It all started about a week ago back at the Earth Grand Temple of Mokosh which was located on top of the mile-tall Eldritch Tree. Chernabog, one of the four Old Gods serving Veles, was dead. Despite being massively under-leveled and under-equipped for the fight, we'd managed to slay the Balrog-sized beastie as well as reignite the sacred flame that he'd extinguished. Even better, at least from my perspective, we'd managed to kill Valentin Velesson. The fallen champion of Larry C.C. Weis had hounded me since my arrival in the Southern Kingdoms and his death was a relief.

Reigniting the sacred flame had done more than just cut Veles off from the magical power he'd been stealing from the Earthmother, though. Mokosh was a big fan of epic magical curses on the people who defiled her sacred places, and she turned all the various Veles-aligned forces occupying her temple into trees. It was a bit like the ending of The Avengers where all the Chitauri dropped over dead after their mother ship was destroyed, except more eco-friendly. Even the loggers working for Epic DungeoneeringTM had been punished with planification.

Do not mess with Mother Nature.

If it sounds like I'm skipping past some vital information, understand I wasn't conscious for most of this. I had to hear it after the fact. Having been running on adrenaline and literal magic for two weeks, I ended up sleeping for about three days after our glorious victory. I'd also survived falling thirty feet off a flying demon steed only because someone had thought to give me one of Valentin's stolen Marks of the Champion. The one he'd been wearing. I'd absorbed enough divine essence from it that I was apparently a demigod now (whatever that meant). But it was just another reason that I needed a bit of time to get my crap together.

Presently, I was dressing in a set of linen pants and baggy white shirt in Valentin's former quarters. The room was in a stone tower at the top of the Eldritch Tree and had a view of an enormous water wheel. Said water wheel managed the flow of a resevoir that somehow existed up here alongside a stone city built by ancient elves. It was a helluva view and one I couldn't help but think had been wasted on Valentin.

I'd cleared out all the taxidermy stuffed animals, monsters, and people as well as hoard of magical weapons he'd accumulated. Seriously, the place had looked like a Middle Earth Great White Hunter's place crossed with a serial killer's. It was now mostly empty save for a king-sized bed, television, and hot tub. There was also a perch I'd gotten for John to rest on.

"I'm telling you, man, you missed a helluva party," Jon said, speaking to me as I stretched. "These sex witches work hard and play hard."

Jon was referring to the Sisters of Mokosh that we managed to free from the temple's dungeons before taking down Chernabog. Mokosh, in addition to being the goddess of nature, was also a goddess of love and her priestesses were sworn to the opposite of celibacy. Lustibacy? I didn't know what the name for it was. Sex played a big role in their religion, and I'd received quite a few offers to help them renew their magic.

"Mmm hmm," I said, stretching. "I'm sure you got to see some interesting things."

"See things?" Jon asked. "Pfft. They were able to temporarily transform me back into a human. I got to finally--"

"I don't care, dude, really," I said, turning back to him. "I'm happy for you but I really don't want to hear about your sexcapades."

"Things not working out well with Ania?" Jon asked, tipping his head to one side.

I paused a moment to contemplate how to answer that. "I'm not sure."

"That's usually code for bad," Jon said.

"No, it's nothing like that," I said, putting on my jacket vest. "I love spending time with her during the day, even if she keeps things professional--"

Okay, that was just the past few days since I’d awoken from my not-quite-a-coma but that still counted as time together.

"Which is bad," Jon said.

"And then at night comes to my bed and we go at it like wildcats," I said, looking back at the bed.

"Okay..." Jon asked, clearly not expecting that. "How did I miss this?"

"I presume because you were enjoying the party," I said, pausing. "In any case, I wasn't going to let you in while we were occupied."

"Oh, really?" Jon asked.

I narrowed my eyes. "No, we're not going to let you watch."

"Hey, she could be into--"

"No," I said, simply. "Just no."

Jon stuck his beak in the air before shaking his head. "So, what's the problem? It sounds like you two are doing fine."

"She sneaks out before the morning and pretends nothing is going on," I said, annoyed. "I'm getting some seriously mixed signals here."

"She's enjoying sex, with you for some reason," Jon said, looking at me. "I'm not sure what's unclear."

I paused, thinking about the first time that we'd been together where she'd made it abundantly clear that she didn't want to be boyfriend and girlfriend. That hadn't changed, obviously, but I'd hoped she might soften often time. "I guess I was hoping she'd had a breakthrough when I almost died."

