Dawn light crept through the high set window shutters in thin grey lines.

Ludo lay on the cot in Zohbor’s back room and stared at the ceiling beams. Only last night the innkeeper had revealed himself as a fellow god. Thankfully, the exhaustion from the day before had finally faded. But it had left behind a restless energy he didn’t know what to do with.

He sat up and rubbed the back of his neck. The cot wasn’t much. A simple straw mattress on a wooden frame. At least the blanket was a thick woollen one. Zohbor had offered it to him last night, muttering something about giving the girls their privacy. Ludo hadn’t argued. He’d barely made it to the mattress before he fell asleep.

That was another thing that had surprised him. It was a pleasant one to be sure. To be fair, he hadn’t exactly tried to go to sleep since he arrived.

Now he was awake and the inn was deadly quiet. No footsteps could be heard overhead, and there were no voices coming from the common room. Just the distant cry of gulls and the salt smell coming through the shutters.

Ludo stood and stretched his back and arms.

Zohbor should be here soon. Hopefully I can finally get some answers through training with another god.

He jumped as the door opened before he reached it.

Zohbor’s slender figure attempted to fill the frame. He held two clay mugs and a round loaf of dark bread under one arm.

“You’re awake,” Zohbor said.

“Hard not to be. The gulls start screaming before the sun’s up.”

Zohbor chuckled as he set one of the mugs on the small table near the cot. “Drink that. Then meet me in the yard.”

He turned and left without waiting for an answer. Ludo picked up the mug. Luckily it was water. With Zohbor’s domain being what it was, he’d been concerned it might be more alcohol. Ludo gulped it down and quickly followed.

The backyard of The Gull’s Nest was a small square of packed dirt hemmed in by the inn’s stone walls on three sides and a high wooden fence on the fourth. Empty barrels were stacked near the kitchen door. A clothesline ran between two posts as the empty rope swayed slightly in the morning breeze. Zohbor stood in the center of the yard with his arms crossed.

“Close the door,” he said.

Ludo pulled it shut behind him and the latch clicked.

“First lesson.” Zohbor didn’t waste any words. “You need to feel your own Faith before you can control it. Most nascent gods can’t sense their reserves without training. It’s like trying to hear your own heartbeat when you’ve never listened for it.” He uncrossed his arms and gestured at the ground. “Sit. Close your eyes. Tell me what you feel.”

Ludo didn’t sit. No, he stared at Zohbor with a slight smirk. “I can already do that.”

Thanks to my system, anyway. It’s not like I learned it.

Zohbor’s eyebrows lifted slightly. The first genuine surprise Ludo had seen on his face. “You can?”

“Since the first day. I just sort of… always knew how much I had.”

“And you didn’t think to mention that?” Zohbor said with a slightly raised voice.

Ludo shrugged. “I thought all gods could do it. Like it was a natural instinct or something.”

“We can’t.” Zohbor sighed as he studied him for a long moment. “That’s interesting. We’ll come back to that. If you can already track your reserves, we can skip ahead.”

“Hmm,” Zohbor hummed while nodding slowly. “Then we move on to suppression. A god’s presence radiates outward. As I’ve said before, other gods can feel it if they’re paying attention. The more powerful a god is, the further they can feel your presence from.” He stepped closer. “I’m going to teach you how to turn down your presence.”

“And how do we do that?”

“By feel. You say you already have a grasp of the amount of Faith you contain. Well, that’s the fuel. Now you need to learn to see the flame that’s burning from it.” Zohbor held up one hand with his palm out. “Now, close your eyes. Focus on feeling for the sensation you get when you receive Faith.”

Ludo closed his eyes. The morning sun was warm on his face. He heard the gulls again, the creak of the shutters, and even Zohbor’s slow breathing. But beneath all of it, there was something else.

“You feel it,” Zohbor said.

“It’s like. Standing too close to a fire.”

“Good. That’s your presence. Every god has one. Now, imagine drawing the heat back into your chest. Slowly.”

Ludo tried. The warmth wavered but didn’t diminish. He frowned and tried again, picturing the heat retreating, like coiling your hand to make a fist. But nothing happened.

“You’re forcing it,” Zohbor sighed. “You can’t force Faith. It’s not a muscle. It’s more like. Holding water in your cupped hands. Tighten too much and it spills. Too loose and it runs through your fingers. Find the balance.”

Ludo exhaled. He threw away the idea of trying to picture anything. Instead he simply paid attention to the warmth and the thought of being too visible. And then, without willing it, it receded.

“Better,” Zohbor said quietly. “Keep going.”

Ludo held the new sensation in his mind. The warmth drew inward, settling somewhere in his gut. The morning air suddenly felt cooler against his skin and the gulls sounded farther away.

“Open your eyes.”

Ludo opened them. Zohbor was staring at him with an expression that showed his approval.

“Well, that’s mighty impressive. You’re still visible to me. But you’ve cut your presence by half. Another few days of practice and you’ll be able to walk through a temple without the priests sensing you.” Zohbor uncrossed his arms. “Now for the hard part. You’ll need to try keeping it contained while you do something else. Walking. Talking. Anything. But you can do that in your own time.”

“You’re not going to help me?”

“You already know what you need. It’s just a matter of practice. I can’t really help you there.” Zohbor gestured toward the stacked barrels. “Sit. We need to talk about your domain.”

Ludo sat on the nearest one. Meanwhile, Zohbor remained standing. His back was to the fence as the morning light caught the grey in his hair.

