39 Divine Intervention

Once again the three treasure chests appeared from nothing. Micu quickly jogged over to the closest one and began reading its description. Ralnas and Jenira followed behind him and started to examine the other two chests with interest. Jayce stood still though. The pain in his chest was unbearable and it took everything he had to keep himself from doubling over in pain. Just as he thought he was about to reach his breaking point the world melted away to darkness.

When Jayce opened his eyes he sucked in his breath. He was standing atop a thick web with endless space stretching out before him. Jayce spun quickly but saw nothing but distant galaxies spanning before him. He continued to twist around until he spotted a figure approaching him on the web. As she neared her features became more easily distinguishable. She stood almost as tall as Jayce with long flowing golden blonde hair. Two thin ears pointed upwards and Jayce immediately guessed she was an elf of some sort. Her long green robe obscured her body but intricate golden bands wrapped around her arms. A warm smile was on her face as she finally came within speaking distance of Jayce. On her cheek was the same spider tattoo that was now on his chest. Jayce held his breath seeing the mark and looked at her with obvious confusion.

Her voice sounded like it was coming from both her mouth and from behind him. Jayce jumped slightly and twisted his head around to look before seeing nothing. He returned to his initial position and watched her closely. "It is so good to finally meet the one who bears my mark. I have waited too long for you to arrive." Jayce pulled his head back and eyed her warily. "I don't even know who you are..." He said slowly.

She continued to smile as her fingers began to twist and turn. The webbing he stood on began to shift as she did so. To his left she appeared again, this time wearing a bright orange robe and having brunette hair. Then to his right, a new version formed this one with gray hair and a faded blue robe. Jayce took a step back and bumped into yet another version of her. This one with red hair and purple robes. He spun around and realized he was surrounded. Jayce quickly reached for his sword but found it was gone.

She had continued to smile the entire time. "I have always enjoyed watching humans try and claw their way out of my web. You are one of the few races who fight so valiantly against fate. I used to get endless amusement out of your struggles." The four versions of this woman all walked in unison in circles around Jayce. Each said the same thing but with slightly different emotions. Jayce's head was spinning. The four women then stopped. "Unfortunately I can no longer take the same amount of pleasure in your failure. You see there is very little left of me." The women moved their fingers again and the four became the original one. "My brothers have destroyed the physical existence of my being. So I live on, but only through others."

She moved her fingers and Jenira instantly appeared next to her. Jayce was about to run to her before noticing some of her features didn't look quite right. The woman took a finger and pulled it through her body and it dissolved into dust. Jayce stared wide-eyed. "I had to ask my brother for one last favor before I exited the simulation for what I thought would be forever. And thus we stumbled upon your friend. I had no idea I would be lucky enough to find a host that would become friends with a negative potential human." She laughed with glee as she formed a chair from the webbing and sat in it comfortably. "But here you are. And here I am." Jayce had been unable to speak this whole time, unsure if he was going to be killed or how to defend himself if he was attacked. "What are you...?" He asked hesitantly.

She spun two fingers and Jayce was covered in webbing and pulled to within inches of her sitting face. "I used to be what your race call an Overwatcher. My powers are not quite up to that title anymore." She frowned and then snapped a finger and the webbing on his body faded into nothing. Jayce collapsed to his knees from pure shock and stared at her unblinking. "And you have the option to become a vessel of what's left of my power. If I had my way I would have destroyed your mind and used your body for my own ends..." She trailed off and looked through Jayce as if he weren't there. "But doing so would kill the only thing that matters more to me than regaining my powers." She sighed and spun Jayce around on the web. She was now standing in front of him walking back and forth.

Jayce hardly dared to breathe as he watched her march up and down the webbing. She finally stopped. "But you have impressed me. And I am not an easy woman to impress." She knelt down and slid a finger around Jayce's chin. "I can give you the full extent of my remaining power in exchange for a...deal of sorts." Jayce gulped. She was indeed beautiful, perhaps the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen. Her finger on his chin brought a rush to his blood and he had half a mind to promise her anything if she'd just pay attention to him forever. But his fiery will pushed through his captivated senses and forced him to examine her words carefully.

"And what deal is this?" He asked forcefully. A thin smile spread across her lips. "See this is why you impress me Jayce Good. Not many human men can resist my touch and here you are in my domain doing just that." She stood and extended a hand to pull him to his feet. "I want you to kill the other Overwatchers and revive my body." This was as blunt as she had been the whole time Jayce had been in the webbing. He had a feeling she was telling him exactly what she desired and a shudder ran down his spine. "Kill the Overwatchers? Is such a thing even possible?" He asked slowly.

She looped her arm around him and wrapped them both in webbing. Jayce panicked for a moment before the webs parted and he stood in a picturesque garden. There were five beings here and they seemed to be arguing fiercely. "Where are we...?" He asked her while looking over the scene playing out before them. She put a slender finger to his lips and pointed to the table where the five beings were engaged in a fiery debate.

A purple insect with human features was slamming on the table with rage. "Sister! Brother! You cannot be serious! This is the only way to ensure more races do not reach our pinnacle of power. We five have ruled the entire universe for eons. Why would we change what has worked so well!" Two other figures stood beside him. One was a six-armed bird-man who was covered in flames and another was a man with a squid head who had fish swimming through his body. Opposite the two of them were the woman who had been speaking with him and a broad-shouldered man with a lions head. The man was casting golden light on everything near him and he stood imposingly before the other three.

