Dawn came early that day around the jeweler’s shop. A small bird left her comfortable rooftop at the first sign of it. She landed on a far less comfortable rooftop elsewhere, then yelled across the street. This was heard by a raccoon, who reluctantly abandoned his delicious trash and whistled to a house on the corner. A firelight turned on behind the glass windows. The wolf living inside drowsily kicked open the front door and ran up the hill.

Once at the top, he spoke the secret codeword—something that does not bear repeating in a fairy tale like this, followed by the word gods—to a priest. They pressed a button, which lowered a pulley, which pressed another button, which tickled a bear, which tightened a rope, which displaced everyone’s bed, which rang out a specific melody on the church bells.

Finally, this incredibly efficient network of messaging reached its intended target.

Two elephants, one huge, one small, woke up. They lived as far away from the city center as elephantly possible. They’d be mad to stay there with all the criminals enjoying free reign. Also, this location gave them access to an aqueduct. Without paying the fee.

“The alarm!” trumpeted the smaller one, already on his feet.

What alarm? The fire alarm.

Where? They had no idea. It was an obvious flaw in their primitive messaging system.

Fortunately, from their spot atop the outer hill, they had a nice view of the entire city. The beautiful heart of the world, or so many wanted it to be, called Amor.

With the sun yet reluctant to rise, the fire and smoke was easy to spot.

“Oh no, no no,” said the larger elephant. “That’s the Richersoul district. Hurry, Ollimo! Before any valuables have burned! Angry rich wolves are the worst.”

“If their money has burned … don’t they stop being rich?” asked Ollimo, as he inspected the wooden tires.

“Until-recently-rich wolves are even worse,” said Olfaman.

To say they had their own fire truck would not technically be a lie. They worked hard to always keep the massive wooden barrels filled. Even now, Olfaman and Ollimo used their trunk to suck water from the aqueduct and spit it back out into the barrels. Very disciplined, very practiced.

But the heavy barrels themselves were attached to wooden planks with nuts, bolts, hope, and prayers, which loosely rested on some logs that could be called round only if you had never seen a square before.

They jumped on their truck, holding a lid on top of the barrels to prevent spilling, and rolled down the hill towards the fire at the Richersoul district.

Olfaman looked truly frightened for what they might find. He pushed their truck to go even faster, putting all his weight at the front.

Ollimo could only admire his father and his selfless passion. So much so that he gaped and nearly fell of the truck. Father had never explained why he started the very first fire brigade, only revealed scars and many warning tales about fire.

As they entered Richersoul, the sun rose. Commerce was starting, stalls were built, and all their arrogant rich tails refused to sweep aside. Olfaman swerved and adjusted skillfully, every heartbeat, tongue licking trunk. These maneuvers emptied the outer barrels and threw accidental waterfalls over a grumpy raccoon.

They came to save them—they only met obstacles and curses.

Ollimo had to remind himself of the oath he’d taken: to help anyone in need, even if they were rich and treated you like garbage otherwise.

A chameleon who couldn’t decide on a single name leaned on an aqueduct. It started far away and high on the hills, where rain and waterfalls refreshed its supply. Using massive stone bridges, the water was shepherded into Amor.

Gravity made this happen automatically: the aqueducts were slightly slanted downward. The water automatically made its way to the outer districts of Amor, moving over buildings or slithering through alleys, entering the inner districts of Amor, before finally being collected at its lowest point. In this case, a large reservoir owned by the two consuls running the Amori Republic.

The chameleon stood about halfway and placed object after object in the water.

“It’s going to work! Believe me! It will be great! Before long, my friend, we will be rich.”

A rat eyed the work skeptically. And took notes.

The rat flipped to an earlier papyrus page to read back the statement. “But you just said you did it for the good of Amor and for pursuit of knowledge?”

The chameleon flashed red. This prompted a bystander, a boar, to stop in surprise.

“Yes! You there! Have you ever wanted to send a message to someone? But they live so far away, and you don’t feel like traveling for days?”

“No?” said the boar.

“Oh.” The chameleon flashed a different color. “Forget that! But think of this: have you ever wanted to send a message to someone … but didn’t want them to know it was you? A love letter, mayhaps? An onoma,” said the chameleon more formally, using the tongue of the godchildren to say without name.

The boar grinned. “My colorful friend, what an interesting idea. So … I can threaten someone and they never knew it was me?”

“Well, erm, I don’t know—”

The boar stepped up to the aqueduct. The chameleon had selected one of the few points that did not require a perilous climb to reach inside the water.

He quickly understood. The chameleon had been writing messages on a new invention called papyrus, then placing them inside clay or wooden containers and throwing them in the water. Many of these secret messages had already floated downstream. The first one was snatched out of the water in the Richerhouse district by a curious child.

“See! Communication will be much easier now! Just drop your message in, say, a glass bottle, and then drop it in the right aqueduct! What an invention!” said the chameleon about his own work. “Only one gold coin per message, good sir—”

“Thanks for the explanation.”

The boar pushed his tusks underneath the chameleon and threw him in the water too. He stole the remaining containers, papyrus and ink. Then he walked away, laughing, putting them all in some canvas bag that was already overstuffed.

The boar could not send his threat yet, though, for something downstream had suddenly emptied this part of the aqueduct.

Two elephants had realized they brought insufficient water.

Ollimo had worked tirelessly, using his trunk to suck in water temporarily and replenish the reserves, while Olfaman used his trunk to douse the fire.

By afternoon, the jeweler’s shop was black, caved-in, and covered in water. But the fire was out, and it, bless all who trumpet, had not spread to any other homes.

The jeweler himself, an animal so decked out in gold and fine silk that you had to guess the species below, cried, and moaned, and demanded justice from random passers-by.

A small platoon of soldiers investigated. It was not much of a police force, but then again, Ollimo thought that public services were not living their glory days right now.

They stomped through the ash. They kicked aside some wooden beams and collected shards of shattered glass for reuse. The home had been damaged so badly that they initially couldn’t figure out where the front entrance had been.

“Accident,” they ruled. They only recovered only a handful of large gold coins, given to the jeweler as a pity prize.

“Accident? I took all the necessary precautions! All my … my jewelry … my …”

“Look, fires are always a risk. You can thank the Toxotes you have any shop left. We’re sorry, we can’t give you money for ashes and dust.”

The jeweler stepped up to the soldier, considering a hit in the face. “But when gods wage war in our beautiful town, fires start a little more easily, don’t they?”

“What do you want us to do? Just let Ardex walk in without a fight?”

Far away, on the city walls, fighting had broken out again. It was such a constant presence that Ollimo barely registered it anymore. Amor was growing too powerful, Amor resisted the rule of the godchildren, Amor was able and very willing to fight back.

On the positive side, the Toxotes Firetrunks wouldn’t be out of a job soon.

Olfaman spoke with the jeweler, comforting him, telling him that the soldier was wrong.

“Water does not damage gold and silver. You sold diamonds, right? Those are tougher than saltstone. All your valuables are simply buried under the ash, believe me.”

“Well, look for it then! Find it!” demanded the jeweler.

“Ever heard of thank you?” said Ollimo, louder than he intended.

His father shook his massive head at him, and the two of them started clean-up. With their trunks, they could move the large beams easily or blow the ashes off the floor. They kept digging, and cleaning, and removing any debris until the sun set.

And still they found no diamonds.

“Thieves!” yelled the jeweler. “I knew it! This was no accident!”

A rat with a notebook had watched the proceedings from a distance. The next day, a rumor had spread all over Amor.

New gang of criminals has arrived in our beloved Amor! They use fire on purpose to cover their thievery!

Most everyone dismissed the rumor. Surely, it was too dangerous? Obviously, this was below even the lowest of criminals?

Olfaman and his son knew the lowest of criminals could be pretty low. Underground, even. They made a mountain out of a molehill. They immediately started the investigation.

In a small cottage, near the Restaurant of Dilova and the Flickerless Flames of Tresmo, a small catlike creature threw the dice. They landed on the exact numbers he needed to win the game. Again. That power is what caused the Rescue Squad to hire Wilplink in the first place, but they still believed it had to be a trick and they’d unmask him one day.

A massive firebird, bumping her head into the ceiling that had been raised twice already, approached.

“We need a bigger space,” complained Ruby. “This is so … so … I can’t breathe in here!”

Nobody reacted, for their Master started every conversation this way.

“Four casualties last night,” she continued. “Four! Three were drowned by Gulvi’s water magic. We can’t just sit by and watch.”

“And the other one?” asked Wilplink. He threw his drained mug across the room. However unlikely, it avoided the wooden pillars along the way and landed on a shelf without breaking.

“Not important,” said Ruby. “It’s foul! Someone has to step in! Gods can’t just abuse their power to burn a city they don’t like to the ground.”

“Oh please,” said a creature below them. A mole hidden in shadows. “Remind me how we acquired Amor, hmhmhm?”

“The actions of our ancestors do not matter to us,” said Ruby. “They only matter insofar as that we vow to do better. Our ancestors stole Amor from the Trusks, and it was horrible, and many died, and many lost their freedom. I will not let the same happen to Amor again!”

Everyone nodded. They were united in their common cause—The Rescue Squad of Ruby and God—despite their differences.

The Trusks, dear reader, had been a tribe of mostly tusk-wearing animals that settled around the sentient tree Tresmo. They worshipped him, they cared for him, trapped as he was in his cage of fire. They soon became the first advanced civilization this side of the Loveline, even creating their own language. Until the inevitable downfall to the wolves, much to the chagrin of their sloth leader.

“Wilplink,” said Ruby with agitation, “stop showing off and plan our next protest.”

For the first time, the dice landed on the wrong numbers.

