“Once upon a time – and I mean really, really long ago – the gods roamed the earth alongside mortals. They lived together in peace and harmony. Well almost. Gods would occasionally mess with mortals or unleash their wrath to punish them for little mistakes but generally speaking they co-existed just fine. Soon, however, the gods were bored with their human playthings. The mortal life just wasn’t enough for them. I mean think about it, if you were somehow divine would you-“ Nik stopped talking when he noticed the way Tal had raised his brow at him. The irony was obvious. He cleared his throat.

“As I was about to say, their once sacred earth was now overrun by mortals. They needed their own space, to move out of the family house and be independent again. The gods sat together to check some alien real estate when they realised they had one big problem. You see, according to our sources, the power of the gods is what keeps both the earth and the mortals alive and stable. Without it, the world would crumble and humanity would cease. The easiest solution was to leave one god behind but I think you can imagine how many volunteers they had.” Tal hummed in agreement and Nik continued.

“Left with no other choice the gods experimented. They asked – and this is the only time our sources mention an actual name – Hephaestus, who was known for his crazy inventions, to make a box that would be able to keep the gods’ power contained. The Greek god tried but after years of pointless tinkering gave up.

The next thing the gods tried was using their demigod offspring. They believed that since their kids with mortals would already have some sort of godly power inside of them, they would be strong enough to contain the full amount of godly power. Do you want to guess how it went?” Tal shook his head. Nik rolled his eyes at the reaction and leaned his head against one hand. His fingers drew mindless patterns onto the table.

“At first it seemed to work but then the kid got sick. It got a really high fever and after a few days on the deathbed, they died. They burst into flames and burned to death until there was nothing left but ash and dust.” “You sound a bit too excited about such a gruesome death.” Tal mumbled and was ignored by Nik who indeed was very enthusiastic about the tale he told.

“The power of the gods’ was just too much to handle even for a demigod body. That’s when the gods started to lose their hope. They began feeling trapped on earth. The mortal world was quickly growing and changing but they stayed the same. ‘What if we just leave?’ One of them suggested. The gods were getting angry with the mortals. Especially the ancient ones grew impatient. Most of them had to see their empires fall apart. Olympus was now just a mountain and not the glorious seat and home of the palace of the twelve powerful Olympians. People had simply forgotten about them, or at least, stopped believing in them.”

Tal tried to imagine the hurt this must have caused them and then wondered why he tried to sympathise with gods who used their own offspring for experiments. He shook his head and listened to Nik again. “’What if we bless someone? A mortal could contain the power of the gods without being able to use it. It would be trapped inside them, deeply hidden. The blessing would keep their body intact and by not giving them the opportunity to use our powers, they won’t be misled.’ It was a goddess who came up with this idea. Though I must add that our sources don’t clearly state which goddess.

The rest of the gods considered her words carefully. They already sacrificed a lot of their offspring during the last experiments and weren’t comfortable with killing more. And of course, another question arose. ‘What if the mortals need our power? Once we’re gone it will be hard to return, they will be on their own.’ ‘We give them instructions then, a ritual to extract the powers from the mortal.’ ‘And who would we trust with this?’” “Hold on.” Tal interrupted Nik while holding his throbbing head. “How is there so much dialogue? Are you sure you’re not just inventing things?”

“I’m not inventing things,” Nik snapped back a little offended. “This is my own interpretation of the old tale. Take it or leave it.” Tal sighed in defeat and then waved his hand in a dismissive gesture for Nik to continue. “Where were we? Right. The gods started to argue with each other. Quite a usual occurrence, I believe.” Tal nodded absently. He wasn’t going to argue with that to prove Nik's point.

“The gods were suddenly in need of a mortal’s help and while some of them – the ancient Greek and Roman ones for example – were already used to mortals helping, most of them accepted this fact with reluctance. It was hard to choose who to trust. Power was tempting after all. They considered that maybe one mortal wouldn’t be enough to guarantee the success of their mission. And that’s,” Nik smiled suddenly, “how the Order was born. My Order.”

He said it so proudly that Tal, too, smiled a bit at that. “The Vindex, which means Protector, or Amúntēs Order if you like the Greek version more, consisted of many Paladins. They were Knights that took an oath to get rid of all evil in the gods’ name! Their purpose was and is to keep the world a safe place in which the descendant – that’s what we call you – doesn’t need to live a life in fear.” Tal gulped. This was the first time people like him were mentioned. He hoped Nik would go more into detail now about his powers and where he came from or how the gods managed to keep the power contained in a mortal but his opposite got off the point.

“The gods were satisfied with the creation of the order and gave them a blessing. The lives of their Knights were dangerous and fighting evil was only possible when you could find evil. The gods came to the understanding that the Order needed help and so they offered them the blessing as some sort of parting gift. We call it ‘The Eye of the Gods’.” Nik tapped against his eye patch and bit down on his lip. “The Knights receive the blessing upon birth. It allows them to track demonic energy. And trust me, evil spirits do leave a nasty trail. The only downside is that there is no way to shut it off. The eye is constantly scanning for evil energy which gives us a headache as it drains our powers. That’s why, whenever we’re not trying to find demons, we keep it hidden. But enough about the eye. There are more important matters.”

Tal leaned forward. Now, he thought. Tell me about myself, please. “The Vindex Order was not the only one created at that time.” He slumped down in his chair again and cursed Nik in his mind. Tal wanted to scream that he didn’t care about the Orders, he just wanted to know about himself. Was he ever going to get to the point? Didn’t he say he’d make it quick? Tal wondered how long the normal version would be.

“Men ruled the world and suddenly the gods were present again, giving away blessings, recruiting others for their sacred mission. Mortals grew anxious, afraid even, that the power structures would shift. They didn’t need the gods anymore and they certainly didn’t want them to rule again. So, a few men came together and formed the opposition, the Contrarius Order. At the beginning it was meant to watch the knights and gods to make sure they wouldn’t use their supernatural powers to destroy the structure humans have established for their lives. But sadly, over decades and centuries even, the Contrarius Order installed greedy and jealous mortals as their leaders. Their lust for power and the fear to lose it led to a war between the Orders.”

Nik stuttered at the last part but contained himself quickly. Tal had the urge to reach for his hand across the table. “The Contrarius Order wanted to find the descendant, which is by the way one of the reasons why we’re not supposed to be close to them. If knights and descendants stuck together the Order could easily track them. Then they’d only need the ritual to obtain the power of the gods. Thankfully it was lost a long time ago. During the war, hundreds died on both sides. It was more than a tragedy. It was… devastating. There was barely a fifth of us left but the Order wasn’t defeated. Only in an ambush four years ago did we manage to eliminate their last leader. A group of Knights had been able to track him down and surprised him in his hideout. The leader was defenceless and easily taken down but…”

Nik gulped and looked away from Tal. He could see a tear forming in his eye and wondered just how close the Knights were to each other. Maybe he’d lost friends or family in the war. He wanted to comfort him. “None of the Knights came back. The death of the leader unleashed a hoard of demons. There were too many to defeat them.” Nik took a shaky breath and pulled himself together while still avoiding Tal’s eyes. He wished he could do something to wipe the sadness from his face.