“This here is your standard aether rifle. Three hundred metre range, single-shot accurate, and with limited but effective burst-fire capability in a pinch.” The buxom brunette speaking to him smiled, her eyes twinkling with glee. “You’ll sacrifice accuracy for it, though, if you go that route.”

Arcturus accepted the long, silver weapon from the store owner when she extended it, carefully pointing the gun to the floor as he peered down the sights, blinking at what he could only describe as a holographic heads up display inside the long rectangular scope. The rifle itself was almost a metre and a half long and built with sleek material that gave it an incredibly futuristic appearance to Arcturus’ eyes. There was nowhere to slot a magazine or clip, and barring a gel-like material towards the front third of the weapon’s bottom, he saw no second grip to account for recoil. In fact, even the grip and buttstock seemed more geared towards comfort than function.

Curious to see what he'd find, Arcturus casually triggered his [Inspect] skill on the weapon.

INFORMATION PANEL

BASIC INFORMATION

NAME Headhunter Aether Rifle SLOT(S) Hands TYPE(S) Enchanted RARITY Rare CLASSIFICATION(S) Weapon (Aether Rifle) STATISTIC(S)

+2 to Perception

+2 to Agility

MODIFICATION(S)

Superior Scope x 1 (+2 to Perception)

Custom Buttstock x 1 (+1 to Agility)

Lightweight Materials x 1 (+1 to Agility)

Burst-Fire Mode Switch x 1

DESCRIPTION A long-range weapon crafted by an advanced creator with considerable knowledge of the processes behind Aethersmithing and weaponcrafting. While designed as a standard weapon, the care put into the aether rifle has made it far more than the average model. SOULBOND(S) N/A DURABILITY 350 / 350

The stats baffled him, but it was knowledge, which was what he was after anyway.

Arcturus had chosen the detour into the shop, fancily titled Angela’s Arms & Armour, in order to try and find his bearings after realising he’d been wandering the colossal multi-tiered expanse of Luxanium with no actual idea as to where he was going. Northeast had seemed an easy enough direction to follow when Lilian had given it to him, but the reality had turned out to be much different.

Within ten minutes he had already taken two wrong turns, and by the time twenty had passed, he’d found himself stuck facing a very large wall with no conceivable means of passing it. Out of desperation, he’d attempted to ask random pedestrians — of which there were thousands — for directions to the Cathedral, only to be hastily left in the dust as they scrambled to depart from his presence, showing an overwhelming sense of discomfort at even being seen too close to him. The entire situation had spiralled into madness when he’d all but attempted to climb the colossal boundary wall before giving up on that course of action.

After another few minutes of wandering while his frustration boiled, he’d finally found Angela’s business and decided that learning about the weapons of the strange version of Earth he found himself in was a wise course of action.

“So, what do you think?”

Arcturus looked at the proprietor with an expression of bewilderment. He looked back to the rifle, then back to her, and then chose his words carefully. “It’s not what I’m used to. How do you account for the recoil?”

Angela blinked at him, raising both her eyebrows as he spoke. “Recoil?”

“Yeah, when it fires. How do you handle the kick-back?”

Arcturus started to feel like he’d made some sort of faux pas at her growing look of annoyance.

“Are you mocking my work?” She asked sharply, taking the rifle back with a glare.

Nice one, Arcturus. Really smooth.

“No!” Arcturus responded, feeling alarmed. “I’m sorry if I offended you, I was legitimately curious.”

“Asking about recoil in an Aether Rifle?” She queried, staring at him critically.

“Look, I'm not exactly doing too hot in the knowledge department right now,” Arcturus responded with his hands raised in placation. His brain worked fast. “I took kind of a nasty hit to the head recently, so I'm a bit foggy on things.”

Her stare softened slowly into something more understanding. “How bad was the injury?” She asked.

“I don't really know how to quantify that.” He responded honestly.

Charisma Check successful!

“Sounds like you've had a rough time of it.” Angela said thoughtfully.

“Yeah, you could say that.” Arcturus responded with a small smile. “I was just trying to find the library, and next thing I know I'm lost and wandering into your store. Feels like I've been repeatedly hit over the head by bad luck, on top of everything else.”

“You definitely look like a fish out of water. How long have you been in Luxanium?”

“A couple of days.” He said as casually as he could.

“Where are you from originally?” She asked with casual curiousity.

Arcturus hesitated a moment, then decided he couldn't tell her the truth. He'd just have to rely on his Charisma and Luck, and try to be as non-specific as possible.

Because that has never ended badly.

“South.” He said as casually as he could. “I'm not really from the Empire, actually.”

“How far south?” She asked casually, while Arcturus made a decision and decided to head for the door carefully. He didn't like her line of questioning at all.

