Jump 3. Afterlife

"Alright, you didn't get yourself killed, though there were a few close calls, I think," said my benefactor when I returned to the warehouse after my jump.

"I don't think so?" I told them. They hummed.

"Well, I was watching everything, so I think I'll be the judge."

I rolled my eyes at them. "Whatever. Show me my new options."

"Okay, you have five options this decade," explained the being. "Though it may be longer, depending on the choices you select~" They gestured to the rack of brochures once more, and I looked at the options on the shelf.

Final Fantasy VII…. no, I'd never played that one, so it just joined the jumble of Final Fantasy games that I had no idea about in my head. I wasn't going to go somewhere I didn't know about. Afterlife… was it just a jump about the concept of an afterlife? Still, it looked promising, so I picked it from the shelf. Prototype… yeah, I needed to play more video games at some point, so I could have better options. Kung Fu Hustle, that was a solid maybe. I'd seen the movie decades ago but I was drinking during it so I did not remember the second half at all. And RWBY… nope, nope, nope. As cool as RWBY would be I was very aware of my limits and wasn't sure how I'd handle myself there.

Though I figured that each jump would give me the tools to survive in a world, I wanted to be ready for a world's challenges based on what I already had, the skills I'd practiced with. And while I was pretty strong and durable, and I could fly, and I knew basically the entire plot up to season 4, I still wasn't sure enough to pick it.

So I also grabbed the Kung Fu Hustle Jump to flip through afterwards. "You're not picking RWBY?" asked Cadis. "You don't think we can handle it, or?"

"Hey, we've all just got one life to life," I told him. "I'm being cautious for once! I want to be more prepared."

He nodded, accepting my train of thought, and then peered over my shoulder at the Afterlife booklet. "Oh, it's based on the video game!" he said. "My father bought it when it was new, my dad and I tried playing it a few times but it was actually pretty hard. We tried looking up stuff about it online but even then we got destroyed by the surfers."

"It's a game?" I said. I was still reading the intro, and it hadn't said anything about that yet.

"Yeah, by LucasArts," explained Cadis. "Very simcity esque."

Wasn't sure why SOUL was capitalized like this was Undertale… but whatever. Hm, Undertale, wonder if that's on the list somewhere. My cousin Morti would murder me if she found out I had gone to the Undertale world and she wasn't invited…

"Is there a reason SOUL is capitalized?"
"Oh, yeah, there's lots of acronyms in the game," said Cadis. "Stuff Of Undying Life, if I recall correctly?"

"Unending, but yeah," said my benefactor.

"Close enough," said Cadis.

Some of the perks seemed pretty useful… and I was going to force my brothers to buy Forever Young if I was gonna do anything. Kung Fu Hustle… Mmm, I think I would save that for another day. The temptation of being a devil and getting my own afterlife was too much.

"Yeah, I think I'll choose this one," I told them. "Kung Fu Hustle, I think I need to watch it again before we actually go there."

"Sober this time?" asked Jiro.

"Hey, you were drinking just as much as me," I told him.

Jiro grinned at me smuggly. "Yeah, but you're a lightweight."

This was untrue. Jiro was just advantaged over me in multiple ways when it came to alcohol consumption. I was not a lightweight and I refused to hear otherwise!

"Aw, I think the kung fu jump would be fun," said Sasha, who had not been there when Jiro, Cadis and I attempted to watch Kung Fu Hustle.

"We can probably go there eventually," I told him. "Come on. You get to be a devil. Also, you're all buying Eternal Youth."

"But I have Immortal," replied Sasha.

"Then you don't have to buy it. But you two do." I pointed at Jiro and Cadis.

"You want to buy a Cat's Life twice?" asked Zaeithon.

"Yeah," I told them. "Once for sheep, once for goats. But merge it into one building, with parts where the sheep and goats can hang. Oh, and ideally most of it wouldn't be indoors so they can eat fresh grass and all that."
"Why don't you just get some goats and put them in the warehouse?" asked the being.

"Because, like I said, they're outdoor animals. They'd be miserable here."

"Fine. Do you want it in the world, or attached to your warehouse?" they asked.

"I want all of the stuff attached to the warehouse, but like, just make it into one big mall," I told them. "Just a big cosmic mall. All the stores, coffee shops, the board game zone, the place I bought because those two losers would riot otherwise."

"Hey!" protested Cadis.

"Admittedly, the board game zone is already pretty close to my idea of an ideal date spot," Jiro mused. "But yes, thanks."

"Well, that's that," said the being. "I'll get you ready and your siblings can finish their builds."

With the aid of the new abilities I'd gotten and my two advisors, I started to build up my new heaven and hell into a well-functioning afterlife. While my brothers were pretty distracted by all the cool new stuff in the warehouse, I managed to get them to help when they were needed.

My skills were best for ruling over hell, since I was a devil after all. While some of the traditional punishments were way too much for me to authorize, I invented new ones to fill their place. And also just general ways for everyone to be tortured.

For example, every gate into Hell had a loudspeaker system that played a recording of people shrieking, "WELCOME TO HELL! WELCOME TO HELL!" on loop. While the damned souls waited in line to be processed they would hear it thousands of times. When even that got tolerable we mixed in hour-long loops of "It's a Small World After All", sung by a choir of the most tone-deaf demons we could wrangle.

Training damned souls as demons was actually probably my favorite part of this. I did feel a little bit guilty about torturing beings for all eternity. I didn't think it should be anyone's fate, even the worst people, but I had no say in the matter, they did. And I did think there were a lot of people in heaven who didn't deserve to be there, but whose beliefs made it so that it was where they ended up anyways. Though, also, jeez. Some of the options in heaven seemed like torture. A vacation slideshow for eternity? I would literally rather suffer anything hell had to offer, no matter how interesting those slideshows were.

