The glove fit snugly on my hand. It was uncomfortable where the fang was, but that would be much worse in a moment. I took a deep breath, gritted my teeth, and pushed down where the fang was against my skin. I let out a hiss of pain–it wasn’t something I’d felt in a long, long time.
As my blood filtered up into the hole of the fang and suffused the glove, a euphoric smile stretched across my face. I could feel mana in the glove, connected to me by my blood. I stripped down for my reward, the only thing on my body the glove.
My hand brushed against the shower formation and I flexed my will on the glove. I activated the formation with a thought and let out a sigh of relief, ignoring the dull throbbing of the fang in my hand.
With another thought, I activated the healing properties of the glove, and my wound ached significantly less as the magic stitched my flesh together around the fang and replenished my lost blood as the water cascaded around my shoulders.
My hair fell down to my face, and I was reminded how long it was. As a god, I didn’t have much hair at all. It had been shorn close to my face, but this hair was long and often swept back. Now, though, it washed down and got into my eyes. I felt the grime of the past few days washing down off of my skin and into the drain, and I placed a hand onto the wall, letting the water fall over my back.
My head hung down as the water ran down the slope of my neck to my shoulders, down the valley of my spine between my shoulder blades, over the small curve of my glutes and down my legs. Tears mingled with the water as the reality of my situation settled in.
The past few days had been rather hectic as I moved from solution to solution. Even the hours I’d had alone had been spent resting a weary body or crafting things to protect myself. Now, though, as the water washed my body, I let it wash my mind of the barriers I’d set up.
Damn you, Loki, I thought to myself. Damn you and Asmodeus and everyone else that conspired against me. What did they even think they were accomplishing? Coming into my realm like that just to–My realm.
“FUCK!” I yelled, my fist pounding into the shower wall, cracking one of the tiles as my mana-reinforced strength and rage slammed against the structure.
The bastards were in my realm right now, I knew it. Rooting through my stuff, plundering the divinity of my forgotten body. I cracked another tile, my knuckles bleeding slightly before the magic of the glove stitched my flesh back together. I felt the mana drain from it as I made it put more work in, and I made a mental note to be careful of that in combat. I could put with the pain if it meant I could continue to cast spells.
Out loud, I swore something to anything that would listen. I swore it in the language of my father, a language lost to time for more than an epoch. More than the angry swore I made when I came back, I swore this oath with the full intent to shake the Realms.
“Hear me now, Betrayers and Tricksters. I am coming, and you will face Retribution.”
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After my shower finished, I walked out into the woods for an hour or two. It was time to do something I hadn’t had to do in a very long time: practice.
About 90 minutes into my trek, I heard the noise of something snorting and grunting. I crouched down and absentmindedly grabbed some shadow, pulling it around me like a cloak. The light shivered in protest, but I paid it no mind. The trick was to do, not to try to do it. I knew it was possible, and so the shadows listened.
I crept forward, shrouded in shadow, and spied on the creature that I’d stumbled across. The beast gorged itself on some half-eaten corpse, guttural noises coming from its throat as it ripped and tore at the meat beneath its maw.
This creature was hunched over, though I couldn’t tell if that was its natural state or if it was because it was eating. I snuck around, and the thing didn’t look up from its meal. As I got a better angle on its face, I smiled softly. The creature was a gnoll: a medium-sized, hyena-like creature. Gnolls were the cousins of wendigos, cursed beings that turned from humans when they cannibalized someone they loved. Gnolls were also cursed, but they were usually animals or humans that had shown unusual gluttony or violence. It was a painful transformation.
Gnolls with no magic were a match for a first circle or second circle mage, but nothing higher. Even then, they were usually ambush predators that relied on surprise to take on mages of the second circle. They were a perfect target to test my firepower. I needed to at least be able to take on the common thug or any one of my students. If I had enough power to kill this thing quickly, I could be a lot more confident when walking around.
The wind shifted, and the gnoll suddenly stopped its meal. It looked up and sniffed at the air, and I realized my mistake. The shadows protected me from its sight, but gnolls were just as much animal as they were humanoids–it was smelling me.
Quickly now, I focused on my glove. I raised it, and the movement was noticed despite my shroud. The gnoll leapt toward me ferociously, and I fell backwards to avoid its razor sharp claws. My outstretched hand flared with power as I expelled it through one of the fingertips, a lance of force exploding outwards and slamming into the gnoll.
The force savaged its chest, throwing it backwards in a bloody heap. I exhaled with relief, but the creature got up again and snarled. I got to my feet as it bounded towards me again, but this time I was ready. My glove flared again, and I focused my intent onto the magic that flared outward. What I’d said to Merlin was correct: even without the formations to guide my spells, with the singular runes on my glove’s fingertips, I was more versatile than any of my students.
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My intent shaped the spell as it took shape, forming a lattice of force that caught the gnoll and threw it back relatively painlessly. I was toying with it now, testing the limits of my abilities. Still, this could turn dangerous in a moment.
The gnoll paced back and forth, blood dripping from it as it snarled and considered how to attack. It barked a series of dog-like noises and I narrowed my eyes in response. I realized my mistake a moment before the consequences arrived: gnolls were generally pack hunters.