"She's glad you're not dead," Jon said. "That doesn't magically make her want to buy a house."

"We already live together," I said, pointing out we both had rooms in Dragon Keep.

"That's a castle, that doesn't count," Jon said. "Also, may I suggest that most men wouldn't be complaining about being in a ‘friends with benefits’ relationship, especially when the other party is a redheaded ninja."

"My hair is kastanowy," Ania said, walking into my room without even knocking. "That's not even red."

Ania looked like someone who'd stepped out of a tactical simulation game in her current attire rather than someone from the Middle Ages. She was presently wearing the Paladin of Mokosh Set that I'd managed to receive as a reward for rescuing a bunch of her priestesses. While vanity was a poor reason to discard excellent armor, the stuff made me look like Joel Schumacher's Batman when I wore it, and I preferred something significantly less tight around the crouch. It looked fantastic on Ania even if she seemed like she was planning to star in the next Perfect Dark game.

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"Kastanowy just means maroon and your hair is absolutely not that," I said, looking at her red-gold locks.

Ania looked to one side as if to stare at her locks. "It used to be darker."

I didn't point out her hair was starting to look more like Mokosh's, the goddess not the planet. I'd had an intimate encounter with her during my short time at her temple and gained her favor. The Paladin of Mokosh Set included Charisma and Comeliness bonuses that were affecting her, even though I didn't think they were necessary. Jon speculated, along with a lot of Dark Undermaster book fans, that Ania was Mokosh's daughter but that was a sore subject with the assassin.

"Maybe you should try henna," Jon replied.

"My hair doesn't take dye," Ania muttered, blowing away one of her locks that were now longer and curlier. It instantly moved back into place.

Ania glared.

"You're stuck looking like a shampoo commercial when you're in that armor, at least from the neck up," Jon said. "Sorry."

From the neck down, she looked like she was modeling for military fetish wear. Not that I'd ever looked that up. I mean, there were some cosplay outfits for Splinter Cell that I'd once seen some models wearing at E3 that, ahem, okay, I needed to get my mind off that now. Except, that wasn't going to happen as long as I was looking at her in that.

Ania sighed. "It's not exactly stealthy but it's much stronger than my Dark Undermaster Rogue Armor. We're going to need every advantage we can get."

Ania tended to talk like the player of a video game nowadays despite growing up in Ledziania as just another citizen. I blamed the fact she also had a Mark of the Champion that provided information in the form of Dungeons and Dragons/MMO-esque statistics Apparently, the gods of Mokosh (the planet, not the goddess) really loved both D&D as well as the collectible card game Pwiffle.

"It's the curse of the MMO gamer that going for the best gear always ends up making them look like rainbow armored pimps," Jon said, softly. "We should ask them if they have a transmog system."

Ania stared, confused. "I only switched sexes twice and that was for a mission. That was more Thistle's thing."

Thistle was Ania's elven lover from the books. While she was set up as the late Garland Rose's primary love interest throughout the novels, Ania's relationship with Thistle had been the subject of an entire book. It had ended with Thistle tortured to death and executed by Jorg the Bastard Knight. Right in front of her. It didn't exactly require a degree in psychology to believe that had impacted her ability to open to people.

I coughed into my fist. "Anyway, hi. What's up?"

"Yeah, please distract us from the fact that Aaron is an emotionally needy wreck," Jon said.

I glared at Jon and wondered why we were friends.

"There's some dryads and nymphs that could definitely help you with that," Ania said, simply. "I'm not exactly nurturing."

"That's like saying that compared to a giant eagle, I don't have many feathers," Jon said, lifting his wing to point at her. "Just don't break his heart, Ania, or else."

"Or else what?" Ania asked, raising an eyebrow. She seemed to think Jon was joking. Which he probably was. Her eyebrow arch made her look like she'd spent a lot on mascara. I could tell she realized that because her eyes darted up to her eyebrow as if annoyed.

"Or else I will hang out with you instead," Jon said, threateningly.

Ania faked a gasp of horror. At least, I think it was faked.

"I'm fine, you're fine," I said, intervening. "We're all fine. What do you need?"

"We need to get back on the road," Ania said. "The Sisters of Mokosh have managed to secure the Eldritch Tree and want to get back to the Abbey of the Twins. They also want to send a delegation to Crossroad and Dragon Keep in order to secure the place."

I nodded. "We have three more gods to slay, three armies to recruit, and more leveling up to do. We also need to finish upgrading the keep."

