Beginning the Ritual (4/5)
Meanwhile, we a young and imposing guard standing under the Death King's Shadow, and he watches passively as Freyya walks by.
As the Death goddess passes under the archway, the guard doesn't feel the typical buzzing in his soul, which happens when the security enchantment activates.
What? "Hey, Gree?" the guard leans over to his companion and whispers, "I thought I told you to recharge the enchantments on the King's Shadow?"
The guard called 'Gree' scratches his head awkwardly, "I… I forgot. I'm sorry."
The guard suddenly remembers something important. What about the lady trying to leave through the arch? "Oi you!" he calls out to her, "The King's Shadow didn't work, so you have to come back! We'll check your identity ourselves."
The woman turns around and points a finger to her face. "Hmm?" she says with a raised eyebrow, "Don't you recognize this face?"
"D-Death Reaper!?" he quickly bows his head. "I'm sorry. Please continue!"
"Alright. Whatever," the scary goddess says dismissively. Without another word, she turns around and leaves through the teleportation matrix.
With her gone, Gree lets out a sigh and wipes the sweat from his brow. "Whew. I'm glad she didn't get angry at us. I heard that the higher gods can get pretty nitpicky."
"Nah," the first guard shakes his head, "There's no way she'd take it to heart. Gods of natural events usually aren't too concerned with other people."
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At this time, we see the Death King riding on a tree Crawler, which is whizzing across the endless planes beneath the World Tree. Right now, he's on his way back home from an inspection in the outer provinces.
He's tired, hungry, and homesick by now… so he's understandably upset when the rail up ahead spontaneously breaks.
Due to how fast the Tree Crawlers move, it usually takes them at least a day to actually slow down…, much less, a few seconds.
Yes, within a few seconds, the King's Crawler slams into the broken rail, and his cart explodes in a fiery mess.
The King, of course, is unharmed, but when he gets to his feet and dusts his dirty pants off… he realizes that he's become completely stranded.
"Das! Get over here!"
There's silence.
"Ugh…," the King groans, "I forgot that Das is off playing 'king' right now on some mortal world." He combs a finger through his hair. 'It sucks not having a trustworthy butler with me.'
Well, he DID have a butler with him in the cart… but that spare servant isn't a god, so the poor man exploded in a puff of ash when the cart derailed.
With no butler accompanying him, the King has no way of finding out the location of the nearest adjacent Tree Crawler track. He has no maps on him, so even if he gets ahold of somebody to have them come pick him up, he won't be able to tell them where he is.
'How annoying. I want to get home and crawl into my bed…,' the Death King groans.
"Ugh. Whatever. I'll make some calls." He reaches his wrist up to his mouth and speaks into his enchanted bracelet:
"Basti? Yes, yes. It's your King. I need you to… YES! I'm stranded! Find someone to come search for me!... What do you mean 'I'm not being helpful?' How about you pay the bills, then you can tell me that, yeah?"
…
After the Death King finishes his conversation, he lets his hand drop, and he stares at the endless expanse around him.
'Why do I have a bad feeling…?'
Suddenly, the King of Death feels something move in his Spirit, and he feels some massive Aura leave the premises of his soul.
That's the feeling he gets when a Death god leaves the Death Realm. He can sense them all, after all, since his Divinity is closely connected to all of them.
It's the same relationship between a king and his vassals; all divinities in the Death Realm are personally allocated by him, in the same way a King designates authority to lesser nobles.
So, which Death god dared to leave his domain without permission?
"FREYAAAAAA!" he shouts at the sky. Whenever he wants, all Death gods can hear his voice… so he's not JUST venting his anger as he shouts at the sky. "FREYYA! GET BACK HERE!"
There is no answer.
'This timing is too coincidental!' he thinks as he bites his fingernail. 'The second I'm stranded in the middle of nowhere, Freyya suddenly leaves the Death Realm. Did she sabotage the railing to give herself this opportunity? How long has she been planning this?'
'More importantly, is she about to do something stupid?
If the Death King knew that the rail exploding was all just a case of "bad luck", he'd probably vomit.
'I know where she's probably going, at least,' the King thinks as he reaches into his pocket.
He pulls out a Far-Speak medallion that's built with a small Death Key as the main ingredient. Without a Death Key, then communication between the Mortal and Death Realms would be impossible.
Right now, the Death King is trying to call up Emperor Imho'Reeth - the most influential god in the Living Realm.
