I did my best to break the ice. In my defense, I did my best. It didn't look like a good or normal situation with me frog marching a kid with my spear pointed at his back but what else could I do with the church version of kid soldiers? My hovercart had two unconscious kids slumped in it and I was chattering away like that annoying middle school teacher that ‘just wants to connect’.
I wouldn’t have talked to me either. Talk about the worst form of stranger danger.
Magical stranger danger apocalypse.
The twenty minute walk home could have been quiet and peaceful. My hoverboard plodded along at a slow pace, matching the teen boy as he pushed the awesome anti-gravity cart to my house. I tried to ask questions, but he gave no responses to anything other than me giving directions to the house. And I asked everything: what are your names, how did y’all get to be paladins, what have y’all been doing since the Ripple, how did you discover an ancient goddess, and the list went on.
Nothing. The little shit.
I mean, I was a little shit too at that age, but damn dude, it’s the freakin apocalypse, a little common courtesy would be nice. I didn’t blow them all to kingdom come or encase them in a coffin of ice; That was nice of me. I could have gone all ‘evil sorcerer’ on them but I didn’t.
Honestly, I don’t even know why I’m taking them to my place. They tried to kill me and frankly believe that magic is the root of all evil, when everybody knows that it is in fact stupidity that is the root of all evil. Most of mankind’s ills, I truly believe, come from the dark womb of stupidity. And what are the bedfellows of stupidity? Youth and ignorance, as showcased by these pitiful paladins.
The two girls woke up by the time we arrived at my house. I tuned down my hearing for a moment as I banished the ice cap around their weapons and threw the bundles on the ground. I thought for a moment and then buried them with my Earth Sorcery.
Once I banished the shackles and the cart, dropping the two kids of them to the ground, I recognized that completely restoring my hearing was also a mistake, as their whining and screaming did not cease with my less than kind treatment. The boy didn’t say anything this whole time, just glared at me with his arms crossed. I conjured a flashbang pebble, threw it up high and detonated it, the boom far enough away that it didn’t hurt them but still silencing the children.
“I am not your mother, I am not your father, I am not your guardian, and I am not your friend.” I growled. I took a deep breath as I looked around.
“But I am also not evil, I will not turn you into zombies, and I will not do anything weird or unacceptable towards freaking kids! Got it?”
All three just looked at me blankly. “What do I have to do to get it through to you boneheads? I seriously just want to be left alone and prep all of this . . .” waving my hands gesturing at everything around us, “for the upcoming war and invasion of our damn planet. Now, how the fuck do you summon your goddess? She and I are going to have words.”
More blank stares.
“Ya know what? No, I don’t wanna meet your goddess, probably gonna shanghai me into permanently baby-sitting you ungra . . . “ My rant was cut off as my inadequate mental faculties engaged, finally. “Wait, wait, you said you’ve been fighting zombies for days right?” I asked them, squinting my eyes as my memory caught up with my brain.
All three nodded. I asked. “How many zombies have you taken out, and were they human or something else? And your goddess couldn’t be here without magic, my last visitor confirmed that, so I’m definitely not the enemy here.”
Punk Two opened her mouth to talk and the little one smacked her and loudly whispered. “Don’t talk to him!” Punk Three put his hand on Punk One’s head and gave her a look.
Then turning to me he said. “We’ve fought about twenty so far, and they were always animal looking things like the cat from earlier.”
The sound of my own rusty gears turning in my head was not pleasant but I was glad that his answer eliminated me from having to take out the last magic user I encountered. I coughed a bit. “And how many magic users have you fought so far?”
“Two.”
“Ok, ok, and how exactly do you know they were magic users? Gimme some detail.” I said.
“One of them wore a black cloak.” The boy started.
I grimaced. [Fuck.]
The boy stopped when my facial expression shifted from curiosity to calm anger. He continued when I didn’t say anything. “And he had two zombie dogs with him, and when we fought he threw some greasy black fireball that melted through a tree. And the other person was a girl who set fire to everything she touched.”
My face relaxed. [Ok, so not a human. Don’t have to kill him.] I thought, grateful for something going at least tangentially right.
“Okay, okay, and what exactly did your goddess say about magic itself?” I asked.
“That it was keeping the zombies alive.” He answered.
“Ok, so she didn’t say that ALL magic is bad did she?” I clarified. “Just that the zombies were kept alive by magic, and so you probably took that to mean that all magic is bad right?”
The little girl started up again with her whining while the other older girl actually looked like she was thinking about what I said.
“Ah ha! I knew it!” I said, pointing my finger at them. “Your goddess couldn’t be here without magic, anyway! She wasn’t telling you that magic is bad, she was telling you the source of the zombies. Would you SHUT UP!”
