she sure as hell didn’t think of it that way.
“Why would you willingly go to your death?” I asked instead. “Can’t you find a new purpose?”
Mahini laughed for the first time and it sent chills up my spine. There was no humor in it, and she almost sounded like a woman on her deathbed. “We were joined together by more than words of request and acceptance, Great One. Ours was a bond of the deepest order, and if they are gone, then so is my honor.”
“But you can’t find another reason to live?”
“No.” Her blue eyes pierced through me. “My only purpose now is to die. I believed those kobolds would do the deed, but then you showed up. Do not misunderstand me. I am happy you arrived, destroyed them, and saved the village, but now… I must take the matter into my own hands.”
This woman was drowning in her pain and was too far gone to reach her hand above the raging water and seek the help she deserved. Her life began and ended with her Golden Sword Mercenaries, and since they were dead, she felt she had to be as well.
I could understand the whole honor-bound thing, and her loyalty to these people was really admirable. The proper thing to do was to let her follow them into the next life, but I couldn’t agree with that sentiment. I had seen her fight before I mastered the art of slaughtering the kobolds. She was beautiful, she was honorable, she was… amazing. Her skills would be incredibly useful to me and the town, and if she couldn’t see that, then I was going to have to find a way to open her eyes.
But to do that, I would have to figure out a way to be just as important if not more so than the Golden Sword Mercenaries. I needed to become a person that she could bind herself to in the same fashion so that she could get back her honor and her purpose. Otherwise, her life was literally at stake.
Challenge accepted. I was going to save this graceful warrior woman from her own sense of honor, and I was going to make her a part of my life in this strange new world.
Chime.
“This is gonna be fun,” I laughed as I grabbed my shirt and belt, and headed out of the inn. I liked the idea of the beautiful woman joining me on my journey of being a badass god, but I didn’t want her to think that it was some kind of ultimate sacrifice she had to make or a choice between me and the Golden Sword Mercenaries.
So what if I convinced her it wasn’t a choice at all? If I could figure out a way to learn everything about her without her blowing up at me, I could just say all the right things, and she would follow me without a second thought because I knew everything about her.
After all, wasn’t I supposed to be a god?
And what did it matter if she did get mad at me for asking too personal of questions? I could just try again and again and just say something different each time.
I couldn’t lose. The God of Time was supposed to just know everything “somehow,” and it would only add to how much of a badass I was.
Once I came to that conclusion, I had no more worries when it came to the beautiful warrior woman. I could say whatever I wanted to, and even if she got angry, I could just chime and do it over again, and she would never remember how pissed off she had just been.
And it was so much better than the innumerable respawns before because I was spending all of my time getting to know the attractive swordswoman. I got to delight in her wide-eyed expression every time I dropped a fact I had learned in a previous attempt. Even her rage was appreciated since I learned that my newfound information wasn’t quite enough to get her to fall to my charms. I even learned how to brush off the questions about why I knew everything.
I was a god, so why wouldn’t I know all of these things?
I lost count of how many attempts it actually took me, but I was probably an expert in all things Mahini by the time I was ready to continue business as usual.
Mahini’s hometown was a village at the edge of the Kotar desert where women were more of the population than men, and life was difficult but manageable. She trained to fight at a young age, long before she became a mercenary, and she was especially deadly with a bow. The beautiful desert goddess would still be in her little village if some jackass hadn’t shown up and threatened her entire family. She could have easily killed him, but it was treason for a woman to kill a man in her culture. Instead of submitting to him, she faked her own death and left in the middle of night.
If I ever met the asshole who put her through that pain, I would do whatever I could to help Mahini destroy him.
The black-haired woman became a mercenary at the same age I was learning how to drive a car and joined a small mercenary group named “The Golden Swords.” The group had a very intense bonding ritual called the Pledge of the Phoenix that tied them together through this life and all others to come. The Pledge demanded her loyalty, her love, and her sacrifice to the men and women she committed herself to. It was kind of like a marriage ritual, and it was this that caused Mahini all of her pain, since the group had come here to defend the town from the goblin nest in the caves, and had gotten overwhelmed by the hundreds of monsters living there and killed a week ago.
Those brave men and women she was previously joined with still held a piece of her soul, and without them beside her, she was nothing more than a shell of a person.
There was nothing for her to live for without that purpose.
So, I was just going to have to give her one.
I found out pretty much everything about the woman in the hundreds, or maybe thousands of short conversations I had with her.
Her favorite color was the orange of the sunset. She liked beer when it had a bit of hops in it, her favorite food was smoked pheasant with pickled dates, she didn’t know how to dance, but she loved music from the reed pipes that her people used to play.
Mahini was also beyond clever. I sometimes started our conversations with a riddle I knew from my world, and she was always able to guess the correct answer within a few minutes. She solved math problems easily when I asked her about them, and she easily saw through any outrageous tale I’d try to spin.
