The City God Read online

  The City god

  The History System Chronicles

  Andrew Bardsley

  Copyright © 2019 by Andrew Bardsley

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Contents

  Chapter 1 Time to Think

  Chapter 2 King En-men-lu-ana of Bad-tibir

  Chapter 3 Delegation of Power

  Chapter 4 Here be Dragons

  Chapter 5 New Friends

  Chapter 6 Rescue

  Chapter 7 Elven power

  Chapter 8 City god

  Chapter 1 Time to Think

  With that Thoth left Ahava alone in the shrine. Moving over to the disfigured bodies, he pulled in the elemental flux power from inside himself from the dead body. Ahava looked at his gain in stats and smiled at the increase in power:

  Gender: Male

  Biological Age: 30

  Intelligence: 15, Stamina: 30, Strength: 30, Constitution: 35, Dexterity 28, Charisma: 11

  Points: 1225

  Element - Flux rate per second

  Earth -99,450,835; Water -71,033,867; Air -88,021,619; Fire -92,093,331; Ether -184,507,716

  Aristotle's "Rhetoric" Emotions

  Emotions -Flux rate per second.

  Anger -9,100,502; Calmness- 2500; Friendship -170, Fear-1,150,520; Courage -450; Shame -50, Confidence-300; Kindness -150; Cruelty -1,892,602; Pity -80; Envy -150,000; Love -100

  Looking around the shine, Ahava was mentally drained after all he had been through since arriving. It had been a long several months and it was time to take some stock of the situation. He had been up, down and across this world, travelling on foot, fighting in many battles as he developed his elemental powers; trained in weapons and armors; and learned the skills to use them properly. Ahava smiled with a satisfied expression as he thought about all the good and loyal friends he had made in the land. At the moment they were in the human kingdom on the higher planes, north of where he was at the moment.

  Ahava was now alone in the middle of nowhere, as earlier on he had sent the orcs back to the princess Olga. He asked them to inform the queen about what had happened within the Ziggurat. Sitting down, he decided it was time for some contemplation on what he could do with his increased power and to gain a better understanding of his place in this world. He sat in place thinking for a few minutes, but soon decided to find a better location than the battlefield he was currently in. Ahava stood up and looked around the area, spotting a small ante room off to the side. Walking slowly over to the ante room, Ahava entered the shrine. He methodically cleared a space and put down some blankets and pillows for comfort so he could relax for a while and study his increased powers. Ahava checked his tablet for any messages or tasks from Thoth. There was a message congratulating Ahava on helping the orc queen, and a new task had appeared: help the king of Bad-tibira.

  Sitting down cross legged on the bed he had made with the blankets and pillows, Ahava tried to work through his different powers. He wanted more understanding of what he could achieve with his thoughts. Holding out his hand, with his palm up, Ahava created a small flame that hovered above it. Ahava found that as he pushed out the air elemental power from his hand in waves of energy, it would twist and change the flames direction, as if it were a dancing demon. Ahava lazily watched the beautiful sight of a dancing undulating golden flame across his palm and was mesmerized by the effect. After a while of watching, Ahava added more air elemental power. The flame roared, though its size did not change, as he managed to increase the power of the flame until it was radiating large amount energy for such a small flame. Ahava quickly felt a burning sensation from the increased heat on his skin, so he created a shimmering blue force shielding the area around the flame to protect Ahava from the heat. Extending the ether elemental power to the area around the flame, Ahava imagined the flow of time slowing. The first visual evidence that he had changed the flow of time was a sluggish and slow movement of the flame above his hand until it eventual froze in its movement. Wondering what could happen, Ahava started to pour ether elemental power into the frozen flame. Suddenly Ahava heard a slight ripping noise from the center of the flame and a dark space appeared in the center. The surprise almost caused him to lose his concentration and stop the power. A look of curiosity played on his face as he scanned the dark hole in the flame. It seemed that there was empty space that needed to be filled. Ahava tried to imagine that a small stone from the ground nearby filled this space. As soon as he thought this the stone was in the flame and vanished from the ground. Releasing the power of the flame, he felt the rock drop to his hand.

  Next, he used the air and ether elemental powers to scan the surrounding area by sending out successive waves of the elemental energies. Pulling out his tablet, Ahava wanted to check if the scan would update the map information in real time on his computer tablet. Ahava visualized wave after wave of elemental energy continually being emitted to scan the surrounding areas, similar to radar. As he glanced at the tablet screen, he saw the map of the area being updated and recording the information. Wondering how far he could scan, Ahava then sent out the elemental waves of power in all directions with the most power he could easily call upon. On the edge of the map forming on the computer tablet he could just about reach the city Bad-tibira, with the scan. The detail of his ether-air elemental scans was less detailed as the distance increased, but if Ahava concentrated for a long time he could gain better details at the longest distance in his mind's eye and the map on his tablet.

