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Sun 27th Apr 2025 03:46

Journal Entry#88: The Measure of a Life

by Aniks Aliforn

Traversing the realms, there is always the fear of time distortion. Thankfully, it seemed that my time in hell was rather equal to that of Istralars. The smell of fire, smoke, and brimstone lingered on my body as I stepped through the fiery portal with some concern. The others seemed unharmed for the most part despite the battle I had left. No, what concerned me was Silver. When we stepped through, his blade was black and glowing bright Silver.
 
Silver's vessel was an umbright blade; the metal was darker than pitch and absorbed light, making the area around it darker. Silver, who by all accounts functions like a black blade, turned any weapon they possessed to silver and gold with an onyx gem embedded in the weapon somewhere. So, seeing the blade's original form confused and concerned me, not to mention the silver light emanating from it. The blades had quickly returned to their natural silver and gold color scheme. Silver, as usual, remained rather silent about that event.
 
I won't detail my thoughts on color theory in this journal entry. That is for another time and is a much more complex topic regarding the events around us.
 
Once, I had written to Celu, telling her I had returned. I noticed someone standing next to me—a young girl I was quite familiar with with light blue antlers. Gaia was watching me curiously.
 
"You're special. You never really left, did you." Suppose that had come out of the mouth of a normal girl instead of an Avatar. It would have been much more creepy. Instead, it left me with an idea of how my shattered soul was possibly the reason I was able to teleport into the continent even with the assistance I had. I, technically, was already here due to the nature of how my soul… works.
 
Still, that left a couple of raised eyebrows from the others, mostly Keema. Who got the briefest explanations of my soul's nature and didn't believe it?
 
Our attention was soon returned to a second portion of a puzzle the others had solved. Tying riddles to objects. Now, it was our job to balance these objects, one labeled neutral, good, and bad. I do not wish to write about the philosophy of object morality. Let's just say, given the context of the riddles, determining whether it was good, bad, or neutral to a person's life or their health. Each object had its own weight, though it seemed that how we had labeled them also determined a bit of their weight.
 
Each of the Lost Ones began picking up objects, placing them on ridiculously sized scales. Each of us watched the scales this way and that as we tried to level it out by adding a bad object here, a good object there. We had kept it rather level before coming up with a system. We placed all the bad objects first, moved on to the neutral objects, and finally, the good ones. Whether it was sheer dumb luck or we had been rather precise with our placement when we had placed the last item, the scales were perfectly balanced.
 
The second little puzzle was interesting. We understood how to balance the good and the bad of objects, but could we balance a life? That was the puzzle. Balancing a person's time, money, happiness, and stress. Balancing these out meant living longer each time we did a task from one of the four objectives. Given the reality-warping nature of both shards and Avatars, we had to act out tasks, and the world around us changed in the small room where we did these tasks. Occasionally, an event happens that would tax or give us more time and less stress. Anything depends on the event given to us. It was only when Kraia took out her whip and started heading to the door that she was labeled stress.
 
Despite knowing they were an Avatar and likely infinitely older than I. Their childlike form still stuck the parental instinct within me, wanting to shield them from how Kraia relieves stress. Thankfully, the door had shut, but I still covered Gaia's ears and eyes. This got a curious reaction from the avatar, and when I pulled my hands away, she looked at me. My hand coating in water?
 
I had whipped it off on my pants, dying them deep blue. That had drawn a few eyes.
 
Eventually, we purposely let our person's life end, and Gaia accepted this. Despite the relatively shorter life, we gave our person, we gave them a good one. Then Gaia asked a simple but heavy question.
 
"Did you like playing god?"
 
Did I like playing with people's lives? No. Though the puzzle they gave us was enjoyable, the implication of our actions was not lost on me. We had played god, just on a much smaller scale. Have I done that before? I have manipulated people. Guide them into favorable outcomes for me. Certainly. So why didn't I say anything? Others answered no because they're decent people. Or they viewed that as the better choice. Why would they need to manipulate a person's whole life? Maybe because I've never been as good as them, I could see the advantages to that. If the circumstances were correct, would I do it again? As cruel as that sounds, if I were a god. Would I not use my worshippers to further my goals? Is that not the same as a Matron ruling her house? Kind or cruel, I think the only thing that truly separates the mortals and the divine on this topic is the scale we work on. I think I understand what Gaia meant when they asked that question. If we didn't like playing god, what does that say about our gods and goddesses that bound us?
 
What of their manipulations?
 
Honestly, I wonder if there is a correct path on this grand quest of ours. This was all caused by the remnants of a divine war between gods. When dealing with forces on that scale, are there such things as right and wrong at that point? History has already been written and erased.
 
All I know is I am not about to lose my family again.
 
P.S. We spoke to Cintha about the strain of champions that Idonea and Burdyr are keeping in a logbook. When I casually mentioned I had been the champion of a demon lord before Pharasma. He pulled out a little notebook and wrote that down.

Continue reading...

