บท 1: 001
All things come at a cost.
The simplest and most visible demonstration of this was in currency and in commerce. Money could be exchanged for goods and services, and for everything that existed there was a price in currency that people would in general be willing to pay in exchange. For food. For tools. For land. For lives, even. But coin was not the sole determinant of cost.
Obligation. Reciprocity.
To become physically strong, muscles must labor. The right food must be eaten, to allow them to develop, and in enough quantities. The time for that labor must be apportioned, and diligently made use of. That was the cost.
To gain anything, the required cost would have to be paid.
What cost, then, true power? What had to be given up, for the chance to gain truly everything that one desired?
Nothing less than everything that one had. Everything that one was. Everything that one might become.
In an empty void, something that had once been human floated gently as it was picked at and adjusted by other luminescent figures. Slowly, carefully, all traces of what they had been before were scoured away, leaving a blank and featureless mass of consciousness with no face, with no features, with no distinction, and with no identity. Everything that had made them a person was gently, almost lovingly removed with excessive tenderness.
What remained was a core. The fundamental drives and goals, without the trappings of self. The accumulated knowledge and information, without the personal context of gaining it. Remaining traces of fondness and attachment, satisfaction and pride, bitterness and spite, but without the memory of why certain things prompted those emotions.
All of it layered over that core of greed and lust.
Cleansed of 'self', the process reversed around that core as the luminescent beings built it back up, sheathed it within the flesh and function of a new form, and added tweaks and adjustments in accordance with their own personal preferences.
Then, with a nudge, that being was sent along its way. Slowly at first, then picking up speed as it plunged through an infinite void, catapulting through the fabric of reality until being caught by a 'safety net' near the destination... a personal home and residence, a demiplane of its own to reside within and use for its own purposes, to change and adjust to its whim as it had itself been adjusted. It caught and carefully slowed the being to a calm stop.
He opened his eyes, taking in first the surroundings and then himself.
He was smaller than he expected. Shorter. Young, at least in appearance... not cherubic and winged, or like unto a waddling toddler, but.. clearly with the appearance of having yet to reach full growth. Setting that aside, a careful twist around and inspection of his body showed that he was put together quite well, and his genitals would be well above average even on the frame of an adult. At his scale, it seemed even larger.
He was a big-dicked shota.
Noice.
But he didn't have the time to devote to navel-gazing, introspection, and testing out the new equipment on his own. There was little he remembered of the person he had been before, at least in the context of identity... but he had made a bargain in exchange for otherwise impossible opportunities, and it was one that had to be followed through on.
Instinct prompted a test of what amount of power he had already gained from the compact.
It was like stretching an invisible muscle unattached to his body, and like calling out with a silent and inaudible voice, echoing emptily in the void... until it was answered and responded to.
A shroud of translucent energy wrapped around him, briefly roaring like a great cat before drifting to the side, revealing itself to be in the shape of a combination of man and beast, with a long and lashing tail, fur grown across his back and his arms and his legs, and he head of a jaguar surrounded by feathery crests resembling a lions mane.
Jaguar Man. That was the name that presented itself in his mind as he assessed the figure. But... incomplete. Wispy, translucent, nearly transparent, and struggling to maintain form and cohesion as his arms crossed, looming like a revealed Stand. But not quite.
The task before him came clear in his mind, like shapes distant in a fog become clear as they were approached, and he chuckled lightly at simplicity and the vast scope of it.
"That time I became a divine messenger and mouthpiece, but I just want to improve my Persona and build a harem. That's a Light Novel title right there if ever I heard one." he said, wryly.
Then he shook his head and pulled Jaguar Man back in... to, if he was being theatrical and poetic, the sea of his soul. With the metaphysical weight and presence being held within his own body, even flawed and incomplete as it was...
It was good enough. Which meant that he was ready to go. Already dressed for the part, too, with simple cloths, sashes, and hides covering himself.
There was one pre-prepared connection, with a destination ready. He moved toward it, with his body and his spirit alike, and broke apart into glistening starry motes of light as he made the transition.
He appeared at his destination with the roar of a jaguar, those motes gathering together and condensing once more into a physical body. For a moment, he floated gently over the ground before his body lowered the last short distance, bare feet halting against the dirt.
He smiled broadly at the bewildered and amazed looks this garnered.
"Tulio. Miguel." he said, nodding to the gentlemen as they alternately pointed at each other and then at themselves in confusion. "It's good to see you in person. Despite everything, you've made it here on schedule. So, I'd like to make it clear, before anything else, that you are not to blame for anything. Under the circumstances, you've honestly done better than anyone could expect, and that does you credit. It is not your fault that there has been... interference."
"... Huh?" one of them said, as Chel and the more important social figures of El Dorado gave the two men and yourself lost and confused looks to match Tulio and Miguel's own quickly concealed ones.
The gentlemen came pretending to be gods. Their intention was to get in, live it up for a bit, get some gold, and get out again before people started asking too many questions. The ideal con, which would see them living it up back in Spain off of the generous gifts from their duped worshipers.
The thing was, when you involved the acts of higher powers in your con, you didn't really have grounds to complain when higher powers wrapped you up as tools playing a part in a con act of their own.
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