Tenthé watched the butt of the priest as they marched along. Or lack thereof. Was this something that happened to old guys, or were they buttless all their lives? An important question. If he ever got old, would he have to worry about not being able to keep his pants up? Maybe that’s why priests wore robes.

While the question of butts came up because it was hanging right there in his field of view, Tenthé was also checking out the various corridors they were passing through. If he wasn’t mistaken, some of them looked newer than others. It was very likely that this route had been built recently. The walls were densely overlaid with extremely potent wards, far more than usual for a normal hallway.

Yep, he was definitely walking into a trap laid out for him, specifically. A little obvious, but the Turtle was not known for his sneakiness. If there was anyone around, he’d bet them that the subtle-ish goddess hadn’t been consulted. Gods may work together, but it was usually a rocky relationship.

Tenthé abruptly sat down, timing it perfectly so the guy behind tumbled over him. If he wasn’t mistaken, the look on the priest’s face just before he leapt to his feet was one of anger.

Perfect.

When another of his entourage yelled, the old priest glanced over his shoulder, and finding Tenthé sitting on the floor, turned around and stomped back.

“Enough of this!” the old priest shrieked as he cast a spell, activating the anti-magic badges sewn onto the robes of the priests surrounding him.

The one who’d fallen, smirked, and snatched at Tenthé’s arm, frowning when he found a shield still in the way. Obviously, the priest’s anti-magic charm hadn’t been as effective as expected. Although the Turtle priests had learned from their last encounter with him, at the same time, he’d learned something about them. Tit for tat.

The priests tried a number of techniques, with some small amount of success, since the assassin’s shield Tenthé was using wasn’t perfect. Just better than nothing. Tenthé had to heal a couple of bruises and one cut on his forehead, but all in all, he felt he’d won this round.

Tenthé heard the sound of footsteps as more priests came into view. From the swirl and glow of magic flowing over the newcomers, many of them were elites, and it was possible that altogether, they could cause him some amount of difficulty.

Making a quick decision, he leaped up, ran to a wall, and punched it.

The whole corridor shook as Tenthé injected a counter-spell, causing sparks and snaps as a few of the wards failed. Spells were fired at him from the new group, but they missed as he zigged and zagged back the way they’d come.

The old priest yelled and the entire mob took chase; a few of them still hoping to get him with a lucky shot. Between the difficulty in aiming while on the run and Tenthé’s shields, nothing had any effect.

As he rounded a corner, Tenthé slid to a halt, reversed course, and plowed back into the crowd of priests.

The first few were bowled aside, but there were too many of them, causing Tenthé to grind to a halt in their midst. At that point, he started kicking, punching, and biting.

As effective as he was, inevitably numbers won out and Tenthé found himself being held by his arms and legs. He rose up a plane, leaving the mob of priests behind, took a few steps, and descended to emerge next to the old priest, causing him to jerk away. After a second or two, when Tenthé did nothing other than stare at him, his sneer returned and he put up his hand, stopping the rest of the priests just as they were about to pile on top of Tenthé.

“Boy! Stop resisting!” the old priest demanded. “There’s no point! All we want to do is talk. What you’re doing is utter foolishness!”

Although the words didn’t match up with reality, Tenthé played along. “Sorry. I can’t read your mind. You haven’t told me anything. All I was doing was looking around the Temple and your goons came out of nowhere and forced me to go with them. What was I supposed to think?”

“The god is not pleased, at all, with your behavior. He’s given you a massive boon and expects you to live up to the responsibility that it signifies! Now, enough of this! Let us continue without any more nonsense.”

With this, the priest spun around and started off again. Tenthé followed. Slowly, of course.

Every now and then, a magic weapon would prod him, but the priests didn’t seem to notice how little damage that caused. This was because, in the confusion Tenthé had engineered, he’d gained a much better idea of the wards and spells the priests were utilizing.

As they moved along the corridor, Tenthé paid close attention to the priests surrounding him. For instance, he knew a certain number of them, as angry as they were, were waiting for something.

The group rounded another corner, revealing a set of double doors that opened as they neared. Around him, Tenthé noted a drop in the anxiety level of the priests. This was most likely their goal. Tenthé had no sense that the Turtle God was ahead, but he could see that the wards on the doors were much denser than those in the walls of the route they had been following.

Tenthé halted and the tension in the priests spiked. As it should.

And, as one, they all collapsed to the floor.

The old priest spun around at the sudden quiet. He stared aghast at the priests splayed out on the floor.

“Are they…” he gasped.

“Yep. Uh-huh.”

A little dirt materialized in the brain was usually not conducive to survival. Another gift from the assassins.

