I was in awe. The world around me was breathtaking. I couldn’t really think of any other way to describe it.

The ground I stood on appeared to be made of marble, with small flecks of crystal rippling through it. In addition, there were various symbols on the ground, with some of them appearing to have been etched with crystal, while others were glowing and looked like they were somehow with light.

As I looked around, I saw the marble was actually some kind of road or long pathway, but it wasn’t the only one. There was another path made of darker stone that looked like quartz, and one that was made of crystal. In fact, there were several more paths that seemed to have been constructed from different materials, and they wound together in a strange yet artistic manner.

Nearby, what I had originally taken to be yet another of these paths, actually seemed to be some kind of stream or narrow river. However, instead of being filled with water, it appeared to be filled with mercury or some other silvery liquid. Bubbles of this chrome liquid rose up from the stream in several places and floated away.

“Weird,” I whispered, staring at a bridge across this silver stream. The bridge itself was made from some kind of gleaming crystal, or perhaps even diamond.

There was a lot of this crystal around me. There was one path made of the stuff, along with a lot of the buildings and bridges, though with different colors. There were also numerous towering spirals, most of which were crystal, but not all.

“Those ones look like giant unicorn horns,” I said aloud.

To my left, I saw a towering building…a skyscraper…that seemed to be made from an unbelievably large, living tree. To my right, there was a much shorter and stockier building that appeared to have been made of shiny black stone. And then there was one that literally seemed to be made from water.

I was in the middle of a city, but it was unlike any city that I’d ever seen before in my life, or had even imagined. Everywhere I looked, there were things that stood out to me as being vaguely familiar, but almost completely alien at the same time. In a way, this seemed more like a dream than reality.

One of the strange things that I quickly noticed was the lack of people. In a city like this, even one so strange and alien, I would have expected to see more people. I was there for nearly five minutes before I saw my first person…if he could be called that.

A massive man, who stood at least twelve feet tall, hurried past in the distance. Smoke or clouds seemed to pour from his beard and hair, trailing behind him and floating up into the sky.

While I watched, a woman joined this giant. She was even taller than he was, though not by much. And from what I could see at a distance, her skin seemed to be tree bark, which along with her long skinny limbs, made her look a great deal like a human shaped tree.

Another woman flew overhead, with large wings that seemed to be made of swirling light. I couldn’t tell just how large she was, only that she was bigger than any normal human.

“Gods,” I whispered with a mixture of amazement and fear. Most of my encounters with gods hadn’t gone very well for me or anyone else.

None of these gods had noticed me, for which I was thankful. However, I had definitely noticed them, and the fact that all three of them had been moving with a great deal of urgency.

It didn’t take long after this before I noticed the storm in the distance. The storm clouds were thick and dark, and I could see flashes of green lightning. And as if that wasn’t shocking enough, there was also a towering pillar of flame that seemed to go from the ground, all the way up into the sky.

“No freaking way,” I gasped, suddenly realizing that this wasn’t the weather. It was a battle between gods.

Maelyne had told me that the last time her people had been in open war with each other, they’d nearly destroyed their world. Now, after seeing that, I was beginning to get an idea of what she meant.

“Talk about a crap storm,” I whispered with growing sense of dread.

I looked around, wondering where Maelyne was and feeling hopeless about my chances of finding her. When I’d seen the portal to her world, I’d foolishly assumed that she would be close to where it went. However, that obviously wasn’t the case, and I had absolutely no idea of where to find her, or what I could do once I did.

“I’ll just have to keep looking,” I told myself, knowing that there was no turning back. The Cleaner’s portal had closed behind me, leaving me trapped here until I found another way home. “I REALLY didn’t think that through…”

There was a reason Matt had always called me a dumb jock, and it looked like the extra IQ points I’d gained, had actually changed me all that much. In some ways, that was actually a relief, but not right now.

When I saw another god coming near, I quickly hid behind some kind of sculpture that was probably supposed to be some kind of abstract art. I didn’t belong here in this world, and I was well aware of it. If any of these gods saw me, it probably wouldn’t be good for me. After all, they’d probably just think of me like a rat or something.

As I continued to sneak around without any idea of where I was or where I was going, I began to notice other signs of the war. There was another building grown from a live tree, or at least, what was left of it. The thing had been burned to little more than a giant charred stump. A couple crystal spires had been shattered, and there was even a huge crack that ran across a number of paths. However, that was nothing compared to a huge crater I found, that dropped down about a hundred feet. I could see the glow of lava on the bottom of the pit, or at least, that was what it looked like through the smoke.

“This place can’t take much more of this,” I said in realization. The city was quickly falling into ruin and destruction, and the war had only just begun.

