Gods Among Men

The utter pandemonium was just beginning. In Laios, I had retired for an afternoon nap after our show & tell with Hue. Snoring on the couch, out like a light.

I’m blinded by a bright flash, and a tremendous fall to the floor, right on my back. I’d been teleported without standing up. My head bonks against the ground, which makes a nasty ping sound on the hard marble floor. Ouch. I get a chance to look around.

Kalth and the other 3 Elder Mages are standing over me. I’m in some kind of presidential suite within the College, on the floor, on my back, and alarms are blaring. I can hear footsteps sprinting up and down the halls, shouting, and cursing.

As I shuffle to my feet and dust myself off, I realize I’m in front of the king’s desk. His crown is off, and he looks thoroughly, unbelievably upset. His right hand is shaking, holding a pen, which snaps between his fingers. He takes a deep breath.

“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?”, he roars at me. Various small trinkets on his desk go flying as he slams his fist down.

“YOU IDIOT, YOU’VE KILLED US ALL!”. Boiling, hopping mad.

I raise my hand to try and ask a question.

“KALTH, TELL HIM.”, he roars again. I turn around to face the ever-imposing, giant, blonde elven mage who brought me here.

“John, approximately 30 minutes ago, the Grand Council of Slimes in Arctera was completely destroyed in a terrorist attack.”

My eyes widen. David?

“All 12 Slimes of the Grand Council perished together instantly. Your son was at the scene, and was pursued by Gozu, Uragas’s fixer, but managed to escape.”

A screen pops up behind Kalth. It’s a picture of a massive smoldering crater, surrounding by ornate, gleaming white walls.

I finally get the courage to say something.

“Do we know for sure it was him?”

“Yes.”, Kalth replies, flatly. “There is no doubt.”

“The problem here, John, besides the fact that he just assassinated the entire governing body of the financial sphere that links all our nations together, is that he was able to do it in the first place.”

“Meaning, it has been tried before. Countless times. By mages who had trained their entire lives for that purpose. Every possible strategy and maneuver had been wargamed. Every one had failed. Even with the military’s mages, the most bloodthirsty and inventive war magic didn’t do anything to the Grand Council.”

I stand there, speechless.

“The second problem, is that, because he did this, now every Slime who survived is going to enact revenge for their brethren, and they all have henchmen like Uragas. Hence, why the king just told you you’ve killed us all.”

I fire back, a little bit.

“Surely, you don’t mean you’re going to blame me for what David chose to do on his own?”

The king taps what’s left of his broken pen on his desk.

“We could.”, he mutters.

A trio of mage students bursts through the door, holding a vast set of scrolls.

“We’ve found them, sir!”. They bring them straight to Kalth. He grins.

“The old contingency plan. Thank heavens for archivists. It will need some updating. To the war room.”

Kalth hands the scrolls off to the most elderly, grizzled looking Elder Mage, who storms off with the students in tow. I can hear the marching of military boots outside in the hall as the door swings shut.

A terrible, awkward silence fills the room. The king taps his broken pen on the desk again.

“Have you any insight on his next move, John?”, he asks. His voice is croaky and defeated.

“Respectfully, no, my king. As I’m sure you know, he and I did not have the opportunity to speak before he fled to Arctera. What would you have me do, my king?”

He looks up at me, and furls his brow. Then, he looks down. Taps his pen. Looks up again.

“We’ll draft some sort of plan that involves you. We’ll need your expertise on your son. We must regain control of this situation before it spirals into chaos, more than it already has. You are free to go, John.”

Mid-bow, before I can speak, I’m teleported in front of my desk, back at the station. I’m bowing to my desk. Fredericus is behind me, with a terrified, sweaty expression.

“Chief! Hue has barricaded himself in his office. There’s alarms blaring all over the city. I can’t get information from anyone at the College as to what’s going on!”, he rattles off at lightning speed.

I raise my index finger at him. Quiet. Let me sit down first.

