Contractual Obligations

At the end of what felt like hours of discussion, most of which was fruitless, I had gleaned the following information:

1. I was pulled from World Eighty-Two—a knock-off Earth variant because I wasn’t important enough to even be from the original Earth in this story world. From there, I was transported into the cosmos surrounding my fantasy world of Esseria, which had become a reality due to my writing it. She went on to talk about Tahvin-variants in other worlds, writing the same story and cosmic-density-whatever—honestly, I kind of zoned out here. But apparently, enough versions of me all thought really hard on the same story and that made it real.

2. Phyllis brought me here to guarantee that the ‘Ruby Prophecy’ went off without a hitch. Why me? Well, allegedly, I was the specific version of me that wrote that piece into being. Even though I hadn’t even begun writing it yet! That’s what I get for writing chapters out of order, I guess.

3. Not everything in this world was exactly as I wrote it. Some things would be slightly different because other versions of me had also authored this story. At the same time, some things changed because this was also a living, breathing world—with real people living in it and real consequences to actions. So, I’d need to be careful not to disrupt the natural flow of this world’s story.

4. There was no going back to Earth—erm, World Eighty-Two. My life there was over, and my life here was beginning. As an added note, if I died here, the chance of me going to one of this reality’s many heavens or hells was zero. My soul would be lost to eternal damnation in the void. Fun.

5. Finally, as was the case with everyone of importance in this world, Phyllis had a deal for me.

“A contract with you?” I said with a grimace. “Sounds sketchy.”

Phyllis' contracts were, in simple terms, predatory. Hundreds of pages of fine print, artistic flourishes in the corners which were, in fact, super fine print addenda, and thousands of ‘catch-22s’ and ‘gotchas.’ You needed to be a seasoned lawyer just to follow the legalese that read more like a stream of consciousness than a contractual obligation.

That wasn’t to say that her deals didn’t have their benefits for the signee. Often, due to her age and abundant resources, having Phyllis as a patron meant that an adventuring party was all but guaranteed to succeed at nearly any task. But that also meant they had to deal with the eccentric Phyllis regularly and put up with her unusual machinations.

“Yes, you know, a pretty standard contract,” Phyllis smirked, and with a tap of her walker, the table whined under the weight of the paperwork dropped on it. “Nothing more than fifteen percent of your soul.”

“Ah, so an Eighty-Two-A then, huh?” I grinned, looking deep into her single, visible topaz eye. “Standard fifteen percent in exchange for what? Two hundred years of service? With a reanimation—not resurrection—clause?”

“Good, you are the real deal.” Phyllis tapped the table, and the contract disappeared in a burst of pink flames. “I’m old. I had to be sure I nabbed the correct Tahvin. But, since you’re obviously so well versed in my dealings, how about a Two-Fifty-Six-C with a Non-Compete Clause and access to my warehouse.”

“We both know your warehouse hasn’t been accessible since the Divinity Wars thirteen thousand years ago.”

Phyllis grumbled, leaning back into a seat and crossing her arms.

“Okay, fine, big boy, what do you want?”

“A Ninety-Nine-Z with the Act of God Clause enabled.”

We both knew what this meant, and I could see Phyllis slyly trying to lick her dry lips as the prospect was presented.

The Ninety-Nine-Z contract was a high-risk, high-reward deal. Phyllis would give me unlimited access to her stores and mini-mall dimension, the best current deals, free rein to do what I thought best for her and myself, and the ability to buy myself out of the contract whenever I wished.

The Act of God Clause, on top of this, enabled a safety net if some divine cataclysm or act threatened my life before I could achieve Phyllis’ goals. If I died at no fault of my own, Phyllis was on the hook to resurrect me as I was currently and not reincarnate me into another body or reanimate me into an undead corporate shill. And all it cost me was the low-low price of one hundred percent of my soul as collateral.

That last part usually scared people, but unless you broke the contract, Phyllis actually took relatively good care of the souls she owned. After all, she wouldn’t have lived through every age of this world without being able to manage a soul bargain. I would simply have to make sure to remain on the up-and-up when it came to her payments. No dodging calls like I did with family.

Oh, nice, I found a way to escape them. Sweet—

“What’s a soul going for nowadays anyway?” I asked.

Phyllis’ eye flared, and I felt my body warm. It was like someone had covered me in a heated anxiety blanket.

In an instant, I was both comfortable and constricted. Then, as quickly as it began, the feeling flowed out from me and down my leg like a trickle of liquid.

I instinctively checked to make sure I hadn’t relieved myself.

“Current demonic market value for your soul is around eight hundred thousand gold coins.” Phyllis tapped her walker once more, and a new contract appeared. This one was much smaller than the last, with only a dozen pages of fine-print legal nonsense.

I scanned the paperwork, trying to keep myself awake long enough to check the known hiding places of fine print. Though Phyllis didn’t make that part easy, as she usually didn’t. If she wasn’t singing sweet lullabies, she was insulting me to hurry up.

But eventually, I signed in triplicate, initialled in two dozen spots, and with the last ‘i’ dotted, the contract glowed a brilliant amber-gold.

A beam of radiant light connected it to me and then to Phyllis. With that, I watched as a globule of honey-like energy transferred from my heart directly into her mouth.

“Nom-nom-nom!” She grumbled excitedly.

The instant she consumed the orb, Phyllis stood just a bit taller. As though someone moved an age-reversing slider, her wrinkles faded, eyes opened, and a new vigour washed over her. White hair became a dull pink, and sagging ears tightened up. She still looked old, but no longer did she appear ancient.

“Oh yeah, that’s the good stuff! Mwahahahaha!” She cried out. With a single bound, she leapt from her seat and stood atop my table. “That was tasty; I don’t feel a day over three thousand! Godsdamn, World Eight-Two souls are delicious. It must be all those saturated fates.”

“Don’t you mean fats?”

“No!” Phyllis exclaimed before shoving her fist into my chest.

I didn’t have time to react as she took hold of my heart and firmly squeezed it.

“Gah!” I coughed as her sharp nails gripped around the actively pumping organ.

“Sit still! Stop squirming, yuh’baby.” She hissed, flexing her fingers in an alternating pattern. “I have to inscribe the God Clause on your heart.”

“My heart and not my soul?” I groaned through the uncomfortable pressure I was experiencing.

Was this what a heart attack felt like?

“Soul? Boy, I have that now. So, if you’ve got enough energy to ask stupid questions, you should have enough to stop squirming! There you go, we’re done.”

Phyllis removed her hand and, with a whip of her wrist, splattered some of my blood over the nearby tables.

She then took a moment to explain that, as part of the contract, there was no rush to complete the prophetic task ahead of me. She insisted that I first swindle a triop of misfit scumbags to join me on a fun adventure and go find a dungeon or slay a dragon. Ultimately, Phyllis wanted me to do something to ease into the world I now lived in.

But, with that said, we both knew that this world was set to go from a fragile peace to a grand cosmic war over the next six to seven years, so time wasn’t really on my side.

As such, due to her pulling me here against my will and potentially altering the delicate future of this world, she had decided to give me a signing bonus. Luckily for me, this included more than simply a coupon to her store but also a few months of martial and magical knowledge instantly applied to my muscle memory.

“What?” I asked as Phyllis shoved her hand once more into my chest, this time gripping something deeper and foreign inside of me. “Gah! Stop doing that!”

“Shut up, yuh’baby!”