[Short Story] Not Playing Their Game (Patreon)

Jack had a problem. It wasn’t the fact they were dead. That was old hat by now. While their civilization couldn’t claim to have 100% solved death, they knew quite a bit about the soul.

The problem was that they weren’t dead in the right way. You always heard stories. Some friend of a friend knew a guy who slipped through the cracks and didn’t end up in one of the civilization’s many afterlife options.

Jack just never expected to be the guy. Because they were dead, you don’t get to float around as just a soul otherwise. Yet they weren’t being offered refreshments on a tropical beach while waiting to be processed.

Instead, here they were, waiting in a Void that Jack thought they would only get to see in historical documentaries. It was the most basic form of an afterlife that you get when there isn’t an afterlife waiting for you. Now, they hadn’t paid for the best death package this time around, but they certainly didn’t sign up for this!

Jack sighs to themself as they look around. There are other souls here, but none of them have a P.A.N.E.L. engraved into their soul. They’re either new souls or Jack wasn’t in Kansas anymore.

With that, though, Jack is reminded of their own panel. Though they almost don’t want to pull the panel up as it requires them to think of the brand name. Someone in marketing had really worked too hard to make it an acronym.

As for what it stood for? Pan-dimensional Augmented Nano Etheric Looking-glass. Quite the mouthful when it is just the classic blue screen system, except etched into a person’s very soul. A painful experience you need to get repeated depending on how long you spend in the afterlife. They still haven’t figured out how to stop the Void from reverting a soul back to its base form.

Though speaking of which, Jack really had to pull it up now as they didn’t know how long they had been here.

{Jack

Memory Integrity: 99.9999993%

Time In Void Since Last Checkup: 14}

After seeing the panel, Jack would have frowned if they had a face. Not that the reported figures are bad. The memory Integrity is stellar and always nice to see.

While you might not end up with the same person just by giving a blank slate all of a person’s memories. It is equally hard to be yourself if you start losing them.

As for the time? It is admittedly abstract, as “time” is more of a suggestion in the void. The panel is able to keep track of it passing with what is the equivalent of checking a tire tread for wear.

You only need a re-engrave at 100, though they suggest you get it done at 75. So 14 was honestly really good. No, the problem with the display was in what wasn’t shown.

No karma, no affiliations, and no mention of which afterlife they were nearest. As far as Jack knew, by having the panel engraved on your soul, you should always end up in the vicinity of one of the civilization’s afterlifes.

So, with nothing better to do, Jack chills. In fact, Jack chills so long their time in the void counter went up by two. A rare event as even with perfect afterlives set up, most people don’t even spend a full number in the void before heading back. Then Jack felt a pull just before the number rolled over for a third time.

Except it wasn’t the pull Jack was expecting. Neither the gentle guidance of a tech formed afterlife nor the unstoppable riptide-like pull of a natural reincarnation. This felt artificial, as if it was one of the earliest versions of their civilization’s soultech.

A technology from the time before they realized a soul needed to spend some time in the void. Someone was plucking Jack’s soul right out of the void without a care for what the repercussions might be. Not just their soul, though.

All around Jack, multiple other souls were getting dragged down. Of course, in the Void there isn’t a down, which just goes to show how shoddy whatever force this was. Now, Jack could resist it, but if they hadn’t been found by now, they probably wouldn’t.

Not that Jack was going into it blind. While most souls had absolutely no ability to do anything while in the void, the panel changed things. It wasn’t called pan-dimensional for nothing.

So with a slight flex of their will, Jack sends an ether probe ahead. That probe revealed the most cliche piece of trash dimension Jack had ever seen, no, heard of. Some hopped up god had managed to the place to themselves and was milking the entire place for faith.

How? By being both the god and devil. Not the worst plan and Jack wouldn’t have cared if that was all. While a little deceitful to play both sides, the whole concept of a deity with a good and evil side isn’t exactly new. The people in this dimension just don’t know it yet.

No, what ticked Jack off, was also what was dragging them in right now. That idiot of a god wasn’t satisfied with just getting most of the worship and faith from a world. He had to go and set it up so that every inhabited world was constantly on the edge of disaster and he was the only solution.

This was honestly really easy to do. Nudge a moon a little too close to a planet? You set up something only you can fix and then make sure the people on the planet know that.

Except this god was too good for any of the classics like that. That or maybe they truly were an idiot and hadn’t realized there were easier ways to handle these things. Instead, what this god did was split the world between “good” and “evil” races then on occasion plop in some heros and a villain.

That is what Jack was being pulled in for. The god had automated it to pull in souls to work as heros to defeat the “demon king”. Oh, and the god had hacked together a pale imitation of the panels.

All the magic and power a hero could want, tacked onto their souls like hungry leeches. Because that is what the hero abilities are. It is clear the god doesn’t want the heroes sticking around too long after they win.

And those demon kings? At best you could call them homunculus, at worst they’re edgy self inserts. They have no will of their own. Jack couldn’t call them evil in the same way they wouldn’t call a weapon evil.

