Morning light spilled through the crooked slats of the barn, painting golden stripes across Joren's face as he jolted upright in the hayloft. His breath came sharp, his shirt damp with sweat. For a moment, he didn't move, just stared at the rafters above, heart still thudding like he'd sprinted a mile.
Had it been a dream? The cave, the voice, the Supernova painting? It had to be; he was still there when he fell asleep, right? "Okay," he thought to himself, "either I just saw the depiction of the divine gods... or I fell asleep reading the star map and dreamed about aliens again."
He rubbed his hands over his face, then looked down at them. Nothing has changed. No strange symbols, no glowing lines, no galactic spaceships for fingers. Just skin, calloused and a little dirty from last night's farmwork. And yet he couldn't shake the idea that he saw what might have been a Divinity Portrait.
He sat there a while, unmoving, eyes drawn to the dust floating lazily in the shafts of sunlight. Below, Jargon the goat bleated from his pen as if he too was unhappy with the lack of cosmic superpowers not manifesting before him. It was a reminder that real life wasn't going to wait around for him to figure out his cosmic hallucinations. "Right," he muttered, voice hoarse. "Breakfast, goats, and interdimensional training in that order." Joren walked to work like a man burdened with great power, or possibly indigestion, it was hard to tell this early.
Late Morning – The Saloon
The Broken Spoke was already a quarter full by the time Joren arrived. He slipped in the back, not bothering to greet the grumpy owner Todd who was in his usual spot behind the bar, polishing mugs with a rag that had seen better days and taking orders from people just arriving before going back to work for the day.
Joren moved through the motions by clearing dishes, refilling mugs, ignoring lewd comments from a pair of traveling traders. Someone was debating what constituted a present, did it need to be in a box, or could it exist as a gesture without the wrapping? His hands worked on autopilot, but his mind kept flicking back to last night. The portrait hadn't just been a dream. It couldn't have been. He remembered every detail with too much clarity. The way the light moved, the hum in the stone, the sheer overwhelming sense that it was meant for him.
By the time the lunch crowd had thinned, Joren's feet hurt, his hands smelled like beer and soap, and his brain was still somewhere in a glowing cave. He took his break at a tiny table out back behind the saloon, which was really just two crates and a broken chair arranged with vague optimism. Joren pulled out something from his pocket and sat down.
He chewed on a dry roll he'd pocketed from someone's plate, because free was his favorite kind of food. He stared into the inner streets like someone waiting for a vision or at least a mildly inspiring pigeon to captivate his mind for the rest of his break.
"So," he said aloud to nobody. "Either I have super cool cosmic powers that will awaken when I need it most! Or I've developed insomnia and should probably lie down."
His roll crumbled to dust in his hand like the illusion of control. Joren felt defeated.
Late Afternoon – Wandering the Town
After work, Joren wandered through the stalls in town with the energy of a man half-convinced he might evaporate if he stood still too long. He stopped at a food stall run by a woman named Miri, who had exactly three teeth and cooked like she was trying to seduce death itself. He ordered something vaguely dough-based and surprisingly warm, then sat cross-legged on the edge of a dry fountain, chewing like a tired squirrel.
The food tasted like... something. It could be bread, or glue, or a secret third thing. He couldn't tell, and honestly, he was too tired to care. He stared up at the clouds and whispered, "Reveal your secrets, sky god. What am I supposed to do with myself?"
No secrets were revealed.
His mind wandered again to the cave. The portrait. The voice that had echoed through the stone like a song heard underwater. If that thing really was one of the fabled Divinity Portraits, then…
Then what? He still had to clean out the goat pens and check on all the other animals. Nothing says "divine destiny" like animal droppings and farmwork.
Early Evening – The Barn
Back at the barn, he moved through chores like a sleepwalker: grain, water, fences, hay. The animals watched him cautiously. Even Jargon, who usually acted like a headbutt was a love language, stayed back. He reached for the bucket, but it slipped from his hands.
The bucket didn't just fall, it plummeted. Water erupted upward in a theatrical burst as if imitating a geyser that soaked the rafters and painted a soggy arc against the far wall. Jargon bleated like Joren just killed his mother. "Sorry, Your Highness," Joren muttered, bowing with exaggerated flair, prostrating himself as one should before nobility.
Joren blinked. "Okay, no big deal," he whispered. "Just really slippery tonight." He tried again. This time he picked up a bag of feed and tossed it lazily over his shoulder to carry to the storage bin. It soared. Past the bin. Past the gated enclosures. It struck the far wall like a meteor and detonated into a grainy mushroom cloud of oats. The air filled with golden dust and panicked feathers. Somewhere in the chaos, a chicken screamed. Not clucked, screamed a high, wobbling shriek of horror.
He didn't know chickens could scream.
Joren stood there. Arms limp. Eyes wide.
"Okay," he said to the goat watching from the stall. "Either I'm losing it, or I'm the barn's new demigod."
The goat bleated and licked its own nostril.
Joren squinted. "Helpful as always, thanks."
Late Evening – The Cave
Evening found Joren back at the edge of the woods, crouched in the underbrush like an investigator. He was searching for proof he wasn't going crazy, the path to the cave felt the same to him at least. The cave entrance was still there, narrow, low, and half-hidden by creeping vines and stubborn shrubs. Relief washed over him; he knew it couldn't have been a dream if he found it again.
He pushed his way in, ducking under the stone lip, clutching a battered lantern he'd borrowed from the barn. A gift from Hazel, though it hadn't been wrapped up, so he mentally gave his input on the debate between those two people at the saloon. Once inside, he lit the lantern. This time it wasn't illuminated by faint, dusty trails of light.
The walls of the cave greeted him like old, indifferent friends. He shuffled forward, boots crunching softly against gravel and damp earth. The air grew colder the deeper he went, thick with the smell of wet stone and some ancient flavor of disappointment. Still, everything looked the same. Every curve of the tunnel matched his memory. The awkwardly placed rock that stubbed his toe. The narrowing corridor with the slight left tilt.
And then he was there, the chamber. He stepped inside slowly, the lantern raised high. But where once the Supernova Portrait had glowed like a god's fever dream, there was nothing. No painting, no color, just stone where it once stood.
"Okay," Joren said, breath fogging. "So maybe it moved, or it could be shy." He spun in place, lantern light bouncing around the chamber in nervous arcs. He pressed his hand to the wall where the image had once burned. He knelt, searching the floor. He found nothing, not even a suspicious sparkle pretending to be a clue.
Frustration bubbled in his chest. He clenched the lantern tighter, shook it a little, like it was somehow to blame for this divine no-show. "You were here!" he hissed to the room. And then the lantern flared. For one glorious second, it bloomed with blinding white light, so bright it cast twin shadows behind him. Then, with a sound like a sigh and a crunch, the glass imploded. Light exploded in every direction. It wasn't sharp. No shards, no flying metal, just a sudden death of light.
Joren stood there, holding what was now just a sad stick with a useless ring of metal. Darkness surrounded him again and he couldn't use the lantern until he fixed it at home later. With an exasperated tone that felt like a man who reached the end of his patience Joren said only one word, "Fuuuuuck."