Novus: Book of Judgment

By Erin Kassidy

The Eschaton—the end of the world—has come and gone. Without fanfare, without warning, the Earth simply ended, all its inhabitants relocated to the world of Novus. Even reality itself is suspect, as the world seems to work upon the rules of role playing games of the past. Death, injury, and sickness are temporary setbacks at best, with an immortality guaranteed by the system that humanity finds itself under. Free from its past, humanity attempts to forge its future in this new world.

Not everything about Novus is ideal, however. One of the major threats of the new world has been that of demons. Once human, they were killed and corrupted through means that even the gods are not aware of, and fight and slaughter any who they can. Moreover, whatever they serve seems to be able to reshape parts of the world to their own whims, undermining the stability of the world itself.

The Lady of Judgment's task is to prevent harm to Novus itself, as well as its inhabitants. To do so, she must find a champion to carry out the necessary tasks of finding out and eliminating the threats to the world—and her choice is a former demon.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Erin Kassidy
• Release date: Dec 4, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301022298

Book preview

Chapter One:

Come on, you bastards! I'd yelled, flailing my arms above my head to make myself as big a target as I possibly could, something to attract the attention of the hordes in the process of razing my new home.

Whitehearth was my home, if only for a precious few months. For the first time in my life, I didn't worry about having a place to rest my head, or food on the table, or what I was going to do with myself. It had been a small piece of heaven to me.

At the end of the first winter here, just as the first thaw had come and the white had turned to green, a horde of monsters had come across the town, no larger than a few dozen residents present. It was more than enough for these monsters to come out and just take it from us, we who hadn't even considered that this world would have something like this in it. We thought the town was a haven, a safe place where we couldn't be harmed. We were wrong.

None of us could fight back; those that tried died, usually painfully. And yet, here I was, making myself a target, telling myself I could get away, or at least get them distracted enough that they'd not have to go after my friends, my only real family left. For them, I'd make this sacrifice.

Come on already! Tasty treat! I shouted, picking up bits of flaming debris and throwing them at the misshapen creatures pawing through the ruins. One of them raised up onto its rear legs, looking at me and snorting before dropping back down into the wreckage, searching for anyone caught in it.

The sound of wings came from behind me, the sound of someone touching the ground. What have we here? a woman's voice asked as I spun around to see what had happened. That motion was the only thing that kept me from dying outright; instead of punching through my back the spear took me in the arm, spinning me around and knocking me over onto my back.

One of the creatures—a red, centaur bull, it looked like from my pain-stricken view—stood over me, looking down. It lives yet, my Lady.

The woman—a woman wearing a white robe, with solid black bird's wings coming out of her back and a spear in her arms, looked at me in disappointment. So it does, Gregor. Though not for much longer, she continued, bringing the spear down onto me—

—I screamed. It was a full minute before I realized I wasn't on the ground, bleeding, but instead standing up, gripping the sides of a black stone altar with both hands and trembling. It took effort to let go, to get my panicked breathing under control.

The the side stood a man, dressed in black robes in theme with the atmosphere. The hem was covered in runes that I wasn't entirely sure of the meaning, and beneath his hood he seemed to have the same runes as tattoos all over his head. He waited, patiently, for me to finish, to regain some level of control of myself.

Whitehearth, I managed to gasp out, my throat feeling dry and broken.

Destroyed, he responded sadly.

I staggered over to him, my hands latching onto his robe. Friends? I managed to say, staring into his eyes with a mix of terror and panic.

Are fine, he answered, reaching his hands up to rest on my shoulders. They, and most of the others of Whitehearth managed to escape. The demons didn't pursue anyone who left the town.

Demons? I managed to ask, sinking to the floor, already satisfied that they'd managed to make it. Where are they? Are they okay?

He seemed confused for a moment. I cannot comment on the demons' health nor location, miss, he responded. Although your friends are just fine, I think. He pulled up a list in the air before him, holographic letters forming in front of him. We just have some business to take care of. Can I have your name, please?

Alice. Stevens, I answered, calming down. I comforted myself in the knowledge that they'd come back for me, must have retrieved me from the carnage.

Ah. And your user name?

