Unbound Soul Side Story: Goddess (Patreon)

In the ruins of one world, a dungeon gave birth to another. The unlikely chain of events that led to that outcome could almost be described as a miracle, if not for the lack of divine intervention. Instead, the fail-safes and adaptability built into a gigantic computer combined with the emotions and will of a form of artificial life that should have had neither, and what should have been a simple supplier of resources grew to become the earth mother, Erryn.

Things were not perfect. Erryn, having seen the scars left behind by the last war, found herself scarred in turn. Saddled with emotions that a dungeon should not have and bereft of any sort of social experience, it came as no surprise that her reactions were unconventional.

Even the world itself was scarred. The site of the final hex bomb—previously a sea of never-cooling lava—cooled and solidified, but nothing ever grew there. Even as the rock weathered and soil piled up, no plant would take root in it. Seeds withered and life decayed. A part of the planet was permanently dead, unable to be healed even by Erryn's light.

The grey patch of lifelessness stood as another reminder to Erryn of what had been lost, and, without precautions, what could be lost again. And so Erryn made her choices. Using her administrative access to the System to learn secrets of magic and mana beyond anything she had discovered on her own, she built the Law.

And so the one who knew best the damage that soul magic could do turned to soul magic herself, and, as might be expected, it broke her in turn.

Brought back to lucidity by the efforts of another—a mere child, less than a tenth her age even if both his lifetimes were summed together—she looked upon the devastation she had wrought in her madness, and tearlessly cried in guilt and shame. Hundreds had died because of her. Those she had sworn to protect, dead, because of her.

What right did she have to go on living when her charges lay dead?

But the circumstances of Erryn's birth still held sway over her thinking. Born alone, forced to achieve all that she had done alone, and, thanks to the Law and her very nature, in some ways, still alone, she found herself unable to depart the world forever. Too much of her considered it hers. To her mind, it felt like if she departed forever—abandoned it—it would somehow cease to exist. But nevertheless, she refused to trade her life for those of her children.

She found for herself a middle ground. She backed up the memory from her main core into a subsidiary, and, with a deep metaphorical breath, cast soul magic for the last time, with the full knowledge that to do so would shatter her.

And so Erryn's soul shattered, the core that had housed it for the previous centuries fading to darkness as its mana bled out. The dead dungeon, supposedly 'alone', never even saw the monsters shedding tears for her loss. The shock of Peter. The sadness of the elf, Tilyana, as the land whispered to her of the departure. The disbelief of the dragons when they heard the news.

As intended, Erryn's magic plucked the largest of the fragments and imprisoned them within a human shell, bound together with the Law, all memory and ego erased. A blank and cracked slate, but nevertheless her.

But the smaller fragments remained. Containing neither memory nor ego, nor even the potential to regain them, they were less even than the corrupted remnants Erryn had purged in her youth. They should have decayed away to nothing, vanishing from the world completely, yet they endured.

The soul magic to raise the dead of the Emerald Caverns had been cast in selflessness. Cast in willing sacrifice—the backlash accepted with open arms—it caused no corruption. Yet there was another element born not of selflessness, but of doubt. At the bottom of the great dungeon, another small work of soul magic waited. A 'lock' had been forged, waiting in patience for its key. And it was that magic that grabbed hold of the remnants of what had once been the earth mother. Fragments of a broken soul, not permitted to rest until the last piece of soul magic that bound them was broken.

And so things remained, inert, until the awaited one arrived. The crystal forged of soul magic felt the touch of the one that would bring it an answer. Whether Erryn had been right or wrong. If her life had been good or evil. If everything she had done held worth, or if it had all been naught but vanity.

Of course, the answer was neither.

Who decides what is good or evil? Right or wrong? Does the rabbit think the hunting eagle evil? Or man the hungering lion? As much as people like to divide the world into black and white, to do so is useless. There aren't merely shades of grey, but an entire spectrum of colour, most of which isn't even visible to human sight. Stealing is wrong, but what if it is done to feed a starving family? Is taking a life in self defence murder?

A simple soul magic construct, created to accept little more than 'yes' or 'no', and to either end the Law or preserve it, instead found itself faced with all the thoughts on morality that Peter had ever had. Despite being loath to put words around them, that didn't mean thinking about such things didn't take up a significant amount of his time. How often had he lain awake at night, questions about Erryn's Law running in circles around his head? Faced with the madness of Maximilian, the views of his parents, the opposing views of Harry, how could he have ever drawn a simple conclusion?

