Kieran opened his eyes as he pushed himself to his feet. He was standing in the middle of what seemed to be a frozen lake. Above him, the sky was decorated with nebulae and unfamiliar stars.
Turning his attention downwards, Kieran noticed the ice didn’t reflect the night sky. Instead, it seemed to be a window looking down at an entire world. Sprawling grasslands and forests, massive mountain peaks, and wide oceans spread out below Kieran. He could see medieval towns, large and small, dotted around the already varied landscape.
Finally, Kieran raised his gaze in front of him. He saw a giant, empty throne made of black stone, standing in the shade of an equally giant weeping willow tree. The leaves of this tree were iridescent crystals. The trunk was onyx.
Kieran took everything in calmly. He remembered his first idea, when he had found himself on that stone slab underground.
I must still be dreaming.
“You are not dreaming, Chosen Contender.”
A chilling voice interrupted Kieran’s train of thought, directing his attention to the empty throne in front of him.
Except the throne was no longer empty. A figure now sat there, wrapped in a hooded black cloak. Constellations and individual stars danced across the material, dazzling Kieran for a moment. Only the figure’s legs were not covered by the cloak. They seemed to be made of the same ice-like substance as the surrounding landscape. The veins shone faintly, as if carrying actual starlight.
Kieran forced his eyes upwards. The hood covered the figure’s face entirely. An ominous orange light emanated from beneath the hood, reminiscent of the sun at dusk.
The same kind of light forming a ring around the black gemstone on Kieran’s wrist…
“Again, I welcome you, Chosen Contender.” The figure’s voice wrapped around Kieran like the comforting cold of his lab at the morgue. “Be assured that this is neither dream nor vision.”
“Is that so?” Kieran asked calmly. “Then where am I?”
The figure’s hood shifted slightly, sending ripples of light cascading across the nearby terrain. “You stand upon the Veil Between Worlds, the precipice of your advent.”
The figure paused, as if giving Kieran an opportunity to speak, but Kieran stayed silent. His mind was working to sort through all possible explanations.
This could, in fact, be reality. He simply needed more data before he decided how to act.
After waiting a few moments, the figure continued.
“You have been chosen, my Contender, to rid this world of the plague that ails it. To strike fear into the hearts of monsters who think themselves good enough to take our land from our people. To this end, I will give you my aid in your journey. You will be my harbinger. As befitting one of my champions, you will be both the terror and savior this world needs. So it is decided, and so it shall be.”
The figure’s voice shifted as it spoke. Now it was like a torrent of cold water pouring down Kieran’s neck, making every hair on his body stand up.
“And if I fail?” Kieran pressed, without showing emotion.
“Then you shall be a footnote in the story of my next Chosen Contender,” the figure replied, their voice equally emotionless.
Kieran mulled things over for a moment. He could not deny that he wanted all this to be real. If he could break away from his all-consuming boredom, even for a day…
He looked up at the figure’s hood again, trying to discern anything below it. “Who are you?”
“I am Vahr’Khul.” The voice became a bell, tolling directly into Kieran’s mind. “Death Given Form, Guide and Concierge, the Whisper Unspoken, the Promised End.”
“You mean to tell me I am speaking with a god?” Kieran’s face broke into a rare smile. His gaze drifted to the self-proclaimed god’s exposed, ice-like flesh. Much like the entity’s cloak, its skin reflected stars and constellations.
“You are, Chosen Contender.” Vahr’Khul’s voice now rattled like wind through dry bones. “If you have any more questions, now is the time. Then I will send you back, that you may begin your task.”
Kieran paused again. The rational side of his mind was still reluctant to accept this was all really happening.
Yet, even as he acknowledged the impossibility of this ‘reality’, Kieran consciously decided to embrace it. The idea of a new world was too fascinating to reject. Instead of boring paperwork, there would be new creatures. New anatomies to dissect.
New avenues of death to explore.
Kieran’s eyes drifted again to the god’s strange, starry skin. His grim curiosity rising once more, only one question came to mind.
But he pushed it aside. It was probably wise to start with the more mundane queries.
“Why choose me?”
Laughter like a rolling avalanche reverberated through Kieran’s mind before Vahr’Khul responded.
“Some answers are earned, not given.”
“Are there others like me?” Kieran continued, thoughts turning towards possible competition. The title of ‘Contender’ made him think others would be vying for the same goal.Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.
“The other gods all have their Chosen. You are sure to run into them on your journey,” Vahr’Khul said, his voice a menacing hiss. “Be wary around them. Not all look kindly upon the mantle of Death.”
Satisfied with these answers, Kieran’s mind turned towards the question he had originally wanted to ask. Another smile crept onto his face as he studied the entity before him. Yet when he spoke, his voice was flat and monotone.
“Do you bleed?”
The loaded question seemed to echo through the space around them, the weight of its implication hanging heavy in the silence.
Finally, Vahr’Khul spoke, his voice now like the grating of stone against stone:
“No creature, big or small, weak or powerful, has ever laid blade, claw, tooth, or talon upon me.”
“Shame.” Kieran shrugged. “Well, in that case, I'm ready.”
His eyes were still glued to Vahr’Khul’s exposed ‘flesh.’ He wasn’t satisfied with how this supposed ‘god’ had danced around the question.
If he were to cut into the entity, what would come out? Stars? Light? Silver ichor?
Nothing at all?
“Then go, my Chosen Contender. May your approach strike fear into the hearts of our enemies.”
Vahr’Khul raised a crystalline arm and snapped its fingers.
The snap reverberating all around him, Kieran again felt the ground beneath him give way as his consciousness faded.
—
When the darkness fell from his eyes, Kieran found himself back in the stone room, surrounded by the bodies of the goblins he had killed. The sconce flames burned steadily on. Only their gentle crackling broke the silence.
Kieran looked down at the bodies, appreciating his handiwork. His curiosity flared. He wanted so badly to cut them open and examine them from the inside.
For a moment, he looked at his shortsword. Then he shook his head.
“Too rough,” he muttered to himself. “Too messy. It would destroy the internals before I could get a proper look at them.”
His gaze turned to the goblins’ crude weaponry. “Even worse. Precision is the most important element of a dissection.”
If only he had his lab equipment with him…
Sighing in disappointment, Kieran instead picked his way around the bodies towards the door the goblins had come through. If he couldn’t sate his primary curiosity, at least he could explore this new world he’d found himself in.
Kieran pushed through the door to find a set of stairs, leading up. Natural light and fresh air streamed down from above. It was blinding compared to the dimness he’d just left behind. Kieran breathed deeply, only then realizing just how stuffy the stone rooms had been.
At the base of the stairs, slightly off to the side, Kieran spotted a large pack. It looked to be made of fine leather. Judging by its shape, it was quite full.
Strapped around the bottom of the pack was a belt with a sheathed dagger. The sheath bore the image of a coiled serpent along its length, embroidered in silver.
Lifting the sheath, Kieran tested its weight for a moment before drawing the dagger. The light coming from the top of the stairs reflected off the steel blade, accenting its lethal edge. Kieran took a moment to appreciate the weapon’s sharpness. He smiled as he ran his fingers across the flat side of the blade.
Then a screen popped up in front of him.




