Heimdal blearily shot awake at the distant explosions, their concussive forces shaking even the foundations of the hotel slightly despite the apparent distance of them. Isis also looked up from her book, a look of weary distress on her face.

“It is Athena, right?” Asked Heimdal, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

“Y-yes!” Replied Isis.

Heimdal sighed.

“Damn that woman, doing this sort of thing again. Does she not know that we may not interfere with each and every little thing?” He sighed again, shaking his head in an attempt to wake up a little more.

“I may only hope that it is worth her intervention this time.” He said, pushing the door open and leaving. Isis got up in a panic and followed him out, grabbing her staff in the process and nearly dropping it while fumbling about.

“Um…I-I’m sorry for letting her out…”

“Do not apologize. Athena was going to leave the room sooner or later, and that is purely her own choice. We are not her guardians—we are simply her comrades. The only thing which can be done here is to assist her in whatever mess has been brought before us.”

“Okay... Should I…prepare any spells?”

“I would hope not. Save such things for when events are brought out of our control. Here, though? It should not be necessary.”

Isis nodded, nervously clutching her wooden staff—which had various cryptic and mysterious looking symbols carved along its length.

They moved towards the deep shuddering booms echoing across the small city. The noise had already drawn the attention of more official response groups—like the police and fire departments. The sirens fitted atop their vehicles created an undertone for the explosions, adding to the cacophony.

Inevitably, Heimdal and Isis rounded a corner, and beheld the destruction in all of its terrible glory. What had evidently been a warehouse was now reduced to many smoldering slivers of timber, shattered by the Goddess of Wisdom. There were a few bodies here and there, bearing the marks of Athena’s spear. Four men clustered around a table were dead, interrupted in the middle of their card game by the goddess and her fury. Two more were by a door—or what was left of a door, having been shattered by the same blow that had rent the two bodies asunder.

The entire roof of the warehouse was just gone; parts of it having been caved in while other bits were just…missing. There was no sign as to where the missing pieces had vanished.

Heimdal groaned.

“Of course she would stumble on a slave trade store house.” He said.

“H-how do you know this is a slave trade thing?” Asked Isis meekly.

Heimdal simply pointed over to what were clearly holding cells, their thick metal doors having been blown straight off the hinges, exposing what had been inside.

There were bodies in there as well—but these bodies were gaunt, rotted and sickly looking. Only the dead had elected to remain in the cells.

“I am venturing to guess that Athena opened these cells up, and those still able to run did just that. There are few things that piss the woman off more than slavery.”

Heimdal went and took a closer look at the cells, and changed his initial statement.

“I must take that back. There are few things that drive Athena into a deeper fury than slavery, and rape. It is almost enough to make me feel sorry for the bastards who had run this place. Come, let us tend to our ally, Isis.”

“Right!” Said Isis enthusiastically, before walking straight into a post. Heimdal simply sighed, watching as her face turned a bright red in embarrassment.

“Just follow me.” Heimdal said, a weary tone in his voice.

Outside the warehouse, a fight was brewing.

Athena had ripped through the rest of the slavers, but this last one was unexpectedly giving her a fair bit of trouble.

“You motherfucking bastard! Accept your punishment and death with dignity!” Yelled Athena, who was starting to grow impatient.

“But I don’t wanna die just yet, ya fuking bitch.” Said her combatant. He deflected another strike of Athena’s spear, his movements fluid and consistent. There was a calm look on his face belying the words spoken, and the furious tempo of combat. This calm was also reflected in his movements, and in the way he defended himself with a simple looking sword.

“Shut up! You deserve to die, after what you and your men have done!”

“Oh? And what makes ya the one who decides that shit, eh girly?” Said the man.

“Ya ain’t some ultimate moral authority or something. Ya ain’t fit to judge us, and ya sure as hell ain’t some shining knight for those ya went ahead an’ freed. Most a’ them gonna starve within the week, ya know?”

