The End of Days, Chapter Two: No Rest for the Warrior

[Slave Xaccheus]

Suffice to say, the mission was a success, albeit at the cost of everyone sent out on it. The warriors the Kobold spoke of are true-to-life and incredibly dangerous; but their master whom they serve remains anonymous, even to your gods.

After your utter annihilation, the remaining survivors now stand, dead, before the deities and demigods the multiverse over; at least, in this cosmology.

The area is a great castle, and time does not pass here. In the midst of your arrival, an unreal sight has befallen your eyes: The deities of every realm, lawful or chaotic, evil or good, have gathered together under one banner in their time of need.

Unfortunately, their alliance is not preventing them from arguing feverishly. After sitting through hours of hearing the deities bicker and squabble, their attention finally passed to you.

Welcome adventurers; your deities are rather upset by your deaths. While they do not view this as failure, many are disappointed that you died so prematurely. Regardless, your debriefing will now occur, as all patriarchs and matriarchs of your pantheons demand an update on the current planar conundrum.  

[Slave Xaccheus]

((Starting all this off, I suppose...))

Everyone is standing, fully garbed and armed, in a grand foyer of an opulent cross between a temple and castle. Here, both on your level and towering tall above you, stand the deities of this cosmology (we're just going to say "standard" is our cosmology). Igneel, you can automatically see Tiamat's five heads, each engaged in their own arguments with Bahamut, Altua, Heironeus, Ka, and Moradin.

Finally, a loud bang is heard, and the room goes dead silent. A luminously-faced figure enters in a hurry; his face hidden behind the glare of what seems like pure sunlight. Several of the undead deities wince in disgust.

"This bickering has gone on long enough." the deity, obviously Pelor, says gruffly.

"What I wish to know, rather than hear how someone's rival failed miserably," Pelor's glare shifts slightly towards Asmodeus, the Prince of Hell, "Is what happened to bring you adventurers into our meeting. According to several deities with portfolios concerning it, you successfully destroyed the mountain you were sent to destroy."

A few murmurs hiss and jeer unintelligibly in the hall.

"Yet, here you are, either dead from the sheer height of the fall," Pelor beckons to Rage, Oulviina, Nadarr, and Alexandria, "Or you were wiped off the face of the planet by something with enough power to crush this entire pantheon in one fell swoop. I wish to know, as do many others of us, why something as powerful an overdeity as that managed to slip in past our portfolio senses, and eliminate all we sent on the demolition mission."  

[jennibert]

Misery and Halen look feverishly around, trying to spot the familiar bound armor of Alran-Kor, but to no avail. Misery is still looking when the question is posed to the group, oblivious, but Halen looks straight at Pelor to answer.

"How the hell should we know? You're the deities, isn't that your job?"

Misery snaps her head around to look at him, startled. "Halen!"

"What?" he responds with a shrug of his armorclad shoulders. "They're supposed to be whatsit--omnipotent. If they don't know, why would they expect us to?"  

[Disciple of Sakura]

"I have heard stories that might explain it, in part... Something about a group of mages located near the ocean, creating strange new realities and caring almost not a whit about how the various physics of said realities might interact with each other... Of course, they're also prone to simply discarding their realities and creating entire new ones, to the detriment and frustration of their residents."  

[Yurro]

Immediately upon realizing that he is now standing in front of his 'mother' of sorts, Igneel gave his mistress a noble kneeling bow before stating any info he had.

My Mistress! He starts in Common, And the rest of you insects... he slightly mutters under his breath upon spotting some of the rest of the pantheon. My greatest of apologies for failing in my 'mission*'. Everything was going accordingly to plan when this strangely overconfident kobold of sorts that wielded powers I could only say rivaled that of gods. I just barely survived the first attack when he blew everything else up from one end of the Abyss to the next.

Upon hearing from the glowing man ((Since the closest deities to Pelor are Paladin [closer to Bahamut] & Mishakal)) explain that even the deities didn't know about the strange kobold Igneel's jaw literally drops. H..ho...how is that even possible? Something of that power surely must of been noticed by somebody?

[[OOC:
About my last post in the other thread, that wasn't a 'last ditch effort' of trying to harm Pun-Pun, but rather just stating facts that I'd need something along the lines of Wish to be brought back (one of the pains of being Draconian). Course that was before I knew we would be brought before our god/dess.

Why is it after this comes up, I've signed up for a game in another website's forum where we get to design a lvl 50 character/rank 6 deity to fight against the DM (as in himself), and his first ruling is 'No Pun-Pun'? xd ]]  

[Slave Xaccheus]

((Probably because Pun-Pun could actually beat the DM. Once you gain the ability to send entire planets to the Negative Energy Plane, you're overpowered.))

"You forget, our powers, vast as they may be, are still finite." Pelor says, "And with the current situation regarding the cosmos, many of our powers are being overloaded. If what you say is true, that a Kobold managed to do this without Kurtulmak even realizing what had just entered, it's very likely that our portfolio sense may not even work properly."

The others are suddenly appalled at the prospect.

"This is why we fear the world may be ending. If our powers are being disrupted, we may not be able to control the world at all once the cosmologies collide."