  Turning the power of his scanning inwards to his body with all the powers activated, he was able to gain a three-dimensional image of himself in his mind's eye. As he used his mind’s eye to fly around the scan, he was amazed about level of detail he was able to perceive. From the information he could gain from the image it was greater than any magnetic resonance imaging, he had seen. Ahava followed the flow of his blood moving through his heart and around the rest of his circulatory system. Breaking off from the blood flow, he focused on his muscles and other parts of his body. These showed up with the glow of magic and elemental power he had infused into the various muscle groups. With the scan, Ahava was able to gain a greater understanding of the benefit of the infusion of the wind and other elemental powers into areas of his body. He started to increase the elemental power infusion into different areas of his body to increase his stats.

  Now that Ahava understood the benefits of the infusion of elemental energies, when he got back to Bad-tibira, he would ask if any of the adventures would like to undergo the process to increase their strength or other physical attributes. One aspect that he had not yet been able to increase was his intelligence. Sitting in the small room just of the shrine he pondered on how he could do this. After a sitting deep in thought, he remembered computers from his previous world and what made a computer faster. It often had to do with the speed of the processing in the computer. If he used the analogy of a computer to his mind, then the faster the computer, the faster it calculated. What would happen he if sped up his thinking speed? Using the air and ether elemental powers by experimenting carefully, he managed to speed up his reaction time and ability to think faster. This was accomplished by a mixture of time dilation and speeding up the reaction in his brain and nerves system.

  He was now happy with the progress he had started to make. Looking around the room, he started to put his items back in his bag as he was prepared to leave his isolation. Ahava thought that it was time to check up on queen Olga, and how the battle had gone for them. Using the mapping provided to him by the ether and air elemental powers, he scanned by sending out wave of energy seeking for the queen of the orcs. Directing the power of his scan with an imagined desire to find the queen, he felt his mind follow a path like a heat seeking missile, homing on to his target. Suddenly an image of the queen appeared in his mind's eye, on a battlefield where her army was cleaning up the area from the fight with the horde of creatures. Swooping down like an eagle having sighted prey, Ahava could see her giving orders to different commanders with her usual raised voice.

  Ahava had a sudden idea. In front of himself, he produced an intense flame. As he started to slow down time and pour ether elemental power into the flame, a loud ripping noise could be heard in the room, as the fabric of space parted. Ahava then sent tentacle of power that bridged the gap between his location, and the queen. Suddenly there was a connection between his location, in the small side room and a spot on the battlefield just beside the queen. Ahava hurriedly got up from sitting and walked through the bridge in space and before he knew it, was standing beside the queen.

  All of the guards surround the queen, suddenly reacted to the presence of Ahava beside the person they were protecting. Moving like wild tigers, Ahava saw them tense their muscles to attack. But before they could move the queen Olga gave a shape hand signal to stand down.

  Before speaking to the queen, Ahava gazed over the battlefield. He saw many orc units cleaning up the battlefield, working with cloth masks on their faces. They were dragging bodies to pits to bury them, so as not to pollute the land. As he felt the warmth of the sun shine on his face, he sighed about
the sharp contrast to the scene of carnage that was before his eyes when compared to the beauty the world would normally display. Using his elemental powers, he scanned the environment around him, and with wave of power started to pull in the elemental flux remaining from each of the dead carcasses. As the streams of power flowed into him like a mist from all over the battlefield, the body started to turn to dust, as if a fog was rising from the ground.

  Turning to the queen he said in a quiet voice, “It looked like you met with success. Would you like me to heal the orc survivors of the battle?”

  The queen answered in affirmative with a grateful smile and inclined her head. She gestured in the direction of the wounded orcs, who were being treated on wooden benches by orcs skilled in magic. Ahava went from injured orc to orc for the next couple of hours, walking through the wounded and doing what he could with his healing powers. He was able to mend wounds, bones and other injuries, bringing the injured orcs back into full health. As the orcs got of the wooden benches many of them gripped Ahava’s hand in a show of thanks.

  When Ahava had done all the healing he could do, Ahava asked a nearby guard to show him where the Queen was. When he returned to her, she turned to him with a smile of joy as she viewed the now healed warriors. “You’ll get quite the reputation if you carry on using your magical power like that.”

  “Yes,” said Ahava rolling his eyes, “As my powers are increasing, I seem to be able to find more and more trouble to use them in.”

  The queen cocked her head asking, “What are you plans now?”

  “If we are all finished here?” said Ahava, as the queen nodded in the affirmative. “Then I will be going back to the human city Bad-tibira where I have some good friends. I will most likely have to try and explain about your appearance be for the fort.”

  “Yes, that will need some explanation… I’m sure you will handle it. If I need you again, I will be a bit more discrete” said the queen with a knowing smile.

  With that, Ahava bid his farewell and reached into his tapped power to scan for the human city. Opening up a portal with his elemental power to just outside the human fort, he walked through. As before the portal was like a hole in space that was filled with the location of where Ahava wished to be.