“Ugh. So much work,” said the civet cat, otherwise called a Viverra. “I can make things work out for us anyway, whatever we do, why—”

Ruby the firebird turned around inside the cottage and accidentally bumped all crockery off the shelves with her steaming tail.

“That’s it! Mmhmmhmm, find us a larger meeting place!”

The mole, whose name had been perfectly pronounced by Ruby, and was one of the simpler mole names available, dug himself out of the situation.

“I know it’s a lot of effort,” said Ruby more kindly to Wilplink. “I know it’s hard, and thankless, oh so thankless. Did you hear the rumors about us? About the good we do?”

“Stopped listening a long time ago,” mumbled Wilplink. “Couldn’t hear a thing, too, with a bunch of elephants spraying water past my ears.”

“I don’t like it either,” said Ruby, sounding exhausted. Wilplink imagined her massive body would deflate any moment now. “But someone has to stand up for what’s right.”

She turned around again, very, very carefully. Her ears twitched, picking up noise just outside their secret meeting room. Wilplink prepared to have the intruder slip the moment they entered, or maybe, if he was feeling creative, that loose board above the entrance would finally break and fall on the intruder’s head.

The noises died out. Must have been some loud customers for Dilova’s food-place-or-something, Wilplink imagined.

Ruby’s eyes shone. She looked through the tiny window as if peace, freedom and justice were merrily dancing around on the other side.

“Four of ours dead, fighting the gods on our walls. What will it be tomorrow? Ten? Twenty? If anyone can just murder anyone else on the street, how can you ever feel free? Feel safe?”

“I told you,” said Wilplink. “Should’ve just waited. The godchildren fight each other as much as us. Alixader the Giant has been trying to unify all their city states for decades now, without much succes. Last I heard, he was all the way on Garda, trapped in a snow-storm-or-something. They had the support of the ruthless Delja, but not anymore, since their betrayal of Tikidas.”

“We’ve waited long enough!” screamed Ruby, a small firebreath escaping her beak.

Her stomach growled. Wilplink’s growled in response. Platters that had never seen food were shoved off the table, to make space for a large map of Amor. Together, the two of them searched for their next rescue mission, as they waited for their companions to return.

It took a while. Longer than usual. More than a day, in fact. Wilplink started fidgeting and aimlessly rolling dice, while Ruby’s sighs grew in length and number.

“What if the gods have won, and we didn’t notice?” asked Wilplink softly, the first to dare. “What if Boaris has been arrested?”

“Then he should’ve killed himself at first opportunity, before reaching jail, as agreed.”

Wilplink cringed. “Maybe the dungeons aren’t that bad. Whoever wins the war, they might be merciful—”

“As. You all. Agreed.”

Wilplink shut up.

At some point during the night, Mmhmmhmm had burst through the floor and told them he’d found a larger space. Wilplink was half asleep by then, dreaming of the common folk revering him for liberating them, but also, for some reason, of an angry rhinoceros demanding the return of his precious diamonds.

“How large a space, Mmhmmhmm?” asked Ruby.

“Oh please, as if I stayed long enough to measure,” said the mole. “Twice this room, I imagine.”

“Not good enough. Search again. I want this room’s size tenfold, or I fear I’ll never be able to breathe again!”

Ruby heard a noise and suddenly turned to the door, overturning the table and ripping the map with her left wing.

The door opened this time.

A boar walked in. With a frown, his tusks pushed the table back in its place. Then he removed the canvas bag from his back and displayed its contents with many a clang, thud and clink.

His companions had only expected the clink.

“Why on Somnia did you steal papyrus-or-something?”

“Met a chameleon along the way. Really weird guy, but smart. Proposes sending secret messages using the aqueducts.”

“Oh please, are you blind?”

The mole pushed himself onto the table, with effort. They caressed the pile of diamonds and golden coins, rubbing them against his fur and whiskers.

“Boaris, you fool. That what took you so long?” asked Ruby. She yanked the diamonds from Mmhmmhmm’s many-fingered hands to inspect if they were real. This highly scientific test involved looking really closely, trying to crush the diamond by stepping on it, and holding it in firelight to see if a rainbow occurred.

“No. I had to deal with some … particularly inquisitive elephants.”

“They are on to us?”

“They are. The Tattlerat has already spread the rumor. Any more fires will probably be studied more closely—it’s too dangerous now.”

“Then we try something new.”

“What did you do to the elephants?” asked Wilplink.

“I know who they are and where they live. They are not bad beings. Call themselves firefighters. I hope they simply forget about us, as long as we start no more fires.”

“Then you are truly a fool,” said Ruby. She reached into a hole in the wall and came back with a black and green garment. It fit over her feathers and made her otherwise iridescent body near invisible in the night. Confusingly, she insisted on wearing a funny hat that was sure to draw attention, which earned her the nickname Ruby Hat.

As far as criminal gangs go, Wilplink often told himself, this was surely the least professional of all he encountered. And yet, it was far more successful. They had been operating for ten years now, using “accidental fire” as cover, before someone found out.

Ruby took some of the diamonds, which she’d sell for whatever Amor needed to be freed. The remaining spoils were shared equally among the companions.

“I must go,” said Ruby, not allowing any more questions. “Prepare for our next mission. Do not lose faith. And Wilplink, please make the odds in our favor.”

“I’m not a wizard-or-something,” he grumbled. Then he set to work: what other disasters could befall a home, but allow them to steal and get out unscathed and unnoticed?

The Chameleon-of-many-names set up his stall. He held an ultra-wide, almost painful smile, as he displayed the wares he’d procured with so much effort. Bulls, bears, and wolves walked by without taking notice. A fox seemed interested, then pulled their hood further over their face and walked on. A herd of sheep visited too, but were obviously not interested in what he had to sell.

The Tattlerat stood at the edge of the plaza, ready to take notes on whatever happened. He always thought he was invisible, hidden. But, well, he was no chameleon. When camouflage was in your blood, everyone else stuck out like a sore thumb.

“It’s going to work this time!” he yelled across the forum at the rat. The gossip gerbil sighed and gave him a quick gesture that was the rat version of a thumbs-up. “I’ll be rich! Beloved! I can feel it in my colorful bones!”

The chameleon climbed on top of his stall and yelled: “Magical clothes! Made of magical wool! Buy it now! Only five gold apiece! Don’t want to miss it!”

Pivoting his entire business idea in one day had left him without sleep. It involved negotiating with several shepherds, haggling for a magical razor from a dodgy witch, and somehow learning how to knit while the moon was high, but he had done it.

More and more interested clients came for his stall. They studied his clothes. They started counting their coins. The chameleon licked his lip—

A fire broke out. After only a short delay, panic broke out across the forum in equal measure.

What building was that? Looked expensive and—oh yes, the private residence of none other than the consul.

A bird flew to a moldy rooftop, yelled to a raccoon, who tapped on a wolf’s window, who pushed the wrong button and then the right button, yada yada, a boar was tickled, a church bell rang—

Two elephants, who were already on high alert, were informed of the fire. Their truck instantly raced downhill to meet it.

They made a short detour first. Dousing the fire was only one of their jobs; the other one was to catch any criminals fleeing the scene.

The jeweler had, quite eagerly, agreed to fulfill this job. Being a rhinoceros made them stronger than almost any thief anyway.

They slowed down their truck as they passed the jeweler. They expected him to be rebuilding his shop, but he just sat among the ashes. Bewildered. A statue.

“Come on! See the smoke?” Ollimo pointed with his trunk. “Thieves to catch! Come on!”

The rhino shrugged. “Don’t care.”

“What?”

“I don’t care. Whatever. Life is unfair anyway,” he mumbled. His leathery skin was almost entirely exposed, his fancy clothes now worn by a trash-exploring raccoon.

Ollimo looked at his father. He didn’t know what to make of it either. Their truck kept rolling downhill all the same.

“Safety first,” said Olfaman. “Stop the fire.”

They left the jeweler alone, took the corner with the grace of a fat dragon, and arrived.

Ollimo had seen a lot of fires in his time. His father had seen even more. While extinguishing this one, they needn’t say a word, only exchange worried glances.

This fire was different. Smaller. Didn’t spread for. At the very least, it hadn’t been created the same way.

Must be—

“Distraction!” yelled Ollimo.

As he said it, as if meticulously timed, the ground shook. A dust storm shot fingers at the sky, somewhere in the Throne District. A tall and imposing temple, sometimes dubbed the Fortress of Faith, proved to be anything but untouchable.

It crumbled.

Ollimo tried to climb on his father’s back. From here, the masses could only see the triangular temple roof, which was there, until it cracked and suddenly wasn’t anymore.

The Firetrunks of Toxotes immediately went there. They had to fight a crowd of animals running away from the disaster. Many of them prayed for mercy, but they didn’t know to which gods. Most of them looked unhappy, of course, but a certain chameleon was especially livid.

The crumbling of a massive temple is no easy task. The consequences are also far more severe than a simple house fire.

The elephants had to battle through smoke and uneven terrain to get close. A few firebirds swooped down to look for survivors, and came up with a hefty haul of unlucky merchants.

Ollimo moved his focus to something in the corner of his eye. Vague shadows, covered by pillars and jagged stones, leaving through another exit.

“There! Follow them!” he yelled at father.

“Can’t! It’s uphill! You must go alone. I stay here to help.”

With heart beating painfully in his trunk, Ollimo accepted. With a mighty roar, his father pushed the truck, speeding it up.

He lost sight of the dark shapes. Fortunately, their bickering was loud and frustrated.

“You almost dropped the roof on all of us!” yelled someone. They turned another corner, back to the forum.

“As I told you!” yelled a small cat. “My powers give no certainty-or-something!”

