In my study of their history, I had learned that sometimes a god would disguise themselves as another deity in order to steal power. Some would even create false identities and live as new gods, as part of a long con to kill their enemies. But there was a great price to impersonation. To feign one’s identity was to violate the agreement made by all gods. To be caught meant to be exiled. It was a colossal risk to do so, but such a practice was not unheard of. And Izguril, a Lesser Deity who had so desperately wanted to become powerful in his own right, would be the type of god who was willing to risk it all for that power.
Reflecting back on all my interactions with Agara, I realized how deeply cruel she was to those who did not offer her loyalty. One of the key aspects of mercy is to show it to those who are your enemies, not your allies. There is little to lose when you are kind to a friend, but to an adversary? That is a sacrifice that only the most merciful are willing to make. How she treated me convinced me of her treachery.
The only question I had left was how deep Izguril’s deceit went. Was he secretly allied with key members who knew of this fraud? Would my accusations in the next meeting of the gods be mocked with ridicule, as her lies were an open secret? I had no way of knowing what was to come. But I was reassured when Jepner arrived. He was a schemer, just like all the others. Perhaps he sought to blackmail the false Agara into doing his bidding? Or perhaps he knew the secret all along, yet no one would listen to him? It was impossible to know.
I had to make some assumptions going forward. The first assumption was that my revelation would indeed be a revelation to the gods. Izguril, posing as Agara, would be exposed. But if he had allies, if the False Goddess had enough on her side to start yet another gods’ war, I would most certainly be killed in the blood bath. Worse yet, there would be little time for the gods to consider this strange Invasion that was coming from another dimension.
The second assumption was that if Agara was indeed Izguril in disguise, he would undoubtedly seek to take me down with him, even if he was universally condemned by all other gods. While he may be in disguise, the power he drew from the worshippers, the domains he controlled, were all very real. As a Greater God, he would be able to hew me in half before the gods brought whatever judgment they had for me.
Yet in spite of all of this, it was in my best interest to move forward with my plan to expose Izguril. It would show all the gods that I am a friend of theirs, who seeks to aid them. Furthermore, I would ensure that the real Agara, if she could be somehow returned to life or even released from Izguril’s control, would be an ally for the rest of our existence. These two things should be enough to insulate me from the influence of any ambitious gods who sought to punish me for my actions. And if they weren’t, well, at least I’d be destroyed quickly.
My thoughts turned to the godspells that were resting comfortably in a little shadow realm I created for Glym. She was, as it turned out, quite the collector of useful and interesting spells. Some of them were meant to do things such as seal bargains between gods, ensuring that neither party could break their word, others were meant to influence the minds of mortals who were trading, to give them keen insight into economics and how to benefit the world. And then there was the collection that the Thief half of Glym had stolen from other gods.
These spells were powerful and, oftentimes, dangerous. One spell in particular created a powerful lance that, when it struck a deity, would affix them to the material world, restricting their power to travel through the other planes of reality. Another would slowly strip the sanity from a deity, warping their mental faculties until they were a raving lunatic. It was a toolbox of things to use in case of a contingency. Glym the Thief was prepared for just about everything. And, since these spells were all clearly stolen, they radiated with different divine energies. The strength of a god dictated the initial strength of a spell. Thus, a greater deity who lost followers would lose a great majority of his power, but the godspell would not. And most of her collection radiated with Greater Divinity.
I began to think of a way to use these spells for my own advantage, should Izguril indeed try and slay me. I had options now, thanks to the fact that Glym was storing her spells with me. I had promised her that I would protect her spells, but nowhere in our dealings did I indicate that I wasn’t going to use them. These spells were self-contained and powerful, they were not like arcane magic. Using them did not drain or weaken them. In some cases, the spells would grow stronger when used, as if they were being exercised. I decided that I would take some time to design a contingency, just in case the court of the gods was not enough to defend me from one of their own.
Chapter 38
The contingency plan was another level of the dungeon, except this one would be built downwards, deeper into the earth. Normally, I liked my dungeon to be moving upwards, through my trunk towards the sky. I felt it would give adventurers a sense of hope and progress as they proceeded up, instead of only just going down. But the Vault of the False was not meant to give hope. It was meant to trap a god.
Perhaps I was mad for thinking like this, but I could not get my mind off the idea. The combination of spells just resting around me to be used, the fact that Agara would try to kill me and the idea of having some greater purpose for the gods all led me to create the Vault. It was going to be Izguril’s home for however long the others deemed fit. He would be trapped within me, unable to escape thanks to one overlooked power that I did not realize I had until recently.
The Invaders were foreign energies, creatures from other worlds whose essences made them somewhat immune to arcane magics, at least as far as I knew. And when it came to divination spells, clerics and priests were unable to gain any information on these strange beasts. This was because the gods were not attuned to their essences. Their magic had to be modified in order to affect the creatures. And since the gods did not know this, all normal divine magic failed against the Invaders.
