This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/Dominicain on 2024-10-27 23:13:01+00:00.

The gods of the Otrokos were on a pub crawl.

Well, it wasn’t so much of a pub crawl so much as it was a series of violent invasions of other pantheons’ drinking spaces, but that was what passed for a pub crawl on Otrokosia and as below, so above, as it were.

There were five of them. As with all the gods, they reflected the appearance of their worshippers, and in this case they were rather large insect-like beings with razor-sharp mandibles, brutal claws, and overall too many legs. Each of them reflected one of the castes of the Otrokos .

Laer’ka, god of the ruling caste and de-facto leader, licked some divine blood off the edge of a claw.

“Those guys - what were their names?”

Pre’eenla, god of the Warrior Caste, flicked a piece of a broken cornucopia from the joint of his mandible.

“The Glom. They were the gods of the Glom. Not much of a challenge, really”

Vokist, god of the labourer caste, a little more heavily built than the others, joined in.

“Yes, the Glom. Fuzzy lizards, rather…squishy, really.”

The next up was Kaessa; as a scholar god, he was more critical.

“Yeah, and their booze sucked. Let’s find somewhere else”.

The five continued their meanderings, descending deeper into the lower levels of Panthea, the domain of all gods. Word had now got about that the Otrokos pantheon were on a bender and most of the doors were now closed. They spotted a side street that seemed promising.

“Hey! There’s one!” Appropriately, Huga, god of explorers and travellers, had seen something. An open door, set down into the ground, with a dark space beyond. A single neon sign, worn, flickered above the door. Only three of the letters worked.

‘T…RA’

“Works for me!” cried Laer’ka. “Let’s see what kind of pathetic godlings drink down here!”

“Probably some kind of worm-gods” moaned Pre’eenla. “No challenge. Easily go splat.”

“Enough! We drink! We fight! We’re better and they’re going to know it!” Laer’ka smacked Pre’eenla round the back of his head, then clattered down the stairs into the gloom.

It took a moment for them to adjust to the lighting. The first thing to be seen was the bar. It stretched back into the shadows, low lights strung above it giving it shape and form. An array of bottles, glasses, clay jugs, amphorae and other containers covered the back wall. This looked promising!

The five Otrokos pushed up to the bar. A few entities could be seen there. Laer’ka deliberately jostled one.

“Hey, be careful, buddy.”

Laer’ka looked the god up and down. A mammal with an inordinate amount of reddish fur on his face was drinking from a tall, silvery tankard. A toolbag sat under his stool.

“I am NOT your buddy. I am of the gods of the Otrokos!”

“Just sayin’, Otrokos-dude. Don’t want you spilling my mead, y’know?”

“Not my concern. Who are you the gods of, anyway?”

“Oh, we’re the gods of Old Earth, friend. This is our bar.”

“”Never heard of it. Some gloomy silent nowhere-place in the back of beyond, clearly.”

“Not really. It’s very sunny, really. We just like it…peaceful.”

Pre’eenla sniggered at Huga. This looked like an easy mark.

“Peaceful! Hah! What kind of worshippers do you have if you like it peaceful?” he sneered.

“We’re worshipped by humans. Don’t get me wrong, they’re a bit…boisterous. That’s why we like it peaceful, you see.” A slight man, seated next to the red-furred one snorted before taking a sip from his clay cup.

“Yeah, J-man here knows boisterous. Tell him what they did to you.”

The Otrokosians looked at the newly-introduced being. He drank again, a long one this time.

“So, I went down to meet them, see. Lived as a carpenter for a bit, got the lay of the land, then time for ministry. Spread the good word. Faith, hope, charity, love thy neighbor and all that jazz.”

“And how did that go, J-man?”

“Strung me up, didn’t they? Pinned me to, of all things, a ruddy great piece of carpentry, like a bug in a display! No offence, of course.”

Laer’ka goggled at the being. “They attacked you? They attacked a god?”

“Well, I wasn’t a god to them yet. Well, I’m still not, not exactly, but don’t get me started on the Mysteries. They’ve been pounding away at that one for millennia and still haven’t worked it out, but I’m wandering. They thought I was blaspheming, see?”

“Blaspheming?!” Kaessa was confused. “How can you blaspheme?”

