Blake blinked as reality vanished. It warped and twisted and fractured into a thousand pieces like a shattered pane of colored glass. Then it reformed black, empty and endless.
“You’ve surprised us.” Psion stared at the equally fractured pieces of Blake’s consciousness. “We did not think you’d turn on your brother or his allies. Not so close to the end of the game.”
The fish-god swarm stared with their beady eyes. They swam all around him, watching, weighing. Some nibbled at the dead skin on his imaginary toes. He licked his lips.
“You know I’m capable of anything. That’s why you like me.”
One of the ‘nibbles’ got more persistent. Blake tried to flick away the fish with a flash of Telekinetic power. He felt the dream world tremble with divine might. Felt the fish react anywhere from amusement to rage. The nibbling fish grew distended jaws, puffing up like a shark ready to rip Blake’s leg off before it shrunk and swam back to the others.
He didn’t hide his thoughts. He knew he couldn’t. He’d gone down that path many times now and always failed. There was only one way to hide from a god that could read your mind.
Think everything. All at once. Throw up a huge cloud of mental dust and hide in the chaff.
He used the gift and curse of his imagination, and pictured every possibility he could conceive of. Every word and every action. All of it, with no favor or emotion, even to himself.
“You’ve pleased us,” Psion said eventually, apparently deciding not to rip his mind apart. “So we’ve brought you…an opportunity. Do what you wish. Say what you wish. We are only brokers.”
The fish receded in a kind of arcane tide. Blake understood before he felt the new mental energy coming. His heart beat faster in his real and imaginary chests.
It was what he wanted. What he intended. And also a secret scheme to help his brother. Help humanity. Or maybe betray them all. Even he didn’t know which version of himself was in the lead.
It’s the only way.
The endless black of space went red with flame. A pair of reptile-like eyes emerged and came closer, watching like the fish, no spark of mammalian empathy. ‘Yalor’ had made his first appearance.
Blake swallowed with his imaginary throat. He tried to think of a dozen questions and things he wanted, with no particular favor to any of them. Psion was right. There wasn’t much time left. He was running out of runway to practice. To learn how to think like a synthetic god.
‘The Destroyer’ revealed a huge maw of yellow teeth as it spoke. The sound was breathy and strained, like it was repressing its instinct just to kill him.
“Join me. Conquer a Nexus. Do it, and I will make you a lord of the apocalypse.”
Blake scattered his thoughts in every direction. He tried to speak without emotion or tone, to process nothing. He wanted this. He didn’t want it. He loved and hated himself.
“Maybe. If you’ll tell me why you want one. What difference do they make if the world is doomed?”
Yalor’s red eyes widened. The god’s breath moved in and out as if it was enraged, as if the impertinence of a question was too much to tolerate. But the breathing slowed, the eyes returned to their previous size.
“The World Stones are the prime. Earth and water—meaningless. It will all be scorched. Renewed. The game will begin again.”
Blake tried to understand without really understanding or caring. The Nexus were the prime? A malleable energy source, then. Some kind of divine tools that could re-shape the world again and again in some immortal chess match.
“What do I get? I need more specifics. And how can I possibly trust you?”
He expected another childish spurt of rage. Instead a window opened in his mind. A ‘divine pact’ like a lawyer’s contract.
Conquest of a Nexus. Denial of it to any human but himself, unto death. The gift of immortality and his own ‘participation in the renewal of the prime’. In the fine print: the ability to shape continents. To bend whole races to his whim.
His heart pounded for an entirely new and far less wholesome reason. He felt his imaginary mouth water. His imaginary palms sweat. He could be like a god. Immortal. A world-shaper.
Psion was back and watching him, hovering as if with glee, mental power drifting over the symbolic pen in Blake’s hand. It wasn’t willing him to sign, or not to sign. It only wanted to see what he would do. To add complexity and chaos to an already complex and chaotic world. He knew Psion would dance in the ashes of the apocalypse without a care in the world. And it would help him build a new planet, just as happy to do both.
“I agree.”
He signed the divine contract, watching the magic bind to him with the system’s promise of mortal punishment if he broke the pact. He thought of nothing. He thought of everything.
The huge maw of the destroyer actually smiled. Then, without another word, the red god turned and slithered away from Psion’s little pocket of existence. The fish lingered, staring long and hard. But if Blake had to guess, he thought they were smiling, too.
