The void was all around me. Nothingness. No sensation, no sense of weight or distance.

Black.

It was strange to be here again. Back where it all started.

If I relaxed my mind, it was almost like everything that had come to pass was a fever dream, and I was reset to the frantic moments after the meteor. In reality, it wasn’t the same. The overload of panic and existential terror was entirely absent.

I’d gotten used to it. Accepting the unknown was almost automatic.

The text loomed in front of me, magnified several times larger than what I’d grown accustomed to on the system overlay.

When I went to select the only option, I was surprised to find the text field empty. Before, the options had all been selected for me. They’d all been answers I likely would have selected if I was being completely and totally honest with both the questions and myself, but generally things I never would have admitted to. Other Users had similar experiences.

Maybe that was meant to be a safeguard. There was no way I’d have taken it seriously enough to answer honestly the first time around.

Given the lack of mouth, I didn’t speak so much as focus my thoughts on the text. “Yes.”

I waited.

The window snapped shut. Confusion formed the beginnings of alarm as it became clear something was wrong. This was either a malfunction or something worse.

“Hello?”

There was no response. The silence dragged out long enough for my alarm to turn to dread. If something went fundamentally wrong, did that mean I was stuck here? Forever catatonic in my bed.

Suddenly, the text reappeared.

“No.”

A quiet anger swept over me. Apparently, the old saying held true. Three people could keep a secret if two of them were dead. Even in the realm of gods. And I was getting really fucking tired of deific interference.

More importantly, I needed to know if Nychta had intentionally set me up to fail.

“And what, if I may ask, would have happened without this intercession?”

“If I’m filling in the gaps correctly, the gods use the Null to grant classes to mortals?”

He was including himself in that, of course. Letting me know he wasn’t a lesser god without saying it.

Something crucial occurred to me. When I’d spoken to the Allfather at the shrine of elevation, his message text had been capitalized. The same held true for my initial venture into this place, after the meteor, and when I’d awoken the Ordinator’s summoner variant. It was just a guess, but a grounded one. The Allfather had been my proctor the first time around, and continued to directly oversee anything to do with my advancement as an Ordinator.

“How do we proceed?” I asked.

The vein above my brow would have popped out, if I had a forehead to speak of.

“First, I’m assuming if you wanted me to know who you were, you would have told me. Your associates—“

I sighed. “The other gods haven’t been shy when it came to introductions. Figured that came with the territory. Secondly, I’m pretty sure you want something. Nychta emphasized that I’m marked. I’m assuming when she told you about me—even though I really wish she hadn’t—she did so with confidence you’d keep it to yourself. Not that I have any clue what any of you actually want. Or expect for this to be my last deific house-call.”

:)

The symbol appeared on its own, floating towards me in the void before dissipating to nothing. Something flashed through my mind. An image in the hotel lobby of the same symbol emblazoned on a metal backplate behind the reception desk.

“Nychta didn’t tell you about me. You told her.”

“Business?”

While the entity talked to itself, I spoke again. “Are you willing to tell me anything about the game? Or my brother’s class?”

The text paused.

I sighed. “Figured—“

A cold chill went through me. “And if you were being so unspeakably unprofessional, what would you advise the supplicant to do with this information?”

Behind the babbling text, I sensed a grain of truth. It was dubious. This entity wasn’t my friend, and had already admitted they weren’t above lying for their own amusement. But the already significant concern I felt for Ellison had grown exponentially.

“I mean, I’m not opposed to a resource gathering class.”

A wall of laughter scrolled, long and excessive. If I had a body, there was no question I’d be in cold sweats right about now. When the text returned, it was all business.

I hesitated. On the surface, it looked the same as the sheep and wolf question from the first go around. Only, it wasn’t. Hawks were generally fiercely solitary and territorial. By contrast, ravens weren’t nearly as passive as sheep. They weren’t necessarily birds of prey, but in addition to scavenging, they did hunt. Sometimes alone, sometimes cooperatively. And their cleverness was well documented.

“Raven.”

Good. A softball.

There was a common undercurrent of thought that more severe penalties worked as a deterrent for criminals. If I remembered correctly, this wasn’t the case. Surprisingly, it did almost nothing to reduce recidivism, either. It just made people more likely to commit additional crimes to cover it up. If the penalty for robbing someone is already horrific, you’re much better off just killing them after to reduce the chances of being caught.

“Reformation.”

I wanted to roll my eyes. “Really? We’re doing Theseus?”

Another philosophical problem with a twist. The unaltered version didn’t refer to man at all, rather whether a ship that had all its components replaced over time was the same ship. There wasn’t a correct answer to the paradox. This version was further complicated because the question made no reference to the man’s brain. No notable damage or otherwise. And with the brain being key to who we are, it was entirely valid to argue that he was the same.

I changed my answer at the last moment. “No. He’s not the same.”

It was a struggle to put it into words. “My reasoning has nothing to do with the replacements from the surgery. And there’s no mention of brain damage. But his mind won’t be the same. Trauma and hardship always catalyze change. Good or bad. And after an accident of that severity, grieving over what he lost, and undergoing treatments and exhaustive physical therapy? I can’t imagine anyone would come out unaltered.”

Before I could respond, the darkness faded, and I jolted upright in bed.