“You told me your domain is Games,” Zohbor said. “That’s a broad concept. Too broad for a nascent god in my opinion. What you need is to narrow it a bit. You see, domains need a core. Something specific that anchors your authority. Without it, your power spreads thin. You’ll end up struggling to perform even simple miracles reliably.”

“A core?”

“Think of it as the center of the wheel. Everything else spins around it. For me, it’s the concept of a journey. I can do small things to influence them or with anything to do with resting because they’re adjacent concepts.” Zohbor’s voice carried a quiet pride. “The god of roads once told me the same thing. Define your core early, before the domain hardens around some concept you didn’t choose.”

Ludo looked down at his hands. Then at the gold trim on his clothes and the fine fabric that had appeared with his manifestation. A god of Games. What did that even mean?

“Dice,” Zohbor said. “That’s a common one. Gamblers pray to Fortunia, but dice themselves don’t have a patron. Cards. Board games. Chance. Any of those could work.”

Ludo shook his head slowly. “Dice and cards are just objects. A game isn’t the pieces. A game is.” He stopped. The thought was there, just out of reach. Then, he had it. “A game doesn’t mean anything without the people playing it.”

Zohbor raised an eyebrow but otherwise said nothing.

“A board with no players is just wood,” Ludo said. “Dice sitting on a table are just carved bone. The game happens when someone sits down and decides to play. The rules matter. The strategy matters. But none of it exists without the player.”

The words felt right. More than right. They felt true in some strange, profound way.

Just then, a notification popped up.

Domain Core Established: Players

Conditions met to designate a Player.

Ludo stared at the text. His heart was beating faster now.

The people who sit down to play games. That’s the focus of my domain. That’s… who I am. Ludo, God of Games. Patron of

Players

.

“Something happened,” Zohbor said with a wide grin.

“My domain core. It just… formed.” Ludo stood up from the barrel. “I have to go.”

“Go where?”

Ludo didn’t answer. He was already moving toward the kitchen door, his thoughts racing ahead of his body. He knew exactly what he had to do right now. Every fibre of his being was screaming for it.

“Ludo.” Zohbor’s voice sharpened. “Whatever you’re about to do.”

“I’ll be careful.” Ludo pulled the door open and stepped inside. The kitchen was empty. A pot of something bubbled over the hearth, left completely unattended. He crossed the room in four strides and pushed through into the common room.

Then, he took the stairs two at a time.

The hallway on the second floor was narrow and dark. But his eyes were focused on the door at the end of the hall. The girls’ room. Ludo stopped outside it and pressed his palm against the wall. His breathing was coming too fast. He groaned and forced himself to slow down.

Ludo closed his eyes and reached for the warmth again, before making it draw itself in. The sensation was easier this time, and this time he became certain of another feeling he had when he did it outside.

He opened his eyes and looked down at his hands. They were still visible, so he still had his human appearance. But was sure that while he held this much of his presence in, the girls’ wouldn’t be able to see him.

It was time to test that theory. He reached for the door. But surprisingly, his fingers passed through the wood.

Ludo jumped back in shock.

So hiding my presence limits my ability to interact with the world.

It’d be pretty useful to avoid crowds, but he could easily see why gods might feel disconnected from the mortals they serve because of it.

He took a deep breath and stepped forward. Ludo passed through the door as his manifestation turned to golden smoke. He shivered on the other side. It was hard to describe what it had felt like. The only thing he’d felt even remotely close was his time in the void.

As his eyes scanned the room, he spotted Teffania sitting on the edge of her bed. Meanwhile, Lusa seemed to still be asleep.

The room was surprisingly smaller than he expected. Two beds, a washstand, a single window with the shutters half open.

It’s not exactly a five star hotel

. Ludo frowned, but then remembered this wasn’t Earth.

He refocused on Teffy, who sat on the nearer bed with her back against the wall, and a cup of water in her hands. She was staring at nothing. Her clothes were rumpled from her sleep and her feet were still bare.

Ludo stood invisible beside the washstand and watched her. A smile crept across his face right then.

Well, that confirms it. They’ve no clue I’m right here with them.

His eyes lingered on Teffania. This was his first follower. The woman who had prayed for opportunity and given him his first spark of identity. She didn’t know what she’d started. She didn’t know what she was to him. And now he was about to change her life again.

The System window was still open, and the prompt waited for his decision.

Designate Player: Teffania?

He studied her for a long moment. The way she held the cup. The way her eyes stayed fixated on the wall. She’d won all her matches at the tournament in the village. She’d escaped Groman’s men, albeit with his help. She’d even brought her sister across miles of road to a town on the coast.

She’d done all of it with only a little help from him. But the choices had been hers. And so had the risks.

Would a Player keep the ability to make her own choices?

He didn’t know. Hell, there was no way he could know. And that was the problem. It frustrated Ludo that he was a god who didn’t understand his own power. Every step forward was a guess.

Here goes nothing. I hope this helps.

Ludo reached out and tapped the confirmation.

Player Designated: Teffania

Assigning System Interface.

Teffania gasped.

The clay cup slipped from her fingers. Water splashed across the floorboards, spreading in a dark fan toward the washstand. But that was the least of her worries. Her eyes were fixed on the air in front of her face. On the translucent square and writing that had appeared between her and the wall.

Ludo watched her read it. Her lips moved silently as she did so. Ludo could see the fear and confusion in her eyes.

Her hand rose. Trembling. And Ludo watched as she used her fingers to try and touch the interface.

The square of text suddenly brightened. And then, slowly, it solidified and sank into her skin. Teffania stared at her empty hands. She looked exactly like someone who had just realized the world was larger than she’d ever imagined.