Six Souls [Isekai/LitRPG] [B1&2 complete, B3 in progress]

I pulled my aura in tight around me, cloaking myself in shadows, before I mentally clicked the Y option. The dimly lit cavern around me vanished, and I was surrounded by a forest in autumn. My first thought was that I was back right where I started when I first appeared on Urth.

That cave with the bear, the first lonely few weeks of incredibly slow growth, and the loss of Wilson, my first 'friend' in this world. Where the hell was the snow and ice? This was the domain of a god of winter, but it looked like a warm day in October.

I chose to remain discorporated, drifting slowly around to examine my surroundings. I moved through the trees, leaving no footprints on the dew-soaked grass, careful to avoid disturbing anything. The absence of sensation, no temperature, no breeze ruffling my hair, was something I'd grown used to while training with Tezca.

It still felt slightly surreal, but it was offset by the security of being intangible. I shifted my focus, abandoning the concept of eyes completely as I looked around me with my mind. Moving upwards, the world fell away like a patchwork quilt; in the distance, fields had been cropped, fruit lay scattered around tree trunks, uncollected.

The hill I was on gave way to a range of mountains, pale caricatures of the Worldspine. The tops were still snowcapped, though, and lazy glaciers crawled through the alpine peaks.

There. A void. It was like the vast stretches of Urth where no one was plotting murder. A wolf stalking a rabbit didn't count as part of my domain. It took a truly conscious mind to make them one of my secret worshippers. Huh, thinking of them as worshippers felt wrong on some fundamental level to me. I was a man in the shadows, doing bad things for bad people to even worse people.

That had been my life, my identity, and now I was some force, a focus for things I didn't truly understand.

I drifted along quickly, heading toward the gap in my perception high up in the mountains. The absence of animals, people included, stuck out to me. Behind me, there were farms and orchards that had all the hallmarks of being carefully cultivated, but they were tended to by ghosts. Other than leaves and branches, I was the only thing moving in this world.

As an intruder, I couldn't control anything, but I could feel the miasmic nature of this world, the same as my own. The solid appearance, the complexities of the trees, all the way down to the unique patterns of veins on the undersides of each and every leaf, was a charade. Whether it was formed from belief, or mana in the biblical sense, or something else completely, I didn't know, but it was all as fake as the yurt I created in my own domain.

I floated towards the mountain, the tallest of them, that contained the only real anomaly I could find in this microcosm. No wildlife, no birdsong. When I reached the first snow on the slopes, there were no footprints, no evidence of life at all.

Winter was the recurring death of the world. The idea struck me as true; it was the only way I could conceive of our domains as compatible. The land dies, birds migrate, hedgehogs hibernate, and white blankets the ground like a shroud. She moves constantly, it's always winter somewhere, and returns every twelve months to kill again. The cold is indiscriminate, something I did not approve of, but it kills just as surely as fire.

The void was nestled about three-quarters of the way up the mountain, surrounded by near-vertical slopes. There would have been no way to access it in a human body. Snow blew through me, picked up off the drifts by the strong wind. I disabled my hearing as well; it was useless up here. The constant moaning howl was unnerving.

Another cave entrance. Why were caves so commonplace in my life now? I'd gone three decades back in the old world and could have counted the times I went into a cave on my fingers. Now, a month didn't go by that didn't involve some unplanned spelunking.

The walls and floor were slick with ice, and the light from the entrance seemed to reflect and carry further into the passage than ought to have been possible. A blue glow surrounded me as I turned my hearing back on. The drone of the wind outside echoed down the tunnel after me, seeming to make the light from the ice dance in the corners of my perception.

The tunnel gave way to a winter wonderland. Statues of ice, some so pale as to be translucent, others radiating a fierce cold from their blue surfaces, spread out in ranks. Birds, animals, people, every kind of living creature was carved from ice, along with abstract shapes and patterns.

Some of them seemed to represent concepts. I drifted down the rows towards a raised dias at the far end of the massive cavern. Some of the sculptures were clearly conceptual representations of aspects of winter. The first fall of snow, the ground in the statue a burning blue, layered with a delicate sprinkle of white spots that seemed to grow and spread as I watched. Another looked like a jagged spike reaching for the ceiling above me, and I couldn't work out what it represented. Lightning, maybe? But how was that related to winter?

I drifted up the steps to the dias and found an altar of blue ice with another statue on it. A beautiful woman, naked, with her hands clasped over her stomach, was lying out atop it. The body was carved from the same blue ice as the altar, seeming to blend in with it. The statue had snowflakes of black ice scattered throughout her body in the places where her major organs ought to be. The heart, lungs, and brain had the largest of them, each organ having only a single flake to represent it.

