The evening after Randulfr’s arrival, I had discovered a small town hidden behind the mountain with the Tibetan mountain

The evening after Randulfr’s arrival, I had discovered a small town hidden behind the mountain with the Tibetan mountain. It had only a village store, a village totem and three medium sized houses, so it should’ve been easy to capture. Unfortunately, Knylus had a strange obsession with it that he didn’t have with even his capital (just to the north of this village), and had thrown powerful shields around it. Something was going on inside, but I couldn’t see what.

As I returned from a day spent attempting to destroy the shield, I met Randulfr by the entrance to the valley that I had planned on colonising when I had first arrived. He had built a temple, a great wooden thing similar to mine, and two small villages (of similar size to the one belonging to Knylus I just told you about) in there, and was preparing resources for a third, out in the open plains to the east of my mountaintop town. He was concentrating on the village store closest to the valley mouth, and as I watched, light flowed from his big hands and converged on a point above the storehouse. From that focal point, grain began to pour freely and soon the storehouse was full of food. I noticed that there were ten or so hungry-looking villagers sitting around outside, and they all ran inside to get food when there was some available. His village seemed to be entirely happy, as there were no desire flags on the poles above the store. Desire flags are an efficient way for villagers to tell their god what they want: for example, when hungry, the villagers will raise the flag with a picture of a stickman pointing to his mouth. If there is a child desire, the flag with a heart on it is raised. In my towns, there are usually two or three desires at a time. I don’t really care about these (my people can fend for themselves mostly), but if the desire for food or wood becomes too drastic (i.e. the store is empty) I do what I can.

“Going soft?” I chuckled. Randulfr turned and saw me standing there in the thin snow.

“What can I say; happy villagers mean more work gets done.” He replied, sounding tired. We walked out of the pass, and onto the plains. Even here, the snow was not as thick as it had been. I guessed spring was arriving. We stopped before an area that Randulfr had cleared with fireballs, to make way for his future village.

In the middle of the rough circle stood a massive wolf creature. His shaggy fur was a light grey colour, flecked with bright white patches, and he had Randulfr’s symbol (a curved fang) tattooed on his torso. Randulfr’s creature stood was almost fully grown; about the height of my temple, and as I watched, it raised its grey muzzle to the moon and howled: A bellowing challenge that echoed off the mountains around us. Randulfr leapt up to its shoulder and scratched its neck.

“How was the day?” I asked him. Randulfr thought for a moment, then said;

“Not bad; watered your crops and filled your store in the farming town.” He said “Pretty uneventful.”

“Cool. I found a hidden town, but it was shielded.” I said. He thought for a moment.

“We should attack tonight. Together we could break the shield and take the town. If it refuses to join us; we slaughter the population and re-colonise it with our own people.”

“I think we have a plan.” I grinned.

A few hours later, the two of us approached from the east of the shield bubble that was half-in the mountain.

“How are we going to do this?” I asked.

“Megablast?” He asked. I considered for a minute. If it worked, we could take the town quickly and then defend it before he arrived. If it didn’t, then he would show up and…

“What the hell, let’s do this.” I sighed. We both concentrated our energies into destruction and let fly, causing a collective hail of ten megablasts to hit the bubble. It flickered, fizzed and then burst with a supersonic bang. We both acted instinctively: I cast a lightning bolt that severely wounded almost all of the small population, but before they could die, Randulfr used a powerful healing miracle and they all stood up, blinking and confused as to whether they were dead or alive. When they saw Randulfr, their savour, the people began to shout about a new god. Randulfr’s fang symbol appeared above the village totem and the lion that held it cracked and deformed until it was a wolf.

“How dare you!?” The voice of Knylus screamed. “Ah well: Though it annoys me, that village matters little to me. However, I will still not allow you to control it and risk finding out what I was working on there!”

There was a couple of seconds of silence, then the black, starless sky was split as megablasts and fireballs rained down, at rapid-fire speed. There was a great earthquake as the town was bombarded and destroyed in a matter of seconds. We both shielded ourselves until the massacre was over, and then had a quick look around the debris.