The evil was the god who set it up. Maybe if they had made things in an elegant manner, Jack would be able to appreciate the art of it. But no, the so-called system is a hacked together mess.

A crime when handling souls. You do not get to fix it later with souls. It either works from the start or you don’t get to start. This god clearly hasn’t run into Jack’s civilization yet, because not even gods can escape the law. Once again, refer back to the Pan-dimensional part of the panel acronym.

Jack’s civilization didn’t restrict itself to only its home dimension. Sure, they weren’t actively spreading, but there will always be the adventurous types who go out and explore or the righteous looking for situations like this. Now, Jack wasn’t the righteous type, but they weren’t going to turn their back on this either.

So Jack fired up character creation on his panel. A simple enough thing as the system would be doing most of the heavy lifting of making the actual body. That and Jack wasn’t going to extreme with it except to make certain they didn’t end up not fitting in.

Simple stuff like making sure they would be male since the target world was very much patriarchal and that his skin and hair color matched the nobles in the kingdom. You know, social grease to make sure everything slides together. After that, he let the system slide him right into a new body. Except there was one extra step before he got a new body.

That was to be scared by a flesh puppet. It seems that this god at least didn’t drop people into the world completely unprepared. Though the fact he used the bodies of actual angels to talk to the newly arrived is quite macabre. Because the “person” in front of Jack certainly was no longer alive no matter what it seemed like.

Still, the puppet danced as the system pulled its strings and greeted him. The message it gave was honestly some of the worst writing. Blah blah blah, evil demon lord. Blah blah blah, please save my people. Here, have some super powers to do it with.

Jack could tell that while it would try its best to convince him to go along with it, this was very much like those classic scammer emails. There was something obviously wrong with it in such a way that most people would turn it down, especially since it gives the option to be released “back to their previous life”. Because, of course, part of the system repressed any memory of the victim having died.

Of course, there was no going back. The system could barely even touch a soul as it was, let alone grab one out of a living person. To get here, you would have been long dead.

Of course Jack played along, no matter how sickening it was to watch the corpse in front of him mechanically flirt with him. The system was clearly playing towards the horny male demographic in the hope of them not actually thinking things through. For Jack, it was much more interesting to look through the list of powers you can grab for yourself.

From simple stuff like the strength of ten men, up to powers which as described would be world shattering. The god behind this all, however, did not want worlds to actually be shattered though and so when Jack checked the powers behind the scenes, they all had heavy limiters on them. A real dick move when the person still has to support the full power of an ability, even if they can’t use it all.

This was just another way in which the god was scamming people. There was even a power that would grant the user any wish up to seven times. What it didn’t mention is that taking the power would geas the user so they can’t use the power to directly wish the demon lord away or any other actually helpful things beyond simple life saving stuff. Oh, and it was limited to seven times because on the seventh wish, you die.

All the abilities put way too much pressure on the soul. Even the stupid “strength of ten men” thing did it in the worst way. Instead of just boosting the body to have strength equal to ten men. It goes and uses the soul’s power to temporarily boost the body. That’s like having the option to go with a balloon, but instead you use one of those wacky waving arm tube men. Instead of blowing it up once, your soul will need to constantly be blowing and once born, the soul only has so much power.

Sure, you can cultivate the soul such that you do get more, but the god certainly wasn’t offering anything like that. In fact, there was a distinct lack of any mention of soul based abilities. Ridiculous when in a way, all the powers are soul based, since they use it for power.

Beyond that, it was a relatively generic point buy style system for the powers. Though don’t think the god was being generous by limiting the powers a person could take. Jack could see that it was all a trade off built into the system so the hero would be able to beat the demon lord before kicking the bucket.

In the end, Jack ended up going with an array of blaster style powers. Stuff like being able to throw a fireball. Why? Because even with the panel, he wouldn’t be able to protect his soul from the passive powers and their backlash. Active powers ironically did less damage because they only sucked on your soul when used.

After that was done, the puppet finally let Jack get on with things which led directly to him showing up in the middle of a throne room with four other “heros”. A classic sword and board blockhead to stand in front. His childhood friend turned healer was obviously hanging off his arm already.

Then there was a rogue type guy dressed like a cartoon version of a ninja in the purest black. So black it shined. Except he clearly had some form of stealth passive, the poor fool.

And last but not least, a ranger of some sort. She had a bow of some sort, but it was quickly confiscated by the royal guards. Though it was the same for all weapons, with only Jack himself not having any.

That didn’t mean the guards didn’t have something for him. They called them Mana shackles, but in reality, they just shut off the powers given by the system. Which would have worked for anyone else and Jack wasn’t going to tell them that he had his own tricks up his sleeve.

Then it was time for another round of begging and “woe is us” nonsense. The other four heros were lapping it up. Jack, much to his disgust, had to follow along with them so as to not look suspicious.

At that point, the rubber met the road. The king wanted a “magically binding” oath from them before returning their stuff. You know, simple stuff about saving the world. They didn’t even try to throw in some light slavery with stuff about following orders. What was included was to further the goals of the church of light. Because of course the god called his church the church of light.