Yukionna.

With a flick of his finger against his display, he nodded. There we are. You are now listed as alive in the census database.

Census? I asked, looking around, still jumpy from my memory of the attack. It had only happened moments ago, and my nerves were still frayed. That was fast.

Fast, miss? the priest asked, his tone curious.

Well, sure. I mean, we've only been doing this for a few months now?

Realization dawned upon his face, as well as a small look of pity. The screen closed, and he folded his hands together, hiding them in his sleeves. I am sorry, miss. You're suffering from some time loss.

It can't have been that long, could it have? I mean, I expected to be in a hospital or something, but I suppose this works, right? I stared at him and his pitying eyes. How long was I unconscious?

He cleared he throat, bowing his head. Begging your pardon, miss, but you were not unconscious. You were dead. You have only just been resurrected as we have only just retrieved your soul, and you have been dead for fourteen years, two months, and eight days.

But I remember... I tried to say, looking at him, searching for some mercy, some way to convince him to take it back, to say that it was somehow just a lie.

The priest only shook his head. I apologize, miss. Your soul fell out of our reach for quite some time, and it's only just came into our possession. There's nothing I can do for you about this other than tell you the truth.

Chapter Two

The Eschaton—the end of the world—was barely noticed. One minute it was there, and all eight billion people or so were living their lives as they had the day before. The next minute it was gone, replaced with this world, where we're still trying to figure everything out. When I had died, I had known only a very few things.

This world was called Novus. The town I was placed in, where I woke up sharing a house with my friends Marigold and Annie, was called Whitehearth, which was located towards the northern end of the Crescent Continent, which, according to the maps we were able to access, stretched from one pole to the other.

This was told to us by an entity that had called itself the Genius Mundi, or the world spirit. It hadn't been long before everyone referred to it as the GM, for another reason that had come up in short order.

We all seemed to be stuck in some game-like world. Everything was real to our senses; while Marigold claimed that she could 'see the pixels', she was cracking a joke. However, certain activities were not permissible, such as attacking another human being under normal conditions inside a town.

The GM had made us aware that we were all here, and that we were all, for now, effectively immortal. Those with diseases were cured, those with crippling maladies were made whole, and the slate had been wiped clean—everyone started with the same resources, without having to worry about death due to age or infirmity. Violent death was still a possibility, but not final; instead, when a human being died, their body disappeared, leaving behind a soul gem, which could be used to resurrect that person with the assistance of one of the twelve gods of Novus. It didn't go into who they were, but expected us to find that out on our own.

Finally, it made us aware that we all had what amounted to an augmented reality overlay at all times, that could be accessed by commands set up by the user for what they were comfortable with. We'd discovered that we could easily put clothes or other things on or off just by accessing the inventory portion of that display; they materialized when they were accessed and disappeared when they weren't. We could keep track of everything that could be tracked about our persons; our ages, our time in combat with others, the number of duels we'd participated in, the amount of money we had, even a roughly gestalt number of our health. Other numbers were only estimates—how much armor would protect against in HP values, what our defenses were like, our offensive strength in HP removed, our likely skill and chance to hit against other creatures—the usual RPG fare. These numbers could jump all over the place, depending on our moods, attentiveness, and whether or not we were feeling up to dealing with the world at the particular moment.

I'm rather sure that, after the priest had told me how much time I'd missed, I was sitting at one hit point.

Chapter 3

Explain to me again why you're following me around. I asked the priest out of annoyance. A day had passed since I had been inside the temple, and I'd managed to reassemble my world view into a relatively reasonable frame of mind. So I was 14 years behind everyone else. I'd live, I realized, and with that, I managed to get some semblance of control on myself when the shock wore off. Even so, the black-robed priest was still following me around as I looked around the tiny town.

I am under orders from my Lady to do so, he explained. He'd given the same answer to the question before as well, each time answering as if it were the most natural answer in the world.

That isn't much of an answer, I growled under my breath, stalking around town.

You seem less than satisfied with it.

All right, fine. Your lady, then? Who'd give the order to follow me around?

The Lady of Judgment has charged me with your well-being and readjustment to modern society, he answered, finally resembling something like a straight answer.

