Whispers of a Dead Empire

Chapter 3

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So, my job was to harvest life and ascend into godhoodwhat a stark contrast from cooking food all day. As much as this seems exciting, I also feel kinda stupid for just trancing through a portal on a whim. Mom always told me I did stuff without thinking, and I guess this was a pretty good example of that. I reminisced on the thought for a moment before I noticed that I still had access to the query. Let's see if I can get some more answers out of it, while I could, at any rate.

I was a bit annoyed that I lost the gravity affinity because I was looking forward to all of the possibilities.

Well, that was annoying. I was curious, but maybe it's something that I will never know. I was a little overwhelmed with everything and couldn't think of any other questions that I wanted to ask. So now I get to wait. I was mentally torn between being excited about my new life and being depressed that I left Earth without saying goodbye to my family. I just had to walk through a random portal that I saw. I floated through the darkness, and a sense of weariness started to weigh me down. I was exhausted. It was a deep level of exhaustion than I have ever felt. Maybe it was all just a dream, and when I open my eyes, I'll wake up to my alarm clock and be on my way to that hellhole of a job. As the words started to fade away, my consciousness slipped. A part of me hoped that wasn't the case.

My vision blurred as my eyes fluttered open. A stone ceiling sat above me, and light poured in from a window, catching the particles of dust as they floated around. I sat up and looked around as my mind struggled to catch up. Strange numbers hovered around my line of sight, including a bar of scarlet red, and under that was a vibrant deep blue bar. What was this? I rubbed my eyes and the previous day's events slowly caught up to me. I wasn't on Earth anymore. I looked around and noticed that my body felt relaxed, and I was mentally alert for oncea far cry from having to wake up after working for most of my day. I sat here for a moment and thought over what happened.

I was an idiot and walked through a portal and found the remnant of a dead god. In my wisdom, I touched something called a divine spark and became a domain god. I let out a yawn and looked around the room. It was fairly simple. There was a wooden deck in the far corner that was decaying and had two broken legs. The cot I was lying on was thankfully in better condition than the desk. The air smelt a bit stale with a faint undertone of musk. I pushed myself off the cot, and a nervous chuckle escaped my lips. Oh, what have I gotten myself into this time? Laying next to the cot was my sports bag. I dragged it over and pulled it open and quickly rifled through it, and a set of words filled my vision.

Well, that was convenient. I'm glad that I could keep my sports bag, though it changed into a bag of holding. I pulled it open to check inside and could only see deep swirling darkness. It also weighed almost close to nothing. I reached into the bag with the intent of grabbing a bottle of water. I needed something to wash away the disgusting taste that was built up in my mouth. I wish I threw a toothbrush and some toothpaste in here. At least I had the foresight to pack some deodorant in here. I felt the cap brush my fingers, and I pulled it out and unscrewed the top. So, I wasn't on Earth anymore, huh, I thought to myself as I took a hefty swig of the cool water. I needed to find a source of this stuff, along with food, if I wanted to survive. I cracked my fingers and saw some blinking lights in the corner of my vision. How do I select them? I made a quick gesture with my hands and saw that it was pointless. Maybe I have to do it with my mind. I gazed at the blinking symbols and mentally thought about clicking them. I was immediately rewarded with a few screens that appeared side by side.

So I had to choose where to lay my domain then. Well, thankfully, I started out in a building. But before I go about trying to start this, let me take a small inventory of what I have. I reached into my bag of holding and pulled out a pen along with my notebook and a snack bar. I only had three bars and two bottles of water. I had to ration until I could find a source of both. I wasn't sure that I even needed both once I selected a domain, but it wouldn't hurt to have them just in case. I pulled the plastic wrapper off of the snack bar and mindlessly ate it while I wrote down everything I saw in my bag of holding. Today's first task is to find food, water, and get a bearing on my surroundings and select my domain area. In situations like this, it was better to stay as organized as possible. I was in a new world, with only the most basic understanding of what my job was. There was really no point in panicking about it now. I just gotta get through it.

I put the plastic wrapper back into my sports bag and quickly unscrewed my water bottle, and took a few more sips of it. Just enough to get my body warmed up and ready to go. I slid the bottle back into my bag and threw it onto my back. I kept my notebook and pen in my hand as I walked over to the door. It was a simple wooden door that was only in acceptable condition. The wood was dry and flaking. The metal had a thin layer of rust. I pushed on the door, and the metal on the bottom scratched along the stone floor as I forced it open. I ended up in a small deteriorating hallway. Torches lined the crumbling walls in rusted sconces. Piles of stone debris lined the bottom of the walls. Some of the doors were in decent condition, while others were broken and falling apart. It was time to start small, just take a look around and see what I could find before I decided to place my domain. I'll check out a handful of rooms here before I make my choice. I walked across the hall to the first door and stepped into a small room.

