The Gamer Chapter 1505 – Divided Gates Meeting 10 – The Celestials (Patreon)

“Lady Luna.” John bowed his head in deep respect. Among the ruling trio of the world, the emperor and his celestial familiars, the Gamer had the most respect for the slender moon goddess.

Sol was… well, John found himself calmly agreeing with Nathalia’s assessment that the platinum blonde sun goddess was on the bitchy side of things. Not incredibly unreasonable, just a tad overbearing, like combining Aclysia on her worst day with the aforementioned dragoness. Sol was smart, no doubt; powerful, doubtlessly; but she was also prideful to a fault, protective, and demanding.

Romulus, on the other hand, was an odd mixture of a grandiose historical figure and a hero John had met. The flaws of the man were apparent and he simultaneously seemed to refute them with every drawn breath and confirm them with every action taken. As far as a human went, Romulus was as good a ruler of the world as one could have asked for, for the past ten millennia. He was still, however, a human, and John found himself to be thankful that Gaia put limitations on him.

Luna was different from those two in a number of ways. She was distant and subtle, where Sol was bright and omnipresent. In that way, the celestial duo certainly fit their individual heavenly bodies. Even if the light of the moon touched everything as much as the sun’s did, the lunar cycle kept its influence sometimes hooded, sometimes made it obvious, and so too did the goddess make herself known or unknown as she pleased.

She was graceful, controlled, her smile never exceeding the little curve of mild amusement. Silver eyes sparkled with the might of the empyrean, as did the cascading, deep blue dress she wore, covered in stars. A match to Sol’s light blue, gold-striped choice of attire.

All of that on its own may not have been enough for John’s respect for the moon goddess to go that deep. What truly did it was that she was, like him, a schemer. She had known the Horned Rat and Nathalia had visited him back when he had first been in Rome, she had helped shape Lydia into the monarch she was today, and she absolutely was aware of the various times John had dropped off the radar today. Luna was wise, where Sol was headstrong and Romulus ambitioned. They made for a trio that conquered the world.

Luna was also the one of the three that had been outspokenly against her man’s plan to try and eradicate Gaia’s control over reality. She had still gone along with it, for the same reasons John both had support for his own schemes and gave it to others, even if he wasn’t fully on board. He wasn’t certain if he could convince his harem to follow him into an action that could potentially kill hundreds of thousands of people, but who knew? As the millennia rolled on, things could develop that way.

John hadn’t been in the driver’s seat for long enough to judge how grand his ambitions could get.

“A courteous nod is not an answer to my question,” Luna responded with a melodious chuckle.

“You could say I had my fun, yes,” John responded with a little smile of his own.

“Splendid, then I can take your time. Would you walk the gardens with me? I am particularly proud of the sylvan lilies.” Luna gestured in the direction of many of the pathways that led away from the amphitheatre.

John sensed that she wanted to talk about something important, so he took the invitation. “You are the gardener?” he asked, letting surprise flow into his voice.

“Not on my lonesome.” Luna’s response similarly contained a controlled amount of flattered happiness. For several dozen metres, they just chatted about the various flowers and what the moon goddess had worked on.

Eventually, they turned a corner, walking down a half-overgrown path that ultimately led to a reclusive, labyrinthine set of paths that cut through the taller plants. Luna barely managed to move her slender frame through without brushing the hanging leaves. John, for the first time in his life, felt like he had actually broad shoulders.

Around them hung thick, waxy leaves and silver flowers that opened from nearly closed chalices into gorgeous, six-petalled flowers when he made contact with them. Whenever he did so, they let out a little, melodic sound. “Gorgeous, aren’t they?” Luna asked. “The petals absorb sounds as they grow, then let them out as music. Whatever is discussed in the presence of these plants is deciphered in a way impossible to reconstruct.” Her voice suddenly dropped from its melodious pitch to a darker, more serious tone. “I have tried.”

“That’s one way to tell me you want to have a private conversation with me.” They stopped, suddenly, in the tiniest of clearings, just big enough to contain a grey stone statue of a gargoyle holding up a birdbath. Luna turned around and mustered John with silvery eyes as hard as moonrock.

“I have been your benefactor in small ways many times before, John Newman,” Luna whispered in her even voice, for effect rather than necessity. “Sol distrusted you for the two of us. Since you started to win her over, it is now on me to distrust you for myself.”

“I’m supposed to believe you didn’t have reservations before?” John asked, only after Observe had confirmed what she had said about the sylvan lilies. “We’re smart, you and I, we know that-“

“Stop.” Luna cut him off with a motion of her hand. She put a hand to her forehead and sighed slowly. A sound like a ray of silver light piercing the clouds at midnight. “You do not know anything about what smart meant when I ascended,” the moon goddess responded. “Back then, people lived in small tribes of a few hundred at most, dozens in most cases. What you call intelligent doubt, I call the irreverent consequence of a society that is groaning under its own weight.”