“Run now, debate later,” said a commanding female voice from—from up above?

Ollimo craned his neck.

He almost ran into a wall.

The truck veered dangerously, losing the contents of one entire water barrel. He shifted his weight and turned to chase the thieves. But what could they have stolen? That temple was a friendly meeting place for the community. It held no riches. These beings were worse than thieves!

They were out of the dust and debris now. His sight cleared, his truck was faster than the running speed of a boar, and they had nowhere to go at the for—

They were gone.

A chameleon knew his plan was working. A few clients had run away initially, when the fire broke out, but now returned to purchase his magical clothes. What they did, exactly, was unknown to him, but he had prepared the lie that they “made you look incredibly beautiful to everyone”. Which worked.

Until four creatures dashed onto the forum and pushed aside the clients. They initially ran past the stall, then froze and retraced their steps.

“You again?”

“You again!?”

“Grab a disguise! Anything!” commanded a large bird.

Before he could change colors, the chameleon-of-many-names became a chameleon-of-nothing-to-sell.

The Tattlerat wrote it all down impassively.

“Yes,” said the chameleon, “and write down that there were fifty of them, and that they were big and strong and had weapons, and that they stole my clothes because they were so beautiful, and—”

“I deal in juicy gossip. But you can also go too far.” The rat dashed away, following the escapades of a male boar dressed like a lovely princess.

The group made good speed, until they suddenly froze again.

Ollimo had circled the forum, hoping to cut them off. He’d already prepared a solid water beam in case they turned the corner.

They wanted to turn the corner, saw the rat and chameleon.

“That large gray lump of elephant is blocking our hideout!” cried the cat.

“We can’t stay still,” said the boar. “Mmhmmhmm, dig us a—”

“Oh please, I can’t dig a tunnel that fast.”

“Agreed,” said the bird. “We go through Dilova’s restaurant.”

The four of them straightened their backs and stepped onto a different street. They walked through the front entrance of the restaurant with a smile on their face. A sign asked for patience and understanding, for their waiter was “having a bad day”.

Dilova herself was talking to two horse-like creatures, but they were the size of bunnies.

“Oh Quili, I don’t want you to risk your lives just for me, I don’t.”

“The gods want to help, Dilova, but their paws are tied.” She turned to the other horse, who was playing with food. “Epoh, you sure we can smuggle grain into the city? Past the guarded city walls? "

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, don’t worry friendy. As long as Dilova is prepared to become a bakery for life.”

All of them muted themselves and looked at the four intruders.

“My name is Wilpl—Wilbertus. Just here to, erm, inspect your kitchen,” said the viverra.

“Yes. Surprise inspection. Very necessary,” agreed the boar. “A routine task for princesses.”

Dilova held some status as one of the very first birds. She also had only one leg, which now hopped around with uncertainty.

When the Tattlerat and chameleon entered her restaurant too, she collapsed under the pressure.

“Alright then. The kitchen’s there. It’s clean and all, it is. Just don’t disturb my sleeping father, will you?”

Some quick nods. As the self-proclaimed Rescue Squad made for her kitchen, Wilplink snatched all the food from the tables for “taste inspection”.

It took mere seconds for an elephant to burst in too. He sprayed water over the horses as he hastily asked if they’d seen four strangers Or, as Ollimo was certain now, the criminals who made the temple collapse.

Even so, when they all made for the kitchen doors … the Rescue Squad was nowhere to be found.

Ardex stepped through the cold fires around Tresmo. As one of the few beings who could do that, being God of Fire and all, the sentient tree seemed the perfect place for a secret meeting.

He couldn’t say the fighting was going well. The gods were more powerful; their enemies had greater numbers. The gods held back out of mercy for the life they created; their enemies had no such squabbles. Ever since they revealed that life force is what kept them alive, their enemies had only one goal: extinguish as much life as possible. Keep the war going as long as possible, and make it mean, and violent, and too terrible even for the God of Death.

He lied to himself, claiming that was the reason for these meetings.

A large firebird flew overhead. She carefully examined the surroundings, then, within a heartbeat, crossed the cold flames and joined Ardex.

“Late again,” he said.

“Happy to see you too,” responded Ruby. She unfurled her wings to show a diamond, the largest and shiniest of the ones they’d stolen from the jeweler rhino. “A … gift. For you.”

“I …” Ardex hesitantly took the diamond. Worth a thousand gold coins. Enough to bribe a few Amor guards and perhaps win the war. But he knew the gift wasn’t to be spent, wasn’t a transaction of money. “Thanks, my … dear. This energy will come in handy.”

To your eyes, dear reader, a diamond looks like a dead piece of stone. Millions of years of pressure, from the dirt above it, created a compact and heavy jewel. But that takes energy. It takes energy to squash things together, to rearrange the particles inside, and in the case of diamonds, they let gravity—and a lot of time—apply that energy.

Energy, however, can never be lost. Only converted. So, one might say that the diamond still contained all the energy that had been needed to form it. A kind of battery to be used later.

That’s what made it valuable. Even with the best machines, and the strongest arms, nobody else had the energy to create the pressure needed for fake diamonds.

Ardex and Ruby stood not far from each other, but neither did they touch. Only the endless crackling of the endless fire around them, and a slumbering Tresmo, disturbed the silence.

“Something worries you,” said Ruby.

“It’s the thieves,” said Ardex immediately. “First a big fire. Now an entire temple collapsed. If we ruled Amor, well, those filthy criminals would have been wiped off the street already. Rules are rules. Laws are laws. What they’re doing is endangering innocents.”

Ruby looked away and stroked her own feathers. She finally met Ardex’ fiery gaze with one of her own, and stepped closer to touch him.

“Forget the thieves,” she said, “and let’s talk about … us.”

Ardex froze. He raised his paw as if to step back, then thought the better of it. “I can’t. We have a duty. Us gods will not sleep as long as innocent beings that we created are scared, or unsafe, or—”

“Every single positive change in history,” whispered Ruby, shuffling even closer. “It had to be achieved through violent revolution. Rumors say you once killed and suppressed meat-eaters. What did it take to change that? To give everyone equal freedom?”

Ardex sighed, steam blowing over Ruby’s face. “A violent protest by the meat-eaters.”

“The Trusks, who built Amor, had a monarchy. A single leader, often a mad one that took away freedom. What did it take to replace it with the Amori Republic? Where, at least, multiple beings get a vote?”

“You’ve made your point. I can’t … see or control large movements in history. I can eradicate a filthy set of criminals blowing up parts of Amor. I want to feel … useful.”

“Then use this diamond to get us freedom, one way or another. A city without walls; not needed. Safe skies for the birds. Clemency, perhaps, for … so-called criminals who made on silly mistake.”

“No. Laws are laws,” he said firmly. “If you have any information about these thieves, Ruby …”

“Hush, dear, let’s—”

Ardex, a saber-toothed tiger and eldest of gods, was not small or weak by any means. But standing next to Ruby, they looked like equals. Their eyes were on the same level. Her wings could wrap around his stripes, while his tusks wrapped around her beak.

Something snapped. A twig? Tresmo awoke?

Ardex and Ruby immediately split apart and looked around.

Through the fires they could see a shadow. Someone on the other side, perhaps a fox, watching them—or at least trying to. Ardex tapped into the web of life and could feel raw power and energy pulsating from the presence.

They remained statues until the fox disappeared, and they finally dared breath again.

Ardex had never loved any of their beings before. He had, on occasion, called his siblings naïve or foolish for creating demigods at will.

But now … with strong and passionate eyes looking back at him, a bird born from fire …

_Two massive life forces, dear reader, one a fire-spitting tiger and the other a fire-spitting giant bird, were bound to attract each other, getting closer and closer. It didn’t even take energy. It didn’t take any will. The union of Ardex and Ruby just happened by immutable law of the universe.

Ollimo had studied the remains of the temple for days. Most of the building was actually intact. Only very specific pillars were cut to pieces in an unnatural way, and the entire floor was lower than it should be.

He puzzled together how the thieves had done it. Some creature, with the ability to dig, had removed the foundation of the temple. Probably for hours, through the night, they’d carefully weakened and loosened the support of the temple.

Then, another creature, perhaps a Bearchitect, had identified load-bearing pillars. By simply destroying those, they’d correctly guessed, the entire roof would come down. Still, it was very risky. The temple was more likely to stay upright or to collapse on top of them, and they were lucky to escape.

The first theft, from the jeweler, was harder to figure out. They had to save themselves from their own fires. Were the gods involved? Perhaps a firebird, who were attracted to heat, because they could suck in that energy? Knowing what to look for now, he’d cleared all the debris and discovered a tunnel dug below the shop. That’s how they escaped while the fire burned.

Ollimo felt he shouldn’t be doing this. There should be a group of beings investigating suspicious events. Just like there should be a group fighting fires, instead of two elephants doing it out of their own passion. At least, the jeweler should be by his side, but the rhino still “didn’t care, whatever” that his entire fortune was stolen.

The elephant was pushing the fire truck uphill on his own. His father had stayed behind because some weird chameleon passionately offered him a deal that was “too good to ignore”.

Somewhere in the distance, a bird crowed, a raccoon reluctantly responded, lights turned on and off as if Amor shapeshifted into a dance floor, and eventually the fire alarm was raised once more.

Ollimo took the final steps to their home. Father hadn’t reacted yet. He filled the barrels again with water from the aqueduct, then turned around to see the fire. This time, it raged on the city walls, most likely incited by Ardex while fighting.

And still his father didn’t respond.

“Father?” Ollimo nudged Olfaman. “The alarm! Fire! We must go!”

“Don’t care,” he mumbled. “Whatever.”

“But … no, you do care. Innocents might be in danger! If the wall collapses, the gods will conquer Amor!”

