“Oh Great Thantophor, we beg for your assistance!”
Arkadin rubbed his eyes as he rolled over. There was a very small, furry creature standing by his hand, dressed in tattered black and yellow robes. Blood caked its paws, one of which was holding a staff with a small skull on it.
“How did you get here?”
The creature whimpered a little. They were clearly terrified and way out of their depth. But they pushed away their fear and tried to explain.
“We followed your summoning rituals. We followed your guide, so we may have an audience with you!”
The Thantophor glanced around at his surroundings. He was in a very cramped temple. In fact, his appearance had accidentally knocked down a couple of pillars, and more fuzzy little creatures were trying to clean up the mess. Behind the creature who was obviously their leader, a pile of bones and recently sacrificed bodies were piled up, with small yellow flowers sprinkled around.
“Oh… Wait, I have summoning rituals?” Arkadin wanted to move, but was scared he’d knock down more of the temple. “Oh… I remember now. Kinisis insisted we all have ways of being summoned… Did you really skin and dismember twenty of your truest enemies and make a pyramid from their remains, just to get me to come here?”
The leader of the creatures nodded. “It was hard work. We lost many… But the sacrifices were required to bring you here… We desperately need your help.”
“You need my help with what? Because if it has anything to do with necromancy, I will smite the lot of you.”
“No! No!” the creature stuttered. “None of that! We followed the rituals carefully! We had no other option but to summon you as the other deities would not hear our prayers!”
Arkadin shrugged. “They don’t listen to most prayers, really. None of us do. We kinda don’t have time to answer individual cries for help. But still, you put all this effort into getting me here, what do you need?”
The creature bowed. As it did so, all the other fuzzy creatures bowed too.
“We wish for you to help us, to free us from our torment by destroying the Skyloi. In return, we will worship you until the end of time.”
The Thantophor cocked his head to one side. “When you say destroy, you mean, you want me to eradicate them?”
“Destroy them, kill them all. They have terrorized us for centuries, killing our men, raping our women, stealing our children. How you kill them, we care not, we just wish to be free from their torment.”
Arkadin shook his head. “I can’t do that. Not in the way you described.”
“But why?”
“Because the Skyloi will come to me in a couple of centuries and ask me to do the same to you.”
“But they deserve punishment!”
“I agree…” Arkadin sighed. “They tortured you and they should be punished. But I can’t just come down and murder every race that has been hurting other races. It would be… unfair. Unjust. Especially when many are in fact innocent. You hate the Skyloi, but it is only their military that has harmed you, their government harmed you. The average Skylos is… well, as trapped as you are. And they will only want revenge after you’ve gone and killed a bunch of them…”
The creatures all looked at each other.
“You are… just as useless as the other deities…” one of them muttered.
Arkadin smiled, raising his hand to pet their leader on the head. “I bet you’re all annoyed that I won’t magically fulfil your wishes. Especially when you’ve offered to worship me. I don’t want you to worship me. And I do want to help you. But I can’t just go and kill everyone. Because then everyone will demand that I kill everyone else. I don’t… want to set a precedence…”
“But what will you do?” the leader asked.
“I won’t leave you empty-handed!” Arkadin shrugged. “But I can give you… Well, it’s hard to explain…”
The Thantophor shook its hand. In front of the leader, a large crate appeared. Inside was a large collection of things, but mostly sheets of paper with things written on them.
“The Skyloi government is what’s hurting you. If you want to escape their torment, then you need to dismantle their government. Killing them all will just make them want to kill you all. Understood?”
The creatures all bowed.
“Thank you, oh great Thantophor. What do you want from us in return?”
Arkadin tutted. “I don’t want anything.”
“Really?”
“Well… I’d like it if you didn’t summon me again. But apart from that, we’re good.”
The creatures all bowed.
Arkadin lowered his head in respect, then disappeared, accidentally taking a bit of the temple with him.