“WORK, DAMN IT!” commanded the wolfman as the ring he wore did nothing but slowly create wooden swords.

The witch was struggling with the same thing.

“Make me a witch hat!” she commanded.

The room was quiet, Mattius wrote in his book and occasionally glanced back to the three others who were with him in his private room below the mage college.

The room was illuminated by glowing orbs of light that slowly drifted around the room.

The walls and floor were made from stone bricks in the ‘L’ shaped room.

Against one wall stood the large metal machines that looked like a cross between a boiler and a furnace, with piping sprawling out on the wall.

Thal sat backwards on a wooden chair, resting his hands on the back of the chair.

He was using his folded arms to prop up his head.

“You’re not very good at this…” his remarked.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t get much practice commanding gods in my lifetime!” Darius replied, visibly irate.

“Don’t think of them as gods, it’s just your average artefact that you want to use as an in-between caster,” Thal continued.

“They’re fully capable of using atmospheric mana, so you don’t have to feed them any, in fact, if you feed them too much mana, they might escape,” Thal explained.

“…you should have said that earlier…” she remarked.

“Don’t worry, none of you mortals has enough mana to actually release them, but they could become troublesome,” Thal said dismissively,

“You need to think of the items like an extension of yourself, whatever idea helps you visualise their abilities is fine,” Thal explained.

“An extension… hm…” the witch closed her eyes and imagined the item on her head, its mana-rich shape capable of synthesising items.

Without saying anything, the witch successfully created an apple in her hand.

Thal crossed his arms.

“That’ll do…” he remarked.

“I didn’t expect her to resort to consuming the god’s soul for power… but we don’t have time to worry about that,” Thal thought looking at Nekraxx, the item wielded by Darius.

Darius stuck his hand out once more and created a wooden sword again,

“What the hell!?”

Nekraxx remained silent, in the ring he was placed in a big, black abyss of nothing.

He didn’t feel like himself, looking down to his hands and feet he could remember the other gods, he could remember himself, but what about the old world?

He tried desperately to search for the memories that were locked away.

Desperate, the god began to wander the abyss, suddenly he felt a sharp pain in his gut.

He fell to the ground, hugging his gut as the pain slowly subsided, looking down he saw no scar or blood.

Thinking back, he couldn’t remember how he was trapped.

Again, this time it felt like a headache the likes of which he didn’t consider possible.

“What that hell’s going on?!” he demanded,

He got to his feet, again and again, as Darius created more and more wooden swords and eventually rusty copper sword Nekraxx was consumed.

Memory after memory,

“What was my world called?”

“What was the land like!?”

“How did I become a god?”

“Why did I become a god?”

“What about my family…?”

“Did I have a family?!”

Parts of his mind burned away, consumed for the sake of wooden swords.

“WHAT THE HELL!?” he demanded.

He got up, he looked down as his right foot burned away leaving behind a solid-black foot-shape, more of a concept of a foot than the real deal.

“The only thing I remember… is Thal…”

“He did this…”

His arms burned away leaving only black arm shapes.

By the end, he was a solid black humanoid, no face, no hair, no past.

The only parts his mind safe were the ones immediately next to him, those being the boiling hatred that shaped his new form and the want to kill Thal.

The want for nothing other than Thal’s destruction.

“Die…”

“Die…”

“Die…”

He repeated it like a mantra, the once pacifistic god became an embodiment of anger and hatred.

The only thing he felt at this point and for decades to come was blistering hatred and bloodlust.

Darius extended his hand again.

Before he even got a chance to complain, in his hand appeared a solid steel blade, sharpened to perfection, shaped for speed.

“Now this… this I can work with!” Darius remarked.

With just a thought he made the sword disappear, in its place appeared a cutlass, then a dagger than a spear, then a gun.

The witch eventually mastered the abilities of her item, she could create complex items and even living items, as a down-side, they all seemed brittle, not a problem when it came to explosives or magic items, but swords and armour were out of the question.

Thal forced a smile, “Indeed, finally you stand a chance against the gods! With my help that is,” he added.

While Darius and the witch celebrated their victory, Mattius eyed Thal from the distance with a look of disgust.

“I can see the pity in his eyes… He pities the gods after all…” Mattius thought clenching his fists.

Thal stood from his chair.

“Alright, as much as I’d like you to become masters of your new toys, I’m pretty sure the others are about to get very suspicious very soon,” Thal replied.

“Our next target is Sicillus, otherwise he could just strike you down from the sky while we’re fighting another god,”

The witch crossed her arms.

“Don’t tell me we’ll be using the trap again…” she said in a pleading tone.

Thal shook his head.

“No, Sicillus is very much a combat god, he makes up for his skill with stupidity, so that’s why I think he makes a good first target,” Thal explained.

“I see...” Darius scratched his chin.

“And where would this fight take place?” asked Mattius.

Everyone looked back to Mattius.

“I just wouldn’t want the whole city to get destroyed over this!” he exclaimed defensively.

Darius and the witch breathed sighs as Thal tried to think of a good spot.

“He isn’t really famous for large-scale destruction, and no god other than him would even risk wiping a city off the map unless it was planned,” Thal explained.

Mattius stood up from his chair.

“We are not fighting him here!” he exclaimed.

Thal pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Alright, where would you like to fight him?” he asked.

Mattius crossed his arms.

“I have a few suggestions…” he replied.