Dawn- An age of Darkness

"Some millennia ago-" These people dismissed thousands of years like they were nothing. "My husband had done something wrong and humans and gods alike cursed him and made him go into exile. But I could not follow him to that place. I could not stay with the mortals or the gods either. I felt terrible. Living felt pointless. I came to the sea to seek refuge but the god of trickery tricked me and bound me here by the orders of... Trerortra."

I was glad I didn\'t use his name from the start. \'That was a close one.\'

As the name suggested, the god of trickery tricked her, but shouldn\'t she have expected as much from the likes of those?

Who was I talk, when I got tricked four-five times already? 

I was actually expecting something much grander, but I guess it wasn\'t something complicated. But she did make one thing clear. She was at least, part god if not a full one. 

"And you\'ve been trapped here ever since?"

"Yes…"

I almost felt bad for her. But I didn\'t understand the gods. I didn\'t know what ticked them and I certainly didn\'t know what happened with them either. 

"Wait, doesn\'t that mean you\'re still alive and not a monster?"

Which in turn meant, she was probably in here for over ten thousand years. That was a lot of time. I couldn\'t even imagine being stuck in the same place for days, let alone thousands of years now. I was kind of a shut-in before, but now, now I didn\'t feel like spending time alone in a room. I couldn\'t stay shut in my room anymore, even if I had games or movies to watch: I just couldn\'t. And so, I only had sympathy for this girl who was stuck here for so long. 

But then again, gods were probably immortal so this probably wasn\'t that long of a time. Keyword being \'probably.\'

"A monster?" She swam around in that small sphere. Well, I guess she wasn\'t actually quite stuck like I thought. And I actually saw a few glimpses of her face. Needless to say, it was much more beautiful than I could have ever imagined. 

I got the feeling she didn\'t know about the deaths about the death of the gods. 

"Don\'t gods turn into undead monsters once they die?" I kind of didn\'t have any way to sugarcoat this. So I asked directly. 

"Yes." She turned her gaze downwards and hugged her knees. "When we were born we were told to never hurt one another but in time… things changed and some of us became too selfish."

"I see. But I thought undead were the product of Ashir-"

"Yes, it was the product of Ashirnae. I told him countless times not to do that, but he still did. Humans were made from our image, but we ourselves weren\'t aware that we\'d turn into monsters once we died." She sighed and it was as though the whole ocean cried out. "The project was a failure. Ashirnae thought that if we were immortal and the mortals were created in our image, then perhaps giving them mana like us and giving them control over death would grant them immortality. But unfortunately, that wasn\'t the case. Ashirnae learned it the hard way. But it seems you are acquainted with him? How\'s he doing now?"

Where the hell was this conversation even going? "Yeah, we met a couple of times." I tried to chuckle but it wasn\'t working. 

"That\'s a relief. He\'s still alive." How\'s that a relief? She probably didn\'t know much since she was trapped here all the time and perhaps she was close with Ashirnae. Meaning, I couldn\'t antagonize her, without knowing more about all this, while I was still stuck here. 

I had no idea what was going on anymore. But seriously, why wasn\'t I waking up?

"What is this place, really? How do I get out?"

"You want to leave? So soon?" Her voice was sad again. She wasn\'t expecting I\'d stay here for forever, was she? "I guess mortals don\'t live that long…" She sighed. "This is the ninth sea: Nenonea. To leave… Let the water flow into you like mana, and you\'ll get back. You are here via astral projection. Let the water infuse with your soul as though you were infusing your very essence, your mana."

Was it just me or was she being awfully confusing? I didn\'t even feel my mana out here let alone infuse it with- wait, infuse it with my soul? Was that even a thing? How\'d I never heard about it before?

But this wasn\'t the time. I tried what she said and tried to let the water in… unfortunately nothing worked for me on the first try. 

