It was on the tenth day of traveling that the monotony of his days ended.

Wyatt had been trying to decide for hours whether he should stop and try to assemble a raft of some sort when he saw a figure ahead of him. It seemed to be some kind of humanoid, sitting on a rock with its back to the mage.

Wyatt quickly ducked behind a tree, hoping he hadn’t been spotted. Tense seconds passed before Wyatt heard a voice he thought he would never hear again.

“You can come out, Wyatt.”

It was Margie.

Wyatt had not seen the old woman die that day, but somehow he knew she had. And yet, this person sitting before him was undoubtedly her. Atop her head, Wyatt noticed a plain copper crown. It matched his own in shape, save for the obvious place where the metal had snapped just to the side of her head, the ends blackened in a way that reminded the young mage of a short in an electrical wire.

Wyatt’s mind raced. Something had been off about the woman since the first day they met. She seemed to know exactly what was going on with the new world, like she had a secret about their situation that she refused to share even as she acted the part of a senile old lady. Her abilities seemed entirely odd, even for this place. The strangest thing about the woman was her knowledge of the location of the tower.

Wyatt turned and stared at the back of the woman, eyes narrowed, as he replayed that day in his head. She had known the elves were not to be trusted and had lead the party unerringly toward the dungeon structure, hidden deep in the forest.

As his mind raced he realized she had made every decision on where the party would go. She seemed to simply wander, and everyone else went along with it, not knowing if any of the paths available to them was better than another.

After the fight with the troll there were three directions they could have taken, and Margie had simply started walking. Then again at the fork in the canyon she had walked to the left, perhaps the only reason the party was not at the site of the massacre when the elves had attacked the human survivors.

She had saved them.

And yet, something nagged at Wyatt, screaming at him from somewhere deep in the back of his mind. He approached the woman, still sitting on the rock with her back to him, when it finally struck him.

His title.

Last of your kind.

Immediately, Wyatt drew his stone staff from his cloak and jumped backwards, putting distance between himself and this anomaly.

“What are you?” he demanded, assuming a stance that clearly displayed his readiness to fight. The woman laughed briefly, then stood. It turned to Wyatt, a smile on its face.

“You are smart aren’t you?” the façade of the old woman was no longer covering the figure, as the face of Brad stared back at the human, smiling that huge smile of his that tore at Wyatt’s heart.

His anger flared.

“Answer me, now!” shouted Wyatt.

“I am a being you cannot comprehend,” Chuck answered.

Chuck? It was Brad just a moment ago, when did it change?

“Then use little words,” growled Wyatt, patience running dry.

“Did the dungeon have the historical murals?” asked the image of Angela.

“It did.”

“Then this should be easier. It has been a long time since a world was integrated into this one, and I do not know how the dungeon would have changed.” The figure sat back down, its face changing now from person to person so fast that Wyatt could not keep up, and yet it did not seem to change at all, so fluidly did it shift from one to another.

“You are a god,” whispered Wyatt, as he remembered the image of the ten figures shifting as they talked to the mortal races, “One of the ten.”

“You are correct, in a way. I was once a god, and still am, I suppose. Mendac, I was known as, the Trickster God. My domain lay in manipulation, planning, and misdirection.”

“You are the god that turned on the others then, when the fighting started.”

“I turned on no one,” the god stated flatly, eyes leveled at the human, “It was the others who turned on the world. We were created by the intention of the system to lead the sapient races when they were integrated into this world, to help them begin their new lives.

“They changed, forgetting their purpose. Slowly at first, taking an active role in how the mortals developed, but in the end the races bowed knee to them, as kings. Each one ruled a continent of integrated.”

“There were ten iterations of integration, and ten gods,” rebutted Wyatt, “You mean to tell me you did not have your own continent to rule?”

“To rule, no. As the worlds came to join with ours, we each chose one to watch over. We would speak to them at first, answering their questions and guiding them on the path they needed to build a civilization here. This world can be dangerous if you do not establish a place of safety quickly.

“I was too late to notice how the others were treating their charges, so focused was I on watching over my own. I should have seen what was happening sooner, but by the time I did it was too late.”

“So you fought them.”

“I pleaded with them. I begged them to remember our purpose, to take a step back and let the mortals grow on their own. They would not listen, and I was forced to take action.”

“And I am to believe you are the good guy in this story?”

“There are no good guys in my story, young one, including me.”

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“You already admitted to me you are the god of lies, how am I to trust you?”

“And who better to understand the dangers of a weapon than one who has mastered it? You would not expect every soldier you see to stab you simply because they mastered the sword. I gained my titles by how I guided my races. I did not appear to them and tell them where to go, I sent omens, trials, riddles. I did not tell them which path to take, but still they chose the path I laid before them thinking the choice was theirs. Many died in the process, but many more survived than would have otherwise.

“They grew from this, not knowing they had a rope to pull them up should they fall. They grew bold and strong because they thought they had to. I was like a parent, always behind my children as they grew, opening the door for them, but never carrying them through.”

“So you ruled from the shadows, no different from the others but your fear of being seen.”

“I feared only being needed. I stepped back when they could take the reins of their own fate, when they were wise enough to make their own decisions. Is it not the desire of every parent to someday watch their children leave their home? By then, I was known as only a trickster, a god in title only, as never was my name whispered in prayer by the mortals, and never in fear.”

Wyatt listened intently, looking for any holes – any lies – in what the god was saying to him. So far, everything matched what he was shown by the system in the murals, and he found it hard to doubt the authenticity of what this being was saying.

“And the war,” Wyatt asked, shifting focus, “Why did the other gods turn on each other?”

