Summoned Again?

We arrived at the temple and there were only the two clerics left inside. The others were still out on assignment and we were greeted with both happiness and sadness. The two clerics knew what must have happened if only the five of us had returned when there used to be fourteen of us. In fact, they had just arrived themselves.

The pregnant woman cried with both relief and grief, because it could have been her dead if she hadn't chosen to leave, and the cleric that could fly was also relieved and full of grief.

“We still have a lot of work to do.” Lady Matricia said and waved to the middle of the main area. “Please, take your positions and we can start praying.”

“What?” The pregnant woman asked. “We're asking for them to be sent back right away?”

“I would love for Damon to stay as much as you would.” Lady Matricia said, which ignored her view on the other three heroes. “Damon needs to get back to his world.”

The pregnant woman nodded and touched my hand briefly, then she stood in an equidistant spot with Lady Matricia and the flying cleric in a circle. I led the other three heroes into the circle and the three clerics around us started to chant and pray. A glowing circle appeared below our feet and I gave them one last look, a quick wave, and then I was standing inside the white waiting room of the gods. I quickly cast ten time spells on the space and not on myself.

“Huh? What?” The god that had brought us here looked surprised. “What are you doing here?”

“Our task is done and we're going home.” I said with a bright and happy smile.

“Wh-what?” The god looked at our faces and his surprise was quickly replaced with confusion. “That's not possible. The world...”

“You sent us there to deal with the undead scourge assaulting the people and to get rid of the bad guy.” I said. “We did both.”

“No, there are still hundreds of millions of the undead there.”

“The clerics will take years cleaning up all of those remains.” Anthony said. “When we removed the bad guy, who was actually a woman by the way, all of the undead under her control fell over with their connection to her cut off.”

“No, that... you didn't do what I asked...”

“We did exactly like you asked.” Farrah said, slightly angry. “Was there something else you lied about like the bad guy's gender?”

“You have no right to question me.” The god said. “I sent you there to solve the world's problem.”

“No, you sent us to deal with the undead. We did. We were not tasked with cleaning up the mess.” I said and the other three nodded. “Now send us back home after you fix the circumstances of our deaths.”

The god looked a little uncomfortable.

“You lied about that, didn't you?” I asked and he didn't say anything. “You arranged for our deaths to 'rescue us' and now you can't undo what you did?” I shook my head at him and cast Stillness, Silence, and Sleep on him, before I looked up at the top of the room. “Hey! Can anyone else hear me? This asshole lied! He killed us on our world and now won't send us back home when we completed his impossible task!”

No other voice responded.

“Is that how it is? You don't care, do you? You're going to ignore the people you've let one of your own play with?” I asked and still no one answered. “Where the hell are we supposed to go if we can't go back?”

“W-we c-can't g-go b-back?” Farrah asked, her voice trembling.

“It's all right. I have an ace up my sleeve.” I said and looked up again. “Goddess Jasindia! I'm close enough to talk to you now!”

There was no response and I didn't expect one.

“You don't want to acknowledge me in front of the others, is that it?” I asked. “You can easily complete the spell, can't you? You all can.”

“Who are you talking to?” Ksenya asked.

“The Goddess that summoned me to another world before this one.” I said and the three heroes gasped. “I wasn't supposed to be summoned again for another two years, or as needed.” I looked back up at the ceiling. “It's the third time I was sent to a world with an impossible mission to complete and I've completed all three of them!”

Anthony, Ksenya, and Farrah were speechless as I pretty much ranted at the gods.

“You assholes don't care about what that does to our lives, do you?” I pointed to the frozen still god. “This fuck right here had me killed to bring me this time! Are you seriously not going to fix this?”

There were no spells cast, no words spoken, and no abilities used. No one made any sound or movement, and no one appeared to us to explain anything.

“I hope no one else needs to use this room for anything, because we're staying right here.” I said and reached over to grab the god's arm and started absorbing his power. I cast a whole bunch of time spells as well as obscure and stealth spells, because I knew it was going to take a long time to work out what to do to manipulate the god into sending us back.

I cast the same spells on the three heroes to put them to sleep and immobilized them, then I absorbed their foreign energy, too. I took this opportunity to read their last moments of life and was surprised that Farrah had been pushed by the crowd and fell in front of a subway train. Ksenya was driving on the highway and blew a tire, then lost control and drove off a bridge into icy water. Anthony's last memory was the taste of a gun barrel in his mouth.