Olfaman shrugged and went back to sleep.

“Father?” he said again, his voice sounding smaller each time.

No response. Even when screams from within the city echoed over their hill, even when the fire had clearly lost control and Ollimo had to leave now, his father pretended nothing was happening. Or, at least, he had no desire to get up and do anything about it.

Ollimo went back to Amor with fear shaking his tusks. It was terrible to see father so lifeless. To see the being with the biggest heart reduced to one without a heart.

It also seemed as if anyone that came close to the thieves lost the will to live. Perhaps he should give up the investigation and let them do whatever they liked, for his own sake.

The chameleon-of-undecided-name was starting to see a pattern. Whatever he tried, no matter how hard he worked, it failed miserably. Accidents out of his control. Unlucky setbacks. What were the chances of meeting the same criminals multiple times?

Thus, obviously, he had to try even HARDER and with more PASSION.

So it was that he worked late into the night, all alone, placing stone after stone onto the city walls. Whenever they asked what he was doing, he claimed he was making the city impenetrable. Before the full moon rises, I’ll have made the entire city wall five times as high, and it will keep out enemies forever!

Now another being walked up to him and the chameleon prepared this response.

But the fox asked something else.

“I have seen you several times now,” he said, a dark hood over his eyes. “Doing useless work, effort that will never be rewarded. Where do you get the energy to do all this? It’s fascinating.”

“And I feel I’ve seen you before too,” said the chameleon. Wasn’t he Feria’s famous alchemist husband? Hadn’t he seen their happy little family inspecting the city walls? The amount of kisses two foxes could give each other in one day had dumbfounded him then.

“Answer the question.”

“I don’t know,” said the chameleon, placing another stone. This part of the wall had surely been raised a tail’s length now. Impenetrable indeed. “Life is so … so … full of COLOR! Of POSSIBILITY! I want to do EVERYTHING! Try EVERYTHING! Never miss a day!”

“My name is Alix,” said the fox. “I was like you … once.”

He suddenly removed the hood and stepped closer. The fur below his chin had turned grey, as had the tip of his ears.

“Now I will be again.”

The fox’ long whiskers seemed to contain thunder then. His purple paws shot forward and his tail wrapped around the chameleon’s ankle.

In response, he yelped and changed color to match the Amor city walls perfectly.

To the eyes of most, the chameleon was gone. Perfectly camouflaged.

Alix narrowed his eyes. He stepped forward to look closer, but retreated when he almost slipped off the wall.

The chameleon briefly came out of camouflage to jump to another section of the wall. Alix graciously followed, but by the time he’d found his footing, his target was well-hidden again.

The fox stalked the walls for at least another hour, but could not find him again. In reality, the chameleon had already abandoned the wall and started a new project that was CERTAIN to SUCCEED and be the BEST THING EVER.

Alix sighed and went back to following the pockets of highest energy in Amor. Back to cold-blooded passion theft, telling himself it was only justified. After the … accident with his son, who had kept his promise to never use that foul magic ever again. Especially with Feria always gone to fight battles, missing her love like he’d never missed something before.

Magic still commenced at the Alchemist’s touch. It wasn’t necessarily good magic anymore.

The collapsed temple had been the peaceful meeting place of believers. Those who still believed in the original gods, those who believed in Amori gods, but certainly all who believed their gods told them they were right and had to win the war whatever means necessary. This made it hard to figure out the reason for the attack. Until only a single logical conclusion remained: the attackers simply wanted the war to end.

Like the diamond, dear reader, it had taken energy to build that temple in the first place. The builders had to erect the pillars, haul the triangular roof into the air, and place it. By now you know that energy is never lost, only converted. In a sense, you could say that energy was now saved inside that building. That’s why you could break it and release a blast of energy—an explosion, a minor earthquake.

In hindsight, thought Wilplink, it would have been the ideal “larger hideout” that Ruby craved. If only they hadn’t destroyed it. Their firebird master still hopped around uneasily in their small space, destroying the bookshelf they’d just repaired.

“It’s Ardex that worries me,” said Boaris. “By far the strongest of the gods, the most destructive. Have never heard a single legend about him showing mercy.”

“We leave Ardex alone,” replied Ruby without pause.

Wilplink frowned, throwing the dice over his shoulder. “… why? You like burning-to-death-or-something?”

“You know what I think?” said Boaris. “I will be the one taking our spoils from now on and making sure they end up at the right place—”

“What are you insinuating?” thundered Ruby’s voice.

“Oh please,” said Mmhmmhmm. “Do you think I’m blind? You’ve switched sides, Ruby. For whatever foolish reason.”

“We were never on any side,” she said, fluttering, and cursing the room’s size again. “Except the side of freedom. Whatever victor it takes.”

“Then I’m out,” said Boaris. He stuffed his spoils from the temple theft—of course, you could pay to remove your sins, as well as to use the toilet, but that first option fattened their treasure chest considerably more—into his bag and stepped away.

He raised his voice. “Not once did my mother care for me, look out for me, ensure I was fed. She fell in love with a Trusk, bore me, and threw me in the gutters of Amor. Only to besiege the city not long after! I will never side with the godchildren.”

“Stop making a fuss,” said Wilplink calmly. “I don’t even know which god is my parent, and you don’t see me whining-or-something.”

“Didn’t ask. Don’t care,” said Boaris as he left.

“Boaris!” yelled Ruby. “You will come back now and we can talk—”

“Oh please, he was always in it for the money, can’t you—”

The door opened.

For a moment, they could hear blasts, wind whipping, explosions and cries as Cosmo—the god shaped like a bird—fought Amor allies overhead. Like fireworks, except the dragons hadn’t invented it yet. One of the birds fell down and crushed another being walking on the street. Just another day in Amor.

The door shut.

“Well,” said Wilplink, “there goes our plan requiring four skilled spies.”

“I don’t mind. I promised you the freedom to walk away. We can do it without him—you take double duty.”

“How many times do I have to say I’m not a wizard-or-something?” Wilplink smashed his mug into the table. It cracked and broke into several pieces of exactly equal size. “I manipulate chance. I can make us a bit more likely to get past the guards. I can make the lock on a door a bit easier to open. If we try the mission with just the three of us—”

“I am not waiting any longer,” said Ruby. She turned around violently, one final time, and blasted the door off its hinges. She finally felt like she could breathe again. “The plan is sound. If we succeed, Amor has no choice but to surrender within a moon cycle.”

“And the elephant?” asked Mmhmmhmm. “He shows up at every site. Too quickly for my taste.”

“You don’t have taste,” grumbled Wilplink.

Ruby’s feathers tapped against the wall. “Let him be. Keep distracting him with meaningless fires elsewhere. We fight for freedom for all, not just for us to do as we please.”

It was this choice, dear reader, that would haunt Ruby for years to come. Because deep in her heart she felt she’d done right, and assassinating an innocent elephant was simply not going to do for her. But everything else that followed could only be described as a waterfall raging against her fire.

“Pretty words, very poetic-or-something,” said Wilplink. He rose to his full height and manipulated the chance of him rolling perfectly through the doorway. “For someone about to starve an entire city to death.”

At around noon, when merchants had just recovered from recent fighting and dared open stalls again, a building in the Farmor District inexplicably broke in two. The building had been a storage, mostly filled with grain, and responsible for feeding half the districts.

What nobody had seen, except an elephant with keen eyes, was a large bird taking to the skies with a large stone a few moments earlier. The bird struggled. The weight regularly swung her off her path, but she put in the energy to raise the boulder higher and higher. Until, hidden among the clouds, she could let go.

By the time the stone had reached the ground, it had picked up so much speed that the building had no chance at all. Gravity, Alix the Alchemist had reportedly said, felt like an energy exploit.

That was Ollimo’s assessment after a quick study of the scene. Alone. His father still didn’t feel like helping, or doing anything at all. He couldn’t be in two places at once, though. This meant he had to allow a distracting fire on the other side of the city to persist.

He’d struggled to get here. The streets around the temple were still full of debris, but also full of animals sitting on the stones with that same glassy look as his father. Mumbling how everything didn’t matter, and they didn’t care, and they didn’t feel like doing anything. All those animals had been previous visitors of the temple, some even its owners.

He could identify the bird criminal now. But did he dare follow her? Would the same happen to him? Was it already happening? Almost every second, he asked himself if he still cared. If he still wanted to help the Amori, to save them from fires. How much he was willing to give.

Asking the question just made it worse. He remembered their thankless glares, how his father and him had to live outside the city and barely had food, and realized more and more he was not willing to risk it. Nobody would help. He might die. He wasn’t strong enough alone.

He didn’t know how his father had managed it all these years; his own tusks slumped as Ollimo fled the scene, moving away from the trail of the criminals, and back to father.

Ardex was surprised to see Ruby on time. No, she was early to their secret meeting around Tresmo the Gigant.

Ruby immediately flew into his embrace. Sparks punctuated the warm collision.

“I am pregnant,” she said. No, Ruby was not one to dilly-dally around topics. Only fire churned her on, ever forward, towards a better tomorrow—Ardex had recognized that long ago.

“That … that …” The great God of Fire was speechless. He only allowed himself a little smile and a mumble: “That is wonderful.”

“Are you not happy?” asked Ruby, withdrawing her embrace.

“I am! But the implications … I’d need to introduce you to my siblings … and, and, when our child is born, whose side are they on? And their power must be so great that—”

Ruby hopped forward again. “Yes. Introduce me to the other godchildren, now, tonight! I am ready to fully switch sides.”

“Oh. That’s … that’s a bit quick, isn’t it?”

Ruby rolled her eyes. “What are you afraid of?”

