Curse and boon.

I awoke in cold sweat, grasping at my chest, then my head, running a full body check.

Nothing was wrong.

I sighed in relief.

Fuck.

Fuck!

I had been burned. This body ar least had.

I triggered one of the old gods' traps. I knew it.

Probably from the whole pocket world I created to trap Daniel 23.

It must have alerted them.

It was probably a condition of activation.

The longer I stayed in this world, the more I learn and experience, it makes me even more sure.

This is a thought being's equivalent of a VR game.

If the world was a big video game for the old gods' amusement then the new gods were the admins.

And the creation of worlds by non-adminstrator, i.e., non-divine entities must be a big no-no.

I was a bug. A virus in their systems.

And when I messed with the gameplay, it likely triggered a dormant debugging algorithm coded into reality.

I can't imagine what would have happened....if ...

It was.... I don't know what it was.

But I know it tried to break me, mind and soul.

If my code wasn't there ... I don't know what I would have done.

Gone mad and started just killing everyone and everything.

Probably... Wiped everything out or died trying out of madness.

A husk, a shell of what I was.

A new mid boss for their stupid little multiversal VR experience.

A DLC maybe.

No wonder the Library Of The Neitherlands keeps Contruzione Di Mundi, the construction of worlds in the poison room.

After all, the sorts of magicians powerful enough to accomplish the spell to make worlds, are also hard to stop once they go mad and start rampaging. Just the Beast alone wiped out the magical world on Earth and he wasn't even trying.

I shuddered at the thought and looked down at Yue lying beside me. My little panic attack had disturbed her sleep too.

She stirred softly, purring happily as she grabbed my arm and latched onto it.

"Good morning." I greeted, instinctively going to run my hand through her golden hair when I stopped and pulled back. If she hadn't been infected....

No. It was already too late.

If, and I mean if, there is something, some code infecting mine, which is very likely. I had found a part of my memories corrupted in the code.

Dormant for now, but who knows for how long?

I was tempted to poke it and see what it was but best to to provoke it for now.

Thankfully, after that Scarlatti Web incident I had begun to cut contact with the clones when they were off world to prevent any cross contamination.

So they were fine.

But if I come into contact with them again, I might infect them with whatever this was.

My running theory is that this was a curse that pulled you into a dreamspace to torture you and kill you.

A taste of my own medicine?

I let out a grim chuckle at the thought.

I'll just need to keep them off world for a while till they can make a sort of sterilization chamber for this contact problem.

Maybe a curse purger too.

Regardless, my plans need to be moved up. I don't know if this is a one time thing or if the curse continues and repeats till you fail. Or maybe it triggered a cascading set of alarms that will all send out more curses and problems at me till I go splat.

Well, I'll fond out in time, I guess.

I stretched and yawned, scanning the basic lab left in my room.

I'll have no access to the off world labs I set up while they are making the curse purger.

Quarantined.

This will have to do.

Getting up, I kissed the yawning Yue on the forehead, and relished the cute noise she made.

"Jay." She put her arms around my neck, "So energetic in the morning."

I looked down and shook my head.

"No morning sex today." I could see her face sour.

"I think I got cursed. We need to set up a quarantine first." Her expression turned serious.

"Who?" She asked, her eyes burning up with rage.

"One of the old gods' automatic mechanisms. Built-in to this reality. We must have triggered it earlier somehow." I explained, "Don't worry. I survived and it was probably just a one time thing. I'm working on a solution."

My ears rang and I clutched my head as a piercing pain wracked me.

"Shit."

The Beast had begun his psychic attack on travelers.

Just perfect timing.

I scoffed and popped a Haxenburn as the pain subsided.

Just to be sure, I stuffed a bottle in my coat pocket.

I was going to be needing it.

"Yue. I need a minute." I sat back down on the bed, "Pack our clothes. We're isolating the entire room. I'll activate the purge protocol."

Reaching out to my computer, I activated a series of codes that led into a secret project I had been working on.

The Purge Protocol.

A perfect barrier to isolate me from the world.

By creating a sort of fake pocket world myself.

Using one of my drones, I opened a portal to the mirror world's version of the neitherlands and then blasted my way into the poison room, stealing the aforementioned book.

