“Thanks for meeting with us like this,” Jack said.

  It was dark outside as we sat on the balcony next to the bubbling hot tub. Lucas, Jack, Panda and I sat around a small table sipping fruity alcoholic beverages.

  The reunion had ended abruptly after Chonkers’ and Lucas’ argument. His entourage decided to stay with us in our apartment. Rex and the others had returned later and gone straight to bed, Asmodeus with them. He was happy to be back in the fold. I, however, couldn’t sleep.

  It was the middle of the night when I received a cryptic message from Jack.

  Jack: Meet me on the balcony. We need to talk.

  I’d woken Panda to come with me, he was my guide after all. But to my surprise Jack wasn’t out there alone. He had Lucas with him.

  “Any time,” I replied wearily. “Do you guys want to tell me what it is we’re having a meeting about and why we couldn’t do it in daylight, with the rest of my team present?”

  “What we need to discuss is of the upmost importance,” Lucas said. “It does not concern them.”

  “Anything you want to say to me you can say to them; I trust them with my life.”

  “I feel the same way about Gonzo and Taylor, yet I still don’t tell them everything. Sometimes a leader needs to keep secrets. That’s just how it is.”

  “And if I don’t accept that?”

  “Then you will do what you will,” Lucas sighed and leaned forward. “I can’t force you not to tell your friends about this Kaleb, this is just some friendly advice. What you do during and after this conversation is entirely up to you.”

  “And what exactly is this conversation about?” I asked, looking between the two of them. They didn’t seem familiar with each other and I was struggling to see what connected them.

  “This is about the high priest tournament and what is to come,” Jack said after a moment. “Currently there is an ongoing power struggle within the pantheon. Chrysus is making a play to take over. I don’t know how familiar you are with the history of the gods, but once upon a time there was a single god: Athena. She ruled for centuries before anyone else managed to ascend to godhood. Once they did, she created the pantheon with herself as the head and the other gods as equals beneath her. She vanished thousands of years ago now and no one knows why, or where she went.

  “The remaining members of the pantheon have engaged in the occasional power struggle but for the most part they have remained in an uneasy alliance. It is believed that most were too scared to break the power structure set in place by Athena. However, it has come to light that one God is about to change all of that.”

  “Chrysus,” I said.

  “That’s right. He’s been building up his following for a long time now and our intelligence all points towards this tournament being the time he plans to strike. We believe that he aims to put down any dissenting gods, placing himself at the top. The new Athena, so to speak.”

  “We?” I asked, looking between the two of them. “How exactly do you two know each other, I thought you were an outworlder like me, Jack?”

  “I am, and we don’t. I was referring to The Organisation. The king and I are both members, though in completely different capacities.”

  The Organisation, I’ve heard of them before.

  “That all sounds very illuminati to me,” I said, frowning.

  “In a way it is,” Jack laughed slightly. “I myself have completed multiple assassinations in aid of trying to prevent Chrysus’ takeover. I assassinated a king in Britania who was a loyal supporter of him, I’ve killed merchants and cultist leaders… and the previous Havarian king.”

  “That was you?!” I said, almost shouting as I stood. “Were you also involved with the guys who kidnapped Bell. Do you have any idea what they did to her?”

  “No,” he said placing his hands up in surrender. “I had nothing to do with that. The Morningstar are firmly under the thumb of Chrysus, you know that. You met Nyx at the same time as I did.”

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  He was right, we had met Nyx and, though a god in his own right, he seemed to be working with Chrysus. I sat back down but I was shaking. This was a lot to take in and I feared that there was even more I was about to learn. I barely understood any of it. I did get one thing though, if Chrysus was making a power play and he already had Nyx in his corner then that couldn’t be a good thing.

  “What was wrong with the Havarian king?” I eventually said. “I kinda liked him.” Lucas looked towards Jack as well, guilt and confusion in his eyes. It seemed that this was new information for him too.

  “He was a prime candidate for our cause,” Jack said, speaking slowly as if someone was telling him what to say through an earpiece. It was weird. “However, our spies discovered that he was working with Chrysus as well, albeit covertly. He had sold parts of the island to the god, places where he could send his sacrifices.”

  “Sacrifices?”

  “I heard you fought them when you first arrived, his cultists I mean,” Jack said. “Did you never once wonder why they were so weak when even most children are a higher level?”

  I had wondered that. I remembered asking Panda about it at the time but he didn’t have much of an answer for me. The world was so new to me back then, every day was just about surviving. I barely had time to question anything. It was all so new and weird.

