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After some thought I decided that it did not matter.

“Mana, you do not need to call me Master all the time. It makes me uneasy, for I am fit to be the master of a goddess. Call me Richard.” As I said this I realized that I was giving her a command. I chuckled to myself. Look out moral gray area, here I come.

“Yes Richard.” She replied in a way that made my name sound like the word master. Not much of an improvement. I pick my battles though.

I turned from the mirror, tearing my gaze from my tormented body. I decided to explore the temple I found myself in. It was wondrous, the icy walls glittered and the transparent ceiling gathered the light of both the aurora and the staff to create a dazzling effect. This place felt holy.

It was not a large temple. It was carved from a large glacier, but inside the temple was little more than a shrine. There literally was just the corridor and the center chamber.

“Why were you placed in this temple?” I asked Mana, whose phantasm followed me as I explored. Despite the chains that bound her, she seemed to be ecstatic, just basking in her happiness as she followed me. I wondered how her mind had fared her binding after all these millennial. It was entirely possible that she needed a master now, not just chafed under one.

“My previous master was dying and did not have a successor he could trust with me. He had chosen to hide my identity from the world, like the previous 11 masters before him, and decided it would be best to hide me where no one would just happen to find me. He enchanted the dais I rested upon to call for a suitable necromancer who had the morality not to abuse my power. He reasoned that anyone who could not only hear the call, but answer it, would be both kind enough and strong enough to wield me.” She paused and stared at the temple around her, loss clear on her face.

“This is the last consecrated temple of my pantheon. It was dedicated to my sister, a deity of ice. We were very close. It was thanks to the remoteness of it’s location and the inhospitable nature of the tundra that it remains till this day.” Her face grew pained, and a tear formed in her eye. I caressed her again and moved on, after a moment her phantasm followed me.

This confused me. “How does a Pantheon die? I thought gods were eternal.” I asked her. I thought this would be an uncomfortable question, but curiosity demanded I ask anyway.

She did not appear bothered by the question, and instead took the persona of a teacher. “God’s are essentially eternal. Powerful magic can kill them, but that is rare. Their power can be stolen, as was the intent of my first master, and used by other beings to ascend. This is more common but also rare. More commonly, the worshipers of pantheon die or forget their gods, and the pantheon just fades away. That is what happened to my siblings. I also would have faded if it were not for my binding.” She smiled sadly.