INTERLUDE 3

Anubis was bored.

He sat on his throne of bone and sand watching the world through a dozen different mirrors. Each showed him a different group going about various tasks such as fighting the undead, building fortifications, or other mundane tasks. There were also a variety of races shown, one of which was even a Lich! But even with all the events and action that was going on, he remained bored.

“Why are these mortals so… boring?” he muttered, shifting on his throne. “I should really get a pillow or something… maybe that Ray person can provide a few? Bone and sand only provide so much support.”

Perking up at that, he decided to check in on the one mortal that was on the world below him that he actually held some interest in. Too much of anything was a bad thing, so to ensure that the man remained at least moderately amusing the God ensured that he only periodically checked in on him.

Tapping one of the mirrors, Anubis changed the view to Ray’s burgeoning territory. As far as the others were concerned, he was well ahead of the curve with getting established and with a firm foundation to expand beneath himself. He had even made a deal with a dungeon and formed a trade cooperative with a major off-world corporation! Now that was what Anubis was talking about! Constant new things happening instead of the mundane day to day activities of others.

While Anubis had been dispatched to this world by the Council as one of its major ‘tests’, something he had volunteered for really, he was actually only interested in experiencing new things. As a God of the Dead there were very few new things to encounter in the day-to-day responsibilities of his eternal role. This made boredom one of his greatest foes and something that he was hoping to alleviate with this assignment. Imagine his annoyance when he arrived at this world only to find that it was a wasteland of barely surviving enclaves of mortals! His boredom was all but assured.

Examining the world, he found only a few points of interest. One of those was the Lich, but it seemed to be focused on a few aliens that it had abducted for experimentation and was hardly a source of amusement. Anubis was the God of the Dead, not the God of Torture and Random Experimentation.

The other source, however, was a dungeon. One that, upon inspection, allowed Anubis to find his first and foremost source of amusement on this world. Raymond Finnegan was a man with an ability that was entirely unique in the cosmos as far as Anubis knew. He could modify things with System-level privileges, something that not even the Prime Administrator could do. Mostly because he was locked up in The Room, but still.

This mild interest rapidly developed into a fascination with the mortal, one that Anubis realized was not healthy in the slightest. Still, the God was finally interested in something that didn’t involve angry souls, conspiring Deities, or the System. A source of amusement and interest that was entirely his own!

Eagerly tuning one of the mirrors in to view Ray’s burgeoning fortress of a territory, he watched as the event descended onto the mortal and his people. Frowning, Anubis watched as the man’s Drake minion incinerated the first wave easily, even if she did take significant damage doing so.

“But what was the cause of this… attack?” he mused to himself, sitting back on his throne. He dismissed all but one other window, moving that to the neighboring territory to see what happened. Blinking in astonishment, the God saw nothing but the dead, the dying, and the devastation covering the entire hex. The only areas that weren’t burnt to the ground was a fortress like building with mortals running around it and what seemed to be a long building that was once used for commerce. It was, like the fortress building, also heavily fortified. Unlike the other building, however, this one had signs of significant damage.

“Some kind of war or battle perhaps? Hmm,” he mused to himself. “No matter. Let us watch our favorite mortal and his response to these events.”

Dismissing the second screen, Anubis turned back to the remaining one and made it much larger as to not miss a single detail. Conjuring up a bucket of popcorn, he watched as Ray directed the defense in person from the front, a quality that the God could appreciate. It was rare to find a leader that was so invested in victory he assured it by leading their troops personally.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

The God of the Dead watched as the second wave was defeated. Filled with nothing but undead and a few hundred uncommon Wendigo, it was an easy enough hurdle to overcome. Anubis realized after the second wave that the time between waves doubled. He wondered if that would be the case for every wave because if it was that would make the wait between the fourteenth and fifteenth waves almost a year. Knowing the System as he did, however, he was sure that it would probably cap at around a hundred and twenty hours, if not less.