  “Chrysus is a relatively new god,” Jack continued. “He’s been active for centuries, but that’s quite a short time for an immortal. It is believed that the reason he has risen to prominence so quickly is because he’s been sacrificing his followers. It’s an archaic magic, very taboo. It actually predates the system as we know it today. The method was lost millennia ago.”

  “How does it work?”

  “I can answer that, kid.” Panda said, “I touched on it once before. There are many books about it, though none of them agree on the exact methodology. The gist of it is that someone powerful can steal experience from willing followers. Those followers drop back down to level one, and the perpetrator, Chrysus in this instance, gains all the levelling experience that they had accumulated.”

  “Like some kind of vampire, or a gamer with a nasty cheat code?”

  “Something like that,” Panda said. “It’s extremely taboo. Accusing someone of doing something like that in this world is akin to accusing someone of mass genocide back in your world. It’s one of the worst things a person can do in this society.”

  “I knew I was right not to like the guy,” I muttered. “Gods, they’re all the same. Back in our world people started wars and killed in the name of their gods. For what? To show that their imaginary friend was better? When I was a kid I believed in Santa but I didn’t hurt people who said he wasn’t real or didn’t celebrate Christmas.”

  “I’m not sure this is the same,” Jack began tentatively, “but I understand your dislike of it all. I used to be the same until I met my god.”

  I looked up at that. “Your god?” I asked, looking between him and Lucas. I hadn’t realised either of them had one, but it was beginning to make sense. “This Organisation of yours, it wouldn’t happen to be…?”

  “Overseen by a god?” Jack asked. “Yes, that’s exactly what it is.”

  The Organisation… run by a god… surely it’s not the same one Panda told me about. I felt myself getting more irritated with the two of them. I’d had a funny feeling about Jack since the moment I’d met him, but Lucas? I treated him like a friend. I liked the guy. This… this felt like betrayal.

  “So you two are both cultists, just for a different god?” I spat. “This power struggle you’re talking about, you’re not doing this for the sake of normal people are you? This is about your god having beef with Chrysus. For fuck’s sake guys. Why do either of you even care?”

  “It’s not like that,” Lucas protested. His eyes were blackened and he had a few days’ growth on his chin. I’d never seen him unshaven before. “Diako isn’t like Chrysus. He isn’t trying to take power for himself, he just wants to keep the status quo and prevent Chrysus from taking power.”

  So it is the same one. These idiots work for the guy who runs the cabal of assassins.

  “Diako?” I said a little too loudly, “as in the guy who sterilised the lycanids, that Diako?”

  “He… I don’t know,” Lucas said, “I’ve never heard that story before. If it is true I’m sure there was a good reason.”

  Jack didn’t show any emotion, his face a blank canvas; he stood silently as I continued.

  “Rex told me about it, your god was a fiend. He wormed his way into the lycanid empress’ good graces then poisoned her with a sterility virus. He’s responsible for their entire species being royally fucked. And you’re working for guy like that?”

  Lucas balked; he genuinely didn’t seem to know any of this. If anything that made it worse. There was no way I could trust a god like that.

  “I don’t want anything to do with your god’s power struggle,” I said, chest heaving. “It’s got nothing to do with me and I intend to keep it that way.”

  I took a large gulp of my drink and looked towards Panda who nodded back at me. This farce had gone on for long enough. I liked Lucas, I even owed him, but I had no intention of being the political pawn of some asshole deity who started the Slow Slaughter and murdered people with his illuminati Assassin’s Creed rip off bullshit.

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” Jack said in a low voice that didn’t quite seem his own. I looked at him and his eyes had rolled back into his skull.

  “Jack, what the fuck is wrong with you?” I asked.

  “I don’t think that’s Jack anymore, kid,” Panda said. “I believe we’re talking to Diako now.”

  “Oh well isn’t that bloody fantastic.”

  Lucas went wide eyed and moved out of the way, scurrying towards me. I’d never seen him so frightened before. The man was a pillar of strength from everything I’d seen, but he seemed genuinely scared of this god possessing Jack. If anything, that only served to anger me further. There had to be more to this. I knew Lucas, he wasn’t the type to follow others without a good reason.

  “This matter involves you more than any other mortal in Celestia,” Jack, or rather Diako, said. “There is only one way that Chrysus can gain the power he seeks.”

  “The fucking map,” I snarled.