RE: Deity - The Breath of Creation

4:23 As Cathartic As It Would Be...

Curie was having fun, which was a great improvement considering she’d been as close to a machine as biologically possible not too long ago. Or, at least, not too long ago in the sense that she had been alive for a long, long time. Designing a [System] was, admittedly, quite fun; especially when someone like Statera was around to help contain her wilder ideas, and make sure she was filling out all the information she needed to. Numbers floated in front of her face, a thousand different data logs and a million different ideas slowly condensing into a singular, cohesive form."Not forcing paths is a good idea," she summarized, reading the Fate data Statera had supplied. Her initial idea had been to use the idea of [Classes] to encourage people to specialize, but that was far too restricting. Who wanted to their job? It was like...Statera Luotian. They were not just the Deity of Balance. They were a parent, they were...the Heavens themselves. So, she scrapped the idea of [Classes], and instead leaned into the idea [Titles] and [Achievements]. Things that were a record of a life, rather than a defining trait. Those would be what gave benefits and boons, if such a thing ever came to be.

"Do you want to have a stat sheet?" Statera asked, leaning over Alala, golden healing energy flowing from their palms to mend Curie's other self. Alala had one hand around Statera's other forearm, finally moving, but yet not speaking. Her eyes were open, staring blankly at the ceiling.

"It would be fitting," Curie said. She liked stat sheets, and data sheets. They were…clean. Organized. But that was not her real question. "[Skills] are typical, are they not? How should I implement those?" Statera made a face at the idea, clearly not liking it. Curie didn’t think there was any escaping [Skills], though. At least they had made a clear line; the [System] would not exist in the Four Realms, only in what remained of the One World.

"Are you thinking [Skills] in the typical sense? Like invoking a technique, without learning how to invoke the technique?" they asked, distaste clear in their voice. "I've read such stories, and they seem...unearned. Sorry, not unearned. Unlearned? A system like that would be designed to keep people down, keep them reliant on the [System] rather than encouraging any actual growth."

"[Skills] should be rewards of some kind. But not in the way you're thinking of...perhaps a supernatural evolution of pre-existing skills," Curie mused, sifting through sheets in her mind's eye. "It will take some developing. Nothing unearned or unlearned. And stats?"

"I had an idea for those. You're going all in on skills, right? Not [Skills], but regular skills," Statera asked. Curie paused, pulling up some of her previous design notes. Every possible skill for a mortal was listed there. From something as simple as [Knife Sharpening] to [Quantum Physics]. She'd initially written it off as too complicated, too granular, but she kept coming back to it. Something about it tickled her, the way everything could be broken down into further and further elements.

"Yes," she said, realizing she had already made her decision without realizing it.

"Why not combine it all? Keep the granular skills. Give them levels based on a tier - say, ten tiers or something, with certain levels marking the next tier. Base it off of my cultivation system; each “stage” has sub-stages, those are tiers and skill levels. Let them see where they're at in terms of mortal to, say, divine level stuff. Because you don’t have any other immortality system besides divinity, right?" they asked. Curie hummed and nodded.

"Yes. It's causing problems." she muttered.

"Then just bump up the ceiling for what they can do as mortals. You have vast lands and a vast population. Even if they are weaker on average than my people, and don’t live nearly as long, there will still be ones who stick out. Who rise above. Let the system be a clear path forward, just like cultivation is for my people." They said with a simple shrug.

Curie considered that. A clear path, with a clear goal in the end. Not by leveling themselves, but by leveling skills - that fit in with the Oshun style of divinity, moreso than a God of the Earth, or Sun. The Oshun were all skills. Sport, Art, Science. Body, Heart, Mind. They honed those skills in their previous lives to the stage of godhood - unlike Statera, who admitted they went through multiple life cycles to build up to it.

"It should be skill based," she decided, scrapping the idea of 'levels' for a single class entirely. Titles and achievements would provide the same sort of function as a class. "And everything will run off of factors of one hundred. Reaching level one hundred in a skill is the equivalent of godhood. Stats will be tracked through three different areas; body, mind, and soul." Her eyes flicked across the screen as it rearranged itself in real time.

"Make it be able to be broken down as deeply as you want. I know you love your numbers; if you're going to do stat sheets, make it so whoever is looking at them can make it as granular or simple as they want. Groups. Categories. That sort of thing." Statera advised with a shrug, laying a hand over Alala’s eyes for a brief moment, brow furrowing, biting their lip in concentration.

"Excellent idea," Curie agreed, already working through it. The basic shape was forming now, but there was still a lot to be done. The One World needed a proper guide while the Oshun were laid up recovering, Amari Ren was growing, and so Statera didn't have to run two entire universes plus whatever their kids were building. The [System] would be just that if she got it right. She just had to, for once, get it right.

