“Godsir Garren, the subject was seen disappearing into the void when it happened, should we investigate further?” A celestial messenger asks.

  Celestial messengers are specimens that deliver messages to the gods. Like carrier pigeons but in the shape of humanoid angels.

  Garren clinches his fist crushing the steel mug he’s holding like an aluminum can as the message flashes before him. The celestial messenger retracts the scroll and signs it handing it to Garren before he leaves.

  Lunar alignment time frame. The three moons in perfect rotation with the three planets causes time to align with the Realm of the Gods at certain times. Some races, like the Dragga and Ruksha, are sensitive to this having a spiritual connection with the passage of time. At this time Mateo disappears into his void palace placing him under scrutiny from the gods. One of the now ten gods of the table, Garren, isn’t taking the bate.

  “Mercedes!” Garren yells.

  A young woman with the tail and ears of a rodent scurries into the room. She runs to her master brushing her long silver hair against his arm eager for affection. He pats her gently as her pale blue eyes peer up at him.

  “You’re stationed in the Twilight glades are you not?” Garren asks.

  “Yes godsir, is there something your loyal Nezumi can do for you?” She asks eagerly.

  “There’s a realm walker, I need you to show me of his intentions, he has a neko with him, so you’ll have to take your brother too.”

  Mercedes rubs her wet nose up his arm forcing herself into his embrace. He holds her close as she rubs her soft ears against his chest. He pampers her with his large four arms as if entertaining a child. She tires down curling into a ball as she rests in his lap.

  “It will be done master,” she says softly.

  Garren gently pets Mercedes long into the night as the images of the celestial messenger's letter plays before him, over and over again.

  An image of Helladius the large horned coal skinned demi-demon appears on the screen pressing his arm against a cold stone wall as crimson tears fall from his cold dead eyes. The heartbeat of cruelty echoes in the room as he turns the recording scroll toward a large nest made of branches. The limbs of evergreens wrap around it forming it into a warm inviting nest. Helladius moves slowly toward the scene treading blood with every step.

  He stops peering down into the nest that is gored with the blood and body parts of unborn harpies ripped from their eggs. Falling to his knees he lifts the corpse of a supple young maiden who has been mercilessly stabbed.

  “Gaia, my sweet Gaia, who did this to you?” Helladius cries almost begging for the answer.

  “Drako’s Razor, I know it was his blade, but I don’t know why, I couldn’t see them, they took my eyes first, I cried for you, I screamed for you my love, but you didn’t come, and then there was just pain, the blade digging into me over and over again, it hurt, so bad, but they wouldn’t stop, no matter how much I begged, they wouldn’t stop, and then the children, our children Adius, I listened as they ripped them from their eggs and picked them apart like cadavers,” Gaia cries faintly her empty eye sockets a raging ocean of sorrow.

  “Gaia please, just hold on, please Gaia, it can be like when we played in the garden, you liked the garden, I remember we would go to the garden and steal mudbeans, and then we’d,” he pauses listening to Gaia draw in labored breathes. Helladius draws in a heavy breath continuing. “The Moon would rise, and I would find you, imperceptible in the light of the moon, yet I could see you, a beautiful sight, always creating, always giving, there you were,” Helladius stops to rub blood from his eyes as Gaia expires in his arms and he turns toward the recording scroll floating in the air.

  “Garren, I’m sending you this scroll directly, no one else will see this but you,” Helladius says gritting his teeth. “They stabbed her to death slowly, they made her suffer,” he coughs in angst as his voice breaks, “if you think for a second that I believe a realm walker tortured my beloved Gaia to death and then portaled back to Gottes then you’re a fool, I’m disbanding from the table, it no longer has enough members to sustain it, if the gods want war, then war they shall have.”

  The scroll ends with Helladius, the god of punishment, screaming into the heavens as he holds the mutilated corpse of the only woman he has ever loved, surrounded by the desecrated corpses of his offspring.

  Lord Dios stares out at the stars from a window in the halls of her temple as an avatar. Two familiar figures approach her, but she doesn’t move.

  “There is no need for that,” Dios says raising her hand.

  A hooded figure halts by the avatar their dagger drawn ready to strike.

  “And why is that?”

  “Because we have the same goals… Avarice.”

  Avarice pulls back her hood revealing herself. Fate reveals himself sheathing his dagger as he approaches Dios.

  “And what goals do we share, god dragon?” He asks.

  “You want to disband the table, freeing us from their hold, I too wish to be free from their hold,” Dios turns toward her massive slumbering dragon body, “then I can awaken once more.”

  Light graces many lands on the surfaces of the triplanetary ring as Garren steps up to the table of gods which lies empty. He sits upon his throne peering around at the empty thrones, no, not empty, gored. When he looks at the thrones of Destiny and Gaia, he sees only broken corpses soaking them with sorrow.

