Children of a Lesser God

After everyone was settled back into their jobs as though nothing had just happened, a strange, almost invisible wave swept through the room, causing the entire area around the cryptic door to suddenly stop. Everyone within the room quite moving, camera's were frozen in time and even the small, last bits of blood coming out from the sacrifices froze in mid air. It resembled a moment in time, captured by a picture. The only thing that was still active was the door itself, as bits of blood continued to circulate into and out of it, albeit at a slower pace since everything was frozen.

Just as this took place, nine people appeared in the room at the same time. Of the nine, six of them were dressed in an ancient, multicolored armor that seemed to shimmer in the light. The armor appeared like a rainbow had taken physical form, completely engulfing the six figures who stood a respectful distance away from the other three members of the party.

As for these three members of the party, two of them were females, dressed in what looked to be a brown, almost black, form fitted dressed that amazingly appeared both hard and soft at the same time. They both had hair of sparking light blue with pale white skin. The taller of the two woman seemed rather arrogant as she looked around the room at the various people at work, disdain written on her face. The shorter of the two women had already walked over to study the door with the young man who looked like he was taking notes on a large, scroll sized leaf. Compared to the taller woman, the shorter one was far more curvy in the right places, a stark contrast the to seemingly flat and thin taller one.

Had Laz been here, he would have recognized the shorter woman as his patron, jailer, and occasional torturer, A'ruya.

She was leaning over while touching the door as though trying to get a feel for it for herself. The young man, seeing her actions, couldn't help but take a few interested looks at her as she bent over and moved in different ways, causing himself to forget to take his own notes.

"What are you doing?" The taller woman asked, noticing his distraction.

"Oh. I am... uh, just trying to figure out which gateway this is," the man said, clearly distracted. Much like the two girls, the man had short, blue hair, pale white skin and was wearing a two piece outfit of pants made from the same material as the girls dressed while his shirt seemed to be made from a green fabric that seemed much lighter than his pants. On top of that, he wore a sliver band around his wrist that seemed to be the source of the pen and leaf that he was using to write with.

"UH... whatever. Get it over with. Sister, why did you decide to come to do this? Even if you discover something, you can't tell your champions anything about it... or should I say champion. And why do you have only one? You decided to fight for the role of Grand Seer and yet every other candidate has at least five champions they are raising, if not more."

"I told you before big sister, I'm doing this alone and not with the help of the family. They didn't want me to participate in this to begin with, leaving the families resources available for my cousin. So everything that I am doing, I am doing on my own."

"Then... did you need some money? As a branch member, I might not have much but..."

"It's fine. Honestly speaking, none of us really know what we are doing with these creatures to begin with. What's the point in supporting them when everyone is just running around in the dark."

"But your child...?"

"It's up to him to grow stronger. The best I can do is to support him where I am able to as opposed to trying to direct his growth."

"The strongest members of some of the other candidates are already at what they call the spirit palace realm. What about yours?"

"He's at what they call the mid foundation realm."

"That seems very weak, isn't it?" The taller girl asked, full of concern. Maybe when it came to these creatures called humans, she would have negative feelings for them. But to this younger sister of hers, she felt the closeness of family and gratitude of her younger sister being her benefactor.

"He's... more than what he seems on the surface. It's not something we should get into right now."

"So why did you want to come see this door? There have already been others discovered in various places and not only that, but realms without doors have popped up as well. Obviously the ones without doors were ones our ancestors allowed to come and go as they pleased, but after the great wars, it seems like even they closed themselves off. Still, it's only a matter of time before they start coming into this world again. It's not like we are going to be at a loss for visitors soon." The taller girl asked, voicing the questions in her mind.

"We have a duty to figure out what happened after we took off. Since our family discovered this door, we have to be the ones to investigate it since it's in our area. And as you know, the sealed doors are a much greater threat than open realms. But what's more than that, this one might end up being one of the first medium level doors that open thanks to the gods efforts."

"I still don't get why we don't just eliminate these human gods and take over this planet once and for all. We have the strength to do it since most of the planets gods are still sleeping or in a half awakened state."

"Because, the amount of energy we would expend to do that would be a loss we couldn't afford. And the gods of this planet served their purpose back then so there is no reason to believe they will be any different now.".

