Chapter 11
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"Hello handsome," said a sultry female voice from within the darkness. "Finally, we meet. You sure know how to make a girl wait ..."
As Johan's eyes adjusted, he found himself in a cluttered antique/book shop. The room smelt of incense and flowers.
Books with titles in unknown languages and strange looking contraptions stood on the shelves that surrounded him. Lamps, cubes, knives, and many other objects filled the room. Among the shelves stood an attractive young woman. She wore nothing but a blue embroidered see-through silk robe that left nothing to the imagination. Her petite sensual soft voluptuous figure was everything a man could dream of. Her lips were ruby red and her purple eyes had a cat like quality to them. Her shoulder length black hair perfectly framed her exotically beautiful facial features.
When Johan saw her, the rest of the room seemed to melt away. Every part of her was a work of art. An unusually strong animalistic urge overcame him, but he quickly subdued it.
Her gaze caught Johan, and he found himself unable to break free from it. Her beauty alone, made Johan forget about the unusualness of his current situation.
"I bet you have questions," purred the woman.
[Johan,] echoed Johan's father in his mind, [Get answers. Don't let this woman's beauty make you forget the reason you came here.]
Johan's face turned red when he realized that his father had probably been aware of the impure thoughts that had flowed through his minds upon seeing the girl.
Johan cleared his throat embarrassed.
"You mentioned you knew about Jade and the beast in the alley," said Johan. "Who are you, what has been going on, and why did you want to see me?"
"Ahh," said the woman with a perverted glint in her eyes, "Straight to the point! I like that quality in a man!"
She gestured to Johan and said, "Take a seat. To start, we should introduce ourselves. I am Gadra, the collector of histories and giver of quests. Made from the remnants of the great Idrissa, Lyall and Aoife's souls and essences after the great battle."
Johan looked to where the woman gestured and realized a chair had appeared behind him. The shelves seemed to move on their own as the chair pushed into the back of Johan's legs forcing him to sit. Out of the floor, a table grew like a tree sprouting rapidly. A throne like chair met Gadra's rump as she too took a seat. She sat on the chair crossing her legs sensually, and leaned forward squeezing her bosom together, gazing at Johan. From the table grew a scrumptious looking meal and cups of deep red wine.
"Who is Idrissa, Lyall, and Aoife? What do you mean?," said Johan.
"We will get to that soon. For now, eat and drink, honey," said Gadra licking her lips. "While you do, I'll tell you a tale that will answer your questions and more. Are you ready to listen?"
Johan nodded.
Gadra reached across the table and caressed Johan's face, and then put her finger on his lips and said.
"Will you give me your undivided attention?," she whispered.
Johan felt her warm breath brush past his face. She smelled sweet.
Johan felt his head go hot, feeling her soft and warm skin pressed against his.
She picked up a small fruit from the table and fed it to Johan.
Johan took it in his mouth, and felt the fruit melt on his tongue.
It was sweet and tasted like Gadra's breath smelt.
He nodded.
Gadra smiled an all knowing smile as her eyes began to glow and a flood of images entered into Johan's mind.
She began purring her tale.
"The realm that contains the earth, is but a grain of sand in a sea of realms. Within this realm, there exist galaxies and even clusters of galaxies that are vibrant with life. But earth is special, for it is a node of Yggdrasil, the realm tree that connects different realms together. Being one of the nine realms of Yggdrasil, periodically, gods are randomly created here. These beings are capable of traversing realms and going to realms not even attached to Yggdrasil and accomplishing feats beyond human comprehension.
Gods often mirror humans in form, and even biology, but their abilities and thoughts are beyond most mortal entities comprehension. Most humans live their lives like frogs born and grown in a well, never realizing how vast existence truly is.
The Norse peoples spoke of Odin, the Romans of Zeus, the Egyptians of Ra, Indians of Shiva, and the Jewish of Yahweh, these are all children of Yggdrasil.
However, like man, not all gods are created equal. Furthermore, not all are good, not all are bad, and more often than not, they are somewhere in between.
Each god has an affinity or talent, a skill that they have a natural affinity for. Calling lightening on a whim, the ability to travel great distances in a blink, the ability to create something from nothing, and it goes on.
But like man, they vary in skill with this ability as well.
The problem arises when a god is born with naturally malicious intent, strong constitution and high level of talent. This often results in unnatural mass extinctions and mass destruction.