I, too, was a stranger to this world. And while I had used a lot of magic to create and shift my body, to build this dungeon, I never actually used my essence to create anything except for the poison. What would happen if I were to build a section of the dungeon that was directly infused with my own life energy? What if I combined my arcane magic and my life force, would a god be able to break out so easily? I was unsure, but I was willing to give it a try. I would try to weave my essence into the very walls themselves, fortifying them with the godspells of protection.
The Vault would be composed of four separate sections. The first would be the trap meant to affix Izguril’s avatar to the material plane. I would be forced to use a simple teleportation spell on him, but I would be using all of my magic reserves to draw him into the entrance of the vault. Even if the spell worked for a second, teleporting him, the Anchorspear would prevent him from being able to leave so quickly.
The spell would activate the moment a divine presence was sensed within the room. I constructed a large statue of a warrior, wielding a spear above the spot where the victim would be teleported in. The spell would fire off, emanating from the spear, striking at the target within a split second, moving as fast as light itself.
When under the influence of the Anchorspear, a god would be unable to teleport or shift between realms. They would be forced to traverse the world as a regular mortal, interacting with all physical objects. Yes, they retained all of the god powers, but without the ability to move between realms, all of the traps in the other rooms would have a better chance of striking them. Provided, of course, that Izguril was unable to simply just shatter the walls to the dungeon, or worse simply destroy me from the inside out.
Once anchored to my realm, the deity would then be obliged to contend with my traps. I did not suspect that this god would be well versed enough in dungeon crawling to understand what was ahead of them. Instead, I opted to work as if I were planning traps and surprises for any normal mortal. After all, while the gods had tremendous powers, they didn’t seem to have any diff
erences in thought capacity. At least, not the ones I had interacted with so far. They just seemed like overpowered mortals. And so, I would prepare my strategy around the idea that Izguril would be flawed and unknowing about what rested within my walls.
The second room was designed purely to delay Izguril and to disorient them. I would use a few different methods to trick them, the first being a fake, obvious puzzle. The puzzle was upon the wall and depicted a great mural of Agara’s First Compassion, a painting that captured the spirit of when Agara healed the leg of a broken wolf, introducing her to the mortal world. Each piece of paint was on a separate tile and the tiles were scrambled. I had seen a mortal playing with such a puzzle and took note of the cleverness of the design. It was an idle distraction for most people, but I wanted Izguril to look at this puzzle as the key to escaping the room.
Of course, the puzzle was nothing more than a simple toy. To make matters worse, there was no solution, as two of the tiles were painted the same way. This would lead to endless frustration as Izguril worked. Would I be able to fool a god of deception? Perhaps, as the Sanity Siphon godspell would be operating the entire time. Upon entering the second chamber, his faculties would begin to drain, being drawn into the spell itself, making it stronger and stronger with each passing second. It was my hope that this puzzle would become an object of obsession. But then again, this was all conjecture at this point.
There were two others traps within the room as well, both meant to stop Izguril from entering the third section. The first was similar to a pit trap. It would trigger when he stepped on a pressure plate near the sealed exit, opening up the floor beneath him. The Underworld Seal would activate, and several tendrils of corrupted energy would seize whoever was nearby. These tendrils would then pull Izguril into the Underworld, where he would be forced to navigate his way out of yet another maze—this one of some other deity’s creation. Then, upon solving that maze, he would simply reappear within mine. The Underworld Seal was powerful, but was explicitly designed as a test of mettle, meaning it was meant to be escaped at some point. It was entirely unlike mine.
The third trap was a simple godspell designed to erase the most recent hour from the deity’s mind. Upon opening the door, Thoughtbreak would activate, the door would reseal itself and the room would rotate, to give Izguril the impression that he was just entering this room for the first time. Hopefully this cycle would repeat a few times before he caught wind of what was happening to him.
The third room was the False Vault. If everything went according to plan, it would take Izguril several hours or even a day to reach the False Vault. If that was the case, he’d be trapped within the first vault. My ultimate plan was to convince the gods to give me the necessary power to seal him inside of my vault for as long as their judgment upon his crimes would be. I had little doubt that he’d be able to break out without the direct aid of the gods.
But, if for some reason there was hesitation on their end, or if I would need to spend more time convincing them to do as I needed, the False Vault was designed to buy me even more time. Upon entering, the door behind Izguril would fade away, leaving him trapped within a room that expanded as he moved forward. There would be a door within sight on the other end of the room, but the more he would walk towards it, the further it would get. The door, of course, was nothing more than a fabrication, but thankfully I had a godspell of illusion that was designed to be convincing to anyone who gazed upon it, mortal or not. In fact, the entire room he was within was an illusion. The expanding room, the various traps and puzzles he would come across and try to solve, they were all nothing more than powerful phantasms created courtesy of Knerl—the current god of deception.
Once I was given the power from the gods to seal Izguril within me, I would release the phantasm and reveal the true prison. The fourth room, a gigantic steel vault with no terrestrial method of escaping, had a core in the center designed to draw the god in. This core would directly drain Izguril’s divine powers, locking him in one place. His own divinity would become the battery to the magic of the vault, keeping it running for as long as I wished.
