The not-immortal Blacksmith

Somewhere

7th of Kusha, the month of Harvest.

2290 Years since the New gods came.

Maxamilian, Pendleton, and Sarah looked around. An open field with knee high grass, a few scrub oak trees, and a blue sky. A cold wind blew across the field, and they shuddered. Then they looked at each other, and noticed they were all naked.

Pendleton covered himself by dropping to his knees so only his head was visible from above the grass. “What in the hells happened to us?” He all but screamed.

Sarah collapsed into the grass, and broke into sobs.

Maxamilian grabbed for his clothing from the aether in order to get dressed. Well, he tried too anyway. He looked at his empty hand and tried again. “What the? Why isn’t this working?”

Sarah looked up, and between sobs, answered him. “We…we have been stripped of our powers…and banished…to the mortal world.” She curled into a ball and continued to sob.

“So…so what does that mean? Exactly?” Pendleton asked from his crouching position.

“It means that you are all mortal now.” A voice echoed from above. “Well as mortal as you can be made, anyway.”

Maxamilian looked up. “We know it’s you, Ghondish! Why don’t you come down here?”

“Because I have work to do, thanks to you lot!” Ghondish replied. “I need to clean up your mess.”

“But…but it’s just three heroes!” Pendleton whined. “It’s not like it’s a hoard of demons we summoned for giggles!”

“Three. Overpowered. Heroes.” Ghondish replied. “Just three overpowered heroes. Unsupervised, with no clear instructions. No clear imperative. No guidance.”

“So, now what?” Maxamilian asked.

“Now?” Ghondish asked. “Now you fix your problem! We have a game coming up. I don’t know about you, but I am looking forward to the wedding you lot are supposed to attend! And Kocha can’t do it all by himself!” There was a small pop, and Ghondish’s presence was gone.

Pendleton looked over to Maxamilian, then over to Sarah’s shaking form. “How do we fix it?”

“I don’t-” Maxamilian started to say when a stone tablet fell from the sky nearly missing him. “Um, maybe the tablet has something to say?”

-

8th of Kusha

Celestial Temple of Knowledge

“Brother Proof, could you show this gentleman the Music section?” An acolyte asked.

“Sure.” Brother Proof turned towards the patron; a Dwarf dressed in full forge gear. “It’s Three Doors Down that hallway. Turn left at the French Armored Boot. The Doors you want are lit by the Limelight. If you reach the Large and Aggressive Jellyfish, you have gone too far.”

The dwarf nodded, mumbling something about “dwarves digging holes”, and walked off. Brother Proof nodded, and returned to the book he was reading about fishing knots.

-

“Do you know why she’s crying?” Maxamilian asked Pendleton.

“Well, Mil, I have no idea.” Pendleton replied. “Maybe because her brother stripped her of all of her powers and sent her here with NOTHING?!?”

“…well, yeah, but besides that?” Mil asked.

Pendleton sighed. “…Mil? You really are an asshole. You know that, right?”

“I’ve been called worse.” Mil replied. “So…what do we do now? All the tablet said was “Go fix your mistake, then you may return.””

“I guess we find out where we are, get some stuff together, and go fix the problem.” Pendleton said. “…Why does it have to be so cold here?”

-

Sarah stared at the ground, trying to stifle the sobs. The caves. Not cold. No power. I’m dying. No power. I’m dying. Why did he do this? Not cold… The memories of the years after her fall, when she could do nothing by lay on the stone, powerless, and waiting for her body to recover; when anything could have killed her; filled her mind.

She felt something on her back. Something warm. She looked up, and saw the sun. The cursed sun. It’s trying to burn me. Burn me out of my caves! I will kill it! I will extinguish it! Remove it from existence! She took a deep breath, and screamed.

-

In the bowels of the world, something raised its “head” and started to move.

-

“Penpen? Did she just scream like a berserk halfling, or was that just me making noises in my brain?” Mil asked Pendleton.

Pendleton looked across the field at Sarah, then back at Mil. “First, I Hate that nickname. Second, I think that was her.”

The pair walked over to where Sarah lay, curled into a ball.

“Sarah?” Pendleton asked in his most soothing voice, “Are you going to be alright?”

Sarah turned her head to look at Pendleton, “Maybe?” She coughed up a lump of flem, and spat it into the grass. “Maybe.” She slowly stood up, and smiled a wide, almost manic grin. “No, actually, I think I will be good.” All of THEM are going to pay. Then the sun. The sun will be mine.

-

Hesh looked at their traveling companions, a very worried look on their face. “I just got chills up and down my spine.”

Sam and Molly shared a glance, then looked over to Hesh. Molly spoke up, “No? But then again, you have always been the “Sensitive” one.”

Hesh laughed at the underhanded compliment, then shivered. “You mean sensible one. But seriously, I feel like someone just walked over…no, stabbed me through, my grave.”

Sam and Molly exchanged another look.

“Maybe you’re developing a new power?” Sam suggested. “Like a danger sense or something?”

“If only we had some sort of character sheet, like in video games.” Molly said. “Then we would all know what we could do!”

“Yeah, like that would work.” Sam replied. “Like waiving my hand” he waived his hand, “and yelling STATUS would do anything.” He looked around expectantly. “Nope. Nothing.”

They all jumped when a text box opened up in midair. A box that simply read: “Error.

Support Terminated.

Have a Nice Day!”

The three friends looked at the box, then at each other, then back at the box.

“Well, I’ll be…” Sam said. “If I had known earlier…”

The box closed.

Molly looked at her hands, then the nearest tree, then back at her hands. “Does this mean that we have lost our gifts?”

Hesh’s eyes went wide, and Sam gasped. Molly bolted for the tree she was staring at, and punched it.

-

Standing in the almost pristine nature of the field, the three gods looked at each other. Currently, they were all wearing crudely woven grass skirts, and grass cloaks, that Pendleton had made. “I told you my underwater basket weaving class would come in handy someday.” He said.

“Well, this sucks.” Mil muttered. “I guess now we do get to “find out”.”

Sarah cocked her head to the left and looked at Mil, “Find out what? That my brother is a bigger asshole than you?”

“No.” Mil replied, a slight edge in his voice. “Find out that our actions DO indeed have consequences.”

Sarah threw her head back, and laughed. “If only that ass could see this.” She cackled. “Maybe if he hadn’t gotten himself killed in the war against the ancient enemy, he could look down here and giggle at me.”

“Wait. The what now?” Pendleton said.

“Never mind. Water over the bridge now.” Sarah shook her head and sighed. “I just wish I had been the one who killed him, not Them.”

Mil and Pendleton exchanged confused looks, mouthing “WTF” at each other.

Sarah stretched. “Now that we are “Acceptable” to the locals, what do we do now?”

Mil smiled. “Now we explore the area for a short bit and see if we can find any easily accessible food, then we make a shelter, then we search for others.”

Pendleton cocked an eyebrow, “You don’t think there are any more fallen gods down here, do you?”

Mil stopped for a moment. “…I hope not…”

-

Molly screamed. “God damn it!”

“Are you okay?” Sam yelled as he and Hesh ran to her side.

“I’m fine.” Molly replied, a scowl on her face. “I just got my arm stuck in this stupid tree.”