I’d also tried a few naughty things that led her to kill me right afterward: She was ticklish on her stomach and armpits, her sweet mouth tasted like cherries when I kissed her lips, her ass was incredibly tight, and despite the fact that her mercenary band was made of both men and women, she was still a virgin because she’d never found a man she respected enough to take as a lover.
Chime.
“May I walk with you, O Great One?” Mahini’s melodic voice and piercing blue eyes gave away none of the pain I now knew she was feeling.
I would never get over just how amazing this woman was, and I realized that this was it. I was finally going to save her life and make her mine.
As long as my plan came together, and if it didn’t, I’d just try it again.
I’d never lose Mahini.
“Of course,” I said with a small nod. “I could use another perspective on the best way to fix up the town.”
She fell into step beside me, and she looked a little confused. “Fix the town? But Great One, there is nothing left for any of us here.”
“That’s not true,” I argued. “You may have lost your companions, and Torya may have lost her son, but you have all made a life here. There is absolutely no reason to just roll over and let the town be taken from you.”
“H-How did you--” Mahini’s jaw dropped and her eyes widened.
I’d seen her do that a hundred times, and it still made me happy. I’d m
emorized her every small movement by now, and I was in love with everything about the stoic warrior woman.
“I’m a god,” I said with a shrug. “Of course I know everything.”
The desert beauty was silent for a few steps as she just stared at me.
“I think the first thing we need to do is start training the men. We may not have any proper fighters, but if you pass on some of the skills you learned in your village in the Kotar desert and with your Golden Sword Mercenaries.” I had to bite my cheek to keep from grinning at the stunned look on her pretty face. “And if we get some proper walls around the place, there won’t be a single beastie that can get in without our say so.”
“That’s what--How is this--I don’t understand…” Mahini shook her head, and I half expected her to start pinching herself to make sure she wasn’t dreaming. “You think we should stay?”
“I don’t see why you should leave.” I shrugged as we passed by a boarded-up house. “The town has been here for years and could be here for many more to come if it is made properly defensible.”
“Where does all this optimism come from?” she asked and shook her head again.
“I would call it confidence, actually,” I said with a grin. “I can’t fail at any task I put my mind to, especially when I have a beautiful woman like you at my side.”
Some of the surprise faded from her face as her eyes narrowed. “What are you trying to say, Great One?”
I stopped in the middle of the street and faced her with my arms crossed. I had reached this point several times already, so I knew the speech by heart.
“You’re going to join me,” I said. “You lost yourself when your soulbound companions were killed by the goblins in the caves of the mountain, and you have been searching for a new purpose. I am here to give it to you. My journey to save this world will be a long one, and I will need strong women like yourself if I am to succeed. Do you know the Pledge of the Phoenix?”
Mahini’s eyes widened once more. “What? I--How do you know it? It is sacred to the Golden Sword Mer--”
“I am a god.” I interrupted her. “Like the phoenixes in the legend, we must pledge ourselves to one another. You will become mine, body and soul, and I shall be yours. Our blood shall be thicker than the water seeking to destroy this land, and we will honor each other in life and death. You see, Mahini, your life didn’t end when your Golden Sword Mercenary family was slaughtered in the caves. No. It began again when I came to this world, just like the phoenix rising from the ashes. It is time. Your soul is made of iron, gold, and spirit. You will take another master now, and we will create a new family together.”
While the black-haired beauty stared at me slack-jawed, but then I held my hand out and gestured for her to step forward.
“Lay your sword at my feet, Mahini, and give me the dagger hidden in your boot.” I smiled when her eyes darted to her right foot. “We will perform the ritual here in the street to solidify our new bond, my love.”
It had taken a few attempts to remember the entire legend she had taught me and to figure out which phrases I needed to use to convince her to join with me. I actually needed to order her around, and not give her a choice in the matter, but it wasn’t a choice she wanted in the end. A sense of purpose was more important to her than anything else, and giving her the chance to fulfill that need was all the “choice” she needed.
She was looking for a new god to worship, and I had arrived just in time.
“I would be honored to bond with you, O Great One.” The black-haired warrior woman drew her dagger from her boot, handed it to me, laid her sword at my feet, and knelt with her head bowed.
“Excellent.” I grinned and tightened my grip on her dagger. It was much smaller than my own and was pretty much just a sharp bit of iron attached to a short leather grip. “We will bind ourselves to one another with blood. You will be mine, forever. Until the ashes spread us across the land, and we are reborn in different forms, but with the same soul.”
“You… you… know the words?” Mahini looked up at me in awe as I drew the blade across my right palm.
“Of course,” I said as I flipped the dagger in my hand and offered her the handle
She rose to her feet as I gestured, and when I handed her the dagger, she sliced into her left palm. She then grasped my bleeding hand in hers and twined our fingers to make the moment more intimate. Her skin felt like smooth leather against mine, a testament to how many battles she had seen and how seriously she took her job as defender of this town.