The other organs were constructed from arrays of smaller snowflakes to mimic the shapes of lungs and intestines, and the muscles had pale white flakes to show their outlines. I had never seen such a complex sculpture in my life. Her breasts were perfectly formed, and her navel cast a shadow into the ice below it, probably due to refraction or something.

She was the source of the void in my other-sense, if I abandoned my eyesight, she vanished, and the rest of the room became blurry at best. I floated away and circled around. What was I supposed to do here? I'd assumed it would be a sneak in, a quick stabby-stab and then back home for ched and jerky.

I drifted through the cavern, searching with my senses both human and divine, and found nothing else that stood out. The carvings were all exquisite, but none had the jaw-dropping detail and beauty of the woman on the altar.

"You have disturbed me before my time, killer," said a frigid voice behind me. My perception shifted, I didn't have to turn my head, and I was instantly focused on the statue with the internal snowflakes that was now standing staring at me with eyes of pure white. No pupil, no iris, just an unnatural flowing whiteness. "There is no point continuing to hide; you should take a corporeal form, and we can begin, or not as you see fit."

I drifted to the left, and she cocked her head to one side for a moment, not tracking me.

"Are you just here to watch me sleep, little godling? The world is still bathed in autumn, my time hasn't arrived yet." I circled around behind her. She tilted her head and scanned from left to right, but didn't turn to follow me. "Or have you come to warm my cold bones with passion?" She dropped a hip and rested one fist against it.

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I condensed my aura, which I was realising was simply a manifestation of my domain, and shaped Tezca's favourite implement: a stone dagger. I didn't bring it into existence yet; I kept it on the cusp of becoming real as I condensed a body for my consciousness to inhabit.

"It's always winter somewhere," I said softly. She spun round, her blue hair swaying as she hissed in annoyance.

"So it's like that, is it? A killer who won't kill won't last very long. It's always summer somewhere as well. Winter sleeps as she sees fit," Morana snapped. She flowed forwards and laid a frozen finger against my cheek, sliding it down along the line of my jaw. Where she touched me, a chill numbness spread through my skin.

"So it's a ritual? Why would you allow yourself to be so vulnerable? I stood over your body, and you were powerless to stop me." I backed away, resisting the urge to rub my cheek. The dagger hovered in my imagination, ready to appear in my hand at a thought.

"I have blanketed the earth in snow. My glaciers stretched out across half the world for thousands of years. I cannot be killed, Raymond." She crossed her arms and leaned forward slightly.

"I'm not the first Killer. You aren't the first winter," I replied, and she flinched. "Who did you consume to take your place?"

"I am eternal. I ebb and flow, like all the natural forces. If you were Apollo, you might stand a chance against me. When he shies away from Gaia, I regain my power."

Was this a fucking riddle competition? We were talking around something, going in circles. I wasn't sure where she was going, and more importantly, what she was avoiding.

"I know how seasons happen. The last ice age was thousands of years ago," I said slowly.

"It was glorious." She summoned a throne of ice and sat, crossing her translucent legs neatly, although it did nothing to preserve her modesty.

"Who was your predecessor?" I went back to the comment that had gotten the strongest reaction.

"It was always me. Always Morana, although that name is new. That culture was particularly afraid of my power. Can't you see the beauty of my world?" She waved a hand gracefully, and the frozen statues came to life. Birds and animals clattered around, acting out what they would do in life. Foxes chased rodents, and hawks circled over the lesser birds. It was eerily silent, bar the clacking of icy feet against the frozen floor.

"I am not Tezca."

"He hasn't tried to fight you yet, but he will. You'll just be absorbed into him like Morana was into me. Perhaps you'd like to warm my altar? Is that why you're here, little killer?" She smiled seductively, pinching her lower lip between her crystal teeth.

"My power was dispersed; he was fading away. Like you do when the spring thaw comes around. The end of the last ice age must have been horrific for you." I conjured my own chair from my shadows. It was harder than usual to make it manifest; something about this place resisted me. I rested my elbows on my knees and clasped my hands together in front of my chin.

She glared at me, angrily arching one frozen eyebrow, the snowflake that sat within her skull pulsed faintly. "It is simply part of the great cycle. Mater lets us children play out our squabbles across her surface."

"Where did your power go? Apollo wouldn't have taken it; he's a sky god. All that water released from your grip. Now you sleep for nine months," I said. I'd had an idea, and I wanted to see if this conversation would play out how I hoped.

"Where do you think it went?" she snapped.

"To Poseidon. Or Nautilus or whatever the fuck that concept's name was before. Shit! That's what you are! You're not people, you're the manifestation of a force, a concept!" How had I failed to grasp the deeper implications of this before? It was the key to what was happening to me. Aresk had lied. My self-appointed mission suddenly looked impossible. The gods could squabble and fight, but you couldn't kill the tide.

