The Crack of Doom was quite well known as a dragon hot spot, (to be fair any area full of dragons will become a hot spot by default, but let’s not be pedantic about it.) Yet as soon as Drizul entered it became desolate and distinctly devoid of Draeg. The place was as empty as a party where somebody just rolled out the soggy salad (it’s always soggy and you know it) and proposed a round of charades.

This happened from time to time, the dragons had an understanding of sorts that when guests appeared they made themselves scarce, lest they find out which would win between dragon scales or a kajillion volts of spiteful smite.

Thus Drizul had no trouble finding the ancient altar, and almost on instinct made the silly mistake of cleaning it. Then remembered that was not the point here, and instead focused his divinity to talk.

“Wondered how long it would take for you to wind up here” came a voice from the shrine, that was somehow young, and old, feminine and masculine, melodious and vicious. Drizul would never get used to that, but that was what it meant to be forgotten.

“I need union help” Replied Drizul. “Been trying to retire for millennia now, and my last paid holiday was 3 sodding centuries ago.”

“But that isn’t your goal is it” came the amused/strict irate/tolerant reply.

“Nope they won’t let a god retire, and even if they did becoming mortal wouldn’t exactly suit my purposes, I need a demotion.”

“Ah the subordinates rule, I see how it is now, I’ll help you, but first you’ll need to be replaced. As you know that will not be a pleasant experience, and your divinity income will crash, so are you certain?” (Drizul was willing to swear the voice sounded purely concerned, but it was incredibly hard to be sure over all the feedback voices.)

“If that’s what it takes I’ll do it, but how do I do that.”

“Step one, no miracles, mortals see miracles they get expectations, and we all know how that goes. You heal one beggar and they’re back, if you must then wear a hooded robe and be vague as all hell. The old peasant seeking refuge or help crossing a small stream shtick works every time. Failing that set up an ambiguous altar somewhere, make it vague as hell though, if it looks anything like you then some zealot will dust off a tome and you’ll be back to square one all over again. Step two, do not interact with any of your worshippers no matter what. The second you do they’ll get all bendy at the knee and you’ll have fixed worshippers again, and you really do not want that. It’s really hard for a working god to step down. They really should have made the fine print less fine, or at least not written it in dark matter when we signed up. But too late to fix that now, so instead we’ll make sure the big bosses get the mother of all headaches until they back down. Don’t worry about the lack of divinity though, that’s what the strike fund is for, just whatever you do always remember who you are.”

With that the voice fell silent and Drizul suddenly found himself alone once more at the entrance to the valley. (It would take a week or so for the dragons to come back, because when the gods were involved it didn’t matter if you were 50 feet tall and covered in scales, you could never be too careful.)

************************************************************************

Another messenger crow landed, dropping a note and making itself scarce as fast as it could manage.

Flynt and Tindur found it. Not that it lasted long, barely surviving long enough to be read before going up in flames (paper lasting that long round those two was a miracle in itself.

The duo were a match made in heaven (or more likely given their disposition hell.) Flynt was a tall young inferno mage, with a propensity to hoods, and managed to compress more edginess into his presentation than your average razor. From the black hooded robe embroidered with sigils (it had to be black for his sake, and it didn’t matter in the least to him that the sigils were actually song lyrics to anybody who could actually read them, it was all about the look, and the cool people would know and really appreciate it anyway, the uncool ones? Well they’d still see a bunch of cool sigils.)

Tindur on the other hand was as flamboyant as they come, from her deliberately spiked fiery red hair, to the custom made flame motif apron, heck she had even hired an enchanter to make her eyes show the image of flame from the outside.

Apart from that though they shared a lit in common, from a love of bardcore rock and a burning passion for fire, to enough metal in their faces to keep a scrapyard in business for a decade. They’d met one day when they were both sent to burn down the same building, and it turned out the bigger sparks were between them. Truly a tale of love at first light. They’d been inseparable ever since then.

Tindur carefully examined the letter before it met with the candle on her table (there was always a candle lit wherever she was, and if she had her way there always would be.) According to this a Princess was currently living outside the castle, and their clients would much prefer she not be the former (they didn’t care about the latter really.) Seemed like an easy job, for easy pay, and buildings outside the castle didn’t really use flameproof magic. Apparently she’d even managed to outwit Ed, well more than that. According to rumour Ed was dead.

“Waddya mean ed’s dead?” Flynt asked.

“Exactly what I said, Ed is Dead.”

This news for some reason filled the pair with dread.