“Uh, pretty far. Doubt you'd know the place. It's pretty remote.” He replied as he glanced toward the door and inched closer to it. "Lots of rain, and heat. You know how it is. Miserable, but there's no place like h—”

The whine of something activating cut him off and he snapped his head to Angela, who had the rifle levelled at his chest, and humming with energy.

“You have five seconds to start making sense, asshole.” She said grimly. “Your story stinks worse than varosaur droppings. If you don't start telling me something believable, I'm going to call the authorities. Trust me, they won't be fussed if I put a few holes in a suspected spy.”

“Spy?! Jesus Christ, I'm not a spy!” He exclaimed, hands raised in the instinctive posture of placation. “I can't accede to your demands anyway! You wouldn't goddamn believe me if I tried!”

“Try anyway.” She growled.

“Fine! I died and got reincarnated here two days ago! I don't even have much of a proper idea where in the fuck here is!”

Arcturus braced himself for her to fire and prepared to use his Telekinesis to save himself, but she only stared at him silently. After a few long seconds had passed, she spoke. “Why did you say you hit your head?”

“Because that seemed more fucking believable than 'Hey I just woke up here after being dead, nice to meet you!'”

Another extended silence passed between them, and then Angela spoke again. “I'm going to lower my gun, and you're going to not do something stupid like try to run. Understand?”

“No offense, but you aren't exactly inspiring confidence here.” Arcturus retorted.

“Well it's either that, or you try explaining that story to the guards that eventually hunt you down.” She said casually. “Your choice, kid.”

“Not much of a goddamn choice.” He grumbled, glancing longingly at the door and then sighing. “Alright. I agree not to run. For now.”

“Good!” She said with a sudden smile, deactivating and lowering the rifle. “I've always wanted to meet a new Nephilim!”

Arcturus blinked at her exclamation, and then frowned. “What?”

“You! You’re Nephilim, aren’t you? Gods, I’ve heard about this, but I never thought I’d be the one to find a fresh-from-the-shrine Nephilim!”

“I’m sorry, I’m at a loss.” Arcturus said as his frustration bled into confusion. “You think I’m half Angel?”

Perception Check unsuccessful!

“What?” Angela asked incredulously. “No, that’s ludicrous. You’re Nephilim! Divine-Touched! You can see the matrix of the soul, right? Direct your essence growth?”

Arcturus felt himself grow tense at her words. He glanced at the door again, before looking back to her. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

She sighed at him. “Listen, kid, you’re acting like an idiot. It’s fine. No one’s scared of Nephilim anymore. Heavens, we owe your kind so much for your service to Terra!”

“What? My kind?” He asked, momentarily taken aback.

“Yes, your kind. Nephilim.” She said the word again slowly, as if he were stupid.

Arcturus was too curious to be properly offended, heart hammering in his chest. “So there’s more people like me? People who can, you know, see the world through numbers, sheets, and screens?”

“Sheets? Screens?” She asked dubiously, before waving a hand to dismiss it, nodding impatiently. “Yes, kid, there’s plenty of people like you. Thousands of them. They’re some of the greatest heroes,adventurers and sometimes villains, that Terra’s seen in recent times.”

“Terra?” Hope kindled in his chest. Terra was the most common alternate word for ‘Earth’.

“Yes, Terra. The Source. How do you not know that?” She frowned. “Aren’t you from a source-shard like the others? I heard there was an influx from a distant one recently. What was it called… Rock… Dirt…” Her hands clapped together. “Earth! You’re from Earth, right?” She laughed. “Stupid name for a planet.”

“Thanks.” He said with a twinge of irritation on behalf of his home, before pointing out a notable oversight. “Isn’t Terra just another name for Earth?”

“I suppose, but Terra is way better — and count yourself lucky! Who’d want to go back to a source-shard, when you can be on the Source? Trust me kid, you’re much better off. Now first things first: Why did they let you out of the Temple so quickly, and without proper education?”

Arcturus returned her gaze and frowned. He wasn’t entirely sure he was being wise having such an open conversation with a complete stranger, but he needed information… Indecision warred within him for a moment, before he decided to throw caution to the wind. He was supposedly divine-touched, right? If his education had taught him anything, it was how to leverage things like that.

“I didn’t awaken in a Temple.” He said with projected confidence, his voice kept as nonchalant as possible while he relied on his Charisma score. “I came to Terra through other means, courtesy of The Highest.”

Charisma Check successful!

Wow, that was some impressive spinning.

Angela raised her eyebrows. “So you’re something special then.” She abruptly grinned. “This just keeps getting better! We’re gonna get on great, kid.” A flicker of hesitation flashed across her features, and then she lowered her voice conspiratorially. “So. Uh. Your death… How was that? I hear Nephilim tend to die violently. Is that true? I remember…”

Arcturus could barely hear her as she continued, her voice morphing into white noise as a ringing filled his ears, combined with a rushing sound akin to a powerful wind.