Bookshelves lined this room. Some of them were destroyed, and books lay strewn across the ground. Some of them were, thankfully, intact. I walked across the room, kicking away some of the destroyed reading material. I approached one of the intact shelves and looked through them. The first book I grabbed was wholly ruined. The ink was smudged and not very legible, and the paper was covered in black mold. I threw the book back and onto the floor in disgust and grabbed the next one. This one was in a bit better shape. I flipped through the book and was disappointed that I couldn't understand the writing. Though the diagrams would be quite helpful if I could understand them. I threw this book into my bag and looked through the other books shelves salvaging what I could and trashing what I couldn't. I should probably use the destroyed stuff as a fire source for tonight. Since I doubted that electricity was a thing here. I gathered a few more of the destroyed books and threw them in a pile outside my current room.

I walked down the hall to the next door. This one was in much better condition than the others so far. I pushed the door open, and it revealed a large chamber. On each corner of the room, arches extended towards the cealing and met at the center. Underneath the arches was a circular platform built into the floor and broken into segmented rings that grew smaller the further in, they went. The rings were broken into small rectangles; each was engraved with the same writing that I found in the books. It was a lot like a rune system, but I couldn't read it. I stepped into the room and looked around and saw that in each arc was a small crystal that glowed with a faint blue light. I felt a power in my chest strum for a moment as I closed my eyes and focused on the magical instrument before me. I had no idea what I was doing, but I wanted to try. Maybe I should try to summon something. I reached out my hand and focused my intent. I felt a sliver of power pull away from me and the platform pulsed for a moment. The rings shifted, and the runes lit up with a bright blue light, and the circular platforms began to move. I dropped my hand and watched in wonder as the process unfolded. Runes finally aligned but pulsed red and turned off.

I was disappointed, but that was to be expected. I still had no clue what I was doing. I flipped open my notebook, quickly scribbled some notes down about it, and decided to move onto the next room. Sitting just inside of it was another living area. Four beds were decaying and covered in stone dust. At the foot of each bed was a simple footlocker that surprisingly enough looked to be in good condition. A small window had ripped up brown curtains that hung on to the metal bar above it by the barest of margins. I quickly moved over to the window and glanced outside to check my surroundings. I was on the second floor of a building, and all-around was a large forest. I wish this building was a little taller, but this would work. I stepped back from the window and glanced around the room that I was standing in once more. I'll go check the footlockers before I move onto the next room, just to make sure there wasn't anything in them. I carefully opened each one and was rewarded by the sight of an empty chest. At least they were in reasonably good shape; I would need more storage areas in the future.

I picked them up, carried them back over to my room, and put them by the bed. I slung my sports bag from across my back and pulled out the books, and placed them inside of the closest footlocker to me. Now let's head down to the first floor and see what there was down there. Granted that there was still more to explore up here, but I could do that later. I walked out of my room and down the hall. Light from outside tore through some of the ceiling's holes, illuminating small patches of the stone floor. I reached the staircase and saw that it spiraled as it descended into the building. I carefully walked down the stairs; each stone that shifted was enough to give me a mini heart attack. I wasn't sure about the state of this part of the building, so I had to take it slow. I hit the bottom part of the stairs and looked around the first floor. The main hall was slightly larger than the upstairs and was in about the same condition. Down here, I counted three rooms and a large central lobby.

I walked over to the closest door and attempted to open it. The door fought against me as I slowly pushed it open. Behind it sat a decently sized room that had a few tables placed in a row. On the far back wall, I could see the telltale signs of a kitchen. So this was a dining hall, that's good, maybe I can find some pots and pans. It would make getting clean water a lot easier. I pushed past the decaying tables, keenly aware of the stench of rotting wood. I'm going to have a lot of cleaning ahead of me if this would be my base. Once that thought crossed my mind, I chuckled; here I was in another world, moving towards a goal that I was forced into. But I honestly wasn't bothered too much by it. I was looking for a change, and this was what was given to me. It did feel kind of weird, though, and slightly rushed, but let's just see where it goes.

I walked into the kitchen and looked through the various cabinets. A lot of the wooden utensils were far too gone to use. But I found a deep cast iron pot. This looked like it would make huge soup batches, which made it perfect for me to boil water with. I lifted the heavy pot up and lugged it through the room and set it outside before going back to see what else there was. There wasn't any kind of food product. But that was expected, but it didn't hurt to check. I left the cafeteria area and went into the main lobby. Other than the various bits of debris that lay scattered around the room, there was nothing there. It was hauntingly empty in this place. It instilled a sense of foreboding dread in me. Something happened here, and I was curious as to what. But with time, I was sure that I would figure it out.

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