I myself was born from beings who fought a creature with malicious intent …
Lilith.
She was the sister of Idrissa, Lyall, and Aoife. Old gods, born from the tree of life, Yggdrasil.
Lilith's core desire was different and it wasn't a desire that she was born with, rather it developed over time. She wanted to absorb the divine life force of all creatures, rather than develop her divinity through hard work and persistence. This resulted in mass deaths, for without our divine force, we will die.
Free divine force has been called many things, but I call it mana. Bound mana is the divine force that keeps us alive. Lilith chose to take both, with a narcissistic taste for bound mana. She had human followers that acted as her appendages in order to aid her in cruel tastes. They called themselves the 'furry leggers'.
Many good men and women rose up to stop Lilith, many lost their lives ... In the end Lilith was defeated, when her siblings decided to stand with the humans against her. But not without cost ... The battle went on for millions of years, spanned galaxies, destroyed countless civilizations and shifted this realm's affinity from creating life, to being a barren one with very little life.
The remnants of Lyall, Aoife and Idrissa's souls combined overtime to form an entity that has scavenged a bit of their memories and the combination of their remaining power …
Me, Gadra.
I lacked many of the abilities that I assume that many gods before me had. Like the ability to traverse realms, but, I was free to explore this realm and so I did in order to find answers.
What am I?
Am I the only one left?
What happened?
Despite how far I travelled, I always returned to earth.
I could find no other life. In Lilith's defeat, she may destroyed all life in this realm. Did human's truly win? Or did both sides loose?
But in the darkness, there was hope.
On earth, life survived.
In time, on earth and only earth, I witnessed new gods being born.
These gods were different from the ones that came before them, weaker, their powers more specialized. Yet they ruled and brought order and war, fear and love, humanity developed because of them.
You know these gods as Yahweh, Odin, Zeus, amongst others.
They came and died because they were too weak to survive for long against the powers of time. Yet, they lived much longer than humans.
Seeing them die, I realized that I was too weakening, so I searched for a solution. Eventually, I found this place, a place that stopped me from weakening as long as I stayed here. A mana spring.
Near the end of the battle of Lilith. A seal was made to contain Lilith. That seal draws on the power of this realm's free mana and makes it un-accessible for other purposes.
Yet, recently, an anomaly recently occurred.
Lilith was resurrected, in fact, you saw her in the alley. Yet I have checked, and the seal on her, remains as strong as ever. But what worries me more is that a creature came into being that killed her with a single strike, a creature I had never seen before.
Lilith who once brought this realm to the brink of extinction was murdered with a single strike.
Following this, I've seen many more anomalies appear. The appearance of the dog with the vortex eyes. Jade's human form being bound to a room despite her dying."
"So what is it you'd like from me?," asked Johan.
"Answers clearly," said Gadra with a sensual smirk. "I showed me mine, now it is time for you to show me yours."
"But, I know less than you," said Johan. "I am only human."
"You were the only one who came," said Gadra. "No one else seems to listen. You can be my vessel to the outside world."
Johan frowned.
"What's wrong?," asked Gadra.
"I just thought there was a reason you called for me," said Johan. "Clear answers, a way to fix my issues."
Gadra let out a laugh.
"Not at all," she said.
Johan frowned annoyed.
"The gods that came after me, made it so that man has very little free will over what happens in their lives," said Gadra. "Most people don't realize that they are but thoughtless cogs in a big machine … perhaps, even I, am part of a bigger machine that I am unaware of … any deviation in behavior comes from outside forces, that the machine they setup hasn't compensated for ... like gods."
"I will one day do great things," said Johan. "I'll make my parents proud, even though they are no longer with me. I am creator of my own faith."
"You are wrong," said Gadra leaning forward with a smile. "Quite the contrary. You do nothing … even though you stubbornly and continuously throughout your life say you will. You follow the will of those gods, because you are powerless to break free. And if you try, the Universe will punish you, as will society. You, my dear are locked in."
"I'll fight and I will win," said Johan.
Gadra leaned in, and whispered to Johan, "You never get married, and as you grow older, you constantly get fired and have difficulty holding down a job … You start University, but drop out …"
Every word Gadra said stung as Johan listened to it.
As she spoke, images from a intricate divine web appeared in front of Johan. As he looked closer, he realised the threads that made it up were the lives of billions of people who had lived in the past, were to be born in the future, and who were alive right now. Yet, one thread stood out.
