Rules

Akira looked at the item seated on the floating pedestal, as he wondered how he should get up there.

Thankfully, steps seemingly made out of water appeared in front of him, leading straight to the pedestal.

‘Would you look at that,’ Akira was pleased, ‘Are these made from those cronies I just beat up.’he asked no one in particular.

And even though he was joking, he felt like his body could collapse at any second, he wanted to get this artifact and get out.

He quickly went up the steps until he was face-to-item with the ring. A powerful aura emanated from it, making him uncertain of what to do next.

Take it. A majestic voice Akira recognised reverberated in his head. I will take care of any other matters.

Having confidence flow through him, magically brought about by the voice, Akira Mori decisively grabbed the artifact without any more hesitation.

When he grabbed it, he felt a strange sort of resonance, and he could feel a burden being lifted off his shoulders. A strange power entered his body, giving him a surge of new energy, and as he marveled at his newfound energy, he noticed that the ring had disappeared.

Only now, instead of the ring, his watch had gotten that strange powerful aura. Except, in contrast, his watch didn’t feel foreign like the ring, it felt as if he had been wearing it since he was a kid, like it was part of him.

‘W-’ Just as he was about to thank Auren, Akira’s consciousness faded as he fell to the ground.

…

…

…

When he woke up, Akira tensed up. He was still in the cave, but there was no more eerie atmosphere. Just a quiet lake.

He also noticed that his body had mostly recovered, apart from a few cuts, like the one on his cheek. His energy had been renewed, and he practically jumped up from excitement.

‘Wow!’ He exclaimed, ‘How’d this happen?’

‘I did that for you.’ Auren's majestic stated.

When he said ‘I will take care of the rest.’ Is this what he meant?

‘So what do I do now?’Akira questioned, ‘How should I turn that item, which for some reason fused with my watch, into this “conduit” thing you mentioned?’

Auren was silent for a second, before answering calmly. ‘Your watch is the conduit, it has merged with the ring left behind by the Founder and has absorbed not just its powers, but its status as well.’

Akira thought carefully for a second, ‘So my watch now has the same powers as that ring had?’

‘Yes.’

‘So what are these powers? Can I use them?’

Again, Auren paused, ‘I don’t know, only the person in control of the artifact knows its powers, I was hoping you could tell me what they were.’

I should know them, as if, if I suddenly knew that I had gotten new powers I would’ve- Ohhhhhh.

As Akira was thinking about Auren’s words, the powers gained from the artifact suddenly appeared in his mind. “Self-Echo”, “Accelerate” and “Forced Slowness”, these sound very similar to the powers used by the cave.

He repeated the details of his powers in his mind, “Self-Echo” allows me to create a delayed afterimage two seconds after I’ve done something, meaning that “something” will be done twice, like punching someone. It feels like a weaker version of all the clones I faced.

“Accelerate” gives me the option to either speed up my own actions immensely, or give up to twelve allies a slight speed boost, but I do need to raise my right hand in order to activate it. “Forced Slowness” lets me pick a single target for slowing, just like the elder did to me, making me feel like I was walking through water. Its activation is similar to “Accelerate”, here I need to raise my left hand.

Isn’t this a bit too powerful for a newbie like me?

After recounting his powers to Auren, the god spoke, ‘These, along with the powers you gain from me, should be able to get you out of the hole you fell down.’

‘Wait, you mean I have more p-’ As Akira was confusedly questioning what Auren just said, new information entered his mind. “Body Warming”, “Eyes of Light”, “Die of Possibilities” and “Luck Altering”.

Woah! This is awesome, I can instantly gain an understanding of my powers!

He was already familiar with the first two, he had been using them since entering the ruin. But there were two new powers.

“Die of Possibilities” is a twenty-sided die(like the one in D&D, not that I ever played it), and I can roll it whenever I want. The outcome of the roll influences the outcome of either my next action or something I intended to roll it for. The roll always has to be about something concerning me.

For example, if I roll it without specifying what I’m rolling for, it would just influence the next step I’m taking. But if I clearly think that I want it to influence my next attack, it will not influence anything other than that.

If I roll a one, the outcome will be catastrophic for me. Instead of succeeding in convincing my enemy to leave me alone, I might just cause everyone around me to start hating me. Yet if I roll a twenty, pretty much anything I intended it for will succeed with flying colors. It’s really just gambling.