“Well, I was a new god, you see. And they thought I was committing a crime against the old god, who ironically is my dad. Thus whip, thorns, two big bits of wood, hammer, nails, spear. Wasn’t fun, I can tell you.”

“A new god?” All the Otrokosians were now confused. Pantheons were supposed to be fixed. You appeared, you were worshipped, the people obeyed your commandments and knew their place. All this was VERY odd.

“Yeah, a new god. Courtesy of dad there.” The man gestured to the bar. Another much larger being stood behind it, polishing a glass. He was hard to see, blurring between forms.

“And who are you, father-god?” questioned Laer’ka.

“I’m…” What came out next was a blurt of noise, several names together along with a sound of trumpets and a sensation of the ground shaking. “I’m also the barkeeper. Drinking? Or leaving?”

The invading pantheon were clustering together, unnerved. Vokist was staring at three withered old beings with long hair covering their faces, sharing a single glass of something colourful. There was a rather incongruous umbrella in the drink, along with three straws. He could hear sucking noises.

Laer’ka straightened. They were the great gods of Otrokos, for his own sake! “What do you recommend?”

“Leaving.”

“We’re here, and we’re staying. What’s your strongest?”

“Your choice, your…” Another blurt, ending in something that could have been -machy, or -eddon, or -ok.

This place was weird.

The pantheon looked back at the two barflies. Both were now blond and bearded. The bigger one was now in a suit.

The slight one continued. “Yeah, and then, after all that, they thought the best way to remember me would be to put little images of me nailed up like a freaking butterfly everywhere! Like, I don’t really want to remember that, guys!”

“Could be worse” said the muscular one “At least they didn’t make you into a damned comic.”

Kaessa interrupted what was clearly going to be a long diatribe. “What just happened to you?”

The big blond looked down at his beard. “Yeah, humans happened. We change a bit; it all depends on them, see? They’re complicated. They change, we change. Names, shapes. I was Donald for years, like this, you see? Sometimes, we even get stuck together.”

The slight man spoke again. “Yep, every so often I end up blended with Apollo and Ozzy. It gets tiresome. Spirit gets it worse though - sometimes he’s a dove, sometimes a beam of light. Makes it hard to drink, being a beam of light.”

Huga was peering into the shadows beyond the bar. A blue woman with many arms was collecting glasses. The shadows went a LONG way.

“Ridiculous!” spat Pre’eenla. “Your humans are clearly unruly and their gods are weak.”

“Uh, guys, this is a BIG bar.”

“Has to be.” The red-head was back, wearing leather armour now. “There’s a lot of us.”

“Peace! Charity! Kindness! Gods are supposed to be STRONG” brayed Laer’ka.

“We are what humans made us, friend. And I’ll tell you this, they ain’t weak.”

Huga tried again, fear intruding into his words. “Uh, guys, it’s a big bar and it’s, like, full. We should leave.”

Vokist turned to the entrance. A tall being, his eyes shadowed by a broad-brimmed hat, unfolded to a great height and grasped a walking-staff that now showed the shimmer of a long spear-blade. A somehow even larger animal-headed thing with huge ears slammed the door shut with an arm the size of a tree-trunk.

Laer’ka spread his limbs wide. “WE ARE THE GODS OF THE OTROKOSIANS, and we will NOT be COWED!”

Donald reached down into his toolbag.

“Hey, J-man, what was that line your guy said?”

A clean-cut dark haired man with glowing eyes stood, flickered, and was suddenly a massive red entity with horns made of fire. Vast wings of pure darkness unfurled from its back. Burning claws unsheathed.

“Which guy?”

The glass-collector’s hands were now full of knives. She was smiling.

“That Albigensian guy, y’know?”

A bronze-armoured man rose, drawing a short sword. Next to him, an elder gestured, and brought forth a ball of crackling, searing light in his hand.

“Oh, HIM. Arnold something-or-other”

‘Donald’ straightened up. He was holding something Laer’ka couldn’t see below the bar.

“That’s the one”

Shapes could be seen emerging from the darkness, clad in feathers and scales, armour and tattooed skin.

“I think it was ‘God will know his own’, wasn’t it?”

‘Donald’ lifted the hammer he was holding. Laer’ka could feel the sheer mass of the thing from just looking at it. Lightning cracked across its surface.

“No, no.”

 Predator teeth, long claws, blades of metal and obsidian, somehow all shining.

“I mean the first bit.”