Cold. Gorum felt cold as he laid in darkness, stretched out like a starfish. 'The afterlife is bleaker than I thought, is this what the next 100 years will be like?' Gorum thought as he stared into nothingness, calmly awaiting is soul cycle to pass.
The afterlife in this world was quite different than the many depicted on earth. Rather than there being a specific place in the afterlife, your soul would go into a 'pool' of sorts and swirl around for 100 years before being injected back into the world, stripped of everything that made your soul you. Why it worked that way was unknown, but Gorum couldn't care less about it all. He was happy to be resting for once. Although, he was rather unhappy with how he went out...
After all, Gorum didn't even die at his opponents' hand, it was his own doing. No warrior would be satisfied with such a death. Old, accursed and unable to fight to the fullest in his final moments, he suffered a truly shameful death despite the fact he was fighting on the side he considered good. History is written by the victors, after all. Of course, he regretted dying in such a way and wanted to dwell on what he could've done better since he had the time, but something else popped into his mind.
'Hold on, something is off here, if the afterlife is just a void, then why do I feel like I'm lying on a floor?' Gorum thought, tossing aside his regrets for a moment as he went to sit up. The darkness that he assumed was the void of the afterlife, was actually him just having his eyes closed.
To Gorum's surprise, he was indeed not in the void of the afterlife, but rather a massive hallway, lined with lavish red carpets and stone pillars bearing red banners to match the carpet. At the end of the hall was a massive set of metal doors, but location aside, Gorum had other issues for the moment. For one thing, he was naked. For another, his body was...different.
Gorum was no longer an impressive 3 kuart tall (9 feet), he had reverted to his original height of 1 and 5/6ths a kuart (5 feet, 6 inches). All of the scars that riddled his body were gone and the overall shape his body had returned to its once very womanly shape. Although, he still retained plenty of muscle despite having his shape returned to a harlot like silhouette. And a rather pleasing development was his hair; it had returned to its one proud and fluffy state, a lovely and thick blanket of gold replacing the wilted mane of gray he had become accustomed to.
'While I'm happy to be rejuvenated, just what the hell is going on here?' Gorum thought as he stood up and began walking towards the big set of doors. Stumbling and wobbling as he had to get used to walking with his original size and proportions after being much larger for so long. As he waddled towards the doors, his mane of hair drug on the floor behind him, the length being the same as when he was larger for whatever reason.
Once he final shambled his way to the big set of ornate black metal doors, he put a hand to each door and pushed with all his might. As the door was astoundingly heavy, even for him, it took a minute to finally push them clear open. And when he did, it revealed a massive room withs similar decor to the hallway. Decor aside, the most noticeable thing about the room was the absolutely humongous throne, and the equally humongous woman sitting upon it.
Sitting on the throne was a woman of mountainous size, her height comparable to the skyscrapers on earth. She was dressed in a tight-fitting white robe that resembled a toga and had long chest length red hair that held the same color as freshly drawn blood. To top it off she wore a white blindfold that was constantly dripping blood from the bottom around her eyes. As a warrior, Gorum knew this visage better than most. The woman before him was Crimson, God of Hard Work, Battle, Heroism, Blood, and Suffering.
"Well, don't just stare all shellshocked, come hither." She said, her voice sounding quite strong, fitting for the legendary warrior Goddess.
"Take your time though, don't want to see such a mighty warrior fall over like a newborn deer..." The gargantuan Goddess let out a chuckle at her own taunt as she awaited Gorum to shamble his wobbly carcass over to the front of her throne.
Gorum knew better than to disobey and tried his best to stay upright despite the difficulty in shifting his weight correctly, eventually stepping up before the Goddess' throne and hesitantly kneeling. Although Gorum was a bit unsure if he was supposed to bow first then kneel, or kneel, bow and kneel again. He already had enough trouble with manners with mortal beings of importance, so knowing what to do in front of a god wasn't exactly up his alley.
"Err...hello, Goddess. I'm-" Gorum attempted to do a polite greeting, in his own awkward way, but was quickly interrupted.
"I know very well who you are Gorum, don't worry about introductions. You can just call me Lady Crimson and get up, stop all that groveling. We're both warriors, even if I am a Goddess, that never changed. Stand up and speak normally, I'm sure you have questions to ask." Crimson said, waving away the fancy manners and instead comforted Gorum with a warrior's manners.
"I... Very well." Gorum gulped and stood up, shaking a bit before finding his balancer again.
"I suppose I have to ask why I'm here, why my body is so different and... Well, that's all I can think of this very moment." Gorum said, regaining a little bit of confidence now that he didn't need to worry about speaking so politely.
"To answer your second question, I had your body remodeled, tweaked and rejuvenated to make you more...pleasing to the eye. Even a Goddess likes eye candy, besides I'm sure you're happy to be young and spry again, hm?" Crimson said, calmly laying things out in a very simple manner for Gorum, although the eye candy bit went over his dense head.
"I see, that aside what, am I here for then?" Gorum asked, although he wanted to ask about why she had to go and make him short and harlot-y again, he refrained from it.