“For one, those criminals running around Amor. Crumbling a temple. Dissecting the entire grain storage! Does Amor not follow its own laws? Are they fighting us for the right to be abused by criminals!?”

“I … believe you should thank those criminals,” said Ruby, pretending to study the dead fire that permanently burned around Tresmo. “Amor has no choice but to surrender now, doesn’t—”

“We’re not letting anyone starve,” said Ardex resolutely. “We already set up ways to smuggle grain into the city some time ago. Rules are rules.”

“Even in—”

“Even in war. Especially in war.”

Ruby scoffed, but didn’t feel like angering Ardex over this point. Once their plan had succeeded, mighty Amor would fall to the godchildren, and it would surely break the resistance on this side of Origina. If there was one thing that a never-ending war was never good for, it was freedom.

“Though I admit the rules bind us too much,” said Ardex, following Ruby’s gaze to study Tresmo. The mighty tree seemed to prefer sleeping over anything else, for his cage of fire made him feel lonely and in pain. Still, he sometimes wondered what the tree had seen and heard, whose side they were even on. Since that fire long ago, he had sprouted children too—four more Gigants growing all over Origina. If they could somehow get those sentient trees on their side …

“This war feels like Mother’s story of the Dontaids,” said Ardex.

“Never heard of it.”

“Creatures from another planet, another universe, she claimed. As punishment for some misdeed, their home planet was set on fire. Any time they filled a bucket with water, though, it would always leak. No matter how hard they worked, by the time they reached the fire, barely any water would be left inside the bucket. And so they could never make any progress—never extinguish all the fires.”

“Yes, continuing this fight is useless. It will only lead to more deaths, not more victory.”

“That’s not what I said. I am your god! I can’t roll over and let our enemies walk all over us.”

“It’s what you meant in your heart.”

Ardex gave Ruby a final passionate kiss, then turned around and spoke over his shoulder. “When this war is over, I will introduce you—and our wonderful child to be—to my siblings.”

More and more, Amor had built itself around Tresmo. Ardex had to ask his brother Cosmo to drop him here, for he couldn’t find any gaps in Amor’s city wall anymore. In due time, he believed, Amor would be so large that he couldn’t enter in secret at all. Though that might not come true. Amor might actually shrink soon, for a fire was burning in one of the districts and it didn’t seem like anyone was putting it out.

When the saber-toothed tiger returned to the camp of the godchildren, his eyes were suddenly more attuned to all the children. To the fathers among them.

To the happy family of Feria, Alix and their son Permiox. They were cracking jokes now about Alix’ beard, while their son returned happier than ever because they discovered a new insect. Feria, Goddess of Fauna, was more than happy to study it with him and figure out if it really was a new animal species.

He gave them such a bright smile that Feria returned a frown, as if expecting him to explain why he was in such a good mood.

His sister Eeris, Goddess of Flora, was visible on the horizon by her long yellow neck. She had called them all here in the first place. Amor was closest to her throne, and she worried about how quickly it expanded.

He made for her, but stopped.

Eeris lowered her neck to nudge some animal far smaller than her. The boar, however, violently pushed her away and kept walking.

“Please, Boaris, we never see each other,” said Eeris. It was no secret she was jealous of her green sister Feria and how loved she was by all her demigod children.

“Oh my, could that be on purpose?” was the angry boar’s retort. “Let me go. I’m leaving this hellhole. Always fighting, always pretending to be oh so righteous, always the same. You pretend to be noble, you pretend to be wise, but you only want power, and thanks, and the compliments of all your servants. Or you would not have refused the help offered by the Delja.”

“But Boaris—”

The boar escaped through a thicket far too dense for Eeris. She had to use her magic to instantly tear the bushes apart, make them grow some other way.

“There must be some deserted island nobody else can find,” continued Boaris. “And diamonds grow on trees, if I’m lucky.”

“We want you here,” said Eeris. “You’re one of us, darling. You’re a demigod and we—”

“Don’t care. Don’t want to hear. You can all do whatever you want, you’re all going to die soon anyway, leave me out of it.”

The boar tried another thicket as his escape route, before giving up.

“You don’t really believe that, do you? That those power-hungry wolves of Amor would be better for this world than, oh, I don’t know, the godchildren who created all this life and give you endless love?”

“Endless—you really dare—” Boaris turned around. He dumped his canvas bag on the floor and caused a minor, local earthquake. “What you gave me is the opposite of love!”

Eeris’ long neck fell slowly, as if the power to keep it upright was fleeing her rapidly.

“How can you say I gave you the opposite of love? There is not a hateful bone in my body, not a vengeful breath in my lungs! I didn’t do anything to you, ever, I didn’t obstruct you. I gave you the freedom to find your own path.”

Boaris grabbed his bag again and raised his voice. He was drawing the attention of the entire war camp now.

“The opposite of love isn’t hate. Hate means you still care. Hate means there is still fire and passion. The opposite of love is indifference.”

Boaris ran away as quickly as he could. Being a demigod, that was a respectable pace, a surprise to any who saw his bulky boar shape.

But his own words, screamed at his mother, echoed in his head.

And just as he had successfully fled the Amor region, he slowed down, more and more. And then he sighed and turned around. He had knowledge about some “criminals” and their big plan for tomorrow. He still screamed—so he still cared.

Ollimo watched from the hill as multiple fires burned in Amor, and nobody made any effort to extinguish them. His father certainly didn’t care. Their fragile warning network of racoons, wolves and optimism had long ago given up raising the fire alarm again.

He had filled the water barrels, mostly out of habit, but he couldn’t steer the truck and refill alone. Not fast enough to stop what was happening now. Not if he might be infected with the lose-all-hope-curse too, if he came too close to the criminals.

A boar walked past on the other side of the aqueduct. He could’ve sworn that boar ran the other way just a moment earlier. Strange beings, Amori.

He was long past telling his father “come on” and “wake up” and “help me”. Olfaman’s desire to save the innocent from fires did not seep away, no, it seemed to have been completely stolen at once. Which gave Ollimo some hope he might find it and give it back.

“Why did you start?” he asked father. “Maybe you can remember why you started the fire brigade. Maybe that … that will work.”

“Oh, forest fire, death, Tresmo, the whole thing,” said Olfaman.

Ollimo spit out the water in his trunk. “You were there? You know how Tresmo’s tragedy happened?”

“Yes. The fire was terrible. A wall of death all around us, trapping at least fifty unlucky animals. And your mother …” Olfaman’s voice broke. “Alix tried to explain we could remove the fires with water. He wasn’t the greatest teacher, to be honest. Still isn’t. All the elephants then discovered they could spray water using their trunks, and that’s how we made a few gaps.”

“And that’s why you started the fire brigade,” said Ollimo. He gave his father a hopeful smile. “Because you …”

“Because I’m foolish. It’s all hopeless. New fires will always arrive anyway.”

“No, no, no,” said Ollimo, bouncing around his father.

“Yes, yes, yes,” he said. “Or do you have some special power to prevent all future fires?”

“No, you’re right about that. But you draw the wrong conclusions. You made the very first fire brigade. You have saved countless lives, homes, and more. You know, more than most, how much pain Tresmo is in, how much pain fire can cause. You do all this because you … because you …”

“Because I …” Olfaman’s eyes deepened their colors and finally saw his son. “Because I don’t want anyone else to burn to death ever again.”

The large elephant restored himself to his full size.

He had been able to see the fires burning in Amor all this time. In fact, he’d barely moved his head for hours, as if he couldn’t physically look away.

But seeing was not the same as noticing. Observing was not the same as feeling.

“The fires!” exclaimed Olfaman, his skin regaining color. “The fires! Oh, Ollimo, almost the entire Farmor District is burning!”

Like the diamond, dear reader, it takes energy to create order. To create things, instead of maintain random chaos. For example, it takes sunlight and a long time to create a huge wooden tree like Tresmo. That means energy was saved inside that wood. That energy is what allowed wood to burn, what made it fuel for fires.

In a city of wooden homes, carelessly leaning on each other like bears of old age, a fire would never go out of its own accord.

The two elephants immediately checked the water barrels, then jumped on their truck.

“The fires,” said Ollimo. “Don’t go near the criminals, whatever they do! Or this will happen again!”

Ollimo nudged against his father, telling himself the real Toxotes firefighter was back. But Olfaman still felt a bit cold and slow.

“No. I remember now,” he said. “It was that fox. Alix! I was passionately telling him about our work, and then, suddenly, suddenly, I felt … nothing.”

“Alix? Brilliant husband of Feria?” said Ollimo. “It doesn’t make sense for him to join those criminals. They fight against Feria!”

“Which means …”

“Yes, it means what you think it means,” said a third voice. As the fire truck started rolling downhill, a boar leapt onto it too, puncturing a barrel with his tusk. At least, it kept him on top of the fire truck as it gained speed.

“Alix isn’t one of us,” said Boaris. “And we are not criminals. We would never hurt … we would never …”

The truck rattled and danced, turning speech into stuttering involuntarily. Its massive speed made the aqueduct next to them look like a gray-blue blur. Then it raced into the first district.

“What?” Ollimo froze amidst the barrels. The criminals he was looking for! One of them had just entered their truck! And … and … what to do? “You are under, erm, arrest for—”

“Oh lord,” said Boaris. “Just stick to firefighting, will you?”

“You won’t get away with this! Laws are laws! And you are thiev—”

Before Ollimo had even uttered the final word, Boaris had jumped off the truck and into the aqueduct.

In a district not far away, three do-not-call-them-criminals lay in wait. The Rescue Squad was about to rescue Amor so hard that nobody could stop them.

“That’s it,” said Ruby. “That part of the wall. The gods use it to smuggle grain into Amor now that we destroyed the largest storage.”