“I said shut up.” Responded Athena, her voice having gained an odd sort of reverberation. Something in her had snapped, and her fury had fully been manifested by the man before her.

The slaver felt something cold shiver up his spine. Athena’s voice had become like ice, cutting at him and making the air feel colder. Her anger had flipped, becoming a killing calm. Where the slaver’s calm came from experience and a certain amount of flippancy, Athena’s came from the absolute assurance that the fight would end in his death.

The slaver was seriously considering running, when a third voice joined the fray.

“Athena! Stand down—this man is not worthy enough to make you break the rules. We must be restricted to the 9th divide’s peak while venturing afar, remember?”

Athena turned, and saw Heimdal entering the fray, Isis in tow.

“Why should I stop? This man deserves everything which is coming.”

“Yes, he does—I will not argue that. However, breaking the rules set for us by our various Pantheon heads is not a good trade off for the death of a single piece of scum floating along. Step back, Athena. Do not lose your head over something you know to be a small deal. Do not give him the respect of an honorable death.”

Something about what Heimdal was saying seemed to reach Athena, as the chilliness in her posture bled away, leaving a disgruntled warrior standing where an empress had just been.

“Fine. You handle this bastard then. Can I trust you to have him die in as painful a manner as you can manage?”

“Of course. I have seen what him and his men did, after all. I will open a gate towards a realm of suffering hitherto unseen by this…human shaped piece of shite.”

The slaver, who had thought the new man was pardoning him from the woman’s icy wrath, suddenly got a very bad feeling about events. So, he activated a single piece of magic. Revy, were she here, would recognize it as being distinctly related to illusion magic—even if one didn’t have to be an illusionist to make use of it.

The spell created a doppelganger where the slaver had been standing, while rendering his real body invisible for a brief period of time. He used that small opportunity to escape, leaving the doppelganger to distract the man and woman.

Only, he made a mistake. After all, Isis was still there.

“Um, that guy just made a shadow clone and ran away.” She said.

Athena’s eyes widened.

“What? Really?” She asked incredulously. “Which direction did that bastard go?”

Isis pointed past the doppelganger. The slaver had run directly away from them.

“Fuck! Come on Heimdal, let’s get the coward!”

“No need. Isis, can you tie the clone, please?”

Isis nodded, and pointed her staff at the doppelganger standing as if ready to fight. A magic circle manifested itself under the clone and ethereal chains broke out, binding themselves around the figure.

Out of sight, another circle had appeared under the real slaver, identical to the other one. Chains also wrapped themselves around him. The slaver watched this with panicked eyes, unable to move due to some sort of immobilizing effect the spell had.

The chains sunk themselves into both the doppelganger and the actual slaver. Then, they were completely gone, and the magic circle vanished without a single sign of it having affected anything.

The slaver stared down at himself, puzzled. There wasn’t a clue as to what the magic had changed, or what the chains did. He stood for a moment longer before running again, now able to do so once more.

“Is it done?” Asked Heimdal.

Isis nodded while Athena looked on in puzzlement.

“What exactly did you do, Isis?”

“U-um, I…connected the two of them back together.”

Athena stared at Isis in confusion, clearly not understanding what was going on.

“She created a bind between the clone and the real man. Each will now feel the same things. Meaning that I may now kill the clone, and the actual man will feel of the pain from death.” Said Heimdal, a dark undertone in his voice. He walked over to where the clone was standing, and spoke right into its ear.

“Slavery is illegal in this sector of space. Rape is as well, and inhuman treatment of prisoners is listed as a war crime. Whoever you are, whatever your name is, I advise you to use this as a learning moment. Engrave this lessen into your soul, for it will not be taught twice. Do no evil, and we will not come for you.”

Heimdal’s words echoed along the newly established link between the slaver and his doppelganger. The man froze in place, a bad feeling eclipsing that of his earlier premonition washing over him. Something bad was coming, he knew. There was also a terrible feeling of inevitability—like what was about to happen was unavoidable.

