The words came too easily. Had I just freed this world from tyrants or destroyed its only protectors? I didn’t know. I was entirely unqualified for a decision of that magnitude. I was also off-kilter emotionally. Recent revelations about the other mes and how Earth could be saved, but I could never return there, were digging into my state of mind, demanding to be dealt with.

None of that showed on my face. [Charm] still worked its magic, projecting a calm and confident demeanour. It wasn’t getting any information to work with from Reggie, but I could see for myself that he was unconcerned by my decision.

“That’s the easier choice for me,” he said. “I’ll see if these guys are ready to emigrate, and then I’ll be out of your hair.”

He stuck out his hand and I shook it automatically.

“It was nice meeting this you,” he said, as if he did this all the time. Perhaps he did.

“Likewise,” I said. Really, [Charm] said it. I was still trying to cope with everything that had happened, but [Charm] was all over the meaningless social pleasantries.

“You know how to contact us if you need to,” Reggie said. He gestured at the portal. “I recommend you don’t unless there’s a real emergency. Dimensions aren’t meant to mix.”

“Right,” I agreed, though that advice seemed pretty rich, coming from him. I could think of a few reasons we might need to contact him—another dimensional invasion or we needed the gods turned back on—but that was a problem for a future Kandis. Far, far future Kandis.

He flashed one last grin at me and then turned away to chivvy the dungeon inhabitants into the portal. That left me with the gods. Or… ex-gods.

“All right, we’re leaving. On your feet, all those who are coming with.”

The gods looked at me warily. They were, actually, already standing, except for Fyskel who rose slowly to his feet. He had been crying. I could see the blotches on his face.

Before he could say anything, Duit stepped forward. She was a severe-looking woman, but that was mostly her expression and the plain cut of her clothes. She wore a single piece of jewellery, an elaborate golden necklace that held a golden gem, carved to look like the sun. She looked to be about forty, and her face would have been pleasant to look at if she wasn’t scowling at me.

“When are we getting our powers back?” she demanded of me.

“You’re not,” I said.

There was a murmur of outrage, but it stayed subdued. They were still under my thumb. However, if they got much angrier, I might see the limits of a Tier 3 Social contest. Some of these gods looked ready to try for a Tier 2.

I found myself unconcerned at the prospect. They might have found the time to spend their points on Abilities, but they were still level one.

“You cannot be serious,” Duit said. “We need—Ryvue needs us to have our powers back.”

I guess that a murder is distraction enough that I can’t blame them for not paying attention. But they should have been paying attention.

“Well, too bad,” I said. “Ryvue wasn’t here, just a bunch of folk that you’ve been jerking around as your own personal playthings.”

“Kandis!” Felicia gasped.

“Kandis!” Fyskel echoed. He pushed Duit aside. “Powers or not, whatever grudge you hold against some of us, you can’t intend to let this murder go unpunished!”

He glared at Cloridan who looked… let’s say unrepentant. That sounds better than “considering whether to make it two murders”.

“I’m never happy about unnecessary killing,” I said evenly. “But this is Ashmor we’re talking about. Was there anyone, other than you, who wanted him alive?”

I looked at the other gods when I asked that question, challenging them to answer. None of them would meet my, or Fyskel’s eyes.

“As for murder,” I continued. “I was told that Dungeons are places that are outside of the law, at least in Latorra. Is it different in Aeloria?”

I looked at Toriao for the answer. She still had the long black and silver hair, but she’d changed into a more traditional mage's robe, black with silver inscriptions embroidered thickly all over it. She shook her head.

“It is not,” she admitted. “The elves make no claim of jurisdiction over any dungeon, not even this one.”

“I doubt you’re going to look to Axel for anything resembling justice,” I said.

“No one has yet!” Axel declared cheerfully. “Too bad, because I wanted to give him a medal of achievement!”

“I thought you believed in justice, at least,” Fyskel said reproachfully. “Ashmor wasn’t a part of our game, he wasn’t someone you had a grudge with. He never dragged you—”

“He was behind everything bad that happened in Dorsay,” I said grimly. “So many people died because of him. He got his claws into Maslin… who knows what he had planned. And he orchestrated at least half of all this.”

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

I gestured around at our current situation and looked at Axel for confirmation.

“He did help,” Axel admitted. “Maybe about a quarter of it was him.”

“This is nothing more than his own scheme come around to bite him. You’ll have to watch out for that, now that you’re mortal.”

Fyskel glared at me, but he didn’t say anything. He knew he couldn’t win any confrontation, be it social, magical or physical.

“Right,” I said. “Axel, make with the exit teleportation.”

“Sah, yes Sah!” Axel barked, putting himself briefly in a military uniform.

“We can’t leave him here!” Fyskel objected. I looked at him with a degree of pity.

“You can bring him with us if you like,” I said. “But I’d think very carefully about whether handing his corpse over to the elves will get him treated more respectfully than leaving him with Axel.”

Now that he knew it would upset Fyskel, Axel probably would do something nasty to the corpse. But the elves… I got the feeling that of all the people who hated Ashmor, the elves were at the top of the list. They’d probably put his tomb in the depths of their sewer system so that every litre of waste found its way past Ashmor’s dead body.

