Chapter Twenty-Eight - A Lesson in Humility

“My first two meetings with the new gods went rather well. They were, for the most part, cordial and polite, or at least respectful enough.

I suppose it was bound to happen that one of those meetings wouldn’t end so well.”

***

Chamomile walked with the swaying grace of a flower caught in the wind. She took the lead, stepping in before me and heading not towards the gazebo in the centre of the garden, but towards an open area to one side where there was shade and a few benches around a little fountain that gurgled peacefully.

“This place is rather nice,” I said.

“We try to keep it clean,” Chamomile said. “It should be a place for the pantheon to meet and discuss things peacefully. It’s not always easy to cultivate an air of serenity when domains and aspirations clash. This garden, being the way it is? That helps. Even the gods aren’t as likely to act with violence when surrounded by so much that is fragile.”

“I can appreciate that,” I said as I allowed my attention to wander across the garden. My eyes were pulled towards the gazebo. There was... something there that caught my attention, but I couldn’t for the unlife of me figure out what it was.

Much of the divinity in the air around us came from there. Was it the Font that Chamomile had spoken of?

Chamomile found her way to one of the benches and sat down with a sigh. “Do you wish to sit? The others are coming already.”

I could sense two other divine beings heading our way. One was clearly stronger than the other, but surprisingly, neither were as powerful as Chamomile. Perhaps my concerns about the strength of the new gods was misplaced. “Who are they?”

“Wan and Gong Zhu,” Chamomile said. “Gong Zhu is an honourable woman, though her appearance doesn’t seem that way at first.”

“And Wan?” I asked.

Chamomile set her little tea box next to her and popped open the lid. “I’ll prepare something to drink once things have calmed down.”

That didn’t bode well.

The first I saw of these two unfamiliar gods was a tall, buxom woman who stood head and shoulders over the hedges around us. She wore a simple crown with spade-like spikes above it, and, when she turned towards me, it revealed a pair of tusks jutting out of her overbite and a pair of beady brown eyes that scanned the area around us with disinterest.

Her dress was nice, I supposed. An embroidered robe fit for a queen, though it did little to hide her muscular frame.

The god walking next to her only appeared when they rounded the corner and started towards our spot of the garden.

He was a young man, with pale skin and bags under his eyes. He seemed spry though, and walked with a sort of self-assured confidence that I had only ever seen matched in young men who hadn’t yet discovered their own mortality.

Before they reached us, the shorter of the two--Wan--pulled out a glass bottle from a pocket, dropped a pill into his hand, and slapped it into his mouth. Even from where I stood I could tell that the medicine was magical.

“Ey, Cham, who’s this skeleton freak?” Wan asked. He sniffed and rubbed under his nose while looking me up and down.

“Be polite, Wan,” Chamomile said. “This is Harold.”

Wan shrugged. “Harold who? Didn’t anyone tell him that the undead are taboo? Even the underworld guys have better taste.”

“I have been a lich since before that taboo existed, I’m afraid. There’s little I could do to turn back.” That wasn’t entirely true, but this young godling was hardly worth changing for. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. As Chamomile said, I’m Harold.”

“I have heard of you,” the boar goddess said. “I was there when you dealt with the god of the hunt.”

“Truly?” I asked. She didn’t feel all that powerful to be that old. Though, perhaps that was owing to her domain. Boars weren’t all that impressive, I feared.

She nodded. “I am Gong Zhu, the Queen of Boars.” She crossed her arms under her chest, both arms bulging with muscle. ‘Are you here to cause trouble?”

“Pfft, this punk?” Wan asked. “What, he’s some big shot cultivator? Look at him, he’s all bones!”

I’d usually appreciate the wordplay, were it not delivered in such a condescending manner.

“Wan, beware,” Chamomile said.

“Beware? Do you know who I am, flower girl?” Wan pointed a finger right at Chamomile’s face. “Your days are numbered, tea girl. Real cultivators, they know where the real, concentrated power is at. It ain’t in tea. If you ask real nicely, I might let you take one of my pills.” He flicked his wrist and a bottle appeared in his hand. “First one’s free for you, love.”

“Interesting,” I said as I eyed the bottle. I suspected that they were an example of the medicinal cultivation pills I’d read about. Some were supposedly able to assist someone in levelling up.

Such a thing existed in my day, though they were rare, difficult to produce, and often had undesirable side-effects. It was often easier to just grind lower-levelled foes for a time.

But in a world without the system to warn someone about negative effects and without a clear path for progression, perhaps the pills became more popular. Or, perhaps, their popularity was owed to something else.

It was entirely possible that the more scientific nature of alchemy and potioneering allowed their makers to use rational methods to test their products until they reached a level of efficiency and proficiency in their creation that surpassed what was common in my day.

“Oi, dead boy, you zoned out there?” Wan asked. He snapped his fingers before my face.

“Please don't address me that way. My name is Harold.”

