Grandpa Bahram didn't look too sad for someone who just lost his son, grand-daughter and daughter-in-law.
In fact, he seemed to be in a pretty good mood. He was whistling and drumming on his car's wheel, bobbing his head along to the tune, the metal in his head clanging in sync with the head movement.
"It's because of his brain damage, see?" Daevar's brain told Gabriel. "They poked out his eyes, but the dude accidentally pushed the rod in too deep. Now he can't feel any negative emotions."
"Huh." Gabriel replied. After all the shit that just happened, ever since a fucking plane crashed into his building, this didn't even faze him. "Yeah. Why not?" He almost chuckled. He turned away from his window showing the same boring desert landscape and looked at Bahram.
The dude didn't even have his hands on the steering wheel. He was too busy eating halva.
Gabriel sighed. Yeah, there's no hope looking for any sense of normalcy.
As if he hadn't seen enough weird things, something outside caught his eye. They had passed the crest of the giant sand dune to his left.....and there it was.
A storm at the horizon. Around it, the sky was charcoal-grey, covered with clouds that were about to burst. The clouds seemed to slither around....some sort of...pillar?? Gabriel couldn't make out the details, but this pillar started from the ground and pierced the sky, with the clouds blanketing around out.
He craned his head up to see where this pillar ended, but the more he looked up, the more he could see clouds forming a reverse-cone structure until they fizzled out high, high up.
'Don't go there.' Daevar's brain muttered. 'It's best to leave it be.'
'Mhm...what is it?'
'No idea. Been here ever since grandpa's time.'
Unfortunately, Daevar's brain was inhabiting Gabriel now, so it felt something it had never had to trouble itself with- morbid curiosity.
'Uhh...no. Nope. Nope, nope nope. Don't you dare.'
'I'm not going yet, jeez!!' Gabriel protested.
'*yet*??! you meant 'ever', right?'
'W-well..once it's safe for me to go in there-'
'Not even level threes could do anything to dispel it! Neither did they come out alive!!! Not even one of the ten!!!!'
'Well..they're just level threes.'
Daevar's brain sighed. 'Level threes are the cream of the crop, Gabriel. Being level 3 is the equivalent of landing a job at Google-'
'You have google here-?'
'Yeah. Anyways,To be honest, I don't think you can ever hit level 7. There are like, two people alive today who are level 6s! We've never even *had* a level 7 since 1727! That's over 300 years ago, dude.'
'Eh. We'll figure something out.' Gabriel sighed.
They rode in silence for a couple of minutes until Gabriel could see Karim. It consisted of about fifty or so mud houses, and the Palace on the West end.
"Pretty." Daevar said.
"I know, right?" Grandpa Bahram chuckled. "The Palace's blue entrance doors always make me leak a little whenever I catch a glimpse of it. And it's not because of my STD infection."
"Please don't ever say that."
Grandpa Bahram chuckled. "Yeah. I just nutted everywhere. There's cum on my front seat."
"Please stop."
"My left leg is just covered in cum. Just covered in cum. In a little while it'll harden like cement and- oh great." Bahram stared ahead. "It's the fentanyl squad."
Gabriel looked ahead and saw a group of ten people, all wearing very well fitting, tapered..fireman outfits??
Multiple black straps just went around them everywhere, crawling through their bright orange jacket and pants. And they wore boots. In this weather? In the fucking desert, bro? Instead of helmets though, they wore a gold laurel wreath.
They seemed to be in a conversation with a few of the villagers.
"I really wanna roll my window down, pull down my pants and show them my ass to let them know how I feel about them." Grandpa Bahram sighed. "But....yeah, nah. Not smart to antagonize them."
The car went past them without causing any trouble and took a right. A couple of minutes later near the East edge of the town, Grandpa Bahram parked his car in front of his house.
Baskets containing vibrant flowering plants hung over the archways leading to the entrance of the 2-storeyed, square shaped house. It was almost as if someone had decided to put three nether portals-stacked back to back- in front of the entrance. Except the nether portals had no bottom blocks. And had woven baskets hanging from their top. There was a hammock and a rocking chair on the outside, to the left of the 'nether portals'. An old bike was parked on the right, and a young woman was sitting on the steps leading to the entrance, cradling a newborn.
She got up and walked towards the car with a sad smile on her face, carrying the newborn. The baby seemed to be more interested in her shirt pocket though.
