The Immortal's Warrior The Coming Storm

Chapter 3

Neria stared at the storm, willing it to dissipate. It, of course, didn't. She didn't have that power, she didn't really have any power at all, despite what she let the Vuasnu people believe. When Neria had awoken she had been furious, screaming the name 'Seth,' and somehow shattered the stone sarcophagus she had been entombed in so it was easy to see why the believed her powerful, but a goddess? The thought was attractive to Neria, but she couldn't force herself to believe it. The fact that she had some sort of power was clear, and if the Vuasnu's records were accurate than she was supposed to have a lot but Neria could tell, her power had not been so transcendent that she had been immortal. Something she neglected to mention to the small village that had built itself around her while she slept.

Neria's gaze shifted from the storm to the shotty huts with the humans milling about them. It wouldn't exactly be easy to fess up to them, anyway. Not only were they very simple people, but Neria had also more or less exploded out of the stone sarcophagus with waves of violet power flaring around her, and was a Dark Elf to boot; from what she could gather, elves in general were far and few in between and already she could recall that Dark Elves had always been more secluded than their brethren, stronger, too. In the era she found herself in now, it was clear Dark Elves were either regarded as myth or mere speculation so her natural strength and abilities were more than impressive to the humans, to say the least. Besides, whether she had fessed up from the beginning or not, Neria knew it would be dangerous if the humans found out.

While her memories were utterly lost from before her slumber, Neria found she still knew things. Language and common knowledge like everyday items were obvious, but she also specific details that she realized must have once been relevant to her. Among these things was an intricate knowledge of religion and in relevance to her current situation, how fanatically religious people would react if the basis of their faith was slandered and destroyed, and the Vuasnu people were definitely fanatics. To try to tell them she wasn't a goddess, much less theirs, would put her in danger whether they were humans or not, especially considering she would basically be telling them she wasn't all-powerful at the same time. In the end, Neria simply decided that the reward of deceiving them far outweighed the risk of them knowing the truth no matter how they found out.

A bolt of lightning arced across the sky, drawing Neria's attention back to the growing storm. Concern pushed through her once again, though she refused to let it show. Neria and this other goddess, Seth, were supposed to be mortal enemies and remembering the way in which she woke up, Neria was inclined to believe it. This, of course, meant that the Vuasnu and Wekato people were enemies, which was a growing problem. Her village, thinking it would please her, had been increasingly harassing the Waketo village ever since she woke and generally causing a whole slew of problems. As a powerless 'goddess,' Neria didn't appreciate this at all and she was certain neither did Seth. The problem her people didn't seem to grasp was that Neria was a Goddess of Whispers, Deceit, the Web Spinner, and had an affinity for spiders while her counterpart, Seth, was the Goddess of Storms. Neria's titles were plenty but none implied power like the Goddess of Storms, especially while a monster of a storm was rolling in fast from the horizon. At first it seemed like a small wisp on the edge of the world but over the past dozen minutes the storm's growth was exponential and it was now bearing down on them.

From what she had heard, Neria had thought that Seth had awoken equally as powerless as herself, yet as she stood atop the barricade that surrounded the Vuasnu village, staring out at the storm, Neria could feel the ethereal energies within and was getting a sickening feeling that she had been wrong. Neria was far from being a meteorologist but she still maintained a strong enough connection to magic to know that the storm before her had been magically made and her temper flared from the thought. The village of the Vuasnu people were built primarily along the edge of the river and usually they didn't fear flooding; the river was fed by the run-off of a large lake as well as by smaller streams flowing into it. The region did have a fair amount of rainfall which caused the river to raise, but the black, silt-sands of the lake above marked the highest point the waterline would reach along the bank and thusly marking where not to build. It was incredibly effective at keeping the Vuasnu people safe from the dangers building along a river can come with, however, that black silt didn't mark the limits of the flooding sure to come. Once the storm began its torrent, the lake and small streams would undoubtedly swell rapidly and produce a flash flood the region had probably never seen before and more likely than not, obliterate Vuasnu village. Neria couldn't think of a thing to do about it, any action she could take that might quell the situation ended with her lack of power getting exposed, and everything else she thought of was a bluff that would probably result similarly but with the added possibility that she offend Seth.