Dei’s plan was to keep it on the backfoot, before he even stated his request. If he presented the reward at the start, Dei thought it might even be able to pressure him into an unwanted contract, just as Aloran warned him of.
“Let me start with the fact that my end goal is the desire to visit my previous world, Earth. I have some unresolved business there which I’d like to take care of, and believe you may be able to help me. That being said, I do not need to make this deal, for multiple reasons.”
Dei would go down the list of reasons he had to not take the deal, establishing a better base for his Rights to work off of.
“The first reason is because I suspect I may already have a way back, somewhere in my soul. I’ve seen the place in my soul where a massive Void resides, which I suspect to be your blessing. While I can’t enter this Void, my [Connection] Skill is anchored to some point past it. This means that Connection can enter the Void, which is a natural Skill of Leviathans. I intend to become a Reaper, following in the footsteps of Leviathans and potentially granting myself access to the Void. While I am unsure of what will happen when I cross the Void in my soul, it is very likely that I will be able to utilize the end result to reach Earth. This evidence is based on nothing other than gut instinct, but it is a reasonable conclusion.
“The second reason I do not need to make a contract is because I already have a guaranteed way back in the form of the Void itself. It's already been shown that I can cross the Void without dying by utilizing my pure intent, and I now have a formed Skill to help in doing so. There are a couple issues with this plan, but they can be remedied. If I can’t become as angry as last time, I can simply use my Wrath Curse to artificially create a more extreme emotional state. The other issue comes in how I might get lost in the Void and fail to find my way back, but Meditation fixes this issue- It allows me to strengthen intangible bonds into something more physical. If I used this on someone in my previous world, I might be able to follow it back to Earth. Not a perfect fix, but not impossible.
The third reason to not take this contract is simply because I don’t care enough to hurt myself for this goal. I don’t need to resolve my old grudge. It’s irritating, so what? I’m not going to throw myself into harm's way to fix it.”
By this point, Dei could see that Void was wavering. He hadn’t presented it with a reason to stay, so it was practically a roast session at this point and it didn’t care enough to maintain its form. Now was the time to present its reward, so he braced his soul for the brunt of its desire. It would try to get what it wanted.
“The reason you might want to assist me in my goal, though, is what you can gain out of it. In my previous world, my soul was never attuned to Kindness, despite clearly favoring the affinity. This means it is either impossible or very difficult to attune in a mana-less universe. To pay for your cooperation in this deal, I will help you attune to multiple people on Earth by-” at this point, Void had become much more substantial, paying a lot closer attention, but he kept going. “-breaking into a medical registry and finding those with harsh mental disorders that create dissonance in their minds, such as Dissociative Identity Disorder, Body Dysmorphia, or Bipolar disorder, then getting them into contact with you. They will be prime avatars for the Void, and I can use my strong personal connection to the Void in my soul, giving you a gateway into communicating with these people.”
As Dei finished his proposal, only pure unfiltered greed bled through Void. It clearly hadn’t thought to use Dei’s soul as a link to others, but the idea had merit. Earth had its mental health epidemic, the social pressures too much for many. He should feel bad because he was about to actively worsen those mental conditions by driving a wedge straight between the opposing sides in their mind, but it didn’t hit him that hard. He was about to hand over literal magic to them, so he was pretty sure they would forgive him, even if their mental states weren’t going to be the best. On the bright side, this might help them accept who they are as people?
Yea, no, he was not the good guy in this situation. He was about to create several insane warlocks on Earth. That was undoubtedly a bad thing. Still, he’d do it.
Along with the sense of desire emanating from Void, Dei felt a building pressure on him- one that made him want to buckle and fall to the ground. For just a moment, Dei felt a sense of camaraderie with Atlas. ‘So this is what it feels like for Void to try and force me into a Contract?’
He wanted to groan. Gravity increased a thousandfold and he felt his bones creaking, but he pushed himself to stand. At least his manifested body made it easy to visualize the effects of being pressured by Void.
The pressure increased for a few seconds until it just sort of… stopped. It could no longer push any further, like Void had hit a wall, and Dei was squished into a narrow crack, barely able to move as he felt compressed between two tectonic forces.
He couldn’t push against Void, but there was nothing Void could do to push further. It felt so close to utterly crushing him that Dei believed his arguments had done nothing at all, but that couldn’t be true. Now that he thought about it, his arguments were perhaps the only reason Void failed to crush him now.
If he hadn’t vocalized them, they still would’ve played a part in resisting the affinity’s influence, but him making them tangible seemed to bolster them more. If Void's will was a tectonic force, his arguments were teeny tiny stilts, giving him just the room he needed to keep breathing.
Immediately, he saw irritation emanate from Void because it’d failed to crush him entirely, and he grinned at it. There was just one more issue… it definitely was not letting up its weight. He’d have to go through the rest of the deal with this force on his shoulders, and if he slipped up, he’d be screwed.
It was a dangerous situation but… not that dangerous. He definitely had some wiggle room, even if it was pathetically little.
He didn’t feel panicked though. He felt no exhaustion, despite exerting himself. This body was, after all, only a representation of his mind, Rights, being, or whatever.