Construzione Di Mundi.

The spell to construct worlds.

If the old gods think they can punish me for encroaching on their territory, for this sacrilege.....

I grinned.

Then I'll gut their holy cow.

I went through the motions, pulling on the magic of Daniel 23 I had trapped in my pocket world, siphoning it via the magical watch.

Yes. I had turned the halfway niffinized Daniel 23 into a living magic battery.

Originally, the Purge Protocol, incomplete as it was, would have been powered via divine crystal batteries. But once I got my hands on Danny boy over there, I had a better idea.

With my nanobots controlling his involuntary bodily functions, I could force him to output pure magic for my use. As a bonus, he felt excruciating pain everytime I did it without the sweet merciful release of death, given that he was technically immortal and all as a niffin, since they are already dead in a sense.

Can't die if death recognizes you as it's bitch already.

With a thought the wards went up and out we went.

.

"So you want to stay here." Margo looked at me like a frat senior looking to haze freshers.

Oh, wait. She was a frat senior wasn't she?

"Hold on. Bambi, are you seriously going to skip over the part where he was cursed by the old gods?!" Eliot asked, amused in a sense, "I didn't even know there were old gods till you told me."

"I'm not even surprised at his antics anymore." Margo swished the wine glass in her hand, "He cured cancer puppy in like ten minutes. He's hunting an evil god. And we're on a quest to free Q's offbrand Narnia from and evil mothman expy. I wouldn't be surprised if he told me the world was ending."

"Well actually...." I laughed nervously.

"See?" Margo downed her glass.

"I guess you're right." Eliot handed me a drink.

"What now? Does the curse do anything? You look fine."

"When don't I look fine?" I said with a cheeky grin.

"Jay is handsomest man to me." Yue agreed but....

"Why does that sound consolatory?"

Yue giggled.

"Because it is."

"Ackh!" I gripped my chest and fell back into my seat dramatically as Eliot snorted in amusement.

"That aside, what are the effects of the curse?"

"Supposedly drives you mad with fear and makes you kill everyone you love before it soul kills you or you die otherwise."

"So the Wrath Of Hera."

"In how she drove Hercules mad so he killed his wife and kids? Kinda." I nodded.

"Great." Eliot threw up his hands.

"For the record, this is not how I wanted to enter the legends."

"So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us." I said.

"Did you just quote Gandalf?" Eliot facepalmed, chuckling.

"He had to fight off a Beast too." I shrugged.

"But don't worry about me. I fought it off so no worries. Just, quarantining the dorm room for other, unrelated reasons."

Not gonna tell them about my clones and portal gun, am I now?

Nope. That remains a secret. Until they sign that contract of course.

Eliot looked at me with a deadpan look meant for cats that are about to swipe your glass of cola off the table edge.

"That doesn't sound suspicious at all."

"C'mon. Have some faith in me. I'm a professional at this." I patted his back when I heard a tune.

"Is that Red Bone's Come And Get Your Love?" Margo asked amused.

"Yeah. It is Red Bone." I smiled, apporting the Tale Of The Seven Keys to my hand.

"What's redbone?" Yue asked confused.

Apportation and Translocation. Two sister spells that involved summoning objects to and from your hands.

The book appeared in my hands through a blur, and it's covers flipped open, it's pages fluttering at breakneck speed as words began to appear on it revealing the final chapter of the book first.

"Yup. It's her. Let me just go and g-"

The door swung open and a cyborg hand grabbed me, sweeping me off my feet Inspector Gadget style, as she stepped in spring in her step.

With a twirl she danced, swinging me about gently, leading in lockstep across the floor until she had me swoon, her arm around my waist as she leaned in close.

"Mommy's home." She quipped, kissing my forehead and I squealed happily like a Beiber fangirl.

____________________

The extra chapter for 400 powerstones as promised.

Offee is back, baby!

And mc might be cursed, but more importantly, Offee is back!

Also wow.

From 800 to 460 powerstones.

This fic has fallen.

Can you tell me why?

Any ideas to improve it?

Anyways thanks for reading.

Donate your powerstones.

Bye.