Arbiter

The Arbiter stood in front of a full-length mirror making a few small adjustments to its avatar. A good amount of thought had gone into this body, the Arbiter wanted to convey strength and authority while still appearing open and caring.

Sadly, the Soul’s current religious and political climate was so divided that making everyone recognize his power and yet remain comfortable was not going to happen. Having reached that conclusion, the Arbiter instead picked a form whose appearance and cultural background seemed the most interesting.

The reflection followed the Arbiters movements and adjusted his dark blue tie. Then slipped a light grey vest over his white shirt and shoulder holster, complete with 1911, over that. A jacket matching the vest and pants finished off the outfit. Checking that the handgun was covered he fumbled a bit with the three buttons.

He wasn’t used to having hands in this shape and the fact that his left hand was missing its pinky finger in its entirety did not help either. That done he looked at his new face, a Japanese man with closely cropped black hair and beard stared back at him with dark brown eyes. He contemplated briefly making changes to the facial structure but knew he was only stalling.

With a thought the mirror winked out of existence, leaving the Arbiter standing in an empty void. Another thought brought a door into existence. It was a beautiful thing of solid hand carved antique wood. Beings from a multitude of worlds rising from its surface, precious gems inlaid as eyes or scales.

Worlds that had long ago fallen to corruption, and whose peoples no longer existed in the multiverse. The sight caused a momentary flash of pain and his hands balled into fists seemingly of their own accord, missing finger an added reminder of his failure. He thought about changing the portal door, but he decided to keep it the same.

Unclenching his fists, he took a deep breath, adjusted his tie one last time, and stepped through the door.

* * *

Benjamin Vryce

Benjamin Vryce woke up screaming. His hands clawed his chest trying desperately to stop the bleeding. How had he ever let his brother talk him into boar hunting with a spear, now he was going to die. He was going to die and his clan was going to be a man down for the raid this weekend and the limited-edition action figure he preordered eleven months ago would never sit on his shelf and oh God he was panicking. He was panicking and he had to calm down.

He needed to calm down and look at his wound. Trying to keep his anxiety in check he pulled his hands away from his chest and looked down. There was no wound, there wasn’t even any blood. Why wasn’t there any blood? When he saw the boar coming at him, he got nervous and tripped over a tree root backing up, the boar had definitely gored him. Speaking of the boar.

He sat up quickly, eyes darting around franticly. He couldn’t see the boar, he couldn’t see his brother, and hell there was nothing too see at all except an endless expanse of white. Up down left right was all a uniform white.

“Hello,” he called “Jeff, are you here bro?” there was no answer for a long moment and then.

“Hello, Benjamin Vryce. Please take a seat and wait while the others are readied. The Arbiter will address you shortly” the voice seemed to come from his own head. He hadn’t heard anyone speak and there was nothing visible in the white expanse.

“What? Who’s there, what’s an Arbiter, and how am I supposed to sit? There’s nothing here…” his voice trailed off mid-sentence. An off-white metal folding chair had appeared before him, he didn’t even remember blinking, and it was just there.

“Alright then, guess I’ll just…sit down.” He was totally out of his depth here and didn’t know how to handle this situation. Granted he didn’t know how to handle most situations; it was in large part the reason he spent all of his time in front of his computer and not out interacting with people. It felt safer to him then going to a bar, the movies, or hunting wild boar with a fucking spear, Jeff!

He sat down, and immediately felt better. His heart-rate slowed down, his panic dissipated and he wasn’t quite so worried about where he was anymore. In the back of his mind, he knew this wasn’t natural, but he couldn’t bring himself to worry about it. He waited.

An indeterminate amount of time later a large television screen appeared in front of Benjamin. The picture it showed was of an equally empty expanse of white. There was nothing to differentiate what he saw through the screen from what was on this side, but somehow, he knew that what he was looking at was somewhere else.

As he watched with that unnatural calm still settled over him, a door appeared on the screen. It was the finest artwork that Benjamin had ever seen. Beautifully aged wood carved with creatures he couldn’t name; inlaid with gold and silver and gems in colors he hadn’t known existed. He stared transfixed at the door so lost in its intricate design that when it started to open out towards him, he thought the carvings had come to life.

That image was shattered when the sharply dressed Asian man walked through the doorway and it winked out of existence behind him. Benjamin had to blink a few times to refocus. Too many impossible things were happening back-to-back and he was losing his center.

A few deep breaths later the calm reasserted itself over his mind. The Asian man stood silently for a long moment framed in the screen. It almost seemed to Benjamin that the figure had been waiting for him to calm down before he spoke. The man gave a slight bow to the screen, hands at his sides and back straight.