"She took a lot of it. As the sea levels rose, she gained a terrible reputation. You begin to understand that you cannot kill me. We can fight, and you can steal some of my strength, assuming you win. It won't be easy, though." Her voice was thick with bitterness, and all the ice-animals around us became frenzied in their mock battles.

"We could work together." I had to find some way to punish Poseidon. And that meant I needed allies.

"Why would I care to be dragged into your affairs?" She laughed like icicles hitting metal.

"We could settle your debts with Poseidon. I've got a candidate I'd like to bring on to challenge her. You–we– can't die, but we can be replaced. We could weaken her and then replace her."

Her face grew serious as I spoke. She leaned back and laid her hands on the arms of her throne. "It's not like that, Raymond Cobbler. Tezca is many minds, you will just become one more. The dominant mind is all that matters. Morana failed in her attempt to become dominant. Oh, she succeeded for a while, but mortals cannot fathom a being with aeons of experience. You always get folded in eventually, and the oldest element resumes control," she said.

This didn't bode well for my own future. I would have to find a solution, but I filed the information away for when I had time to dwell on it.

"You would stand to gain a powerful new ally and humiliate an old enemy. Winter is coming, back on Urth. If we could make it as harsh as possible, you would be at your most powerful. I'd like to see ice on the Mediterranean."

"It is a beautiful sight." She smiled faintly, blue lips curving at the corners. "But that would mean my former lover, the Sun, mighty Apollo, would be at odds with the Green Mother. We all have our schemes, even the closest of us have been bitter enemies many times. Perhaps… If you were to wound the Mother with a weapon of the Solar King and escape undetected, it might stir up enough ancient memories to give me an edge this season. Would you be able to do that for me?" She narrowed her pure white eyes at me slightly and licked her lips hungrily.

"And in exchange, you'll use your increased power this cycle to assist me against the sea-bitch?" I asked.

"Of course!" Morana replied, a little too quickly for me to be comfortable with the assurance.

"I'll need something a little stronger than just your word," I replied drily.

"You doubt the Great Cold? The slayer of the land! Every year I bring the white death, why would I lie to a godling?" she snapped.

"And every year you retreat as Spring takes over and everything you killed comes back to life."

"Hardly everything. The cold kills more living things than the sun ever did."

"Sure. But I've had some bad experiences with gods. Seems like none of you ever bloody tell the truth."

Alliance between Morana, the White Death, and Raymond the Killer.

Accept?

The prompt appeared in my vision, and I blinked in surprise. There was more to it. The details of her plan and our mutual commitments were laid out by the system.

"This is binding, then?" I asked.

"Of course. The system draws from all our power; it is the only thing that can enforce its will over one of us."

"I don't have a Sun-King Dagger. I can't agree to this," I muttered in irritation.

"Here." A column of ice rose up beside Morana and then melted away to reveal a golden knife. Straight-bladed, the pommel was shaped like a sun with rays spreading out. The hilt was a flat piece of gold, the width of my fist. It was a particularly shitty choice of metal for a weapon. The edge looked sharp, though I doubted it would stay that way after a couple of slices.

"How convenient. Doesn't Apollo know you've got one of his knives?"

She leaned forward, using her arms to enhance her cleavage into a deep canyon, and winked at me. "He was focused on other things the last time he was with me." She reached out and lifted the dagger carefully between thumb and forefinger. Steam hissed as her icy body began to melt, but it reformed as quickly as her digits began to shrink. She tossed it at my feet with a grimace.

I leaned down to pick it up gingerly. It was warm, but not painfully so. Certainly not hot enough to justify the steam.

"So, we have a deal?" I asked as I examined the blade up close.

"Just click accept," she purred.

Gods. I was sick of gods. Sick of becoming one, but as my only other option was death, it was a no-brainer.

I clicked accept, and nothing happened.

"Well, that was anticlimactic."

"Now we are allies, Raymond. Perhaps I can teach you a little of the gods? I doubt Aresk and Tezca have told you all you need to know," she rose to her feet and wandered towards her altar. Her throne dissolved back into the ice that lined the floor as I stood and trailed after her.

"And you'll just help me out of the goodness of your heart?"

"Of course not. If we are allies, it serves my ends for you to be more capable. Your domain is weakened here, yes? It will be worse in Mater's realm. She is far more powerful than I, but she has her pecadillos and weaknesses. It's generally considered bad form for us to exploit them, but they are there, and you aren't bound by our customs, are you?" She smiled back at me over her shoulder as I followed her up the steps.