3 Island exploration

Once I got above the island I immediately felt that gravity started to work.

"Ok, nice. Finally familiar feeling." I thought.

But that was only until ground started to approach. I was falling.

But thanks to my fast thinking and manly screaming in my mind the magic word "Move" I steadied myself few metres above ground.

In this place I felt my ability to float to be highly restricted. It didn't matter how much I tried I couldn't fly higher than 3 metres.

"That's it for my plan of quick escape." I sighed. Next thing which came to my mind was: "This isn't how should gravity work. At least with this relatively small amout of mass. Eh, whatever. In the end I was never good at physics."

So I started to explore the island. I'm no fool and I know that the worst thing that can happen will be in the temple. It is always the most eye catching place. Dark souls taught me very well.

So I tried to go around the temple to see it from all angles and also to see the surroundings.

It was little bit scary. There were trees everywhere exept for the temple. But these trees were arranged in circle around it and their health was changing according to their distance from temple. The ones closest to the temple looked relatively healthy but their leaves were little bit brown like they have been dying. But further from temple you were, the more sick they looked. It started with fallen leaves, continued to crippling from normal height of trees in park to height of a trash bin. With decrease in size they also seemed to turn to be more and more scorched. It felt like they were being transforming into solid ash. The crippled ashed trees covered the most of island and only near the edge of it was mere plain covered by small piles of ash.

It was the same all over the island. I could go throught that fores as long I wanted but I would find only more trees nothing more and nothing less.

"Now it is only missing a coiled sword in a campfire" I said to myself and tried to smirk to my own joke. But as I already knew I was just a ball of light so I couldn't...Sad.

Finnally I decided that I have already wasted enough time wandering around the forest and that it was time to enter the temple. I headed to something which seemed to be the main entrance.

I arrived at bottom of the stairs and started to climb them up. But further I got the stronger feeling of pressure I had. When I reached the gate the feeling finally stopped increasing.

The gate was made out of granite. No craftmanship can be seen on it. Just crude stone. I tried to find some sort of handle to knock on it or some lever to activate some mechanism but nothing to be found.So I tried to push. I knew it was stupid idea because I must have weight over ten tons but couldn't lose anything.

I didn't go as expected at all. I went right through the gate. It didn't feel like swimming or so. I actually didn't feel anything at all. Like it wasn't even there.

Once on the other side I could see big hall. My guess is that it took most of the temple. Decoration can be described as rusted forest. I'm not joking. It was just like real forest but covered in rust. In the middle of the hall was throne. It was in shape of one-seat sofa but with leafless tree branches growing out of its surface and mostly pointing upward. It gave me familiar feeling. Like if I have seen it somewhere. But the strangest thing is that on this chair sit someone.

It was male. Looked close to human but with some differences. It had roots instead of hair. Yes, real roots. And there was one more place where they could be seen. In his eyes. When I looked at them my first thought was that he was sleeping but immediatly after I recognized these roots stuffed in his eyes. They were not hanging out. They were only in his eye sockets. It was scary. His clothes looked like some ancient Greek

Suddenly he moved. Slowly lifted his arm and pointed at me. "YOU!!! STEP FORWARD!!!"

"Oh sh*t boss woke up, I'm dead. Where to run? Where to hide?" I tried to go through the gate back but I couldn't. I"'m dead. I'm DEAD"

"STOP THIS FOOLISHNESS LOWLIFE" I heard behind me. "I'M NOT GONNA KILL YOU. NOT IF YOU WILL BEHAVE AND STOP SCREAMING IN YOUR MIND LIKE A MADMAN. YOU ARE NOT THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN HEAR YOUR THOUGHTS"

"What? He can read my mind? YOU ARE COMUNICATING BY THELEPATY. IT IS BASED ON EXCHANGING THOUGHTS FOOL. What, really? Ok. So what now?" I asked.

"I HAVE OFFER FOR YOU. BUT FIRST I WILL TELL YOU ABOUT YOUR SITUATION NOW BECAUSE YOU SEEM TO BE OFF." He said and then started his long but interesting speech.

He was speaking for long time. To sum it up. He first intruduced himself. He told me that he is god named Mafl and that he used to be influencial god of nature but his world to which he ruled had been destroyed by rival god. Next thing he told me is that what I'm now is soul without body and usually these souls leave their world through portal which are exactly these circles which I saw. Image in them shows always something like erb and every one is unique. These misty walls are just replacement for these erbs which my mind cannot comprehend and could collapse from it. Something like a safety mechanism. Once the soul leaves their world they are sucked in by the vortex. Nobody knows the real name of it but gods refers to it as a recycler of souls. These things slowly decompose ones soul and energy from it return to its homeworld to create new soul or souls. The last thing I heard was that my souls is extraordinary because one out of infinitely large number can keep his conciousnes while in soul form and one out of billions like this can control his movement and travel freerly. First of these extraordinary individuals learned how to absorb other souls and became gods. The ones who came later were either killed or given chance to serve the stronger ones. I was apparently chosen for the later option.

Once he finished his lecture about world order I just laughed and said "In what state am I that they had to use such strong drugs. I must ask them what it was. It is unbelievably realistic."

"JUST LAUGH LITTLE FOOL. SOON YOU WILL FIND OUT THE TRUTH ONE WAY OR ANOTHER." "You have been talking about your OFFER long enough. Will you finnally tell me the content of this OFFER?" "BOLD, I LIKE IT. YOU MAY SURVIVE. VERY WELL. COME CLOSER THEN."