Obviously, if the Death King wants Freyya to be caught on her way up to Haalfrin's world, then getting Imho'Reeth to stop her would be most efficient.
Yet... The second he tries to use the magic inside the medallion, he realizes something wrong.
'Why isn't this thing working?' His eyes go wide. 'Wait... Freyya took all the Death Keys and used them... which means that I haven't been able to recharge my medallion.'
The Death King's medallion needs a new Death Key inserted into it every 100 times he uses it.
...It just has to be his bad luck that his medallion is already out of charges, yet he has no backup Death Keys to charge it with.
Now, the King is truly unable to do anything to Freyya... Well, he can't do anything until he gets rescued from his effective marooning in this endless plain.
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After Freyya easily gets through the checkpoint and arrives at the World Tree, she finds herself sitting at a busy station with a small handbag and her spear lying at her sides.
It's strange to say this, but she hasn't been outside her house personally in millions of years without being in the body of one of her avatars…
… Well, there's that one time when she went on that adventure with Yiirkavar in her true body, but that's just one time.
The point is, is that being surrounded by hordes of gods, immortals, and Ascendants on various business trips and vacations is quite overwhelming for her. Being around so many people, she almost pukes and hides in a corner. 'So many people. Ugh. Let this end. The sunlight. Ahhh…'
Yes, she's used to playing virtual games in the dark by herself, so the bright lights outside are extremely uncomfortable for her.
Once she gets over the shock of being in a crowd, she walks up to a counter, reaches her hand up, and places a paper on it.
On the paper is written her name, the name of the world she's traveling to, and the number assigned to the world – all to make paperwork more convenient.
This IS a Tree Crawler Station, after all, and they need to know where she's going before they can arrange a ride for her.
The clerk lady seems nice enough, and she's quite prompt in filling out Freyya's paperwork. "Here's your ticket number. Don't lose it."
With her ticket in hand, Freyya turns around stiffly and walks towards the benches for the people waiting for their Crawler to show up.
She's sure to find the spot with the least people crowded there, and she sits down on a bench. She then looks up at the flickering screen above the empty rail track, and she keeps a close eye on her ticket number displayed there.
The central screen here is enchanted so that everyone who looks at it will only see their own number – all to prevent confusion.
Right now, beside her number, there is a red light slowly flashing.
If the red light is flashing, that means her shuttle isn't here yet, but it's on its way. If the red light were solid instead, then that means her shuttle has already left, and that she'll have to get a different ticket number and catch a different ride.
What Freyya needs to do is wait for the lights to start flashing green. That means that her shuttle is about to arrive in 5 minutes. Once it turns solid green, then her shuttle will have arrived and is ready to be boarded.
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Freyya spends several hours keeping her head down and silently panicking. She definitely heard her king scream her name a few hours ago, and she's seriously wondering when he's going to show up and drag her back to the Death Realm.
Surprisingly… nothing is happening… YET.
Freyya spends the rest of her wait silently fretting about this, but when the light next to her ticket starts to flash green, some of her anxiety goes away. 'Yes. I'll feel much safer when I'm on the move.'
Finally, 5 minutes later, her ticket light goes solid green, and a lone Tree Crawler pulls up to her docking station.
The Crawler itself is segmented into several different carts – all of which are attached to each other like a long train.
Each cart is labeled, and her specific seating is included on her ticket.
Already feeling exhausted from the trip, she drags her feet into a metal shuttle. She then finds her assigned seat and sits down.
Groaning a little, the woman straps herself down, and her stomach lurches as she feels the shuttle moving into a spatial dimension she's not physically used to.
She feels everything around her contract, and she sees a giant ash-colored tree that seems to slip out of the cracks in space around her.
After she's done slipping to this higher dimension, she finds that the shuttle she's on is actually bolted to a railway (like an old-fashioned train track). She also sees a small, glowing fruit next to them.
This was the world they were coming from. Whenever she sees a shuttle go to or from that world, it's like everything seems to shrink the closer it is to a fruit until it's infinitely small and disappears into that world.
Freyya then looks to her side and sees that a beautiful phoenix girl is sitting to her left.
"How are you?!" the bubbly Felkin asks Freyya. "I'm going to meet some friends in the world next over. Where are you going?"
Freyya scooches a little further from the phoenix, and she pulls her hood up. Her only acknowledgment is that she turns her head away.
"F-fine…," the Felkin mumbles. She, in turn, scoots away from Freyya – clearly offended at being brushed off.