  “I see through your lies, and I will punish you,” Garren says digging his nails into the heavy oak table.

  In the guest chambers of the twilight Everglades.

  “You did what!” Serenity yells.

  “They aren’t toys Serenity, Mercedes is a person, I know some of the other Nezumi don’t care, but Mercedes feels like she’s imprisoned,” Mateo yells back.

  “Godsdamnit, take the girl to our room and wait for me there, I’ll see if I can prove your sanity to my father,” Serenity shouts angrily.

  “Okay,” Mateo replies.

  “Not okay, give me a yes ma’am,” Serenity demands.

  “Yes ma’am.”

  “Good boy, I’ll deal with you after I finish with my father, make sure you’re fresh, the hot springs are open,” she says marching out in an unsettling rage.

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  Mateo rests on a king-sized bed petting Mercedes’ soft grey ear as she sleeps gently in his lap. There is a wrapping, a tapping at the chamber door as Stitches bursts in tossing a young Nezumi onto the carpet. It’s Mercedes’ brother Mitsu and he’s covered in passionate bruises and bite marks.

  Mercedes wakes bolting to her brother cradling him in her arms.

  “What did she do to you brother?” She says acting dramatic.

  “Sister,” he says placing his hand on her forearm. “I think I’m in love.”

  “Brother you’ve been tainted by her dark magic,” Mercedes cries.

  “I think I love the nekomancer,” he says in a satisfied daze.

  Mitsu passes out as Mercedes glares over at Mateo. Cradling her brother in her arms she gives him the look of an enemy ready to strike. He steps forward bending to one knee placing his hand on her soft cheek.

  Ability activated: calm- calm has reduced the hostility of your target. Your target no longer wants to murder you. If only this ability worked with real women.

  Mateo ignores the user interface and presses his forehead to Mercedes’.

  “Mercedes, I’m here to help you, but I need you to trust me, and I know you don’t, I don’t know why, but we can’t go on with daggers to each other’s throats,” Mateo says.

  Mercedes peers up at him with somber eyes full of pain.

  “How can I trust your kind after what they did to my people?” She asks lowering her head.

  “I don’t understand,” he moves his hand away from her cheek gently rubbing her soft ears.

  “When I was young a realm walker came to my village, he accepted a quest to clear the water and help restore the village, but after he did he just never came back, he never completed the quest, and we couldn’t add it to the board because he had accepted it, we fell under hard times and the high elves came down hard on us, my brother, being the more attractive of us, bore the brunt of their cruelty, I had to talk with him each night as the elfesses used him to fill their desires,” she pauses lowering her eyes. “One night an elven noble noticed the elf women enjoying Mitsu and sought me out, I was asleep in my chamber with my brother when he kicked the door open.”

  Moons past, before the dark elves took hold of the twilight Everglades. The Nezumi were slaves used by the high elves for labor and pleasure. On the cusp of the ascension of the dark elves a high elf named Jarvach Kervold puts his noble boot through the door of room 2B on the second floor of the Creaking Oak Inn.

  A terrified silver haired Nezumi holds her brother close as the man approaches. His silver eyes filled with ill intent the Nezumi girl cries out for help from anyone that will head her call.

  “Please, there must be someone who cares, we aren’t animals, we aren’t slaves, we’re people, doesn’t anyone care?” She screams.

  Her pleas echo through the tavern but none of the elves or adventurers stir. Except, one man draped in violet robes stitched with gold. His party member, a large four-armed blue skinned man lowers his pitcher of beer to the table.

  “Really, for a rat girl?” the blue skinned man asks.

  The cloaked man stands grasping the hilt of his sword.

  “If we don’t stand up for the innocent, who will?” the violet robed man asks.

  “Settle down, it’s just a Nezumi whore,” the blue skinned man replies.

  “Is that what you hear when she begs, when she cries out for help she knows isn’t coming, when you look around this tavern and see that no one stands to protect her, take it as a lesson, all of these men are too weak to stand, I alone will stand between innocence and evil, and I will bring down an iron fist that tempers these lands of impurities, my people will no longer dwell in the shadows while nobles rape and subjugate the peoples of this land.”

  Several of the Nezumi waiter’s ears perk up at the man’s declaration. They know the woman crying for help and are distraught that they are powerless to help her. The moment passes and the Nezumi return to their duties before their masters punish them for being insubordinate, or, not adhering to the expected performance qualifications for their position.

  The man steps away heading to the second floor of the tavern where the Nezumi girl is now screaming her brother resting unconscious against the wall after a failed attempt to ward off her assailant. The Nezumi downstairs hang their heads in solace as they listen to another of their kind being violated by a high elven noble. Just another night in the Everglades for them.

  “Get away from me, don’t touch me,” she yells as the high elf corners her against the wall.