As he looked closer, he realised the thread that had caught his attention was his own. Images of his life, began flying into his mind. From before he was born, to his current moment, and to his death. The images reflected the words Gadra said. He couldn't help but believe it because deep down, his very being knew the truth of the Universe and the laws that it had no choice but to follow. Johan's core programming knew that what he saw in front of him, was no lie.
Gadra continued to speak without stopping. "Your life is a struggle. Your parents were murdered, they are not coming back. Did you think that your government would swoop in and save you like the heroes they claim to be? No, not at all. Their investigations often set you back. They even at times will break your spirit.
You will die alone, always struggle to do everything right, are continuously questioned, but get nowhere, you work hard while the people who do much less than you, and scorn you live easily.
Then you are forgotten rather quickly after your death.
This is your pathetic life.
No one will help you.
They'll take advantage of you and you'll continuously be stabbed in the back and betrayed.
This is your faith as it has been written. This is your destiny."
Listening to Gadra, Johan felt himself losing his patience. She was beautiful, perhaps the most beautiful women he'd ever seen. But, what she was saying wasn't something Johan liked to hear.
[This degenerate of a woman,] boomed Johan's father. [Do not heed her words! She spouts non-sense similar to what the Hindhu caste system spouts. If you are born poor, you will stay poor. Its utter non-sense. Defy god's faith. Those who fight and risk it all, change the world. What gives this tease, the right to tell MY SON that he will die a looser?]
Johan's father's words resonated in his head.
Johan felt his pride push back.
"Now that I know," said Johan. "I'll make sure that it doesn't happen. I am master of my own faith. I create my own destiny."
As Johan said this, he noticed something odd happen with his thread, something that was unlike the the other threads. It changed color and began fading in and out of sight. Gadra didn't seem to notice, this phenomenon gave Johan hope.
[Johan,] said his father, [Good job, stand your ground. I've raised you well.]
"But you won't know," said Gadra. "Once you leave here, your memories will be wiped of this and everything mystical you have seen up until this point."
Johan felt a sense of helplessness and vulnerability.
"But I didn't bring you here without reason," said Gadra. "I can help you change all that …"
"So what is it that you want in return?," said Johan. "I want to keep my memories."
The table disappeared, Gadra stood up and walked to Johan and grasped his cheeks with her warm hand.
To Johan's surprise, Gadra brought her face close to his and kissed him.
Her lips were like warm and sweet like soft pillows made of cotton candy and from them pleasure spread out to his whole body.
Johan heard his father muttering something but Gadra spread her legs and sat on his lap. The warmth from between her served only to arouse him more.
[My dad is probably just a hallucination anyways,] thought Johan as he grasped Gadra's soft back. He felt himself loosing control.
Gadra was everything Johan had dreamed of in a woman and more.
She was the divine manifestation of womanly beauty.
She whispered, "Your first achievement can be sleeping with one of the most powerful beings in existence."
Gadra pushed Johan onto his back and he felt himself fall back onto a bed.
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"Hello handsome," said a sultry female voice from within the darkness. "Finally, we meet. You sure know how to make a girl wait ..."
As Johan's eyes adjusted, he found himself in a cluttered antique/book shop. The room smelt of incense and flowers.
Books with titles in unknown languages and strange looking contraptions stood on the shelves that surrounded him. Lamps, cubes, knives, and many other objects filled the room. Among the shelves stood an attractive young woman. She wore nothing but a blue embroidered see-through silk robe that left nothing to the imagination. Her petite sensual soft voluptuous figure was everything a man could dream of. Her lips were ruby red and her purple eyes had a cat like quality to them. Her shoulder length black hair perfectly framed her exotically beautiful facial features.
When Johan saw her, the rest of the room seemed to melt away. Every part of her was a work of art. An unusually strong animalistic urge overcame him, but he quickly subdued it.
Her gaze caught Johan, and he found himself unable to break free from it. Her beauty alone, made Johan forget about the unusualness of his current situation.
"I bet you have questions," purred the woman.
[Johan,] echoed Johan's father in his mind, [Get answers. Don't let this woman's beauty make you forget the reason you came here.]
Johan's face turned red when he realized that his father had probably been aware of the impure thoughts that had flowed through his minds upon seeing the girl.
Johan cleared his throat embarrassed.
