He was kind of a bad dude. If he was ever to act on his impulses and desires, he would find himself in prison or dead in an alley by the end of the week. Fortunately for him, his family had instilled good morals in him, so he never ended up acting on his desires. That all changed the faithful night he was stabbed in an act of senseless violence. Simply being at the wrong place at the wrong time. He had been walking down his familiar shortcut from work when some psycho on a drug-crazed bender had stabbed him for nothing but the thrill of it. Bleeding out on the cold pavement, he reflected on his short and lackluster life as the darkness claimed him. Claimed him both literally and metaphorically it would seem.

Nathan slowly regained consciousness as he felt his surroundings had changed. The cold hard pavement had been replaced by a nice plush carpet, and the dark street with a luxurious room. In the dim light he could make out a general theme of dark and crimson leather, with silken draperies adorning the walls. The room was sparsely decorated apart from a fixture with a couch, table and a couple of chairs. A black metal chandelier hung over the fixture and provided the only light in the room. There were no windows, nor an apparent exit. He also noticed that he had company.

On the sofa, facing him, a beautiful woman lounged. She was clad in a short, black dress which contrasted well with her pale unblemished skin. Her black hair was shoulder length and framed a captivating face with high cheekbones, full black lips, and intense eyes. She looked equal parts dangerous and alluring as her deep dark eyes seemed to pierce right through Nathan. She was currently leaning back into the sofa, with her arms spread on the backrest and her perfect legs crossed in front of her. She was wearing high heels and was lazily bobbing her foot while regarding him with a playful smirk.

Nathan staggered up from the corner he had been lying in, and went over to the woman with slight apprehension. He was a bit unsure what to say or do, but figured that he would accomplish nothing by just standing there like a mute idiot. He sat himself down in one of the leather chairs opposite the woman and gathered himself before speaking.

"I have some questions," he stated bluntly. The woman seemed to find him amusing as she chuckled a light melodious laugh. "I bet," she said playfully.

"I would be surprised if you didn't".

"Let's take them one at a time then. Am I dead?"

"Yes."

Nathan's shoulders slumped. He somewhat hoped everything that happened was a fever dream, but it seemed to be all too real. Instead of dwelling on his demise, he decided to soldier on.

"Where are we now?"

"You can think of this place as an intermediate stop in between realities. Before your soul could flow to the afterlife, I decided to snatch you up. This place is both real and ethereal. It will disappear as soon as we leave."

"W-why, what?" He stammered. Nathan was currently trying to slot his current situation into any of the countless religious depictions of the afterlife. None that came to mind had ever mentioned being greeted at the gates by a hot goth mommy. Not that he was complaining of course.

The woman's plump lips curled up in a smile, and her eyes took on a mischievous glint. Her hands retracted from the backrest as she leaned forward, crossing them under her ample cleavage as she looked upon him. Nathan tried maintaining eye contact, but was the first to yield. She was kinda intense, and he just couldn't resist a quick glance at her body before looking awkwardly to the side. The woman seemed humored as she spoke.

"I think maybe introductions are in order before we continue. I go by various names, but you can call me Melissa. I represent one of many factions in a multiversal pantheon of unfathomable size. As to the why; because I felt like it. Some gods are scheming machevilian masterminds, using mortals as proxies to garner faith and devotion, while some are just bored. I fall squarely into the latter category. Sometimes I like giving souls like yours a second chance and just enjoy seeing where it leads. If you're wondering why I chose you specifically? Maybe you just happened to be at the right place at the right time"

At the end of her little monologue Melissa took on a playful smile.

"It helps that our interests align as well"

Taking it all in, Nathan couldn't help but feel curious at the last part.

"What kind of interests?" he asked tentatively

"It doesn't take a genius to figure out that I might not be entirely `traditional`", Melissa said "My whole aesthetic has some universal implications after all. Some of my contemporaries would call me a goddess of debauchery and sin, and while I take slight offense to the wording, it more or less gets the point across. I know you Nathan. I know your soul and how you've been hampered by useless moral codes and ethics your entire life. I'm offering you a new chance. A path to let loose and be yourself. You have my blessing to be as bad as you want."

Nathan swallowed as a heat rose up in his chest.

"Am I being reincarnated?"

"Yes. Im sending you to a world where the influence of gods is felt much more strongly, and were you will be given the tools to act out your desires"

"Thank you," Nathan said. Nothing that had happened since he woke up felt particularly real to him, but he was more than willing to go along with the ride. Even if it turned out he was in a vivid coma-induced dream while in a hospital bed on Earth. And if it wasn't a dream…

"Bad boy," Melissa whispered with a hint of seduction in her voice. "Have fun". She snapped her fingers and then he was gone.

Nathan woke up in a verdant clearing. Around him loomed ancient looking trees. The trees formed a wall of foliage that hindered his line of sight into the forest surrounding him. Only in the middle of the clearing was the canopy thin enough to let in a trickle of sunlight. He felt lethargic and woozy but otherwise fine. He saw that he still had his outfit from Earth; black cargo pants, white oversized t-shirt, with a black sweater over top. Nathan had never been very creative when it came to colors. He kind of just stuck to the muted ones.