“I am confused,” said Wilplink. “Are we with or against the gods?”

“Ssh!”

Ardex appeared near the wall. He was caught in a brief firefight with another firebird, which he won, then made sure nobody else was around.

Ruby kept shutting them up until Ardex was out of sight.

“Go! Now! With fire and speed!” she hissed.

The next delivery of grain was carried by some strong ox. Somehow, they all slipped at the same time. The cart twisted and fell to the side, and as unlikely as it seems, every single piece of food inside scattered into the dirt.

Mmhmmhmm rapidly removed the dirt, digging tunnel after tunnel. Before anyone could blink, the entire area had lost its floor. The mole smiled smugly, pointing at himself.

“Don’t gloat,” said Wilplink, “that only worked because I made you lucky with my powers.”

“Oh please.”

Wilplink grabbed grain that had already been delivered and threw it into the tunnels as if they were garbage bins. Resupplies were out of the question: any carts that arrived here would have their wheels stuck in all the holes.

Now, Mmhmmhmm was a bit of a liar. He hadn’t dug all those tunnels himself. Many of them were part of a secret project of the wolves, and the reason their surprise attack overwhelmed the Trusks long ago. Still, Wilplink thought, it was nice to have such a capable friend at his side.

When the area was thoroughly trashed, they moved to the next one. They had a strict timetable to keep, even if it was ex-rescuer Boaris who originally drew it up.

The next biggest food storage was well-guarded. That had always been the case, but recent events caused half the standing army to picnic around the plaza.

“This is hopeless,” said Wilplink.

“Oh please,” said Mmhmmhmm, “can’t you ever say something positive?”

“At least my name doesn’t sound like I’m trying to talk with a mouth full of dirt-or-something.”

“Indeed. Wilplink sounds like you should’ve been a dwarf.”

Ruby shut them up with wings over their mouths.

“Disasters are distractions, we’ve proven that,” said she. “As soon as they think the gods are attacking them, they’ll abandon their post. Watch. Stick to the plan.”

Ruby held a diamond in her wings. The last one from their previous haul. She crushed it, drawing in energy, then shot into the sky.

As soon as she was lost between the clouds, Mmhmmhmm shot into the dirt instead. Wilplink knew what to look for and could follow the mole as he tunneled just below the ground. He had to—for it was his responsibility to manipulate the chances of someone seeing, hindering or even killing his companion.

A beautiful sunny day was interrupted by a huge flame coming from the clouds.

Ruby made sure not to actually hit anyone. Instead, she burned the fountain in the middle of the plaza. Still, the flame was a remarkably convincing copy of Ardex’ powers.

Soldiers immediately grabbed their weapons. But they didn’t flee, they formed formations. A significant number of them were birds scouting the clouds for the danger.

Mmhmmhmm pushed into the ground from below. Dirt and stones shot up, forming new hills, seats for soldiers, and eventually slanted walls like broken teeth. A fine imitation of Darus’ powers, even though that god rarely got involved with the war.

Several soldiers screamed and abandoned the place. Some still weren’t convinced.

Wilplink himself had climbed into a tree. He gave Mmhmmhmm the benefit of the doubt on his next tunnel, preventing it from caving in and getting the mole trapped. He gave Ruby some lucky clouds to cover her silhouette in the sky.

What more could he do? He noticed the trees waving slightly in the breeze. A lucky breeze later, several of the trees fell down. A really lucky gust of wind twisted a few branches, as if the tree tried to hit the nearest soldier. Eeris, they screamed, had arrived too.

This caused massive desertion. Without killing a single soldier, they had access to an unguarded storage.

It didn’t take long to relieve it of its burden.

As the Rescue Squad made for the third and final food storage, they informed the Tattlerat to spread a rumor already. Even if it wasn’t true yet. Those were the best rumors.

All our food is gone. The consuls have already fled Amor. All of us will starve in a few days if we don’t surrender.

On the way to the final food storage to destroy, the Rescue Squad passed Dilova’s restaurant. Torches flickered inside and outside. A line had formed that stretched all the way to the forum, where it split and moved into the Richersoul district too. A line of hungry animals who read the sign that Dilova would feed anyone for free.

“Oh please,” said Mmhmmhmm, “you can’t be serious.”

“It’s a lie. Ignore it.”

“I’m smelling a high chance of it not being a lie, though,” said Wilplink.

He started pushing creatures aside, forging a direct line to the entrance.

“Yes, yes, we are very important animals, step aside, get out of the way, no, get your paws off me—”

“Hey! No jumping the queue!” several wolves and boars yelled behind them. As soon as anyone moved to stop them, though, Ruby turned around and showed her impressive wingspan to shut them up.

They stumbled into Dilova’s restaurant and saw a familiar sight.

“You again?” asked Wilplink.

“You again!?” replied a chameleon. He was hauling bucket after bucket through the kitchen, towards Dilova, or towards two horse-like creatures in the corner.

“What are you doing?”

“I came as SOON as I heard Tattlerat’s NEWS. I vowed to bake a THOUSAND loafs of bread every day, sunrise to sunset, to make sure NOBODY in Amor goes HUNGRY! That’s my NEW passion!”

“No, no, noooo,” yelled Wilplink. He made the chameleon clumsily drop a bucket, and a customer trip over their own tail, but it didn’t satisfy his rage. “You stupid rainbow salamander-or-something!”

“EXCUSE me?” The chameleon swapped a bucket with raw grain for a finished, steaming loaf of bread straight from Dilova’s wings. “I worked ALL DAY yesterday to collect ALL these buckets. Somehow, many animals said they’d already given away everything they had to a BOAR. Without sleep, we then collected ALL GRAIN I could find, in the dirt, or the ashes. And what have YOU been doing?”

Wilplink instantly moved to grab as many buckets as he could. Ruby breathed fire, though her energy was too low to hit everything. Mmhmmhmm broke some glasses, and Wilplink made sure the shards just happened to arrive near his paws, so he could use them to stab the buckets and destroy them. They were quite effective at killing the chameleon’s new efforts, again.

Everyone, and that really means everyone, attacked Wilplink. They soon made it impossible for him to continue. Or move at all, with that many tails around his paws.

“Let it go,” yelled Ruby. “Save ourselves!”

She ripped Wilplink out of the antlers of some hungry deer. Mmhmmhmm bit the chameleon’s fingers to gain freedom, then rapidly dug a tunnel.

The Rescue Squad mostly rescued themselves. A handful of creatures had managed to keep Amor’s food supply working, and they lacked the power to stop that.

Ruby grudgingly lead them all away, wondering whether to continue with the last step of their plan or return to their hideout. Those fires burning throughout the city would soon consume Dilova’s restaurant, and all inside, anyway, she told herself guiltily.

As soon as aid reaches a critical mass, dear reader, it becomes a snow ball that rolls faster and faster, thickening and thickening, until nothing can stop it. Not even mad emperors, confused criminals, or power-hungry wolves. As long as enough beings fight to sustain life instead of break it down, the chances of them winning are so high that even Wilplink can’t turn them around.

But someone still needed to do it. Someone still needed to wake up with fire in their heart and do what needed to be done, even if it felt useless, even if there was no reward—monetary or otherwise.

And a certain smart fox was working hard to remove this passion from everyone …

Alix the Alchemist stood in his lab and cursed the phenomenon called gravity. It didn’t make sense. Where did the energy come from to make everything fall back to Somnia’s crust? Energy couldn’t just stay around forever, everywhere. If you heated up an object, it would not stay hot forever—in fact, it would quickly cool off, heating the rest of the room instead.

So why did it work this way? What were the rules? Was it truly … magic?

On occasion, his experiments had yielded something he called a magnet. Two pieces of metal that automatically moved towards each other. But gravity was different. Besides, he had no reason to believe everyone and everything was made of that metal.

Was it something about the particles inside? Was there a “gravity particle”? And it simply occurred a lot inside the core of their planet?

He shook his head, muttering theories to his son Permiox, who did his own experiments. Or was really, really clumsy. He carried different objects towards the ceiling, climbing a ladder, then dropped them to the floor and measured how long the fall took.

What Alix knew, but didn’t accept, was that he never muttered any new theories. Long ago, he’d asked his son to freeze his love for Feria. That was Permiox’ special magic: pick something and keep it the same forever, from now on. That part had been a success. There hadn’t been a single day when Feria and him had loved each other less—neither had there been one where they loved each other more.

But love comes in many forms. Love for learning. Love for knowledge. Since that day, Alix had been unable to remember any new facts or gain new wisdom. His son had carried the burden of research, while Alix desperately wrote down anything that occurred to him. Wherever he went, he carried a large trunk filled with books containing his own scribbles.

“Gravity is everywhere,” said Permiox. “What if it’s not something about the particles, but like, like, a sea.”

“What?”

“It’s all around us. We’re standing inside the sea of gravity right now. And the waves, well, the waves here just happen to send objects back down to the earth.”

“That’s—”

Alix’ eye fell on the aqueduct running past his home. He couldn’t imagine new knowledge out of thin air, but his senses worked fine. He could still see things in the real world. He could still modify them and see what happened.

“Give me your biggest object,” he said. As he ran outside, Permiox put a stone chair on his back. With effort, he reached the aqueduct and looked over the edge.

The water flowed. From the top of the hill where the aqueduct started, always down, until it ended in a pool somewhere inside the city. This happened automatically. Anything you threw into the water, would be pulled along by the stream.

Perhaps his son was onto something.

He grunted and threw the stone chair into the water. It was too heavy to move. It sunk for a bit, until it stopped against the bottom, creating a small stone island.

The water, as expected, now went around it. Adding something, given it was heavy enough, changed how everything else around it flowed.