I turned to the small one, her sudden silence filling me with joy. “A necromancer, by the way, is what you’re looking for. Probably the black cloak wearing death throwing fucktard y’all fought.”
My mouth was moving slower than my thoughts, so they probably thought I was rambling. But the goddess Astria was a slavic goddess who embodies purity, so necromancy would probably be anathema to her. Putting the pieces together took me some time but my brain eventually got going. This notion of purity also explains why her paladins are children, because children tend to be pure of heart (sometimes) and also due to being pure in the Biblical sense as well. Perfect vessels for her message and power. I really wished I had five minutes with Google right about now, just to look shit up to make sure I was right about the Slavic lore. Now, if I could just knock the stupid out of them, we could get some shit done here. But I am not taking chances.
I told the older boy to sit on the porch swing, then marched the two girls inside and made them sit on the couch. “RATH!” I yelled. A couple thumps and odd banging heralded the arrival of the mini-dragon. “Watch them.” I ordered, pointing at the kids while looking at Rath. “And don’t let them go anywhere, do anything, or touch anything. Got it?”
“Sure sure, make the ancient dragon do the dirty work.” He grumbled, smoke starting to poof out of his nostrils. “Not like I don’t have shit to do and naps to take.”
I ran around the house gathering various items that may help tilt the upcoming conversation to my advantage. My batteries were charged and my liquor was secure. I did check. As part of my last ditch preparations, I bent the entire energy flow of all my generators into conjuring a large but thin plate of platinum over the chest plate of my armor. Looking at the gleaming silver surface, I relaxed a teeny bit.
After running around the house, I noticed that to my surprise, Norn actually deposited the canned food barge in the backyard without breaking anything. [Glad that bird is good for something.]
I stepped outside and checked my gear, making sure everything was good to go. The generators were on and at full power, and I made sure to have a tethered link to the World Tree as well. Its aura recognized me and wrapped around me like a nice hug. I’ll just imagine that was my beloved, sending good thoughts my way. Gungnir all charged up, check. Batteries full with epic power tap at full flow, check. World Tree has my back, check.
“Ok, I’m going to need your name before we get started,” I said to the kid. “I’ve been calling you guys Punks One through Three in my head all day and I’m pretty sure that’s not what your parents named you.”
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
“John.”
“And the other two?”
“Macy. The brat is Lonnie.”
“Ok John,” I said, rubbing my hands together. “When I tell you to, call your goddess, and not before, I’m trying to start off on the right foot here.”
I used Earth Sorcery to cover my entire front yard in stone, then used Earth Sorcery again to inlay runes of purity and sealing, as well as the concept of scaling will and strength against the tides. Then I pressed an enchantment of durability into the stone. My rune sequences were equations cobbled together with my personal inventions: a closed fist fist holding a cross to encapsulate strength, will, and faith in myself and a locked coffin with a church carved on its front for purity. The last made up rune was a brain in a jar, big enough to encompass all of the other runes inside of it.
Snickering as I pressed my will into my probably shoddy work, I still tried to keep a straight face as the runes almost turned out with a comical bent.
I was completely doing this stuff off the cuff. I hadn’t had a chance to practice or test any of this crap but my Mana Sorcery was hinting that I was going in the right direction. I really wished this damn Sorcery thing came with a how-to manual. After connecting my shoddy-experiment and Gungnir to the house wards for endless power, I pulled as much mana as my body and soul could handle, then nodded at John.
“Go ahead.” I encouraged, nodding my head.
John tilted his face upward, his eyes closed. His hands trembled as he clasped them together in front of him.
A few minutes went by. The wind picked up, blowing the loose leaves across the street and the trees in the distance bent hard like they were experiencing a storm we couldn’t see. Across the street, a little girl walked out from behind a tree, shadows fleeing from her steps.
Her blonde hair did not obscure her too big dark-brown eyes as they seemed to take in everything around her in a glance. She appeared to be a sweet little five-year-old girl, her curly hair and heart shaped face would have made women across the globe do that annoying, “awwwww, she’s so cute” nonsense in tones pitched high enough to give any nearby canine an aneurysm.
The shadows cast from the still bright afternoon sun did not come close to her at all, just stopping within twenty-feet from her feet. They were simply allowed no further. Her hands were cupped together, as if she were holding a bug yet streaks of light leaked through her fingers.
“A Sorcerer has never called upon me before.” Her soft voice carried power that almost made me take a step back. “Please tell me why you have my champions.” Shivers ran down my spine. Thin cracks spidered out of the asphalt she was standing on.
My visitor sounded like she looked, complete with enough sadness and innocence to bend even the strongest wills. Creepy Anabelle vibes, though. That’s why my stubborn-ass built the giant stone plate on the front yard, to bolster my mortal mind with enchantments more powerful than I.
