It was a seedy place. A place I knew where the type of people who would break into construction sites for the copper wiring went. They had no scruples in buying precious metals, so it would be the perfect place to sell this many all at once.

As I pulled into the parking lot right in front, a shirtless man pretending to fight with a lamp post. He glared at me as I stepped out of my truck, and took up my chest to bring inside. I locked the door to the car and stepped into the shop. It was a dimly lit place with a single counter, hidden behind a windowed panel of thick, sliding glass.

“What do you want?” A gruff voice asked from beyond the window.

Following the sound of an office chair scuttling across the scuffed tile floor the face of a bearded man appeared in the window.

“I have some rings.” I told him, “Don’t what they’re made of.”

“We can test ‘em. Just had them over.”

I reached into the small box, and his dark eyes followed my movements as I pulled one of the silvery-looking rings, one of the copper rings, and one of the golden rings out, and handed them over to him. He weighed them in his hand for a moment and looked at the large box I held in my hand.

“Well, I can confidently say this is copper.” He held up the brownish-looking one, “See enough copper to know that...I’ll have to test the other two.”

He did a few tests by using a magnet on it, scraping the metal, and using a dropper with some sort of chemical to test the material, then dropped it in water. Finally, he took it to the back, and I heard a loud humming. He returned after some time had passed.

“This is gold. As pure as bullion.” He dropped it on a small scale. 13 grams, it read.

“I’ll buy it for 200.” He said.

“How about 300?”

He shook his head.

“200, and I won’t ask where those,” he pointed to the chest in my hand, “Came from, nor will the police know you brought them in.”

But I didn’t do anything illegal. But I really couldn’t tell him that I got it off the body of a dead rat person thing, could I? I clicked my tongue.

“Fine. Will you buy them all at that price?”

“Yes, but let me test this first.” He held up the silvery ring.

I nodded and he went back into the room behind the glass and continued his experiments before coming back.

“Again, the purity is something incredible.” He set it down on the digital scale. 12 grams, it read. “Ten bucks.”

“Fifteen?”

“Ten.”

I clicked my tongue again.

For the copper rings: 10 in total, he paid a dime each, for a total of a single dollar. For the silver rings: 6 in total, I got an additional 60 dollars. For the golden rings: 3 in total for another 300. All in all, it was simply 361 dollars. What could I do with it? It was a pittance compared to what I earned jumping into a dive. I pocketed it for now and returned home.

Then, and now, dealing with people was hard, and I had been doing nothing but dealing with people. Exhaustion doesn’t even begin to describe my state of mind. I thought about going out into dives alone, but my leg still hurt and the thought of doing anything at the moment felt as if my brain would lock up, and I would shut down.

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As soon as I opened the door Clio ran up to me and jumped at me. I picked her up and held her close. If the world was going to end, and I couldn’t protect my mother and father, I at least wanted to protect her and Shadow, who, too, walked up to me and rubbed against my legs as she vanished into the darkness.

I spent the rest of the evening wondering how I was going to manage to mail out a sharpened sword, arrows, and a bow. I thumbed through the items on sale. Perhaps I could see how another person does it before sending them out. But then, wouldn’t the people have to wait for their items. I sighed.

Fuck it. I wouldn’t know how to do it otherwise. I pulled out a credit card, and searched through the items until I saw something I wanted: listed as an ‘enchanted ring.’

‘This ring gives you more Charm.’ was the simple explanation written in the description. It was 1,000 dollars from some guy with the username, ‘Wilhelm.’

I pressed purchase. About an hour later I got a confirmation through a notification on my phone that this Wilhelm was willing to sell, and a series of prompts popped up.

Name?

Lawrence Able.

Class? Why does it need to know that?

I looked to my Shard.

Novice Elementalist.

Location?

Really?

Porterville, California.

I mean your address.

That’s quite a response from some random computer program.

I’m not a computer programmer.

I blinked and the message disappeared. Was I imagining things?

I put in my address.

No more prompts. I set my phone down stretched out my back, and wondered how long it would take for it to get to me. Charm was something that I was sorely lacking, and something I wasn’t really willing to invest in. As soon as I laid down, and stretched out my legs, Clio began to growl. It wasn’t long before that growl became a bark, as a great clamor arose from down the stairs.

