Chapter Thirty-Two– The First God War

  Even though Mama Cinders did heal him a little, the rest of the day was brutal. Not only did it take him an hour to process his four bites of muffin but then he had his afternoon run in the brutal heat. He could feel how much he’d grown because he had enough mana to give to Rynn so that she didn’t pass out. Still, she wasn’t feeling too good. Regardless, she pushed herself to train like normal.

  They’d already sparred that day, and so Gray and Rynn went through their forms and did some weights. Sitting in a meditative pose felt like heaven, though the itch at the back of his neck was driving him crazy. His muscles ached, and he was pretty sure he’d cracked a rib, which would make the next week hard. Every cough, every turn, every twist, would be painful.

  He would use that pain to keep his focus. He had to get better, stronger, faster and all it would take was work, a dedication to the training. Besides, the pain was nothing compared to the excitement he had of returning to Ruin Manor for the night with Rynn. They both agreed they’d had enough of First Field, and so they went to Gorgonzola’s for dinner.

  The master of the house caught their eye as they sat down at the long counter.

  He went over to them. “You’ll want the potato dumplings tonight, my friends, with the stink cheese gravy. It’s the best I’ve ever done. It’s rich, mind you, but growing recruits need the energy. I’ll make it manafied for the lady.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Gorgonzola,” Rynn said, with a little smile. She had a bruise on her forehead from the fight.

  The goblin saw it. “Rough day at First Field?”

  Rynn sighed and nodded.

  Gray saw an opportunity and took it. “We fought Pamalee Thornpinch, one of your customers. She’s a fae with purple eyes, short black hair, and hate in her heart.”

  The goblin frowned. He was up on a little incline, drying off a glass with a towel. Around him his employees were doing a hundred different things, cooking, cleaning, serving customers. The smells of the restaurant were divine. “Maybe it’s not hate with her. She loves my food, so she can’t be all bad.” He cocked his head, gauging them. “Them fae don’t have it easy, you know. They have their core oaths that they may or may not have chosen. You know about that, friend elf, I think.”

  Rynn again sighed and nodded. She looked down.

  “Lots of the Fae are up north, where your friend comes from,” the goblin said. “The Fae and the Elves went to the Crown while the orcs and goblins headed to the Belly, long ago, after the Third God War. Dark times indeed. But then it was the work of all the Blood Races that closed the Weeping Well for a long time. Happy times followed the sad as is the way of the world.”

  “What is a core oath?” Gray asked.

  “You really are a nully.” Gorgonzola chuckled. “Glad you found my counter. It’s an honor to feed someone from so far away. Funny, the Crown is closer in spirit than it is in distance, and we get lots of folk from the Crown. Not so many from the Null Breaks. But anyhow, the fae usually keep to themselves. They didn’t have the boons and bonuses that the other Blood Races got, like us goblins, for instance. We’re little, but we’re tough, and we have the mana hands, or most of us do. But anyway, the fae had to figure out a way to survive in this hard, old world, and so, they were able to increase their mana by making a series of oaths and vows with Mother Night herself. She took pity on her grandchildren, so new and so innocent. The oaths they make to the Mother Night run deep. When a fae comes of age, they make an oath that they can’t ever break. If they break that core oath, they shatter their core. I met a fae once, without a core, and it was a sorrowful, sorrowful sight.”

  The goblin sighed and shook his head. “The poor girl was dead inside, a husk, they call them. A Fae husk drift about, and most go to the Pleasure Market because, well, most have a lust resonance, and, well…” He didn’t finish his sentence.

  Gray nodded. “They don’t have a core, and so there isn’t the risk of bonding. It makes sense. Pinch, though, has a core. She can fly.”

  “Yep. The fae can fly. They can throw mana shuriken, and the real powerful Fae can do all sorts of things. Most have a lust resonance, which makes them tricky. They can charm your socks off, so be careful. If I’ve seen it once, I’ve seen it a thousand times. Some dumb guy gets all wrapped up with a fae, thinks they’re going to be lifelong friends, and then they are swindled out of everything. With Pinch, all I know is that she comes from one of the Freckle Islands. She’s come a long way for the Testing. Like you did, my elf friend.”

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  Rynn nodded.

  Gorgonzola knocked on the counter. “So, is it the dumplings? You should have the dumplings, especially if you like vallnuts.”

  “I love vallnuts,” Gray said.

  The goblin eyed him. “I’m fairly certain that you have no idea what vallnuts are.”

  Gray didn’t answer. “Give us your best, Mr. Gorgonzola.”

  He left and Gray turned to Rynn. “This is where you tell me what about the three god wars and the Blood Races.”

