“This...this is wrong... it’s too early for you to appear. Shouldn’t you still be imprisoned by [Pluto]? Did the Witches move up the ritual... no they couldn’t have.” Gabriel muttered to himself, his face almost draining of colour. 

 

“Interesting... And how would a little traveler, supposedly new to this world, possibly know that?” The [Horned One] questioned with the same grin on his face but yellow eyes now narrowed in curiosity. 

 

Thoughts still swirling around in his mind, Gabriel tried his best to work out how this was possible. He knew the crux of issue was his personal entry to the story and the skipping of certain set-up tasks. Whipping his wandering eyes back to the [Horned One]’s face when he heard him ask the question. ‘Oh, no. Good going Gab...how do I explain that...’ Gabriel lamented. 

 

The [Horned One] noticed Gabriel's panicked silence, and decided he would let him sweat for a moment. The [Horned One] used his free hand, to carefully stroke the long goatee beneath his chin. As if he was pondering deeply about the current situation. 

 

“You see you little worm, I do agree. I felt it was too early as well. [Pluto] came up with a proposal seemingly out of the blue. I wasn’t planning to arise until my coven of lovely ladies gave me a helping hand. As that poo-pusher [Pluto] drained me of all my power over the years. Now I start to really think about it. I believe another beautiful lady, far stronger than I, decided to roll me in your direction early.” The [Horned One] crowed, while shooting Gabriel a wink as his fingernails slowly dragged over [Sarah]’s skin. 

 

Gabriel truly began to sweat, hearing the heavy warning in The [Horned One]’s words. A pair of powerful eyes appeared to be trying to penetrate Gabriel's skull through the clear blue sky above him. ‘I tried my best to stay under her radar. If she has already figured something was amiss, the future will only get harder...’ Gabriel thoughts were cut off, as [Sarah] emitted a soft groan of pain. 

 

“My Lord... I’m scared... Please Mr. Goat, I didn’t mean to say your horns were ugly. I’m sorry.” [Sarah] whimpered out between her gentle sobs. 

 

Before the girl could continue, the hand clutching her throat clenched a little harder, cutting off anymore pleas for forgiveness or help. A gust of air was suddenly stirred, just from the [Horned One] huffing through his nostrils. The huff sent the dead sticks and warped leaves flying through the air, the air made it to Gabriel and pushed him back a couple of steps. Her current captor lifted [Sarah] off her feet and pulled the dangling young girl towards his face. So close they were, that their noses were almost touching. 

 

“I don’t know what’s wrong with this little miss. I just wanted to say hello and ask where the lord of this shithole is, baaaaaaut she had to start calling me very hurtful names. I say, the girl has no taste. Must be one of those small-minded girls who can’t see past the outskirts of her village. I think she needs to see the world. Don’t you think traveler? Well of course you do! It's in your name! Ha!” The [Horned One] instructed, answering his own question before Gabriel could get a word in. 

 

“Just let her go, please. You have made your point. I have taken the warning, just...” Gabriel pleaded, stopping himself from continuing, as he knew it was futile. 

 

“I believe, that once I let her see a little more of my handsome figure, she won’t ever want me to let her go. Let’s ask her, shall we! What say you girl? Want to be blessed by a God, trust me, I am a much better choice than those snotty-nose backstabbers up there. All the ladies in my coven can testify, I am very personable...” The [Horned One] cooed. His long-blackened tongue leaking out of his mouth and swirled around in the air, not a hair’s length away from [Sarah]’s cheek. 

 

Sarah’s face originally looked like it couldn’t get any paler but once she saw the oozing, blackened tongue curling around near her, she lost the remaining blood in her face, her skin almost appearing transparent in the glittering sun. Gabriel gazed into Sarah’s terrified eyes; the look stirred something primal in him. Visions of a warehouse lined with cages, the faces of scared and abused girls lit only by cold light of the moon, flashed through Gabriel’s mind. The wall that Gabriel had built inside him to hold back his chaotic emotions, started to chip away, as fury started to build within him. ‘Calm down Gab, calm down. Anger won’t let me get anywhere with this guy, I need to make him angry’. Gabriel chanted to himself. 

 

“You got one thing wrong there, you horny goat fucker. You’re not a god, you’re only half of one! Just like you’re only half a man! Ain’t that rig...” Gabriel taunted. 

 

The attempt at diverting the Demi-God's attention, appeared to have gone perfectly for Gabriel. So well, that the [Horned One] threw [Sarah] to the side, with both hands now free he conjured a Horn the size of spear and sent it flying at Gabriel at supersonic speed, cutting of his speech. The horn penetrated straight through Gabriel's armour, the accompanying force swept him of his feet. The momentum carried Gabriel through the air before slamming him into a tree. Gabriel's body ached everywhere, as he groaned from the pain. ‘Fuck me. I forgot what it feels like to get a hole in your chest in this game. Feels like one of Wayne’s full force punches in the gut.’ Gabriel complained to himself.  

 

The pain in Deliverance Online could be put on multiple levels, so one who had their arm chopped off, felt like they only received a mosquito bite. Turning down the pain sensors though was a double-edged blade, it also turned down majority of your other sensors, like touch, smell and taste. Touch being the most important during fast paced fights. Majority of the full-time players all had their pain sensor put to the maximum it could go, Gabriel included. Gabriel had tried fighting a high-level player in the coliseum with his pain sensors down and felt seriously disadvantage during the fight.  

