The so-called 'Fort Jarlack' was a fortress in name only.

Goreville knew he should have tempered his expectations after seeing the impregnable Citadel Sapphire and Promesse, but the current area could be at best called a fortified camp and little else; if scaled up for much larger beings then werelings. A giant-sized fence of sharpened tree trunks and deep ditches surrounded haphazardly stacked stone buildings and huge tents under the shadow of the great Spine Mountains that marked Verglane's southeastern border. A great fire burned atop a colossal watchtower. The camp's physical dimensions were three to four times the normal size to fit its inhabitants, and large plots of wheat, barley, and hops flourished beyond its borders. A small lake fed by melting snow dripping down the nearby mountains provided all the water necessary for farming.

"This place looks more like a prison camp than a fort," Goreville commented as their group approached Fort Jarlack. He did smell a whiff of mana coming from the lake, so this place could likely at least serve as an Altar for his god.

"It used to be an old Megalorian penal colony once," Cynisca explained. "The project didn't catch on. The place couldn't produce enough food to feed all the prisoners during winter, so they ended up eating their captors and leaving. Boss Jarlack bought it lightweight on the scale and decided to start a business from here."

"Does nobody respect international borders nowadays?" Sagesse complained behind them. Grudu followed closely after with Mistouffe praying from atop his shoulders. "At least you came as friends, I suppose."

"Not for free," Cynisca replied with a grin.

"Which pass did you use to enter Verglane?" Goreville asked. Lord Wepwawet had ordered the delegation to make contact with the greater Megalorian civilization and their chosen deity if they could.

"A pass through the mountains called the Jailroad, on account of the penal colony. It's only accessible during summer, otherwise the ice is so thick you'll be better off flying over it. And, well, what's passable for us is likely too hard for you smallfolk," Cynisca paused as a handful of winterworgs barked at the group's approach and warned the handful of giant farmers tending to the fields. A handful of watchers overseeing the fence sounded their horns upon seeing the group approaching their fort. "The boss should fly down to greet us anytime now."

"Fly down?" Sagesse squinted at the clouds above and coughed in surprise. "Oh my…"

Goreville looked up to the sky and frowned. It took him a moment to spot a flying shadow moving above the Spine Mountains' peaks. He noticed the outline of a rider atop what appeared to be a lizard with brown scales and wings that–

Oh…

Oh, please no…

"Is that another dragon?" Sagesse panicked.

"Of course not, they don't let anybody ride them!" Cynisca scoffed. "Never seen a wyvern, owl? They're smaller and stupider than dragons, but wise enough to shut up."

"Oh thank Lord Wepwawet!" Sagesse let out a breath of relief. "The one dragon in our Lord's employ is more than enough!"

"Seems like your sight hasn't diminished all that much either," Goreville teased Sagesse.

"I do not see as well as I did in the dark, but my vision has otherwise remained roughly the same thanks to Lord Wepwawet's blessings," Sagesse replied, her taloned hand ruffling the feathers of her throat. "I do wonder how many of these enhancements we mortals can receive and where they stop. Victoire received three of these blessings so far, and Lord Wepwawet showed no hint he wouldn't bestow a fourth should she prove worthy."

"Don't remind me," Goreville replied with a warm laugh. As much as he respected Victoire, his pride wouldn't let him lag behind her. "I can't slack off if I want to rise further in Lord Wepwawet's esteem."

"Is that what she's doing?" Cynisca asked upon pointing her very large sword at Mistouffe, who kept muttering words to herself. "Begging our Wolf-in-Chief for a raise?"

"Wolf-Boss, I know I don't pray to you often, because a good merchant avoids loans when they can make investments, but please hear your loyal employee's plea!" Mistouffe raised her arms to the sky and implored Lord Wepwawet's benevolence. "Can you please lend me back my super treasure nose? I want my whiskers to quiver again at the smell of nearby riches! I want to taste the opportunity in the air!"

Mistouffe's body shone all of a sudden as her prayers were answered in an instant. "So much better!" she said as she smelled the air. "Thank you, Wolf-Boss!"

"Interesting," Sagesse said. "I always figured we would have to pray at a shrine or Altar to receive Lord Wepwawet's blessing."

