In Loki's Honor

Yznarian, current timeline, around 2,000 years after the Goddess' Cataclysm. Somewhere deep underneath the Scorched Continent and several thousand kilometers away from a girl and her monster book.

In a dark room framed by worked stone one could find in any underground secret lair, witnessed of flickering torches and an ever-floating cloud of mold spores, a man sitting on a chair waited for another man lying on a cot to wake up. The former was scrawny and bookish, the latter large and athletic. After an unknown period, the unconscious one stirred and cracked an eye open. He smacked his dry lips as the fog cleared of his mind. The other man smiled and sighed in relief.

He wasn't sure his friend would wake up or even if he would still be his friend anymore. In more than one way.

"Hello," he greeted the revived person in English.

The bulky man raised his head slowly, mechanically swiveling it as his still-sleeping muscles protested the effort. Meeting the speaker's eyes, he blinked and cracked a faint grin as he recognized his company. "Wyxnos," he croaked with a cough. "What the hell is this stench?"

"Mold. Sorry about the accommodations. You recognize me, good," Wyxnos grinned. "Do you remember your name?"

The sleeper hissed in pain and raised a hand to his forehead. "Not so loud," he complained. "Yes, fuck it. I remember my name. Do you have an Aspirin?" He asked as he massaged his temples. "I feel like shit."

"Relish the experience and rejoice you can feel anything. It means you are alive. Again," Wyxnos said and walked to a cabinet hanging from the wall. He opened the wooden door and took a glass vial with a sickly green goo sloshing inside. "Here, drink this. And try not to vomit."

Sitting up as the cot groaned to protest his enormous weight, the man stared at the vial, "What the hell is this goo? Pills, man. Don't you have any pills?"

Wyxnos shrugged apologetically, "This is the better I can get you. Resources are... scarce nowadays. And you might like to know we are not on Earth anymore. Take it, soldier," he offered the uncorked vial to the sleeper, who snatched the glass bottle and downed the goo in one go.

"What is going on here, Wyxnos?" Looking around and then staring at his friend's clothes, he asked after he finished choking on the concoction. "A D&D LARP?"

The former Administrator sighed as he took a metal canteen from a shelf, "I wish. No, this is real. Do you want some water to wash the bitter aftertaste? We might want to wait until your headache passes before we talk."

"Scotch?" The large man begged, wistfully smacking his lips.

Wyxnos glared back as if to say, 'you wish'. "Spring water is the best the house has to offer," he stated ruefully. "I wouldn't trust the local alcohol."

A stomach protested the herbal medicine and pumped gaseous byproduct back. The sleeper burped and became queasier. "Hell, give me that canteen," he mumbled.

*

*

Several minutes later, a hydrated man stood from the cot and did some stretches around the cramped smelly room. He found he could press his open hand against the moldy ceiling without lifting his heels. Some dirt and dust fell on him as he pushed against it.

"Please don't cause a cave-in. You are stronger than you remember," admonished Wyxnos.

"Not much," he replied as he winced and rubbed his temples, leaving a moldy black smear on his skin. "What the fuck happened?"

"What is the last thing you remember before waking up today?"

He stood silent for a while as his brain worked on the answer. "It's foggy but I believe you convinced us to try something for my... leg?" He stared down at his perfectly healthy pair of lower limbs. "Why the fuck am I wearing a dress? And how are my legs fine?" The sleeper lifted the flaps of his "skirt" and found a linen loincloth doing a poor job of covering his private parts. But he ignored it as the amazement of a hale body washed over him.

"I healed you. Took a long time, but I did," Wyxnos proudly answered. "You're wearing a long tunic, not a dress. It's considered man's clothes around these parts, usually coupled with trousers." He pointed at himself as he opened his robes, showing he was wearing the same thing underneath but with trousers.

"With what, magic?"

Wyxnos grinned as his eyes sparked with golden lightning. Seeing his friend relatively unfazed by the demonstration, he pointed at the cot. "Exactly." Sit down and let me explain everything."

*

*

The (greatly weakened) deity formerly known as Bundeus listened to the tale slack jawed. He had to push his jaw back up, taking the opportunity to rub his chin as he processed the information. He didn't remember anything but had a strong hunch that Wyxnos wasn't bullshitting him. It felt right and given the circumstances it was what he'd have done.

"You're telling me I died twice? Why can't I remember shit about it?"

"Can't be helped," Wyxnos shook his head. "You're the second soul I restore, and while the first one was just badly mangled, yours was bleached to the basic spark. I had to risk getting information from Earth to restore you, but it would be unwise to mix that with your experiences over here. That's why your last memory is from before you came over with us."

"Hye-Soo? [1] Where is she?" He puckered his lips and hardened his face as Wyxnos' expression told him everything he needed to know. Or so he thought.

"She went mad, tried to avenge you, and had a partial success. She still lost the fight, but Fate was kind to her. Look, she has her own dimension now. A brand-new universe where she reigns supreme," he tried to placate the soldier. "She is free from this shitshow, courtesy of our bitter enemy's agent."

"Loki," the former god of Humans growled. "Whose stupid idea was to trap Thor, again?"

"Ours," Wyxnos shrugged, admitting his share of the blame and passing the rest around. "Not the wisest choice but here we are. Don't dwell on the past, trust me, what's done is done. What happens now is what really matters, Benjamin."

"What happens now?"

"We make another choice based on partial information. One we might regret too, in hindsight, in the future."