The System was fair but unforgiving.

The third wave was filled with nothing but odd white spider-like creatures and much larger uncommon variants. The biggest difference here was that they could climb the walls the defenders had used to bottleneck the last two waves. Anubis watched with interest as Ray used his ability to electrify the outer layer of the walls, keeping the creatures from overwhelming them. There were almost twenty thousand of them after all.

The battle went on for a full day and into the night, but in the end the defenders came out on top. As a reward, they were given a whole four hours to rest before they would fight the next, even larger and more dangerous wave of creatures.

Anubis watched with rapt attention as Ray martialed his forces, bringing the wounded inside his impressive fortress arcology and consolidating the defenders at the front of the large building. His people began setting out dozens, then hundreds of small orbs along the streets, avenues, and access ways leading up to the building. Curious, the God could hardly stand the anticipation of what the inventive group and their leader would do next. Thankfully, he didn’t have to wait long as the fourth wave began shortly after they had completed… whatever it was that they were doing.

From the edge of the hex, more than twenty-thousand undead with nearly five hundred uncommon equivalents phased into existence and began their march inwards to kill, convert, or devour everything in their path. Anubis watched with mounting anxiety as the massive horde closed in on the entrance to the fortress. They were half a block out, however, when the world erupted in fire and flame.

The God quickly realized that the small orbs that had been placed were, in actuality, some kind of weapon. The mortals had waited until most of the horde was in range before detonating them, annihilating most of them before they ever became a threat. The few hundred remaining undead were picked off from a distance and just like that the wave was cleared.

Anubis practically cheered as he watched the tactic be employed. Ray and his group were, if nothing else, amazingly resilient in overcoming various obstacles. The God watched as they beat wave five and six with relative ease, although wave six had several thousand flying creatures that were difficult to deal with it was nothing that their Drake couldn’t handle.

The break between six and seven was a full day and a half, allowing for significant work to be done around the mortal fortress. Repairs were made, weapon emplacements installed, and more items were made for the upcoming fight. More than a hundred thousand undead, creatures, and monsters had been eliminated to this point. A full sixth of what would come. The mortals had been fighting for nearly a week solid at this point, struggling to survive the ever-increasing waves with the resources they had on hand.

During the day-and-a-half break, Anubis checked out some of the others on the planet. In particular, he looked in on the Lich. It was busy working with its two newly converted alien ghouls on some kind of vessel. The oceans weren’t safe, at all, due to the God of Death’s presence on the planet so it must have been some kind of aerial vessel. Intrigued, he watched the undead being work in fascination for some time. Before too long, he realized that the seventh wave had already started and rapidly switched back to Ray and his group.

Anubis was startled to see that the walls leading up to the fortified entrance to the arcology had been obliterated. Strange red-furred creatures with large bushy tails lay strew about the streets, even as fierce fighting continued. They were wearing armor and wielding weapons such as maces, swords, and halberds and they fought Orkin and Goblins from Ray’s camp in savage hand-to-hand combat. Anubis winced.

They were losing.

Watching the fight with worry, he then frowned. Something wasn’t right here. These creatures were neither undead nor monsters. In fact, they were using armor, weapons, and tools. They were caring for the wounded. They had all the hallmarks of a fairly well-developed sentient race. And that should not have been possible for creatures spawned from this world under the System. It absolutely reeked of divine intervention.

Growling, Anubis pounded his hand on the chair of his arm. He would be damned if he allowed his primary source of amusement, the first in centuries, to be destroyed because somebody somewhere had a bone to pick with Ray. Or with him. No. He would not allow this.

Then he paused and chuckled, thinking over his previous thoughts. He was already damned. He was the God of the Dead, after all. Still chuckling, he opened up his System interface. What he was about to do would be expensive, but worth every point of the Divine Energy he would expend. He only hoped that the mortal Ray appreciated it. Not that he could tell him. But he had to stay alive for now.

The man still had questions to answer after all.