A blade in his chest.

Blue eyes, merciless and unblinking.

He could very nearly feel it again as he remembered with a clarity given to him by his Intellect score. He remembered every detail, every moment of it. The feeling of being stabbed by a sword of energy. A bitter taste filled his mouth as adrenaline flooded his body. Pain in his chest. Pain in his head. A tightness in his skull.

Willpower Check unsuccessful! Your unresolved trauma has caught up to you!

Arcturus felt a shudder run down the length of his body and sagged into the front of one of the many secured cabinets in Angela’s workshop, his vision blurring. He slowly sank down to the ground, curling his hands into fists as he attempted to control the shaking. The ringing in his ears grew louder, the sound akin to a jet engine. His head lowered as he tried and failed to master his emotions, feeling the confusion, panic, fear, and worry of the last week washing over him in a tidal wave. His death, meeting God - Order, or whatever the hell He was — and then everything that had happened afterwards.

It was just like how he’d felt after killing the Dire Wolf, though this time there was no level up alert to knock him unconscious. He felt like he was drowning, struggling and failing to surface for air while being pushed under again and again by events utterly outside of his control. All he wanted was to try to find his friends and get back to Earth, yet he was now stranded in a world not his own with no allies, no resources, and without an iota of knowledge as to how to survive. The first person he’d met that had been willing to have an honest conversation with him ended up fermenting a meltdown of all things.

Arcturus felt more than heard himself laugh, shuddering as his vision continued to blur. He could feel wetness on his cheeks, but he was beyond caring. He vaguely noticed the light from outside the store dimming but paid it no mind. He was tired of fighting, tired of trying to pretend that everything was alright and that anything was going his way. He had failed, failed utterly and completely, and with outstanding levels of sheer ineptitude. He felt it welling up in him like magma in his gut, ejected by the twisting and churning maelstrom of his anxiety-afflicted stomach.

He wasn’t sure when Angela pulled him into her arms,he couldn’t even resolve time beyond the fact that he existed, and his existence was in the then and now. All he knew was the crushing horror of his death; the panic, fear and terror of knowing he was dying — feelings he’d never properly addressed, never properly looked at or assessed beyond the surface. He’d been in motion for too long afterwards, first in The Highest and then when he’d eventually traveled to what he now knew to be Terra. Too much. It was too much for him, all at once. He had barely been twenty-one, and then he'd been murdered.

The sheer immensity of it all bore down as Angela held him, and he wept into the embrace of a stranger.

Arcturus wasn’t entirely sure how long he sat on the floor of Angela’s shop, or when she had put a steaming mug of something that resembled a much more delicious version of hot chocolate in his hands. When he finally roused himself from his stupor with help from the gradual sips of his drink, he blinked up at the sight of pulled blinds shielding against sunlight, and a locked front door. She had closed the store, it seemed, to give him some measure of privacy.

So much for divinity-defying Willpower. You’re still just a kid, aren’t you?

When he turned his gaze towards the rest of the interior, he noticed a door that had previously been veiled behind a strategically placed curtain, leading into the back of the shop. Picking himself up off the ground and clearing his throat, he wiped his face and eyes on the sleeves of his coat, holding tightly to the mug in his hands and approaching the warmly lit area beyond the entrance. His right hand rose to knock on the doorframe as he entered, tentatively ducking his head inside.

“Angela?”

“Come in, kid.” Her voice answered back warmly, giving him the confidence to fully enter the area beyond. He immediately stopped to marvel: a massive workshop greeted his eyes as he crossed the threshold of the entrance, the light from several wall-mounted sconces casting a brilliant glow across several large benches built into the walls of the massive square space. An arched entryway on the far side of the room led to what appeared to be a smaller space beyond, likely a sleeping area, and another archway on the right as he entered led to what he assumed were more rooms of the living space.

Angela herself was seated on a comfortable-looking stool, tinkering with what he assumed to be some sort of metal box or rectangle that he had no way to properly identify.

“Thank you for the drink.” Arcturus said as he approached her, eyes taking in the well-maintained and clearly beloved work-stations within the large room. “This place is amazing. Did you build all of this yourself?”

“I did!” She replied brightly, using what looked like a screwdriver with a glowing blue head to draw careful lines along the steel in her hand, leaving luminous veins in the tool’s wake.

“How long have you owned this place?”

“About three years.” She replied with the voice of someone concentrating intensely. “The previous owner was an armourer, funnily enough, so a lot of the foundation for the workshop was already in place. Plus, it had a Runic Forge, and that alone made the space desirable.”

“Runic Forge?” Arcturus asked, sipping his drink as he allowed himself to be carried by his curiosity.

