Leary, the Faithful.
***
"You must hurry, Leary! We must beat the dawn!"
"Tell that to Sausage or shut the hell up, Dinky!"
The small and annoying creature burst from the folds of my clothes with a snarl. "After all the knowledge I have given you, you would give me such a ridiculous name?"
"You're a ridiculous creature!" I spat, spurring the massive beast beneath me to flap its wings harder. "So lazy, you are, Dinky. You do nothing but sleep and complain. I devote everything to God. You are nothing more than a heretic!"
"You just learned the meaning of the word." The imp dragon huffed.
"And yet it describes you perfectly. Look!" I tossed my hands skyward. "You don't even care to witness God's glory! So Dinky you are named, you feathered bag of shite!"
"Just ensure this brute makes it to our destination on time." Dinky dismissively sighed, then retreated into the folds of my clothes again.
Fucking bastard. "How about we see how fast you fly?"
That got him to poke his stupid little head out. If only to snarl. "You wouldn't dare."
I surprised myself with my speed. He was out of my hand the instant I decided to reach in and toss him aside. Given that it was done, though, I merely acknowledged it and paid no mind to the curses fading into the distance. After all, there was no way I could have paid the imp dragon any mind, for my God was at work.
His glory was first displayed to the mortals of this realm through the fear of annihilation. By simply bringing his world closer, that eye of Silver brought mortals to their knees. Their minds, so filled with thoughts of death, could only recount the things they never accomplished. But the glory of that empty world filled their hearts not with despair. But hope. Hope, born from a night sky so blue it could only be a sign of benevolence.
It was then that my God blessed the ream with his holiness. An action that again enchanted the minds of mortals in hopeful uncertainty by way of a divine mist that befell the mountains and animals, blessed blue and silver to bear unseen stones and unnoticed young that would spread lush life into these dreary lands.
But my God was one of duality. So with the blessed holiness came the graced wickedness. An action that reminded mortals of the cruel realm in which we dwelled by virtue of a sky so dark, filled with unfathomable vistas of wonder made impossible to reach by way of their immeasurable distance and the foul creatures who dwelled in the spaces between.
Still, my God was more. Tied to the very energies of this universe by the hand that created it. My God was the God of Mana. The Father of Evolution. And so, blessed and cursed and evolved, this land was. Saturated with arcana so the plants may thrive, the fungus may swarm, and the animals may grow.
Blessed by the Champion, the chosen were, to develop their Wells to match the potent energy of their surroundings.
Enriched, the faithful masses were, to build their Wells into crystalline shells.
Doomed, the faithless was, to suffer at the hands of mana saturation.
But God was one of duality. So with the potent arcana came the exotic machines. An action that I mentally demanded Dinky to observe like me and every other being on the Bodhi Peninsula. Because no view could be better from here, at the Base of the Rharian Mountains.
Even as we skimmed the ground, weaving through the trees at great speed, I could clearly see a sphere of deep blue form between the twin beams and take hold of them with invisible tethers. In tandem, the silvery-blue falls drifted left and then up while the ascending golden jet drifted to the right and then down, pulling with them pieces of the mountain below. Sentencing them to swirl within a twin-colored vortex with a heart of blue.
Before my very eyes, God pulled apart uncountable tons of dirt, stone, and wood to extract their contents, refine the ores, and cut down their planks, forming them into three mountainous prongs cradling a crystalline sphere that contained the spinning essence of God's might.
Contained in all but one place, it was, for the spinning plane of energy soon pulsed, pushing out a beam of mixed energies that was caught and accelerated down a pair of world-spanning rails trained at the east-northeastern horizon; letting out a pulse as it did that swept across the lands. But I could not see its effect. Nor was I touched by it.
As if Sausage was vulnerable to the energy, he rose, rolled, and dipped into a pit of fluid darkness, speeding ever faster through to the very depths of the mortal plane until there was nowhere left to fall, wherein he rose in pitch and raced across this cavern of dusk in which I found myself.
How quickly, I found myself amongst goblins, orcs, and humans alike, though I thought nothing of it. Not even when I heard their praises to me as I approached or fell to their knees when I passed, I hardly even saw them. Because of how quickly I found myself standing before… clan.
A bestial dark elf lounged on a bench a few ways away, eyeing me like a piece of meat she didn't want to eat. Vampires sat to either side of me. Praying and chanting in wordless tongues. And above, floating among the statue of my God, were several others. Most of whom were like me.
And of course. My God.
"Finally, you're all here." The drow- the same drow I met just a few hours ago, leaned up to bring his face down to me and smiled, showing those familiar teeth. "Leary." He gestured to those floating around him. "Welcome. Meet your companions. All of you."
First I bowed to my God. Then I approached the first of them. A human girl, hardly taller than me. A hooded tunic of blue- the same blue at the heart of that vortex, covered her body and some white trousers tucked into black boots covered her feet. Yet her eyes were of a different blue, like the sky. Her hair was slightly darker than her skin, which was like sandy clay. But… she looked... weird.
"Iris Cole!" She smiled with a bow.
I did not smile. But I did bow. "Hello, Iris. I am Leary, the Faithful."