Then he felt pain, and saw hell.

Athena and Isis watched at Heimdal walked over to the clone spoke a few sentences in its ear, and tapped a few points on the figure. It immediately collapsed to the ground, and Heimdal simply walked away.

“What the hell did you just do?”

“I used my ability. That clone now has molten metal running through its veins in the stead of blood. I also broke most of its bones. The real man will not be feeling very well right now, I would think.”

Athena looked slightly queasy. She has just wanted to kill the man, not make him feel such pain. Isis seemed to take this in stride, however.

“Try n-not to let it bother you, lady Athena. Heimdal does this only to those deserving.”

“Just kill them and be done with it. Jeez, even I don’t think someone’s deserving of such an experience.” Said Athena, mostly to herself.

Heimdal, however, had heard her, and responded.

“That is not what I think.” He said. “There are those wholly deserving of worse, and I shall not hesitate to dispense the proper justice onto them. In the time before I fully accepted the name of Heimdal, there were many things I witness which happening in the absence of justice, many people who were disadvantaged due to the law not protecting them. You just recently joined the Pantheons, Athena. Most of us did not have the luxuries of growing amongst those on Earth, like you did. Many of us simply survived long enough to grow strong.”

Athena considered his words all the way back to the hotel, and they lingered in the back of her mind up until the point where she finally fell asleep that night.

And she dreamed of her past.

(POV Revy.)

I wonder what the Pantheon actually is?

Recently, that is a thought which has been lingering in the back of my mind. Jvorg won’t tell me, saying that it’s better to see something for yourself then to simply learn about it.

To the hell with that.

There’s nothing half so bad as not knowing about something, and this has been bugging me for a while now.

After all, the term ‘Pantheon’ was first brought up when I had still been living in the Al’Verath Great House, and it was often accompanied with other words such as annoying, upstarts, fakes, insufferable meddlers, freaks, idiots.

Oh, there were words like strong and indomitable thrown in as well, but most of the adjectives associated with the Pantheon were not flattering. And, nobody bothered to explain to the little kid running around why the Pantheon is such an annoying thing, or even just what it is.

No, actually, that’s not the most infuriating thing about all this. The worst thing is that there’s nothing about the Pantheon online. Not even a single mention.

Well, almost no mention. The only information I could find were about those pantheons of gods worshiped in the oldest ages of civilization, and some of the ones which had cropped up in the wake of the Moon Fall and the destruction which followed. Nothing about an actual organization, however—which was concerning based simply on the massive amounts of information available through the Internet. Hell, even things that were supposedly myths or superstition cropped up eventfully with the dawning of the information era, and were mostly preserved through Moon Fall in massive underground data storage sites. Things like the illuminati were proven to be real, along with various other conspiracies.

So then, for an organization like the Pantheon to stay hidden, what sort of resources do they have at their disposal? What does it take for a group of people to only be known by the High Families?

It wasn’t even until a few years ago that all this became concerning to me.

Around my fifteenth birthday, I had a dream.

This wasn’t something unusual, nor are unusual dreams in and of themselves something rare for me. My dreams can get weird, and are sometimes freakishly accurate representations of something that is going to happen.

But this particular dream—it stands out due to the clearness it had, and the lingering impressions it gave me.

And in the dream, I got a warning from some bearded guy in a lab-coat.

“First will come your family, seeking to check and draw you once more. Then will come the Pantheon, wishing to add another lonely soul among their ranks. The scourge will be next, to destroy or admit humanity depending on your answer. Lastly will come peace for you, whatever the end. Remember these words, and the name bestowed upon you by fate. Know that what you want, and what is required are not married together. Beware of those bearing gifts.”

Then the man said a name, and I woke up. Of course that name has lingered in the back of my mind since then, and I’ve researched it quite in depth. Said research first brought me to divinities belonging to the ancient Nordic pantheon. Then the other pantheons were researched as well, since well—Pantheon and all. I wanted to learn as much about this stuff as possible.

