"Rise Erus, God of Faith and Mysticality. You are here today because you have been accused by Iyseuss of betraying a core decree. That of binding another god's Ego. What is your rebuttal of these claims."
A woman sat in upon an old rock, surrounded on all sides by the gods. She was incredibly beautiful, with the exception of her face. Her eyes were completely gone, leaving only the hollow sockets in their place.
She was the God of Judgment, Mithys.
Directly in front of her was Erus who had Iyseuss holding him.
"I'm only doing what I must to make sure Vostus comes back to our side to help us escape this prison."
"So you admit to the accusations? Breaking a core decree yields a heavy penalty."
"I admit to the accusation, yes. But I'd like to invoke my right to be tried by the realm, not just you Mithys. This is not just a simple matter of breaking a tenet, but rather a complex choice that all the gods should be involved in."
Erus looked around at all the other gods. His fist clenched in pain due to being outside his church, but he refused to let it show in any matter.
He continued toward Mithys.
"I do not believe it, in general, to be at all acceptable to restrict one of our Egos. After all, they are our hearts which make us whole."
He looked around the room again and spoke directly to all the other gods.
"But this is a special case. Vostus needs to be aware that we can take his power away at any point, but also be able to help him regain his lost power. We can keep him on a tight chain and make him work with us."
Mithys shifted her position and spoke softly to Erus.
"Erus, since you called upon it, I am obligated to allow you to have a trial with our peers. But just know, you broke a core tenet and as such, regardless of the trials outcome I will punish you. That is how the core tenets are laid out. They also say that during a trial of our peers, you must get every vote but five to agree with you. If not, you shall be punished in full."
"I'm aware of that Mithys."
"Then make your appeal." She looked towards the gods and said, "At any point you can raise your hand if you wish to vote with Erus, keep you hand lowered to vote against. Votes may be changed at any time during his appeal, but once he is finished, you all have five minutes to come to a final decision. You have the floor Erus."
"Thank you." Erus bowed towards Mithys, grunting slightly in pain. He raised his head to find most of the gods already had their hands raised.
"Fellow gods and goddesses, brothers and sisters. Vostus is someone who needs to be controlled! Have we not already suffered enough at his hands? Before us, we have an opportunity to make Vostus a guard dog once more, and an obedient one at that! How many opportunities will we ever have to do something like this?" He spoke with vigor, despite his frail body.
"But what type of precedent does it set?"
A mammoth of a man raised a finger and spoke.
"Yes, Auclair is someone exceedingly strong and yes, it would be smart to restrict him. But that's only if we look at the surface level. As the God of War and Pestilence, I find myself in close proximity with Auclair's predicament. I stand here as one of the strongest gods, if not the second strongest after Auclair. What happens next I ask? Once you have a taste of that power, who says you won't use it on me, or someone else?"
Erus' head lowered and he glared at the god of war.
"And… I'm sure I'm not the only one here who believes it a bad idea to get on Auclair's wrong side. What you're doing Erus is like chaining a lion up, then making us all sleep next to it when it's hungry. That man has escaped every attempt we've ever had to bind him in one way or another, what's to say he won't break your system."
"Vostus is strong, yes. But he is weak now, if he accepts the use of the system, he'll become dependent on it. I'm using my soul as collateral, you know that. I wouldn't be making what seems like such a foolish attempt otherwise. I'm confident in the success of my system."
"I am not confident. Nor do I wish to live in a world where holding an Ego hostage is an accepted idea." The god of war crossed his arms.
It was a sign meaning his decision was a firm 'no' and it wouldn't change.
However after the exchange, some more of the gods raised their hands. The god of war saw it and shook his head in disapproval.
Iyseuss, the god of war, Mithys had their arms crossed and two more had their hand lowered. Everyone else had them raised.
Naturally Erus looked towards the two with their hands lowered.
The God of Time, a god that created two forms for itself, past and present. They were one of the very few gods not restricted to the Iron Tower.
Then there was the God of Knowledge and Ignorance, a god that was always consumed in books, whether she was writing them or reading them.
"What say you two? Please tell me your thoughts so I may try and change them." Erus pleaded.
The god of time spoke first. His body was separated into an old man which represented the past, and a young child, who represent the future.
The two were always by each other's side and seemed to be separate entities when considering their knowledge.
Meaning only the old man knew the past and only the child knew the future.
