“Why do you interfere with matters of no concern to you, witch?” He already knew the answer, but the indignant never let something like the answer get in the way of a condescending question.
“I see you have learned petty insults from some of your followers,” Allasandra replied in the tone of someone confident that they are right and is being insulted because of it.
“And you have learned to stick your nose in the business of others.”
“I am a God; there is no business that does not concern me.”
“Yes, well, let's see if you keep that tune when I find myself interfering in your mortals' affairs.” Lucian was just being petty now and he knew it.
“You know damn well that I have no mortal affairs, neither does Beltazaar. You are breaking the rules of our council not a fortnight after agreeing to them.”
“That mortal is an affront to those very rules. Who was it that blessed him with his powers? I was only leveling the field for my former champion. He begged me for help, and I did not answer, not until this one stuck his nose—wait, he is one of yours?”
“You know he is not,” her tone was that of an exasperated teacher or parent.
“Then who made him? He is not like the others with power?”
“The same entity that created us, Lucian.”
He had a look of horror on his face. The thing about being evil with a feeling of supreme superiority is that you couldn't look too deep, or else your worldview would be shattered.
The evil deity knew that humans came before him and his counterparts, but he couldn't accept that they were created by the same being. There must be some other, more powerful God that has not shown themselves yet. Only Gods can create a God.
Actually, they came about through an odd play of magic and human desire, but that would have blown his mind to pieces.
“Enough idle chatter, I will leave these foolish mortals to their own devices,” and he vanished. The Goddess followed suit soon after.
–--
One moment Travis had his perception powers nerfed, Clyde was being protected by a magical shield of some kind, and the demon seemed to be not only crazy but also overpowered. That all ended in a flash once the deities left, but to those fighting on the ground, there was no explanation.
The demon, after seeing that the fire he shot at this new human interloper was ineffective, charged forward, walking over the bones of skeletons he had just slain. Clyde now knew his fire would not work against this monster, so he quickly summoned his skeleton warrior.
Holding back on this spell had been smart because it would have been all but wasted earlier. He said the incantation and aimed for the spell to go on in between him and the demon that was approaching him.
While this happened, Travis was up and surveying the situation. He had his perception power back and attempted to see if the mages had started the teleport spell. Not feeling anything unique in the air except the rage from this damn demon, he looked to see it being engaged by Clyde's summons. There were three skeleton warriors now, and unlike the ones the demon had just killed, they would fight back.
Now that there were no defenses around the demon, though, Travis realized it had no defense against his firearm. Giving Clyde a signal to call back his warriors, Travis readied his weapon. Loading a hollow point clip, he aimed.
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The two secondary skeletons had weaker armor and shields; they also weren't as skilled as the main warrior. The demon had taken these two on and had the advantage. Clyde called back the main one and started back towards the house but kept an eye out.
The demon used its melee weapon with skill, blocking a shot from its enemy, and came around with a sweeping one-handed strike that cut down both warriors in one shot. It was an impressive feat. He held up his hands and roared, full of blood lust and power.
That was short-lived, however, as Travis put two bullets in his head and two more in his chest. The root of the horns on the demon's head provided some protection to his brain, and he did not die instantly, though he was very close.
It was at the moment before death that Travis felt a reverberation in his senses. The demon had a self-destruct fail-safe, and it was about to go off. Realizing he had only a few seconds, Travis ran for the driveway. His reflexes and speed carried him a good distance away as the demon exploded.
This was not like an explosion caused by chemicals before the changes; no, this was more like a shockwave of dark magical energy. Whatever force had created this demon did so with the nastiest stuff floating around the magical matrix.
As the force approached Travis, he was able to use his aura to subdue the impact enough that he was only blasted into the wall of the house. Due to his enhanced endurance and healing abilities, there was not much of a problem. If, however, this had happened in an enclosed space and if there were regular people within 50 feet of the demon, things would have been much worse.
To be sure, Cass ran down and used her minor healing spell to bring Travis almost instantly back to near full health. She brought him inside next to Omar, and he laid down for a bit. The little guy seemed to be recovering quite well also.
“How are you feeling, buddy?” he asked Omar.
“Much better, Mr. Travis. You killed that red monster?” Travis was turning into quite the heroic figure for the young man. He had not been exposed to the best of humanity, so seeing people go out of their way to fight monsters for the sake of others was something new.
“Yes, I did. I had plenty of help though.” They both just sat there on the couch and relaxed for a few minutes. It had been a hectic trip so far for the Joint Task Force and they were not very close to their destination. Although this teleport spell may help in that regard.
As they sat there Travis thought about how he had no siblings and did not think he was going to have kids, and that was before things went to hell. With Omar sitting next to him he thought about things he never had before. Like responsibility and being a good mentor. Those were things he experienced in the army but not in the same way as this. That was his job, here he was starting to feel a sense of parental responsibility to this young man. He had no parents and no family, so he would need guidance.
"Mr. Travis, can I ask you a question?"
"Of course."
"Do you think I will be able to kill monsters and bad guys like you?"
Travis thought about that, this kid seemed to have some innate talent that he nor Clyde understood. So yes, he did think that, but should that be his goal.
"In time Omar, in time. For now, just learn from Clyde and even from me sometimes. We need to see what this new world is going to offer. Maybe things will settle down and smart young men like yourself can still become doctors or something." He knew he was probably talking out of his ass, but he didn't want this smart kid to think that monster killing was the only path forward.
Meanwhile, upstairs, Clyde was watching Patrick finish up his spell. Actually, it turned out to be a scroll and not a spell. Neither one of these mages were player characters, though, so he wondered how they had so much magical equipment.
He turned to the lead mage of the two, “How did you guys come about so much cool stuff? Are you members of a faction?”
“As we said, we are a part of the first-ever magic academy,” he said brightly.
“No, of course, I remember that. That leads to a whole host of other questions, but is that the name of your faction led by a journal holder? Or is that just a group you guys made?”
Clyde saw Cass look at Patrick as if to see what he was going to say.
“You guys are obviously alright,” he said, more to himself. Then he looked at Clyde, “We do have a PC as the head mage of the academy, but it is not a faction. We are a part of a larger faction, though. It is in a huge building north of here. That is led by two fellas, and they are keen on offering all types of things inside their base. Like a magic academy.”
“I think that is the building we are on our way to. You guys were under siege recently?”
“How did you know about that?”
“Travis has a mission to get to this place; apparently, there is a lot he has to do there.” Clyde saw the guy look at Cass again, conspiratorially, or at least from his perspective, it seemed so. He decided right there that maybe he said too much. He was about to tell them that Travis was the main character but stopped himself. He hated having to be careful around everyone, but Travis was right when he said that he should.