Celeste knew they were too close to the city, so instead of engaging Mordecai in a battle, she simply walked away, heading to the west as if it had been her plan all along.
The goddess knew she would be able to find her way back without any problems. After all, she had her Journeying Domain, which provided her a map, and she could probably use her powers to figure out where Jasper was.
Turning around and leaving after stating that she was the first god seemed to be enough of an insult to Mordecai. The greasy-haired drow quickly followed along, and his dark robes fluttered as he moved, making him look less than graceful.
"You cannot be the first god. Armandos was banished by the gods. Banished by my mother!" Mordecai said as he managed to catch up with Celeste.
"Armandos? I have never heard that name before." Celeste answered, forcing the demi-god to continue to move if he wanted information.
"Typical, Lebb har. You have no concept of the world around you. Armandos is the name of the forgotten god, the god that came before our gods. You claim to be her? A god so powerful that they can force ascension in mortals?" Mordecai seemed to be mocking Celeste.
It was an interesting quirk that Mordecai assumed the first god to be female. The fact that Celeste was female was probably one of the few reasons why the drow had started interrogating her instead of outright killing her... well... tried to kill her again.
While walking, they walked around the hill and reached the forest beyond it. Celeste smiled as they got out of sight of the town, deciding she might as well humour the angsty drow.
"Well, you cannot kill me, and unless you wish to claim that a drow is weaker than a mortal, then you have no other choice but to acknowledge the facts. You see, I am the first god... well, technically, I am half of the first god. I am the Architect of Creation. My workshop stands as a monument of all divine things."
Mordecai looked at her as if she was mad. "You lie. You are nothing but a m'elzar that has gotten too big for her boots. You could have the help of errdegahr or the like."
With a swift hand motion, Mordecai reached out for her again, pouring more death energy into his Death Domain. Instantly, Celeste understood his intention. He wanted to melt the world around him with death. She didn't even let him unleash the power. She simply threw out her hand, spending another Energy and removing the power from existence.
"Let me make this clear. I am not here to discuss who is more powerful. I am not here to fight. I am here to fix the world. Please stop throwing a tantrum right now, or you will be put in timeout." She put on her best 'we are having a serious conversation'-tone.
Having stated what she intended to do and showed could nullify Mordecai's powers. She could see the risk assessment cross Mordecai's face. To Celeste's disappointment, she could also see the moment he determined that his initial estimate of her was correct, and he rolled his shoulders.
"Of course, you do not wish to fight. Why would an ant wish to fight a lion? You have no concept of the power I wield-" He was cut off as a left hook landed across his face, throwing him to the ground.
Celeste hadn't crossed the distance, but she looked on in stunned awe as another version of herself stood over Mordecai with a clenched fist. The clone of Celeste followed up with a swift kick to the stomach before picking the gangly drow up by the collar of his robes and throwing him to the original Celeste, who didn't hesitate.
She caught him mid-air and bodyslammed him hard, it was quickly followed up by the clone grabbing his staff and splintering it to pieces.
The clone smiled at the original. "Times up, you gotta jump back and help out. My clone looked pretty bloodied, so make sure to rough him up." She said, and Celeste decided that if there was anyone you could trust, it had to be yourself.
The Goddess of Time spent another energy to perform a miracle and jumped back in time just enough to help out. Mordecai was still speaking when she stepped out of the portal, and she felt her fist connect just as he started to rant properly.
Her arm stung with the power behind the blow, and she quickly followed it up with a kick. She could see her own shocked face and decided that she needed to remember to close her mouth when she was surprised. It didn't matter.
To get herself into gear she threw the limp Ilsher at herself, and she was happy to see that she quickly followed up and slammed the groaning sack of drow into the ground.
Celeste walked over and looked at the staff. With it in her hands, she could feel how infused it was with evil. This thing was a Divine Artefact, one meant to corrupt the people around it.
Accessing her Tinkering Domain, she found its inherent weakness, and she expanded it, weakening that staff from within before slamming it into the ground. She looked up at her previous self.
"You gotta jump back to keep the loop going." She saw a moment's hesitation on her face before a portal in time opened behind her, and she jumped back.
