Ding!
Angle slightly left and down.
Mack adjusted their course slightly based on the notification. They’d been traveling like that for an hour now, a pane of force wrapped in a bubble of air, and were only a quarter of the distance out from Caelum. Gur sat cross-legged, looking down in contemplation at the moon as they decelerated towards it and its atmosphere.
Caelum outside of Godhome was interesting in a stark way. From a distance that moon seemed a blue-ish gray, and now as they god closer, they could see that the surface was mostly flat. Of sure, it had it’s ridges, and burrows, and hills, and valeys, but nothing like mountains. There were streams, but no rivers. Lakes, but no seas. Overall, it was very medium. And the blue-ish gray was from a mix of mid-length grasses that seemed to grow everywhere. No bushes or trees though as they could see. And the fauna seemed limited to nothing large than a breadbox.
Godhome, being the only artificial feature of the surface of Caelum, was obvious to see. Beneath the damage caused by the battle, they could see what Godhome was like close up. A large central building for common work and administration. And for each god, dozens or hundreds of miles from the central building, an estate, loosely clumped into two groups, one “east” and one “west”. While the estates varied in style, they mostly were characterized by large ornate structures for the gods themselves, support structures for the mortal population imported here to serve them, and the roads which ran between the estates and the central administrative body.
Now though, the central building was heavily damaged, half of the estates were slagged, and not a single person could be seen moving about. There was some livestock and other domesticated animals still, but half of those were wandering away from damages fences, barns and other buildings as they were left to their own devices.
Ding!
Angle slightly left.
As they began to cross over into the atmospehre of Caelum, their new trajectory was taking them into an interesting geological feature, a set of criss-crossing canyons, to the “southwest” of the “western” groups of deific palaces.
They were almost there. And it was time to see what’s up.
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As they set down near the bank of a stream, an illusion raveled itself before them in the shape of a young, male [Human] wearing mage robes.
“Finally, you’re here,” he immediately began before the illusion was completed, then turned and started walking away.
Mack and Gur glanced at each other before following at a comfortable distance.
“So…” Mack began, “who are you?”
The young man glanced over his shoulders at the two in a touch of surprise.
“I’m the avatar of the System.”
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The avatar led them into a cave, which quickly became a carved tunnel. It was short though, and in just a few minutes, the two entered a large, well lit room. As they did so, they passed through a magical veil and they could hear voices arguing. To one end, lay a table with what looked like a scale model of Godhome sans damages. Around the table were six of the minor gods. Adonite, Horus and Sleight were arguing over something. Burgum stood on four legs watching the argument in some distinterest, while Myria chewed her hand nervously. Finally, Sturge, mildly injured, was resting on a bench nearby.
“All right,” the avatar called out. “Shut up. Introductions: Gods, these are the two who killed Argast. Mack, Gur, these are gods, you’ve seen the statutes. Now, where are we with a plan?”
“…”
Just about everyone present raised an eyebrow or equivalent at that socially deaf introduction.
“Why the fuck do you think these two can do anything?” “Why should we be involved in a war between the gods?” Horus and Mack spoke simultaneously.
The avatar mimed smacking his face. “Alright, quick history lesson,” the avatar replied, then created a graphical illusion of a table. “After the second war, the gods were divided into two factions. In the first faction, you had The Brute and the Sentinel as greater gods, and Alldir and Argast as lesser gods. In the second faction, you had The Steward as a greater god, and Adonite, Sturge, Horus, Sleight, Myris and Burgum as lesser gods. The power between the two factions was nearly the same, and in the four and a half millenia since then, we’ve been at peace large because of that stalemate.”
As the avatar spoke, he wrote out the names of the gods into two groups and assigned power numbers to each.
The Brute 150
The Sentinel 70
Alldir 37
Argast 19
The Steward 100
Adonite 40
Sturge 34
Horus 31
Sleight 28
Myris 25
Burgum 22
Total 276
Total 280
“With Argast killed, the balance of power was upset enough for the Steward’s faction to take action and they were ready to do so. But despite our best efforts, we still underestimated the Brute and the Sentinel and they were completely unsurprised by our so-called surprise attack. The Steward was killed, Alldir significantly injured, and Sturge with mild injuries.”
The avatar updated the power numbers to indicate death and injury.
The Brute 125
The Sentinel 55
Alldir 12
Argast 0
The Steward 0
Adonite 30
Sturge 28
Horus 22
Sleight 17
Myris 20
Burgum 14
Total 192
Total 131
“The only reason we haven’t caved completely is because neither the Brute nor the Sentinel are good at searching and, as afar as ew can tell, they’re just patiently waiting for us to appear again. As to why you two can help, it’s a little difficult to provide an equivalnet power number given that you do use power from the System and the gods do not, but tentatively I’d mark each of you at around 25 power.”
Total 192
Total 181
“That’s not quite enough to win, but we’re not certain to lose now. And despite not being surprised before, I’d be surprised if the Brute wasn’t surprised by both your power and that you’ve joined our side.”
“That’s a lot of surprise.”
“Why should we join your side?”
The avatar raised an eyebrow. “The Brute is also known as the Deicide. You think he’d let you live after they won? The only reason Alldir and Argast survived the second war was because the Brute has enough tactical sense to realize that he’d lose without their support.”