day 1.2

I ended up at the glow stones, only a dozen paces from the mice. They looked warily at me and my clunky approach but they probably decided I wasn’t able to run them down and kill them even if I tried so the biggest one of them just hissed at me and then they all went back to eating.

I was super okay with them ignoring me and returned the gesture thankfully, turning back to the glowing stones on the wall. I lifted my arm with the hand (that was the right one) and carefully poked a brown one with a finger. Oh, oOOooh. I could feel energy in the stone somehow. When I touched it I felt currents of chaotic energies slowly swirling one another deep in its depths and I could feel some of my own energies resonating. I hastily pulled my arm back, sending me off balance and onto my back again. I stood up rubbed the back of my core, I think I might’ve chinked it because it kept giving me a stinging, annoying feeling of… pain. God dammit I didn’t like that ability. Not at all, no sir.

Standing up and bracing myself against the wall I swiveled my head around to get a closer look. The core, my core had a little scratch I observed. I did an advanced mental exercise I knew was called a sigh and as I somehow knew it would, it somehow made it easier to accept the small imperfection and move on.

I swiveled my head back the other way and looked at the glowing stones (gems?... no just stones I guess) again and this time another one caught my eye, almost literally. It was a light grey, almost silvery, it had small specks of brown-red-ish in the core and it was bigger than the others, jutting outwards from the wall. I hadn’t seen it before, mostly because my light matched and drowned out most of its own, but having it a 5th of an arm from one of my eyeholes got my attention.

More than that though, what got my absolute attention, was that when I looked directly at it I could feel it. I could feel it like I had with the brown one, but in a more natural and connected way and so I naturally, reached out and grabbed it. Then I tried to pull it directly from the rock wall. I wanted it!

Pulling with all my glorious might I ended up face planting the wall besides it, bounce off and then fall the ground again letting out a majestic, shrill, distressed, but short screech from my hurty head.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

I had somehow expected it to come loose or, or, or… a piece of the wall doing so or something… Well I had pulled myself in instead. That was fucking stupid. But I wasn’t ready to give up just yet, not at all!

I rose off the ground glaring at the wall and not using it to stabilize myself this time. It was time for round two I decided!

And then I just stood there. What was I to do if I couldn’t just take it?

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Móral looked over Aphiir with a smile that didn’t reach her eyes at all.

“So, how have you been my friend?” She asked smiling with jagged teeth. “You’ve been doing anything interesting lately?” Aphiir looked up at her, pale and very much uncomfortable. He coughed and looked away before answering lamely

“No, no it’s… same old, same old you know. I’ve just been feeling a bit off lately, probably the god-flu that’s been circulating around you know…”

“That’s not a thing.”

“Right. It’s uh.. It’s must be the weather then, bad for my health and all.” He tried.

“You’ve got a divine constitution and your domain doesn’t have weather. It’s a grey workshop that hasn’t changed two bits since you created it.” She retorted, still smiling coldly down at him. He was sitting down in seiza with his hands in his lap, fidgeting with some puzzle, and most pointedly looking anywhere but at her.

“Oh yeah… riiight. Yes. I forgot, old age and all you know, haha.” Cold sweat ran down the side of his face.

“I’m older than you and you’ve never known anything else, thus you can’t just forget it.” She smiled wider, slowly revealing the cavernous abyss that was her mouth and the unending rows of teeth hiding therein. “And on that note... We gods generally only get more powerful with age.” She paused and then added, with a sadistic smile that actually reached her eyes. “…and vindictive of course.”

“…” Aphiir was now in the form of a gnomish child being sent to the principals for hotwiring the city’s golems and having started another uprising, again. His eyes were big with fear, he was shaking like a leaf, but he kept a (super fake, bad) smile on his face as he forced himself to look up at her eyes again. “Haha, yeaaah…”

“Aphiir my friend…” Móral purred with malice so thick it could crush a building. “…is there something you might have forgotten to tell me?” Aphiir gulped as she stared him down.

Aphiir was generally not one for power games, politics, fighting or common sense, but he was suddenly reminded… Móral, mother of all monsters, was the last of the big 13, the 13 first of the gods. But she was still one of the 13. And one of the five most dangerous of those to boot... She just didn’t show it much. She liked to hide in plain sight, like some of her more civilized childen, he remembered her telling him long ago.

“Haha... W-Well…” he started with nervously, averting his eyes, “You know how all the big and cool gods all have Paladins?...”