Collide Gamer

The conversation went here and there, with people chiming in or being pulled aside. As with basically every conversation, tangents were an inevitability. In John’s experience, people only ever stayed on topic if the only purpose of a gathering was that topic. Even then, talks needed a moderator so that meandering did not turn into deviations.

Nightingale eventually turned to Nathalia and asked a question the Gamer found highly interesting, “How was ascending to godhood for you?”

“Necessary,” Nathalia answered, the weight of that word reverberating in every proud gesture. “It was my destiny, the Faith found purchase within me the moment I beheld the beauty of the volcanic eruption. A final evolution from my origins as a mere lizard.”

“…You used to be a lizard?” Claire asked, her eyes reflecting how difficult she found to believe that. “Correct me if I’m wrong, I obviously know pretty little about lizards, but aren’t they scaled animals that are only about this big?” She put about the size of a football between her palms.

Nathalia checked her fingernails. “I came from a place of nothing and grew to be the greatest dragon to exist…-”

“Arguably,” John could not help but throw that little jab in there. A warning glare and deep growl served to make him avert his gaze. That certain dragons were ‘greater’ than her could be quite easily proven, it all depended on the category. In terms of power, there was Tiamat, even before she had fused to the Lorylim and became something different entirely. Then there was Dramar, who was doubtlessly more influential as the founder and owner of the Abyss Auction. A third that came to mind, although one John had only heard about, was Tianlong, the Heavenly Dragon, patron of the Mandate of Heaven, god of tradition.

“…aided by my will alone,” Nathalia continued with a hissing undertone.

“Still confused how that works,” Claire admitted. “Sorry, I’m stupid.”

“Well, no reason to blame yourself, you don’t have gods where you come from,” John told her. “New magical beings go through a few stages of formation. In the first instance, the collective subconscious of humanity generates a sort of magical soulpower that we call Faith, capital F. That Faith then either creates magical entities from common imagination or empowers mundane entities to shift over to the Abyss as a supernatural being after their death. Nathalia here used to be a particularly large but purely mundane lizard. She was worshipped as a totemic spirit by some ancient European tribe and that translated into her becoming an Abyssal entity. Nathalia then entered a second stage that we call a Legion being, where a collective of lesser supernatural wills compete over control of one larger entity. She eventually won that and emerged as a dragon.”

“Such an interesting time,” Nathalia hummed. “I barely recall, my intellect developed as it continued.”

“Statement: Nathalia is living proof that superior intelligence is not a necessary evolutionary benefit compared to pure stubbornness.”

“You are misusing your tone tonight,” Nathalia growled, the inspected nails turning into black scales and obsidian claws. Fire flickered out from the orange glowing gaps. “Mind your place.”

“Reminder: enjoy your dominance while you still have it.”

The dragoness’ throaty sounds only grew deeper, while her hair and eyes grew brighter with the flames inside her. What had been (mostly) human eyes in her relaxed state rapidly turned orange, the irises replaced with incandescent white. “Know your place while I still have it.”

“Bae,” Rave chimed in and gave the passive maid a reprimanding glare, “don’t be a bitch.”

“Apologies.” Beatrice was quick to lower her head. “It is entertaining to tease.”

The temperature in the room dropped notably, while Nathalia’s hair cooled from the colour of magma to a regular orangish red. “In any case,” she continued, observing her palm while her scales were absorbed by her skin, “I ascended when I witnessed the eruption of a volcano. I could not tell you which one or when. Considering that I gained this human body with it, it could not have been more than five hundred years after my rebirth into the Abyss.”

“And you still remember what it was like being a lizard?” Claire wondered.

“I remember being a lizard… courtesy of that time goddess’ meddling.”

“What about you then?” The vampire maid turned to Nightingale. “Did you use to be a bird?”

“No, I was born a harpy,” the goddess of the night responded. While formulating her next sentence, she repositioned one of her legs, the thigh laying over John’s left. “My ancestors were created by Faith, populating Natural Barriers. Once a species is established in the Abyss, they can often procreate. Some parts of our physiology are physically impossible and we require magic in our environment because of it. This has various side effects on our evolution, but we do otherwise obey the rules of reality as humans do.”

“Right,” Claire nodded, her gaze averted. It was clear that she was archiving and sorting all of the new information. “How does that square with my world? I’m… I was a human, but all of these Natural Barriers and such weren’t a thing in the Iron Domain and we had no lack of other species.”