"I wish to make you my champion! And before you ask, I'll explain what I mean since I know you have no clue what I'm talking about." Crimson said, hitting the nail on the head, as Gorum was just about to ask what she meant by champion.
"Us Gods are very busy, we have to manage countless subworlds as a part of our duty and it's just too time consuming to go deal with every little problem ourselves, so we send champions instead. Usually, we just summon souls from other worlds and send them back when they're done. OR if they were a soul that had died, we'd let them live their life on that world till they died again. But we also need permanent champions with a high reliability rate, and you fit such a description to a T!" Crimson plainly explained to Gorum what she had in mind, making sure to not use any overcomplicated descriptions so she wouldn't confuse him.
"You're beyond perfect for the job, especially as a champion for me! You're a hero with an uncountable number of deeds, big and small. You have amazing prowess and adaptability in battle. Of course, excluding that little death scene of yours. But don't worry about that, as far as I'm concerned it was a fluke based on old age and bad luck." Crimson continued on, buttering Gorum up.
"Ah! That, about the way I died, I have questions." Gorum jolted a bit as he actually could think of some important questions to ask.
"Ask away." Crimson said, awaiting Gorum's queries.
"Well first I want to know if you had any clue as to why my skills drained my health, and second I'd like to know what happened to my soul item if possible..." Gorum asked. He was sure that a Goddess could reveal the answer about his health draining skills, and as for his soul item, he just wanted to be sure no one nefarious had access to such a surely powerful item.
"Hm, I have an answer to both of those questions thankfully, but I'm not proud with one of them though. I'm afraid the reason your skills drained your health is because of me." Crimson said, a mild look of regret on her face.
"What!?" Gorum couldn't help but lose his cool for moment, but quickly reminded himself of who he stood before and closed his mouth.
"No no, you have every right to be upset. Allow me to explain, in your late twenties I bestowed my blessing upon you, but as I'm sure you know, my blessings aren't really blessings, are they?" Crimson said, looking down at Gorum, trying to speak a bit slower so he could follow along in his upset state.
Crimsons words held truth; her blessings were more like curses. If you were to receive it, you would find yourself crippled instead of booned. As the literal God of both suffering and hard work, she felt it ridiculous to grant a mortal strength. If one wanted strength they should earn it, so she would send them a test of will through a debuff in her blessing. In some cases, it wasn't anything too serious, the blessing would slow growth or lower stats. However, in extreme cases like Gorum, it could range from eternal blindness to the inability to use mana.
"When I gave you my blessing, you were fighting like an animal till you were ragged and exhausted practically every day, so you weren't even able to notice the difference. Then as you grew stronger, you were able to out heal the damage via equipment and your natural rate of healing, but when you gained the Twilight debuff..." Crimson explained, leaving Gorum to guess the end on his own.
"All of my bodily functions were halved, leaving the effects of the blessing to ravage my insides without getting healed..." Gorum said, hanging his head a bit.
"Indeed. For what it's worth, I never thought you'd live long enough for it to become an actual problem since you would behave so recklessly so often...I'm truly sorry my meddling caused such a pitiful death for you." Crimson apologized, sounding rather genuine as she frowned down at Gorum.
"Mhh..." Gorum huffed a bit, mulling over a few things in his usually empty head.
"Well, there is no use complaining now. On paper, I lived a long and accomplished life so that's good enough. What about my soul item?" Gorum said, tossing away his feelings of anger. Even though it was her fault he died the way he did, there wasn't anything he could do about it now.
"Well, as the one who technically did the killing blow, you are the one who inherited the item. Ah, but you can't summon it here. You would require godhood or my permission first." Crimson said, waving her hand to dismiss the question, as she considered it inconsequential.
"I see. At least Idalia doesn't have it, that would be disastrous. About this champion business though, you said you'd 'like' for me to be your champion. Is it just me, or does that imply I have a choice?" Gorum really didn't mind the idea of becoming a champion to Crimson since it meant he'd get to be "alive" for longer, but he found it odd that me might actually have a say-so in the matter.
"You do technically have a choice. You can refuse and I'll send you back into the pool of souls and then your soul will enter the same reincarnation process as normal. If you choose to be my champion though, it will mean binding your soul to mine in total servitude. However...I don't like the idea of an unfair trade, so how about I sweeten the deal for you?" Crimson seemed to mull over an idea in her head, talking about said possible deal.
"I can tell you're unhappy about the circumstances of your death, and how you left your battle against Idalia's coup unfinished. So how about, in 100 years of service, I'll send you back to Ugdual in peak form so you can finish that little spat of yours? I say 100 years because that's how long it would take for your soul to go back there if you stayed in the soul pool. Of course, you wouldn't be the same person anymore in that case..." Crimson's tone slowly became more manipulative, the words of her tempting offer crawling into Gorum's ear and slithering around his brain.
"What do you say, deal?" Crimson leaned forward on her throne, grinning as she peered down at Gorum.