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The Thaumaturge
Chapter 20 - Ambush

Chapter 20 - Ambush

"Julius, before I start growing you a new body, I am going on a little emissary trip. If you wish to join me, you may."

"Sure, why not? Can’t be less interesting than that shitty city." She replies.

"Are you going back to my home?" Asks Winter. "If you do, please tell them I’m still alive."

"I will, although you’re not the reason I’m going. In fact, they seemed more than ready to abandon you to me." He does not respond to this. As a precaution, I pick up a spell focus I’ve been working on and place it in my pouch. I hope to God I won’t have to use this.

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Julius and I walk back to the diplomat the gods sent here. "Oh… you’re, um, back," the diplomat nervously spits out.

"Yes," I respond. "Please lead us to the portal you came here from."

We follow her back to an odd-looking tear shaped portal. It’s not a flux rift, that’s for sure. This must be the result of creating a portal using the absolute control of vis that words of creation give. We step through, unsure of what awaits us on the other side.

When we emerge, we are greeted by a dimly-lit room. It’s hard to see the walls. In the center is a large circular table with chairs all around. There are three people sitting in a few randomly selected chairs around the room. One of them, a man wearing mostly orange, boots up from his seat when he sees us. In a whispered yet angry tone, he addresses the diplomat: "You brought him BACK WITH YOU?" She shrivels in fear.

"I-I’m sorry… he was just so intimidating…" Maybe I need to make the voice this device puts out a bit friendlier…

The man wearing orange composes himself and looks to the two other people in the room: one of them is a mature woman wearing mostly yellow robes, and the other is a young child wearing something that a Druid in a fantasy game would wear. "No matter," says the man. "Although it’s awfully bold to invite yourself to our home, we’ll welcome you as a guest regardless. My name is Autumn, and this is Summer and Spring." He gestures to the woman and girl respectively. "We’re honored to have you—"

"Cut the shit," says Summer, cutting him off. "Why are you here? Come to kill us, too?"

"In all fairness, Winter attacked me first. Also, he’s not dead. I have him in my lab on… well, I guess you could call it life support." The gods look shocked at this revelation.

"Do you plan on giving him back to us?" Spring asks.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

"Unfortunately for you, he’s in a state where only I can fix him. Partially my fault. Sorry about that. Besides, his use as a tool of experimentation far outweighs anything I could gain from you." Spring grinds her teeth in anger.

"You bastard!" She shouts. She casts some sort of incantation; suddenly, a massive portal that looked similar to the one we arrived in appears on the floor.

"Spring! Don’t!" Autumn yells, but too late. We have all fallen through the portal, apart from the diplomat, who ran out the door at the last second. The ports spits us very high above the ground, into some random field somewhere. In freefall, I angle myself to glide and catch Julius. She cries in fright. I catch her and activate my thaumostatic harness. As I slowly levitate towards the ground, I notice something: she teleported us to a battlefield. soldiers fight each other in gruesome combat below us. I estimate their numbers to total to eight million. The three gods land on the ground, forming craters. My feet gently touch down as I look around and am surrounded by the three gods; the soldiers have stopped attacking and backed away from us in shock.

Autumn speaks first. "Well, I guess we can’t back out of this route now…" He chants something and I see vis flow through his body. Before I retaliate, his spell takes effect. It’s not offensive, but some sort of communication. Extremely loud, loud enough for every soldier surrounding us to hear, a voice shouts: "Soldiers, cast aside your earthly quarrels for a moment and heed my words! The divines have given your kingdoms an opportunity! The soldier that kills the man in purple in front of us will receive our divine sponsorship in this war!"

Oh. Fuck.

All soldiers, either out of resolve or some sort of mind-controlling effect, shout and raise their arms as they all charge at me. I can see spellcasters in their ranks preparing spells and the gods charging their magic. Julius screams out of her mouth, so scared she forgets she can speak through the device.

So it’s come to this. May God have mercy on my soul…

I pull the spell focus out of my pouch. This is the focus I used the dragon’s brain for. There’s no other choice now, I suppose. I place the focus in my gauntlet. The soldiers don’t slow their charge. Very well. Reluctantly and regretfully, I cast a spell that the very universe itself weeps at.

"NEFARIUM!"

Inches away from me, all the soldiers are immolated by purple fire in an instant; the once grassy plain on which the battle was taking place is charred to dirt. A fire spell that uses vis itself as fuel. This spell will kill everything in this dimension. As I look to my gauntlet, I see the spell focus has shattered; the flow of vis was too much for even this primordial pearl to handle. The sky flares a bright pink as the sphere of expanding fire reaches space. Through the inferno, I see the gods haven’t died yet; they writhe in agony from the flames as their own power betrays them.

I feel something grab my ankle. It is Summer. Her body is burned horribly, still on fire. "What… kind of demon… are you…" She gasps for air between the words. Julius is now shaking under my arm, too afraid to speak.

"Make no mistake. I am neither demon nor god. I am simply a display of what mankind is capable of. I seek nothing but salvation; what greater purpose is there? I am the Thaumaturge, and I work miracles." Summer releases her grip on my ankle and dies.