The next introduced many girls, mostly humans, behind her. Blude was her name. An extremely large woman of brown skin with hair like fire and eyes like the greenest of fields.
But oh, was she rude.
"You're taking a bath- getting scrubbed until you're clean, pronto."
I held back a groan, moving on to the next. The other drow I met just hours ago. The one with the golden eyes and the unchanging gaze. "Etan Za'Darmondiel." He nodded. But only his head.
Then came the brutes. Freki, the giant man with sharp teeth and eyes of fire on both his shoulder and his face. And Geri, the slightly smaller woman with pale skin and deathly cold eyes. "Ravenous and Greedy beasts, you two are." I snickered. "It takes one to know one."
Another child was next. A scowling boy with a skeletal arm of metal stared at me as I approached, even as he kept murmuring to his floating book. "-ions are… eccentric," He said. "This smelly goblin with spinal growths, for instance. He seeks to make discourse. I am… reluctant to oblige, despite him being a member of our Troupe. So I will sign this script in hopes of him moving along. Signed, Wilson Koorb, the Eldritch Engineer."
"Well fuck you too."
The next one was cheerful. Too cheerful. A girl- a halfling girl who looked as if she hadn't eaten in a tenday. She was… small. At least a head smaller than me. "Rickley Ravenbrook!" She held out her hand for me to shake. Something I've never seen a member of her kind do.
Leary, the Faithful." I took the hand, gently shaking it with my best impression of a gentleman.
"We'll… work on that," Blude murmured. But I ignored her in favor of moving on to the elf. Or half-elf. They all looked the same.
But her, she looked the worst of all. Almost like a hag with rotten, almost grainy skin along her shoulder, cheek, and brow. The last of which had a gaping hole in it gave me glimpses of a pulsating brain. "Reina." She droned in the most creepy way imaginable.
That was when I turned back to Blude and silently gestured to the elven corpse.
"Don't worry." She shrugged. "She's getting scrubbed too."
"And I can't wait!" Reina giggled.
"Neither can I." God laughed through his nose, pulling each of our eyes to his greatness. "You all are my companions, the Elven Devil's Troupe. My Proxies. Demigods on the path to Godhood. Gods and Goddesses, you will become once you complete your training.
"You." He pointed to us four tainted ones. "You are the Unholy Greater Deities of my pantheon. Cursed by the Owl to serve the Elven Devil, turning you into Undying Fiends and evolving you into something more. Your abilities have been corrupted. Your minds, bodies, spirits, and souls, have changed inside and out. Changed into a Druid of Pestilence, a Bard of Famine, an Engineer of Death, and a Fighter who Fiends for War.
"Once I reach the end of Zefroth's path, you will become my first Archdevils.
"You." He turned to the five bright ones. "You are the Holy Greater Deities of my pantheon. Blessed by the Divine Engineer, the World Weaver, and the Eternal Champion to become a Goddess of Technology, a Divine Matriarch of the Abyssal Sea, Nomadic Celestials of the Seasons, and the first Nebulous Drow. When I reach the end of my Eternal Path. You will become my first Angels.
"Of you all, I require five things." God declared, raising his fist; and I pushed all of my senses to listen and take note. "First." He unfurled his thumb. "Your skills in combat and in war must be legendary. I require this of you because, as members of my Troupe, you are members of my Legions. The most elite members, among the highest ranking. As such, you must be capable of dominating a war without outside assistance."
Many of them chuckled strangely or otherwise took on strange expressions. Geri and Freki. Blude and her girls. But Etan was the one who spoke. "Just as you have done in Shujen." He stated.
"Indeed," God answered. "Just as they saw me as a monster who needed to be destroyed. People will see you as monsters or enemies to their gods. However, to the Legions, you are the pinnacle of greatness. Thus, second." He raised his pointer finger. "I require each of you to become both a Witch and an Artificer, as the knowledge I will impart to you will often go hand in hand with the two fields. You will learn all there is to know before you train to evolve. And I will be there to teach you every step of the way."
I felt encouraged and enriched by those words. How eager I became to learn all there was to know. It was something to obsess over. But the continued word of God was even more tantalizing.
"Third." He unveiled his middle finger. "You must create and manage some type of industrial business. I care not if it is to help or hinder people. I care not if you operate inside or outside the laws of any lands in which we travel. I care only that you use the perks of your witchcraft and artificing license to make something magnificent and spread it across the realms. Or at the very least, to the Empire and Legions.
"Fourth." He snapped his ring finger up. "You must create an elite black ops unit within the Legio Noctis. Again, I care not if you make an organization of elite spies or elite infantry. I care only that it be organized and managed efficiently, for only the best Legionaries will be chosen to join your organizations.
"This will all be accomplished by the completion of the fifth task. Wherein you will learn about yourselves and your various roles in both peacetime and war while we train in the Dark Room as the Legio Noctis' first unofficial class of graduates. Class Negative One.
"This is all I require of you. For the Mortal Plane itself is my playground. And, though you may be my companions, I will not wait for you to catch up once I finally begin to play. So, let us go home, my Elven Devil's Troupe.
"And… let it be known." He added, retracting his fist to point at some unseen point above. "I did not consciously do any of that. It just… happened."