John remained quiet as he mulled over that statement. He had never quite thought about it like that. Back in the days in which tribes were the organizing principle, the bonds must have been much stronger just by necessity. To run into another ‘pack’ of humans would have been rare, all that time ago. What must it have been like, to slowly lose that, and in return gain the cushy backstabbing that modern prosperity and politics enabled?

A lot of Romulus’ political simplicity suddenly made a lot more sense to John. Either he had never fully adapted to the paradigm that had emerged or, more likely, he yearned for the days when it had all been that much simpler.

It was no wonder he had reacted to his brother’s betrayal like he did. Treachery from the in-group must have stung much worse back then. John, his entire life, had to deal with bullies and reputation sabotage. He often felt weirder about people being immediately trustworthy than the other way around.

‘How strange to consider there are those that didn’t have to think of that,’ John thought, with a little twinge of envy. “What do you want to know?” he asked sincerely, perhaps a little inspired to act the part.

“Is Remus coming back?”

The question was straight to the point and John perhaps betrayed the answer by saying and showing nothing at all. ‘Of course, they have their theories,’ he thought. He had known as much, he just had not expected to be confronted so directly. “What makes you ask that?”

“Oracles and whispering moonlight, darkness where we should be able to peer, your reaction to the tale of Prometheus and your avoidance of this topic altogether.” Luna’s eyes softened to the silver of starlight reflecting in a rippling pond. “I know you agree with his outcomes, even if his methods were terrible. You have too much of an ego to not throw that in my Rom’s face at times.”

“No one ever gets to choose the world they inherit, only what they do with it. Had it been about preventing most of what Remus did, I would likely have stood by Romulus’ side… but we are here now.”

“Indeed, we are and I must know what I should prepare for,” Luna spoke insistently. “Understand that, for all my disagreements with Romulus, I do still love him and this… this has the potential to leave him hurt.”

John pressed his lips together. Even if she wasn’t his woman, the sight of Luna’s vulnerable, pleading face made his soul tremble. This here was a goddess, but even she just had simple wishes. Who did not want to spare their loved ones pain, or at least cushion its impact?

“Can you give me your word that Romulus will never try to act against Gaia again?” the Gamer asked. The question was met with defeated silence. “Then I cannot answer your question.”

That he already had, in large part, did not matter. Remus’ position was still under wraps and Luna would not allow Romulus to forge ahead randomly. Personally, John wouldn’t have been happy to have secrets like this hidden from him by any of his haremettes, but he was in no position to criticize a relationship that had lasted about 5000 times longer than his own.

Perhaps Romulus really was capable of deeper trust than John. Perhaps Luna was more trustworthy than any of John’s women. He liked neither thought, but the former seemed much more likely. Maybe there was also an element of Romulus understanding that he needed a broker near him that did not share everything with him immediately.

“…But,” the Gamer added quietly, “…if I were you… I would trust my instinct.”

Luna closed her eyes and gave a tiny nod. “Displeasing,” she muttered, then suddenly reached into the air next to her. She pulled out a crystal, of some kind, glowing with displeasing tones of brown, red, and two shades of white, one sickly, one sterile. John instinctively hated looking at it. He almost refused to even touch it, but Luna extended it towards him expectantly.

“What is it?” John asked. Observe bounced off it with such intensity that he got a three second headache. Not strong enough to overwhelm his senses, just enough for him to pull back his shoulders for that displeasing stretch. ‘It’s been a long while since something has been able to ward off my intel gathering.’

“Does its true purpose evade your eyes?” Luna’s question was curious and hopeful.

John had deliberately not said out loud that it did, that was giving away free intel, but now he had to answer to know what it was. “Yes.” One and clear word. Luna had decided not to play games; the best he could do was extend the same courtesy.

Luna’s little smile returned. “Knowing the current extent of your power will likely not serve me for long,” she told him. “The crystal holds a trace of Mengele’s aura. Put it away.” John did and the moon goddess then pulled at his sleeve, to make them relocate. “It is unlikely someone was tracing for it at this time, but you never know.”

“Why did you… ah.” John stopped himself in asking what he would need that crystal for. “If I give it to Lorelei…”

“The Golden Rose ever did produce the most capable of seers,” Luna confirmed what her thoughts on that item’s best usage were. “Just a scrap of clothing is often enough for them to get an idea of the location of the wicked. For one shrouded in obscuring effects like Mengele, more will be necessary.”

“Thank you,” John said grimly.

“Repayment for the degree of honesty I could reasonably expect.” Their path through the undergrowth eventually brought them to a pavilion, its sides and roof entirely covered in foliage. Here, too, there was a statue holding a pool of water at the centre. This time, it was one of Luna herself. A magical light embedded in the wooden roof reflected in the pool, silvery as the celestial body her Faith was inspired by. “Sol and Romulus will join us in a little bit,” the moon goddess warned. “I have called them. Could you bring Stirwin here? There is a matter that requires all of our attention.”

John could guess what matter that was and it had only been a matter of time before it would have been part of some larger discussion, so he nodded and reached out to his light spirit. ‘On my way,’ the crocodile responded in his juvenile voice, zipping across the distance incorporeally.

