Shin slept, but the System did not.

“What the fuck, dude,” the Sky Voice scowled, the clear annoyance in its voice shrieking as it gained sentience, “I spent like a whole day watching Feldspar like you said to, but they never came.”

The Empty Voice let out a tsk that doomed a man somewhere in the world it had never even met. “You gotta get better about checking your in-game mail. Sure, it was a bit last minute, but I absolutely told you they were blinking to Anyport instead.”

“Bluh, fuckin’...Feldspar is so boring.” Sky Voice huffed, snuffing out the hideous life the annoyance-being had never asked for. “I guess it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. D.H. never sent a welcoming party.”

“What? Yes he did. I know he did.” Empty Voice leaned forward, forcing the world to slam into the moon. “You get what happened, right? The kobold’s pack of woodland murderers must have waylaid them. I’d bet you anything that they’re all buried in some shallow grave in the woods behind the mines.”

“Seriously? So I could’ve been watching…hmph. Well, whatever.” Sky Voice straightened up, reordering the cosmos into a perfectly ordered algorithm. “You had a report?”

“Oh yeah. It’s all going down any time now. Just depends on how long Majesty’s line is today.”

“Yeah? Are you any closer to deciding which angle you’re taking on this whole thing?”

Empty Voice sounded uncharacteristically hesitant, every being in existence temporarily losing the ability to exhale as it considered the question. “Nnnnno. I don’t think so. Still too many possibilities. Big Dog is interesting, but D.H. is a known quantity, you know?”

“Well you better hurry up. My boss is already annoyed that you’re pitching a new Raid while the whole Demon King thing is just hanging around like an unflushed shit.”

“Wow. Yes, my efforts really are like a rotting toilet load. Such poetry. Truly, I’ll never understand why your application to the Writing Team was rejected.”

Sky Voice snorted, and the sun imploded. “Fuck you.”

“Oh no, my friend. Fuck y–”

——————————————————————————————

Shin woke up in a cold sweat, strangling on his own yelp as his fingers dug into the wood of his armrest. He darted his eyes left and right, his still half-asleep mind dementedly certain that one of his neighbors knew what he’d been listening in on, was absolutely going to rat him out. But no; the turbaned man was distractedly cleaning his fingernails and Momo was still cuddled up against Mimasu, the other kobolds enjoying a significantly less intense slumber than Shin had experienced.

The rigors of travel and the sudden jump to endless day had taken its toll on the Shinki Itten contingent, and Shin wasn’t surprised that the others had also dozed off almost immediately after Ann’s big moment. He’d hoped a quick nap would be the refresher he needed, but his inexplicable link to the moderator chat nipped that hope in the bud.

Still, these little peepshows into the private conversations of the moderators were a burden Shin could bear, so long as they contained useful information. But when they mostly consisted of idle suggestions that he and everyone he’d ever known might be killed or erased, that burden was a little more than he cared for.

Restless as it was, at least his troubled nap had been a way to pass the time. How much closer to the front of the receiving line were they now? Shin craned his neck towards the end of the balcony, frowning to find it looked more or less the same. “Has no one gone this whole time?”

“Nope,” Bittercup remarked, slowly flipping a page in her book. “Still just Players.”

“Goddess.” Shin ran a hand down his face before squinting down at the throne room, desperately attempting to will the plate-armored human kneeling before King Majesty to accept his medal faster. “This is really just–”

–Wait. What’s different here?

It took Shin a moment to realize it was the Princess. Was that the Princess? When Balanthora had her moment, the girl standing at King Majesty’s side had been a regal, almost reserved looking young woman, her cool beauty merely the ribbon on a personage that radiated dignity and competence.

Now though? This was either an entirely different person, or Shin wasn’t as good at telling the difference between humans as he’d thought.

Gone was the long auburn hair tied back in an elegant braid, a wild mane of curling strawberry blonde locks cascading everywhere in its place. Gone was the lissome, willowy body in a fashionable-if-demure dress, replaced by a riot of lush curves barely contained by a bodice that could generously be called scandalous. Gone was the air of cultivated capability, the eyes that spoke of a woman raised from birth to one day hold the most important position in all of Magica. In its place were a pair of sparkling baby-blue eyes that spoke of almost nothing at all, besides a desire to giggle and twist a finger in her hair and thrust out her chest as far as she could manage. Which, it turned out, was quite far.

“Bittercup,” Shin whispered, “Does the Princess have a…cousin or something?”

“Eh?” The elf looked up from her book long enough to scan the situation at the throne. “Nope. That’s still the Princess.”