"You see Jayce there used to be five Overwatchers. That friend of yours who spoke to you about us was right. But the reason she told you that it was reduced to only three members of our group wasn't quite correct." She paused the scene before them and walked next to the purple insect man. "This brother is actually the last of us to achieve our powers of creation and destruction. And while we all have limitless powers we all agreed to focus in one area so that we could balance each other out." She then walked next to the golden lion man. "This was the brother who was cast into the volcano. His love of the lower races was unmatched by all." Jayce noticed a tear escape her eyes as she looked at him. "And I loved him more dearly than all of our brothers combined. So when he came to me and told me that we needed to adjust the simulation I followed his advice and was convinced he was right."

The scene shifted and the major hubs stretched before Jayce like toys floating in a bathtub. He reached out gingerly and lifted up major hub one. It weighed the same as a small rock and Jayce gasped before putting it back down slowly. The woman watched him with interest. "You see Jayce somehow you got his abilities in your bloodline. My brother was mistaken when he thought it was my power that prevented him from outright killing you." She smiled with a small amount of glee before continuing. "Jenira was the one who actually received my blessing." She pulled the map towards her and it zoomed past the major hubs to a continent that stretched to cover the entire area before them. "This is the land where we hide the grand prize. And for millions of year, we watched with amusement as you lower forms died, again and again, trying to reach the end of our challenge." She zoomed in on a group of four beings that were climbing a snow-covered mountain. Jayce saw a human among the group and guessed this to be the group Jenira had told him about.

"But eventually I lost the appetite for death. My brother and I started to focus on the lower races happiness, their culture, the true markers of civilization. And so we created the three hubs. We wanted to see what they would create if we allowed them to intermingle." She spun the map to the very earliest beginnings of major hub one. It looked like a wild west town and creatures of all shapes and sizes interacted with each other. Buildings were completed in mere minutes and the very early concepts of the mega skyscrapers began to take form. Jayce watched with amazement. "And for a long time, this was enough for the two of us. We would spend all day hidden among the lower forms pretending to be just another couple who had moved there.

She zoomed in on a couple holding hands on one of the benches that dotted the city. "And we loved each other and I was so happy in those moments with him. The endless death of the previous millennia felt empty to me compared to the joy that being around him brought me." She paused and winked at Jayce, "We aren't even the same race so it never mattered to me if I had called him brother before. So don't think it's weird." The sorrow returned to her face as she continued, "but the purple one didn't like this." She returned the scene to that of the garden that they had started out in. "He wanted us to find even more despicable ways to torture the lower races. He delighted in the pain that the endured." She sighed and then turned to face Jayce. "He really wants to be the only Overwatcher. He wants to be king of the universe. And my brother and I couldn't imagine what horrors he would cause to befall the lower races if we didn't keep him in check."

She sped the scene up until the garden had turned to night. The five were still there showing no signs of fatigue or the anger diminishing. "So we proposed a checks and balances system. Just something to make sure none of us ever got too powerful. We even offered to never let a lower race actually reach our level of power as a way to sway him." She choked back tears before continuing. "But he didn't care. He twisted our other two brothers minds with his lies and they set upon my lover and destroyed his physical form." She pulled a locket from her robe and showed it to Jayce. "Inside this is the last remaining physical piece of him. If it gets destroyed so does he. When I found out what they planned to do I teleported myself to the edge of the volcano and managed to grab this tiny bit of him before it was destroyed." A gleaming golden fragment shined back at Jayce and he could feel an immense power bubbling within it.

"I thought I had been careful but our brother discovered this and quickly set about trying to kill me to end both of our lives." She moved the scene to one Jayce was very familiar with, his street in the human district. "So I tried hiding amongst the race that had entertained me the most over the years. For almost two decades I was able to avoid detection but I made a mistake and used my powers to heal a young girl who was dying." She sighed and the street morphed into a scene of destruction. Fire rained from the sky and human-sized insects of all types covered the area. Piles of human bodies were stacked at corners while the buildings burned with unnatural purple flames.

"And so I was doomed to be destroyed. But I couldn't bear to allow my brother the satisfaction of actually winning. I summoned all of my powers and forced almost every last drop to be distributed through the surviving human population. Of course, by that time there weren't many of you left." The city again changed and it was groups of humans moving through the area picking up bodies or putting out fires. "I survived through those initial survivors and my brother assumed I was dead. I was nothing more than a speck of power compared to what I had been but I survived and so did this necklace."

She waved her hand and the scene before them returned to the endless webs. "So Jayce Good once again here is my offer. I will grant you the full capabilities of myself to unlock the abilities you already had so that you can ascend into the very heart of my brother's house and destroy him forever. If you succeed in doing so then I want you to return both of me and my love to life and then I shall never bother you again." She looked at him expectantly, "Do we have a deal?"

Jayce weighed his options in his head but in his heart, he was already prepared to accept. "If I accept these terms there aren't any hidden parts that cause me to explode or something if I don't do what you order?" She laughed merrily at Jayce. "No my dear. There will be no such killing of the bearer of our mark." "Our mark?" Jayce asked immediately. "Yes, I had to possess your little girlfriend to save your life by putting my mark on you. But it also jammed your abilities because my mark isn't compatible with your original abilities. He has different powers than I do. So our mark is going to change that beautiful spider on your chest."

Jayce stared at her silently for a moment. "Are we going to have talks like this often?" She shrugged, "Maybe! I've been terribly lonely for the last five thousand or so years. It will depend on my mood." She smiled at him mischievously. Jayce half-heartedly sighed, before smiling at her, "I accept your offer. But I do have one request." She raised an eyebrow, "And what is that Jayce?" He grinned, "What should I call you?" She again laughed and stroked his chin with a teasing touch. "I knew we were going to get along very well. You can call me Neith."