Building a magic system on threat of destruction

The monarch of the kingdom of Vitlavin was feeling jaded. He had traveled for weeks to reach this 'Jack' that the High Deity had spoken of, only to be forbidden from approaching. The cursed queen of Cheria had barred his entry until she and her husband had acquired this new gift for themselves. He cursed her, swinging his arms and legs around in frustration, smacking his arm against a chair in the process. He cursed again, holding his hand in pain.

Nothing was going his way. Ever since the High Deity had issued the world quest, everything had fallen apart. He had sent a missive to the late king of all demons inquiring into the reasons for the High Deity's request. Being able to hide from the God of gods seemed very appealing. He hadn't received a reply, Plexion had died before getting the letter. Now the King of Vitlavin was worried that the zealots who had killed a king would discover he was looking into the ability to vanish himself.

The spies he had sent into the demonlands to retrieve the message had all been intercepted by counter agents. The Queen of all demons moved quickly, asserting her agents into the country Plexion ruled over the very same day he had died. It was an incredible feat considering the two demon kingdoms were on opposite sides of Drowl. Now he had to worry that the Queen of all demons had blackmail on him.

Then he had set out to meet this Jack person, only to be delayed by not one, but two separate groups. What was the point of being a king if you had to wait in line? Even after the cursed woman had left, she insisted on stationing soldiers nearby and inviting him to her palace to delay him further. He hated the climate here, far too tropical for his liking. The rolling green hills of his home called to him, and he wanted to leave as soon as possible.

His meeting with Jack was in a day, and he couldn't get in and out fast enough. At least it would be over soon. Then he could get back to his normal life.

Lexen's head hurt. It was likely due to being hit with a rock. Though being hung upside down by his ankles probably didn't help. He quietly reflected on the events that had led to this moment. He had found a bandit camp and strolled right into it. He had loudly proclaimed his status as 'chosen' and offered to give the assembled men and women power granted by the High Deity. They had very rudely attacked him and strung him up. A priest of the High Deity should never be treated this way!

Perhaps they didn't wish for power? He couldn't think of any other reason that they had treated him so poorly. He had been hanging for over a day, and he was patiently waiting to speak to their leader. He had seen the leader around camp, barking orders here and there. He was a large human, muscular and tall. Dressed in rough clothes, the man stood with a powerful energy compared to those around him. Lexen internally compared the man to Riniox in some ways, large and in charge.

Lexen was fairly sure he could reason with the man, granting status screens to all of them in due time. He had explained the procedure to the bandits, extolling the glorious gifts that the High Deity was bestowing on them, and the chief had ordered that Lexen be left alone for the time being.

Well, his waiting seemed to be paying off! The bandit chief approached Lexen, who was still hanging upside down from a tree and spoke. "So, you want to give us all the new gift from god, yeah?"

Lexen bristled in indignation at the lack of respect towards the High Deity. "I would ask you to mind your tone. The High Deity sees all."

The chief raised an eyebrow at him but didn't speak. He folded his arms and seemed content to ignore Lexen's reprimand.

Lexen sighed. Why couldn't people show the High Deity the respect he deserved? "Yes. It is my honor and privilege to spread the gift that-"

"Yeah yeah, that's all well and good," the chief interrupted. "But how are you spreading it? You didn't really talk about that."

Lexen puffed his chest out with pride. "I was given special skills that allow me to grant statues to others!" He had shown them his status screen when asked in order to prove its existence. The chief seemed to vaguely grasp the concept of skills and stats, but only as much as Lexen understood it...which wasn't much, unfortunately.

"Tell me more about those."

"Well, [Status Granting] is the basic version. It can be used to give anyone a status, and they gain the benefits of that. [Chosen of the Status] is the grand gift given to me by the High Deity and his servants! It allows me to give other people [Status Granting], letting the system grow throughout the world with ease!" The wisdom of the High Deity was truly marvelous, to create something such as this.

The bandit chief smiled at these words. "[Chosen of the Status]? That seems pretty useful."

Queen Evanna had been surprised the first time her status screen had been updated. All of her skills had been given numbers, and as far as she could tell, they related to how competent she was in those areas. She had made an effort to improve one of the low-level skills and could feel the tangible effects of raising it to new heights. It was a fascinating discovery, and it was something she could use.

The kingdom of Cheria had a few hundred soldiers who all had their own status screens. If all skills could be improved in this way, and if they all came with highly effective benefits...well she could take advantage of that fact. It was possible that she could move quickly enough to turn her soldiers into the greatest warriors the world had ever seen. Unstoppable monsters that could only be fought by others who had received a status.