“Really? Then why…” Shin trailed off as the armored Player rose, winking roguishly at the swooning supposed-Princess before turning to leave. Wait, there didn’t seem to be another Player behind him. Did that mean the line was finally going to move? He turned his head to grin at the man beside him. “About time, right?”

To his mild surprise, Shin found the man pointedly averting his eyes from King Majesty’s dais. The kobold blinked as he crane his head a bit further; was everybody looking away? Still partially asleep as he was, Shin dazedly swiveled his eyes back to the throne. “What are you all–”

“Shin don’t look at the–” Bittercup’s warning came too late, and Shin’s now very much awake eyes were helplessly locked on the Princes. She was everything all at once, a storm of limbs shapes that endlessly collapsed into new shapes even as she melted away into the next. Now she was a shy brunette, now she was a jumble of hair and eyes. Now she was the right half of a tall blonde, now she was a floating nervous system.

On and on she jumbled and swirled, contorting this way and that in a cacophony of flesh until she finally splattered in on herself, leaving behind an ordinary girl in a drab white dress so nondescript that she nearly slipped out of Shin’s brain even as he stared at her. She had neck-length hair the color of mud, eyes so dull that they lacked any color at all, and the single most bored expression Shin had ever seen in his entire life.

Shin quickly realized two things. One, barely more than a moment had passed. And two, he was going to vomit.

“Bags are under the seats,” the man beside him offered helpfully.

Bittercup winced sympathetically as Shin fumbled his designated bag out and quickly set about filling it. “Sorry, I should have warned you. You shouldn’t look at the Princess right as the last Player leaves. Guess I don’t need to tell you why.”

“No,” Shin groaned, shakily sealing up his vomit bag. “But if you’ve got a ‘what’ jangling around in you somewhere, I’d be thrilled to hear it.”

“Oh.” The elf took a moment, seemingly deciding how best to put it. “Well, the Princess is a Destined Heart? That means she’s not really one person.”

“You have to do better than that.”

Bittercup scowled. “Look, I’m not an expert on this stuff, alright? Basically she’s tailored to each Player who’s willing to pay a certain amount. They get to pick how she looks, her personality, her name…everything, really. But that,” –Bittercup nodded down towards the unremarkable girl scuffing her feet sullenly on the dais– “Is what she looks like in the absence of a Player, and the System sort of freaks out when she goes from one state to another.”

How the shit did that work? What happened when there were two Players at once? Did one take precedence, or did they both see something different? Shin had no clue, but for once he found his curiosity was easy to ignore. The memory of her transformation was still fresh in his mind, after all, and even now looking at the Princess made the kobold want to vomit again.

“Hey there, friend; you’re looking a bit pale,” Shin’s neighbor remarked. “Maybe you should take the air for a bit.”

Shin sighed. “Thanks, but I just want to get through this. I don’t want to lose our spot in line, you know?”

The man waved off the kobold’s concerns. “No, no; it’s fine. We’re really good about honoring placings in line up here in the balcony.”

“It’s true,” agreed another man a bit further down, raising his hand to get the attention of a nearby servant. “One of these guys can give you a Sending Sheet; it’ll light up when you’re like third in line. Just come back pretty soon after you’re called for and you won’t miss out.”

“Really?” Shin didn’t hate the idea. He wasn’t particularly used to chairs, and in general didn’t care to be around things that made him vomit on sight. “Momo did say she wanted to visit the Temple…” He perked his ears towards Bittercup. “What do you think?”

“We might as well,” She replied, slipping a marker into her book before reaching out to give Momo a firm prod in the shoulder. “Hey! Do you want to go do God stuff?”

“Mm?” Momo drowsily yawned, managing a nod. “Y’sure.”

“Notes!” Mimasu yelped, bolting awake as Momo shifted. “Sending’m! I’m…” He gave himself a quick shake before his bleary eyes came to rest on the bag still clutched in Shin’s hands. “Is that…?”

“No, it’s not.” Shin rose from his seat, quickly exchanging the bag for the Sending Sheet offered by an understandably nonplussed servant. “Now let’s get out of here before I make any more of the thing that totally wasn’t.”

Mimi shrugged, still blinking the sleep out of his eyes. “I don’t get it? But okay!”

‘I don’t get it; Okay’. Words to live by.

——————————————————————————————

It couldn’t have been more than half a day since they’d arrived in Magica City, but Shin was already convinced he didn’t like it. The crowds, the smells, the increasingly oppressive sunshine; it all added up to an assault on the senses he found deeply unpleasant. The moment this was all done with, Shin wanted nothing more than to sit by a pond by himself, quietly sniffing a cup of tea as dusk settled soothingly across his shoulders.