This core, which was a circular ring of runes from my homeland, would not cause any harm to Izguril. I was not planning on doing any cruel or unnecessary acts to him. But he had committed crimes against the gods and against me; I could not simply allow him to roam this world without consequences. It was my hope that I’d get the remaining Greater Four to listen to me. Without a direct infusion of severe divine power, my little core would do nothing more than irritate Izguril. And it would do little to stop him from obliterating me.
Chapter 39
Jepner called forth a meeting of the gods, to hold court in my own branches. All deities, great and small, the lesser and the intermediate, all arrived from their respective domains and realms, to see what it was that the god of death wished to speak about.
As it turned out, Jepner never called meetings forth, and most were curious to find out if he was finally abdicating his throne. This would, of course, lead to a vote in which all gods would argue over who was entitled to the power over death. If voting failed, a war would begin. This was the standard operating procedure since the beginning of time for these deities. Most of the smaller ones arrived simply just to watch the chaos.
The hall I had constructed was designed to reflect the importance and relationship of each deity. The Greater Five and Jepner would have a seat at the table in the middle, sitting in a circle so they could face one another. The Intermediate Gods would sit on the benches that surrounded the inner circle, and the Lesser Gods would have places upon the balconies. A spot for Gannix had also been constructed, so that he may sit close and keep track of the subjects discussed upon a lectern made of my own body.
Upon their arrival to my hall, the gods were greatly impressed. Their previous meeting spots had paled in comparison to the grandness of what was awaiting them here. I was proud of my accomplishment and listened intently as to what many of the deities said about my handiwork. Most, I learned, did not realize they were in my presence. The sheer number of gods created a strange combination of divine auras that made it near impossible to pinpoint any single power source. In a way, it cloaked me from most.
The Great Gods, of course, knew they were in my presence. Upon his arrival, Turm began to angrily berate the other four, declaring that I had allied with Jepner and now they would all pay the price for making an enemy of me. It was curious to see the concern on the other gods. Only Agara seemed unfazed by the idea of my friendship with the god of death.
Finally, after they had all arrived and small talk died down, Jepner called for the meeting to come to session.
“I have sponsored a guest to speak here, not as a friend or an enemy, but simply as a favor to him for his work in agitating you all,” Jepner said. His avatar was still a pile of bones, but there was a full formed skeleton standing atop the pile. He raised a skinny finger bone in the air.
“Will Rignus, the god of truth and oath, bless this meeting with his power?”
An ancient god, one who looked like a dwarf, but so aged that his body looked more like leather than skin, raised a single finger into the air as well. “So, I speak. In accordance to the laws of the gods, all words must be truth. All oaths must be kept. To defy is to give up one’s domain. All who agree to this, show it.”
All the gods raised a single finger upwards. A flash of divine energy coursed through the air, covering the entire room in a thin, silver film.
“This meeting has been blessed,” Rignus said.
“Excellent. You are all fools and I despise you,” Jepner said to the crowd. “Wonderful, I was just checking if I could still speak truth.” Only Yither, god of tricksters, found this to be funny and he cheered from his position atop the balcony.
“Now then, will our esteemed guest take the floor?” Jepner asked.
“I thank you,” I said. My voice boomed out for all to hear. “You all know that I am the Worl
d Tree. A stranger in this land who came from a place now rent asunder. I have been here for only a short time in your eyes, and yet I have found Agara to be a perpetual thorn in my side.”
“Join the club!” Yither cried out. Turm cheered at that, but the rest of the gods kept their silence. Still, I could see a few of them smirking.
“What is it that you wish, interloper?” Agara demanded. “You were warned not to meddle in our affairs once before. But now you stand with Jepner, our enemy? You call us forth for what? To cry to the others about my actions? I expected more dignity from you.”
“And I expected more mercy from you,” I replied. “In fact, I believe that we all expect mercy from you.”
Agara squinted at those words. I continued to speak. “Gods of Yehan, I come before you to make an accusation. A grave one, that will undoubtedly bring about a great shock to many.”
“Now we’re talking!” Turm said. “Let’s hear it!”
The gods all began to murmur amongst themselves. Who was this intruder, they asked? What accusation was he bringing? I steeled myself for the kickback and began to speak again, repeating the words I had practiced in my heart a thousand times.
“Agara owns the domains of mercy, healing and kindness,” I said. “And since the beginning of her existence, she has served both god and mortal with those three tenants. Yet I have gazed upon her sacred scrolls, and I have seen that she wields power over a fourth domain.”
“So, you’re the one who stole the scrolls!” Agara shouted. “I thought it was Emerhilk.”
The Mistmother sighed at that. “You used the domain of silence to hide your theft from us, most clever.”
“What is it about this fourth domain?” Turm asked.
“She wields the power of cruelty,” I replied. “And grants those within her inner circle the power to slay heretics and those who do not follow her.”
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