Tenthé braced himself by the Old God’s Temple and waited for the Turtle to come out for him. And waited… and waited.

Eventually, it became obvious that the god wasn’t going to show. That made no sense! If it were him, he’d have pounced when his opponent was tired, or even have joined the first fight to gang up on him. Instead, the Turtle had stood aside.

There was nothing for it. He would have to actually go and find the god to ask him what the hells he was doing! It was the oddest situation he could ever remember. Weird wasn’t odd, strange wasn’t odd. No, true odd was when someone’s actions made absolutely no sense.

Even more so, when a god did it. Gods were, by definition, really good at something. Usually one thing. Every god he’d met also believed that meant they were experts at everything else. There was no possible proof to convince them differently. There were times when he had an old god on the floor with his sword hovering above, about to lop their head off, and they couldn’t accept that they’d lost!

In this case, most likely Turtle had convinced himself that having the Dreamer lose against Tenthé was all part of some great plan.

There was, though, some small chance that he did have something in the works, although what it could possibly be, Tenthé had no idea. It meant that Tenthé couldn’t wait too long. He had to put pressure on Turtle to force him to move before he was ready.

Tenthé’s biggest problem, well one of them, was that he had to give the Horde time to convert as many of the City residents as they could, which would hopefully reduce the Turtle’s power.

But, the Turtle was a major god! Tenthé had to get as much going for him as possible, and even so, it would be iffy.

Tenthé found himself waffling. He had to wait as long as he could, but not too long. He paced around, debating his options.

After maybe half an hour, as best as Tenthé could tell, he ran out of patience and headed toward the Turtle’s temple. He came to the area of the wall between the old god’s district and the rest of the city, and was happy to see that the was still lowered, unchanged from how the Dreamer had left it. That saved him the power it would take to blast his way through.

Remaining hyper-aware, Tenthé hopped over the wall and walked through the completely burned wasteland of the plaza, then entered the square through the large gate that was suspiciously open. Inside, everything was as he’d last seen it. Tenthé ran over to the closed door leading to the Turtle’s part of the temple. A quick examination revealed a smaller door hidden in the woodwork, which was conveniently unlocked. Tenthé pulled it open and entered.

Beyond, the interior was untouched, even from his copy’s blast. Being familiar with the layout, Tenthé strode deeper into the temple. At one point, he came across a section where a spark had entered through the roof, melting the marble, leaving behind overlapping layers of stone ooze which partially blocked the passage. Tenthé climbed over and went on.

A bit later, he came across a few plants in pots, and as he continued, their number and frequency increased until he found himself surrounded by a jungle. He kept moving, just beginning to realize how big the room was! His surroundings resembled a tropical valley far more than a chamber in the temple. Centered in the room was a small lake surrounding an island covered with growth. As he neared, Tenthé looked around for Turtle, but couldn’t find him. No boulders the right size, or anything.

Tenthé was startled when a part of the island began moving; rising up to become the head of Turtle, with one huge eye facing his direction.

This had to be Turtle, but now, he was monstrous! Many times larger than the last time Tenthé had seen him. He wondered how he could even move, he was so large. Hells, Turtle’s eye was bigger than he was!

A low rumble filled the room, and it took a moment for Tenthé to realize that Turtle was speaking. At first, he couldn’t understand, but after listening for a while, he thought he could recognize a few words, here and there. Not enough to make sense, though.

“Uh, I give up. I can’t tell what you’re saying,” Tenthé said.

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The turtle god stopped making noise for a moment, then resumed.

“Nope,” Tenthé stated. “Still can’t understand you.”

The god paused and started again, this time speaking every word distinctly.

“That isn’t working either,” Tenthé complained. “Try going faster. Not slower.”

“… any hope your tiny little mind is able to comprehend anything?” Tenthé heard.

“Yeah, that’s better. I can make it out now,” Tenthé declared. “I knew you could do it!”

“Are you patronizing me!” the god demanded, his voice still very deep, but understandable.