  Rynn spoke in a rush. “Now that is too big of a topic for me to cover before the dumplings arrive. You know how fast Gorgonzola is.”

  “Just try and keep it as concise as possible.”

  Rynn winced. “You know I’m not good at that, but I’ll do my best. In the beginning there was only Mother Night, walking through the darkness. I always felt bad for her, this lonely old woman in the darkness. Some people think she was both hungry and lonely, and some say she was angry at growing up in the darkness.”

  She stopped talking, blushing. Her hair was growing back, though it was still dark and didn’t have her natural golden color.

  Rynn reached back and itched his mana mark.

  She frowned. “Don’t touch it, Gray. Be strong. Am I taking too long?”

  He chuckled. “Remember, I grew up in a Children of Order temple, and I’ve heard stories about Mother Night before. She was so lonely, and her heart hurt so much, she ripped open her chest, but it was too late. Her heart shattered and all the stars we see are the fragments of her heart. The gods of order came from her broken heart, and the gods of chaos came from her darkness, her broken mind. The gods then created the world and all the universe.”

  Rynn squinted at him. “That is not what most people believe, but granted, there are several different stories, but I like the one where she fell in love with the darkness, and they made love, and nine months later, light was born from her. At first, she breastfed her baby, but soon light got too hungry, so she gave her baby her own body to eat, but first she had to become the world. Her bones turned into stone, her flesh became dirt, and her mind became all of reality. Her heart, however, her heart was a different story. She drew weary of her duties as a mother, and her heart became full of desire for something more, and so, she created lust to try and satisfy her heart. But when she created the god of lust, chastity also appeared. At first, she was frustrated, but then, she saw she couldn’t have the one without the other. First it was lust, then gluttony and temperance, and then she got angry, and both the goddess of wrath and the god of patience were born. She got greedy, but she also saw that what she was doing was very generous, feeding her baby and giving life to the universe. And so both pride and humility were born. Some say after pride and humility, an eighth pair appeared, but they remained a mystery. The fourteen new gods immediately hated each other, and so, the First God War started. The virtuous gods created heaven as their base and the sinful gods created hell. They also birthed soldiers, which were the angels and demons of course. How am I doing?”

  Gray touched her arm. “You’re doing very well. Very concise.”

  Rynn shook her head. “I doubt that. But during the First God War, with the angels and demons fighting, they needed battlefields, and luckily, there were plenty to choose from all the different worlds created out of Mother Night’s body.”

  “Was Midmere one of the battlefield worlds?” he asked.

  “No.” Rynn smiled. “I like this next part. Midmere didn’t exist, not yet. During the First God War, it was created because the gods and goddesses slowly but surely fell in love with each other even as they fought. There are many stories of the various ways that lust fell in love with chastity, that pride became enamored with humility, and so on. But the angels and demons were still fighting across all the worlds and so the gods and goddesses created Midmere to be a place where they could make love. Sometimes, Midmere is called Ilamonido, which is the Alastrian word for a love nest. The gods of sin came out of the Weeping Well and the gods of virtue used the Joyful Threshold in the Crown to go back and forth. Here in the love nest, humans born, the perfect combination of virtues and sins. At that point, there were only the three races, humans, angels, and demons. The birth of the first human marked the end of the First God War. All the gods were in love, and the new humans soon drove all the angels and demons out of the world using the power of their cores, one last gift from Mother Night.”

  Gray drank in every word. It was not a story he knew.

  Gorgonzola set a plate down in front of Gray. “Too bad the peace didn’t last. There were two other God Wars, but you can talk history later. It’s time to eat!”

  Like always, the food was delicious. The rich stink cheese sauce, filled with vallnuts, clung to the delicate boiled potato dumplings which fell apart in his mouth. It was another delicious dish where every bite was more delicious than the last. Gray watched as Rynn closed her eyes, the manafied meal helping her core to process her mana more efficiently.

  While she ate, she talked. “Gorgonzola is right. The peace didn’t last forever. Slowly, over time, the gods and goddess connected to the seven instincts got sick of each other and started murdering each other. That’s where the Blood Races came from. There are ton of tragic stories about husbands murdering wives, or wives murdering husbands. Each murder created a new race. Fae came from the insane goddess of lust killing and then eating the god of chastity. Dragons came from humility slaying pride. And on down it went. The Blood Races literally sprung up from the blood of the slain gods and goddesses, though every disagrees about the specifics. Some say that dragons came from greed’s death while others say that the elves came from pride killing humility. It’s really sad and tragic.”

  Gray nodded, thinking of Pinch. Why, he wasn’t sure, but she seemed both sad and tragic. She wasn’t a simple bully. What was she?

  He figured he would eventually find out since he planned on fighting her every day for the rest of that summer. Just the thought made him smile.