“Look at this!” I muttered. I had found a strange object in the ruins of the biggest building in town. It was a rock, but had the symbol of Knylus burned into it. As we watched; it pulsated with power like a living thing.

“Wait…This thing is probably part of his power! I can feel energy flowing from it constantly…” Randulfr muttered. I stood, and backed away to a safe distance. From there, we both combined our energy into a single, powered-up Megablast. It hit the rock and there was a loud, bright explosion. When the light cleared, a part of the Creed I sought was floating above the cracked pieces of the stone. The Creed is an ultimate power that is said to grant the one who combines three elements of it the power to conquer all other gods with ease. The reason Knylus was so powerful was because he already possessed his own creed. This was a piece that I had found a while ago but was stolen by his creature. It looked like a glowing lightning bolt that pulsed when touched.

“This is why his destructive miracles are so powerful! He’s not content with one creed; he was trying to get a second one. This is the creed piece of destruction. It greatly increases the power of destructive miracles.” I exclaimed.

“That means you have two pieces of the creed!” blurted Randulfr. I took the creed in my plate-mail gloved hands and carried it gently in front of me. I took off and flew back to my spiked, wooden temple. Inside was the map of the island, but I ran straight past it, through a door hidden behind a tapestry. Inside was an altar made of three iron hands raised from the floor. Hovering above it was a glowing heart inside a ball of light. I placed the shimmering lightning bolt beside it. If I got one more creed, I could sweep away Knylus easily. One more creed to go…

Outside, it was starting to get light: Day and night passed quickly in this land. Randulfr was waiting for me beside my temple.

“Are you ready to attack, Blitz?” He asked. I nodded; eager to get this war over with and finish Knylus.

“Let’s go” I said. We both leapt through the sky and landed on top of my Tibetan mountain. I felt energised and realised that the rebuilding of the wonder was almost done: Just the final roof to go (it was made up of several slanted roofs). Below us was the mountain pass that led to Knylus’ capital city, and his temple. There was one problem; a thick wall and a huge pair of gates blocked off the pass. I sensed a shield miracle had been imbued into the stones they were made of.

“We’ll need help to get through there.” Randulfr commented, gazing at the defences.

“Our armies… Together, they could use siege weapons to weaken this.” I muttered.

“Excellent, take control of my troops and move them in from the east, I’ll get my creature and attack from the west.” My ally exclaimed.

It was getting light. Randulfr and his creature were content to distract the defenders (mainly Aztec warriors and archers) by hurling fireballs and lightning bolts at their walls, so I began to prepare the siege weapons for an attack. Randulfr had brought two Trebuchets and four Ballistae with him and I organised them into good firing positions: Two Ballistae and one Trebuchet on top of the cliffs by my Tibetan city and the rest down below on the plains. Ballista spears and Trebuchet stones crashed into the walls but just bounced off again. I sensed the soldiers were becoming bored with sitting around, but there was nothing I could do to help until the gates fell. The miracles cast by Randulfr and his Wolf creature had a similar effect; scorching the gates and killing men on the ramparts, but not doing any serious damage. Knylus had thought his defence through thoroughly and it was effective. By nightfall that day, I was getting angry. I had to come up with another plan, and I already had one…

“CHARGE!!” I screamed. My hoplites and archers swarmed across the plains towards the walled entrance, shields raised. Arrows thudded down into them, and almost a dozen fell to the grassy earth: never to rise again. I didn’t like the idea of throwing troops at it, but there was no other way to get the ladders to the walls. I only had twenty soldiers left (oh and around thirty Norse warriors), but they had got to the wall.