The old man spoke slowly, "A dangerous thought indeed, or have you all forgotten the past? Vostus is not some lowly god where your decisions will change the outcome. Must you always forget that our father took special care of him when we were young? His fate is unbound. There is nothing you can do to restrict him permanently. It'd be wise to remember that."
Then the young child spoke, they were the only being in the word besides the primordial that could intercept Auclair's fate due to how his powers worked.
"If the God of Knowledge and Ignorance here chooses to raise their hand, which they will, Auclair will accept the system. It is up to the rest of you to determine whether or not it is a good thing, but I should tell you that this meeting isn't just choosing whether or not we'll restrict Auclair's ego."
The child smiled.
"No, instead its choosing sides. It's those against Auclair, and those with him."
After they both spoke, the two who were one crossed their arms.
Finally, everyone looked towards the God of Knowledge and Ignorance.
"It seems it falls on my shoulders." She said as she closed the book in front of her. "Adrian Vostus Auclair, his new name has a nice ring to it, I must admit. The facts before me are simple, Adrian is not someone to be trifled with. Like the God of War and Pestilence so eloquently put, you're poking a lion. However, you all also know my stance on these idiotic votes."
Everyone watched her with heavy eyes.
"I shall vote in the majority, but I'd like it on record that I support Auclair and even if he doesn't want me to, I'll help him when he inevitably breaks Erus' system and comes here to eat him."
She practically spat out the last part while glaring sharply at Erus. Then she raised her hand.
"And for the record, it will happen." She added briefly as if it was predetermined.
Mithys clicked her tongue when the last necessary hand was raised.
"Let the five minute countdown begin."
Auclair turned another corner and saw a fancy embellished door at the end of the hall. Around the door were grand paintings with all sorts of creatures gracefully pointing at the door.
'The thread goes into there, but the outer god's influence also originates there.'
Auclair scratched his chin in thought when he felt a presence reach the corner he had just turned. It was Norman and his Regret sister, Connie.
They had loosely been following him but he didn't particularly care. In fact, the Regret could even be useful in the next room against whatever was in there.
"If you're going to keep following me, you should know the next room is dangerous." Auclair decided to tell them, he was sure they were going to follow them anyway.
"How so?" Connie spoke softly causing Auclair to turn around. He saw Connie barely peeking her head out from the wall while Norman quickly hid her.
"I'm not going bite Norman, no pun intended. Your sister is stronger than you give her credit for."
Norman peeked out from the beyond the wall and stared at Auclair. Auclair raised his arms in ingenuousness, something that might've seemed innocent to him, but the bloodstained clothes ruined the image for everyone else.
Norman started tapping his foot and thought about what to do.
"Come on!" Connie ran out and up to Auclair who raised his brows in surprise. Could she not make up her mind on whether or not to be afraid of him?
'Children are weird.' Auclair lightly laughed through his nose.
Auclair lowered himself to the little girl's face and started scrutinizing her. She was excited a moment ago but now she wondered if she made the right choice. She took a slight step back.
"This thing is broken." Auclair muttered and his face distorted.
Norman place his hand on Connie's shoulder.
"That thing is my sister, so show some respect."
Auclair groaned.
"That's not how it works Norman, I hate to break it to you. I don't know why she's still here, maybe you didn't apologize hard enough or something, but a Regret is supposed to disappear. A Regret is just a physical manifestation of, well… a regret. Your sister isn't in this world anymore. This is just your mind creating an impersonation."
"Don't say that!" Norman jabbed his finger into Auclair's chest who promptly ignored the provocation.
"I'm saying you shouldn't get attached. Let me guess, you joined the game to either get rid of her when she was still tormenting you, or to bring her back. I'm personally going with the latter."
Norman shut his mouth.
"So, you shouldn't get attached, because a Regret can grow, and since this one is weird, by the time you can bring your sister back, they won't be remotely similar and it'll just disappoint you."
Norman watched Auclair in silence.
"How do you know all this?" He suddenly asked.
"I'm experienced in a lot of things. Little Connie?" Auclair called out to her.
"Yes?"
"Take care of your idiotic brother before he gets himself hurt somehow."
"Yes sir." She said with an innocent salute.
"Well, at least your Regret is kinda cute. Still, you should try to get rid of it somehow before it grows."
"What do you mean by grow?"
"I mean it in two ways, it's personality will grow and change like a regular person, and it'll get stronger and more aggressive when it doesn't get resolved."
"Isn't that a good thing in Connie's case?"
Auclair stopped.
"Did you not just hear a word I said?!"