  He grips her blouse tearing it apart and exposing her bare breasts. She moves her arms to cover herself as he grabs at her legs. She kicks at him still screaming.

  “Stay away from me, someone help me, please, someone, anyone!” She screams her voice a high-pitched terror.

  The high elf rips off her trousers leaving her trembling in nothing but her soft white undergarments.

  “Please, gods help me,” she says under her breath her cheeks soaked in tears and her face stricken with terror.

  The door slams shut, and they both turn toward a tall man whom pulls back the hood of his violet goldtrimmed cloak revealing a violet skinned man with pointed ears.

  “Who the fuck are you night elf?” the high elf barks biting off the words in anger.

  “My name is Calladen Everbold, and if you don’t back away from that young maiden at once then you will find your name on a tombstone,” the dark elf replies.

  “You threaten Jarvach Kervold, son of Larius Kervold, over a simple Nezumi whore?” He asks.

  “We are beyond threats, remove yourself from my presence you pestilent pile of fuckery before I cut you down to scraps of meat piled lower than your ankles and feed your remains to my dongon, whereas you will become donkey shit for your father the false king Larius to shovel into a stone coffin.”

  “You dare call my father a false king!” Jarvach yells pulling twin blades from his inventory.

  “I’ll tell him to his face, when I roll his dead son’s head across the floor to his feet,” Calladen replies pulling a large two-handed weapon from his inventory.

  Jarvach moves in flinging himself upon Calladen like a missile. A rookie mistake. Calladen swings his massive blade cutting through the air and anything in his way like warm gatorbutter. Both of Jarvachs blades shatter as his massive blade cuts Jarvach in half mid waist tearing through his forearms and biceps.

  Jarvach slumps to the blood-soaked floor as a mass of severed pieces waving the bloody stumps of his arms, crimson liquid spews from them. He stares up at Calladen unable to utter a word as the pain from his grotesque injuries muffles him. Calladen rests his blood-soaked blade over his shoulder and stares down at the blood covered torso that was once the son of Larius Kervold. He returns his blade to his inventory motioning the Nezumi girl toward him.

  “Come here, I have a present for you,” Calladen says.

  “Please, I’m bare, and I’m scared,” she replies.

  Calladen pulls a shirt from his inventory and tosses it to her. It’s too large to fit, but she follows his orders and approaches him. Calladen, crouching, turns to her holding out a small dagger.

  “You know what he was going to do to you,” he says handing her the dagger, “will you show mercy, or let him suffer?”

  “I’m not like them,” she says gripping the dagger in her tiny hand.

  “Mercy then,” Calladen says.

  Mercedes shoves the dagger through Jarvach’s throat, and he gargles blood as it protrudes from the back of his neck. His dismembered corpse slumps onto the wooden floor of the tavern as the light fades from his grey eyes.

  A commotion stirs downstairs as Calladen seeks to round up the two Nezumi. He cradles the male Nezumi Mitsu in his arms as a four-armed blue skinned man enters the room.

  “There’s a problem downstairs, nobles,” the blue skinned man says.

  “Mercedes, can you walk?”

  “Yes, but I need something,” she says crouching down by the dismembered corpse of Jarvach.

  The flesh doesn’t make a sound as she slices through Jarvach’s neck. Blood splatters everywhere making the wood floor slick. When Mercedes makes it to the spine she cuts through the flesh on the back of the neck leaving the spine as the only thing to be severed. She pulls the bleeding torso onto a small stool allowing the head to slump over it.

  “The blue skinned man can do it,” she says staring at the corpse.

  The blue skinned man steps over to the stool and stomps on the head of Jarvach. The spine makes a sickening snap, and it separates from the torso. Mercedes grips it by the hair leaving a trail of dripping blood in her wake as she steps out of the room and downstairs into the tavern. The patrons stop, staring at the Nezumi girl with their hands on their blades. She holds up the disembodied head.

  “This is Jarvach Kervold, son of Larius Kervold, he came to my room to rape me,” she rolls his head across the floor painting it with a trail of blood. “None of you came to help me, yet you all heard my pleas, prey that you do not cross the paths of the Nezumi for we walk in the shadow of Lady Midnight, and she will be your undoing, pitiful elves.”

  Fire crackles in the moonlight of the forgotten woods of the Twilight Everglades. Humming flies fill the air with a pleasant melody.

  “Are you sure it is best to take in these young Nezumi?” The blue skinned man asks.

  “And what would you have me do with them, Garren?”

  “My apologies, I didn’t mean to suggest you abandon the Nezumi girl, I too find her interesting, but Nezumi do not live long lives,” Garren replies.

  “You could change that though, couldn’t you?” Calladen asks.

  “I could, but I can’t guarantee it would be more a blessing than a curse.”