Still. He was here, and he might as well learn what he could. “Isn’t it odd,” he called out to Bittercup as the group weaved through the crowded street, “That the Temple is so close to the castle? Wouldn’t you think that it would have its own district?”

“Sure, that would make sense,” the elf agreed, “But only if you think of Magica City as an organic city. Which it very much isn’t. The whole place is laid out so the most important things Players need are all right next to each other. Quests, Trainers, Healing, whatever; they’re all within brisk walk of each other.”

“Huh,” Shin mused, sidestepping a bull-horned man carrying a massive crate of tomatoes. “Don’t Players pay to come here?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Well, you’d think then that they’d make everything as far apart as they could manage. So Players wasted time running around and wound up spending more.”

“That is devious,” Gero marveled, Mimasu furiously scribbling down Shin’s devilish wisdom. “We’re so lucky that you don’t run the world.”

“Gero, you’ve got no idea.”

“Well just don’t show too much of this side of you while we’re at the Temple, Shin,” Momo archly remarked, “I want to impress my new God Friends.”

“Just tell them he’s a reprobate that you’re rehabilitating,” Gero suggested, her eyes twinkling. “It’s mostly the truth. He threw up in front of the king!”

Goddess, he’d given Gero a new piece of ammunition. Shin quickly attempted to change the subject. “This setup has its advantages too, I suppose. If you clump all the Player stuff in one place, that means the residential areas and other parts of the city for the citizens will be a bit less rowdy.”

“Residential?” Bittercup very nearly tilted her head; she’s been spending too much time around kobolds. “What residential areas?”

“You know, where the people live?”

“Oh. Player Housing is right off of the harbor.”

Shin’s ears flattened slightly. “Not for Players. I mean for people. Regular people.”

Bittercup considered that. “I don’t know if Magica City has that.”

“You don’t know if…” Shin’s ears flattened fully. “What do you mean, ‘you don’t know Magica City has that’? People have to live somewhere, don’t they?” The kobold already knew what Bittercup’s response would be, waving his hand reproachfully. “Yes yes, I know. You aren’t an expert on this stuff. Sorry.”

The elf accepted Shin’s apology with good grace, but couldn’t help his mood taking a dark turn. The Schemer gazed across the street at a jovial looking man selling skewers of meat; where did he go at night, once he’d finished selling for the day? Or did he go anywhere at all, seeing as there was no night? Maybe everyone in Magica City worked in shifts, or…

“Okay everyone,” Momo called out, interrupting Shin’s ponderings, “We’re here. Let’s make a good impression!”

The Great Temple of Magica certainly lived up to its name, a towering cathedral bristling with flying buttresses and pointed arches. Shin vaguely knew that the ten massive figures carved into the face of the holy edifice must be the Great Gods of Magica, though he had to admit he’d given little thought to any dogma besides the admittedly thin teachings of his own Goddess. They each were named All-Something, or something? Shin could probably fake it, right?

Eh. Probably not the best idea to try and guess the name of a God inside their own Temple. Best to just let Momo handle the talking this time.

The hooded attendants flanking either side of the massive entrance bowed their heads briefly as Momo led them inside, the little priestess looking as aloofly regal as Shin had ever seen her. He was delighted to find the inside of the temple cool and quiet, a welcome reprieve from Magica’s intense crowds and mandated daytime. A light scent of burning cassia and myrrh soothed Shin’s senses, as did the light tinkling of some slow, solemn hymn echoing out from deeper within the building.

Gero’s ear perked up, noticing the music at the same time as Shin. “Huh. Does that sound…familiar to anyone?”

Hm. A little? Shin was sure he had no idea where he might have heard it before, though. Instead of giving the matter more thought, he continued to inspect his surroundings. The ground floor was surprisingly bare, little more than a large resting place with unobtrusive alcoves built into the walls for individual prayer. It made sense to Shin; Magica had so many gods that keeping the main level neutral had to have been simpler than giving space to every single one of them.

All in all, it was an oasis for peaceful reflection within the mad hustle and bustle of Magica City. It would have almost been perfect, if it wasn’t for the Players.

To be perfectly fair, the Players in the temple were marginally better behaved than the ones clogging the streets. Perhaps there was some level of divinely mandated decorum at play, but at the very least no one had stripped down to their underwear and begun to dance. Still, the Players stomped here and there with no regard for the ruminative air that had so clearly been cultivated, utterly at odds with their serene surroundings.

“ –So yeah, I totally had a divine revelation,” insisted the Player speaking with what appeared to be a higher authority in the temple, judging by her pristine stole and short miter. “I’m supposed to change gods and shit.”