“The simple answer is that we have absolutely no clue,” John opened up to her. “Common theories range from ‘we obviously got something wrong in how things currently work’ to ‘all Kingdoms are Natural Barriers that have detached from Earth’. It could also be that you weren’t exactly human but something that is practically the same as a human.” He fell silent for a moment. “There’s also… well…” He looked between the two newcomers. “Not sure if I should burden you with this particular knowledge.”

“You already intrigued me, I require to know,” Nightingale responded. Claire tilted her head inquisitively.

“Well… to put it simply, reality is under no obligation to make complete sense because it is highly probable that we’re all existing in the dream construct of Gaia,” he told them and then recounted the entire story of Romulus, Remus, and the day Gaia presented to them what may be the truth.

Nightingale’s reaction to that was the normal one. She was mildly disturbed at the soft confirmation, but had clearly played with such a philosophical construct before and was somewhat inoculated against the worst nihilism that could stem from it. Claire’s relieved sigh, however, was unexpected. “Ya think that’s good news?” Rave asked.

“No, that’s not quite it. No, how do I put it? No, it is just that I used to think the world was created to serve Arkeidos or whoever else had the power to claim it. To know that there is a supreme will that deliberately stepped back from control is… it’s nice.”

John made a “Huh” sound and digested that for a moment. His own perspective on the matter was quite similar. Certainly, it was preferential for there to be an omnipotent, omniscient being that never exercised its omnipotence and omniscience, if one regarded free will as the most important aspect of reality. To contrast it with a being that strived to be all-encompassing was interesting. There was something soothing about the realization that, no matter who managed to dominate reality, they would always be second to an ultimate authority, preventing them from achieving absolute victory.

Many people would like it if that ultimate authority got more hands-on when someone evil was dominating. Personally, John was quite happy to take care of these things himself. To be fair to the perspective of those many, the Gamer actually had the power and influence to leverage change in the world. It took a pretty gargantuan effort of will for a mass of regular people to achieve something.

“Why did you ask anyway?” Nathalia reclaimed the attention of the room. “About what it was like for me to turn into a god?”

“I gather what it was like for others,” Nightingale responded. Her foot relaxed and clenched, like one would do with their fist. “My connection to the night was always present. All those divine beings I questioned on this agreed that it felt like they were given what was right. The ascension for me was drastic. An alignment of my mind with a fresh breeze, the full moon and sparkling stars, with bustling streets that turned quieter and quieter. A regular night, had I not flown to try and touch the firmament. From a woman whose only power was a beautiful voice to a goddess in an instant.”

“If you want a less bloomy story you could ask…” Lee started and trailed off into silence. Halfway through gesturing to Eliana, she caught the pretty little psycho’s expression.

A blank stare was rare from Eliana. Prone to mood swings, she grinned, frowned, sneered and clicked her tongue continuously laughing like mad in the same minute in which she almost cried. Purple eyes met quietly. Nightingale’s lavender coloured gaze was tinged with uncertainty, while Eliana’s eyes appeared like a cracked amethyst. Constantly, golden dots turned into lines and lines into dots, crossing and uncrossing the ring that was further out from the pupil. It was a slow transition, far from the violent changes that had occurred when Eliza and Thana had been clearly separate personalities.

“Do you want to add your experience?” Nightingale asked softly.

“Who are you asking?” Eliana’s voice sounded tired and hollow.

“Thana.”

The blank expression made room for a mildly confused blink. Involuntarily, Lorelei jumped back from the goddess of genocide. Thana noticed and gave the seer a wry smile. “Not so enthusiastic about your fucking Lady’s creation now, are you?”

“I… I am so sorry,” Lorelei assured, trembling where she sat. She tried to reach out to Thana, but her hand was swatted aside.

“I’m not who you know,” the goddess of genocide hissed and turned her eyes, filled with loathing, towards Nightingale. “You normal gods have it so well. ‘Divine’ you call yourself. What the fuck is divine about being hated into existence by a million voices independently screaming in abhorrence for their own species? My ‘ascendance’ was pain. The first beat of my existence was to impotently, slowly, mindlessly tear apart every last thing in a dark room. All before it was screams. You love your Faith, don’t you? You chose it, right? To live in the dark? To burn the world? Must be great being in control of it. Not in a tiny cell – pitch black, until the fire rushes in. MILLIONS AND MILLIONS OF MEMORIES ALL ENDING THE SAME WAY, DOMINATING ALL YOU ARE! AND THEN YOU FAIL AT PUTTING AN END TO ALL OF IT BECAUSE YOU’RE A MISERABLE FUCKING HUMAN YOURSELF!”