Gabriel felt really uncomfortable all of a sudden. He hated high-emotion meetings. Grandpa Bahram didn't apparently. He opened the door with excitement and the old man jumped out with such energy that you'd think he used up all his knee joint privileges for the next ten years.
Then he yelled, "Cute! You look cute! Mhm! Yes, very cute!!"
The girl- Daevar/Gabriel's aunt- blushed and said, "stop, dad! I keep telling you to-"
"Ew not you, hag." The Grandpa made a disgusted face. "I'm talking about my granddaughter." He shot his hands forwards and demanded the aunt- Laleh- to hand over her child.
She didn't say a single thing. Instead, she just stared at her dad with such vitriol that even Daevar felt ashamed for some reason, despite not even being the target.
But his Grandpa just laughed. "Hehehehe too bad for you, I don't even have a single ounce of shame left. Hahaha! Now gimme the child!"
She silently gave him her daughter and angrily walked over to the car and opened the backdoor.
Her face did soften quite a bit when she saw Daevar though. "Hey." Her smile returned.
Gabriel got out of the car. "Hey aunt Laleh." He forced a smile back. She was about as tall as him..maybe a little taller. Daevar still had a few years left to grow.
Uuuuuughh...awkward...😬
She studied him quietly....for quite some time. Then she opened her mouth to say something, but shook her head and just said. "Welcome home."
"Thanks." Daevar replied.
"Sorry, your uncle isn't here. He was summoned to talk with the Dionysus Family."
"Yeah. We saw them on the way back." Grandpa Bahram was bouncing the baby around and making funny faces at it. "What have they come to steal from us now?"
"Dunno. Their lot always creeps me out. Wish they'd just leave us alone."
Grandpa Bahram laughed. "Yeah, no shit."
'Who's Dionysus?' Gabriel asked his brain.
Daevar's brain replied: 'He's like the god of wine...and pleasure. All the aspects of pleasure, the good and *especially* the disgusting. I don't know much else about him except for a few horrifying bedtime stories from dad. Honestly, I have no idea why would he tell shit like that to children.'
'Thanks buddy.'
'No probs.'
'Hey this Dionusus guy sounds pretty fun. If getting a contract woukd him would guarantee infinite pleasure, I'd take it.' Evil Gabriel shrugged.
Gabriel stared at Good Gabriel with his mind's eye- who raised an eyebrow at what Evil Gabriel said, then just pouted and gently nodded like 'yeah that's kinda fair.'
'W-what?! Don't look at me like that!' Good Gabriel stated back.
'You're awfully compliant given that your mortal enemy has given a statement.' Gabriel replied.
'Well, a little pleasure never really hurt anyone.' Good Gabriel shrugged.
'The type of pleasure that makes you forget all sense of decency and basic morality does.' Daevar's brain replied.
'Well, that's *too much* pleasure!' Good Gabriel yelped.
'Well...I don't think either of us would give a shit about *what* we're doing if we're feeling white-hot pleasure all the time right?' Logical Gabriel butted in. 'Honestly, that's probably the best deal you can get from any God. Guaranteed Heaven on Earth...although, maybe not guaranteed heaven after Earth, I guess..unless we learn some self-restraint, eh?'
Daevar's aunt led them into their home. Gabriel wasn't tall enough to duck to avoid those hanging plants, but they just almost touched his head.
"Why the fuck do they have to always be interested in us??" Grandpa Bahram muttered. "Can't they go pillage someone else?"
"There's nothing here. Maybe they came here for some other reason..." Aunt Laleh replied. She didn't sound confident in her answer though.
Grandpa Bahram grunted, but didn't say anything. He just opened the front door and got in, straight into the living room with four doors leading to....
'the 2 on your left, to bedrooms. The farthest door takes you to the guest bedroom. The closest one to your right, to the kitchen and the farthest one to the first floor.' Daevar's brain filled him in.
"Your room's up top, son." Daevar's grandpa gave a thumbs up while his back was facing towards him. 'Do you wanna take a shower or something? Laleh brought some food for us. We'll eat after you're all freshened up.'
"Cool. Thanks." Daevar replied and took the farthest door to his right. It led them to a dark room with a staircase and his late grandma's photo framed exactly in the middle of the wall in front of him. Around the picture was a radial pattern of flowers. Many, many flowers all stuck to the wall, it looked beautiful.
