If we were to put our all into finding a way to kill Arax, we needed to pool all of the resources we had on hand, and this included Oryn, the town’s one and only script researcher. Whether he would actually be able to help us in any meaningful way was yet to be seen, but I wasn’t conceited enough to think that a beginner won’t be able to contribute something. I had also kind of promised him that he would be able to leave prison soon, and a week had already passed since then.

I watched Bren unlock the door to Oryn’s cell, and it opened with a loud creaking sound. What came into view was a depressed looking priest, sitting on the floor, staring downwards. While the cell door was creaking closed behind me, I walked up to him, and he slowly raised his head. His expression gradually started to shift, from confusion, over curiosity, to surprise, to finally...

“Mr. Remor!” he exclaimed, a wide smile on his face. “You’re here!”

“Yup.”

“May I help you with another experiment!?” he asked, as if that was all he needed in his life.

“Kind of.”

“Wonderful!”

His very first thought was more experiments, even above going home. One had to wonder whether prison had been bad for him. He was weird before, but it definitely hadn’t gotten better. Or was this our fault? Maybe our last excursion was a bit much for him? Whatever the case, we could at least be pretty sure this guy wouldn’t try any funny business, fearing that we might cut him off.

‘Damn creep.’

Tomar also wasn’t a fan, but he was coming around, understanding a bit better now that Oryn was just a maniac, who would do basically anything to further his Omega research. Not necessarily a great trait, but one we could surely work around.

“Actually, I’m here to get you out. You’re moving back to the temple if you want.”

“Oh! Even better!”

Maybe his smile would’ve widened further upon hearing this news, but that wasn’t physically possible.

“However, there’s a few rules.”

I told him in no uncertain terms that he was not allowed to ever do anything to any unwilling participants ever again, be they lawful citizens or criminals. I also made him promise to not execute any scripts unknown to him without proper safety precautions anymore.

The way he executed the script I gave him back then ended up a stroke of luck for me and Liliana, but it was objectively crazy. Even I didn’t know what exactly would happen to him, and I at least understood what I had written. His first use of a water source script probably hadn’t gone better either. Actually, we knew that it had been bad, because we did visit his room once, and there was a large hole in the wall, partially covered by a blanket. Nobody had been hurt, but he could’ve easily killed innocent people. We couldn’t have him act like that anymore.

“Of course! I promise!” he said, nodding vigorously. “And if, maybe, you find it in your heart to teach me more about the scripture sigils, I might not even have to think about such measures anymore!”

Cheeky.

“We’ll see. But first we’ll learn everything you know.”

Oryn looked shocked. “Y-you... You want to learn from me? What could I possibly know that you don’t?”

“That’s what I intend to find out. I heard that you destroyed all of the temple’s books and notes on the scripture sigils during your research. But knowing you, you probably know every single word by heart, right?”

“I do. It’s unfortunate that I didn’t have time to rewrite everything yet, but all of it is yours of course.”

Throw in your first born while you’re at it, I thought with a sigh.

Maybe I shouldn’t have complained, but this level of desperation was not nice to look at. It really did feel as if he would do absolutely anything if we would just let him in on our secrets.

“Alright then, let’s get out of here,” I said and crouched down.

I unlocked the shackles binding him and took a step back. Finally free, he staggered to his feet. Standing on shaky legs, he glanced up at me. Gratefulness and hope in his eyes.

‘If we were to turn on him now... It would crush him, right?’

That’s... a dark thought.

I didn’t respond to his hypothetical, but he was probably right. Though it was a bit weird hearing these words from Tomar. Then again, he did tell Oryn that he would never forgive him for what he did. And maybe just knowing that we had full control over him would help.

Turning around, I stepped towards the door to leave, and I heard Oryn’s steps behind me. Just before I could open it, however, a weird feeling rolled over me. Something ominous suddenly filled the room. While I instinctively knew that this energy couldn’t come from Oryn, I couldn’t think of any other source, seeing how we were alone in the cell. At least that’s what I thought, until there was a sudden outcry from the other side of it.

“Master!”

That voice...

I swiveled around in an instant, and my eyes met a set of shining, blue gems, set in the head of a translucent, humanoid body. The eye color and the voice gave away who this was, but he looked very different from the other times we met him, and he felt entirely different as well.

“It is you, right?” Gallas asked. “It must be.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked, furrowing my brows.