  It was also a bright and sunny day here, as Ahava walked the last few hundred meters to the fort from the portal he had created. Once he drew closer and could see the expressions of trepidation on the guards at the gate, he knew that they recognized him. One guard scurried through the entrance of the fort to alert the officers. Ahava stopped for a second to see what would happen and soon heard somebody shouting orders and eventually saw a company of soldiers with spears and shields file out of the gateway rushing toward him.

  ‘They are certainly dressed for battle and not as a welcoming parade’ Ahava thought.

  As the company of soldiers moved closer, with the sound of their footsteps echoing across the planes, Ahava could see the captain’s face. It had a look of menacing determination. The column of soldiers quickly reached Ahava and surrounded him, their weapons drawn and pointing toward him.

  Ahava peered curiously at the captain of the fort, showing no fear. “Good day to you, hope things have gone well here?”

  The captain stood tall with an arrogant air to his bearing and said, “I have order to take you into custody and bring you before the king En-men-lu-ana king of Bad-tibir. You two take him into hold of him.” He pointed to two of the biggest soldiers.

  As the two soldiers rushed forward, Ahava used his air elemental power to push against them until they could not move. All could see the strange appearance of two men seeming to be pushing against nothing, with faces showing the strain of their effort. The guard captain had a quizzical look on his face, his eyebrow raised high on his forehead. With a gesture of his hand, he indicated to his troops to move forward. Not only did Ahava stop the soldiers in midair, but this time started to push them backwards. With great effort a soldier pulled back his spear and threw it at Ahava’s chest. Ahava created a force that deflected the spear to the side. As he had been attacked now, he blasted all the soldiers about ten meters distance from himself. This resulted in the entire company left lying on the ground in a daze.

  Ahava noticed in his peripheral vision that the captain had pulled out an amulet from under his robes. With a face of concentration, he started to make complicated hand gestures and began chanting. Suddenly a grinding sound could be heard from the wall. The pictures of the guardians that had been there previously, frozen, started to move. The neck of one of the lions started to move its head and look towards Ahava in a predatory motion. Slowly, it pulled its head of the wall, and as it did the head inflated like a balloon, but one showing teeth and hungry eyes. The leg next came away from the fort wall as the lion flexed it claws. The full body of the lion finally landed on the ground roaring and rushing toward Ahava. By this time all the soldiers were up and run away from the area surrounding Ahava and the lion.

  As the lion was leaping toward Ahava, out of its mouth blasted a sound wave, like a blast from an explosion. This took Ahava by surprise. The shock wave of sound, ripped through his body like the wave from an explosive blast, ripping rock into dust. He was only was able to withstand the powerful sound blast as he had strengthened his body and had clothing infused with elemental power producing a force field effect. Ahava found himself rolling along the ground, knocked back a great distance. Before he could get up the lion was upon him, attacking him with its claws and very large teeth. The claws raked his clothes, which came apart, even with the infused elemental forces, and cut into his flesh. Using his ether and fire elemental powers, Ahava managed to levitate himself from under the lion. To do this he had to angle up and to the side avoiding the claws which were constantly grabbing for him. As he moved away, he formed a jet of intense fire, aiming at the lion's head. This only slightly damaged the lions head, as the flame hit with massive heat. The cat seemed to be made out of rock that was heat resistant. Now higher in the air, Ahava had time to take in the battle scene below. There were lions; massive elephants; and large dogs all moving to his location. All had detached themselves from the walls of the fort. Using the ground and earth elemental force he formed a cage of rock around the first attacking lion. This entrapped it, as it lunged and hit out against the rock bars of the cage. A crashing sound could be heard from the lion, as it slowly dismantled the rock making up the cage, like a rabid beast. Ahava increased the fire and air elemental forces to the maximum level he could channel. Confining, the massive intense jet with in a force field, he directed the jet that was glowing an ultraviolet blue, at the entrapped lion. As the temperature of the jet was now well above the meting point of rock, slowly the inferno started to melt the cage with the lion inside. Ahava Watched as the lion’s body slowly deformed, until it was a pool of molten rock.

  Ahava turned the intensive jet on to the largest beast on the ground moving toward his location. Each of the different rocky animals were shooting different attacks towards Ahava as he was up in the air. The dogs were shooting out large fire balls, while the elephants were sending out superheated jets of water. With his ability, to maneuver in the air, and the deflection of attacks with shield of force, none of the attacks had hit him. Each animal he locked in location with a stone structure and using the all-consuming jet fire to melt each animal to slag. When he had finished burning the animals, he looked back at the captain.

  The Captain was looking up at him, from a distance closer to the fort with a look of sheer terror in his eyes. The rest of the men were around him with injuries from the effects of the battles. Ahava floated closer with a shield of force protecting himself from any additional attacks. Soon he was standing in front of the soldier.

  Trying to act a bit calmer than how he felt, he said, “That was a bit uncalled for. Captain, would you please escort me to the King so we can sort this misunderstanding out.”

  As he said this, the captain mouth dropped fully open in surprise and he nodded in acceptance of the order.

  Chapter 2 King En-men-lu-ana of Bad-tibir