That idiot king from Vitlavin was poised to receive his own status tomorrow, along with some troops he had brought. But with only Jack to grant statuses, it would likely take a few days before he was finished. She would need to move quickly. The longer she taried, the more chance there was that someone else would catch on to her idea.

She called for her husband, her generals, her high mages, and her assassins. It was time to start a war.

The Queen of all demons stood in front of a map of the world. Writing covered most part of it, written by her own hand, indicating relative strengths, weaknesses, and politics. She studied the map, fingers drumming on the table as she considered her options. It would be some time before she would be allowed to approach Jack, the man who was sent to gift godly powers. Most of the people who ruled the world hated each other, if they all crowded in together at once, a war would break out.

There had been some degree of civility regarding the group that had killed Lexen. Deference for deference's sake, a showing of politics. She highly doubted anyone actually liked this group, but acting against them so soon would hurt public appearance. Now though? There was posturing, endless posturing. The rulers and groups that were geographically closest claimed the right to go first. She had wanted to have Frox report to her about Jack, but according to all reports he had been discovered and killed.

This was inconvenient on a number of levels. Now she no longer had an attendant in the upper echelons of Queen Evanna's court. Well, that wasn't entirely true, she had human spies, but no demons that dedicated their entire lives to her goals. Her human spies and sympathizers were still sending reports though, it was only a matter of time until she got a clear picture of the state of things.

If Jack was offering a truly impactful gift, then the Queen of all demons would need to go and see him herself with all haste. Now that she considered it, perhaps she was due for some espionage. It was likely more dangerous than she was prepared for, considering even an agent like Frox had been caught, but that was half the fun. Perhaps she could find some way to sneak into a ruler's entourage to meet this Jack.

A blue butterfly contently sat on the status page of Frost the biggun. He had recently left his traveling companions and headed back to his people to share the news of the system. The butterfly did not have a name, its kind had no need of such things. It had been made by the first butterfly, supposedly because the great and powerful system administrator had wanted more of them to exist. The butterfly thought that this was very wonderful.

It had found Frost the biggun and attached itself to his status screen, it was much faster to travel this way. The butterfly didn't have any real destination in mind, it didn't really have a purpose as far as it knew. The system administrator hadn't ever spoken to it, so it simply did whatever it felt like doing. For now, that was looking at the beautiful and colorful world.

The butterfly sat peacefully on the screen, totally invisible to the biggun who carried it. It thought about the abilities it had been granted, the power to update statuses, or to simply add messages and notify a person of a change in status. That seemed pretty important, but the butterfly didn't know if it wanted to be important. It enjoyed traveling and hiding, but maybe it could enjoy updating things too?

The butterfly could tell when it was supposed to change things but didn't want to wait until the biggun leveled up a skill. So it simply picked a skill the biggun was using and created a notification. Frost paused in his walk, checked the notification, then nodded, closed his screen, and kept walking. His status hadn't changed, of course, the butterfly had simply faked the message, and it secretly felt gleeful. Frost might look at his screen later and see that the skill hadn't leveled up, and he would probably be confused. The butterfly found this rather funny and decided it would add this to its list of hobbies.

A certain cloud drifted lazily through the sky. He had been drifting for as long as he could remember, a shattered piece of a bigger whole. A god, broken and scattered across the expanse between the sun and the ground. He felt Deis panic, it felt Deis grow afraid, and it felt Deis stop thinking altogether.

What had changed? Had it been that new servant? Jack? It wasn't a very Deis type of name though, and a created servant wouldn't act against Deis this quickly. There was only one real explanation that the cloud could think of, and he gradually began drifting towards where Jack was supposed to be staying.

Jimmel had lived his whole life simply. He had been born simply, grown-up simply, got married simply, and died simply. He had no real regrets about his life, it had been fun. But he was dead now, and he knew it was time to move on. The priests had always talked about how the High Deity personally took each and every soul and gave it new life. A clean slate for everyone. So he stood there in the sun, waiting for the God of gods to show up. Except...he didn't.

Jimmel stood there for longer than felt right, maybe about twenty minutes before he started hollering. He called out in every direction and eventually started walking around. There was nothing here, just empty white space as far as the eye could see. He walked and walked until he finally saw something. There was another person here! He ran over to them, and the other person seemed just as lost and confused as Jimmel did.

The two of them sat down together and started chatting, and eventually, someone else found them. That person sat down to chat too. A handful of people made their way around to the group over the next few hours, and all of them didn't know anything about what was going on.

None of them had seen the High Deity, and none of them knew what to do next.