The not-immortal Blacksmith

Maxwell

Wildreach, Sorina Province, Kingdom of Garthia.

20th of Amsiel.

2290 Years since the New gods came.

Addendum - Grendel IS in trouble. He seems to have swindled the wrong person, in the form of an angry bandit leader. Thus far, all he has received is death threats. But 100 gold is a fairly large sum to swindle from someone.

I gave him my best advice: Refund the money, or kill the guy. He said he will think about it. While I don’t approve of swindling people, I think Grendel needs to learn this lesson the hard way. I wish him luck.

23rd of Amsiel,

Grendel is now in actual trouble. The bandit had his friends “have a word” with him. I’m surprised they actually found him. I will see if I can find someone in his area to lend him a hand, and bring him here.

24th of Amsiel,

Found someone. Hahahahaha

*-*-*

Grendel ran down the alley, hooked a left, and climbed the convenient rope to the top of the roof. Once he had pulled the rope up, he started running the ridgeline and jumping from roof to roof. Below him he could hear the sounds of pursuit fading into the distance.

A few more minutes of running and jumping found him in his temporary loft. He sighed, and let the air properly refill his lungs. Then he looked up as a shadow fell over him. “Huh? What? I didn do nothin!” He all but yelled before turning to stare at the shadows cause.

As smoke drifted around Grendel, the dark shape spoke, “Little boy, you have done plenty.”

*-*-*

25th of Amsiel,

Grendel should be here in a week or less. So should Brandywine’s stupid cat, Fluffles or whatever its name was. I’m surprised it stuck with Grendel as long as it did. I will need to warn the school about Grendel, as he likes to randomly appropriate things.

29th of Amsiel,

Grendel is…interesting. He hasn’t even been here a day, and he is on a first name basis with all of the apprentices and kitchen staff. I hope things work out well for him here. Not that I’m going to leave him behind when we leave, but I think it will be good for him to have friends his own age.

*-*-*

El Gato, God King of Cats, Doves, Mice, and All that he surveys, was wandering down a forest path as he was want to do. He could hear, faintly, the sound of animals following him in the distance, but paid it no mind. Animals are someone else’s problem, he thought. He wandered into a small clearing and lay down in a perfectly placed sunbeam to take a nap.

If he had stayed awake, he would have heard the following conversation:

Voice 1: Rat! What do your scouts report?

Voice 2: Yes Wolf! The target is laying in a sunbeam a hundred yards ahead. Appears to be sleeping.

Voice 3: Raptor reports that target hasn’t moved for twenty minutes.

Voice 1: Very good. Inform Mr. Clucks!

A few minutes later an assemblage of small gods arrived in their “Mortal” forms, and slunk towards the sleeping target. As they approached, some of the smaller ones jumped when the targets tail began to lash. The more stout hearted didn’t even breathe harder. Finally, Mr. Clucks approached the sleeping target.

“El Gato! You are hereby charged with the murder and consumption of two gods! How do you plead?” Mr. Clucks crowed.

El Gato raised his head towards the noise, and slowly opened his good eye before answering, “Meh.” Then he closed his eye again and dropped his head back to his paws.

“You will answer to us, Or you will face our divine retribution!” Mr. Clucks crowed even louder, even scratching the dirt for emphases.

El Gato raised his head again and stared at the rooster. “Look, birb; as I see it, You have two choices. 1) Go away and I will keep ignoring you. 2) F around and find out.”

Mr. Clucks threw his head back and laugh/clucked to the rest of the gods in attendance. “I see we have a scaredy cat on our claws! Too afraid to face judgment!”

El Gato slowly stood to his full height of a scant foot at the shoulder, and stretched his sinewy body, along with a yawn. Then he turned to the group and smiled a big toothy smile. (At this point, knowing what might happen next, the smallest of the gods and their followers slowly crept from the assemblage.)

“Look you ignorant dolts. Do you know WHY cats were not allowed in the celestial realm? Not even a god?” El Gato asked, then started to clean his left paw. “Because we would out compete all of you for followers. We would also EAT all of you.”

“Blasphemy!” Several members of the assemblage roared to the sky.

“Now, I will give you the choice a second time. Either leave well enough alone, or FIND OUT.”

“I don’t think you are taking this seriously, cat.” Mr. Clucks cackled. “There are dozens of us, and only one of you. We WILL win.”

El Gato looked at the bird through his one slitted eye, “I would suggest asking Rat what happens when you corner a rat, but it looks like he, at least, is off the menu today.”

The gods looked behind them, only to see that the smaller gods had seemed to vanish along with their followers. Aside from Raccoon and Opossum, who were sitting in a tree, sharing a large tub of what seemed to be some sort of puffed grain that was covered in salt and butter. Each one was wearing a strange shirt and waiving a small flag with a “C” on it.

Wolf stepped forward to the right of Mr. Clucks, “We may have lost the least of us, but we will prevail.”

“Last chance.” El Gato stated, as he started to groom his right paw. “Leave or find out.”

Snake, the longest of the present gods, slithered up to Mr. Clucks’ left. “We will ssseee you eaten, cat!”

El Gato let out a deep sigh, a sigh that parents the world over know all too well, “Thrice asked, and thrice denied.” He looked up to the heavens. “I warned them! I really tried!” He looked back to the gods in front of him. “Where I am from,” He started to grow, “We weren’t formed whole from the cloth of the universe, or at the hands of gods.”

His legs lengthened. “We had to evolve from lesser things to greater things.” His tail grew longer and more sleek. “We grew and changed with the environment.” His body gained length and mass. “Adapt or die.”

His head grew to the proper proportions for his body, except for his teeth, which kept growing, becoming serrated like a shark, and the K9s, which became like daggers. “And because we domesticated ourselves, all of our history is still in our bones.” He formed a magnificent mane around his neck.

“With the two gods I have, accidentally I will add, eaten come more benefits.” His front paws changed to each have almost figures ending in razor sharp claws. “And then there are these.” A pair of white wings unfurled from his back. “As they say in the world I am from, “You F-ed around, now you Find Out.”

In the still silence of the clearing, a leaf slowly made its way to the ground. When it impacted with a nearly silent crunch, El Gato pounced.

*-*-*

Ghondish pointed at the viewing stone, “This. This is why we had a “NO CAT” rule up here!” The council looked on with fascinated horror as the small gods of animals were, in a word, slaughtered. Not just slaughtered, destroyed, by the 21 hand, 1600+ pound, modified Smilodon.

*-*-*

Raccoon and Possum waved their little flags in victory as El Gato, back to his normal size, fastidiously cleaned his paws. He looked around the blood-stained clearing, shook his head, and sighed. “I warned them. I tried. I really did.”