Her head tilted towards what he had previously just assumed to be a large jutting safe of some sort, though from his new position across the room from where he’d entered, he realised it was connected to both floor and ceiling — though that connection was also built into the wall, and hidden behind the shelves and benches from sight of the entrance.

“I take it that’s where you do your Aethersmithing?”

Your skills of deduction are awe-inspiring. Truly.

“Yep. That’s how I make all my rifles, armour, and weapons.”

“Is smithing difficult?” He asked, staring at the forge curiously.

“Depends on if you have the natural affinity for it, I suppose.” She said after a moment of concentration, setting down her implement and turning to him. “Aethersmithing takes a very specific capability with magic, or else you’ll just create items more likely to detonate than help anyone.”

“How’d you learn?” Arcturus asked with interest, moving over to better examine the Runic Forge.

“After my aptitude was confirmed, I was apprenticed to a Master who taught me the craft.” She explained with a smile. “The Empire paid for my apprenticeship and gave me a stipend, since Aethersmiths are valuable and much rarer than other craftspeople.”

“That’s pretty much how a trade is learned where I’m from,” Arcturus said conversationally. “Though it’s less magical and more technological.We haven’t used swords in over a century.”

“No swords? That seems odd.” Angela said as she went back to her crafting.

“Not in the scope of my world.” Arcturus replied, his mood steadily stabilising as he spoke. “Where I’m from, we have guns that use exothermic reactions from gunpowder and little pieces of metal faster than the eye can see. Guns are the only form of warfare that matter on Earth. Besides missiles, that is.”

“Missiles?”

“Yeah, huge combustion-propelled explosives that can travel across massive distances at supersonic speed. They move so fast you can’t even hear them until they’re already gone, because they travel faster than sound.” He reached out and placed his right hand on the Runic Forge, feeling the subtle engravings around its top curiously, eyes tracing over the thick black metal that comprised its exterior.

“Your Earth sounds dangerous,” Angela said, turning to look at him with raised eyebrows. “but you sound like you miss it.”

“I do.” Arcturus replied, hand falling still on the Forge. “It’s home for me. I know that probably seems ridiculous to you.”

Nore more ridiculous than anything else you’ve said.

“Why would it be ridiculous?”

“Well, you called Earth a ‘source-shard’...” He lifted his mug to his lips with his left hand, sipping at the liquid within, while his right continued its exploration of the Forge. “The only time I’ve ever heard that said was when I was speaking with Order, and He implied — like you — that it means Earth is somehow inferior to Terra.”

A period of extended silence followed his words, and Arcturus turned to see Angela staring at him, pale-faced and gripping her scribing tool in a shaking hand. “Order? Did you say Order? As in the deity in The Highest?”

“Yes.” Arcturus said warily, watching her with a moment of hesitation as she stared at him. Did she not believe him? It wasn’t as if he had anything to gain from making it up. “I’m not lying.” He said evenly.

Arcturus jumped when Angela abruptly bolted towards him, reflexively shielding his mug and extending his right hand to forestall her, only to blink when she grabbed his hand and pressed a kiss to the top of it.

“Uh, A-Angela?” He asked in bewilderment, confusion dominating his expression.

“I know you aren’t lying,” she said in a voice of wonder. “I can see the truth in your eyes, and I’ve realized already that you aren’t someone who deceives people. Thank you for sharing that with me. Order is… Well, Order is a figure of great importance to many people in this world, and knowing that He’s real. That He’s truly there in The Highest, above the Twelve…”

She reached up and brushed tears from her eyes. “Thank you. Sometimes it’s hard to keep Faith, wondering if anything is real. The gift you’ve given me, the relief of knowing there’s something after all this…” She laughed, drawing a deep breath. “I’m in your debt.”

“I—Uh, you’re welcome.” Arcturus said, extricating his hand from her grip and taking a long gulp from his hot chocolate to cover his embarrassment.

“Ah. I’m sorry. I ended up making you uncomfortable. I realise that you probably just don’t understand how massive some of the implications you make are.” She reached up and brushed some hair behind her ear, expression thoughtful. “Do you want some advice?”

“Can’t hurt.” He said with a nod. Truthfully, he’d take any advice he could get.

“Don’t talk about Order, or The Highest, or any of your experiences too liberally.” She smiled at his thoughtful expression. “I can see you thinking it through already.”

“Yes. Given your reaction, it would make sense that casually dropping this world’s version of God as an acquaintance could have consequences I don’t really want.” Arcturus said, shaking his head and thinking back on Earth history. “The last thing I need is some Inquisitor calling me an Apostate or Heretic or something.”

“Chief God.” She corrected. “But yes, that’s a very possible eventuality,” Angela said seriously, “how did you know about the Inquisition?”

Arcturus stared at her for a moment, searching her eyes for any sign of a joke, and feeling alarmed when he found none.

“Oh come on!”