The Guardian gods

The moment their feet met the ground, it was as if a switch was violently flipped. Their eyes, previously filled with the triumphant glow of escape, widened with dawning horror and fear. All heads instinctively snapped upwards, searching the sky. But like a terrible dream dissipating, the colossal mage vessel was no longer there, darkening their world. There was no trace of it ever being there.

Ikenga and Keles keenly felt the moment this "switch" happened. To them, it was palpable—the deceptive memory had ended, and the harsh, unvarnished truth of Kaelen's reality snapped into focus. And that was precisely what had occurred.

The instant they touched down, the crushing reality of having lived under a profound, years-long illusion became agonizingly clear. With that understanding came another, more immediate memory, and a crucial, terrifying truth that Kairos, for all his perceived brilliance, never found out until this very moment.

The shocking truth slammed into them the moment their feet touched their homeworld: the mages had somehow managed to bring "Mother" down to the planet. With this information, a terrifying knowledge of what Mother truly was, and what her presence meant for them, flooded their minds.

Even the angel, hosted within Vellok, was taken aback by this revelation. In a desperate, urgent tone, it spoke directly to Vellok, urging him to release it now that they were "free."

Vellok, his expression a mixture of profound shock and a hardening resolve, shared this with his three brothers, who were still reeling from the sudden, brutal unveiling of their years-long illusion. But before any discussion could begin, Vellok made his own stance clear: whatever decision they reached as a group, he was not letting go of the angel.

Vellok was no longer the innocent, naive boy the mages had thought they created. While he had been trapped within their illusion, believing he was taking his fate into his own hands, the mages had never truly stopped teaching and influencing him. They had subtly instilled in him knowledge about power, talents, and limitations. And most crucially, Vellok had been meticulously taught about the nature of the angelic being residing in his body, and how much power and how clear his future would be by maintaining his hold on the angel.

Vellok was not alone in his hardened stance. To the angel's utter dismay, Kaelen and Kairos were also in full agreement, their faces grim but resolute. Even the other goblins who had escaped with them vehemently denied the angel's plea to be let go.

The angel, hearing Vellok's words and the silent, collective refusal of the others, was filled with a profound despair. Yet, strangely, its eyes remained calm, almost resigned. It had expected this. It knew what type of being it was—a creature of absolute purity—and it understood the nature of beings driven by emotions, how easily they could be swayed and corrupted. This was precisely why angels cherished children above all others; it was when most mortal creatures were at their purest and brightest, a state Vellok no longer possessed compared to the innocent boy who had first summoned it for help.

It was through this chilling perception of Vellok's current soul, now tainted by the mages' insidious influence, that the angel repeated its earlier, haunting pronouncement: "The mages have cursed Vellok with me." The angel now truly understood that the mage, in his vile experiments, had indeed comprehended the true, vulnerable nature of angels, weaponizing their purity against them.

Kaelen's memory, now stark and unyielding, laid bare the genesis of their profound brotherly division and the deep-seated hatred that would define their future. It took several decades for the goblins to even begin to accustomed to their newfound "freedom," a period steeped in the constant, gnawing fear that the mages would inevitably return to reclaim them.

During these anxious decades, they meticulously explored the Mage Towers—the very ships that had brought them to their homeworld. They delved into the knowledge contained within them, a vast trove of information that was, strangely, incomplete. However, the fundamental basics of the mage and knight system were clear and comprehensible. With these foundational principles, they began to learn, to study, to internalize the very systems of power their former captors wielded.

With the knowledge gleaned from the Mage Towers, a surge in power rippled through the goblin and Ogre populations. As their numbers swelled and their collective strength grew, the gnawing fear and caution that had defined their early decades of "freedom" began to recede.

A full century passed, and still, the mages made no appearance. This prolonged absence sparked a dangerous new thought among the now long-lived goblins and Ogres who had descended from the vessel: Perhaps the mages had lost interest in them. Whatever plans they had, maybe they were no longer important. Yet, deep down, they all knew this was a lie, a comfortable self-deception. The undeniable proof lay in the existence of the Ratfolk, a species they were supposedly meant to supersede and dominate. The Ratfolk remained stunted, never flourishing as the goblins had over this past century, a clear sign of the mages' lingering, unseen influence.

But knowing the truth could not halt the deep-seated arrogance that had been so meticulously nurtured inside them. Slowly but surely, the very environment of the burgeoning goblin society began to mirror the oppressive structure of the mages' vessel. Goblin mages ascended to the position of an elite, while the knights, once again, found themselves relegated to the role of servants within their own growing communities. The cycle, subtly guided by the mages' long-term cultivation, was already beginning to repeat itself.

In this growing horror, the only ones who remained clear-sighted were Kaelen and the other knights. They were, after all, on the receiving end of this burgeoning, oppressive system. As the years passed and the goblin society expanded, the very culture promoted by the mages among themselves became increasingly prevalent within their new "free" world.

After a few more decades, a gnawing unease drove Kaelen to seek out his two brothers. He desperately needed to know if they understood what was happening, if they recognized the insidious trap they were falling into. To his profound horror, they did. And worse still, they promoted it.

It turned out that Kairos and Vellok had held a meeting without him, specifically because of Kaelen's resistance to the currently flourishing culture. Both Kairos and Vellok seemed to have lost the fiery will and the illusion of true freedom they once chased after their harrowing experience with the mages. Instead, they had come to a chilling conclusion: it was better to simply follow the path already laid out for them by the mages. Their goal was now to actively complete the project the mages had started in the first place—the "First Child" Project.

Both Vellok and Kairos knew the mages would inevitably return. Kaelen, too, harbored no illusions about their eventual reappearance. But here, their paths diverged irrevocably. Kaelen, observing their burgeoning power system and growing strength, believed they now possessed the means to fight back. They had a whole world and its resources at their disposal, a world they had supposedly claimed as their own. He envisioned a future where they would stand as a unified, formidable force against their former captors.

Vellok and Kairos, however, held no such thoughts of resistance. Their minds, warped by the prolonged illusion and the insidious lessons of their former masters, had reached a different, far more chilling conclusion. Both simply wanted to complete the mages' original goal, the "First Child" Project. Their ultimate hope was to gain the mages' favor, to appease them, and if possible, to be spared along with their new, "improved" goblin race. Their freedom was an illusion; their survival, a desperate plea for clemency.

Kaelen utterly lost his mind at this revelation. He stared at his brothers, his face a mask of disbelief and incandescent fury. He could not comprehend, could not accept, that his two siblings, his only true family in this cruel world were condemning him and their entire race to a life of perpetual servitude, all for the sake of some distant, manipulative mages.

Ikenga abruptly severed the memory. He had gleaned the answer he needed: the chilling truth of how the current goblin empire had "escaped" the mages. As the illusion dissolved, both he and Keles were welcomed back to the familiar, comforting presence of their room, the phantom horrors of Kaelen's past fading into the background. This chapter was originally posted on M^VLEMPYR.

Ikenga gently lowered his head onto Keles's lap, his ear pressed against her subtly bulging stomach. He listened, utterly absorbed, to the faint stirrings of their growing child. The gestation was slow, stretched out over years, a tell-tale sign that their offspring would be born a god.

He estimated it would take a few more years for the child to fully mature within the womb. This was no surprise to him; he and his own siblings had also undergone similarly prolonged gestations, emerging at birth as fully grown adults.