Celeste looked down at the drow and sighed. "So, Mordecai. Want to talk, or do you want a timeout?"
She felt a smirk on her lips. Mordecai groaned in response, Celeste spotted something between his ropes, and with a deft hand, she pulled out the knife.
"How have you gained these things?" She asked, feeling the knife in her hand was yet another Divine Artefact.
Mordecai slowly managed to push himself up, his arms reaching out for the dagger.
"Give that back. It does not belong to you." He groaned, but Celeste focused a bit more on it, examining its properties.
Crimson Vengeance [https://i.postimg.cc/RZwnY7Qv/image.png]
Celeste looked at the weapon, a weapon that was immensely powerful even in her hands. She could feel the pull of it, tempting her to use it.
She had just spent 3 of her 5 energy on this guy, so why shouldn't he give her that Energy back? It would be so easy to use as well, as Mordecai was pretty much defenceless on the ground.
Celeste felt sick to her core, and the fury inside her started to burn. This thing had no place in the world. It was a corrupting force, and she would not stand for it. The goddess didn't notice it, but Mordecai saw it. The world breaking around Celeste.
Time and space splintered into pieces, revealing the grand clockwork behind the illusion of the world. Entropy and Chaos lie beyond what was possible to perceive.
Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.
Mordecai understood. He understood that Celeste wasn't the embodiment of death. She wasn't some grand creator. She was the entropy of all things. She controlled the spokes and cogs of the world, and to her time and space were nothing but camouflage so that the mortal did not see what they were living in.
A single word left Celeste's lips.
"CEASE!"
The word echoed from the goddess rang loud and clear, her eyes burning with pain and grief for something that should never have been created.
At her command, the dagger vanished. There was no loud bang, no whimper. It simply stopped existing.
Her command was the ultimate command for any piece of equipment, and she had commanded it to stop.
The knife had only been doing one thing. It hadn't been attacking, it hadn't been in action, it had been existing, and it had been told to stop. The knife had no option but to obey.
As the world returned to normal, the cracks in reality slowly connecting back onto themselves, Mordecai swallowed.
The Ilsher could feel his heart racing as Celeste's attention returned to him. Celeste's tone was ice-cold. Her eyes burned into his soul.
"Where did you get your toys?" She asked, and Mordecai knew that the time for games was over.
As Mordecai spoke, Celeste couldn't believe her ears. Apparently, her forge had been overtaken. The drows had used some rather underhanded tactics to obtain the forge, as Celeste hadn't specified who could appoint the owner of the divine site.
The dark elves had essentially filled the underground with elves and had simply voted for one of their own before using the power of the forge to move it underground.
It had happened a couple of years ago, and since then, one of the Ilshers has been forging some incredible weapons for his siblings.
Celeste suspected that the AI significantly increased the power of artefacts, as they were meant to corrupt mortals, though this was beyond anything that she had expected.
The Embodiment of Entropy couldn't let her forge stand. If it continued to exist for the next hundred years, chaos beyond chaos would ensue.
She looked down at Mordecai, and for a moment, she thought about ending the edgy drow, but she decided against it. She wasn't about to take away such an important NPC. She assumed that the AI had a plan for him in whatever grand tapestry it was weaving.
However, she couldn't help but feel like she had been played a little. Mordecai had ambushed her as soon as she was ready, and he had been carrying two artefacts. At least one of them was far too powerful to be out in the open.
Celeste could counter the drow easily, at least as long as he didn't use any of his artefacts, and she was probably one of the only people who could destroy these things. Had the AI sent Mordecai to her, hoping to remove the Artefacts from the world?
"Go and warn your siblings and mother that if your production of artefacts does not stop, then I will be coming to unmake whatever I have created for you, " she said, her voice low.
Mordecai nodded quickly and scrambled towards one of the shadows, quickly disappearing into one of them.
Celeste felt something as Mordecai disappeared. He had been teleported. She knew that she could follow him thanks to her Journey Domain. However, she had already spent a lot of Energy. She would probably be walking into a fight she could not win if she tried to hunt him down.
