The words left his mouth and a faint pressure settled against his chest. It wasn’t painful but it felt like a hand pressing over his heart. Ludo half-expected to get a notification. However, nothing came. But he felt the oath take hold.
Zohbor nodded slowly. The fire in the hearth lifted, the flames stretching back to their normal height. “Good. Then we can talk.”
He reached for the pitcher and refilled both mugs. The beer sloshed gently against the clay.
“Domains,” Zohbor said. “That’s where we start. Every god has one. It’s not just a title. It’s the lens you see the world through, the thing you draw power from. Mine is travellers and beer. Yours is games. Everything you do, every miracle you work, every follower you claim, it all flows through that lens.”
Ludo thought about the interface, the way it had created miracles like House Rule, Fog of War and Let’s Play, Hide and Seek. Both of them were drawn from games in his past life.
“Can a domain change?” he asked.
“Grow, yes. Change entirely, no. You are what you are. The question is what you make of it.” Zohbor took a long drink, then set the mug on his knee. “A god’s power comes from followers. You’ve figured that out already. More followers means more Faith. More Faith means stronger miracles. But it also means more attention.”
“From other gods.”
“From other gods,” Zohbor agreed. “And not all of them are friendly.”
Ludo’s stomach tightened. He’d been so focused on Teffania, on the tournament, on getting to Solstcove, that he hadn’t thought about what came after. What happened when other gods noticed a new player on the board.
“How unfriendly are we talking?”
Zohbor’s expression didn’t change, but his voice lost some of its warmth. “Some gods don’t like competition. A new domain means a new claimant for followers, for Faith, and for influence. If you grow too fast, someone will try to cut you down before you become a threat. If you grow too slow, someone will absorb you just because they can.”
“Absorb?”
“Destroy. Consume. Whatever you want to call it. They’ll take your domain and fold it into their own.” Zohbor’s fingers tapped once against his mug. “It’s rare. But it happens. There was a god of festivals in the eastern provinces about two hundred years ago. Nascent, like you. Grew quickly. Made a lot of noise. Then one day, silence. No one’s heard from him since.”
Ludo’s throat was dry. He drank again, but the beer didn’t taste as good this time.
“Who did it?”
“No one knows. Or no one’s saying.” Zohbor shrugged. “The point isn’t who. The point is that it can happen. You need to be careful. You need to understand what you are, and what you can do.”
Ludo leaned forward. The chair creaked under him. “Then tell me. What am I? What does it mean to be a nascent god?”
Zohbor studied him for a long moment. The firelight caught the lines around his eyes, the grey in his hair. He looked like a man in his fifties, solid and unremarkable. But Ludo could feel the weight behind the appearance now, the centuries stacked up behind those patient eyes.
“A nascent god is a god who hasn’t settled yet,” Zohbor said. “Your domain is fixed, but everything else is still forming. Your manifestation, your miracles, your connection to your followers. Right now you’re like a beacon. You’re visible to anyone with the right perception because you haven’t learned how to hide. And you’re vulnerable.”
“Vulnerable how?”
“If your Faith runs out completely, your manifestation destabilizes. You’ve probably experienced that once or twice by now.”
Ludo nodded. The System had been clear about that much. Faith depletion meant losing his physical form. Further loss meant losing his existence entirely.
“That’s not the only danger,” Zohbor continued. “A nascent god can be bound. If another god gets ahold of your domain before it’s fully formed, they can shackle you to their will. You’d keep existing. You’d even keep your powers. But you wouldn’t have control over your own fate anymore.”
The fire popped again. Ludo watched the flames curl around the new log, slow and patient.
Now that’s worrying.
“How do I stop that from happening?”
“Take your time and grow carefully. Don’t draw attention until you’re strong enough to survive any attempts against you.” Zohbor set his mug on the table and leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “I can teach you to hide your nature, to blend in. It won’t fool another god who’s actively searching for you, but it’ll keep you from actively projecting your location.”