One notable difference about his outfit was the lack of a knife protruding from his punctured chest. He had been kind of distracted and disoriented when talking to Melissa, but now that he took the time to orient himself he noticed the lack of any pain from his midsection. He curiously lifted his clothes on his upper body and inspected his pale bare chest. Nothing, not even any scarring. It seemed his body's condition had been rewound to before that psychopath decided that Nathan's heart would be a passable hilt for his little knife.

Thinking about his final moments, Nathan was surprised to find how apathetic he was towards the whole ordeal. Sure it sucked to be killed, and the stabbing had hurt like a motherfucker, but it had kinda sucked to be alive as well.

He couldn't really blame his parents. They had been great for the most part, if not overly involved, as he was an only child. It was his own fault really. He had been slowly sinking into a hole of despair since high-school. No real friends, no girlfriends, no real hobbies or ambitions. By the time he graduated, he had been completely directionless. He'd gone to a public college in his city, just kinda coasting along out of obligation. He had an awful job at a fast-food joint and barely scraped together enough money for rent. The only thing that kept him somewhat sane was music, games, porn and other entertainment. Porn was where he'd developed his biggest character flaw. The more he watched the more he realized that he was a sadistic and possessive scumbag. The only thing that really got him off nowadays was hardcore bdsm, sex-slave roleplay and dubious consent.

´Maybe my "flaw" was actually a boon´, He thought. Melissa had implied that his unconventional interests were why she chose him. `if i have a blessing, then maybe it's justified. Wouldn't want to anger the gods by not aligning myself with their teachings´, he joked to himself. However Nathan was kinda stumped on how exactly he was supposed to go about this new life. Melissa had mentioned something about resourc… Nathan was cut off from his train of thoughts as a black box appeared in front of his face.

Name: Nathan Russo

Age: 21

(Human) lvl. 1

Class: Slavemancer

Health: 100/100

Stamina: 100/100

Mana: 240/240

Stats:

- Vitality 5

- Endurance 5

- Wisdom 12

- Strength 5

- Dexterity 5

- Intelligence 10

- Charisma 9

- Faith 15+1

- Luck 15+1

Blessing:

Blessing of Debauchery by The Mother of Sin:

10% increase to charisma, faith and luck. Hedonism is rewarded.

Abilities:

(Lesser) Shadow influence:

Command your targets shadow to momentarily freeze them in place. Diminishing returns upon use on the same target. Scales with intelligence.

(Lesser) Dark needle:

Shoot out a dark needle. Effective vs. physical beings. Scales with intelligence and dexterity.

(Lesser) Weak suggestion:

Infuse your words with the powers of suggestion. Scales with charisma and luck.

(Lesser) Brittle slave contract:

Summon a brittle slave contract. Only works on targets significantly weaker than yourself. Scales with faith.

Skills:

(Race skill) Jack of all trades:

1% increase in growth.

(Unique) Heavenly translation:

Allows the user to understand, speak, read and write any new language they encounter.

Slaves (limit: 1)

-none

Ok so he had a level interface. That would help him tremendously. Being a genre savvy guy, Nathan started testing his UI. He could open and close it with a thought. He also tried to see wether he had a map or some kind of system, but neither vocal nor mental commands yielded any results.

Taking a closer look at his status, he started to take stock of his current resources. The Slavemancer class was almost tailor made for him. He'd always fantasized about doing unspeakable acts to pure maidens in his personal dungeon.

He then focused on his stat-spread. He was obviously a magic focused class, as his physical stats were horrendous. He was a little worried about the vitality stat in particular. Doing some big brain deduction, he figured that vitality, endurance and wisdom had a 1-20 correlation with his resource bars. Right now he was essentially a glass cannon with almost 1,5 times more mana than health. That would be all fine and dandy if this was a game where he had unlimited tries and a firm grasp of the mechanics, but if this was real, a single screw up could cost him his life. He didn't intend to find out whether or not he had any retries.

Nathan went further down his stats and noted the blessing. 'Mother of Sin, huh… she might have been underselling herself a bit'. It seemed like Nathan's patron was a bigger deal than she let on, at least if her title was anything to go by. It was also a damn good blessing. 30% overall scaling was no joke. It seemed the blessing always rounded down however. It would truly show its worth once he cranked those numbers up. That last bit, «hedonism is rewarded», could be flavor text. He didn't have enough information, but if he would hazard a guess, then he might receive further boons by engaging in hedonistic acts.

Then came the abilities. 2 offensive and 2 related to his class. He'd have to test them out before he could ascertain their worth, but they seemed to synergize well. Nathan didn't miss the obvious dark theme to the skills either. One could do some heinous stuff with these skills… probably. Jack of all trades seemed like a typical human race skill in an mmo, and the translation skill was par for the course (extremely convenient nonetheless). Nathan's current slave limit was 1 but he was confident that would change once he started leveling up.

Seeing no reason to delay further, Nathan picked a direction and started exploring his new world.