“Ladders up!” I ordered. I was among them; shielding who I could and covering us with fireballs. Beside me, two more were cut down by arrows and I caught the ladder they had been carrying as they fell. It had a grappling hook on a rope, which I threw to the top, and then hoisted the ladder into a ready position. As the ladders rose, the Norse charged, too. They streamed across the plains with their fur capes billowing behind them and glinting swords bared to the sunlight. It was a cold sun, though; as though the heat couldn’t penetrate the icy atmosphere. As they reached the ladders, my make-shift ‘shock troops’ scaled them fast and leapt up to the walls. I was there too. I watched as the slaughter began; Aztec archers screamed as they were butchered by the combined Norse and Greek troops. I saw the wolf and Randulfr join the charge and leap onto the walls. Now undefended (for the most part), they could land safely and attack properly. With a howl, Wolf picked up a man and crushed him in a paw. I heard his ribs cave in and his final gurgling rattle of a scream. Beside me, I saw four men on my side gasp and die, peppered with arrows. Beyond them was a last desperate group of five archers, defending the stairs on the inside of the gate. I ran full pelt towards them and ripped them apart with my bare hands and leaving blood spattered across the walkway. Below, I saw Knylus’ massive, sprawling city. It had to house at least two hundred villagers in the hundred or more square, Aztec buildings. From the city poured a wave of Aztec warriors, feathered headdresses raised to the sky and their curious club-like swords drawn.

“Fire!” I ordered. My remaining archers let loose a volley of arrows, whilst Randulfr, his creature and I all hurled fireballs. Collectively, we wiped out the counterattack, and the survivors who tried to flee found out how hard it was to walk once blown apart by a megablast. We fought on, and entered the city. Beside me, Randulfr joined the charge. Behind me was my army, spread out and pouring from the stairs. We killed all who got in our way, villagers and troops. A group ambushed me from an alleyway: six swordsmen hacked at me. I grabbed one sword, pulled its owner close and used him as a shield from the other blows that rained down. I then set him alight and threw him into two others who fell screaming. The final two dropped their swords and raised their hands in surrender but I killed them with a bright flash of lightning. I saw a figure ahead of us, dark and evil.

“There he is!” I yelled. Randulfr and I both threw fireballs at him, but he just swatted both away and raised his hands. A ball of purple light formed above the city. Knylus’ smile was one of bitter victory.

“I will kill you all. I have some survivors near my temple, we can rebuild. It doesn’t matter if this gets destroyed.” He blurted. I almost felt sorry for him; all that power he wielded was coming to nothing as we got closer and closer to destroying him. It had driven him mad. I was still puzzling about this when the biggest shadow-megablast I had ever seen dropped from the ball of purple light.

“Blitz!” Randulfr yelled. “Look out!”

I tried to move but it was so fast it would get to me before I could push off from the ground. I saw a shape speed in front of it and gasped:

“RANDULFR!” I howled. The explosion that hit him was massive and he crashed into the floor nearby, setting several houses on fire. All around me was chaos as sword clashed on shield and houses collapsed.

“Randulfr: NO!!” I shouted again. I was kneeling beside him, and I observed the great rent in the front of his armour Blood spattered the ground all around us and his eyes were closed. However there was still a flicker of life, a whisper of his essence left in him. A god can only recover from this type of wound by the unwavering belief of his or her followers. I saw the massive shaggy wolf approach from the right and whimper as he saw his dying master.

“Blitz…take…this…amulet…” He gasped, suddenly. I turned back to my friend and saw him holding an old wooden charm on a chain in his hands. It had a crack running through the middle of it. I took it in my hands and felt the greatest feeling of my life, suddenly:

Power.

I realised what this was; the last part of the creed! It was the fragment of the creed of protection. I now had Destruction, Healing and Protection in my grasp.

“I’m sorry I didn’t entrust you with it before.” He muttered, sinking back into his coma-like-state.

“Take him back to the temple” I instructed his creature sternly “then raise all of the totems in the villages. You need everyone to pray for him to heal.”

The wolf barked to show his understanding, gently picked up the injured god and bounded back across the field of corpses. I turned, crackling with power. I could feel the ultimate power building up inside me. Now that I had a full creed I could finally best Knylus and destroy him. After the explosion, he had fled to his hellish temple on the hill in the centre of his city. I set off in pursuit.

Will Randulfr survive? Will Blitz finally destroy his foe? Find out next time….