Chapter 87: Chapter 85: Explaining Everything

“I’m having a hard time processing this.” Ava said. “You’re telling me that…the entire time we’ve known each other, you’ve actually been the High Arbiter, or some…facet of her or something?”

“Correct.” Eve said. “And remember, our senses are connected at all times. It is entirely possible that, while you were fawning overing me, she was in an important meeting and instantly receiving all of it.”

Ava paled. She hadn’t really put together the fact that the High Arbiter would have felt…everything she had done to Eve, and the thought of potentially interrupting something important was not pleasant.

“For what it’s worth, that never happened.” The High Arbiter said. “I actually don’t have that many meetings. Even then, it’s not something that I can’t ignore, or, if things somehow got too stimulating, turn off. She’s just messing with you.”

“Hey!” Eve protested, puffing up her cheeks in annoyance. “You don’t have to ruin everything, right?! You can let me have some fun!”

“I did.” The High Arbiter chuckled. “But I determined things were getting a little too overwhelming for her.”

“So…the entire time I was doting on Eve, it was you all along?” Ava replied weakly.

“Mostly yes, but a little no.” The High Arbiter replied. “We are…well, separate personalities. In many respects, Eve is still her own person. She reacts to things differently than I, and our emotions and memories are not shared until the end of the day unless we wish them to be. Still, yes, I felt and saw everything. But, if it makes you feel any better, I really don’t mind it.”

“But…you’re…”

“Big and important?” The High Arbiter finished. “I guess? Really doesn’t feel like it a lot of the time, you know? I was just some normal dude before…all of this.” She paused, then shook her head. “No. That’s a lie. I…guess I really wasn’t normal even back then.”

“I…never thought about it like that.” Eve said thoughtfully. “We really weren’t just some dude, huh?”

Now is when you tease Eve back. A voice rang out inside of Ava’s head.

Ava jumped and spun around, looking for the source of the voice. It sounded like the High Arbiter, but she wasn’t paying attention to Ava.

W-who? Ava ventured, mentally sending it out.

You’re looking at me. Yup…there too, and there.

Are you the…air?

Close. I’m the dungeon you’re in. I’m also personality number three, name’s Nuwa.

Do the others–

Nope, this is between you and me. Now, please, I’m begging you, tease Eve.

What? Why?

She’s been on my case lately and I want to see her squirm.

Ava frowned. That doesn’t seem very…well… She trailed off, not sure if she wanted to finish that sentence, given who she was talking to.

Very nice? Self-respecting? Some other word to do with self-preservation? No, it’s not the nicest thing, I guess, but I personally have no qualms with any of your teasing. Besides, Eve doesn’t actually hate it, not that she’d let you know that. If she did, then I wouldn’t be suggesting it.

But…what do I even tease her about?

I dunno, figure something out. I’m not good at that stuff, I’ve just seen enough of her to know she’s really not expecting to be attacked back right now. Anyway, I’m gonna…not skedaddle, I’m still, you know, here, I’m just gonna stop talking so they don’t get suspicious. Later, or…I dunno, now, I guess? Whatever, I’m out.

Wait, I need more information! Ava said, but she got no reply.

“Really, no reaction to that?” Bruce said, elbowing Ava gently. “Are you sure you’re feeling alright?”

“What?” Ava asked. “Sorry, I sort of…zoned out for a minute there. I’m sort of having a hard time keeping up.”

“I was saying that, unbeknownst to me, I was the reincarnation of the original Lilith my entire life, albeit with some soul damage that has since been healed.”

“What?” Ava said blankly. “Run that by me again?”

“You know, the famous Lilith, the big one, so to speak. She…or…I…or, I don’t know, it’s complicated, but the point is that when Kali was looking for volunteers for the job of High Arbiter, she ended up getting picked, and became me.”

“So…” Raesn began slowly, “that means the afterlife is a thing, then?”