Could gravity be the same? Aqueducts all around us, always streaming down. The aqueducts wanted to just move forward, but their planet got in the way. And now their paths have changed because of their large, heavy planet.

His son was onto something. The universe was the sea. Gravity wasn’t inside objects, it was everywhere, and the objects were just obeying its streams and wherever they had to go.

As soon as he had the thought, however, it slipped his mind. The information was too new. The theory too innovative and creative. His son had tried to write down his mutterings, with a sharp feather between his teeth.

Alix kicked the stones in frustration. He needed more energy. More! More! That would surely fix it.

It had started with an attempt to steal wisdom from others. To steal knowledge, brainpower, the thing that Alix feared he would never get again. That’s how he discovered that passion was also energy. Desire, wishing for something, wanting to live, it was all a very strong kind of energy.

And so it turned into secret fire-theft. Stealing the energy that radiates from beings who want to live and who want to achieve things. He’d become rather good at it, he thought, even stealing every ounce of passion from an entire elephant latel—

That exact elephant now stormed at him.

“You!” yelled Olfaman. “You used to be good! Feria’s pride! And now … what happened to you, Alix? Does Feria know?”

“I got cursed,” he said, while his son said “he got old”.

Alix narrowed his eyes.

“This means your passion returned,” he mumbled. “Fascinating! This is great news!”

The elephants lowered their tusks, ready to repel a new attack by Alix. His son raised his paws defensively.

“Please don’t tell Feria,” said Permiox. “It’s hard enough as it is for father. He’s nearing death, while Feria will live eternal—”

“I am not that old! I still have plenty of years to study the universe and learn everything!”

“You … you’ve studied aging and dying, father. You should know bet—”

The fires inside the city raged on. The elephants started drawing water from the aqueduct, while Alex violently pulled the chair out of the water again.

Both were obstructed by something else coming down the stream. Piles and piles of bottles, platters, mugs, bags, anything that could contain a message. The objects climbed over each other, pushed along by the waves, to get down the aqueduct faster.

Alix snatched one of them out of the stream, unrolled the papyrus, and read the message.

It gave everything away. The criminals’ plans. The lies inside Tattlerat’s rumor. Locations where more food could be found. And even the address of their hideout. Most interesting to Alix, though, was a note at the bottom thanking a busy chameleon for the idea to do this. The message was signed Anonymous.

Alix grinned at his son. “Are you in for a little exercise in building traps, my son?”

The Rescue Squad made for the weakest part of the city walls. The part that usually held the most soldiers. It was considered the linchpin on which Amor’s defense rested, but now … now it was completely abandoned.

“This is foolish,” said Wilplink. “Let’s return to our hideout, make a new pla—”

“You’ve said it ten times now,” said Ruby. “The answer remains no. The final step of our plan starts now.”

“Oh please,” said Mmhmmhmm, hesitant to continue. “We failed. Let’s accept it. There is nothing—”

Ruby breathed a column of fire as she stormed the wall, already blackening it.

“Mole, dig away the supports. Wilplink, increase chance of crumbling in our favor. I feel enough energy to destroy half the blastfeathered wall! And we will get our freedom now!”

The two of them stayed back, looking at each other.

Ruby stepped forward alone—and tripped over a strange wooden block.

Normally, this would mean nothing. But this block was holding up another one, which leaned against another one, which held down a rope, which, when unleashed, allowed a boulder to drop from the top of the wall.

A heavy net, made from unbreakable Dragonvine, fell over Ruby. Several magic spells shot around the corner and fastened it to the floor. The magnificent firebird trashed, and flailed, and screamed, and begged, but she could not escape. The net tightened until it cut into her feathers, and she struggled to breathe.

A large crowd of angry animals turned the corner too. They’d been waiting for them, even carrying weapons. The godchildren, led by Ardex, stood on the other side of the gate and mostly watched in disappointment.

Except Ardex. He watched in shock and disbelief, as his secret love, holding his baby, was ousted as one of the criminals. With countless witnesses, and arrested for it already.

Everyone clamored for justice. Beings both within and without Amor asked Ardex to make a decision. But the tiger stood frozen, jaw down, fire extinguished.

Alix the Alchemist came down to study his catch, but was disappointed. Feria tried to pull him away from Ruby, sensing she was still dangerous. He ignored her, asked about a chameleon, and learned that he was passionately helping the firefighting efforts now—because of course he was. He left at once, asking his son to join.

Mmhmmhmm hastily created a new tunnel. Imperfect, small, but it was enough. Him and Wilplink held each other tightly, then used the tunnel to escape the clutches of the angry townsfolk and return to their hideout.

The fires were closing in on Dilova’s restaurant. Before they could get there, though, they first had to pass through the other houses in the block. One of which was the Rescue Squad’s hideout.

“Get out. Flee. Save ourselves,” said Wilplink, out of breath and a voice shaking with fear. “Try again somewhere else. Together.”

“Oh please,” said Mmhmmhmm. “We’re fine, you and me, buddy. You can increase the chances of the fire going out, can’t you? I’ll create a firebreak. A tunnel around the fire, to prevent it from spread—”

Wilplink grunted as he surveyed the flames licking the doorway of their hideout. Their spoils—enough diamonds and gold to start a new rescue squad somewhere else—were inside. Their maps, their plans, their names.

“There they are!” yelled an elephant’s voice in the distance, right before sending a powerful water beam towards the flames. “The thieves!”

The thieves took a deep breath, then dove through a gap in the fire.

As soon as they were inside, a crowd of animals appeared in the doorway. They had been waiting for them, and carried weapons. Most of all, they sealed off their only exit.

“Help fight the fire, you idiots-or-something!” yelled Wilplink in an attempt to distract.

“We are,” said a voice.

The first puddles formed in the doorway. Someone was throwing water onto the walls, but it was a meager attempt. Not enough to impress any flame worth its salt.

Wilplink saw why. A single being was carrying seven buckets, but all of them were damaged and leaked. A trail of water was left on the street as the chameleon refilled at the nearest aqueduct. The buckets were nearly empty again by the time he returned to the fire.

Some laughed at him. Some just shook their heads. Only Dilova and two horses ran out of their restaurant to help carry leaky buckets, holding the handle between their teeth, however little it helped.

Wilplink wished he were a chameleon now. He looked all around, but saw nowhere to hide.

“I’m going to destroy the floor,” said Mmhmmhmm, “then tunnel us out.”

“No! The building might collapse.”

“And we have you surrounded,” said the crowd.

“Then you, my dear viverra, have to make sure a collapse doesn’t happen,” said the mole. “Or if it does, that we miraculously survive.”

Wilplink grunted and concentrated. So many probabilities. The walls might cave. A flame might suddenly flare. They might decide to enter the hideout any time.

He shook from the effort of changing all the chances such that they were safe.

Only one being entered their hideout. A fox. He carefully placed a heavy boulder on a tiny twig near the entrance, a construction that couldn’t last too long. Then he yelled to the chameleon, saying innocent beings were in great danger—the husband of Feria and his son, no less!—and they needed his help inside.

Wilplink followed the twig, the boulder, until he looked at the ceiling and saw a massive Dragonvine net prepared there. Of course, how stupid they had been.

“Get out and take your trap,” he hissed at Alix. “This building is about to burn down and coll—”

“No it isn’t,” whispered Alix confidently. “I’ve studied flames and foundations. We have at least an hour of safety here.”

And while he was talking, Mmhmmhmm was carefully digging away those very foundations and adding onto the fire.

The chameleon had heard his calls. He trotted to the hideout with several leaky buckets. The other animals hesitantly made way.

Alix licked his lips. “That colored salamander … oh the energy he’ll give me … let me tell you, strange cat, don’t be surprised if I walk out of this building young and clever and passionate again!”

The chameleon set off the trap. A simple kick to some wood, and gravity did the rest of the work.

Wilplink reacted with cat-like instinct and reflexes.

The viverra kicked Alix aside, leaped forward, and pushed the chameleon against the wall. As the net fell on him, he focused all his energy on modifying the probabilities, and the net was caught halfway by some half-burnt, broken log in the ceiling.

This meant he had mostly neglected watching the other probabilities.

With a thunderous crack, the hideout gave up its resistance. The ceiling came down like a bird diving for prey, the walls caved in, and whatever remained instantly ignited.

“What have you done!?” yelled Alix, caught below a falling beam thrice its size.

The floor moved, slanted, turned into a collection of holes that fed on the debris.

“WILPL—” yelled a mole stuck below the ground. Before his words choked, and the floor lowered several tail’s lengths at once, crushing Mmhmmhmm.

Wilplink stood in the center of the flaming room. Dazed. Uncertain. Shaking and crying for his friend.

“I told you!” he mumbled, voice dancing between grunts and cracks. “I told you it’s probability, not certainty! I did my best. I … I …”

Permiox tried to lift the beam off of his father Alix. They managed to move it a little. This merely revealed the deep, nasty wound that Alix had suffered.

The chameleon was completely fine, crawling around Wilplink’s neck and flashing every color imaginable.

“Who are you?” said Alix, voice weakening.

The chameleon spoke with a pause between each word. “I have … MANY names. But I’ve finally chosen one. Chamtaid.”

“And you,” said the chameleon, flashing red and curling his spiky tail, “need to DIE.”

“No!” cried Alix.

The hideout wasn’t done crumbling. Everyone else had fled the area; the doorway was crushed anyway; Wilplink danced around the fires, but couldn’t prevent a few painful burns.

“I have so much left to learn!” Alix writhed and tried to open his eyes, but every movement brought immense pain. “So much to study! So many secrets in the universe I haven’t unlocked yet! I only ever tried to help all life on—”

“That’s a lie,” said another voice. An elephant’s trunk was spraying the fires with a serious amount of water, while another tried to clear the doorway. “You expect Feria to still love you? To let you ‘help’ us? After she finds out what you’ve been doing?”

