CH513

Of the ten books that were there, just begging to be studied, five of them were the notes of other people like himself who had gone through the first part of the archive to make it there, with the other five being the notes of Galwax and his theories on the spell’s structure, being presented by the god himself as new recordings sprung up with the turning pages.

Ben didn’t hesitate to look at it all to get the opinions of both mortals and the divine, even temporarily forgetting his hatred of Galwax as he listened to the dead god’s ideas before finally leaving the archive, even if he knew he was going to be back.

With his mind as good as it was he didn’t really need to return to the book, everything was memorized already, but that was something he wanted to see again with his own eyes, meaning the mythic item was spared his wrath as he returned to the real world, seeing barely any time has passed with his students continuing their practice.

You know, after being in there for practically a month it’s not actually that bad to see them.

“Hey, can you not stare at us while we work,” Xilly said, barely giving him a glance. “It feels gross.”

…Maybe I could spend just one more month in there.

The temptation for the idea ran deep but he forced himself to suppress it. There was somewhere else he needed to go.

“Something came up so I need to talk to my god for a bit. It might be a while so if you need anything then just shake me or something.”

He didn’t wait for an answer, he was in too much of a rush when he closed his eyes, pushing his mind up to Myriad’s realm where two of the gods he wanted to see already were, both hard at work with whatever tasks would take up their time.

“Hey guys, emergency. Or the opposite of an emergency, whatever an urgent but good thing is. Either way, stop what you’re doing and give me your attention. Also, grab Nare, I don’t care what he’s doing, he’s going to want to be here for this.”

“Ben, I already told you, Nare’s… wait, what in all that’s good happened to your mind?”

“An evil god forcefully changed its structure a bit so now it’s like this. It’s probably fine.”

“What!” Both screamed in unison, going into a panic, each of them believing without a shadow of a doubt that Ben’s terrible luck could leave him running into an evil god.

“Of course someone my unlucky bastard of an apostle ran into an evil god, of course he did,” Myriad stressed, collapsing to the ground as Helori jumped off of him and rushed before Ben, shoving her arms into his chest as she did to look at his soul.

“You really do have the worst luck in all of reality. Did a stray void god end up on world? There’s been a few instances of invasions like that in the past, but-”

“Woah woah woah, guys don’t panic. That was a bit of an exaggeration, sorry, didn’t think you’d both take it that seriously. The god’s probably not evil, just a careless asshole, and more importantly, he’s already dead.”

He could practically see the stress melting off both of them as he said it, with his god sounding far calmer the next time he spoke while Helori kept examining his soul.

“Ben, take us through exactly whatever happened to cause the change I’m feeling in your mental structure.”

“To make the long story short, I finished the last book in the archive and met another recording of Galwax that tried to reward me by strengthening my mind. My working theory for the changes is that he specifically tried to change a galwaxian mind which I clearly don’t have and I got to suffer the consequences for it. Namely that it really hurt.”

“You’re lucky it only hurt,” Helori told him, staring into him with narrowed eyes. “From what I’m seeing I’d guess you’re right and we can only count ourselves lucky it happened to you of all people. These sort of modifications happening to a thinking soul is a lot better than it happening to a meaty brain. Not to say your brain didn’t receive any damage but it’s nothing that should kill you, just get your lover to give you a quick look over when you see her later to deal with the minor damage. Empty skies, the level of carelessness to leave something like that on world…”

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

“Certainly the sort of thing he should have properly altered before he went off to die,” Myriad agreed, sounding none too happy that his apostle had just been hurt from the carelessness of a dead god.

“So just to be clear though, I’m going to be fine? Not going to go insane or not currently insane and just don’t realize it?”

“You’ve been insane since I’ve known you,” Myriad scoffed. “I just couldn’t see it at first because you were too busy dealing with your trauma at the time to really show it.”

“I’m going to choose to take that as a ‘yeah, you’ll be fine Ben, and I love what a wonderful and caring apostle you are too despite the fact I tricked you into the role.’”