After settling into the new feeling, knowing that Void would not stop any time soon, Dei continued with his proposal. “I can tell that you need me a lot more than I need you, so lets discuss the terms. What I want. First and foremost, I not only want access to the Void affinity, but I want it to lack your personal influence completely. I don’t want my personality, physical traits, or anything else changed. At all.”
This was something he was reasonably sure he could get, because the System had a similar clause in its contract. It called this an affinity’s “latent will,” which would supposedly completely overwrite a person's mind if left unchecked. The System limited this influence, only letting it affect the personality slightly. Still, there was just a little bit of influence, which Dei wanted gone. He’d use Void as a tool, and have no fear of it changing who he was.
“That is… possible/I hold no issue with such a request,” Void responded easily enough.
“Next is, of course, a way to Earth. You need me to get there as much as I do, so don’t act like you’re doing me a favor on this one.”
Dei felt a slight tug of war between their rights, as Void tried to pose the request as something Dei needed, but Dei posed it as something Void needed. In the end, nothing changed and the stalemate persisted, much to Void’s chagrin.
‘I am getting so many Achievements out of this.’
After several seconds of bearing down on Dei, it finally responded. “I will grant you a two-use Skill. One that would transfer you to Earth, the other back to Avium/It is possible to grant temporary passage between both realities immediately”
“No way. I’m not settling on a visit to Earth, I want free passage to get there.”
“Not possible/This cannot be done with your current Skills” it told him in return, yet it had inadvertently provided an easy answer.
“I don’t need it right now, just the possibility in the future. When I was in the Void, I sensed an absolute lack of Time and Space. This means that the transition between planets was technically instant, yes? More than that, it wouldn’t actually matter the distance between two points. If I were to travel through the Void anywhere, it would be just as hard to travel somewhere close as to travel somewhere far. Without the concept of Space, distance has nothing to latch onto. I want the eventual ability to create a… gap between two points. A way to immediately transition from one place to the other.”
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“I assume you mean two spatial points, rather than two points in anything. The first is possible, the second would be an ability that can do anything involving the Void affinity, as it is the entire affinity compact into a single Skill/Pure hubris. You reach for too much, I cannot grant this Skill as your connection to me is far too weak, it would not withstand such a transfer.”
Dei wanted to sigh. “Again, this is something for the future. For now, I want a path to such an ability. Information. Knowledge that will help me learn more about the Void.”
“I can grant knowledge/I will agree to such a reward” it said, but Dei eyed it suspiciously. It had suddenly flipped to a very gleeful expression.
‘I don’t think it knows I can read it… I’m pretty sure this thing is going to grant me information that is only technically useful if I let it, such as a way to make it back TO Earth, but not back to Avium… what would the difference be? Could it even do that? Pretty easily, I think. If Earth has very little mana, and Avium has a lot, isn’t that a difference Void can take advantage of? The transition between the two would push me towards the reality with less mana, like air rushing in to fill a vacuum, but if I did such a thing, I would have no way back to Avium’
“Specifically, I want information regarding the dangerous aspects of the Void to me specifically, as well as how to navigate the Void myself. If I have the affinity, I can almost definitely use the fragment of Void in my soul to reach the Void, but after that I’m not so sure.”
Again, it switched towards a negative emotion. Skipping past irritation and straight to rage. Dei could tell that it was really not happy that he was legitimately putting up a good fight to get a better deal.
‘What is this dude's issue? We can both get something out of this, but it feels like it’s doing everything it can to scam me.”
“Fine/I agree,” it responded curtly. He could’ve agreed here, but the more he discussed with this affinity, the more he realized that Rights were crazy important. He was at every advantage right now, yet he was barely able to stop himself from getting puppeteered because he dared to discuss an amicable deal. He wanted more Achievements, so if he ever found himself in a situation not in his favor, he wouldn’t immediately lose.
To this end, he had one more thing he could request. While Dei had already been given an Achievement by Void, that was for his actions in crossing its Conceptual Plane. When he’d faced Wrath and Kindness, he found that he was also able to earn an Achievement by getting “recognized” by them. Even if he already had a Void Achievement, he wasn’t recognized by the Void.
“Last, I want you to recognize my right to the Void in the same way that Wrath recognized my anger and Kindness recognized my desire to help others.”
Immediately, he was dismissed. “Recognition is only possible for those who embody my principle/Not possible. You are pathetically lacking in my qualities.”
Dei noted that it said it wasn’t possible, not that it wouldn’t help him. It seemed that recognition was not something he could actually negotiate for, and he’d have to concede this point. He believed that Void couldn’t actually lie to him during a deal or negotiation, because that would defeat the entire premise of it. Similar to Fae, the words of affinities should mean everything to them, so they couldn’t just like… go back on a deal.
Right?
Dei wanted to slap his forehead because he just hadn’t asked Aloran before trying to form a contract with Void. He’d been so caught up in thinking of Void like a Fae that he didn’t stop to consider ‘What if Void could just lie?’
He’d worry about that later. Not because he was disregarding the danger, but because he had to put everything into resisting Void. He couldn’t just become distracted midway through their deal.