Or maybe they’d take their time, really workshop it, and come up with something worse.

I looked over the other gods. “The same goes for all of you, you might want to think about how the elves are going to react to you. They didn’t seem to like you all that much.”

“It will be fine,” Toriao said serenely. “The elves are not ones to lord their greater power over others.”

She gave me a look and I realised that she was throwing shade in my direction. I sent an unimpressed look back. The gods were hardly in a position to talk about lording it over others.

“Let’s get out of here,” I said, as a teleportation circle started glowing on the floor. I looked over and saw that Reggie was leading the others into his portal. No one seemed to be hanging back or coming our way. “Axel, I presume the elves' problem with demons is now over?”

“Sure thing, buddy,” Axel said. “Nothing but safe demon invaders from now on.”

I took a deep breath. “And can I please ask you to not make sentient beings just to torture them?”

Axel laughed, long and loud. I took three deep breaths while I waited for him to stop. If we destroyed him, we’d also be destroying every sentient being in the dungeon. But if we left him alone, he’d eventually flush every single one of them down the drain and make new ones, just to be tortured or destroyed by incoming delvers.

I hated Trolley Problems.

“Haaahhh…” Axel finally let his laughter fade into a sigh. “No. But I’ll tell you what, I’ll cut down on it a bit. Maybe ten percent or so. Start a twelve-step program.”

“I’ll take what I can get,” I said and stepped onto the teleportation circle. I didn’t want to spend a moment more in there.

----------------------------------------

The elves had questions. Not that many questions, they just kept repeating the same ones because they didn’t believe the answers. At first, they thought that the gods were just some trick of Axel’s, that he’d managed to spoof [Identify]. This offended the gods no end, inspiring them to extra effort to prove their bona fides.

What convinced them in the end was the wealth of secret knowledge the gods had about the elven nation and its citizens. Knowledge that only years of invisible spying could have provided. It was more than a little disturbing how much they knew. I’m not sure if the elves were actually convinced or if they just wanted the gods to stop creeping them out.

Once they’d accepted the idea that the gods were mortal now, they moved on to what to do with them. They also wanted to give Cloridan a medal. Killing the rest of the gods was pushed by a small, but vocal minority. That plan was voted down, and for once I was glad of the elven habit of suppressing all dissent.

Just throwing them out of the country was considered the same as killing them. They were level ones after all, and couldn’t survive without adult supervision. That didn’t leave them with many options, and so the Administratum reluctantly extended an invitation to stay in Aeloria.

Duit, Rakaro, Fyskel and Naldyna declined the invitation. Rakaro wanted to go back to his mountain temple, escorted by Borys. I don’t know what he promised Borys to get him to agree. The elves decided that while Borys was an adequate escort, they should send some elves along to ensure that Rakaro didn’t die on the journey. What happened to him after that was none of their concern.

Fyskel and Naldyna opted to travel to the beast-kin gathering place. It was obvious why Naldyna wanted to, but apparently, Fyskel got on surprisingly well with the beast-kin. Thinking about their political system did make me wonder if he’d had a hand in designing it.

We were going back through beast-kin territory, and we were deemed as suitable escorts, so that pair would be travelling with us. Along with a few elves and Duit, who wanted to come with us back to Latorra. No doubt she wanted to link up with Isidre and whatever temple staff she could find in that nation.

“Go in peace, Champions… if that term is still appropriate.” Thalverianeu, the head administrator for the elves was holding a small, private departure ceremony for our group. The elves had a ceremony for everything it seemed. Just letting us leave was out of the question, but there was a ceremony for honoured guests that you were glad to see the back of.

“You did resolve the issue we called on you for, and we are grateful. How we feel about the rest of it will take some time to determine, but I am confident this will eventually be seen as a boon.”

“That’s the most nuanced statement of gratitude that I’ve heard in a while,” I said dryly. Though, the King’s gratitude hadn’t exactly been unalloyed.

Thalverianeu inclined his head in acknowledgement. “You are welcome to return if you wish. The guards will be notified of your status. It would be best, however, if you held off on returning… for perhaps a decade or so.”

“And you are going to open up diplomatic relations with the tribes?” I asked.

“As agreed,” he said. “One of your guards will act as an Envoy. It’s possible that with Naldyna living among them, their politics will become more centralised and less… annoying.”

He glanced apologetically at Elder Thal who seemed fairly resigned to hearing his government being bad-mouthed. He must be used to it if he did much diplomacy.

“That includes trade, right?” I pressed. I hadn’t tried to get an actual trade deal signed. Without an elf to help me there was no way that I could out-bargain an elf. Still, just getting them to agree to open trade had been a breakthrough.

“We will consider it, if we find something worthwhile,” he agreed.

“Well then, it was all worth it,” I said.

“I hardly think so,” Duit put in. If her gaze could have a physical effect, I would be drowning in acid. Maybe she was trying to do that? “I hardly think the loss of our godhood was worth a few paltry trinkets.”

“You’re making a big assumption about what side of the scale that loss is,” I said.

She scowled at me some more, and the feeling that I should be burning in acid intensified. I ignored it.

“Time to head out,” I said. We were retracing our route home, but this time we had escorts and guides that were moderately trustworthy. Hopefully, the trip back home should be much less fraught.