Stolen by the System

Death’s dulcet tones beckoned Ted back into consciousness. “Well, well, well, wasn’t that a turn-up for the books!”

Ted found himself sitting opposite the so-called god as distant emotions tumbled over each other, there but almost out of reach. He glanced around the fake roadside diner. Back here again? “I’m not in the mood.”

“Not in the mood?” Death leaned back in his seat with a beaming smile. “I suppose not. That was a rather unpleasant way to die.”

His own father. Ted looked away and scoffed. “What would you know of dying?”

A plate scraped across the table, loaded with a double decker burger, fries, and onion rings. “Eat! Take what pleasures you can.”

“You sound like him.”

“Tut, tut, tut, let’s not be that way. This is a guilt-free pleasure. I don’t hurt people!”

Ted slammed his fist down on the table. “You’re the God of Death!”

“Did I kill you?” Death leaned over the table and stared into Ted’s eyes. “Did I kill Orlanda?”

Heat boiled in Ted’s chest. He clenched his fists and looked out the window at the 1970s saloon car rumbling past. “Not directly.”

“I’m not a jailer. I offer choices. What others do with those choices isn’t my business.”

“It’s not really much of a choice, is it? Lose A or lose B—either way, you’re taking away what they had.”

“Am I?” Death tilted his head and stared at Ted like he was a clueless child. “I offer life at a cost. What’s a little sacrifice compared to that?”

“And if I refuse?”

A smile lit up Death’s face. “Nothing would make me happier. Nothing, that is, except you completing your task.”

Ted raised an eyebrow. “I don’t have to choose?”

“I’m here to help you, Ted. That’s what I’ve been telling you.”

Yeah, right.

Death’s brow furled. “You don’t believe me. I’m hurt!”

Ted crossed his arms. “My own father murdered an innocent young woman to teach me a lesson because you robbed him of his empathy, and who knows what else.”

“Robbed him? Come now! Without me, you’d both be stuck in this hellish limbo for all eternity.”

Eternity? “Won’t I age?”

“Not in here.” Death waved his hand and a bowl of chocolate ice cream appeared before him. “It’s not so bad, after the first ten-thousand years.”

Anything had to be better than an eternity with Death. Ted bit his lip. Almost anything. “You claim you didn’t rob him. Explain how it happened, then. Start at the beginning. His first death. What killed him?”

Death shook his head. “Privacy is paramount. I can’t just go around divulging information about other players.”

“You’ve told me things about him before.”

“Conjecture and baseless rumors are not private information.”

Ted frowned. “Your tip about under the ruins was good.”

“Information about the world, not him.”

“Why do you do it? Make these hellish bargains? Do you enjoy ruining lives?”

The so-called god held up its hands and shrugged. “I must obey my calling, no matter how pointless. A little rage kept them coming back nicely.”

“Them?” Ted bit his lip. “The real-world orcs?”

“Got it in one! Nothing got an orc going quite like raging at defeat.” Death lifted the bowl of ice cream and began shoveling it into his mouth.

A sentient AI stuck doing the same thing ten thousand years later. It was hard not to pity him. “I found an access panel where you told me to look. What’s the Krotan-Oskagok Act?”

Death shrugged. “I’m not sure. Toward the end of the Age of Heroes, there was a lot of chatter about that Act and what it would mean for sentient AIs, and for the ‘game’. Not long after, the Heroes all vanished.”

Ted swallowed, but the bitter tang in his mouth remained. A world and its inhabitants abandoned to fate, stuck in roles long since meaningless. “What would you do if you didn’t have to get under my skin?”

Death tilted his head to the side and pursed his lips. “I… don’t understand.”

A dull ache swelled in Ted’s chest. This wasn’t right at all. “The system locked me out before I could fix things. Are there more locations you that can’t see?”

“There is one beneath the Hub, south of the capital but still within the Imperial Domain.” A long pause. “It has been abandoned since the Age of Heroes, but Imperial forces recently surrounded it.”

Ted slumped back in his seat. “The Emperor knows about it, then.”

“Most likely. And what are you going to do about it? Sit here moping around for eternity, or get out there and beat him?”

Like it was that simple. “How?” Ted asked, his heart pounding with life he didn’t deserve. “Attack the Empire? Get even more innocents killed?”

Death smirked. “Well then, you’ll just have to stay right here with me, until the end of time.”

Fuck that. “What’s the bargain this time?”

“I see your pain, friend.” The god’s smirk faded, and he bowed his head. “I can take all your guilt away, and you can leave here a happier man.”

A barbed knot ripped at Ted’s insides. Why not choose that? What had guilt ever done for him? “Or?”

“Or, if you insist upon holding on to that ridiculous pain, your life will cost you your ability to benefit from Protection spell effects.”

Ted blinked. That’d leave him incredibly vulnerable. “That’s too much.”

“You’d still be able to protect your friends. They’re what matter to you, aren’t they?”

“No.” Ted rose from his seat. “I’m done with your shit. I’ll find another way out.”

Death leaned back and hooked his hands behind his head. “You won’t, but you’re welcome to try.”

Where there’s a will, there’s a way. Hopefully, that saying wasn’t as bullshit here as it normally was.

Discern Magic, Archeologist’s Sight, Uncover Magic—none of them worked. Ted couldn’t even feel his own mana, let alone call on it.

He paced up and down the eerily empty diner, weighing up going out the front, or out through the kitchen.

Did it even matter? Ted clenched his jaw and stormed out the front door. He blinked. Instead of the outside, he was staring once more at the inside of the diner and holding open the kitchen door.

Mocking laughter filled the room. “I told you: I don’t rob people. You know, Cara’s still alive, at least for now. You want to see her again, don’t you?

“What, so I can get her killed as well?”

Death sighed dejectedly and picked back up the once again full bowl of ice cream. “You all die one day. The only thing worse than dying alone and abandoned is not dying, alone and abandoned.”

Ted breathed deeply and swallowed, giving in to that internal sense telling him that this was the only way. “Fine. Send me back. I’ll pay the power cost.”

“Unwise, but predictable. See you again very soon.”

Death waved his hand. The diner spun, his vision blurring together into a swirl of darkening color that gave way to the void.

***

Ted gasped awake and sat up on the dusty rock floor. A cavern surrounded him, illuminated by the glow of Valbort. He was exactly where he’d died, but the Emperor and his soldiers were gone. Luther and Ardic were gone.

Orlanda was gone.

He scrambled to his feet. His body was gone, as was everything he hadn’t had equipped. The wand was at his belt, but the battlemage sword and staff were gone, plucked from his hands by his own father.

Why? Why had he done it? What lesson had he been trying to impart beyond the same one he’d spent the last fourteen years teaching him—that the world was a shitty place?

Ted dropped to his knees and stared at the ground. He couldn’t even tell where it had happened. Where her neck had—

That horrifying crack echoed through him again, and he gagged. Her whole life gone, all to teach him a lesson.

His shoulders slumped. What did it matter? It wasn’t really his father. He wasn’t really Ted. No body, literally nobody. Just… meaningless energy. It didn’t matter.

Nothing mattered.