Last Breath
A gift from me to you, my Chosen Contender. May you wield it with grace and intent.
Has Slain: 0 - It awaits your hands eagerly, Contender.




After willing the screen away, Kieran looked down at the blade in his hands, contemplating his meeting with the god of death.
Otherwise known as Vahr’Khul, or the Whisper Unspoken, or the Promised End…
Kieran shook his head. “So many names.”
He placed the dagger back in its sheath, then looped the belt around himself, under his robes. While still not the tool he wanted, the dagger would do just fine for the purpose of opening bodies.
Exploration of the new world could wait.
Returning to the stone room with its goblin corpses, his eyes landed first on the one goblin eviscerated by the Maim spell. Thick, dark red blood oozed from the goblin’s wounds. Using his dagger, Kieran cut a piece of cloth from the monster’s clothes and used it to wipe the blood away from a wound on its chest.
He could feel even through the cloth that the blood was especially sticky. Beneath, he noted musculature similar to that of a human, but more tightly packed.
He made a careful incision into the goblin’s chest. Though he had done this many times before, the cut wasn’t as clean as he would’ve liked. He wasn’t used to working with daggers.
Kieran traced the cut with his eyes, dissatisfied.
“What I’d give for a scalpel, right about now,” he whispered to the still air.
Before he could continue his grim research, Kieran was interrupted by another screen appearing in front of him.




Quest
Eliminate Goblin Camp — Tracking Active
Reward: 200 essence
A group of goblins is abroad nearby, looking for survivors and refugees of the monster invasion. Put them down, my Contender.




“Ordering me directly, eh, Vahr’Khul?” Kieran asked softly. “Fine.”
He willed away the screen, his mind cataloguing questions as they arose.
First, he wondered what ‘essence’ was. He knew what the word meant, of course. But in the context of gods and fantastical worlds, the meaning could be quite different.
Then, he wondered how his reward would reach him. Would it be instantaneous, like the screen notifications? Or would Vahr’Khul have to deliver it through some other means?
Both questions left Kieran intrigued.
But not as much as the possibility of killing, and researching, more goblins. Perhaps he could find more suitable tools along the way…
“Probably best not to leave a god waiting, too,” he reminded himself.
Kieran used the goblin’s clothes to clean the dagger and slipped it back into its sheath. Then he briefly inspected the contents of the pack. They included all the essentials he would need to survive in the wilderness, so he slung the thing onto his back, groaning a little at the weight.
Finally, Kieran left the stone rooms behind and walked up the stairs.
He was met with a beautiful sight. Rolling plains of tall grass stretched on and on until they were cut off by a dense forest. Beyond, miles past the tree line, a huge mountain rose into the sky.
From his position, Kieran could make out buildings set into the side of the mountain, connected by a multitude of carved trails. He could also see what looked like a small set of ruins between him and the forest. The ruins were covered with patches of green, as if long ago overtaken by nature.
“Impressive mountain,” Kieran noted, still talking to himself as if he were back in his familiar lab. “Might be worth a visit. But first…”
Remembering that the quest screen had mentioned something about ‘tracking’, he glanced down at his bracelet. The orange light, previously encircling the edge of the gemstone, was now pointing in a specific direction.
“Right, of course.”
Kieran looked out at the foreign landscape. Silencing his mind’s need to sort all these incredible events into some kind of logical order, he settled his pack onto his shoulders and started walking.
“At least it’s better than paperwork.”