Darkness and Hellfire

“Do you have accurate information on Judgment’s capabilities?” Isaac asked Fable. “Some of what he did made absolutely no sense to me.”

Fable thought for a moment. “I can tell you what I have seen but that is all.” He replied.

“That is good enough.” Isaac said and leaned in.

“Firstly, he seems to be a paladin, at least at his core. His aura weighs on people based on their sins. He operates on turning sins into physical weight which you no doubt felt.” Fable began.

“We did.” Isaac replied.

“He has pseudo unlimited mana.” Fable continued. “Faith is turned into mana at a noticeable rate.”

“Then why couldn’t he heal through what I did to him?” Isaac asked.

“You did more damage to him then paladin healing is capable of recovering from. It most likely was not a mana problem but a healing per second problem.” Fable postulated.

Isaac looked over at Lenna with a raised eyebrow. “Yes.” She replied. “Paladin’s have moderate to high healing per second capabilities but there is a hard limit to how much we can heal at a time. He healed his lungs back enough to get a few words in before he died, remember.”

Isaac nodded. “Yeah, I remember. I also remember times when your healing was too slow even though you still had mana.” Isaac rubbed his chin in thought. “But why didn’t he have something to keep him from dying?”

“That is simple.” Fable replied. “That would keep the extra damage from being reflected. If someone hit him with Disintegrate and his spell stopped it from removing his torso then it would do the same to the attacker. As a demigod, survival is never up for debate. His body is just a tool, a weapon, as far as he is concerned.”

“He assumes that anything that kills him will also kill the attacker.” Isaac followed up. “That makes sense. You are right, I just happened to have the abilities to counter him. But what is he going to do now that his normal plan of attack didn’t work?”

“Isn’t that the question of the day.” Fable replied.

—

Judgment sat within his own formless consciousness inside of his domain. He was waiting for his power to finish coalescing into his mortal form. As he existed with nothing physical or magical to do he contemplated what had recently happened to him. The man he had sentenced was still alive. ‘How?’ Judgment asked himself. ‘His power was not mortal but he undeniability was.’ It was times like these when he wished that his goddess would actually talk to her followers. One thing that struck him as incredibly surprising was that a man who claimed to be a dark demigod hadn’t been crushed to death by his Psychostasia skill.

‘Something is not adding up.’ He thought. Something about how the skill interacted with Isaac felt weird to him. Psychostasia felt like it had pulled on sins from a different body for a decent chunk of the physical weight of the attack. With the drow next to him it had almost entirely pulled on sins from a previous life but he was odd. ‘How was he reincarnated as a human?’ Judgment was stuck with nothing but his thoughts in basically total silence but unlike one would expect Judgment was fine with this. He knew that he was impulsive at times but times like these forced him to think things through.

‘At least I am not stuck here for a lunar cycle like the great Wolf.’ He thought. ‘A week of forced meditation is not a bad thing considering that I was defeated by a mortal.’ If he could have sighed he would have. ‘Once I am done I will have questions for Space.’ He thought. ‘There is no way that this was outside of his plans.’ If his eyes could have narrowed they would have. ‘Or that monster who calls himself the Guild Leader.’

—

While Judgment was engaging in forced meditation Klein was surprised by another call from his old friend. Hanging from Klein’s belt was a string of small stones that each represented one of many ancient monsters or demigods that he would call allies at worst and friends at best. One of the ones near the top started glowing golden and red in a mesmerizing swirl. Klein was standing near a mountain peak that framed the plains he was in the last time Gil had called him. With a gesture a circular portal opened a dozen feet from him and the massive golden haired man walked through.

“Judgment was defeated.” Klein surmised from how sudden the call was and the look of worry and excitement on his old friend’s face.

“Quite quickly.” Gil explained. “It was a close fight.”

“How?” Klein questioned.

“The Darkness boy just healed through the damage he dealt to Judgment until Judgment’s healing couldn’t keep up.” Gil replied and flicked his eyes to the side.

Klein understood what his friend wanted and with a flick of his hand a pair of chairs, each suited for each of the men’s sizes, appeared partly embedded into the stone. The men took their seats before Klein replied with another question: “How many healers were there keeping Darkness alive?”