Slowly, painfully, I sink into my office chair, folding my hands in front of my forehead, leaning over my desk. I open my mouth to speak; but then I realize; we have a surveillance Slime in our building. Not just any surveillance Slime, THE surveillance Slime, one whose daily hobbies include snooping on every nook, cranny and orifice of this city.

“I assume you’ve already dispatched the regulars to try and keep order. There’s no immediate danger, but some major developments have taken place, politically. Be on particular lookout for rogue, retribution-style attacks by small numbers of recent arrivals. Once things calm down, I’ll be able to explain them more clearly. Keep a cool head and keep my boys safe.”

Fred gives an affirmative head bob and runs back downstairs. I peer out of the window. It’s evening time, and bright lights and blaring warning sirens echo through the still, creepy street.

I need a drink.

Thousands of miles away, over the ocean, David and Sara are still floating mid-air. He’s lost in deep thought. Something comes to him.

“Scan.”

A form of magic akin to radar shoots out onto the horizon. A readout is given on his screen.

Emptiness. Far off, a land mass.

“Life Scan.”

A mass of blips appears on this island. Bingo.

“Let’s go, Sara.”

A short hop teleport, and a quick flight reveal an oval-shaped, extremely tropical island with a vast freshwater lake in the center. David decides to set down there and check things out. Another life scan reveals large creatures, in the range of 100-300 pounds, but he can’t see any. Exhausted, the two of them plop themselves down on the sandy beach surrounding the central lake. A moment of peace.

That peace is shattered by Sara’s loud, terrified shriek. David jumps up, spinning around. In front of them is a large, terrifying looking creature with two tall, beady eyestalks, round eyes atop them, and a long, smooth, glistening body that ends in a point. It’s a slug. A really, really big slug.

Its fleshy “cape” sparkles in the evening sun. It eyes them intently. Given he can’t see a mouth, David attempts telepathy.

“Hello?”

Silence.

“Can you hear me?”

A vague impression of slimy, gurgly noises fills his head. He’s got to concentrate harder. It’s tough after so much exertion today.

Grasping his nose in frustration, David tries imagining things on a slug’s wavelength.

“SLIME!”, he shouts, in his head.

“SLIME!”, it barks back.

He suddenly feels a sharp jab in the back. Wheeling around, it’s another slug, grasping a long stick with one of its prehensile eye stalks.

“NO SLIME.”, it announces.

“NO SLIME”, the other concurs.

“LEAF?”, David pleads.

Another painful jab of the stick.

“NO LEAF.”

This isn’t working. Thinking on his feet, David tries something novel. He holds out his hand, and imagines producing slug slime. To his amazement, a thick, goopy ooze pours out from his palm, plopping onto the ground.

The slugs are taken totally aback by this, but then they suddenly prostrate themselves on the ground. Sara shrieks again. There’s hundreds of them. Where did they come from? They’re all kneeling, as if in reverence. The first one, ostensibly a leader, rises.

“COME.”

David leads his elf companion by the hand, flanked on all sides by these terrible, slithering creatures, as they slowly, ever so slowly, make their way inland. They come to a sandy clearing. Within that clearing is a massive mural, carved in the sand with solidified slime, depicting a man, a human figure, holding his hand out and dropping globs of something onto the ground.

The slug leader (slowly) leads them to a stone altar. It’s sealed with a magic rune. He looks at David.

“OPEN.”

A request, not an announcement. Very well. David gingerly steps up to this stone altar. It couldn’t have been made by them, it’s hand-carved. He places his hand on it.

A green, blinding light flashes, and the altar splits in two, raising up a table with carved inscriptions on it, with another dedicated place to set both hands. All the slugs once again prostrate themselves.

David places both of his hands on the altar. A green and white sphere, consisting of hundreds of intricate rings of magic, rises from the center of the altar, floating above the participants, spinning wildly.

The slug leader speaks up.

“YOUR WILL.”

David ponders for a moment.

“FREEDOM.”

A terrifying, deep roar shakes the earth, and everyone in sight of the altar collapses, unconscious.