“Pfft, who do you think you’re talking to? I’m Wan. The Wan. God of pills and the good kind of herbs. You’re just some punk who doesn’t know how to dress.”

It was a good thing that I was a rational man, otherwise Wan’s commentary might have angered me a little. As it was, I turned to Chamomile, a question in mind. “Is this the quality of the gods today? I am unimpressed.”

Wan’s eyes filled with burning anger, and it’s only Gong Zhu’s hand upon his shoulder stopping him that kept him from walking right up to me.

“You want to throw down, you bony bastard?” Wan asked. “I won’t allow you to insult me that way.”

“Please stop talking,” I asked. “I do not appreciate your feeble attempts at threatening me.”

Wan freed himself from Gong Zhu’s grasp with a tug and glared. “Who are you? Cham, why’d you bring this filth into this sacred place?”

“I brought him to save us the trouble of rebuilding our gate,” Chamomile said. “It would be a shame to damage something so pretty. That, and his curiosity will only be sated by being here. I think that once he’s seen the state of things as they are, he will leave. At least, that is what I am betting on.”

She was being rather open about things. “I appreciate the honesty. I have to admit that I’m a little disappointed. I don’t know what I expected on coming here, but it wasn’t to find that the quality of gods had degraded so much that someone like that would be accepted into the pantheon.” I gestured to Wan. The other two seemed decent enough for gods.

“What’d you say about me you punk.” Wan walked over to me, brought an arm back, and looked as though he was about to poke me in the chest.

“Prismatic Wall.”

A seven-layered magical wall the size of a dinner plate flashed into existence just before Wan’s arm shot out to stab at me.

His finger passed through the first layer of the barrier and sizzled for just a moment before he yanked it back and started to jump up and down while shaking his hand.

“I don’t appreciate it when people touch me without permission. Do forgive my spell there. You should be fine. You’re a god after all.” Prismatic Wall was a handy bit of Abjuration magic. The entire school was mostly defensive in nature, which, as the limpet had discovered recently, meant that it wasn’t all that handy in some situations.

On the other hand, it was the school of magic that was best for dealing with casters and the occasional arrogant young god.

I frowned, then shrugged when I couldn’t put my finger on any more hand puns.

Put my finger. Oh hohoho!

“You bastard!” Wan said before popping an entire bottle of pills into his palm and slapping the whole thing into his mouth. “You’re going down!”

“Wan,” Gong Zhu warned.

The young god didn’t listen to the warning. I could sense the magic around him blossoming, growing far stronger in a few short seconds. It was an interesting change, but not something all that impressive.

The god ran up to me, hand swinging to slap me.

I must have had Abjuration on my mind, because I muttered two such spells in quick succession.

“Invulnerability.”

“Anti-Magic Field.”

A burst of nothing at all shot out of me and slammed through Wan. The godling’s eyes widened as his legs went weak and his divine aura evaporated like the contents of a cauldron tipped onto a campfire.

Magic wasn’t all that the god had going for going for him, hence the Invulnerability.

I caught his hand mid-swing, then tugged him forwards until he fell down and was laying across my lap. “This is a rather vulnerable position,” I said. “Chamomile, would he learn his lesson if I spanked him?”

“I don’t think so,” the goddess said. She delivered it with a straight face, but there was no disguising the waver of amusement in her voice.

“Hmm,” I hummed as I contemplated what to do next.

Wan started to push himself up, so I pressed him back down.

“Don’t leave just yet, I’m still considering what to do,” I said. “You know, you’re quite lucky that your only audience are these two women and myself. It would be terribly embarrassing if there were more witnesses to this.”

“I’m going to kill you, you bastard!” Wan said.

I stared down at the boy and let just the barest hint of my power loose. It wasn’t a spell, it was me purposefully letting go of my magic to let it permeate the air around me in a suffocatingly thick miasma of necrotic power.

Wan started to cough and splutter. “I do not appreciate threats, child. No matter how unlikely it is that someone as fragile as you could carry them out.” I grabbed Wan by the back of his neck, then stood up while holding onto him. “Your comrades at least showed a level of cordiality and politeness that I can respect. It would do you well to learn the lesson they are trying to teach you by example.”

“You can’t do this to me!” Wan said as he struggled. I couldn’t feel his kicks against my shins, but they still annoyed me.

I plucked a bottle from his hand as he tried to tip it into his mouth, and slid it in a pocket for later examination. “I think I’m quite done with you.”

“Teleport.”

Somewhere over a lake, the one next to the Four Vemons Sect, as it happened, a minor godling appeared. I didn’t worry for him. With a head as large as his, I was certain that he was buoyant.

“Now,” I said as I sat back down and reined my magic back in. The two goddesses let out twin breaths at that. “I hope you don’t mind, but I have a few little questions. Notably, what is that Font you mentioned, and is there any link between that and the magic I’m sensing from that gazebo over there? Because between you and me, that magic feels very familiar, and it just responded to my own magic in a very interesting way.”

***