"You'll get it, Curie, I have faith," Alala muttered from where she lay.

"Faith doesn't -" Curie's voice died in her throat as she realized what just happened, a piece of herself slotting back into her mind like a missing limb. Tears beaded her eyes as she turned her gaze to her other self, the cords sticking out of the back of her head tugging and pulling. "Alala?" the muscular version of herself was awake, smiling a little sadly at Curie as she lay there, still gripping Statera's arm.

"Next time you decide to do something with your hair, please consult someone else first. That looks awful." Alala teased herself. Curie choked on relief as her vision melded with Alala's their minds intertwining once again, strength returning to Curie's limbs. From Alala's point of view...well. The cords sticking out of Curie's head very well could be seen as hair. Strange, metallic, corded hair.

"It is quite eye catching, for certain," Statera mused, earning a little chuckle from Alala that quickly devolved into a cough.

"Sorry. Think that's all for today. Been building up that mental energy for a while...all it gave me was a few moments of lucidity." Alala murmured, the light in her eyes already fading. Her grip tightened on Statera's arm. "Stat...thank you. You didn't have to..."

"Hush. Conserve your strength." Statera said, laying a hand over Alala's eyes once again. Curie felt her slip away, back into the darkness, the strength that had momentarily flooded her fleeing with it. Statera's expression grew pitying, their eyebrows pinching together, lips tightening into a frown - Curie bit her own lip, her emotions slowly fading back into the mechanical one-note that plagued her before.

Silence reigned.

Then Statera Luotian flinched, gaze fixating on something floating before them, unseen, with a frown.

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"What is it?" Curie asked, dreading the answer.

"A few things." Statera said. "The Rot built up another army in the Southern half of the planet. Tens of trillions of souls. I'm going to have to go deal with it personally. There's also the matter of the second collision,"

"The second? You mean with Sehuyun." Curie asked, heart sinking in her chest, running the numbers on survival. If Sehuyun resisted at all, it wouldn’t look good for the One World. Ironically, the Four Realms would likely do alright, as the shell of the One World would take the worst of the blow. But it would still be devastating.

"Yes. I may be meeting with her again soon. And, finally..." Statera Luotian sighed heavily, pinching the bridge of their nose and standing. "I assume you did not receive the notification?"

"No," Curie said, closing her eyes.

"Mr. Boxes has set the time for the next inter-universal meeting. We have some time, but not overmuch. Not for beings like us." Statera sounded genuinely annoyed, and they scratched the back of their neck. "What timing. It's not like I'm busy or anything."

"It makes sense I did not receive a message. I surrendered my Authority," Curie stated bluntly. Statera narrowed their eyes at her, but nodded once all the same.

"You still have some," they said. “One percent.”

"Not enough,"

"We went over this. You'd be surprised how far that can go."

Curie huffed, irritation flaring - irritation that was quickly realized to be a good thing, as it was genuine emotion, and was therefore quickly suppressed by said realization. Statera smiled genuinely.

"Good. Alala waking brought some of your emotions back. You're healing." They said confidently, standing and brushing off their purple robes, despite there being no dirt or wrinkles upon them. Curie cocked her head to the side. "I'm going to leave you for a bit. I can only split myself so many ways at the moment - you just rest." And with that, Statera vanished, their power leaving with them like a bandage being pulled off of a wound.

That was, in this case, not a bad thing. Statera had done this a few times before - it let Curie analyze her own divinity and the way it was flaking off of her, where it was weakest, and build up its defenses. It was a technique that was very similar to setting a bone, and then letting the body do what it was going to do. For all Statera's power and skill, they were no god of medicine, and an injury to an Origin Deity was no simple thing. The safest option was to just let her heal naturally, after “setting the bone.”

Thankfully, they had experience with such damage, having lost their arm to a Paradox before, and had given Curie much advice on how to fix herself. The situation was different, but context, damage to the soul, made it all much easier to compare it to her current situation.

She spent time healing. Piecing herself together, and going over the [System] notes she had. Until something broke her out of her trance.

"You know what we're going to have to do," Yueya whispered, her other self still laying with her eyes closed. Curie turned to her, facing her other self who...had not moved an inch. Yet her voice had echoed in her ears all the same. Curie frowned, her data sheets freezing before her eyes as she considered the implications of what Yueya had said.

She had always been the smartest amongst them. Not the most intelligent, but the smartest. She'd created a weapon against the rot in Amari Ren, tied Statera to their universe, thereby saving them and their creations, and had, even when consumed by Rot, somehow managed to wake their original body, from before they'd split...