Soon enough, Stirwin laid across John’s lap, both of them on one side of the benches that surrounded the inside of the pavilion’s walls. Then, Sol and Romulus appeared through the brushes. The emperor had sized down to a ‘mere’ two metre height, to move about more easily.

The need to know was practically burned into the Apex’s face. Even if Luna would not share the answer with her man, she would have shared the question, in some form, and it wasn’t like Romulus himself was mindless. Both John and Luna remained stone-faced, and so all Romulus got out of his staring was a lack of confirmations.

Sol let out a disgruntled sigh. “You should just tell us,” she complained quietly. A lack of conviction, for the usually so outspoken goddess. A hint of disagreement, perhaps, on what Romulus had done to his brother?

In any case, the imperial duo sat down opposite of John and Stirwin, the birdbath between them. A sparrow did actually choose that moment to swoop in and wash its feathers, but it was gone again within a few seconds. Between Sol and Luna, Romulus put his arms around his two women.

For all the differences in how John chose to run his relationship from the ‘mere’ three-way romance of the Apex, the way Romulus’ hands settled on the curve of their wide hips was the same. Silver and gold eyes turned to him with warmth and love, kisses were pressed from pale and brownish pink lips on his broad shoulders, then they rested their heads against him. There was the picture of security and unity that every man dreamed of forming with a woman. For the two great men in the pavilion, they had gotten the option to have several, but John would not have regretted his life choices if he had only one to create that scene with.

“Celestial Devourer,” Romulus' deep voice formed those two words with all the weight they deserved. “You have devoured the god of stars already, I understand?”

“Indeed,” Stirwin responded. In his diminished form, above that of a hatchling by merely 1 Stage, his voice retained a squeaky tone, but there was still a hint of the ancient wisdom within. Of the four ancients present, the Celestial Devourer was the oldest, even if the majority of his life had been lived through other eyes and ears. “And as prophecy implies, your loves will one day follow.”

It was not a threat, just the sober observation that made this conversation necessary.

“If you would allow, I would wish to experiment,” Romulus stated. “Whether or not I can draw the Faith of Enki out of you.”

“To what end?” the crocodile asked, its silver eye directed at the Apex.

“To measure the aftermath of us ever coming to blows,” Romulus stated, his gaze wandering up to meet John’s. “There is an inevitability to immortals in the same world fighting. Should it be that our confrontation might lead to the death of my beloved...” The Apex squeezed the pair of goddesses closer to himself. “…you understand the fury with which I will fight to prevent the possibility. The dirty means I will employ, just to avoid the happenstance, and the-“

John raised his hand haltingly. “You don’t need to explain to me why you would want to protect your women,” he said with more sincerity than what he had brought up even during his previous conversation with Luna. “If there is anything in the world that I share with anybody else, then it is that concern. If Stirwin is alright with it, you can run your experiment.”

The Celestial Devourer contemplated for a second, then raised his head out of his summoner’s lap. He jumped down and trotted across the two-metre divide. “To prevent the worst,” the crocodile stated. In the dog-like way he sat on his hindquarters, the differences between him and actual crocodiles already became apparent.

“You have my gratitude,” the Godslayer declared and reached down. In a gesture casual and brutal, he snapped a tooth out of Stirwin’s mouth. A little streak of silver oozed out from the open wound. As the gash closed, the silver traced after Romulus, who inspected it with interest. It consolidated into a little star that seemed intent on fusing with the Apex, before dancing back to Stirwin.

“I let you rip that from my essence,” the Celestial Devourer informed, before trotting back. He left with some HP down, but the Faith was still stored inside him.

“Knowing that it is an option is enough,” Romulus said, tangible relief in his voice. “I propose a pact, John Newman, between you and I, to safeguard what we can.” With a little gesture, John asked the Apex to continue. “Should we ever come to blows, and should you ever devour my Sol and Luna successfully, you will return to me their Faith in their entirety, after the violence has ended. In return, I will abstain from slaying Nathalia and Nightingale, leaving them diminished but alive, and at the end of the war, shall return their Faith as you would for me.”

John let out a held breath, then allowed himself a broad smile. “This seems lopsided in my favour, although I assume you have ways to bring them back as long as you have their energy.”

“So we hope,” Romulus responded.

“I’ll gladly add the promise that Stirwin and I will attempt to not devour or kill them in the first place.” John exchanged a quick glance with the crocodile, as he leapt back up to the bench. A little nod, then pleased squeaks when the Gamer scratched his light spirit under the chin. “I understand that the realities of battle might make this impossible, especially if our disagreements manifest with such intensity that absolute victory is the only possibility. Still, I would want victory in the history books. I would not want to kill your heart.”

John returned his gaze to Romulus, who took his hands off the waists of his two partners. Both men rose, walked one step, and shook hands. No magic, no further words, not even a signed paper. This pact was too momentous for any of that to contain it. It was an agreement, between two rulers of the world, to minimize the tragedy of war.

John could only be thankful that his main rival was such a reasonable person.