New chapter. 'Nuff said.
Disclaimer: Authoress does not own Yugioh or Black&White
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When it came time to turn in, Yuugioh was still in Humanform. He was, of course, going to revert to normal in the morning, or at least that was what he told himself. Being a small and grounded person in Humanform, Yuugioh had to climb the staircase under the Lobby Scroll and use the regular living area instead of sleeping in the Future Room as he usually ended up doing.
The first Gods and Goddesses in Eden had collaborated on the architecture of their Temples, making certain they were all the same basic structure with the same basic rooms. It was supposedly to keep the Gods and Goddesses from competing on who had the best Temple, or so Layweh had claimed.
But no matter what the reason, one of those early beings had clearly intended for humans to be able to live within the Temple - maybe for village emergencies, maybe to act as 'divine interpreters', who knew? But the fact was that there was plenty of human-sized housing in every Temple, and it was one of those chambers that Yuugioh retired to now.
He still didn't understand the strange feeling from earlier, but he did remember that it wasn't the first of such weird happenings before drifting asleep. And as he'd done on a sunny hill not three days ago, Yuugioh had a strange dream:
There they were, the group of humans from before, but now they were not in that black place with the strange pit of fire. It appeared to be some kind of stone room, possibly deep underground. There were new humans in the group now, a new female and two - or was it three? - new males. One of the new males was in the middle of explaining something to the others.
"…no way of knowing where he has gone," the man concluded.
"Ah, c'mon! There's just gotta be some way to find him!"
That was the very unruly blond from before, Yuugioh recognized. The one who had been speaking, who was wearing a turban, pale robes, and a strange golden device from a cord around his neck, waited a moment before speaking again.
"I can try one option, but it may be more risk than it is worth," the robed man cautioned, "If you will let me, I will search the dark room within your mind and seek him out."
The last part was being addressed to his own small doppelganger; he looked no less sad than he had in the last dream - or maybe a vision? This was far too clear to be a dream - but now had about him a determined energy. The small one nodded, and the turbaned man pulled the device off his neck and held it to the boy's forehead.
All of a sudden, the scene changed. Yuugioh was watching a small corridor, down which the turbaned man was walking. Up ahead were a pair of doors, one open and one shut. The boy was standing in that open doorway; behind him was a room filled with light. Yuugioh had a sneaking suspicion he knew this place, all of this, but there was no time for examination as the pair turned to the sealed door.
It was made of stone, and as soon as he looked at it Yuugioh could feel the wrongness behind that door. The door itself was cracked, looked deathly ill - if stone could actually get sick - and some kind of black smoke was leaking out.
The Door opened, very slowly, groaning and protesting every inch, and the turbaned man entered the room while the boy stayed back. It was pitch black inside, but Yuugioh could still see stone, staircases, and doors, hundreds of doors. That passed him by nearly instantly, for the turbaned man was doing something with the glowing device now.
It started as a slight pulling and tugging sensation; more of a 'is this where you are?' than a 'I know you're there' feeling. It didn't prepare him at all for what came next.
There was sort of a 'I have you!' motion and then - something began to rip him apart in a very determined and methodical manner. Not evenly either - a big piece here, a tiny bit there, but something had latched itself onto the landscape of his psyche and was ripping the chunks it did have a hold on out!
Yuugioh thought he might have screamed, but if he'd made any noise it was deafened by what the dark room did.
It shrieked. It rumbled. It cried. It moaned. It roared out an elemental feeling of such pain, of such agony, as nothing could or would ever feel before or again.
Parts of it started to glow - blood-lit cracks that were burned into every single surface.
There was a sudden rush, a massive psychic shove that slammed him into wakefulness. No doubt it had been intended to get rid of whoever had so violated the room during it's illness - for lack of a better term - but at least the pain had finally stopped.
What in the HELL had that been! That was NO dream - but what WAS it?
Yuugioh didn't have a clue, and now he wasn't just confused by all this - he was scared stiff. Though it wasn't even close to dawn, he instantly reverted to his normal form and flew down the main staircase to the Lobby.
Lupine and Luster were still fast asleep - they tended to just sleep away the time when he was in Humanform, since they couldn't interact with him in that state - and hadn't noticed anything at all. Yuugioh decided to keep this ever-weirder turn of events to himself. The last thing he needed were accusations of insanity…even if there was a chance they might be true.
The next months of his life were spent settling into a basic routine. By day, Yuugioh spent his time tending to his villages and their inhabitants - another one had been recently added to his Influence - and by night, he was perusing the Library for the information on Vortexes.
Laurel's continued unease about the Library continued to bother him until Yuugioh had realized what she was doing was acting guilty. Maybe no other Gods or Goddesses let their Creatures into rooms other than the Creature Cave? Yuugioh personally didn't mind, as Laurel was a very pleasant and intelligent person, and her insight had only grown since gaining the Creed.
He himself felt like his brain was getting swamped with information. While not finding anything on Vortexes, Yuugioh was finding lots of things that would have interested him greatly at any other time.
Every once in a while his brain just seemed to short out, and the lack of sleep was only contributing to the problem. When that happened, Yuugioh would always end up blacking out, no matter where he was, and remain asleep for a few days.
He had scared the villagers more then once by doing that, but at least sleeping like the dead drove off any more disturbing visions.
Lupine and Luster were getting worried. They had spoken up more than once on the subject, insisting that what he was doing wasn't healthy. They were probably right, but Yuugioh ignored them all the same.
