Snippet #2666435

One day, Ahrimas was in his cold underwater cave, dwelling in his thoughts and being surrounded only by them. He was in a particularly out of temper and hopeless mood and suddenly he heard an unusual and disturbing clamoring. The ripples rebelled furiously as he rose to the surface of the water, determined to destroy the source of that abominable sound and plunge even deeper in the sea afterwards, so that nothing can trouble his stillness.

It turned out he was to see the faces of his long forgotten brothers once again. First there was the fire god, Monstrator Incaendium himself, bringing news about his encounter with the earth goddess, Vynnessia.
After having listened to him in silence, Ahrimas spoke:

“Oh brother, who could count how many centuries have gone since I last heard of you? The time wheel keeps spinning, but you are as restless and as industrious as I once knew you. I have heard words and songs about you and the people you lead and I was not disappointed, because we both know humans only live to serve us, their gods, and the number of humans who worship both of us keeps growing day by day, as it should.”

Ahrimas then turned towards his brother Aegis Reveur, the eternal dreamer:

“And there you are too, mighty brother, the thinker, the one who shapes the dreams of the mortals and the one who crafts their nightmares too! Your voice brings the sound of war to my ears and unpleasant rumors about our lost sister Vynnessia.”

And then Ahrimas spoke to both Monstrator and Aegis at the same time, having a solemn voice:

“My brothers! I hear both of you have complaints about Vynnessia and, even though I find those creatures of her to be a plague that has to be erased from the surface of Earth and perhaps a war could be a source of joy for my troubled spirit, I myself have lost the pale ray of enthusiasm I once had, since nothing brings me gratification anymore.
Therefore, I leave these small concerns to the humans and I am thinking of starting to prepare my people for the moment Death will want to take his tribute in human flesh and destroy our reigns. This is what you should do too, so we can be prepared when the moment comes and perhaps unite our forces against the mutual enemy, if our different ways of being will allow it.
Of course, if a god starts thinking of ways to fool the other gods and spread hatred among the rest of us, such a deed should not remain unpunished. Therefore, I will have my Hydra deliver a message to Vynnessia and warn her that our armies can crush her creatures and her worshippers if needed. Even better still, I myself will take care to deliver the message to her in person.
But, my brothers! The most important thing now is to be prepared for the war with the Death god, and therefore I say we don’t start a war now and have unnecessary human losses, but concentrate instead on fortifying our cities and training our soldiers.”

And these were the last things Ahrimas said to his brothers at that moment, because immediately afterwards his material body dissolved in the water and he returned to his underwater fortress.

He ordered his Afarians to train even more and spread underwater, while the human worshippers were supposed to build new cities and villages to the West, so they could populate the nearby peninsula. They had many sources of food there and the Afarians offered them their protection too.

At the same time, all of Ahrimas’ worshippers started organizing public combats in order to train and also discover the most skillful warriors in every city and village. These warriors were schooled in harsh conditions and their sole purpose was war and worshipping Ahrimas. Quite a handful of people died in these combats, but that didn’t bother Ahrimas because his belief was that the weak and the insignificant didn’t even deserve to worship him and that his blessing was meant for the strong and for the undaunted.