“Uh… no? Maybe? I don’t know. What’s patron, pat… whatever you said?”

“I can’t fathom how you are so ignorant, and yet such an accomplished mage. It defies logic.”

“Okaaaay.” Tenthé stretched out. “Um, I’m just lucky, I guess? How come you’re the way you are? You don’t make much sense either.”

“What? I make perfect sense.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Yes, I do.”

“No, you don’t.”

The god didn’t respond. A silence grew between them.

When it was obvious that the turtle wasn’t going to say anything, Tenthé asked, “Can you tell me something?”

When there was no answer, Tenthé continued, “Why did you do what you did? The City was doing okay before you changed it. At least I thought so. That doesn’t make sense to me. And why did the Dreamer try to kill me without even talking? It was pretty obvious he wasn’t any sort of fighter. Strong, sure, but he didn’t know what he was doing, really.”

This prompted the god to answer. “Yes. That. He was always impetuous. We talked about you and he was convinced you were the cause of our problems. I tried to reason with him, but the matter was never resolved.”

Tenthé stared at the god. He looked so imposing, looming huge in the mist, towering over him.

“You know what I think? You’re full of crap. You pushed him into it. I saw him working and when I talked to him, he said he didn’t do anything without a ton of people looking into it. You’re lying.”

“Not at all,” the god responded. “You only met him briefly. Certainly, he worked with his staff, but he was also very similar to you. He had his own opinions, and sometimes acted on them.”

“Really? He wasn’t stuck at ten, like me! I thought he was pretty grown up.”

“You support my argument! You are ten! Do you suppose someone could know you after you exchanged a few words?”

“Maybe?”

“I suspect, if you mull it over, you’ll see that it takes a lot more to truly understand a person. Especially if that individual is a Dreamer. He was involved in many things. You only saw him once. He is, excuse me, was, a complex man.”

“Uh-huh,” was all that Tenthé could come up with as an answer.

“I admit, though, that his loss is a big hit to our plans. Now, I’ll have to find the next Dreamer and train him to take the place of his predecessor. It will certainly cause a delay in my timetable.”

“I think it is more than that. The Horde, outside. Remember them? They have a Mentor. And here you are without a Dreamer to hold him off. Won’t that be a problem?”

At this, Tenthé finally saw a bit of emotion flash over the turtle. Not in an expression. Turtles didn’t have expressions, but his head swayed a little.

“You… have a point. We shall have to depend on the army to keep the City safe until we can have the new Dreamer take over. It is much more difficult, but if they and my worshipers believe hard enough, then there won’t be any major issues.”

Turtle might be bluffing, but it appeared that he wasn’t up to date on what was going on. That was one problem with gods: they lived for so long that they sometimes forgot how fast things could change. Tenthé would bet anything that the Turtle didn’t handle the day-to-day operations.

“What did your girlfriend say about letting the Dreamer out?” Tenthé asked.

“My girlfriend?”

“Yeah, that goddess who keeps turning up. The one in the school from, uh, when everything used to be… before.”

“Ah yes. Her. She isn’t inclined to tweak the process. Usually doesn’t get involved directly.”

That was a blatant lie. Did they have a falling out? Not much was adding up, here. The turtle’s plans were in shambles, his strongest resource was gone, and here he was, cowering in his lair.

Wait! Could that really be true? Tenthé turned it over in his mind. It did explain most of what happened!

Tenthé ventured, “Are you… are you actually afraid? What could scare you? Are you… um, are you scared of… me?”

“Don’t be silly,” Turtle responded, “I am a God at the peak of his powers! You… you are nothing but a little boy who has been handed abilities you can’t possibly understand. There is no comparison!”

Tenthé ignored this outburst. He was getting excited. “No, no! It makes so much sense! You sent out the Dreamer, you stay here, and none of the other gods are around!”

Tenthé was so full of energy that he started pacing.

“Yes! I see it now…”

He was in midst spin when he heard a chuff, then nothing.

The next he knew, he was waking in one of his stashed bodies, buried somewhere in the City.