The Gaming Outpost

Several tens of millions of people worship me, with a smaller hardcore purely dedicated to my service of perhaps a million. But I am not a god.

For some reason the Greater Powers in this verse prefer to have versers handle the direct supervision of the world. Call me a floor supervisor.

All that faith of tens of millions gives me great power. As far as I know, it doesn’t affect the power of the Greater Powers at all, but then they made this universe ex nihilo, I think. Some of my brethren have suggested there is a Creator behind the Greater Powers. One, the Lord of True Night, a good fellow, likes to play his Atari 3D in between inspiring wonder and awe, suggested that the faith of the many makes it easier for the Greater Powers to interact in the world. More faith, easier miracles. He talked about how miracles had a cost in free will. At this point, I tuned him out. Way too complicated for me.

I am the God of Just War, and I’m about to have some visitors.

Any general will tell you that choosing the right ground is a key to victory. A man inside a castle is worth ten men outside it. I aim to do better than that.

I have to. After all, the Master of the Demonkind and the Mistress of the Undead are coming my way with their innumerable servants.

And who’s standing in their way? Yup, the stupid looking guy in the mirror.

Ten universes ago, I was a very bad used car salesman due to guilt about selling cars not properly repaired. Then I ticked off the wrong guy, a verser. He decided to stomp me flat for selling him a lemon.

He did.

But just before I died, I bit his ear. Now with scriff in my bloodstream, I got lucky and versed out. Landed in a place of orange grass where I got the downlow. Five universes later, after I died and came back elsewhen, I felt like I’d a handle on this.

Then I landed in a world with magicians and djinni and enough magic you couldn’t spit without hitting a goblin hiding in the bushes. Now I realize I’m never going to get the hang of this.

Gathering up my Aura of Power (yes, I have to talk that way. Its in the Rules for Godhood manual given by the Greater Powers.) I took hold of the local spacefield. Scooping it up was difficult, until I stepped sideways. Suddenly I was under a much less stringent set of Rules.

Here, you could scoop up chunks of spacefield without following a rather exacting set of procedures designed to stop archwizards from doing just what I was doing.

Once I had enough, I spun it out into a deflated ball with a thin strand. Then I took some of my ‘godly’ breath and inflated the whole mass.

Suddenly I had a hundred mile across bubble of space with a ten yard wide connection to the Greater Powers reality.

First thing I did, as I noticed my connection strand starting to fray was to rule in unbreakable.

This had the side effect of making the outer sphere of my bubble universe unbreakable as well since they were made of the same material.

Cautiously, I decided that was acceptable. After all, I had never ‘created’ a universe before.

For amusements sake, I made the connection a Bridge of Elemental Ice which then gave EIce a much higher strength rating in my universe. Which suited me down to my drawers.

By will, I moved myself to the center point of the sphere, and mindful of tradition spoke.

“Fiat Lux.”

Everything was still dark. What I had created or ordered, the same thing really, was that the potential for light existed.

Then I gave the exterior walls a faint silvery glow. It illuminated the space nicely, and I made one other mod for the light.

Still waiting for the arrival of my enemies. But the clock was ticking down.

Stepping back a step, I considered for a long moment just depriving my creation of any possibility of free will. However, such could be detected from outside the universe, and so creating a world in which my enemies had to lose for it was preordained would be too obvious for them. They would never enter the trap. They had to believe they could defeat me to come in.

Mindful of various possibilities, I set the Magic Bias at Unlimited but with a time delay so that the Bias structure would not interfere with my Creating. The Bias Protocols take up a rather large chunk of The Rules given us by the Greater Powers. They govern what abilities can work within a universe.

I created a great glob, landlike, upon which to set my castle. It took up the lower one-forth of the sphere. Upon it, I placed my keep.

The Just Hall.

Not a great name, but it would do. It loomed imposingly over the narrow entrance to the Bridge.

I casually molded the underlying rocks between the Hall and the Bridge so it all looked very accidental and smiled at the thorn bushes I had planted by will.

I made some other mods, and finished everything up with a bright red banner across the Bridge entrance.

“Welcome Demonic and Undead Invaders.”

I lowered the Bias Protocols in place, and then sent out an invitation. By which I mean, I walked down the mile long Bridge, entered ordinary reality, and sent up a flare of power.

It advertised to anyone with any sensitivity that ‘Here stands the Lord of Just War’.

Being an insensitive lout, it took the Master about two seconds to detect me. The Mistress was already out the window and calling down the jet stream to bear Her and Her Minions my way.

They crossed the continent in less time that it takes to tell. Meanwhile, I beat feet back up the Bridge. No, I did not want to meet the invaders in my castle.

I had sent away all my servants in the castle, and even willed away the rats and spiders. I do not like rats, but being sucked dry by a lifeforce vampire was too grim a fate even for Mr. Rat and his two thousand kin.

Now let us consider what I heard.

Great rushing winds, and utter silence as the Dead arrived. And then the cacophonous howls of the Demon Horde materialized with the Master in rage that the Mistress had moved before him.

“Listen, you…”
“I’ve been versing longer than you. Shut up.” She snapped, her eyes looking about, sensing danger.

Then my castle on the ordinary world side exploded. No explosives as such were used. Instead, I just did the mix of grain dust and air, and the hope that one of the fire demons would materialize off target in one of the lower rooms.

A gamble but a neccessary one because most of my enemies had preternatural senses for danger and traps.

I would have loved to use a nuke, but the bias in the Greater Powers world did not allow that. And even ordinary dynamite could have given me a better bang. But again, danger senses and all that.

The explosion shredded the castle, and set fire to what was not blown apart.