"You mentioned you knew about Jade and the beast in the alley," said Johan. "Who are you, what has been going on, and why did you want to see me?"
"Ahh," said the woman with a perverted glint in her eyes, "Straight to the point! I like that quality in a man!"
She gestured to Johan and said, "Take a seat. To start, we should introduce ourselves. I am Gadra, the collector of histories and giver of quests. Made from the remnants of the great Idrissa, Lyall and Aoife's souls and essences after the great battle."
Johan looked to where the woman gestured and realized a chair had appeared behind him. The shelves seemed to move on their own as the chair pushed into the back of Johan's legs forcing him to sit. Out of the floor, a table grew like a tree sprouting rapidly. A throne like chair met Gadra's rump as she too took a seat. She sat on the chair crossing her legs sensually, and leaned forward squeezing her bosom together, gazing at Johan. From the table grew a scrumptious looking meal and cups of deep red wine.
"Who is Idrissa, Lyall, and Aoife? What do you mean?," said Johan.
"We will get to that soon. For now, eat and drink, honey," said Gadra licking her lips. "While you do, I'll tell you a tale that will answer your questions and more. Are you ready to listen?"
Johan nodded.
Gadra reached across the table and caressed Johan's face, and then put her finger on his lips and said.
"Will you give me your undivided attention?," she whispered.
Johan felt her warm breath brush past his face. She smelled sweet.
Johan felt his head go hot, feeling her soft and warm skin pressed against his.
She picked up a small fruit from the table and fed it to Johan.
Johan took it in his mouth, and felt the fruit melt on his tongue.
It was sweet and tasted like Gadra's breath smelt.
He nodded.
Gadra smiled an all knowing smile as her eyes began to glow and a flood of images entered into Johan's mind.
She began purring her tale.
"The realm that contains the earth, is but a grain of sand in a sea of realms. Within this realm, there exist galaxies and even clusters of galaxies that are vibrant with life. But earth is special, for it is a node of Yggdrasil, the realm tree that connects different realms together. Being one of the nine realms of Yggdrasil, periodically, gods are randomly created here. These beings are capable of traversing realms and going to realms not even attached to Yggdrasil and accomplishing feats beyond human comprehension.
Gods often mirror humans in form, and even biology, but their abilities and thoughts are beyond most mortal entities comprehension. Most humans live their lives like frogs born and grown in a well, never realizing how vast existence truly is.
The Norse peoples spoke of Odin, the Romans of Zeus, the Egyptians of Ra, Indians of Shiva, and the Jewish of Yahweh, these are all children of Yggdrasil.
However, like man, not all gods are created equal. Furthermore, not all are good, not all are bad, and more often than not, they are somewhere in between.
Each god has an affinity or talent, a skill that they have a natural affinity for. Calling lightening on a whim, the ability to travel great distances in a blink, the ability to create something from nothing, and it goes on.
But like man, they vary in skill with this ability as well.
The problem arises when a god is born with naturally malicious intent, strong constitution and high level of talent. This often results in unnatural mass extinctions and mass destruction.
I myself was born from beings who fought a creature with malicious intent …
Lilith.
She was the sister of Idrissa, Lyall, and Aoife. Old gods, born from the tree of life, Yggdrasil.
Lilith's core desire was different and it wasn't a desire that she was born with, rather it developed over time. She wanted to absorb the divine life force of all creatures, rather than develop her divinity through hard work and persistence. This resulted in mass deaths, for without our divine force, we will die.
Free divine force has been called many things, but I call it mana. Bound mana is the divine force that keeps us alive. Lilith chose to take both, with a narcissistic taste for bound mana. She had human followers that acted as her appendages in order to aid her in cruel tastes. They called themselves the 'furry leggers'.
Many good men and women rose up to stop Lilith, many lost their lives ... In the end Lilith was defeated, when her siblings decided to stand with the humans against her. But not without cost ... The battle went on for millions of years, spanned galaxies, destroyed countless civilizations and shifted this realm's affinity from creating life, to being a barren one with very little life.
The remnants of Lyall, Aoife and Idrissa's souls combined overtime to form an entity that has scavenged a bit of their memories and the combination of their remaining power …
Me, Gadra.
I lacked many of the abilities that I assume that many gods before me had. Like the ability to traverse realms, but, I was free to explore this realm and so I did in order to find answers.
What am I?
Am I the only one left?
