War God for Hire- Gladiator by David Burke (books under 200 pages .TXT) 📕

ten is, just as twenty-one is twice what twenty is, and so on. So your strength of fifteen is actually one hundred times greater than a strength of one. But to get to the strength your former incarnation had, you would need to increase your current standard by thirty-two hundred times. Even the physically weakest of the gods, your sister Begaer, would crush you without breaking a sweat.”

“Oh, that is cool. Does the same apply to essence, and what level are you?”

“Yes, the same applies to essence, although I’m not sure why the sheet I created for you shows the other essence types. I would not have expected that, as you should have zero affinity for them. Even having them present themselves seems to imply that you can learn something about them. I’m not sure what to say about that.

“As for what level I am, there is no crude measurement like a ‘level’. You used to say, or pardon me, Krig used to say, that any warrior could defeat any other warrior given the right circumstances. I can give you some idea when you gain skills, and how you are progressing in them, but the reality is that it is impossible to quantify how powerful an individual is overall. There are just too many variables.”

“I get the feeling though that you are dodging my question. So, tell me a bit about the different tiers,” Kyle said.

“You command as easily as Krig did. Fine, tier one is the mortal tier because it is the cap of what most mortals can obtain. A mortal cannot have a strength greater than ten, no matter how much training he performs. Only supernatural interference or enchanted items can change that. Even then, those always come with a price.

“Tier two is the monster tier because, again, that is where most monsters will be powered. It doesn’t mean that they will be powered there in every stat, but at least in some. Again, remember that the weakest tier two is twice as powerful as the strongest tier one. So, you can see why monster hunting is not a game for the faint of heart.”

Kyle interrupted again. ”So are there a lot of monsters on Verden? Don’t the gods take care of that? I thought they were supposed to keep things under control.”

She grew quiet, and again he wasn’t sure how he knew she was frowning, but he tried to wait patiently for her to answer. When she finally did, she said, “That is actually your fault, or that of your prior incarnation.”

He didn’t know what she was talking about, but got a sense of dread from what she’d said and, maybe, what he sensed hadn’t been said.

“I don’t know if you remember any of this, but right before he passed his mantle on to you, Krig had gone to confront his sister Dod, the goddess of death. He had learned that she and some of the other gods were conspiring against him, and he meant to deal with it head on, as he always did. Dod and Lige, the god of justice, were the only ones who compared to Krig in power, although he was clearly the strongest of the gods.

“As he would have put it, the worth of a being is only truly measured upon the field of battle, and so all beings who seek greatness eventually serve him. Your brothers and sisters saw it differently. They were okay with the occasional war, but Krig sought to stir up wars over the entire world. The humans and elves were always at war. It might be over land or simply to prove who was stronger.

“The other gods felt they were diminished, because he kept the mortals at war, and so they could never properly develop. They had decided to put an end to him and, as near as we can tell, had planned to kill him. Whether they meant to capture his essence and eventually allow him to reform or had intended to divide it up amongst themselves is unknown.

“What happened instead was that he went to Dod’s realm in the underworld on his own. He told me and my kin to prepare for war in the heavens, but didn’t allow us to come with him. The only one he took with him was his dragon mount, Skylar. And even she was forced to flee once the battle between the gods was truly joined.

“Your siblings were not fully united. Hav, goddess of the sea, wanted nothing to do with it. Her domain is the chaos of the waves and she couldn’t care less what happened between mortals. Lige felt it was his role to watch. Begaer is ever a coward and more interested in her perversions than in ruling anyone.

“So, when he went to confront Dod, she wasn’t fully ready, but several of your siblings answered and Krig fought them all. What exactly happened is unknown as the gods will not speak of it, and even the undead servants of Dod who were there, were all obliterated. We do know, however, that you shattered the body of Jordan, goddess of the earth.

“When that happened, great rents in the ground were broken open and terrors long buried awoke. Glykan and Urebi crawled out from the depths and made war on the other races. Other races, like the dwarves, emerged and have become allies of the surface mortals. Worse, there were monsters without names, from hordes of goblins to terrors that go bump in the night. Even some elder fiends had been trapped there and were freed.

“The sky was likewise shattered, and Himmel’s control over it remains imperfect, due to whatever injury Krig inflicted on him. Now, storms ravage every continent of Verden. They can appear out of nowhere and rain down hail, lightning, and sometimes even acidic rain on unlucky mortals. The storms also have driven birds mad, so as you might have noticed at the quarry there were men posted