In the depths of the abyss a quiet voice asked a question. “How is the idiot doing in the overworld?”

A cold ball of light replied. “He is an ass of the highest order. No one likes him. We are all grateful that you sent him and his minions to the overworld.”

“Splendid.” The quiet voice replied.

*-*-*

The Celestial Realm

Kocha, god of Chaos, held his head in his hands. “Gaa. The light hurts. I shouldn’t have had so much to drink after game last night. Stupid Sarah.”

A passing small god stopped and looked at him. “A little hung over, master Kocha?”

“Yes.” Kocha said. “Please don’t talk so loud.”

“Did you do anything wrong?” the small god asked.

“Maybe?” Kocha groaned. “I think I summoned a Hero on a bet, and gave him stupid amounts of power.”

“Do you think that was wise?” Another small god stopped and asked.

“Probably not.” Kocha turned away from the pair and vomited. “But I think I did better than Pendelton or Sarah on my summoning.”

The two small gods turned to each other; eyes wide. “Oh no…”

*-*-*

Galip, Capital of Demonia.

34th of Anael, First month of Snow.

2290 years since the New Gods came.

Maxwell stared at the dome of force that rippled in the air above the half vacant city. “What in the hells?”

“I…I don’t know sir.” The soldier standing next to him replied.

“Well at least Lancil is on the run.” Max randomly pointed to two soldiers, “You and you, stand guard. The rest of you” he waved at the rest of the soldiers on the wall, “take five. I’m going to go and sort this crap out.” He took the stairs down the wall two at a time, and ran full tilt towards the capital building.

-

Alexander stared at the Rock Board in front of him. Moments ago, it had been acting normally, but now it was covered in an insane amount of complex runes. Runes that expedited switching, made connections automatically, and runes that twisted his eyes when he tried to look at them directly. What in all the hells and the abyss? What just happened? Then he heard a whining sound from the next room.

Crap! The gate room! He bolted into the next room over and stared. The gate was powering up for the first time in weeks! As he watched, it went through its normal startup sequence, beeped twice, and went into standby mode. Crying, Alex sank to his knees. We’re saved!

Someone crashed through the security door at the end of the restricted hallway that the communications and gate rooms were attached to, and Alex heard a familiar voice. “Alex! What did you do?”

Alex wiped his eyes, stood up, and entered the hallway to face the Heretic. “I don’t know boss, but things seem like they are going to be better than they were before.”

-

Brianna, Nomvula, Chester, Magni, and Brandywine sat in a makeshift shelter on the edge of the woods and watched the demon army of Prince Lancil flee. The five looked at each other, eyes wide and mouths agape.

Magni finally broke the silence as the demons crested the last hill and vanished out of sight. “Okay. That was strange. Not as strange as the penguin I once saw a picture of, but still strange.”

Chester looked at him. “Ever seen a platypus?”

“A what what?” Magni asked.

“Platypus. It's a marsupial from Australia—”

“Yeah. No. Don’t want to hear about that cursed place. My uncle’s cousin came back from there. Well, his body did. Apparently, a spider the size of a house cat bit him a dozen times in the legs. He screamed for five minutes before he died.” Magni quietly replied.

“But it has the bill of a duck!” Chester exclaimed.

“Shut it English, before I shut you.” Magni growled. “That place is evil. Spiders are evil.”

Nomvula smiled. “If you cook them properly, spiders are tasty.”

Magni wretched.

-

It had been an hour since Max had found Alex, and they were investigating the gate room. Many magical instruments were scattered around the gate projector itself, with carts of other instruments left haphazardly around the room.

As Max dropped another measuring device, this one with a pair of scales hanging from a corn cob, he asked Alex his next question. “Isn’t this thing supposed to be teal, not an icy blue?”

“Well, it used to be.” Alex replied. “I think whatever happened to the local mana field caused some ‘changes’. The communications rocks are all weird now too.”

“The Rock board changed too?” Max squinted at Alex. “Seriously?”

Alex looked up from the notebook he was using to record measurements. “Yup. Now what was the measurement on the corn-o-graph?”

“16.39 Mancals of energy in the yellow range. There was a purple spike that went to 19.2 for a moment when I started the test, but it never showed up again.” Max answered.

“Okay.” Alex did some more writing in the notebook. “Well, it looks like a demon sacrifice was used to overload and rewrite all the runes, sigils, and symbols on both the Gate and it’s controls. I am willing to bet the Rock Board had the same thing.” He stared at Max for a moment. “The question is who: A) Sacrificed an elder demon to get this much mana; B) Why did they actually do it, because what is here is only bleed over from the spell; and C) Why is there holy magic twisted into the spell form?”

Max returned the stare. “All good questions. Maybe we should ask that old demon general?”

“I’ll trace his stone’s signal. That will find him faster than anything besides a divining stone.” Alex said. “Unless you have one on you?”

“In my trunk. I don’t usually carry things like that when I’m on guard duty.”

“More’s the pity.”

-

A few hours had passed since the demons had fled, and Bri and friends found themselves in front of the western gate of Galip. Bri yelled up to the gate guards, “Let us in! I demand to see my husband!”

“No civilians allowed. Go back to your refugee camp.” The guard replied.

“I am Lady Brianna Smithson, wife of The Heretic Maxwell Smithson! You will allow us entry, or there will be issues!” Bri yelled back.

The two guards looked at each other for a moment, then the one who had spoken before yelled down, “We're going to send someone to ask his Lordship if you are who you say you are. If you're wasting our time, you will be flogged.”

Before Bri could respond, Brandy flew up to the guard’s height, “Oi! I remember you from last night! You wouldn’t let me in then either!”

“That’s because you look nothing like the Lord Heretics sidekick. You, look like a fairy.” The guard replied.

Brandy punched the barrier, and was thrown back. The guard laughed.

“Oh. Laugh it up soldier boy. When I get in there, you are going to regret it!” Brandy yelled.

-

A messenger found Maxwell and Alex crouched under the Rock Board’s control console, tracing rune lines. He stopped for a moment, before clearing his throat, “Lord Heretic? Sir?”

“What? I’m not down here for my health.” Max replied.

“There is a party at the gate that is demanding your presence.”

“Tell them to go back to the refugee camp.” Max replied, running a figure along a particularly twisty line.

“They are claiming to be a party that includes your wife and Pixie.” The messenger said.

Max sat up, hitting his head on the cabinets frame. “What?!” Max slid out of the confined space. “We better hurry. If its Brandy and Bri… We may be in trouble.”

-

When Max finally arrived at the gate he saw two things, a very angry pixie, and more concerningly, a disappointed looking wife. “Crap. We’re in for it now.”