Curie flinched, as if struck by lightning. Data stuttered as numbers flowed, the SystemGuardians displaying the army that Statera had told her about in a screen in the corner of her eye, and the fallen body in the other. A few gods marched at the front, under the impression the Four Realms were invaders intent on claiming their lands...it was an impressive force. but without Yueya's Authority behind them, and without Atreum's tactical skill, no matter how many they rallied, there would be no victory.

But that was not what she was looking at, not really. Not their mere numbers. For the first time, it felt like she truly saw the Rot, saw everything for what it had been, the entire chain of events connecting. The one thing that had always confused Curie about the Rot was where it had come from. She had written it off as some part of herself having been shorn away, born in the light of creation just like Statera had told them Morgan had been born. She'd been wrong. The thread was there, so faint it was almost invisible, but there. And she only noticed because now she knew what she was looking for.

The Rot was connected to their true body. No, worse, it was a byproduct of their splitting - it was literally the will and decay of their true body made manifest, the divine flesh that made it up flaking off to infect the world. Curie cursed herself for not seeing it. She cursed herself for not realizing it - and now Yueya's words made sense.

They were imbalanced, in Statera's own words. The mind was the only thing left functioning, but it had no heart, and no body. The body had no mind, and no heart to keep it going. And the Heart had no mind to temper it, and no body to beat within. They would need to recombine. Splitting herself had been the right call at the time, however, now was different. Circumstances forced change. Curie closed her eyes, running calculations.

She would not run into this blind. She would see first what would happen if they became The Oshun once again. She would speak to Statera about it – they deserved that much. And then, and only then, would she truly consider it.

***

I glared at the infected army, arms crossed, eyes narrowed. None took a single step forward. None took a single step back. Gods fell weak at the knees before me, the obsession that bound their minds balancing out with fear of death. Trillions of souls lay before me. Trillions. The Four Realms had that many souls. More than that, truthfully. But not that many who could be mustered into an army. The size of the One World was truly terrifying to behold.

"Begone," I told them, quite firmly, in no mood for their shit. The gods opened their mouths, and I glared harder, my displeasure forcing them to their knees. "I will deal with you all individually later. But I will not suffer fools. If you wish to die and be cleansed of the Rot that plagues you in death, so be it. Your souls will remain intact, and I will personally scour them. If not, leave, and I will cleanse you eventually." Behind me, the SystemGuardians shuddered, those few who had been trying to aid me shifting into combat stances.

"Please," the god of Law, Balthasar, and one of his aides, a god of the earth named Jax, pleaded. "Do not do any more damage to our world than you already have. The Great Statera Luotian is not here to be a tyrant or ruler. You are sick. The Oshun are sick. They are helping to heal what has been broken." I had fetched these two specifically for this. The less trouble the rot and the rogue elements gave me, the more time I could spend preparing for Sehuyun's inevitable arrival, and the meeting, and fixing the collapse of the One World...

There was so much to do, like freaking always. Why couldn't I just catch a break?

Because the world had a sense of humor, one of the gods before me threw a ball of - was that chaos energy? Did it really try to disrupt my balance with chaos? Chaos was part of balance. I rolled my eyes as I caught the swirling ball, examining it like it was a particularly curious specimen. Then I ate it.

It was spicy. And the few Rot spores within it were promptly burned away in the face of my divine might. It was insidious, but not something I could not deal with. Not anymore.

"There. Now that you’ve gotten that out of your systems," I said. "Leave."

It took a while. A bit more convincing on my part to get them to go. A few tried to fight - I simply teleported them back to their homes, or, worse, destroyed their bodies and pocketed their souls for cleansing. Only the most infected were dumb enough to try and test my patience. Patience that was becoming increasingly strained.

Yueya had waited until I was gone to send a message to Curie. My patience was paper thin right now. So thin that any single thing may just set me off. I almost wished Sehuyun was here, because she was someone I could actually punch. With a great, heaving sigh I pinched the bridge of my nose and set about descending upon the army, or what was left of it. Every single one of them had to be cleansed, the rot purged from its very core. And to top it off, Mr. Boxes had informed me that another meeting would be taking place soon.

After the collision with Sehuyun. Which was, as far as I was aware, coming, and coming fast. Relatively speaking. Maybe a few tens of thousands of years? I could only hope that she was going to be reasonable, but for a very big reason I doubted it. She'd made her stance clear.

Well, if there was one thing to look forward to, it was that Alexander would finally get to meet his crush again. Hm. Maybe there was something there I could use...

I feel bad, but Alex, sorry buddy, your crush may just prevent me from having to kill another Origin Deity. My fingers twitched as a mortal, some kind of elf-looking thing with blue skin, tried to stab me with a cursed blade, a vein in my forehead throbbing. She trembled as I glared at her, disapprovingly.

As cathartic as a good fight would be, like what I'd had with Sehuyun before, what she was going to offer now was not what I wanted.