When he regained consciousness, the stars had mostly faded from the sky, and the light tinge of cyan colored the eastern half of the sky. Immediately, Aren realized that he wasn’t in the same place where he had fallen. The crumbling walls of some ruined building sheltered him from view on all sides. His coat was resting on a rotting table, with a broken leg, and his shirt was neatly folded right next to his coat.

Of the two thoughts that immediately popped into his head, the first one was completely useless: I am not dead. Quite an astute observation. The second thought was marginally more useful: I have no idea where I am, or what happened.

The first step towards solving a problem was admitting there was a problem. In this case, his problem was that he, indeed, didn’t know where he was — likely, at least, still in the old city of Rakab — but he had not a single clue as to how he got here, or why he was not food for orcs.

A quick search over his memories turned over absolutely no new information. However, as a person with thorough tendencies when it came to being inquisitive, an inventory check of his physical state and profile turned up two pieces of information.

First of all, the wound on his chest had disappeared. It itched and hurt when he touched the scar, which seemed to have been caused by burns. Although, how it became a scar already was beyond his knowledge. Maybe it was a mechanic of Singularity. More pressingly, it wasn’t just a hole in his chest that he was gifted courtesy of the Scar of Rakab. His lung was punctured, and his arteries were shredded. That is not something a little bit of embers and heat can fix.

Aren thought about it some more, and came to the interim conclusion that when he used [Flash], he also must’ve shocked himself. After all, he wasn’t supposed to be able to use [Flash] without a spellblade. But perhaps he misunderstood what a spellblade was for. Perhaps the spellblade protected him from the counter-shock, and more importantly, as his eyes focused on the hilt with a missing guard and blade — the only remnants of what was once his weapon — to keep the weapon intact. The lightning energy had almost entirely destroyed his weapon. In his last moments, he watched the blade slide off the rest of the hilt like molten magma, nearly burning his hand off in the process.

He was not entirely certain if any of this was true, but the second clue was more interesting, and more confusing than anything else. His profile revealed a new perk:

[Perk] Priscilla’s Blessing

[Perk] Favor of Aurora

Aren knew, from all that time he spent doing nothing on the Isle of Beginnings, that Aurora was the Goddess of War, Love and Luck.

When and how did he earn the favor of a Goddess? Was it before the battle? After the battle? Perhaps he impressed the Goddess with his bravery? And speaking of his bravery, Aren felt foolish and slightly ashamed that he allowed himself to be so easily manipulated by Leviathan. There was, in that situation, perhaps only one single thing anyone or anything could have said to make him reject death, and fight until the end. Up until the moment Leviathan spoke, Aren was ready to die on the spot. Surviving a mortal wound — or at least, lasting longer — all depended on one’s willpower, amount of blood lost, or shock. Death was inevitable, but how long until “inevitable” was determined by one’s willpower.

This only raised more questions about Leviathan. Why did he intervene? Why did he manipulate him to continue fighting? What was that line he saw and followed, which led to the Scar of Rakab’s demise, and why did it appear?

With some difficulty, Aren sat up. His chest was in pain, but it was not overwhelming. If anything, Aren suspected it was phantom pain rather than injury. His profile didn’t report any wounds or debilitating effects. Wounds generally came with effects such as becoming slower, easily becoming fatigued, lower morale, and quite a few other simulated disadvantages that guided one towards certain death. But he didn’t have any of those, and almost as soon as he realized that, the pain subsided.

If only it was that easy in real life. Aren wished he could pull up some magical profile, see that he had no wounds, in real life, and all would suddenly be fine. Except, he did have wounds in real life. Quite severe ones. If his accident had happened in Singularity, it would’ve probably resulted in a mortal wound.

So where did his willpower to live, in real life, come from? He didn’t have much to live for. He wasn’t gifted at anything, he had no talents, he barely had a vision for the future and a foolish, naive goal. He didn’t even have friends, except one.

Singularity itself did not have statistics, as far as a player could understand them. Every character, of which a player could have only one, took on the appearance and attributes of the real living person’s ideal self. That is not to say that the ideal self was the overblown, exaggerated opinion one had of one’s self, but rather the realistic take, and the small hope that this would be who they would one day become. From then on, the character would diverge from the ideal self — what some people considered also their ghost — as it lived in the world and improved itself.

Some suspected that this was a reciprocal relationship as well, that the ideal self would also strive to be like the character, as if chasing its shadow, but those were just baseless rumors of romantics and those who didn’t really like themselves very much, and had a poor self-image. Aren had a more realistic view on it: Of course a person would change as their character grew and became more powerful. They were living a second life, after all, and experiencing things that affected them no matter whether they happened in the real world or the virtual world.

“Oh, the prince is awake.” he heard a voice from the doorway and turned to look. It was Nissa. “In this type of story, shouldn’t the prince rescue the princess, not the other way around?”

“It was you?” Aren asked, his voice hoarse and dry. He realized he was extremely thirsty.

