Somewhere at the edge of the world, where the water falls over the edge of the world down into nothingness and the azure sky meets the vast ocean, stood two pillars, charged with compelling power, holding up the sky. The sky was shaped like a dome, while our world was like a platter being covered by it, and the short distance being right at the edge where the only thing separating them were two think roman-style columns that were about 50 m in height. Here took place a meeting of 2 creatures that were as different as the sky and sea, but at the same having the same thoughts and expressions as if being connected by some type of bond.

“So you came Varnak!” roared Kernuff, his slithery body completely submerged under water, except for his head, which stuck out like a nail ready to be hammered. “Something odd is underway in the ocean. Many deities are leaving their reefs and seas unprotected, setting foot on land. I am omnipotent, but even I cannot handle to look after the whole ocean alone! I have heard from Lerdient, my right hand man and deputy that Tvoznan is calling them all to his side, telling them of places he has been to, and luring them to visit his domain! This has to stop!”

“The strange anomaly has been happening in my domain as well, brother. All the winged deities have descended onto to the ground, becoming denizens of high mountains and sometimes completely folding their wings by stepping on the ground. This is blasphemous! Tvoznan is preparing something against, I’m sure of it! We have to call him here this very second him and ask him this question, because I will not stand for this!” screeched the flying enormous hawk, fully unfolding its wings that glistened with colors of the rainbow, indicating that all the Litra he had consumed were still in his body. The same glistening also came from under the water, as Kernuff’s scales changed color like a chameleon. Kernuff smacked his lips and focused his eyes.

“Why should we apprise a fool about his mistake?” he asked “He will not understand anyway, thinking that he has done the right thing. Think about it, brother, he hasn’t even touched the sources of Litra in his own domain, so he is by far weaker than any one of us. We have to show him our might or he will continue disrespecting us, Varnak!”

Kernuff’s sudden speech took not only Varnak by surprise, but Lerdient, Kernuff’s right hand, and Mamai, Varnak’s protégée, as well. After a few seconds he recovered, raised his head, his beak pointing to the nearest land nearby “Otos Continent” and smiled, however I don’t know if you can call it a smile or not. It was a barely noticeable malicious movement of the beak, but what followed after gave off a far greater animus. “Brother, Prepare! We are Going to WAR!”

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As Varnak and Mamai ascended higher and higher above the clouds, Mamai looked at his master carefully and kept getting lost in his thoughts:

Why is Master Varnak acting like this? He wasn’t like this in the beginning, was he? Or is my memory failing me? No, I remember that he was wise and I was drawn to that acumen as well, pledging my eternal loyalty to him, but in the last few centuries he has become short tempered and anxious, as if he is afraid of something! Is this really he aftereffects of all that Litra he absorbed? Is there a way to save my master? I’m sure Lerdient has noticed the change in Kernuff as well, but he is too loyal to ever disobey his master, even if it is for his own good. Our masters are making excuses to attack Tvoznan, as to gain his virgin origins of Litra energy, but this war cannot happen, not now, not ever! I heard Tvoznan never took any more Litra energy in, than that, which he was born with, so he must have not lost his initial shrewd judgment and infinite wisdom. This war has to be stopped at any cost and my only hope is that Tvoznan will find a way to help my master.

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“Morning sickness?... You’re kidding? Right? Please tell me that I’m right?” begged Tvoznan as he looked at his lover. Millions of thoughts were going through his head, but the most frequent one was probably “WTF?”

“But that’s supposed to be impossible” he said defensively, as he fell onto the ground losing his balance from the suddenness of the new and landing squarely on his bottom. Rose finally came back to her old self and snapped at him: “What? You don’t want to be a papa?” she asked looking at him sternly while crossing her arms around her.

“It’s not that” he started slowly getting up from the ground, and then continued “It just that… I’m not mentally ready!”

“Mentally ready? Tvoznan, you’re joking right? Do you really want me to tell little Daconius that his father was lost at sea, or even better that he is watching him up from the clouds?”