What happened?
Despite how far I travelled, I always returned to earth.
I could find no other life. In Lilith's defeat, she may destroyed all life in this realm. Did human's truly win? Or did both sides loose?
But in the darkness, there was hope.
On earth, life survived.
In time, on earth and only earth, I witnessed new gods being born.
These gods were different from the ones that came before them, weaker, their powers more specialized. Yet they ruled and brought order and war, fear and love, humanity developed because of them.
You know these gods as Yahweh, Odin, Zeus, amongst others.
They came and died because they were too weak to survive for long against the powers of time. Yet, they lived much longer than humans.
Seeing them die, I realized that I was too weakening, so I searched for a solution. Eventually, I found this place, a place that stopped me from weakening as long as I stayed here. A mana spring.
Near the end of the battle of Lilith. A seal was made to contain Lilith. That seal draws on the power of this realm's free mana and makes it un-accessible for other purposes.
Yet, recently, an anomaly recently occurred.
Lilith was resurrected, in fact, you saw her in the alley. Yet I have checked, and the seal on her, remains as strong as ever. But what worries me more is that a creature came into being that killed her with a single strike, a creature I had never seen before.
Lilith who once brought this realm to the brink of extinction was murdered with a single strike.
Following this, I've seen many more anomalies appear. The appearance of the dog with the vortex eyes. Jade's human form being bound to a room despite her dying."
"So what is it you'd like from me?," asked Johan.
"Answers clearly," said Gadra with a sensual smirk. "I showed me mine, now it is time for you to show me yours."
"But, I know less than you," said Johan. "I am only human."
"You were the only one who came," said Gadra. "No one else seems to listen. You can be my vessel to the outside world."
Johan frowned.
"What's wrong?," asked Gadra.
"I just thought there was a reason you called for me," said Johan. "Clear answers, a way to fix my issues."
Gadra let out a laugh.
"Not at all," she said.
Johan frowned annoyed.
"The gods that came after me, made it so that man has very little free will over what happens in their lives," said Gadra. "Most people don't realize that they are but thoughtless cogs in a big machine … perhaps, even I, am part of a bigger machine that I am unaware of … any deviation in behavior comes from outside forces, that the machine they setup hasn't compensated for ... like gods."
"I will one day do great things," said Johan. "I'll make my parents proud, even though they are no longer with me. I am creator of my own faith."
"You are wrong," said Gadra leaning forward with a smile. "Quite the contrary. You do nothing … even though you stubbornly and continuously throughout your life say you will. You follow the will of those gods, because you are powerless to break free. And if you try, the Universe will punish you, as will society. You, my dear are locked in."
"I'll fight and I will win," said Johan.
Gadra leaned in, and whispered to Johan, "You never get married, and as you grow older, you constantly get fired and have difficulty holding down a job … You start University, but drop out …"
Every word Gadra said stung as Johan listened to it.
As she spoke, images from a intricate divine web appeared in front of Johan. As he looked closer, he realised the threads that made it up were the lives of billions of people who had lived in the past, were to be born in the future, and who were alive right now. Yet, one thread stood out.
As he looked closer, he realised the thread that had caught his attention was his own. Images of his life, began flying into his mind. From before he was born, to his current moment, and to his death. The images reflected the words Gadra said. He couldn't help but believe it because deep down, his very being knew the truth of the Universe and the laws that it had no choice but to follow. Johan's core programming knew that what he saw in front of him, was no lie.
Gadra continued to speak without stopping. "Your life is a struggle. Your parents were murdered, they are not coming back. Did you think that your government would swoop in and save you like the heroes they claim to be? No, not at all. Their investigations often set you back. They even at times will break your spirit.
You will die alone, always struggle to do everything right, are continuously questioned, but get nowhere, you work hard while the people who do much less than you, and scorn you live easily.
Then you are forgotten rather quickly after your death.
This is your pathetic life.
No one will help you.
They'll take advantage of you and you'll continuously be stabbed in the back and betrayed.
This is your faith as it has been written. This is your destiny."
Listening to Gadra, Johan felt himself losing his patience. She was beautiful, perhaps the most beautiful women he'd ever seen. But, what she was saying wasn't something Johan liked to hear.
[This degenerate of a woman,] boomed Johan's father. [Do not heed her words! She spouts non-sense similar to what the Hindhu caste system spouts. If you are born poor, you will stay poor. Its utter non-sense. Defy god's faith. Those who fight and risk it all, change the world. What gives this tease, the right to tell MY SON that he will die a looser?]