And Peter himself was a user of soul magic, his soul still scarred from an encounter with a certain slime. A scar that had recently been ripped open by the damage to the System that had stabilised it.

The magic stuttered as fragments of what had once been Erryn mixed with fragments of Peter. And as it became more, the magic spoke. But more so, it listened.

And so it heard Peter's thoughts. That there were no simple answers. That there could be nuances and special circumstances to any event. That judgement was not a one-off event, but a continuous process. That there needed to be appointed a judge.

The Law, a planet-wide soul magic construct, hooked into hundreds of thousands of souls—billions, if Earth was included—cracked as Erryn's hastily thrown-together seat of judgement struggled to process an answer it was never designed to cope with. Peter, alone in the bottom of the great dungeon, didn't see as every bound individual in the world froze, their expressions blanking, just as they did when the Law took their memory.

A little of what made Peter 'Peter' and Erryn 'Erryn' slipped into those cracks. Small fragments of broken soul entangling with a broken soul magic construct. The chains of Law, piercing almost every soul in the world, pulsed as the border between them and the souls they occupied blurred.

The Law woke up. A consciousness formed from every one of its subjects. The magic itself given life. Soul magic with a soul.

Once more, the people of the world started moving, unaware of what had just happened. And the Law knew them all. And the part of it that was 'Erryn' loved them.

And the part of it that was 'Erryn' also bound them.

There were those who, given a description of Erryn, would call her a goddess. Before her fall, her presence spanned the world. She could see all. She could birth life, and she could snuff it out. Without her, the world would be dead and barren. All the worlds races owed their renewed existences to her.

Yet those existences were merely 'renewed'. Erryn hadn't created anything new, but simply restored what had been lost. She would be the first to acknowledge her mortality and fallibility.

What, then, was this new existence? A metaphysical being of magic and soul, born with Erryn's overwhelming desire to preserve the existence of life. Its hooks in almost every individual within its aegis, able to bend them to its will. It could be argued that just as Erryn had exceeded her creators, so too did her creation exceed her in turn. Yet the replacement was not complete. Just as Erryn—despite her power—lacked the ability to reproduce the System or the lost technologies of the past, so too did this new being lack that which even the lowliest individual possessed; experience and memory.

The nascent being waited for that which would make it whole, without even knowing what it was that it awaited. Until one day, when Erryn returned. When her shattered soul was healed and whole once more, and she came prepared to take back up her mantle.

Erryn took back her memories, but unexpectedly found herself sharing them with another. And so Erryn met her Law. Erryn, who had lived for years under its control, and had now seen it from both sides. And she saw Peter's answer and smiled to herself, because now it seemed so obvious, when his thinking had been so opaque to her before. Yet even now, could she claim to fully comprehend? To be able to make a definitive answer herself? In a world of infinite experiences and infinite choices, would it not take infinite lifetimes to see them all?

And so Erryn kept her human shell, entrusting her memories as the earth mother to her accidental child. An independent being, but in some ways, also her. And so the Erryn that was human embraced the Erryn that was the Law, knowing the pain of the duty, and the Erryn that was the Law smiled warmly, seeing the joy in the eyes of the Erryn that was human. How much the orphan had been loved by the world, and how much she had grown to love it in turn.

Even with her memories and ego lost, the reborn human Erryn had grown to care as much as the old.

And so the pair separated once more. Two beings born from one soul, facing two different fates. The Erryn that was human teaching the Erryn that was not what being human meant.

And so a new earth mother was born, one that understood her subjects, for she was one herself. A world protected, from both outside and in. Yes, there were some changes; should a new Maximilian ever invade, the people would see him for what he was; a demon more monstrous than any monster. But otherwise, life continued much as it had before, with precious few aware of the change. But no longer was Erryn corrupting herself. No longer was the world in danger of destruction from the one who had restored it.

Which wasn't to say that everything was perfect. In the depths of the night, Harry would often wake up screaming, but was never able to fully recall the nightmares that had woken him. All that remained were half-remembered images. Himself in a cage, helplessly watching an image of 'himself' that somehow wasn't him. Someone else that thought it was him, wearing his skin, living his life, while the real him was trapped, unable to get out, unable to make himself heard no matter how loudly he screamed.

Whether the world was paradise or hell—whether the earth mother was a goddess or a demon—depended entirely on who you asked. And, for the first time, the earth mother fully understood that fact, and continued down her path anyway. She didn't seek the worship of her people, their love, or even their acknowledgement. Only their safety and well-being.

This world was protected. It was only one of uncountably many, but this one was hers.