Jesus, no wonder Anthony wanted to stay. I thought and had to revise my plan slightly. I removed my compulsion for his desire to go home to his depressing life and also removed most of his abilities. He still had them and couldn't level anymore, because I only removed the excess power that he had gained from my help.

As one last 'screw you' for the way he had threatened to take over the world, I hid most of his memories of Earth behind a mental block, which in essence gave him amnesia. He still knew his name and important things, also that he was a holy cleric, and that was it. He didn't know his history or how he came to be here. I left the Holy Light spell in its powered down version, too. I was sure that it would be needed later.

I checked Ksenya's memories next and searched a bit more to get a sense of her home life. She was just as unhappy as Anthony and had chosen drinking as her choice of killing herself. It ended on the bridge and in the water, not realizing it was god's fault that she had potentially died.

I was brimming with power now and I was technically all alone in the white waiting room. I knew they were watching me, even though I was technically obscured, so I took out my actual trump card and cancelled the obscure and stealth spells. I wouldn't need them now.

A woman's blood curdling scream ended and Samantha glared at me, then she yelped in pain as part of her body changed to ash. “Owowowow!” She said and hopped around as the ash fell away. “You weren't supposed to actually hit me with the spell before you stored me into inventory, you bastard!”

“Who actually kicked me in the balls?” I asked and glared right back. “I spit up blood, goddammit!”

“I had to make the fight believable.” Samantha said as her body regenerated and then she took in a long slow breath when she saw where we were. “It worked? We're in the waiting room?”

“Yes, and I wish I had your ability for them to not see you, even when they are specifically looking for you.” I said and motioned to the god that had brought us here. “Also, none of the gods offered to help fix things with this asshole.”

“He tried to not send you back, right? Just like I said he wouldn't.” She said, smugly.

“He can't undo the death situations back on Earth, either.”

“I told you he was lying.” Samantha said. “Oooo, I can really feel the foreign energy in this place.”

“Can you absorb it?” I asked, because I had tried and nothing happened.

Samantha held her hands out and black mana pulsed from her hands. After a few seconds, she shook her head. “I don't know what the place is made of, either.”

“We'll just have to make use of this guy to sate ourselves.” I said.

“You know this is going to be really disgusting after we wear him down enough.” Samantha said. “We'll have to eat a lot of him after that to break his physical and mental barriers down enough to get what you want.”

“It's a good thing he's paralyzed and asleep.” I said and took out my enchanted sword. “Ladies first.”

“Are you sure you don't want to try going deeper with those mental spells first?” Samantha asked and formed a pitch black blade that was nearly identical to mine.

“I can only do surface and recent thoughts on him, which was why it was easy to trick him into thinking I was a cleric, too. It's what he wanted. The same with the spell he needed us to gain. It was right there and I plucked it right out.”

“You're pretty ruthless for a hero.” Samantha said and jabbed her sword into the god's side. It barely grazed the surface. “Yep, this is going to take a while.”

“Allow me.” I said and instead of stabbing him, I swiped my sword across the edge of his shoulder. It sliced off a small piece, a couple inches of flesh, and Samantha caught it. She ate the piece before the god's shoulder grew back and you couldn't tell that he had been hurt at all.

“Mmm, thank you.” Samantha said and did the same thing with her weapon, caught the piece as it fell, and tossed it to me. “Go ahead and let me see it.”

I chuckled and opened my mouth, then the piece of flesh squished up into a ball and flew towards my mouth as it dissolved and went down my throat.

“Oh, that ability makes it so much easier! How did you get it?”

“I ate a dragon.” I said and cut off another slice for her.

“No way! How could you eat one of those cute little things?!?” Samantha asked and ate the piece of flesh I gave her.

“It was on another world and I hate to say that it was dumb as a rock and nearly killed me, both by accident and after I consumed it.” I said and she gave me another piece to consume. “I absorbed a mountain full of ore and nearly as much gold treasure.”

“Well, damn. I guess that's the difference between having the class first or unlocking it.”

“I still had to unlock it. I need to be Level 99 to gain the abilities again.” I said and gave her another piece.

“Wait, you mean every time?” Samantha asked and chewed. “That's crazy! I think I prefer my version.”

I laughed. “I've got an unbelievable amount of points to spend in both stats and skills, so getting myself back to Level 99 each time isn't that difficult.”