And, as mentioned, there wasn’t a whole lot to be learned.

Oh well.

Jvorg seems like he knows more about this then he’s letting on. Asking him about it again is probably the only action I can take right now. Annoying, but nothing to be done about it at the moment. Unless a miraculous bit of information falls into my hands. Statistics say that it’s unlikely, but not completely impossible—just mostly.

Another meeting with Jvorg has already been set up though, so my questions can be asked at that time, however many times it needs to be brought up. No use in worrying about it until then.

No, for now there’s something else which has to be done. Previously, my friends had been told that I would be joining them in that new quest, and now I have to uphold my end of the bargain.

“Ah! You made it, Vina!” Called out Xavier, who was the first one to see me.

“The quest trigger is just down here.” He said, pointing to the cave opening. Everyone else was standing around, evidently having waited for me—who was the last to arrive. With my addition to their group however, we started towards the caves.

“Is it just me, or does this place seem familiar?” Asked Rina. She was currently perched on Diana’s head, resting her pixie wings for a while.

“No, I’m getting that feeling as well.” Said Spark while Eine simply nodded, agreeing with her assessment.

“Scout quest during civil war.” I said, cluing them into why the place felt familiar.

“Was that here? Wow, what a coincidence.” Said Xavier. “Actually, now that I think about it, there was some sort of magic seal down at the bottom, keeping people from going any further, right?”

“Yes, in lowest chamber.”

“Wow. I would’ve never thought that there was something so important past that seal. Maybe some treasure or something, but not a whole ‘nother quest!”

“Wait—if these caves were added in for that last God Quest with the civil war, then wouldn’t that mean RAV also created this quest?” Asked Spark, who had realized the connection between the other God Quests, and this new and mysterious quest which had sprung up and become something of a challenge.

Xavier stared at Spark, his jaw slightly slack due to someone else realizing that connection before him, and the implications of this particular realization.

“That-that would mean that this is also a God Quest then…and nobody’s realized it yet!? Everyone’s doing it simply because it seems interesting, and because Deus the Sword Mage seemed interested in it! How has nobody realized this yet!?”

“Maybe Sword Mage did?” I added on, stopping the momentum Xavier had build up in his little ‘think aloud’ session.

“That’s a reasonable assumption.” Said Rina. “After all, something would have had to brought this place to her attention in the first place, and what better way of doing that then finding out that the next God Quest starts here?”

There was silence for a brief moment as everyone thought about all we had just learned. Eine broke that silence—something uncharacteristic for his old self, but he’s seemed much more open and talkative ever since I got his dad to back off from him.

“I think we’ve done enough mental gymnastics for now. Why don’t we go ahead and see what all the fuss is about ourselves?”

Agreeing with Eine, we all ventured fully into the caves, making our way down to the lowest level, where that group of soldiers had been stationed when we first made our way down here.

Of course, we passed by that room with the underground stream, and the glowing crystals which adorned the ceiling and walls. Somehow, it seemed just as pristine and untouched as it had when we first had made our way down here, like it hadn’t seen large groups of people passing through in order to get to the Obelisk standing below. Everyone expressed their awe at the seemingly natural beauty of the room, with it’s many glowing motes of light like tiny galaxies twinkling before our eyes.

“So pretty…” Said Rina, her voice quickly fading away amongst the crystals.

“Come on—let’s not linger here.” Said Diana a moment later. So, we left the room, crossing the bridge extending over the mirror-like underground stream, and exiting the cave room through the small passageway leading deeper underground. There was a reverent sort of feeling that the room generated, and nobody among us wanted to disturb it for too long.

“Whoever designed these caves—RAV or otherwise—really has an eye for beauty.” Spoke Eine, after we had left the crystal room.

Everyone nodded, silently agreeing with him. Well, almost everyone.

Anyway, we quickly found ourselves standing in front of the area once occupied by that seal—which had since been broken by the combined onslaught and spells of five Red Robes.