“You of all people should know the answer to that,” replied the god, a grin spreading across many faces. “My enemies outnumbered me nine to one. Their powers were infinite and expansive. Each had developed their own specialties and strengths, and each could have killed me one-on-one, let alone nine.

“But where they dabbled in controlling their charges, through sheer power or force of will, I had honed the art of control into a weapon. They sent powers beyond anything you could imagine at me, yet I had a weapon greater still. Themselves.

“I turned friend to foe, I made targets of the others, created weakness where none would exist. By my words and thoughts did I creep into the minds of gods, seeping through their perfect divine armor through cracks made of hubris.

“Then I stepped back and watched as a simple one-sided battle turned to all-out war, as weapons aimed at my head now burned the hands of the wielders.”

The god’s head now began to hang low, showing an emotion Wyatt could only identify as shame.

“The destruction of this world was my doing,” the god continued in a voice so low Wyatt had to strain to hear, “I knew what would happen when I created the chaos. I had planned out every detail of what was to come, including the death of everything we worked to build in the mortal lands. The death of billions of mortals.

“I knew, and still I set my plan in motion. There was no other way.”

“You could not have won unless they killed themselves,” said Wyatt, taking pity on the divine being before him, “the deaths caused were not your fault.”

“They did not kill themselves, young one,” The god answered, raising his head to look at the human, “A greater sin lay at my feet. The true weapon, my final lie woven at the onset of the fighting, was not for them to kill each other. The mortals that had died – the billions of lives taken as the gods sundered the land – they were my true target.”

Wyatt’s stomach dropped at this revelation. Mendac’s true goal was to kill the innocents. His mind immediately went to his own people, the billions of humans dead at the hands of the elves, and Wyatt struggled to keep his hand from reaching for the throat of a god.

“Why,” Wyatt croaked, his voice caught in his throat.

“I could not kill the gods, even with their own power. Eventually, only one would remain, and again I would have lost. I had to use the power created by the death of billions of lifeforms, each one filled with the mana of this world, to create a prison for my enemies. As the fighting was at its peak, my spell was complete, and I trapped all nine of them in a prison created by their own destructive ways.”

“That is why the gods disappeared from this world,” Wyatt said, his fist relaxing as he understood the complexity of the god’s plan.

“Luckily, I was able to cast the spell before all life had been snuffed out, but my power was used up in creating the prison. Without it, I cannot guide the mortals, and there are no other gods that can answer their prayers. They arose from the ashes of hell with nothing and began anew. The paths they took are not the paths they should have traveled.

“It is because of the shepherds themselves that the sheep are now astray, and there is nothing I can do to change it.”

“Then,” Wyatt hesitated as he struggled to keep his emotion in check, “then why did the elves kill my people.”

Mendac looked for long seconds at the human, seeming to sense the emotions that threatened to overflow.

“The other gods are not without their powers and have been able to reach out beyond the prison. Their influence on this world is limited, but even still, they have been able to communicate with their pawns in this world. One in particular set about the destruction of your people: the emperor of the High-Elves. They told him of a way to release the gods, which demands a great sacrifice of life.”

“Billions,” said Wyatt.

“Yes. The emperor simply waged war on the other races of this world, killing anyone that wasn’t an elf. The process was slow, until the next integration happened. It had been thousands of years since the last integration now that the gods could no longer guide the system to initiate a new one.”

“So you brought us here?” asked Wyatt incredulously.

“No,” Mendac chuckled, “One of the purposes of the gods was to guide the system toward other worlds that can be integrated. That is how the system grows. However, with almost all of my power gone, I have no influence on how the system works. I cannot initiate an integration.”

Wyatt stared at the god, looking for any indicator of its intentions. He saw none through the ever-changing face of this mysterious being and could only trust that what it was saying was the truth.

“Then it was the others, from their prison,” Wyatt surmised.

“I believe so. There are nine gods held together and have some influence on the world outside of their cage. It is possible they used the stored energy from the emperor’s war to affect an integration. In hindsight, I believe that was the plan from the beginning. The emperor would have been warned when the process started ten years ago, and he spent the time planning the slaughter of your species. He was not entirely successful.”

“Then why hasn’t it happened yet? Surely, my death wouldn’t matter. They could easily just kill anyone else.”

“There are two reasons humans were hunted to extinction,” replied Mendac, “One is the sheer number of deaths that would be generated by such a feat, perhaps the reason your world was chosen in the first place. The other..” Mendac pointed to Wyatt’s head, and for the first time since he received it, the human remembered the crown that sat upon it.

“They need this for the spell?”

“Yes,” the god answered. “That crown belongs to your people. It can only be retrieved and used by a human.”

“But if there were no more humans…”

“Then the rules change, and anyone can use it.”

“But they did not plan on your intervention.” Wyatt looked to the god, now settled once more into the form of Margie.

“The world believes me dead,” Margie’s image answered, “Even the gods cannot sense me with my power as diminished as it is.”

Wyatt’s mind raced as he thought of everything he had just learned.

“Then what am I supposed to do?” he asked finally, “You sent me on this path. You chose me. What is my next step?”

“My hope is that you will take vengeance for your people.”

“I have to kill the elf emperor?” Wyatt laughed darkly, “That was already my plan.”

“I thought it would be. You must build your kingdom and destroy your enemy. The path you take to do so is your own, and I cannot tell you what to do next, but I can at least speed you on your way. There are not many left who can stop the empire, but they can be rallied beneath your banner.”

The god reach out a hand and placed it on Wyatt’s chest. It closed its eyes, seeming to strain at the effort of what it was doing. Suddenly, Wyatt’s vision was filled with light until he could see nothing else.

“You must become strong. Seek out those who can still fight.”

The world around him disappeared with one final promise from the god.

“I will see you again, young one.”