So seeing as the oath was basically a way to invite the system even deeper into your soul, Jack declined. Of course, he did so in a believable fashion. This wasn’t even the first time it had happened. More than a few past heros had balked at making such an oath for personal reasons galore.

How did the kingdom solve this dilemma? Well, of course they handed him a bag full of gold, local id, and sent him on his way. The only catch being that the shackles had to stay on until he left the castle grounds.

And that is exactly what the other heros saw happen. Then, as soon as they had left the castle grounds, the guards retrieved the sack of gold and tossed him in a dank little prison cell. Oh, and he got a nice little ultimatum that either he swears an actual slavery oath and goes back to join the rest of the heros having “changed his mind” or he gets to live the rest of his life in the cell.

As for why they didn’t kill him? Well, the other heros would get a system message telling them as such and ratting out whoever did it. Why? Because the god would get just as much faith, if not more, from the heros overthrowing a “corrupt” king.

Good thing Jack wasn’t planning on needing to use his system given powers or fighting any demon armies. Instead, the privacy of what was basically solitary confinement was perfect for what he needed to do. So, once left alone, he pulled up his panel.

{Jack

Memory Integrity: 0.0000007% (99.9999993%)

Time In Void Since Last Checkup: 16

Location: Unknown Dimension

Warning: Multiple Soul Parasites detected, Soul Cage detected}

Jack sighed when he saw the memory integrity. It always happens when you reincarnate. A body can only handle so many memories and after having lived so many lives, you stop being able to keep it all. Good thing the panel allows the soul to use its non-finite nature to record it all. That and the fact that once back in the void, you’re released from physical limits and can remember it all at once.

For now, he needed to sort through what he knew. While a mortal body has a memory limit, that doesn’t mean the knowledge is all lost until the next go around. Rather, Jack could pull other memories out of his soul when needed at the cost of other memories being put away.

You can’t do this often, but Jack only needed to do it once. While it had been a while, Jack had lived a few hundred lives as a soultech, working on the actual nuts and bolts of the panel and other sister tech. Most important of that time would be the opsec experience.

Why? Because sometimes, the easiest way to break into a system is to know the system. And what do you know, Jack had a system right here that he needed to break over his knee. So, after only ten years of quiet meditation, he had pulled in all the information needed. The only interruption being when the demon lord was killed and then over the next few months after, each of the heroes dropping of “natural” causes.

Now, with all the knowledge, Jack opened up the system’s status panel for him and began to hack into it. Of course, he could have done it without the visual interface, but thankfully since it was all in your head, the shackles didn’t block it. The only difficult part was the fact that the local system connected to him was more like a dumb terminal.

Still, this crude ramshackle system had holes he could dunk a sun through. All it took to get in was literally to ask for admin privileges because the stupid god believed it was the only one capable of manipulating the soul. This discovery almost made the ten years of gathering knowledge pointless.

Except, of course, there was still the matter of calling down his civilization on this cruel deity. That being mostly a matter of getting a message out to his friends so they could pass it along. Oh, and subverting the entire system to his whims.

From there, Jack just let himself out of prison. An easy enough task as it was heavily based around the system keeping things in check. Real nifty stuff like doors that can only open to a guard or the shackles Jack still wore.

With that figured out, Jack simply sauntered out of the building. No one even tried to stop him since the doors opened for him. Not that Jack felt there would have been any problems, even if the guards did try to stop him. The post of guarding failed heros clearly had a certain prestige to it.

After that, it took an additional eight years to hear back from his friends. It seems that the local god wasn’t entirely clueless as they had set up some form of stealth in the entire dimension. They clearly did not want to share.

The solution? Well, a homing beacon needed a lot of gold and silver. Precious metals that Jack feels the crown owes to him for having taken that sack of gold away from him originally.

Good thing the king uses the “more” secure system based locks for his castle. In any other circumstance, this was the way to go if you could afford it. With the thief having write access to the systems backend? Well, Jack didn’t even need to push the doors for them to open.

Gold and silver now acquired, Jack sets about the task of constructing the beacon. This was a relatively short task, only taking half a year to set up. Then it was the moment of truth.

Jack poured out what the locals call a mana potion. While not high grade, it was enough to provide a steady stream of power. Then, within moments of the beacon turning on, group after group of people begin to teleport in.

From there, Jack is basically out of the picture. While he wouldn’t deny knowing a lot of things. The people arriving had all been optimized and specialized for this very moment. This meant that the ending was quite disappointing.

There was no climactic final battle against the god himself. No, Jack’s civilization came in with a warrant, and placed the negligent god under arrest and awaiting trial. To say the god wasn’t happy with this development would be an understatement. Good thing no one from Jack’s civilization cares what they have to say.

After that mess, Jack was more than happy to let the time run out on his current body. Sure, the entire dimension was in chaos as demon lords and the various angels had all dropped dead at the same time.

And so Jack once again found themselves in the Void. Except this time, it was a proper afterlife with a beach waiting for them to set up a chair and watch the sun set. The only thought they had about what just happened being the fact they hadn’t even seen the god that had caused the whole mess.