...okay, that was a slight exaggeration.

One of the most pointless crises in the history of my career as a demiurge was The Nose Incident. A giant nose frigging flew in and sucked up one of the main districts of Hell, the Gluttony district and then sneezed it all over Heaven. The angelic construction workers quickly got to work repurposing the buildings, and this wouldn't have been much a big deal if the nose hadn't deposited the vomit-inducing "Bowels of Hell" right in front of one of our busiest gates of Heaven.

The souls in line and those who had just exited the gate panicked, thinking they were in the other place, and the panic quickly swept across the realm. Rumors flew that I, as the demonic ruler of this plane, was planning to change the place so that even the heavens would be a place of suffering.

I managed to calm people down and convince them that was definitely not the case, and down in hell I fired the demons who had built the "Bowels of Hell" despite the fact I'd ordered them not to create that building. Yes, it was one of the most efficient buildings, but… gross.

After this, I decided to do something I'd been sort of putting off for a while- trying to raise elementals to protect the realms. Didn't super know if they would work against disembodied noses but maybe they would.

Black mana was easier for me to manipulate, I guess because it fit part of my personality. Well, more than white did. Because of this, Hell was easier for me to raise a guardian elemental for. The whole realm was aligned with Black mana, but other types showed up in spots across the plane. The same was true of Heaven, but in reverse- it was White. Red Mana was secondarily most predominant in both, because the afterlife had a lot to do with emotions and experiences and all that. It was a little more common in Hell, since it had massive rivers of fire and the emotions produced were a bit more intense.

The elemental I raised to protect Hell resembled a hound made out of dark black stone, with veins of lava running through him and flames leaking from his mouth and eyes. I resisted the urge to name him Fluffy. Heaven's elemental was actually sort of crystalline, with shards of crystal forming angelic wings and claws. The rest of its body was airy, cloud-like.

While no giant noses appeared for a rematch, the people of heaven felt safer with a guardian around and those of hell got to see Not-Fluffy looming over them while they waited in line to be processed. A giant demonic-looking elemental, It's a Small World After All, and a line whose speed was measured in days… that was Hell for you. At least when I was in charge.

"Well, I have good news and bad news," said Zaeithon, showing up in my office. It was the first time they'd ever actually shown up in a world, though it was the day I was planning to leave anyways.

"What's the bad news?" I asked.

Zaeithon sighed. "Well, I'm just going to tell you all the news at once. Yes, you processed enough SOULs to recieve rewards. You processed 120,000,000 SOULs."

"Oh, I wasn't really paying attention," I told the being. Sure, I'd made sure that I had processed at least 25,000,000, but I was more concerned with just managing this place and making sure everyone was content. Or miserable, if that's what they were supposed to be. "Now tell me the bad news."

"You were just short of the 125,000,000 souls goal," they replied. "Still! You're going to be able to bring your afterlife along, and you're going to have way more power over it now. Basically you can design it however you want, make your own minions, reincarnate people whenever you want."
"Great!" I said. I had been pretty limited before in how I could manage people, but now I could finally do what I wanted to do with them. "Is that it?"

"You'll be able to send any souls you want there, though if there's someone with higher authority over them they might object," they continued. "You'll also find it easier to promote sins and virtues in the real world, and just with people in general."
"Yeah, that sounds useful," I said. "Anyway, what did I miss out on?"

"Being able to put the buildings from this world on mortal planes and your own pocket dimension with living folks."

I thought about this. "Well, I mean, I dunno how much I'm going to use the default options now that I have my own realm, anyways. And a place with living people… I don't think I'm ready for that responsibility. The souls of the damned or blessed, yeah, but... " I shuddered. "Anyway, is that it?"

"Just wanted to let you know that," said Zaeithon. "Anyway, we're leaving."

They snapped their fingers and we were back in the warehouse. In addition to the door that led to the bathrooms and bedrooms and the one that led to the mall, there was now a giant glowing door covered in demonic and angelic runes. Jiro, Cadis, and Sasha looked pretty upset they'd been snatched away from whatever.

"What were you guys doing?" I asked. "Playing some pointless obscure european board game?"
"No, it was a board game from the planet," replied Jiro. "Z`slza`slza`szkin."

I blinked. "Well, I've saved you from that. It's time to go… somewhere else."

Jiro sighed. "I hope it's still set up in the board game zone. I had almost won."

2026 Retrospective

Only three jumps into her chain, Sevvie ascends to Devil Demiurge of the afterlife status. Wild! She gets a whole afterlife, composed of Heaven and Hell. She invents new punishments for the damned that are mostly deeply annoying.
“One of the most pointless crises in the history of my career as a demiurge was The Nose Incident. A giant nose frigging flew in and sucked up one of the main districts of Hell, the Gluttony district and then sneezed it all over Heaven. “
This is the sort of thing that happens in Sevvie Jumpchain 1. I think it makes sense for the tone of this chain. It’s just goofy, and that’s why it’s fun :)
The most interesting part of this is Sevvie creating elementals from the mana of Hell. We learn Heaven is White/Red and Hell is Black/Red. Sevvie creates elementals for both realms.

Quill: What’s interesting is that last jump, Sevvie bought blue and green lands - the opposite colors of her father Xander’s color identity - but her Hell/Heaven is his colors.

Cecil: I think Sevvie may just be a character who is hard to fit into Magic the Gathering’s color boxes. The same way she’s hard to fit in alignment boxes too, I guess.

Cypher: I think the story might argue that Sevvie is WUBRG.

Cecil: I wouldn’t actually disagree with that for this version of Sevvie.