Samantha cut me off another piece. “You have got to tell me all about your adventures.”

“Sure. We're going to be at this for a really long time anyway.” I said and then started to tell her about all of the things I had gone through as we whittled the god's health and defenses down. I wasn't keeping track, since it really was taking a very long time; but, time spells were cheap as dirt in the waiting room and I knew that the time on Earth was barely passing at all.

I was sure I could feel the time difference, because as Samantha and I consumed the god's body and his powers, the more in tune with the waiting room we became. His regeneration was slowing down with each piece of him we ate, which was a good sign. It meant we were getting down to his main power source and he was having a difficult time replenishing himself. That was exactly what I wanted.

After fifty or so more pieces each, we both felt the god's energy fluctuate, which told us that he was on the brink of weakness. Now was my time to strike, and I was ruthless as I attacked his mind. With him asleep and his mental defenses at their lowest, it was child's play to manipulate things inside to get the god to believe that we had achieved his goal.

He still believed that Anthony and Ksenya wanted to stay, so I changed the circumstances into making their appearances be random and as far away from the capital city temple as possible. I didn't want them to be discovered for a long time. I easily found the summoning spell and the proper coordinates to where Farrah and I would be sent back.

Thanks to my Map spell, I knew exactly how to change those coordinates for Farrah to land on the platform instead of in front of the train. I could see from the god's memories where she had been and where she would end up. There might be some questions asked when she reappears suddenly and there wasn't much I could do about that.

I was in the same situation and would have a difficult time explaining not being around for ten minutes, then I found the god's viewing ability. It was actually a spell called Remote View and I learned it from his memories of casting it thousands of times. He also had a limited teleport spell for some reason. I tried to search his memories for why it was limited and couldn't find anything. I learned it anyway, just in case.

The downside of having access to a god's memories was that there were so goddamn many of them. I had trouble going through my own thoughts to remember things and I had no idea how a god could keep millions of variations of the same memories and not get them confused or mixed up.

In any case, I had learned what I could, especially that granting people spatial storage was an ability that had evolved from a spell. I couldn't find the original spell in the god's memories, so I had to give up and only instill the need and desire to return us to where we needed to go. Anthony and Ksenya back on the cleric's world and Farrah and myself on Earth.

“I think that's got it.” I said as I made the god remember removing my powers and my memories. I suppressed my powers like I always did and looked at Samantha. “This is your last chance. What's your decision?”

“I'm coming with you.” Samantha said. “I'll take the chance that I won't make it.”

I gave her a sympathetic look. “You might die for good when removed from here, because none of this extra energy can leave this place.”

“Really?” Samantha asked and quickly used her black blade to cut off a dozen chunks off of the god's body and she put them in a bag and stored it. “There, problem solved.”

I laughed and waved for her to step close. “Let me give you one last little thing.”

“I don't want to see your dick right now, even if I am about to die for real.” Samantha said with a laugh.

I rolled my eyes and took her hand with my left, then I held up my right hand.

“What are you doing?” Samantha asked.

“Something that I couldn't do when I didn't have god-like mana available.” I said and made my hand glow black. Samantha gasped and stared at the Life Drain spell, then I rested my hand on her chest, just above her breasts and over her heart. I poured as much mana as I could into the Life Drain spell, which for undead, was like casting Major Healing on them. Her face healed over, the back of her arm regrew and filled in, and all the bites and scratches on her thighs and other parts of her body disappeared.

“Damon, you... why did you...”

“The same reason I'm going to do this.” I said and changed the spell to Essence Rot and touched the god's back. “It might take him a few months to realize what's happening. Maybe.”

Samantha watched the rot change from a dot to the size of a dime. “You better review that estimation.”

I looked at the spreading spot that was about the size of a quarter. “Dammit. Time's up.” I said. “See you soon, hopefully.”

“See you.” Samantha said and I stored her, then I quickly wrote out my name and telephone number on Farrah's arm with a marker and covered it with her sleeve. I positioned everyone properly and woke them all up, the god included, and released the stillness spell only on him as I cast it on myself.

“Yes, that's going to work well.” The god said and waved a hand over Farrah. Her face went blank and then she was sucked into the floor. Anthony and Ksenya were next, sent back to the cleric's world, and then it was my turn. The god's eyes were slightly glossy as he finished the unsummoning and I started to slide down into the floor. “Why is my back sore?”

I barked a laugh for a second and then I disappeared.

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