Laurel crept into the Library one day to find him asleep on top of a pile of books. When she finally managed to wake him up, Yuugioh was confronted with the fact that he had gone through the Library nearly top to bottom, had been passed out for the last four days, and wasn't going to go much farther while still keeping his sanity intact.
This had been the last straw for Laurel. She promptly threw him out of the Library, and sent him to take a break - a long break - while she looked through the books for him. Creature customs or no, Laurel was not about to wait for Yuugioh to kill himself this way.
It took Yuugioh a week to reset his biological clock back to normal. In that time, Laurel hadn't come out of the Library once. When she didn't come out for a second week, Yuugioh started getting worried. After the third week, he was still trying to decide whether to wait or to force his way in when Laurel stepped out of the Temple with a small pile of manuscripts.
((I had to reorganize the entire Library after you tore it up like that,)) Laurel said as she set the pile down with a sigh, ((And I found these halfway through sorting everything. Honestly Master, you should have done that in the first place, it would have saved a lot of time.))
"I suppose so," Yuugioh mumbled, hiding unsuccessfully his annoyance at Luster and Lupine's sudden snickering fits, "Thank you Laurel."
The information the manuscripts contained was somewhat vague and more than a little confusing. Whenever Yuugioh looked through them - he had less free time now that he was sleeping normally and had a bunch of villages to look after - it seemed to him that he could almost grasp what they said, but there were just some concepts that he didn't quite get yet.
That didn't stop him from trying, though. It was a long, mentally frustrating year later that Yuugioh finally managed to connect the information together coherently inside his head.
Apparently all he needed to do to create a Vortex was to concentrate the power of about ten Teleportation Miracles (or the best equivalent) together, amplify the direction of its power flux with his own energy, and then pull the whole thing inside-out.
But as for being able to direct where the Vortex lead to, that part turned out to be almost impossible. The first time he even attempted the Vortex, Yuugioh managed to use up all his energy trying to summon it.
And all he got for his effort was a small glowing patch of land surrounded by a high wind, which faded away within seconds. As did Yuugioh's consciousness when the god fainted.
Lupine, Luster, and Laurel were supportive, but clearly Yuugioh wasn't going to be using Vortexes for a long while. There was a good reason that some abilities could only be wielded by gods and goddesses that had been around longer. As far as godhood went, Yuugioh was really just about at the level of a teenager.
"But still, Leader," Lupine mentioned, "I must say, very few gods as young as you would have gotten this far in the world already."
"I hate ta agree, but for once he's right, Boss," Luster agreed, "You've got a real knack for dis job! You're a natural!"
"If I'm such a natural," Yuugioh replied, currently perched on the roof of the Temple, "Then why are we still stuck on this island?"
"Don't think about it like we're stuck here, Boss," Luster said after a moment's thought, "Try thinking like…dat dis is a vacation!"
"A vacation?" Lupine asked.
"Well, yeah! Think about it - right now we don't gotta worry 'bout finding any of da Creeds, and dere's nothing much wrong with our minions…so let's relax and enjoy it!"
"I guess that would be okay…for right now, at least," Yuugioh said, now slowly orbiting the pulsing light shooting out of the top of his Temple.
Even with this new plan, life continued to pass by at a morbidly slow pace. It came to the point that Yuugioh wished for another of those creepy dreams, just to experience something that was different.
One morning, however, something occurred to him. It wasn't like he was the only god in this area, after all. So Yuugioh made an impromptu visit to the goddesses Athena and Minerva.
Minerva greeted him as soon as he crossed over the line of their Influence.
"What a lovely surprise to see you," she said, pacing him as they floated deeper in, "We've been wondering if you've found the Creed yet."
"I did, thank you," Yuugioh replied as Athena flew up to join them.
"See, sister, I knew he could do it," the white goddess stated.
"Honestly, you speak as if I didn't know he'd pull through it."
"I hate der rhyming but right now hearing da sound of another godly voice is so worth it," Luster muttered, quietly enough that Yuugioh only barely heard him.
"Oh, we know exactly why you've only now dropped in," Athena added.
"You seem to have caught our former boredom."
"Things have been…very peaceful," Yuugioh admitted.
"Oh, dear little youngling, do not fret!"
"It seems fate has more in store for you yet."
"…If it's not too much trouble, can I get a straight answer on this?" he demanded.
The twin goddesses hesitated, and for a minute Yuugioh worried that he had managed to offend them. Then, with a hastily muttered word to each other, Athena floated away, heading towards her Temple.
"You will have to excuse us," Minerva said, "When one has been in the company of only one's sister for more than a few centuries…wordplay is really the only thing that keeps us from shredding each other."
The black goddess giggled a little, apparently amused by that idea.
"Oh my," Lupine said.
"Well, dat explains which one of dem is da Yin and which is da Yang," Luster said, with a sly chuckle of his own.
"We like you, Yuugioh, so we've been keeping a couple of eyes on you."
"And what is that supposed to mean?" Yuugioh asked.
"What my dearly delightful demon of a sterling sister is saying," Athena said, flying back up now that whatever task she had been dealing with was taken care of, "Is that we're happy to happen to have a small, slight sort of skill in the august art of augury - the passing out of prophecies, if you please."
"Be very proud," Minerva added, "You're going to be part of something you could never imagine."
"If the road is dark, remember that there is always a little light at the other end of the path," Athena mentioned.
"Oh - and also, word about power spreads fast. I wouldn't have left your Influence so unprotected if I were you. That's how you miss all the fireworks," Minerva scolded him.
The implications of that statement took a moment to sink in.
"What?" Yuugioh yelped, promptly shooting up and back towards his own lands.