"Our god is always with us," Goreville replied as a shadow fell upon them. A soft wind blew on his face to the tune of flapping wings.

Jarlack and his wyvern landed right in front of the group at high speed, his beast sending dirt and snow flying in all directions. The wyvern creature indeed proved smaller than a true dragon, being around thirty-five feet in length and lacking forearms. Its shape reminded Goreville of a scaled bat.

Its rider proved to be a lot more impressive in his eyes.

Goreville had wondered how tall male giants could get after seeing Cynisca, and the specimen before him was the tallest of them all so far. Jarlack was a good head taller than his subordinate, with hands that could crush boulders, grey skin thicker than stone, and a warhammer so large it would take three werebears to even lift it. Clad in thick armor and fur, with a steel helmet covering the upper part of his face and leaving a long white beard flowing out, he exuded a truly commanding presence.

"Welcome back, Cynisca!" he said from atop his wyvern with a booming voice louder than thunder. "I hope your trip was networthy!"

"T'was, Boss!" Cynisca boasted back. "I bring new wealth! Enough to buy your love!"

"Ah! You want to buy my love, Cynisca?" Jarlack smirked beneath his beard. "It doesn't come cheap, and you're not alone in the bidding!"

"It's why I brought a competitive offer and new contracts," the charioteer replied. "I invoke the Finder's Fee!"

"I like your entrepreneurial spirit!" Jarlack then glanced at the rest of the group and turned to examine the werelings. "I'm Jarlack, Chief Mercenary Officer of the Winter Chariot sellsword company, and I don't come cheap!"

Goreville thought there was something odd about this interaction, but it was Sagesse who put her claw on it. "I notice that you first addressed your subordinate in the Verglanian tongue instead of your native one," she said. "Did you do so for our sake?"

"I figured you werelings wouldn't know any Megalorian," Jarlack replied. "Excluding would-be clients from conversations doesn't foster long-term economic trust, so I drilled all my officers in the local tongue."

"A wise move," Goreville agreed. This one is smarter than he looks. "I'm Goreville, Champion of Lord Wepwawet, and these are my companions. We come on our god's behalf to hire your company."

"Yer god? I'm not the religious type, but my faith is always negotiable." Jarlack glanced at the delegation with passive interest… until he spotted Grudu, at which point his eyes suddenly widened with fascination. "Is that…. Is that a living Wealthbringer?"

Grudu squinted in confusion and pointed at himself. "Grudu?"

"A Wealthbringer?" Cynisca asked, a curious frown stretching on her face.

"You haven't heard yet?" Jarlack pointed at Grudu's tusks. "If you touch one of those, luck smiles on you for a short while! They're all the rage in Megaloria!"

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"Truly?" Cynisca studied Grudu with such sudden greed that it made the weremammoth uncomfortable. "How much is he worth?"

"Hey, the big guy is not for sale!" Mistouffe protested, puffing up her fur and protectively hugging Grudu's head. Her defensiveness took Goreville aback. He guessed that the werecat's loyalty to her pack trumped her greed. "Only his services are, and at a competitive rate!"

"Really?" Jarlack stroked his beard. "I bought a stone one on my last trip to Megaloria, but I wonder if the living ones are even more effective."

Goreville's eyes widened in surprise. "You have a stone weremammoth in your camp?"

"Ya!" Jarlack nodded sharply and climbed down from his wyvern. "How about we compare our Wealthbringers in my camp, and see which one works best? We can discuss contracts while we're at it!"

While awakening his god's Altar remained a priority, Goreville thought it wiser to secure his hosts' permission first and thus accepted the offer. His crew thus walked into the camp, walking past enormous hide tents larger than any wereling's house and pit fires which giant soldiers used to roast whole cows on tree-sized skewers. The smell of cooking meat covered the pungent stench of unwashed clothes and other unsavory things that Goreville didn't want to know the nature of. Many of the giants whistled upon catching sight of Grudu, which only agitated the weremammoth further and forced Mistouffe to keep whispering reassuring words into his ears.

Jarlack eventually led the troop to an improvised dais of stone near the central watchtower. A giant-sized white statue of a woolless and four-armed crowned weremammoth with a broken tusk sat atop it. One of its palms was raised in a peaceful gesture, another rested on their thigh, while the others carried a flower and an axe respectively. It seemed to stare intently at the onlookers.