Nissa laughed. “Me? Don’t mess with me Aren, it won’t work. We know it was you,” she said, her grin from ear to ear. She seemed extremely happy, satisfied and proud. “I am so glad I met you in Leone that day. You would be a perfect fit for our clan. What do you say?”

“What clan?” Aren asked, mechanically stalling for time. He knew what was going on. Nissa believed he was the one who defeated the Scar of Rakab and his marauders. However, Aren could only claim credit for the leader. What happened to the rest, he had no clue.

So it wasn’t Aren’s party that rescued him? It seemed very likely that they did. Cass was a white priest and could’ve been the one to heal his injuries, even bring him back from the dead. In Singularity, if one died, they could remain as a corpse for thirty minutes, allowing high ranking priests to revive them. But then again, Cassandra wasn’t high ranking. So Resurrection was out. But the heal was still possible.

Was Nissa messing with him?

“Me, you, Fang,” Nissa said. “Maybe we’ll invite the other two, but to start a clan, we need a minimum of two co-founders. That’s three people, including the founder, in case you slept through math at school.” Nissa leaned against the wall next to the doorless door frame, and crossed her arms.

Aren considered coming clean. In fact, he was going to, but the moment he opened his mouth, he froze. He was paralyzed. He could not move a muscle. Any muscle. Even his heart stopped beating.

The warning came with crystal clarity and transparent meaning. With such a short sentence, and the resumed pulsing of his heartbeat, Aren understood that the AI, very effectively, forbade him from telling Nissa that her opinion of Aren is not based on facts. But why? What was so important about not being honest here and allowing this to go on?

No, no matter the reasoning, Aren wanted to be honest with his new friends. About everything.

And then he froze again, once more with that stupid expression on his face.

“Look, you don’t have to decide right away, I get it,” Nissa said. “Just think about it, all right?”

Aren was stunned. Not by Leviathan’s analysis, which was probably as close to truth as omniscience, but by how good of a person Nissa is. Even if Aren used her to get a shadowblade, and then ditched her — presumably for a better, more established clan or alliance — Nissa would most likely still keep his secret!

“Yes!” Aren exclaimed. “Let’s make a clan!” He decided, on the spot, when he heard Leviathan’s analysis that Nissa was a good person, and could be trusted.

“Really?” Nissa asked, genuinely surprised. “I thought… you kind of glared at me, you know? Like I was stupid for even suggesting it.” She curled a lock of black hair around her finger as she spoke. “I thought maybe you didn’t like us anymore.”

“No!” Aren exclaimed again, with even more zeal. “I was just surprised, is all. That you were asking me. I don’t know what you think of me, but I am not really that great.” Surprisingly, this time, Leviathan did not stop him.

Nissa chuckled. “Maybe you are the one with a low opinion of yourself, Aren. I was in the Broken Blade Tavern when the bard suddenly started singing about how you slaughtered all of them, while mortally wounded,” Nissa said, excited. “Even Lady Aurora watched your battle, with the Valkyries at her side!”

Aren’s eyebrows shot up, and he stared at Nissa. “She did?” he asked.

“In the song, yeah,” Nissa said. “Tonight, you’ve made my halls echo with the selfless deed of your life’s blood; May you walk in my fortune, and may none bar your paths, for tragic warriors are my heart’s dearest and most beloved.” Nissa sang the verse with a beautiful, haunting and tragic tone. Aren was actually quite surprised at how well she was able to keep a melody and rhythm by herself — she had a talent for it.

But more than anything, the verse explained a few things, but also created more mysteries. According to Nissa, he defeated the orcs after he passed out. He even had the Favor of Aurora to prove it. The problem was — he didn’t remember any of it.

Aren decided to tell her. What did he have to lose? She already knew he had a Unique Class, and could, at any moment, decide to steal it from him, or worse, sell the information to someone.

“The thing is, Nissa, I did receive Lady Aurora’s favor, but I don’t remember doing any of it, except killing Garmox,” he said with a disappointed shrug.

Nissa’s eyes gleamed in the light of coming dawn. “You received the Lady’s favor?” She didn’t even seem interested in the more important part. “What does it do? Does it make you stronger?”

Aren thought about it, and focused on the perk and then, more or less, verbatim told Nissa the advantages it provided. “The bearer of Aurora’s favor, and everyone in their group, will always be treated by all followers of the Light Pantheon as if their rapport with them was at the Beloved level. No one and nothing may bar their path, and all roads are open to them. However, the bearer must never refuse to aid another or fail to do so.”

Nissa’s eyes widened with each word Aren spoke, and Aren could clearly see when she went from feeling awe to being envious. “Wow!” She finally exclaimed and with three long steps, came over to Aren’s side, crouched down, and hugged him tightly. “I love you, you beautiful, crazy son of a bitch!” She shouted at him, kissed his cheek, punched his shoulder, and then jumped to her feet and ran out, giggling with mad glee.

“Fang!” he could hear her outside. “Fang! You are not gonna believe this!” Her maddened cackle faded in the distance. “Fang!”