Then I saw another god, one that sent chills of terror down my spine. I immediately dover for cover and hid, peeking out from around the corner of a building to get a better look at him. He was twenty feet tall and his entire body looked like it was made of steel. In fact, he looked like a massive steel statue, except that he was moving…and radiating a sense of power. I’d felt that power before and immediately recognized who this was.

“Kr’aethar,” I whispered, sure that I was about to piss my pants. This was Kr’aethar in the flesh…his own flesh. He’d been powerful, virtually unstoppable in March’s body, so what would he be like in his own? I had absolutely no intention of confronting him and finding out.

Kr’aethar swung his arm and a wave of red energy shot out into the distance, where it sliced through a crystal tower. The whole structure was cut in half and collapsed to the ground in ruin. The giant god didn’t even stop to admire his work before he charged into the ruin to finish the job.

I didn’t remain where I was to watch Kr’aethar destroy buildings and anyone inside. Instead, I hurried away, hoping that he didn’t notice me. If he saw me here, he’d probably step on me and squash me like a cockroach.

“Please don’t see me,” I whispered, trying as hard as I could to remain small, insignificant, and out of sight. “Please don’t see me…”

Just when I thought I’d safely gotten away from Kr’aethar, a voice behind me asked, “And what do we have here?”

I snapped around, immediately throwing up a shield wall, even though I knew it wouldn’t do much good. But instead of Kr’aethar, I found myself staring up at a giant woman who was nearly ten feet tall. She had long silvery hair that seemed to glow, and her clothing seemed to be a swirl of shadows and darkness that was moving around her body.

“A mortal?” the giantess…goddess mused as she stared down at me. “And sneaking around in places it is not meant to be…”

To say I was intimidated would have been an understatement. I could feel her power, and knew without a doubt, that she could kill me with ease. However, I was tired of being scared and hiding, so my stubborn side bubbled to the surface and I glared at her defiantly.

“How did you find me?” I demanded.

I’d thought I was doing a good job of sneaking around, so to be found, and then have a ten-foot woman sneak up on me at the same time… This wasn’t good for me at all.

“You were trying to hide,” she answered with a look of amusement, “and that drew my attention. I can sense when someone is trying to keep a secret, especially when they are as desperate about it as you are.”

My eyes widened at her words, and I suddenly realized where I’d felt her power before. It felt similar to when Cassandra was using her abilities.

“You’re Armestia,” I blurted out.

“Yes, I am,” Armestia responded, seeming faintly pleased that I’d recognized who she was. “And I know who you are too, Jeri Tanner, champion of Maelyne.”

I gulped at that, not bothering to ask her how she knew who I was. She was Cassandra’s patron, and she’d obviously been keeping an eye on Cassandra the same way that Maelyne had been watching me.

“The question is, what are you doing here?” Armestia asked me with a scowl. “This is not a safe place for your kind…”

“It doesn’t look safe for your kind either,” I replied.

Armestia nodded faintly. “No, it is not.” She fixed me with her gaze and I saw that her eyes were an eerie silver color that glowed. The same eerie glow seemed to emanate from beneath her skin as well, though it was the glow from her eyes that unnerved me. It felt as though she was looking into my soul. “I see… You came to help your patron. How…loyal.”

“It seemed like the right thing to do,” I said self-consciously.

The goddess turned to her companion, whom I hadn’t even noticed until then. He was about the same height as her, though his entire body seemed to be made of smoke and shadows, much like Cloak’s shadowy aura. I wondered if this was Cloak’s patron.

Armestia spoke this to shadowy god in a strange language that was unlike any I’d ever heard before, and he responded in the same language. Then he nodded before vanishing in a puff of smoke.

“Come,” Armestia told me. “It is too exposed here. We will speak somewhere safer…”

She didn’t give me any warning before picking me up and holding me in her arms as though I was a small child. Then she suddenly took off running, moving at an amazing speed. Shadows and light swirled around her body and trailed behind us.

Armestia raced across the strange city with the kind of speed that would have gotten her a ticket on any freeway short of the Autobahn. Then she leapt up into the air and in a flash of light, we were somewhere else. She leapt again, and again we were somewhere else. She was teleporting, though only short distances each time. I suddenly realized that this might be how Cassandra pulled off some of her tricks.

Just a couple minutes after we began this mad dash, Armestia ran into one of the crystal buildings and set me down just inside. Without saying anything, she continued walking through the building, leaving me to run after in order to keep up with her.

We went into a large room, which was twice the size of the gym back in high school. The room, like everything else I’d seen, served to remind me that I was somewhere strange and alien. The walls were marble with veins of glowing crystal all over the place. There were no corners or angles in the room, as everything was rounded so the floor just flowed into the wall.