“Well, that would actually be impossible theoretically speaking and I’m n-“

“Tvoznan!” interrupted the little fragile girl and stared him down, as he shuddered. To anyone looking from the outside it would have been pretty funny to see a huge burly man cowering in fright from a pale little girl, but for Tvoznan there was no time to think about what passerby’s would say, he had to get out of this situation, fast, before she exploded. Thinking fast he came up with the only way to appease her and said in a totally nonchalant manner: “I’ll do the cooking” giving her the sweetest smile he could muster.

She exploded…

…

(I’m not going explain in detail what she did, since I am afraid that I have some children reading this book. I’m gonna leave this completely to your imagination, giving you only one hint: it wasn’t pretty :)

…

Time passed, the child grew exponentially in size, as one week passed, then 2, then 3 and so on. During this time, Tvoznan attended to all he needs, at least tried to. It was easy to bring her water or cook her food, since he had already perfected his art of cooking after several beating from burning the ingredients, but sometimes she wanted him to rub her all over her body since it was aching. He thought: “Ok, why not?”, but soon the minutes turned to hours, than to days. His hands were sore from all that rubbing as he continued to do it thinking: “Father Chaos, please rid me of this misery.” The torture continued for 5 weeks and 5 days until finally came the long awaited moment.

Rose tugged, but she was too small and fragile to handle Tvoznan’s seed. Tvoznan became stern as he looked at his struggling wife, he did the only thing he could think of, he divided the young god into 7 different pieces, as each one came out one by one. In total there were 4 boys and 3 girls, boys coming out first. First came out a little wolf, a miniature replica of his father, but many times smaller, then the first elf, the first dwarf, the first human. The girls came out after the first human and one was an elf, another a dwarf and the third was human. The world experienced the first child birth, as the little new-borns lay on the ground crying, all of them except the little wolf. The 3 pairs would later establish the races of elves, dwarves and humans we know today, while the little wolf would later find a mate in the forest creating the beast race. Please don’t confuse them with animals, for they are not animals.

But all that wasn’t important right now. Rose after suffering painful child birth was drained of her energy, holding on with the last strand of strength she could muster. Tvoznan quickly put his hand on her heart and began pouring in his energy, trying to heal the weak mother, he calculated in his head that he would need to stop her heart to connect with her base of power, from which she took her life energy, because pouring in life energy while her heart was beating would cause her heart to explode from a sudden surge of energy.

“It’s easy” he said out loud laughing “I just have to sit here for 3 days without taking my hands and then Rose can see our cute little mongrels ravaging this world for new things!”

The little wolf, or Daconius as rose called him, quickly straightened the other 6 out, as he was the leader of the “pack”. They 6 stopped crying and sat there looking as their father tried to save their mother. Understanding that this was the time to be quite and watch, the gazed for hours as he poured in his own energy into the lifeless body with one hand, while holding her head with the other, as to stop her spirit from escaping. Night fell, as the little group of naked munchkins fell asleep one by one, with only Daconius left, staring at his parents with his golden eyes. The dead silence was broken by a sound flapping wings as a figure landed on to a big boulder that was standing not far away.

Daconius ran at the stranger and growled as loud as he could. The figure stopped and looked at the wolf astounded, but after deciding that what he had to do was more important than this anomaly, he got control of himself and in a few moments rushed over to where Tvoznan was sitting. He bowed and said with a voice full of sadness and regret:

“Lord Tvoznan. I’m Mamai, the deputy of Varnak, the lord of the sky. My lord, as well as Kernuff have gone completely blind from greed and are heading into your domain. Please help my lord gain his sanity back, I will repay you with anything you want, my life will be completely yours” he finished.

“What did you just say?” asked Tvoznan not believing his ears, thinking that he heard it wrong.

“My Lord Varnak and the Sea Lord Kernuff have declared war on you!” he said hurriedly.

“When will they be here?” he asked, full out panic in his voice. He looked down at his weak wife, than at his new born kids and finally the pained look fell on Mamai. As they say hope is last to disappear. The Great God longed to hear a positive reply, but it never came. What came was:

“They will be here in approximately 12 hours!”