Xavier went ahead and walked down the tunnel past the seal location first, in his typical happy-go-lucky manner. The rest of us simple followed him down, listening to his vocal musings as he studied the murals and carvings in the walls on the way down. Xavier seemed to find them and the story they told very interesting, and kept trying to puzzle out the significance of it all, as well as how this might relate to the other God Quests.

He got very frustrated by the missing parts of the story though, where the walls had been broken, or chiseled away in apparent anger.

“Those were the most important parts! I need to know what happens there!” He said, shaking his rough dwarven fists at the offending bits of wall.

Spark sighed, and forcibly guided Xavier further down, into the cavern proper with the Obelisk standing tall in the center of it.

Xavier immediately ran for the Obelisk, seeing the writing scrawled along its length. He was immediately immersed into what it said. Everyone else took their time in walking over to the Obelisk, in no rush to see the object that had generated so much mystery in the past few days among those in the Ashenload community interested in such things.

“Say, wasn’t there some sort of battle in here, between that Sword Mage and those other five Red Robes?” Asked Spark.

“That’s what Xavier said. Why?”

“Well, it’s just that this place doesn’t look like a battle took place—even a small one not involving any magic.”

Looking around, everyone noticed that he was right. The cavern itself was spotless, the natural granite and marble floor still retaining a nearly mirror-like polish. An oddity, considering a massive magical conflagration had taken place at this very spot not to long ago.

“Guys, guys! Come look at this!” Called out Xavier, drawing out our attention away from the lack of battle damage in the room, towards the Obelisk itself.

He was standing in front of it, pointing at the messily carved writing on it.

“Read this!” He demanded.

“Fine, fine. Have a little patience, okay Xavier? We were going to get around to this eventually. We can wait, unlike a certain excitable little dwarf.” Said Rina, digging a little friendly barb into him for his astounding enthusiasm.

He turned a little red, but continued pointing towards the words.

However, nobody said anything more, since they were immediately drawn into the words carved into the Obelisk.

Ye who shalt stand here—Take up my legacy.

Never had I thought it possible, for myself to grow old.

And yet that has come to pass, and my time is nearing.

Still have I grievances—missions and tasks unfulfilled.

Still have I anger, over that unduly taken from me.

Yet, no time is left to carry out all my vengeances

Death comes, just as it should have eons ago.

Ye who reads of these words, know what I know.

There are tyrants ruling the heavens always.

No matter the age, those gods distain of our freedom.

Playthings we are to them.

Know what I know when I say there is a way.

A way to slip their grasp, to toss them from their perch.

Mortals are devious, and adaptable in a way the gods cannot be.

Ye who wants power—be warned.

The heavens will not tol

comes at a price, power to topple gods r

The mortal world will accept you.

Trials and tribulations

meet all that reach the end.

path is of destruction and rot. O revitalization.

Know me as G easterly borne, and westerly met.

Ye who wishes to pursue my legacy still, seek it out on the four winds.

Prove thou art worthy, and capable of wielding what I leave.

The path starts with the end of today.

A small chiming sounding in my ear, signaling that a new quest has been received.

“To fell a Giant”, it’s called.

The description of the quest simply reads- “Find the place where the day has ended. Defeat the guardian of the legacy, and retrieve the next clue.”

While everyone discussed the quest itself, and what the description could mean, Xavier bemoaned the fact that part of the writing on the Obelisk had been given the same treatment as the carvings on the wall, and been rendered incomprehensible besides the first and last set of words.

He felt that whatever had been written there was likely extremely important to the quest itself, and the loss of whatever knowledge had been there was going to only make things harder when trying to complete the quest.

And while he wasn’t the only one thinking this, everyone else simply took on an attitude of ‘no use crying over spilt milk.’

Whatever was written there is gone now, and we can only work around it.

Anyway, with the quest started now, we all decided to log off. No use in trying to continue today, when none of us has any idea what that first clue means yet.

The place where the day has ended?

The others will need some time to puzzle that one out, I think.