"Goreville."

Goreville froze upon sensing his god touching his mind. "Lord Wepwawet?"

"Can you please touch that statue on my behalf? I would like to check something."

"Of course, Lord Wepwawet," Goreville muttered under his breath before clearing his throat. "May I touch the statue, Lord Jarlack?"

"I usually charge for it, but I'll give you a free trial," Jarlack replied. "And don't call me lord', I'm proud to work for a living!"

"I meant no offense," Goreville apologized. He had the feeling it would take him some time to understand Megalorian culture. "And thank you for your trust."

Goreville walked up to the statue and instantly sensed a strange tension in the air when he approached it. He cautiously pressed his palm against the surprisingly warm stone-knee, a jolt of energy coursing his flesh immediately after. A bright glow shone above his head, and a chorus of gasps and shouts echoed all around him.

Goreville looked up, and coughed in surprise.

Two godly spirits floated right above him.

How good it felt to make contact with a friend!

Wepwawet had sensed the pull of Ganesha's Influence the moment his Champions approached his statue. He had no idea how his classmate pulled it off since it was neither an Altar or an Idol, but his effigy projected his divine power in a small radius. Since Champions were always considered under their god's Influence, having Goreville enter its range allowed Wepwawet and Ganesha to form a connection. Both deities manifested in spirit above their respective conduits, to the amazement of their worshipers.

"Ganesha!" Wepwawet immediately hugged his friend. "It's so good to see you, man!"

"I'm so happy I could cry, Wepy!" Ganesha replied upon squeezing back with all of his four arms. "I've missed you so much!"

"What are you doing here?" Wepwawet asked upon releasing his pal. Thankfully, gods thought and interacted at a much faster pace than mortals in their divine language, so their interactions appeared both instantaneous and incomprehensible to their worshipers. It wouldn't do well if they saw them acting so casual in public! "How can you project your Influence like this?"

"It's my Wealthbringer Artifact Miracle," Ganesha explained. "It lets me create a statue of myself that projects my Influence in a three-meter radius, Doctrines and all."

"Whoa!" Wepwawet whistled. "That's broken as hell."

"Thanks," Ganesha chuckled and scratched his cheek. "The downside is that I can't use it to claim Altars or produce mana, so I'm mostly using them for paid advertisement."

"Wait, you've been selling them?"

"Ugh, don't remind me…" Ganesha's gaze grew so very tired when he glanced around at the giants in the camp. "I gave away the first Wealthbringers, but these greedy fools made a business out of it. I figured that if they would try to profit from it anyway, I might as well turn it into an income stream to fund charities or development projects."

"But I thought you were a god of commerce and prosperity?" Wepwawet reminded his friend. "Wouldn't that fit your sensibilities?"

Ganesha let out a heavy sigh. "I love entrepreneurship, Wepy, but happiness and enlightenment are more important than money. These people, though…" He shuddered mid-sentence. "These people don't find anything off-limits! Everything is for sale in their minds! Rocks have more wisdom and spirituality than they do!"

Wepwawet winced. He had hoped that the 'buy love' bit was a hyperbole. "Maybe it's a question of education," he suggested. "Give it a few years and I'm sure you'll guide them towards said wisdom."

"That hope is how I cope with it all," Ganesha sighed before smiling ear to ear. "Anyway, it's so good to see you! I've noticed a mana locus nearby, but I had no Commanders nearby to claim it. If you set up an Altar there then we can stay in contact all the time!"

"That's the plan, buddy!" Wepwawet glanced at the nearby mountains. "We're just one pass away from each other too."

"The Jailroad pass through these mountains is super narrow and hard for non-giants to traverse," Ganesha warned him. "It'll take some work to widen it or dig tunnels to link up our nations on a more permanent basis, especially since giant workforces cut corners everywhere."

"Don't worry, I'll send werelings engineers to build a proper road as soon as I'm done with my war." As much as he wanted to foster friendship between his and Ganesha's civilization, Wepwawet lacked the resources to do that while repelling the magmorians.

"Your war?" Ganesha immediately grew worried. "Oh right, Miss Athena told me you had been fighting a Titan Infiltrator lately! How's that going?"

