Axiom of Infinity: Souleater

Stories

### Chapter 1: Prologue Authors Note

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“Run!”

They hit the street running at full speed, and Lucus could already hear the sounds of pursuit starting up behind them. He glanced to his side and saw Tavi running next to him in an all-out sprint, her much shorter legs having to do twice the work to keep up with him as he loped down the alley they’d picked for their getaway route. He picked up his pace, pulling ahead of her as he turned a corner and dashed behind a row of buildings just off one of the more heavily trafficked streets in this part of the city.

This was all part of the plan. The alley he’d run down dead-ended as it ran straight into the back of a building. There was a door here, but Lucus knew from experience that the current owner had bricked it over from the inside after one too many thieves had broken in and stolen from his back room.

He came to a sliding stop at the door, crashing into it hard enough to make him wince, but he immediately turned and dropped into a crouch, finding himself at eye level with Tavi as she ran right at him. She was short enough to pass for a child, but anyone who got a good look at her was going to know she was a goblin.

He hesitated a moment, caught by the wild look in her eye and huge grin on her face, visible even under her hood and mask. Then he caught sight of their pursuers over her shoulder, and he snapped back to reality just in time for her to leap directly at him.

“Jump!” He shouted.

Lucus caught Tavi’s feet in cupped hands. He activated his species skill Strength of Stone and power surged through his limbs, flowing up from the cobblestones beneath his feet. With all his strength he launched Tavi into the air and towards the roof of the building behind him.

Tavi jumped at the height of the launch, propelling herself even further. She reached out and grabbed the edge of the roof as she neared it, pulling herself over the edge and disappearing from view.

Lucus was left alone in the alley with their pursuers. He recognized both men, they were city guards that were working a private contract on their days off. They were too weighed down by armor to catch them in a short sprint, but he knew other guards would respond to their cries shortly. If they were going to stay out of jail tonight, they needed to lose these two before they got surrounded.

That’s where the rope came in. Tavi kicked one end of it off the roof, the other they’d already tied to the building’s chimney earlier in the day when planning this heist.

Lucus grabbed ahold of it and simply walked himself up the wall. They’d chosen this building as it was one of the old stone structures that had been here for most of Altria’s history. Lucus had spent the previous day ensuring that the stone was rough enough that his boots could grip it easily, undoing years of erosion from rain.

He joined Tavi on the roof as she pulled the rope up behind them. They had a minute to catch their breath before they had to move again, and the two of them collapsed onto the rooftop, next to each other.

“You… get it…?” Lucus panted.

Breathlessly, Tavi held up what appeared to be a solid gold statuette a little longer than her forearm. She passed it over to him wordlessly. The thing was too heavy for her to be lugging around when they needed to move fast.

Tavi had needed to be the one to grab it from the merchant. She was the only one of them with Thief levels, and if they pulled this off she stood to potentially gain multiple levels in her class. It was half the reason they’d even attempted this.

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Lucus stood, then put the statuette in the padded sack they’d left up here for purpose. Carrying heavy things was his job in this team. That, and coming up with the plans. With his size, people always expected Lucus to be the brute of the duo. They rarely expected him to be the brains as well.

Tavi was far from stupid. In fact, she was frighteningly clever, especially when under pressure. She just wasn’t much of a planner. The two of them made a good team, with Lucus planning their heists and Tavi adapting them when things inevitably went off the rails. He just wished she’d take things more seriously.

Lucus realized he was staring at her. Worse, she’d noticed.

She’d caught her breath enough to sit up, and stuck a hand up towards him. “Help me up, it’s time to move, there’ll be time for you to admire me later.”

“I was just thinking,” Lucus said, rolling his eyes.

He pulled her up easily, his hand dwarfing hers. His light brown skin contrasted sharply with her greenish yellow tint. She waggled her long ears at him as if to say “sure, and I know what you were thinking of,” before turning to look over the side of the building.

The guards were still down there, one of them had tried to boost the other up, but it was too high. The other guard shouted something when he saw Tavi’s head poke over the edge, but Lucus didn’t bother to listen as he mentally prepared for the next phase of the plan. Tavi however, returned fire with a blistering string of absolutely vile epithets until Lucus pulled her away from the edge.