“Greetings Souls of Earth” the man said upon rising. “You have been chosen by the creator to be given a chance to serve him, and I am here as the Arbiter of his will.” The Arbiter stopped after speaking and frowned into the screen for a moment before continuing.

“Miss Benz, I am afraid that you being an atheist, an activist and a senator’s daughter means absolutely nothing to your current situation and I would ask that you SIT DOWN so that I may continue.” After that little outburst he cleared his throat awkwardly and adjusted his tie.

Benjamin noticed that his left hand was missing its pinky finger. He remembered seeing something like that in a manga series he used to read. The Yakuza did that to themselves when they really screwed up, did that mean he had been abducted by Japanese gangsters?

“I apologize for the interruption, going forward any time I address you by name you will be the only one who hears that part of our conversation.” Benjamin didn’t know how he would manage that but it wouldn’t be the strangest thing that had happened in the last hour.

“I will stick to what is important for you to know right now, we can go over all the little details later. The first thing that you need to know is that, Yes, you are dead. Wherever you where before you woke up here, whatever crazy dream you thought you were having, it was real and you are no longer alive.” The Arbiter’s form froze on the screen at that point, like someone hit the pause button.

Dead? Benjamin didn’t want to believe it, but he knew how bad he had been mauled. The likelihood of him getting to a hospital before he bled out was slim, especially when he factored in they had walked for nearly forty-five minutes before getting to his brother’s hunting spot.

“Ah Mr. Vryce. Age thirty-two, unmarried and unemployed. After your parents’ deaths you seem to have spent most of your time playing online war games. Except the rare occasions when your brother dragged you out of the house to go hunting.” The screen had unfrozen and the Arbiter now stood holding a clipboard of all things in his left hand, slowly flipping through its pages. “You seem to be adjusting very well to the situation. That is a desirable trait to have should you continue onward.”

“Continue onward, what does that mean?” Benjamin asked shocked that this man knew so much about him and doing his best to keep that calm he had just been complemented on.

“All in good time Mr. Vryce. Now if you will excuse me,” and his image froze once more. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that Benjamin somewhat lost his cool after that.

By the time the Arbiter’s image unfroze a second time Benjamin had regained his composure and was ready for an explanation.

“Sorry for the delay, many of your number have decided not to remain with us I’m afraid.”

Benjamin was confused by that; he hadn’t been given the option to leave. If he didn’t know any better, he would have said the Arbiter had cut the conversation short before that could come up.

“For those of you who remain, I will make this quick. Your Earth is but a small part in a vast universe. The creator chose to only populate your one planet in that entire universe and kept it separated from the outer realm and the attached multiverse. This is a vast topic so I will move on for now.” The Arbiter was still holding his clip board randomly flipping through pages as he spoke seemingly paying little attention to his audience.

“Many of the older universes are slowly being corrupted. One in particular is farther gone then the others and its inhabitance, the World Lords, have asked the creator for help. that’s where you come in, you were chosen to help the World Lords fight the corruption in their universe should you choose to do so.”

Benjamin was reeling. Such a bomb shell to drop on them, and to do it so casually, the Arbiter wasn’t even looking at them. After the shock started to be suppressed again by the chairs influence Benjamin began to wonder what help a shut in like him could be to beings called World Lords.

“Yes, I am going to tell you why, so please settle down.” It seemed like Benjamin wasn’t the only one shocked and confused. “You are all Old Souls, each of you has lived and died at least two hundred times. What’s more, most if not all, of those lives have been spent in some form of combat. Soldiers, warriors, pirates, bandits, samurai. Your Souls always gravitate to fighting in some way.”

Benjamin could kind of understand that. He had always loved online war games and felt that he was meant to do more then sit in his parent’s old house playing video games, but the one time that it had mattered and his life was on the line he had choked, and it had killed him.

“I believe I have given you all enough information to make a choice at this point.” The Arbiter waved his right hand and a portal filled with a blinding white light appeared on Benjamins left side. The Arbiter then waved his left hand, clipboard having disappeared again at some point, and a plain wooden door appeared on Benjamin’s right.

“Should you wish to pretend that this conversation never happened step into the light. Your current lives are over and will remain so, however you will be placed back into the cycle of rebirth on Earth and forget this ever happened. Should you wish to learn more or be more then another powerless Soul on your small planet, step into the wooden door. I will await the brave and adventurous on the other side.” With those final words the screen winked out of existence, leaving Benjamin alone with his choice.