“Yes and no.” The High Arbiter replied. “The vast majority of people, no. You just get reincarnated into a new body, provided you don’t like…become a ghost or something. That normally doesn’t happen unless you had some really strong emotions when you died, though. Anyway, Kali has an afterlife for the truly exceptional people, I’ll take you to meet some of them later, if you want.”

“I…believe we’re getting off topic.” Anala said. “I still don’t fully understand why you did all this in the first place. You mentioned something about getting stronger, but…why do you care? People are dead because of you, and this all could have been avoided if you just…did nothing.”

“More people would have died if I did.” Eve said smugly. “Believe me, the world is way better off for having my presence.”

“Really.” Anala said flatly. “You lead an army of monsters through lands that were just barely beginning to be able to properly defend themselves, then have the gall to say that it was for their benefit?”

“It sure is.” Eve said, smug look not faltering for an instance. “Riddle me this: what’s around those towns right now?”

“Monsters? What’s your point?”

“What kind of monsters?”

“Goblins and stuff?” Ava said hesitantly. “I think? That was all that was there when we were going through earlier.”

“Exactly!” Eve said triumphantly. “My point is that there are no strong monsters there. They’re all weaklings who aren’t good for anything but training up newbies. I took all the strong ones with me when I made my army, then set up a bunch of goblin and kobold and slime nests and whatever. Tough things aren’t liable to start putting down roots there for quite some time, and people will have a chance to exterminate them before that happens.”

She grinned at Anala. “But that’s not all. I’ve proved to people that they can deal with monsters if they try hard enough, they don’t have to hole up and pray nothing super bad comes their way. The whole reason Haven was introduced in the first place was to help alleviate resource shortages, and it won’t help at all if people don’t actually use what’s there.”

“But that’s not actually the main reason.” The High Arbiter said, cutting her off. “The main reason is for you four.”

Now now now now now now! Nuwa urged. Tease Eve about wanting you in particular, yes, Lilith said it, but Eve was part of the decision making process too!

“You…really wanted me that bad, huh Eve?” Ava said, though she felt she came off more questioning than teasing.

That didn’t seem to matter. Eve blushed hugely and turned so she wasn’t looking at Ava. “N-no!” She said. “I wasn’t consulted on this, it’s all on them.”

Blatant lies, call her out on it.

“T-that’s a lie, isn’t it?”

Eve whipped around, eyes narrowing. “Nuwa, you’re behind this, aren’t you? How else would she have known that?”

Just say it’s the only logical conclusion given –

“It’s the only logical conclusion given what you’ve heard about me.” Eve continued, a glint in her eyes as she studied Ava’s reaction. “Hah, she was feeding you that line right now, wasn’t she?”

“How did you–”

Eve waved a hand dismissively. “She’s me. I know how she thinks. Nuwa, you’re watching the kids tonight.”

Hey, it was going to be Mae’s–

“Was going to be Mae’s responsibility.” Eve corrected, cutting Nuwa off. “But you’ve gone and volunteered yourself with that little stunt. I’m sure Mai will be more than happy to have some time with you.”

“Who…is that?” Bruce asked.

“This is Nuwa.” The High Arbiter said. “Another one of my alternate personalities, who is in charge of the dungeon we’re in right now. And Eve was referring to the last of my personalities, Mae, who is sort of like…think of her like an AI that lives inside of me and helps me with calculations in battle. That’s not entirely accurate, but it’s close enough. And, finally, the kids she was talking about are my daughters, Mai and Aria.”

“You…have kids?” Ava asked. “Since when?”

“Shortly after I met you two.” Eve said. “It’s a long story, but the short version is they used to be Mai and Errus, the missing Perfect Chimeras.”

Raesn spit out his drink as he heard that, devolving into a bout of coughs. “They what?!” He eventually choked out.