Johan's father's words resonated in his head.
Johan felt his pride push back.
"Now that I know," said Johan. "I'll make sure that it doesn't happen. I am master of my own faith. I create my own destiny."
As Johan said this, he noticed something odd happen with his thread, something that was unlike the the other threads. It changed color and began fading in and out of sight. Gadra didn't seem to notice, this phenomenon gave Johan hope.
[Johan,] said his father, [Good job, stand your ground. I've raised you well.]
"But you won't know," said Gadra. "Once you leave here, your memories will be wiped of this and everything mystical you have seen up until this point."
Johan felt a sense of helplessness and vulnerability.
"But I didn't bring you here without reason," said Gadra. "I can help you change all that …"
"So what is it that you want in return?," said Johan. "I want to keep my memories."
The table disappeared, Gadra stood up and walked to Johan and grasped his cheeks with her warm hand.
To Johan's surprise, Gadra brought her face close to his and kissed him.
Her lips were like warm and sweet like soft pillows made of cotton candy and from them pleasure spread out to his whole body.
Johan heard his father muttering something but Gadra spread her legs and sat on his lap. The warmth from between her served only to arouse him more.
[My dad is probably just a hallucination anyways,] thought Johan as he grasped Gadra's soft back. He felt himself loosing control.
Gadra was everything Johan had dreamed of in a woman and more.
She was the divine manifestation of womanly beauty.
She whispered, "Your first achievement can be sleeping with one of the most powerful beings in existence."
Gadra pushed Johan onto his back and he felt himself fall back onto a bed.
"Hello handsome," said a sultry female voice from within the darkness. "Finally, we meet. You sure know how to make a girl wait ..."As Johan's eyes adjusted, he found himself in a cluttered antique/book shop. The room smelt of incense and flowers.Books with titles in unknown languages and strange looking contraptions stood on the shelves that surrounded him. Lamps, cubes, knives, and many other objects filled the room. Among the shelves stood an attractive young woman. She wore nothing but a blue embroidered see-through silk robe that left nothing to the imagination. Her petite sensual soft voluptuous figure was everything a man could dream of. Her lips were ruby red and her purple eyes had a cat like quality to them. Her shoulder length black hair perfectly framed her exotically beautiful facial features.When Johan saw her, the rest of the room seemed to melt away. Every part of her was a work of art. An unusually strong animalistic urge overcame him, but he quickly subdued it.Her gaze caught Johan, and he found himself unable to break free from it. Her beauty alone, made Johan forget about the unusualness of his current situation."I bet you have questions," purred the woman.Johan, echoed Johan's father in his mind, Get answers. Don't let this woman's beauty make you forget the reason you came here.Johan's face turned red when he realized that his father had probably been aware of the impure thoughts that had flowed through his minds upon seeing the girl.Johan cleared his throat embarrassed."You mentioned you knew about Jade and the beast in the alley," said Johan. "Who are you, what has been going on, and why did you want to see me?""Ahh," said the woman with a perverted glint in her eyes, "Straight to the point! I like that quality in a man!"She gestured to Johan and said, "Take a seat. To start, we should introduce ourselves. I am Gadra, the collector of histories and giver of quests. Made from the remnants of the great Idrissa, Lyall and Aoife's souls and essences after the great battle."Johan looked to where the woman gestured and realized a chair had appeared behind him. The shelves seemed to move on their own as the chair pushed into the back of Johan's legs forcing him to sit. Out of the floor, a table grew like a tree sprouting rapidly. A throne like chair met Gadra's rump as she too took a seat. She sat on the chair crossing her legs sensually, and leaned forward squeezing her bosom together, gazing at Johan. From the table grew a scrumptious looking meal and cups of deep red wine."Who is Idrissa, Lyall, and Aoife? What do you mean?," said Johan."We will get to that soon. For now, eat and drink, honey," said Gadra licking her lips. "While you do, I'll tell you a tale that will answer your questions and more. Are you ready to listen?"Johan nodded.Gadra reached across the table and caressed Johan's face, and then put her finger on his lips and said."Will you give me your undivided attention?," she whispered.Johan felt her warm breath brush past his face. She smelled sweet.Johan felt his head go hot, feeling her soft and warm skin pressed against his.She picked up a small fruit from the table and fed it to Johan.Johan took it in his mouth, and felt the fruit melt on his tongue.It was sweet and tasted like Gadra's breath smelt.He nodded.Gadra smiled an all knowing smile as her eyes began to glow and a flood of images entered into