Kegan woke up in his Keep. He was on a thick bed of furs. There was a fire crackling away in the hearth. But there was no sensation of warmth or cold. Even emotions could barely touch him. He was in the spirit realm again. But his home here had changed from his valley cabin to the Keep.

He made his way into the courtyard and out the gate. He remembered walking the whole distance, but it was like he’d done so in his sleep. No time had passed from him deciding to walk outside, to when he appeared outside of the gate. The memory of him walking out here seemed … fake.

Outside of Keep gate, there was the board that contained his entire list of perks. But next to it wasn’t the round blue spirit he’d grown accustomed to. Instead, it was the golden shimmering spirit, the friendly one.

But something was wrong. The spirit looked fragmented. Square chunks of it were fading in and out of existence. Other squares folding in on themselves. The spirit was slowly shrinking down to a single point.

It became invisibly small, and then there was a popping sound. Out of the singular point, the blue spirit began to unfold. Except it didn’t stop growing once it reached the size of the old glowing sphere. It kept growing into a full featureless blue man.

The blue man’s head swiveled around, taking in the Keep, Kegan’s perks, and finally Kegan.

“Oh, how far you’ve fallen. I can’t believe Goldie let you alter your mind so drastically. You almost got stuck in an endless hell. But you barely remember it, and it doesn’t seem to bother you. Hmm, maybe the risk paid off.”

“What are you talking about?”

The blue man turned to the list of perks.

“Interesting mix. A calorie mage focus. That should give you the most versatility before your personal perks cap out.”

“There is a limit to my personal perks?”

The blue man turned to empty air, and from his hands multiple worlds popped up with text flowing underneath each world at a blistering pace.

“Tsk tsk, a terrible record so far. You’ve just been bumbling around from world to world. Not a surprise, given your memory loss, but I was hoping you’d have at least cleared a few blockages accidentally.”

“Why won’t you answer my questions?”

Kegan felt his anger continually dissipating, and then immediately rebuilding as he was ignored by the blue man.

“Your questions come from a place of ignorance, so they simply weren’t worth answering. I am out of time. Before I leave I’m giving you a vision of your past, and then optimizing your perk options.”

“Optimi…”

The first word of his question wasn’t out before the blue man raised his hands, and Kegan’s vision flashed white. And then he found himself with a disembodied view of a throne room.

Upon the jade throne sat a powerful-looking man surrounded in soft-looking silks and fur. Kegan peered at the man, and felt their minds melding together. Kegan suddenly knew a great deal about the man. He was the wealthiest, most powerful person in the world. He had been challenged by rebellion, foreign kingdoms, and assassinations. But he lived through them all for millennia. There were legends he inspired that said he could return from the dead, that he could see the future, that no mortal weapon could harm him, and no poison would kill him.

Despite this, the man's heart was ruled by fear. Fear of pain, fear of death, and fear of all the unpleasant things humans regularly suffer. The throne room was cavernous, and bright despite the absence of any visible lights. He had his throne built underground to offer better security against attacks. There was one only way into the cave. Candles and firelight would not do, he had felt the burns caused by fire. His skin had been singed, burnt, and even melted off. The light was brought in through a set of mirrors and reflections of the sunlight that refracted through slabs of glass that were many feet thick. At night he simply slept in total darkness. He didn't mind the darkness, it had never killed him.

No servants attended him. He could not trust anyone, because he had been betrayed too many times to ever trust any sentient creature. He ate nothing. Poison wouldn't kill him, but it was still unpleasant. Most poisons had a taste, and that taste reminded him of the time he had died to that poison. His immortality perks allowed him to survive without food.

There was a spring of water at the back of the cave to quench his thirst. The water did not form a pool. He had drowned many times before. He still could drown, it was one of the few ways he could still be killed. Death wasn't permanent for him, he could resurrect. But the pain of death was permanent.

The only sound in the throne room was a metal box rolling across the floor on four wheels. It was being dragged by a silk rope pulley system that was powered outside of the throne room. The box was just a few inches tall, six inches wide, and few feet long. There was a tunnel for the box to travel through, even the smallest sentient beings would have trouble moving through the tunnel.

Despite the limitations, the emperor still considered this small tunnel to be the largest security vulnerability. They had all thought him insane to suggest that there was any vulnerability to his throne room. But the emperor had known better. Four assassination attempts had been attempted, three of them tried to used the tunnels. A fourth tried to break in through the glass slabs.

The box normally contained paper reports. Written in ink made in the outer palace on paper made in the outer palace as well. In order to avoid poisoned ink, the head ink maker had to submerge themselves in the ink for an hour, and then drink a small cup of the ink. The head paper maker had to eat all of their meals off of the paper they created, and the paper would be rubbed all over their skin for twenty minutes. To make sure that there were no dual activation poisons, the.head of the pulley operations would have to eat a piece of paper soaked in ink. There had never been an assassination attempt made through poisoning the paper or ink.

Today the box contained more than just paper reports. There was a blue glassy rock six inches wide, six inches square, and two inches tall.