I whirled around just fast enough to catch the ambushing second gnoll’s claws on my left arm, the one without the glove. Claws tore into my arm and I went down beneath a mass of furry muscle.
Swearing, I kicked up with one leg to throw it off of me. It recovered nearly instantly and leapt onto me again, but I was more ready this time. I rolled to the side and right into the path of the first gnoll.
It bit at me, but it was slowed from blood loss and I had a mana-reinforced body. I yanked my arm away from its mouth and then shot it forward, grabbing the thing by the throat. I rolled back towards the second gnoll as it turned to come at me for a second pass, throwing the first gnoll into its packmate.
They yelped as they collided and rolled away from me, giving me a moment’s reprieve to stand up. I waved my hand and a wave of terror roiled in front of me. It was weak–I was running out of juice and no fear would make the gnolls ignore the smell of blood on my arm. This would just slow them down, make them pause.
I couldn’t afford to engage the healing magic of my glove, either. I wanted to pull out my pistol, but that would be admitting defeat. If I couldn’t take two gnolls, I wasn’t ever going to survive.
It was time to do some bullshit.
I backed up slowly, my eyes on my opponents. They paced back and forth, and I glanced behind me to make sure I wasn’t about to be ambushed by a third gnoll. It was a reasonable assumption, considering that two gnolls didn’t necessarily sound like a pack.
I knelt down near the site where my force lance had pierced the first gnoll and dipped my fingers into its blood. This wasn’t a trick that would work on many sapient creatures, but on gnolls there was a solid chance. Animals see blood and know it means they’re injured. Many such creatures didn’t really understand that that blood was outside of their body now and didn’t really matter. It was my will against its, and it didn’t even know what it was resisting.
I reached my fingers into the blood, several inches deeper than should have been possible. The gnolls were close enough that I could see their beady eyes. The injured gnoll’s eyes widened and then bulged as I ripped its intestine out through the small puddle of blood on the ground. I told the gnoll and the world with my will that the blood was still connected to its body, that the inside of its body was accessible now from the outside world.
The injured gnoll collapsed to the ground as I ripped the intestine, yowling in pain. The other gnoll staggered to the side at the sudden noise and I scowled at it. It looked me in the eyes, about to surrender, when a low growl sounded behind me. I swore and rotated my body 90 degrees so that I could keep both threats in sight.
Behind me was a gnoll, but one that was bigger and meaner than either of the others. This creature had one eye that was glossy white. Seriously? It had a scar running down one side of its face, as though from a fight with another creature.
Without hesitation, this time, I retrieved my pistol and shot it point blank in the head. This was no enchanted bullet, though, and the gnoll fell back as though clubbed rather than dead. Time to run.
I flung out a hand and slammed the other gnoll into a tree as it ran forward again. It yelped and staggered around as I flew through the forest, leaping over roots and stones as I avoided the obstacles in my path. I heard a roar as the huge gnoll recovered and barked something in gnollish or whatever their language was considered.
I ran fast, thanking the Fates that even Loki’s fucking me over had landed me in a body that was well-reinforced and able to handle at least a few dozen minutes of a light jog, or hopefully ten minutes of heavy running. Even the gnolls shouldn’t be able to keep up with that.
I wasn’t running for long before I saw another creature running beside me, keeping pace but separated by a line of trees that stopped it from darting over. I pointed a finger at it and expelled mana, intending to fire another force lance to stop it from following me.
A toothpick, rather than a lance, flew out and did nothing. I was out of juice. Swearing, I instead spoke to the air in the language of elementals.
“Ambar caluvar tennoio, athar iantar caluvar narmíra.” The world is full of Wonder, but the clouds are full of shit. That should be enough for something interesting to happen.
I felt the air grow still around me before suddenly becoming restless.
Now I spoke again, frantically.
"Arsaithon ióranor velethorn elenim, arthonn lórion elenim, ar thiathelon elen lómalion ar telírion nórion!" Please rescue me now, return me to the road, and I will tell you a story of your father!”
The wind grew restless now as the gnoll started darting to intercept me. Just before it slammed into me, a tremendous current of wind swept me off my feet and out of the way of the wind. I yelled in triumph as it carried me up towards the treetops and then over, jostling me and turning me the whole time. Had I not been prepared for this to happen, I undoubtedly would have vomited.
The wind carried me quickly over the forest until we were over the road again. It lowered me until I was about 40 feet over the ground and then dropped me unceremoniously. I let out a decidedly not godlike yelp as I fell, cursing as I twisted my ankle against the ground.
The wind dispersed momentarily, then a small tornado of dust coalesced a few meters from me.
The world was silent, but I knew how to listen.
“Speak, mortal, and make good on your word. What story is it that you know of my father?” the creature rasped in a voice that sounded like the howling wind. I knelt my head in deference.
“I thank you for your assistance, wind spirit. As a show of gratitude, I will give you three pieces of information.” Three was an important number to many of the secondary races. Secondary did not mean inferior, they were just less common on this plane and weren’t quite mortal. The number wasn’t as important to elementals as to faeries or daemons or devils, but it was still significant.
“The first is a story.”