Johan's mind.She began purring her tale."The realm that contains the earth, is but a grain of sand in a sea of realms. Within this realm, there exist galaxies and even clusters of galaxies that are vibrant with life. But earth is special, for it is a node of Yggdrasil, the realm tree that connects different realms together. Being one of the nine realms of Yggdrasil, periodically, gods are randomly created here. These beings are capable of traversing realms and going to realms not even attached to Yggdrasil and accomplishing feats beyond human comprehension.Gods often mirror humans in form, and even biology, but their abilities and thoughts are beyond most mortal entities comprehension. Most humans live their lives like frogs born and grown in a well, never realizing how vast existence truly is.The Norse peoples spoke of Odin, the Romans of Zeus, the Egyptians of Ra, Indians of Shiva, and the Jewish of Yahweh, these are all children of Yggdrasil.However, like man, not all gods are created equal. Furthermore, not all are good, not all are bad, and more often than not, they are somewhere in between.Each god has an affinity or talent, a skill that they have a natural affinity for. Calling lightening on a whim, the ability to travel great distances in a blink, the ability to create something from nothing, and it goes on.But like man, they vary in skill with this ability as well.The problem arises when a god is born with naturally malicious intent, strong constitution and high level of talent. This often results in unnatural mass extinctions and mass destruction.I myself was born from beings who fought a creature with malicious intent Lilith.She was the sister of Idrissa, Lyall, and Aoife. Old gods, born from the tree of life, Yggdrasil.Lilith's core desire was different and it wasn't a desire that she was born with, rather it developed over time. She wanted to absorb the divine life force of all creatures, rather than develop her divinity through hard work and persistence. This resulted in mass deaths, for without our divine force, we will die.Free divine force has been called many things, but I call it mana. Bound mana is the divine force that keeps us alive. Lilith chose to take both, with a narcissistic taste for bound mana. She had human followers that acted as her appendages in order to aid her in cruel tastes. They called themselves the 'furry leggers'.Many good men and women rose up to stop Lilith, many lost their lives ... In the end Lilith was defeated, when her siblings decided to stand with the humans against her. But not without cost ... The battle went on for millions of years, spanned galaxies, destroyed countless civilizations and shifted this realm's affinity from creating life, to being a barren one with very little life.The remnants of Lyall, Aoife and Idrissa's souls combined overtime to form an entity that has scavenged a bit of their memories and the combination of their remaining power Me, Gadra.I lacked many of the abilities that I assume that many gods before me had. Like the ability to traverse realms, but, I was free to explore this realm and so I did in order to find answers.What am I?Am I the only one left?What happened?Despite how far I travelled, I always returned to earth.I could find no other life. In Lilith's defeat, she may destroyed all life in this realm. Did human's truly win? Or did both sides loose?But in the darkness, there was hope.On earth, life survived.In time, on earth and only earth, I witnessed new gods being born.These gods were different from the ones that came before them, weaker, their powers more specialized. Yet they ruled and brought order and war, fear and love, humanity developed because of them.You know these gods as Yahweh, Odin, Zeus, amongst others.They came and died because they were too weak to survive for long against the powers of time. Yet, they lived much longer than humans.Seeing them die, I realized that I was too weakening, so I searched for a solution. Eventually, I found this place, a place that stopped me from weakening as long as I stayed here. A mana spring.Near the end of the battle of Lilith. A seal was made to contain Lilith. That seal draws on the power of this realm's free mana and makes it un-accessible for other purposes.Yet, recently, an anomaly recently occurred.Lilith was resurrected, in fact, you saw her in the alley. Yet I have checked, and the seal on her, remains as strong as ever. But what worries me more is that a creature came into being that killed her with a single strike, a creature I had never seen before.Lilith who once brought this realm to the brink of extinction was murdered with a single strike.Following this, I've seen many more anomalies appear. The appearance of the dog with the vortex eyes. Jade's human form being bound to a room despite her dying.""So what is it you'd like from me?," asked Johan."Answers clearly," said Gadra with a sensual smirk. "I showed me mine, now it is time for you to show me yours.""But, I know less than you," said Johan. "I am only human.""You were the only one who came," said Gadra. "No one else seems to listen. You can be my vessel to the outside world."Johan