There were already three people waiting in the room, all of them gods. One was nearly twenty feet tall, with a body that seemed to be made of chiseled stone, making him look like a statue. I immediately guessed him to be Kraag, Don’s patron.

Beside him was a curvy and somewhat heavyset woman, who came off as ‘matronly’. She was about the same size as Armestia, which meant that she towered over me.

The last of the people waiting in the room was an elderly, stocky looking man, who was ‘only’ about seven feet tall. Compared to all the other gods I’d seen, they probably thought of him as being a midget.

All three of those gods turned to look at me. Armestia simply said, “I found Maelyne’s champion, wandering around.”

“How did a mortal get here?” the matronly woman asked Armestia.

“Emnyle must have opened a gate,” the giant ‘midget’ said.

“Our enemies forced her champion to open a gate,” Armestia explained. “Maelyne’s champion took advantage of the opportunity to search for her patron.”

“This is…surprising,” Kraag said, staring down at me with a calm expression.

“I’m…sorry about Don,” I said a bit awkwardly.

Kraag slowly nodded but didn’t say anything in response. Instead, he looked to Armestia, probably wondering why she’d brought me here. Honestly, I was wondering that myself.

“Do you know where Maelyne is?” I nervously asked Armestia. “And can I do anything to help her?”

The ‘midget’ looked to Armestia. “She is definitely Maelyne’s champion.”

“Indeed, she is,” Armestia said with a smile. “And she is quite close to my own champion.”

“We were looking for an opportunity to free Maelyne,” the matronly goddess said, giving me a curious look. “This child may be the opportunity we were seeking…”

“That was my thought as well,” Armestia admitted.

I stood up a little straighter and tried sounding confident as I asked, “How can I help?”

Armestia crouched down so as to be closer to my eye-level. “Our enemies attacked Maelyne but underestimated the strength of her defenses. They could not breach her shields, so trapped her in place instead, turning her shield into a prison. They expect us to come to her aid and lay in wait to ambush us.”

I stared at Armestia, wondering what my part would be in this, and then it hit me. “But they wouldn’t expect me…”

“You would pass beneath their notice,” Armestia said in agreement. “You do not possess enough power to easily draw their notice. We will draw the attention of our enemies, while you reach Maelyne and free her.”

“I’m in,” I announced.

Armestia stood up again, looking pleased. She said something to the other gods in their strange language, and each of them responded, though I couldn’t understand a word of what was said.

After a minute, Armestia turned back to me. “My intention was to gift this to my champion.” She held up a silver metal bracelet. “It will hide her presence from our enemies, protecting her the best way I am able. Now, you will deliver this to her in my stead, and it will protect you in that fashion until then.”

“I’ll make sure Cassandra gets it,” I promised.

“Fraethe,” Armestia said to the ‘midget’.

The ‘midget’, Fraethe stepped toward and gave me a skeptical look. Obviously, he had his doubts about the plan, or maybe, just about me.

“Take this,” he said a bit gruffly, handing me an old-fashioned and ornate looking key. “This will unlock the bindings that hold her.”

“Thank you,” I said a bit awkwardly.

Back in the warehouse, Pfath, Kr’aethar, and Arakthiel had mentioned Fraethe, whom they’d called the god of keys. They were after him since they seemed sure that he could let them cross over to Earth in their real bodies. I hesitated a moment, then told him what I’d heard.

“Many have been after me since the Arbiters sealed the veil,” Fraethe said with a faint nod. “Maelyne protected me and was captured while doing so. If I can repay her protection by feeing her, then I will happily do so.”

I nodded at that, then asked, “So, where do I go?”

“I will show you the way,” Armestia told me. “But first, there is one more thing you will require…”

“What’s that?” I asked.

Kraag stepped forward, then bent down to my level as much as he could. Without a word, he held out his hand, revealing a small box that was sitting in his palm. I immediately recognized a skill box from the competitions.

“Um…thank you,” I said politely.

I carefully took the box and hesitated a moment, wondering what was inside. Somehow, I doubted that it was just some random skill. In fact, I was pretty confident that they wouldn’t have given this to me without a good reason, and there was only one way to find out what that was. I opened it.

ORAEVIAN- RANK 1
-YOU UNDERSTAND ORAEVIAN, THE LANGUAGE OF THE GODS. HIGHER LEVELS OF INTELLIGENCE AND AWARENESS INCREASE THE EFFECTIVENESS OF THIS SKILL

“Jeri, champion of Maelyne, goddess of protection and loyalty,” Armestia said in a formal tone. She was speaking in the same language that they’d all been talking in before, but this time, I could understand it. “You are being tasked with a challenge of greater importance than any competition, and of greater risk, yet if you succeed, we can promise no reward beyond the freedom of your patron. Now go, champion of Maelyne, and serve her as you never have before.”