“The universe is born when you fall asleep…”
“And dies when we awaken. Parasitic creatures follow in our wake in the great nothing, and they have the ability to consume Essential Energy, what you know as Faith, and control it. Eternally hungry and greedy for energy, these parasitic creatures infiltrate our dreams, the universe we have created, and, when sentient life emerges, they begin to act: they whisper to the sentients, ingratiate themselves, send them visions… They gain power and materialize with the help of mortals.”
“So without us, there would be no gods?”
“Exactly! The thoughts of sentients expand the universe! They kindle stars! And the more sentients, the more Faith, the more Essential Energy the parasites get. But the stronger they become, the more destructive their breath. It corrodes the fabric of creation, and in time leads to a melding with the Nether, or worse, the reign of Chaos, our worst, most corrupted reflection.”
“But don’t you need Faith too?”
“That is exactly why we sleep, Initial.”
“So once you drink your fill, you’ll wake up, and the universe stops existing. If more Faith goes to the New Gods, they’ll join the world with the Nether or Chaos. Is there any outcome where the universe doesn’t die? Otherwise the future looks kind of bleak. I won’t know what to fight for.”
“Foolish Initial,” Tiamat smiled sadly. “Your universe is young. By the measures of sentient lives, it is only just starting to walk. Ages will pass and more than one civilization will replace yours before the universe even comes of age. But the Nether and Chaos are threats of the near future. If they come to pass, our dream will change to a nightmare, and we will surely awaken. As we would have awoken if you had not found Behemoth — by then we were almost forgotten, and there is no point in continuing a dream without Faith.”
“You said ‘your universe’… Which world do you mean? Disgardium? Or… the world I’m from?”
“It is unimportant, Initial. But since you can be both here and there, then…” Tiamat smiled. “Why are you so surprised that something can be both there and here? Enough for today. You have much to do. Go.”
My head hurt from all the Sleeping Goddess had told me. To buy a little time to mull it all over, I walked over to my allies as they stood waiting instead of flying to them.
As I reached the spot, I looked back. The ghostly silhouette of a gigantic red dragon hung above the temple.
“May the Sleeping Gods never wake!” I shouted, for the first time understanding what it really meant.
“And may their sleep be eternal!” came the scattered response from those who had destroyed Tiamat’s temple a mere week ago in this very spot.
Chuckling, I looked at them all. My new allies were waiting for me to say something, their serious faces trained on me. The top players of the top clans: Hinterleaf the gnome mage, Yary the human bogatyr, Sayan the titan paladin, Pecheneg the human barbarian, Horvac the orc chieftain and his officers — the troll engineer Cannibal and werewolf sniper Hellfish.
A few minutes later, they all became priests of the Sleeping Gods.
Chapter 28. The Kharinza Fortress
AMID THE SURPRISED and joyous exclamations of my new allies, I quickly said my good-byes and moved to the base.
After my jump, I didn’t quite realize where I was right away, because it had all changed! I looked around and found a familiar landmark: the new tavern on Kharinza had the same name as the old, the Pig and Whistle. A crew of dwarves with Raidohelm in the lead loudly greeted me.
“Scyth!” the foreman shouted, smiling happily and swaying. He headed toward me, embraced me and slapped me on the back. He seemed a completely different man than the serious and frowning Raidohelm I knew. After showering me with greetings, he suddenly sobered up: “Where’ve you been? What was the hurry for? We’ve been done for half a day!”
“Accept the work, boss!” the dwarfs all shouted in unison. “Our wives are waitin’!”
Some of them were barely holding themselves up. In the absence of cooks and waitresses, the builders had served themselves. I saw a row of barrels lined up along the wall along with makeshift tables heaped with simple, but tasty looking food: all kinds of vegetables, cheese and cakes, several boar’s legs and a roast deer. Under the tables were piles of clean-picked bones, one of which a dog was gleefully chewing. Pipes played and a chubby ginger builder danced a furious jig to the merry melody, stepping on his fellow builders’ beards.
“Have a drink with us, Scyth!” he shouted, still dancing.
I saw no reason to refuse. I took a proffered mug of ale, we all loudly knocked our mugs together and I forced down the strong liquid along with Raidohelm and the others, then thanked the builders and went off with the foreman to look around the fortress.
We left the tavern onto the main square, at the center of which the noticeably larger Tree Protector spread out its branches. It began to tremble, the entire canopy shook, a shoot poked out of the ground nearby, touched my foot and pulled back again. The tree calmed down.
I’d already seen what was here when I teleported to the fort, but I still listened to Raidohelm’s commentary:
“The castle is the heart of it