“How did you…” the old priest stuttered just before leaping through the doors and slamming them shut behind him.

It was very quiet. Tenthé took the moment to examine the doors and what he could of the room they opened into. It was very informative, in a negative way. Even using his best methods, he couldn’t sense what was on the other side of the doors. It was completely opaque. He was pretty sure that if he were inside, it would make quite a good cell.

From what he had seen before the priest slammed the door, the room was fairly large with the floor rising in tiers. Not a cell, but more of an auditorium.

Suddenly, the defenses for the room went down. If he had to guess, and he didn’t because he could see into it now, the old priest had opened another door to the room. Faintly, he could hear alarms going off.

Tenthé sat down. He had no doubt the priest was calling in reinforcements. He’d give them the time they needed to assemble.

After a moment or two, he got back up and began rummaging through what the warrior-priests had been carrying. The weapons were actually fairly good, for the most part. Many of the blades had enhancements to help them cut, and the blunt instruments would hit with tremendous force. Ordinary magic, but well done.

Now that the wards to the room in front of him were down, he could see a crapload of priests assembling on the tiers. They didn’t appear to be intended as an audience. More like one against a lot. Obviously, they were pulling out all the stops, short of calling on the god himself.

Speaking of which, a wave of the Turtle’s magic swept over him. He looked back and the priests who he had disposed of were gone. He then searched inside himself and found quite a number of his standard spells were gone as well. This wasn’t unexpected when one invaded a god’s center of power. They liked to stack the deck in their favor.

Tenthé unpacked a set of replacements based on what he’d learned in the Pools. The Gods had limited ability to affect magic from another reality, and this was far from his first time confronting a deity.

All that left of his City magic were a few low-level spells, more like pranks, and some mundane weapons. That was okay; if he ran out of magic, the priests had brought lots of good weapons he could appropriate as needed.

Tenthé was getting a bit antsy. If he wanted to, he could have slipped away a bunch of times. He gazed through the door and noticed things settling down. The show was about to start.

Two elite priests swung the doors open.

The old priest was standing high up the rows, nearly hidden in the mass of warrior-priests. As Tenthé entered the room, the old guy started cackling.

Tenthé obliged his audience by taking the position in the center of the main floor, where it was obvious he was supposed to stand. If he wasn’t mistaken, there was even a mark on the floor.

As he came to a halt, the doors slammed closed, and a heaviness descended upon the room. In addition to making this a prison, it also formed an extremely strong magic suppression field. Tenthé felt what was left of his mundane spells and abilities sputter out. The two priests who’d shut the doors strode over and stood behind him.

Tenthé sighed, reached into his robe, and brought out the staff he’d used in Angel City. He placed the butt of it on the floor beside him. The old priest halted his cackling to watch as Tenthé reached up to put a rock on top of the staff, where it stayed. He then let go of the staff, leaving it to stand on its own.

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There was a moment where everyone froze, giving Tenthé the chance to pull Bear out of a Pocket. He dropped the toy onto the floor, where it lay, unmoving.

The old priest chortled and even rubbed his hands together.

“Well, Mister Tenthé,” he gloated. “Here we are in a room that stops all foreign magic, including yours. Not so cocky now, are you?” He couldn’t contain himself and cackled again.

Tenthé looked at the staff and at the priest a couple of times, but the old guy didn’t get it.

From the floor came a piteous voice. “What? You wake me for this? The evil gloat speech? How can he not hear himself?”

Noting he had the attention of the crowd, Bear groaned and winced, a little more theatrically than necessary. “Oh, my head! There’s so much stupid in the room, it’s making it hurt so bad!”

One of his button eyes cracked open to check if his audience was still watching. After flopping around a bit more, he sat up and stared at the assembled priests.

“What have here? A standoff? Why don’t people ever learn?” The toy looked at the looming priests and nodded. “Yep, a standoff. Wait, do they know it’s a standoff yet? No? Okay.”

Bear slowly got to his feet. No-one in the room appeared to be particularly concerned.

Tenthé shook his head. Bear was a second sign that his magic wasn’t fully suppressed, and even that wasn’t registering on his audience.

“Short, stupid, and silent here,” Bear indicated Tenthé, “has put a rock on a staff for your amusement.” He peered at the old priest. “This doesn’t strike you as strange? No? Nothing?”

The toy turned to Tenthé. “This isn’t working, kid. I basically hand it to them, and they don’t get it. If clueless had a temple, these guys would be the high priests. They’re so good that if you ask them what they represent, they wouldn’t know! Get it? Haha!” Bear laughed at his own joke. No-one else joined in.

Bear paused to give the audience time to appreciate his wit. When it became apparent that wasn’t going to happen, he sighed and added, “Yeah, right. You’re going to have to tell them.”