I sprang up. Had someone broken in? Well, it’d be their last mistake. I grabbed hold of the curved dagger on the table next to my bed and crept out of the room. The sound of my movement must have startled whatever it was down there, as they moved toward the stairs.

I rushed to get in front of it, to maintain my height advantage. All I saw was the moving of...something invisible through the wind, and I unsheathed my dagger.

“Whoa now! You are Lawrence Able, right?”

A voice spoke from behind me. It was melodic and smooth and sent

I turned around to see a bizarre figure. It had the face of a young man: shaved face, and a chiseled jawline. He wore a cape and little else save for a piece of cloth that went over his waist, and a helmet. He was about Clio’s size when she stood up on two legs but hovered in the air with winged boots. There was something strange about it. Even though I was many times the size of him, I felt as if he could crush me in an instant if he so desired. A kind of inescapable fear or dread.

“Who—“

Do not do anything to disturb or upset this thing. My patron spoke to me through the Shard. A wave of dizziness as the message’s information flowed into my mind. These Hellenites are quick to anger. If you do something that might upset him, you could find yourself strapped to a tree having your liver eaten for all eternity.

That was an exaggeration, right?

“I am a Piece of Hermes: Messenger of the Gods, and protector of travelers and messengers, and the contractor of one of the creators of war-efra, and I have agreed to help with the distribution efforts in the war.”

“Distribution efforts?”

“Yeah. Wars aren’t just fought on the front lines, you know.”

“So you’re like a whole logistics department?”

He fluttered in the air and nodded.

“Not just me, but gods who also share my attributes: as well as gods who focus more on the crafts: Apollo, the Muses, and Hephaestus included.”

“I thought Apollo was the god of the sun or something like that.”

The small creature shook its head.

“That’s just a myth.” He said, “He just liked to rise with the sun, and the people of Greece thought he was the one who brought the sun.”

“Then what is he a god of?”

“Archery and Poetry. His chosen will be either archers or poets: enough of that, here’s the item you ordered.”

He tossed me a small parcel.

“Was this made, or was this found in a dive?”

The Piece of Hermes sighed.

“Made.”

So you can enchant items?

“Payment?”

“How do you want me to pay.”

The Piece of Hermes produced a small item that looked like a sliver of a Shard in the way that it shone in the light pouring in from the nearby window.

“Tap your Shard here.”

“Ah, it’s in the room.”

The Piece of Hermes sighed and grumbled as I stepped into my room and searched through my hoodie.

As soon as I brought it out, he rushed over toward me and tapped his item to my Shard.

“There, I took the payment: now, as I know you have things that need to be delivered, correct?”

“Yes.”

“Well? Hurry up and get them.”

I nodded. I didn’t want to disobey a god, after all. A god...or a piece of one, was in my house. Clio and Shadow went to go hide: perhaps their instincts knew better than to anger it. I limped down the stairs and into the garage, as the strange divine thing followed me. I handed him the bows, arrows, spears, and the single kopesh that had been sold. He took them all and shoved them into the air beside his waist as if there was an invisible bag hanging there.

“Good.”

With that, he flashed out of existence, and a rush dragged the wind behind it toward my garage door: rattling the hanging tin thing that sang out like thunder, and I was left there: standing shirtless in my own garage. I reached down pinched my leg, and winced at the unexpected pain.

“Was that an actual god?” I asked from the Shard after I found my ability to speak.

Kind of. Hermes isn’t really a god, he’s more of a messenger.

“A messenger?”

Like an Angel. Not a god, but a divine being.

“A divine…”

My legs felt weak.

“Angels are real?”

Yes.

For some reason, though I accepted the fact that all of the gods ever spoken about in mythology were real, I hadn’t even turned my mind to the possibilities of angels and the like being real. I walked over to the wall and leaned against it for support as I led myself out of the garage and took a seat on the edge of the step.

“What else is real?”

What do you mean?

“Like, what else?”

That doesn’t answer my question.

I thought for a moment before rephrasing my question.

“What other mythological or supernatural things are real?”

Do you think myths come from nowhere?

I didn’t know how to respond, so I pulled myself up the stairs and tried to go to sleep.