“The slightly longer version is that Mai developed a spell that mentally regresses someone to childhood and sort of…imprints the user as that person’s mother.” The High Arbiter explained. “She used it after she beat Errus during the war, and tried to use it on me, but I made it backfire, so now she’s my cute little daughter. After it backfired, I briefly passed out and she used it on Errus before I was able to stop her, resulting in Aria. Don’t worry about the old Mai trying to take over the world, she’s…well, honestly, the old her is essentially dead. She’s harmless. Well, mostly harmless, just don’t attack her or anything and you’ll be fine.”

Ava gulped. “That’s…why are you telling us this? Does it have to do with what you mentioned about wanting the four of us?”

The High Arbiter smiled. “Yes, actually.” She sat, a chair appearing directly underneath her. “So, let’s talk about that. Pop quiz, how much do you know about where planes come from?”

“Kali makes them and then just…puts them in?” Bruce ventured. “Right?”

“That’s the public answer, yes.” The High Arbiter said. “But it’s not the real answer. The real answer is that they just sort of…pop into existence on their own.”

“Alright…what’s your point?” Anala said warily. “I fail to see how this has anything to do with us.”

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“I’m getting there.” The High Arbiter said. “Planes come into being…well, depending on their size, anywhere from a few a month to once every few millennia. Planes the size of Haven are…well, sort of medium large in the grand scheme of things, my understanding is they come about once every hundred years. Now…does anyone see any immediate issues with that?”

“…There are other Administrators, aren’t there?” Raesn said. “Those numbers just don’t add up.”

“Bingo.” The High Arbiter said. “How many others, I don’t know. There are at least several dozen, possibly as many as thousands. I only know of two others for sure; one I’ve even met in person. She’s one of the oldest, in charge of the planes where Kali was born. The other was the Administrator who kindly donated Haven to Kali in her hour of need.”

“And I’m guessing these Administrators have to compete for planes?” Raesn ventured.

“Got it in one. They don’t really fight themselves, they’ve…well, sort of made a gentleman’s agreement to not do that. They have these strict rules to prevent lasting damage, and use people from their planes instead.”

“Let me guess, you built us up to fight in these things for you two?” Anala said, clearly unimpressed. “Real noble of you.”

“You misunderstand.” The High Arbiter said, giving her a level glance. “I am going to be fighting in these personally. In fact, it is expected that I am going to be our main source of firepower. To be blunt about it, our universe is amongst the weakest of the universes. Kali made some major mistakes early on and our growth has been stunted for a long time. The Perfect Chimeras and I are the only real exceptions to this rule, due to the sheer amount of Worship that’s been poured into us.

“Mana for gods.” She said, cutting off the question she could see Bruce getting ready to ask. “The system and…well, almost everything runs off of it. As the name suggests, it’s generated by normal people believing in someone capable of using Worship or performing actions that align with that person’s areas of jurisdiction.

She paused, smiling mischievously. “For instance, I get Worship from the justice system, and got Worship from your crusade against Eve.”

“So…it’s not just limited to Administrators?” Bruce asked.

“No. There’s sort of an…intermediate step between normal people and Administrators, Higher Beings. I’ve been one since I became High Arbiter, and normally the Queen of Monsters equivalent is one as well, but since we’re the same person, I ended up double dipping on that. “

“And so, you used that to grant us our Blessings, right?” Bruce continued.

“Kind of, yeah. Your Blessings are all actually degraded versions of abilities I already have. I made some slight tweaks with Worship, but I can do some limited Skill granting without and having that made it a lot easier.”

“So.” Anala said, narrowing her eyes. “Back on topic, I’m assuming we have no option here but to go along with this whole…multiverse pit fight?”

“Not in the slightest!” The High Arbiter said emphatically. “Any of you are more than welcome to walk out right now. I’m not going to force you into anything. If you join the fights, then that’s only because you want to be there.”

“But you’ve already told us a lot of stuff that is surely confidential.” Anala said dubiously. “You can’t just let us go after that.”