John had long since stood up and embraced Thana, but she kept on screaming regardless. After the last word was out, the frustration was vented through wordless shouts.

It had been a while since an emotional collapse this intense. Even those that had witnessed previous ones weren’t sure what they could, much less should, do. John himself had no idea either, so he just held her and waited. Despairing screams turned into blood-chilling shouts and finally heart-wrenching sobs. John tensed up when he was suddenly embraced. Fingers dug into his back, strong enough to break skin. Clenching his teeth, he was thankful that he had the Passives to shrug off the pain without making a sound.

Then, suddenly, the crying stopped. “This is ass-fucking weird.” The pretty little psycho cleared her throat. John felt the fingers pull out of his back. Carefully, he let go of her in turn. Annoyed, she looked at her bloodstained hands, then rubbed the tears out of her eyes with the back of her wrists. “That bitch didn’t give you any new fucking scars, did she?”

“No, it’s already fixed,” John assured her and backed off a little further.

“Really fucking weird,” she grumbled as she looked around the room. “Hello, my fellow cumdumps, Eliza here,” the pretty little psycho greeted with a giant grin on her tearstained face. “Been a fucking while and not even ten cocksucking minutes at the same zombie-beaver-pelting time.”

“Ya doing fine?” Rave asked.

“That was all fucking her. Although, being as honest as the pain of ripping your toe nails out, fucking weird to be in a body that’s still on the border of crying when you have no fucking reason to.” She sniffed, then cleared throat again. “That needed to get out though.”

“Clearly,” John agreed, while worriedly inspecting his Eliza. He checked her eyes first. Six lines and one dot in her left eye, so there was no regression. After having made sure of that, he brushed her hair and looked her all over.

“I just had the other bitch in my body cry, I’m fine! Don’t be such an overly worried semen dispenser!” Eliza protested against the attention.

“I’ll be however worried I want to be.” His voice was ironclad and he picked her up before she could protest any further. Another trip to the bathroom had not been what he had in mind, but he would not let her sit there with his blood on her hands. He also needed to wash his back.

Both of that was done relatively quickly. “”I apologize,”” the simultaneous words reached them from Nightingale and Lorelei. They looked at each other, opened their mouths, then hesitated in a courtesy stand-off.

“Fucking… Lorelei, go first, you zealous bitch.”

One could expect the seer to be taken aback when addressed this way, but she was entirely inoculated to that language from the cussing blood mage. “I did not mean to flinch away, I was overwhelmed by her sorrow and-“

“Fucking stop, she’s not… well, fuck, actually, the moment she wakes up our memories meld again so it makes barely any fucking difference if you tell that to me or her.” Eliza rustled her hair with insane frustration. “Obvious fucking life advice for all you comfort hole assortments, don’t get stuck with any kind of split personality shit. Nightingale, next, get it out of your system, you pale-ass turkey.”

“I should not have bro-“

“Brought it up, okay, fuck off, great that we got that done. Can we go back to lounging around all happy and shit?” Eliza stared off to the side and grumbled. “Fucking hate it when my emotional instability nukes the happy times.”

Nightingale shifted gears pretty quickly, which John deeply appreciated. She asked, “Pale-ass turkey? What resemblance do I have with such birds?”

“You’re getting fucking stuffed for thanksgiving, obviously,” Eliza responded without missing a beat. There were a couple of chuckles across the room, then the pretty little psycho burst out in laughter at her own joke. The cacophony of mad joy went so far that she tilted over forwards.

“What do I even do with you?” John shook his head, bowed over the bundle of issues. “Ah, I know exactly what.” He scooped Eliza up again. Greatly hindered by the spasmic rolls and kicks the sheer force of her near obnoxious joy created, he nevertheless managed to move her to the couch. Once there, he folded her together into a tight bundle and squeezed the short woman. Only her lower legs stuck out, leaving her at the mercy of all the kisses and hugs he wanted to give her. “I love you, Eliza,” he whispered into her ear. “Thana, when you wake up again and remember this, you’re half of Eliana and you’ve been great together. I love you two, as one. I can only tell you the same thing as I always do: it’s fine to find a new purpose.”

With that being said, he had a lot more cuddling to do.