"I threw him back into the trash can where he belongs!" Wepwawet boasted. "It's Pele who's bothering me now."

He proceeded to inform Ganesha of everything that happened since their last encounter; from Axomamma ruling Stalheim, his clash with Beelzebub, his Lunarian-related discoveries, and Pele's ultimatum. Ganesha listened to everything, stroking his trunk like a beard as he did so.

"So there are likely more of these Lunarians hiding in Mortis and Shadazar," Wepwawet concluded. "That bastard Beelzebub might try to take them over like he did with Promesse."

"That's messed up, Wepy," Ganesha replied. "My civilization trades with Mortis. It's a necromancer's den located to the south of my country, beyond the sea. I've heard Hel took charge there."

Of course a death goddess would take charge of a nation of necromancers. "Do you have any way to inform her? I don't think it will help anyone if a Titan infestation takes root in her territory."

"I can send her a message, yes. We should warn Arty too, since the demon-elves from Shadazar have been raiding her place." Ganesha nodded to himself. "By the way, my dad told me that your dad wanted to organize a cram school session with the Storm Gods Alliance?"

"You've heard about that?" Wepwawet immediately seized the opportunity. "Maybe you and Arty could attend it too? I don't think my father would mind, since we're best friends and allies."

"That would be great." Ganesha chuckled. "Miss Athena told me we could stabilize our connection with five Altars, and I'm almost there!"

"Awesome!" Wepwawet would feel less intimidated by the older gods' presence with his friends at his back. "I hope Arty can attend the session too."

"I'm sure she will, since her father Zeus will be participating," Ganesha said before crossing his many arms. "I don't understand why Pele is attacking you, however. Maybe she doesn't know you're in charge of Verglane?"

"That's what I thought too, but I've sent plenty of messages and she has been amassing forces at my border anyway," Wepwawet complained. "She won't communicate back nor explain why."

"Well…" Ganesha checked no one was listening—something he reflexively did whenever he was about to share the latest gossip—and then leaned in to whisper in Wepwawet's ear. "You've heard the rumors about her? About her string of boyfriends?"

"I've heard she goes through them faster than Yahweh with his prophets, yes." Though unlike Ishtar, Pele didn't usually wage holy war on them after a bad breakup. "What about it?"

"Okay, dude, so this stays between us, but a friend of a friend of my cousin told me that her family is sick of cleaning up after her messes," Ganesha explained. "She's burned through half the eligible bachelors in the Nexus, figuratively and literally. It's impairing her pantheon's attempts at forming diplomatic relationships."

Wepwawet raised an eyebrow. "I'm following so far, but what's the connection with the army banging down my front door?"

"Apparently her pantheon gave her an ultimatum: either she permanently settles down with someone by graduation, or they'll cut off her allowance," Ganesha explained. "And you've seen how she reacted to Horus when he arrived. She's got a crush on him the size of Mount Olympus."

"Horus? Horus?!" Wepwawet choked in disbelief. "You're pulling my leg!"

"I swear by my broken tusk that it's true, dude! Pele is super passionate and loves challenges. The lure of a rich Pantheon's heir with a troubled past and prickly disposition is too much for her to resist. She must see him as the final boss of all boyfriends."

"Okay, I get it, she has a terrible taste in men. So what?" Wepwawet shrugged. "Surely she wouldn't be vapid enough to start a bloody and pointless war just to impress one guy, right?"

Ganesha remained silent for a moment, and then awkwardly looked away.

Wepwawet squinted in disbelief, and then facepalmed. "I swear to Grandpa Ra, if that is her reason…"

"I want to help you bring her back to her senses, but I won't be able to send troops through the mountains in time…" Ganesha meditated a moment before coming up with an idea. "We could trade Miracles!"

"What? You're sure? I haven't replaced all my beginner cards."

"It's fine, me neither," Ganesha reassured him. "I don't have any aggressive neighbors and now that we have a direct line of communications, you can always trade some of my Miracles back once the storm has passed on your end."

"Ganesha, you're such a bro." And that said something since Wepwawet already had two of those! "I swear I'll repay you one day!"

"Ah, you're too kind, but I don't keep tabs!" Ganesha replied with a warm laugh. He opened his deck and showed Wepwawet its contents. "Alright, Wepy… what do you have?"

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