“I sure can.” The High Arbiter said. “If any of you want out, I’ll just wipe your memories of this conversation. I’ll even leave your Blessings intact, so long as you don’t start misusing them later.” She paused, and the room cooled slightly, her face growing hard. “Don’t make me take those back. It won’t be a matter of just doing something from here and it’s gone.

“Don’t get me wrong, that is entirely within my capabilities, but if you get to the point that I have to take a Blessing away, then I’m going to come visit personally, and I’m going to beat it out of you, so you understand the true severity of what you’ve done. And don’t take your fight with Eve as any indication of what a serious fight with me would look like. It won’t even be close.”

“It’s true.” Eve added. “I was restricted to like, a tenth of my toolkit and was really holding back so my stats didn’t overwhelm you. And, because you have my Blessing and are, technically, my subordinates, I get every Skill you gain for free. You’re completely out of luck if you want to go against me, and that’s ignoring the Higher Being shenanigans I can get up to.”

“So, what’s the benefit to competing in these games?” Anala asked, meeting the High Arbiter’s cold gaze with an unfazed expression. “I’m failing to see a good enough reason for us to help you out here, especially with the way you’ve been playing us this whole time. I don’t approve of that.”

The High Arbiter shrugged. “For you as individuals? Not much. I suppose the benefit is you get access to my dungeon for training purposes, and you’ll get to keep being friends with me, but it’s mostly philanthropic. Helping out means our universe has a greater contribution to the planar battles, and the alliance Kali is in will be more willing to give her planes. This will directly help combat resource shortages and will, over time, allow us to increase the average power level of this universe, allowing us to more safely live in places like Haven.”

Something about that sentence struck Ava as odd. “Keep being friends?” She asked. “This is the second time we’ve met you, and everything has been rather…businesslike.”

The High arbiter smiled a somewhat sad smile. “You forget, or…perhaps misunderstand the nature of my connection with Eve. I’ve got all of Eve’s memories and was continuously sharing her senses the entire time she was with you. I…well, to me, it feels like I know you very well and have spent the last couple of months in near constant contact with you.”

To Ava’s shock, she picked up a hint of loneliness in the High Arbiter’s gaze. “To be completely frank, aside from Anna and Jameson, I consider you four my dearest friends. I have…not really been able to reconnect with my old friends, again save Anna and Jameson, and meeting new people is…difficult now.”

That settled it. “I’m in.” Ava said. She turned to Bruce, an apologetic expression on her face. “Sorry, I should have consulted with you first, seeing as how this might affect our relationship, but…”

Bruce nodded. “I get it. I was going to say yes anyway, so no harm done.”

“I suppose I’ve got time to dedicate to this.” Raesn said. “Provided it’s not going to take all day every day.”

“It won’t.” The High Arbiter said. “All I ask is that you keep training. Nothing intense, just keep yourself from getting rusty. Of course, any and all improvement is welcomed, but I’m not going to require you to do anything more than this.”

“Then I’m in as well.” Raesn said.

“And I suppose that just leaves me.” Anala said, a note of bitterness in her tone. “I’m really not happy about the way you lied to us for months, and for the damage you’ve caused, but…I’m willing to put aside my differences for the sake of the world as a whole.”

The High Arbiter burst into a relieved smile. “Thank you. And…I’m sorry. I didn’t do it out of malice, so I hope you can find it in your heart to, eventually, forgive me. I promise that, were it not the best way we could see to prevent what happened in the past from happening again, then we wouldn’t do it.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Anala said. “So, are you going to send us back or what? We kind of have some heavily injured people you wounded to take care of.”

“You don’t actually.” A new voice said. To Anna’s surprise, Saria stepped into the room, looking perfectly unharmed. “All of us that were remaining were members of the Valkyries, of which I am the leader.”