“If I can’t get recognition, then I suppose it is time to discuss the payment itself. In exchange for a Void affinity with no strings attached and information on the Void, I’ll give you ten attuned beings on Earth.”
“Absurd, you will find all of them/Absolutely unacceptable. I want every last potential soul.”
Dei almost wanted to laugh. Void expected him to find every single mentally unsound individual? At the very least, there had to be tens of millions, if he was drastically low balling it. No way.
“Uh, not a chance. I’ll do a reasonable number, perhaps twenty. At that rate, they can use their connection to you and create more.”
Dei assumed it would be some lengthy debate on the exact number to settle on, but Void had different ideas. Entering a flat out battle of Rights, settling on a number between what Dei wanted, of five, and what the Void wanted, of like, a billion. It wasn’t an equal fight either.
Almost immediately, Dei sensed the number between them shoot upwards, demanding that Dei attune very close to two billion individuals to Void and there was nothing he could do to change it.
Rolling his eyes, Dei said “You’ve forgotten one of my original points, dumbass. I don’t need this deal. It doesn’t matter what you’re entitled to. I don’t give a shit. I’m going back to five. Either I’m attuning only five people to Void, or I’m leaving and this deal is over.”
Like a hollow tower, the skewed number of “two billion” people shattered as Void’s argument fell apart, right back down to five people.
‘Note to self,’ Dei thought, ‘Never enter a contract discussion without the ability to just walk away.’
He sensed pure exasperation in Void’s features, the rage replaced with a feeling of disbelief. He saw resignation written all over it.
What happened next was a blur of Dei hammering out every issue with the Void, every contingency, misunderstanding, and so on.
Throughout the entire thing, he sensed more and more disbelief from Void. Like it couldn’t even fathom what he was doing, or why he was doing it.
‘Are deals made in good faith? Do we both have to satisfy it to the best of our abilities? No, that can’t be right. It literally tried to trick me earlier. Well, “trick” isn’t quite correct, because I was pretty vague on my request, but I’m still missing something.’
Indeed, more than just Void’s behavior, Dei started to get a feel for the contract itself. It wasn’t necessarily an actual construct, it was more the idea of a construct like a law. Laws weren’t real things, they were just agreed upon ideas.
The only reason people agreed to the laws was because they wanted to. There was nothing you could do to stop someone from breaking a law, only punishing them afterwards.
Were affinities truly not bound by their words? Based on how the contract felt… this was the case. Affinities were not Fae. They could lie, and he was pretty much asking Void for a pinkie promise to not betray him.
‘God dammit. How?! How do I make this work? How would Harum have made his contract work, if Soul never had to really listen to it? No no, calm down. Void is shocked, which means I’m missing something. An easy answer. Something right in front of me. There HAS to be a way to turn this promise into something more tangible.’
As he recited the new iteration of the lengthy contract, he desperately tried to picture what was different between this and his contract with Soul, and the only thing he could imagine was that the System mediated that contract, ensuring it was fair…
‘Wait, the System! Can it help me here? Aloran seemed to think that it couldn’t make this contract fair or negotiate terms for me… but what if I didn’t need it to? The contract is set, the deal is made. All I need now is a way to make sure that Void keeps its end of the deal. The System can be the ENFORCER of it, because Void has to actually listen to the System.’
This had to be it. It was a simple and elegant solution. The System had a deal with Void anyway, so Void couldn’t just go around its back. The only problem was how to even get the System to work as a middle man.
Right as he finally said the last clause, an inspiration struck him. “...I swear this with the System as my witness.”
His thinking was simple, rooted in how people would swear on the bible with “God as my witness” in court. If the person broke the oath of honesty, God would judge them. If Dei broke the oath of the contract, the System would judge him. And hopefully the Void.
Luckily, his guess seemed to be correct, as a presence entered the space between Dei and Void.
[Contract Recognized. Reviewing] it said not through notifications, but words of all meanings directly into his mind.
Immediately, he sensed the promise of the deal between them becoming more ingrained into their connection. The System made it more solid.
As soon as it’d taken its place between them, Dei saw a screen pop up that showed pages and pages of legal language. Everything they’d discussed in the past few hours.
Several hundred sentences were highlighted, then completely deleted. He felt like a total idiot as the System just slashed all the fluffy language, leaving behind a simple and meaningful screen.
[Deal of the Almost-Dunce
A contract forged between Void and the Almost-Dunce, a being who nearly ended his own life through sheer stupidity by forgetting to ask the local God how divine contracts worked, despite being moments from entering one himself. The Almost-Dunce didn’t know that permitted affinities could completely crush a soul when given access, unless convinced otherwise by an outside force with which they have deals and do not want to work against. Should the deal have become tangible without the System as a mediator, the Almost-Dunce would have needed to fulfill its end of the bargain or die, gaining nothing from it.
The Deal of the Almost-Dunce insists that this being must return to Earth at some point and, when they do, they will attune five people to the Void affinity.
- Access to the Void affinity
- Knowledge of the Void]
Just like that. From pages and pages of deals, to one or two sentences… plus some flavor text calling Dei an idiot.