The comm-rune crackled, the frantic voice echoing again, “They’re through the northern gates! Warlord Khavos is leading the charge! He’s… he’s huge!” Veylin finally snapped, her face a mask of furious disbelief, turning from the impossible man and his purring, fire-burping feline. “Khavos? Already?” She gestured wildly at Jorvan, who was now meticulously folding the empty oatmeal packet. “You! What fresh hell have you brought upon us?” “Me?” Jorvan looked up, mildly offended. “My espresso machine exploded. This isn’t my fault. Besides, who cares? It’s just another Tuesday with a slightly larger, angrier bug.” He sniffed the air. “Did you know instant oatmeal has notes of hazelnut if you squint hard enough?” Crumb, perched on Jorvan’s shoulder, blinked its large amber eyes, then let out a soft rumble, a tiny puff of smoke wafting from its nostrils. It kneaded Jorvan’s hair, content. A second roar, closer this time, vibrated through the very stones of the interrogation chamber. It wasn’t a sound; it was a physical blow, a rush of displaced air that ruffled Veylin’s hair. Then came the screams, not the disciplined shouts of soldiers, but the raw terror of citizens. “The courtyard,” Veylin breathed, her hand going instinctively to where her sword hilt *should* have been. Her eyes narrowed, fixing on Jorvan. “You are coming with me. If you are a demon, I will know it. If you are a god, you will prove it.” She spun on her heel, striding towards the reinforced door. Jorvan sighed, pushing himself up from the ruined table. “Fine, fine. But I’m still deducting time for this. My nap schedule is already completely shot.” He tucked Crumb into his jacket pocket. The small cat made a happy chirping sound, settling in. They emerged into a scene of utter pandemonium. The Bastion’s main plaza, usually a bustling hub of armored soldiers and supply trains, was a warzone. Obsidian-armored fiends, their skin the color of dried blood, tore through the ranks of the newly transformed soldiers, who, despite their gleaming armor and newfound divine strength, were struggling against the sheer number and ferocity of the Ash-Blood Vanguard. Their initial amber radiance flickered under the relentless assault. And there, in the very center, stood a figure of towering, terrifying presence: an iron-clad giant. He was a behemoth of twisted muscle and jagged bone, twice the height of any man, clad in armor that seemed to be forged from nightmare itself, horned helm scraping against the archway leading into the inner keep. A gargantuan, two-headed axe, wreathed in dark flame, rested casually on his shoulder. He surveyed the carnage, a low chuckle rumbling from his chest, audible even over the din of battle. “Pitiful mortals,” the marauder boomed, his voice like grinding tectonic plates, echoing off the mountain walls. “You cling to your pathetic stronghold, a desperate flicker against the coming dark. The light you foolishly summoned has only drawn us closer. Osh-Tirna bleeds, and soon, humanity will drown in its own gore!” He swept his gaze across the grounds, his eyes, pits of smoldering embers, locking onto Veylin. “And you, Fortress Commander! Your defiance is an insult. Witness the end of your false hope!” Jorvan, however, wasn't listening. His gaze had drifted past the towering brute, past the frantic battle, past the dying soldiers. His eyes were fixated on something near the giant's left armored boot. A small, wooden goblet. Chipped, certainly. But there was a unique, almost artistic, splinter pattern on its lip that spoke to him on a fundamental level. “Oh,” Jorvan mumbled, a spark of genuine interest lighting his usually dull eyes. “Would you look at that.” Veylin, noticing his distraction, followed his gaze. “What are you… that’s a cup! There are demons literally tearing us apart!” The horned giant, taking Veylin’s momentary lapse as an opportunity, roared, lifting his colossal axe high. Dark flames flared, casting terrifying shadows. He lunged, a blur of monstrous power, aiming a killing blow straight at Veylin. She barely had time to raise her bare arm defensively. Jorvan moved. It wasn’t a sprint, or even a dash. It was an absentminded, almost lazy flick of his wrist. He didn’t look at his target, his eyes still glued to the chipped goblet. His open palm connected with the behemoth's breastplate, not with force, but with the casual dismissal one might use to swat a persistent fly. The brute, mid-lunge, mid-monologue, mid-apocalyptic-axe-swing, stopped. His jaw, set in a snarl, dropped open in utter incomprehension. A faint ‘whoosh’ sound followed, and he shot upwards, a black speck against the pale, morning sky. He continued to ascend, a tiny, rapidly diminishing dot, until he vanished completely above the clouds, leaving only a lingering trail of dark smoke and a stunned silence that fell over the entire courtyard, even the Ash-Blood Vanguard frozen in mute shock. Jorvan, unfazed, stepped over a fallen radiant infantryman, carefully picked up the chipped wooden goblet, turning it over in his hand with a satisfied hum. “Yes, exactly as I thought. A perfect specimen of artisanal wood-chipping from the early Proto-Runic period. Delightful.” [“Congratulations, Supreme Creator! Your judicious application of minimal effort has resulted in the swift, non-lethal, yet exceedingly effective removal of a Class 7 Threat Entity! Your past self would be so proud of your utterly random, unquantifiable impact! Collecting data on unexpected stratospheric velocity events…”] The Echo-Core’s holographic interface shimmered into existence before Jorvan, displaying a vibrant, rainbow-colored icon of a lint ball. [“Reward granted: One (1) Bag of Pocket Lint (Assorted Fibers)! This rare and valuable artifact of mundane existence has been added to your inventory! Also, due to the complete nullification of a ‘World-Render’ level threat with less than 0.0001% of your available processing power, a critical memory fragment has been unlocked! Initiating data transfer…”] A series of arcane symbols and complex diagrams flashed across the Echo-Core’s interface, too fast for Veylin to comprehend. Jorvan, however, frowned, rubbing his chin. [“Memory Fragment Decrypted: The ‘Reset Protocol’ cannot be deactivated with a single master key! It requires three separate Admin Nodes to be simultaneously engaged with their respective ancient security passwords! Node One: The Abyssal Pits of IT! Good luck, Supreme Creator! Try not to break anything important!”] Jorvan sighed. “The Abyssal Pits of IT? That sounds like a pain. Probably filled with old server racks and cobwebs. I hate cobwebs.” He turned to Veylin, who was still staring at the empty sky, her jaw agape. “Right, so, where are the ‘Abyssal Pits of IT’ around here? You got a map?” Just then, a shriek ripped through the stones. A hulking, gaunt fiend with glowing red eyes had recovered from his shock. He had seized an officer, a sturdy woman with a defiant glare, by the throat. The fiend’s clawed hand was poised, a venomous green energy gathering at its tips. “You!” the lieutenant snarled, his voice a rasping growl. “You send our general to the void? Then watch your precious humans suffer!” He squeezed her throat, and her face began to turn purple. “Where is your god now, mortal? Does he care for these insignificant lives?” Jorvan looked from the struggling officer to the Echo-Core, which still displayed the location of the Abyssal Pits of IT as a flashing red waypoint on a ghostly map. His quest for a nap, for peace and quiet, lay in one direction. A local, utterly insignificant life, struggled in another. He scratched Crumb behind the ears, the cat purring loudly. A faint, almost imperceptible tremor ran through the ground, a distant rumbling that suggested the exiled giant might, eventually, be returning. Or perhaps it was just his stomach growling. This was a dilemma, but only a minor one. He needed that password. But… the captain *was* making a rather loud choking sound.

Rusty Spoons and Stratospheric Warlords