“Oh no, we can have a real conversation when you stop the act.” I said more confidently than I truly felt. “I mean no harm to you or yours, but I do have a sapling of Yggdrasil behind me. Banishing anyone from my house or the surrounding land is easy with that kind of power.”
I was totally bluffing.
One hundred percent completely out of my league, but desperately banking on the fact that my enchantments plus the presence of the World Tree would pull through. Gungnir pulsed a soft red and yellow light, seemingly as if in agreement.
“What is it that you want?” She asked, her voice hurt as if I had somehow personally wronged her by popping her balloon at her birthday party.
“I would like you to tell your champions to leave me alone, and maybe to leave off on the full on zealot mindset for a bit too.” I answered. “They have some crazy idea in their heads that magic is wrong, bad, or evil. I don’t make zombies, I make earth and water.”
“Your spear says otherwise.” She countered, her fingers shifting, letting out more light. “I see fire and lightning and death.”
“I’ve had to fight to live!” I argued, gesturing around me. “I woke up to undead cats eating my face off! Have you ever had a cat eat your face? Pretty sure that’s a no.”
“You’re very bold for a mortal.”
The diminutive goddess sniffed imperiously, shifting her posture some more. Turning her small hands just a hint, a bit of the light escaping through the cracks in her fingers turned more solid and lanced out, blasting me into the porch.
The only thing that kept me alive was the platinum plate that I had made and kept in front of my chest the whole time. That beam of light was pure, raw, condensed unearthly magic that cut through my magical shields and wards like a pressure washer through soft cheese, but the deadly radiation of the energy rebounded off the platinum.
Only the leftover kinetic force itself was applied directly to me.
My shield runes softened the blow just enough for me to survive but I wasn’t unharmed. Several bones were shattered and more were cracked. I groaned like an old man, picking myself up with excruciating slowness as my body got around to the shock of moving while having shattered bones. An instinctive pain block and the pocket generator slowly put my body back to rights as I grunted and spat out three teeth into the yard. Cracking my neck, I gripped Gungnir so tight that my knuckles turned white.
“I was going to invite you in as a guest.” I croaked, leaning heavily on Gungnir. “But that’s off the table. Now, it’s an armed negotiation.”
The shock on her face mirrored my own inner surprise.
[Did not think I would live through that.] I cracked my neck, feeling a bit more like myself as my healing amulet worked overtime to put me back together. [Think, think!]. How the fuck did I get here? Oh, by being stupid. My usual problem rears its ugly head and now I am face to face with the consequences.
“How did you survive that?!” She gasped. “Only enchanted orichalcum dipped in dragon’s blood can withstand starlight!”
Guess platinum is not a common metal anywhere else in the universe. Tuck that nugget away for later.
“I don’t even know what that is.” I whimpered, thin streaks of blood dribbling from my mouth and nose. “What I do know is that I have your three paladins and am now far less likely to be kind.”
Wheezing with effort even though my amulet was healing my body in overdrive, I spat. “How about I use the World Tree to send them to the far reaches of the Multiverse, so that no one will ever find them? That way, I’m not responsible for how they meet their end, and you never know what happens to them. Sound like a plan?”
“Wait!” She yelled, stepping forward till she reached the edge of my stone covered lawn, my wards coruscating visibly. Her face was pale and arms trembling. Maybe that blast of magic took it out of her. The messenger god did say that the mana on Earth isn’t dense enough for this kind of thing yet. It’s probably hard for her to be here for long. I’m seriously spitballin’ here. I guess the main reason it’s possible may be due to the generators putting out mana to the surrounding area as well or the ley lines near the house.
But back to the goddess. I knew it. Her frantic expression right now, cupping the light in her hands tightly, showed true emotion. Children get attached to new things, and this deity-child was clearly attached to her champions. Her laser assault on me gave it away, a knee jerk reaction to me provoking her.
I was outmatched. Clearly.
Maybe this is a time where I could make a smart decision instead of a dumb one. My pitiful human brain latched onto a possible solution, one that would maybe, probably, possibly allow me to keep on breathing.
“I let you get one shot in.” I groaned, speaking slowly to play for time as my healing was almost complete. My poker face wasn’t half bad. “But no more. I don’t mean any harm, I promise. You can even have them back, just tell them to leave me alone, or clarify that only certain magic is bad. I don’t care.”
“Let them go and I will!” She pleaded, her visage seeming just a little less solid now, her fingers cupping that ridiculous light also starting to waver. I staggered to the front door of the house and opened it, not taking my eyes off her.
“Hey come outside now, your goddess is here to see you.” I called out. “And, she’s about to clarify, I’m not the bad guy, like I promised, right?”