 

Accompanied by the baing laughter of the [Horned One], Gabriel’s feet dangled in the air for a few seconds, his body was being held up by the spear/horn. After what felt like an agonizing long time, the conjured weapon inserted in Gabriel’s gut de-materialized. Without the spear propping him up, Gabriel fell to his knees in front of the tree, gasping for breath with a hand over the hole in his stomach. Swiftly bringing out his last [Advanced Health Potion] with the free hand, Gabriel threw it back while he checked his recovering HP. 

 

[HP 25/410] 

Status Effects: Bleeding 

 

‘Must have gone easy on me, was he told to do that or not?’ Gabriel wondered, as he saw the bleeding stop from the potion and his HP recover. Covertly scanning the area, while he kept his gaze aimed towards The [Horned One], Gabriel saw [Sarah] crawl slowly to his right. She appeared to be trying to aim for the tree line. The [Horned One] was no fool, he noticed the little girl and threw out a gnarled arm, beginning to conjure a ball of thick tar. Gabriel used [Summon Mount] and then sent out all three of his axes aimed straight towards the god’s face. 

 

Noticing the axes coming towards his face, The [Horned One] initially wasn't going to cancel his spell to stop them, as they would do no real damage to him. He however noticed their trajectory was aimed not at his face but just below his chin The axes were heading towards the only thing without grime and rot on The [Horned One], his goatee. 

 

“You little Baaaaaastard!” The [Horned One] roared, cancelling his spell aimed at [Sarah]. 

 

With only the back of his hand, The [Horned One] slapped the axes to the side in disgust, even spitting at one lodged in the ground. Gabriel noticed the spit was so acidic a small sound of something sizzling came from his axe, he worried about its durability for a moment. That moment however, was cut very short as [ The Horned One] started a new spell, he was summoning a wave of filth, that rose from the ground at his feet. The earth around the god began to blacken and lose all it’s moisture. A slippery looking wall of moldy earth was conjured in front of The [Horned One] before it was sent barreling towards Gabriel. 

 

Gabriel started sprinting towards the incoming attack and activated [Sun Flare], a bubble of molten hot flames expanded from Gabriel’s body and met the rot wall. The flames withstood the filth for only a brief second, sending out a misty smoke, that smelt of burnt hair. Garbriel used the brief second with the walls of earth and flames as cover to dove to his right towards [Sarah] who had begun crawling even faster. 

 

Gabriel exited his dive with a roll and sprung to his feet, sweeping [Sarah] up with one arm before running behind a tree. They both turned to the new sounds of bushes and leaves cracking under heavy hooves. The noise grew closer within moments. Another pair of hooved feet joined the second one in making noise heading in their direction. Gabriel looked to the left side of the tree, back at the clearing and saw an irate [Horned One] making his way towards him. Peering to his right at the other sounds, the other set of hooved feet revealed a terrified [Alastor] that was forced to come from Gabriel’s summon spell. [Alastor] didn’t actually slow down as he neared its owner, Gabriel could tell the scared stallion would just gallop on by, timing it just right, he threw [Sarah] onto the saddle. 

 

“Hold on tight! Once you get out of the forest, go back to [Babylon] and tell everyone not to enter the forest before I get bac...” Gabriel couldn’t finish his instruction to the fleeing [Sarah], as a clawed hand grasped him by the throat, slamming him against a tree and leaving his feet dangling. 

 

“How dare a little Worm like you make me look like a fool!?” The [Horned One] bellowed in Gabriel’s face, with one hand holding him, another hand rose to the retreating horse’s backside. 

 

Gabriel saw the action and raised his khopesh, which he managed to keep his grasp on, activation [Heat of the Desert], his weapon was set ablaze. Gabriel didn’t bother to used it for its traditional use, instead shoving the whole blade under The [Horned One]’s chin, singing his goatee in half. 

 

“Nooooooo.... arghhhh” The [Horned One] gasped in horror, flinging Gabriel to the ground and grabbing at the curled and burning remains of his chin hair. 

 

“Hahahaha! Not much of a Goat now, without your Goatee.” Gabriel laughed out, still trying to keep the gods attention onto him. 

 

“Baaaaaaa!!!!” With a thunderous goatee bleat, The [Horned One] grabbed Gabriel by the throat again and raised him in the air, before bringing him violently down towards the ground. 

 

With a loud whoosh, all the air in Gabriel's lungs was knocked out by the impact of his back meeting earth, and half of his remaining HP was gone in a flash. The [Horned One] screamed in Gabriel's face as he brought his body off the ground, spittle flying everywhere, he smashed him into the earth again and again. 

 

After the third impact, Gabriel finally received a message he hadn’t seen in this life yet but remembered vividly seeing many times in his past. ‘I guess this will be the first time this run through. Not bad at all, if I may say so, wait, what the?’  

 

[YOU HAVE DIED! SIGNING OUT OF DELIVERANCE ONL...] 

 

Something he didn’t remember at all occurred; the sign out screen appeared to be cancelled but all Gabriel could see was black. For a few moments he started to panic before Gabriel’s vision returned. A perplexed look covered his face as he gazed around at the new surroundings, looking down at these feet, Gabriel muttered “The hell is all this... I’m in the sky? God help me if I somehow fell into some messed up godly illusion.” 

 

“You shouldn’t be asking for a God’s help right now Gabriel. You should be asking for a Goddess’s forgiveness; you could even say you should be asking for a certain Goddess’s Deliverance...” 

 

Gabriel heard a soothing but soul trembling voice sound out from behind him, he whipped his head around so fast, he might have got whiplash if it was the real world. Gazing upon the figure before him, Gabriel remembered seeing it only once in his past, in a reveal video from a certain high-level player. 

 

“Gaia...” Gabriel eked out, feeling small in the gigantic presence of the Goddess of all Gods.