Inter Ludus I - Choice

Wherever your eyes look, the nihil extend as far as they can see. How are you able to tell the difference between what was before your eyes and a mere emptiness, you did not know. But this difference, you feel it. Emptiness is absence while nihil is the opposite of presence.

“So, does my creation entertain you ?” Asks you the anti-thing while looking at you from the other side of these lines, through the screen that stand before your eyes and on which you read these words.

“Hahaha, don’t bother answering, I can’t hear you like this.” Say the nothingness.

It lower its eyes and looks inside itself, actively showing you something. A mass of light hanging in it. It brings your vision closer of this it, and you can now better discern what it is trying to present to you.

The thing looks a bit like a molecule, spheres of different sizes, colors and even textures interconnected by equally varied bridges. However, you are able to discern major trends. Each sphere has a sort of aura coming out of it to complete its presentation, and you can see five dominant color of auras. The grey is by far the most present, encompassing more than half of the worlds, followed by the black, which devoured about twenty percent of these. The other thirty percent split the rest of the worlds at the rate of 7% for blue, 9% for violet and 14% for green.

“You admire the geopolitics of the labyrinth ? For the curious among you, I can already tell you that the grey worlds are worlds not aligned to any of the great factions.” It tells you with a wink, something quite confusing given the state of nothingness of your interlocutor.

“And for the blacks…Ha, you’ll see when one of my new protégés will set foot in it for the first time. I assure you, you will recognize them, even if only by the smell of dead floating in them.” He add with a grimace, frowning.

“But that’s not why I brought you here, hooo no. Let’s put these things aside. You’re here to decide two destinies.”

He stretches before you hands made of starry sky. You can distinguish Orion on the first, the Pleiades on the second. He spreads his fingers, discovers his palms. In the left one lies a young boy, eleven, perhaps twelve years old. Instead of hair, his head is covered with feather, like his forearms. There’s a long scar on his face, and there’s a pool of blood all around him.

“He was tortured to death in front of his mother to punish her for being a witch and for her teaching her son witchcraft, before being slaughtered like an animal. His soul was then almost used to perform an unholy ritual, but I caught him before he was soiled again.” He told you in a neutral voice.

In its right hand rests an old lady, about seventy, dressed in bright color, a peaceful smile on her face and a cane in her hand.

“She was a powerful magician, one who saved the world in which she lived from a demonic invasion. A new invasion has occurred a short time ago, and she has sacrificed herself so that her family, her children and grandchildren, could escape. She kept the door of the family manor for a day and a night, and they were able to escape thanks to her. A demon prince himself came to kill her, seeing his minions unable to break that old mule.” He explained by showing it to you.

“Now it is up to you to choose. Which one will be sent into oblivion, and which one will be placed in the labyrinth as an adjuvant of one of my little protégés? And of course, which protégé will I give the being of your choice? You have until the next inter ludus to decide, dear Chosen.” It finish saying while keeping his palms open, ready to hear your prayers.