“Just himself and his paladin mate.” Gil said with a twinkle in his eye.

“How?” Klein questioned and leaned in.

“I don’t know but I want to meet him.” Gil grinned.

“Please don’t.” Klein replied almost instantly. “Do you have any useful information on him?”

Gil shrugged. “He killed the V’Nova brat that was giving the Altia kids a headache.”

“Jallen?” Klein questioned.

Gil nodded. “That one.” He agreed. “Other than that he hasn’t existed for more than a season.”

“So nothing substantial.” Klein thought aloud. “I’ll talk to Ori and see if she is willing to check him out.”

“Oh-ho, not willing to go see for yourself?” Gil prodded.

Klein shook his head. “Ori is less likely to spook him. She has a way with people and I trust her judgment of character more than my own.”

“You made one mistake.” Gil replied. “Everyone does, stop letting it get you down.”

Klein sighed. “Regardless, I would still prefer Ori to check him out.”

Gil relaxed back into his chair and took in the sights. The air was thin but not thin enough to cause the pair any problems. His eyes scanned over the seemingly endless plains that stretched to the horizon. “Margaritas.” He said eventually.

“What?” Klein questioned.

“We need margaritas to accompany a view like this.” Gil explained. “Even after thousands of years the sights of our world continue to amaze me.”

Klein couldn’t help but chuckle. With a gesture a portal opened to some place that seemed to gush hot air through and retrieved a pair of margaritas with little umbrellas. He handed one to his friend, the sight of the tiny drink in the man’s massive paw comical in its own way, and took a sip of his own. “You are right. Margaritas and a good view is something that never gets old.”

—

“I think it would be best to wait and see.” Sera stated in response to the question on what their response should be to the Judgment incident.

“That’s it?” Isaac asked. “You don’t think he is going to call a crusade or anything on me?”

“It would not surprise me if he returned to finish what he started.” Fable chimed in. “But I agree with the Duchess, patience should be your default stance.”

“What are we supposed to do if he shows up with an army or another demigod?” Isaac questioned.

“If that happens, make your way to Alexander’s tower.” Sera replied. “Not even demigods can enter there without suffering the consequences.”

“How will Judgment’s damage reflection work with Alexander’s wards?” Isaac asked.

“It should be entirely ineffectual.” Fable speculated. “As I understand it, that tower is far older than the Court Mage.” Izen nodded in agreement. “Even if the damage reflection would trigger through second hand damage sources, which it does not as far as I know, it would target someone long dead and buried.”

Isaac nodded in understanding. “I guess that plan is something.”

“I will write a formal explanation of the incident to the crown for their records but as it stands I do not see why it would become a national incident. There was no collateral damage and no one died so as it stands it was simply a squabble between demigods.” Sera explained.

Izen chuckled and shook his head. “‘A squabble between demigods.’” He echoed. “Just what has happened to my city?”

“Shouldn’t that be a national incident?” Lenna questioned.

Sera shook her head. “No, demigods are above the law.” She explained. “It is assumed that you will all police each other.”

“That’s great.” Isaac said sarcastically. “We aren’t even sure if I am one or not so how does that work?”

“After what you have shown, we can only treat you as one.” Izen explained. “We can speak out on your behalf to the crown but other than that you are officially on your own.”

“Officially?” Isaac asked.

Sera gave him a warm smile. “Of course.”

“Well, thank you for the help and advice.” Isaac told them. “With our plan of inaction in place, I guess we should just go about the rest of our day as if nothing happened.”

“I would take a break for the rest of the day.” Fable interjected. “If you act like nothing happened it might come off as you flaunting how one sided your battle with Judgment was.”

“It was very far from one sided.” Lenna stated. “He actually almost died, again.”

“Almost only counts in-” Isaac began but shut himself up at the scowl from Lenna.

“Yes, but that is not what it will look like.” Fable explained. “Remember, no one can completely recover from a battle in a matter of minutes. At the very least try to make it look like he has to recover from the fight.”

Lenna nodded in understanding. “Alright.” She said to Fable. “Isaac, I would like to consult the libraries on paladin spells and magic.”

Isaac nodded. “Sure, is there a reason why?” He asked.

“I leveled up when Macken died.” She said quietly. “But I didn’t learn a spell. I want to know why.”