“Hey, get your hands off me,” she said, feigning indignation.

He rolled his eyes and released her. “Do you ever stop? Come on, we need to go.”

It was late in the day, but the sun had not yet begun to set. Lucus could see it on the horizon over the wall that circled the city. As he jumped to the neighboring roof his shadow stretched out in front of him. Ringed in red light, it seemed to defy the sun.

The jump ended up saving his life.

Lucus turned just in time to see Tavi, motionless, bathed in crimson light and staring up at the sky. He wanted to scream at her, but it was already too late.

There was a thunderous boom, and Tavi vanished as a burning streak slammed into her. The force of the impact crushed the roof of the building and caused part of the wall to collapse onto the guards below.

Lucus looked on in shock, mind completely empty as he tried and failed to process what had just happened. The sack containing the golden statuette slipped from his numb fingers.

Vaguely he realized that he could hear other explosions happening elsewhere in the city, as more streaks of red light rained from the sky. The hail of fire lasted only moments, then stopped nearly as suddenly as it had begun.

Still too stunned to really process what had just happened, Lucus ran to the edge of the building he now stood on. In the distance he could hear people screaming in pain or panic, possibly both.

He was having trouble breathing all of a sudden, and darkness was trying to creep its way in from the corners of his vision. Bells began to toll in the cathedral across the river, then suddenly went silent.

Lucus looked down into the ruin of a building his best friend had just disappeared into, blinking to clear his eyes from both dust and tears. Somewhere behind him he heard a rumble as another building collapsed.

For a moment he couldn’t see what had become of Tavi. The collapse had stirred up too much dust, and his eyes struggled to find her amidst the debris.

Then a cool wind picked up, and Lucus said a prayer to all the gods he knew as he finally caught sight of Tavi’s body. She was covered in blood, and one of her arms was twisted beneath her unnaturally.

At first Lucus despaired, but she was remarkably untouched by the rubble littering the storeroom. It looked as if it had all been blown away from her, exploding upwards and outwards to hit the far walls.

Suddenly able to think again, he moved quickly. The building’s chimney was still standing, and the rope they’d used to climb up was still attached. Grabbing it, he lowered himself into the ruined room. He dropped next to Tavi and quickly checked for a pulse. Moments passed as he waited, but he felt no heartbeat.

His brain now on fire, Lucus gently rolled Tavi onto her back and began chest compressions. He had no idea how much force was too much for her small frame, but he needed to do something. If he could just get her heart beating long enough to get her to Narani everything would be fine.

Lucus repeated that thought to himself like a mantra, and when the chest compressions failed to produce a pulse, he tried breathing for her. The wreckage of this building became his entire world as he desperately worked to save his friend’s life.

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### Chapter 2: Chapter 1 System

Logging in…

The next thing I knew, I was falling.

The star-filled sky above me was entirely too close. As I watched my viewpoint slowly rotated to one side, and I could see what appeared to be the curvature of an entire planet stretching out below. I had to admit that it was a staggeringly beautiful sight, even though I’d long been desensitized to such things by previous nVR tours of exotic locations.

I barely had time to take this in before a voice spoke to me. “Welcome traveler,” a smooth female voice said, clearly audible even over the mounting rush of wind. “I have called you here from beyond the stars. Not for any great purpose or dire threat, but because I felt your souls cry out for that which they have long been denied.”

I tried to look around, but found that my view was limited, and I appeared not to have a body at all. This sort of cutscene wasn’t unusual at the start of a game, so I settled in to hear the game’s lore.

“Your people yearn for escape from a world of predictable mediocrity, a world where all the heroes died long ago, and the advances of society have purchased comfort at the cost of wonder… Your desperate longing broke my heart.”

My perspective entered a cloud as it fell, and for a few moments time seemed to stop as white fog in every direction gave me the illusion of stillness. Then I broke through the cloud and realized that my slow rotation had now pointed my vision towards the ground.

Below me was a stone-walled city built on the edge of a vast wilderness. A river bisected the city, and formed a natural barrier that marked the start of the woodlands. The entire area around the city was rocky and full of hills and small cliffs, leading up to mountains in the near distance–though the city itself seemed to have been carved out of a relatively flat area by the riverbanks.