As Celeste started to orientate herself, she was surprised to see a thick purple sphere spring up around her. She recognized it from what Jasper had told her.
She could just barely see an old man slowly walk towards her through the prismatic wall.
The old man looked incredibly fit, as if he had the body of someone half his age, and his robes barely contained his muscles.
"Someone is messing with something they shouldn't be messing with." The Scribe said, his fists clenched as he took the stance for a fight.
Celeste smiled and gave the oldtimer a deep bow. "A pleasure to meet you, Erik".
The old man paused when he heard the name, and he squinted a bit.
"And who might you be, younging?" He asked, giving her the stink-eye.
"Well, I am Celeste and I don't believe we had the chance to formally meet. My husband Jas-I mean Magnus might be someone that you know better." As Celeste spoke, that old man's gaze softened, and his lips turned into a bright smile.
"Oh my word, yes, yes! He told me about you. Are you the one making a racket out here in these woods?" He asked, and as he walked closer, the veil shimmered away to nothing.
"I am afraid so. An Ilsher named Mordecai brought me a present I had to destroy." She explained as she gave the old man a hug.
The Scribe seemed surprised by the hug, though he didn't protest. "My oh my, those are bad folks, Celeste. You shouldn't be engaging them in direct combat. I managed to create the great barriers to seal the gods from the mortal realm, but it can't stop their spawn." The Scribe said before turning around and calling out. "Jasmine, you can come out. She is a friend."
A young girl quickly scampered out from a couple of bushes where she had been hiding. She was holding a dagger in one hand and couldn't have been much older than 12.
Celeste gave the young girl a bright smile. Jasmine didn't return the smile, and she didn't lower her knife.
" 'urt the bleedin' geezer, and I will wet ya." She said, clearly waving the knife in front of her.
The Scribe laughed loudly but still gave the young girl a smack to the back of her head.
"If she can hurt me, which she absolutely can, don't you think that she could hurt you?" He asked, and Jasmine had the good grace to look embarrassed.
She was sporting a mob of slightly dirty red hair that seemed to have more knots than curls. Her clothes were a step above a canvas bag, and she looked like she had been living a rough life on her own. Her attitude to any strangers just underlined this fact, but The Scribe seemed to like her, and that was all that mattered.
Celeste turned her attention back to the old man. "You managed to separate the divine from the mortals?" She asked, and The Scribe nodded.
Erik soon launched into a tale about what had happened after Celeste and Jasper had disappeared.
"You see when Magnus was killed by the ork, it was forced to ascend to a godlike entity. The power released from this ascension gave me an idea. The barriers I control come from the world itself, simply splitting light into various aspects. I managed to do the same with layers of the world, though my first attempt was a bit crude. I managed to banish Orlek to a world beyond this one, though I also accidentally banished all spirits to the same world. Yes, it was a bit unfortunate, but we managed. The next god was Ewen. That oaf had no idea what he was doing. When I tried to separate him into a plane of his own, he had already been linked with magic. I ended up pulling all magic out of the word and binding it to the same plane, which means that those who get their magic after Ewen's ascension will have to contend with a much smaller mana pool." The Scribe explained.
Jasmine followed along behind him, her brown eyes darting from side to side, clearly expecting to be ambushed at any moment while at the same time toning out anything useful The Scribe might be saying.
"It sounds like you have been working quite hard." Celeste said, nodding to the old man in appreciation.
"Ey, it hasn't been easy, especially since Daikia managed to kill another god before I realized that there should also be barriers between the other planes. That is why the humans and dwarves share a god since the human god died at Daikia's hand. However, it is a bit unfortunate that none remember your names, as it has led to a couple of incidents." He explained.
Celeste had the feeling that it was the AI's doing as it didn't want them to get a ton of Worship for being logged out.
The goddess of journeying infused their steps as they walked, and they were quickly heading back to Marcusburg.
The Scribe informed Celeste that he had been on his way to meet with Magnus when he had felt his barriers get punched through, something that she apologized quite a bit for, though he wasn't as grumpy as she had expected, and she was sure that Jasper had been exaggerating.