“I see,” the priestess responded, not looking particularly convinced. “Who were you dedicated to before?”

“Balgrod, God of Murderers.”

“Right. And who are you saying is calling on you?”

“Dwanae, Goddess of Piety.”

“Uh-huh.” The woman pulled off her spectacles, cleaning them off on her robe. “And this has nothing to do with the fact that Balgrod’s divine strength was recently…” She squinted questioningly at the Player. “‘Nerfed’, as you say?”

“Oh no way,” the Player insisted. “Definitely not.”

“And it furthermore doesn’t involve the fact that Dwanae is the ‘new meta’?”

“It sure doesn’t.” He pressed his hands together, as if deep in prayer. “I just love Piety and shit. Always have, I guess. Way more than Murder.”

“Of course.” She slipped her glasses back on. “And just out of curiosity, what is Piety?”

The Player blinked. “It’s, um…the stuff that Dwanae is all about. She just can’t get enough of that shit.”

The priestess sighed. “Alright, well, you’re signing up to worship the Goddess of Being Religious, so maybe try studying this stuff a bit.” She reluctantly waved a hand, casting a corona of shimmering light across the Player’s brow. “There, you’re re-ordained.” Her flippant tone turned serious. “You should be warned, though: the Gods don’t look favorably on those who lack dedication. It may take some time for Dwanae or Balgrod to overlook your–”

“Nah dawg it’s cool; I got this.” The Player pulled a carton of what must have easily been a thousand sticks of incense from his bag, trundling over to an alcove to go about setting them all alight. “Thanks for the God help and shit!”

The priestess sighed again, shaking her head as Momo and the others stepped forward. “Mark my words,” she announced, “That boy will be the First Saint of Dwanae by the end of the night.”

Momo’s mouth quirked into a small smile. “It sounds like Balgrod dodged an arrow. Somehow fitting for the God of Murderers.”

The priestess allowed herself a chuckle, her clever eyes quickly taking in her new acquaintance. “I don’t believe we’ve met? I am High Priestess Frieda, and I have the honor of overseeing daily matters for the Great Temple.”

Momo bowed her head. “And I am High Priestess Momo of Shinki Itten, devoted to Tasan Okaa. It is my pleasure.” She extended an arm behind her, indicating the rest of the contingent. “These are my friends and family. It is an honor for all of us to be here, truly.”

“Well! They certainly teach fine manners in Shinki Itten.” The priestess’s pleased expression turned curious. “Which is where, if you’ll excuse me?”

Momo glanced towards Shin, who quickly cleared his throat. “Roughly a two days’ sail south of Anyport, ma’am.” Goddess, it was a little strange talking to someone he didn’t feel like he could be glib with. The Schemer found he didn’t hate it. “We’re new.”

Frieda clasped her hands together in delight. “Oh, how marvelous! It’s been such a long time since I’ve had this singular pleasure; welcome! Welcome! And Tasan Okaa is your Goddess, of course?” Momo nodded in confirmation, prompting another pleased clap. “Wonderful. Who did she sire from?”

At that, Momo tilted her head. “I’m sorry? Sired from?”

“Yes, who did…oh! That’s my mistake,” Frieda apologized. “That’s a term we use to describe the propagation of the divine.” The priestess took on a somewhat professorial tone. “So when you were first promoted from your starting class to Priestess, did you receive a divine visitation?”

“Oh!” Momo brightened. “That’s what you meant. Sorry, yes, I did!”

“Ah! And who was it that shared their divinity with your nascent Goddess? We consider that to be her ‘sire’, you see, and we can then group you together with–”

“Well that part didn’t happen, though,” Momo confessed. “I definitely communed with some sort of greater power, but I didn’t draw upon that for Tasan Okaa.”

Frieda furrowed her brow. “I don’t see how? That’s the way every offshoot divine being has been formed. The only other way would be–”

Gero snapped her fingers, abruptly interrupting the priestess’s musings. “Ah-ha, that’s it!” She began to hum along with the background hymn, her eyes glimmering as she joined in with the lyrics.

“--can’t rely on spontaneity,

Don’t settle for homogeneity!

Trust the Best: Just use Design-a-Deity!”

She excitedly caught Momo and Shin’s eyes, and the other two kobolds couldn’t resist joining in.

“Design-a-Deity is a registered trademark of Mundi Co LLC all rights reserved!”

The three of them burst into laughter, as much at the old memory as the oddity of hearing the bizarre jingle reworked as a somber hymn. Their amusement faded away, however, when they noticed High Priestess Frieda had collapsed to her knees, a look of rapturous astonishment etched across her every feature.

Whoops. This might count as making too good of an impression.