“My name is Valera, and I am the goddess of Journeys, Trials, and Change. I’ve brought you here to give you the chance to start a new life, where anything is possible. This world before you is called Astra. It is a new world, as these things are judged, and few places are far from the frontier. For many, civilization is yet a goal to be strived for, not a yoke to be born.”

My view had continued its slow rotation, and now I found myself looking up at the clouds I’d just passed through, now far above me.

“I have bound your soul to this gem. It marks you, and others like you, but will aid you and help you make your way in this world. Use it to create a body of your liking and take your first steps along the road to your new destination. Forge your own path if you dare. Walk the longest road you can bear to tread, for only when you finish is the story truly done.”

Suddenly, and with a very meaty “thwack!” sound, my perspective went dark.

Did… did I just die of fall damage in the intro cutscene?

Now Entering: The Antechamber of Eternity

I found myself standing in a small room. Directly in front of me, a large set of double doors stood closed, but I could hear talking and music emanating from somewhere behind it. Beside the door, an older man in fine clothing stood behind a podium. He looked at me with a polite patient smile on his face.

I paused for a moment to take in my new surroundings. I was standing on a deep red carpet that extended beyond the closed door on the far side of the room. This was apparently some sort of waiting room.

Despite the presence of several comfy looking chairs against the walls, I appeared to be the only visitor. Above my head, a chandelier lit by dozens of white candles illuminated the room without any noticeable flicker from the flames.

The man at the podium was now pretending not to have noticed me, letting me get my bearings while he picked some invisible lint off his coat. I decided to put an end to the awkward silence and approached the podium. As I did so, he looked up and acknowledged me with a smile.

“Welcome Sir, to the Hall of the Pantheon. May I know what name to announce you by?” In his hand he had a quill pen, held raised up over a sheet of what looked like parchment.

I almost gave my real name before realizing that this must be the start of character creation–I was naming my character. I hesitated, not sure what name to use. Normally this step came at the end of character creation, when you’d already figured out what type of character you were going to play. I had a few character names I tended to re-use based on the type of character I was playing, but I wasn’t yet sure what my options were.

“Sorry, but can I change this later?” I asked the man at the podium. “I’m not sure what name I’ll want to use yet.”

The man set down his pen, wiping the ink off it. “I’m afraid not, for who can change the name writ upon their soul?” He smiled kindly as he looked at me, “Fear not, the name you choose will be known only to yourself and the gods, unless you give it to others. I suggest choosing one which you feel resonates with who and what you are… If you need a moment to reflect, then by all means, take your time.”

I was pretty sure I understood what was happening now. Some games had you identify yourself by an account name that was then used instead of your character name for things like direct messages between players. It allowed people to message you even if you weren’t playing your main character or if two characters shared a name.

I found it somewhat immersion breaking personally, but some games handled it better than others and it did make it so that character names didn’t need to be unique, which was a big positive. There was nothing worse than getting to the end of character creation and not being able to get any of the names you wanted for your new character.

“Any rules for what I can call myself?” I asked the old man, mostly trying to buy time to think.

“Not really, no. This is to be your true name, that which is written upon your soul… If your true name is oh, I don’t know, ‘XX_GooseKicker_XX’ then who am I to deny you?”

I chuckled at that. I’m glad the AI has a sense of humor at least… Immersion was nice, but some games took themselves too seriously.

I walked over towards the large doors, addressing the old man as I did so. “So, what’s your name then?” I asked.

Beyond the doors, the sound of music and muffled conversation continued, no clearer than when I first arrived here. On closer examination, the doors themselves appeared to be made of some type of dark stone inlaid with gold filigree. Each door looked like it would take real effort to move, and I raised a hand to push against one, curious if I could even make it budge.

“My name is System,” said the old man. “It’s my job to make sure things run smoothly and proceed in an orderly manner.”

He eyed me as I tried, and failed, to open the door. “Don’t mind the door, please. I’ll open it when it is time to announce you to the assembly.”

I gave up pushing on the door, not even leaning into it seemed to make a difference. My day job was programming, and I did some speedrunning of classic games as a hobby, so my instincts when starting a new game were always to see if I could break things.