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I was met with the sight of a man in a cloak. He was frail and dizzied. He had the complexion of a corpse. Dried and wrinkly skin hugging the bone too tightly. His hair was white. Everything about him seemed devoid of... life. Yet, he did not seem dangerous.
As I stepped on board wordlessly and looked around at the unremarkable deck, he glanced at me. He grumbled.
[???] "You do not belong down here, surely."
'...'
[???] "Perhaps you are lost."
'I am.'
[???] "Then you seek the way back up. Hrm. The Afterseas swallows all that dare set foot in it. None may escape." He said, taking a deep breath; "This is the abode of the dead, and the dead alone."
'...Then how do I, as somebody who is living still, get out?'
[???] "In a past age, it would have been trivial for me to send you back to where you belong. But I have lost that power long ago. Do you imagine yourself to be apart of the living?"
'Y-Yes... then... in order to leave...'
[???] "You have to die. In the current age, the abode of the dead is no longer a home for them. It is a camp for soldiers. The dead leave. Or only those the King that has conquered this place allows in and out. And you... are most certainly not on that list."
This presents a troubling development in my incident... I have to kill myself in order to be among the dead, and exit the Afterseas. But... imagining myself as 'living'.
[???] "You've thought about it, didn't you?" Said the deathly man, bringing my attention back to him; "You are a god, are you not? Only a god would have the will to enter this place... safely. None other than your kind could reach the Hellhole and traverse it without difficulty. Mortals and weaker Immortals would face horrors trying to do something so foolish. But you are different... you are apart of the world itself. And thus you can escape this part of the world on your own. You can fake your death well enough and get out."
That's it then.
I have to fake my death.
'Has any other god ever done such a thing?'
[???] "Thandir has, in the past. In order to fake his death, he impaled himself on his own trident and escaped the Hellhole as a dead god. But he is very alive and well."
How bothersome. I am going to have to rip my own heart out in order to exit this place. But at least now I feel some semblance of relief knowing I can.