frowned."What's wrong?," asked Gadra."I just thought there was a reason you called for me," said Johan. "Clear answers, a way to fix my issues."Gadra let out a laugh."Not at all," she said.Johan frowned annoyed."The gods that came after me, made it so that man has very little free will over what happens in their lives," said Gadra. "Most people don't realize that they are but thoughtless cogs in a big machine perhaps, even I, am part of a bigger machine that I am unaware of any deviation in behavior comes from outside forces, that the machine they setup hasn't compensated for ... like gods.""I will one day do great things," said Johan. "I'll make my parents proud, even though they are no longer with me. I am creator of my own faith.""You are wrong," said Gadra leaning forward with a smile. "Quite the contrary. You do nothing even though you stubbornly and continuously throughout your life say you will. You follow the will of those gods, because you are powerless to break free. And if you try, the Universe will punish you, as will society. You, my dear are locked in.""I'll fight and I will win," said Johan.Gadra leaned in, and whispered to Johan, "You never get married, and as you grow older, you constantly get fired and have difficulty holding down a job You start University, but drop out "Every word Gadra said stung as Johan listened to it.As she spoke, images from a intricate divine web appeared in front of Johan. As he looked closer, he realised the threads that made it up were the lives of billions of people who had lived in the past, were to be born in the future, and who were alive right now. Yet, one thread stood out.As he looked closer, he realised the thread that had caught his attention was his own. Images of his life, began flying into his mind. From before he was born, to his current moment, and to his death. The images reflected the words Gadra said. He couldn't help but believe it because deep down, his very being knew the truth of the Universe and the laws that it had no choice but to follow. Johan's core programming knew that what he saw in front of him, was no lie.Gadra continued to speak without stopping. "Your life is a struggle. Your parents were murdered, they are not coming back. Did you think that your government would swoop in and save you like the heroes they claim to be? No, not at all. Their investigations often set you back. They even at times will break your spirit.You will die alone, always struggle to do everything right, are continuously questioned, but get nowhere, you work hard while the people who do much less than you, and scorn you live easily.Then you are forgotten rather quickly after your death.This is your pathetic life.No one will help you.They'll take advantage of you and you'll continuously be stabbed in the back and betrayed.This is your faith as it has been written. This is your destiny."Listening to Gadra, Johan felt himself losing his patience. She was beautiful, perhaps the most beautiful women he'd ever seen. But, what she was saying wasn't something Johan liked to hear.This degenerate of a woman, boomed Johan's father. Do not heed her words! She spouts non-sense similar to what the Hindhu caste system spouts. If you are born poor, you will stay poor. Its utter non-sense. Defy god's faith. Those who fight and risk it all, change the world. What gives this tease, the right to tell MY SON that he will die a looser?Johan's father's words resonated in his head.Johan felt his pride push back."Now that I know," said Johan. "I'll make sure that it doesn't happen. I am master of my own faith. I create my own destiny."As Johan said this, he noticed something odd happen with his thread, something that was unlike the the other threads. It changed color and began fading in and out of sight. Gadra didn't seem to notice, this phenomenon gave Johan hope.Johan, said his father, Good job, stand your ground. I've raised you well."But you won't know," said Gadra. "Once you leave here, your memories will be wiped of this and everything mystical you have seen up until this point."Johan felt a sense of helplessness and vulnerability."But I didn't bring you here without reason," said Gadra. "I can help you change all that ""So what is it that you want in return?," said Johan. "I want to keep my memories."The table disappeared, Gadra stood up and walked to Johan and grasped his cheeks with her warm hand.To Johan's surprise, Gadra brought her face close to his and kissed him.Her lips were like warm and sweet like soft pillows made of cotton candy and from them pleasure spread out to his whole body.Johan heard his father muttering something but Gadra spread her legs and sat on his lap. The warmth from between her served only to arouse him more.My dad is probably just a hallucination anyways, thought Johan as he grasped Gadra's soft back. He felt himself loosing control.Gadra was everything Johan had dreamed of in a woman and more.She was the divine manifestation of womanly beauty.She whispered, "Your first achievement can be sleeping with one of the most powerful beings in existence."Gadra pushed Johan onto his back and he felt himself fall back onto a bed.