I tried to avoid mentioning another thing that had been hanging over my head this entire time: finding my cousin (also, brother, no, it wasn't incest related), Alek. Alek Dabrowski was the son of my legal aunt and biological mother, Betty. We'd grown up in different parts of the world and our lives had gone in different paths but both of us had ended up working for Epic DungeoneeringTM. He'd gone into private security while I'd gone into computer programming and video game development. Somewhere along the line, at least if Valentin hadn't been lying to me, he'd ended up becoming one of the Champions. Then, sometime after that, he'd ended up falling from grace.

Well, if you call opting out of this crazy quest to be falling from grace. If he'd just refused to take part, then I'd be okay with that. No, instead, Alek seemed to have switched sides and joined Veles' army like Valentin had. Valentin had done it because he'd been a budding psychopath unleashed on the world, but I refused to believe the guy who'd helped me deal with my Pwiffle addiction was the same sort of monster. I needed to confront him and find out his reasoning. I didn't trust anything Valentin had to say on the matter.

"The Great Mother also wants to speak with you," Ania said, referring to the leader of the Sisters of Mokosh.

"Why is that?" I asked.

Contrary to Jon, I'd done my best to avoid contact with the Sisters since fighting Chernabog. Not because I was afraid any of them would try to "reward" me but because I was uncomfortable with the fact Weis' magic meant they all saw me as the late Garland of Nowhere. Garland was the protagonist of the Dark Undermaster books and had died at Prince of Sorrow's, the third book, climax. Everyone in the fandom had thought Garland would get resurrected for the sequels, but it turned out that Larry C.C. Weis had something else in mind. Weis had sent over a dozen champions into the Southern Kingdoms, each armed with the Mark of a Champion, and everyone was enspelled to confuse them for the real thing. Given that Garland of Nowhere had a legendary reputation as a womanizer, I didn't put it past him to have several other lovers than Agata among the priestesses. I didn't want any confusion about who I was or what I was up to when dealing with them. That seemed like a recipe for disaster.

"No idea," Ania said, looking at me sideways. "You should put on your new armor, though."

I looked down at my casual clothes. "I guess I don't look like the image of a proper adventurer."

"You want to recover some sense of normality," Ania said, sighing. "To wear something other than armor. I understand the feeling. There had been times that I wanted to put down my blades and live a normal life."

"What's normal?" I asked, half-jokingly.

Ania gave a half-smile. "There's that too. To be an ordinary peasant girl or noblewoman is a life of drudgery, marriage, as well as being subject to the powers of others. Who would want to condemn themselves to that?"

That hadn't been exactly what I was going for. "Well, I've managed to go through all of Valentin's trophies and have a pretty good idea of what I am going to use from now on. The rest we can sell or give to the defenders of the temple."

Jon bobbed his head up and down. "The second most important part of these games: the loot!"

"The first being saving people?" I asked, knowing that wasn't his answer.

"Nope," Jon said. "The first is Pwiffle. The third is sex."

I stared at him. "I think you're playing Pwiffle wrong."

"Or doing sex," Ania said.

"No, it's just sex is always better with Pwiffle and loot," Jon said. "Like when I beat the Witch Queen of Angho’horak at Pwiffle. I got myself a crystal skull as a reward as well as hot steamy human-on-witch action."

I blinked, remembering the boss fight I'd worked on before getting sent to another dimension. "Isn't that necrophilia? She's a death lord. You slept with a lich. The White Lich."

"White Witch," Jon corrected. "Also, she was in her ghost form. So, it's not necrophilia."

"It is absolutely necrophilia," Ania said. "She's dead. You had sex with her. Which, honestly, lowers my opinion of her."

"Undead," Jon said, annoyed. "Also, I don't blame you. It lowers my opinion of her as well. She was into some freaky stuff. I mean, more than wretched biophilia."

"Ghosts are dead, not undead," I said. "I think."

"Then Doctor Crusher is a necrophiliac for sleeping with a ghost in Star Trek: The Next Generation," Jon said. “Season 7, Episode 12, ‘Sub Rosa’.”

"That was an alien candle monster," I said. "Technically not a ghost at all."

Jon glared. "I will not be out-nerded."

Ania shook her head and gestured to a nearby treasure chest. "Just show me what you have picked out. Please."

I nodded and went to show her my new armaments. Hopefully, it would keep me alive until I had to face my next Old God foe.