Saria gave a small bow to the assembled people, and her appearance shifted. Before she was a small human-looking woman with blonde hair, but as she straightened up, she grew until she was over six feet, and her hair changed to a mixture of bright white and dark black. Her clothing changed as well, going from leather armor a sort of…armor fashioned after a military uniform. “Saria, all-type Valkyrie version twenty-eight, at your service.”

Ava blinked. “You…were in on it the whole time?”

“Yes. We wanted to be there so we could help influence the expedition, and so we would have credible witnesses for spreading the news of Eve’s defeat. We even have a fake body prepared to bring back. If you want the credit, we will gladly give you it, but otherwise we will present it ourselves and disappear. What would you like?”

“I would prefer anonymity.” Raesn said. “Things would get hard otherwise.”

“Us too.” Ava said. “We were never planning on taking credit for it anyway.”

“Just take it and go.” Anala said. “I want to be done with all of this.”

“Understood.” Saria said. “I will see to it, then. Please excuse me.” She gave another bow, and left.

“So, are you sending us back now?” Anala asked impatiently.

The High Arbiter shrugged. “If you want. I’ll be honest, I was…sort of hoping to hang out with you all a bit longer, but if you don’t want to that’s fine.”

“I don’t.” Anala said grumpily. “I need to go be alone for a bit.”

“That’s understandable.” The High Arbiter replied. “Would you like to be back in Eve’s castle, or would you prefer I send you back to your home? There’s a lot of confusion with people moving back into the frontier towns, so you should be unnoticed if you teleport in now.”

“Yes. Send me back to my home. I need a bath, and then I want to sleep on my bed.”

The High Arbiter waved her hand, and Anala vanished. “Anyone else?”

“I think I’m going to go home too.” Raesn said. “Not because I’m mad or anything, just…tired. I’m not as young as I once was.”

“Raesn, you stopped aging like a thousand years ago.” Bruce pointed out. “Your body is as young as ever.”

Raesn chuckled. “Perhaps, but all of…everything recently has been a bit too…stimulating for me. I need a break.”

By the way, Nuwa said, do you mind if I hit you up about building things later? I have some projects in mind, but I want your expertise for them. I’ve sorta just been making do with books and the internet and it’d be nice to have someone who’s actually proficient in making things.

“By all means.” Raesn said, smiling. “I’m curious to see what you can make with the tools at your disposal.”

Thanks! I’ll contact you later. Uh…I’ll probably use Eve’s phone so you know the number, but we should all exchange contact information later down the line.

“Do you guys not share?” Bruce asked.

Nah, it’s more convenient to all have separate stuff.

“Very well then.” Raesn said. “But, for now, I need to nap. I’ll…also go to my home, if you would.”

The High Arbiter nodded, waved her hand, and sent Raesn away.

Bruce looked to Ava, and the two didn’t need anything else to know they were on the same page. “We’re down to hang out.” Ava said. “What are you thinking?”

The High Arbiter gave a huge smile. “Nothing special. We’ve got like…everything here, so…video games, a movie, bowling, I think Nuwa’s finished making a mini-golf course…basically name it and there’s a good chance we can do it here. If not, we can head elsewhere and do it there.”

Bruce raised an eyebrow. “Seriously? You’re going to have to give us the tour.”

“Let’s start with that, then!” The High Arbiter said brightly. “And please, don’t feel the need to stand on ceremony or anything, just call me Lilith. I’m…hoping we can be as good friends as we were before…well, today.”

“Of course we can.” Ava said comfortingly. “It’ll be a bit of an adjustment, but I’m sure we’ll get used to it being you instead of Eve.”

Eve mumbled something that Ava couldn’t quite make out. “What was that?” Ava asked.

“I said I still want to hang out, too.” Eve said, turning so they could only catch a glimpse of her crimson red face. “But I’m going to go now, I need to go talk with Mai and Aria and show them I’m fine. They were getting a bit worried.” Without waiting for a reply, she exited the room, leaving Ava and Bruce alone with Lilith.

“Come this way!” Lilith said happily. “We’ll start with the training facilities…”