Permiox made helpless circles around his dying father, not even caring about the fires. Alix moaned: “I can do this because I know I’ll have Feria’s love. Forever and always. If you let me die … oh, the wrath of the godchildren will fill your nightmares!”

A trunk shot through a gap in the burned walls. It snatched Chamtaid, the chameleon who finally decided his name, and rescued him.

Alix turned to his son. “Save me then! Freeze my life! Don’t look at the wounds, no, no, don’t care about them, I’ll be fine, as long as I live.”

Streamers of purple and blue smoke appeared around Permiox. His body seemed electrified.

“No,” he mumbled. “No! I promised never to do it again. Look what happened then!”

“I am your father!” yelled Alix. “I demand it! Freeze my health with your powers, do it. For me. For Feria. Freeze your own health too. We will survive. We will …”

Alix coughed and stopped moving. “We will visit those beautiful faraway planets Feria talked about. We will study the magical depths of the oceans. We will discover why gravity is the way it is, son, there must be a fascinating reason, like … like …”

Permiox kept preparing a spell, kept crying for his father, but never executed it.

All that left him was a small trickle of magic. A river through the air, if you will, that was blown away by the fires, out of the hideout.

Permiox looked up at Wilplink. Together they might have saved Alix. He could have lowered the chances of him dying here to near zero. The elephant firefighters just outside might have saved Alix, if they didn’t hate the fox too.

Ruby captured, Mmhmmhmm dead, Boaris gone, the war likely a true nightmare now. Just accept you’re a criminal. The world doesn’t care about you; and you don’t care about the world.

“I don’t care. I don’t care anymore,” were Wilplink’s final words. He reduced the chances of burning to death, lost all expression in his face, then stepped through the fires and fled.

For hours and hours, Chamtaid and helpers had carried leaky buckets of water. Not much was left when they reached the fire, but enough to slowly fight back the flames. Dilova’s restaurant was saved. So were most of the homes in Amor, except the largest ones in the Richersoul district.

One might wonder why they didn’t carry water using objects that did not leak. That might have had something to do with a wayward fox spell that drifted through he firefighting efforts. They tried cups, they tried carts, they tried everything, but they all leaked at exactly the same rate and in exactly the same way. While some had wanted to give up, a chameleon shrugged and kept going anyway, and soon the only occupation in Amor had been that of a firefighter.

Still, Amor saw many casualties. Food became even more scarce. Materials were lacking to rebuild most homes, as they had been used to create weapons or repair the city wall after another fight.

It was by no means the darkest day the gods had ever experienced. But it was another one, and the sheer number of souls lost started to weigh on them.

The jeweler’s shop was one of the homes that was destroyed again in the fire. Nobody had expected the rhino to be alive. He had been sitting on the floor, unmoving, still mumbling how much he didn’t care. When they removed the rubble, though, they found he didn’t even have a scratch. The walls had collapsed in such a way as to create a small tent of safety around the jeweler.

“Goodness. What are the chances of that?” said Ollimo.

In response, the rhino merely stared into the distance and mumbled: “Nobody defeats the Tamli kings.”

In the days that followed, many victims of Alix had recovered their passion. Somebody reminded them of why they woke up every day, of why they did what they did, and at some point the color would return in their fur.

Everyone except the jeweler. His home was gone, his business gone, and nobody could pay for luxuries any time soon, anyway. He had no answers.

Dilova briefly tried to recruit him as her second waiter, joining her father with his broken mind. But where her father had good days and bad days, the rhino only had … nothing days. As they sent the rhino back to Garda, where the Tamli civilization could care for him, they met Boaris again.

The boar took one good look, then sighed as if he’d seen this a million times before. “Well, that’s the risk you take, isn’t it?”

“What?” asked Ollimo. Permiox sat on his back, and he had personally saved him from the collapsing building. Alix, however, could not be saved. “Why can’t his passion return? Permiox claims his father did nothing different.”

“Why, Ollimo, do you and your father risk your life, and work so hard, to fight fires?”

He knew the answer with certainty now. “Because we feel it’s the right thing to do. Because it saves the lives of the innocent.”

“Why did the jeweler have so many diamonds, and gold, and the biggest house?”

“I … don’t know,” said Ollimo.

“I suppose he wanted rewards,” said Boaris. He greeted the godchildren in the distance with a grim expression. “But if you only do things because others reward you for it, with thanks or money, then you put control over your life in their hands. You’ll stop doing anything when rewards do not come. You … die when nobody is there to see you and applaud you.”

Ollimo shivered. Feria ran up to him and hugged her son before he even touched the ground. A grim nod by the elephants confirmed her worst fears.

They say Feria’s wail was audible as far as her personal throne in Garda, and its echoes reverberated through the universe until even her cursed Father, sitting smugly in the Heavenly Palace, all the way on the other side, suddenly felt his heart stop and a sense of dread that nothing could dispel.

She and her son retreated and were barely seen again for the remainder of The First Conflict.

The gods, and their troops, had all but abandoned Amor. Ruby was still chained, stuck inside the net, and on her way to Pendulum Prison. And she was still fighting those chains.

Amor assigned official firefighting duties to the elephants. They quickly received the money to build a proper fire truck, and animals from all over the Amori Republic arrived to offer their special services. Camels proved extremely useful in storing water. Giraffes were great for sticking their head in hard-to-reach places. Miraculously, their fire alarm network now actually included an extra bit of information telling you where the fire was taking place.

Surely, they said, Amor would never burn again.

The family of gods had barely spoken, until Ruby was safely secured inside Pendulum Prison. A beacon of engineering and energy containment that not even a massive dragon-like creature could escape.

Ruby pleaded. She pushed herself against the boundaries, even as it hurt her, to look in Ardex’ eyes.

“No,” was all he said after a long silence. “Rules are rules. Laws are laws.”

“We can … look the other way,” tried Feria.

“I know you can,” said Ardex with a sneer. “I can’t.”

“Please,” said Feria. “Don’t let me grieve alone. Don’t push us even further apart.”

She looked around, feeling as if she spoke for all her siblings.

“You pushed us apart when you made your own fireflickering throne on another continent!” bellowed Ardex. “When you ignored our own laws to have Alix—”

“Don’t you dare say his name!”

Feria cried again and stepped away, making herself as small as Gulvi. Her youngest brother, a dolphin, God of Water.

“If there was ever a time for unity,” said Bella, a beautiful raccoon, soothingly. “It is now.”

“Amor is half-dead and half-ruined,” said Ardex. “My … my first child to be is …”

“And the love of my life has perished,” mumbled Feria, “alongside thousands of souls in Amor alone. Even Chamtaid, carrying leaky buckets until the end of time, makes more progress than we do.”

“Because we’re flying between two streams,” said Cosmo, “and can’t pick which one to follow. We fight, we kill, we defend ourselves. But we don’t use all our power, and we don’t do what needs to be done, because it would kill too much life.”

“So?” said Ardex. He glanced back at Ruby a final time, as his first true love smashed her massive wings into the pendulums.

Ruby had been convicted easily. Initially, based on the detailed eye witness account of the elephants. But the number of unlawful and dangerous missions of the so-called Rescue Squad stretched back for years. Even the assassination of some leaders turned out to be her doing.

And so Ruby, the firebird who vowed to deliver freedom for all, would never be free again. Nothing was going to change her world.

Steam left Ardex’ nostrils. “So? Which stream do we choose? Do I go to Amor right now and mercilessly burn the whole thing to the ground? Or …”

“We retreat,” said Bella, when nobody else wanted to say it. “Preserve life, ignore all else.”

“I mean,” said Feria with a lump in her throat, “that’s what they want, isn’t it? Keep fighting so much, so long, that there’s not enough life force left to sustain us. I agree fully with Bella. We stop giving them what they want.”

“How?” said Ardex. “We can’t even stop our own civil war. Gulvi’s fanatic fishes are probably killing Feria’s fox loyalists as we speak.”

“Every war is a civil war,” said Bella immediately. “We all descend from the same parents, long long ago. Every war is selfish, and self-destructive, and silly. We’re all the same family, that’s a fact.”

“If nobody remembers their common ancestors, because it’s so long ago,” said Ardex, his fur spiky from rage. “Then you are practically a different folk. That’s a fact.”

“How long is that?” asked Bella. “Give me a number.”

Ardex shook his head and played with his second Heavenmatter. A frozen flame called the Flamefeaster, which he carried hidden in his fur. Some time ago he’d asked Ismaraldah, the Time Traveler, to modify it and save him from tears. It seemed he was still right to ask for that curse. It was the only way, the only way …

He thought of Ruby as he touched it.

“No more battles,” mumbled Feria.

“No more battles,” mumbled Ardex.

There was no God of War, but he would’ve been the ideal candidate. He’d helped Alixader the Giant, planned their earliest battles, learned from the best tactical fighters—a group of Gosti that called themselves Gorrillas.

“No head-on fighting,” he continued. “No unleashing of powers if it could kill innocents. We hide. We sneak. We take cover. So long as nobody touches us, nobody dies by our paw. Gorrilla warfare.”

For the first time in some hundreds of years, it seemed they all agreed on something.

The gods retreated. Everyone loyal to them was told to flee, to hide, to leave nothing behind but save themselves. They would not be sharing their whereabouts anymore. They would not be meeting the enemy head-on for a large battle, despite still having the largest magical powers.

Though unspoken, it seemed they all agreed on the consequences too. They might lose The First Conflict; but it would be a victory if they saved most life on Somnia in doing so.

And so it was that life continued …