Astria quickly nodded in agreement. “Yes, now come to me my faithful warriors, come now.” The two girls sprinted to her with John closely following. “It’s all better now,” she said, reassuring them from the middle of a group hug. Then she opened her hand and dropped the ball of light. They all vanished as the ball of light hit the ground.
Kaathoooooom!
Everything went white. The ball of light exploded with the force of a heavenly missile.
That shit hurt. The only thing that kept me alive was my absolute paranoia and complete lack of trust in anything. Children are great, if they’re yours. If they’re not, they tend to be vindictive little shits that steal your kid’s truck when he’s not looking. Betrayal. That’s what I expected.
Bitch vanished and dropped a bomb to cover her tracks. But the explosion was a thing of beauty, divine power combined with hyper-concentrated starlight would have annihilated everything, if it weren’t for two pieces of prep work; the loving aura of the sapling World Tree that I grew who cares not for the affairs of gods or mortals, and the Chaos crystal, one of my several get-out-of-jail-free cards. I had shoved it into one of the battery slots just before telling John to summon his backstabbing patroness.
As the light fell to the earth, just before all hell broke loose, I whipped off my platinum chest plate and ducked behind it while lying almost flat on the ground. Gungnir braced the shield in mace-form, fully projecting a field of energy channeled from the Chaos shard.
I knew from the initial attack that raw magic couldn’t stop Astraea, and since platinum did work somewhat, Chaos was my only trump card. Pumping energy from the generators into the nine normal batteries, then focusing it through the Chaos shard and then channeling the new mix of Chaos-tinged mana through the bit of the aura of the World Tree that surrounded me and then projecting that through Gungnir was no easy task. But my survival depended on it.
I could feel the agony of being blown apart, but it wasn’t actually happening to me. Everything was happening in slow motion. The white light of the star touching the ground and erupting, earth and asphalt being blown away from the epicenter of the blast. My stone plate cracking and crumbling before being flung at the house with the intensity of IEDs. My wards caving in from the devastating wave of god-like power that appeared as a white-hot wave.
I was out of touch, out of phase with reality. For three whole seconds, I was a veritable ghost, enabled by the Chaos shard warping the space-based energy of Yggdrasil burning with my will, the sheer desire to live. Intangible me watched as the explosion reshaped everything around me, reducing reality to its component parts.
Including my house under Yggdrasil. It all vanished.
Everything around the roots of the tree washed away in the rapid expansion of heat and light, including the food stockpile in the backyard. Every bit of my old life vanished, even my crappy car parked down the street and the nearby neighbors’ abandoned houses. The only thing that survived was the upper part of the tree, its four roots, and most of the basement, and that only by the thinnest of margins due to the anti-nuke battery I had installed.
Fuck me man, fuck me.
As I felt my body phasing back in-line to its normal frequency, I began conjuring ice and water on me and all around me to counteract the residual heat, pouring it out as fast as Gungnir would amplify my Water Sorcery. My regeneration and healing enchantments kept the worst of the damage from the residual heat from killing me.
I took a moment to feel out the wards of my house, gone. My generators were gone too. The explosion made the enchantments degrade, engaging the safety mechanism for automatic shutdown and dissolution. The generators turned into dirt instead of going full nuclear. I had put those safeguards there to prevent nuclear reactions from turning Fredericksburg into Chernobyl.
I could feel that the ley line was still intact and running under the World Tree, I could rest easy knowing that the vein of the world would provide my immortal fiancée the energy to survive, as it fed the enchantments I embedded in its core.
Damn, it looked very weird though not having a house supporting Yggdrasil’s sapling. The four former oaks, now roots, with the main root shooting straight down were all that was left of my little house in the suburbs. It appeared like someone had painstakingly carved out my embedded house from between the roots of Yggdrasil with a blowtorch and then shoveled out most of the dirt.
Frantically, with my pain block taking up half of my amulet’s power flow, I struggled to climb up one of the roots of the tree, using bursts of my Nature Sorcery to grow small bulbs for my hands and feet to grip. With my mana amulet powering me at a constant rate, I struggled up to the first branch seventy-feet in the air and lay down flat, completely beat.
My mental link with Norn was still available. [Thank the Ripple something survived my second encounter with a deity.] I thought, mainly grateful that I was disintegrated by a spiteful goddess. I used his eyes to check the area; nothing right now, so I ordered him to fly around and double check the area.
I cursed inwardly. [No more stupid shit. I’m done. Looking out for myself is the best course of action and probably my only one. Fuck. How else am I going to survive four-thousand years to see my woman? If I keep going at this rate, I won’t last the year. Two deities in less than a week! HOW?!]
My internal complaints fell on deaf ears.