With “Luck Altering” I can give anything I want a tiny bit more luck, it’s not that strong, it can go from 25% to succeed to 30%. But any luck I give something, will give me the same amount of bad luck at an unpredictable moment later on.

I can give myself that luck, but anything that has been influenced by “Die of Possibilities” can’t be altered with “Luck Altering” afterward.

‘So, I can just leave the way I got in?’ Akira said happily after telling his powers to Auren with a little too much joy.

Auren nodded(his faceless dealer form had appeared about half-way through Akira’s explanation, after which he said there were some things even he couldn’t control), ‘Yes, you have gotten decent powers, but I still need to remind you of something very important.’ he added gravely. This wiped Akira’s smirk from his face, and he listened attentively.

‘I told you that for mortals to handle the powers of the gods, a price needs to be paid. And even though I can’t give you an easily controllable rule or price like most. You will get two very special conditions.’

‘Conditions?’ Akira questioned.

‘Yes, there is no turning back now anyway, so will have to live with these conditions for the rest of your life.’ he carried on ‘Once you die in this life, if you have any regrets left at the moment of your death, your soul and body will belong to me. Forever.’ The way he talked so normally while telling him this stuff worried Akira, there was nothing normal about this shit!

‘And secondly,’ Auren continued, ‘That twenty-sided die will sometimes roll on its own at random. The result will influence something completely random regarding you, and there will be no way to stop it from happening. This is the price you need to pay for such special abilities.’

Akira’s mouth fell open, ‘You couldn’t have told me before I accepted your deal? I have absolutely no control over whether I live or die! What if the die decides to roll on how good my health will be, and it rolls a one!’ He shouted.

‘Then you’d die.’ Auren stated, ‘Also, I didn’t know about the rules of our contract until after we’d made it. Because you are not from this world, we were both barred from knowing the contents.’

‘And one last thing,’ He said while looking at Akira’s shoulder, ‘Everyone who makes such a contract gets what we call a “soulmark”, a way to identify who has a contract with which god.’ A smile formed on Auren’s usual featureless face, ‘It’s placed on the back of your shoulder, I think you’ll like it.’ He said before he disappeared with a loud boom, the noise reverberating through the cave.

Akira huffed, ‘I’m really wondering whether I actually have luck on my side.’ He walked out of the cave and entered the tunnel again.

The walk back was very uneventful as he dodged the darts with ease this time and quickly reached the small doorway he had entered after he fell down the hole.

He had started to wonder how he was supposed to roll the die, he hadn’t gotten an actual physical die. So he willed in his mind, I command you, “Die of Possibilities”, to roll!

Then, in his head, a red twenty-sided die with the numbers engraved with gold appeared and rolled. When it stopped, it landed on a 7. ‘Thas woth belly good.’ Akira mumbled after seeing the result.

He paused, he had forgotten one of the rules of the die. If he didn’t specify any target for the diem, it would influence his next action. Which this time turned out to be talking.

Okay, next time, clearly state what you want it to influence!

He looked up and saw the hole he had entered through, the path made of sharp rocks still the same. Akira quickly came up with a plan.

He used “Luck Altering” to give himself a little more luck, and with incredible speed jumped up to the wall just below the hole, he had used “Acceleration” on himself!

Then just as he was about to fall to the ground, instead of quickly falling down, he floated more forward than down. He had slowed down the part of his fall leading him down, without affecting his horizontal course. Causing him to keep the vertical speed gained from the jump, without needing to worry about gravity!

And because of his augmented luck, instead of grabbing sharp rocks, he managed to put his hands on touchable stones sticking out from the walls. And as he quickly climbed up, he realised the powers from Auren had also given him a stronger and faster body, he had never felt so fit!

Akira reached the top before long, and with a last jump, he landed on snow, seeing the dark-blue sky again, the sun now free from the clouds, shining brightly on the land.

Just as he shouted in joy because of his perfect escape, he realised he had landed on the exact spot where an animal had recently defecated.

‘Right, guess that’s the bad luck catching up.’ Akira grimaced.

‘One thing is good about this, it means there’s an animal nearby, a big one, considering the size of its poo.’ He smiled again. ‘And an animal means food.’