He’s picking up the discussion where we left off... Why did he leave then?

Oryn had been staring at Gallas as well, but now turned around to look at me in wonder. Disliking the fact that I had to constantly be careful about what I said, because there were always other people present when he appeared, I gestured with my eyes that we couldn’t talk freely like this. He understood what I was getting at.

“I’m sorry. But I don’t have a lot of time, so I couldn’t wait any longer for a chance to meet you alone. Please tell me, do you remember anything from before you got here? Do you—”

“Stop,” I commanded and looked at Oryn. “You. Out.”

“W-what? But I...” he stammered, very clearly wishing to hear the rest of this conversation.

“I’m not going to ask a second time.”

“Very well...”

With a hung head, he walked around me and opened the door.

“Bren,” I said as Oryn took a step outside, “wait with him down the hallway, I’ll be right there.”

“Underst—”

Before he could look inside, I closed the door, took a deep breath and finally turned around towards Gallas once more.

“May I? We really do have to hurry,” he said.

Nodding, I wondered what might come out of his mouth next. Though I was also distracted by his look. I hadn’t seen anything like it yet, but this was how Lilana had described the gods in her dreams. No aura, no mana, no white shine, just translucent bodies. Except for the eyes. These we were also seeing for the first time though, because they were usually covered by mana for us.

“You sent him out... Does that mean you do remember something you don’t want him to know?”

“No, I just don’t want that guy to know anything yet.”

“I see. You did lose your memory then. Master. Your name is Miles, you’re from Earth, sixty years old, you were a coder most of your life, and your favorite programming language is Omega. You had a dog, a cat, and you shared a house with your little sister. Correct?”

“Right...”

Lost memory? Okay, listing things you know about me, to confirm your suspicions and get me to trust whatever else comes next, makes sense. Could be a trick though, I told the others that much about me. He could’ve—

“Foobar!” he suddenly yelled out.

I stared at him blankly. “Excuse me?”

“I said ‘foobar!’ That... That’s correct, isn’t it?”

“It is... You’re saying I told you about that?”

“Yes. I didn’t understand why back then, but maybe it was for this exact moment! So you would know you can trust me!”

That word was part of a thought experiment I once had with my sister. If, at any time, for whatever reason, someone would have to prove that I could trust them, if I had been able to tell them something, but didn’t remember, they were to use that word. And as long as I didn’t forget about that, I would at the very least know that my past self trusted them. Granted, we were thinking about time travel at the time, but I realized that memory loss worked just as well. We were also not considering potential mindreaders, however.

“The thing is, that might work on Earth, but in a world where beasts can literally read your mind, things are a little different,” I said.

“Read minds? Master, what are you talking about?”

He doesn’t know? Or he’s trying to hide it. But why? Fucking guessing games.

Just two hours earlier he had tried to send me away once more, until he heard my name, and now he was trying to get me to trust him. I also did have memories I couldn’t place, including these dreams Lilana had had, which nobody could explain. There really was something missing. Lastly, there was that comment from Hati’s leader, about a Miles who he called “the creator.” Was that me? If so, what did I create? Gallas kept calling me “master,” so was I a god before? This was the most important information I needed for the moment.

“Why are you calling me master?”

“Because you are the creator of this world and everything in it. The architect who created Erinn three thousand years ago.”

‘What?’ Tomar yelled out.

“I created this world? Me?”

“Yes, master.”

“This buggy mess? A world without rivers and rain? Where humans have to hide behind walls to not get eaten by monsters? And people are sacrificed regularly? That’s what I created?”

“No!” He quickly tried to correct me. “I mean... It didn’t start out that way at least, but that’s what it turned into, based on a few... flaws in the system.”

Supposedly, I had created everything. It’s not that this interpretation of “the creator” hadn’t crossed my mind, especially given the many concepts found around here that made perfect sense to me, such as the design of the magic language, but it was an outlandish thought.

Frozen in place, I mentally went over everything that happened in the past few months once more. Assuming this was in any way realistic, how much of the crap that happened to us had been caused by sloppy programming on my side? And if I was some being even above the gods of this world, why was I even down here? Also, why didn’t I remember anything? I was probably silent for a solid minute before Gallas tried to get my attention again.

“Master? There’s much more we need to discuss.”

“Okay... but first of all, stop calling me master. I hate that.”

Hearing these words, a wide smile crept onto Gallas’ face.

“It really is you.”