I'd gotten a few answers out of him before. This town was Chestershire, about a day and a half's ride from the ruins of Whitehearth to the southwest. It was a bit more temperate, without the drastic winters, although my experience on the matter was from the middle of summer. I was grateful for the cool temperatures nonetheless; it reminded me of growing up in the Pacific Northwest on Earth. Not that long ago, from my perspective.

Whatever happened to Earth? I asked quietly, mostly to myself.

The priest either didn't understand rhetorical questions or wanted to answer it for his own benefit. No one knows, even still. He raised a hand from his cloak, pointing up to the sky. As you can see, there's reason to believe that this is Earth. The constellations are the same. I looked past his arm to see the night sky, but couldn't make any sense of the shapes of the stars. I'd been terrible at astronomy all my life, and wasn't about to see them now, I figured.

I'm still voting for a giant computer system. I mean, how else do you explain this? I asked him, slashing my hand through the air in the gesture that I'd set to open up my display. A holographic window opened in front of me, opening to a page titled Character Sheet. This sort of shit only happens in video games, not real life.

The priest folded his hands again, bowing his head. As you say, he responded, summarily dismissing the statement.

As you say, I echoed, mocking him before throwing my hands up and stalking away again.

He followed at his own leisurely pace, always keeping track of me. Finally, after making three full circuits around the town, I stopped and stared at him. Okay, I said as he approached, his eyebrow raised slightly to question me, If we're going to play this game, you're going to have to tell me your name. Y'know, like a normal person?

He blinked slightly in surprise. I was certain I had given you my name before.

Well, if you had, I wasn't paying attention, so try it again.

He bowed his head again, almost in formal greeting. My apologies, miss. My name is Jonas.

Jonas? I asked, laughing. Yeah, okay. You're here to help me get my feet under me again, yes?

That is correct, he agreed, nodding.

All right. You know about Whitehearth, right? Where did the survivors go?

He stood in place for a moment, lost in thought. I'm not entirely sure. During that first year, demon attacks on the northern settlements became common, but quickly dwindled away to prey on lone travelers as the cities and towns got better about defending themselves. As such, there were a lot of refugees that first year, and most of them went down to Northampton to resettle, the largest town within a week's ride.

So they're in Northampton?

It's possible, but I don't know. It has been fourteen years, after all, miss.

Call me Yuki.

But your name— he started before I cut him off with a glare.

I go by Yuki.

He nodded again. Very well, miss Yuki.

I folded my arms in front of me, satisfied. All right. So we're going to Northampton now, right? How do you plan on getting us there?

I beg your pardon? he asked, incredulous for the first time since I'd met him. This brought a rather happy grin to my face as I leveled a finger at his face.

I'm your responsibility, so you're going to get me to my friends! We're going to Northampton, and we're going right now!

Very well, he answered, opening his inventory and pulling out a black bundle of cloth before tossing it to me. Put these on.

I shook the robe out, scowling at it. What is this supposed to be?

Congratulations. You are now an acolyte of the Lady of Judgment, he said with his characteristic humorlessness. These are your robes.

Hold on! I started, trying to puff myself up. I said take me to Northampton, not shanghai me into your religion!

He rolled his shoulders in a shrug. I am a monk by trade; I have no money. My meager needs are met by the laymen of Judgment. To get down to Northampton, I need but ask someone sympathetic to my cause, as I know several of the traders that come through here to be. You, on the other hand, he continued, almost bored, ...well, they have no obligation to assist you, and there is nothing you can offer them in lieu of payment.

So in other words....

He smiled for the first time. Welcome to the faith, sister.

Chapter 4

I didn't much care for the black robes. They looked rather much like the ones Jonas was wearing, but lacked the gilt edging and runes. It marks you as a novice, he said simply. I sighed in annoyance, but had worn them all the same. For me, it was worth a week's travel, worth the chance to find my friends again.

We'd stayed at the temple as soon as I was wiped out from walking. One of the largest faults with my 'computer generated' theory was that I got tired, I got smelly, and I got dirty. A lot like being there in real life, except that the clothes didn't remain stained if