'Damn. No matter how often I see this wall, it always looks beautiful. Never saw grandpa change the flowers though, so I don't know how the flower pattern changes every time I come here.' Daevar's brain said.
Gabriel took the stairs and reached the top floor. It had a hallway which led to the balcony, along with two doors on either side, in the middle of the hallway.
'The one on the right is always locked. Our room should probably be the one on the left.'
Gabriel entered his room, opened his wardrobe and saw that it already had some of his-Daevar's clothes inside.
'Hm.'
Gabriel looked at the mirror and saw the body he was inhabiting. Dark, thick hair cut pretty short, dark eyes, clay colored skin, oddly almost reddish. He looked like a starving victorian-era child right on the cusp of puberty. He was 15, right?
'Right.' Daevar's brain replied.
'Weird to think that children who look like this have lived longer than we have.' Logical Gabriel muttered.
'What the fuuuuck? Kids, fucking KIDS who look like this-' Gabriel pointed to the body he was inhabiting, '-have lived for about thirty years??!'
He couldn't help but laugh a little bit. 'so I have like, 170 years to live? And that's in this world's time...so-'
'over 340 years in our time left.'
'Holy fuck...'
'Yeah. You won't be able to live it if you die within the next couple of weeks trying to take down a level 2 monster all by yourself, rawdogging the fight. ' Daevar's brain sighed. 'You know Hephaestus has some devout followers, right? Why don't you just give your task to them? Leave it up to them to save the dude? Or enter a contract with a minor god or something?'
'Well...I'm pretty sure that if Zeus or Athena are the bad guys, then...I'm guessing they've got ears everywhere...I don't know to be honest. I don't know what kind of privacy laws are broken when I enter into a contract with a god either.'
'But if I tell to the Hephaestus dudes that their God is trapped in the Philippines and that Zeus was the one who did it, I'd really like to not have a mega-thunderbolt drop right on top of my head the very next second.' Logical Gabriel shot back.
'I'm down to telling this shit to someone else, but I'd like to be alive. And if Zeus personally tells the hell-dudes to take us in....I think we just....I don't know. I guess we can at least try first. If it doesn't work, we'll think of something else.'
Daevar's brain went silent for a few seconds. Then it just muttered. 'Yeah. You're fucked the moment you catch a God's eye anyways...Okay...wait, why the fuck are we doing this shit? Who cares?'
'Look.'
Memories flooded into Daevar's brain.
A chilly night. Gabriel was walking to a bar in the city center with someone. The shops in the sidewalk had neon lights on the outside which illuminated the face of Gabriel's partner. She had dark brown hair that went down to her hips, and wore a skirt and a really baggy grey skirt which went well with her thick black boots. And she was...alright looking. Not heart-attack cute, but I-would-keep-looking-at-your-face-maybe-a-couple-more-times-when-you-aren't-looking-at-me-and-shrug-to-myself-before-going-on-with-my-life kind of cute.
She looked at him and smiled. It was a really familiar smile, but Gabriel couldn't place exactly...who that came from?
What he was aware of, however, was how his heart stopped for a second. He had never seen such expressive eyes before. Her eyes were pitch black, yet a feeling was practically leaking out of it. It looked like...enthusiasm??!
"So....uhmm.." He could see the dimples on her cheek become more prominent as she could barely hide her happiness. "How was your day?"
"M-my day?" Gabriel stuttered. What the fuuuck? "Uhh..well, it's not all that intersting, ya know? Nothing special today."
"I don't care. Just shut up and tell me." She replied cheekily.
"How am I supposed to both shut up AND tell you?" Gabriel chuckled.
"...I'm waiting.." she raised an eyebrow.
And that was when the memories stopped.
'DO YOU SEE THAT SHIT??!' Gabriel told Daevar's brain. 'This woman *wants* to be with me!!'
'Apparently there's someone in this entire universe who likes hanging out with Gabriel.' Evil Gabriel chuckled. 'And she's waiting in heaven. The Styx or whatever it was showed this to us.'
'Damn...so it's a woman you're after?' Daevar's brain replied.
'Not just any woman? A woman who likes me back! And a world where I don't have to worry about school or work or my future or any of that nonsense. A world where I can just...let go.' Gabriel laughed. 'I guess we can at least try helping Hephaestus out for a bit.'
'It's not like you'll listen to me even if I say no.' Daevar's brain shrugged. 'Whatever. Do what you want.'
'Okay....so, how do we start?'
'By taking a fucking shower first.'