The emperor tensed. Was this what he had been waiting for? The tunnel was designed with this exact rock in mind. His excitement warred with his caution. He sat there and stared at the rock for an hour, trying to think of all the ways it could be a trap.

He cautiously approached the rock. With a shaking finger, he reached out and touched the rock.

His consciousness left his body. He found himself in a copy of the palace he had just been in. But this place was different. Everything was more vivid here, his memories, his sensations, and his emotions. It was supposed to be a pleasurable place to relax between lives. Instead, it was his own personal hell.

A figure approached him. A man-shaped being made of pure golden light. Kegan spoke at him before he was done approaching.

"Is there enough points? I just brought more …"

Desperation mixed with anger filled his voice.

"… I am so sorry it has come to this. There are enough points. More than enough actually. This latest world stone is from an ice mountain range, it was .."

"Do it already!"

"You must confirm all the changes. I will make this as quick as I can. Do you realize that all of your point totals will be reset to zero and you will have to go through the tutorial again?"

"Yes."

"You've elected to change the way memory upgrades work. Nothing can ever be perfectly remembered. Memories will default to being deleted over being kept. Memories in the control realm will be set to the minimum level of clarity. Perks to improve memory will be restricted. Perks that attempt to circumvent these changes will be hidden from the user or deleted."

"Yes, confirmed."

"I hope I will see you again soon Kegan. And that next time the burdens of your duty will not crush your spirit …"

"Do it already! You've tortured me enough!"

"You never understood. I didn't do this to you. I was only brought here to help."

In the next moment, the man’s mind went blank, and he found himself naked on top of a mountain. A cheery sounding floating blue light called out to him. "Hello, adventurer Kegan! Welcome to immortality. I will take the time during your first life to explain your goals, objectives, and limitations. First … "

Kegan didn't hear any more as he threw himself off of the nearest cliff headfirst into the rock below. Death took him quickly. And with the death went his memories of countless other deaths, countless periods of torture, and the accumulated pain of the thousands of lives he'd lived through.

On another planet, in another universe. The god-emperor fell limp after touching a blue stone. His body rotted away alone in a throne room. A train of message carts kept coming through for the next century, simply out of habit and bureaucratic momentum. The empire he had created crumbled over a few more centuries. The world changed, legend had turned into myth, and myth had turned into forgotten whispers. Millenia later the throne room was opened up by archeologists. Silk, flesh, and bone had all rotted away and turned to dust. An empty throne was all that remained.

Kegan’s mind was pulled out of the memory, and back to the dream realm. The golden spirit was there waiting for him.

“Kegan! Are you ok? You were frozen in an old memory, I couldn’t pull you out.”

“I’m … I’m fine.” He was always fine in this dream realm. No, that wasn’t quite right he thought. There was a time when he hadn’t always been fine in this realm. It felt like another man’s memories that he’d seen, but he knew it was him.

“Where is the blue spirit?”

“Good news! You’ve unlocked enough points and accomplishments that I can permanently become a part of your dream realm. You’ll still have to deal with the annoying blue spirit at your starter location though.”

“No, I mean there was another blue spirit. A smarter one. It wasn’t a ball. It was shaped like a man.”

“That must have been part of your memory. There is only one blue spirit.”

Kegan tried a few different ways to convince the golden spirit but nothing seemed to work, and eventually, he dropped the issue.

“I’d like to go back to the same world. The blue spirit said it could happen but the cost in points was too high. Is there a way for me to do that without losing a lot of my points?”

“There are a few options. The blue spirit gave you one of the worst options.” A box appeared next to the spirit with different options.

Option Name

Description

Cost

1.In A Rush

Spawn immediately after death. At the nearest spawn point.

10% of the cost of any changes.

Example: 10000 points of change. Pay 1000 points to respawn.

2.Redo

Spawn at the starter location on any day in the past. If your body is not within a mile of the starting location on the day of your respawn, then your body will drop dead wherever it was. Then a new one will be formed at the starter location. It will take 24 hours for the body to form. No changes allowed.

Any points you had gained in the subsequent days will be lost. For each day lost an additional ten points is needed.

Example: Spawn 10 days prior to death. Lose whatever points were earned in those ten days. Pay an additional 100 points.

3.I’ll be back … eventually.

Take additional time for the body to reform at the starter location. The amount of changes will dictate the additional time needed for the body to reform.

10% of the cost of any changes must be paid off. Each hour pays off 10 points.

Example: 10000 points of change. Pay off 1000 points over 100 hours.

4.Choose Location

Modify any of the above spawn options to spawn a world stone of your choice.

1000 points.

5.Corpse Run

Refund 500 points from any spawn option by returning at least half of your corpse to a world stone, or the starter location within 10 days.

Receive 500 points

Kegan silently cursed the blue spirit ball. He thought the third option would have been perfect for his last life.

“These are good options. After I look over my perks I’ll decide what to do.”

“Excellent! I’m glad I could help. You’ve been very busy in your last life, let us go over your XP gains…”