“Blood will always run thicker than water, and from this moment forth, your blood is mine,” I said.
“Blood will always run thicker than water, and from this moment forth, your blood is mine,” she parroted right back in a voice barely above a whisper, and then she began to blink back tears.
Back in my world, the CDC would have had a heart attack for the unhygienic display of our bloody hands pressed together, but here it seemed like the most natural thing in the world. We stood there for a long time just staring into each other’s eyes with our fingers clasped. Mahini’s eyes seemed to sparkle like polished sapphire, and they easily drew me into their depths.
I took a step toward the mercenary, and when she didn’t immediately back away, I took another. Her eyes swam mostly with confusion, but there was a large dose of desire in them as well. She glanced from my eyes down to my lips and back, and her own lips parted ever so slightly in invitation.
“You belong to me now, Mahini,” I whispered. “You will serve me for eternity. Now you have a purpose. My purpose.”
“Yes, O Great One,” she gasped as her eyes fixed on to my mouth. “We will be together. Forever.”
And then our lips finally touched, and the beautiful warrior woman moaned into my mouth as she kissed me passionately.
Chapter 5
I would have happily spent the rest of my respawns just standing there kissing Mahini. She tasted like sugar-coated cherries, and every tiny sound from her lips was enough to amp up my sex drive to eleven. I almost wanted to invite her back to my room at the inn because after the ritual it definitely felt like I would get the free pass.
I supposed I could just invite her up, make love to her for as long as I wanted and then reset, but I wanted to spend my time in bed with the desert goddess and then move the clock forward, and since I had to be at Elrin’s for dinner tonight, I knew we would be interrupted sooner than I would like.
I’d figure out a time soon when the two of us could spend several hours getting to know each other in the best way possible.
Mahini let out a little sigh when our lips finally separated, and I couldn’t keep the grin off my face.
“We can continue, if you’d like,” I teased.
“I… This is happening so fast.” Her eyes may have hardened, but the dilation of her pupils told me just how much she had enjoyed the “ritual”.
“It seems fast for you, but I’ve been waiting to kiss you for what feels like a month.” I laughed to ease her mind. “Now we are together, and I’m super happy. Aren’t you?”
“Yes.” She nodded. “This… it feels very… fitting? It’s so strange. I know you are a god, but I feel like I’ve known you my whole life, and you’ve known me.”
“That’s how you know joining with me was the correct decision.” I clapped my hands together as Mahini smiled.
“Would you like to continue our walk, Great One?” the desert warrior asked after she cleaned and dressed both of our wounds with bandages from a small pack at her hip.
“Please. Lead on.” I had forgotten that I’d asked her to show me around and give me the inside scoop on the town.
I created a new save point as I watched her swaying hips pass me by.
The people were all smiles when Mahini and I approached, and it was a stark contrast to the damaged or abandoned buildings all around us. The townspeople all wanted to talk to me and touch me in some way. Every few steps I had someone running fingers along my ar
m or tugging on my shirt to get my attention.
It wasn’t even that they wanted to talk to me each time, but more like I got the feeling that I had become a laughing buddha to them, and they thought touching me would bring them all the luck in the world.
Yeah, no pressure or anything.
The few people that stopped me in the streets talked about super mundane things. Family members, the pitiful crops growing in their tiny gardens, a certain fussy baby, their chickens that were refusing to lay any eggs. It was a little overwhelming at first, especially when they asked for my advice on their problems. How the fuck was I supposed to make a chicken lay eggs or keep a baby from crying while its teeth were coming in?
I wasn’t that kind of god.
In my previous life, the most valuable input I had ever been asked to give was over the type of graphics card to put in different computers. These everyday problems were usually shared with close friends and family, and I had few of those waiting for me back home.
By the time I had spoken to the townsfolk, and then reset a few dozen times, I knew everyone by name, what their problems were, and how to solve them, before they even spoke to me.
“How is your ailing mother, Deena?” I asked a frail blonde woman before she could even ask me about her chicken that wasn’t laying eggs.
Her eyes lit up with surprise. “Why, how did you know, O Great One? She is resting right now, but she is not doing so well.”
“Why don’t I come by later and say hello?” I smiled. “Maybe a bit of hope will brighten her day. Also, I think your chicken might need a bit more corn in her diet. That’s why she hasn’t been laying eggs. You might want to ask Gerulf when you get a chance.”
“That… that would be amazing… I was going to ask you about my chicken. How did you even know?” The tears in Deena’s eyes spoke louder than her words, and soon everyone was clamoring to have me visit their ailing parents or to kiss their children.
I obliged them all, and it seemed easy to them, even though we’d all had the same conversations a bunch of times, and I’d already asked around to see what the possibilities were.