Tenthé mumbled, “Um, you remember the other day? Outside the gates? There was a big explosion? Well, that was me. I mean not, me… I didn’t explode.”

Silence. After no response, Bear critiqued, “That was truly pathetic. Try again. The rock…” he prompted.

“Oh, yeah. It was a rock. Like that one,” and he pointed at the rock on the staff.

Bear shook his head. “Kid, you’re hopeless. How you haven’t died before now, I don’t know. Oh right. You did!”

Bear sighed and turned to the old priest. “What he means is that if he dies, then the rock will explode. I assume the explosion he talked about outside was big? Yeah? Really big? Well, if that rock goes off in here, not much’ll be left. Like, anything at all. And especially whatever is around us. Wherever we are. Certainly nothing to resurrect you guys from. Might be a good idea if we kept the violence to a minimum.”

The old priest reacted as expected. “Stop your lies, foul animatum! Your words are meaningless! I’ve analyzed that stone, it is simply a stone!”

Bear turned back to Tenthé. “You know? He’s not going to listen. They never do. And I was beginning to like this body. Oh, who am I fooling? I love this body! Don’t make me get another one!” he pleaded. Then he paused and looked at Tenthé.

“Wait!” Bear exclaimed. “Don’t tell me. You shielded the rock! You do realize, if old and wrinkly here can’t see what it really is, a standoff won’t work! Don’t over-estimate his competence! Look at him, he doesn’t get out much.”

“Foul creature!” the priest yelled and flung a bolt. Faster than could be imagined, Tenthé snatched Bear up and stepped aside. The bolt glanced off the floor and dissipated against the back wall.

While his toy had been talking, Tenthé took the opportunity to testing what magic he could use, and what he couldn’t. The suppression field was really powerful, very few of his low-level spells were still functioning and dribs and drabs of the magic from the Pools worked, to a certain degree.

Fortunately, his shields remained strong and tough. That was probably all he would need. It was obvious from the glowering warrior-priests that the old priest wasn’t here to negotiate. Just gloat.

Maybe he shouldn’t have made the man look so foolish last time.

Nah.

The old priest nodded his head, and one of the priests behind him threw a punch that, in normal circumstances, would result in a devastating strike to the back of Tenthé’s head. When the magically enhanced fist landed, it met Tenthé’s internal shield, resulting in a very noticeable squishy crunch as the priest’s hand was pulped. Tenthé’s head was fine, although he hadn’t anchored himself, and so, went tumbling.

While he was flying through the air, Tenthé reached into his pocket and threw a little bit of chaos into the room. The handful of stones burst when they hit the floor and various priests, releasing clouds of colored fog: blue, pink, and green, along with metallic sparkles to confuse any seeing spells. The clouds also spewed out some truly original smells, with something to gag anyone. Then the screamers started up and conversation became impossible.

A bunch of the stones rolled across the floor and began flashing, blinding anybody who looked directly at them. And, as someone who knew him would expect, there was an ominous buzzing.

Tenthé, an old hand at brawls, was already on the move. He kicked off the wall, which, at his level of strength, caused him to careen around the room, knocking priests aside, left and right, and in a few cases, up.

It wasn’t entirely one-sided. A lucky strike removed a couple of Tenthé’s fingers; something he regarded as a minor inconvenience. Somebody else grabbed his robe, and he used that as an anchor to reach down and crush their hands. When they let go, he ducked down, pulled a cudgel out of a Pocket and enthusiastically partook of the opportunity to smash legs and ankles. Tenthé felt things were going well. For him, everyone was a foe, but for them, they had to watch out for others. Or maybe not. He watched as a priest was cut in half by someone hidden in the clouds.

As happens in brawls, not everything went his way. Tenthé slipped on some blood and, as he tried to recover, was struck on the shoulder. Something gave, but he numbed the pain and continued on.

Shortly afterward, he was kicked in the back and flew across the room, landing on a bloated body. Probably a victim of the bees.

As he reached out to push off, his hand came down on something. One of the priest’s weapons, some sort of blade mounted to a shaft. A faint glow it showed its magic was still active. Tenthé used it to swipe at the body and the flesh parted without effort.

Good stuff!

Tenthé stood up and began spinning the weapon fast enough to make a droning sound. It was best to keep moving, so he twirled through the crowd of utterly disorganized priests. Body parts flew.

As he sliced along, Tenthé was amazed at the stupidity on display here. Not keying weapons to their owners was an idiot’s mistake. Worked out for him, though.