  1. Journal #1: Welcome back to the land of the living.
  2. Journal #2: The Gods speak to us, sort of.
  3. Journal #3: Magic is kinda bullshit, stay away from Licia.
  4. Journal #4: The Prince is not a Prick.
  5. Journal #5: Introduction of Celuriel
  6. Journal #6: Everybody loves the bar.
  7. Journal #7: Getting to know the vampire.
  8. Journal #8: The Vetala [Text Roleplay]
  9. Journal #9: Undria
  10. Journal #10: We adopt or kidnap a child, still unclear on this one.
  11. Journal #11: Mirror World
  12. Journal #12: Recovery from the world.
  13. Journal #13: Dancing with Vampire and Political Problems.
  14. Journal #14: About Sir Pennswaggle
  15. Journal #15: This Temple is Odd
  16. Journal #16: The Half Elf Liese
  17. Journal #17: Warning Ashlyn did not help her.
  18. Journal #18: Priestess with the Silver Orbs
  19. Journal #19: Celu is reading romantic books.
  20. Journal #20: Demons, Dungeons, and Dragons OH MY!
  21. Journal #21: Regrets.
  22. Journal #22: Demon's Champion [Text Roleplay]
  23. Journal #23: Homecoming
  24. Journal #24: Castle Umbra and their Bloodwalker.
  25. Journal #23: The Grand Game
  26. Journal #26: All magic comes at a cost.
  27. Journal #27 The capital and asking for diplomatic immunity.
  28. Journal #28: Teaching Celu Undercommon
  29. Journal #29: Pray to Fate
  30. Journal #30: Mistakes we're made, Surprisingly it wasn't my fault this time.
  31. Journal #31: Why am I Orpheus?
  32. Journal #33: The 'safe' return of Eurydice
  33. Journal #32: Back from hell [Text Roleplay]
  34. Journal #35: Fey Friends.
  35. Journal #36: Life before The Lost Ones
  36. Journal #34: Her thoughts on life. [Text Roleplay]
  37. Journal #37: Departure
  38. Journal #39: The Apology [Text Roleplay]
  39. Journal #38: Black Marble floors and apologizes
  40. Journal #40: The Lost's One's Save Christmas; what's Christmas again?
  41. Journal #41: The Elder Sister [Text Roleplay]
  42. Journal #42: Dear Niks
  43. Journal #43: Family Matters
  44. Journal #44: The Samsaran and Her Dreamers [Text Roleplay]
  45. Journal #45: 3 Years well spent.
  46. Journal #46: Emperor Aneirin of Aletheia
  47. Journal #47: Matron Nivinle Alas'thil [Text Roleplay]
  48. Journal #48: Not Alone
  49. Journal #49: The Dark Spire [Text Roleplay]
  50. Journal #50: Death's Champion
  51. Journal #51: Desk Duty of the Spire [Text Roleplay on going]
  52. Journal #52: Longest Four Days of Our Lives
  53. Journal #53: Stolen Book [Text Roleplay]
  54. Journal #54: Basics to Necromancy, why is this even a book.
  55. Journal #55: Soul to Soul Talk [Text Roleplay]
  56. Journal #56: Gold is not what King’s Envy
  57. Journal #57: The Trail of the Sapphire Shrine
  58. Journal #58: The sign says it all
  59. Journal #59: The oldest sister
  60. Journal #60: A bartender once again.
  61. Journal #61: The Dreamcatcher
  62. Journal #62: Discussion and a price that will be payed.
  63. Journal #63: The Five Stages
  64. Journal #64: Ring of Amethyst and Diamond
  65. Journal #65: Clash of Ideals
  66. Journal #66: A Friend and A Story
  67. Journal #67: The Nature of the Shards
  68. Journal #68: Return of Black Marble [Text Roleplay]
  69. Journal #69: Broken and Forgotten Shades
  70. Journal #70: Forging Bonds
  71. Journal #71: The Haunted Fey Mansion
  72. Journal #72: Another Shard
  73. Journal #73: Dancing with Demons in the pale morning light
  74. Journal #74: The Succubus's Ultimatum
  75. Journal #75: The City of Twin Souls
  76. Journal #76: The Worry of a Barkeep.
  77. Journal #77: Have a Little Hope.
  78. Journal #78: Dreamwalker Jinne [Text Roleplay]
  79. Journal Entry #79: Maskerade in Masdarat
  80. Journal Entry #80: Gods of Time
  81. Journal Entry #81: Scribe of Time [Text Rp]
  82. Journal Entry #82: Patience and Grace
  83. Journal Entry #83: Between Stopped Time [Text RP]
  84. Journal Entry #84: Teaching Moments
  85. Journal Entry #85: The child from Jatta [Text RP]
  86. Journal Entry #86: Fused and Strange Deals
  87. Journal Entry #87: Hell [Text RP]
  88. Journal Entry#88: The Measure of a Life
  89. Journal Entry #89: Judgement
  90. Journal Entry #90: Terra Arcana and Memories of the Lost
  91. Journal Entry #91:  Shepard’s Champion & The Way
  92. Journal Entry #92: Goth Club & Whiskey
  93. Journal Entry #93: Shard of Grace
  94. Journal Entry #94: Dreamcatcher's Telepathic Bond [Text Roleplay]
  95. Journal Entry#95: Homebound
  96. Journal Entry #96: A spot of rest [Text Roleplay]
  97. Journal Entry #97: Heavenbound
  98. Journal Entry #98: Trek through the planes
  99. Journal Entry #99: Relaxing in Ironfalls

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by 3 Armored Kittens · Prodromos v.1.1 - World Anvil 0.9.15.045 © 2017-2025 [en] | Anvil Time: 16:12, Aug 5 2025