Ludo turned the mug in his hands. The clay was rough against his palms. He thought about Haroll and his men, the way they’d become followers without him choosing it. He thought about the anonymous prayers for luck with bets that had filtered through the System back in the village. He silently wondered if there was a way to trace gods through those connections.
“Why are you helping me?” he asked.
Zohbor was quiet for a moment. The fire crackled softly.
“Because someone helped me once,” he said. “A long time ago. When I was new and stupid and didn’t know how anything worked. A god of roads took me in, taught me the basics, and how to explore my domain. Without her, I wouldn’t have made it.” He picked up his mug again. “I’ve been paying that debt forward ever since.”
Ludo wanted to ask more. Who the god of roads was. Whether she was still alive. But something in Zohbor’s voice told him the story didn’t have a happy ending, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear it right now.
“You said other gods will notice me soon,” Ludo said. “How soon?”
“Depends on what you do next. If you keep throwing miracles, maybe a week. If you lie low, maybe a bit longer.” Zohbor tilted his head. “The tournament helps your situation. Solstcove is crowded right now. Lots of noise and people. It’ll be harder to pick out one new god from the chaos.”
Ludo exhaled slowly. But the tension in his shoulders refused to let up.
“The tournament,” he said. “Teffania’s still competing in it. I can’t just hide.”
“I’m not saying you should. Your followers are your strength. The more Faith they generate, the faster you’ll stabilize.” Zohbor drank again. “Just be smart about it. Small miracles. Quietly influence things. Don’t light up the sky unless you have no other choice.”
Ludo nodded. The advice made sense. It also scared him, because it meant he’d already made mistakes. The pillars of golden light that had carried Haroll’s men away. That certainly hadn’t been quiet. In fact, that had been the very definition of the opposite of quiet.
“There were men in the forest,” he said. “I used a… well, two large miracles on them. Could another god have seen that?”
Zohbor’s mug paused halfway to his lips. “You used miracles today?”
“Mm.”
The innkeeper set his mug down with more force than necessary. Beer sloshed over the rim and pooled on the table. But he didn’t seem to notice.
“Describe them.”
Ludo did as he was told, deciding to come clean about everything since he arrived in this world. Well, except his system. There was no way he’d reveal that little secret. Zohbor listened without interrupting, but his face grew more still with every word.
When Ludo finished, Zohbor was quiet for a long time.
“That was foolish,” Zohbor said finally. “You spent that much Faith on your third day of existence?”
“I didn’t have a choice. They were going to catch us.”
“There’s always a choice. You just didn’t know enough to see the others.” Zohbor rubbed his forehead with the heel of his hand. “The good news is that Solstcove is far enough from the village and that part of the road that most gods won’t have felt it directly. But if anyone was already watching this region, they’ll have noticed. A miracle that big leaves ripples.”
Ludo’s chest tightened. “What do I do?”
“Nothing tonight. You’re drained. If you try anything else, you’ll collapse your manifestation and then you’ll have bigger problems.” Zohbor stood and walked to the hearth. He picked up a poker and stirred the embers, sending up a fresh curl of smoke. “We’ll start your training tomorrow. I’ll teach you to cloak yourself. Maybe a lecture on regulating your Faith. I suppose I should also teach you how to search for other gods before they find you.”
“We?” That surprised Ludo. He’d expected some vague advice, not active training.
Zohbor turned to stare at him. The firelight caught his face from below, deepening the lines around his mouth. “You swore an oath. That makes you my responsibility, at least for now. I’m not going to let you stumble into oblivion because you didn’t know better.”
Ludo didn’t know what to say. A show of gratitude felt too small and no words sounded right in his head.
“Thank you,” he simply said.
Zohbor nodded once. “Get some sleep. Your followers are waiting for you. And Ludo?”
“What?”
“No matter what, don’t use any more miracles until I’ve taught you how. You got lucky today. But luck always runs out.”
Zohbor set the poker down beside the hearth. He picked up his mug, drained the last of his beer, and set it back on the table with a quiet thud. Then he straightened and looked at Ludo, his eyes narrowed in the low firelight, weighing something he hadn’t said yet. But he seemed to decide against saying it as he shooed Ludo away.