At this, Tiamat speaks harshly,

"Well, Pelor, if you had better controlled that adventurer of yours, maybe this wouldn't have happened in the first place! We could all be continuing our own agendas, but instead, we keep having to watch our backs for any portals that suddenly open up and send half of our servants to who-knows-where."  

[Jacior]

"What point is there to argue about it now? What is done, has passed and gone. As dieties you should realize this, but you squabble as though you were the petty mortals over whose lives you watch." Spoke Matthias, rather upset at the events that had taken place moments before.

"Why not try and figure out how to stop, or at the very least minimize, the problems we have now? Such as: The impending collision of the cosmologies, the mysterious creature that has avoided the sight of all the gods, the fact that we are all now, infact, DEAD." He spat at the presumably shocked gods.

Now having ranted Matthias was rather embarrased. "Uhm, please forgive that, but I am right. Our priorities should start with this Kobold, he is our big problem. Where did he come from, who are his masters and just how powerful is he?"

((Sorry for not posting much before, and for my characters sudden change in personality, dying was tramatic.))  

[jennibert]

Jacior

Now having ranted Matthias was rather embarrased. "Uhm, please forgive that, but I am right. Our priorities should start with this Kobold, he is our big problem. Where did he come from, who are his masters and just how powerful is he?")

"He is correct," agreed Misery. "The situation is beyond silly squabbles over who is at fault. Whoever's worshipper started it, well, none of the rest of you sent anyone to stop that person, so that makes it everyone's fault and everyone's problem. I don't know anything about your own problems with each other, but it seems like now is the time to not only be together, but to truly work together." Misery pauses, looking a little faint as she realizes that she has just reprimanded a bunch of deities as though they were first year cadets. In fact, I think I gave that exact lecture to a group of first-years one time...

"Now I have a question for you: did you bring us here to ask broad questions to which we have no answers, or did you have a different purpose in mind? Perhaps our recollections of this monster--a kobold, you called him?--can help you determine what he is or where he came from."  

[Slave Xaccheus]

"Any description available on this being would be of use." Pelor says, "If we can find anything we can use, we may yet have a fighting chance. If this creature is working for someone, perhaps we can beat his master in the event we cannot beat him."  

[Anatarei Crimsonthrone]

"With all due respect... anything that would command such a ludicrously powerful kobold would either be even more unstoppable, or wouldn't even exist. And the problem remains the same - even if we were to eliminate whosoever thinks they command that creature, we'd still be dealing with a monstrosity that terrifies even your esteemed countenances after the fact. I'd say it'd be much wiser to just stay the blue blazes away from him and hope that he doesn't interact with us in any reasonable way again."  

[Slave Xaccheus]

At Oulviina's comment, Vecna enters the conversation.

"You forget, the student does not always lose to the master." Vecna displays his hand, or lack thereof.

"You'll remember that Kas very nearly destroyed me. We cannot directly assume that this world-shattering Kobold kneels to a more powerful master. He could very well work for someone who is merely more influential."

"Did he not speak to any of you? Did he give anything away we can use?"  

[Yurro]

He didn't speak to me, I was in flight while the mountain sustained damage only to be attacked, and blown into smithereens.  

[jennibert]

Eternality_Cannon

At Oulviina's comment, Vecna enters the conversation.

"You forget, the student does not always lose to the master." Vecna displays his hand, or lack thereof.

"You'll remember that Kas very nearly destroyed me. We cannot directly assume that this world-shattering Kobold kneels to a more powerful master. He could very well work for someone who is merely more influential."

Misery looks blank. Halen smiles and nods with the air of one who is clueless.

Vecna

"Did he not speak to any of you? Did he give anything away we can use?"

"All we saw was a huge lizard man above the buildings. He punched the ground, and then we were falling. The next thing I remember, we were here," says Misery. "I assume someone else might know more, but I'm afraid Halen and I won't be much help." Halen nods his agreement.  

[Disciple of Sakura]

"Well, let's see... I suppose I was the only one who spoke to the beast...

"He started out acting like an insignificant grunt just like everyone else we had encountered. He claimed to be the servant of several masters, who had slaughtered the prior inhabitants of the floating mountain. He claimed one was a demon, one was, as he put it, 'the ultimate elf,' and one could some how command deities, or at least convince them to agree with him. And, of course, he said that he was like a god himself...

"He also provided that there was someone or something manipulating events to affect this entire thing. 'Pulling the strings since the world began' was how he put it.

"And then he murdered me. He transformed into a monstrosity so quickly, I wasn't able to even react." Delan sounds particularly bitter about the last bit.  

[Slave Xaccheus]

At Delan's comment, the Gods suddenly shift from their usual appearance. A look that clearly states a million expletives flashes over their faces.

"That comment has given us two very valuable pieces of information, if what I think has transpired has indeed... well, transpired." Vecna says nervously.

"Fharlagn, you're the god of roads. Was there a portal to the Far Realm opened in the midst of all this?" Pelor says to a Travel-Weary deity.

"I can check it for you, but it'll be hard with the interference from the war."

"Do it. We need every scrap of information we can get."

A Hero Deity interjects.

"What? What's going on?"

Fharlagn stops checking.

"Bad news Pelor. Far Realm got ripped open. You don't think that..."

"The evidence adds up."