Tenthé continued moving, occasionally having to adapt as his weapon bounced off various shields, until his blade caught on something and was pulled out of his hands. Thinking there had to be other weapons lying about, Tenthé ducked down and rolled until he fetched up against a staff. When he used it to hit someone in the gut, it made a boom and the someone went away. He laughed and danced off.

Almost immediately, he received a massive blow to his head and was flattened. He got back up, admiring the stars that drifted through his vision. He attempted to step forward and discovered other things weren’t working too well, and stumbled into a wall where he slid down to a sitting position. Time for a rest. Just for a moment, until his thinking began tracking again. A few moments later, as the stars and ringing in his ears subsided, he heard something new.

Oh-oh, this was bad! Chanting. As he watched, some type of magic began pushing all of the clouds toward the floor. As the visibility cleared, he could see a group of priests crowded together in a corner of the room, holding hands and casting a spell from behind the sparkle of a shield.

Tenthé pulled out a knife and threw it. It careened off a wall, bypassing the shield, and clocked one of the priests on the head. When the priest shouted in surprise, the chanting was interrupted and the clouds blew back into place, but a moment later, the group started up again.

Tenthé attempted rolling, but only managed to fall over into a new position on the floor. Which was good enough, because a torrent of spells hit where he’d just been sitting.

Tenthé reached to get some things out of his Pocket but found his arm wasn’t responding. While he tried to figure out what that meant, someone on the other side finally got a clue and a tangle spell landed on him.

Held in a magical net, Tenthé was pulled up into the air. Attempting to use the considerable strength of his working arm and one foot to pull the mesh apart, the net did not cooperate. It simply stretched and reformed. Since he was truly stuck, he began firing off force bolts and heard the rewarding sounds of grunts and yells as they landed.

As the chanting continued, the room cleared, revealing a scene of utter madness. A majority of the priests were down, and many of them weren’t ever getting up again.

In one corner of the room, bodies shifted and eventually the old priest emerged and struggled to his feet. He was covered in blood and cradling an arm that was missing its hand.

“Ha boy! You thought you were good, but not good enough! It took sacrifice, but we have prevailed! The Dreamer’ll bring back those we lost. We are strong!”

Belaying his words, the priest suddenly wobbled and was forced to sit on some of the bodies. Unsure of what they should do, the remaining priests waited for him to recover. Tenthé tossed a force bolt at him, but a shield formed and the bolt bounced off, hitting another person who was already down.

When the old priest had recovered somewhat, he looked around the room, not at all unsettled by the carnage. He sucked in his breath to restart his rant, but stopped when he noticed the stone suspended in the air, with no sign of what had happened to the staff.

“You!” he ordered one of the remaining warrior-priests. “Bring that rock to me!”

The priest grabbed the stone. It didn’t move. He tried hanging on it, but it still wouldn’t budge. Very shortly, there were more priests dangling in the air.

“Never mind,” the old priest said. “We’ll deal with that later.”

He turned back to Tenthé. “Well, boy, you aren’t so cocky now, are you?”

He got up and hobbled over to where Tenthé was suspended. With a wince, the priest let go of his injured arm and used his functioning one to pull out a knife from somewhere in his robes.

“The God blessed this! Just for you!”

With no further comment, he pushed the knife into Tenthé’s shoulder. It went in a handspan and stuck.

Tenthé numbed his shoulder. The knife wasn’t cursed or anything like that; it was simply had magically sharp blade that could go through most shields.

Bloodlust seemed to have energized the priest.

“Hah, not so tough, after all! Trust me, you’re going to regret even thinking of going against us before I’m done!” he threatened.

From behind him, there was some movement in the bodies. Everyone spun to face the new menace. A very bloody Bear emerged.

“Stupid to the end, aren’t you?” Bear commented.

“Someone, kill that thing!” the priest ordered.

“Wait!” Bear yelled. “Tell me, idiot, why is that ‘ordinary stone’ able to hang in the air?”

“A simple parlor trick. Don’t listen to it. Kill it now!”

One of the priests slashed Bear with a spear. The two pieces settled in the gore.

“You realize I’m not actually alive?” Bear’s head pointed out.

After a flurry of slashes, only bits of cloth and fluff remained.

“Someday we’re going to get to fight with someone smart,” said the piece of cloth with Bear’s mouth, “but then, we won’t have to, because he’ll be smart!”

More slashes until there was almost nothing left except short lengths of thread floating in the air. The whole room was silent, waiting for another comment, but it seemed the last round of slashes had been sufficient.

“Hah! It doesn’t matter,” the old priest gloated. “I have no intention of killing you and causing some big explosion! Oh, no! You’re going to live for a long, long time and we’ll study that stone and make the spell our own.”

“Really? I never said I have to die,” Tenthé stated, and then set off the stone.