When Bel’s vision return, she found herself back in the reality-bending divine realm. Kjar was looking down at her, the goddess’ feline eyes bright with playful amusement. The lion-headed goddess smirked, showing off a gleaming fang.

“Your snake is biting you,” she said.

Bel jerked up, swatting at her misbehaving plague snake. “Here too?” she cried out in frustration.

A pink snake dropped into her field of view. “You finally replaced them all! But you went and got a feisty one, even thought I warned you not to. I’m so proud!”

“Gah,” Bel vocalized. “Dutcha, why don’t you help instead of making fun of me.”

“Because it’s funny!” the mischievous spirit replied.

“Kjar?” Bel asked in desperation. “Lempo?”

Lempo rose out of the floor of the space, completing the trio of Bel’s divine relations. This time her upper half looked like a blonde-haired woman, but her lower half was a spiral of wound tendrils that reached into the woman’s clothes, animating her body like a puppet. “We gods are not supposed to help you mortals directly,” she said with a smile. “All we can offer is moral support. How about a hug? And call me mom.”

The puppet Lempo lifted her arms, and Bel dutifully hugged her. Bel’s plague snake curled away from the goddess, uncomfortable with the sudden proximity to divinity. Bel thought that she saw Kjar reflexively bat at the snake, but she decided to keep her mouth shut about it.

“Um, mom, that scratte you like showed up again. Do you want me to do something with him again?”

Lempo rolled her eyes. “Of course. Your progress is too slow, beloved child. Technis will slip away from you.”

Bel grimaced. “But someone just died. I know you probably don’t care–”

Lempo patted her on the head. The majority of her snakes were used to the attention, but the plague snake panicked, desperately searching for a place that would be out of the goddess’ reach.

“Of course I acknowledge for your mortal emotions,” Lempo indulged. “I express sympathy for your plight.”

The goddess turned slightly to Kjar. “That was the correct response, yes?”

Kjar shook her head. “It was passable until then.”

“So complicated,” Lempo grumbled. “Speaking with the scratte is simpler.”

“He is overawed by your power, Lempo,” Kjar replied.

Bel looked around her and saw the scratte. He knelt under a large mass of tentacles…

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Or maybe they were roots. Bel traced a few of them as they pooled along the ground, and found that several ran over to the Lempo puppet who continued to absentmindedly rub her head. She thought that the forms her mother assumed seemed to follow no anatomical rules other than “disturbing.” Bel tried to avoid thinking about it.

“So what does he want?” Bel wondered aloud.

“Better living conditions for his children,” Lempo responded.

“Better? How?”

Lempo tilted her head and ticked off several points on her fingers. “There are better conditions the surface, of course, that make it possible for scrattes to grow normally: sunlight, water, and fresh air. The same as any plants, really. Your goals align once again.”

She clapped dramatically. “So I have brought you together once again.”

Lempo smiled sweetly for a moment, and then frowned. “Not to place an undue amount of stress upon your fragile mortal mind, but if you cannot get to Technis in time to at least interfere with his plans a little bit, I predict that you will spend the rest of your life regretting every moment of inaction during this journey.”

The goddess gestured at the scratte. “These ones make up for all of their other failings with a single-minded focus and resolve. You could learn from them.”

Bel couldn’t help hunching her shoulders and shrinking in on herself. She’d just been compared to a scratte – and found lacking.

Kjar flicked a feline ear in irritation. “Too much, Lempo. That passed the point of motivation and descended into insult.”

“Yeah,” Dutcha chimed in, “she’s just a mortal, you know? Mortals get distracted by stuff all the time. This one time–”

“Don’t you have work to do?” Kjar asked the spirit.

Dutcha’s pink snake body shrunk away from the martial goddess, hissing quietly. Bel wondered if the snake was attached to her own head somewhere, or if it merely hovered over her body in the divine realm, persistently teasing her peripheral vision. Bel turned her head to get a better look, but Dutcha moved along with Bel, never quite coming into focus.

“I’m workin’ on it right now,” Dutcha sulked quietly as she shifted around Bel. “Mountains are large. You know that, right?”

Hearing the annoyance in Kjar’s voice reminded Bel that she had some apologies to make to the goddess. She also wanted to avoid seeing her benefactors argue.

“Kjar,” Bel interrupted weakly, “by the way, I, uh, I broke your armor. Sorry.” She shuffled nervously as she waited for the goddess’ response.

Kjar laughed. “Tools are meant to be broken, young one.”

Bel sighed with relief.

“You should be breaking more things,” Lempo added. “If you were willing to sacrifice and replace you limbs with more–”

“Lempo,” Kjar hissed.

“Ah, very well. I am growing impatient, beloved daughter, I am growing impatient. We approach a critical moment and the Divine Treaty places us at a disadvantage.”

“Because you can’t just smash him with a meteor?” Bel asked.

Lempo shook her head. “No, that is still an option. My preferred solution entails more guesses than predictions, and it fills me with both excitement and trepidation. It has been a long time since I have acted with such a lack of clarity.”

She smiled. “It is almost fun! If I did not have such a strong interest in preserving humanity, this would all be delightful.”

Bel frowned. “Wait, what do you mean preserving humanity? We’re just talking about the people in Satrap, right?”

Lempo’s eyebrows wriggled – literally, they moved about on her face in a truly unsettling manner. “You will just have to find out, my daughter.”

She turned to Kjar. “Is a mystery better incentive, Kjar?”

Kjar glanced at Bel, and she could almost she an apologetic look in the martial goddess’ expression.

“It is better, I suppose,” Kjar finally relented.

Lempo grinned. “Excellent. And Bel, please remind your gorgon friends to pray to me. I enjoy hearing everyone’s thoughts, especially during a person’s most vulnerable moments. Those ones are always strange and wonderful and fill me with the most fantastic ideas.”

“Sure?” Bel agreed, reluctantly. “I don’t think that the gorgons are good at praying, though.”

Lempo’s grin widened to scary proportions. “Then their prayers will be that much more unique!”