"Whatever you say little sister. These things are far to complex for me."

"That's alright. Anyway, unless I miss my guess, this is a clockwork realm, is it not?"

"That is correct princess. We just need to determine which level realm it connects to and we should be able to narrow down which door this is based on the old records." The young man writing notes replied.

"Hmm.." A'ruya looked closer, trying to remember the old books she read.

Thinking about it, she waved her hand and several, ancient looking tomes appeared in front of her. She grabbed them one at a time and flipped through the pages before putting them back and shaking her head, obviously not finding what she was looking for.

Right as she was about to close one of the last few books she grabbed out, her eyes lit up.

"Ah. Here it is. Clockwork seals. Door strength is dependent on number of energy gauges used to seal door. Strength of realm can be correlated based on wells used to store energy for open. Door with handles at mid realm and below. Anything without handle is considered high level and far too dangerous as testing ground. Possibility of leading to 'dead' home world. Ok. So... based on the energy storage of this door, it is at a level four so just one step above low level." A'ruya said with certainty.

"Understood princess. Based upon the old records... got it. Yes. Inside door was once a separate realm used as a testing and processing lab. Had been abandoned before our ancestors left the planet. Danger level is considered low despite the strength of the realm itself."

"Alright. Mark it down as having been found and distribute the information to all seats that need to know."

"Right away princess."

"He should be ok with this. But still, being in another realm, especially a locked realm, it will make it hard for me to know what's happening with just the standard seal. I need to strengthen the connection somehow. Especially considering how often he ends up out of my reach. And I should figure out exactly how many connections he's made as well. This human, I'm not sure if he is just horny or if he doesn't understand what the marking means..." A'ruya whispered to herself so quietly that only she heard. She was obviously thinking about Laz, but only she knew what she was planning.

"Alright, we've done what we've come here to do. Let's go." A'ruya said as she started to walk away. The other young man and young woman didn't respond and simply followed along while walking towards the awaiting guards. As soon as they got close, the guards followed in step behind them as they all disappeared, almost as though they had never been there in the first place.

After they left, every bit that had frozen had suddenly come alive again as everyone was almost completely unaware of what took place. Despite that, a few of the stronger chosen that had been present at the scene had drops of cold sweat dripping down their backs, but the source of the worry was completely unknown.

It would only be later that everyone figured out that somehow, half an hour of their lives had disappeared, with clocks having stopped and even the surveillance systems seemed to have frozen. All anyone could do was to attribute it to the strange door since no one had any other explanation.

...

Everyone walked home from work while feeling slightly different things. The girls along with Eddy and Benny were talking about what they wanted to do for dinner as everyone had started acting like they were living together as opposed to being on separate sides of the house. As for Julia and Laz, their minds were focused on what they would do with the council now and what kinds of plans they had to put in place to keep everyone safe. Find authorized s in , faster updates, better experience, Please click <a href="#'s-awake_52406002682741211">#'s-awake_52406002682741211 for visiting.

As the group split up, Laz, Benny and Eddy walked into their side of the apartment and each went to go do their own things for a bit. Laz's thing was to go check on Abraham.

When Laz walked into the room, he noticed Abraham sitting up. Seeing Laz enter, his eyes, which had been unfocused before, suddenly recognized him.

Of all the different emotions Laz thought he would see, he was surprised when he noticed that Abraham looked afraid. Very, very afraid.

"What's wrong?" Laz asked as he looked around, not understanding.

"Nothing. Nothing at all. I'm just... still getting over my cold, that's it. I'm fine though. Completely normal. Yeah..." Laz sensed the fear in his voice while he spoke and then it dawned on him.

Back when he had awoken, the world hadn't really yet began to change. But it was different now. And Abraham would have known that if he was now one of the infected, that he would be treated like a criminal from now on. His whole life would be different. Maybe he had dreamed of living a life like in the shows he used to watch from his sheltered home life, but dreaming of it and doing it were two completely different things.

Seeing this and understanding this, Laz couldn't help but sigh as he smiled. He hoped that Abraham would grow up quickly, otherwise he wouldn't survive for long.