Giggles came from the sphere. The sound was beautiful. "For a mortal, you do try hard." Her voice became sublime for a second. "I guess I\'ll give you a parting gift."

It was almost as though the whole sea started to push against my body. Everything was warm and now, I had a body? No, but I could feel my body. "This is- mana?" I could use mana by instinct. But for the first time, I could feel it, I could sense it and I could let it course through me. 

"Good look Daarc Green, o\'apostle of Xerphas…. And if you should ever find yourself in the Ninonean Sea, come find me. That mark would lead you to me."

I guess she wasn\'t doing this for free.

"Alright." My consciousness started to fade and my left hand started to burn. Oh wait, I didn\'t have a left hand anymore. It still burned though. 

I fainted. 

"Daarc!"

And jumped awake the very next second. 

"What?" And I was awfully groggy too. I had a headache and it wasn\'t a pleasant one. 

The lights were out. Alisa was waking me up while Ve was looking out through the curtains. 

I guess things were self-explanatory. 

I got up and made way for the window. My shoulder was heavy and I strangely leaned towards my left side for some reason. Maintaining my balance was definitely hard. 

Did I forget to mention I was groggy and had a terrible headache?

I looked out too. The wood was pretty blurry and I couldn\'t see that well. But I could tell, there was something that was dragging down a man?

"Hey isn\'t that-" It didn\'t take me long to recognize the man. \'

And the thing dragging down the man? A purple thingy, aka, a goblin. 

"Yes, that\'s our one and only resident pervert," Alisa whispered. 

I sighed. "Well, looks like someone just got their fates sealed."

"Think we should go help him?" Ve asked. 

"Would it really be necessary?" But I guess anything went in this world. "Fine, let\'s go."

"But more importantly," Alisa paused.

Both Alisa and Ve glared at me from two sides. 

"How did you get that?" Ve pointed at my left arm. 

"Get what." I looked at my left hand… I actually had one… a glowing blue one, made off water and it also had a weird symbol on it: I couldn\'t read it. But I could feel my hand and it was almost as though it was natural. Almost like when I was using that stone. 

Something else glowed on my body too, namely the pendant I\'d received from Imazael. Lately, I was just having it hung down from my belt though.

Alisa sighed. "You have the divine gift of astral projection, don\'t you?" 

"Astral what?"

She sighed again. "From all the morons of this world, it had to be you and you just had to go to that women\'s place. And you don\'t even have divine blood!"

"You aren\'t making sense."

"Basically in the presence of deities or half deities you can cross space and speak with the three sealed goddesses," Ve explained. "And once you possess more divine blood for yourself, you\'ll be able to cross without our help." 

"I\'m pretty sure I met two already. But this is only when I sleep near you or her, right?"

"Correct. However, these three goddesses are sealed for a reason and that\'s why it\'s not a power you should desire. After all, the symbol you just got would only make the gods come after you again. I\'m not sure even the name of Xerphas would be of much use to you now."

"What is this symbol again?"

"That\'s the symbol of Anverosa, the wife of Ashirnae, the goddess of the nine seas."

Didn\'t she say, queen?

"Wait, wife?" She did talk about her husband making mistakes but seriously, it just had to be that thing? I sighed. "Then again, since I\'m Trerortra\'s apostle, the gods will come at me regardless."

I didn\'t know why but I might have gotten myself into weird shit, again. 

But this whole thing kind of reminded me of another promise. I\'d made a certain promise to a girl shrouded in darkness. And back then I was naïve enough to just promise stuff to random girls in distress. 

\'Why did my life have to be so complicated?\'

Knock! Knock!

"Who is it?" I raised my voice and carefully went to the door. 

"It is I- Servesta."

It was Servesta alright. Because I didn\'t know anyone else, who spoke like that. 

I opened the door. "What\'s wrong?" I already kind of knew what was wrong, but I asked anyway. 

"Mig is gone."

I guess he called him by his name too. I wasn\'t going to switch over that easily though.