The raging fire, and tons of stone flying through the air neither troubled nor stirred either of my two primary enemies despite the holy words inscribed on some of the larger blocks.

In fact, most of the Dark Lords just rooted themselves to the planetary gravity well, and rode out the wind and firestorm. One was unlucky enough to eat a ten ton chunk of granite with the holy word right in the midst of his face. He was gone.

Pop.

Back to the nearest Chaos Dimension without a passport out he went, and I was exulting at my luck.

The lesser sorts, the magic wielders, the heavy troopers suffered more, but they spun out their protection shields, thus burning a little of their saved up magic in their amulets.

But I hit the imps, and the flying heads of the vampire kind, the worst. Which was my true goal. Deprive the enemy of his scouts.

The sun, his royal majesty, beat down on the vampires with terrible force so that even some of their Dark Lords cringed until the Mistress spun a shield of shadow over everyone. The globular mass moved quickly, and I took note of how quickly. Its useful information knowing how fast the enemy can move.

“Childish antics.” The Master spoke haughtily. The Mistress nodded in agreed contempt. Good again. I wanted them to underestimate me.

“Find him.” She ordered one of her magi. He turned to give such an order to the heads, but most of the heads were burnt, or crushed. Disgruntled, he performed the seeking spell himself.

Which revealed the invisible wall in front of them. And they could see my banner as well.

“That constitutes an invite for your kind.” The Master pointed out thoughtfully.

“Indeed.” the Mistress’ eyes narrowed. Everyone, even the idiotic, knew not to invite vampires into their home. Why was I doing it?

But I could see the minor irritation of holding up the shadow shield had its way on her. She shrugged, and sent her troops forward. The Master did likewise.

Despite the uncertain footing, deliberately designed in by me, the groups worked together smoothly. I had hoped to get them bumping up against each other. In my wildest dreams, I had hoped to get a couple units slaughtered as vamp arrogance rubbed demon pride the wrong way.

Instead they marched smoothly on to my bridge. And shortly thereafter, the demons started to shiver.

The Master had demons of fire on a Bridge of Elemental Ice. It was sucking their primal energy right out through their foothorns.

I waited until the Master got the obvious idea, and told his troops to fly. Little wings flapped vigorously on each back of the troopers, and great black wings came from the backs of the Great Lords of the Demons.

To my enemies surprise, I did not launch an attack at that time. They were ready for something like an ice gale to blow them about.

Instead, I just watched as their precise landbound formation deteriorated when in the air.

Blood began to flow in little trickles. A flying demon bumped into a walking vampire, and someone died in a flash of claws. Sometimes, I got lucky and both did. But the individuals scuffles never went beyond them to unit-wide slaughter regrettably.

At the top of the Bridge, a clear glassine plane blocked the way. Had She her scouts, she might have seen that it was defined as ‘unbreakable’. But instead the more stolid vampire knights, armed with sword, shield and thick armor plates over their hearts met it, and knocked it over, and trampled it underfoot.

No one after that noticed it as they poured into the Sphere before my Hall.

“Time to surrender.” I spoke gently into my world, and every last one of them heard me as if I were standing right behind them.

“Cute trick.” The Master sneered. “No. You are the only one here. Its two gods and a thousand warbeings versus one not very clever god.”

“Surrender to me, and I will be merciful to you.” The Mistress said in a laughing voice. Her vampires smiled faintly. I had rather be eaten by ants than suffer the Mistress’ ‘mercies’.

They set themselves, waiting for how I would come forth. Would I come on this plane, or as a spirit? Would I be a wall of fire, or an invincible giant? They knew, despite their brave words that it would be tough, or so their readiness indicated.

“Sound trumpet.” I murmured, and my man did.

And a hundred warriors walked over the top of the hill to my left, and another hundred to my right.

“You send humans with no magic against us?” The Mistress laughed, but she seemed almost insulted.

“Yes, well, about that…” I began as the Master pulled in enough power to annihilate all of them in one strike…and nothing happened.

“You’ve bound yourself here without Power.” The Mistress gasped. “And us too.”

The humans charged, swords out. I opened the floodcocks and liquid rolled downhill from the keep toward the enemy armies.

Some vampires are changed in body so my trick would not have worked. But these vampires, these demons, they swam in power. It made them more flexible, but it also made them more vulnerable to a loss of power.

The humans waded into them, and bright blades chopped off heads of demon and vampire alike.

Some of the vamps pulled out weapons from imagination, things they had stored for Just Such An Occasion. But none worked.

Again, the bias worked against them. Only levers and friction worked in my world. Just enough to let a man run up to a demon and slice its head off.

The invaders tried to leave but they found that the unbreakable glass had been put back up, and this time, it was not so easy to knock down. If they could have pulled back, they might have pulled it out of the way, but so many were crushing, trying to break the glass that no one had the space to pull it.

And then the troopers of both sides began to kill each other in rage and frustration.

“You’ve managed to kill my lesser sorts, but we still have the Great Lords.” The Master said as his point got emphasized by one of the Vampire Princes gutting a human in armor.

“I admit it was clever of you to turn to human knights without power. Just how did you get a military order here without our spies finding out?”

“These are not one of my militant orders.” I explained cheerfully. “These are some villagers, mostly farmers, a few merchants. Nobodies.”

The humans chuckled as well they should. Two hundred humans, many who had never held a sword more than two weeks before today had succeeded in nearly destroying the one of Evil’s greatest armies.

As planned, my revelation made the Master furious. And he charged my castle with his Demon Princes even as the Mistress cried out for him to not do so.

End of Part One.