Benjamin sighed and narrowed his eyes, "Spill the beans. What aren't you telling me?"

"Do you remember the guys that gave us Thor and the System Core?"

"Vaguely."

The group of former Earth mortals which eventually became Yznarian's Pantheon used divine power stolen from Thor to gain the Divinity they needed to invade this world and take over as the Pantheon, along with the System Core which they stole from another guy.

"They are coming to collect their collateral."

The mood soured. Fear cleared the cobwebs from Benjamin's memory.

"Fuck."

"Fuck."

"It was an offer we couldn't refuse," a sobered Benjamin quipped about a mafia movie quote.

"No shit."

"Is that why you brought me back? To make me miserable with you?" Benjamin snapped.

Wyxnos fought back the urge to slap the big man and took a time to get his act together before replying. "No! I brought you back so you can flee this shithole with me. We're leaving our Divine Cores behind and going back to Earth. If we become mortal again, they can't do jack against us."

Benjamin stared at him in disbelief. After all they went through to get here and whatever else that caused him to die which he still didn't remember, were they just packing up and running away? The warrior in him couldn't believe.

Wyxnos continued with his tirade. "This world is lost. Let Loki and his puppet deal with those guys," he decided not to tell Benjamin he'd murdered one of them already. "The others won't listen to me. They are still high on the deity Cool-Aid," he admitted with another sigh. "They won't even answer me. I'm a fugitive. We're fugitives. We fought, we lost, now we tuck in our tails and cut our losses."

"We never retreat," the soldier stated proudly.

"The POTUS disagrees," Wyxnos rebutted. To a confused Benjamin, he gave a half-assed explanation, "This world has a time-dilation ratio of two thousand to one."

To the former college professor it might seem like enough but the revived man had no context or even a faint idea of what he was talking about.

"Excuse me?"

"If we leave now, about eight years will have passed back home, Benji," Wyxnos clapped his shoulder. "The world moved on without us. Trump became the President, didn't get re-elected..."

"Hold it. Which Trump?"

"Donald."

"Wasn't that a Simpsons joke?"

"No, it actually happened. And now it's the Democrats' turn in the oval office. With some returner guy who used real magic to steal the spot from Biden."

The ex-soldier grimaced, "Shit." [2a] [2b]

"You'll love what he did in Afghanistan."

Unamused and irritated at the mention of that hellish desert country (in his opinion), Benjamin brushed the hand from his shoulder, "Spill it."

"You need to come back with me and see. You won't believe me if I told you anyway."

The revived man smacked his lips. He wasn't convinced but he knew Wyxnos enough. "I need a shot." 'No matter what poison people in fantasyland kill themselves with', he added mentally as he tried to cope. He lost a leg to an IED in that hole. If it weren't for the woman he met while recovering in the field hospital...

*

*

"What's in the bag?" A drunk Benjamin drawled as he asked Wyxnos after they left the tavern on the surface. Ever since they left the underground hideout, the former college professor was clutching a leather bag with something big, heavy, and round in it. 'An egg of some sort?', he wondered.

"My shame," Wyxnos replied regretfully. "My failure and the reason I've lived like a rat for the last few thousand years."

In a series of not-so-wise choices, tipsy Benjamin quickly and rudely snatched the bag and peeked inside. Then he {Appraised} the item.

> [REDACTED] - Please claim this item and surrender it to the System for 5 "Any Perk" vouchers.

No further information available.

This incident has been logged. Thank you for reporting.

"No, you didn't," Wyxnos gasped as alarms went out on his head. If they were figurative or real alarms, we would never know.

The System granted you a timed Quest.

WARNING: Offer expires in 1 minute... 59 seconds...

Objective: Claim and return the stolen object.

Rewards: All your memories and Divine status back.

Alternative Objective: "Convince" Wyxnos to return it instead. Relinquish both of your Divine Cores to the System.

Rewards: All your memories back and a safe portal back to Earth for both of you. Professional help re-settling on Earth plus a sizeable tax-free cash (USD) bonus. You might take this opportunity to jump ship before it sinks, I mean.

Hint: The Democrats gave Afghanistan back to the Taliban on a silver platter, including intact arsenals and military vehicles. And Wyxnos murdered one of the other Gods already. So much for the power of friendship. Speaking of the devil...

Hint 2: Wyxnos had "something" with your wife. He let her minion use [Fate Magic] which enabled the shitshow between her and the Old Soul (which you unjustly call Anomaly). Among other things. Boy did he CHEAT the System for her on many occasions. Maybe you should ask him what exactly she was giving him in exchange for all that. Wink, wink.

52 seconds left. Tut, tut, make up your mind.

With both aware of the non-standard Quest window, both men stared at each other for a long instant. Then hell broke out. They couldn't hear Loki cackling from the System Administrator Dimension [3].

[1] - Regarding the other interlude, names are now relevant. If one perceives the difference between both, the reason will be clear.

[2a] - The Author does not share the characters' political views, and they may be intentionally wrong and obviously biased. There's no left nor right here in Earth-Sun L3 point. Here we're all libertarian anarcho-capitalists. All zero of us.

[2b] - In this fictional multiverse, the 46th President of the USA wasn't Mr. Biden, but the Afghanistan fiasco still happened. Some returner with magical charisma (literally) stole the spot from him. Here: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/45119/catherine-20/chapter/739119/my-little-potus-stewardship-is-magical

[3] - Remember to take anything Loki says with a grain of salt or a dozen. Would you, dear reader, trust what Loki told you? Tsc, tsc.