“Hello, Devourer.” God of Rogues smiled at me from the depths of the polished silver surface. “How are things on your side? Is the weather any good?”

I curled my upper lip in mild annoyance. He knew just as well as I did that there was no weather to speak of in this place—it was the same smoky and blisteringly hot place as always. What’s more, the weather was of absolutely zero importance.

But that was a much lesser problem than the fact that I couldn’t read God of Rogues’ thoughts right now, and was down to trying to read his face and guess. I wasn’t the best in this game, and a lot was staked on how loyal of an ally God of Rogues was.

“The army is ready. I plan to send them to the mortal realm soon. They will wreak havoc and distract the gods from whatever they are doing, not letting them gather together. Then, I’d be able to pick them one by one, as per original idea. Not as good as killing them for good, but that can come later. But I will need your help again.”

God of Rogues inclined his head with interest glimmering in his eyes. “Oh? I’m always ready to assist my ally. Except with killing anyone personally. In fact, if we were to cross paths, we would have to fight as a show to the others. In the mortal realm, everything that happens will reach my friends’ ears sooner or later.”

“You think I don’t know that?” I snarled. “That’s why I’m here in the first place!” I let out a breath, forcefully calming down and pushing away the memories of Aivena. They were irrelevant now. “I need your help with picking the most effective targets for demonic attacks. From what I learnt, you guys don’t care much about what happens in the mortal realm, but there must be exceptions. And you know the other gods best.”

God of Rogues’ smile widened, and he nodded. “Yes, you are absolutely right! I will be glad to tell you all I know. It’s true that we don’t watch over the mortal realm as closely as we did before. After all, now we have adventurers to protect it, don’t we? Nevertheless, there are just some things you can’t fight in Heaven…”

“Tell me what they are, God of Rogues.” I prepared a piece of parchment, ink and bone pen, and prepared to write things down.

“To begin with, while our reputation is important for all of us, for some gods, it’s more important than for others. Say, God of Paladins. If there are no boy choirs singing praises to him daily, he just can’t live anymore! Not literally, sadly, or that would’ve made your life much easier. Either way, he hates when people desecrate his temples. Oh, how he ordered to torture some poor lads that did it that one time… I don’t even remember why they did that for, but how they screamed on hot coals—well, that was just hellish. Goddess of Clerics is like that too, though she also hates any heresy spoken on the streets.”

I wrote down, “Paladins—temples, Clerics—temples, heresy,” making my letters small and conserving both the parchment and the ink, that wasn’t even liquid but more like a piece of oily coal that I had to crush into powder and spit into to write with it. It wasn’t wood coal—there was no wood in Hell, after all…

“Goddess of Druids has her holy groves in Heaven, but this isn’t enough for her—she has them in the mortal realm, too. Burn one, she’ll feed you to beasts. Goddess of Rangers just hates anyone who messes with her places without permission. It’s hard to say which places are hers this month, though—she constantly changes her favourite spots. But for you, my ally, I will find out. And of course, the locations of all the holy groves.”

I noted that down, too. “These all are so stupid. What’s the point of having holy groves? How they are different from any non-holy ones?” I tsked and shook my head. “Go on.”

Everyone, it turned out, had a weakness of some sort, and I wasn’t much surprised that God of Rogues knew them all and was eager to share. He either hated his colleagues—most of them, at least—loved gossipping, or both.

God of Fighters was the one who peered at the mortal realm the most. He blessed the strongest adventurers on the toughest battles and watched them happen. The rules of an honourable duel were a sacred thing for him—and interfering with one was sure to cause his anger.

Or I could just call him for a duel myself. There was a high chance he would just agree to that, ha! How stupid.

Goddess of Warlocks and Goddess of Sorcerers all had their chosen adventurers they liked the most and would even fight for. For Warlocks, these were those who took her as their patron. For Sorcerers, these were the descendants of deities that she nurtured from afar… they were a thing, apparently.

God of Barbarians had a few favourite monsters he kept in preserves of a kind. Goddess of Wizards had a few favourite researchers she sometimes inspired with her own ideas.

At the last one, God of Bards, God of Rogues grew a little unsure. I wasn’t sure even if I didn’t imagine it, but… My intuition was telling me I didn’t.

“He’s a patron of arts. The times when I saw him doing things were always when someone destroyed a great work of art… or when they challenged him for an art contest. Musical contests, for some reason, are the most popular. But I think you will just have to do with destroying arts, not creating them. And that’s it! God of Monks is dead, and with me, well, we have an agreement,” God of Rogues concluded.

“So we are.” I nodded, still mulling over that almost imperceptible stutter of his. “Good.. Soon, we can strike.”