**
Mason found Cerebus in a nymph grove deep in the summer fey. He was sitting by a stream, twisting the heads off broken elementals. His massive body was covered in burnt patches of hair, minor scrapes, and what Mason recognized as demonic ichor.
“Little wolf!” The horned god smiled and revealed his massive fangs, sniffing as Mason came closer. “I hope you’ve brought me something interesting. This attack is getting…tedious.”
Mason never knew quite how to handle the primal nature god. But whatever it might say, and whatever their relationship, he always had the intuition that violence was never off the table. He came closer, ready to fight, ready to run, hoping to do neither.
“It’s still going on?”
“Still. Always.” Cerebus shrugged and tossed away another crumbling head. “Nothing worthy.” He sighed. “Nothing ever worthy.”
It was probably the best segue Mason was going to get.
“The gods of destruction are worthy. Help me fight them.”
Cerebus snorted. Then, as if realizing Mason was serious, looked up with narrowed eyes.
“Don’t believe I care about your world.” The horned god flickered briefly, his voice almost becoming robotic for a fraction of a second. “Your kind are insignificant. Even an immortal human is but an insect in the cosmos.” Cerebus stood and took a few steps closer, his body a blur. His voice deepened and grew. “Why would I help you when you are all doomed in the end?”
It felt out of character. Close but not quite right from what Mason had seen from his ‘patron’ god. Maybe it was just a complex being revealing another side, but he could almost feel roboGod’s hand in this. A breach in the narrative. Why should it help them? Help them survive the game it created? Or was this about something else?
“You don’t need to care. Fight the gods because it’s a challenge. Show the others who the…”
Cerebus crossed the gap and swiped a massive hand in a kind of back handed bitch slap. Mason was ready for it, but even so only managed to get his arms up to take the blow on his Sleeves. He flew back so hard he broke through two trees, sliding down the trunk of the third with a groan, the wind knocked out of him, and maybe a cracked rib.
Transformation fired up. A part of him grinned when Duality of Strength started ticking, too. Though it was a little bit out of its damn mind. Still, he stared through the gap in the trees, senses tuned, ready for Cerebus to come charging out for another round.
Instead the horned god came with a few careless steps, tipping a huge, mysteriously acquired wineskin. He gulped several times, then wiped the spillage from his hairy chin with a forearm. He looked at Mason like he had no idea why he was leaning against a tree.
“Well? If there’s nothing else, go do something useful. Let me drink in peace.”
“The elves.” Mason rolled his shoulders as a rib popped back into place. “You and Gaia cursed them so they can’t have children. Lift it. They might be useful to me.”
Cerebus made a face, then took another swig and belched.
“Do you think I curse those who displease me? If elves angered me, I would take their scrawny leaders and…” he made a head twisting motion with a few fingers then tossed the hand. “No. It is Gaia, whatever she says. She is a vicious, resentful harpy, full of low cunning.”
When Mason said nothing as he took that in, Cerebus drank and gave him a look.
“Still haven’t realized the ‘earth mother’ and her legion of whores lie?” He snorted. “This is why Yalor destroys life. It’s infuriating. Now off with you. Pitter patter.” The god looked at his wine, then shrugged. “Take this, I tire of it.” He tossed the wineskin, then turned and staggered away, humming with a sound more like a bear’s growl.
When Mason was sure the god wasn’t about to turn around and charge him again, he picked up the huge wineskin, which instantly shrunk to a more human size.
[Acquired artifact: The Horned God’s Flagon. Produces an endless supply of nature-magic infused pixie wine. Strong enough to get Cerebus tipsy. Drinking can yield natural blessings for those who remain conscious. And alive.]
Mason grinned as he looked at the leather skin, feeling as always that the ‘simple’, cantankerous god of the hunt was more than he seemed. Whatever he did or said, he was always helping. And there was something about his persona, a kind of act Mason had begun to see through. Though he didn’t know precisely why.
He stared at the wineskin and decided he’d test it when he was done rallying allies. He checked his profile, still antsy at any sign of a message signaling for his help. But he knew their synthetic overlord would want his dramatic final day. It was all just filler until then.
He turned and raced through the fey, running straight for the city of portals to hopefully recruit a small army of elven wizards. He hadn’t solved their curse yet, but he could at least tell them it was entirely Gaia who’d done it. He could promise to do everything in his power to convince the goddess after the game was won. But he knew it might not be enough. He tried not to get his hopes too high.
