“I shall enter first, after a few minutes you follow.” Ares orders as we casually walked through the streets of Babel.

“Why?” I ask.

“What are you a child?” His words biting.

“Compared to you? Yes.” I take a dead tone. For what it was worth he considered it and then ignores me.

“M’lord,” Jacob drew close. “gods are very… Picky about their image, they do not want to... Uh…” He struggles to find the words to best nicely phrase it to me.

“The gods are pretentious and unwilling to share their five breaths in the light with anyone else.” I begin to understand the context. It was annoying that Aries was behaving like a five-year-old and truthfully I was also unwilling to enter at the same time as him, it felt… Disgraceful, as if I had submitted to the older god.

It also feels like my own personal wants and desires have changed substantially after Ascending, which was also annoying as it makes me feel not in control of my body and mood. Oh… Oh no… I have effectively returned to my teenage years and not knowing what will set off the next mood swing.

Jacob seems to wince as I coarsely described the situation with gods.

“No need to mince your words Jacob, nice words should be given to whoever you’re trying to court.” I gave a ghost of a smile to him, and Aries seemed to be a bit mollified; he isn’t reduced to an innkeeper you would hen-peck full of questions.

“I shall see you inside.” He mutters before walking in, his Adjutant following briskly behind him. I turned to Jacob once more, his boiled leather armour and chainmail, while fitting for perhaps the Tower of Babel, was completely out of place here at the banquet.

I instinctively know what to do and channel my Divinity and I begin to lightly infuse his armour with it. The leather turns darker to umber, the chainmail gleams like cold moonlight, now there’s a slight weight to his presence.

“My Lord?” he asks, stunned and unsure about what is happening. Then I realised what I had done.

“Apologies Jacob, godhood changes things in your mentality. It makes me want to change your armour so something that fits me more.” It took my best not to flush red with shame and embarrassment, I was unable to control the urge to effectively wardrobe change my follower to just match me. To Jacobs mentality, he took it in stride like it was perfectly normal.

“I understand My Lord, all gods are eccentric.” He sums it up.

“Huh.” It dawns onto me, realising that actually made a lot more sense than he thinks, shrugging, I decided we had spent enough time waiting for Ares to pass through and be announced and it was finally our turn.

Making our way up the stairs I admired the architecture, utterly useless defensive position with the large columns only holding a roof above, but the sheer white marble everywhere I looked would rob every kingdom blind from my old world.

“All welcome the Ascended!” A crier announces my entrance and a large number of people, no, gods stopped what they were doing to look at me, gauge, and estimate me. I felt a few none so subtle Divinities probing me to understand me.

It was self-evident where I needed to go, straight ahead I could see Ares with a few others waiting for me to cross the distance which I quickly marched over.

“How many of us feel an affinity with him?” A dark-haired god asked immediately, everything about him was dreary like he was sucking the colour out of the world but everyone made a sign either with a nod, a smile or flick of their hand.

“To have an affinity with everyone… That’s a pretty unique Divinity then.” An older woman states, she reminds me of a mother.

“Do you have an idea of what it is?” The bearded man asks.

“Yes,” I state

“Announce yourself.” Ares gestures to a small podium where everyone could see me, I walked over to it and saw Jacob mainly trying to stay out of the way but close enough to be associated with a glance. I could see all the other gods too, hundreds of them all looking up and staring at me, I began channelling my Divinity to allow everyone to fully understand what I was.

“Sacrifice,” I announce, not to everyone around me but also to myself. As soon as the word left my mouth the air thrummed with my Divinity.

“I value; Loyalty, Oaths, Courage and most of all, Sacrifice. True Sacrifice, from within, the type that makes your heartache, where you feel like you can’t live anymore.

The Sacrifice you make when you know nothing will ever be the same, and sometimes it isn’t good enough, sometimes you come out worse even after Sacrificing so much to get nothing in return.

I can see, I can feel everything you’ve ever Sacrificed, the ideals you cared about, the people you loved, all you’ve given up to get here.”

The words fall out of my mouth, each coming like a hammer blow to the souls in front of me. My words aren’t lies, this is my Divinity giving me words to say, like a subconscious mind filling in the blanks not taking control but what I really am leaking out.

I see more faces of worry than I do of excitement, these age-old beings have sacrificed much to become Gods and much more as they continued to live their lives, I have yet to attain my full might as a true God but I will get there eventually. There was a long pause.

“All welcome the first God of Sacrifice.”