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SmoothScaramouche t1_ixu1vxu wrote

Sati was not happy.

For starters, he wasn't just Sati, like a gods damned fishmonger. He was the great... No, the grand...master... Of something... Or other. Something else, in any case.

But it was as if something in the air itself kept repeating it, a constant murmur in his ear, telling him that it wasn't important, nothing really was, after all, and he should just relax and be happy.

Was this hell, after all? He thought by now all of the gods should know of him, and he certainly deserved it. Yet...

This was not Hell

He couldn't explain how he knew it, but it was something he was sure of. And still, he kept walking the endless clouds, without seeing anyone, just trying to put his finger on whatever it was that was wrong.


[The two angels watched as the man kept walking into the distance. There was literally nowhere he could go, he was, now and forever, in his own Haven, and nothing could ever have any effect on him until after Creation itself was extinct.

One of them spoke:

- I still don't think it was fair.
- Doubting the God's wisdom? Rarely a good career move,  particularly for our kind.
- Don't be crass. Of course I know it's _right_, the gods willed it so, it's just... I'd like to understand. 

This... _man_... has broken all of the laws, human and divine. And even a few neither even thought they should be laws before Sati, the Grandmaster Necromancer of the undead Seth Reign, decided to try to conquer the human world first just so he could have a base from which to attack the gods. 

And now, after those heroic humans sacrificed their own life to stop him, he gets to go to his own Haven? I don't get it.

- Oh to be that young again! - answered his companion, before chuckling with a sound like a brook in winter. Then added:

- Havens are filled with the things their owner have truly loved, since they're carrying them in their souls. Friends, lovers, family, pets, a favorite sunset or a particularly melodic bird... Every single instant they've truly enjoyed is there, forever theirs.

- But this one's completely barren... There's nothing here. 

- Exactly. He never had any love for anything but power, power he never truly enjoyed because to him it was just a stepping stone to an even greater one. And so, here he is... With an eternity of nothing before him. Because he had no love in his heart, even in his own Haven... He is alone.]

Kalen the barbarian woke up in the middle of a fight.

Wasn't the first time it happened to him, so he just rolled with the blow, pulled out his sword and gutted whatever had just tried to brain him before he could even clear his eyes.

He shook his head like a wet dog, trying to loose the cobwebs, and looked up.

He seemed to be on top of a reddish cliff, standing on top of a rockwall around twenty paces wide that had steep drops on both sides. The one closest to him seemed to just disappear in the distance below him, with an almost vertical drop.

He walked back to check on his attacker and saw it had been a little girl... With a meat cleaver. And tiny nubs of horns on her forehead. And filed, pointy teeth.

He sighed. Cannibals were one of those things he just could never understand, no matter how far he traveled. Might be the wisdom of the tribe still holding him back, but to be fair, eating people was just weird, as far as he was concerned.

He was still somewhat lost in his musings when the little girl stood up, ignoring the three inch gash from which her entrails were still dropping and hissed at him.

Kalen sidestepped, with an almost bored ease, then slashed low and the creature lost its legs. Another three quick chops, and then he walked back to the edge and tossed the head and limbs down, waiting to see if they made a noise when they hit something.

All he heard though, was the head's taunts and curses as they seemed to drown away to just echoes. He shrugged his broad shoulders, picked up the sword and the torso and walked to the opposite edge of the cliff.

On that side, the drop was just as steep, but not quite as long. A few hundred meters down he could see a red smoking sea surrounded by a jet black beach, where a few white rocks protruded like forgotten bones, in stark contrast to the sand.

The descent was still impossible from this side, but there seemed to be a path in the distance. He tossed the torso down, adjusted his girdle, and started to walk. Maybe there was something to kill in that beach...

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